DigiTalk EP8 Recap — Layer1 Breakthroughs: Efficiency, Sustainability, and Adoption
On June 28, we were honored to invite experts from Aeon-X, Xend Finance, Hats Finance, Paw Chain, JOLTIFY and Aelf to discuss “Layer1 Breakthroughs: Efficiency, Sustainability, and Adoption” . This session brought together leading minds to delve into Layer1 breakthroughs. Below, we provide a detailed recap of the key insights and discussions from the event, highlighting the efficiency, sustainability and adoption of layer1.
Host: We’ll just do like a quick one minute introduction between everybody here before we start kicking off the question. And so we’ll just kick things off with JOLTIFY.
JOLT: I’m Brian. I’m one of the co-member from JOLTIFY team and I think JOLTIFY is the first EVM compatible game-changing L1 public chain built on top of the Cosmos SDK for real world assets and beyond. And I think the focus of JOLTIFY chain is RWA. And currently we do have one of the SPV launched on our chain just recently, and they’re looking for the investment of 5 million USD and providing exciting 15% of APY as return. And I think there are more projects we’re doing and one of them will be coming up soon and they are seeking for the 200 million USD DC on the JOLTIFY chain. And instead of the RWA part, the JOLTIFY chain is also a multifolded chain and we natively embedded multiple applications such as some digital landing, staking, bridge and swap.
HAT: I’m Adelia. I’m the head of marketing of Hats Finance. Essentially, we are decentralized or desect as we like to call it protocol, offering permissioners and capital efficient bug bounty and audit competition services. We are about connecting users and security researchers and projects closer together in one more cohesive security ecosystem. Hats Finance really believe in incentivized security, incentivizing the space that makes projects more secure and essentially being like the expressway for security services on Web3.
RWA: Xend Finance is a universal framework and blockchain for reward asset tokenization and on-chain management. I’m Ugochuwku, the co-founder and CEO of Xend Finance. Xend Finance has been there since 2019. We’re backed by finance. We’re backed by Google. We started off as a DeFI protocol. And then we now have evolved to a reward assets infrastructure system to allow people to organize assets on chain, to also allow people build and launch their own and DeFi protocols or reward asset based protocols. So for us, we have just launched our testnet, our layer-1 testnet called Asset Chain. You can check it out and it’s EVM compatible. So if you have something existing on any of that EVM change, you can easily deploy it without really making any code changes.
We also announced our first official part, Nashi yesterday with E Money wallets. So E Money allows you to actually create an on chain account on asset chain, but then that account is tied to euros. So it means that once you have that account, you can actually receive euro based cryptocurrency on that wallet. And it’s really remarkable. And we actually have a host of other partnerships and lined up and tokenizing reward assets. It’s a game changer and we’re happy that we’re part of the teams actually leading that future, building that future out.
ANX: I’m Cameron from Aeon-X. We are USA based project and I am Chief Marketing Officer of Aeon-X. Aeon-X is actually building an empire like Ionic 3 crypto trading, content creation and social networking platform powered by AI and profitably sustainable and fast blockchain. And it also represents the next step in the evolution of AI power, blockchain technology, AR&VR infused social networking and content creation. Aeon-X is a layer 1 blockchain built upon a layer 0 cosmos, as a layer 0 block 10 cosmos is inherently scalable and focuses on interoperability of waste. Blockchains are built on top of that. It is also sustainable, fast and significantly more affordable in terms of transaction fees.
ELF: I’m Mohit Vashistha and I did research initiatives at Aelf Blockchain. Aelf is a layer 1 high performance blockchain platform. It provides multi-chain architecture and it has a cross chain communication platform. Along with that, we are exploring AI as a domain where we are integrating multiple AI suits to our 11 blockchain to make it more performant and more efficient for our users. We have a big ecosystem of products where we have a pool of products, Project Schrödinger, Portkey and many other products like ETransfer that can swap. So we’re making a chain more efficient, more performant day by day. I lead the research there and we are looking at various solutions, maybe rollups, you call it, ZKP, and a lot of other things in terms of increasing the efficiency of R level blockchain.
Q1: How do layer 1 blockchain influence your projects, technology and strategy? How you guys are utilizing current technology and what you guys are doing with that technology bring a new innovative approach to your project?
RWA: One of the reasons why we actually decided to obtain a layer 1 blockchain instead of maybe doing a layer 2 or layer 3 or maybe running on an existing SDK or something is because we’re actually talking about tokenization of real world assets. We actually wanted a system where we would be able to tokenize the entire blockchain in itself.
What do I mean tokenizing the validator nodes is that tokenizing the nodes that secure these blockchains that process transactions and all that as the compute for the blockchain. That’s one of the reasons we decided to go with an layer 1 blockchain. So we have validate on nodes and it’s something that we’re going to be officially announcing before the main net launch where we are able to tokenize this node. So you can have hundreds of thousands or even millions of people co-own these validity nodes. And that way it’s tokenized. It’s not owned by maybe just one team or a couple of people.
I’ll give you an example. If you look at BMB chain, for example, I think there are only 45 valid data nodes powering the entire blockchain, holding billions of assets. But in an event where you have more nodes, but not just about the number of nodes, but in terms of ownership, these nodes are co-owned by a lot of people. What it does, it helps to bring liquidity into the chain when it goes live. It helps to push more transactions, to build a much stronger community, and that’s the approach we’re taking also.
In terms of the technology delay, layer 1 blockchain is also providing us with real time monitoring of asset status launching. So as these assets exist in real life, there will be events published on chain , like on Taobao so people can actually see the status of these assets in real life, but they’ll be seeing it on chain. So these are some things that we’ve seen that create real world value for asset tokenization generally and also towards as a project, as asset chain and then finance.
ELF: Aelf blockchain is a multi layered blockchain where we provide question communication and interoperability as well. We provide DPoS functionality where you don’t have to worry about the 51% attack or as it is a delegated proof of stake. So token holders can decide who is going to be the validators.
So that actually gives us some more performance and efficiency on our layer 1 blockchain. And on the scalability side, what I feel is that layer 1 is the powerhouse of any kind of blockchain, because even if we talk about layer tools as well, any kind of rollups, when say come and settle on layer 1 blockchain, so we can say layer 1 is the actual source of truth for all kinds of rollouts or all kinds of other layers of blockchain.
And on the project side, if we see it provides the kind of decentralization and the kind of immutability factor which it needs, it makes the applications user centric and it provides decentralization to the ecosystem . That decision making is not in someone’s hand, it is in the hands of everybody on the network.
So that is something which we emphasize, and that is how we are making sure that our Aelf network is more secure, more performant. And every day, we research new technologies to make it more scalable and more secure with the introduction of new technologies.
Host: Layer 1 is the goal. If you’re looking for the full scalability, the full ability to grow and scale for the long term, having a layer 1 built from the ground up for those reasoning is the way to go. And so I definitely like that aspect on it. There are a bunch of Layer 2, even Layer 3 being introduced. But in the end, they all still go right up to the L1 and settle there in the end. And so, being able to build from layer 1 for what your guys’ needs is kind of a much better infrastructure outlook and scalability for the growth and future of your project.
Everybody knows RWAs are much more than just a fad or a term. It’s been growing, a huge value infrastructure and opportunity for people in the industry. So don’t miss your chance to be part of an L1 that’s actually building that, growing that and actually fostering that infrastructure because you never know what kind of value you can bring to yourself, to that project, to other people, but ultimately to your guys’ portfolio as we get into the Bull Run because retail is gonna come in.
And I don’t care what anybody says. They’re gonna look at RWAs because they already look at assets here in the world and they’re buying assets, land in gold and all the stuff here and in real estate. Well, now it’s gonna be influx onto blockchain and there’s the opportunity on blockchain that is always a lot better than on Web 2.
Q2: How do you guys balance the need of efficiency with the principles of decentralization? Because we all know that the more efficient, the more fast these chains are going over time. There’s always a little bit of centralized aspect in the beginning and then it goes decentralized. How are you guys balancing that, especially as you guys are building your guys’ layer 1?
RWA: First, at protocol level, it’s already handled at the consensus mechanism. For example, we use the Lattice consensus mechanism, which is actually originally built by Fantom Blockchain. Basically what it means is that any single validator can actually reach consensus on its own. And that’s why we are able to perform transactions quickly, even at delay at one level. So eventually, transactions now get the whole longest chain rule applied, but it makes transactions really fast. And then he also allows blockchain to validate nodes on his own, to be able to approve transactions really quickly.
But then in terms of improving decentralization as well, like what I mentioned earlier about tokenizing the nodes, that’s actually another layer. But this one isn’t more of technical. It’s now more of user base in terms of who are the people controlling the nodes. And that’s where the whole part of decentralization comes in at scale. And that’s enabled by tokenization. For example, before now, one node is usually owned by one person. You have one person running the standard node, they run the entire software, every single thing they have to do. The cloud infrastructure, which is also variance, which can be expensive. But now one node can be owned by 500 people, 1,000 people. So that also increases decentralization and it also creates value. I know this isn’t part of the question, but I think it’s better to be mention. It also creates a lot of value for the people who co-own these nodes, because as the blockchain is running, transaction fees and all that are now split between the owners of these nodes. And it also allows them to generate additional revenue.
I’ll give you an example. I think in February, I think Ethereum had divide the nodes on Ethereum generated a total revenue of about $200 million. And it went to the owners of the validator nodes. And he went to these owners because they could run the nodes. I think Sulana also generated, I think, about 200 million, 190 million, something around those numbers.
Now these numbers are high, but they’re also limited to just the people who can run these nodes. A lot people don’t have the technical experience or knowledge, but imagine if any single person in your community can just have the license and co-own these nodes. What it means is that as the chain is running, the nodes are decentralized, and then there’s also high efficiency, and then there’s also distributed revenue to every community member that participates or has a license to denote. So that’s basically how we handle centralization and also efficiency at the protocol level and also at the user level where people interact with nodes.
ELF: If we talk about efficiency, we always talk about the dilemma in the decentralization space. When we talk about decentralization, we think about how decentralized it can be. We’ll have to compromise on security or we’ll have to compromise on performance.
But how Aelf is handling is that we created a multi-chain structure where we provide an infra, where is a main chain and there are multiple customizable side chains. So the main chain stores the final state of all the side chains and also all other side chains are customizable, where all applications you can categorize or maybe if you want to create a specific customized side chain for your application, you can generate that. And after doing that, the parallel processing comes into place when multiple side chains are processing. So that gives more efficiency and more performance to the applications who are operating on the layer 1. And the layer 1 is the complete ecosystem, which includes both the main chain and the side chain. So that is how we are solving this issue. And alongside, which I already have mentioned, we use DPoS, which chooses the limited number of block producers based on certain rules by the token holder. So that also gives us more performance when we compare it to the traditional POS or POW consensus mechanisms.
Q3: What are some of the biggest security risks currently facing on layer1 blockchain and how does your project specifically address these risks? There’s so many blockchains actually either being developed or already out there right now. It’s just really good to see what you guys are seeing within the already current blockchain space and the reasons why you kind of decided layer 1 from our own in-house building is going to be the best and efficient way, especially moving into the RWA infrastructure.
JOLT: I think most of the L1 chain, they’ve faces probably the 51% attack or the centralization of the token holding. I think as L1 chain developed based on the Cosmos SDK, actually we naturally employ the tendermined consensus algorithm, which require a two-thirds majority of consensus, making it significantly harder for any single entity to control the network. And also I think currently, we do have a lot of activities or called seasonal activities to distribute our the native coins to the community. I think the community for the L1 chain is one of the important parts for the chain just to start, also to discover or mitigate those security issues regarding the centralization of token holding. I think we do build a lot of monitors or bots for monitoring the transactions on a chain.
I think you probably mention that mini question, the risk I think for L1 chain is probably the 51% attack. As you know, it’s crucial for each chain to take care of. But also for the user side, there are many other risks. For example, even though we’re customer space chains, we are also EVM compatible.
For the JOLTIFY chain on how to manage those risks, I think part of our team will actually discuss with those projects who want to come in. I think we want to have a good partnership with other projects before they come into our chain or integrate their project into our chain and to make sure those projects have a good audit or good security guarantees before coming in.
So we do set the first border for them. And as I mentioned before, we do have a lot of monitor or bots to monitoring the transactions. And on the other hand, actually for the assets,I think how to secure user’s assets from fishing or other kind of attacks. We do also develop some unique special mechanism to protecting users, the asset safety. For example, I think IBC transfer is one of the key features of all the cosmos base chains. So we do have a mechanism to set up a transfer threshold and once there’s a big set transfers between different chains, we do append them and ensure the large amount of transfers can be verified and approved before they actually do that.
ELF: There is a trial dilemma, when we talk about efficiency and scalability, people tend to think that in the decentralized case, we compromise on the security. But Aelf found a way to secure the transactions as well. Most of the attacks which we have seen, or you can say the security threats which we have seen in the blockchain ecosystem is that most of the flows comes with smart contracts development as well. So we have implemented it in a way. We have introduced the concept of reference blocks where we don’t use the concept of nodes so that we can avoid the signature replace attack, which is really common in the space of blockchain.
We also hear about a lot about reentrancy attack as well. That is also not possible, because we don’t support delegate calls. In Aelf, intercontract calls are immune because we process in a way that once one method finishes the processing of all the functionalities which is inside, then only the second method or in the other contract will be called. So this is how we are making sure that we’re not compromising on security when we’re making it more performant. So this is what makes Aelf very unique.
And coming to the token centralization as well, we have defined our tokonomics in a such way that it cannot be centralized, so that it cannot become a part of rugpull any day. You can check out our tokonomics as well. You can check out our new website as well, where you can see how we have managed all these three pillars of decentralization, where we are performant, secure and decentralized as well.
Host: I’m more intrigued on how you guys have been able to do that because instead of adding an extra layer of security and it’s gonna compromise efficiency. You guys have looked at ways within your infrastructure that you can build this out, but also not only not have to compromise, but also enhance other areas that are normally compromised within that ecosystem. And I think that’s the power of having your own layer 1 blockchain that you guys built from the infrastructure, all the way down from the very bottom floor of it up, allows you to not only fix or upgrade areas to make things more efficient or secure or even just overall better for the ecosystem. But it allows you guys to do it without the pains of a lot of the other issues that EVM compatible or other layer ones that have had in the ecosystem.
Q4: How are you guys bringing the interoperable approach to your ecosystem? How are you guys integrating interoperability within your blockchain ecosystem?
JOLT: I think this is a great question for JOLTIFY Chain, beacause JOLTIFY chain is naturally building on top of the cosmos ecosystem. So as you guys all know, JOLTIFY cosmos is famous of the IBC, the Inter-Blockchain Protocol. So basically, this is also one of the reason why we choose customers SDK as the base. So based on the IBC channels, actually you can intertransfer the tokens between different ecosystems. For example, you can easily transfer your all tokens from customer’s hub to JOLTIFY chain. As this one of the key features in Cosmos SDK, we can leverage liquidity from other ecosystems. This is one of the most valuable advantages we gonna take from the customer’s ecosystem.
For the integration part, even though JOLTIFY is a RWA focused project or L1 chain, we do not only want to make the other best one of the focus, but also we want to extend our chain to be more welcoming. For example, we are also one of the first event compatible chain for other projects. Based on that, it means that we do have EVM compatible code chain build on top of JOLTIFY chain so that we keep discussing or keep building relationship with other EVM based projects to come to our community and build their project. We’re giving them fully support. I think that’s why we’re trying to build a big ecosystem by leveraging those two main tech in the cosmos ecosystem. We still keep on getting in touch with other event projects and have a good relationship and good partnership with other projects. And I think most of the projects are welcome to come into JOLTIFY, and we think we will give them full support.
ELF: When we talk about interoperability, Aelf is also providing the infrastructure to do that. So we provide cross chain asset transfer as well. And as I said already, that we are a multichain structure. So we are creating an ecosystem where we like everybody can create the side chains. When we talk about layer 1 blockchains, this ecosystem is becoming very vast and the confusion is increasing day by day. So the problem can be solved in a way that there is an interoperable ecosystem, similar to Aelf, where there are a lot of side chains where people can build it by customizing it according to their needs and then creating a final state on the main chain. So this is how we’re solving this problem. We are trying to create an ecosystem where interoperability will simply help project owners as well to operate across chains.
RWA: Just on multichain operations and compatibility, because we are already an EVM compatible chain, in term for developers, it’s very easy. All you just need to do is to update your chain ID and explorer addresses, all that you should be good to go. No need to make any code changes.
And another thing is for liquidity, we’ve also built a bridge to allow people to bridge their tokens easily. And the bridge is already live. When we launch our testnets, we launched it with about six or seven different products on the first day. So the bridge is one of them. People can actually try it out now. So you can bridge from major chains like Ethereum, from Arbitrum, BSC to asset chain. And as the demand grows, we will keep increasing EVM chains that we support.
We have also started getting projects integrate. Like I mentioned, we announced our partnership yesterday and with the E Money Network, it is very simple for them to integrate asset chain. And as I speak with you, there are other infrastructure projects that have just completed integration of asset chain and handling things like indexing at skill, Ora calls. And it’s very easy because these projects have integrated all that EVM chains before. So coming on asset chains is just so simple for them. And we’ll be making these announcements in the next couple of weeks, cross chain functionalities for developers, straightforward for liquidity movements, migrations, also straightforward using the bridge.
Q5: What unique innovation has your project introduced on layer 1 that you believe is gonna set either a new standard for the block chain industry or something that is needed in the blockchain industry?
ANX: We have Aeon experience and Aeon exchange and these are best features that we have for mass adoption. So I will talk about Aeon exchange here. Aeon exchange is a hybrid clip to exchange that incorporates the best features of both centralized and decentralized crypto exchange in just a one single place. You can say one single stop shop. It brings blockchain-based decentralized exchange with the simplicity and support of centralized exchange.
We are offering two modes like simplified and advanced modes, which allows it to cater to the full spectrum of crypto traders and investors from novices to all the professional traders. If we talk about simplified mode, the primary idea behind offering two modes exchange is to accessible all the wider range of bikini level crypto universe. There will be AI features filling in the gap in their experience and expertise without compromising the level of control, like more advantageous required on their trading platform.
If we talk about advanced mode, advanced mode was actually inspired by ByteDance and offers more experienced crypto traders all the tools and information that they need to plan and execute complex trading strategies. This includes top loss orders and allow traders to preset value or percentage to automatically sell their crypto assets, to limit orders that place a cap on maximum buying or minimum selling and future trading, where investors can speculate and invest ways on how they perceive cryptocurrency moving up or down in the coming hours, days. And we also have added one differentiating feature on exchange that available in our simplified mode is one button easy swap. You can buy and sell in just a single button swap.
We also have numerous AI power trading tools, technologies and features, including the ones dedicated to crypto trading available on the market. So they each serve distance, purpose and cater to their niche target audiences.
PAW: My name is Brian and I represent the Paw Chain Project. I am a marketing team lead and I’ve been with the project now for about 13 months, and we’ve been building for the last 18 months. We have built an L1,L2, and an L3, but our main focus is actually on our L3. We aim to solve some of the biggest issues that exist in space, especially ones with interoperability, like fracture liquidity.
So how our blockchain is going to function on L3, it is going to simultaneously connect other layer ones without the need for traditional bridging. So you only need to deploy one contract, one liquidity pool on Paw Chain and euro liquidity will be used by all our connected chains. And we’re actually launching our main net today at six PM UTC. So we’re gonna have a migration to our coin and then the fund really begins. And there’s a lot of exciting things coming up. The first five chains that we’re gonna be connected to our base, Polygon, B&B, Ethereum, and Arbitrum, and then obviously pot chain with more to come. I believe the next batch is going to be Solana and Tron, but that takes much more coding. It’s a lot more work to connect to non EVM chains. So that’s kind of where we’re at.
We have an entire suite of debts that we have built. We have an amazingly strong community that’s been building behind the scenes for the last 18 months. We have a team of about 50 people that focus on media, marketing, project onboarding. And something I’m very proud of that you don’t see a lot in this DeFi space is we’re gonna have a customer service team, we’re gonna have a help desk, we’re gonna have somewhere you can go to get your questions answered if you’re onboarding, if you’re trying to create a wallet, all these different things, any questions you may have, there’ll be somebody available there to help you. So it’s an entirely new type of blockchain as well, a new Ledger system never before use. We got some different validation techniques that have never before been seen. When we were writing our documentation, we had to come up with names because it just doesn’t exist currently in space. So we’re really excited about what’s going on today, what’s going to be coming up over the next 7 to 14 days.
Host: I’ve been a part of their ecosystem for a while, and they’re obviously continuing to grow and scale and not only gonna bring huge value to their ecosystem, but to builders that are going to come on. And that’s gonna then give you guys opportunity, an exposure across many chains, all without having to actually leave and do any crazy bridging and all this mess. And I think that’s another innovative thing that you guys are doing in the space that middleman stuff needs to be just taken out of the way and finalized within a few buttons. I think that also facilitates fast trading.
PAW: We are a free and permissionless system. So anybody can come deploy. You just need to bring your liquidity, deploy and potching, there’s no minimal amount. So the goal of our project is to function on a decentralized level. So when you want a listing on a big centralized exchange, they charge hundreds of thousands, if not a million plus dollars to get listed on their exchange. So you can have people buy in your token from multiple chains to central exchanges, do that for you. So we’re offering multi chain functionality on a decentralized level with no listing fee. So any project can just come deploy and be connected to all those different chains and be available on all those different chains. That’s kind of like what our main focus is on. We’re really big in the security as well. We have multiple third party audits. Our service score is in the top 20. And we’re gonna have hacking do some audits after our main net launch to make sure that we’re secure as possible.
Host: Let’s go ahead and move over to some closing statements.
JOLT: Recently, we’re still talking to many projects, real world projects to bring them on JOLTIFY Chain. For brief for your audience, we’re running one of the project already launched on JOLTIFY chain and seeking for 5 million USDC and given by 15% as return. And also there are many seasonal activities coming up among JOLTIFY soon. And welcome all of you. Come and join to play and win the native tokens as reward. And also finally, we’re still doing a lot of marketing recently. We are trying to get a partnership or get any chance to collaborate with other projects, help them to build on our EVM chain, so seeking the opportunity to collaborate with other projects.
ELF: I would encourage everyone to check out the Aelf ecosystem because we could not cover a lot of stuff which we are doing. There are a lot of exciting things happening at the Aelf ecosystem, and you must check out. We have released our new website. We have released our new developer documentation. If you are a community member, if you are a developer, do check us out and you will see a lot of cool features. We are integrating AI as well into our blockchain ecosystem, so you will see a lot of exciting stuff happening at that blockchain.
RWA: I think it’s great for us to just follow Xend Finance. And we have lots of great things coming up soon. Like I mentioned earlier, our best or the unique selling point we have right now is that everyone can now become a part owner of this entire layer 1 blockchain through tokenization of our validator nodes, that will be coming in a couple of months. But it’s good to follow our socials. Just keep tabs on what we’re doing. We have very good announcements coming in future. You can also interact with our testnets if you’re a developer. We have developer channel. We’re there to help you out.
ANX: Our private visits round has just started yesterday, 20 million tokens on stick. If you want to check it out, then please do visit our website, aeon-x.io, scroll down a bit and you will see a private portal and check out all our social white paper. Do your own research and obviously you will find great stuff there.
PAW: I just wanted to thank you for allowing me to come up here and speak and thank all these our wonderful speakers. I will definitely be following, looking into your projects, checking you guys out cuz I’m always looking to build bridges over here. It’s what it’s all about, forming relationships and bonds in the community to help grow each other’s projects.
But the last thing I want to say is just everyone keep an eye out for Paw Chain. This L3, I believe, is going to revolutionize blockchain technology. It’s going to make things easier for the block chains to communicate with one another on the end user and also the developers. So give Paw Chain a follow. Join our telegram and our socials.
