October 12, 2025 • 41 mins
In this episode, Sebastien is joined by Jelena Djuric, co-founder of Noble, a generic asset issuance chain built for the Cosmos ecosystem. Jelena shares her journey into crypto, which began with an interest in political science, leading her to discover Bitcoin's potential. She describes the origins of Noble, created to solve a critical need within Cosmos: a native, fungible source of liquidity like USDC.
Before Noble, assets were often bridged in fragmented ways, creating poor user experiences. Noble was designed as a simple, secure, and neutral "asset issuance hub," a purpose-built chain for natively issuing assets and distributing them throughout the Cosmos network via IBC.
Jelena emphasizes that Noble is intentionally "boring," with a minimal feature set to reduce the attack surface. It operates with a proof-of-authority consensus model to meet the compliance needs of asset issuers like Circle. Jelena also discusses the importance of CCTP for moving USDC between Cosmos and other ecosystems, with Noble as the routing hub. Looking ahead, Jelena sees a future where Noble supports a diverse range of assets beyond stablecoins, including RWAs.
Topics discussed in this episode:
- Introduction
- Jelena's background and entry into crypto
- Why fragmented liquidity is holding crypto back
- Noble's vision for unifying liquidity
- Why a "boring" chain is a more secure chain
- Noble's proof-of-authority model for issuer trust
- Bringing a single source of truth for USDC to the Interchain
- Using CCTP to connect liquidity across ecosystems
- Noble's business model
- The future of solving liquidity for RWAs
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Jelena Djuric, Co-Founder, Noble: https://x.com/jelena_noble
- Noble: https://x.com/noble_xyz
Sponsors:
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io
This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Really it's only now I would saythat we've had proper scalable
infrastructure like ready to take stable coins to the masses.
Noble is neutral purpose built infrastructure for the
transmission and proliferation of these stable coins.
I do believe and can anticipate that the launch of the app
(00:22):
layer, it will be like a new erafor for Noble because again,
we've never actually had defy onNoble itself, which is kind of
crazy. And yet there's all of this
traction. Is Cosmos finally dead, Yelena?
But I guess that's the question I want to ask you.
Like, do you think this episode has brought you by Gnosis?
(00:43):
Building the open Internet one block at a time.
Nosis was founded in 2015 and it's grown from 1 of Ethereum's
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others like Safe and Cow Swap. At the center is Nosis Chain.
It's a low fee layer one with 0 downtime in seven years and
(01:08):
secured by over 300,000 validators.
It's the foundation for real world financial applications
like Nosis Pay and Circles. All of this is governed by Nosis
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(01:30):
like, start exploring at Nosis dot IO.
Welcome to the epicenter of the show, which talks about the
technologies, projects, and people driving decentralization
and the blockchain revolution. I'm so I think with you and I'm
here with Yelena Jurek, who is the CEO at Noble.
Noble is a Cosmos chain that's purpose built for native
issuance of stable coins and RW as they are one of the key
(01:54):
players in the USDC ecosystem. I believe they're probably 5th
or 6th in issuance. Now you'll correct me on Yelena,
but if, if I think I'd check USDC dot cool.
And you guys are sitting at somewhere around $350 million if
USDC issued on Noble. You also have your own USD
stablecoin USD and which we'll talk about.
But yeah, how, how you doing? How's how's everything going for
(02:15):
you? Yeah, No, thanks so much for
having me on Seb. It's been great.
Obviously it's stablecoin summerthat is going into the fall.
I guess now that it's October 1st, it's been great.
There's a lot of things going on, obviously the stablecoin
space and I'm excited to talk about that and also some
exciting updates on the Noble front.
So thanks for having. Me so like stablecoin you, you
(02:37):
mentioned stablecoin summer and and actually I think you're it's
a very apartment way to talk about it because the stable mark
the stablecoin market is now surpassed 250 billion.
It's up, I think something like 45% this year alone.
There's much clearer USUS rules now.
(03:00):
We have lots of announcements. Also, if you hear Paxos just
announced their privacy focus stablecoin.
I also read that Circle is goingto enable things like reversible
transactions. Obviously we have like plasma
that's just launched their neobank.
It seems like everyone is tryingto get a, a piece of the stable
pie coin coin pie. And you know, a little, a little
(03:24):
bit reminds me of other hype cycles we have in the space like
NFTS and and defy summer and meme coins.
And you know, if we look at those, a lot of that innovation
and certainly the valuations have dropped off a lot.
Why is stable coins different? Why?
Why should we treat stable coinsdifferently?
Should we treat stable coins differently?
Will we still be at this level of hype and excitement in a year
(03:48):
from now? Yeah, it's a, it's a really good
question. So I think it's important to
distinguish to your question like what is different about
about this, about this time around.
I think inevitably, you know, there will be overhyped projects
that maybe don't sustain themselves and don't last into
functioning products and businesses.
But Despite that potentiality, there is something concrete kind
(04:12):
of happening now, which is maybedifferent than previous hype
cycles that we've had in crypto.You know, to your point, whether
that's NFTS or mean coins or thelike.
And that reason is, is pretty simple.
That's legislation, right? So we had obviously the passing
of genius a couple of months agowhere it was signed into law by
(04:33):
President Trump. We've had a very concerted
effort by multiple interest groups, right, that actually
want to see Genius operational and in full force.
One part of that interest group,of course is the crypto lobby,
but it's also actually bigger than that, right?
(04:54):
Basically what Genius is simply a revolution in payments, right?
And so if you think about like the payments industry and you
think about kind of what payments are and how payments
kind of work today, it's pretty antiquated, right?
And a lot of this payments infrastructure is running on
legacy infrastructure that is pretty old, antiquated.
(05:18):
And So what is genius? Genius basically set the
standard, a legal framework to issue stable coins as payment
instruments, right? And obviously, you know, for
crypto native people such as ourselves, we've been very
familiar with stablecoins for quite some time.
You know, some of us maybe you know, do payroll in stablecoins,
get paid in stablecoins ourselves as employees myself,
(05:41):
I've paid rent in stablecoins inthe past.
You know, we're very familiar with these products, not to
mention the trading defy use cases.
But if you think about what Genius is and the framework it
establishes kind of on more mainstream legacy level, it
actually allows first of all, like legacy payments businesses
(06:05):
to like legally, let's say, innovate and, you know, offer
really interesting, you know, kind of innovative products that
maybe are cheaper, more seamlessexcetera.
But then it also allows crypto projects like Noble to kind of
play a role within that. So yeah, as you said, right now
it's about a $275 billion market.
(06:25):
Citibank just, you know, they had a report that said that by
20-30 will be at 1.6 trillion. They then actually upped that
prediction to 1.9 trillion by by20-30.
And I'm like, let's remember, like five years ago or 5 1/2
years ago, we were at half a billion.
So yeah, I mean, today, you know, today in the last year,
(06:46):
we're up 50%. But basically, we have a much,
much longer way to go. And that is in a large part due
to genius and the appetite from the legacy mainstream world to
basically bring payment into the21st century.
Yeah. I think one of the key insights
(07:06):
in what you just said is that itenables or what I take away from
it is that it enables a new formof infrastructure for payment,
for payment issuance issuers, for payment systems issuers.
And in many ways that's I think what we've kind of wanted block
chains to be. You know, there's this idea that
(07:26):
sort of been circulating for a long time now.
It's like that we want block chains and D5 to be the rails of
the financial system. And I, I feel like stable coins
may be the catalyst that actually makes that finally the
case, right? It sort of makes it possible.
And so like this, this sort of institutional sentiment has
(07:49):
really flipped. I think Coindesk had this figure
that 83% of investors are now planning more crypto exposure.
Stable coins, I think are a big part of that because there's
yield, you know, a lot of stablecoins are sort of promising
yield. How do you look at that?
And you know, how should, how should investors, institutional
(08:12):
or even retail? So it would be assessing the
different yield sources, right? Because 4.5% over here, 10% over
here may, may not be, you know, not all yield is created equal.
And I think people need to be more familiar and sort of aware
of that. How do you look at that?
Yeah. Well, well, OK, so I mean, first
(08:33):
of all, like, let me just back it up for a second.
So basically, you know, to your point, obviously like the
promise of blockchain rails was of course, you know, a lot of
the kind of use cases and kind of ideals was around payments.
It was, you know, peer-to-peer payment systems.
Obviously this idea of financialdisintermediation, even in the
original Bitcoin white paper, you had this vision for Bitcoin
(08:55):
as a payments mechanism. Of course, that is now not the
case. Bitcoin is not used as you know
most often and in the majority of cases is not used as a
payment instrument. It's it's obviously a
speculative asset that is tradedand you know at this point quite
commoditized. So on the one hand, like it did
take us actually quite some timeto get to this point where we
(09:18):
actually do have the infrastructure and we actually
have stable points again, as a product that are instruments
that will not only have, you know, very sound legislation
kind of governing their, their utility, but we also have the
infrastructure and the actual, again, blockchain rails kind of
ready and able to transmit and proliferate these stable coins
(09:39):
across, you know, a wide varietyof use cases and distribution
channels. And so I will just emphasize,
like before we talk about like yield and stable coins that
really it's only now I would saythat we've had again, like
proper scalable infrastructure, like ready to take stable coins
(09:59):
to the masses. And I would also like kind of
love to talk about why that is and how far we've come.
And again, like what is this infrastructure that we're
talking about that is suited forus bringing stablecoins to
mainstream? But yeah, to your question
around yield, I mean, it's interesting, right?
So first of all, when we talk about like yield as released to
stablecoins, we're typically talking about yield that is
(10:22):
generated from short term treasury bills.
Obviously that is the mechanism that I would call classic
traditional staple coins are collateralized by.
And so obviously with ingenious,there is very clear distinctions
around how that yield is passed on.
So kind of out-of-the-box, it's actually not compliant to pass
(10:47):
on that yield sort of passively,right.
So you have to basically have a mechanism where that yield is
claimed or where distribution kind of and partners or entities
like a coin base can actually take that USDC and pass on the
yield by having, you know, people, you know, hold that USTC
on the Coinbase platform. So there is a bit a bit of
(11:07):
nuance and like legally how stable coins, you know, are, you
know, able to pass on yield. And another big part of this
question, of course, is the clarity Act.
And basically that is more governing like Iran D5 and just
generally kind of, you know, crypto tokens are perhaps are
more speculative, but that will also kind of have some
(11:29):
guidelines on again, like passing of yield and how that's
some kind of compliant and basically for for for noble.
And this is like one of the principles that we have held
very dear to our heart since thebeginning is Noble is neutral
purpose built infrastructure forthe transmission and
(11:50):
proliferation of the stabacoins.So Noble itself is a protocol,
OK? Noble itself is a layer one.
We of course are not ourselves aStabacoin issuer.
You kind of mentioned in the intro that we have Noble dollar.
We're of course working with N 0on that product.
N 0 is a stable coin issuance protocol which works with a
(12:14):
network of off chain mentors andissuers.
Recently, Stripe or Bridge was announced as one of their
partners. But basically, Noble is distinct
from the circles or the stripes of the world in the sense that
we are crypto infrastructure again, for the transmission of
these stable coins, right? So we like to work with wide
(12:34):
variety, diverse set of issuers.And so, yeah, to your question
around, I guess, like yield and like how this will kind of play
out, I would say it's like the issuers themselves are kind of
at the forefront of these discussions.
Like again, when it comes to Noble, we are crypto native.
Obviously, D5 will continue to exist, but as an issuer, that
kind of consideration or and howyou pass on the yield, if at all
(12:58):
to end users is basically withintheir purview, right?
So basically you're going to have a situation where obviously
you know, like what currently exists, which will probably what
be the reality kind of after Genius is operationalized.
But you'll have a situation where the issuer themselves,
like a circle can't by default pass on that yield.
But the distribution partner, like a Coinbase, like an Ave.
(13:22):
like a finance, really any entity, whether it's an exchange
or even a defy protocol, can of course, you know, pass on yield
in in in ways that is like safe and, you know, makes sense.
So anyways, we can, we can chat a little bit more about that
and, and how kind of noble thinks about it with composable
(13:43):
yield as it was to noble dollar.But basically the rules are just
like now being established and there's no one path yet because
the rules of the road have yet to be written by the OCC in the
US as it relates to things like passing on yield.
Well, I'm, I'm glad you brought up composable yield because I
(14:04):
think it's a, it's a perfect segue into the next question I
wanted to ask you, which is currently I think most of the
yield that these, you know, thiskind of floor that we see around
like 444 or 5% your comes from treasuries.
You mentioned short term and long term treasuries and, and
having some of the mix there stable coins, You know, recently
we had cap on, we also had FX protocol and of course, like
(14:25):
these are, these are stable coinissuers, like different from,
from, from Noble, but they're generating yield in different
ways. Like FX has a stability pool
that generates yield basically from, you know, sort of deposits
in its per protocol. You know, I, I feel like
probably, you know, we, we can, we can keep juicing these yields
for some time, but they'll probably dry up like the native
(14:47):
Defy yields will start drying upunless new sources of yield
start coming on chain, actual cash flows from off chain
businesses. So, yeah, how do you think about
sort of like the bringing more yield on chain and how are you
guys integrating that into this so your yield strategy and
composable yield moving forward?Yeah.
(15:09):
I mean composable yield is actually quite simple and we
don't like to complicate things As it relates to noble dollar
itself, like the core product obviously there's like, you
know, kind of funky things that could be built on top of that.
But as it relates to noble dollar itself, composable yield
basically is as follows. So you have USDN which is
actually over collateralized 103% by by short term treasury
(15:33):
bills. Of course that collateral pool
is again managed and governed bythe M0 protocol, but our
implementation of USDN takes that yield component and
basically makes it programmable and programmatic at the same
time. So we tell distribution partners
(15:54):
or we you know encourage distribution partners like like
a, like a, like a DEX, a payments app really can be off
chain distribution. On chain distribution, we really
don't distinguish. We basically say take that yield
accumulation that is kind of happening in real time or per
(16:15):
block basis and you can program it and direct it to any source
or any destination that kind of fits your use case.
So you can obviously take that yield revenue and you can
distribute it to validators. You can do a buy and burn of
your token, you can keep it as revenue.
And basically Noble's thesis again is on chain distribution,
(16:37):
it's making sure that the Noble protocol can service app
builders and make sure that there is proper incentives and
like safety and like liability around that distribution of the
underlying T bill yield. And we've had some pretty,
pretty good success. So a few months ago, we ran a
points campaign where we wanted to kind of demonstrate like this
(16:58):
utility of composable yield, right?
And so we basically said, OK, sopeople can participate in this
points campaign, they can get, you know, points, Noble points
by deposit, causing their noble dollar into the into a points
vault. But by doing so, you actually
forfeit or give up the T bill yield that you would otherwise
get by holding noble dollar. And what happened to that T bill
(17:22):
yield that actually got distributed to a second vault,
which was a boosted yield vault.And basically we sold people.
You can also just, you know, deposit your USDN into this
boosted yield vault where you don't get points, but you get
all of the yield that the peoplein the points vault gave up.
And that was generating about 15to 20% yield.
(17:43):
And that ran for about four or five months.
And basically, you know why we did that.
And like a lot of people were kind of asking, well, how you
know, how is that 50% yield generated?
Like is there something like happening on the back end like
like like through like lending or something funky in that way?
And the answer was no. Like it's literally
(18:05):
fundamentally treasury bill yield that just got
redistributed in a way that was quite simple if you think about
it, where it was basically all the people that gave it up, it
just got redirected to this other group of of holders.
And the reason we were able to do 15, you know, to 20%
(18:26):
consistently was because obviously overwhelmingly the
distribution or the ratio of deposits was within the points
vault. And so basically, you know, on
the one hand, we want to show, you know, noble dollar, look,
it's like a thing that exists. It's very powerful.
And of course, the composable yield is this like kind of
(18:47):
interesting new mechanism where you can start implementing it
in, you know, a wide variety of ways and you could gamify it,
you could create incentives around that.
And again, it's all possible because the token itself has
been designed and engineered to allow for the composability of
that yield component. Makes sense?
(19:08):
And so the USDN campaign, how successful was it?
Yeah, it was quite. Successful, we reached about 125
million at an all time high all organic demand across 30,000
unique wallets. And so, you know, it was very,
very great to see that kind of organic, you know, demand kind
(19:29):
of popping up. And yeah, I want to talk.
About Cosmos a little bit, I mean, so noble is a is a Cosmos
app chain and you know, launchedat a time, I think when Cosmos
was struggling from the downfallof of UST, you know, quite quite
some time afterwards. But I think like, you know, I
think UST and, and the collapse of, of Lumina, I think had
(19:53):
pretty significant impact on theCosmos ecosystem overall.
You know, feel like it's some ofthe all time highs there.
And like the, the FT VS of most of the chains that were around
in 2020-2021, 2022, you know, a lot of liquidity got, you know,
removed out of the ecosystem in,in one, one moment.
I, I think when, when noble cameonline, a lot of people were
(20:15):
expecting lots of USD liquidity to come into Cosmos.
And some has, right, I mean, 350million or, or some change,
right? Is is nothing to sneeze at DYDX
also coming to the ecosystem? At the same time, I think was
very much anticipated and, and people saw that as a positive
sign. And I, I think, I think the
option thesis generally. And so the sovereign option
(20:38):
thesis continues to stand up and, and, and people all across
the ecosystem, across crypto, I think still believe that's the
case. But the Cosmos ecosystem as as
the D Phi ecosystem has not really done very well in the
last, you know, two 2-3 years despite all of this, right?
Despite Noble coming there, despite having native USTC and
despite, you know, lots of chains of using Cosmos tech.
(21:01):
What's happening? What do you think?
Why do you think that is? Is Cosmos finally dead, Yellena?
But I guess that's the question I want to ask you.
It's like, do you think? No, it's.
Not dead. Yeah.
I mean, I think it's kind of a misnomer of a question because
basically if you look at where Cosmos is, it's fundamentally
the stack, right? It's Tenderman, it's Comma BFT,
(21:22):
it's the SDK, it's Cosmosom, it's IBC.
And if you look at all metrics across those like levels of the
stack, it's actually quite strong.
What's not strong to your point is Cosmos native token
performances. So if you like look at a chart
or coin market cap and you kind of look at, you know, a token
that is like an IBC token that like launches like unfortunately
(21:45):
there isn't as much, you know, retail kind of demand for those
tokens. It's, it's, you know, partially
why Noble of course is launchingthis L2 on EBM, which is the
Noble app layer and why the Noble token will be an Ethereum
token, not a Cosmos token. But basically as it relates to
like the stack itself and it relates to adoption.
(22:06):
I mean, again, by all accounts, it is the most performing stack
to build an app chain, right? And whether you use IBC or not,
I think also kind of dictates whether you're kind of
considered to be like Cosmos. So like Noble, for example,
right? We of course are have IBC
out-of-the-box. We, you know, a lot of like
(22:28):
volume, of course, liquidity routing is, is, is via IBC.
But we also have CCTP circles bridge.
We also have wormhole. We also have hyperlane support,
you know, probably will have other bridges supported by, you
know, Chernobyl. And so, you know, I think that a
lot of the times, you know, whenyou kind of look at what
happened with Tara, like, you know, how much of Tara's success
(22:52):
was because they were Cosmos or because they had a great
product. I would argue they had a great
product for its time. Obviously that was not
sustainable. Obviously, UST was fundamentally
unsound, but you know, Anchor and what they, you know, did
with the Terra protocol was obviously, you know, very
valuable in some level. And that's why you had UST at a
(23:13):
$40 billion market cap. And, you know, you had, you
know, all of this like, like, you know, liquidity mining of
UST and you had these like crazy, like AP wise.
And anyways, you also have like a lot of like really great defy
on on Terra. And so basically, yeah, Terra
was Cosmos and it was Cosmos because it's the best way to
build an app chain. But they also have just had like
(23:34):
a good product story and good use, like a like a really, you
know, bullish community. And so I think again, like, it's
not to say that that can't happen again, right?
Like it's all about the product.It's all about the, you know,
like what you're actually building, who's a four, is it
useful? Does it work?
(23:55):
Is it broken? Is is there a good UX?
All of these things. And so I think when you look at
like what's happened since UST collapsed, obviously there was a
really serious bear market. You know, you had FTX, you had
Celsius bankruptcy, you had things happen.
And then what happened after that was somewhat of a bubble
(24:15):
market that was started basically within the salon and
ecosystem. Why product?
What was the product correct meme coins.
And so again, like Cosmos showedyou could build really
performant app chain infrastructure for D5, for
stable coins, for trading, for like all sorts of things.
(24:37):
Solana showed that you could getincredible mindshare and retail
adoption of meme coins. And of course there is like some
performance reason for that because of the way that Solana
works. But basically it's to say that
if you look at any major L1L2 ecosystem, typically it's like
(25:02):
power law distribution of like where the activity and liquidity
is and it's usually concentratedamong a handful of products and
applications. So like even salon it right,
like yes, pumped off on like kind of kicked off, you know,
the trend you had bonk you had obviously, you know, then
there's like things like Jido, but like overwhelmingly a lot of
(25:26):
that activity and liquidity in mindshare was around pumped off
on. And then and you know, you look
at, you know, things like, you know, hyper liquid
overwhelmingly now that's kind of maintaining a lot of
mindshare. And so basically, you know, I
would say that on the one hand, Cosmos of course, can never be
done because you have the stack which will continue to be like
(25:49):
the best stack. Like I mean, even talk about
like stablecoin chains, like Circle, of course, is building
their stablecoin layer one pulled arc and that uses comet
BFT for consensus. You know, you have obviously
Noble, which of course leveragessome parts of the Cosmos stack
and of course has this like separate execution layer around
(26:12):
the EVM. But yeah, I think there's
definitely no logical way you could see that Cosmos is dead.
Yeah. That that that's, that's really
great. I think it it kind of aligns
with how I've seen and talked about Cosmos over the years and
and that the analogy I often useis none of the none of the nerds
(26:32):
that were fighting over the right distribution of Linux to
use back in the 90s got rich because Apple devices and every
Android device uses it uses a Linux kind of like core kernel.
The nerds will come at me and tell me that's what I said is is
inaccurate. But but basically that, like
most devices nowadays use Linux infrastructure and I think
Cosmos is kind of similar, right.
(26:53):
It is it is really the best stack to build stop sovereign
app chain infrastructure. Just that you know,
unfortunately there isn't a mechanism by which Adam holders
get rich or sort of Cosmos tokenholders get rich because your
circle built circle builds theirtheir app chain using a common
PFT. And and I think to some extent
(27:14):
Etherium does suffer a little bit from a similar fate with the
roll up road map where value from all these roll ups doesn't
necessarily accrue to Ethereum. And but you know, the EDM is the
best way to, you know, write smart contracts and write
applications on blockchains thathasn't the most amount of
developers and etcetera. So I think a lot of stacks are
(27:36):
kind of reeling with the same sorts of problems of value
capture. And I don't know what the way
around us, you know, do we have licenses where those who use the
stack for commercial purposes need to pay some, some fee or
some licensing fee back to the token holders?
I mean, it seems very difficult to manage.
So I, I don't know what the, what the solution is here.
(27:59):
Maybe the solution is just, I mean, maybe there isn't a
solution and just people have toaccept that just because
someone's using your stack doesn't mean that you or
someone's using the stack. That you know that that you
invested in some other token doesn't mean that you're
necessarily going to benefit from that.
Well, I'll give you like an analogy here.
Just because I have an app in the Apple App Store doesn't mean
(28:22):
my app will be successful, right?
So. Just because I have quote UN
quote distribution through the App Store doesn't mean it's
going to be in the top 20 use apps because it has to
ultimately be a good app. So I think like this idea that
(28:42):
just because you're building something on Solana means, oh,
all of a sudden it's like the next pumped off fun, like
doesn't make any sense, right? Just because I'm building, you
know, on Ethereum means I'm going to now get all of the
liquidity of Ethereum defy. Like that doesn't make any
sense. So yeah, I mean, I think that
the same goes for Cosmos. I think the difference maybe is
(29:05):
because like from a narrative perspective, the app chain
thesis has been focused on apps,right?
And so we understand like apps is where the value accrues.
And if you don't have a good app, then you won't get value
and neither will perhaps that value trickle out to other app
(29:26):
chains within that same ecosystem.
And so I think like with Terra, obviously we had a very
successful app, right, very successful app chain for its
time. And then of course, it destroy
itself. But what did that show?
It showed that value can accrue to the app player.
It could accrue to the app chain, it could accrue to the
token holders. And you know, you could argue,
(29:48):
oh, well, that's why, you know, other Cosmos app chains did
well. I think that's a bit of a
rewriting of history. Like it was also just generally
a bull market and many applications did well, not just
in a Cosmos, but also in Ethereum.
But basically, if like your onlysource of like demand for your
token or your app is because like your, you know, neighbor is
(30:11):
doing a good job, like that's not a sustainable Moat.
And so basically you have to kind of think about, OK, well,
how will distribution happen in the future?
Where will demand come from? What is the product?
Is it sustainable? Is there a Moat?
Is it easy to use? Is it differentiated?
So, you know, basically I think crypto people like have to build
(30:33):
real businesses and I think that's a good thing.
And you know, I think Cosmos is still the stack itself is still
a very solid stack. Yeah, I agree.
I mean, I think all that makes sense and it bears repeating and
it bears reminding ourselves andfolks in the ecosystem all
together. You know, that's Cosmos people.
(30:55):
I, I think the last time we spoke when you were on the
interop was quite a while ago and there was some you were
talking at that time about having an EVM on Noble.
How has that? Yeah, can can sort of share the
latest on that? Yeah.
So this is something we're we'reworking towards and really
(31:15):
excited about. So we're going to be launching
something called Noble App Layer.
We'll probably be branding at something different, but for now
we, we're calling it the Noble App layer.
And basically the Noble App layer is an EV ML2 using
Celestia for data availability. You know, kind of Speaking of
Cosmos, Speaking of the stack, there's quite a, you know, a few
(31:36):
reasons why we decided to build the EVM component as an L2
versus adding it on top of the Noble L1, which of course is the
Cosmocell one, which is currently, of course, in
production. And you know, quite, you know,
significant in terms of volume and routing and adoption.
And basically the reasons kind of are as follows. 1 You know,
(31:59):
there is a lot of exciting innovation taking place like in
the Etherium world as it relatesto performance.
You know, Celestia I think is obviously like a huge part of,
you know, what makes, I guess like if you're more delightful
to build on top of kind of giventheir, you know, data
availability innovations. And so, you know, that's one
(32:23):
part of it. We wanted to, you know, also
make sure that we were exposed to the EVM ecosystem and just,
you know, historically EVM on Cosmos has been challenging to
say the least. And so, you know, we figured
first of all, there was a huge product need for smart contracts
and programmability, you know, for Noble.
(32:46):
And adding an EVM layer on top of Noble was not necessarily the
best engineering decision. And so we figured let's deploy
basically an L2 on top of Noble that would be validated and
secured by the Noble layer one, but which could act as a
distinct execution layer for sorry to.
Interrupt here, but even with the Cosmos sort of EDM stack,
(33:11):
yeah, curious why why you chose to do an L2 rather than use that
stack which has the EDM kind of built into it?
Well, so so the EVM is actually not super like well maintained,
right. If you kind of look at like how
the EVM kind of software has developed over time, you have
like EVMOS now you have other kind of players attempting to
(33:33):
maintain that. But I mean, I'm sure you you
understand like EVM is as a as as as a software, you know, it
needs to be maintained to make sure that it's like secure and
that there's like, you know, de risking from like a bugs
perspective. And so basically we felt a lot
more comfortable in the maintenance and the, you know,
(33:54):
software of EVM proper kind of on you know, as it relates to
Etherium. So that was, you know, very much
like a concern around, again, like stability, security, making
sure we're always properly following major releases and
that the software that we use iswell maintained.
And so it just made sense to again, build this EVM app layer
(34:18):
basically as an L2 using Celestia for DA.
And then again, performance, right?
Like our EVM app layer. You know, I think like yesterday
there were some benchmark testing and it's like 100
millisecond block times, right? Super fast.
That's faster than Noble Core, right?
Noble Core is like 1.2 seconds, which is fast, but it's not call
(34:39):
it fast like like like the app layer which can support, you
know, all sorts of things that core can't support from like an
execution perspective. And so you know, that was an
obvious decision for us. Again, we love working with the
Celestia team. We think the you know, the, the
kind of software that is maintained again is very solid
(35:00):
and it just kind of made sense for us.
Also, again, like talking about like the power of like the
Cosmos stack, like, you know it,not that this was like trivial
work. It was definitely a lot of hard
work. But there is also a world where
of course, Noble Core validates and secures the L2.
And that's also was a big part of the discussion.
Like can we have a single sequencer L2 running on Celestia
(35:22):
DA secured by the Noble validator set in a very secure
manner? The answer was yes.
And so we're very excited to be basically championing that
model. I did a long tweet thread on
kind of what makes this model perhaps different than like
other kind of roll up designs within the Etherium space, which
(35:43):
may be like we can link them in the notes.
But basically a lot of what we've done with the Noble Core
validating and securing the L2 is very similar to kind of like
the native roll up vision that Ibelieve Italic and others put
forward. And yeah, we think it's pretty
interesting. I mean, of course it's different
where the Noble Core is a proof of authority chain, right?
(36:06):
So we don't have like a proof ofstake kind of economic security
model with like, you know, a bunch of token stakes.
But we actually think that the proof of authority model works
very well for our use cases which are stable point centric.
So anyways, it's a lot of indifferent decision making
factors that kind of led us to where we are today.
(36:28):
But I think that kind of speaks to like our approach and our
philosophy, which is like, let'sbe very methodical, let's be
very considerate around the architecture.
Let's talk rush things just because everyone else is doing
it one way. We, we, we want to make sure
that the way we do it fits our use case and fits our
principles. And basically, I do believe and
(36:48):
can anticipate that the launch of the app layer, it will be
like a new era for for Noble because again, we've never
actually had defy on Noble itself, which is kind of crazy.
And yet there's all of this traction.
So yeah, we'll see what happens.And he talked a bit about the
role of the Noble token in this,in this new L2 and and this D
(37:09):
Phi ecosystem that you want to build.
Yeah. Definitely.
And we'll have some really exciting announcements actually
on the Noble token very, very soon.
But at a high level, we're talk,we're thinking of the Noble
token in like 2 ways. So one, it will be the base fee
token for the app layer. Basically will users can still
pay fees in stable coins as theycurrently do on core, but
(37:33):
they'll be a mechanism where that fee, those fees are swapped
into noble token kind of on the back end.
And there's like a kind of a pave masters like account system
around the kind of fee fee mechanism for the app player,
which again is noble token underthe hood.
So again, assuming there's a lotof activity and users and you
(37:55):
know, products on Noble App Player that are well adopted
that will be positive for the Noble token.
And then the other piece is actually governance.
So we are keeping the proof of authority model for validation.
So there will not most likely bestaking, but there will be
governance. What does that mean similar to,
(38:19):
you know, kind of other models where basically you could use
them like the governance token to have certain incentives or
have certain auctions for, let'ssay, you know, deploying
liquidity into certain pools. You know what we call like
bribes in the Curve model where you have like AV, in this case
(38:43):
AV Noble token. That's all kind of on the road
map. And we actually think again,
defy is at this point battle tested and we have some pretty
interesting applications kind ofin the works.
And if you can layer in a Noble token on top of that where you
get the community kind of excited and incentive
incentivized and motivated to kind of govern those various
applications, I think there could be some interesting,
(39:04):
interesting things. Where do you?
Expect stablecoins to be in three to five years.
And what will be Noble's role inthat ecosystem?
Yeah. Honestly, I think it's just the
beginning. Obviously we have all of
plethora of purpose built stablecoin chains launching,
which I think is, is ultimately +1 of the ways that I like to
(39:28):
think about differentiation among those app chains.
And you know, perhaps nobles kind of roll with within that
differentiation is basically as follows, right?
The Tam for stablecoins, for stablecoins payments is massive,
right? Like we mentioned earlier, this
kind of 1.9 trillion figure fromfrom city.
(39:49):
I I've seen, you know, I've seenpredictions as high as 4
trillion from financial institutions.
But if that is to be the case, you're going to have
specialization within the payments landscape that
basically leverages certain stable coin infrastructure,
right? So for Noble, if we think about
Noble's app layer, if you think about Noble core and performance
(40:12):
and stability there, I do see Noble playing a significant role
in this future payments kind of revolution around stable coins.
Whether that is more on the B toC side, you know, it's something
we can kind of anticipate. But we've had some pretty
exciting conversations with, youknow, legacy traditional players
kind of coming into the space, looking at the space and and
(40:33):
saying basically we have a need to transform our payments
infrastructure. Let's think about how kind of
Noble and again, layer ones kindof fit into that landscape.
So Noble will continue to alwaysexist as this kind of router of
activity, as a origin chain for the minting, for the redemption
of these stable coins because ofour performance, because of our
(40:55):
battle tested infrastructure. And basically we want to see
Noble and the app player do a lot of stuff on the consumer
facing side. So obviously it's early days,
but again, it's exciting days and there's a lot more to come.
Great. Well, you know.
Thanks for coming on the show. It's been great chatting with
you, getting an update on Noble and also getting a glimpse of
the future. So excited for Noble and the
(41:18):
things ahead. Amazing.
Thank. You, Seth.
Really it's only now I would saythat we've had proper scalable
infrastructure like ready to take stable coins to the masses.
Noble is neutral purpose built infrastructure for the
transmission and proliferation of these stable coins.
I do believe and can anticipate that the launch of the app
(00:22):
layer, it will be like a new erafor for Noble because again,
we've never actually had defy onNoble itself, which is kind of
crazy. And yet there's all of this
traction. Is Cosmos finally dead, Yelena?
But I guess that's the question I want to ask you.
Like, do you think this episode has brought you by Gnosis?
(00:43):
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like, start exploring at Nosis dot IO.
Welcome to the epicenter of the show, which talks about the
technologies, projects, and people driving decentralization
and the blockchain revolution. I'm so I think with you and I'm
here with Yelena Jurek, who is the CEO at Noble.
Noble is a Cosmos chain that's purpose built for native
issuance of stable coins and RW as they are one of the key
(01:54):
players in the USDC ecosystem. I believe they're probably 5th
or 6th in issuance. Now you'll correct me on Yelena,
but if, if I think I'd check USDC dot cool.
And you guys are sitting at somewhere around $350 million if
USDC issued on Noble. You also have your own USD
stablecoin USD and which we'll talk about.
But yeah, how, how you doing? How's how's everything going for
(02:15):
you? Yeah, No, thanks so much for
having me on Seb. It's been great.
Obviously it's stablecoin summerthat is going into the fall.
I guess now that it's October 1st, it's been great.
There's a lot of things going on, obviously the stablecoin
space and I'm excited to talk about that and also some
exciting updates on the Noble front.
So thanks for having. Me so like stablecoin you, you
(02:37):
mentioned stablecoin summer and and actually I think you're it's
a very apartment way to talk about it because the stable mark
the stablecoin market is now surpassed 250 billion.
It's up, I think something like 45% this year alone.
There's much clearer USUS rules now.
(03:00):
We have lots of announcements. Also, if you hear Paxos just
announced their privacy focus stablecoin.
I also read that Circle is goingto enable things like reversible
transactions. Obviously we have like plasma
that's just launched their neobank.
It seems like everyone is tryingto get a, a piece of the stable
pie coin coin pie. And you know, a little, a little
(03:24):
bit reminds me of other hype cycles we have in the space like
NFTS and and defy summer and meme coins.
And you know, if we look at those, a lot of that innovation
and certainly the valuations have dropped off a lot.
Why is stable coins different? Why?
Why should we treat stable coinsdifferently?
Should we treat stable coins differently?
Will we still be at this level of hype and excitement in a year
(03:48):
from now? Yeah, it's a, it's a really good
question. So I think it's important to
distinguish to your question like what is different about
about this, about this time around.
I think inevitably, you know, there will be overhyped projects
that maybe don't sustain themselves and don't last into
functioning products and businesses.
But Despite that potentiality, there is something concrete kind
(04:12):
of happening now, which is maybedifferent than previous hype
cycles that we've had in crypto.You know, to your point, whether
that's NFTS or mean coins or thelike.
And that reason is, is pretty simple.
That's legislation, right? So we had obviously the passing
of genius a couple of months agowhere it was signed into law by
(04:33):
President Trump. We've had a very concerted
effort by multiple interest groups, right, that actually
want to see Genius operational and in full force.
One part of that interest group,of course is the crypto lobby,
but it's also actually bigger than that, right?
(04:54):
Basically what Genius is simply a revolution in payments, right?
And so if you think about like the payments industry and you
think about kind of what payments are and how payments
kind of work today, it's pretty antiquated, right?
And a lot of this payments infrastructure is running on
legacy infrastructure that is pretty old, antiquated.
(05:18):
And So what is genius? Genius basically set the
standard, a legal framework to issue stable coins as payment
instruments, right? And obviously, you know, for
crypto native people such as ourselves, we've been very
familiar with stablecoins for quite some time.
You know, some of us maybe you know, do payroll in stablecoins,
get paid in stablecoins ourselves as employees myself,
(05:41):
I've paid rent in stablecoins inthe past.
You know, we're very familiar with these products, not to
mention the trading defy use cases.
But if you think about what Genius is and the framework it
establishes kind of on more mainstream legacy level, it
actually allows first of all, like legacy payments businesses
(06:05):
to like legally, let's say, innovate and, you know, offer
really interesting, you know, kind of innovative products that
maybe are cheaper, more seamlessexcetera.
But then it also allows crypto projects like Noble to kind of
play a role within that. So yeah, as you said, right now
it's about a $275 billion market.
(06:25):
Citibank just, you know, they had a report that said that by
20-30 will be at 1.6 trillion. They then actually upped that
prediction to 1.9 trillion by by20-30.
And I'm like, let's remember, like five years ago or 5 1/2
years ago, we were at half a billion.
So yeah, I mean, today, you know, today in the last year,
(06:46):
we're up 50%. But basically, we have a much,
much longer way to go. And that is in a large part due
to genius and the appetite from the legacy mainstream world to
basically bring payment into the21st century.
Yeah. I think one of the key insights
(07:06):
in what you just said is that itenables or what I take away from
it is that it enables a new formof infrastructure for payment,
for payment issuance issuers, for payment systems issuers.
And in many ways that's I think what we've kind of wanted block
chains to be. You know, there's this idea that
(07:26):
sort of been circulating for a long time now.
It's like that we want block chains and D5 to be the rails of
the financial system. And I, I feel like stable coins
may be the catalyst that actually makes that finally the
case, right? It sort of makes it possible.
And so like this, this sort of institutional sentiment has
(07:49):
really flipped. I think Coindesk had this figure
that 83% of investors are now planning more crypto exposure.
Stable coins, I think are a big part of that because there's
yield, you know, a lot of stablecoins are sort of promising
yield. How do you look at that?
And you know, how should, how should investors, institutional
(08:12):
or even retail? So it would be assessing the
different yield sources, right? Because 4.5% over here, 10% over
here may, may not be, you know, not all yield is created equal.
And I think people need to be more familiar and sort of aware
of that. How do you look at that?
Yeah. Well, well, OK, so I mean, first
(08:33):
of all, like, let me just back it up for a second.
So basically, you know, to your point, obviously like the
promise of blockchain rails was of course, you know, a lot of
the kind of use cases and kind of ideals was around payments.
It was, you know, peer-to-peer payment systems.
Obviously this idea of financialdisintermediation, even in the
original Bitcoin white paper, you had this vision for Bitcoin
(08:55):
as a payments mechanism. Of course, that is now not the
case. Bitcoin is not used as you know
most often and in the majority of cases is not used as a
payment instrument. It's it's obviously a
speculative asset that is tradedand you know at this point quite
commoditized. So on the one hand, like it did
take us actually quite some timeto get to this point where we
(09:18):
actually do have the infrastructure and we actually
have stable points again, as a product that are instruments
that will not only have, you know, very sound legislation
kind of governing their, their utility, but we also have the
infrastructure and the actual, again, blockchain rails kind of
ready and able to transmit and proliferate these stable coins
(09:39):
across, you know, a wide varietyof use cases and distribution
channels. And so I will just emphasize,
like before we talk about like yield and stable coins that
really it's only now I would saythat we've had again, like
proper scalable infrastructure, like ready to take stable coins
(09:59):
to the masses. And I would also like kind of
love to talk about why that is and how far we've come.
And again, like what is this infrastructure that we're
talking about that is suited forus bringing stablecoins to
mainstream? But yeah, to your question
around yield, I mean, it's interesting, right?
So first of all, when we talk about like yield as released to
stablecoins, we're typically talking about yield that is
(10:22):
generated from short term treasury bills.
Obviously that is the mechanism that I would call classic
traditional staple coins are collateralized by.
And so obviously with ingenious,there is very clear distinctions
around how that yield is passed on.
So kind of out-of-the-box, it's actually not compliant to pass
(10:47):
on that yield sort of passively,right.
So you have to basically have a mechanism where that yield is
claimed or where distribution kind of and partners or entities
like a coin base can actually take that USDC and pass on the
yield by having, you know, people, you know, hold that USTC
on the Coinbase platform. So there is a bit a bit of
(11:07):
nuance and like legally how stable coins, you know, are, you
know, able to pass on yield. And another big part of this
question, of course, is the clarity Act.
And basically that is more governing like Iran D5 and just
generally kind of, you know, crypto tokens are perhaps are
more speculative, but that will also kind of have some
(11:29):
guidelines on again, like passing of yield and how that's
some kind of compliant and basically for for for noble.
And this is like one of the principles that we have held
very dear to our heart since thebeginning is Noble is neutral
purpose built infrastructure forthe transmission and
(11:50):
proliferation of the stabacoins.So Noble itself is a protocol,
OK? Noble itself is a layer one.
We of course are not ourselves aStabacoin issuer.
You kind of mentioned in the intro that we have Noble dollar.
We're of course working with N 0on that product.
N 0 is a stable coin issuance protocol which works with a
(12:14):
network of off chain mentors andissuers.
Recently, Stripe or Bridge was announced as one of their
partners. But basically, Noble is distinct
from the circles or the stripes of the world in the sense that
we are crypto infrastructure again, for the transmission of
these stable coins, right? So we like to work with wide
(12:34):
variety, diverse set of issuers.And so, yeah, to your question
around, I guess, like yield and like how this will kind of play
out, I would say it's like the issuers themselves are kind of
at the forefront of these discussions.
Like again, when it comes to Noble, we are crypto native.
Obviously, D5 will continue to exist, but as an issuer, that
kind of consideration or and howyou pass on the yield, if at all
(12:58):
to end users is basically withintheir purview, right?
So basically you're going to have a situation where obviously
you know, like what currently exists, which will probably what
be the reality kind of after Genius is operationalized.
But you'll have a situation where the issuer themselves,
like a circle can't by default pass on that yield.
But the distribution partner, like a Coinbase, like an Ave.
(13:22):
like a finance, really any entity, whether it's an exchange
or even a defy protocol, can of course, you know, pass on yield
in in in ways that is like safe and, you know, makes sense.
So anyways, we can, we can chat a little bit more about that
and, and how kind of noble thinks about it with composable
(13:43):
yield as it was to noble dollar.But basically the rules are just
like now being established and there's no one path yet because
the rules of the road have yet to be written by the OCC in the
US as it relates to things like passing on yield.
Well, I'm, I'm glad you brought up composable yield because I
(14:04):
think it's a, it's a perfect segue into the next question I
wanted to ask you, which is currently I think most of the
yield that these, you know, thiskind of floor that we see around
like 444 or 5% your comes from treasuries.
You mentioned short term and long term treasuries and, and
having some of the mix there stable coins, You know, recently
we had cap on, we also had FX protocol and of course, like
(14:25):
these are, these are stable coinissuers, like different from,
from, from Noble, but they're generating yield in different
ways. Like FX has a stability pool
that generates yield basically from, you know, sort of deposits
in its per protocol. You know, I, I feel like
probably, you know, we, we can, we can keep juicing these yields
for some time, but they'll probably dry up like the native
(14:47):
Defy yields will start drying upunless new sources of yield
start coming on chain, actual cash flows from off chain
businesses. So, yeah, how do you think about
sort of like the bringing more yield on chain and how are you
guys integrating that into this so your yield strategy and
composable yield moving forward?Yeah.
(15:09):
I mean composable yield is actually quite simple and we
don't like to complicate things As it relates to noble dollar
itself, like the core product obviously there's like, you
know, kind of funky things that could be built on top of that.
But as it relates to noble dollar itself, composable yield
basically is as follows. So you have USDN which is
actually over collateralized 103% by by short term treasury
(15:33):
bills. Of course that collateral pool
is again managed and governed bythe M0 protocol, but our
implementation of USDN takes that yield component and
basically makes it programmable and programmatic at the same
time. So we tell distribution partners
(15:54):
or we you know encourage distribution partners like like
a, like a, like a DEX, a payments app really can be off
chain distribution. On chain distribution, we really
don't distinguish. We basically say take that yield
accumulation that is kind of happening in real time or per
(16:15):
block basis and you can program it and direct it to any source
or any destination that kind of fits your use case.
So you can obviously take that yield revenue and you can
distribute it to validators. You can do a buy and burn of
your token, you can keep it as revenue.
And basically Noble's thesis again is on chain distribution,
(16:37):
it's making sure that the Noble protocol can service app
builders and make sure that there is proper incentives and
like safety and like liability around that distribution of the
underlying T bill yield. And we've had some pretty,
pretty good success. So a few months ago, we ran a
points campaign where we wanted to kind of demonstrate like this
(16:58):
utility of composable yield, right?
And so we basically said, OK, sopeople can participate in this
points campaign, they can get, you know, points, Noble points
by deposit, causing their noble dollar into the into a points
vault. But by doing so, you actually
forfeit or give up the T bill yield that you would otherwise
get by holding noble dollar. And what happened to that T bill
(17:22):
yield that actually got distributed to a second vault,
which was a boosted yield vault.And basically we sold people.
You can also just, you know, deposit your USDN into this
boosted yield vault where you don't get points, but you get
all of the yield that the peoplein the points vault gave up.
And that was generating about 15to 20% yield.
(17:43):
And that ran for about four or five months.
And basically, you know why we did that.
And like a lot of people were kind of asking, well, how you
know, how is that 50% yield generated?
Like is there something like happening on the back end like
like like through like lending or something funky in that way?
And the answer was no. Like it's literally
(18:05):
fundamentally treasury bill yield that just got
redistributed in a way that was quite simple if you think about
it, where it was basically all the people that gave it up, it
just got redirected to this other group of of holders.
And the reason we were able to do 15, you know, to 20%
(18:26):
consistently was because obviously overwhelmingly the
distribution or the ratio of deposits was within the points
vault. And so basically, you know, on
the one hand, we want to show, you know, noble dollar, look,
it's like a thing that exists. It's very powerful.
And of course, the composable yield is this like kind of
(18:47):
interesting new mechanism where you can start implementing it
in, you know, a wide variety of ways and you could gamify it,
you could create incentives around that.
And again, it's all possible because the token itself has
been designed and engineered to allow for the composability of
that yield component. Makes sense?
(19:08):
And so the USDN campaign, how successful was it?
Yeah, it was quite. Successful, we reached about 125
million at an all time high all organic demand across 30,000
unique wallets. And so, you know, it was very,
very great to see that kind of organic, you know, demand kind
(19:29):
of popping up. And yeah, I want to talk.
About Cosmos a little bit, I mean, so noble is a is a Cosmos
app chain and you know, launchedat a time, I think when Cosmos
was struggling from the downfallof of UST, you know, quite quite
some time afterwards. But I think like, you know, I
think UST and, and the collapse of, of Lumina, I think had
(19:53):
pretty significant impact on theCosmos ecosystem overall.
You know, feel like it's some ofthe all time highs there.
And like the, the FT VS of most of the chains that were around
in 2020-2021, 2022, you know, a lot of liquidity got, you know,
removed out of the ecosystem in,in one, one moment.
I, I think when, when noble cameonline, a lot of people were
(20:15):
expecting lots of USD liquidity to come into Cosmos.
And some has, right, I mean, 350million or, or some change,
right? Is is nothing to sneeze at DYDX
also coming to the ecosystem? At the same time, I think was
very much anticipated and, and people saw that as a positive
sign. And I, I think, I think the
option thesis generally. And so the sovereign option
(20:38):
thesis continues to stand up and, and, and people all across
the ecosystem, across crypto, I think still believe that's the
case. But the Cosmos ecosystem as as
the D Phi ecosystem has not really done very well in the
last, you know, two 2-3 years despite all of this, right?
Despite Noble coming there, despite having native USTC and
despite, you know, lots of chains of using Cosmos tech.
(21:01):
What's happening? What do you think?
Why do you think that is? Is Cosmos finally dead, Yellena?
But I guess that's the question I want to ask you.
It's like, do you think? No, it's.
Not dead. Yeah.
I mean, I think it's kind of a misnomer of a question because
basically if you look at where Cosmos is, it's fundamentally
the stack, right? It's Tenderman, it's Comma BFT,
(21:22):
it's the SDK, it's Cosmosom, it's IBC.
And if you look at all metrics across those like levels of the
stack, it's actually quite strong.
What's not strong to your point is Cosmos native token
performances. So if you like look at a chart
or coin market cap and you kind of look at, you know, a token
that is like an IBC token that like launches like unfortunately
(21:45):
there isn't as much, you know, retail kind of demand for those
tokens. It's, it's, you know, partially
why Noble of course is launchingthis L2 on EBM, which is the
Noble app layer and why the Noble token will be an Ethereum
token, not a Cosmos token. But basically as it relates to
like the stack itself and it relates to adoption.
(22:06):
I mean, again, by all accounts, it is the most performing stack
to build an app chain, right? And whether you use IBC or not,
I think also kind of dictates whether you're kind of
considered to be like Cosmos. So like Noble, for example,
right? We of course are have IBC
out-of-the-box. We, you know, a lot of like
(22:28):
volume, of course, liquidity routing is, is, is via IBC.
But we also have CCTP circles bridge.
We also have wormhole. We also have hyperlane support,
you know, probably will have other bridges supported by, you
know, Chernobyl. And so, you know, I think that a
lot of the times, you know, whenyou kind of look at what
happened with Tara, like, you know, how much of Tara's success
(22:52):
was because they were Cosmos or because they had a great
product. I would argue they had a great
product for its time. Obviously that was not
sustainable. Obviously, UST was fundamentally
unsound, but you know, Anchor and what they, you know, did
with the Terra protocol was obviously, you know, very
valuable in some level. And that's why you had UST at a
(23:13):
$40 billion market cap. And, you know, you had, you
know, all of this like, like, you know, liquidity mining of
UST and you had these like crazy, like AP wise.
And anyways, you also have like a lot of like really great defy
on on Terra. And so basically, yeah, Terra
was Cosmos and it was Cosmos because it's the best way to
build an app chain. But they also have just had like
(23:34):
a good product story and good use, like a like a really, you
know, bullish community. And so I think again, like, it's
not to say that that can't happen again, right?
Like it's all about the product.It's all about the, you know,
like what you're actually building, who's a four, is it
useful? Does it work?
(23:55):
Is it broken? Is is there a good UX?
All of these things. And so I think when you look at
like what's happened since UST collapsed, obviously there was a
really serious bear market. You know, you had FTX, you had
Celsius bankruptcy, you had things happen.
And then what happened after that was somewhat of a bubble
(24:15):
market that was started basically within the salon and
ecosystem. Why product?
What was the product correct meme coins.
And so again, like Cosmos showedyou could build really
performant app chain infrastructure for D5, for
stable coins, for trading, for like all sorts of things.
(24:37):
Solana showed that you could getincredible mindshare and retail
adoption of meme coins. And of course there is like some
performance reason for that because of the way that Solana
works. But basically it's to say that
if you look at any major L1L2 ecosystem, typically it's like
(25:02):
power law distribution of like where the activity and liquidity
is and it's usually concentratedamong a handful of products and
applications. So like even salon it right,
like yes, pumped off on like kind of kicked off, you know,
the trend you had bonk you had obviously, you know, then
there's like things like Jido, but like overwhelmingly a lot of
(25:26):
that activity and liquidity in mindshare was around pumped off
on. And then and you know, you look
at, you know, things like, you know, hyper liquid
overwhelmingly now that's kind of maintaining a lot of
mindshare. And so basically, you know, I
would say that on the one hand, Cosmos of course, can never be
done because you have the stack which will continue to be like
(25:49):
the best stack. Like I mean, even talk about
like stablecoin chains, like Circle, of course, is building
their stablecoin layer one pulled arc and that uses comet
BFT for consensus. You know, you have obviously
Noble, which of course leveragessome parts of the Cosmos stack
and of course has this like separate execution layer around
(26:12):
the EVM. But yeah, I think there's
definitely no logical way you could see that Cosmos is dead.
Yeah. That that that's, that's really
great. I think it it kind of aligns
with how I've seen and talked about Cosmos over the years and
and that the analogy I often useis none of the none of the nerds
(26:32):
that were fighting over the right distribution of Linux to
use back in the 90s got rich because Apple devices and every
Android device uses it uses a Linux kind of like core kernel.
The nerds will come at me and tell me that's what I said is is
inaccurate. But but basically that, like
most devices nowadays use Linux infrastructure and I think
Cosmos is kind of similar, right.
(26:53):
It is it is really the best stack to build stop sovereign
app chain infrastructure. Just that you know,
unfortunately there isn't a mechanism by which Adam holders
get rich or sort of Cosmos tokenholders get rich because your
circle built circle builds theirtheir app chain using a common
PFT. And and I think to some extent
(27:14):
Etherium does suffer a little bit from a similar fate with the
roll up road map where value from all these roll ups doesn't
necessarily accrue to Ethereum. And but you know, the EDM is the
best way to, you know, write smart contracts and write
applications on blockchains thathasn't the most amount of
developers and etcetera. So I think a lot of stacks are
(27:36):
kind of reeling with the same sorts of problems of value
capture. And I don't know what the way
around us, you know, do we have licenses where those who use the
stack for commercial purposes need to pay some, some fee or
some licensing fee back to the token holders?
I mean, it seems very difficult to manage.
So I, I don't know what the, what the solution is here.
(27:59):
Maybe the solution is just, I mean, maybe there isn't a
solution and just people have toaccept that just because
someone's using your stack doesn't mean that you or
someone's using the stack. That you know that that you
invested in some other token doesn't mean that you're
necessarily going to benefit from that.
Well, I'll give you like an analogy here.
Just because I have an app in the Apple App Store doesn't mean
(28:22):
my app will be successful, right?
So. Just because I have quote UN
quote distribution through the App Store doesn't mean it's
going to be in the top 20 use apps because it has to
ultimately be a good app. So I think like this idea that
(28:42):
just because you're building something on Solana means, oh,
all of a sudden it's like the next pumped off fun, like
doesn't make any sense, right? Just because I'm building, you
know, on Ethereum means I'm going to now get all of the
liquidity of Ethereum defy. Like that doesn't make any
sense. So yeah, I mean, I think that
the same goes for Cosmos. I think the difference maybe is
(29:05):
because like from a narrative perspective, the app chain
thesis has been focused on apps,right?
And so we understand like apps is where the value accrues.
And if you don't have a good app, then you won't get value
and neither will perhaps that value trickle out to other app
(29:26):
chains within that same ecosystem.
And so I think like with Terra, obviously we had a very
successful app, right, very successful app chain for its
time. And then of course, it destroy
itself. But what did that show?
It showed that value can accrue to the app player.
It could accrue to the app chain, it could accrue to the
token holders. And you know, you could argue,
(29:48):
oh, well, that's why, you know, other Cosmos app chains did
well. I think that's a bit of a
rewriting of history. Like it was also just generally
a bull market and many applications did well, not just
in a Cosmos, but also in Ethereum.
But basically, if like your onlysource of like demand for your
token or your app is because like your, you know, neighbor is
(30:11):
doing a good job, like that's not a sustainable Moat.
And so basically you have to kind of think about, OK, well,
how will distribution happen in the future?
Where will demand come from? What is the product?
Is it sustainable? Is there a Moat?
Is it easy to use? Is it differentiated?
So, you know, basically I think crypto people like have to build
(30:33):
real businesses and I think that's a good thing.
And you know, I think Cosmos is still the stack itself is still
a very solid stack. Yeah, I agree.
I mean, I think all that makes sense and it bears repeating and
it bears reminding ourselves andfolks in the ecosystem all
together. You know, that's Cosmos people.
(30:55):
I, I think the last time we spoke when you were on the
interop was quite a while ago and there was some you were
talking at that time about having an EVM on Noble.
How has that? Yeah, can can sort of share the
latest on that? Yeah.
So this is something we're we'reworking towards and really
(31:15):
excited about. So we're going to be launching
something called Noble App Layer.
We'll probably be branding at something different, but for now
we, we're calling it the Noble App layer.
And basically the Noble App layer is an EV ML2 using
Celestia for data availability. You know, kind of Speaking of
Cosmos, Speaking of the stack, there's quite a, you know, a few
(31:36):
reasons why we decided to build the EVM component as an L2
versus adding it on top of the Noble L1, which of course is the
Cosmocell one, which is currently, of course, in
production. And you know, quite, you know,
significant in terms of volume and routing and adoption.
And basically the reasons kind of are as follows. 1 You know,
(31:59):
there is a lot of exciting innovation taking place like in
the Etherium world as it relatesto performance.
You know, Celestia I think is obviously like a huge part of,
you know, what makes, I guess like if you're more delightful
to build on top of kind of giventheir, you know, data
availability innovations. And so, you know, that's one
(32:23):
part of it. We wanted to, you know, also
make sure that we were exposed to the EVM ecosystem and just,
you know, historically EVM on Cosmos has been challenging to
say the least. And so, you know, we figured
first of all, there was a huge product need for smart contracts
and programmability, you know, for Noble.
(32:46):
And adding an EVM layer on top of Noble was not necessarily the
best engineering decision. And so we figured let's deploy
basically an L2 on top of Noble that would be validated and
secured by the Noble layer one, but which could act as a
distinct execution layer for sorry to.
Interrupt here, but even with the Cosmos sort of EDM stack,
(33:11):
yeah, curious why why you chose to do an L2 rather than use that
stack which has the EDM kind of built into it?
Well, so so the EVM is actually not super like well maintained,
right. If you kind of look at like how
the EVM kind of software has developed over time, you have
like EVMOS now you have other kind of players attempting to
(33:33):
maintain that. But I mean, I'm sure you you
understand like EVM is as a as as as a software, you know, it
needs to be maintained to make sure that it's like secure and
that there's like, you know, de risking from like a bugs
perspective. And so basically we felt a lot
more comfortable in the maintenance and the, you know,
(33:54):
software of EVM proper kind of on you know, as it relates to
Etherium. So that was, you know, very much
like a concern around, again, like stability, security, making
sure we're always properly following major releases and
that the software that we use iswell maintained.
And so it just made sense to again, build this EVM app layer
(34:18):
basically as an L2 using Celestia for DA.
And then again, performance, right?
Like our EVM app layer. You know, I think like yesterday
there were some benchmark testing and it's like 100
millisecond block times, right? Super fast.
That's faster than Noble Core, right?
Noble Core is like 1.2 seconds, which is fast, but it's not call
(34:39):
it fast like like like the app layer which can support, you
know, all sorts of things that core can't support from like an
execution perspective. And so you know, that was an
obvious decision for us. Again, we love working with the
Celestia team. We think the you know, the, the
kind of software that is maintained again is very solid
(35:00):
and it just kind of made sense for us.
Also, again, like talking about like the power of like the
Cosmos stack, like, you know it,not that this was like trivial
work. It was definitely a lot of hard
work. But there is also a world where
of course, Noble Core validates and secures the L2.
And that's also was a big part of the discussion.
Like can we have a single sequencer L2 running on Celestia
(35:22):
DA secured by the Noble validator set in a very secure
manner? The answer was yes.
And so we're very excited to be basically championing that
model. I did a long tweet thread on
kind of what makes this model perhaps different than like
other kind of roll up designs within the Etherium space, which
(35:43):
may be like we can link them in the notes.
But basically a lot of what we've done with the Noble Core
validating and securing the L2 is very similar to kind of like
the native roll up vision that Ibelieve Italic and others put
forward. And yeah, we think it's pretty
interesting. I mean, of course it's different
where the Noble Core is a proof of authority chain, right?
(36:06):
So we don't have like a proof ofstake kind of economic security
model with like, you know, a bunch of token stakes.
But we actually think that the proof of authority model works
very well for our use cases which are stable point centric.
So anyways, it's a lot of indifferent decision making
factors that kind of led us to where we are today.
(36:28):
But I think that kind of speaks to like our approach and our
philosophy, which is like, let'sbe very methodical, let's be
very considerate around the architecture.
Let's talk rush things just because everyone else is doing
it one way. We, we, we want to make sure
that the way we do it fits our use case and fits our
principles. And basically, I do believe and
(36:48):
can anticipate that the launch of the app layer, it will be
like a new era for for Noble because again, we've never
actually had defy on Noble itself, which is kind of crazy.
And yet there's all of this traction.
So yeah, we'll see what happens.And he talked a bit about the
role of the Noble token in this,in this new L2 and and this D
(37:09):
Phi ecosystem that you want to build.
Yeah. Definitely.
And we'll have some really exciting announcements actually
on the Noble token very, very soon.
But at a high level, we're talk,we're thinking of the Noble
token in like 2 ways. So one, it will be the base fee
token for the app layer. Basically will users can still
pay fees in stable coins as theycurrently do on core, but
(37:33):
they'll be a mechanism where that fee, those fees are swapped
into noble token kind of on the back end.
And there's like a kind of a pave masters like account system
around the kind of fee fee mechanism for the app player,
which again is noble token underthe hood.
So again, assuming there's a lotof activity and users and you
(37:55):
know, products on Noble App Player that are well adopted
that will be positive for the Noble token.
And then the other piece is actually governance.
So we are keeping the proof of authority model for validation.
So there will not most likely bestaking, but there will be
governance. What does that mean similar to,
(38:19):
you know, kind of other models where basically you could use
them like the governance token to have certain incentives or
have certain auctions for, let'ssay, you know, deploying
liquidity into certain pools. You know what we call like
bribes in the Curve model where you have like AV, in this case
(38:43):
AV Noble token. That's all kind of on the road
map. And we actually think again,
defy is at this point battle tested and we have some pretty
interesting applications kind ofin the works.
And if you can layer in a Noble token on top of that where you
get the community kind of excited and incentive
incentivized and motivated to kind of govern those various
applications, I think there could be some interesting,
(39:04):
interesting things. Where do you?
Expect stablecoins to be in three to five years.
And what will be Noble's role inthat ecosystem?
Yeah. Honestly, I think it's just the
beginning. Obviously we have all of
plethora of purpose built stablecoin chains launching,
which I think is, is ultimately +1 of the ways that I like to
(39:28):
think about differentiation among those app chains.
And you know, perhaps nobles kind of roll with within that
differentiation is basically as follows, right?
The Tam for stablecoins, for stablecoins payments is massive,
right? Like we mentioned earlier, this
kind of 1.9 trillion figure fromfrom city.
(39:49):
I I've seen, you know, I've seenpredictions as high as 4
trillion from financial institutions.
But if that is to be the case, you're going to have
specialization within the payments landscape that
basically leverages certain stable coin infrastructure,
right? So for Noble, if we think about
Noble's app layer, if you think about Noble core and performance
(40:12):
and stability there, I do see Noble playing a significant role
in this future payments kind of revolution around stable coins.
Whether that is more on the B toC side, you know, it's something
we can kind of anticipate. But we've had some pretty
exciting conversations with, youknow, legacy traditional players
kind of coming into the space, looking at the space and and
(40:33):
saying basically we have a need to transform our payments
infrastructure. Let's think about how kind of
Noble and again, layer ones kindof fit into that landscape.
So Noble will continue to alwaysexist as this kind of router of
activity, as a origin chain for the minting, for the redemption
of these stable coins because ofour performance, because of our
(40:55):
battle tested infrastructure. And basically we want to see
Noble and the app player do a lot of stuff on the consumer
facing side. So obviously it's early days,
but again, it's exciting days and there's a lot more to come.
Great. Well, you know.
Thanks for coming on the show. It's been great chatting with
you, getting an update on Noble and also getting a glimpse of
the future. So excited for Noble and the
(41:18):
things ahead. Amazing.
Thank. You, Seth.
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