Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Living on Blockchain. Today we are speaking to Temujin Lui. He is a seasoned communications specialist.
He’s also the CEO of Wanchain. He assumed the role of the CEO in Wanchain since March 2021. He’s been in Web3 since nearly over a decade, since 2012.
He started his journey by working with certain startups and then multinationals and then obviously now he is the CEO of Wanchain. Wanchain itself is the longest-running decentralized interoperability solution in the blockchain space. I believe everybody who’s been around for a while would have heard of them.
The core objective for them is to facilitate inter-chain transactions, cross-chain transactions, allowing users to seamlessly interact with Web3 applications. So that is what he does, and this particular conversation was very interesting, as I say for all my conversations. I’m very lucky that way, because it talked a lot about, in particular, about the challenges that the interoperability space and the niche faces in the larger ecosystem of blockchain and Web3 infrastructure.
We delved into that. We talked about the future of Wanchain, the bigger milestones that he’s looking forward at. Very interesting conversation.
I can’t wait for you guys to hear this. Let’s deep dive right in.
Hi, Temujin. Thank you so much for making the time to speak to me today and to our listeners.
How are you doing? I’m doing really well. Thanks so much for the opportunity. I’m really looking forward to this conversation.
Likewise. So for our listeners, can you tell us a little about yourself and your background, and then we can deep dive into your products as well. Yeah, absolutely.
So my name is Temujin. I am the CEO of Wanchain, the original decentralized blockchain interoperability protocol. I’ve been in the blockchain space for quite a long time.
I originally kind of came across this notion of Bitcoin and blockchain back when I was a grad student at the London School of Economics back in 2012, 2013, and then eventually moved to China. I spent about 10 years there, and that’s kind of where I really got into blockchain full time in around 2016, 2017. And over the years, I’ve worked for several different types of blockchain projects, some true startups, as well as in some multinational corporations doing experiments or exploring blockchain technology.
So I feel I’ve gotten to see all sides of the industry. Brilliant. That’s been quite a journey for you.
And, you know, again, you’ve been around for a very long time, pretty much since the time I have been around in Web3 since 2011, 2012, you know, the early mining days. That is how I got into Web3. So can you tell us what kind of or who introduced you to the crypto world? Because it wasn’t really called Web3 back then.
No, it certainly was not. Yeah, I feel like my entry was actually a little unusual. So as I mentioned, I was a student back then, and I was working on my thesis.
I was really kind of taken with this particular book. It’s by an author called Steven Lukes called The Three Dimensions of Power. And so I was thinking about how algorithms and different kind of tech stacks impact incumbent power structures.
And, you know, sometimes when you’re a grad student, you get stuck in the theory a little bit too much. So I was really looking for a real world example to kind of support my ideas. And I was out jogging one night listening to just some random podcast.
And they just kind of mentioned it in passing, this Bitcoin thing. So that triggered something in me. And then I went in and did my own research, read the white paper, as we all did.
And it really was kind of this perfect fit. And that was the entry point. You know, when I think back on those early days, it’s a little embarrassing sometimes because, you know, I was writing about it in my thesis, and I really felt like I had a pretty good understanding of this stuff.
But now looking back after being in the industry all these years, I really knew nothing. So it’s really been, you know, a good learning experience all these years, and I’m sure I’m going to keep learning. But that’s how I got into it.
Right. Yeah. I think all of us feel that.
You know, we tend to come in with a lot of gusto and confidence and thinking that, okay, we really do understand the ins and outs of this particular space. But that is absolutely not true. You know, we are humbled almost every day because so much keeps happening in this space on a day-to-day basis.
Yeah. And that also keeps it really exciting and keeps us going through the ups and downs of this crazy industry. At least it always feels like you’re at the forefront or the cutting edge, and it really feels like we as an industry have the potential to change the world for the better.
Absolutely. I think that is exactly why I’ve stayed all of these years as well, because it just keeps you on your toes. And that is very, very exciting.
Yeah, there’s no doubt. 100% agreed. So can you tell me a little about your thesis? You mentioned that you were a student.
What were you actually writing about at that point? So at that point, it was really about how the introduction of the algorithm changed the distribution of power and posed a threat to incumbent powerholders and basically kind of exploring what the outcomes of that would be. And, you know, that’s a very, very, very high level. Right.
But it’s very interesting, right? And it’s very relevant in this day and age. Yeah. And, you know, my thoughts on it, at least at the time and still to some extent today, is that the definition of power itself was impacted by this introduction, you know, moving from purely forcing I don’t want to go too deep into it, but, you know, the Stephen Luke’s book that I mentioned, you know, he identifies different dimensions of power from, you know, forcing decision making power, non-decision making as a form of power, but then also an ideological power.
So, you know, how the algorithm fits into these three categories, you know, this is really kind of what I was looking at at that time. That is wonderful. It’s very, very interesting.
And I’m going to look up this book that you have mentioned. We’ll probably link it up in the description so that our listeners can perhaps look at purchasing it if they want. So, you know, now moving forward as this, you know, you worked with, you mentioned some multinationals, you worked with certain startups as well.
So how did it all add up into you becoming the CEO of Wanchain? And can you give us a little bit of an overview of Wanchain’s, you know, role in the ecosystem itself? Yeah, absolutely. You know, very quickly having worked in these different types of enterprises, startups, companies, you get a bit of perspective, you know, from different angles about where the shortcomings of the industry are and where solutions are desperately needed. And you also get a sense of how different types of companies or people are thinking about blockchain and its potential.
And one thing that just kind of kept coming up both professionally and also just in my experiences as a user was just how fractured the whole industry is. How blockchains, you know, using one doesn’t mean you know how to use another, especially in those early days before, like before even EVMs really kind of started spreading around and you had all these Ethereum forks, just everything was so fractured, all these different Ethereum killers were popping up with kind of their own approach to things. And so, you know, the idea of interoperability was front of mind.
Because, you know, for me, the entry, as I mentioned, was not from finance per se, even though it was from Bitcoin, it was, you know, I hope to see the world run on blockchain to move beyond purely financial instruments. And so for that, I think interoperability is definitely something that’s desperately needed. So, you know, as I was just continuing my career, I eventually joined Wanchain.
They are or we are a blockchain interoperability project with a strong focus in R&D. And so this really aligned with kind of my own beliefs of what’s needed in the industry if we’re really going to onboard, you know, billions of users. I think one singular blockchain is simply not going to be enough.
We’re really going to need this kind of unified network of blockchains, not dissimilar to, you know, the difference between a local area network and a wide area network. So we need a wide area network of blockchains. That’s a great analogy.
It helps, you know, people who are not in Web3 or even interoperability, you know, full-time kind of process. You know, why is interoperability so important? But, you know, for that to become a reality, you know, I think we need these industry-wide standards and that’s really where Wanchain is, you know, focused a lot these days. Okay.
So, you know, this has been pretty extensive, but can you, for our listeners who perhaps not used Wanchain, can you tell them a little about the USPs perhaps that you bring? Obviously, I’m understanding the bedrock is interoperability, but how does it really work? Can you give us a little bit of an overview? Yeah, absolutely. So just as a bit of background again, so Wanchain, we launched the project back in late 2016, early 2017, and it really was one of the first of these decentralized blockchain interoperability projects. And in fact, Wanchain launched the first ever decentralized cross-chain bridge.
We had Mainnet back in 2018. So that’s kind of the primary, let’s call it, touchpoint for users is the cross-chain bridges. And for developers, it would be, you know, for the dev tools to deploy their own cross-chain solutions.
And then we also have our own layer one blockchain. And this, you know, plays an important role in certain of our cross-chain products. But the name of the game for us is definitely cross-chain.
That means things like bridges between different L1 blockchains, bridges between different L2 blockchains. We can do fungible tokens, we can do NFTs. And then we also do cross-chain message passing, which is basically just, you know, passing data instead of tokens or from one chain to another.
Wow, that’s wonderful. So you guys are like really, really early. So at that point, you know, are you EVM compatible or are you purely L1? Yeah, so the Wanchain blockchain itself is a standard EVM blockchain, totally EVM compatible.
And our bridges, they work for both EVMs and non-EVMs. Certainly integrating a non-EVM is a little trickier because it’s more customized. But it is important for us to support non-EVMs.
So we put a big focus on that. Just as one recent example, we currently are the only bridge or the only decentralized bridge servicing Cardano, for example, which historically is a huge project, but has been isolated, you know, from the rest of the industry. From the others, yeah.
It’s like an ecosystem in itself, right? Without interoperability, it poses a challenge if anybody is looking to build on it as well. Yeah, absolutely. And so, yeah, in that sense, we’re compatible with both EVMs and non-EVMs.
Wonderful. So can you tell us a little about, you guys have a native token. Is that how the settlement happens? Or are you using, you know, some other token like ETH for settlements?
Sure.
So for the cross-chain bridge and these cross-chain products, it just depends on which chains are involved. So one thing that makes Wanchain a little bit different from some other bridges out there is that we don’t use our own blockchain as an intermediary chain. So for example, if you’re going from Ethereum to Avalanche, those are the only two chains that are involved in that transaction.
So the WAN coin itself, as you fully pointed out, we do have a token or a coin. This is the native coin of the Wanchain blockchain, which is an EVM-compatible blockchain. So it’s used for gas and things like that.
But it also secures the bridge. So the bridge node operators, they stake WAN coin. And then this WAN coin serves as an additional layer of security for all the cross-chain transactions.
Right, okay. That’s wonderful to know. So I’m assuming that your native token is live on exchanges as well.
It’s easy for people to get their hands on it in case they want to utilize some of the other products? Yeah, absolutely. So it’s available on major exchanges like Binance, HTX, KuCoin, these types of things. Wonderful.
What inspired your team to basically do the integration with the Base mainnet? You’ve done that for, I believe, the cross-chain infrastructure bit, right? So can you tell us a little more about that?
Yeah, absolutely. So right now, one of Wanchain’s most popular products is our canonical bridge. We call it Xflows.
And what a canonical bridge is, is that the only assets that the user is engaging with are the native assets. So there’s not… In bridging, there’s something called a wrapped asset. This is when a user locks their asset on Wanchain.
And then the bridge itself mints kind of a mirrored version of it on the destination chain. In canonical bridges on both sides, they’re the native assets. So the bridge doesn’t mint anything itself.
And there’s several advantages to this. One, the user doesn’t assume an additional layer of risk by holding a wrapped asset. And second, that asset that they receive is already usable on every app, basically on the chain that they want to get to.
And so with this Xflows, which, as I mentioned, is basically our most popular product right now, one kind of clear area for growth that has worked well for us are these Ethereum layer 2s. Because in that sense, the ETH, all of these layer 2s have their own official bridges that they bring. For example, ETH from Ethereum layer 1 to their own layer 2. But there isn’t really a good way, or any way officially, to move between the various layer 2s.
If you’re going to go from base to optimism to arbitrum, for example, and only use the official layer 2 bridges, then you have to first go back to the layer 1 on Ethereum and then just go to… So that kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a layer 2 for an end user. Because then you’re incurring all those fees on the L1. So something like Xflows, you just go directly.
Like I mentioned, the transactions with Wanchain only involve, or only put transactions on those chains that are involved in the transactions. So you can go directly from arbitrum to optimism to base. And so that was really the driving force for the base integration, just expand and grow this Xflows product.
Brilliant. This sounds absolutely wonderful. And this kind of, as you said, aligns with the entire ethos of everybody building in Web3.
You feel that we need to onboard the next million users to this ecosystem. And that is how it’s going to happen, by basically making it a little easier for the users to be able to utilize these products and to get involved.
Yeah, absolutely.
And you know, in the last kind of cycle, the last bull run, one thing that kind of emerged is you had all these different interoperability projects, all these different bridges start to get more and more popular. But the outcome of that was kind of ironic because each bridge was going to different chains, minting their own version of the assets. It kind of refractured or kind of gerrymandered the blockchain landscape, even though the original goal is to kind of connect.
But none of these different bridges or interoperability protocols are compatible with one another. So, you know, it’s kind of self-defeating. But, you know, with these canonical bridges, the user just always gets the asset that they need on the chain that they want to go to.
So it makes it much easier for them, as you said, they don’t have to kind of figure out, okay, who minted this version? Where can I use it? Because you’re getting the canonical or the native version of the asset on a specific chain, you can just use it everywhere. And you don’t have to worry about which bridge, you know, brought it to that chain. But we’re hoping in this cycle that there’s going to be a little bit more compatibility between the different interoperability protocols.
You know, we’re working very hard on these industry standards or else, I think, or fear that we’re going to experience a lot of the same that we did in the last cycle where it will be kind of important which bridge you use because it’ll just re-gerrymander everything once again. Right, I can see that his book and his theories have really had a huge impact on you. And I can’t wait to deep dive into it after this conversation because you really piqued my interest.
Now, you know, kind of moving towards perhaps like looking at a more macro view of the ecosystem as a whole. What are the kind of key challenges that you feel the current cross-chain interoperability solutions are facing? Like you’ve mentioned a few already that, you know, they kind of in the last cycle, they had, you know, instead of being able to sort of solve for the problem, they created a whole host of new problems with these bridges. So apart from that, what are the kind of other challenges do you see in this space that kind of impact the scalability, security, and just the general, you know, user experience of Web3 applications?
Yeah, I mean, those are kind of the front of mind things.
You know, there’s obviously still security concerns. We’ve all seen the headlines about bridges getting hacked. The user experience, you know, we talk about onboarding billions of people from Web2, but right now, you know, blockchain itself is still very, you know, immature in terms of the UX.
It’s not an easy thing to use, you know, try to teach, you know, not even our grandparents, but even our parents, you know, it’s going to be tricky. You know, even in the past. Not even parents, I think just even peers.
Peers, yeah, exactly. People who are perhaps not working in this space, this is just like rocket science to them. Yes, even relatively tech savvy peers.
There’s still a kind of large learning curve. So, you know, that’s obviously a big pain point. But I think all of these, and I am biased here, but all of these, the way I view them are, the problem underlying all of these is that there’s a lack of industry-wide standards.
You know, right now, everyone is building custom products instead of focusing on a core infrastructure. And in my mind, interoperability needs to be core infrastructure if we’re going to ever have kind of mainstream adoption. You know, one kind of example I’d like to share, it’s not a perfect example, but I think it’s pretty good, especially for those who are not kind of in interoperability 24-7.
But we’re all aware of the ERC-20 token standard on Ethereum. And this has done wonders for expanding and scaling the Ethereum, as well as all the Ethereum forks out there. You know, today, everyone just knows how to mint a token.
As soon as you mint it, you know, it can be used on literally any application that is deployed on that chain, whether it’s a DEX, a lending platform. It just seamlessly works. You punch in your contract address, you know that nothing needs to really be done on the DAPP side for you to be able to engage with that DAPP with your token.
But if that kind of ERC-20 standard had never emerged, you know, what would the world look like? You would have, you know, several different projects still launching tokens, sure. But they would each be coming up with their own standard, deciding how they want their token to be. And then you could probably still have DEXs.
It would be a little bit more difficult for them because, you know, to support a token, they would have to do a kind of an ad hoc integration, do a bit of engineering work specifically to support a token. And then, okay, so now you have a DEX, but you’d have to redo that every time you want your token to work with a different DEX or a different lending platform. Each one, you know, would be a separate ad hoc integration.
And not only that, you know, you’d create all sorts of kind of mission-critical failure points because that’s what happens when you have to build everything ad hoc. And, you know, that sounds a little bit crazy. I think anyone can hear that and they could say, okay, yes, that would be difficult to scale.
But the fact of the matter is that’s basically what interoperability is today. We can basically bridge any two networks, EVM or non-EVM. But every single integration is still an ad hoc construction.
Every different bridge maker is, you know, making their own decisions on their design. They’re deciding which problems need to be solved and how to solve them because everyone’s kind of just focusing on growing their own product right now and treating it really more as a product. And I really think that interoperability for us as an industry to have widespread adoption, you know, it really needs to be product second.
It needs to be protocol or infrastructure first. And for that, we just need universal standards. And that’s something that we’re working on, you know, very, very actively.
It’s definitely a difficult, you know, problem to solve because these issues and challenges that you mentioned at the top, primarily the security concerns, you know, this also exists amongst the different interoperability protocols. That’s been kind of one of the big issues to establishing these type of universal standards is because as soon as one bridge, you know, shares or makes itself compatible with another bridge, you inherit that other bridge’s risk assumptions. And we’ve all seen, you know, the outcome of poor design or, you know, not taking security seriously enough with all of these hacks that have happened.
So there’s a lot of mistrust amongst the different bridge makers out there, but there is progress being made, certainly. I don’t want to sound, you know, too defeatist. I think we’re definitely going to get there, but it is kind of this underlying major problem that still needs to be solved.
It’s just, you know, being worked on in the background.
Right. So as you mentioned earlier, you guys are working on these industry level standards and, you know, just sort of industry wide standards and making sure that it kind of addresses the problems that are right now, the interoperability, you know, the entire space is facing.
But, you know, you’ve mentioned the challenges as well. So do you have any kind of a consensus right now with some other chains or products that are agreeing to sort of perhaps agree to these industry wide standards that you’re creating, or is that still in the off thing and it will happen in some time?
I mean, that’s an excellent question. Unfortunately, the answer is that everything is a work in progress.
So we work very closely with, you know, many industry partners, particularly under the umbrella of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, which is kind of an industry group. So our CTO is the head of interoperability at the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance. So a lot of the, you know, the research and the standards are being developed, you know, under that umbrella.
And so the various EEA members, you know, are on board for following, you know, these standards as they come out. Similarly, there’s definitely non-EEA members that are also kind of involved in developing these standards hand in hand with us. I think the positive thing is that the vast majority of industry players at least acknowledge that this is needed.
So people are working towards it, but it’s just about how to get there. You know, no one’s going to be willing to expose themselves to too much risk on the journey, but we are making good progress there. And there’s a lot of people and a lot of, you know, different entities that are all pulling in the same direction.
And so I’m optimistic.
Yeah. As long as, you know, everybody’s agreeing that there is a problem and they can agree that, okay, that it does exist and we do need to work towards the solution.
I think, you know, we get there. Yeah. And I think, you know, as the industry continues to mature, I think we’ll eventually land at a point where people understand or accept that as core infrastructure, interoperability almost needs to become a zero profit condition endeavor.
Interoperability itself just needs to be maximally secure that’s the number one thing. And on top of that core infrastructure, then you can build competing products that, you know, either can be monetized or it can make different trade-offs, but it has to be built on top of this core infrastructure because there’s just some type of data that is too important to, you know, assume any kind of additional risk if we want the world to run on blockchain. You know, it’s got to be more than just, you know, just asset transfers.
Yeah. So I think that’s kind of where this kind of shift in thinking to interoperability is core infrastructure. This is slowly happening.
We’re not a hundred percent there yet, but that’s the direction. So what you said, it gives me something to think about. You mentioned how, you know, the interoperability core should be perhaps something that people should look at as non-profit making and, you know, build products on top of that.
I think that is perhaps the way to go if we do want to, you know, onboard and make all of these chains talk to each other properly and create a cohesive ecosystem.
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, there’s also other benefits that I see from having this type of, you know, approach to building because as we continue to talk about mainstream adoption, it’s inevitable that we have to, you know, broach the topic of regulation.
You know, enterprises, when we talk mainstream adoption, you know, it’s almost code for government enterprises, you know, coming on board. And then, you know, the masses can follow the products that are being offered. But, you know, right now, without these types of standards where all the different interoperability companies out there are just building ad hoc products, like I mentioned, everything’s customized, everything’s, you know, vastly different from one another.
It’s really near impossible for regulators to kind of get a hold or a handle on things and really kind of understand the risk profiles of each. It’s just too big a task. So once you have these universal standards in place, you know, I think it has this additional benefit of kind of assisting both the regulators and the enterprises to kind of comprehend the technical intricacies.
And then it’ll be more feasible for them to develop kind of a fair and informed regulatory framework where even if it’s tiered, you know, interoperability, I understand there’s different mechanisms in place and there’s room for all of them, but at least having kind of standards for each will make it easier for people who aren’t in interoperability 24-7 to really, you know, get a handle of it. And then once, you know, regulators are saying, OK, here’s the guidelines, here’s how things should be, you know, then I think it opens the doors for enterprises to kind of take that next step and therefore mainstream adoption.
Right.
You know, you mentioned a couple of things, but I’ll talk a little about the regulation aspect. There are obviously quite a few builders who don’t believe regulation is the answer in this space because they feel it goes against the very ethos of decentralization. And policymakers more often than not do not understand the technology well enough to be able to create regulations that would be relevant and also be perhaps, you know, by the time those regulations come into play, the technology itself, because it’s so dynamic, it has changed and, you know, they kind of render those policies a little obsolete and moot.
And then obviously there is an entire section of builders who believe that, you know, for mass adoption to happen, regulations do need to come in and regulators need to have a part to play here. So because you’ve kind of already given your opinion, but what do you feel about the other side and people on the other side of the fence who feel that regulation is not perhaps the way to go and the concerns that I’ve just mentioned?
Yeah, I mean, definitely from the earliest days there’s this ethos and it was definitely attractive to a lot of people who joined early. And I think that’s fine.
If we go as an industry totally in that direction, I think then we just give up on widespread adoption. You know, we remain in kind of niche applications. It could still be worth billions of dollars, but, you know, still relatively niche in the grand scheme of things.
But if we want the whole world to run on blockchain, then regulation is inevitable. There are too many RDs, major enterprises, that simply will not proceed without clear regulatory guidelines because we see how awful it is right now when there isn’t clear regulatory guidelines and everything is kind of chaos. And as long as that remains the case, you know, it’s a huge impediment to mainstream adoption.
So I do think that we, as an industry, are kind of at, you know, it’s not the end of the line, but, you know, the lines are being drawn in the sand. You know, I think the bulk are going to welcome regulation that is fair and well-informed. And there’ll be, you know, a small subsection that will take a hard line and say, you know, regulation has no place.
And they’ll follow kind of that philosophy. Us, definitely, we are welcoming regulation. We want the industry to grow and we think it’s a necessity.
And, you know, I think you rightfully pointed out that a lot of the problem with regulation is that it is ill-informed about, especially when it comes to kind of technical complexities. So that’s kind of tying back into what I was saying before. Right now, it’s impossible for them, the regulators, to have a profound understanding of the technical complexities because the system itself is so fractured and everyone’s doing things differently.
It’s essentially impossible to properly regulate on the interoperability side of things, at least. And so having these types of shared standards, wherein things are already vetted for security. So, okay, for this example, we assume that it is secure enough to proceed.
And then, you know, together, we can educate the regulators about, okay, here’s the different components. Here is how they need to be built to have a good balance between decentralization and security. And then, you know, the optimistic outcome from that is that the regulators then will also be able to properly balance the need for innovation and regulation because both are necessary for the industry to thrive.
Right. You know, I kind of, I do agree with what you’re saying. And obviously, education is a key part and key component for the policymakers to be able to create relevant policies.
But then again, I would like to ask you, which country or which nation do you think is doing a better job in that space in terms of creating relevant policies for the space? Well, as with all things digital, at least in the last couple of decades, the European Union has been relatively forward on that. You know, they have the new MICA regulations. So, I think that’s a positive step.
I mean, I’m in no way, shape, or form an expert on regulations, but, you know, that is definitely the consensus. Is that, you know, this is a positive development for a regulatory body to have kind of forward-thinking regulations for cryptoassets. So again, European Union, you know, they were the kind of, also at the forefront of regulation.
Yeah, they were the pioneers. Absolutely, yeah. So once again, they’re positioning themselves there.
And then you also have, you know, Singapore is, you know, being very forward-thinking as well. So these are kind of the two primary leaders right now, I would say. And I would just imagine that more than likely, it’s going to play out in a similar way as kind of data and internet generally, where you’ll have a big enough body like the EU who’s going to set rules.
These will generally be kind of… People will just kind of follow. Yeah, exactly. Because it’s a big enough market, and they’re strict enough, though fair enough, but strict enough that you abide by the EU, and you kind of de facto abide by most other markets in the world.
They become the de facto standard. Right, yeah. I think I concur there.
And as you mentioned, they were the front runners with the internet as well and with data privacy and whatnot. So I do feel that MICA is probably… Oh, you know, it has stood the test of time, so to say, even though it has not been a very long time. And people are looking at it as a bedrock on which to create further policy.
So I agree there as well with you.
Yeah, and just as importantly, I think it signals that those regulators are taking the industry seriously. Yeah, it gives credibility.
Exactly. And it also appears that MICA itself is an honest effort at fair regulation. You know, it’s not… It’s not only for show.
And so when something like that happens, I think the bulk of the blockchain industry are happy and willing to engage. You know, of course, version one can’t be perfect, but it’s a starting point that, you know, then conversations can be had and can be adjusted and et cetera. And this is what I think most of us want to see.
Right. Okay, this has been very insightful. Now, you know, coming back to Wanchain, can you tell us a little about perhaps the next big milestone you guys are already doing wonderfully well? And, you know, I asked you about your token and everything so that the listeners get an overview.
But obviously, you’ve been around for a while, and I knew a few guys. But considering you’re this big at this moment, are there still… Like as an entrepreneur, I would love to know, are there still like bigger milestones that really excite you? And what would be that bigger milestone for Wanchain perhaps in this year? Yeah, absolutely. So right now, you know, Wanchain is doing very well.
Most of our products are essentially operating at all-time highs, even through the bear market. So we’ve experienced continued growth there. So that was really good to see.
In the immediate future, we are going to soon be launching a new cross-chain message passing protocol. So this is just kind of one step closer to just purely transferring kind of arbitrary data from one blockchain to another. Here, we’ll be very excited, you know, once we roll this out to non-EVMs as well.
You know, today’s cross-chain message passing protocols are not all, but generally, you know, only EVM. And then definitely a couple of support Solana because it’s so popular. But, you know, we want them to as many non-EVMs as possible as well.
So that’s something that we are definitely working on. And then a theme for us, you know, both for the rest of this year and moving forward, internally, we’ve just been calling it the unification. So basically, right now, WanQin has all sorts of different products.
We have the blockchain layer one, we have our own coin and all this type of stuff. And some of these have not been properly integrated with one another. So that’s really something that we’re focusing on this year so that each one of these products that we offer is creating value for the users of all the products that we offer.
A simple example of this is that we’ll be introducing an upgraded kind of bridge fee solution. And these bridge fees will all be converted to the WanCoin just as a simple example. And so this will kind of provide value for everyone that’s in the WanChain ecosystem, which is a little bit of a change from what it was before.
So that’s kind of our upcoming milestones on the kind of, let’s say, product side of things. But as always, we’re extremely focused on the core infrastructure side of things. We’re working on new standards with our partners right now for cross-chain message passing, both for EVM and on EVM.
And so this type of R&D is always kind of at the forefront of what we’re doing at WanChain. Okay, wonderful. I must ask, because Deepin has been talked about quite a bit, and you guys are purely, your core is infrastructure.
Are you looking at building or are you already building on a decentralized physical infrastructure network? Or is this something that has not crossed your mind as of yet?
Oh, it’s definitely crossed our minds. But I think right now it’s still in the research phase for us.
Okay.
And really kind of, we want to make sure that we have a full, profound understanding of it, as well as kind of reasonable projections for where it’s going before we fully integrate it. As a project, I think that’s been around for so long. Sometimes we can be a little conservative in our approach, but that’s only because we’re kind of obsessed with security, because we’re always, as I mentioned, focused.
Core interoperability, infrastructure, number one, always.
Nice. No, I get that.
And I think, like you should, because you’re big enough and any kind of small ripple from your end can create huge waves, because you have so many users and people building and utilizing your tools. So obviously, you need to be careful about that. But I just wanted to sort of touch this, unless our listeners think that I haven’t really gotten around to talking about things that are trending in the space.
Now, coming back to trending stuff in the space, what is your take on which, or let me put it this way, what are the kind of products or niches that you think would do really well in this particular bull run? Do you have any personal favorites in terms of tools that you feel are doing incredibly well and you’d like to give them a shout out?
Yeah, I mean, I’m deeply impressed with basically everyone who’s pushing forward zero knowledge proofs right now. Again, this is, I’m not myself a cryptographer, so it’s not my area of expertise per se, although we do have cryptographers on staff. You know, we all, I think, believe that ZK tech is going to be very important for the future of blockchain as a whole.
So all the work that’s being done there is very important. And then also quite interested in decentralized identity, different solutions on this side of the ledger. Just because, again, I think it’s somewhat tied to the regulation conversation that we had before.
Having something that’s still decentralized, but probably a combination of ZK and decentralized identity, I think it will play an important role moving forward as well. I do think that these, the ones you mentioned, decentralized ID and zero knowledge proofs, I think this is what is going to perhaps create the next narrative in Web3, the next big narrative. So we completely can gather.
Are there any tools or platforms that you want to give a shout out to that you’ve utilized yourself and you feel that your users and our listeners should, you know, take them for a ride as well?
Yeah, I don’t know if I’m totally comfortable shouting out specific platforms. I’m trying to put you on the spot. Yeah, I think, you know, because, like I mentioned, we like to be totally sure, but I think these are spaces to look into and then start researching yourself, you know, as if you’re a user and you want to see these future trends.
I think, you know, those are the, some of the keywords to throw into Google. And then you see the different projects that are working on it. And then, you know, I think as an industry vertical, these ones are trending upwards.
Right. OK, so now, you know, I would love to ask you this particular fun question. We’ve had a very serious conversation so far.
So tell me if you could choose one fictional character from anywhere, pop culture, books, movies, to represent blockchain industry, who would it be and why?
OK, well, this is really on the spot. A fictional character to represent blockchain. Oh, I don’t know if I’ll have a good answer.
For whatever reason, the face that’s popping up in my mind is Goku. But I think he would be an awful choice. It’s probably just because our character Yama recently passed away, so he’s front of mind.
But yeah, on the spot, that’s the face that pops to mind. Right, OK. So I would think that one fictional character that kind of represents blockchain industry, I would feel, you know, once I was asking you this question, what did come to my mind was basically Mowgli.
But again, I don’t think that would do justice either because Mowgli has nothing to do with technology. I think I just associate that particular character with freedom. And I think I associate Web3 with freedom as well.
Freedom of choice and just the ethos of decentralization. So I think that that was a parallel that was coming into my mind. Well, I can at least say that your reasoning was much better than mine.
But it’s my question as well. But to be fair, I had not really given it much thought. But nevertheless, I think we kind of give examples of characters that you kind of maybe resonated with.
As you mentioned, the creator recently passed away. So this was something perhaps playing at the back of your mind. So that is absolutely fine.
OK, so now another one. Tell me if there was one misconception about blockchain technology that you could perhaps really, you know, you’d love to debunk. What would it be and how would you like to perhaps go about clarifying it?
Hmm.
This, I think, feels more like an important question than a easy peasy one. OK, I would like to debunk it’s a niche notion, I would say, but there is definitely a loud minority of people that do think that true interoperability, true decentralized interoperability is not a solvable problem. Obviously, I strongly disagree.
I would like to debunk that. I do think the issue of scalability is a massive problem. You know, like I mentioned a few times on the call, we want to see the world run on blockchain.
Right. Today, what, there’s 8 billion people in the world, 86,000 seconds or so per day. You know, right now, if each person, we just give them one transaction per day, you know, that’s in excess of 90,000 TPS.
You know, Ethereum does like, what, 15? So, you know, one chain is clearly not going to be enough. And that’s one transaction per day. You know, if we’re running the world, we need high-frequency applications.
You know, it’s just a huge, huge issue. Wow. That’s a brilliant way of putting it, right? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody give this sort of an analogy for the multi-chain world.
I do think that, you know, the way you’ve put it, it kind of gives everybody perspective. People who keep saying that, okay, it’s going to be just one chain, ultimately, they need to hear this, I think. Yeah.
And so I think it’s defeatist, I think, in a way, to think that it’s a problem that can’t be solved. You know, I think that equates to let’s just give up on the blockchain idea. And that’s not something that I’m willing to do.
And I don’t think it’s something that most of us want to do. And so interoperability is core infrastructure and is a problem that needs to be resolved. Absolutely.
I think, you know, you’re completely right there. So, you know, Nam, I think we are at the end, nearly, of the time that, you know, is allotted. But I would love to ask you this one question before we wrap up, which is something I ask everybody who comes on the show.
If, you know, if you were talking to somebody or if you were just talking to the large populace and just the population at large of the world and you wanted to perhaps give them a few suggestions so that, you know, they kind of are able to let go of their perhaps previously held, preconceived notions about the Web3 world and truly start living on blockchain, what would those suggestions be?
Number one, just start. You don’t need to understand every component of the blockchain ecosystem to get started. Very, very important.
Yes. It could be an extremely daunting task, but like most things, it starts with a single step. So I would just encourage everyone get as far as you can right now.
Get a wallet, figure out how to install it. If that’s all you manage to do, that’s good enough. But just start interacting with it because, you know, this is the future or at least it’s the seeds that will sprout the future.
And so the earlier you can kind of get involved and become familiar with it, the better. So just start. Yeah.
I think that is a good suggestion because I feel a lot of people are deterred by the fact they feel they don’t understand it completely. But here we are, you’ve been in this space for more than a decade and so have I. And I feel like I’m still learning and every day is a learning. And if I would have just waited to understand everything, then I would still be waiting.
And there is no better time than now. Just get involved. You owe it to yourself and your future to learn about this technology lest you be left behind.
And you must do it. You can just start small and don’t be deterred by the narrative that this is just for the nerds and the techies.
Absolutely.
And stay away from the headlines. Yeah, absolutely. It’ll just scare you.
Just start on your own and get as far as you can. That’s a good first step. Yeah, just start on your own.
Do your research. Stay away from the headlines. And don’t fall for quick money-making scams.
You hear of quick money? Just move in the other direction, I feel. Yes, if anyone’s offering you huge yields that you can’t get in the quote-unquote off-chain world or the real world, that’s not where you start. Absolutely.
So avoid that. And I would also say anyone that is positioning any kind of singular solutions, this is the one and only. You can also avoid that.
Because that’s really not the ethos of blockchain, of decentralization. At that point, if we’re going to have these one and only solutions, then again, we don’t need blockchain to do that. Yeah, absolutely.
I think that is very, very true. The entire idea of creating the space or one of the ethos behind the space is not just the decentralization aspect, but keeping it open source, having perhaps multiple solutions to a similar problem and working towards a better future together. So that’s how I see this.
And thank you once again, Temujin, for making the time to speak to me today. Before we wrap up, any last words?
No, I’d just like to thank you again for the opportunity. I had a blast and a really good time talking about this with you.
Thank you so much. Likewise. Thank you so much for making the time.
Thank you.