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How to land your dream job at a $1B+ crypto fund with Leo Leclercq
135 Plays2 years ago
Leo is the definition of smart and grit : he went from having no experience in the field to landing a job in one of the most recognizable funds in this space, working for one of its most respected leaders : Stake Capital in less time than some people spend in university.
Come check out how he achieved this, learn some things about DeFi and basically how to win in this space.
Find Leo here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/leoleclercq/
The Polymath Experience is a podcast owned by its listeners, join us here to be rewarded : https://discord.gg/PwYt39W95k
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Transcript
Introduction and Warm Greeting
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, Leo.
00:00:00
Speaker
Nice to have you.
00:00:02
Speaker
Thanks for being here.
00:00:03
Speaker
Yeah, pleasure, pleasure, man.
00:00:06
Speaker
Yeah, we met a few minutes ago and started having a conversation.
00:00:10
Speaker
And as we were talking and as we started diving into more of what this podcast is going to be like, and then you started spitballing about what Banglas is doing as well.
00:00:20
Speaker
So, yeah, I thought, you know what, before we waste any more of this juicy conversation, we might as well start.
00:00:27
Speaker
When we met, I...
00:00:30
Speaker
I mean, instantly I took a liking to you.
00:00:32
Speaker
You're such an open person and kind person.
00:00:36
Speaker
And you just didn't even question that mask, that guy reaching out to you on LinkedIn.
00:00:42
Speaker
You instantly were like, oh, okay, this is cool.
00:00:45
Speaker
Let's talk.
00:00:46
Speaker
And I so appreciate it.
00:00:48
Speaker
And you have a really cool background.
00:00:51
Speaker
And I'd love to hear again a little bit more about it.
00:00:55
Speaker
And I think it's really interesting for everyone.
Leo's Journey to Web3
00:00:58
Speaker
Like three years ago, you were working in marketing and not even in Web3, I think, if I recall correctly.
00:01:04
Speaker
Yeah, correct.
00:01:06
Speaker
And now you're at freaking State Capital, which is probably one of the coolest institutional businesses in Web3, for me at least.
00:01:15
Speaker
So yeah, please, please, what do you have to say about all this?
00:01:26
Speaker
Okay, so let's start from the beginning.
00:01:28
Speaker
So yeah, many years ago I was studying digital marketing and I joined EDF, which is a big energy company in France.
00:01:39
Speaker
Then I joined also the MathMet, which is an insurance company.
00:01:43
Speaker
So that was digital marketing work.
00:01:46
Speaker
Then I got a bit bored about this space and trying to sell products I don't want to buy, for example.
00:01:54
Speaker
So COVID happens and it was a really good moment to dive into a new thing that I didn't know.
00:02:03
Speaker
So I started to look at Bitcoin many months before COVID.
00:02:08
Speaker
And then I just watched it again.
00:02:10
Speaker
And yeah, the price was like 3x less than that before.
00:02:14
Speaker
So I was like, okay, let's tape.
00:02:16
Speaker
Let's put some money.
00:02:16
Speaker
But I didn't actually know what was Bitcoin, you know.
00:02:20
Speaker
So I put some money and then I was like, okay, maybe I should maybe type a bit to understand what I just bought.
00:02:27
Speaker
And that's how I fell into the rabbit hole.
00:02:31
Speaker
So it was like, yeah, I had like many, many time to read a lot about this technology.
00:02:36
Speaker
And I just fell in love with this.
00:02:38
Speaker
So I started to look at some schools that were basically learning about blockchain technology and TNT.
00:02:47
Speaker
And I found Alira, which is maybe the most famous school in France, in the blockchain space, maybe the only one so far.
00:02:58
Speaker
And yes, I learned how to become a consultant and a project manager in the blockchain space.
00:03:05
Speaker
I got my certification and then I started working for this school, actually.
Transition to Blockchain Technology
00:03:10
Speaker
So I gave like some DeFi courses with Manu Redpills, which is a famous guy in the crypto Twitter, French crypto Twitter.
00:03:21
Speaker
And I was also like working for a first day capital back in the days.
00:03:24
Speaker
So, yeah, so I started my journey like this.
00:03:27
Speaker
And then I joined Unblocked, which is a development blockchain company in France.
00:03:33
Speaker
I became my associate.
00:03:34
Speaker
The famous project we did was the first NFC collection of Lacoste.
00:03:39
Speaker
So the genesis passed and then after one year, I started to be not bored, but I just wanted to learn from the best.
00:03:47
Speaker
So I was looking for another company and I really like DeFi.
00:03:51
Speaker
So I was looking for a DeFi company and I met the stake capital team in Paris during SEC and I just started to speak with them.
00:04:00
Speaker
And there was a position open in the stake capital investment.
00:04:05
Speaker
So I just joined them like in August and yeah, so now it's like five months I'm working for them and that's really interesting and I'm working with such chats and yeah, many, many, many big brands and I'm learning a lot.
00:04:21
Speaker
So I really love it.
00:04:22
Speaker
And yeah, that's my background basically.
00:04:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's so cool.
00:04:30
Speaker
There seems, in Web3, there seems to be this promise that there's no barrier to entry from outside in.
00:04:38
Speaker
Like you like a project, there seems to be this inherent quality to them that you can just step in and work for them.
00:04:49
Speaker
But from having been in this space for a little bit, I know that it's not true.
00:04:55
Speaker
And I know that the best projects and the best businesses are
00:04:59
Speaker
do let people in, but they do let the best people in.
00:05:02
Speaker
State capital is like top 0.1% of the entities that you could work for if you're interested in finance, if you're interested in VCs, if you're interested in Web3.
00:05:14
Speaker
How does someone, what do you think were the key points in your personal journey that made you end up here that someone who is in a position where you were in three or four years ago, could learn and be like, okay, these are the steps that I need to take in order to myself be there in a few months or in a few years?
The Importance of Learning and Networking in DeFi
00:05:33
Speaker
That's a good question.
00:05:34
Speaker
And I think there is like many, many answers.
00:05:38
Speaker
Depends on the guy and so on.
00:05:40
Speaker
But actually, I don't know if I'm part of the best, to be honest.
00:05:44
Speaker
The guy I'm working with, like, yeah, much more smarter than me.
00:05:49
Speaker
But maybe that's the imposter.
00:05:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:53
Speaker
I don't know how to say that.
00:05:54
Speaker
Impulse syndrome, yeah.
00:05:56
Speaker
Exactly, exactly.
00:05:57
Speaker
But yeah, what I did, I just fell in love with this technology.
00:06:01
Speaker
So I was just learning as much as possible.
00:06:05
Speaker
And when I finished Alira, I was like, okay, what can I just learn now that will help me to get a good position in the future?
00:06:14
Speaker
And I was just like, okay, let's try about the DeFi.
00:06:18
Speaker
I was hearing a lot about this and I was like, okay, maybe that it's worth it to have a look at this vertical.
00:06:26
Speaker
So I think that basically DeFi is the best vertical to learn about all the blockchain space.
00:06:31
Speaker
You know, there is like tokenomics, there is DAO, there is like how to solve liquidity problems, like liquidity fragmentation and so on.
00:06:39
Speaker
Yeah, you have to deep dive really, really, really hard to understand like some
00:06:43
Speaker
I don't know, like for example, Curve.
00:06:46
Speaker
It's not easy to understand at the beginning when your DeFi journey begins, but that's one of the most, yeah, the most famous project in the DeFi space and you have to understand it.
00:06:59
Speaker
So I was like, okay, let's learn.
00:07:01
Speaker
And what I didn't understand, like, I don't know, like for example, ZK Rollups, I was like, okay, so for the next two days, I would just read and read and read about this.
00:07:09
Speaker
and trying to write some content.
00:07:13
Speaker
And that's also maybe how I entered like a state capital because I was trying to write some contents on Medium.
00:07:21
Speaker
And the first article that I wrote was about Lens Protocol from Aave.
00:07:27
Speaker
And I think that it helps me to deep dive and to understand a bit more how it works and to speak with like some founders
00:07:37
Speaker
or some core dev of Lens helped me to have a network.
00:07:42
Speaker
And one of the best sentence I heard was your network is your network.
00:07:48
Speaker
And in the blockchain space, it's really accurate.
00:07:51
Speaker
I mean, if you have a good network,
00:07:55
Speaker
you will have some positions open in a few companies, maybe.
00:08:00
Speaker
So, yeah, the main thing is to be active in this ecosystem, to learn again and again.
00:08:09
Speaker
And I think this is how I enter this company.
00:08:13
Speaker
So a lot of work, a lot of reading.
00:08:16
Speaker
That's super interesting.
00:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, learning, jumping into a niche and learning a lot about it.
00:08:22
Speaker
And I do agree with you that DeFi is such a, it is a very interesting niche because it has all the core concepts that are important to Web3 because even though we try to build businesses on top of the economy, on top of the finances,
00:08:40
Speaker
those are still like the underlying network effect.
00:08:44
Speaker
Financial network effect is still super interesting.
00:08:46
Speaker
And there's probably no better place to learn.
00:08:51
Speaker
I went so far deep into the DeFi rabbit hole in 2020 as well.
00:08:58
Speaker
Yeah, remember my girlfriend couldn't believe it.
00:09:02
Speaker
And yeah, I was completely obsessed.
00:09:06
Speaker
the era of the 10k percent APY, you know, like all the new liquidity farms just pumping out and having to jump tokens from token.
00:09:18
Speaker
Did you go through that phase as well?
00:09:20
Speaker
Yeah, I was there during the G5 server.
00:09:23
Speaker
It was like super insane, but it was like, yeah, too much actually.
00:09:28
Speaker
So I actually like the bear market because you can learn easily and without too much noise and so on.
00:09:37
Speaker
So it's very good.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, I like it too.
00:09:39
Speaker
And just to wrap up before we jump onto another subject, the network is your net worth part.
00:09:44
Speaker
It is so incredibly important.
00:09:47
Speaker
It's
00:09:48
Speaker
easy you need to remember that the the people who matter in the space and the people who can help you out their attention is spread quite thin they have a lot on their plate and and they're they have a lot of people that that are talking to them and there are a lot of people who i'll call them a small guys because we all start as as as a small guy i'm still pretty
00:10:10
Speaker
pretty small guy actually too.
00:10:11
Speaker
And it is a real jungle where the law of the fittest applies, where you need to prove your worth.
00:10:17
Speaker
You need to, and that's what you did well.
00:10:20
Speaker
And you seem to have done it in a very humble manner where you were like, okay, first I need to learn.
00:10:25
Speaker
Then I'll start to put out some content.
00:10:28
Speaker
You were, there were probably an element of luck of the right people seeing that content that I also don't really believe in luck.
00:10:37
Speaker
I think everything happens for a reason.
00:10:39
Speaker
And
00:10:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's good for you, man.
00:10:43
Speaker
Thanks.
00:10:44
Speaker
Yeah, actually, I think I had some good luck to meet the State Capital team at the right moment when there was a position opened.
00:10:52
Speaker
And so there is a part of luck.
00:10:54
Speaker
But yeah, of course, the work I did before helped me for sure.
00:10:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:59
Speaker
Yeah, preparation.
00:11:00
Speaker
What is that saying again?
00:11:01
Speaker
It's when preparation meets opportunity.
00:11:04
Speaker
I think it's luck is when preparation meets opportunity, something like this.
Insights and Advice in DeFi
00:11:10
Speaker
What have you learned in the past five months?
00:11:12
Speaker
And especially with regards to investing, because your whole... And maybe you can dive a little bit deeper into what exactly is your job before you answer this.
00:11:20
Speaker
But what...
00:11:23
Speaker
Do you wish you could have told your three-year younger self when you started investing in crypto now that you're working with some really smart people who know how to vet and who know how to invest in projects?
00:11:36
Speaker
That's a good question actually.
00:11:37
Speaker
It's hard to reply to this.
00:11:40
Speaker
And maybe I learned a lot more about the DeFi space because that's one of the most complicated verticals so far, in my opinion.
00:11:51
Speaker
But yeah, now that I'm working for Stake Capital, so yeah, I know better how to
00:11:58
Speaker
to identify good projects and also scammers and so on, and GMI projects, for example, quite easily by reading the deck.
00:12:08
Speaker
But sometimes it's way too complicated for me, like when it's talking about like quant projects and so on with liquidity and derivatives and so on.
00:12:21
Speaker
It's still a bit complicated for me.
00:12:23
Speaker
So I'm still learning about this and also like how the Trotify could
00:12:29
Speaker
use those future tools to hedge their position, to use volatility to hedge their position and so on.
00:12:36
Speaker
So that's the thing I'm learning since maybe two months.
00:12:42
Speaker
And it's not the easiest part, to be honest, but it's really helpful to understand a bit more the GFI space.
00:12:48
Speaker
And also, I'm working now with a guy that joined us in State Capital.
00:12:54
Speaker
I was working with Blackbrook.
00:12:57
Speaker
He helps me a lot to
00:13:00
Speaker
to deep dive it, to understand about the team, the project and so on.
00:13:03
Speaker
So yeah, I learned maybe 3x time faster than before, for sure.
00:13:09
Speaker
Yeah, I can imagine.
00:13:10
Speaker
If you were talking to someone who either has just got into Web3 or is into it, has, I don't know, like $100 a month to invest,
00:13:21
Speaker
and would like to start with DeFi, what would you tell them?
00:13:24
Speaker
What would be the first few pieces of advice of where should you start?
00:13:29
Speaker
What should you pay attention to?
00:13:31
Speaker
How should you spread your investments?
00:13:34
Speaker
What are the things that come to mind?
00:13:36
Speaker
To learn DeFi, I think that I helped many, many friends of mine to understand DeFi.
00:13:42
Speaker
And the best way to do it was to use the Aave testnet
00:13:46
Speaker
to first like put some some assets in collateral and borrow some assets when you do it you it's incredible uh incredibly simply like i just in in few clicks i just borrowed like i don't know 20k and that's awesome i mean uh i don't have any permission to ask i don't have to wait and so on it's it's really uh it's really nice so that's the first part to learn and then maybe to look at the
00:14:11
Speaker
You know, the DEX is like how to LP with two assets and how to optimize your yields.
00:14:18
Speaker
So basically, like you would say auto compounding protocol, like, I don't know, Bifi, for example, or CVX, or I don't know, Convex Finance, for example, Stakedown, of course.
00:14:31
Speaker
And yeah, to understand how to use LP positions.
00:14:36
Speaker
And basically, when you know how to do this and you know how to use Aave,
00:14:42
Speaker
The last part would be like to learn about Curve because Curve is the one of the main pieces of the space.
00:14:50
Speaker
And basically when you understand this, those three parts, I think that you can just go and try on a blockchain that is not super expensive.
00:15:01
Speaker
For example, Polygon.
00:15:03
Speaker
I started on the BSE.
00:15:06
Speaker
But that's a good entry, you know, and then you switch to Polygon, of course.
00:15:12
Speaker
Don't stay on the BSC if you don't want to get wrecked.
00:15:15
Speaker
But yeah, just, I mean, it's way more easier to try and then to understand that just reading something and yeah.
00:15:25
Speaker
So just try with a small amount on the chip chain and do some mistakes.
00:15:31
Speaker
But yeah, the mistakes will learn you a lot also.
00:15:34
Speaker
It's a good advice.
00:15:35
Speaker
It's a good piece of advice in general.
00:15:37
Speaker
Like whatever you do, start with dipping your toe a little bit.
00:15:41
Speaker
I wish someone would have taught me that 20 years ago.
00:15:44
Speaker
It would have saved me a lot of pain and a lot of anxiety.
00:15:47
Speaker
Why do you think Curve is such an important protocol in the DeFi space for the whole DeFi infrastructure?
00:15:54
Speaker
Because, first of all, Curve is one of the biggest protocols in terms of TVL.
00:16:00
Speaker
And also that because when you are launching a token, like, I don't know, let's say a stablecoin or like a liquid stake in derivatives, for example, or I don't know, a peg asset, that's a good way to bootstrap some liquidity and to get some yield.
00:16:16
Speaker
Basically, when you've got a new token to have a pool that is well incentivized on Curve will help you to get more TVN on your own protocol and to get more exposure and of course, like more traction.
00:16:29
Speaker
And also why Curve is one of the best, it's because I would say that because of the VE tokenomics, that is like the VECRV holders have the powers to incentivize the pool they want and
00:16:46
Speaker
Because of this, there was like a new primitive set of coming such as like drives and you can earn a bit more of a field using like curve and other protocol like convex, the DAO,
00:16:58
Speaker
yearn to get more cash with your cash, basically.
00:17:02
Speaker
And that's also one of the safest protocol that has been built for now.
00:17:07
Speaker
I think it's definitely not just the front end, but it's not like a smart contract failure.
00:17:14
Speaker
So it's really a safe one with a lot of liquidity.
00:17:17
Speaker
So low steep age and so on.
00:17:19
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, without Curve, I don't think that the DeFi space will be like this now.
00:17:25
Speaker
So, yeah, Curve is for sure one of the best.
00:17:29
Speaker
That's so interesting.
00:17:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'm starting to think about it or like to see a sort of pyramid in all the multiple thousand percent projects that we were talking about kind of being the top of the pyramid that are fleeting.
00:17:45
Speaker
I don't know what happened to these projects, actually, and projects like Curve being more of the foundation.
00:17:53
Speaker
How do you think a protocol like Curve will fare?
00:17:56
Speaker
Where do you think it will be in 50 years or in 20 years?
00:18:00
Speaker
How big a role do you think it will play in the world of finance in general?
Future Speculations and Challenges in DeFi
00:18:06
Speaker
That's a very good question.
00:18:07
Speaker
And it's going so fast in this space that I don't know.
00:18:11
Speaker
I don't want to say any projection, but it's a bit complicated because maybe with like all the books and
00:18:21
Speaker
RFQ on the blockchain maybe like hurt a bit the AMM scheme.
00:18:29
Speaker
Can you elaborate?
00:18:29
Speaker
Because this is outside of my own personal expertise.
00:18:32
Speaker
So I'd love for you to explain a little bit.
00:18:36
Speaker
I mean, with the AMMs, you can swap any tokens that are pegged or not, basically.
00:18:43
Speaker
But because those assets are in a pool, if the market moves or if you want to, I don't know, swap a big position and so on, you will have a slippage, for example.
00:18:54
Speaker
So the slippage will give you less token that you should have in a normal way.
00:18:59
Speaker
So that's how it works for now.
00:19:03
Speaker
But now there will be like new protocols with like other books on chain, such as, I don't know, let's say about maybe JMX, GYDX and so on.
00:19:14
Speaker
And also like the RFQ, which is the request for codes.
00:19:20
Speaker
It's a model that is used in the traditional finance.
00:19:23
Speaker
So I don't know if the AMM model will survive in 20 years, to be honest.
00:19:29
Speaker
I really don't know.
00:19:30
Speaker
But for now, it's a model that works.
00:19:32
Speaker
And yeah, that helps to bootstrap liquidity on many protocols and to use composability and operability of the blockchain.
00:19:41
Speaker
And for now, it's working really well.
00:19:44
Speaker
But yeah, in many years, I really don't know.
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah, there's still a lot of question marks.
00:19:48
Speaker
That's why it makes... It's part of the reason why this space is so attractive.
00:19:53
Speaker
It's that you still have the uncertainty that makes it quite risky and interesting.
00:19:58
Speaker
But at least we're starting to see it formalize, become more...
00:20:05
Speaker
Yeah, more structured and the whole question of this and even in permanent loss, it makes it really hard to justify being a liquidity provider if you're not very early and if you don't have like huge token incentives to do it.
00:20:22
Speaker
Yeah, basically, I don't use like, I'm only using like single assets LPs, for example, W-E-S against S-E-S or S-T-E-S, for example.
00:20:34
Speaker
But using like E-S against another volatile token,
00:20:38
Speaker
I think it's more for market makers and so on that can hedge their risk.
00:20:43
Speaker
They're monitoring their risk and their loss.
00:20:47
Speaker
So if you're not a market maker and you don't have full time to look at your positions, I don't think it's the best way to start in DeFi.
00:20:55
Speaker
But if you're helping with two peg assets, for example, it's quite easy.
00:21:00
Speaker
The risk is quite low, but there is still a risk of a smart contract tax and some root pools.
00:21:06
Speaker
But yeah, that's more market maker piece, I think.
00:21:09
Speaker
And how would you, if you were a project founder and you launch a project, you have limited access to liquidity, you have whatever you have.
00:21:18
Speaker
How would you personally go about providing liquidity for that token?
00:21:23
Speaker
Would you still go to the early community that you have in order to ask for their help or would you use Curve?
00:21:30
Speaker
How would you go about that?
00:21:31
Speaker
I think that there is like two answers there.
00:21:34
Speaker
As a founder, I think that when you're raising funds or trying to bootstrap your company, it's important to have market makers to help you to get more liquidity on the markets.
00:21:44
Speaker
So that's basically what State Capital is doing for some projects like, I don't know, Angle or APY.
00:21:51
Speaker
But you also need to, yeah, maybe to ask for a pool on Curve and trying to get enough votes to incentivize this pool and attract some users and some liquidity.
00:22:04
Speaker
That's how I will do it, I think.
00:22:06
Speaker
But yeah, using Curve is...
00:22:09
Speaker
I mean, you have to use Curve.
00:22:12
Speaker
It depends on your project, but if you want some liquidity, if you are like a stable protocol or kind of, you need to use the CRV voicing power and also to accumulate some Curve voicing power, I think.
00:22:27
Speaker
That's fascinating.
00:22:28
Speaker
You're actually giving me some ideas.
00:22:30
Speaker
I'll probably come back in a private conversation to ask you these questions.
00:22:36
Speaker
I'm not sure that's the place.
00:22:38
Speaker
Yeah, I'd love to... We've pretty much had a bit of this conversation before, but what are pitch decks that you're getting these days?
00:22:47
Speaker
What are the most projects that you're seeing that are getting more traction in your VC world?
00:22:53
Speaker
So basically we are trying to focus on the DYD, so the decentralized identity, also on the derivative markets, like all the tools to hedge your position on the markets, but also like infrastructure, like all the ZK rollups and optimistic rollups and so on.
00:23:16
Speaker
And also like projects that are focusing on the MEV,
00:23:20
Speaker
and the PBS.
00:23:22
Speaker
So how to separate the block builder and so on.
00:23:27
Speaker
So that's some narratives that are really present now.
00:23:31
Speaker
And what was your question again?
00:23:36
Speaker
Yeah, what are the trends?
00:23:38
Speaker
The trends that you're seeing?
00:23:39
Speaker
And yeah, it wasn't part of the question, but what do they mean for the market that we're in?
00:23:46
Speaker
Yeah, so the turns will definitely be like the Zikler rollups.
00:23:50
Speaker
I think that they will be like...
00:23:53
Speaker
the way to scale Ethereum, maybe more than the optimistic rollups, in my opinion.
00:23:59
Speaker
But let's say that ZQLOVM, it's still early nowadays, and it needs a lot of developments, again, to really scale.
00:24:10
Speaker
There is the ZQLOVM from Polygon that is working with the same wallet and so on.
00:24:15
Speaker
So it's basically easy to use.
00:24:18
Speaker
But when you are looking to bridge to the stock, the ecosystem, for example,
00:24:22
Speaker
It's not the same wallet, it's not the same address and so on.
00:24:24
Speaker
So it's the accessibility of those chains are quite difficult for like a newcomers or no coiners basically.
00:24:33
Speaker
So I think that, yeah, project that will focus on the UI UX of those chains and that will build some projects on the chain can
Scalability Infrastructure Projects
00:24:45
Speaker
succeed.
00:24:45
Speaker
So that's one of the trends we are looking for.
00:24:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:48
Speaker
So do I have one?
00:24:50
Speaker
Do you have one in mind?
00:24:51
Speaker
Like a project in mind that is working on ZK Rollup and what types of solutions are they looking to bring?
00:25:00
Speaker
Yeah, so there was many of them.
00:25:01
Speaker
There was like ZK Sync, there is StartNet, there was also Scroll, which is very good.
00:25:08
Speaker
So it's ZK.Money, the website, I think, that is basically providing like a private, like some privacy.
00:25:19
Speaker
on the blockchain space.
00:25:20
Speaker
Yeah, so there is like many of them and also like a ZKVM from Polygon that could be really, really nice.
00:25:25
Speaker
But for now, we don't have any.
00:25:27
Speaker
I mean, it should be on the testnet, but who knows?
00:25:30
Speaker
I don't know.
00:25:31
Speaker
It's still raging.
00:25:34
Speaker
What I just thought of, what I just realized is that everything that you mentioned, the DYD, the MEV, the whole derivatives thing, and even now with ZK Rollup, it's all very infrastructure based.
00:25:46
Speaker
Is that because that's what state capital does?
00:25:49
Speaker
You guys focus more on infrastructure?
00:25:52
Speaker
Or is it because, in my mind, I'm opposing it to more mass adoption applications because that's what we're all kind of waiting for.
00:26:01
Speaker
Do you think it's a timing thing where we're just still a few years away from mass adoption and so we're still focused on infrastructure?
00:26:10
Speaker
Or is it more of a strategy for you guys of, hey, infrastructure is where most of the money is going to be.
00:26:18
Speaker
So that's why we're going to focus on it.
00:26:19
Speaker
Yeah, many answers as well.
00:26:21
Speaker
But basically, in stake capital, there is like two verticals.
00:26:25
Speaker
So the investment part and the current part.
00:26:27
Speaker
And basically, in the current part, they're doing like some arbitrage, some liquidations, and also some strategies like to hedge their positions and so on.
00:26:38
Speaker
So we are looking at those protocols because some protocol will help us to play with volatility or to hedge against, I don't know, to have some of the data neutral strategies.
00:26:50
Speaker
And also the market making side.
00:26:54
Speaker
So we have to look at the new infrastructure and
00:26:57
Speaker
Where is the liquidity?
00:26:59
Speaker
Basically, because that's part of our job to identify those and to play with the market.
00:27:05
Speaker
So yeah, we need to have a look at those.
00:27:08
Speaker
But also, we are trying to onboard some projects that will help for the mass adoption.
00:27:13
Speaker
So basically, that will help the next 10 million users to access the blockchain and to have a quite comfortable user experience.
00:27:22
Speaker
What are the things?
00:27:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:25
Speaker
It's not easy.
00:27:28
Speaker
But that's for the in the current side, but also for the investment side, because I think that the next app that will just erase the technical side of the blockchain and can be successful, you know, like the newcomers.
00:27:46
Speaker
I don't know if the newcomers want to understand how the blockchain is working, how do you build the block and so on.
00:27:53
Speaker
They just need to make some yield on some protocols, but they actually don't know which one and which strategies and so on.
00:28:00
Speaker
So any tools that will help to onboard the next users with a quite good user experience can be successful.
00:28:07
Speaker
We're still so far from all of this.
00:28:09
Speaker
One of the things that I see and think on a little bit recently is
00:28:16
Speaker
Each action that you take on the blockchain should not put your assets at risk.
00:28:20
Speaker
If you need to have a very secure setup, if you need to have a cold wallet, a hard wallet, a ice wallet, and then a burner for each transactions that you do, and if you want to play a game each time you play again, and especially because
00:28:38
Speaker
There's these promises of interoperability and all of this stuff.
00:28:42
Speaker
And so if every time you connect your wallet that has assets on it to a new application, you're actually putting them at risk, it makes you very reluctant to do anything.
00:28:53
Speaker
And it's never going to be
00:28:54
Speaker
like retail is never going to be okay with having $2,000 of assets that are at risk anytime they try to interact with a protocol.
00:29:05
Speaker
Yeah, I completely agree.
00:29:06
Speaker
But that's also like one of the strengths of DeFi that's antifagile, you know, like the last two years, there was like, there was a lot of exploits and root pools and so on.
00:29:17
Speaker
But every time the dev knows how to avoid those acts in the future.
00:29:23
Speaker
And that's why DeFi
00:29:24
Speaker
isn't too fragile.
00:29:25
Speaker
Like, yeah, every time there's something where happens and users are losing money, every time the protocol is getting more robust.
00:29:36
Speaker
And that's also why now it's quite a jungle.
00:29:39
Speaker
But in the future, I think that it will be like,
00:29:42
Speaker
much more secure and so on.
00:29:44
Speaker
There was also like many tools that help you like before signing any transaction to understand what will happen to assets.
00:29:51
Speaker
Like for example, Fire, which is a Chrome extension will tell you like for example, that this contract is at risk or
00:30:00
Speaker
that if you sign this transaction, you may lose like your NFTs or a low, like unlimited spending of your assets and so on.
00:30:08
Speaker
So now there is like some tools to protect yourself, but it's still a jungle.
00:30:13
Speaker
I agree on this.
00:30:15
Speaker
I think it's really important what you say about anti-fragility for the protocols right now, because
00:30:23
Speaker
At least it's a very interesting proof of concept because the fact that we're still here despite everything that's happened, despite all the rock pools, despite all the scams, it does show that this space is robust enough, that it's not just a castle made of cars that
00:30:37
Speaker
Once you blow on it, it's over.
00:30:39
Speaker
But it's still missing anti-fragility at the individual part.
00:30:44
Speaker
There are two ways to approach this.
00:30:45
Speaker
There's the spiritual approach and then there's the financial approach.
00:30:49
Speaker
When you get scammed, you get scammed.
00:30:51
Speaker
When you get rock-pulled, you lose your money.
00:30:53
Speaker
And so if you don't have a good bankroll management strategy for yourself, your money's out, you're probably not going to be back for a while.
00:31:02
Speaker
I called it spiritual, but it's whatever you want to call it.
00:31:05
Speaker
If you make a mistake that results in losing your funds, whether you get scammed, whether you invest in a protocol that ends up rogging the liquidity, it does make you a little bit stronger because you have to look at this and learn.
00:31:20
Speaker
Some people are not going to learn.
00:31:21
Speaker
They're just going to be like, all right, this is not for me.
00:31:23
Speaker
I'm going to be out for good.
00:31:25
Speaker
And I do think that one of the most important things of business
00:31:29
Speaker
decentralization and of decentralization of finance is autonomy and self growth and development.
00:31:36
Speaker
You have to, you're now, yeah, you have custody of your own money.
00:31:41
Speaker
You're not going to go to MetaMask and be like, hey guys, I love my money.
00:31:45
Speaker
Can you please put it back onto my wallet?
00:31:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:49
Speaker
And also that's also like a reason why mass adoption is still not here, I think, because
00:31:56
Speaker
You know, with FTX, you know that now you have to own your tokens in your wallet to have custody of them.
00:32:05
Speaker
So we learned with FTX, basically.
00:32:07
Speaker
But can you ask people like newcomers to...
00:32:12
Speaker
use a ledger and to connect it to your MetaMask or Rabi or whatever.
00:32:17
Speaker
And then also like sign transaction to be careful not signing any transaction that pop up on your screen and so on.
00:32:24
Speaker
I think it's really hard for a newcomer to use it.
00:32:26
Speaker
And also like to understand that if you lose your private key and your seed phrase, you're fucked.
00:32:33
Speaker
It's all over.
00:32:35
Speaker
It's all over and there is no door to knock and to ask for your funds again.
00:32:39
Speaker
So that's one also like maybe one of the major things to resolve, you know, and that's going to be resolved with, for example, account abstraction.
00:32:49
Speaker
Like, for example, to recover your assets, if you, I don't know if you lose your computer and so on.
00:32:56
Speaker
Yeah, you can refund your wallet and your assets with like credential of, I don't know, your friends or your social networks, for example.
00:33:04
Speaker
And when this account abstraction will be fully released, I think it will help mass adoption because it will be much more harder to lose your assets and to lose control of your wallet, for example.
00:33:16
Speaker
Is that something that can be built into current
00:33:19
Speaker
uh, infrastructures or is that like an application that's built on top of it?
00:33:24
Speaker
That basically that's a, that's a smart contract wallet and you can access it and yeah, unlock it with like, uh, some conditions.
00:33:31
Speaker
So basically you see trace, but you can also like connect to what is with, I don't know, let's say Twitter and discord.
00:33:37
Speaker
And also like to kind of a recovery friend, let's call it a, let's call it like this.
00:33:41
Speaker
Like, I don't know, I put my mom on my wallet and say, if I lose it,
00:33:46
Speaker
My mom will will be able to unlock my wallet and to give me the access again.
00:33:50
Speaker
And this is cool.
00:33:52
Speaker
That's really cool.
00:33:53
Speaker
I think it will it will really help my adoption in the near future.
00:33:57
Speaker
Yeah, one of the things that you were saying was that there is some security, like for example, I use Rabi or Rabbi, I don't know what it's supposed to be called.
00:34:04
Speaker
And it does check the security of the transaction that I signed.
00:34:08
Speaker
The problem is that we're weak, humans are weak.
00:34:12
Speaker
We have times where we're too confident, we have times where we're too depressed.
00:34:16
Speaker
And when you have maybe a little bit of the two, you're talking to someone and scammers are getting so freaking smart.
00:34:22
Speaker
It's really scary.
00:34:24
Speaker
And you have to think about everything that you're doing, but you're talking to someone who you've been talking to for a while, or they seem to have everything that makes them a safe partner and yeah, whatever.
00:34:36
Speaker
And yeah,
00:34:37
Speaker
They get you on a website and you end up signing the transaction and boom, all your funds are gone.
00:34:42
Speaker
That is scary.
00:34:43
Speaker
Like it happened to me.
00:34:44
Speaker
I'm saying I'm not a genius or I'm not a anything, but I've been in this space for so long.
00:34:50
Speaker
I've already been scammed and I even,
00:34:52
Speaker
Like, yeah, there was a guy that I follow who does probably 20, 30 transactions every day and he still got scammed.
00:35:01
Speaker
Yeah, and also like, I don't know if you saw, but there was like an OG Bitcoin developer that got trained like a few weeks ago.
00:35:10
Speaker
If you think about it, like if even an OG can lose their assets.
00:35:14
Speaker
So how can you ask newcomers to keep custody on their own assets if even an OG is able to get scammed, for example?
00:35:24
Speaker
I don't know if it clicked on the malicious link or if it downloaded malicious software, but...
Security Awareness in Web3
00:35:31
Speaker
Basically, it can happen to everyone.
00:35:33
Speaker
And that's why you have to use a ledger wallet, like a hardware wallet.
00:35:37
Speaker
Newcomers have to buy those wallets to understand how to use it and so on.
00:35:41
Speaker
And it's a matter of security, but it's hard for newcomers.
00:35:46
Speaker
Definitely.
00:35:47
Speaker
It is.
00:35:47
Speaker
And it shouldn't be that hard.
00:35:49
Speaker
And it can't be that hard.
00:35:51
Speaker
Because, for example, I've been part of the Clonex community for a while now.
00:35:57
Speaker
A lot of those guys are artists, for example.
00:35:59
Speaker
That's one of the parts of the population that it's most appealing to.
00:36:03
Speaker
An artist is not like technically, it's not always, they're not always like geeks and who know a lot about computer security.
00:36:12
Speaker
If you wanna make sure that the people that you bring in who pay five, seven, 10K for an asset of your collection, then you need to make sure that they're not gonna lose it because they lose faith and then they tell their friends who tell their friends and then the whole space,
00:36:31
Speaker
It kind of feels like a joke after that.
00:36:33
Speaker
So yeah, that's really hard.
00:36:35
Speaker
And also like the kind of discourse got asked many times.
00:36:39
Speaker
I think it was like the board egg one.
00:36:41
Speaker
I don't know, but even like the tools you're using
00:36:45
Speaker
could help some hackers to scam you, for example.
00:36:50
Speaker
Or you may click on a malicious link and it looks really like the same, like the real one and you got scammed.
00:36:57
Speaker
So you have to have a really, really good digital, how can I say that?
00:37:04
Speaker
You have to use it really carefully and be careful every time.
00:37:09
Speaker
And with everything, anything that you download and anything that you, I think NFT God just got hacked a few days ago.
00:37:17
Speaker
And he was saying that what happened is that he went to download OBS on his new computer that he just got.
00:37:26
Speaker
And he clicked on a sponsor link and it happened to install malware on his computer.
00:37:31
Speaker
So it can literally come from anything.
00:37:33
Speaker
And it just goes to show that when you're in Web3, you're kind of expecting threats from Twitter and from Discord.
00:37:41
Speaker
So when you're on it, you're going to be a little bit more careful.
00:37:44
Speaker
But then you realize that...
00:37:46
Speaker
Scammers are so smart.
00:37:48
Speaker
They're so smart.
00:37:49
Speaker
And actually, I'm going to put this out right now.
00:37:51
Speaker
I would love to have a conversation with a scammer on this podcast.
00:37:55
Speaker
So if anyone listening to this is someone whose main activity is to scam people out of their money, I'm not going to judge you.
00:38:05
Speaker
We, like...
00:38:06
Speaker
We all do weird stuff.
00:38:07
Speaker
Some are just weirder than others.
00:38:09
Speaker
But I think it would be a super interesting conversation.
00:38:12
Speaker
So if you're it, please let me know.
00:38:14
Speaker
Is Julien as smart as everyone says?
00:38:17
Speaker
Yes.
00:38:19
Speaker
How smart?
00:38:20
Speaker
What is it like to work alongside him?
00:38:22
Speaker
He's like this almost mythical figure in this space.
00:38:26
Speaker
To be honest, I'm not really working with him.
00:38:29
Speaker
I don't spend much time with him.
00:38:32
Speaker
But when I do, I'm pretty excited about it.
00:38:37
Speaker
how we understand the project and how we can like judge the founders and the technology and to project himself like how can I use this tool for my company or for my portfolio for example.
00:38:53
Speaker
You really understand really quick the things and yeah so it's basically really smart and really clever.
00:38:59
Speaker
We learned from the market that it's really
00:39:04
Speaker
How can I say that?
00:39:05
Speaker
You know, like with, it was with like the three AC founders or with SPF and so on.
00:39:11
Speaker
When everyone is loving one guy and it becomes like, really, it could be really negative and so on.
00:39:18
Speaker
Even if he looks smart and so on, don't trust him, just verify everything he says.
00:39:23
Speaker
Most of the time it's true.
00:39:25
Speaker
Sometimes maybe not.
00:39:26
Speaker
I never spot like something.
00:39:28
Speaker
No one has a perfect scorecard.
00:39:30
Speaker
It just doesn't exist.
00:39:32
Speaker
Quite good.
00:39:32
Speaker
But basically you need to don't trust anyone.
00:39:37
Speaker
And even if it's smart, just be careful.
00:39:40
Speaker
Like as we say, like a few minutes before, you can get scammed by anyone in your digital health.
00:39:48
Speaker
It has to be perfect.
00:39:49
Speaker
So, but he is really smart and what he does for like many years now, it's like Stakedown, Blackpool, Rekt, and also his hedge fund and all the quant side.
00:40:03
Speaker
I mean, it's really huge what he's building and he's on many verticals and he understands really well the markets and all the protocols and so on.
00:40:11
Speaker
So that's really nice to work with such a guy.
00:40:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:15
Speaker
It's really inspiring, like on the execution side of things to be able to that that's actually what you mentioned about being on so many verticals and actually like doing well on them.
00:40:26
Speaker
It inspires me to be better because it is almost physical proof that it is possible.
00:40:33
Speaker
And what you're saying that is also that makes my brain go again is, yeah, the fact that we want to build a trustless environment, a trustless financial system and more than financial system, actually, I just
00:40:49
Speaker
We want to build a society that lives on the blockchain where we are supposed to be able to trust everyone because there's the history on the blockchain and because you should be able to identify everything.
00:41:05
Speaker
But you still have people who are leading this and those people still have their own agenda, their own incentives.
00:41:11
Speaker
their own ego, sometimes fragile, their own inner child.
00:41:15
Speaker
You don't know how they were when they were a child.
00:41:18
Speaker
Maybe they were loved, maybe they were not loved.
00:41:20
Speaker
And so now maybe they try to, like, you never know who's doing what for which reasons.
00:41:29
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:41:30
Speaker
I mean, nothing to say.
00:41:31
Speaker
I mean, you said everything.
00:41:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:34
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure.
00:41:35
Speaker
How do we, do you think there's any way that we bypass that?
00:41:40
Speaker
Not bypass, it's not the right word, but you know what I mean.
00:41:42
Speaker
What you mean exactly?
00:41:43
Speaker
Like...
00:41:45
Speaker
to become, yeah.
00:41:48
Speaker
Yeah, how do we make sure that people become as transparent as blockchains?
00:41:53
Speaker
I don't know.
00:41:54
Speaker
I don't think there's actually an answer for that.
00:41:56
Speaker
I mean, yeah, basically there is not, but you know, like blockchain is, it's only math.
00:42:02
Speaker
So if you can verify that it's working as it has been built, I mean, how can you bypass this?
00:42:11
Speaker
You know, it's built to execute this in that way,
00:42:15
Speaker
Basically, it will be hard to ask the protocol and the smart construct to do another way.
00:42:21
Speaker
But if you're a human and you have a gun on your head and the guy is saying that to you like one plus one, it's equal to three.
00:42:30
Speaker
Say it or you die.
00:42:31
Speaker
You would say it, you know, but a smart contract will never do it.
00:42:35
Speaker
And that's why like you are not corruptible and smart contracts are not.
00:42:39
Speaker
So we don't need to think yet to trust people just to reduce smart contracts and math.
00:42:44
Speaker
And that's why we're here, I think.
00:42:46
Speaker
Yeah, at least we're probably not going to solve the human part just yet, but at least you have the technical part, the blockchain part that helps shed some light.
00:42:57
Speaker
But I think what Luna, the Luna debacle showed us is that the data is there, but it's really hard to interpret because when you're talking about something like Luna, it's probably billions of transactions.
00:43:12
Speaker
billions and billions, tens of billions going in and out.
00:43:15
Speaker
And so it's, it's hard to sip through it.
00:43:17
Speaker
Did you, did you follow the fat man accounts on Tara?
00:43:21
Speaker
So he, he's a guy who made, um, he, he, he, at the very last, um, few days, few weeks of, um, of the Luna, like,
00:43:35
Speaker
decentralized governance process, he made a proposal that made some noise.
00:43:40
Speaker
And after that, he created a Twitter account called Fatman Luna, I think, or something like that, where he has been just...
00:43:49
Speaker
being a whistleblower and sipping through data and trying to shed light on some things.
00:43:55
Speaker
And one of the things that did come out was that, okay, the data is there and we can, after a lot of time and after a lot of effort and after many, many people doing their work, it's still kind of hard to bring as much accountability as is needed.
00:44:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:10
Speaker
And also like, with the Tera story, like once again, for newcomers, how do you know that this table coin is going to crash?
00:44:18
Speaker
I mean,
00:44:19
Speaker
A lot of OG in this space knew that algorithmic stablecoin is just going to zero and there is no way it's not going to zero.
00:44:29
Speaker
And there was a lot of guys that were saying, like, I don't know, I'm
00:44:33
Speaker
thinking about like TokenBreeze, for example, a famous French guy in the DeFi space.
00:44:39
Speaker
He always said that Terra is going to crash.
00:44:43
Speaker
And before Terra Luna, DoKon has built like basis cash
00:44:50
Speaker
That's just finished to zero as well.
00:44:52
Speaker
But you need to understand the protocol, how it works at minimum, and also to do the founders and to be sure that it's 100% decentralized.
00:45:03
Speaker
It's not, but it's on a good way.
00:45:06
Speaker
And yeah, so basically a lot of people lose money because they didn't know that this stablecoin was just like a scam.
00:45:13
Speaker
Basically, you need to have a lot of knowledge to navigate safely in this space.
00:45:19
Speaker
And that's why I think there was no mass adoption.
00:45:21
Speaker
But you can see that many big companies are trying to enter this space.
00:45:28
Speaker
I don't know.
00:45:30
Speaker
a lot of NFT collection for like big brands, but also like the traditional finance, it's going to the blockchain for many reasons, like because of the liquidity, it's cheaper to do some transactions on the blockchain space.
00:45:43
Speaker
And so, master option will come, but it's still, I don't think it will come in like the next year or in two years.
00:45:51
Speaker
I think that maybe in five or 10 years, it's going to be good, but now.
00:45:56
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with you.
00:45:57
Speaker
And especially what you're making me think is,
00:46:00
Speaker
you're going to have bigger brands that are getting in because they see the appeal because it's interesting for their business models.
00:46:07
Speaker
They understand the value of decentralizing, of incentivizing people in their, let's call them communities a little bit more.
00:46:14
Speaker
But then the people who enter
00:46:17
Speaker
they find themselves with tokens and one token leads to another token.
00:46:22
Speaker
Because you go see the value of yours on CoinMarketCap and you realize that there's thousands more.
00:46:28
Speaker
And so you're going to look at that one and you don't have the proper knowledge.
00:46:32
Speaker
And so you're going to put your money in the next Luna or, oh, my token is available on FTX.
00:46:38
Speaker
You're going to go on FTX.
00:46:39
Speaker
You don't necessarily do the due diligence.
00:46:42
Speaker
And even if you did, man, I trusted FTX.
00:46:46
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:46:47
Speaker
It was... Everyone trusted FTX.
00:46:48
Speaker
It was really hard to say that FTX was a scam.
00:46:51
Speaker
Basically, like a lot of OGs were a scam as well.
00:46:54
Speaker
And the guy who says, like, I knew this, there is not so much, I think.
00:47:01
Speaker
Yeah, I have a lot of respect.
00:47:02
Speaker
Man, that whole... I saw a tweet a few days ago.
00:47:07
Speaker
I don't know how factual it is, but basically like Genesis lending money to Balancer, lending money to 3AC, lending money to FTX, lending money to Alameda.
00:47:17
Speaker
And basically like who owns the money, who's responsible.
00:47:22
Speaker
And that's a little bit where I was going, where individuals are really going to learn...
00:47:30
Speaker
have to learn where to put their money and who they're trusting.
00:47:34
Speaker
And we might need a few more cycles of founders understanding, okay, this thing called the blockchain is actually bringing some accountability and actually need to pay a little bit of attention to what I'm doing.
00:47:50
Speaker
And maybe we're
00:47:52
Speaker
we'll go back to what the Web3 ethos actually was.
00:47:57
Speaker
Yeah, nothing to say.
00:47:59
Speaker
I mean, I agree with you.
00:48:03
Speaker
Is there any, like on the institutional side, maybe what's being said in State Capital or in other, if you talk to other people in your space, but
00:48:12
Speaker
Is there any doubt of where we're going or do people take for granted that has already been built, is NC fragile and is going to go the distance?
00:48:21
Speaker
Or is there still, okay, this is a proof of concept, we're not too sure.
00:48:26
Speaker
How was the sentiment on the institutional
Institutional Interest and Early-Stage DeFi
00:48:29
Speaker
side?
00:48:29
Speaker
I think that now the stage is like, it's a pop.
00:48:34
Speaker
a proof of concept for now, but we see many institutions coming in this space.
00:48:42
Speaker
So I think it's going to be mature, more mature.
00:48:45
Speaker
And I don't know if you saw, but the SG, the Societé General, they borrow some DAI on MakerDAO, for example.
00:48:55
Speaker
I think that they are coming and they know that there is some good thing to see on the DeFi space, but it's still a bit early, I think, for now.
00:49:07
Speaker
I mean, there is a lot of Americans, hedge funds and companies that are coming to the DeFi space.
00:49:14
Speaker
But in France, for example, I don't know many of them and they are still a bit afraid of this technology.
00:49:20
Speaker
Are they afraid or do they don't want users to come to DeFi?
00:49:24
Speaker
That's another question.
00:49:25
Speaker
But I think that the movement is growing now and the institutional knows that it's really worth it to have a look at the space.
00:49:35
Speaker
The big question that this raises, or not the question, but you're going to have
00:49:40
Speaker
and it seems to come up a lot in my professional life these days, you're going to have value providers and value extractors.
00:49:46
Speaker
And for now, the bigger names, like a lot of things that happened around board apes screamed value extractors, like
00:49:57
Speaker
I don't want to judge.
00:49:58
Speaker
I think that you guys doing some, some pretty amazing stuff.
00:50:02
Speaker
They're really taking, it didn't exist two years ago and now they've built something that's huge, something that, that is quite remarkable.
00:50:11
Speaker
Everything that they did together might not be absolutely perfect, but that's not my place to judge.
00:50:16
Speaker
But yeah, in the next few years, we're going to see two types of people.
00:50:19
Speaker
You're going to have people that come here to say, all right, there's a lot of liquidity here.
00:50:22
Speaker
How can I,
00:50:23
Speaker
extract as much as I can.
00:50:25
Speaker
And you're going to have people who come in and like, okay, this is really cool.
00:50:30
Speaker
I can actually use it to provide value to people who are already part of my network.
00:50:36
Speaker
The first guest that I had on this show, Tara, she's building a company called CoCreate.
00:50:42
Speaker
And she is helping brands basically understand tokens and launch their own token in a very safe way.
00:50:50
Speaker
way and they really grab them by the hand and guide them.
00:50:54
Speaker
And she understands those traditional businesses and she understands the ethos of Web3 and the spirit in which these tokens should be used.
00:51:04
Speaker
But yeah, I really hope that we see more value providers and people who come in and understand that
00:51:10
Speaker
Decentralization is really good.
00:51:12
Speaker
If you do it with the motive of doing good, everyone benefits because you bring more longevity to your business, you bring more longevity to your framework.
00:51:22
Speaker
And it's harder to build things over time.
00:51:27
Speaker
It's easy to make something, to break it, and then to just like...
00:51:32
Speaker
take money for the short term.
00:51:34
Speaker
But if you build it over time, it does compound.
00:51:37
Speaker
And then there are non-financial and non-objective things that come into play, like the loyalty that you get from the people who are part of it.
00:51:46
Speaker
Oh man, yeah, this has been a really cool conversation.
00:51:50
Speaker
Do you have any last words that you'd want to add?
00:51:54
Speaker
I don't know, just be careful of the markets because I don't think we're done with this trend, but that's only my opinion.
00:52:02
Speaker
Don't trust me again, but I'm the worst trend in the world.
00:52:06
Speaker
But yeah, just be careful and yeah, you have to care about decentralization and I think that's
00:52:14
Speaker
Decentralization is a way to make the world better, much better.
00:52:18
Speaker
I mean, I really want like Google and Facebook and all the GAFAM to have less control in our lives.
00:52:27
Speaker
And I think that decentralization will help, definitely.
00:52:30
Speaker
And yeah, when you look at centralization,
00:52:32
Speaker
and you understand where the problems in this society comes from.
00:52:38
Speaker
You understand that maybe decentralization is the right solution.
00:52:41
Speaker
It's really hard to get, but when you have it, you can control everything.
00:52:47
Speaker
Control like you have some visibility and everything is transparent and no one can have the entire control on a protocol or on a blockchain.
00:52:58
Speaker
and so on.
00:52:58
Speaker
And I really think that's the most innovative thing in the blockchain.
00:53:04
Speaker
Decentralization is really, really important.
00:53:07
Speaker
What do you think is the full decentralization is just not efficient?
00:53:10
Speaker
There's always going to be a balance?
00:53:15
Speaker
And it's interesting, like even from a legal standpoint, I do think that entities, businesses, protocols, whatever, you name it, that are decentralized should get benefits.
00:53:27
Speaker
The revenue should not be, if you're doing a DAO, the revenue should not be qualified as revenue and shouldn't be.
00:53:34
Speaker
necessarily all be taxed upon.
00:53:37
Speaker
Have you ever
Decentralization and Governance Challenges
00:53:38
Speaker
thought about this?
00:53:38
Speaker
And where do you think is the line?
00:53:41
Speaker
When do you start defining something as decentralized?
00:53:44
Speaker
And where do you think is the risk?
00:53:46
Speaker
Because you're going to have people that are going to try to extract value out of this by calling themselves a DAO while just really being not decentralized at all.
00:53:55
Speaker
That's a good question.
00:53:56
Speaker
Basically, I think that you have to have a really good governance.
00:54:00
Speaker
The first that come in mind is the Aave one.
00:54:03
Speaker
which is really good.
00:54:04
Speaker
The tokens have to be well distributed and so on.
00:54:08
Speaker
And basically you need the founder not to have a big control or a big voice when voting some proposal in the governance forums, for example.
00:54:18
Speaker
I think that revenue sharing is helping decentralization.
00:54:21
Speaker
But also what it helps is maybe the VE token models.
00:54:27
Speaker
Basically users are involved in the protocol for many years and
00:54:36
Speaker
acting like a scammer or so on, like trying to fuck the protocol.
00:54:40
Speaker
Actually, like for the AMN, for derivative protocol and so on, I think that when you have like an autobook, for example, it has to be off-chain.
00:54:50
Speaker
for many particular reasons.
00:54:52
Speaker
So it's not really decentralized because who knows if the guy who has control on the audiobook will not just try to scam some people and so on.
00:55:03
Speaker
So it's basically really hard to have like a 100% decentralized protocol.
00:55:07
Speaker
But the goal is to tend to 100%, but it will be really hard, I think.
00:55:12
Speaker
And also like something that will not help.
00:55:16
Speaker
Maybe I'm wrong, but I mean,
00:55:19
Speaker
Vitalik was talking about this, like the one vote for one person.
00:55:25
Speaker
Even if you are like a whale and you have like a ton of Harvey, I don't know, you should like have like one, yeah, just one vote because...
00:55:33
Speaker
in that way, like the Witcher are basically the control on the protocol and like on the future emissions of token and so on.
00:55:41
Speaker
So is it really decentralized in that way?
00:55:44
Speaker
I don't know.
00:55:45
Speaker
So there is like many maybe improvements to make.
00:55:48
Speaker
And so many questions to ask.
00:55:50
Speaker
I don't know if I'm wrong or not, but that's my point.
00:55:54
Speaker
I don't think it's possible to be wrong with what you're saying.
00:55:57
Speaker
I don't know.
00:55:59
Speaker
I mean, I'm really...
00:56:00
Speaker
like what we've been doing, for example, with JPEG Vault, we decentralized ownership and we did pretty well in decentralizing ownership of the assets that are owned by all of us.
00:56:14
Speaker
We did pretty well in decentralizing ownership of our own token as well.
00:56:18
Speaker
Like founders didn't get an outrageous amount and we didn't let any
00:56:24
Speaker
VC or fund or outside backer amass a disproportionate amount.
00:56:29
Speaker
For example, for everything that had to do with the strategy, it was pretty centralized.
00:56:35
Speaker
We have the vision and we work towards it.
00:56:40
Speaker
We figure out what the best steps are and we propose them to the community and to the holders.
00:56:46
Speaker
If, for example, a regulator were to look at this,
00:56:49
Speaker
they'd probably, because they have to make rules for everyone, they would probably look at this and say, all right, this doesn't qualify as a decentralized project.
00:57:00
Speaker
Whereas we are decentralized at heart.
00:57:03
Speaker
Like we've always...
00:57:05
Speaker
made sure that at least most people agree with what is happening and where we're going and that this is the best.
00:57:12
Speaker
And that's why I think the lack of flexibility in systems and we're both from France.
00:57:17
Speaker
So we both know what it is like.
00:57:19
Speaker
And it is one of the countries.
00:57:21
Speaker
I mean, I don't know many other administrations in the world, but I've lived in Canada, for example, it was so easy to deal with the administration.
00:57:29
Speaker
Yeah, also.
00:57:32
Speaker
Also in Portugal, it's really easy as well.
00:57:34
Speaker
I think it's a French problem, but we love it.
00:57:37
Speaker
Yeah, it might be.
00:57:38
Speaker
It might be.
00:57:39
Speaker
But it is a general problem of when you want to rule for everyone, you don't leave too much room for error.
00:57:46
Speaker
And I would love for regulators to come in and to start putting in rules and to start setting up guidelines.
00:57:53
Speaker
But I hope there's some like breathing room for smaller projects to be able to come in without like backers who have millions and a huge network because that was part of the promise also.
00:58:07
Speaker
Also, like I don't think that the legal framework is like really, really good for the users.
00:58:13
Speaker
I mean,
00:58:14
Speaker
Let's say that you are using like a lens protocol instead of Facebook and generating some some Yeah, you're creating some value because you're I don't know posting like some interesting studies and so on and you get some money because of your followers They just want to tip you for example and if you want to cash out this money
00:58:34
Speaker
you will be taxed.
00:58:36
Speaker
I think like every time that you're providing value and gets money back because it's blockchain, if you want to cash out this money, you will be like, the legal framework is not well done on that side, I think.
00:58:48
Speaker
I really think that's also...
00:58:51
Speaker
why there is no mass adoption for now.
00:58:53
Speaker
Basically, because you're just generating value, earning some tokens, and you could use this to live and buy some stuff and so on, but you cannot because of this legal framework that is basically not really well made for users.
00:59:11
Speaker
And it's not value based.
00:59:12
Speaker
In an ideal world, how would it work?
00:59:14
Speaker
I personally don't know.
00:59:16
Speaker
I don't know, that's not my job, you know, but yeah, I think it's really complicated to get to differ from like gains from speculation and so on and gains from like value generated, for example.
00:59:30
Speaker
How the regulator can know that this is not speculation and it is like well earned, for example.
00:59:36
Speaker
I don't know.
00:59:36
Speaker
I really don't know.
00:59:37
Speaker
And that's why it's really hard.
00:59:39
Speaker
That it is.
00:59:39
Speaker
That we can agree on.
00:59:41
Speaker
I come from a law background.
00:59:43
Speaker
So I've thought about this quite a bit.
00:59:46
Speaker
I've been trying to think, like, how could this work?
00:59:49
Speaker
I don't want to ask too much because I know that...
00:59:51
Speaker
Okay, when you're providing value, there's a social contract with the governments, with the nations that we live in.
00:59:58
Speaker
And so if you live here, you kind of have to agree to play by the rules.
01:00:03
Speaker
And so the taxman is going to come one way or another.
01:00:07
Speaker
I wish it was...
01:00:09
Speaker
easier and I wish it wasn't so.
01:00:11
Speaker
For example, in France, I think there's an imbalance between the value that you provide and the value that is extracted from you and the choice that you have.
01:00:21
Speaker
Because as an entrepreneur, for example, it's hard to swallow that you give out so much money to so many entities, government included,
01:00:33
Speaker
and that you don't get that much in return.
01:00:36
Speaker
That's a whole other thing.
01:00:38
Speaker
I honestly think that to have a good legal framework, at least in France, we would have to just...
01:00:47
Speaker
throw everything that exists out and just rebuild and leave some room.
01:00:52
Speaker
I just think that everything is just too objective.
01:00:55
Speaker
Life is not objective.
01:00:56
Speaker
It's very relative.
01:00:58
Speaker
There's different people who have different experiences.
01:01:01
Speaker
And honestly, the best law should not be hard coded into, into a book.
01:01:06
Speaker
It would be just common sense of, all right, this person obviously did that for that reason.
01:01:12
Speaker
Like it's not hard to see.
01:01:13
Speaker
It just takes, it just takes a person that's a, they should get, um,
01:01:17
Speaker
sued or they should go to jail or, oh, these guys are building something that's really cool.
01:01:22
Speaker
They obviously have the right ideas at heart.
01:01:25
Speaker
Let's help them.
01:01:26
Speaker
Let's maybe give them some leeway.
01:01:29
Speaker
But anyway, that's the idealist
01:01:33
Speaker
maybe for another podcast maybe for another podcast yeah man yeah thanks a lot uh thanks a lot for coming if anyone if anyone wanted to reach out to you who who would you like to to talk to who should talk to you um what are the people that you're looking for right now either personally or professionally and what's a good place to to contact you
01:01:54
Speaker
What do you mean, sorry?
01:01:56
Speaker
I
Engagement and Networking Invitation
01:01:57
Speaker
didn't get it.
01:01:57
Speaker
I don't know.
01:01:58
Speaker
Are you, for State Capital, looking for certain people in particular?
01:02:02
Speaker
Like, for example, for your deal flow or whatever?
01:02:05
Speaker
Or are you personally in crypto, in Web3, or outside?
01:02:09
Speaker
Are there some specific people that you would like to talk to?
01:02:12
Speaker
Basically, yeah.
01:02:13
Speaker
All the DeFi guys, I really like to speak to them because every time I'm learning new stuff.
01:02:19
Speaker
But yeah, basically, if the guys listen to us,
01:02:24
Speaker
like want to send them, like send me like their text and so on.
01:02:28
Speaker
They, of course they can do it on my Twitter and so on.
01:02:32
Speaker
Just send me a message.
01:02:33
Speaker
You can just contact me on Twitter, for example, on Twitter.
01:02:35
Speaker
I'm quite active.
01:02:37
Speaker
So yeah.
01:02:37
Speaker
That's awesome.
01:02:38
Speaker
And it will be linked below.
01:02:40
Speaker
Perfect.
01:02:41
Speaker
Thanks, man.
01:02:41
Speaker
Thanks a lot.
01:02:42
Speaker
I like talking to you and I'm sure we'll do this again.
01:02:44
Speaker
So talk to you soon.
01:02:45
Speaker
Was a pleasure.
01:02:46
Speaker
Yeah, you too.
01:02:47
Speaker
Thanks a lot.
01:02:47
Speaker
Five, two, verse, six, seven,