Elena Sinelnikova on Metis layer 2 scaling for web3

0:01I'm Ashton Addison from Blockworks Capital for Investment Pitch Media. And today on the Crypto Coin Show, we have Elena Sinelnikova, CEO of Metis. Elena, welcome to the show and thank you for taking the time today. Thank you, Ashton, for having me. You're very welcome. Let's I would love to start off our conversation with just a little bit about your background

0:22In the blockchain space and how you got involved in starting Metis, and then we'll dive into everything around the protocol. Awesome. Thank you, Ashton. So, I came from the very centralized and the very governed structure. So, I came from govern govern government of Canada and police, as well. So, I joined Web3 space back in 2015. And that was inspired by Ethereum

0:51creation by Vitalik. And what I did first in the space is founded Mhm. Natalia Ameline. And from there, we of course got very educated, very connected. We built our own nonprofit startup with the chapters in 56 countries that focusing on the women's education. And as we were working

1:20my vision formed that I would love people in the world to know how great the blockchain space is, how open it is, how borderless it is, how inclusive. And I made my mission, you know, to onboard not only people, but also businesses and then people through the businesses. And that's how started with Metis. I met my co-founders Kevin Liu and Yuan Su while we

1:47were still actually collaborating on CryptoChicks and CryptoChicks hatchery and the conferences. And this idea of Metis becoming a decentralized platform for businesses and gateway from web 2 to web 3 is actually captivated me and I joined Metis as a CEO back then. Incredible and great backstory and I'm I'm quite familiar with Crypto Chicks as

2:14well. Congratulations on founding that and I think that's a great addition to you know, the women in web 3 space and getting more people involved in you know, the future of the internet and of money. So thank you for that. And with Metis, maybe you can talk a little bit about the solutions and the scaling and what exactly is the

2:35focus of Metis right now? Yes, so we couldn't build you know, that decentralized platform for economy for businesses without the proper infrastructure. So we started with building an infrastructure. At the moment we were looking at the different layer twos and we couldn't find the ones that would be suitable for what for our purposes. So we decided to build it our

2:58own. We started from the code base of optimism and you know, thank you so much for that team giving us the head start. We modernized that change the tech in order for it to suit you know, the business requirements you know, number number of transaction the speed the cost. So that's how we came up with the smart L2 technology which is the evolution of

3:29the optimistic roll up. So as you know, optimistic roll up is the process in transactions in batches and therefore if the transactions on Ethereum becomes faster and cheaper because the cost and speed basically split between the transactions. So what we did was we went a step further. We also created a decentralized storage space which allowed us to store those

3:54transactions intermediary, so when before they get onto the layer one, and therefore so we kind of like do the load of the transactions on demand. So when the verifiers need this the pool transactions, they fully can store can be stored on layer one. Otherwise, the address of these transactions is actually stored on the decentralized space, and then we also of course

4:20thought through all the security, so it is still decentralized, it is still secure, but it's it made us way cheaper than other layers two, which is suitable for us. Mhm. That's great to hear. And I feel like there's a lot of different layer two loot layer two solutions that are coming out, you know, each with their own competitive advantages, and they seem

4:43like a necessity. Looking down the road, you know, looking through Ethereum at least for the past 5 7 years as it's been trying to move into Ethereum 2.0 proof of stake, which is now successfully done. One of those stages later down the road is to solve the scalability and the transaction fees, and you know, it's they've changed a lot of the consensus

5:08to make it more energy efficient, but I don't think they've really solved that scaling solution. Is this more of an intermediate solution in turn before Ethereum fixes itself, or do you see Metis, you know, working on side Ethereum if it once it does fix the scaling, where does that fit in? Yeah, this is very good question. So the layer two actually part of the

5:34Ethereum roadmap to the scalability. So without layer two, there will be no scalability on Ethereum. So layer two is the way to go. So that and that is that was actually announced from the day one when Ethereum started this, you know, the whole scaling upgrade. Yes, so Ethereum will be faster, but the fastest transactions can be achieved

5:59through the layer two and the cheapest transactions can be achieved through the layer two. So, on that's the way to go. So, layer two is going to stay and they're going to probably stay forever and maybe they know they're going to transform to something layer layer layer three, layer four. So, that is a possibility as well. So, what

6:17makes is different about that layer two is just a means for us to get where our vision is. And again, I as I said, our vision is onboarding the businesses and making them the infrastructure suitable for them to, you know, to run their business on chain. Mhm. And you mentioned optimism at the beginning, which I know is a great scaling solution and there's polygon and the other

6:45scaling solutions. Do you How do you look at the competitive landscape, so to say, of layer two solutions and people are looking to find faster and cheaper transactions and they're like, "Do I go with this competitor or this competitor?" and, you know, is it a cutthroat competition between layer two solutions? So from what I what I checked

7:09about optimism, you know, they're focusing on this huge harmony ecosystem of the developers working together towards the their future that actually empowered by AI. So, that's their vision of the future world. So, they the AI joined together with people and they work all on that, you know, on the solution making the world a better place. So, for

7:34us it's it's maybe we have more pragmatic different focus at actually the businesses because I think all the people anyways involved in that, you know, in the in the global economy through businesses that are run again by different people, by different organizations. And they all can be running in a decentralized environment. What if the problem that is exist for

8:00now that businesses they are quite separated from each other by the borders, by the regulations, by the people living in the different places. And as Polkadot show that actually we can all work in the same team doesn't matter where we are located. So, creating the infrastructure for businesses that would suit this globality so you can basically employ

8:24people doesn't like regardless of where they live, where they live, you know, in Canada and US or Africa. So, and they can work in a in environment that is transparent and that is on a blockchain and they could see all that and it's you know, editable. It editable. So, so building these solutions for the businesses and then onboarding them there this is

8:46our route that we went to through the businesses. So, as Optimism went more with the, you know, public goods route and AI route. So, it's it's a different. So, maybe we can get, you know, and meet at the end, you know, in a in a big harmony of the new world. But yes, it's just the different ways that we getting there it's different strategies that we

9:06are getting there. And you know, I can I cannot even consider ourselves the competitors because all ecosystems right now they have these different routes, different visions, different goals how they want to get there. Maybe I again as I said we get there at the same place someday and we meet and then yeah, we all live in harmony. Thank you for that Elena. I like that

9:29approach and I hope that, you know, as scaling continues to grow and we're onboarding more businesses, goods and institutions that and everyone does work in harmony. And, you know, speaking of institutions and, you know, large companies that are looking to onboard, I feel like it's especially important for those companies that have a lot of capital to have it fast and, more

9:52importantly, cheap, you know, because obviously if you have a lot and transaction fees can be a significant amount of that, then that's going to cost you a lot more. But at the same time, it's already There's already barriers to entry on the technical side to entering into Web3 and entering into Ethereum. I can imagine that layer-2 solutions might add a small bit more

10:14of complexity even on top of that. So, how do you manage you know, onboarding companies that aren't really involved in Web3 to get onto a layer-2 solution like Metis? Yes. So, thank you so much for that question. Of course, the usability and of course the easiness of onboarding and the probably easiness of them of all the players being in on the network

10:41that we made the this focus as a number one priority. For that, we developing right now the infrastructure of decentralized autonomous companies, so DACs, how we call them. So, it means that the company can just onboard with one click onto the network and then start using tools. So, maybe it is like maybe the blend between a LinkedIn and SAP, but it's run on chain. But

11:08yes, everything the usability-wise has to be done with a minimal number of clicks. And also we are developing at the same time we have the reputation power, which also becoming the Web3 identity. So, that is also onboarding with my one click with your Web3 identity, and that is going to be universal across the platform and also across the blockchain. So, that

11:32that is our vision as well. Usability for businesses to onboard on one click to hire employees, to give the tasks on employees, and then to also configure their DAC, which is decentralized autonomous company, exactly the way they want, but at the same time openly working with the other decentralized autonomous companies, and we can onboard there in Microsoft

11:57and Ernst & Young. So, all all the companies that have become companies could be onboarded into this platform similar as the LinkedIn onboarded them on their platform. That's that is our vision, and the usability is the key as well. Mhm. Great to know. And as they get onboarded into the ecosystem, and more dApps and DeFi and other applications want to

12:21connect into Metis layer 2, how easy are you making it for those integrations and for developer applications to integrate in into the protocol? Yeah, already now it is all like if you go to docs.metis.io, you can see all the documentations for the developers. So, developers don't need our help to onboard onto Metis ecosystem. Metis ecosystem is EVM equivalent, so if you used to develop on

12:50Ethereum or other EVM compatible networks, so this is exactly the same. So, the easiness of onboarding is that, but also we have a big vision for all these dApps to actually provide a service to the future DACs to the future decentralized autonomous companies that we onboard, and then receive a profit from that. So, similar as like you're developing

13:15mobile app or the plugin in WordPress, so they can plug in their app into the system, and then once people will be using it or companies will be using it, they will receive the profit from it. That's a great analogy of WordPress and I feel like they really took took it to the next level to be able to get everybody on board it into a website and I feel like, you know, there's still a

13:41lot of barriers to entry in dApps and in layer two. So, that would that would be great to help the next few million people get into web three. Absolutely, yes. You know, easiness of on board of on boarding this is something that is right now constantly need to be in solved. Yes, and that what we And looking, you know, hopefully upwards into the next market cycle and, you

14:07know, into 2023, what are some of the main initiatives that may TS go is going to continue growing and on the road map, what's some of the top priorities? So, first is, of course, developing the dApps ecosystem. It means that on boarding the businesses onto the platform. Right now, all web three businesses, if you take any of the three business, they already running in that

14:32decentralized model when they hired people from all over the world, they pay them in crypto. So, we already running this model. So, on boarding those companies and making the first dApps so, this is our on in our road map. And then providing the applications dApps the capability to provide service to this dApps is this is also the priority. And then also make the

15:00web three identity that is suitable across the board and usable across the board so that so people can log in again with what with one click without, you know, maybe without the hurdles of this, you know, the private keys and all that so that is also our priority and is on the road map. While we do that, we developing still our layer two ecosystem, so all the dapps,

15:25you know, are coming and with the whole bunch of video with the TVL transactions, all that, but this is all happened naturally once we do the dapps onboarding and that is our strategy. That's great to hear. I'm looking forward to seeing the roadmap grow out and would love to follow up with you on that as Metis continues to grow. Now, looking forward, let's say two

15:50years from now because crypto moves quite quickly. What do you see the future of, you know, layer twos sort of positioned in Web3 two years from now and, you know, where does Metis fit into that? Mhm. Yeah, again, our layer twos as I said, this is the way to go for the scalable Ethereum because, yeah, yeah, transactions on Ethereum will not be

16:14as cheap as like like for at least for the business for if you want to have a lot of many transactions, it would not be practical, of course, because it's going to be quite quite expensive still. So, layer twos will be the way to go. Which layer two to choose, it's going to be depending of what this layer two provides, right? And then, you know, as I said, it like

16:38different scaling solution they focus on the different parts. And, you know, for that part, you're going to choose which layer two you go and where you go. If you want to just, you know, grow money in DeFi, you can go to one layer two or if you want to do the business, you go to another one. If you want to use the advantage of AI, you're going to go to

16:58the third one and so on and so forth. So, up up until probably, you know, I have this maybe big picture in mind that we all going to unite in one superchain at some point, hopefully. In or not. So, that is that is again, it can be it can be right? So, on us and then we can pick and choose because again, all the people in the world are different and

17:25you know, having your own chain for your own taste, I think it's a good luxury. Mhm. All right. Well, I would love to see, you know, this theory of a super chain roll out. I haven't heard that one yet. So, that's actually pretty cool. Either way, I would love to follow along with what Metis is working on. For the viewers that want to, you know, look

17:45into the current state of the protocol and follow along with the updates, what's the best way for the viewers to learn more? So, we have a metis.io. If you if you go to m e t i s.i.o, so this is our website and we have also telegram metisdao m e t i s d a o. So, that is something that you can also go and check and meet our Twitter as well. So,

18:11these are the three website, telegram metisdao and Twitter metisdao. Sounds great, Elena. I will leave the links in the description box below as well to make it easy for the viewers. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show and teach us about metisdao and layer two solutions and let's definitely follow up in the near future. Thank you very much, Ashton.

18:34Thank you. Have a nice day. Thank you.