Scaling the Future of DeFi and DApps with BNB Chain

Transcript

GMGM. Welcome to what's going to be another fantastic episode of Devantel. So, if you didn't know, Devantel is a 30-minute podcast held every Friday allowing founders, hackers, and anyone in between to come on the show and showcase their products. And today, I'm ecstatic to welcome Jay-Z and Marwan, who are from BNB chain. So, if you didn't know, B&B Chain is a leading blockchain ecosystem designed to support the growing demands of the decentralized web. So, if you stick around for today's episode, you'll see Jay-Z and Marwan give us an overview of all the latest and greatest developments uh happening in the BNB chain ecosystem and how you can get started building your next app with them today. All right, let's get into it.

[Music] >> GMGM, welcome to the show one and Jay-Z. >> Hey. Hey. How's it going? doing well. Doing well. >> Uh Jay-Z, uh welcome back to the show. Uh uh you were on I believe about a year's time ago. Um and uh I I know BNB has gone through a lot of growth, positive growth since then. So really excited uh to see all the latest and greatest. Uh and Marwan, welcome to the show. I think you're a first- timer. Uh happy to have you both.

>> Thank you. Thank you. Glad uh to be on the show for the first time. Appreciate. >> Yeah, for sure. >> Thank you. Thank you for having me again. >> My pleasure. My pleasure. Uh yeah, I guess before we get into all the great content um around B&B, um would you guys like to take uh some time just to introduce yourselves for the crowd? >> Sure. Maybe um start from me. Um I'm Jay-Z and from the B&B um tech team. Um I'm here actually is um to collect the voices from the core developers and researchers and ecosystem builders um behind the B&M chain ecosystem. So our team actually is the tech team and a very engineering focused and a globally

distributed group of you know engineers, product managers and also um community advocates who are very passionate and uh about building the scalable and accessible decentralized infrastructure especially for the next billion users for mass adoption. Yeah, thank you. >> Awesome. Uh and quick intro to myself. I'm Marwan. I head up our DI ecosystem uh and our AMIA efforts of Europe, Middle East and Africa efforts for B&B. Um so primarily working with developers um in helping incubate, accelerate and invest in new protocols in the space that can to what Jay-Z was saying really

help build powerful, scalable and ultimately beautiful products that everyday users can enjoy on that mission to onboard not just the next but the very first real uh billion uh users on chain. >> Amazing. Amazing. And I'm sure both of you have um a pretty good background in the web 3 space and tech space in general. Just curious how both of you um kind of started in web 3 and and found yourselves at B&B. >> Jay, you want to go first?

>> Yeah. Yeah, why not? Um myself actually um I'm from the traditional tech tech backgrounds. I I have been um you know in the tech world for more than 15 years and I started from being a software engineering I mean basically the system engineering for the for the servers and the clouds and then I go to the financial engineering and cloud um also some of the you know the sus background for the for the financial services. So the initial job to the web 3 um is just to sh pure curiosity. Um because the blockchain to me at that time was a is

very new and bring me to the idea of how the web 3 was a natural evolution of the the principle of the fully ownership and decentralized. So well web two connected to the world but also lead to the centralization and data and power. So which means um that part actually I really dislike. So it brought me to the web 3 um to build the fundamental par paradigm shift that returned the ownership to the users and the permissionless innovations and the creation of more um transparent open-sourced um more equitable uh internet. So that's the

reason why I jump jumping to the web 3. >> Yeah. And quite quite similar to Jay-Z. Um it really was curiosity for me. Uh for me it was um in a different lifetime more as a student. I was studying economics and philosophy and I was very much drawn to how to create um more transparent more equitable economic structures um just from a pure economic standpoint. And so a lot of my first interactions with with crypto in general or web 3 were more from an academic perspective kind of just doing just research thinking about this new paradigm shift. Um and then over the years uh I was kind of in venture corporate venture capital and was slowly

um personally uh involved uh in web 3 but only made the professional leap um a few years ago. Initially I was uh supporting a VC fund out of New York um kind of on crypto research and then um made the leap to the to the world of B&B. Um it was and still is I think one of the most important uh entry points for people to access the onchain um economy and um have been very passionate about uh lowering the barriers and building more powerful um ultimate applications um for for new users.

Amazing. Uh yeah, it seems like both of you have quite the quite the tenure experience um in both of your backgrounds and I mean it sounds like you could have chosen any protocol or or chain to to join. Is there a particular reason or something that really stood out um that made both of you want to pick uh BNB chain as your uh landing spot? For me, I think the B&B chain ecosystem um you know the core value of the B&B chain ecosystem is mass adoption. I think for other chains um people are talking about the product, talking about technology, talking about the the the the marketing and stuff. I think the B&B

chain has the very solid ground. We um basically can think of the BM chin is the is the probably the first playground um for me if I want to build a new uh D apps uh especially for the mass you know user base and very high performance chain. So if you start from other chains you know if you want to you know bootstrap your applications to have a cold start it will be much much difficult compared to the B&B chain. So that's the reason why um you know I select the BMD chain as the first stop when I join in the web3 world. I think is to today even today I think it is a

very good choice and the correct choice for me >> for me it was uh product and people right um product because similar to JZ I I think B&B for me was one of the few places if not the best place to help build something of consequence um the reach the distribution power which we can get into a little bit later is unparalleled um and um if I'm going to you know if it is basically the best playground um to to kind of have that global impact. Uh and then second is people um the community of users of community contributors, developers that I met um uh really really drew me um I think ultimately you know the the product

always matters but so do the people um and people also drew me um to this ecosystem. So uh that's how I jumped into it and and um as passionate about it uh as I was on day one. >> Amazing. Yeah, it sounds like both of you made the right choice. Uh so, so right on for that. Um yeah, uh so let's get into it. Um let's get into all things uh BNB chain. So uh I mean there there's BNB has um quite the platform offering for developers um to get up and running and building their next app. Um from the chain to bridges to wallets um to even um decentralized storage. Um there's a heap of different options. Um

but recently um you guys have gone through a um an upgrade um going through the hardwell or sorry the Maxwell uh hard fork. Uh did you guys want to uh touch on that and what this means for the chain and developers? >> Yeah. So yeah you mentioned that Maxwell um it is the latest upgrade of the BSC I mean the B&B spark chain. Um I think it is milestone because uh the Maxwell Maxwell actually reduced the BSC's block time uh in half reducing from 1.5 seconds down to just you know to the sub subsecond level to 75 750 milliseconds.

So this leap in the performance actually improve the user experience a lot because the users will feel uh nearly instant instantaneous um for transactions and improve the you know especially for the timesensitive applications like the DeFi or onchain um gaming like a gamefy right so people do not have to wait for uh 1.5 yeah 1.5 is good enough but we want to you know pushed to the boundary to reduce the subse second level. A couple of the benefits besides the you know user experiences will be bring by this u upgrade. One is the you know the shorter

block time which means it will decrease the exposure of your D5 activities to reduce the MEV attacks such as the sandwich attack or any other malicious activities on chain and uh we also offer the chance that you know the developers can bring more innovative applications that requires much much quicker transaction confirmation because the BSC has the you know the faster finality. Although the faster finality is not new concept it was introduced around one year ago but because of the faster finality thanks to it the confirmation time uh will be reduced into just a two blocks within almost two

seconds which is amazing. So if you make a deposit to uh to a to a centralized exchanges like a bance right originally you have to wait for a couple of seconds now you just wait for less than two seconds to get confirmed. So I think it will be a big change um max actually is powered by a lot of the key technical proposals we call the BEPs within the B&B chain ecosystem. Of course, the BP 524 is reduced the block time and also we introduced some of the validator communication enhancements to support faster block times. This improved the

peer-to-peer messaging system between the network validators. It allows the quicker block proposals to be accepted um to reduce the risk of errors or ensuring the network remains stable and reliable under the higher higher speed. Another thing is that faster blocker uh block syncs. So this proposal introduced the more efficient ways to nodes on the network to re request and receive the block data. So this kind of the optimization is you know block time is a very simple concept but if we want to reach that goal to reduce the block time to subsecond a lot of the engineering work and efforts need to be introduced to the to the network to keep the high

speed and also secure the network and make it more reliable. Yeah, I think it's a good uh milestone for users as well. >> Yeah, certainly sounds like it. Um, and how how recent is it? Um, did you guys launch it like maybe uh the la this in July or it's been out for a couple months now? >> Um, it's in June. So, June. Okay. >> Yeah, it has been in one month. >> So, if you if you try the transactions on B&B chain, you will feel it. >> It's quite different.

>> Congratulations. It sounds like quite the milestone the the way you described it. >> Yeah. >> And u >> Yeah. And I guess to keep riding that wave um is there any other um like highlights that you would want to touch on for any developers watching today um who might be trying to decide um on their home chain for um their their next product? Um like why should they choose um BNB chain? Um I guess smart one. Yeah. Um Jay-Z, do you want to give maybe the why from the technical standpoint and I can um speak a little bit.

>> Yeah, of course. Of course. So, actually, if you um get if you read our blogs, our recent announcement in the next six months, we are pushing the boundaries even further. So that means we will increase the throughput of the BSC the BMBB chain by introducing the ref um you know rust based uh client on the BMBB chain. We are working with the RAF team closely to deliver it on time and to make sure uh a new client will be introduced. A new client not only means the faster transaction time but also means the you know variety or decentralization of the client as well.

So it will make the BMBB chain more secure. So you will see it and the more details will be announced very soon about the rest based client very soon. We are doing some you know intensive engineering work at at the at the time. Some I know some engineers even work over the weekend to build the the foundation at this moment. Um besides the you know techn technology uh improvement on the BSC we will also you know uh BMBB chain as a you know u very good developer uh platform if you want to build the diabetes because we are also one BNB strategy or one B&B paradigm which means the BSC as a you

know as the hub for high value DeFi or NFTTS we also have the you know scalability ility solutions like OPBNB layer 2 which ideal for high transactions applications like the games or derivatives or social medias platforms etc. And one key besides you know the two BSC and opb one key different differentiator of the BMBB chain is that we also have the decentralized storage solution which called the BMBB green field which perfect for hosting the D apps um for like the you know to tokenize the data especially you know the BMBB chain we want to push the AI um to adopted by the web3 AI concept or innovations on the

blockchain. So the BMB grain field is a very good suit for that because it can tokenize the data and to manage the ownership and the programmability through the BSC and OPBM. So it will be a very good foundation for the AI applications. I mean decentralized AI applications on the BMBB chain. >> Yeah. And just and building on what Jay-Z um mentioned, right? So there are some of the most competitive technical foundations to build competing DAPs. Um but we're also cognizant right that um as more and more interest and investment has come into this space um there's perhaps more choice um than ever before in terms of the proliferation of chains

that you that we keep hearing about um and I think that's great to kind of drive in interest and adoption but ultimately um if developer looking just even beyond very strong technical foundations and kind of um an environment to build great dabs you want to think about distribution, you want to think about scale. And the reality is when you look at the metrics, there's only a very small handful of home chains that can provide that scale. Um, beyond just the technical reliability and scalability, the scale in terms of users, liquidity, um, and even kind of ecosystem partnerships that helps a project go beyond just from zero to one, but even in beyond that in terms of

global reach. So um you know I think even today and Jay-Z you can correct me on the stats but I think you know we have about 55% of all trading volume in terms of liquidity we we consistently rank um you know within the top three top four depending on um kind of the month and and so ultimately uh you know it's product market fit right we have fantastic product and we have a fantastic market um for for users and developers and so I think that's it's uh super critical Um and and just one you know one important reason why I think people should consider it um as as a home chain um and you know there are some chains I

won't name them but if you're a great developer of a great product it's very hard to get support from the chain um for for whatever reason um and I I would venture to say that you know we have a full team um that is very much dedicated to the mission and also dedicated to being accessible to helping incubate these protocols. Um like we even have, you know, and I think we'll probably get to this later, but you know, we just set up sort of physical environment um in New York City like a uh we call it the builder bunker, right? Which is very much a community space um that developers, investors, community members are joining and are there in real time for some of our programs, but also just to come meet the team and and other builders and investors in the space. um

uh because it's all part of that mission of of us being accessible, but also to we have to be accessible if we want to help build these great products that can um be make crypto accessible in general. So um yeah, I'll pause on that one. >> Yeah, I just want to remind you the MVB program um Marvin as I think the MVB is a very good opportunities for the builders to get the support from the team. Not only >> Exactly. Yeah. I I I thought maybe uh Nav was going to jump to that afterwards, but yeah. The the plug.

>> Yeah. Well, let's get into it. Uh what's uh the MVP? >> I I do think this is one of the you know, there is and I could say this hopefully next year as well in many years to come, but this is one of the best times to build a product on chain. Um the infrastructure is is better than before, the institutional adoption is better than before. uh and the growing tradey interest is is is there um and ultimately for the best talent we have number of programs that are are beneficial but just at a high level you know how do we think about growing these products beyond just the technical infra it's how do we um support on three pillars right it's uh financial support it's marketing support um kind of

commercial ecosystem reach right so um marketing how do we build brand equity financial how do we um ensure you have the financial sustainability to succeed and and then how do you plug into such a big market like just as the B&B economy in general um to be successful and the cornerstone program is that we have and we've been running now uh in its 10th edition is the MVB program that is a uh joint program between Easy Labs uh formerly known as Binance Labs B&B chain uh and coin market cap um so three um you know titans I would argue of the industry um coming together in which um you know really great teams uh from very very early stage to uh you know past

product market fit with some initial traction uh who want that support um who can benefit that support from the entire team the entire ecosystem right from those three pillars that I mentioned um who who join for this multi-week program uh and then there's a kind of YC style demo day at the end where they meet from many ecosystem partners including many other top tier investors tier one investors uh which give these teams, these products a great chance at escape velocity, right? Because we're know people like Jay-Z and myself are are really in the weeds um working through problems with these teams and then also helping position them for funding, some of which of course comes from easy labs um but also from other investors. So I

it it really has produced a great like legacy of of um leading protocols. I think one of the first few additions um incubated the likes of Pancake Swap. Um but there have been many other uh top tier protocols that have have gone through those programs since then. >> Awesome. And and what's the process for people to to sign up for that? Is it just like a form like >> on for any founder or team interested? Um you can go to the bbbchain.org or website and there is a dedicated MVB program section there that you can find quite easily. Um and we run technically we run applications now on a rolling basis. Um but we we have specific

cohorts. Um so just cohort 10 was announced uh last Friday and um it is a really very I have to say it is a very competitive program not just a competitive off there is a very very low interest rate sorry uh acceptance rate. Um sorry I'm just thinking child right now. >> Yeah. Okay. Yeah, acceptance, right? And uh but but that's for a reason, right? Because the the ROI on the program has been um very competitive, very attractive, and so attracts a lot of the best talent in the industry. Um but it's um yeah, definitely something I would very much encourage protocols to consider, even for the founding teams who are tuning in who probably had never

thought about working with B&B for whatever reason. And I and I understand all chains have maybe um different perceptions or sometimes misconceptions. I would argue it is always worth an application, always worth a conversation. Um we're always here to just have an exploring discussion and see how we can um be a real lever of expansion, right, for your product to be a real lasting success. >> Amazing. Well said. and and yeah, we will be sure to link that um uh have a link to that in the description below.

So, if you are a founding team or somebody thinking about um launching your next product, uh definitely give B&B chain a consideration. Um you got nothing to lose. Uh you never know what'll happen if you uh >> Exactly. I mean, you know, you want the biggest market and you want to really um change the game and and this is one of the best environments uh to to do it. >> Beauty. There you go. Uh yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Uh yeah, so there was a couple other things um as uh Jay-Z and yourself were describing a few few minutes back um around AI and um I want to also get into that bunker um that you were u mentioning more on. So I guess I just starting um with the bunker itself uh like does it cost money for people to go

uh and participate there? Um like >> it it's a it's a physical dedicated space for the community um in New York City. Uh so there are events, programs uh happening and and I think there'll be quite a few in August. Um so you you know just on our on our Twitter page and on our on our um website you can find a kind of easy way to to explore those events and um there'll be loads of meetups for for developers to to just to meet with the fellow builders to meet with team investors so on and so forth. And I think it's um it creates a lot of value uh and it and it's part of this broader um you know it's it's the US for now um because I think uh we're seeing a lot of growing interest uh in B&B as an

ecosystem out there um but you know um I I won't share more but hopefully hopefully um we can build on that success uh in the future. >> Yeah, it sounds like an amazing opportunity. I mean, if it was in my neck of the woods, I'd definitely go check it out. >> Yeah. Quite a trip for you. >> Yeah. Yeah. All the way from Mordor, right? Yes. >> Exactly. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, awesome. And, um, shifting gears a bit, um, just to AI in general. Jay-Z, you mentioned that, um, B&B Chain is positioning itself as a landing spot for some of these decentralized AI companies. Uh I guess uh you guys have also recently launched

a um an AI bot called the BNB chain uh AI bot. Uh I guess could you talk a little bit more about the broader um positioning of the the chain for um AI in general and what types of use cases um people can can use the chain for. >> Sure. Um so if you read our 2025 road map of B&B chain actually the AI first is our strategy. So we aim to enhance the capabilities of ecosystem through you know the variety of AI powered initiatives initiatives such as the including the development of AI powered code copilot to assist the developers and the seamless integration of the AI

into the D apps and and support from the you know the data D which means the decentralized autonomous organization for data to you know to solve the ownership problems for the data contributors to to AI developers, right? So, at the heart of the BMBB chain actually, our AI ambitions is still on the BMB green field um because it can be the pivotal to enabling the AI and data economy. So, different from the traditional centralized data data solutions or storage solutions, the green field empowers the users with the true ownership. For example, if you upload the data to the green field

corresponding token can be minted on the BSC and also you can manage the data and ownership of the data and permission of data through the smart contract. So which relies on the you know um a lot of the AI applications actually relies on the data and also the ownership of data. So a core use cases that we are looking for or already happening on the BM chain is that the data ownership and control. So um the D apps can manage their data and also protect the data contributors and manage their uh protect their ownership and also we are working with some of the projects like the to make

the data programmable which means uh um if you want to build a data marketplace uh for AI consumers or AI data users the market play marketplace can enable the you know the purchase directly and the community manage the data for the AIS. So this is the very key functions and we have already started the BMB green field almost two years ago right? So at that time the AI is still in a very very early stage. So compared with today. So I think the AI actually is not you know we started from today actually we started from years ago right and we want

to build the solid foundations and the best product for the potential AI uh innovations on the B&B chain. And and just to add to that from a different angle for for builders in the space especially in AI. Um just a few points I think one and and many other like thought leaders have have talked about this right like the likes of Balaraji you know talking about how as AI grows and momentum and adoption um and you know with with a lot of concern about how it might affect uh the internet as we know it today. um that only creates a greater need for um cryptographic proofs or or for essentially for um something that can't

be fooled which is essentially um you know onchain um onchain metrics kind of onchain verification. So, uh, one, I do think there's a very important need. Um, I think it's it's still quite early. Uh, and tied to that, uh, if you are thinking about building something, if you already are, I think now is a great time partially because I think it's still early, uh, within crypto. The kind of the crypto AI intersection is still very early in my opinion. Um, the level of competition is a lot lower compared to building an AI product in a very web two native environment, which is, I think, is most of the capital and the talent is right now. Um but you know a lot of the the kind of the biggest heavyweights you know technically have been building asset in web two for at

least a decade or so. Um when you look at some of the biggest players and I think some of the next big players um would be building in web 3 right now. Um and you know even a lot of the investors I speak to in the space even some who are not in web 3 uh who are very just AI native investors uh in web 2 do have that view right that crypto will play an increasingly prominent role. So for for teams that are considering building a product I mean there is a wide space in crypto and you know the team here Jay-Z and myself and many others um can really spend the time with you to to help optimize what that product might look like.

>> Awesome. And yeah, I I agree with you. I think um uh the cross-section between um um crypto and AI is still very young. I think like it's only been I think a couple years since it's really taken off. I remember a few years back um when we were hosting uh guests on this podcast, I I would ask them, oh, what do you think like the intersection of of this space was going to be? And it was just like still very raw. Um there's things about like storing uh model weights on decentralized storage and perhaps using AI for like analysis, but now we've kind of seen it start to really take off in like decentralized um infrastructure networks um just um

things like Morpheus, things like Lilyad. Um there there's tons of different applications kind of going out here. I guess um Jay-Z mentioned it um AI was or is the big theme of the 2025 road map of um B&B chain. Do you see that carrying forward to 2026? I know there's a lot of um stable coin uh chatter um this year. Do you guys think that that's kind of going to intertwine with AI somehow or um it'll be its own thing? Yeah. >> Y I'll chime in afterwards.

>> Okay. So definitely I think so um because um just we mentioned that the AI is still very early and especially the intersections between AI and the web three right so I think that you know giving the users control over their data to add the incentive mechanism for the data contributors and the data I mean AI modelers and AI developers make it transparent right you know I see a lot of discussions about the you know the safety of the AI right the the training the data there's lack the transparency we want to make sure the AI actually will not you know bring the disaster result for the human being right so by

intersecting with the blockchain and AI to make this transparent make the you know add another layer of incentives make sure the best data can be can be rewarded to the you know the the the data creators or or contributors can be rewarded and uh um uh and also the the training process can be tracked and monitored and make sure all the safety regulations and other stuff can be traced on the blockchain. That is the key point for the future I mean for the bright future of the AI development in the future. And and just to add to Jay's point and maybe to your question now. So yeah, of course, absolutely still a priority,

still very early and I think this is something that will be a very very long-term um conviction and bet for for not just ourselves, but for I'm sure many chains, many like the industry at large. Um I think what I would add is uh we're already starting to see some kind of new consumer native applications. Um you know, we you've been hearing quite a bit about aic payments. you know, crypto being the rails for um agentic commerce um and kind of maybe uh using those rails for for payments or whatever it may be and we've seen teams uh experiment in that space. It's something I'm personally very excited about. But maybe to your point around uh stable coins, right? So like was the question will stable coins remain the hype or or

like can you know I I think stable stable coins are in a different space. I think you know stable coin liquidity has been very large for a long time and I think we're just at an inflection point now in terms of interest because of growing institutional uh adoption regulatory clarity and you know IPOs and things like that which I think have renewed interest and people go wait hold on there's this like crypto stable coin thing oh it's really big and actually wow there's all this liquidity on chain which we've known right for every you know if you're building the space has been here for a while and and and of course you know stable coins will be a kind of part of the the fabric of this industry and that's and that's very important. Um but I think uh there will

be increasing quoteunquote hype around uh more AI native applications especially as they become clearer and the commercial models become even clearer and the need for it becomes evident. Um, I think we're I don't think there is a consensus yet on the the imperative for crypto and AI to to merge and and to create solutions. Um, I think we're still a little bit early on on that adoption curve. >> Yeah, I I agree with you and there's a lot of compelling use cases around it around like automatic payments.

>> Yeah. >> Using a AI agent to basically spin up a wallet for you. um using ZK proofs to combat all the bot spam um that is on a lot of social media platforms. So there's a lot of compelling use cases for it and yeah it's certainly a very exciting time to be alive and kind of witness all all this. So >> um and uh unfortunately with that we have reached uh our time but uh Jay-Z Marwan uh this was an awesome conversation. And thank you so much to the both of you for taking the time out of your day to come chat with us today.

>> Awesome. >> Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. >> Yeah, my pleasure. >> My pleasure. >> And for everyone building the space, you can always reach out to us on X and we'll share the links as well um for you to explore more of the opportunities on B&B. >> Beauty. Yeah. And we will have all those links for you um in the um description below. So definitely um reach out to the crew at BMBB chain and consider using them for your next project uh or weekend hack even. Uh and with that just want to wish everybody a very happy Friday, happy weekend wherever you may be and we will catch you back here next week for another great episode of Devonel. Till then have a good one folks. See you.

>> Thanks everyone. Thank you.