DeFi by Design EP#112: Improving the Checkered Cross-Chain Past with CatalystAMM

Transcript

[Music] welcome to D5 by Design where we talk all things blockchain and cryptocurrency while striving to educate Empower and enrich what's going on guys welcome back to the def5 By Design podcast episode 112 our boy Rob is missing today he's he's traveling to see a Notre Dame football game with the pops so I've got the pleasure to just chat with Jim by myself and ask all the questions that I could ever think of about this cross chain space that we're endeavoring on if you've been following some of our recent content we've been pushing out different uh Bridge pieces about pros and cons to different mechanisms that exists also

some really interesting stuff about what's happening between IBC and evm and then also uh some interesting different protocols that are launching uh true Omni chain or cross chain functionalities where for example you can deposit on on a money market on polygon and borrow on arbitrum or some variation of such and Jim is building Catalyst which is an interesting amm design uh looking to tackle a lot of these kind of areas so yeah good to have you on Jim uh good good morning yeah thanks for having me man really excited to talk about what we're building and cross chain and and kind of nerd out about the future of it and everything so thanks for having me yeah for sure yeah

I mean Robin I originally got our start with defi slate before we were the rollup in 2020 and our first ever Grant SL sponsor was actually a so I'm not sure if you were at a in 2020 or joined in 2021 but love would love to hear about kind of how you got started with a and then you know how that led you down the journey to to Catalyst yeah so I I I wasn't part of a during uh during uh defi summer um but but I joined in 2021 one which in some ways was like a bigger year I would say um you know defi summer obviously was like crazy right I think it kind of put defi on the map in in

many ways um but really I personally think that a um is a protocol and subsequently as the you know as an organization contributing to it um like kind of grew in 2021 and and that came from honestly like it's it's multi-chain deployments right I think it kind of we kind of zigged where compound zagged compound was obiously you know poster child of liquidity Mining and of defi summer and it was fairly um like hardened I think from a protocol perspective whereas a was still evolving and so you know the deployments on polygon in February and Avalanche I

think either the same month or the following month was was kind of um very timely right for all this like all L1 um dialogue around polygon and and Avalanche and Phantom and everything like that and so um you know a was there right it was there uh to to meet that demand and and that's what really kind of I think led to a lot of it success and and really put it um put it on the map as kind of the the leading uh the leading kind of liquidity protocol um on like evm chains right and from a team perspective it was like I don't even remember like maybe like 10 15 people and then you know in 2021 when I joined

it grew to like 60 to 70 and so it was like from a people perspective like all the stuff was happening in 2021 so it it was a cool time to to be part of the team yeah I remember Isa was the marketing lead that helped us out with that Grant she was super cool remember we were partying in uh in Lisbon or something that year 2021 and she was offering me a beer and I was messing around about how her how her unlocks were looking all right just good times back then um yeah I think you were part you went to that party in uh in in Portugal the ra there was a there was a rooftop one with gelato and a couple others um oh nice did you did you go to the RA in Portugal I don't know I I feel

I didn't I feel so hard to get tickets they're always so sold out yeah it's also like the last day of the conference so like people typically don't stay that long so I totally understand yeah we had enough parties those bull market conferences man they're they're different than the bare Market ones I'm actually going to uh to to Devcon in uh two three weeks so I'm looking forward to that I mean amidst all the unfortunate events over there it seems to be enough distance and very Builder focused you know like that's why I like the ethereum ones the most the uh you know like the Bitcoin my amies or the XYZ permission list these are all good events but you get a lot of guys in suits I don't really think there's going to be many suits in this Stull no definitely not and uh and I think what I

really like about Dev connect is that it's it's kind of you know um like immersing the Builder Community within the kind of user community that would really resonate with crypto and its values right um with with turkey and it's and it's kind of inflation woses and and everything and and and you know Turkish people are you know kind of uh or the Turkish um developers in the space are are are big contributors to a lot of major protocols so it's it's it makes sense to kind of focus and shine a spotlight on the Builder Community there yeah that's that's actually a really good point like you know you don't really think about these things being

from uh like a even though there's inflation in the states or UK or Europe or wherever um you don't really you don't really Ponder the idea like oh wow like actually holding a conference in one of these places that has uh significant monetary issues is is a huge step in in kind of awareness and Adoption of the technology as it could be used just the ethos and and and all of that and kind of Switching gears back to A's push I think that I think that a led the uh cross chain push like I know Sushi swap kind of followed there quickly after Unis swap was a bit slower um but yeah I remember the liquidity mining on polygon into Avalanche into

Phantom etc etc I think they kind of like popped the cherry on the this this idea of one da across you know tons of chains and now we're absolutely like miles miles down the line of deployment into we're kind of facing new issues now yeah to say the least yeah run into a lot of issues uh yeah it's funny like I think when a uh expanded chains and like you said like sushi followed after uh we didn't really even use a word term cross chain we just said multi-chain right it's like okay it's on like multiple chains and uh the the the ux actually like get access to those chains

was like like heinous right just like a a terrible terrible process um and we've come a long way since then uh from an infrastructure perspective uh allowing for better ux and and I think now what what what at least when I think of when I think of cross chain is like moving away from that model of like multiple deployments and different chains and actually having like native uh like access to information and assets on these different chains and actually doing something in a more kind of seamless cross-chain manner right so bit of a different kind of connotation with the Lexicon yeah yeah I think so I think vitalic was pretty uh was pretty bearish on multi-chain instead of cross chain

uh I think he might have put us some tweets or posts about that maybe it was the other way around but I I want to say it's probably with with what you're saying and yeah I think that that the uh branding and marketing is actually quite important for for users and um I I I've been so shocked by the situation with Native usdc and bridged usdc how they managed to deploy native usdc circled it across arbitrum and polygon and maybe optimism and a couple other chains now Avalanche but now we have like this fragmented liity experience where there's usdc and usdc and it's almost worse than before there was native's uh usdc yeah yeah I mean we could we could

talk forever about like token wrapping and kind of like the the kind of implications from a ux and you know also security perspective um it's tough like ultimately people have different perspectives on like who should be the canonical issuer of these like tokens right I think in circle's case it's like pretty clear it's like okay like circle like owns the usdc or sorry the USD deposits and so they have like full issuing rights for usdc should probably be them but it becomes less apparent for something like eth right where it's like okay like for a roll up should it be the canonical Bridge what happens if like

another Bridge has more liquidity and more adoption right it's like then then it becomes really really confusing and so I think it goes back to the point you're saying it's like it's it's kind of like a like a ux nightmare to kind of be dealing with different denominations of the same asset on the same chain um it also becomes like a liquidity fragmentation issue which is like you know has implications for like price impact and the the functionality of some of these defi protocols so um again we can talk forever about this like literally forever I actually wrote like a blog post about this a couple weeks ago but um I I'll just stop there I'll stop myself just knowing that like there's there's a lot to be explored on how to actually like um reunify the liquidity that's

being kind of um Arisen by this problem yeah did you um did you see the recent drama with layer Zero's front running of Li's governance token vote with the rap State eat situation I did yeah okay so could you please explain to our community why before explaining your opinions on the matter and kind of what you think is the right way to handle the situation which we're obviously very excited to hear could you explain the the the actual situation as it is and why there are uh security issues and also liquidity issues that could arise from uh these types of

situations sure so I I do want to preface that I don't really have a horse in the race right like I think they're both great organizations uh with different priorities and different kind of organizational structures and it doesn't really kind of affect my day-to-day right but I am part of the community I do see kind of the the discussions I think you know heart from across has been especially vocal about um about um kind of later Zero's actions this one and and a few others uh that kind of transpire over the summer um but yeah for for for the viewers like basically um the the summary or the synopsis of the scenario is that Lio of course makes um

steth right St teth as their LST um you can wrap uh steth so they call it you know wrap staked eth or with Ste I don't know what how people call it I just see it on Twitter as a as a ticker U but it's wrapped right and it could be distributed to to other um other ecosystems so that um people in other ecosystems or other chains can get access to to Ste right they get access to um the the the native kind of interest bearing instrument uh of of ethereum um and so you know typically what what has happened is that um Lio is a DA right is is has kind of a decentralized governance process uh will uh review uh assess and and green light

or vote on the green light uh to to expand into different ecosystems where WAP stake eth could be right and and also vote on the infrastructure in which it's being distributed and so um most notably like it's on Neutron right U and that's because you know the neutron team is is is really really close closely affiliated with with the Lio team um and and I think Neutron's great right gets gets Cosmos users access to to to staked eth and it gets access to other other kind of eth assets which couples the communities together more which is which is something that I'm very Pro of right um and so the the drama I guess is um around I think a couple days ago layer

zero um for for context layer zero you interrupt protocol they have a what they call an omni to an omni chain token standard uh or I think in this case they C like the Omni fungible token or maybe Omni chain fungible token oft yep yeah so from a from a BD perspective like layer zero has been very um like they're really gung-ho about getting adoption for this right uh I think they've had some notable D5 projects I'm blanking on the the list of them that have adopted this right and so radi Capital big one yeah radiant I think like they've got like time right like MIM Abracadabra um subar projects but

Abracadabra um yeah yeah and so yeah they they've definitely won you know some some some adoption from from some major D5 protocols um it's basically like oft is basically their canonical standard um where um you could you do like some sort of like Mitten burn mechanism across different chains and so all the chains that layer zero is deployed on um you know if you have a token that has a home chain it could be wrapped into this oft standard and then it could be minted and and burned or it could be burned when you move it out of the home chain and rinted um when you when you move to the destination chain um and it becomes really liquidity efficient right because you don't have this like weird like you

know like you don't have assets wrapped or locked into one chain and you have to like rewrap it and then if you wrap it end times like it becomes like a Russian doll of like a token that no one even knows what's happening so it it is very efficient there's other kind of omni chain token standards that other organizations are are pioneering you know namely axar has one and Conexus building one as well um but but oft is is I think from adoption perspective the most popular so um so the drama again is is with layer zero kind of taking it upon themselves to just um issue rsti eth as an of right or and they're doing it on on B&B chain I think a number of other chains and um I think the way they

presented it I I don't know the exact details I didn't follow super closely but the way they presented it was when they announced it was that it seemed like it was something that had gone through the traditional Lio governance process right of like the assessment and and in the governance voting which in fact it had not it was just a proposal on the Forum right um and so I I think one of two things transpired again I'm not super close closely related to this but one was that uh they posted the proposal right and they made a marketing announcement about it right and and they and they worked together with like binance or the B&B chain team to make to make that announcement and so everyone was like it made it seem like Li had already gone through the process right

which in fact it hadn't it's just a proposal so I think that's like one option the second option is that they just did it right because they can right they're just like okay like we just have a bunch of Stak e or we worked with a bunch of you know partners with a bunch of stake e and we just wrapped it into an oft standard and issued it on B&B chain and other chains right um I'm not exactly sure which one it is maybe you know U but either way like I think the takeaway is that they're being a little um disingenuous with with their marketing right I I think I could say that as as strong of a word as that um where where it it made people believe erroneously that it had been like an official partnership which would have been a huge huge win for the of standard

for layer Zer right um so that was kind of the controversy around it yeah yeah I appreciate the uh the update for for myself and and those listening and then and then what's what is the security issue with uh teams going ahead and and minting and creating their own token standards for rap state eth or for various uh other you know tokens without kind of having the community alignment uh what kind of liquidity or security type of issues could be uh good result as as uh as a consequence of these types of of actions yeah so I'll start with the liquidity implication first uh just because it's

probably the most straightforward um at the end of the day like Dows or even just blockchains broadly are some like um it's like a mechanism for coordination right and so Dow's you know in this case liod Dow um like benefits a lot from kind of the scaffolding has in place in order to facilitate coordination and it's kind of just like more of like a a values based thing in the space that uh it's kind of a decide but it's going to go back to my answer uh and so if social coordination is like super important for for crypto and we use blockchains use DS for social coordination kind of moving like sidest stepping that process uh becomes like

kind of a slippery slope right or like you're not working with the necessary Frameworks or Partners in place in order to do things the right way if people then it becomes more like Anarchy right where you're like okay you can kind of just like do things um and so from a liquidity implication what that means is okay if ler Zer says Hey like I want to you know wrap stake e on the OT standard and issue in different chains maybe another another provider comes and they say wait I would like to do that too right and then eventually like because the Dow process is is slower than you know a a team kind of making unilateral decisions eventually maybe they decide on the canonical uh like approach right they want to use this bridge they want

to be on these change etc etc uh and at that point like they've already been front run and there's liquidity on other kind of non-canonical um implementations and that of course like fragments liquidity which again like deteriorates the product experience or the product viability of a lot of these Dy protocols right um so that's kind of like the liquidity implication um from a security sense yeah yeah and again like oh sorry no go ahead no I mean like it just goes back to like the implication of like okay what does it mean to be able to do whatever you want right without like that level of social coordination and that just means like it's kind of like what's happening with

like usdc and like canonical usdc right it's like okay like people are fighting on like which one is the right one and as a result like no one wins yeah and the thing is people have that level of trust uh with circle in a sense where there's a almost a shared mutual agreement of like okay well if we're going to do this then we should probably just do it the do it the way that circle is suggesting and all kind of agree on this whereas where where you're going to take us with this security implications is like well if layer zero or XYZ company is doing this and we can't come to an agreement because there's cons concerns about the security model behind layer

Zero's ofs or xyz's model then we kind of get to to to a problem where sure if if if this if layer zero was front running and was agreed upon as the the best go-to standard perhaps with some better marketing it would maybe wouldn't have been too big of of an issue or there have been some push back but I think because there's a lot of push back from people like yourself like Hart like Arjun from Connex and other people who basically have lived through 2021 and they've been like well like Bridges got hacked like we can't just accept you know subpar designs not to say that there's anyone right now that are better

than the others in in in that sense just that there's tradeoff and so yeah I think you can kind of dive more into that security aspect which I think I've kind of just cracked open there yeah so from the security perspective like yeah it's like what you mentioned like um you know the the cross chainer the interoperability space has a checkered pass right and it is a very very highly scrutinized uh vertical from like a you know just a user and everyday perspective but also from like an exploit um or like a like a black hat perspective and so uh I think everyone's very cognizant of that right um of of of

what it means to to build in in Cross chain and what it means to use cross chain um applications um I think in this specific instance the biggest kind of security implication is that uh oft effectively you know above all else is just vendor lock in right it's like you have locked um you have locked WRA stake eth into one provider and in the in the uh you know in the Black Swan event that this like Bridge provider um is you know exploited or has some sort of uh has some sort of um attack um then every kind of like wrapped iteration of this

token on whatever kind of destination Chains It's propagated into um like becomes affected right and it's kind of like a like Doomsday planning thing um but I think a really important one because of the nature of the space that we're in and it it actually becomes very real right like recently um like recently with the with the multi-chain kind of snafu I don't even know what they call it um there was a lot of like um like there were a lot of teams and lot of tokens that were using their bridge to to get access to other um or other ecosystems and uh you know with the downfall of that they're

they're effectively locked right in fact I spoke personally to a lot of founders of of a lot of different teams uh that that were facing this issue and were having a huge huge headache to like try to kind of migrate that liquidity in like a timely and secure way and so it was just a it was a huge pain and and I don't think Lio or I don't think really any organization wants to subject themselves to that uh at any point in time or they want to do the necessary due diligence such that they don't have to subject themselves unnecessarily yeah I mean that's a huge concern and yeah definitely the Checker pass is exactly entirely accurate um and thus the security issues are just kind

of one single point of failure are are problem and then also there's also a bit of like oh like uh you know for example something like uh Connex wants a chance to put their proposal up and to see what the community wants you know to see if if the L Community would more interested in using xcc2 um you know or XY andz or I'm sure heart and across right I'm not sure if across has a has a token standard but but there there could be uh some integration there on across right so um yeah very interesting now kind of Shifting away from uh as we mentioned there's there's definitely issues um kind of you you kind of put the state of Cross chain into an

interesting uh format where you kind of describe this this this dap or this or this technology that can access and use all chains at will um effectively and one of the people that we work with closely is is uh livei they kind of have this cross Shain SDK which is pretty close uh to kind of aggregating all of what's existence putting it into an SDK and allowing daps to use it you're almost taking it to another level with Catalyst but before we jump exactly into exactly what what catalyst is doing I'd like to further elaborate uh and extrapolate what you what you what your vision is for kind of this this future where daps and protocols can access all

these different chains but may not be necessarily cross chain or or multi-chain or kind of what that really means yeah I think my vision for cross chain um well I have a broader Vision than that uh but I I'll just start with with cross chain um and I I'll share a little bit about my bigger Vision if you're curious but um the vision is effectively like less friction right um it's it's like native access uh instant trustless native access to information on other

blockchains right and some people like to frame it as like oh you obstruct away blockchains right it's just like an experience um I think that's a fine framing I don't necessarily agree with that framing because I think uh funny like um there was an essay by Foundation like a few years ago that I loved it was it was said like blockchain wants to be seen right it's like when we move from the car from Hors drawn carriages like no one said hey like let's abstract away how to drive right you're like no you have to drive I'm sorry right you're not we're not riding horses anymore uh and I think it's like similar like where I'm not

trying to abstract it away but if people are educated about how to use blockchain how to use private keys and and signatures uh and wallets um and they have a home that they want to be in whether it be some rollup of an app or whether it be you know uh whether it be ethereum itself um they get access to everything else right there's no like leaving your home right and so in that way it's like it's like uh it's like Uber Eats right or like or like uh or like instacart right it's like you're in your home you're very cognizant of it you still get access to everything else right and the native access the Instant access in in a way that doesn't compromise security is kind of my vision

for it and so I think catalyst is kind of like an underlying foundation for that in a lot of ways um briefly I'll quickly talk about like my vision like broadly like I think you could I think we can extrapolate this Beyond just blockchain right it's like okay like I think very right now it's like very very Salient that like I'm doing blockchain stuff and and it becomes very clear that I'm doing not blockchain stuff if I'm like on Robin Hood or I'm on Mercury or I'm on Fidelity or whatever right I think we can merge that together too I think like native access to other you know assets or other information that is pertinent to what I want to do um in a

trustless manner is super important uh and so that's why I get really excited about like RW I get really excited about trust's oracles um and and kind of like merging that all together into what I call like you know borderless Finance which is just like a One-Stop view of like every kind of financial aspect of my life yeah that's interesting yeah I mean firstly on the point of like uh abstracting away away that's a concept that a lot of people tend to use like chain abstraction or or cross chain kind of oh you're gonna use you'll be using all the chains and not even know it yeah I mean I think there's a certain level of Truth to that as far as the most based level of user in a

sense of you know using using a mobile defi app and just wanting a fast cheap experience with good liquidity not necessarily caring where that exists but then also like yeah in reality there's there's going to be tons of different chains and users will have that optionality and and just making it making it a an experience where where it's possible and and like you said going from a a hor shun Carriage to a car um you know being able to really uh just improve your your experience your strategy and then also for daps protocols and all different types of of um you applications to be able uh to deploy on as many of these chains in as seemless way as possible and then even

taking it further than than crypto as you said like there is a definitely a stark difference you know when I was jumping on friend Tech it was close to something that would be like accessible from a user perspective of of a of a social media app now obviously the whole pwa concept having to download an add to your home screen everything's priced e there's these small differences that exist there right um that are that are still still prominent but we're getting closer and closer excited yeah one thing I love about friend Tech that I don't think people talk about enough or maybe they do and and I'm just not seeing it uh is the onboarding experience right it's like huge it's

like oh you don't yeah yeah it's it's incredible it's like uh there's so many excellent pieces of it but the fact that it's just like abstracting chains is great right like when I went on friend Tech pretty early user didn't have any assets on base it was like and just deposit on this smart contract on eth uh and I didn't even need to connect my wallet you're like they're like yeah just deposit it like from anywhere and then just give us this like receipt I don't exactly remember what happened but and I was like okay that's like super easy and like I just like did it on on on a different on a different wallet on a different device and and it was super seamless and and I don't think uh I don't think we give it enough credit like that was just like incredible

otherwise like I wouldn't have used it right I'm like okay how do I get assets on base like I'm I'm not going to use front Tech and I was like you don't need to which is incredible yeah yeah even when I was trying the Avalanche One Like Stars Arena you had to deposit on Avalanche which was a huge headache yeah yeah no one wants to do that yeah like bri bridging of itself is like kind of scary uh because um there's kind of like this like maybe less so now but there's there's kind of this like period where it's like okay like I set my money from eth and you know this guy's gting my money from Avalanche and you're like okay like it a success on ether scan but it doesn't say anything on Ava scan so I'm like okay like where

is it did it just like yeah yeah yeah it's weird so can Ming towards the vision that you have for Catalyst and uh where you guys uh are looking to to kind of take this um recently you guys just just put out your test net about a month ago uh called The Links test net how's that going you've been seeing some good results um you know bugs feedback um yeah yeah so links is our like full test net uh we released another test net in June that we called our demo so it's kind of like super scoped right links is like full featured

um I wanted it to be our final release candidate I think we have another one that's going to come before mainnet um but yeah we released that a month ago uh and and it's been it's been doing really really well um it's surpassed any sort of internal Milestones that we had set against it I think we did like3 billion dollars of volume granted it's on test net but it's just like insane it was like hundreds of thousands of swaps we have over 100,000 active wallets that are using the test Ned so um yeah we're we're super grateful uh in only kind of a 30 30-day um time span um and that's what test are for right they're they're for you know

running really uh for for stress testing kind of different pieces of the protocol for testing edge cases uh and so we were kind of grateful that we received a unexpected amount of demand because that allowed us to kind of one water water through the pipes and and see what worked and what didn't um uh what worked was most of it I would say right um everything worked swimmingly we we've we really proud of kind of the technical stat that we built not only from a contract perspective but also on the API and and the UI side uh especially the UI side we spent a lot of time you know doing design research on you know what what is what does a more seamless cross train experience look like that isn't just some mirror of Unis swap right um but uh I mean like not everything worked

right which is which is to be to be expected um we got way more demand than than we anticipated that overloaded uh like uh the network rpcs that we're interacting in uh and so we had to be very clever about how we wanted to uh request information from the RP rpcs right so we kind of built these workers that were batching requests the rpcs and you know retrying if they were to time out because um you know chain rpcs are even now even even even now to this day like still uh still tough uh a tough business to to run a tough product to stand up um and so yeah we want we we working with you know the chain teams in

order to kind of alleviate some of that of that issue or mitigate some of that issue and alleviate some of the the load that we're putting on those rpcs so that they don't go down on us and our swaps don't work right and so yeah that that's been kind of our our biggest learning to date is just like the demand kind of breaking all the blockchain stuff right it's like the website works the the API Works The indexer Works to an extent but it's just like okay like actually pushing like a huge amount of information onto the blockchain is not actually blocked by like the the no the the nodes right like everyone talks about like TPS uh for for blockchains and different VMS or are are optimized for a lot of TPS because there's parel execution etc

etc um but funny enough it's like okay if you can't actually put information on the blockchain in the form of a in form of a robust RPC then then there's still kind of a weakest link in the in the flow right y yeah it's good stuff yeah that's what that's what Test's all about learning those those and kind of getting feedbacks maybe you could test out different rpcs alchemy's got one LL noes has got one um pocket pocket's got one they're they're actually now going to ethereum L2 as well the classic pivot to a rollup love it um um yeah so from a user perspective uh why would I use

Catalyst on in mainnet to do swaps I have tokens on ethereum arbitrum optimism base uh linear mantle um scroll now uh man Pacific L2 polygon Z KVM pretty much everywhere on all the rollups what why am I going to use Catalyst yeah that's a that's a good question one that I'm I can give you a number of answers to um I do think like the main differentiator of catalyst is that it's built it's

literally purpose-built for the scale of the proliferation of chains and rollups that we are seeing and we're going to continue to see right um The Punchy tagline we say is that it's it's a it's a cross chain amm for millions of chains there aren't millions of chains yet but I feel very strongly that there's going to be um and so catalyst is very very lightweight right um if I were to show you the contracts we open source them eventually I show the contracts you'd be like wow that's super simple and there's complexity and simplicity right there's effort to to create something that's super simple but what that means is that we can be on chains incredibly quickly

right um you know gym chain gets spun up on Caldera it's a arbitrum orbit chain or rollup rather uh Catalyst can already be there and Catalyst can already connect to you know arbitrum or op main net or eth M net or or what have you out of the box right and so when we see and we anticipate seeing more and more these rollups and more app specific chains or app specific rollups um kind of you know come to light as we see more and more of them right um something that again I I I said a year ago when when Catalyst was started right and people were like no no no no and 12 months later I get to gloat a little bit on that prediction um but

we're going to see more and and catalyst is kind of purpose built for that and so users want access of those chains and we're going to be there automatically and that's what you know you mentioned lifi right uh that's what aggregators are are really excited about right because they're going to aggregate our liquidity routes to these new chains uh and they're not going to get access to uh so we're you know that they couldn't get access to anywhere else and so we're in mantle test Network we um you know close partners with the with the mantle team and um you'd be surprised it's actually really really hard to to move to move assets in the manle right now um and so uh yeah that's that's kind of a uh um just like one example that that I would give so that's kind of like the

main differentiator and then of course like you can get down to the technical details it's like really simple therefore it's it's it's more secure right it's heavily audited um it it is very very Capital efficient and so we're going to provide very uh competitive swaps and so if people are using aggregators they're going to want to use our routes because it's just going to be cheaper than anyone else right um but that like you know that's not as that's not the overarching reason right the overarching reason is what I articulated earlier it's like we're going to be everywhere and people want to be everywhere yeah and is it is it cost a lot of money to deploy like resources and uh contracts Etc from one chain to another whether it's within the same

like op set or different like different types of rollups no I wouldn't say so um I mean there's there's always integration right but I think the more Integrations that are done the more learnings are and eventually it'll become automated um so that's our hope especially if it's using right a known framework actually we anticipate that right it's like you know if you're if you're using Caldera and you're building an OP stack rollup or you're building an arbitrum orbit rollup or building a polygon cdk rollup um like Catalyst can there's some sort of automated integration process where Catalyst can already be there right and so um that that's that is definitely uh something

that we're actively building towards um but kind of taking small steps into that Vision um I think where it gets more costly is when you go beyond um like evm right which which we are which we are doing we're going to to Cosmos uh in the form of KM wasm and and just a broad broadly a wasm uh type implementation uh we're going to salana right with with an spvm implementation uh we're actively exploring what it means to go into to move as well um so so we get access to move based chains like s aptose and and movement um but even then like Catalyst again is so simple that it's

basically uh a very very um it's it's a simpler effort to do versus like other other protocols right um and so we again that's another benefit of catalysis like we're not just evm right and um and that doesn't mean we're not ethereum aligned it's like I think we're seeing a lot of you know Resurgence on like Russ VMS or wasen VMS or or or um arbitrum stylus on approaching other VMS and still being part of ethereum um and and we want to service those right and I I think we'll be the first to service those versus any other any other project yeah definitely that VM narrative is hitting right now no doubt about that yeah yeah it's uh it's easy to make it to look like you're not uh

aligned with with evm and ethereum by promoting other VMS but when you understand that that uh you know that the DM layer is is simply the execution layer um and that things tend to settle back to ethereum uh you know you're able to kind of understand how this is all good for ethereum as an important part of the puzzle um so with the liquidity situation for you guys so you're on the go to market is effectively let's get on millions of chains for now dozens and dozens and dozens and hundreds then what what is the liquidity situation going to look like yeah so V1 of catalyst

is um fairly naive I would say effective but but naive where we're effectively creating like multi-asset pools that span different chains and you can swap between all of them right uh and so a kind of a a rough analogy olog is like a really big balancer pool that's cross chain right or like a or like a curve three pool or Tri crypto pool that's across different chains right and you can access that pool from all different chains that are with you yeah precisely yeah and so that's the V1 uh the V2 that we're in active research on um

is going to have it's kind of a catchall with a lot more Capital efficiency um improvements whether it be uh it's just Capital efficiency right like I mean I could say kind of certain implementation details that would make sense like you know concentrated liquidity or you know recreating ticks and some sort of cloud cloud mechanism um but the net of it is that it's just going to be more Capital efficient uh and uh yeah we're working really hard towards that because V1 is already done from a contracts perspective it's just about shipping it and so V2 is kind of our our big thing from a contracts perspective but even V1 is is is and I hate to say revolutionary but it's revolutionary in the sense that

you can access liquidity on tons of chains while just being on one yeah unless missing Works no no no that that's that's totally right yeah yeah there's nothing like that exists right now really I mean there's like are like what are who are your competitors um there's really no who you looking at yeah yeah so there's really no comparison when you think about it from like a like uh like a chain deployment perspective right it's like we are just going to be in a lot of places and I don't think any any other project can kind of hold a candle to that um but

with that said like I will recognize that like okay moving Value Cross chain is like kind of foundational and there's like tons of projects that are doing that right yeah U whether it be like any Bridge right that we're just talking about the mechanism is different but the job to be done is like very similar uh or it's like um like dex's that have some sort cross chain capability right like the cross chain swap is like the closest thing like like jumper from leafy you can swap from one chain and get to the next yeah well jum jumper slightly yeah sorry you go ahead jumper is slightly

different because it's an aggregator right and so like we want to be winning or we want to be integrated into jumper and we think we're going to be competitive in winning those routes th those routes right and it's like it's like these the crushing swaps that exists right now are like yeah you you you get to access one change liquidity to get to the next it's not like you can access tons of chains liquidity all within one swap sorry I I actually don't understand perhaps I'm misunderstanding but from my understanding like let's say we're trying to do a cross chain swap on on jumper for example we're trying to go

from eth on arbitrum to usdc on ethereum that swap is going to be happening either either uh I I would assume on ethereum and then the usdc is bridged to arbitr or with Crush I wouldn't use I wouldn't use the term Bridge like yeah I guess another differentiated Catalyst besides like the scale is like that you just get native assets right um because it's amm so it's like the only thing that we're like coordinating or they passing AC cross chain is like like the movement along like the price curve right if we want to

get like very specific on like how like um like constant product amms work um but so like you deposit slash sell your eth and then you receive slash withdraw from the contract the usdc right so there's no bridging it's just a transfer of it's just that understanding that there's like an equivalency of value between the amount of assets that you've have sold and that you have bought sorry if that's kind of confusing no no it makes total sense and then so on the on the Catalyst model uh is is is it it's this it's a similar model no

yeah yeah sorry I was just explaining the Catalyst model what you said before is what happens right now it's like two it's like two transactions yeah so you don't need so you can access the liquidity without needing to to to swap with that liquidity but let's say for example I'm trying to swap I'm trying to swap e to usdc on Catalyst on on on optimism or or on a rollup chain and and this liquidity pool that exists as you said it spans across 10 different rollups with the top three uh liquidity for uh Dex pools for this pair not being on optimism does that matter no for Price or or slippage or

anything um no I wouldn't say so so so this liquidity pool then span across all those networks and let's say I go from eth to usdc on optimism using Catalyst knowing that the optimism liquidity for this specific pair is less than the others I would be able to still access the the the the total sum of this liquidity pool for this pair based across all chains it wouldn't be the total sum um but you would you would access a subset of it yeah um yeah is that like routed through whichever one has the best liquidity top yeah yeah precisely so like the it's like liquidity Last Resort so it's like we're

always gonna get like the best path effectively um gotcha yeah that's still still requires a decent amount of liquidity to be deposited into cat yeah I mean it's no secret it's like we're you know is a d protocol so it needs yeah it will need liquidity and it will it will uh it will be benefited greatly by having you know a substantial amount of liquidity that offers kind of the value proposition that I've articulated yeah yeah what have be possible to make like a catalyst aggregator in the future um like a router of sorts like a like a Wii po Catalyst but I guess yeah but I guess is it kind of already exists there then just use life so so we have

like we've built um like a router so to speak so Unis swap the front end also has a router right for UNIS swap right because it's like sometimes you want to go through a V2 pool sometimes you go through V three and of course I think they're going to use that scaffolding for V4 as well right and so we we we built a similar kind of model right where it's like okay like I mean it's not very it's not the same kind of um use case where it's like we're we're using it for like different versions but it in a more like uh in a more like minute sense like it's routing between different pools in an intelligent way yeah yeah so we already have that as the answer your question but yeah and

then you can aggregate that and you can pair it against other kind of uh other kind of liquidity paths through the through the use ofi or socket yeah yeah very cool okay so as we kind of wrap up here what's the timeline for the coming months and what's on your agenda and how can our community get involved um so we're heads down we're we're we think we got everything in line uh for mainnet launch and so we we plan to launch mainnet uh in q1 of next year uh so yeah like three three four months right so we're heads down we're we got everything chug in um how you how the communic involved is that uh I would recommend

using test net um you know swap between all the networks that we support we have many more networks on the horizon that we're going to be supporting within the next uh 3 4 months heading into main net but right now we're on Bas mantall uh and Omni and then you know we're going to add scroll and you know all all the all the kind of um you know known uh networks as well that that people want to access to and so use that stress test it use all the different features right we're constantly launching different features like we're constantly launching um you know deposits or deposit optimizations kind of like what curve has we have like analytics or user profile and so it

changes on a week toe basis so get involved and if you have any questions like you can reach us on on telegram or sorry on Twitter uh and then we also have our telegram is more of like a support chat um and uh and let us know your feedback yeah thank you Jim for your time in for coming on it's been a pleasure yeah pleasure for having me thanks for uh chatting about cross chain I mean you know your stuff so I I like talking to to someone about the nitty-gritty cheers man all right cheers thank