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[00:00:10] Fergulati: Hey everybody, welcome back to another amazing interview with hashing it out, hashing it out, podcast audio, whatever you want to call it. Do we have like what would we call our fans? Hashers.

[00:00:25] Fergulati: Yes from I know from Jess. Well anyways everyone we are joined here today. By Cyp. Can I call you Cyp?

[00:00:35] Fergulati: Cyp works alongside us in parallel at logos. He works with Status. And he's responsible for spearheading one of the latest rollups for status where where we will be attempting to build a L2. But I don't want to stumble over my words anymore. Cyp, how are you? Welcome to the show.

[00:01:02] Cyp: Hey. How you guys doing? Well.

[00:01:06] Fergulati: So give us a small introduction. Who is Cyp? And you know, what does he do? 

[00:01:14] Fergulati: I know, it's a deep question. Who are you?

[00:01:16] Cyp: Dude, I would I would need to talk with therapist first before answering that. Dude, I haven't had a good answer. No, but for real? So, yeah, I'm Cyprien. I've been in crypto for way too long to not be rich on a freaking sailboat somewhere. In the Bahamas. I think third cycle, something like that. Or fourth even, I don't know. But yeah. Entered through the more academic side you know governance protocols decision making, consensus coordination mechanisms, all this kind of fun stuff that don't necessarily need the token at the beginning. So, yeah, it was more, more specifically to that I worked a bit on, on Bitcoin at some point on like voting protocol for. Yeah, just on using SATs, kind of colored sats that you would distribute to people and then they would vote with that. That was back in like 2015 or something. Which is kind of stupid because Ethereum literally came at, at that time and they were like, oh shit, this is just useless. We should like smart contracts is just a way better way to to manage those kind of coordinations. So. So, yeah, this is pretty much what I've been doing for a while. Then I've also had, like, a web two live where I was an entrepreneur. I launched a couple startups. One specifically is doing very well now, so that's pretty, pretty nice. And and then. Yeah, on the West side, I mean, I've been in different projects. My latest startup was a beam, which which is a video streaming platform, kind of live kind of streamyard right now, or like a zoom call but with token gates and like NFTs and like, yeah, blockchain all the way if we can.

[00:03:18] Cyp: And then yeah, I've done studies about, what, eight months ago now collaborating on the studies Network. So what is Studies Network? And that's the greatest question. And if someone has a great answer to me, please give it, because this is what we are all about is like working with the community and like talking with the community about that and trying to get their sense on what to yeah, what to work, what to work on next. What's the the best item to come in our in our roadmap. And so Status Network is one of those items along with the staking contract also. And so basically what we're seeing now is it's those two projects are actually very growing parallel. So stories network is a L2 zk VM rollup. We can go a bit like more in details later about what does that mean? But yeah, it's a rollup that is going to launch hopefully next year with a testnet, hopefully by the end of the year. And, and the staking contract for SNT is a way for SNT holders to stake their their SNT into a contract to be able to vote on a bunch of things. So vote not only on our governance and like the roadmap setting, but also on and this is kind of new. The goal is to basically create native public funding pool that receives funding from a bunch of different sources and that people holding SNT can vote on how to allocate. So I've already said way enough for a short intro. So I'm going to shut up right here.

[00:05:19] Fergulati: So I think we could touch on a lot there. One of the things that we can also like we want to touch on right off the bat is this nip the process network improvement proposal. Right. That's that's the N stands for I want to get this right because there's a lot

[00:05:37] Cyp: Now it's a new, new improvement proposal.

[00:05:40] Fergulati: New improvement proposal Okay, I feel like I should know that. So if anybody's out there shaking

[00:05:46] Cyp: Don't worry. I learned that like two weeks ago, so all good.

[00:05:50] Fergulati: So in the new improvement proposals for status work very similar to Bips and IPS and whatever IP that exists in the ecosystem. A lot of chains have IPS. I don't know of any chains that don't actually. And if they don't have this kind of a process, then they're probably a what do they call them? Shiitake shit tokens. Right? Shit tokens. That's right. But,

[00:06:15] Cyp: Cytokines can have those type of process. It depends like how how you run it and if it's actually meaningful for, you know, the, the future of the of the token or of the organization behind the token.

[00:06:28] Cyp: And you can see like for example, arbitrum is actually an optimism. Also, they both have their own way to handle this, but they are kind of references in, in how to handle this well, because they have that kind of onchain governance that directly has impact on how the funding is is distributed. And I don't know if you saw, but like, I think it was 2 or 3 weeks ago that Arbitron voted for like a $220 million funding for their gaming vertical. I mean, this is impressive. I mean, I've this is like large scale voting on on on funding attribution. That's Well, I hope we can reproduce at our scale, but maybe at some point in a larger scale as well.

[00:07:15] Fergulati: It's I mean it's very interesting when we're doing these on, on snapshot org which is pretty popular platform in crypto. It's where you take snapshots of what happens on chain so that you can later do things with the snapshot. I what do we call them? Airdrops or you know, maybe some NFTs hit people's wallets. I don't know, but it's why you use snapshot to to kind of like it says, it's all in the name the one that took place that by the time you hear this, you will have missed. So sorry. Audience and sat holders. You will have missed this vote. But it looks like somewhere in around 23 million SAT have total have been voted used in this vote, which is what how much does that be in USD

[00:08:03] Fergulati: 23 million? It's. No, it's not a small amount of money. I mean, it's not 220 million, but it is. It's a pretty big chunk of money that people are putting the vote towards this. So people aren't really voting with their money. They're just saying like, that's how much S and t people weighted vote used. But your nip, which would have been nip two. No, three. Sorry.

[00:08:30] Fergulati: Is now in a strong second place.

[00:08:34] Cyp: Hope. Hope more people vote for it. Yay! But. But I can totally get. Why? Like staking a citizen in a very strong lead position. Because, I mean, this is the. I mean, this is a reality. People have been holding anxiety for a while. They've been expecting some some type of utility, some type of, like, way to use their SNT to do something because, I mean, at the core it's a utility token. And utility can be defined in a lot of different ways. But the goal really, I think, for the statistical system is to have that token embedded in a lot of the different experiences that all the different verticals that status and IFC in general are starting to develop. And, and so I also think that, for example, governance is just one aspect of utility. And governance on roadmap, governance on priority in development, but also governance in allocation of funding, for example. And so and so I think this is to, to me both both proposals actually really go together because the, the strategy for, for the Celsius network is to create a layer that is kind of thin enough so that it can basically turn cash positive as fast as possible. And because certainly when you have and when I say cash like token positive, I don't know how to say that, but it's basically you you are you break even and you're able to not only sustain your maintenance and your growth, but also attribute some funding to the development of your ecosystem.

[00:10:16] Cyp: And, and so by trying to have kind of a thin layer we are able to charge basically the same fees as everyone. But just because there is less cost associated to maintaining that we are able to redistribute into some funding opportunities for the community. What extra gas costs, for example, we may have charge. And so I think this is kind of the core to the strategy. It's and it's the reason why both nips are very linked. It's because the staking contract only makes sense if there is some type of funding behind, because otherwise your funding your your staking for just to take just to take actions on, on on the governance of the roadmap, for example, which is cool. I mean, this is nice, but the reality is that there is no there is no way for people to get engaged in the long term just by doing so. And and I think this is one of the biggest challenges in, in, in governance today, and not not only for us, but for like a lot of projects in the space, it's if you don't have a strong incentive to participate, then people may just be like, why do I bother to like take out my ledger if it's not on the ledger, but just my MetaMask, and then login and try to find the proposal and vote and everything for.

[00:11:44] Cyp: For what? I mean, that's the nice trace on chain that I did something, but if there is no incentive or alignment, then it's actually very difficult to engage people to do that in the long term. And so I think by coupling both projects together there is actually a strong sense that it may make sense for people to have a say in how the, in how studies and studies network in particular, is developed, but also have access to funding opportunities and be able to vote on those funding opportunities by participating into that voting process. And to do so, you need to have a staking contract to just to to have people put their tokens. And, and, I mean, it's not at stake because you can't get slashed, but at least to show proof that you want to participate and that you want to to vote with your tokens.

[00:12:34] Jessie Broke: A question that's twofold, which is what are the actual economic incentives around staking? You know, what sort of I guess yield is there? And also when it comes to the actual governance of the development of kind of the S and T ecosystem. What percentage of the wallets does the amount that was that that was used to vote in in the snapshot? What percentage of the total wallet wallet addresses is that?

[00:13:13] Cyp: Okay. So I can I can answer the first part at a very high level in the sense that. I can explain the different ideas we have in mind for the future, for how staking is going to work. But I need to say that this is all very still in progress. There is nothing done yet. The most I mean, the biggest milestone we have to pass is to make sure that everything we do is compliant with our regulatory environment. And so we

[00:13:50] Cyp: Really need to make sure that everything we propose is something that we know that we can reliably offer in the long term. And that is going to all at the same time benefit people, but also still stay very in line with yeah, with the regulatory environment. And so the way, the way I look at it is that we had a bunch of ideas around how to do staking and how to incentivize people to do so. So one of the ideas that that we started to develop, and I mean, it has been around for like maybe a year plus and before I started also researching on that but it's the idea of like multiple points. And so when you vote or when you stake or when you do an on chain transaction, on status network, or when you do direct actions during within the app, the status app, you can earn XP like experience points, but also multiplier points and those multiplier points multiply your voting power. And the goal here is basically to be able to offer a way for small holders to still have a say in the in the community and still have a voice and still be able to have weights on the decisions.

[00:15:11] Cyp: And we yeah. Like, I mean, the economics team at stages has, has been working on that for a while is to, to try to create a way for both concepts to live together where you can you can accrue multiplier points as you do more online actions. And those multiplier points are going to have a strong impact on your weight, on the weight of your vote. And so I think, I think this is already kind of a nice, you know, proposition, but where it gets very interesting. And again, this is still very in the we're working on it. There is nothing defined yet and everything is the, the idea of because something with a small holding of S and T can attach to that a high number of multiplayer points, that person can basically have a huge impact on the governance process And XRP are not tokens. They're just like points that are soul bound to your wallet, right? But we're actually exploring different ideas around lending those points. And basically, you can't you you can't transfer ownership. But you can lend those points to people who want to have accrued voting power for specifically one vote.

Episode hosts - Demetrick Ferguson & Jessie Santiago

Dee and Jessie speak with Cyprien Grau of Status about the future of the Status Network, focusing on their vision for creating an open-source, decentralised crypto communication super app. They explore the intricacies of staking contracts, rollup technology, and the delicate balance between maintaining decentralisation and ensuring economic feasibility. The conversation sheds light on the complexities of launching a rollup in today's saturated market and underscores the significance of community engagement and governance in the evolving crypto landscape.

<p>Hashing It Out is a highly-technical bi-weekly show that brings you the pioneering developers driving the Cypherpunk movement. In each show we take a deep dive through privacy, sovereignty, and network state technology with some of web3's most influential innovators.</p><section class="footnotes-container">&nbsp;</section>

Hashing It Out is a highly-technical bi-weekly show that brings you the pioneering developers driving the Cypherpunk movement. In each show we take a deep dive through privacy, sovereignty, and network state technology with some of web3's most influential innovators.

Dr. Corey Petty

Jessie Santiago

Demetrick Ferguson

Hashing It Out

<p>Dee and Jessie speak with <a href="https://x.com/0xcyp ">Cyprien Grau</a> of <a href="https://x.com/ethstatus">Status</a> about the future of the Status Network, focusing on their vision for creating an open-source, decentralised crypto communication super app. They explore the intricacies of staking contracts, rollup technology, and the delicate balance between maintaining decentralisation and ensuring economic feasibility. The conversation sheds light on the complexities of launching a rollup in today's saturated market and underscores the significance of community engagement and governance in the evolving crypto landscape.</p><section class="footnotes-container">&nbsp;</section>