Latest / The Starting Block / 1inch Aqua unlocks shared liquidity with CEO Sergej Kunz

Transcript

1inch Aqua unlocks shared liquidity with CEO Sergej Kunz · The Starting Block

0:05
Welcome back to the Starting Block.
0:06
Happy Wednesday to you, wherever
0:08
you're joining us from this morning
0:09
or afternoon.
0:10
If you're here for the first time,
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this is the Blocks Daily Show and my
0:13
name is Gareth Jenkinson.
0:14
I'm the head of multimedia here at
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the Block. We've been going for
0:17
about a month now with the Starting
0:19
Blocks, started four weeks ago
0:21
with a very special interview with
0:22
CZ. If you haven't seen that, go to
0:24
the Block's YouTube page,
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please subscribe.
0:27
And you can check out that long form
0:28
interview with CZ, we got into a
0:30
load of alpha that
0:32
I highly recommend going back and
0:34
watching.
0:34
And if you missed our show
0:36
yesterday, it was a great pleasure
0:37
to have Alex Fanovic from
0:39
Nansen to talk to us about
0:41
agentic trading,
0:43
on-chain analytics, and a load
0:45
of more topics.
0:46
Really, really great conversation.
0:47
We've already put out a few clips
0:48
from that interview yesterday.
0:50
You can check those out on the
0:51
Blocks X account.
0:53
If you're watching us here on X,
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please go ahead and like and retweet
0:56
the broadcast so we can have more
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people join us.
0:59
And if your on YouTube joining
1:01
us today, feel free to drop your
1:02
comments. And we'll get some
1:05
of those answered for you as the
1:06
show goes on.
1:08
We're gonna be chatting to Sergey
1:09
Kunz from Oneinch a little bit
1:11
later on the show today.
1:12
He's in the hot seat to talk about
1:15
Oneinch's Aqua announcement,
1:17
which came out yesterday, unlocking
1:18
unified shared liquidity
1:20
for the DeFi ecosystem.
1:22
It's gonna be a really fascinating
1:23
conversation. So if you're here to
1:25
hear, listen to that and you have
1:26
some questions for Sergey, drop them
1:28
in the comments wherever you're
1:29
joining us from today.
1:31
If you are joining us for the first
1:32
time, the format of the show is very
1:34
simple. We start off with the block
1:35
briefing, which is our news bullets
1:37
in recapping the top stories of the
1:39
last 24 hours.
1:40
We usually jump into a market poll
1:42
segment, but we'll be skipping that
1:43
today. And then we jump into
1:45
our hot seat segment, which is
1:47
out interview of the day with the
1:48
big newsmaker.
1:49
And again, we're gonna be joined by
1:50
Sergei from One Inch.
1:51
So if you're joining us for that,
1:53
just stay tuned, stay with us.
1:56
He'll be joining us live on
1:58
air right after I finished with the
2:00
Block Briefing.
2:01
Without further ado, let's jump into
2:02
the top news trending
2:05
over the last 24 hours.
2:06
Our first story, Morgan Stanley,
2:09
just planted its flag in crypto
2:10
ETFs.
2:11
On Tuesday, the Wall Street giant
2:13
launched Spot Ethereum and Solana
2:15
funds, and it's undercutting
2:17
everyone on price.
2:18
Both carry a 0.14%
2:20
sponsor fee, the lowest in the
2:22
market, beating Grayscale's Mini
2:24
Ethereum Trust and Franklin
2:26
Templeton Solana product.
2:27
The Ether Fund trades as
2:30
MSSE,
2:32
the Solana fund as MSOL,
2:34
both on the New York Stock Exchange.
2:36
The launch lands roughly two and a
2:38
half years after the first spot
2:39
Bitcoin ETFs, and it
2:41
comes with stacking rewards baked
2:43
in. So we're definitely gonna be
2:45
seeing a fee war between
2:47
these big players that are offering
2:49
all of these Ethereum
2:52
and Solana ETFs.
2:53
And it really is gonna come down to
2:55
very, very small percentage
2:58
basis points.
2:59
To see who wins this war, but we
3:01
can expect that to keep hotting up.
3:03
Our next headline, big geopolitical
3:05
headline out of Moscow earlier
3:07
today, Russia's Federal
3:09
Security Service has charged
3:10
Telegram founder Pavel Zhurav
3:12
with aiding terrorist activity and
3:15
placed him on an international
3:16
wanted list.
3:18
According to Interfax, the FSB
3:20
says Telegram failed to remove
3:21
channels, chats, and bots
3:23
allegedly used by Ukrainian services
3:25
and extremist groups to coordinate
3:27
sabotage.
3:28
Mass killings and cyber fraud inside
3:30
of Russia.
3:31
Reuters reports an international
3:33
arrest warrant has been issued, but
3:34
I have been seeing some comments
3:36
floating around X that that might
3:38
not necessarily be true at this
3:40
point, so we'll have to keep
3:42
watching the story as it develops.
3:44
Of course, Telegram, the encrypted
3:45
platform, founded back in 2013,
3:48
now counts more than a billion users
3:50
worldwide.
3:51
It's a major escalation against one
3:53
of tech's most prominent figures,
3:54
and it does touch crypto, obviously.
3:58
Telegram rolled out the Thon network
4:00
a few years ago and there's been a
4:02
huge amount of activity on
4:03
that network in recent years.
4:06
Also Pavel announcing some
4:08
recent changes with Thon.
4:11
So this story goes a lot further
4:13
than just Telegram and messaging.
4:14
It does influence the cryptocurrency
4:16
ecosystem directly and we'll be
4:18
following this story very closely.
4:20
It would be great to chat to Pavel
4:21
if we can get him on the record, but
4:22
he's a difficult man to get
4:25
in touch with.
4:26
Moving on to our next story, the
4:27
security numbers are ugly.
4:29
Crypto projects lost more than $1
4:31
billion to hacks in
4:33
the first half of 2026.
4:35
And Blockade says the numbers of
4:36
verified exploits hit a record.
4:38
The firm called it the most hacked
4:40
half year on record, logging more
4:42
incidents in six months than in all
4:44
of 2025.
4:46
Dollar losses actually came in below
4:47
last year, which was inflated by
4:50
the $1.5 billion buy-bid exploit.
4:52
North Korean linked hackers did most
4:54
of the damage tied to both The
4:56
$285 million drift
4:58
hack and the $292
5:00
million Culp Dow exploit
5:02
blockade expects those
5:04
DPRK attacks to keep
5:06
coming through 2026.
5:09
Then a regulatory turf war is
5:10
heating up.
5:11
A coalition of attorneys general,
5:14
sorry, a coalition of Attorneys
5:16
General from 44 states in
5:18
the US has written to the
5:20
Commodity Futures Trading
5:21
Commission. Arguing the agency
5:23
has no authority to regulate
5:24
sports-related prediction markets.
5:26
The letter, which is led by
5:28
Ohio Attorney General Andy
5:30
Wilson and filed on Monday as
5:32
the comment period closed,
5:34
says the CFTC's proposed rule blows
5:36
past its statutory powers
5:38
under the Commodity Exchange Act
5:40
and urges the agency to start
5:42
over. The CFTC has been
5:44
locked in court battles with
5:46
several states over jurisdiction.
5:48
Insisting they're unlawfully trying
5:50
to regulate federally overseen
5:52
derivatives markets.
5:55
Then Core Scientific is doubling
5:57
down on its pivot from Bitcoin
5:59
to AI.
6:00
The company and chip maker AMD
6:01
announced a partnership on Tuesday,
6:04
which AMD will secure
6:06
more than 500 megawatts of
6:08
US data center capacity starting
6:11
in 2027 with room
6:13
to scale to two and a half
6:14
gigawatts.
6:15
The deal covers infrastructure
6:16
design plus deployment.
6:18
Of AMD's Instinct GPUs,
6:21
EPYC chips, and ROCM
6:23
software for AI workloads.
6:26
AMD also gets market price warrants
6:28
to buy core scientific
6:30
stocks.
6:31
It's another sign the former miner
6:32
is going all in on high density AI
6:35
co-location, a shifted accelerator
6:37
by selling off most of
6:39
its Bitcoin last year.
6:41
Then Galaxy Digital is expanding its
6:43
data center footprint in Texas.
6:46
The firm has brought roughly 500
6:47
acres in McGregor to
6:50
build its second major AI and
6:52
high-performance computing campus in
6:53
the state, following its big Helios
6:56
facility out west.
6:57
The project kicks off with a 74
6:59
megawatt first phase, expected
7:01
to get power in 2028,
7:03
and could scale to multi-hundred
7:05
megawatts by 2030.
7:07
Galaxy says the privately funded
7:08
campus, complete with its own
7:10
substation, will insulate
7:12
local ratepayers from infrastructure
7:13
costs. And add at least $100 million
7:16
to McGregor's tax base.
7:18
Another crypto name is leaning hard
7:20
into AI infrastructure.
7:22
And lastly, a sobering signal for
7:24
Ethereum's scaling story.
7:25
Total value locked across Ethereum.
7:27
Layer 2 networks slipped
7:29
back to around $5 billion,
7:31
a level last seen in 2023.
7:34
It's wiped up most of the buildup
7:35
from 2024 when hype-surrounded
7:37
launches like Optimism, Arbitrum,
7:39
and ZK Sync.
7:41
Of course, optimistic roll-ups still
7:43
dominate holding 90%
7:44
of the total.
7:45
And I will add that it's not all
7:47
doom and gloom with Robinhood chain
7:49
launching in recent weeks and
7:51
grabbing a huge amount of
7:54
protocol fees,
7:56
clearly indicating that there is
7:57
still a lot of interest and activity
7:59
happening on Ethereum L2s
8:01
and that apps running on this
8:03
infrastructure have a lot promise
8:05
going forward.
8:06
So we'll be watching that one pretty
8:08
closely. And of course, if you're
8:09
interested in any data or analytics,
8:10
please go and check out the Blocks
8:12
website.
8:13
Our data dashboards are the best in
8:15
the industry, often cited.
8:17
You can go and check those out at
8:18
theblock.co.
8:20
That's it for the Block Briefing.
8:21
We're going to be moving swiftly on
8:22
to the hot seat today.
8:24
And it's a great pleasure to welcome
8:26
a friend of the industry Sergey
8:28
Kunz to the show.
8:30
We last caught up at Paris
8:32
Blockchain Week a few months ago,
8:34
Sergey, so it's good to chat to you
8:35
again. First things first, how are
8:36
you?
8:37
Hi, everyone. It's a pleasure to be
8:38
here. I'm fine, a little bit
8:40
tired.
8:42
So it was really hard
8:44
the last two weeks.
8:45
So the last 2 weeks were
8:47
very intense for aqua
8:50
release.
8:51
Yeah, sure. I mean, let's
8:53
pull the bandaid off and start off
8:55
with the big news.
8:56
One inch announced, one inch aqua
8:58
yesterday going live.
9:00
Give us the TLDR, what we need to
9:02
know about one inch aqua and what it
9:03
actually means for DeFi.
9:05
So, we published recently,
9:07
we've tuned together and the report
9:08
about the analysis of
9:11
how much
9:13
of the liquidity in AMMs is
9:15
idling and actually not working,
9:17
and we found out that it's actually
9:18
85% of liquidity sits idle.
9:21
It's participating in the price
9:23
formation, but it's not really
9:25
working. So,
9:27
Aqua addressed this
9:29
problem and allows you
9:31
to reuse your liquidity.
9:34
For multiple liquidity
9:36
trading strategies.
9:37
It's similar to like
9:39
virtual MMPools, it's kind of
9:41
intent-based.
9:42
So you can use same 10,000
9:44
use DC for three,
9:46
four different pairs to
9:49
it.
9:50
So the utilization could be
9:52
three, four, five, six times much
9:54
higher.
9:54
And you are fully free to
9:57
do whatever you want with the
9:59
assets on your wallet because you
10:00
have to deposit them so you can also
10:02
even participate in governance like
10:04
in uni governance by holding uni
10:06
token.
10:07
And there are some really beautiful
10:10
things possible by,
10:12
for example, using Aave
10:14
to loop Aave positions
10:17
and leverage
10:19
and create out of
10:21
10k maybe liquidity three,
10:23
four times more.
10:25
And just sitting in our collateral
10:27
tokens, for example, there are a lot
10:29
of different use cases possible.
10:31
So we launched a
10:33
couple of strategies,
10:35
stable-to-stable tokens, packed
10:37
strategy, and concentrate liquidity
10:39
and of course, full-range liquidity.
10:42
So and I have seen a good amount
10:43
of liquidity was
10:47
getting enabled in Aqua, it's around
10:49
Almost 13 million USD already.
10:51
And we see a good
10:53
amount of volumes also on especially
10:54
on BNB and also
10:56
Robinhood chain.
10:59
So, since kind of
11:02
people creating also positions
11:03
to the auto blaze.
11:05
Yeah, it's really funny that you can
11:07
actually cycle the auto-blaze into
11:09
token pairs and then
11:11
you can just create like SpaceX to
11:14
Apple, Apple to
11:16
Nvidia, Nvidia to SpaceX and then
11:17
we have this kind of cycle and And
11:20
all the trades go through it,
11:22
highly efficient.
11:24
That's the new thing.
11:26
The plan is to address
11:28
all the institutionals.
11:29
Our main goal of One-Inch Network
11:31
right now to expand and adopt
11:33
for institutionals and allowing
11:35
them to define own rules.
11:37
Who should settle on their
11:39
liquidity?
11:40
They don't have to mix the
11:42
liquidity with other liquidity
11:43
providers, like what they
11:45
are doing right now, some of them,
11:47
and use hot pools.
11:49
And they are completely free to
11:50
choose the right market makers who
11:52
can settle on the liquidity.
11:53
This is also a very important thing
11:55
that we introduced.
11:58
Can you talk to us just a little bit
11:59
about the actual development of
12:01
one-inch aqua and what kind of
12:04
sparked this idea?
12:05
Because it does sound a little but
12:07
to me, and I mean, I'm not the most
12:08
technically proficient
12:11
Ethereum developer or
12:13
commentator, but it reminds me a lot
12:15
of sort of Ethereum restaking
12:17
in some ways.
12:18
Is there some kind of similarity to
12:20
that?
12:20
Yes, the idea is similar.
12:22
It's like restating.
12:23
In restating, you can stake once,
12:24
and then you can use your
12:26
stake to secure different
12:29
things.
12:30
Here's the same.
12:31
You don't even need to move your
12:33
assets somewhere.
12:35
What we introduced is one more
12:37
feature on one-inch.com, it's the
12:39
sub-wallet functionality.
12:41
It's kind of you can create a Gnosis
12:42
Multi-Stick one-of-one directly
12:44
in the interface, and you can just
12:46
deposit funds into it to isolate
12:48
in terms of risks.
12:50
So, and you
12:53
can reuse the same liquidity, same
12:55
asset for multiple positions.
12:57
So if you look into IMFs, like 85%
13:00
of the liquidity sits idle, and you
13:02
just reduce the
13:05
idling of the liquidity by
13:07
having more pairs to the same
13:09
token.
13:10
Yeah, it does make me think
13:12
you know to the news that I just
13:14
read out a little bit earlier and
13:16
talks about you know DeFi hacks that
13:18
helped our exploit in particular
13:19
sucked out so much liquidity from
13:21
DeFi.
13:22
It seems like a very timely
13:24
Release to you basically,
13:26
you know tap into a load of
13:28
Liquidity like you say a lot of
13:30
people are probably just sitting on
13:31
stable coins in their wallets and
13:32
these kind of things That are not
13:34
generating any yield or not or not
13:36
being active in DeFi protocols.
13:37
And now you've kind of given them
13:39
the ability to do that without even
13:41
having to give up the custody
13:43
of their assets. Do I understand
13:44
that right?
13:45
Yeah, that's true.
13:46
So if someone holds
13:49
WBTC or CBBTC,
13:51
so Bitcoin is Bitcoin and if you're
13:54
good kind of with
13:56
using these wrappers,
13:58
you can just create Bitcoin to
14:00
Bitcoin pairs and just earn
14:01
passively by providing liquidity
14:03
for CBBDC to WBDC.
14:09
I saw the announcement yesterday
14:10
in LobsterDow and anyone who's
14:12
watching there that isn't on the
14:14
telegram group, it's filled with,
14:16
I think it's tens of thousands of
14:19
just general users from
14:21
the DeFi community and
14:22
protocol founders.
14:24
So it's lots of big brains that
14:25
are sitting there and you made the
14:27
announcement yesterday, it was
14:28
pretty well received.
14:29
And you were saying, Orfea, that
14:31
there are a few protocols that are
14:32
already like, hey, we need to try
14:34
this out. We need to see how this
14:35
works. Is this really kind of
14:37
faced more at retail users, or
14:39
do you think that it's more for
14:41
advanced users and even institutions
14:42
that are tapping into DeFi right
14:44
now?
14:45
So, first of all, we have built
14:47
it for the developers.
14:50
So, Aqua and the Aqua apps allows
14:53
anyone to build
14:55
on applications.
14:56
So, if you have
14:58
a protocol and you need a
15:00
solar network, for example, you can
15:01
just build a strategy and bind
15:03
it to your protocol.
15:04
For example, Aave
15:06
V4 would work as well if
15:08
you bind it to Aqua as
15:10
its own strategy.
15:12
And then our one-inch
15:13
compliant solver network,
15:16
passing the compliance checks on
15:17
one-inch compliance team and the KYB
15:20
verification.
15:22
These market makers,
15:24
arbitrage traders can settle and
15:27
help, actually, these developers.
15:29
There are some developers who are
15:31
building very complex
15:37
and some of them are building also
15:38
for Uniswap V4 Hooks.
15:40
You can see the Aqua apps behind
15:42
Aqua. It's like Uniswa
15:44
V4 hook,
15:47
what like kind of facilitate
15:48
different things.
15:50
So even kind of flash loans, yeah.
15:52
So you can just give a flash loans
15:54
allowance from your wallet to use
15:56
your Ethereum or small
15:58
flash loans for Arbitrage
16:00
maybe.
16:01
So, and you can get paid for that.
16:03
So it's... A lot of possibilities to
16:06
kind of get additional
16:08
yield on the crypto in your wallet.
16:11
Institutionals is what I said before
16:13
is our main goal here to
16:15
board them. So we see AutoBlaze
16:17
coming, Robinhood chain with
16:19
all these nice AutoBlays and
16:22
thin liquidity.
16:23
And it's kind of difficult to put a
16:25
lot of liquidity into
16:27
AutoBlas and IMS because
16:29
you get like exposure to
16:31
stocks, for example.
16:32
And then, actually, what I have
16:34
seen, less people want to sit
16:36
in specific
16:38
assets like that.
16:41
And the efficiency is
16:44
very, very low when you put in the
16:45
liquidity pool. So you need a lot of
16:47
liquidity, you need billions of
16:48
dollars to have really good
16:50
performing markets on
16:52
chain for automobiles.
16:53
And here, we make
16:55
everything much more efficient and
16:57
offering to reuse the liquidity
16:59
for all the different
17:01
pairs to each other.
17:02
So,
17:04
and yeah, maybe one
17:06
more thing to mention,
17:08
the One Inch Now and the One Inch
17:10
Foundation announced incentive
17:11
program so people can play
17:13
with that and provide
17:15
some liquidity on, for example,
17:17
Robinhood chain with some
17:19
AutoBlaze to get some
17:21
rewards to, again,
17:23
to experiment with different
17:25
positions as well.
17:27
Yeah, I was checking out the
17:28
website, I think.
17:29
I stand to be corrected.
17:30
It's like $100,000 in rewards
17:32
potentially available to people.
17:33
Is it the same number that I'm
17:34
reading for the same thing?
17:35
It's $500,000 from
17:37
the DAO in USDC,
17:40
and five
17:42
million one-inch tokens from
17:43
Foundation for this
17:45
incentive program for two specific
17:47
pairs, and this additional five
17:49
million one-inch token
17:51
campaign for co-incentives.
17:53
So there are some other projects who
17:55
want also to do the co-incentives.
17:58
So kind of the one-ish foundation
18:00
doubles the amount what
18:02
the partner brings on the table.
18:05
I'm sure there's a lot of people out
18:07
there, just given everything that's
18:08
happened in DeFi this year with the
18:09
amount of exploits, I think largely
18:11
led by AI.
18:13
There's gonna be some people
18:14
wondering like, are there any risks
18:15
associated with shared liquidity
18:18
and the way that you've approached
18:19
this? Can you talk a little bit
18:21
about the security considerations
18:23
you went through in the development
18:24
process before you rolled this up?
18:26
Yes, so, like always,
18:28
One-inch does everything
18:30
to release in
18:32
a highly secure
18:34
manner any protocols that
18:36
are going to production.
18:39
So, in this manner,
18:40
we performed eight independent
18:43
security audits,
18:45
Opensepolin, Belsec, for example,
18:47
as well, one of the best in
18:49
the market right now.
18:50
And some others.
18:52
And these security
18:54
audits are publicly available, so
18:56
feel free to use your
18:58
AI agent and look into
19:00
your github.com slash one inch slash
19:02
one inch security audites.
19:06
So then, additionally to
19:08
the security, we
19:10
had developer
19:12
release last year.
19:13
It was our
19:15
intent to show
19:18
the protocol, the strategies to
19:20
security experts.
19:21
We have the bug bounty program.
19:24
And got also some feedbacks
19:27
and worked on that to bring it
19:29
to the really highest
19:30
level. Like always,
19:32
we did it with
19:34
the team from the beginning.
19:38
I want to steer the conversation in
19:40
the way of AI, because we spoke
19:42
about this when we were at Paris
19:43
Blockchain Week, and it's been a few
19:44
months since then.
19:45
And I think the pace of change in
19:47
AI is so fast that the tools and
19:49
things you're able to do have
19:50
changed a lot.
19:52
Did you lean a lot on the AI tools
19:54
you've been using to help
19:56
develop Aqua as one, kind of come
19:58
up with this strategy?
20:00
How did that influence what
20:02
you did?
20:03
So, yeah, I mean, used very
20:06
much for the web publication, for
20:08
example, or back-end services.
20:11
Nowadays, it's on the level of
20:12
what actually implores you, like,
20:14
and you are like 10 times to 100
20:16
times much more efficient.
20:18
Now, when you're looking for bugs,
20:20
you can easily scan your log files,
20:22
you know, on the clusters, on
20:24
servers.
20:25
And also all the errors
20:26
that are coming from the web
20:27
application can be easily consumed
20:29
by your eye, analyzed and also
20:31
even automated into
20:35
already bug fixes,
20:37
which you just need as a human
20:39
to review. In
20:41
terms of smart contracts, we are
20:44
more careful here.
20:46
We have a
20:49
great blockchain team who
20:50
are developing on Acwa
20:52
and also developing in new
20:54
strategies as well.
20:55
We have some more strategies that we
20:57
plan to launch in the next
20:59
half year.
21:02
We use AI very often for
21:05
audits, for security,
21:07
kind of battle testing and
21:09
trying to break the protocol,
21:12
trying to extract, try to find
21:14
the corner cases,
21:16
and 5.5 and Opus 5
21:18
are very helpful here.
21:20
In terms of like web development,
21:22
web app development, the app,
21:25
it's so helpful.
21:26
It's very young
21:28
in the aqua release you
21:30
had 1000 juror tickets
21:35
That's pretty crazy.
21:37
Most of them we handled in the
21:39
last three weeks.
21:41
Wow. Okay.
21:42
So that tells you the efficiencies
21:44
you're getting from the tools that
21:45
you have now.
21:46
Yeah, we had to change the
21:48
flow a little bit because like we
21:50
have 140 people around the globe.
21:51
So we have bigger
21:53
teams for specific topics
21:55
and yeah we had
21:57
like everyone played QA actually
22:00
like 140 people are on the globe
22:01
even our
22:04
employee here in
22:06
Dubai who
22:07
helped us in the was
22:09
also testing Aqua
22:12
for us
22:14
so we got huge
22:16
amount of feedback and could really
22:19
identify corner cases
22:20
and address them very, very fast
22:22
by using our enterprise
22:25
client and
22:27
kind of partner.
22:31
This is Coursera.
22:33
You heard that Elon Musk bought
22:35
them or invested 60 billion
22:37
less dollars.
22:38
And it was right just from our point
22:39
of view, because these guys, they
22:42
deliver tools that change
22:44
the world.
22:45
Yeah, yeah for sure.
22:47
I wanted to talk to you a little bit
22:48
just to keep pulling on the AI vein
22:50
about you know Agentech trading we
22:52
had Alex Svannarvik
22:54
from Nansen on the show yesterday
22:55
It was just a really interesting
22:56
conversation and I remember you
22:59
saying to me in Paris that
23:02
You guys were changing a lot of your
23:03
documentation and that sort of thing
23:05
to be very sort of AI
23:07
friendly, right?
23:08
So you know different
23:10
bots can can come in and basically
23:12
read all the docs and understand how
23:14
to actually use the protocol
23:16
and platform?
23:17
Are you building the infrastructure
23:18
to be AI ready and is that a
23:20
very big focus?
23:21
And do you anticipate more and more
23:23
protocols having to be sort of AI
23:25
first in their approach?
23:27
Yeah, this is the highest priority
23:29
here as well, to be super
23:31
AI-friendly, since we are using the
23:33
same tools.
23:34
Oneinch offers also Oneinch MCP,
23:37
which you can easily add to
23:40
your agent, like Courser for
23:42
example. And then you can use all
23:44
the APIs, for example, also to
23:46
call the blockchain nodes through
23:48
Oneinch APIs.
23:49
It's kind of very helpful, and
23:51
it's very helpful also to...
23:54
But what we did by
23:56
this release, we introduced a
23:58
one-inch Aqua Learn
24:00
page.
24:01
We followed some sub-patches where
24:03
we explained back to the question
24:04
to the risks.
24:05
We explained all the risks,
24:07
we used AI to generate even voice,
24:10
like audio, like a podcast that you
24:12
can hear, that explains what
24:14
are the risks and what positions
24:16
are there and so on.
24:18
Even I personally
24:20
was working on the
24:22
video presentation of
24:24
AI presenter,
24:26
it was interesting for me like
24:29
in my free
24:31
time as a pet project like to add
24:33
something from my site into
24:34
AquaLearn.
24:36
And yeah, and some great
24:38
visualizations and here again,
24:40
we did it in a way
24:42
that AI can easily consume this
24:44
information. Because like
24:46
it tends to be that
24:48
the next billion of users will be
24:50
AI agents who empower the operators,
24:54
the humans behind that,
24:56
and they need the best access to
24:58
documentation, not only
25:01
software development documentation,
25:03
also like what is this product,
25:05
how to use it, and that's
25:07
why we also introduce something what
25:09
is not yet officially
25:12
in production in Chrome browser,
25:15
this is WebMCP.
25:17
This web MCP will be by day
25:19
zero enabled at one
25:21
inch.
25:22
So you can use your AI
25:24
agent with the Chrome to navigate
25:26
through your whole website.
25:30
Yeah, that's super powerful.
25:33
I did want to talk to you just about
25:34
the current state of
25:37
RWA tokenization,
25:39
battles between different chains.
25:40
There was a lot of people looking at
25:41
Robinhood Chain in recent weeks just
25:43
with the fees that they generated
25:44
once they went live.
25:46
The comparisons of
25:48
that towards Solana,
25:51
is it pretty encouraging that
25:52
something like Robinhood chain is,
25:54
you know, essentially running on top
25:56
of Ethereum and getting this
25:58
much interest and this much trading
26:00
volume. Does that bode well, do you
26:01
think, for the ecosystem?
26:03
This is very good for the
26:05
ecosystem, I'm pretty sure.
26:07
They bring a lot of
26:09
users and a lot of nice
26:11
products, right?
26:13
You can buy an ETF
26:15
on the Robinhood chain,
26:17
if you're in the right country, of
26:19
course.
26:20
But I think very soon the US
26:22
will adapt and will open the those
26:24
are for U.S.
26:26
Customers to be
26:28
able to access the RWA's
26:30
so and it brings
26:34
Like, it brings a
26:36
real kind of use case for
26:38
blockchain.
26:40
Get everything on chain and
26:42
let people, provide the community,
26:44
let people buy and sell how
26:46
they want without like waiting that
26:48
the bank opens or the brokerage
26:51
service opens.
26:53
So Robinhood is not, I think,
26:55
offering 24 for 7, but
26:57
Ondo already is doing that.
26:59
And I'm pretty sure everyone will do
27:00
the same and then we will have much
27:02
more and more efficient.
27:03
Set up and Ethereum
27:05
can only benefit from it because
27:07
it's layer 2 above Ethereum.
27:10
Yeah, yeah for sure.
27:12
There's definitely plenty of
27:14
competition though in that space,
27:15
you know, I mean, obviously Solana
27:16
is pushing really, really hard into
27:18
the RWA tokenization
27:20
efforts as well.
27:21
And it does seem like that's going
27:23
to be the battle is like, what
27:25
is what chain does TradFi really
27:27
choose to do this?
27:29
And I mean I think
27:31
I think it's going to be a
27:33
very interesting battle because
27:34
Ethereum has got, you with
27:36
the LindyFX for being around
27:38
as long as it has.
27:39
Uh, very, very decentralized.
27:42
Um, but the newer chains like Solana
27:44
have arguably better speed,
27:46
but then you look at Robinhood chain
27:48
that, you know, I think they're
27:49
like, what, a hundred thousand TPS
27:51
or something like that.
27:52
So they've got more.
27:53
Yeah. They've, they've, got more
27:54
than enough, um, transaction
27:56
capabilities to handle all of
27:58
this. Um, do you, do, do think
28:00
that one chain will dominate, or
28:01
do you think that we're getting to
28:03
the point now where we've got enough
28:04
chain abstraction infrastructure
28:06
to kind of let it happen
28:08
everywhere all at once.
28:10
I think in terms of Ethereum,
28:12
something better than Ethereum can
28:13
be only Ethereum, and they will
28:15
upgrade their own blockchain
28:17
to privacy things,
28:19
what I have heard from Vitalik.
28:22
And we will have additional use
28:24
cases like a Roman hook chain,
28:27
what is like layer 2, what actually
28:29
covers specific needs.
28:33
That's okay.
28:34
But we still see on Ethereum
28:36
a lot of trades because it's the
28:37
most decentralized and stable
28:39
blockchain right now and there.
28:42
It involves very
28:44
well from my
28:46
point of view as well.
28:47
So there is a development team.
28:49
Of course, some changes in
28:51
the foundation of Ethereum,
28:53
But, you know, any change brings all
28:55
the fresh blood and a
28:57
new innovation from our young.
29:00
Yeah, I'm sorry.
29:01
If you can hear my doorbell ringing
29:03
in the background, that is
29:05
what that sound is.
29:06
I'm just going to pretend like we're
29:07
not hearing it.
29:09
My final question to you Sergei,
29:10
obviously I think the
29:13
foundational story of Oneinch is
29:15
really interesting, right?
29:16
Like you went from being in an ETH
29:18
Global Hackathon to an
29:20
800 billion dollar sort
29:22
of DeFi ecosystem.
29:25
Can you talk about the the future of
29:27
Ethereum and maybe just speak to
29:29
some of the...
29:30
Perhaps people starting out right
29:31
now, building something new on
29:33
Ethereum and some words
29:35
of encouragement and maybe the most
29:37
important lesson you learned along
29:38
the way.
29:39
Yeah, all these
29:41
new developers coming into
29:43
Ethereum space have
29:45
a simpler game,
29:48
I would say, than we had in 2019
29:51
when we started, we found on
29:53
the hackathon.
29:55
Yeah, we used our knowledge, you
29:56
know, what we had, and then we
29:58
could build something with
30:00
that. Today, my 13-year-old
30:04
nephew can wipe out
30:06
anything that he wants,
30:08
so he's doing that.
30:10
So he bought recently a crypto
30:12
tracking web page with
30:14
all the news and so on.
30:16
It's really funny to see. Yeah,
30:18
just use the right tools,
30:20
use the eye and...
30:22
Be free in your mind,
30:24
there are no frames
30:27
where you need to stay.
30:29
You can build whatever you
30:31
can imagine and
30:33
after maybe 20,
30:35
30, maybe 50 projects you have
30:37
built with your eye, you will come
30:39
to something that
30:41
will get adoption and you
30:43
potentially can build a real
30:46
big business out of it.
30:47
It's kind of much easier now
30:49
right now to jump as an
30:51
entrepreneur.
30:52
Even like, it's enough to
30:54
spend like two, three hours a day,
30:57
what I recommend to everyone,
30:59
to develop themselves, to discover
31:01
things, because
31:03
you have actually
31:05
an agent who knows
31:07
actually almost everything, yeah.
31:09
So it can even help you to discover
31:11
new things by web search and
31:13
whatever.
31:14
Yeah, honestly,
31:16
it's never been a more exciting
31:18
time to be working in
31:20
the internet space because what you
31:22
can do now versus even a year ago is
31:24
just absolutely mind-blowing.
31:26
My final, final question to you is
31:28
how have you maintained your
31:30
passion for one inch through
31:32
all of these bear markets?
31:33
Because I think 2026 is definitely
31:35
testing a lot of people's resolved.
31:38
And I think we've all seen a lot of
31:40
people we know pivot like
31:42
you know, completely into AI or
31:44
leave the industry, what's
31:46
kept you going?
31:47
Like always, to
31:50
build, to innovate, to come to
31:51
new solutions, to solve problems,
31:54
to help people.
31:56
So, yeah, this is
31:58
kind of, I personally
32:01
didn't recognize all the beer
32:03
and the bull markets.
32:04
Of course, we look into volumes.
32:06
Of course they dropped since October
32:08
last year, everywhere.
32:11
So let's maybe try to
32:13
make it much more efficient.
32:15
Right now, I'm rebuilding the
32:16
whole pathfinder algorithm from
32:18
scratch by using AI.
32:20
And I could build in
32:22
the last couple of weeks something
32:24
what we were not able as
32:26
team to build in like in five
32:28
years.
32:31
So this AI adoption
32:32
gives like additional push to
32:35
stay hungry in terms of like,
32:37
oh, what I can build next.
32:40
And yeah, I'm
32:42
super energized to
32:45
ship more things, to
32:47
make things much more efficient.
32:50
So, and to bring value
32:52
to Web3 space.
32:55
Yeah Okay,
32:57
I've said my final question twice,
32:58
but this is really my final question
33:00
because it just took me onto my
33:01
conversation we had with Ilya
33:03
from Nia last week.
33:05
And in my mind, I really see
33:07
now more than ever, it's
33:09
very clear the connections
33:11
and how complementary
33:14
like AI is to
33:16
like crypto and blockchain
33:17
infrastructure.
33:19
Obviously you've been working really
33:20
hard with Oneinch and you've
33:21
developed loads of, you guys are
33:23
constantly innovating and changing
33:25
and building.
33:26
Is there anything else on the side
33:27
that you would like to build or
33:29
particularly interested in now
33:31
that you have, you know, the power
33:33
of all these different AI tools at
33:34
your fingertips?
33:35
Yeah, like on
33:37
the weekend I do a lot of
33:39
prototyping, you know, I build small
33:41
MVPs, I play around
33:43
with a game, I call it
33:45
everborn.game, you can even
33:47
open it and walk around in the
33:49
world, and it's kind of
33:51
built like the world gets discovered
33:53
based on your movements.
33:54
If you go left and right, it's
33:56
different than right and left.
33:58
So maybe
34:00
I will add an
34:02
additional layer 2 to it,
34:04
like for the blocks,
34:06
because it's kind of generating
34:07
blocks, depending on the previous
34:09
one.
34:11
I played around also with
34:13
building on tools.
34:14
It helps a lot.
34:17
I have built actually a platform
34:18
that helps developers
34:21
like me.
34:22
To be built much
34:25
faster. So I miss a lot of things
34:26
in Coursor and Cloud Code,
34:29
where you need to
34:31
go after them.
34:32
You need to tell them, okay,
34:34
now re-verify once again your plan.
34:36
And then after the implementation,
34:37
you need use maybe another model to
34:39
verify the other model.
34:41
And actually I built my
34:44
own AI development environments.
34:48
We have access to all models
34:50
that are existing right now as
34:52
a software service.
34:54
Even the new Chinese models, what's
34:56
coming.
34:57
I think it could be something maybe
34:59
for 1inch as 1inch.ai,
35:03
I think.
35:04
I'm still speaking with the team
35:06
on how we can address
35:07
that.
35:09
So we're going to see an AI
35:12
automated market
35:14
maker, basically, bring them all
35:16
together and cross work with
35:18
the AIs. I love that idea.
35:19
And of course, you would be the
35:21
person to think, how do I bring all
35:22
these things together, considering
35:24
that you built One Inch.
35:26
Sergei, thank you so much for taking
35:27
the time to chat to us on the show.
35:29
I know you've been chatting to
35:31
various people about the launch of
35:32
One Inche Aqua.
35:33
I think anything that's.
35:35
Building on DeFi and bringing more
35:37
liquidity and connecting things is
35:39
always great to see.
35:40
And as always, we just appreciate
35:42
you taking the time to chat to us.
35:44
So good luck going forward.
35:45
We'll keep an eye out on how things
35:47
develop from here.
35:48
Thank you very much, it was a
35:49
pleasure to be here.
35:51
All right, and thank you very much
35:53
for joining us today
35:55
to watch the starting block.
35:57
We do broadcast every day at 8.30
35:59
a.m.
36:00
Eastern time if you're in the U.S.
36:01
That's 2.30 here in
36:03
Central European time if you are in
36:04
Europe. Set a reminder every day,
36:06
we have great guests on
36:08
and we do our best to keep you
36:10
entertained.
36:12
The rest of the week's looking
36:12
pretty good.
36:13
I might have Jack Mallers on Friday
36:15
to talk about his departure
36:18
from 21. So set a reminder.
36:20
We'll be announcing that very
36:22
shortly on on social media once
36:23
we've got all the details locked
36:25
down, but Until then
36:27
set a reminder join us again
36:29
tomorrow 8 30 a.m We
36:31
will be back until then have a
36:32
fantastic morning and evening
36:34
wherever you are. We'll see you
36:35
tomorrow