Will Quantum Computing DESTROY Crypto & Blockchain? with Sergey Gorbunov

WEBVTT
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So quantum computer is what's known. They have certain algorithms
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that allow to break these cryptographic methods right, and people
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are word to your point. You know, would this chain
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be affected? Would this mechanism be affected.
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and if you'd like to learn more, please visit the
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link in the description. Welcome into the Thinking Crypto Podcast,
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your home for cryptocurrency news and interviews. I'm your host,
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Tony Edward and my guest today is Sergei Gorbanoff, who
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is the co founder of axlr Protocol and the CEO
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of interrop Labs. Sergey is also an associate professor at
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the University of Waterloo. Sergei, great to have you on.
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Hey, great to be here. Thanks for having me.
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Sergei, you have an extensive background with crypto and blockchains.
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You are on the founding team of Algoran and I
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have a lot of questions for you. I want to
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get your perspective on many of the things happening in
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the crypto market. But before we get there, tell us
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a bit about yourself, where you're from and what's your
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professional background.
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Yeah, my professional background is distributed systems and cryptography. The
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PGM T. Afterwards, spend a little bit of time at
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Universal Waterloo kind of doing a lot of research and
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pryptography at Blockchain, you know, distributed Systems, worked on the
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Outground project, as you mentioned, kind of helped to design
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that and take that to the market, and then afterwards
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been focusing on the interoperability problem in the in the
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blockchain space.
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And what was your first encounter with crypto or blockchain
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or what was your AHA moment?
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Yeah, my first and Congress were at the end of
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grad school, so I was doing work in kind of
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more advanced cryptography. I had my I set on sort
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of graduation and had everything up for the thesis, and
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you know, it's pretty much done with it, so it's
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looking around for new challenges, new problems too to solve.
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There was a small bitcoin club that Ron Rivest, you know,
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one of the founders of ours a protocol Brandt mit
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So I joined that were reading some white papers and
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the topic became very very interesting. Of course, kind of
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quickly realized some of the technical you know, limitations of
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bitcoin and ethereum like protocols, and so we started to
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think about how do we do how do we do
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better right, and how do we design something that could
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scale further along And that's where you know, some of
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the early ideas behind the out Ground protocol with you know,
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Sylvia mcali were originated and yeah, kind of took it
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from there.
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And how long were you at Algoran? Obviously that's one
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of the bigger projects in the crypto industry, and Sylvia
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I've heard him speak over the years and al Grand
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certainly is doing things differently. You know, how did you
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end up working there and what we were some of
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your contribute contributions.
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Yeah, I mean we did a lot of work there, so,
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like originally it was a sort of research type of
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a project, right, we wrote like very first white paper
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with Silvia. You know, it wasn't kind of a called
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out Grand at the time it was live twenty fourteen
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or twenty fifteen. You know, for a few years after that,
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the blockchain crypto space was still you know, not as developed, right,
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and people were still thinking what to do. I remember
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actually like some first emails from Metallic at the time
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when they read like our manuscript war Oh, it's great
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to see like you guys thinking about some of the
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similar ideas that was thinking, you know, at the theory,
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like they already realized that the theorem would have to
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migrate to proof of steak from proof of work and
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so you know, he's on us some kind of nice
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notes on like you know, highlighting similarities in the thought
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process and you know what needs to evolve for those
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proof of steake systems too, you know, to become reality. Right,
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the concept of proof of say, didn't exispect the right
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it was. It was all being being originated. But you know,
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so I think after I finished school, I think Silva
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tried to get kind of funding for the outground project.
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It took a little bit of time until the markets
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kind of picked up, until like twenty twenty seventeen is
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when I believe kind of the ico boom came again. Right,
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you had good funding that was that was available, So
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we'll get some funding for the out ground protocol. And
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like a few of us, you know, from MIT and
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Sylvia kind of came together in Boston and started to
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you know, continue to design, right, continue to figure out
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what it actually looks like as a product, the blockchain stack,
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whether smare contracts, look around it. Yeah, and then you know,
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I think beyond like the al ground itself, we've done
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some nice contributions to the broader ecosystem. So as an example,
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that led centriization of kind of a BLS signatures with
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a team that was you know, at our Grand and
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the few other places you know, like Dan Bone and
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Stanford and some of his students at the time. So
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and BLS signatures, if you know, is what ends up
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being used in the theory at the proof at a
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proof of state consensus and many other blockchain networks today.
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So I think it was a very good project to
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try to align everybody to the new you know, to
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the new foundations of cryptography that it needed for those
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systems to be efficient. And so yeah, I kind of
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a bunch of other work along the way.
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Now, obviously you spend time at MIT and you were
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in that those circles. But were you by any chance
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there when current SEC chair Gary Genser who's going to
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be former SEC chair Gary Genser soon was was there
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I think teaching at some point, and I remember him
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making statements about Algoran over the years that you could
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put uber on Algoran. Were you around at the same time.
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Yeah, I was around at the same time. I believe
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I actually gave a couple of guest lectures of the
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Business School of Management that might see at the time.
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So they had a good group, right, you know, Christian
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Catalina was there. He ended up working at you know,
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Facebook Libra and now now they have a new project
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around bitcoin l two's. Yeah, there was quite a lot
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of talent at the time.
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Mm hmm. Now talk to us about Axelar and what
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was the goal behind starting this and what's the mission?
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Yeah, I mean the goal was really try to figure
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out how do you help innovation at the blockchain layer
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to continue while preserving kind of composibility across different blockchain layers, right,
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so as to be more concrete. You know, when we
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launched all Grand, it was very new stack right, new consensus,
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new way to approach more contracts, transactions, kind of security.
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As soon as we launched it, problem number one was
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how do we connected to everything else so we can
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bootstrap both developer activity and liquidity right, bring new assets
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to the ecosystem, allow developers to easier migrate their users
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or interact with applications that are built on our Grand. Ideally,
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from our view, we would have loved to see a
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protocol that we could just plug and play into the
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out ground right, to be connected to like ethereum, Bitcoin,
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you know, Ripple and like you know XRP laver and
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like other other chains, but we couldn't find anything right,
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there's nothing really available, and so we thought that you know, look,
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the blockchain ecosystem is still young. We're going to continue
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to see many other layer ones being developed and innovated
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on right in parallel, like Solana was being built, Avalanche
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was being built, near was being built, Polka Dot was
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being built. You know, we didn't even talk about layer twos.
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That all came later at the time, and so we thought,
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look like all of those innovations are going to continue
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to happen. People will keep on figuring out how do
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you optimize consensus, how do you optimize smart contract language,
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how do you maybe have your own unique kind of
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go to market or use case that you want to
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target and have your own you know, chain or application
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around it. And they will need connectivity. Otherwise we just
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continue to build siloed ecosystems right that don't talk to
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one another. And yeah, we thought this is going to
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be a very major problem for the ecosystem to solve.
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And you know, first year, we have to do a
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lot of education. In the first few years, we have
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to do a lot of education in the market around it.
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But you know, now it's a very well established, of course, problem,
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very well established domain, and I think we still keep
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on seeing introperability almost like one step behind innovation that
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happens at the layer once. Right, I think there's still
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so much work that needs to happen and the interoperability
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layer to keep unifying the ecosystem enable simple developer, simple
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user experiences and very exciting times.
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I had Yeah, absolutely, And I was looking at the
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Xlar network website and I noticed the different categories of
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folks that are working with you guys. Enterprise wise, you
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have Microsoft, Deutsche Bank, MasterCard, Wallet's Ledger, MetaMask and so forth, RWA,
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Circle Ondo. So you're trying to help enterprises, wallet services
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in different facts actions of the digital asset space be
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able to connect with each other obviously have interoperability. And
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would the interoperability be the movement of certain tokenized assets
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or NFT stable coins? Is it that? Or is there
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other use cases as well?
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Yeah, it's kind of the use cases span dependent on
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the application, but it's essentially unification of developer and user experiences. Right.
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So you brought up you know, token token, so as
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an example, as a token holder, if I have a
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stable coin like UCC. I want to and if I
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have it on multiple chains, I don't have to think.
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I don't want to have to think about it, right,
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I want to see it as one token. Sure, maybe
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it has a place on you know, different chains, incentiated
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depend on what applications I use on those chains, but
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I don't want to have to think about it. So
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from a wallet perspective, as a user, I want to
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see it all abstracted. I have my tokens, I have applications.
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No matter where that locations are, I should be able
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to go and use them, right, and then interoperability under
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the hood is responsible for yeah, token transfer if there
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needs to be information transfer, if there needs to be right. So,
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as an example, you want to deposit you're token from
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one chain into an application on another chain, but you
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don't want to have to just like move the token,
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then switch a wallet, then deposit to the application and
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have like twenty clicks in the process. Right, you want
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to have seamless as one transaction, one click from the wallet,
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and so you know general message passing types of primitives
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that the interroperability allow you to do that kind of
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a streamlined the process of you interacting from the wallet
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to multiple applications across different chains in very unified experience
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as you were interact in on a single chain.
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Now, I want to make sure I break this down
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for those who are new to blockchains and crypto. So
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does axel R have its own blockchain? Does it serve
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as a layer two or layer three? And if axl
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are for whatever reason and not saying will goes down,
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does that break any of the bridges?
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Yeah, so great question. So first of all, actually itself,
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you can think of it as a it is a
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blockchain that connects out the blockchains, right, so you can
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think of it as like you know, the mega highway
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of highways, right, So it's a it's a transportation network.
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But it's designed is to route messages, route tokens from
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one chain to another in an efficient way. It is
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powered by blockchain technology, so everything that the protocol is
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fully decentralized, open, you know, permission less, so you can see,
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you can audit it, you can contribute to it and
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build connections and keep on extended this highway, right, and
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then you know to your point what happens if acceller
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you know, goes down. So first of all, I think
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decentralization in the blockchain systems is what we have seen
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to be the most robust way to make sure the
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systems don't go down, right, and actually is the only
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introperability product that has, like I said, fully proof of
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state based, open consensus, open decentralized network. So we've never
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actually had the protocol or the network itself kind of
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go down, you know, and it has one hundred percent
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up time. Maybe individual like transactions sometimes don't go through
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because there are gas issues, but the network itself has
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a full one hundred percent up time, and that's thanks
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to the just decentralization of the network itself, right, And yeah,
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if it starts, if something happens, you don't have enough notes,
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because again the protocol is open, you know, you can
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go and run your own notes and continue to operating
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the network.
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Right.
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The inclusion in the network and participation is just as
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open as like on bitcoin and the theoryum where anybody
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can help network make progress, and so same properties, very
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strong liveness properties are then inherited by the actual network.
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And I'm assuming the vision is as we get the
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next billion and people to come into crypto and making
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it as easy as possible for them to onboard. And
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you mentioned the interoperability. So if whether they're using JP
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Morgan or deutstr Bank or match the card, you're running
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behind the scenes and they don't necessarily even need to
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know about xceller network or what's happening behind, just that
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it works, right.
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Yeah, exactly, I think you know. To your point. So,
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first of all, a lot of these enterprises that you mentioned,
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they're all looking to launch assets either on you know,
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their own chains and then connect them to everything else outside, right,
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or they go and they partner with existing chains like
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you know, like x or p Ledger, like Stellar, like Suite.
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They'll launch the assets there and they still want to
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interoperate with either other bank chains right or enterprise chains
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or other public chains. So they all need interoperability. But
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to your point, for the end user, once you're beyond
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you know, technical analysis and developer analysis that developers need
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to validate security and robustness of all these building blocks
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that they're using, and user just wants to be able
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to use these new efficient rail systems right, be able
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to be the beneficiary of it, have global settlement, cheap transactions,
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you know, global reach, to be able to transact with
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anybody across the world. They don't necessarily care so much
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where the assets are, how they interact with one another,
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how you move from one chain to another. So those
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things are abstracted away. And I think, you know, the
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analogies that you can make are similar to the intranet
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right right now we have in this you know zoom call.
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The information travels across probably over a dozen different networks
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to allow us to do this podcast live in a
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very seamless way, right And so it's the magnitude of
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the of all of these networks and interconnection between all
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of them that enables these experiences. And I think when
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it comes to blockchain and financial assets, it's inevitable that
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we're going to be in a very very multi chain
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world too, and that scale is needed to support all
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the new primitives and assets that are that are entering
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the space. But for average user, the experience needs to
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be a lot simpler. It's again all the way from
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your wallet or application to the apps and the underlying
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infrastructure rails uh you know, need to be hidden.
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Yeah. Absolutely, Does Axeler have a token and what's the
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protocol that it's based on? You know, you mentioned proof
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of stake earlier. What is it used with typic mechanism.
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Yeah, so actually has a utility governance token, right that
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powers taken on the Excel network. It powers governance on
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the Excel network. And yeah, the actual protocol has been
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designed originally from the Cosmos and Tenderment consensus and then
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we had to like customize it and modify everything from
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the incentives you know how validators propagate information to facilitate
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this introperability use case. And so it's been quite a
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lot of work to design the stack to make sure
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it is robust in the way that is. But you know,
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kind of a COSMOS framework is actually pretty flexible. That
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allowed us to do a lot of those changes.
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I mean, you guys have some amazing partnerships and just
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once again looking at the website and maybe you can
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tell us a bit about, you know, your roadmap for
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twenty twenty five and can we expect to see more
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enterprises of the caliber of JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and
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so forth coming on board.
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Yeah, So we recently launched a very new framework, it's
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called the Amplifier framework that effectively changes i would say
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interoperability landscape and takes it to the new level. And
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what that means is that introoperability now with it becomes
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completely permissionless, meaning that you don't necessarily have to you know,
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talk to us as a as the builder or anybody
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else to get connectivity of your chain to all the
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other chains. It's fully permission less framework. It's full of
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permission less model. And so we have an array of
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very big partners that are building around this framework to
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connect their stacks, right, everything from enterprises to you know,
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some of the big public chains like Xo, b Ledger,
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Solona Suite. There's a connection to Bitcoin being made, there's
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a connection to stacks ecosystem being made. So I'm super
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excited for all of those connections to go live, you know,
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through this Amplifier framework. And I think it would essentially
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interconnect everything everything that matters in the in the crypto space.
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And yeah, to your point, there's there's quite a lot
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of ongoing work with enterprises initiatives, a lot of them
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around to organization verticals, right, So we essentially want to
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make sure that tokenization becomes as chain agnostic as possible, right,
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And towards that end, we have just recently a couple
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of months ago launched a product called Interchain Token Service
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that allows you to you know, launch it token on
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many chains at the click at one transaction. And so
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I think that's going to be the default mode of
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operation where people go and launch it token on all
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the chains without having to you know, launch it at
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one and then bringe it back and forth, which is
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a very very old process of doing things.
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Oh, for sure, I love it. This is certainly the
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infrastructure for the future of blockchain and a multichain world,
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no question for you. Let's say, for whatever reason, a
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blockchain goes away. We know not every chain will stick
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around for the next ten to fifteen twenty years. Let's
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say one goes away, what are the mechanisms in place
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to then have those maybe tokenize assets then be either
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burned or pulled out from that system and moved to
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other blockchains.
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So that's a great question. So you could actually use
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products like the Interchaine Token Service that I mentioned to
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do that, right. So it allows you to you know,
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map either an existing token that you have and you know,
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replicate or clone into all the other chains, right, or
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you can mirror it across across multiple chains, or you
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can simply you know, relaunch it with the same with
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the same state. So yeah, once you have this interconnectivity
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kind of a fabric, do you do you point this
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sort of token migration, right or token clone, it becomes
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you know, a function on top of this infrastructure, which
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projects like interchange token service support.
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Mm hmm, okay, god, so that mechanisms in place. Yeah,
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that's just a question I thought of because you know,
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I know, not every like I said, every blockchain is
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going to exist. There's probably going to be a handful
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of winners, you know, right now, there's so many, and
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it's a yeah, I.
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Mean, I think there's like two lines of thought, right, like,
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which is a you consolidate to a few you know,
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big chains and like that's that's more than sufficient. And
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then there's everything is like an app chain, right, kind
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of l two type of type of stuff. And I
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think the reality is that we're going to be probably
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in a hybrid, right where we're going to have big, monolithic,
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efficient stacks that have the best kind of composibility and
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the best equidity that you can go and launch, you know,
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and and leverage very efficient you know, new new iterations
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of chains like swite, you know, like stellar like, uh,
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you know x RPL support thousands of transactions you know,
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per second and things like that. But there is a
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world where we're see more and more applications that do
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have a product market fit launching their own chains so
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they can customize the entire stat right, So we've seen
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this from dy d X, We're now seeing it from
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Uni swap. You know, we've been seeing it from you
393
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know previously before that kind of a couple of years
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ago Compound, right. Uh so so so yeah, I think
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applications that do have a product market fit that you
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want to customize more of the you know, rewards mechanism,
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security mechanisms, maybe you know, liquidity mechanisms of the underlying
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validation layer will go and launch app chains that will
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still be interconnected to you know, these bigger, bigger chains
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and bigger, more monolithic designs. So I'm pretty confident that
401
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we're going to be in a hybrid world between those,
402
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and you know, I think that we're ready seeing that
403
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trend where applications that have found the product market fit
404
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then migrate from these monolithic chains into their own like
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app chains and then customize more logic around those.
406
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Hm. Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. So, Serge, I want
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to get your perspective and thoughts on quantum computing. This
408
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has been a big topic lately and it's impact on
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Bigcoe and other blockchains. Given your expertise in cryptography, kind
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of give us the lay of the land, you know,
411
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do you feel there's going to be a threat here
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too many blockchains from quantum computing?
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Yeah, so I think quantum is still very early, right.
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I think if you look at some of the news
415
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from the last a few months from from Google of
416
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the world and some of the folks like, there are
417
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definitely problems and there are definitely in the right direction,
418
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but thereby no by no means kind of close to
419
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being able to break cryptographer, right, that's used in the blockchain. So,
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and for those that are not aware, one of the
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reasons people talk so much about quantum is that all
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the blockchain systems rely on cryptography. Right. Cryptography is what's
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you know, used to generate your accounts on the blockchain,
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used to sign transactions so that nobody else can can uh,
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you know, maliciously sign on your behalf right or fake transactions.
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So cryptography is fundamental. It's used by the validation of
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all the of all the activity that happens. So quantum computers,
428
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what's known. They have certain algorithms that allow to break
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these cryptographic methods, right, and people are worried right to
430
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you to your point, you know, would this chain be
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affected with this mechanism be affected? And the reality is,
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like I said, you know, we're still quite far from
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those attacks being practical. At the same time, there by,
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cryptographers and researchers have been ongoing efforts to design cryptography
435
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that's resilient to quantum algorithms. Actually, a lot of cryptography
436
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that I worked on in my graduate school is resilient
437
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against quantum cryptography. There is now a NIST, which is
438
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a National Institute of Standardization Technology effort to standardize primitives
439
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that are used that will be used in this post
440
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quantum you know, signature and encryption algorithms. So those efforts
441
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are well underway. I think we know quite well what
442
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we're doing and what those algorithms are. And I would
443
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see essentially a migration over the next ten years by
444
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the blockchain, and not only blockchain systems, like all the
445
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financial systems would be affected when the quantum computers come
446
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to reality. So I do think those threats you know,
447
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need to be everybody needs to be mindful of them.
448
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There's no reason to panic or do anything, you know, overnight,
449
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but you should think about, you know, how would my algorth,
450
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how would my system blockchain or traditional financial system migrate
451
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to those algorithms, and what the effects of them would
452
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be on my overall security, and you know, have a
453
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plan in place to over the next I would say
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a decade migrate. I don't know where it's going to be,
455
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you know, a little bit less or more on the timeframe,
456
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but you know, it's it's it's a multi year project
457
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and we're definitely make at least you know, I would
458
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say ten years. This is a guess right now. I
459
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think it's a little big guess on everyone's part. But
460
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there's quite a lot of stuff that has to happen
461
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for those two to actually affect you know, blockchain systems
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that we use today.
463
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Oh for sure. And and I'm assuming the logical step
464
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for many of these folks with nodes or whene it's
465
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mining equipment that they would upgrade with the same technology.
466
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Right maybe there's a bit of a lag, but if
467
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you have this respective chip from the video or whoever,
468
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I'm going to build mining equipment around there, or I'm
469
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going to build computers that can run proper nodes with
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that with that chip, right.
471
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Yeah, yeah, exactly right. And you know, to your point,
472
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I think the security threads of these quantum computers really
473
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come in like two folds. You have to analyze the
474
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consensus itself and you know, ask yourself, am I vulnerable
475
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or does anything have to change with it? So, as
476
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an example, Bitcoin uses you know, of course proof of
477
00:28:22.480 --> 00:28:26.960
work consensus, but it's mostly using hash functions, and these
478
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hash functions are not vulnerable to quantum attacks to the
479
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same extent as signature schemes. Okay, so you will need
480
00:28:35.200 --> 00:28:38.200
to adjust parameters of bitcoin to make sure it keeps
481
00:28:38.200 --> 00:28:42.319
on minding efficiently, you know, and nobody can can kind
482
00:28:42.319 --> 00:28:45.640
of create forks at a fraction of a cost, but
483
00:28:45.759 --> 00:28:49.319
that's a privator change at the consensus algorithm. Nothing changes
484
00:28:49.359 --> 00:28:52.759
to the Bitcoin consensus algorithm itself. And then there are
485
00:28:52.799 --> 00:28:57.279
signatures used by the bitcoin community right to sign transaction
486
00:28:57.359 --> 00:28:59.640
that actually sends the funds from you know, from you
487
00:28:59.680 --> 00:29:03.480
to me, right, and those things will be vulnerable to
488
00:29:03.519 --> 00:29:06.839
those quantum attacks. And then the bitcoin community and the
489
00:29:06.880 --> 00:29:09.160
communities will have to migrate to a new type of
490
00:29:09.319 --> 00:29:12.240
you know, cryptography used to make sure that those individual
491
00:29:12.279 --> 00:29:16.720
transactions are then not affected to the same extent. Right now,
492
00:29:16.720 --> 00:29:19.559
for other blockchains, you might be vulnerable at both with
493
00:29:19.680 --> 00:29:23.960
the consensus and individual transaction player and so then yes,
494
00:29:24.039 --> 00:29:27.720
you would have to migrate to the right algorithms you know,
495
00:29:27.799 --> 00:29:33.640
along the way. But some of them already protected right
496
00:29:33.720 --> 00:29:37.240
at the consensus, like Bitcoin, and you know they will
497
00:29:37.240 --> 00:29:39.680
only need to address in the digital transactions.
498
00:29:40.160 --> 00:29:42.799
Mm hmm, Okay, that that definitely makes sense. I appreciate
499
00:29:42.839 --> 00:29:46.039
that perspective because to your point, there's just you know
500
00:29:46.039 --> 00:29:48.720
a lot of headlines, Oh, no, quantitum computing is going
501
00:29:48.759 --> 00:29:52.359
to take down Bitcoin and this blockchain, but you know
502
00:29:52.480 --> 00:29:55.680
they we're not close to that yet, and folks will
503
00:29:55.720 --> 00:29:58.880
evolve and iterate and make them dates.
504
00:29:58.960 --> 00:30:01.799
Yeah, And like the last point that I'll make on that,
505
00:30:01.839 --> 00:30:06.920
I actually think blockchains are best suited right now to
506
00:30:07.079 --> 00:30:12.200
embrace the upgrades as transparently as possible compared to sorry,
507
00:30:12.480 --> 00:30:18.079
like I said, traditional systems, right, most blockchains do they
508
00:30:18.119 --> 00:30:21.440
have upgrade mechanisms, right, you know, we have seen upgrades
509
00:30:21.440 --> 00:30:24.200
on Bitcoin, we have seen upgrades and ethereum and many
510
00:30:24.680 --> 00:30:28.480
many chains have those kind of on chain governance based,
511
00:30:28.839 --> 00:30:32.400
consensus driven upgrades where the whole ecosystem switches to a
512
00:30:32.440 --> 00:30:37.559
new mode of operation. Traditional financial systems don't have those, right,
513
00:30:37.759 --> 00:30:42.759
It's a lot of bespoke systems and pieces of information
514
00:30:43.440 --> 00:30:46.279
and APIs that are sort of stitched and glued together
515
00:30:46.480 --> 00:30:49.839
communicating her bespoke way. It would be much harder to
516
00:30:49.920 --> 00:30:53.480
upgrade those than it would be to upgrade any blockchain
517
00:30:53.519 --> 00:30:54.559
system in my view.
518
00:30:55.319 --> 00:31:00.400
Yeah, because many of those systems are so antiquated in try. Yeah,
519
00:31:00.519 --> 00:31:02.279
just the old systems, and we're trying to get them
520
00:31:02.319 --> 00:31:05.960
to move to blockchains and right now. So that's a
521
00:31:05.960 --> 00:31:06.319
great point.
522
00:31:06.359 --> 00:31:08.240
Maybe that would be the you know, a way to
523
00:31:08.240 --> 00:31:11.480
push them into blockchain system that's your way to be
524
00:31:11.799 --> 00:31:12.720
quantum secure.
525
00:31:13.559 --> 00:31:17.160
Right. I didn't want to get your thoughts on AI
526
00:31:17.240 --> 00:31:20.759
and crypto. We're seeing kind of a symbiotic relationship where
527
00:31:20.920 --> 00:31:24.680
AI is being used to enhance blockchain attributes and then
528
00:31:24.839 --> 00:31:27.720
blockchain is being used to police AI from a deep
529
00:31:27.720 --> 00:31:31.119
fake perspective. You know, how do you see this relationship
530
00:31:31.200 --> 00:31:34.319
and this intersection growing as we head into the future.
531
00:31:35.920 --> 00:31:40.279
Yeah, I think the way that I like to summarize
532
00:31:40.279 --> 00:31:46.119
is that AI creates AI makes the cost of generation
533
00:31:46.440 --> 00:31:53.920
to be almost zero, but it requires verification to be useful. Right, So,
534
00:31:54.079 --> 00:31:59.240
anything you know that's AI generated today people asking questions
535
00:31:59.240 --> 00:32:02.839
that how do you differentiated from real Right? How do
536
00:32:02.839 --> 00:32:06.960
you differentiate what's AI generated, what's not AI generated? How
537
00:32:06.960 --> 00:32:13.440
do you differentiate what's generated by malicious AI versus versus
538
00:32:13.759 --> 00:32:19.160
you know, non malicious AI. Right, And so blockchains systems
539
00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:23.119
are very good at given the ground truth of information,
540
00:32:23.839 --> 00:32:29.960
and I think that relationship today is very you know,
541
00:32:31.440 --> 00:32:34.480
it's very early. I think there's a lot of you know, buzz,
542
00:32:34.480 --> 00:32:37.200
and there's a lot of hype. You know, it needs
543
00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:39.640
to be developed more. I think it needs to be
544
00:32:39.720 --> 00:32:43.599
explored more. But I do think it's there are real intersections,
545
00:32:43.599 --> 00:32:46.400
there are real use cases because of these very two
546
00:32:46.440 --> 00:32:50.920
conflicting properties. Right. One is let me generate things as
547
00:32:50.920 --> 00:32:56.480
fast as possible, as much as possible, and that information,
548
00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:03.200
you know, ends up being very hard to validate, to verify,
549
00:33:03.480 --> 00:33:06.960
to communicate, to authenticate. And then we have blockchains that
550
00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:13.279
are very good at you know, validating, distributing, rewarding, you know,
551
00:33:13.400 --> 00:33:16.279
verifying all of that. And I think for the AI
552
00:33:16.440 --> 00:33:18.599
to go to the level that it needs to be at.
553
00:33:19.039 --> 00:33:21.519
It will need to be combined with a sort of
554
00:33:21.599 --> 00:33:24.559
verification layer in some sense, and I think blockchain is
555
00:33:24.640 --> 00:33:27.359
very good at doing that in addition to have and
556
00:33:27.359 --> 00:33:31.400
of course, you know financial rails embedded in the in
557
00:33:31.440 --> 00:33:33.839
the AI systems, which I think are necessary as well.
558
00:33:34.640 --> 00:33:37.000
Yeah, and do you think this is something I've been
559
00:33:37.039 --> 00:33:40.960
noodling on that social platforms where many of us get
560
00:33:40.960 --> 00:33:44.000
our information from, right, we see what our friends, family
561
00:33:44.039 --> 00:33:47.920
are doing. That when we upload an image or a video,
562
00:33:48.079 --> 00:33:50.119
there's going to have to be some sort of blockchain
563
00:33:50.200 --> 00:33:53.319
encryption tag to it, so that if someone comes with
564
00:33:53.359 --> 00:33:56.799
a different version that's AI manipulated, we can say, no,
565
00:33:56.960 --> 00:34:01.160
that's that's that was not from Surgey or not from Tony.
566
00:34:02.759 --> 00:34:06.640
I think we need to get there right Otherwise, again,
567
00:34:06.720 --> 00:34:09.360
like we live in the world of you know, made
568
00:34:09.440 --> 00:34:11.960
up facts and made up information, right, Like, I really
569
00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:15.400
hope we can get to the world where information is validated,
570
00:34:15.719 --> 00:34:20.159
can be authenticated with full providence. If it's been modified
571
00:34:20.159 --> 00:34:22.840
along the way, we know what the modifications are and
572
00:34:22.880 --> 00:34:25.880
you can like you know, go down the roots because
573
00:34:26.360 --> 00:34:29.199
because yeah, again I think the cost of information is
574
00:34:29.239 --> 00:34:33.599
going to be negligible unless it's verifiable information going forward.
575
00:34:34.159 --> 00:34:38.519
Mm hmm. And do you foresee that in the future
576
00:34:38.800 --> 00:34:41.519
we may have I don't know if this makes sense
577
00:34:41.960 --> 00:34:45.559
AI to police a the world of AI, right, you
578
00:34:45.639 --> 00:34:49.480
have these AI agents from the government or law enforcement
579
00:34:49.760 --> 00:34:53.760
or from companies that are just monitoring what's happening overall,
580
00:34:53.800 --> 00:34:57.119
what people are doing and what rogue AI agents may
581
00:34:57.119 --> 00:34:58.840
be doing. Do you see something like that?
582
00:35:00.079 --> 00:35:02.880
Definitely? I mean like a new AIS like no other.
583
00:35:03.320 --> 00:35:06.519
There's no different as like other software system right, Like, yes,
584
00:35:06.599 --> 00:35:09.800
we have software today that you know, does certain things
585
00:35:09.920 --> 00:35:15.519
used by you know, good actors, bad actors, educational institutions,
586
00:35:15.599 --> 00:35:17.840
medical institutions, and of course we have a lot of
587
00:35:17.880 --> 00:35:21.880
software that you know polices today software right monitor and
588
00:35:21.920 --> 00:35:25.199
for vulnerabilities, for attacks and everything else. So if you're
589
00:35:25.199 --> 00:35:28.480
in the AI world and if that's a better way
590
00:35:28.480 --> 00:35:32.000
to build software and systems and propagate information, of course
591
00:35:32.039 --> 00:35:35.079
you're going to need to you know, uh, the the
592
00:35:35.119 --> 00:35:38.199
A itself to to police one another. Right, then the
593
00:35:38.320 --> 00:35:41.519
software systems will need to leverage it to to kind
594
00:35:41.559 --> 00:35:46.320
of keep up right with the with threats, with attacks,
595
00:35:46.400 --> 00:35:50.719
with the you know, information explosion that that happens in
596
00:35:50.840 --> 00:35:53.280
other AI systems. So yeah, I mean I view it
597
00:35:53.320 --> 00:35:56.920
as the as the better, more efficient way to both
598
00:35:56.920 --> 00:36:01.000
build systems, to search systems, to analyze information across the world.
599
00:36:01.039 --> 00:36:03.880
And you know, I think blockchain it plays a critical
600
00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:08.280
role by providing some of the properties need it, you know,
601
00:36:08.400 --> 00:36:10.760
around authenticity of the data.
602
00:36:11.519 --> 00:36:16.800
Mm hmm. This is a very far out question, but
603
00:36:17.519 --> 00:36:20.000
I'm just thinking about what the future may look like.
604
00:36:20.960 --> 00:36:25.320
What if we have an AI it creates its own blockchain,
605
00:36:26.079 --> 00:36:29.960
its own token, and no human can control it. What
606
00:36:30.760 --> 00:36:32.639
do you think that that may be possible in like
607
00:36:32.880 --> 00:36:33.920
forty years or something.
608
00:36:36.280 --> 00:36:38.079
I don't see why you need to do it, you know,
609
00:36:38.159 --> 00:36:40.559
forty years. I'm sure you can. You're doing employ the
610
00:36:40.639 --> 00:36:45.559
days right for a g I. So yeah, I mean,
611
00:36:45.639 --> 00:36:48.719
like you know, you've seen projects of a kind of
612
00:36:48.719 --> 00:36:51.760
a launch in tokens right, generated some keys these days,
613
00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:55.519
and like applications, there's no there's no reason why it
614
00:36:55.559 --> 00:36:58.639
cannot launch. You know, the blockchain system decide how the
615
00:36:58.679 --> 00:37:01.480
validation logic is have and you know, under the hood.
616
00:37:01.559 --> 00:37:06.360
So yeah, I mean, like I think, what it is
617
00:37:06.360 --> 00:37:07.199
not forty years?
618
00:37:09.119 --> 00:37:12.199
Yeah, and maybe that's like you know what we saw
619
00:37:12.199 --> 00:37:15.480
in the movies with sky Neet right, and it's doing
620
00:37:15.519 --> 00:37:19.880
its own thing you can't control anymore. But hopefully there's
621
00:37:19.880 --> 00:37:20.559
no I don't know what.
622
00:37:20.719 --> 00:37:23.119
Not being able to control like that sort of a
623
00:37:23.239 --> 00:37:25.280
you know, too far out there. I think all systems
624
00:37:25.280 --> 00:37:27.800
can be controlled, you know, like, hey, I systems are
625
00:37:27.920 --> 00:37:30.480
systems that you can isolate them. You can you know,
626
00:37:30.639 --> 00:37:33.519
restrict their scope of run time and things like that.
627
00:37:33.719 --> 00:37:38.559
So yeah, I'm not I'm not afraid of you know,
628
00:37:38.679 --> 00:37:43.320
uncontrollable sky Night takeover of things. I'm more afraid of
629
00:37:44.639 --> 00:37:47.920
just abundance of these systems and the result of abundance
630
00:37:47.960 --> 00:37:50.880
of these systems, you know, lots of errors coming up,
631
00:37:51.000 --> 00:37:56.360
lots of misinformation, lots of you know, bad you know,
632
00:37:56.519 --> 00:38:00.519
just bad decisions being made potentially by other system is right,
633
00:38:01.880 --> 00:38:05.199
And you know, if you want to call the sky
634
00:38:05.280 --> 00:38:10.719
net type of drama, maybe it will lead to that.
635
00:38:10.800 --> 00:38:13.880
But you know, I think we're pretty pretty far from that.
636
00:38:13.960 --> 00:38:17.559
But but there are real, I think challenges that we're
637
00:38:17.559 --> 00:38:20.039
going to have to address, right with just the just
638
00:38:20.079 --> 00:38:23.320
the abundance of information the AI systems, and they have
639
00:38:23.360 --> 00:38:25.719
bundands of actions these AI systems can take.
640
00:38:26.159 --> 00:38:31.480
Yeah, absolutely, It's it's a brave new world, exciting but also,
641
00:38:31.599 --> 00:38:33.599
like you said, some things we got to be cautious about.
642
00:38:34.679 --> 00:38:37.800
I did want to get your thoughts on the maturity
643
00:38:37.840 --> 00:38:39.960
of the crypto market. Obviously you've been in this space
644
00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:42.679
for a while. What are your thoughts on how the
645
00:38:42.840 --> 00:38:47.199
industry has grown, the change of the environment for crypto
646
00:38:47.440 --> 00:38:49.920
starting this year with the new president of New Congress
647
00:38:50.199 --> 00:38:54.119
and TRADFI is here looking to build tokenizing and much more.
648
00:38:54.320 --> 00:38:57.760
I definitely think it's become more and more mature and
649
00:38:57.840 --> 00:39:01.320
more and more ready for war, you know, a kind
650
00:39:01.320 --> 00:39:04.360
of a mass adoption, right and like real, real distribution.
651
00:39:04.559 --> 00:39:08.400
So you know, as an example, when we're even working
652
00:39:08.440 --> 00:39:10.320
at out ground, we had a lot of conversations but
653
00:39:10.679 --> 00:39:12.920
you know, some of the same institutions as we're you know,
654
00:39:13.639 --> 00:39:18.719
talking to today, and in many cases a lot of
655
00:39:18.719 --> 00:39:23.000
the conversations were around doing pilots in the you know,
656
00:39:23.360 --> 00:39:25.800
R and D departments in some sense, right, and that's
657
00:39:25.800 --> 00:39:31.039
where the conversations remained. And that's where the conversations were left.
658
00:39:31.559 --> 00:39:35.199
Today we'll find it outselves in conversations with product teams
659
00:39:35.400 --> 00:39:38.000
right at these institutions, So product teams that are looking
660
00:39:38.039 --> 00:39:43.000
at tokenization, product teams that understand that you know, blockchain
661
00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:46.400
systems can provide more efficient settlement of their transactions, more
662
00:39:46.599 --> 00:39:51.519
efficient accounting of their transactions. Right, if you're operating costs
663
00:39:51.960 --> 00:39:54.519
and those product teams are figuring out what the products are,
664
00:39:54.639 --> 00:39:57.760
how do you launch behind them? Right? So, I think
665
00:39:57.800 --> 00:40:03.400
we're definitely in a new aram for adoption amongst the
666
00:40:03.519 --> 00:40:06.920
you know, institutions and enterprises. I think the technology is there,
667
00:40:07.079 --> 00:40:10.320
technology is already. We know how to build good experiences.
668
00:40:10.360 --> 00:40:14.480
We know how to build you know, chain abstracted interfaces
669
00:40:14.480 --> 00:40:18.320
and tokens. We know how to scale underlying consensus as well.
670
00:40:18.719 --> 00:40:20.599
So all I think, you know, a lot of the
671
00:40:20.599 --> 00:40:24.639
infrastructure problems that we've been working on over the last decade,
672
00:40:25.280 --> 00:40:29.880
I think are solved, and you know, we need to
673
00:40:30.280 --> 00:40:35.360
enter the world of usability, you know, clear value proposition
674
00:40:35.519 --> 00:40:40.440
for around the use cases. And yeah, I think these
675
00:40:40.440 --> 00:40:43.840
conversations are very very exciting, very very real, and I'm
676
00:40:43.920 --> 00:40:45.719
kind of looking forward to what's going to happen over
677
00:40:45.719 --> 00:40:48.719
the next few years with you know, new new administration
678
00:40:48.800 --> 00:40:52.679
on board as well as the technology being at the
679
00:40:52.719 --> 00:40:53.559
phase that it's at.
680
00:40:54.400 --> 00:40:56.840
Yeah, for sure. And one of the things I've been
681
00:40:56.880 --> 00:40:59.440
thinking about, and this is a conversation out of people
682
00:40:59.519 --> 00:41:03.440
are been having as well. Is getting the wallet right
683
00:41:03.719 --> 00:41:06.239
so that my mom and dad, the average Joe and
684
00:41:06.320 --> 00:41:08.679
Jane walking down the street can just they have the
685
00:41:08.760 --> 00:41:11.440
Web two feel to it right, the interface, but it's
686
00:41:11.559 --> 00:41:15.920
powered by blockchains. It's powered by Web three. And while
687
00:41:15.960 --> 00:41:18.800
they may know, okay, this is a crypto blockchain related app,
688
00:41:18.840 --> 00:41:20.599
it doesn't feel like it doesn't. I don't have to
689
00:41:20.639 --> 00:41:24.639
worry about a twenty four phrase password and all that.
690
00:41:25.559 --> 00:41:27.960
Are there any wallets that call out to you or
691
00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:30.000
that you think might be leaning to charge here?
692
00:41:31.760 --> 00:41:35.800
So there're actually kind of a quite a few wallets
693
00:41:35.840 --> 00:41:40.960
that are embracing kind of a traditional sign on mechanism
694
00:41:41.039 --> 00:41:44.119
to generate cryptographic keys. So as an example, you know,
695
00:41:44.119 --> 00:41:46.880
we're working with Slee Blockchain quite a lot, and they
696
00:41:46.920 --> 00:41:51.320
have this project called gk log Game, which I'm really
697
00:41:51.440 --> 00:41:54.199
which I really love. The basic ideas to be able
698
00:41:54.239 --> 00:41:57.480
to generate all the cryptographic materials that you need using
699
00:41:57.519 --> 00:42:02.039
your standards credentials from more additional like online platforms that
700
00:42:02.079 --> 00:42:04.800
you use. Right, so you can like go to Google,
701
00:42:05.360 --> 00:42:08.800
authenticate to your email from Google, and that would serve
702
00:42:08.880 --> 00:42:12.599
as a credential to generate U you know, a cryptographic
703
00:42:12.679 --> 00:42:15.280
key on a blockchain, right, You'll never have to think
704
00:42:15.280 --> 00:42:17.679
about this cryptographic key. You'll never have to think about
705
00:42:17.760 --> 00:42:22.719
recovery beyond recovering your you know, Google credential, but it
706
00:42:22.760 --> 00:42:26.159
is going to be sufficient to establish your identity in
707
00:42:26.159 --> 00:42:29.800
the blockchain system and then use that for all the transactions.
708
00:42:30.119 --> 00:42:34.199
So I'm a big fan of these new projects that
709
00:42:34.360 --> 00:42:40.039
leverage you know, zke type of technology to establish traditional
710
00:42:40.639 --> 00:42:44.119
credentials that a lot of people are familiar with and
711
00:42:44.159 --> 00:42:47.599
then take those for them into the blockchain, establish an
712
00:42:47.679 --> 00:42:50.719
identity for the user and use that then throughout the blockchain.
713
00:42:51.400 --> 00:42:54.559
M hm, yeah, And I love that idea as well,
714
00:42:54.599 --> 00:42:57.480
where it just makes it simple. There's not necessarily anything
715
00:42:57.639 --> 00:43:01.199
new to the end user per se, but on the
716
00:43:01.239 --> 00:43:05.000
back end the cryptography, all the respective items are there.
717
00:43:05.920 --> 00:43:08.280
Do you think it also needs the buy in from
718
00:43:08.320 --> 00:43:12.599
the Googles and the facebooks that they may need to
719
00:43:12.599 --> 00:43:16.159
agree their infrastructure with using blockchain to help make sure
720
00:43:16.239 --> 00:43:17.760
this is all sealed tight?
721
00:43:19.119 --> 00:43:21.760
I mean, the beauty of actually these cryptographic methods is
722
00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:24.800
know that they do not need any buy in from Google, right,
723
00:43:24.800 --> 00:43:28.239
they do not need anybody from traditional vendor. You applying
724
00:43:28.360 --> 00:43:33.039
kind of cryptography on top of these authentication methods and
725
00:43:33.559 --> 00:43:34.920
they won't have to change at all.
726
00:43:35.719 --> 00:43:40.719
Mm hmm. That's good to know. Okay, Serge, great information man,
727
00:43:40.880 --> 00:43:45.000
very insightful. I got some wrap up questions here for you. First,
728
00:43:45.119 --> 00:43:47.400
if you could create your own metaverse, would the theme be?
729
00:43:51.480 --> 00:43:54.280
What would the theme be? That's a good question. Clarity
730
00:43:54.320 --> 00:43:55.920
of thought hmm.
731
00:43:57.119 --> 00:44:07.360
Rapid fire questions, favorite food, fish, favorite musician or band Metallica,
732
00:44:08.679 --> 00:44:09.440
favorite movie.
733
00:44:11.559 --> 00:44:18.199
Uh Matrix, favorite book, thinking fast and slow?
734
00:44:19.440 --> 00:44:21.960
And when you're not working at Axelar, what are you
735
00:44:22.039 --> 00:44:22.599
doing for fun?
736
00:44:25.360 --> 00:44:27.239
I try to exercise as much as I can, you know,
737
00:44:27.280 --> 00:44:32.440
spending time with family, but exercises, uh one of my
738
00:44:32.480 --> 00:44:34.719
ways to you know, relax myself in the brain.
739
00:44:36.039 --> 00:44:38.880
SERGEI absolute pleasure chatting with you. Appreciate your knowledge and
740
00:44:38.920 --> 00:44:41.000
your experience. Thank you so much for joining me.
741
00:44:41.880 --> 00:44:43.159
Thanks for having me. This is awesome.
742
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M