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Meet Terraform Lab's Chris Amani!
7 Plays1 year ago
Let's get to know Chris Amani, COO and CFO of Terraform Labs, hear fascinating stories from the 'inside' and learn about the exciting projects he and TFL have coming our way!
In this episode, Chris opens up about his famed “missed opportunity” when he interviewed for CFO of Coinbase in 2015, shares how he went from vocal #LUNAtic community member to TFL executive employee and also speaks candidly about his experience in the war room with Do Kwon during the depeg. In addition, we learn more about the personal side of Chris including that he’s a devoted family man and total history buff!
Speaking to my fellow #LUNAtics - I know a lot of you are still hurting. I am too. It’s been a tough year and like most of you, I’ve experienced a range of emotions. I am grateful for this community which has both supported & inspired me in my time of need. Truthfully, if you had told me this time last year, or even six months ago, that I’d have a sit down interview with a top executive at TFL, I’d never have believed you! I hope we can continue to ‘awaken’ & perhaps my interviews will play a small part.
So whether you’re one of the earliest Luna community members or you’ve just stumbled across my page, I do hope you enjoy getting to know Chris, a loyal member of the #LUNAtic community, as much as I did!
xx Jade
P.S. Think you'd be a great guest for Behind the PFP? Contact me at the links below!
Follow Chris Amani!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/fleece_cannon
Follow Terraform Labs!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/terra_money
Website: https://www.terra.money/
Follow Jade!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cryptoismyjam
Medium:
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Transcript
Doe's Resilience and Inspiration
00:00:14
Speaker
Yeah, me being with Doe, the level of resiliency he had continued to think clearly and unemotionally and strategically while not sleeping for like a week. It was just insane to watch. And I think it motivated a lot of us to just toughen up and get through this thing.
00:00:24
Speaker
this week on
Chris's Interests and Introduction
00:00:29
Speaker
Don't sit around. I mean, I love history. So like all these books, I've got like a whole bookshelf here. It's almost all history or like historical fiction. Like what I'll do is I'll like pick a point in history and just go like super deep in it. Complete the sentence. Lunatics are
00:00:29
Speaker
Behind the PFP.
00:00:44
Speaker
awakening. Oh, I love that. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Behind the PFP.
00:01:05
Speaker
Today, we are joined by a very special guest and fellow lunatic, Chris Ohani. If you don't know Chris, he is the president of TFL Terraform Labs and Dauquan's right-hand man. Chris, thank you so much for making the time out of your busy schedule to have a chat with me. Of course. Looking forward to it.
00:01:28
Speaker
Now you've had a heck of a few months, but before we get into anything crypto related, I'd love to know a bit about your background and I know that you started off in tech.
Tech Industry Journey and Bitcoin Realization
00:01:39
Speaker
So can you walk me through kind of your progression and what led you to where you are today? Yeah. So, um, like you said, I've been in tech, um, since I graduated, um, I've worked in e-commerce gaming, um, B2B SAS,
00:01:56
Speaker
Towards the end of my SES experience, I had a software company called Humanity that I had sold to a private equity backed company called TCP.
00:02:07
Speaker
And after that acquisition, it's typical in those kinds of acquisitions to put a clause in the purchase agreement that says that you'll stay with the company after you've been acquired and helped make the acquisition successful. And you'll get a portion of your payout based on how well the company does. So stayed with them for another year. And then after that, I transitioned into Web3 working at Terra. So my background from a crypto perspective is I had heard about Bitcoin
00:02:35
Speaker
A long time ago, I even once famously within my family interviewed for VP of Finance at Coinbase. Back before that was a thing, very early, I interviewed with both Brian Armstrong and Fred Ursham.
00:02:52
Speaker
didn't really understand Bitcoin when I did it, completely bombed the interview. They cut it out. They stopped the interview 20 minutes in, and we're like, this is not going to work out. Really? Yeah, that was a missed opportunity for sure. What year would that have been? God, I want to say that was probably like 2015 or so, yeah, before the last two bull runs. What was so bad about the interview that they cut it short?
00:03:22
Speaker
I just didn't get Bitcoin. I understood how it worked, but I didn't understand how important it was. And to me, it was just like, okay, well, there's this money that you can exchange on the internet, cool. It's kind of cool, but it's not revolutionary. So I did not understand how important it was until, I would say it was 2017, 2016 or 2017, I was in
Transition to Web3 and Terra's Appeal
00:03:49
Speaker
Serbia, my last company had a big office in Serbia. And Serbia was kind of like a stopping point for a lot of Syrian refugees. And it was really sad because there were thousands, tens of thousands of Syrian refugees who were having to flee the civil war. And they would be stuck over living in camps in Serbia on their way somewhere to the EU to try to find a new home.
00:04:11
Speaker
And it was around that same time I started learning about Bitcoin because the price was going up. So I had to look into it and figure out what I wasn't understanding. And it really resonated with me in the context of the Syrians leaving their homes that
00:04:25
Speaker
They left all of their assets. They had professional careers. They were doing something back home. They had businesses. They were doctors. They were attorneys. They were business people. They left everything and had to go to Europe with nothing, basically what they could carry. And so the idea of a currency that could hold its value, at least theoretically hold its value, and something that you could transport with
00:04:51
Speaker
just a seed phrase really resonated like in the context of seeing all those refugees there is something that would be really useful for them. So that's when it really clicked. And I wanted to get involved, but I was running this company. I was committed to do that. And so I just kind of continued to dabble in crypto over the next four or five years. And then when I sold my company, that was my opportunity to try to make the career change. And so that's when I really leaned into it was post selling after I got finished selling my company.
00:05:22
Speaker
So you were a Luna investor before you worked for TFL. What specifically attracted you to Luna and Tara? Yeah, so what I was originally attracted to was kind of like the real world use cases, the UX UI of it.
00:05:45
Speaker
and the promise of decentralized money. Bitcoin is the ultimate decentralized money, but it's not a great store of value yet. Obviously, the price goes up, hundreds of percent, up and down hundreds of percent over the course of a year. The stable coin has obviously found product market fit, but one of them at the time was Tether. There were serious concerns about whether Tether even had backing for all of its dollars.
00:06:13
Speaker
And then the other was USDC. And as we've seen since, and since Terra collapsed, they have to comply with US regulations. And it makes sense that they do, they're based in the US. So you don't really blame them for that, but they can freeze your funds at any moment if they're asked to. So the idea of a stable coin that could be fully algorithmically backed, sound promising to me. And then the applications of it that were being built anchor, mirror,
00:06:41
Speaker
Python being built on top of the anchor protocol as a way of redirecting your yield towards an investment. We're all just very compelling. And so I definitely had concerns and I kept those concerns about the long-term viability of UST. Could it handle a large attack? But the promise of it I thought was worth the risk.
00:07:07
Speaker
So you had concerns. Can you tell me a bit more? I mean, I think we all kind of knew the risks, but perhaps we were so intoxicated by number go up and this beautiful vision that had been created for us, right? Yeah, it was.
Challenges with UST and Community Engagement
00:07:24
Speaker
Yeah, agreed like it was. I mean, we knew. I think it was always clear what the failure could look like if it was to fail. I think we all knew what that would look like, and that was the death spiral.
00:07:36
Speaker
When I first got into the community and started playing around and I even joined Cotto as an advisor, there were only a couple of protocols built. There was Anchor and there's Mirror. The market cap of USD wasn't that big at that point, so it still seemed fairly manageable. I think
00:07:58
Speaker
Over time, we saw the ecosystem start to grow, but we just had way too much, especially towards the end, still way too much dependence on anchor as the primary use case of UST. And so I think that was the concern. I think a lot of people in the community had the concern, right? Were we building enough useful products for UST so that it wasn't so concentrated in one or two applications?
00:08:25
Speaker
Ultimately, we all know what happened there. I think over time though, like you said, as the number went up, as the market cap grew, as you saw UST being integrated into all of these other ecosystems, and we have to remind ourselves how well it was beginning to be integrated into other ecosystems. It was all over Ethereum. It was bridged into Solana.
00:08:48
Speaker
We were doing announcements with Avalanche. We had a booth at the Avalanche conference. It was going to be in all of those. It was moving over into that ecosystem as well. You got into Phantom. I was doing some DJ and LP. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that was fun. Yeah, so it was basically everywhere. And we were kind of achieving the vision that we would get it out into all of these other economies.
00:09:10
Speaker
I especially felt a lot better after LFG launched, and I thought that we had a pretty good chance to eventually back it with enough other collateral, different collateral like Bitcoin, to avoid the death spiral, but it didn't happen.
00:09:30
Speaker
So walk me through how you went from being outspoken community member, which I feel like most lunatics, once they got involved in the community, were just very much involved. But you took it to the next level. I believe you told me a story where you just started showing up at conferences and then the Terabytes guys happened to be at a bar and they had posted where they were and you wanted to meet them. Can you? Yeah, so. Sorry, because this is pretty funny.
00:09:57
Speaker
Yeah, so this was back, I guess it's two years ago now, or it might just be like a year, about a year and a half ago. The terabytes guys were throwing a big party called TFI alpha.
00:10:10
Speaker
And it was going to be all of the protocols that we're building on Terra, we're going to be there. My friends at Cotto told me about it and said they could get me in if I wanted to come out and I said, sure, I'll fly out. It was the same week as Masari Mainnet. And so I thought, you know what the heck, I'll take a week off work, I'll come out, go to Masari Mainnet, I'll go to this party. At a minimum, I'll catch up with the Cotto guys, I'm advising them anyway, so it'd be good to talk to them in person and then we'll have fun at this event. And
00:10:38
Speaker
Actually, the way I figured it out was I ended up getting there and we were in the middle of an acquisition at the company that I was still working for. So I needed to work all day and I couldn't go to Massari Mainnet. And a non-intern, if you were in the terror community back then, you would know a non-intern. He had posted that he wanted a ticket. I told him I'd give him a ticket. He could have my ticket to Massari.
00:11:02
Speaker
It was kind of funny because I had to transfer it to him and I put the name. I didn't know his name, so I transferred it to him and like first name a non last name intern. I said they wouldn't even let him in because it was a stupid because it wasn't a real name. But.
00:11:17
Speaker
But anyway, and then so I was chatting with him and just asking what was going on told him like the situation I'm here. I want to try to meet people get a little more involved and he told me where everyone was hanging out. So it was it was Pete and Evan from a lot of different people ended up being that that hotel bar when I first came in it was Pete Evan from terabytes and Midas who was a very outspoken community member. A few more people showed up. Chauncey was there GJ from flip side. Yeah, and so I just showed up at this bar and
00:11:47
Speaker
I kind of sat down next to them and said, hey, I know who you are. You don't know who I am, but I'm just going to hang out here. And so I for the first half of the night I followed them around. I don't really think they wanted me there. But I just kept following and following and then it turned out we went to this really cool jam session with Ryan Ola and Mike from Apollo and. Oh, I owe if you know him on Twitter was there and
00:12:16
Speaker
Yeah, we had the founder of secret was there a bunch of different people. Anyway, a lot of different people kind of in that world in that orbit. We were all in this room together. Everyone was playing instruments and singing and having a good time and ended up being kind of like a like a super like a just like a knife that a lot of people in the terror community ended up being involved in that release were in New York that week for for T five alpha and
00:12:41
Speaker
It worked out well. And so I knew people I thought a lot more comfortable going to the T five alpha event. I met dough that I met dough. I met terabytes intern that night as well. And then and I met Poppy that night as well. And then that's how we started when we got back. I we started our own show on the terabyte channel called Terra crumbs trying to be just like a
00:13:08
Speaker
smooth brain version of terabytes just kind of screwing around and having fun. And yeah, and then so, you know, by getting that having that show and putting it on the terabytes channel, we were getting 1000s of views just right out of the gate. So got some recognition there. And then I just kept harassing go and then there was an article the way I got into Tara was there there was an article about posted on Thanksgiving morning. I remember I was laying in bed. I pulled up Twitter and saw it.
00:13:35
Speaker
And it was someone either from a Terra protocol or someone from inside TFL complaining about how hard it was to work. The pay was bad, how hard it was to work at TFL. And I wrote Doan Note and I told him, I wrote him a DM. And I had met him a couple of times at this point, but I don't think he knew who I was. But I sent him a DM. I just kind of threw my LinkedIn on there and said, hey, building startups is hard and no winings allowed.
00:14:05
Speaker
shoot me a note if you want any help." And he got back to me immediately. That was Thanksgiving. We sat on a call for like two hours and within a few weeks, by the end of December, I was ready to go. So to be clear, you went to this event in New York and you met a bunch of really fun lunatics, had a great time, started building relationships and getting more involved in the community. You sent Do a DM on
00:14:29
Speaker
Thanksgiving said, hey, I think you could use some help. I can help you and do it better. And then he immediately said, hey, are you free for a call on Thanksgiving? Yeah, that's right. You had a two hour call and then you were hired at TFO. Well, I mean, yeah, within the next 30 days I was then I did, you know, I went around and met everyone and did all of the calls with the rest of the team. And but yeah, that's how it worked out. It was
00:14:59
Speaker
It was shocking. It was amazing because I'd been a fan of the whole ecosystem. I wanted to understand how to get involved. I didn't imagine that I would get in at the mothership. I thought I might find a project to work on or something like that. But yeah, it happened. It happened very quickly and it was exciting and just goes to show, especially in this space, you're not going to get a job by posting your resume on the website. You have to show up. You just have to show up. You have to do something. You have to create content like you're doing now.
00:15:30
Speaker
That's exactly right. You didn't get the Coinbase interview by sending in your resume and having the meeting with the guys. I think I told you before I actually sent in a resume to LFG back in February and I never heard back. So I thought if I'm going to be more involved in the space, I just have to start doing it and putting myself out there, right? Absolutely. It's like the most welcoming space to do that too. You don't show up to
00:15:59
Speaker
I don't know what's a good example in the real world, right? Like you don't show up to an SAP conference uninvited and expect to just like kind of network your way into the parties and into a job or something like that. But you can still do that in Web3. It's a small enough world where if you can meet a few people and get invited to the right places, you can you can definitely find something. I think the time to do it is right now, right? Because a lot of people are walking away because the numbers down.
00:16:27
Speaker
They've lost faith. And so there's going to be a small amount of people that are sticking around to continue to build. And so now is even a better opportunity to go do it than when I did it last year. I think that's such a cool story. So kind of on that note, advice that you would give to people who are looking to get a job in this space just to put yourself out there. Yeah, just show up. Just show up. Don't be don't be nervous. I'm hyper introverted introverted, so
00:16:55
Speaker
It wasn't natural for me to go show up to that place, but I figured the worst thing that would happen is I'd look like a fool, I'd go back to my hotel, and then I would just find a new ecosystem to get involved in. So yeah, you just got to show up. If there's something happening in your town, if there's not something happening in your town, create something. Most universities now have blockchain clubs, they have crypto clubs, you can try to figure out how to get involved with them.
00:17:20
Speaker
From what I've seen, they're working with companies, local companies that are working on crypto projects. So yeah, there's a lot of different ways to get involved and you just have to find one. You can do it online, you can do it in person. It doesn't matter, just provide something of value, show that you're interested, show that you know the space and there's going to ultimately be a role for you. I think that's such great advice. Thank you. Of course. So when you first started at TFL in an official capacity this time last year,
00:17:48
Speaker
I mean, it was euphoria for Tara. I remember the lead up to a hundred dollar Luna at Christmas. It was our Christmas miracle. And then going into the spring, you know, we had some craziness that was making those 10 million dollar buds. I was wondering if you could just share with us, you know, some fun stories, what it was like working on the inside. Because, you know, we were on the outside, you know, just paying attention on Twitter and having some laughs and seeing the fun tweets.
00:18:13
Speaker
what was it like actually working at TFL, working with things were going really well? Yeah, I would say it probably isn't as exciting as you would think. It was stressful more than anything, right? Because that's a big number. That's a big market cap. You're in the top 10. TFL was a fairly well-run organization, just given the scale and
00:18:41
Speaker
the size of the ecosystem. But when I joined, it was right at the tail end of hiring four or five other people to help try to professionalize the operations a little more. So it was myself, a new head of ecosystem, our head of legal, like everyone had only been there for, I was the newest and the last that was hired, but everyone else had only been there for like three or four months.
00:19:06
Speaker
It was really like trying to get the organization to catch up with the community and the price and the market cap. And if you went and looked at the time, if you compared us to the other tokens that we were most normally compared to like Solana or Avalanche, you always heard the Soluna Avax or I don't know how you say it, but those three kind of bucketed together as like the next wave of blockchains behind Bitcoin and Ethereum.
00:19:34
Speaker
You go look and they have 200 employees or 300 employees. At TFL, we had 60. We were just significantly smaller. We didn't have all of the entire ecosystem team built out. We didn't have business development built out. On the inside, it wasn't just pure euphoria. You might think it was really firefighting, trying to put structures in place that would scale the organization with hiring and make sure we hired people that would fit
00:20:04
Speaker
fit the profile and things like that. So it was really just kind of like a lot of work. Okay, so I want to talk about the crash. I want to talk about May and the Deepak. It had first happened the year before. So when it happened again, we weren't really sure what was going to happen. Was this going to be a real spiral? No one knew.
00:20:23
Speaker
I'll leave all of the mechanics. You guys have addressed it
Response to Terra's Crash
00:20:27
Speaker
in the audit report. You did a great interview with Evan. What I'm really more interested in is what was it like from a human personal perspective, from you guys being on the inside, what was that experience like for you? I think you guys were all in Korea. You happened to all be together, right? And this was kind of a fluke thing that you were together. So I was just wondering if you could tell us what that experience was like for you on the inside.
00:20:54
Speaker
Yes, we had planned an executive team offsite and we were in Singapore. That's where our offices were located when it happened. And so when it started to de-peg, some of us were already there. Some more people were on the way out. They were still on their planes and we were trying to coordinate the best that we could. Yeah, I won't go into all of the details of
00:21:19
Speaker
what was going on in terms of the D peg. But yeah, what it was like on the ground was somber, I think. We wanted to leave Do alone because he was the one interfacing with LFG and actually doing the trading to try to defend the peg.
00:21:40
Speaker
And so we didn't have much more information than anyone else had at that point, right? We were all kind of huddled together in a hotel lobby, just trying to process what was happening and wondering whether we were going to be able to get the peg back on track.
00:21:56
Speaker
Once it was once the peg was gone and it was it was known as like a lost cause and I think dough kind of fought until the very last minute until it was just obvious that we weren't going to be able to get the peg back. You know the fortunate thing was that we were all there so we could all respond together. We could all lean on each other. Number one, because it was it was a massive hit, so it was good to have like all of your peers there in one place. And then it was also good to have everyone in one place so that we could come up with a plan on what we were going to do so.
00:22:27
Speaker
We had already, I mean, we had all the stuff we needed to sit down and work together. We had a conference room at a hotel, we had everyone in town, and we just kind of immediately got back to work. There wasn't a ton of time to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves or think about it too much. It was, how are we going to react and how are we going to react quickly?
00:22:52
Speaker
And there were some people who just couldn't deal with the stress, right? And so while we were trying to come up with a plan for how we were going to react, we were trying to figure out who was going to stay and who was going to go. We had a number of people decide that they wanted to leave. They didn't want to stick around to try to work through all of that because it was going to be grueling. So we came up with a plan to launch Terra 2. And then it was just about enabling that and trying to hold the community together. We had this incredible community. We had this incredible ecosystem.
00:23:23
Speaker
And how could we help them? How could we keep that ecosystem? How could we keep that community without the stablecoin? And there are even times where you're trying to think, okay, well, what's the new vision of Luna now without the stablecoin? And it was just too soon to try to figure any of that out. So it was really about just kind of trying to figure out what the next step was going to be.
00:23:47
Speaker
So you touched on something I wanted to talk about. A lot of people did end up leaving TFL, which kind of elevated your position. You were one of the last men standing, so to speak. Is that right? Just unlike the executive team. Yeah. We still have 40, 45 people total. So we've had quite a few people who did stay and have stuck around to continue to build.
00:24:15
Speaker
And then just something that you shared with me that is not something that we would think about when we're all going through the painful losses, personally, is here you are, you're in the war room, and you're watching this all unfold. And you guys are investors. You have your money. But there's nothing that you can do. Even if you have unstaked Loona, you can't sell it. Your hands are tied because you're in the war room.
00:24:44
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you don't want to be about it, right? Yeah, there's really nothing you can do, right? Because it's not. That's exactly right. Like if you're working at TFL, you can't. To be seen as like selling Luna during the crash would be. Would be bad, I think from an optics perspective and from a legal perspective so.
00:25:07
Speaker
I think most people were staked or in anchor or in Astroport pools or osmosis pools anyway, so it wasn't even an option. Things were locked up. Yeah, but yeah, I mean like I think. We were we were experiencing all the same things that the community was experiencing at the same time. As well, right? Because I thought of right like you guys were getting hit just as hard harder than we were and just watching it all unfold and there was nothing
00:25:36
Speaker
you could do in trying so hard. And I don't know, I just wanted to give you a moment to reflect on that because. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it was it was tough, I would say. The one advantage we had that the community didn't have is there was a lot of there are a lot of conspiracies going out. And so on the one advantage on being on the inside was like I'm in the room with dough. So if there was someone out there saying like,
00:26:05
Speaker
Oh, this happened. LFG didn't actually defend the peg. They ran off with the money. I could get the answers immediately, right? And so I had a lot more clarity that everything that was happening was above board and have always been one step ahead of understanding that than the community has been because it takes a while to understand it myself, process it, and get it out through comms channels. So
00:26:27
Speaker
I think the part that was much harder for the community. So we're sitting in the room and we're getting wrecked as well, but we at least have access to like what was happening. And I think the community, you know, when the number was going down, I think they were all struggling because they were wondering like if some of these accusations were true or not. And it's taken us a while to like clear all of those. We finally, I think with the LFG report done that, but
00:26:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think just depending on where you sat, it was a different experience, but I think it was kind of equally challenging in both places. What was it like seeing dough during those moments? I know that you ended up getting stuck there for an extra few weeks and there was rest to your safety. Can you speak a little bit to just like your personal experience? Yeah, my personal experience was don't post on Twitter because yeah, that was not productive.
00:27:21
Speaker
And I was there for, I think, probably 10 days. I stayed a few days longer, but then I eventually had to get back because things were just too crazy and I wanted to be home with my family. Yeah, I mean, being with Do, I mean, the level of resiliency he had just to continue to think clearly and unemotionally and strategically while not sleeping for a week.
00:27:48
Speaker
It was just insane to watch, and I think it motivated a lot of us to just toughen up and get through this thing. Don't sit around and feel sorry for yourself. Yeah, I mean, he never stopped working, I don't think, probably for a month until that thing relaunched. And he was being pulled in so many different directions, and he took a pretty big loss on it as well.
00:28:19
Speaker
For me, that first week in Singapore wasn't as bad as the second week when I got home and it all because I was so busy working and we were so busy just trying to salvage things and salvage the community and get communications out to everyone. It was really that second week when I got home and it all just like that the magnitude of everything that had happened that hit me that it was really that you started to kind of really process all of the consequences of everything that had happened.
00:28:49
Speaker
And were you dealing with safety threats when you got home? No, I think most of the, you know, they have firms they can help with that track like trace trace threats online. So we had those employed and I think most of the threats that were being made online were just, you know, angry people upset people online. I don't think any of them really translated in the physical threats.
00:29:13
Speaker
I'm glad to hear. So you guys have been hard at work all summer. You had to pivot like a lot of projects did and you've been working on some exciting new technology.
Optimism for Terra's Future and Leadership Reflections
00:29:24
Speaker
What are you most excited about? What can we expect with the future of Terra? We don't have stable coin, but there's some fun stuff coming. So maybe you can get some alpha drops, but what can us lunatics be excited about?
00:29:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's a lot of fun stuff coming in, Tara. Number one, I feel like the community is coming back alive. I get that sense too. Yeah, so we don't have the stable coin, but we have our community, we have our ecosystem. There are a lot of projects that are looking to launch on Tara in the next few months and some that already have.
00:29:59
Speaker
I think this time around, we're going to focus on solving practical problems. So on the Terra Layer 1 specifically, we've already launched two projects that are available to be used right now. One of them is Warp. The way we think about it is kind of like an AWS for crypto. So it's helping you build better and more productive protocols on the Terra blockchain.
00:30:25
Speaker
And then the other one is enterprise. And then that's a way for, you know, DOWs such as Jade DOW to manage their communities, manage their communities on the terror blockchain. But ultimately what we want to do with that is, you know, it's one thing for like a, you know, like to have like a token gated, you know, I don't want to say small community because I'm sure Jade DOW is going to be massive, but we want to make it a place where protocols can manage their entire operations as well. So, um,
00:30:55
Speaker
We want to make the purpose of Warp and Enterprise together to make Terra the easiest place to launch a protocol, run your protocol, and be effective with your protocol. Feather and Alliance are tools for actually generating your own blockchain. We believe that there are going to be a number of blockchains that serve different purposes. Feather and Alliance are tools to help you do that. They solve two different purposes. For Feather,
00:31:23
Speaker
If you launch on Feather, you can launch with all of the tools that Terra currently has available to it. We think we have the best developer tooling, the best wallet, the best explorer, all on the Terra ecosystem because Terra was the largest Cosmos ecosystem chain, obviously, by an order of magnitude.
00:31:44
Speaker
And so we have this whole feather that's going to allow anyone to spin up their own blockchain. And in doing so, they'll be able to leverage, they'll automatically have access. A station wallet, station will be cross-chain. I just got to play with the test version of that yesterday.
00:31:58
Speaker
station wallet, all of the tools that we had as a Terra blockchain will be available to those that launch on Feather. So that's really cool. We can help more teams launch their own app chains in the Cosmos ecosystem. And then Alliance is a way of helping you bootstrap validators. So one of the hardest parts is ensuring that you have security from day one, especially if your token doesn't have a lot of value. So what Alliance does is it allows you to use other protocols taking tokens as part of your
00:32:28
Speaker
as a percentage of your security budget. So you don't have to secure your chain only with your own assets. You can use assets from other ecosystems. And not only does that help you get more security out of the gate, but it also helps you create alliances and relationships with those other ecosystems. And so you maybe when launching your chain, you can pull people over from those communities, you can pull projects over from those ecosystems and
00:32:55
Speaker
just have more, generally just have more like integrated economic alliances. What a great name. I love that. Yeah, does good at this. Does good at naming. So for people that don't know, we were on a Twitter spaces a week or so ago talking about
00:33:11
Speaker
A lot of these things, one of them was enterprise. And you made a joke that enterprise was going to let people make their own DAO in five minutes. And it was as easy as creating your own Instagram. So while we were on Twitter spaces, I actually made my own DAO. I created JDAO while we were on Twitter spaces. And I think what is so fantastic about what Luna is doing and what they pivoted to doing is, you know, blockchains, crypto, it's brain damage for people that aren't devs who don't
00:33:41
Speaker
live and breathe this, it's still hard for me to figure out wallets and send transactions. So for me to be able to create a DAO in five minutes, anything that's going to help with the user experience, I think will help increase adoption and I really like that idea. So what are you going to do with the DAO? That's the big question.
00:34:02
Speaker
Well, I need an NFT for my DAO and now I'm being called to action to create an NFT. So I have some ideas actually about what I might do, but if I'm going to do it, I want to do it right. Excellent. Well, I was on the spaces with you when it all started, so I hope I get one of the NFTs.
00:34:18
Speaker
That's the fantastic thing about this space is there's so many smart people and it just starts with one idea and it can just turn into something beautiful. Absolutely. My question for you is, these projects are great. The technology is great. How will it bring value to Luna? Well, I think the first two projects we spoke about, Feather and Enterprise, will bring value because they
00:34:44
Speaker
will make launching your project. They'll make Terra a more attractive place to build your project. It'll be easier to manage your protocol. It'll be easier to manage the operations around your protocol. And it'll be easier to deploy your protocol if you use Warp to handle some of the automation tasks. And so I think that's one thing. You really want to cater to the devs and make sure that they feel like they're going to be successful if they launch on your protocol. And these are like tools that are going to help them do that. I think the
00:35:14
Speaker
I think for the other two, I think there's a possibility to incorporate Luna into Feather and Alliance in a way that drives value back to that token as well. And I think some of that is still being considered. I don't know exactly what that would look like.
00:35:34
Speaker
But ultimately, I think the more that more chains use Station and use these tools that we had on Terra, the better off it is. It'll be value-accretive to the Terra ecosystem and to Luna in general, so stay tuned. But all four of those projects will have very direct ways of driving value for the Terra ecosystem.
00:35:59
Speaker
Switching gears a little bit, what would you say has been your biggest accomplishment in the crypto space or proudest moment?
Proudest Moments and Personal Reflections
00:36:08
Speaker
That's a good question. I think my proudest moment in the space so far would be working with a team after the DPG to pull Terraform Labs back together and get us refocused and get us back on task.
00:36:25
Speaker
Um, it almost feels inevitable that we should, we're at the point that we are now where we have this new chain relaunched and protocols are starting to, to build. And we even have four, four products of our own that are going to come to market within the next couple of months. But, um, I think the probabilities are probably stacked against us. Um, if you asked me on June one and so, you know, I think, I think being part of the team that, that stayed.
00:36:54
Speaker
Um, that rebuilt is what I'm most proud of. And I think like the good times are still ahead. I think that the revival of the ecosystem is still ahead of us. And, you know, the work we put in kind of the pain we went through, um, over the summer after the D peg, I think we'll be rewarded. And so yeah, I'm, I'm proud of everything that we've done to get this thing back on track. If you could have dinner with anyone in web three, who would it be? And what?
00:37:23
Speaker
I was thinking about like, it's got to be Satoshi, right? Is he still alive? Satoshi. Satoshi, definitely Satoshi. What crypto slang do you find yourself accidentally saying IRL? I use NGMI in real life. NGMI, no one gets it either. It's sad. Can you give me an example of the last time you might have said it?
00:37:47
Speaker
Oh, all the time, all the time. Like, I used it at my kid's soccer practice the other day when my son wasn't running. And there was like all of our, us dads like sit in our little lawn chairs and talk shit about our kids who were actually being active out there and trying to play soccer. And my kid was just standing there like not paying attention when one of his teammates passed them the ball. So I said, and GMI, and no one knew what it meant.
00:38:14
Speaker
No wonder what it meant. And then I explained it to them and explaining to them was even worse because they thought I'm like having a midlife crisis. But yeah, I'm crying. That's so funny. Ridiculous picture that that's kind of all of us. Tell me the story behind your PFP. OK, so my PFP is a me bit. Are you familiar with me bits? Not at all. OK, so they are from Larva Labs.
00:38:43
Speaker
And Larva Labs were the ones who created CryptoPunks, which was the first big PFP and one of the more valuable PFPs. And I couldn't afford a CryptoPunk, so I got a me bit. But it kind of looks like me and I have these glasses that someone gave me that actually fit the me bit almost perfectly. Oh my God. I feel like it's part of my
00:39:09
Speaker
It's definitely part of my personality. Right now, I kind of want to sell it because I could still get decent money for it, but I just can't bring myself to do it. So it's my avatar for life. I think especially now that it's been Joe applied, you definitely know the job. I like the Joe version. I might keep that so. Yeah, yeah, no, that's that's the story. I wanted a crypto punk. I couldn't get a crypto punk. They made me bits as well. The me bits are kind of cool because they're.
00:39:37
Speaker
they're 3D and when you buy, when you have the NFT, you can download like all of the different like, not just they have like different pictures of them, but you can actually download the 3D art or something so you can import it into metaverses and move around with it. So yeah, it's cool. I like it. I think people think it's weird because I haven't, it was my PFP since before I worked at Terra and I never switched over to any of the
00:40:07
Speaker
Terra NFT, PFPs, but, you know, I had to stick with it. Oh, they want you to have a Terra NFT. No, I mean, just like the Terra community. I'm like the only people who are like really deep in the Terra community. I'm the only one with an Ethereum PFP, I would say. That's true. I didn't even think about that. Yeah. But you know what? It suits you. Yeah. Thank you. What do you enjoy doing in your free time? In my free time. So I have two kids.
00:40:35
Speaker
that are, I can't remember how old they are now, six and four. So I don't have a ton of free time. And GMI. What? And GMI. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, mostly like when I'm not working, I'm hanging out with the kids, driving them around the different sporting events that they're doing or generally just kind of hanging out with them. But when I do think away, I like to read
00:40:58
Speaker
I like to read every night before I go to sleep and I like to mountain bike. And so I try to do that three or four times a week. I'm fortunate because my house backs up to some very good mountain bike trails. And then in the winter, we go up to Tahoe a lot and do a lot of skiing and snowboarding. So that's what my free time looks like when I'm not DJ'ing in crypto. What are you reading right now?
00:41:27
Speaker
Oh, it's too boring. It's too lame. I don't think I can say it. It's a book. Do you want me to go get it? Do you want to go get the book? Oh my God, I'm really curious now. Okay, it's a book called A Distant Mirror. And it's about the disastrous, the calamitous 14th century, medieval history.
00:41:49
Speaker
See, I think it's so interesting to learn this about people. What made you pick up that book? I mean, I love history. So all these books, I've got a whole bookshelf here. It's almost all history or historical fiction. That's how I zone out. What I'll do is I'll pick a point in history and just go super deep in it. So it might be like the Romans,
00:42:11
Speaker
and I'll read everything I can about them for like two years. And they're, it might be the Ottomans or whatever it is. And right now I'm stuck. I actually didn't mean to get stuck in this time period, but I'm stuck there now trying to make sure I understand it. And this is one of the best books. So it's where I am right now. That is not boring at all. I think that is something so cool about you. I love that. I would have never known that about you. How cool.
00:42:39
Speaker
That's my thing. That's what I like. Yeah. Okay. So I have a couple of quicker questions that I'm going to ask you. Okay. This is like quick fire. I've got to just answer. Okay. Yeah. Well, I call it quick take. You make life-changing money on a main coin. What's the first thing you buy? What's life-changing money? I guess that's different for every person. However you interpret the question. It's the most irresponsible thing I could buy. A boat.
00:43:08
Speaker
I would say a plane, but I don't think life changing is like that much money. So a boat for sure. What kind of boat? It's like something I can go ski on and like for Lake Tahoe. OK, so we're not talking a super yacht. No, not a super yacht. I don't want to be something fun, just something fun for the family. I don't have. Yeah, for sure. All right, this is a top one. Who is your web three crush?
00:43:34
Speaker
I actually have one. Dr. Lehman Baird, founder of Hashgraph. Smart and handsome. Oh, I will have to look up this person. It's a joke. It's the kind of a joke. Is it? Yeah. All right. Well, finding love in crypto. I like that. Yeah. What is your favorite crypto conference? Oh, this is a tough one. They're all pretty cringe right now. I'll say the best. So here's what I would say.
00:44:01
Speaker
Whichever one has Delphi Digital throwing a party at it. I've been to a number of different conferences. The best after-conference parties I've ever been to are always thrown by Delphi, the most fun I've ever had. I went to one, this was part of my story of getting into crypto, but I went to one on a whim in Portugal that was happening at the same time that they did alongside Solana Breakpoint. And it was just like the best large party I've ever been to.
00:44:30
Speaker
every little detail immaculately thought out. So whichever conferences Delphi is throwing a party at, that's the one I would go to. Yeah, Delphi, if you're watching this, can this girl get an invite? Yeah, for sure. Okay. Twitter spaces or YouTube live streams? Twitter spaces.
00:44:53
Speaker
Solid answer. Are you pro merge? Definitely pro merge. We got to bring people back together. There's no reason for us to be a part. Is Coach Bruce a dope one alt? He is not. Coach Bruce is actually Robin from the Defiant. I don't know if people know that. It's breaking news here. Oh my God. Alpha drop. Yep. There's your alpha for the day.
00:45:16
Speaker
Can you get me an interview with Doe? Like right now, you want me to get him off the couch or just at any time in the future? No, he's busy. He's cooking dinner tonight. No, I will do my best. I will do my best. Keep at it. I'm sure you'll get one. Well, please tell Doe we would love to have him on behind the PFP. I will let him know. All right. Another tough one for you.
00:45:44
Speaker
lunch with fat man or dinner with SPF? Ah, it's the same person. So, um, I guess I'd rather have lunch than dinner. If I have to have dinner with fat man slash SPF. All right. Although do you know, you know, the food didn't, I don't know if you've seen the, uh, the, uh, pictures of the Bahamian jail where they're keeping SPF. I don't know if I'd want to eat. I don't know if I'd want to eat there. Well, hopefully there's some vegan options.
00:46:14
Speaker
Complete the sentence. Lunatics are. Awakening. Oh, I love that. Do you agree? I love that answer. You know, I really, really do. I feel like, you know, we were hibernating, licking our wounds, but I'm starting to feel this energy come
00:46:39
Speaker
alive again. And I'm so glad that you're being more active and involved. And, you know, one of the things I was going to ask you is, I'm sure this is coming, you know, TFL will probably make more of, you know, a way of being more involved in the community and doing more events again. And if they aren't, how can we make that happen? Because I think what made Luna so successful was really the community was the backbone.
Future Plans and Community Engagement
00:47:01
Speaker
And if it can just get people excited again, then I'm excited for the future.
00:47:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I mean, look, everyone at TFL has been heads down just trying to ensure we survived and we continue to build. And I think that's what the rest of this year was all about. The end of 2022 was, I think it was survival and rebirth, but I think next year we'll get back on the road. We'll start getting more involved again and you'll see a lot more of us and we'll help cultivate that community. And I think,
00:47:33
Speaker
I think the community needed some time as well, right? Like you said, lick your wounds, get away from it a little bit. So yeah, I see the community starting to awaken. I see them starting to believe again. And now it's just up to us, not only TFL, but to all of us who were and continue to be lunatics to, you know, let's go figure out what to build. Let's make it productive. Let's restart this thing. So yeah, I'm looking forward to it in 2023, getting back out there.
00:48:03
Speaker
So just a couple of last words, what excites you the most about the future of crypto and Web3? I've spent a lot of time thinking about the future of crypto and Web3 over the last few months, especially with the gut punch that was the Deepak. And I think there are a lot of things that we tried and a lot of them failed. And what I'm trying to focus on now personally is what are the things that are going to actually drive
00:48:34
Speaker
How are the ways that the blockchain and crypto can be productive for people? And what applications are people going to use every day if they're not getting paid tokens to use them? And the reality is the vast majority of the applications we created in the last couple of years were being subsidized by token emissions, right? Yeah, of course, I'll LP in this as long as you give me a ton of your token and I'm going to make money on it.
00:49:04
Speaker
But I think what I'm excited to see is out of all of that, that we're going to be some really good ideas that turn out to be sustainable and long lasting and change the world. And every cycle comes with a few of those. And I'm really looking forward to seeing what they are. And I hope that some of them are built in the terror ecosystem. I hope so too. And Jade Dow knows that there are real world use cases for them. So thank you.
00:49:34
Speaker
Excellent, excellent. What's one thing that you hope people know about you or take away from this interview? Yeah, I mean, you know, speaking, especially the lunatics out there, I know it's been a rough year. We all had high hopes for what USD was going to do. And we were all bought into it. And when when it didn't work out, I think it all affected us in profound ways and in different ways. But just to let everyone know, we're still here, TFLs,
00:50:01
Speaker
still operating, we're doing a lot of work, we're working really hard. And we hope to get some stuff that you're really proud of back out and get this community building again.
00:50:10
Speaker
Well, Chris, thank you so much for taking the time to come speak with me today. I have to tell you that this interview is a bit surreal for me, because if you had told me this time last year that I would be interviewing the president of TFL, I would say, no way. That's not possible. But it's just it's so interesting what can happen in a year and how you went and got a job in the crypto space by just putting yourself out there. I think
00:50:39
Speaker
There's a lot of themes of, you know, taking action and whatever excites you, you can just kind of put that out there. And the world is your oyster. As you said, we've had a tough year, but there is a silver lining and there is good that come from it. And I am excited to see what comes from it. And you guys haven't gone anywhere. You're still there. You're still building. And it's really great to see the more personal side and hear the human elements of what's going on. You're not just
00:51:09
Speaker
you know, people on Twitter, you're not just some organization far away. You're real humans with real emotions and real feelings. And you're going through these experiences just like us. And I know it's difficult to share. So I want to express my gratitude and thank you so much for sharing that with me. Cause I know that it's very beneficial for me to hear. And I know others in the community will appreciate hearing that as well. So thank you. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. All right. Well, happy holidays and we will be speaking with you soon. Looking forward to more Twitter spaces.
00:51:40
Speaker
Alright, thanks. Thank you.