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Meet Maya Protocol's Aaluxx!
4 Plays1 year ago
Get ready to dive into the exciting world of cross-chain liquidity with Aaluxx, the driving force behind the upcoming Maya Protocol!
In this episode of Behind the PFP, Aaluxx takes us on an incredible journey to discover how he drew his inspiration from the ancient Mayan culture, breaks down the details of the upcoming Maya Protocol launch, and explains why widespread crypto adoption is essential for survival in Latin American countries.
Don't miss this amazing insight into Maya Protocol and the man behind it!
xx Jade
P.S. Think you'd be a great guest for Behind the PFP? Contact me at the links below!
Follow Aaluxx!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AaluxxMyth
Follow Maya Protocol!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Maya_Protocol
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/mayaprotocol
Follow Jade!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cryptoismyjam
Medium: https://medium.com/@cryptoismyjam
And More: https://linktr.ee/cryptoismyjam
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Transcript
Decentralization and Anonymity in Crypto
00:00:00
Speaker
this week on Behind the PFP.
00:00:21
Speaker
God-like figures that you have in some protocols of these people that are leading them and are so important to their success or failure. At the end of the day, we're doing something decentralized, something that should be a bit nameless and more, you know, let the code tug. So we like Alux being a spirit. I'm just a spirit for a while. I will be guiding a bit on what's happening, but I will fade.
00:00:47
Speaker
and you guys will take it
Crypto's Impact in Latin America
00:00:49
Speaker
away. Crypto for me is not an NFT. Crypto for me, it's a way to bring freedom, economic security, and just a future of prosperity for so many talented individuals all over the world, but especially in places where it's needed most, like Latin America.
00:01:17
Speaker
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Behind the PFP.
Meet Ilex: Inspiration and Background
00:01:21
Speaker
Today, I am very excited to introduce someone that I had the pleasure of meeting at the Cross Chain Expo back over the summer in Austin. He is also the co-founder of Maya Protocol. Welcome to the show, Ilex. Thank you. Thank you so much, Jade. Happy to be here. Thank you for having us. Did I say that correctly?
00:01:40
Speaker
That's perfect. That's perfect. Now, you were just telling me a minute ago the inspiration for your pseudonym. Yeah. Well, we are very much inspired by the Maya culture. I'm very proud of our heritage as Mexicans. And for our pseudonyms, we just naturally went to a list of different kind of
00:02:06
Speaker
My mythical entities and gods and stuff like that. So for instance, or Lee, David, Samna, that's just kind of a song god. Whereas Alux, which is the one I chose, which I really just chose her because it sounds cool and looks cool.
00:02:23
Speaker
To be honest, it's just kind of a spirit that kind of exists there. And what we like also that makes sense with what we're building is that we don't really like these kind of God-like figures that you have in some protocols of these people that are leading them and are so important to their success or failure. At the end of the day, we're doing something decentralized.
00:02:48
Speaker
something that should be a bit nameless and more, you know, let the code talk. So we like Alux being a spirit. I'm just a spirit for a while. I will be guiding a bit on what's happening, but I will fade and you guys will take it away. So a bit on behind the name.
00:03:10
Speaker
I like the spirit guide. No, I definitely want to get into Maya and I want to get into the inspiration. But leading into that, I want to know a bit about you and your background and what led you down the crypto rabbit hole. I also know that you're a self-described serial entrepreneur. So I'm hoping you can walk me down a little bit, you know, your path, maybe your previous businesses and what your first crypto experience was.
00:03:35
Speaker
I am an engineer as well, major in engineering here in Mexico. I've always worked for, so I have been kind of in entrepreneurial space for around 13 years. I have a partner who also is a co-founder of Maya that has
The Advantages of Decentralization in Business
00:03:53
Speaker
been with me in all of that journey. And we will obviously, we've made a broken several different businesses in several different realms and kind of what merged
00:04:03
Speaker
Emerged from more experiences was a specialization in business scalability and scalable business models in general. And it doesn't get more scalable than crypto. It's just something very beautiful seeing.
00:04:20
Speaker
like, just the code being replicated, borderless, the ownership that is also so scalable, versus, you know, typical startup structures. So I just, we just found that fascinating. Personally, I was involved in crypto scenes earlier, since around 2016, 2017. Sorry to some research. And I just love the
00:04:47
Speaker
Math, economic, social, kind of everything together. I find it pretty cool. I started reading white papers, setting up my cold wallet, doing all that stuff. I found it super interesting. I just always had some research going on on crypto. In 2001 in April, as the Thorchain mainnet was launching, I had the pleasure to already be an LP.
00:05:14
Speaker
on Rune Inc and yeah I just you know started getting more involved, found it fascinating and I've heard a webinar about some Dev of the Torche community mentioning that there could eventually be more than one network involved and how that would work and I just thought like I want to be second. So we got to work
00:05:40
Speaker
So some people from the software development company went over to Maya and we started working and got a bit of family funding, then got a bit of friends funding and then continued on and got some serious aid funding. And that's what we've been doing ever since. So yeah, that's a bit on my background. I don't know if you have a specific question.
The Birth of Maya Protocol
00:06:02
Speaker
So I definitely heard in a previous interview that you were a Thor Chad, the Kriti provider, and then you heard one of the devs speaking in an interview that Thor Che was just going to be the first of several and you wanted to be number two. That was something that was very important to you. I think a question that I have and a lot of other people have is why does there need to be multiple? I was wondering if you could explain that a bit more to me.
00:06:28
Speaker
Sure, there's several reasons. The first I would say is if you believe there is a multi-chain future, so there won't be a convergence around just one protocol, rather a divergence of several chains, then obviously the centralized multi-chain infrastructure is super important. And if you agree that it is super important, then you need redundancy, right? It's like being alive is very important, but I need to get from point A to point B rapidly, so I take a plane.
00:06:55
Speaker
But I don't want, if one engine goes off, me dying. So I get a second motor, right? A second engine. And that's what happens in commercial airlines, right? They fly with two motors, just in case. The plane can fly perfectly with one. So likewise, it's so important that you don't, as an infrastructure thing, to keep things going, to keep the crypto market alive in a decentralized fashion, which is why Nakamoto founded this in the first place.
00:07:26
Speaker
then you need redundancy and redundancy of course requires spending so it doesn't come for free typically. And yeah if you believe you know the fortune can be offline for a while it has been storm or Maya will be as well. They can be also you know state capture of a protocol that's entirely possible costly but possible if you take into account that
00:07:54
Speaker
you know, there will be different chain spreads. Then I think it just makes sense. Then there's more kind of deeper reasons. Just having more liquidity on the centralized exchanges makes sense. It will lead to less slippage in the centralized game.
00:08:14
Speaker
At the end of the day, it's also not Maya versus Torchen or Torchen versus Oniswap. It's Dex versus Sexis. That's it. That's the game. So just the more people in the space, more teams, more decentralization, more writing the code, more development.
00:08:30
Speaker
So all of that makes sense. There's also ways to have synergy arbitrage between both protocols eventually becoming a price leader together which would reduce intermittent loss and other stuff. So we really just make
Maya Protocol's Innovative Launch Strategies
00:08:46
Speaker
sense. But fortune at the end of the day is also the incumbent. They're the big guys in town in the cross-chain space.
00:08:53
Speaker
So Maya needs to also innovate a bit and bring some stuff to the playing field to have its chance to shine. So that's what we've been working on the last half a year, year and a half.
00:09:08
Speaker
I was hoping you could tell us what is Maya, what sets you guys apart. I know that you are launching too. I had a couple of questions about that, but just give us a quick TLDR about what is Maya for people that don't want to read the 110 page white paper expansion, which I did skim through just before this.
00:09:27
Speaker
Well, Maya is a cross-chain DEX. It allows you to swap between different chains with no wrapping, no pegging, no smart contracts. So, essentially, you can go Bitcoin on Bitcoin chain to ETH on Ethereum network, probably. Torchain does this already.
00:09:49
Speaker
we actually use most of their code. And what we bring to the table is simply increase capital efficiency by changing what nodes bond. Instead of them bonding kind of this rune, which is a guarantee that will remain in a vault, they bond LP units. So they bond capital that's going out to work, which just makes it
00:10:15
Speaker
the design more efficient. And that should increase both the liquidity that's working, increasing slippage, as well as the perceived yield on that liquidity, which will attract more liquidity. And liquidity is the most important thing we need to chase. So that's more or less what we bring to the table. Also, given that we have the benefit of hindsight, we're also launching in a more fair fashion, I believe,
00:10:41
Speaker
with our liquidity auction design, which is pretty interesting. We're essentially giving away the utility token to whoever has the liquidity. And we also take advantage of the economic security of Maya to secure other chains. And that's another mouthful, but you'll find out more in the future about that.
00:11:01
Speaker
So one thing I've heard you speak about before is that you hate IDOs and you want this to be the fairest launch. I also heard you say that none of the founders will be able to sell Thermia. So curious, you know, kind of what gave you this idea? Will this truly be the fairest launch?
00:11:18
Speaker
Typically an IVO process I take a token which is usually the native utility token of the network. I keep a lot of it. I love a lot of it for myself and for my investors and I sell out in an IVO at some you know some price somehow there's different price setting methods but at a certain price the token and the funds come over to me to my personal wallet and I could literally disappear the next day.
00:11:50
Speaker
And, you know, the people are left with no assurances. Another problem is, you know, once the token is worth something and it's overhyped for some reason, I can easily dump on them and use their liquidity as my exit liquidity, which is obviously wrong.
00:12:06
Speaker
And even if I don't do it mysteriously over time as the protocol does well and I start to vest, I will have a tendency to liquidate my position slowly and that will generate some pressure on the token, limiting its natural growth and obviously to the detriment of not only the community, but the product itself, because let's understand these things are products.
00:12:32
Speaker
that chain is doing something. And if the internal economy is dependent on this token and you're making it be worth less, the economy is being hurt by it. So you're essentially causing your patient to secretly clean token. So we take that, throw it out the window and start again. And so let's understand what Maya needs. Maya needs a lot of liquidity.
00:12:58
Speaker
Maya needs to protect its native token very jealously and Maya needs the founders and the team to be incentivized for the long term.
00:13:13
Speaker
you know our tenants. What can we do about it. So what we came up with is a liquidity option design with a dual token which essentially means that all of the cacao will be will be given away to our peace at the birth of the protocol. So let's say you you have Bitcoin and you know your friend that's Eve and people are adding these different tokens in these different chains to my chain.
00:13:36
Speaker
So first it's not coming to me, it's coming the different nodes that protect my change at that time will be holding custody over those funds and as more nodes come in from the market that will be more decentralized
Launching in a Bear Market: Strategy and Vision
00:13:52
Speaker
very quickly. So there's a very fast plan to have these auctioned funds be
00:13:59
Speaker
adequately protected. Right. And it's not a promise. It's just part of the design of the system already. Now people add all of these and this is put into these LP pools. I think a cow is giving birth to and just donated into those pools.
00:14:15
Speaker
most all of it. The only 10 percent that's not is just there for the employment loss protection reserve. So it's essentially all for the community all for the peace. So what that does is that immediately it essentially doubled the position of the community.
00:14:33
Speaker
because of how A&Ms work. A&M takes that whatever one side is worth, so your Bitcoin, the other side, which is a donated account, will be worth as well. Obviously, people will keep their liquidity there because there's swaps going on and they're getting yield, else they would leave. So it's not a scheme or anything. It's just how the incentives work.
00:14:56
Speaker
There's just small caveat there. We made the economic design where if your lockup period is very short, 21 days for instance, you do get some type of penalty instead of doubling your position, which is increased by 34%.
00:15:11
Speaker
Whereas if you are in it for the long haul, I think it's six months maximum, you're getting some of the penalty of others to yourself. So it's all PvP. It's not going to us. It's not going to the team. It's all staying in the pools so that when we open the doors for swaps, there's already a lot of liquidity there and Kakao is not worth a lot.
00:15:31
Speaker
And now notice why protecting account price is so important because it is essentially retaining the economic power of the pools and thus their debt and thus little slippage which will increase affordability and bring more supplement.
00:15:48
Speaker
So it's very important to keep Kakao. And if I had Kakao as the team member, then I could considerably change that Kakao for BTC and take it clearly out of the system. So I don't want the team having Kakao from the beginning.
00:16:02
Speaker
Instead, what we do is we share with the team 10% of the swap fees and all the transaction fees and everything. So in itself, it's already a vested mechanism if you notice. For every $9, notes and LPs earn, the devs, investors, founders earn $1. And this $1 isn't just divided
00:16:23
Speaker
to Maya token holders, which is just, you know, within the protocol. It's also a native token, but it's no of no use really has no governance rights, nothing of the sort. And this is just share every 24 hours denominated in Kakao. So we launched
00:16:41
Speaker
For instance, there's not a lot of usage of the protocol, but cacao price is very high because it has a lot of liquidity. We cannot just simply exit, dump, and leave. We have no cacao. If there are no swaps, we have zero cacao. Just shops have to start blowing in utility revenues, real yield, for us to make a cent. So we have our incentives aligned.
00:17:08
Speaker
And it's for the long call, right? Because if we just demonstrate a few swaps, now it will give us just very few cacao. We need to have a lot of cacao
Regulatory Challenges and Privacy in Crypto
00:17:16
Speaker
coming in reliably over a lot of time, and that means a lot of revenues for the community. And additional to that, the founder's stake on Maya cannot be sold. So whereas an investor, they have community members, somebody that bought in some round, can liquidate their assets eventually if they want to.
00:17:33
Speaker
the founders can never really liquidate their Maya token. So then how did we earn from the cacao that started flowing in? So our interest is to have a long lasting, long believing protocol that is generating
00:17:49
Speaker
yield for a long, long, long, long time in order for us to make back what we spent, essentially, and all the all the volunteers. So it just makes sense as a designer. I think it's super fair. Whoever added more liquidity gets more cacao. Whoever stays the longest gets more cacao. People can withdraw.
00:18:13
Speaker
Kakao is all circulating. It's all available. There's no weird reserves or weird supplies coming out of nowhere. It's just all straightforward. So that's what we set out to do. And I believe the design we chose takes all the right boxes.
00:18:28
Speaker
I've been speaking with a lot of founders recently, and there's this big decision of when to launch a protocol, you know, whether to do it in a bull market or a bear market. That's a big decision. And you guys had the opportunity to launch in the bull market, which would have been an easy cash grab, I can imagine, which would have been good for your investors. But you guys chose to delay a little bit in your launching. And what is truly the depths of a bear market in the midst of peak FUD,
00:18:56
Speaker
Can you hear a little bit more about that decision and kind of what led you to this point? That was a difficult decision, but what we needed to make, obviously we want, at the end we are mission driven, right? We want Maya to have the best shot at moving the envelope forward into the centralized space of the pie of cross-chain. We really believe in the mission statement of, you know, separate money from state.
00:19:23
Speaker
And I think we can achieve it with crypto. We could have just launched the protocol as is, you know, no capital efficiency increase, no liquidity option, no shenanigans, no, no, you know, security chains, anything of that nature. We could have just said, you know, cacao, let's say 30 percent goes to us and our investors and the rest we IPO out and we launch.
00:19:47
Speaker
We could have done that in December of 2021. So, you know, height, peak of the market. So, we took the decision that that was not what was best. It would have had the shallow liquidity. It wouldn't have brought anything to the table. It would also be detrimental to the protocol because
00:20:12
Speaker
If the bear case did happen of you know the big drop that was expected already with those with liquidity at lunch all liquidity would have decreased in the percentage numbers that the market decreased. And we saw that with torture. But you know torture needs a lunch in a bear. So even now with these new bear
00:20:32
Speaker
Their token price is higher than they was last bear. So it makes sense. It doesn't seem like a failed protocol. Whereas Maya just launching in a bowl, just a copycat and launching quickly and all of these tokens that the devs have, they didn't develop any code anyway. It would have been just fatal.
Maya Protocol's Vision and Challenges
00:20:52
Speaker
for the long term prospects of the protocol. Yes we could have cashed in. I think part of it and quite more easily. But I don't think we would have brought anything to crypto or the pie. So we took the difficult decision to to put in the work.
00:21:09
Speaker
bringing a few changes, launch fairly, wait for the bear to start, and launch then, and all of that. And I think it was the right decision. Now, the opposite happens. Now, whatever liquidity we do raise in the next bull, it will be five to 10 bucks easily. So, even if we just raise, I don't know, 10 or $20 million.
00:21:35
Speaker
that's easily $100 million or $200 million in the next bull cycle, which is already respectable for protocol.
00:21:46
Speaker
that is correlated to the price of the assets in security. So we will see also a nice hockey stick towards the ceiling in that regard. So our community will be happy. It will generate a lot of stimuli for the swapping and since and savers and all that because of the economic growth. So that will generate a lot of revenues, which will generate cacao for Maya holders.
00:22:13
Speaker
We have brought something to the space. People can see it, you know, code base on GitLab. We have a nice white paper describing everything that we worked on. Our code was audited by Halborne. The audits finished in nine days, actually, 19th of January. We're excited about that.
00:22:31
Speaker
So I think in general, it was a sound decision, a difficult one, a difficult one to follow up with, because I recently query has been sparse, but we've made do however we could, and we're still here. And we're just a few weeks from lunch, so very happy for that to happen soon.
00:22:51
Speaker
I have to tell you, this is a project that I personally have been very excited about. I have been very bullish on the cross chain space. And when I got to meet you, I had, you know, when you meet someone, you have just a good vibe. And that's what I had. That's what I had when I met you. I remember just thinking, you know, what's this Maya thing? I'm going to get an airdrop from just for holding my room. But as I've gotten to know you and as I've been following the project, I am getting more excited about it.
00:23:16
Speaker
With recent events, of course, Celsius, FTX, and centralized exchanges, this domino effect, I do think there is a bigger opportunity for people like you to come in and step in and have a great user experience and show people the value of DeFi. To hear you come in and speak and know that there's not going to be some token unlocks, investing period, and that you are committed and that you are in it for the long haul,
00:23:43
Speaker
That gives me a little bit more of a warm and fuzzy feeling as opposed to this frothy bull market where there is just yield everywhere, annoying that this is more of that real yield narrative. You're going to get paid off the swaps. I definitely am enjoying hearing that.
00:23:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, well, essentially, the changes fumbled the ball, truly. People trusted them a bit unwarrantedly, but they did. I hope we learn as a community, as a society, that central players will inevitably start taking decisions that are against your interests, just because they're not you. They're in a different game than you are.
00:24:27
Speaker
The question is, how do we make all of these PVP, the economical incentives that are aligned between all the players? Well, just as now, nodes are incentivized to protect the network, LPs to add liquidity, users to swap here because they
Advice for New Crypto Investors
00:24:43
Speaker
don't require any KYC and they don't have any fund custody and debts because the more shops that come in, the more we earn. So it's just an ecosystem that
00:24:54
Speaker
It's in the same boat and it's growing on the same direction. And, you know, there's no one's interest is to sink the ship. And, you know, pointing out a huge success Fortune had, you know, during all of these
00:25:10
Speaker
blockchain is still inking away swaps and bringing up new features and adding more liquidity to their vaults. So I'm super proud of what these guys have done. They're truly an amazing team. Some people we really do look up to quite a bit. And it just shows the power of decentralized protocols. They're still around. And I don't mean L1s. I just mean those taxes that are truly committed to decentralized exchanging.
00:25:40
Speaker
You know, the call you sound and it will just keep working and keep, keep, keep doing, doing everything we need for us. So we just need to come up with more creative ways to bring in new futures. I don't know if you read the latest hurt.
00:25:57
Speaker
proposal by Torch and Dev Team, I found it amazing, looking forward to lending as well, and all that. And all of that would also be coming to Maya after some time. So I just think it's the most exciting time for DeepEye. Is that some alpha for us?
00:26:14
Speaker
Yeah, well, we're backwards compatible with Torchain. So whatever you see Torchain doing, we can probably do as well. Not everything, for instance, P-O-L needs to have a bit of a different design in Maya. P-O-L is protocol-only liquidity, so essentially liquidity not owned by any player, rather by the protocol itself as kind of laser-restore liquidity.
00:26:37
Speaker
In our cases, we have no cacao in the beginning where the reserve doesn't have any either. It needs to
Personal Insights and Future of DeFi
00:26:43
Speaker
come from somewhere. So we're also going to pass on a percentage of fees to POL. We'll see how we do that. But all the rest, so sinks, savers, lending, perps, order books that the potion is working on today.
00:26:59
Speaker
We are obviously going to help bring to fruition, but can also enjoy its food. So looking forward to that. In a previous interview, you said regulators be damned when you were discussing Maya.
00:27:19
Speaker
You give some great sound bites, by the way. When you were discussing Maya as a potential security in some jurisdictions, and that was a reason for your team's anonymity, I was wondering, does this mean that we'll be seeing Monero added to Maya in the near future?
00:27:36
Speaker
So I love privacy coins. And I think in a different world, Monero could have been the Bitcoin upper world if it had just been brought to life earlier. Bitcoin was, I believe, kind of a proof of concept and very, very successful at that and now has kind of a lot of incumbency in the market. But I love privacy. At the end of the day,
00:27:59
Speaker
Look, privacy is what we have by default in real life. When I give you cash or in ancient times when I gave you a bit of wood, I didn't have to declare it to everybody else around that I did, right? Privacy is super important to what makes us human and also a very important component of liberty, of freedom.
00:28:21
Speaker
So I believe it's something we need to focus a lot on. That said, we have to understand the timing of things, right? So we have the short term versus the long term. In the short term, there will be a lot of pin down on privacy. And as a decentralized exchange, we're already juggling quite a few things, right? We're already not doing KYC. We're already doing no AML.
00:28:49
Speaker
We are already not pulling any other regulation brought by the state. It already doesn't pay taxes by default. Some people have to do that themselves. So there's already a lot of baggage in that train. So if you add privacy too soon when you're still too small to make it, then it can be detrimental and terminal catastrophic for your protocol.
00:29:19
Speaker
So I think the rationale Fortune has and currently might as well is let's get a true decks out there that is already doing everything that stacks can do but better.
00:29:30
Speaker
Right. And once that's done and that's secure that's big enough that it won't fail anymore. It's already battle tested. It's already running on their metal nodes. The government is unable to bring it down because they're just already holding too much liquidity. It would be too expensive to bring them down. Now you need to use privacy into them.
00:29:54
Speaker
either directly or through a third org just hosting all those privacy coins and making that kind of like obtain what we want to do. We want to swap to Fortune and Maya that are open or you want to go through the privacy route. So with all that in mind.
00:30:13
Speaker
It's just a tiny thing. Guys, be patient. We're breaking ground here, and we're trying to make it work. More than half of our job is just chasing liquidity for the protocol. And those liquidity doors, many will close if we're related to privacy. So we just only need to have a lot of liquidity, a lot of inertia, and then start looking at those options.
00:30:41
Speaker
Whereas in another hand protocols that can have privacy transactions but can have them open as well, those are probably fine from the very beginning. So we will focus on those earlier.
00:31:00
Speaker
because we think that will sound better. We're not involved in the privacy. We're doing open transactions that are visible, that are public. And if somebody then does it privately, that's their priority. It's like me giving cash to you and declaring that openly to the state, and then you giving a back alley cash transaction. I didn't do anything. You did.
00:31:25
Speaker
So, yeah, that's more or less where my heart lies. I love privacy. I wish Bitcoin were more narrow from the beginning. It wasn't where, as we're here, things are kind of public and we're going to have to juggle a lot. I think that should be a ball we have later in the game. So not never, just not now.
00:31:47
Speaker
Look, in my view, crypto was already very big last cycle, and it will certainly really be bigger next cycle, as there are more use cases, more technology, serial knowledge proofs are becoming huge. There starts to be more disability awareness, user experience, technology, what Torchi and I are doing, all that.
00:32:15
Speaker
Once the market is bigger and bigger and bigger, keeping in mind these means governments are already getting less powerful. So let's say you're Argentina. And in the past, you were used to just, you know, you need more money. You just inflate your token, your sheet coin, which is your local currency. And, you know,
00:32:34
Speaker
The population there has to eat it. They have to eat the inflation. They have to eat the hit. And they have no other option. But now they do. We have one employee in Argentina. We just pay them with Bitcoin. So now that people have a choice, it is stopping a very important and last resource method of governments funding themselves.
00:33:01
Speaker
Also, as more people go to crypto, there will inevitably also be less taxes raised, even if people are good citizens and all of that. It just changes the dynamics of when and where you pay taxes. So with that in mind and people having less, for instance, seizing assets now, it's really difficult.
00:33:23
Speaker
seizing Bitcoin is not straightforward at all, unless so Monero and others. So because of that, over time, I think government right now will start doing kind of the kicks of some of the man drowning, which is increasing regulation, just, you know, a lot of yelling, a lot of doing, a lot of activity, a lot of pressure.
00:33:45
Speaker
But they will go under eventually in that regard and we'll have to either join them or die. If we see other countries that are crypto friendly I think they will do much better especially in the coming years.
00:34:00
Speaker
And those that take an enforcer route, a regulation route, will be punished. Because if I'm in Switzerland and I want to buy a house, I will probably just declare it and do everything openly since there's many options for me there in that regard. So I'll pay taxes. And even if I'm American, I'm probably going to be moving to Switzerland if I have a lot of crypto money, right? So that would make Switzerland richer and America poorer.
00:34:29
Speaker
If you take that over a long period of years, I believe over the next five to eight years, there won't be much energy behind regulation and privacy will take predominance. And I'm so happy for that to happen and so much looking forward to.
00:34:46
Speaker
The other alternative is that we don't have any crushing technology. We didn't really do anything decentralized. We were just doing NFTs and cashing in money. We don't really do anything of value and crypto implodes. And we morphed into a world of CBDCs where, you know,
00:35:04
Speaker
or expenditure is public and regulated by the state what you spend on and how much you may spend and seizing is super easy. So hopefully we don't end up in that future. We need to put in the work now and invest in decentralized projects now and use them and self custody and just learned to hopefully make that brighter future of truly the centralization and privacy possible.
00:35:33
Speaker
That's so amazing that you let into that because you seem like such an interesting person to get their opinion of CBDCs on. That was one thing I wanted to know. I mean, just from listening to some of your previous interviews and some of the things that you said today, maybe you'll give me a good sound bite from my interview on this one. Well, you know, I don't research enough on CBDCs because I just get pissed off. But
00:36:02
Speaker
We cannot let that happen. I believe if states start creating CBDCs, it might accelerate their downfall. As an analogy, for instance, on electric vehicles, traditional automakers
00:36:22
Speaker
are producing electric vehicles at a loss, but now they're forced to generate more of them and get into that space. And that's just exacerbating their problem because they're cannibalizing their own brands while generating a loss-making vehicle and reducing volume of their profitable vehicles. So them entering these new spaces is accelerating their demise.
00:36:45
Speaker
Likewise, I believe, in a world where we continue in either centralized privacy and self-custody route faithfully and in a determined way. And as a community and society, we keep using them. And then we see states trying to bring on their stable coins to the game. It's like when somebody
00:37:14
Speaker
you know promotes an electric vehicle you know the person will just start researching and end up buying a Tesla you know because it's just better cheaper has more stuff better reviews whatever think that also on a CVDC you know transactions were slow they were tracking my expenditure they stopped these they stopped that I rather use Bitcoin and now that they're into the crypto space because of the CVDCs
00:37:42
Speaker
It's now more of the same. It's no longer these fringe case. They made it normal. So I hope that those failed attempts accelerate our adoption. But.
00:37:53
Speaker
If people on crypto are just here for the money and convenience and less clicks and less seed phrases and all that, and they just embrace TVDCs openly and take their crypto liquidity into CBDC liquidity, then cash will be eventually prohibited.
00:38:15
Speaker
and it would just get worse and worse and worse. You know, e-commerce will start to die, except communities here, and communities only, and all of that can get bad very fast. But if there's no
00:38:30
Speaker
liquidity being exceeded from particular rather just more people joining the crypto space because of the CVDCs, because we are building things of value and use, then I think we will succeed and CVDCs will just increase the rate at which the fiat shitcoin era ends faster.
00:38:55
Speaker
So it sounds like we have a unique opportunity, and it's a good thing there's good builders out there like you who are creating a decentralized future for us. So that very bleak one that you just painted hopefully doesn't come to pass. One thing that we touched on earlier, but I wanted to go back to a little bit, is the ancient Mayans were a big inspiration for Maya. Not just in name, it sounds like in some other parts as well. They were pretty technologically advanced.
00:39:25
Speaker
So I was doing a bit of research, and I read that the cacao beans were actually used as a form of currency for buying and trading goods. At one point, they were more valuable than pure gold, and they were used as recently as 1850, still for small change. So I thought that was very interesting.
00:39:42
Speaker
learning more about money as I'm going down this rabbit hole. So I was wondering, besides the name now we learned, how else did the ancient Mayans inspire you? Are there any rituals? I know they're big into rituals that you maintain now in your personal or professional life. And what have they got to you now?
00:39:59
Speaker
Well, Kakao is, yes, obviously some guy on Twitter once said, hey, why Kakao? Chocolate, soy, caricature. But we explained the background on Kakao because, oh, I didn't know. Thank you. Today I learned. Yeah, actually, Kakao is a perfect name for a token.
00:40:18
Speaker
because nobody owned the production of cacao. Cacao was produced naturally then. It was totally wild, so it wasn't domesticated yet. And he grew out of trees, so people would harvest them and use them as a means of exchange.
00:40:36
Speaker
And the rate at which people exchanged stuff back then was not directed by anybody. It was just a deal one-on-one, like, hey, how much does a sheet run for? And they would calculate, OK, I think it's like 10 hammers and 10 hammers I was giving for like 30 cacao. So 30 cacao will do.
00:40:58
Speaker
And there you go. And cacao is just a way to be used as a store of value and means of exchange. And it really literally powered the Mayan economy beyond what many of many other civilizations had. So pretty interesting stuff in that regard. And I just I just love that of what we chose to name our protocol. I love it.
00:41:22
Speaker
pre-Hispanic culture. At the end of the day, in Guadalajara, where I'm based, we're too far north to be too much involved culturally directly. We do have, for instance, Dia de Muertos, Day of the Dev, on the 2nd of November, right after Halloween, which is a nice celebration that, you know, I don't celebrate it in my family directly, especially because my family is even up from, you know, further north. But
00:41:50
Speaker
But, you know, you'll go to a festival or something around and see these beautiful outdoors and, you know, drink hot chocolate with dead bread. We call it so pretty fun. And yeah, I believe it's just a culture heritage we have and that we were heavily inspired by. And more importantly, I hope we inspire others.
00:42:15
Speaker
because Latin Americans often think that the only way to make it is, you know, going to the U.S. and, you know, IPO-ing there or doing a project in San Francisco. And there's a huge, you know, a brain exile happening and people just going to work to Europe or the U.S. Today with crypto, there's some borders you can build at home.
00:42:40
Speaker
and be pretty successful. So I hope Maya is one such example, because there's definitely many bright people working all around crypto. There's many Latin Americans working different projects that I met, and you're like, hey, you're Latino, hey, all that.
00:42:57
Speaker
We have to believe it, that we can do it. Crypto is no longer a market that's monopolized by state power, or by currency, or by Wall Street. Rather, it's just something for all of us. And if you have a laptop, which most of us have, or have a smartphone, you can be part of it. So hopefully, we can inspire others in Latin America through our obvious naming and obvious show of hand that we're from.
00:43:26
Speaker
from Mexico and from Argentina and hopefully join us building and really is also needed most underdeveloped countries where dictators stopped in inflate currencies beyond what they should and seized property and all that
00:43:46
Speaker
We need this a lot and we need adoption quick in places like Argentina and Venezuela. It's not a matter of speculative investing. It's a matter of whether you will eat or not. So it's definitely more serious and many people seem to make it be.
00:44:02
Speaker
Crypto for me is not an NFT. Crypto for me, it's a way to bring freedom, economic security, and just a future of prosperity for so many talented individuals all over the world, especially in places where it's needed most, like Latin America.
00:44:19
Speaker
That was so inspiring to listen to. It's interesting. I live in the United States and we're only just barely getting the touches of inflation. I'm feeling the pains of it when I go to the store or the gas station, but I have no idea what it's like to live in Latin America and deal with what you're describing. This can really change lives.
00:44:40
Speaker
It's interesting to get a global perspective and being able to talk to you and meet people all across the world and find out the real world use cases. That's really what excites me. You know, you guys are seeing probably, you know, reportedly single digits inflation, more likely lower single, lower double digit inflation. Some of these and American countries are facing triple digit inflation. Like, bang.
00:45:08
Speaker
That's just crazy. It's just like saying, you know, with your money just halved. So if you could buy something for $100 today, you would be you have to earn $200 next year or eat half or, you know, provide half of toys to your children or, you know, have half their budget for health care. So it's it's terrible stuff. Really, it's it's it's.
00:45:35
Speaker
sad. So we need to work on it for them. And this is not next cycle or in 10, 20 years. This is now. People are suffering now. So we need to apply the urgency that this deserves. Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin white paper after the fall of
00:46:00
Speaker
the stock market in 2008 and started to be quenching right after.
00:46:08
Speaker
It was rightly a manifesto against what was happening, which was the government socializing the losses of the centralized groups that fumbled the ball and further inflating or means of exchange to bear that cost on top of the taxes we pay and on top of the debt to our children.
00:46:37
Speaker
And, you know, it trickled down to every country, not only the US. So we in Mexico face that, even though we didn't have any of the upside or decision power. The whole market collapsed all over the world. So we need to stop that. We need to take that power away. We need to take that power in our hands. And we have the technology now to do it. It's up to us whether we
00:46:58
Speaker
we put in the work and the slight inconvenience and the you know just awareness around those like we're doing with this podcast so you know to make that future happen faster. So kind of along those lines what would you say are the biggest challenges that you face right now in the space and how did you or how are you overcoming them? Just
00:47:23
Speaker
being laser focused in security is difficult. You need to audit your code, implement bug bounties, be super careful. And it's just a lot of stake, like a very high stakes thing. So that's a big challenge and paying for the audience, which are really expensive, especially if you get any good ones. That has been a challenge. Sourcing liquidity in this cars market where people are kind of frightened,
00:47:46
Speaker
Yeah. People are also just setting up for the upcoming recession or just became burnt or uninterested in crypto because of recent events by central players, which doesn't make any sense. For me, it validated the crypto narrative. But some people, they keep asking me, like, how's your Bitcoin doing, huh? I'm like, this is fine.
00:48:14
Speaker
Yeah, that has been a challenge, obviously, than just awareness. A lot of people disappear with this downturn. So it's more difficult to grow the roots of the community and get more followers, get more interest, get more awareness. So shout out to anybody that knows more ways to get awareness or more podcasts or spaces to join into. We're happy to participate in those because we just need to
00:48:43
Speaker
inform more people and invite more people to join us in these machines. So yeah, those would be the three challenges, security, liquidity, awareness. And then on the flip side, I like to ask my guests what their biggest accomplishment is in this space. I know that you're still building, but is there something that you're very proud of?
00:49:04
Speaker
I'm super proud of the liquidity nodes design making Maya twice as capital efficient. Even if Maya fails, I think we brought that to the cross-chain technology space and I think it will be coming up for years to come in different protocols. So bonding liquidity is super powerful and I think it will be really used often.
00:49:29
Speaker
I'm proud of where we are, code-wise, and how far we've gone in the audit process. We're very close to finishing, so proud of that. And I'm also just part of the project we've done. I think people are endeared by our work, and people have been treated with respect. And a lot of people have been onboarded into what Thorgy is doing and become more Thorgy in goals.
00:49:58
Speaker
just validating that what Tolkien has done is truly amazing. I think we're proud of that and bringing more light on that. I hope I'm going to be proud of a smooth lunch very soon. So I'm going to be working on that and hopefully going to have that new trophy in order.
00:50:22
Speaker
you know, in our vaults. So we have to keep working for that. What advice would you give to someone new who was looking to invest in the crypto space? Read white papers ASAP. Like, do it. Just, you know, Bitcoin white paper, a few pages long. Ethereum white paper, just a few scrolls down. That was a bit longer. And just read them in chronological order. Like, don't try to go to the newest stuff. Just go, like,
00:50:53
Speaker
You know, Bitcoin is 2008. Ethereum is like 2013, 14. So that's a jump already. So if you can find somewhere to read in the middle, there are some smart contract papers there. If you're interested in privacy, read Monero white paper. So just read white papers. I think that's the best way to do your own research. Really understand what is technically happening and to notice that it's just not numbers.
00:51:22
Speaker
and money go up, it's truly technology that people have been working very hard on and that really have different use cases and design decisions and all of that.
00:51:35
Speaker
So if you go chronologically to what my best kind of recommendation is, especially if you want to understand Maya, is you read Bitcoin, then Ethereum, then Cosmos, then Thorchain, and then Maya. That's a great track. And ignore the rest. Just see what the devs are doing, the documentation, the code, the use cases that you think God could have. And eventually, they will have that use case. Eventually, they will read results.
00:52:06
Speaker
don't care too much about the current required number. I know that you work a lot and you have a very noble purpose, but what do you enjoy doing in your free time for fun? Sure, I like to read.
00:52:21
Speaker
Before I start my books, I like to, I play Paddle Tennis, which I recommended by Twitter recently. It's a super fun game. I play piano and I love, I love food. So just trying to have no food around and that experience going out to dinner with my fiance, I think is like the best plan for me. And
00:52:48
Speaker
just learning new stuff. I like learning new things every day about tech, cinematography, education, curiosity, whatever I can get my hands on that sparked my interest. I just like pulling that thread to wherever it will take me. I think it eventually will be of some use. So I just like accumulating more stuff.
00:53:13
Speaker
I definitely see that you have this very curious mind and you also have a very technical mind. But what I like about you is even though you're so smart and I've heard you explain things in such a technical way that really go over my head, you also have a way of explaining things to me or, you know, like I'm a fifth grader and you can use these analogies and explain it in a very simple fashion. And I think that's a really great thing about you.
00:53:38
Speaker
I think it's important to have adoption and awareness to be able to explain stuff simply. I also think it shows honesty. You know, when people start using a lot of gibberish, it usually means they're hiding something and they want it to go over your head.
00:53:55
Speaker
And finally, I think it also denotes the understanding of the concepts. If you cannot explain them simply, I think it denotes that you truly understand what's going on. So I also always recommend if you want to learn something in depth, explain it.
00:54:11
Speaker
The more you explain it and the more challenges and the difficulties you have in doing so will push you to learn it better and explain it better and understand it better inevitably. So one of the best ways to learn I think is teaching. I think teaching is very powerful for that.
00:54:31
Speaker
So I have a couple of quicker questions. I call this the Quick Take section. OK. I'm ready. Shorter answers. What is the best advice you've ever received? Wow. That's not a quick question. Typically, just like the first thing that comes to mind. Wow.
00:54:50
Speaker
Well, I've been giving a lot of advice. I think depending on what mood you are, it's what answer you'll get. But I think the one I can think of now is from my dad. It's to save, save, save. There's a book called The Richest Man in Babylon. And it says, if you were poor with 100% of your salary, you're exactly as poor with 90% of it. So save 10%.
00:55:19
Speaker
Yeah. And I think I say this because with the liquidity crunch going on, I've had to take from from our savings to keep my going. And, you know, thanks for that advice that you're listening to this because I wouldn't be able to do so if I hadn't paid that advice. So, yeah, I'd say I'd say, you know, things that
00:55:44
Speaker
I'm sure he'll love that. So I know that you have a massive bookcase there. So what was the last book you read? Almanac. Pretty cool book, actually. It speaks about the leverage of COVID. So that's, that is just available to crypto. So you can have the chance to read. It's very philosophical, but it introduces a lot of learning. And I think it's very inspiring.
00:56:08
Speaker
as a book. Oh, there's another book, pretty cool, called Curiosity. Curiosity. Which I recommend a lot. Yeah. No, Curious. Curious. Let me give you the exact title. The title is Curious. The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends on It. Pretty cool book. It speaks about how we know people are curious, why we are curious as a species, and how to protect curiosity.
00:56:32
Speaker
in others. So I think it's pretty interesting. I love curiosity. I think it's a lot of what drives us. So I think it's so important to stay curious. I was a big motivator for me to want to do these podcasts and meet people because I'm endlessly curious. I could stay up all night researching new things. And I just I want to know everything there is to know and to have the opportunity to speak to someone like you and get to learn. I mean, how lucky am I? And I want to share that. So yeah.
00:57:02
Speaker
Yeah. What is your most used crypto slang? I think the one I've used most actually written and spoken is not your keys, not your coins. And I think it's the most important for a fortune in mind where we're here. So, yeah. And for those participating in the liquidity reaction and wanting to get my airdrop, not your keys, not your fair drop. So do get your rune of exchanges and into your wallets or helping positions.
00:57:31
Speaker
I've definitely learned the hard way with some Bitcoin locked in Celsius right now. I'm sorry for that. It's my own thought. I've been playing with DeFi long enough to know it's a small amount, but it still hurts. Yeah, it's infuriating.
00:57:48
Speaker
Yeah, well, what happened was people that follow me know I had a DeFi wallet compromised. It was my own fault. I fell for a Discord scam. So I thought, I'm just going to leave a tiny bit somewhere else just in case, you know, the worst happens again. You know, it's hard. Private custody is scary. So I was looking at private custody, trusting myself versus trusting someone else. It's hard to trust yourself. And I... Yeah, it's responsibility.
00:58:16
Speaker
With a lot of responsibility comes power as well. So, you know, Spider-Man says it the other way around, but I think as you become responsible for your own decisions, for your own situation, for your own resources, you become more powerful. So the power lies with you. So yeah, it's a side responsibility, it's high stakes, and it's something you need to take seriously. Be careful with your sheet phrase, not sharing it.
00:58:46
Speaker
not falling for quick gains. But yeah, I think it's about every single person needs to learn on their own. I believe that as much as I wanted to learn from other people's mistakes, unfortunately, I had to learn from my own. Complete the sentence. Decentralized finance is the future.
00:59:10
Speaker
I like that. And it's a beautiful feature that you're building. So just a couple of last words, speaking of future, what excites you the most about the future of crypto, Web3, and DeFi? The complete development of a cross-chain, multi-functional, decentralized exchange, so that we can do everything a centralized exchange typically does, just decentralized, trustlessly and better.
00:59:38
Speaker
But when we achieve that, that's a whole new career, and I think we're close. So I would say that. Because not your key is not your crypto, as we have learned. Yeah, exactly that. And because it's truly continuing the vision of crypto, right? We're not doing that, and what are we doing? What is one thing you want people to know about you, or you hope that they take away from this interview? That we take what we do very seriously.
01:00:07
Speaker
that we really hope we further that mission that I mentioned and that we really impact that positively. Well, thank you so much for your time today. As always, so smart, so insightful, and we're very excited for the launch. For those that want to learn a little bit more about you, about Maya, where can I link them to follow you and find some more information?
01:00:34
Speaker
Um, yeah, you can go to, uh, or lintry it's, uh, link sure.e slash my protocol. You can put it on the description. Um, there you'll see a lot of backlink into our discord or white paper, some podcasts, um, or website, uh, the my academy with a few articles that explain a lot of what we're doing in more simple terms. And, uh, yeah, we can find everything there. So, uh,
01:01:04
Speaker
Go right ahead. Take away. And if you like more insights, or this code is also the best way to go. We have a channel there of the discussions. You can post the hardest questions there. And you can also follow me at Twitter, Alex Smith.
01:01:20
Speaker
The last thing I realized you taught me today was that money does grow on trees when you said that the cacao bean grows on trees. So it really does. So obviously not financial advice, but cacao grows on trees, right? Yeah. It's a good slogan. Yeah, exactly. If you're looking for a marketing slogan.
01:01:46
Speaker
Anyway, it was great fun to catch up with you and I'm really excited to watch all of your progress. I truly feel that you're one of the good ones and I knew it when I met you. I just could feel that you're going to do great things. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much to you too. Thank you for having us. I'm happy to be here again when you invite us next. See you on my lunch. Of course, looking forward to it. Chat soon. Awesome. See you. Bye-bye.