Latest / TezTalks Radio - Tezos Ecosystem Podcast / 88: The Future of DeFi with SuperLend's Om Malviya

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88: The Future of DeFi with SuperLend's Om Malviya · TezTalks Radio - Tezos Ecosystem Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Tez Talks Radio.
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I am your host, marisa True, and joining us today is Om Malviya, a longtime Tezos advocate and co-founder of SuperLend, an all-in-one lending and borrowing aggregator that integrates multiple money markets across various blockchains.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: So hi, om, it's actually been a long time since you and I spoken last, but how are you?
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I'm good.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: It's been a long time um.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I think um last few years, last few months especially, has been good and overall growth of the space, a lot of learnings, a lot of things to reflect back on and, yeah, excited for the new journey so, as I mentioned, you've been enmeshed in the Tesla's ecosystem for a number of years, so can you actually share the evolution of your journey from starting Tezos, india, to your latest venture, which is Superland?
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, I think I got.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: I've been in the web space since 2016, 2017.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: That's when I first got into it and immediately when I was essentially reading about the stuff.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: That's when I read about Tezos ICO and Tezos white paper.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: And Tezos has a very fundamental, some sort of revolutionary take on the blockchains and how governance should be done, how blockchains should be designed, and being the first kind of working model of proof of stake or pioneering proof of stake.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: A lot of people don't remember, but Tezos was the first one to integrate proof of stake or pioneering proof of stake.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: A lot of people don't remember, but Tezos was the first one to integrate proof of stake in Coinbase and roll it out to the whole United States.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: So those were good times and since then this started plenty this year on Tezos as a developer studio, we built a lot of Tezos DeFi.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: We started Tezos India to grow Tezos in India as well.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: So overall, what we have seen is there are a bunch of things here Tezos did in the initial year, captured a lot of mindshare.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: A lot of good, genuinely smart and technology-oriented people and developers were, you know, building on top of Tezos.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: And then came DeFi somewhere.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: But since you know, tezos initially was sort of like a decentralized governance, decentralized development kind of approach from its beginning.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: That usually slows down the speed of development from, let's say, the blockchains, which are centralized oriented.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: So when the DeFi summer hit, tezos still was working towards the improvements.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: It missed that part of it.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: But then during the yield farming summer when we started, plenty, there was a lot of liquidity, a lot of activity that came to tezos back again and back then, you know, this was also back into the mind share of a lot of people.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: But it's hard to put, let's say, you know, I think right now it's like the upgrades are on q kernel or kubectl or something like.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: So it's hard to literally say so many upgrades and compile them in a very short frame.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I would come, I would conclude it that, uh, tezos has built in a way, fundamentally, that it has grown always in the right trajectory and we have to, you know, zoom out a bit and figure, say that you know this game, the blockchain, the web-fueled option, the whole space, the whole play is decades longer.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: It's not easy to summarize in less than 3 or 4 ways for 3 or 4 years.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: And I think, where Tejo started, where it came to in the middle and where it is going right now.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: I think it all is directionally towards the right path forward.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: What we are, where are they just going?
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: And it's possible that tezos is able, tezos will be able to hit a million tps, you know, ultra high throughput, while preserving decentralization, while preserving censorship.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Resistance is all because of those years of hard work, of consistent upgrades.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: So I think in that way, tezos has been a champion in pioneering proof of stake, pioneering decentralized governing, pioneering a lot of NFT movement as well, and I'm excited to see you know what does it pioneer next in the next three to five years?
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: So, as you stated, tezos has always very much been in the long game for it In terms of understanding the fundamentals of how impactful blockchain technology can be, and it's been quite meticulous about its technological evolution, even when it sort of has come at the expense of the trends of the broader market, and I think that's probably what's made it most sustainable today.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: You mentioned that you also co-founded Plenty DeFi a couple of years ago.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: What was that adventure like and how did it sort of kind of set the path for you to create SuperLend, which is the DeFi protocol you created now?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: So before Plenty DeFi, we were mostly building developer tooling on Tezos, like Tester and a few things here and there.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: And when DeFi yield farming summer hit for the first time and we have been, you know, reading about DeFi for a decent time when the yield farming summer hit we thought it was only an experiment, like, okay, you know, let's try to do an experiment like what is happening on other chains, try to do something the same thing on Tezos.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Because Tezos has had all the things to take place, like bridge they had bridges.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: It also had exchanges like Kikusweb and all.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: So we launched Lend-A-Defab purely as an experimental way, but still, you know, audited contracts and all.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: And at peak I think we did at some point of time we were hitting like 10% of all the block operations on Tezos 70 to 80 million TVL still are plenty.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Token contract had more so far, I guess three to 4 million you know operations or contract costs, something like that.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: So it was a very wild adventure because it was purely an experiment.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: There was a frenzy in the whole crypto larger space overall and everybody's just chasing yields and all.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: So we of, of course, did not know how it's going to go down.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: It started as an experiment, as a mentality of let's see how it evolves and then, based on the broader momentum or market direction, we'll see how to take it forward.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: And a lot of these kind of experiments actually failed and they did not even try to give back or even try to build.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: But we stayed in the game.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: We kept building on CESOS 2025.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: We launched AMMs, then we redid our whole tokenomics and game theory, you know, whole platform, on sort of a VEEDS UC model.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: That was just a basic idea back then and now we are seeing Aerodrome or, you know, velodrome, and these are basically have billion dollar tbl which are essentially on the same mechanism or the same fundamental that we pivoted plenty defy to plenty network on.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: But I guess in uh, general crypto twitter lingo, the bear market started back then and with the liquidity you know, there was no liquidity at all, there was no way to met all, so it was, and there was not new money or new tokens being created on the layer one for the broader market reasons, and so that's so we actually swear.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: We actually relaunched plenty network.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: It worked for a while, it went for a while, but then I guess the general sentiment says that you know, evm, mindshare capture essentially kept growing as compared to the other layer ones, and so we decided at some point of time that, instead of, you know, really just putting all our efforts to making something work on layer one, which is not just a one piece of the, you have to have certain pieces of puzzle all fit together for a layer one to really take off in a significant way.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: We tried to focus on the EVM side of things, and I guess that's where also the Etherlink strategy is fitting in, where you try to capture mindshare to a layer let's call it Etherlink layer and then you draw it back to the layer one and then you make layer one pop really well, because everything on the governance side is sound, the community side is sound.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: All all that needs to happen is mostly on, let's say, the attention on the mind capture side, because the crypto markets have a way of, you know, working on its own based on some trends the frenzy, the mindshare, the crypto, twitter and whatnot.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: That's how the game is being played.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: So I guess that's how we're trying to play the game by its rules.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: So I guess Plenty DeFi was a great idea, a great product, but it came at a time where the market was just about to encroach into very, very sensitive territory, so it just made it kind of an unprecedented challenge.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: And then, after that market trends and the general movement of the technology, you know, new L1s emerged.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: People's attention spans diverted elsewhere.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: So it kind of made more sense, as far as I understand what you're saying, to put a pin in that idea and then start again somewhere with a slightly different framework or a different approach.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: So from that perspective, tell me more about superlend and how you leveraged etherlink as its kind of core infrastructure yeah.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: So I think, um, since last year, december 2003 or somewhere around january, we had been, and even actually before that, we have been sitting and observing a lot of things in the broader market, what actually works, what not.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: And one thing was clear that we wanted to build a product in a space or a category.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: That category itself is going to stay there for a longer period of time and not suddenly poof in one year, right.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: So DeFi has been that.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: That space if you look at the defy llama, the, the tvl has been consistent, even in the beer market.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: You know the, let's say, lesser market sentiment terms.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: It was still 30 billion, that was still in the d5, the uniswap was still working, I was still working, a lot of people were still using that.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: So we came to the conclusion okay, we still want to build in DeFi, because this is, this is something that sticks.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: And then came the question what exactly right and broadly in DeFi?
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: If we really pin down they are, mainly there are very few things that work.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: First of all, the product market fit in crypto or the.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: You know, space is brutally hard and you have much better chances of finding a product market fit in iron or any other place than crypto, right?
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: So we went to the basics and said, okay, defy is broadly money markets, this is lending, borrowing.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Then you have decks or exchange or trading, you call it.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: So you have uniswap, balancer and the likes, and then you have perps, which is also some sort of subset of lending and borrowing itself.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: But you know, perpetual markets, decentralized perpetual markets, they're just starting to gain attention and we saw also during 2021-2022, the whole FTH drama and a lot of you know those USD sell.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: So anyway, we saw that the larger attention, or the genuine attention, would move towards decentralized lending markets, decentralized perpetual markets, decentralized exchanges, and this category itself will gain a lot of capital, a lot of mindshare.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: So this was the broader thesis that was playing out in our minds and that's when we got really excited.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: And, at the same time, the L2 idea, the Ethereum scaling, the layer 1 scaling so Ethereum scaling and Thesaurus scaling also, you know, somewhat has some similarity where both are focused on modular scaling part, which basically means that you keep the L1 really light.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: You only do let L1 do the consensus and you put all the execution, all the heavy duty stuff, on L2s and then you basically scale L2s to infinite where it's 1000 or 2000 rollups.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Now, if we are really all sold out on the ideas of 1000, 10,000 rollups, even every rollups requires some money market, some DEX, some perpetual, and so we are not essentially going.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: It's not going to be easy to navigate 1000 perpetual platforms, 1000 DEXs, 1000 money markets.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: So even in then we picked up a category that's lending, borrowing.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: I think the whole DeFi on the entire crypto spectrum right now works because of demand of leverage.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: The only thing people want to do is take leverage and do a bunch of stuff.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: But leverage is there and we thought, okay, the best way to take leverage usually is lending and borrowing, because we have a lot of final gate control over these things.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: So we picked out lending and borrowing category.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: We zoomed out okay, there are going to be a thousand roll-ups, so all of these needs to be aggregated.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Next aggregator had already existed like so one inch Putting in all this together was.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: You know came the idea of super lend, one inch of lending and borrowing and we just want to do what one inch has done for the next aggregation.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Similarly we want to do for the lending and borrowing aggregation and on top of that we also want how the journey took shape is we got deeper and deeper into the money market part and we found a lot of missing pieces where we thought, okay, it's not only aggregation, but we could also deploy our own money market products to you know, our own money market products to fill into this niche ecosystem or these niche areas, to enable more flexibility for users.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: So that's how the SuperLed idea came about altogether.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: It's customized money markets for different kinds of assets and then also, at the same time, it's an aggregator and it aggregates all of these things on top of the SuperLed.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: We mentioned there that it is built on Etherlink.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: For those that are uninitiated, perhaps less familiar with the Tezos ecosystem, can you briefly explain what Etherlink is and how?
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: How do you support Tezos layer?
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Tezos layer one is, you know, it's a decentralized layer one.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: It has its own language, mikkelsen, mikkelsen runtime, environment and a lot of different things.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: But what we have seen is and before going into all these things, we have to remember one thing that the whole idea of Tezos, since the day one, is that it's upgradable.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: It is upgradable to adapt any movement or any changes that happens in the market and sentiment in technology, and it can, you know, it can basically adapt to that, and that's a good thing.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Tezos is built in a way that it can adapt to what is the larger adoption, where the larger option is happening, and that's on the EVM side.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Now, evm is different than Ethereum, I would say.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Essentially, initially there was Ethereum and EVM is basically your let's call it some sort of a box which has all these fittings like MetaMask or this developer tooling, everything installed already and a lot of, right now, a lot of developers now, a lot of developers, a lot of integrators, a lot of institutions.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Even though they're the best, they are really habitual of using things in a certain way.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: So, instead of you know pushing against the wall and you know doing a lot of training and doing, spending a lot of capital on doing, you know, onboarding these developers, institutions, exchanges, and you know it's a very well, you're going to have to do a lot of efforts in 10, 20 different directions to bring that option.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Instead of that, what you can do is you can go where the users are, which is, let's say, evm.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Evm has a life of its own where already everybody is using metamask.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Already everybody is using, you know, are familiar with using tools like uniswap, awen, stuff like that.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: You put that onto your layer one in form of layer two, which is what etherlink.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: It's an evm l2.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: And then you basically, now that you already have a larger, broader distribution, you already have, let's say, I don't know, 100 million users out there already who use MetaBus.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Now you can try to tap into the user base to really, you know, bring an option to your chain.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: I think that's what the general idea is.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: But there are a thousand different EVML tools.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Why Excel Linkage Unit?
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: That's where I think ESO's Layer 1 comes into picture.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Why it's a linkage in it?
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: That's where I think this is layer one comes into picture.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: You have seen a lot of roll-ups, uh, like optimism base, arbitra more, can't even remember so many things, uh, but this is built in a way that you know it's fundamentally decentralized from the ground, ground up, inheriting its core values.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: It's a link is also built in a way that inherits this value of decentralized censorship assistant.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: At the same time, because of the improvements on layer 1, this time E-cell link, as in layer 2, can do these things censorship, resistance, decentralization while being performant, like while having really high throughput, like right now, the block times are around 500 milliseconds and with data availability layer and what the teams are targeting by 2026, it's like a million TPS, right.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: So it's basically think of it as if you had Ethereum.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: You have the same experience as using Ethereum, but that is doing 1 million transaction per second.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: It's super, super fast and, at the same time, you are not going to get sensitive resistance, because the layer one can defend against sensitive resistance.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: You are decentralized and you know everything.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: That's what the ideal l2 looks like.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Even if I were to put put a ethereum maxi gap on my head and think about what an ideal l2 looks like.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: That's what it's selling is and I think that's where um at the roadmap wise, uh, jesus is heading in a really right direction.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: And second thing, that was the most important thing is getting the right, so you have these boxes.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: You have this EVM box.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Now you have to fill this box with the right pieces for it really to take off.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: And these are like you have to have a performance bridge, so you've got layer zero.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: You have to have oracles, so you have parts.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: You have to have these basicant bridge, so you've got layer zero.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: You have to have oracles, so you have parts.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: You have to have these basic applications, like you have to have a spot trading protocol.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: You have kanji, you have iguana for lending borrowing, we have super land.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: So I think this strategy wise, a lot of things are at place for each link to really take off right, and these are not just random pieces, these are the pieces that have been battle tested across these different evml tools and we have some sort of lindy effect on these things.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: That, okay, these things really work.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: And now all we as a builder, so developers, need to do is build on top of these things the innovative applications.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: And for interlink team or our builder ourselves, we can just go to the same user, same than 102 million, 100 million users that are using MetaMask on a daily basis, and say, hey, why don't you try each link.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: You don't, because porting them is super easy.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: It's just one click port.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: They already have the MetaMask.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: For developers, it's easy to port, they already know how to build on all these things and we just need to give them the best experience as we can.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: And I think that's where Etherlink is rightly positioned giving best experience, best developer experience best user experience while keeping the core values aligned.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: So largely, what we're saying is that Etherlink is an L2 that basically embodies the bulk of what makes Tezos such a technically successful chain, but brings it and the products that are built atop it closer to where other blockchain communities or crypto users actually are.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: So it's basically exporting the sophisticated technology that Tezos has generated over the past few years and provided better gateways or access points to that technology through something like Etherlink.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Is that right?
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's correct.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, there are a lot more different technical advantages as well.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: I don't want to go too deep into, let's say, the optimistic side what a roll-up is, how the fraud proof works and all that kind of stuff.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: But the whole thing is, if you know that tezos layer one works in a technological sound way which we all know, there's a lot of proof to show that we can.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Just, the baseline idea is, each link is also inheriting the same core values, the same security sense, but on top of it, it also innovating on the performance space, while Tezos Layer 1.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: I would say it's really performant and you don't need half a million transactions on Layer 1.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: But Ethereum it's going 100x more and essentially giving you sub-second block time, sub-second pre-confirmations and a lot of throughput yeah, a lot of throughput, right?
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: So it's essentially just like if you want to build payments, if you want to build lending, borrowing, if you want to build any kind of experience that essentially simulates your Web2 experience of Venmo and the likes, it's possible on each link, but maybe even in a much faster way.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: So that's why I think in Aasif's presentation also, it was called almost like a cloud-like backend.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Right, it's like in Web2, all of these applications have their backend as cloud no-transcript.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: So then, bringing this back to SuperLend, what stage are you actually at currently and what are sort of the upcoming plans, like, what are the market opportunities that you're really trying to capture at this point in time?
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for SuperLend we have a.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Really, we are still actively updating our roadmap, which is becoming longer and longer.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: The vision is also becoming bigger and bigger.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: So far, we have already deployed our superlent money markets on Etherlink, which is sort of like inspired or uses the same code base as Aave V3.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: And we did not just went and copy pasted the whole thing.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: We actually went to the Aave DAO.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: We did, you know, everything in a genuine way, because we have a tradition of doing things in a certain way.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: And then we got the approval by the AaveDAO, being the second only platform after MakerDAO's SparkLend to be given such an approval for a crypto lending and borrowing platform.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: And right now, what we are doing?
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: We have the money markets live.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: We are still doing a little bit of testing.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: You can consider it as a soft launch.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: It's like a mainnet beta, but nothing is going to change.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: We are just doing a lot of backend internal testing to see everything is positioned to handle a huge amount of capital inflow right.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: So that's where, right now, we are.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Where do we go next?
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: We also have our aggregator part being built right as of now, which will be focused on every DeFi user that is there in the market and that's where the product is focused on.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: And what we are going to do is integrate our money markets on Etherlink into that aggregator because we believe if we do things right on Etherlink, we will be able to give the best deposit rates, the best borrow rates and when all these users from other chains are using Superlend Aggregator to essentially lend or borrow and they see that, okay, this market on Etherlink is giving them better rates.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: That's how they are going to come into using our platform on Etherlink.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: So that's the whole strategy.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: After Aggregator, we do have a lot of plans.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Like we do have a lot of plans.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: We do have a lot of plans, but we don't want to release all the things just once in a go.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: What we have realized from our past experiences?
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: There are two problems in user acquisition in DeFi mostly in DeFi mostly.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: One is your sort of like I call it cold start problem, where a DeFi protocol is looked upon by how much TVL it has, how many big following people or KOLs are talking about it.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: You know how many of these big, known influencers are talking about it.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Only then you get to have attention of these capital allocators, right?
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: So that's the number one problem we have to solve, and the number two is the distribution, because when the market starts hitting turmoil, these capital allocators, this mercenary capital that you know, one day suddenly puts $20, $50 million into a protocol, suddenly that will be gone and the only thing that remains is your loyal user, how large of a distribution you have.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: How many users are basically depositing their monthly $1,000, $2,000 for a bare minimum 3% to 4% yield on their USDC or USDT dual protocol?
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: So that's what we are trying to tackle to play both of these parts right, so that we have a sustainable trajectory, so that we can bring out our full vision onto the market itself.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: We do have more plans, like Superland Balls.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: We do want to bring out more strategies, more products for stablecoin users as well, some basic ideas or some POCs that we are also doing like okay, if we see that there are a lot of users who receive their payroll now in USDC or USDT, what if you were?
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: When you receive your payroll, it is actually already deposited in a lending market which is already earning 5%, 6%, whatever yield that is, and you withdraw as per your convenience.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: So you don't lose any opportunity to essentially gain some interest on your deposits.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Right, because I think that's what DeFi offers.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: Defi offers you composability that traditional finance cannot, and if you really build this kind of aggregation, this kind of vault, this kind of tools to make sure that composability is intact and it is really integrated into where the capital flow is happening, then at each point the capital flow happens, it's always earning something and not losing out any opportunity of not earning, right?
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: I think that's how we are really going to scale the DeFi overall and, yeah, I'm hopeful that by 2030 or something, we'll definitely hit like $1 trillion in TVL or something, even before that.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: It sounds like, while you've got quite a clear picture of, I guess, the end goal and the general map that you think it will require to get there, you're still sort of taking a test and learn approach, in terms of you don't want to make too many assumptions too quickly before the market really matures and unfolds over time.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: As you mentioned, you still have to face, I guess, like the typical problems of any new protocol, which is the cold start problem.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: How do you generate the initial liquidity to actually get the engines warmed up and turning?
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: And so it makes a lot of logical sense to sort of tease out what the market's really demanding at any point in time, understand how Superlend can position itself within that demand and then also how it's going to position itself in the longer term with, just know, like to phrase it your way the 2030 goal.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: So that all being said, how has initial traction been so far?
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: What has the early days looked like?
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: And you know the early successes.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: I think so far the early direction has been one good direction part has been the AaveDAO approval, so I would consider that as a win.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: A lot of good protocols did not get the approval but we did, and a lot of early talks that we are having with in terms of BD, in terms of integration with other partners, that are also going well.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: So we are glad to have onboarded some really known or reputed brands or projects to support us in this space.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: On terms of user acquisition, that's still, you know, the product is in a soft launch mode.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: The money market is on interlink and I think liquidity is slowly coming on interlink as well.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: So when that liquidity really hits, we will be there to basically available leverage to a lot of these users and at the same time, our product development is also going well.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: We are rightly positioned to launch our aggregator, like within next four to five weeks and even before that, we are going to launch just a basic data tool, just some part of our UI, through which you can essentially imagine what the rates look like on different markets.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: So you have probably more than 50 markets just on USDC, usdt, and you can basically visualize.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Okay, this is 4%, here is 4%, here is 5%, here is 6%, here is 7%.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: So, even though we can't give you the whole functionality, but you can still visualize and the goal is that we start doing some user engagement, some user education, before even launching our product in the full mode.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: So, in terms of that, we have a lot of moving pieces and right from where I'm sitting, I'm seeing all these pieces, you know, coming in the right shape and a lot of incremental progress towards, you know, engagement, attention, bd, integrations, fundraising all these things are happening.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I'm hopeful we fundraising all these things are happening.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I'm hopeful we'll probably be.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: We'll have our Twitter feed or, in terms of what we call, what we call a lot of information output wise.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Also, we're going to have two times more information, two times more content, two times more users, everything else in all parameters, in just one month.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: So just, it's like getting ripe to take off.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: So early signals are indicating that you're moving in the right direction, but you're sort of prioritizing a lot of the early integrations and partnerships so that, as the liquidity does build, as the user count adds up over time, there is plenty for them to begin interacting with.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: It's not like users arriving ahead of the sophistication of the product.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: So it makes a lot of sense.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like a very exciting project and I think it's going to do a lot to sort of bolster the Tezos DeFi ecosystem more broadly than just Etherlink's connection to other chains within the blockchain universe, and I guess that it kind of goes back to your original vision of what you were trying to do with Plenty DeFi, so it's an extension of the same vision.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Is there anything else that you want to share that you think our audience should be looking forward to or paying particular attention to as you continue to roll out more progress?
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: I would just say to you know, try, it's a link, try the.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: It's a link bridge, bridge your tails or, you know, you can even bridge your usdt, usdc, cm, wtc.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: So we have a really nice region place.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Uh, that is supported by layer zero, which is one of the bridge pioneer in the space.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: So I would encourage everyone to bridge out their assets, in whatever form, to etherlink.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Etherlink is in a very stable position right now as well.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: Try Iguana, dex, you know.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: Try trading some of this, try putting some liquidity on Superland so that you are ready for the action.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Right, there's a lot of things that will be coming and releasing in the next few months and if you already have done your journey towards you know how do I essentially in terms of education.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, this is how I branch, this is how I branch, this is how I use abnc and how do you switch your rpc and how do you basically set it to link in your metamask.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: These basic, mundane things we have already done.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: You would one number one.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: You would feel much more comfortable in using it, you will feel like you have a sense of it, hang of it and, secondly, it will also make you genuinely interested in all the developments that will happening on the E-Telling side.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: So do follow all these accounts like E-Telling, superland and the likes, and then, whenever let's say, okay, this is how things are happening, the incentives are coming, and whatever exciting things are happening, you'll be the first to actually bootstrap these platforms or these kind of layer tools.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: There would be incentives that would be put in place, be it by us, be it by some other provider, and if you are already having a sense of all these protocols, how to use them, you would be able to gain some only more advantages.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: That's what I mean.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: So I really appreciate everyone if they are using these things actively.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: So basically start interacting with the technology, understand how it can be used to their own benefit, as well as understanding what applications are built atop it that can be useful to them as well, and then essentially continue to watch the space as SuperLend continues to build up.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your perspectives and telling us all about what you've been working on, and also I think it's very clear every single time we speak how passionate you are about the technological developments and advancements that Tezos is making, whether on the L1 level or the L2.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much for those insights as well and kind of helping to reposition why Tezos is still very much a chain to watch and also understanding what progress it's making, very much in line with how the broader industry is moving, but in its own sort of technically sophisticated way.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: So I really appreciate that perspective.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Thanks a lot for having me.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Well, we will of course, keep in touch and then we'll be keeping a strong eye on superland as it continues to grow.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: But until next time, thank you so much.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Thanks a lot.