Smart Contract Staking Platform on Hedera! Gautam Midha of STADER / King Solomon (Part 2)

King Solomon interview Stader Labs as part of the Hedera Corner in the LightHouse by Genfinity! Brought to you by LightHouse Report sponsor Hedera Hashgraph and in collaboration with our partner and Hedera wallet provider HashPack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05h8k974ExQ

Transcription

ACME Labs – Jon Stock – Founder & CEO
‍As well as, you know, some of these other interesting characters. So, one of the coolest things I've ever done in my life is I get to meet and work with some really great folks, some really creative folks. And then being able to have the opportunity to take characters from a legend and help lead the charge on how this new IP gets kind of out into the world is super cool and fun. So, Wrabbit is the first thing that's live, and we've been slowly teasing. We're letting the Hedera folks kind of come into our open beta and give us feedback. So, at the moment, you can still go get some of the first iteration of Wrabbit that's out. If you go to Acme labs.xyz shop, the rabbit collection, you'll see some of what's out now. And then the other bit of IP that we've launched and developed is.

ACME Labs – Josh –CCO
‍Oh yeah, before I before you go, I want to interrupt and say, Wrabbit is also a print and digital combo which we haven't seen a lot in the space. So, you can actually buy your rabbit. There are two versions of rabbit, one is unboxed. Part of that is because we are working with a broader Looney Tunes collector fan base that isn't used to buying blind boxes. But we are in the NFT space. I also have to mention, I'm a collector myself, and I've been collecting Solana for a long time, switched it all over to H bar not too long ago. So, there's a created option which is your traditional NFT blind box, you get what you get, and then you have a more expensive unboxed version, uncrated version that you can actually pick your rabbit. And that is because we have a broad audience that isn't used to buying blind box. Each NFT does come with a print as well. So, basically, the strategy there is when you're dealing with a broad audience who isn't used to the way that we operate in this space, it functions like the old CD with a digital copy when they were trying to introduce digital music to music listeners. Right, you're buying a print and you also get this digital copy, which is your NFT that lives in your wallet, and you can go further down that rabbit hole if you would like to or it can just sit in your wallet forever, and you got your print and you're happy. So, we are doing the physical and digital combination, and you can still get that on our website. There are two options, so if you're going to get one, that's why there are different prices, and the crate is actually rabbits. We've had some confusion around that. So, that's just a little more background on rabbit and what you get when you buy a rabbit.

Genfinity – King Solomon – Founder & CEO
‍No, and I should say, for anybody just joining right now, obviously with Acme labs, they do have IP from the Chuck Jones estate. If you're not aware of who Chuck Jones is, they have a pretty finite definition on Acmelabs.xyz. Chuck Jones created over 300 films with a seven-decade career in animation. Films are nominated for nine Academy Awards winning three Lifetime Achievement Oscars by the academy in 1996. Co-created possibly the most memorable and enduring set of characters in history. I think we can all remember, you know, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig. A list of Characters he created himself includes Roadrunner, Wiley Coyote, Marvin Martian, Pepe Le Pew, which I remember. I remember watching those cartoons when I was little. I don't even know if they could necessarily air some of that stuff anymore. Gossamer and many others. Chuck Jones was the first animation artist to have a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. And thank you, Tiki, for bringing up the digital aspect. I was gonna ask about that. I do want to get to ask Stader real quick because I think it's important. You guys mentioned regulations and I certainly appreciate that you guys are kind of doing this from the art standpoint first, not necessarily promising future utility. You know, just kind of promising the art that is within this kind of amazing collection of IP from Chuck Jones. So I wanted to ask Stader now, being that you guys operate staking platforms across multiple platforms, can you guys touch because I think you had a space about this with the Hbar Foundation, the Hbar bull maybe a week and a half, two weeks ago, especially with the Kraken aspects, them potentially, you know, having to, you know, levy out a fine basically for staking aspects what's on their Platform. Can you touch base on where, you know, where you guys are at right now from the regulatory stance? Like what is, you know, is Stader concerned about all your Solutions? Concerned about what's going on from a regulations aspect right now? How are you kind of gonna be willing to adapt like moving forward depending on potentially what comes down the line? Yeah, you know, just your thoughts around the entire aspect right now surrounding staking.

Stader Labs – Gautam Midha - Growth
‍Yeah, I know I think it's a great question right and very topical because there's quite a lot of information there and I think it's also important to just clearly delineate what's been happening and what we do as well. So I think the first thing to mention there, Kraken and a lot of the CeFi taking that staking programs aren't really staking programs only. They call it that but at the back, some of them are a combination of staking plus lending plus, in some cases, some DeFi strategies as well. That's really basically an asset management solution. It's not really a staking solution. So I think that the opacity and the fact that a significant portion of that was actually not staking as you know it but mostly lending was what got Kraken into trouble and rightly so, right? I think, what, how we see this sort of renewed or new, sort of interest in making sure users know where their funds are going. Obviously, it has, you know, long-term positive, you know, we totally realize that, you know, in the midst of mid of negative news in the industry, completely decentralized, information-less protocols like ours might get mixed into, just because of you using the same term. But we use "staking" as a very, very technical term which basically is taking the kind of taking the native token and giving it off to validators. And with save, for example, with h bar X or any of our staking solutions, I mean you have on-chain verifiable data of exactly where the yield is coming from and on-chain verifiable data that we are actually at no point taking custody of the funds, right? So, we're not involved in the process, we're basically providing a technology solution and then the yield is also coming from the fact, that it's the L1 token or the native token is actually being staked on nodes and validators, right? So, we see a clear distinction between centralized what has been, in our, at least in my opinion, mislabeled as taking, but in most cases, like an earned program or a vault, right? And you know, completely decentralized permissionless protocols like ours which have a clear, sort of yield generation transparency associated with them. So, I think,  we will hopefully get to a situation where clear rules are put in place for marketing, some of these things, and for upholding transparency and letting users do their own research and make their own decisions when it comes to, what kind of risks and returns trade-off that they want to make. And I think that's the really at the core of this whole, sort of volume of regulations and in some cases, I do feel some of it will actually turn out to be positive. The only caveat there, I would say, is like, I do not, I wish that it doesn't stifle innovation. I don't think it will, but I just wish it, if they don't step too far. But at least from what we have seen so far, there's nothing like that or nothing to suggest that. So, I think long-term, it's going to be positive for regulators and users alike to distinguish very clearly between something just being labeled as taking and then the technical process of staking and, more broadly, between offers of custody-based, more opaque yield versus a decentralized and transparent yield generation which we, of course, want to espouse and champion.

Genfinity – King Solomon – Founder & CEO
‍100 % I always like to ask, and I'll ask both of you guys or all three of you guys up here, I guess, from a community standpoint, can you guys talk about your experience and I know this is a Hedera space, you know, your experience within the Hedera ecosystem, with community members, and then you know, also how you guys are kind of staying in communication, in contact with community that is potentially interested, in, you know, hasn't, you know, looked maybe at your project yet but is onboarding. In, like, what are those kind of communication metric or mechanisms that you guys have with the members that you guys are onboarding and what's been your experience thus far? I'll start with Stader, I guess.

Stader Labs – Gautam Midha - Growth
‍Yeah, I know, I think it's been amazing to kind of build with this community and always use the term "with" because I remember back in the day when we were just kind of, starting our, Twitter and our Telegram for specifically for Hedera. I think it was about March, and we were just putting out concept notes and kind of putting out a white paper and just getting people aware. I think we formed a very, very, tight-knit, I would say, group on TG of users and potential users that turned into users and people who were, you know, quite clear and direct with us in asking very pointed questions but also helping the solution move forward, right? I think while we were able to answer 80-85% of the questions, the 15-20% actually helped us in that design phase to actually make a product make a product better for the community. I remember, some of the, best sort of or most well-received pieces of content, and explanations and blogs and videos came from ideas that we had with interacting with the community when they were proactively telling us, "Hey, we don't understand this or we want to see more detail on this. Can you add that to the comms?" And similarly, "Hey, can you add this to the product? Can you add it to the FAQ? You show this number on screen?" And, and that dialogue is really continued all throughout, right? So we launched V1, which only had staking, we then launched V2, we launched V3, which are stable, sort of fully integrated version of staking and all the time our community members have been absolutely instrumental in making sure that we put out a solution which is really, really robust for the entire ecosystem. And they've been generous with the time and also their opinions around testing the solution and not making sure we get things right. So, you know, some of the folks I have sort of interacted with a lot across multiple months, and seen them across spaces and always seeing them on TG and stuff like that, and it's I mean, they're almost like my friends because we've interacted so much, and so it's been really great sort of working in with the community. What I would say is, because I look at other networks as well, I think the community on Hedera is probably the most engaged I've seen across networks, right? Some of the networks might have more users and stuff but the quality of feedback and the quality of engagement If you do interact with the community, I think you can really create. They'll tell you what they want, and they'll tell you, and most, you know, if you're transparent with them, they'll, sort of appreciate that as well. So that's kind of thing that have worked for us, and it's been a pleasure sort of creating for the community and creating with the community as well.

Genfinity – King Solomon – Founder & CEO
‍I have to say, you know, being, being in the space for not a ton of time but, you know, five, however many years, five years, six years at this point, a lot of the stories that you hear from people that are actually working within blockchain companies, are working with projects, and I'm not talking about, paid marketing or any of that stuff. I'm talking about people actually working on teams, people actually working within projects. It's amazing how many people I run into that literally started just by being a member in a Discord or a member in a telegram that have that just try to help do certain things and then they end up, you know, getting kind of an opportunity within an actual organization, which is pretty crazy, but that's just one thing that I think a lot of people don't realize about this space is, you know, it takes a community of builders, and a lot of those builders are going to come from the community themselves. As these projects and ecosystems develop and innovate, they need, you know, critical thinkers, and they need people willing to just do and not, you know, talk. So, yeah, it's a fantastic point, and I would, I want to ask Acme the same thing. So, your experience so far within the Hedera ecosystem from the community standpoint, if you guys could touch on that, that'd be great.

ACME Labs – Jon Stock – Founder & CEO
‍I'll kick it off, and then Josh, if you want to, you know, pepper in some magic. So, yeah, so we actually have two core audiences that were, we're, you know, kind of speaking to and building for, right? One is, what I consider our, our web 3 native audience. These are folks that are much more technologically sophisticated. They have already kind of been onboarded into a web3 you know, ecosystem. They understand wallets, they understand NFTs and smart contracts and cryptocurrencies and this, you know, broader kind of web 3 stack of technology. And then we have this completely different audience who is web 2 native and either afraid of or unaware of or, you know, maybe misinformed about some of the core value props and how some of the web3 side works.