Latest / The Starting Block / EXCLUSIVE: AAVE Launches Stable Vaults w/ Stani Kulechov

Transcript

EXCLUSIVE: AAVE Launches Stable Vaults w/ Stani Kulechov · The Starting Block

3:06
Welcome back to The Starting Block.
3:07
It's Thursday.
3:08
We've got a big show lined up today
3:10
and a big guest, Dani Kulikov,
3:12
of course the founder of Aave Labs
3:13
is gonna be joining us a little bit
3:15
later on the show to talk
3:16
all things Aave.
3:18
They've got big announcement, I
3:20
think which should have just broken
3:22
under embargo in the last
3:24
couple of minutes. So if you wanna
3:26
find out what that story is, you can
3:27
go to theblock.co and read that
3:29
story, or you can stay with us for a
3:30
few minutes. And we'll be talking to
3:33
Stani about their big announcement
3:34
today, exclusively live
3:36
right here on the Starting Block.
3:38
If it's your first time joining us,
3:40
welcome to the Starting block.
3:41
This is the block's new daily show.
3:43
My name is Gareth Jenkinson.
3:44
I'm the head of multimedia here and
3:46
the host of our show.
3:48
It's been a fantastic two weeks
3:49
since we launched last week Monday.
3:51
If you missed that, we sat down for
3:54
a live exclusive interview with
3:56
Binance founder CZ in
3:57
Abu Dhabi.
3:59
The full interview is on
4:01
our YouTube channel. So please go
4:02
ahead and check that out.
4:04
And if you don't already, please
4:05
subscribe to the Blocks YouTube
4:06
channel and if you're enjoying this
4:09
show and this live stream,
4:11
please like and retweet so more
4:12
people can join us for the
4:14
conversation ahead.
4:15
We're gonna start off the show with
4:16
the block briefing, which is our
4:18
brief roundup of the top headlines
4:19
in the last 24 hours.
4:21
So let's get straight into it.
4:23
Our first headline of the day,
4:25
Swift is going on chain,
4:27
the global payments network.
4:28
Has launched a blockchain based
4:30
shared ledger with 17 banks
4:32
across six continents, piloting
4:34
cross-border payments using
4:35
tokenized deposits, its first
4:37
live use case for the
4:39
technology.
4:40
And we're talking heavyweights here,
4:41
Citi, HSBC, UBS,
4:43
BNP, Paribas, Standard
4:45
Chartered, Wells Fargo, BNY,
4:48
DBS, and MUFG.
4:50
So all the biggest banks across the
4:52
world involved in this.
4:53
The ledger lets these banks move
4:55
customer funds around the clock
4:57
overnight and on weekends before
4:58
final settlement runs through
5:00
existing systems.
5:02
Swift says the ledger was designed
5:04
and built in nine months and that
5:06
the pilot lays the groundwork for
5:07
programmable money and agentic
5:09
commerce down the line.
5:12
So slowly then suddenly TradFi
5:14
is moving on to blockchain rails,
5:16
which we've been using for the past
5:18
15 years already thanks to Bitcoin.
5:20
Moving on to our next story.
5:21
Sony wants in on dollar stable
5:23
coins. Japan Sony Bank has
5:25
secured conditional approval from
5:27
the Office of the Comptroller of the
5:28
Currency to set up a US
5:30
National Trust Bank with plans to
5:32
issue a dollar back stable coin.
5:34
The bank is standing up a wholly
5:36
owned subsidiary called
5:37
Connectia Trust this month,
5:39
capitalized with $40 million to
5:41
issue and manage that coin.
5:43
Launch is penciled in for some time
5:45
in 2027 pending final
5:47
approval, and Sony Bank.
5:49
Says the move builds a medium to
5:50
long-term foundation for Sony
5:51
Financial Group's digital asset
5:54
business, the latest sign that major
5:55
global corporates are also lining up
5:57
behind stablecoins.
5:59
Then onto our next story, Paradigm
6:00
has closed a
6:02
monster new fund and it's not
6:04
just for crypto anymore.
6:06
The venture firm has raised 1.2
6:07
billion dollars for its fourth
6:09
fund, which will back crypto,
6:11
AI, robotics and
6:14
other frontier tech startups.
6:15
That follows reporting back in
6:17
February that paradigm.
6:18
Paradigm, rather, was targeting up
6:20
to $1.5 billion under a
6:22
broader investment strategy.
6:23
For context here, the firm raised
6:25
$2.5-billion venture fund
6:27
in 2021 and
6:29
an $850 million fund
6:31
in 2024.
6:32
And Paradigm isn't alone in this
6:34
space. Firms like Framework Ventures
6:36
and Horn Ventures have
6:38
also been widening their mandates
6:40
beyond digital assets.
6:42
Then onto a bad
6:44
news story here, grim news for users
6:46
of Ascend X.
6:47
Crypto exchange has shut down
6:49
its operations effective from
6:51
the 1st of July and it's warning
6:52
customers they may not get their
6:54
full balances back.
6:55
The exchange points to the EU's Mika
6:57
regime which took full effect
6:59
at the start of the month and for
7:00
which AscendX holds no authorization
7:03
plus wider financial and operational
7:05
troubles.
7:06
It also says a strategic transaction
7:08
was meant to provide liquidity
7:10
collapse when the counterparty
7:12
failed to perform.
7:13
Account access is now restricted to
7:15
limited off-boarding.
7:16
And the company says it's still
7:17
assessing what options, if any,
7:19
are available to account holders.
7:22
Then a massive global fraud
7:24
crackdown led by Interpol.
7:27
Operation First lightspan 97
7:28
countries and territories ending
7:30
with 5,811 arrests
7:32
and $293 million in
7:35
illicit assets intercepted.
7:37
The operation ran from mid-January
7:38
through the end of April targeting
7:40
social engineering scams,
7:42
business email compromise,
7:43
Sextortion, Romance and
7:45
Investment Fraud.
7:46
Plus the money laundering behind
7:47
them.
7:48
Investigators also uncovered a
7:49
crypto laundering network tied to a
7:51
single wallet holding $122.5
7:54
million.
7:55
More than 142,000 victims
7:57
were identified worldwide.
7:59
Over 31,000 bank accounts
8:01
were blocked and nearly 24,000
8:03
cases were solved.
8:04
A stark reminder of the sheer scale
8:06
of crypto linked fraud that
8:08
the industry is still grappling
8:09
with.
8:11
Ben, Jack Dorsey's block is
8:13
paying up. The cash app owner has
8:14
agreed to a $45 million settlement
8:17
with regulators in nearly every
8:19
US state after prosecutors
8:20
said it failed to adequately protect
8:22
customers from fraud and misled
8:24
users about the app security.
8:26
New York attorney general says
8:29
block marketed cash app as
8:31
offering protections comparable to a
8:33
traditional bank which allegedly
8:35
lacking a consistent
8:37
fraud detection system and
8:39
a functioning customer hotline.
8:41
For reporting scams.
8:43
Attorney General Letitia James
8:44
accused the company of exposing
8:45
users to rampant fraud and
8:47
caring more about profits than
8:49
protecting its customers.
8:51
And back here in the EU,
8:53
barely a week after Mika took full
8:55
effect to Brussels is already
8:56
looking at expanding it.
8:58
According to a Euro news report, the
8:59
European commission is seeking
9:01
comment from stakeholders until
9:02
the 30th of September on
9:04
whether to widen the rules to cover
9:06
emerging areas like tokenization and
9:08
stable coin issuers based outside of
9:10
the EU. Mika is the block's
9:12
comprehensive framework for crypto
9:13
issuance trading in custody.
9:15
Those rules came into effect in
9:17
December 2024, but a grace period
9:18
for many service providers only
9:20
ran out at the beginning of this
9:22
month. The commission reportedly
9:23
wants the framework updated for
9:25
developments since it was written,
9:27
including the rise of tokenized
9:29
securities.
9:30
Our final story.
9:31
Over in Washington, Senator Ron
9:33
Wyden is going to bat for blockchain
9:35
developers. The Oregon Democrat
9:37
has written to Senate leaders John
9:39
Toon and Chuck Schumer.
9:40
Urging them to preserve Section 604,
9:44
that's the Blockchain Regulatory
9:45
Certainty Act in future versions
9:48
of the broader Clarity
9:50
Act as a market structure
9:51
negotiations continues.
9:54
That provision creates a safe harbor
9:55
for non-custodial developers,
9:57
clarifying they are not money
9:59
transmitters.
10:00
It was introduced by Republican
10:02
Senator Cynthia Loomis with
10:04
Wyden as the only co-sponsor
10:06
and it's merged as a key
10:08
point of contention as lawmakers
10:09
try to push.
10:11
That wider crypto bull over the
10:13
line. And if you missed it
10:14
yesterday, we had
10:16
Bitgo's CEO, Mike Bolsy on
10:18
the show. We spoke at length about
10:20
the Clarity Act and policy
10:22
in the U.S. Very, very interesting
10:24
conversation that is also up
10:26
on our YouTube channel.
10:27
We uploaded that overnight.
10:28
So if you miss that conversation,
10:30
definitely go and check that out on
10:32
our youtube channel.
10:33
All right, we're gonna bring Stani
10:35
Kulikov on.
10:37
Of course, you know him as the
10:38
founder of Aave Labs.
10:40
To join us in the conversation now.
10:42
Typically we do the
10:44
market pulse and then we move into
10:45
the hot seat interview.
10:46
Again, like yesterday with Mike
10:48
Bolshe, we're gonna be amalgamating
10:50
the two. So Stanley is now joining
10:51
us on the show.
10:53
First things first, Stanley, thanks
10:54
so much for coming.
10:55
How are you?
10:56
Really, really good.
10:58
Seems like based on the news, it's
10:59
been an eventful week.
11:01
It has been a very eventful week,
11:05
and I guess an eventful
11:07
few months, actually,
11:09
as we get into summer proper.
11:11
But the one story I didn't have in
11:13
my news bulletin is the story we
11:15
have you on the
11:17
show to talk about today.
11:18
Aave has just launched
11:20
Stable Vaults.
11:21
I'm not even going to tell our
11:23
viewers out there what it is, I'm
11:24
going to leave it up to you because
11:26
you'd know better than I do.
11:28
And give us the TLDR on
11:29
stable vaults.
11:32
Yeah, definitely.
11:34
Stable World is a new product
11:36
that Aave is
11:38
releasing.
11:40
And effectively what we understood
11:41
from DeFi's evolution,
11:43
so decentralized finance basically
11:45
started with very early
11:47
primitives into a
11:49
very proven resilient
11:52
ecosystem.
11:53
Aave obviously is a great example of
11:55
that, over 22 billion
11:58
net deposits.
12:01
Has proven the
12:03
resiliency over the years.
12:05
Now, we think that for DeFi
12:07
to scale, we need
12:09
to sort of integrate DeFi
12:11
as the...
12:12
Backbone financial infrastructure
12:14
into the existing
12:16
financial world, whether it's
12:18
institutions,
12:20
fintechs, or going directly
12:22
to consumers.
12:24
Now, to do that in a more
12:26
simple and efficient way,
12:28
we launched a product
12:30
called Stable Walls.
12:31
So Stable walls is
12:34
a WALT
12:36
architecture that
12:38
allows to integrate into
12:40
Aave and multiple other
12:43
yield sources in a way where
12:45
the users have predictable
12:47
yield.
12:49
And beyond that, beyond these
12:51
predictable stable rates,
12:53
we can set for the users
12:55
rates based on
12:58
categories. So for example,
13:00
one of the interesting sort of
13:02
opportunities for
13:04
DeFi integrations is
13:06
Fintech at the moment that are
13:08
looking into how to block DeFi
13:10
into their offerings and
13:12
there might be different tiers of
13:14
users, standard
13:15
users,
13:18
perhaps more premium users and
13:20
stable balls allow to actually set
13:22
different rates based on
13:24
the tier of these users
13:26
and it supports
13:28
multi-chain
13:31
yields as well.
13:32
The actual stable vaults
13:35
can be deployed on
13:36
a network, an EDM network that
13:39
has high velocity for
13:41
transactions, such as, for example,
13:43
Carbitrum, and the actual yield
13:45
can be harvested across multiple
13:47
networks, including Magnets,
13:49
all the other Altus and
13:51
EDMs.
13:52
And it supports a multi-asset
13:54
deposit. So you can deposit one
13:56
stable coin, and
13:58
then you can withdraw another stable
14:00
coin out of the
14:02
stable vault.
14:04
So all this logic is
14:06
abstracted away and wrapped into
14:08
a really flexible
14:10
architecture.
14:12
And the first user
14:14
of stable vaults will be the actual
14:17
of it. App, the app consumer
14:18
app that is using it for
14:21
multi-network earnings
14:23
and setting predictable yields for
14:25
the users.
14:27
So this is going to be the most
14:29
easiest way for
14:31
FinTechs to integrate DeFi
14:33
and get the best benefits
14:35
out of it.
14:37
When it came to building this
14:39
functionality, obviously predictable
14:41
yields makes me immediately think
14:43
of the predictable yields
14:45
I would get from a traditional bank.
14:47
Is that where you're going
14:49
with this and trying to
14:51
figure out the
14:53
wild swings in yield that we've
14:55
seen in DeFi over the years?
14:57
Yeah, what DeFi is really
14:59
fascinating for is that it
15:01
does have different yield
15:02
opportunities. So it might have
15:06
different factors of how the
15:08
yield is generated.
15:10
And what stable world actually
15:12
allows to do is that you can attach
15:14
various yield strategies into
15:17
the mold infrastructure that
15:19
can be, for example,
15:21
particular RBV3 markets,
15:24
RBV4 hub,
15:26
it can be our native ASCO, or
15:29
you can integrate third
15:31
party infrastructure as well like
15:32
better access,
15:34
various different protocols, and
15:35
yield opportunities.
15:36
Across DeFi and
15:38
all that yield that is harvested is
15:40
then accounted and quantified
15:43
and streamed all the way to the
15:45
users in a very nice
15:47
predictable yield format.
15:49
So it effectively takes
15:51
the most valuable yield
15:53
opportunities in DeFi packages
15:55
into a
15:57
form that is easy to distribute
15:59
across consumers.
16:02
I found it interesting when I read
16:03
the announcement that there's
16:06
kind of a very clear disclaim here
16:08
that user deposits are safeguarded
16:10
from being used to cover swap
16:11
slippage and bridging costs.
16:14
How does that work?
16:17
Yeah, the world operator itself
16:19
takes the cost over whatever
16:21
is used for the bridging.
16:24
So the actual infrastructure
16:26
under the stable walls
16:28
accepts a wide range
16:30
of bridging infrastructure.
16:31
And these costs are absorbed
16:33
into the world itself.
16:36
So the users, they don't have
16:38
to deal with things
16:40
like bridging your asset across
16:42
one network to another and paying
16:44
fees for that.
16:45
Or depositing
16:47
one stable coin into the
16:49
vault and withdrawing another one.
16:51
That is all automated and
16:53
observed by.
16:55
The actual walled itself.
17:06
I think what's interesting about
17:08
stable vaults, it allows
17:10
to consume multiple strategies.
17:13
So typically when you are
17:14
integrating into DeFi,
17:16
you might choose, for example, a
17:18
particular protocol in a market
17:20
and you are sort of
17:22
like restricted to that opportunity.
17:25
With stable vault,
17:26
there's unlimited opportunity what
17:28
you can actually attach into the
17:30
vault as a strategy.
17:32
And this is really important,
17:34
especially now, since DeFi
17:36
is emerging beyond the
17:38
typical crypto backed lending.
17:41
There's new use cases.
17:42
We are seeing also RWA
17:45
backed lending as well.
17:47
And Aave Horizon is a great example
17:48
of that.
17:51
And we are going to see more and
17:52
more RWA is coming on chain,
17:54
including additional yield sources.
17:56
And now there is a simple
17:58
format of actually plugging in
18:01
these different yield opportunities
18:02
into a vault
18:04
that then is distributing
18:06
that yield directly
18:08
to the users.
18:11
When we met earlier this year in
18:13
Cannes, you were just rolling out or
18:15
announcing Aave v4.
18:16
I wanted to ask you if you can give
18:17
us an update on the
18:19
migration there because at the time
18:21
you said that you were expecting
18:22
this to take months and months from,
18:24
you know, for liquidity to flow from
18:26
v3 to v4, what's
18:28
the current status?
18:30
RPV4 is a latest
18:32
protocol iteration that we
18:34
launched roughly three months ago.
18:37
And it was a complete overhaul
18:39
of how we think about
18:41
lending on chain.
18:43
It allows to provide
18:45
this modular architecture
18:47
where you have ability
18:49
to create isolated lending
18:51
markets or lending markets
18:53
with shared liquidity.
18:57
Launch with three
18:59
different hubs based
19:01
on the risk and
19:03
reward tier and
19:05
as of today it has grown over
19:07
250 million market
19:09
size in in the
19:12
couple of months already.
19:13
So it's been progressing
19:15
substantially well and
19:17
There's new deployments coming
19:19
from V4,
19:22
particularly in Avalanche,
19:24
and also Circle's Arc
19:26
ecosystem.
19:28
We see also a lot of demand for
19:30
other V4 as a
19:32
technology to be licensed.
19:34
We have one particular proposal
19:36
from EtherFi
19:38
team that is
19:40
basing their product on
19:42
card spending and being able to
19:44
spend your
19:46
crypto asset balances.
19:49
And that particular deployment will
19:51
allow Eterfine
19:53
to actually use those assets as a
19:55
flannel and extend liquidity
19:57
to their users when they're spending
19:59
with their card.
20:00
So there's a lot happening in
20:02
the RWA4 world.
20:04
And we're excited to expand
20:06
the protocol also beyond crypto
20:08
native assets into RWA's
20:11
and down the line securities and
20:12
securities lending.
20:14
It's been an interesting year
20:16
for DeFi in general.
20:18
I think at one stage it was like
20:20
every day that there was some sort
20:21
of exploit of a
20:23
DeFi protocol or DeFi platform.
20:25
Obviously, that's not a
20:27
good situation, but I think
20:29
context is important.
20:31
About a month ago, we were in Miami
20:33
for consensus and I sat down with
20:35
Joe Lubin, who's of course one of
20:36
Ethereum's co-founders, and he was
20:38
kind of saying that it's inevitable
20:40
and it's actually a good thing.
20:42
That is comparable to
20:45
many, many
20:47
years ago when people were
20:49
robbing stagecoaches
20:51
full of gold on the King's Road and
20:54
this was the value extraction
20:56
that helped security
20:58
improve.
20:59
I think AI has a lot to do with
21:01
the amount of DeFi exploits that
21:02
we've seen in the last year,
21:04
but does it make you slightly
21:06
concerned that DeFi has been in
21:08
the cross and like the main
21:10
sort of surface area
21:12
of attack in 2026.
21:15
Most of the exploits are not
21:16
actually related to DeFi at
21:18
all, they're
21:20
essentially some sort
21:22
of key compromise, which is
21:24
sort of
21:26
the opposing gravity
21:28
from DeFi.
21:30
DeFi is about moving
21:31
away from this idea of
21:35
concentrated control by
21:37
decentralizing the technology and
21:38
making it more resilient.
21:39
And so a lot of these
21:42
explodes that were also relatively
21:44
small happened on that
21:46
sort of aspect.
21:48
And I think the AI point is
21:50
really good because actually
21:53
AI is more useful to
21:55
defend these protocols
21:57
and technology and it
21:59
actually helps in the development
22:00
process.
22:02
For example, from our perspective,
22:03
that we use AI
22:05
assisted reviews.
22:08
In all of our code
22:10
bases across all the protocols and
22:12
deployed code which has been
22:13
really helpful.
22:15
And down the line, I think AI
22:17
is going to be a big part of how
22:19
these protocols actually are going
22:20
to build as well.
22:22
So I think in overall AI
22:24
is a very net positive
22:26
for the whole space.
22:28
And just to follow on on
22:30
that point, ConsenSys and Joe Lubin
22:32
earlier this year contributed up to
22:33
30,000 ETH to support DeFi
22:36
United after the CalpDAL
22:38
exploit.
22:39
Can you talk a little bit about the
22:41
months since then and your
22:43
general thoughts on the Ethereum
22:44
community and getting
22:47
together and actually working
22:49
together to salvage what was
22:51
a pretty dire situation at the time?
22:54
Yeah, I think the Ethereum
22:55
community, it really
22:57
shows how important
22:59
DeFi is for Ethereum and
23:03
it also shows how many
23:05
actual people
23:07
and teams there are in
23:09
the space that really care about
23:11
decentralized finance and really
23:13
want to see this technology going
23:15
to mainstream.
23:16
And I think...
23:17
And overall, even though
23:19
everything has been stabilized and
23:22
the quality has been coming back
23:23
into these DeFi protocols,
23:27
what I think is really fascinating,
23:29
it shows also that how important
23:31
for people and the community is
23:33
behind the ecosystem
23:35
that has been spending years and
23:37
years actually building towards this
23:39
moment where we now actually see
23:41
a lot of excitement from
23:43
institutions coming
23:45
into the space.
23:46
We'd probably see.
23:47
Every now once in a
23:49
while an announcement of or let's
23:51
say
23:53
expansions of digital asset
23:55
teams in more traditional
23:57
institutions like banks and
23:59
traditional asset managers that also
24:01
have been more conservative about
24:03
digital assets are now exploring
24:05
the space.
24:07
Also fintechs are super
24:10
interested in actually using
24:13
on-chain as a sort of like a
24:15
backbone for
24:18
improving their sort of
24:20
like cost structure and increasing
24:23
accessibility.
24:24
So we see this
24:26
with different kinds of earn
24:27
campaigns, what basically stable
24:29
balls are powering, but
24:31
we also see this with tokenized
24:33
assets as well. I think that's going
24:34
to be a big trend and
24:36
in WS in general.
24:39
You and I have spoken at length
24:40
about the ongoing
24:43
development of the Ethereum
24:44
protocol.
24:45
The last month, we've seen the
24:47
establishment of ETH Labs and
24:49
Ethereum Institutional as
24:51
sort of complementary organizations
24:53
to the Ethereum Foundation and
24:55
their, I guess,
24:58
shift in like sharper focus on
25:00
protocol developments.
25:02
Do you think it's a good thing that
25:02
we're getting a bit more sort of
25:04
decentralization when it comes to.
25:07
The institutions that are help
25:09
guiding the future of Ethereum.
25:12
Absolutely. I think the more we
25:13
have initiatives and the
25:15
smaller these teams are, the more
25:17
sort of ideas we will have around
25:20
Ethereum's future.
25:22
Ithink one of the exciting sort
25:24
of like angles for me for
25:27
Ethereum is actually
25:28
the sort of innovation
25:31
that is happening around.
25:33
And this innovation wouldn't have
25:34
been possible if we
25:36
haven't sort of had this
25:38
movement from up.
25:40
So I think that's It is
25:42
now positive for the whole
25:43
ecosystem.
25:45
Ethereum Foundation has a
25:46
significant role still in
25:49
the space and years to come,
25:51
but also it showcases that there
25:53
is a lot to do in the space and
25:55
especially when we're going towards
25:56
mainstream adoption.
25:59
I've been asking a lot of different
26:00
guests kind of what
26:02
AI tools they're using.
26:04
We asked CZ this last week and
26:06
I was really surprised by his answer
26:08
because he was kind of like, you
26:09
know, he tried all the paid tiers
26:10
of, you know, Claude and
26:13
ChatGPT and he's
26:15
kind of leaning towards more of
26:16
these new age like Chinese models
26:18
and kind of just said to me that it
26:20
wasn't worth his time sort of,
26:22
paying for these paid models.
26:23
But I did want to ask you what kind
26:25
of tools that you're using on a
26:27
day-to-day basis.
26:28
And if you can talk to us a little
26:29
bit about how you see the
26:33
breadth of the AI tools that we have
26:35
at our disposal, helping
26:37
builders in the DeFi ecosystem
26:39
and the broader crypto ecosystem.
26:42
No, I use AI quite
26:44
heavily across the whole company.
26:46
The goal at other labs is to
26:48
run the whole company on AI and
26:51
also get product development
26:53
into the same page.
26:55
We developed most of the code in
26:56
AI, but also we want to implement
26:58
processes where the
27:00
development and product development
27:02
itself is AI-driven.
27:04
So it is a big part of that.
27:06
I personally spend...
27:10
Hours on a daily basis to
27:12
write code and the reason
27:14
I can do that is because AI is
27:15
so powerful at the moment
27:17
and I think this will apply down
27:19
the line also to smart contracts
27:21
with good safeguards
27:22
and it's going to be part of the
27:24
future.
27:25
So it's an automation technology the
27:27
same way as smart contracts and
27:29
on-chain is as well and
27:31
part of future of finance.
27:32
So you're definitely not pivoting to
27:34
AI like some of our friends in
27:36
crypto.
27:40
Not anytime soon.
27:41
I would say that
27:43
the DeFi
27:45
adoption will take a couple of
27:47
generations, multiple generations
27:49
actually, a couple decades,
27:51
but there's a lot of
27:53
work to be done.
27:54
It's going to be slow because
27:56
finance is a fragile
27:58
infrastructure, but
28:00
we have a lot tailwind at the moment
28:02
and I think now it's time to build
28:03
in DeFi.
28:05
My final question to you, have you
28:06
had any time to digest Vitalik's
28:09
lean Ethereum proposal and what do
28:10
you think of that direction as
28:12
the next iteration
28:14
and evolution of Ethereum?
28:18
I do think that less
28:20
is more applies pretty well.
28:22
I think that core has to be as
28:25
sort of slow moving as possible
28:27
and less things should happen
28:29
as long as
28:31
there is performance.
28:32
So in my opinion, Ethereum has to be
28:34
the most performant chain.
28:37
And performance, I don't mean
28:38
optimizing fully for speed,
28:40
but having the right balance between
28:41
speed and security and
28:43
decentralization.
28:45
That is what I think is most
28:47
valuable for Ethereum's future.
28:50
Stanley, thanks so much for taking
28:51
the time to chat to us today.
28:53
I know you're a busy man, so we'll
28:55
keep it short and brief today.
28:58
Congrats on the launch of stable
28:59
vaults. It'll be interesting to see
29:00
the rollout of new products and also
29:02
the integration of the
29:04
infrastructure itself sort of
29:05
in TradFi as we slowly try
29:07
to get TradFi to
29:09
amalgamate with these amazing
29:11
DeFi tools that we've all
29:13
been building. Thank you so much
29:14
taking the the time, and thank you
29:16
for watching the starting block
29:17
wherever you are.
29:19
This is The Block's new daily show.
29:21
We broadcast at 8.30 Eastern
29:22
time, if you're in the United
29:24
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29:26
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29:40
Tomorrow we've got a friend from
29:41
Cambridge, Alex Neumuller.
29:43
Going to be talking to us again
29:44
about Ethereum.
29:45
You'll know him for his research
29:47
into Bitcoin and
29:49
mining consumption.
29:50
He's done a lot of work to change
29:52
the perception towards Bitcoin
29:54
mining and its energy consumption.
29:57
They are on the cusp of releasing a
29:59
new report into Ethereum.
30:00
We'll be diving deep into
30:02
that in tomorrow's show.
30:03
So set a reminder to join us.
30:05
Until then, Have a fantastic morning
30:07
and afternoon wherever you are.
30:09
We'll catch you on Friday.