Building Ethereum's Connectivity Hub with Polymer Labs

Transcript

before Ismail sounds off because he looks ready to do so one of the most Secure Solutions it'll be one of the fastest and cheapest as well very bullish on Ian da very bullish on polymer so you guys are already confirmed using aan da welcome to Igan layer unlocked an interactive educational Journey Through the Igan L ecosystem created by technical Founders and builders for the entire crypto Community a special thank you to our partners all Lair polymer authentic skate and lrange for helping to make this happen our goal is to raise the collective knowledge of the Igan Lair ABS ecosystem and unpack the technical designs of the top teams in space welcome to Igan layer

unlocked welcome back to the Roll Up Guys Peter welcome into the show we're live from Singapore ismail's on pod number two um yeah and we're going to have some fun today so welcome in when did you get in uh got in last night at like midnight Dam better than me I got in about five hours ago fresh off the plane brother quick shower it was a a long flight too right dude yeah I mean that was 16 hours yeah that's tough man that's tough where did you come from uh I flew in from Korea stopped by uh KBW how was that I heard kind of mixed things um yeah so I think uh I I've been staying close to the Korean market for like five years or so and I think it's last year was really bad this year saw a lot of

growth I think story went out and did a lot of events and worked with a lot of the uh Korean like web 2 and trafi companies so I think there's like Renewed Energy there um always nice to see like how different countries and geographies are growing in the web 3 space yeah yeah I've heard stories quite dominant in Korea as far as like their market and Community goes that's interesting well let's start this off with a more friendly kind of warm conversation before is mail sounds off because he looks ready to do so um Peter if you weren't working in in crypto let's say you know you didn't have to worry about money or if you if you were just not being a founder of polymer what do you think you'd be working on or what

is a passion project of yours yeah you know I think there's a few areas of uh interest for me I'd say like the most obvious is for me like clean tech I think what's really important for the world right now is to figure out like there's there's been optimizations towards like maximizing productivity but not necessarily optimizations for what waste that productivity creates so I think one thing I I care a lot about is like making sure we leave the world in a better place for our kids and uh whoever else we you know our Offspring um other than that I would also say like it'd be fun if I could uh start like a a a large network of animal

sanctuaries interesting I I was expecting to hear like AI or like something like a robot I like animal sanctuaries what's your favorite animal uh lately I'd say capy bar really yeah they have those in Brazil I've seen a couple little guys you know yeah don't eat them so K this guy so Peter you a co-founder of polymer um and there's a lot going on at polymer let's start with kind of like the original Vision uh what was the original vision of polymer and kind of how has that uh changed and shifted over the

years yeah so you know I think what would help is setting a little bit of context right so um I joined this space back in 2017 and that was basically all like ethereum uh fast forward I'll skip the details but um in 2020 2021 these are when this is when defi summer happened this is when like new chains were starting to launch and people wanted to chase yield and through a mutual friend I got connected to Bo and you know when I first got introduced I thought he was just going to ask me hey what what token should I buy like what coins what coin's going to go up but the the first couple calls we had were just all technical questions and by the time it was like the second or third call I was like bro like I'm a business guy I can't answer this level of tech but it

sounds like you're really interested um are you trying to work in the space are you trying to to build stuff he's like I just like building cool and I was like well you're in like the perfect space for that um so around that time we were building these apps um like makeshift apps connecting uh yield and liquidity between chains and um at one point it was just super painful right there was no infrastructure yeah and Bo calls me one day he says bro I can't keep doing this I'm like what do you mean he says these apps aren't going to make make it and most of the apps today aren't going to make it and I want to leave a legacy and I want to build something that will last decades and I

said 100% I'm with you let's do that so yeah that's like the background um I'd say from like a approach perspective we went through several different iterations of like what should the architecture look like Bo and I back then were looking a lot at like like I call it interop 1.0 uh Ren protocol had like Ren BTC they also helped build dude that was the Og man they shut Ren down yeah they shut them down yeah yeah go from eth to bitcoin and nobody knows brother yeah I tell you that it's it's unclear how much of what they built was legit because it was all closed Source right but you know they also helped with like rap Bitcoin uh with bitgo and then

uh back then also there was thorchain but basically I I say this to like describe interop 1.0 know and like how it was just token swaps but as the space was growing as more apps were building on different chains it we we came to realize like over time it's not just going to be tokens it's going to be just arbitrary messages um so yeah I think iterating from just like mint and burn Bridges to uh verification and um reading State between chains to create connections I think is basically like the where we're at now yeah yeah I mean we we have these rollup clusters now as we like to call them we've got you know

the super chain we've got like ZK Stacks we got the arbit from orbits then we have like these other ecosystems right like like the cosmos ecosystem salana so we got all these like little silos going on which within their own ecosystems it's extremely ex extremely easy to interoperate like you know a cosmos chain a cosmos chain on IBC is pretty damn good a a uh super chain roll up to Super CH Roll Up is pretty good but then like once you get outside of that I think this is where polymer has a big product product Market fit to be had so you guys are kind of going for like this connectivity Hub angle how are you seeing these rollup clusters play out in the future and kind of where do you see polymer fitting into this into this

picture yeah so you know I think uh one thing that Bo and I did to try to like better understand how this space is moving is look at like history so um I think a lot of people talk about how IBC is like the tcpip of web 3 um so we thought why don't we just look at the history of tcpip and um when you look at like the his taking another step back when you look at like the history of computers it's pretty crazy to think like the first digital computer was in 1945 and then the first uh intranets were in the 70s so most people are not necessarily familiar with this but tcpi wasn't the only internet solution there

were dozens uh IBM Apple uh all these big web2 giants back then like 40 50 years ago were all creating their own different networks um what made tcpip win was how open it was how neutral it was there was no rent extraction and uh we Qui quickly realized that um by building off of IBC we were on to something cuz a lot of these other interupt protocols they had uh like vendor lockin or exclusivity agreements or they had already started trying to extract value from connections um but yeah with IBC it's built by several different organizations it's neutral it's um you're verifying State between

chains you're not bringing in new uh trust assumptions or new third parties so yeah isma you guys are facilitating the process of an ABS for polymer in some capacity maybe you could kind of fill us in on that yeah one one of the things that I think is very interesting about about polymer and I think is fundamentally unique is the fact that from as long as I've known Bo and Peter they've embraced standards of interop over proprietary protocol mechanisms for interop and I think this is something that is both highly intellectually honest as well as something that is very reflective of of the future of space and so with what we work with with polymer is really about how polymer as a rollup can or an interoperability hub can kind

of understand and interpret space from different execution spaces to then be able to facilitate messaging between those spaces and that's based on state proofs that come from from our integration with Igan okay so you guys help facilitate via your state proofs via your AVS help to allow polymer to succeed in its interoperability Vision basically yeah I think po polymer has a very modular design over how it can kind of interpret State and one of the ways that I can interpret state is through State proofs that come from our state committees there's other mechanisms that they can support as well but but I think one of the ones that we think is a is a very strong degree of security and of State safety would be from from our state

proofs yeah and one thing I want to add is that it's you know for us we always prioritized security number one but one thing we realized that is that projects developers users they care a lot more about speed and cost and I'd go as far as saying that um what we have cooking with L gr right now uh not only will be one of the most Secure Solutions it'll be one of the fastest and cheapest as well yeah that's awesome uh so one thing that that you said is that stood out is like okay this idea of using standards like or a standard that's kind of open and uh usable by all and I think that's a big issue that we have right now in the inop space is like we have all these competing protocols that are trying to effectively establish what are what's

going to I think be like a couple standards um so Peter I'm kind of curious from your perspective how how do you see polymer's Hub being established as a standard and what makes polymer a good choice to be a standard for this kind of rollup interrup and broader interrup yeah yeah and and this also touches upon your earlier question about like the cluster clusters of Roll-Ups yeah it's um again I I'll draw back to like the whole history thing right uh these networks is internets of the different companies started launching in the 7s it was only up until like the late '90s early 2000s that it was basically very clear that tcpip had won um Apple took down Apple talk and all the other um

companies followed suit of like decommissioning their uh interets that means that the what they called the internet Wars uh the protocol Wars was like a 30-year time frame um we think similarly for the interop wars at least what Bo and I call the interrupt Wars I think it's only just heating up I think you look at layer zero Axel Wormhole and then ourself these protocols all launched in like the last two years and when you're thinking of a industry as nent and early as blockchain as web 3 um I think this battle is going to be uh it's not so much a battle for attention in the next 6 to 12 months

it's more so a war for uh did you build the right thing and is it going to work in 10 20 years and I think this also draws on another um key point in that what we built uh we're building for like millions of Roll-Ups so the advantage there is that as an L2 using Igan da we're able to have a much higher capacity than these Hub and spoke models that are relying on an L1 gotcha okay so you guys are you confirmed using aan da uh I'm not sure is that Alpha I hope say Yes um I mean yeah we love the igen team we've been early yeah we've so we've

been early testers for aan da we've given a lot of uh product feedback and uh always enjoy U our conversations with the aan layer team and yeah I think uh um I mean I mean I'm no sales I'm just asking questions over here right now very bullish On aan Da very bullish on polymer okay buddy all right man all right you're looking for a marketing R looking for bags oh man bu on yeah bullish on everything yeah I mean I think like getting more into the vision how do you see rollup interrup in like a post post polymer era in a in an era where you know I I like to think of it as like

okay we have right now what we're missing is like two two parts we have chain abstraction to the extent of like wallet abstraction and me having to switch Networks when I change rollups and me having to go to Bridges like my my vision is very is very simple it's like okay we have a wallet experience allows you to access all of your uh assets on any kind of L2 and hopefully eventually salana aptose sweet any L1 any L2 and then when you go to use an app on one of these chains your wallet is automatically connected the assets regardless of what chain they're on you can use them and behind the scenes when you click the swap button or when you click the deposit button if I have my my you know e on base or my soul on Sal I have extremely fast interrupt underneath

that when I click the button the interoperability protocol automatically gets triggered by some sort of intent and then the the the bridge happens my transaction happens my funds are on the destination chain I have no idea that I bridged I have no idea that my funds came from chain or I perhaps I I I can have an idea but it's not important and that the app owns my relationship I am loyal to the apps not to the chains and so I'm curious like do you resonate with with this vision is is polymer going to be something that when when users who are using these kind of wallet wallets that are abstracted is polymer going to be something that with they're going to be using without them even understanding that they're using polymer underneath

100% I think um I like where you went with this question because earlier with the beginning of the question my thought was you know this is going to be a super unsexy response because I think we're working so deep in the tech stack that um what Vision I could tell you is more so focused on like what the consumer crypto Builders are building right I think uh even this description of what you just like what you just said about like connecting wallets not knowing what chain you're on all that like I think in two to three years like the new users that come Inon even know that six months I think 2025 is cohort like second half they're they're going to be they're

going to be on some wallet that is not rabby or metam Mas I'm pretty I'm I'm pretty confident yeah I yeah I totally agree with that I think um the less that the user knows of what's going on underneath it the more likely we're going to reach uh Mass adoption I think what's key for us though is that making sure that the infrastructure that's in place is um it's not only fast and cheap but that it's secure I think uh as infrastructure uh digs deeper with its roots we need to make sure that it's healthy roots not the not just optimizing for go to market or quick adoption but something that's really optimized for long-term

sustainable adoption yeah so so you see a lot of like quote unquote order flow not coming that directly through like a polymer ux like a polymer bridge but like some other applications like for example we just had Luca on and they're building this this kind of um Global wallet if you will and you you you sign into this kind of customer portal like you would like an Amazon account or something and you've got all these or an Apple store and you've got all these different apps um you you see polymer as being something that people may not interact with on the front end but orderflow sources from like aggregators or from other kind of apps that that kind of plug in to polymer being used in the

future yeah yeah 100% I think uh another way to think about it is like um I'd imagine if you like went on the streets here and just asked someone like how does your Wi-Fi work correct the they'd just be like I type in the Wi-Fi password and it connects to my router and even then like after that it's just magic and um that's yeah the level of Simplicity that uh eventually we will get to as a space um similar to how like new entrance today might not be able to tell you like um how many seconds or minutes a confirmation is for a different type of blockchain got it is I want to put you

on the spot yeah please you ready yeah go do you think the interoperability endgame is like one team wins all or is it like different interop or different use cases is there you know there synchronous composability for some maybe specific use cases asynchronous for others or do you think like one thing just ends up that like that the community has to Rally around one thing it's interesting because I think standards create a very good precedent for abstraction within those standards that allow for multiple teams to succeed but I also think that it's very possible for a team to become so you know so dominant in its embodiment of that standard that it's able to capture the

whole market so what I'd say very broadly is that I think that there are different types of interupt that are that are useful so for example to your point but you know synchronous and asynchronous or at Atomic interrupt versus messaging interrupt and does one protocol do both Atomic composability of transactions between you know something that would have potentially a shared sequencer and also do you know uh messaging or or or packet based communication like IBC potentially but I I'd say what what you know I think we do gravitate towards is going to be these very very well-defined standards like IBC that teams like Paul Mar Champion you know one one thing I want to kind of comment on there is that uh when Bo and

I first digging started digging into inop and thinking about like all the different Frameworks for inop we thought about it a lot like uh internet protocols and I I also share you know the some of the historical context of the protocol Wars and like early tcpip and whatnot but one thing that I guess um I've been thinking a lot more about recently is that is this really the internet Wars or is this actually the next Telecom Wars um are companies like polymer lar zero Axel Wormhole are these more like AT&T uh T-mobile Verizon uh spectrum and you know when you put it that

way it kind of reframes like the approaches and um but how so the yeah so the reason I I think that is that like as a user you uh like you guys all have sell plans uh you care about like is it relatively affordable and am I going to have I want unlimited data and I want unlimited texting exactly exactly and I I think I've come to realize that most users think of interops similarly to how they think about Telecom how they think about their cell reception I wish you were a lot more like the tcpip and internet side and I think there's still opportunity for it to get there but

based on how um how the interop landscape and the different players approach uh adoption and go to market it looks a lot a lot more like Telecom than it does uh standards driving like less about making this standard and making sure it's open and neutral and more about like how do I connect as many people as possible in as short period of short of a period of time as possible and I think that's actually net negative for the space because uh it incentivizes shortcuts but you know we're still early enough where there's still um opportunity for there to be disruption that's actually a really interesting framing because if we look at the marketing of a lot of interop protocols they really do focus on the number of

chains they cover yeah the you know where there have coverage the number they cover the amount of Ms between that coverage the same as you see with with Telecom marketing yeah there like when 5G was a big thing they're like we have 5G coverage in 80 90% of the US or um we have if you join this network you get International connectivity for 3G unlimited and yeah I had it International on my States plan but after about a year traveling and and just using the unlimited data in Brazil and Europe they were like bro you're you're out of here they just cut me off completely really W they were like yeah man sorry you you're just cosing us way too

much which is is T-Mobile oh Dam wow I've got a similar text they said oh you've spent more than 25% of your time abroad AB are you sure you're using a US data plan like yeah yeah so uh as we kind of come to a close what's next for polymer yeah yeah so um I think we're hitting this point of culmination like we've been building for quite some time and um forever forever since since before we were even born these he was in the womb he was building on IBC uh yeah so I uh you know I think we have a lot of uh really interesting Integrations and Partnerships lined up

and all positioned to um this has been something that's on my mind and um what I've come to realize is that another way that we can frame this is like there's no doubt that right now in interop um IBC might be like the best standard the most secure decentralized standard but in terms of like mind share and go to market and um market share layer Zero's been doing quite well um we may disagree with how intellectually honest they've been but what we've come to realiz spicy take wow well I mean I guess what I'm trying to say is that um we're more or less going to be the lir Z killer and wow wow

holy damn yeah and um main Net's around the corner and the war is just just about to begin we're still early it's going to be fun to watch the interoperability kind of just get better like I mean I I don't know about you guys but as long as it gets better and whoever wins wins and I mean I hope that we can all be happy if polymer is the number one or if XYZ is the number one two and three as long as we get to a point where like I'm saying if we can have a chain abstracted experience we can have fast interrupt underneath and I can just use my apps as I please that's what that's just all I ask so uh I I applaud you guys for pushing mainnet soon and helping the space so thanks man thanks for having me it's been great and

thanks is of course