Web3 Innovators

In this episode, Gavin Thomas and Cais Manai of Ten Protocol join Conor Svensson to explore the transformative potential of on-chain privacy and how Ten Network enables private smart contracts on Ethereum. They discuss trusted execution environments (TEEs), selective privacy, and the path to a decentralized future that empowers developers and users. Drawing from their TradFi and blockchain experience, Gavin and Cais share how Ten Network bridges Web2 and Web3.

Episode Highlights

Privacy in Web3
Cais and Gavin explain how Ten Protocol enables private computation within smart contracts, offering tools for developers to build decentralized applications (DApps) with selective privacy, surpassing privacy tokens like Zcash or Monero.

TEEs: The Backbone of Privacy
The duo highlights the scalability and transparency of TEEs, which allow developers to create privacy-preserving applications within the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

Developer-Centric Design
Ten Protocol integrates seamlessly with the EVM, prioritizing low-friction tools and composable infrastructure to drive developer adoption.

AI Agents and Privacy
TEEs enable the creation of provably autonomous AI agents, unlocking trustless execution and new Web3 use cases like decentralized AI applications.

Roadmap to Mainnet
With its testnet complete, Ten Protocol is targeting a mainnet launch early next year. The team focuses on reliability, incentivization, and unique "degen" features for the Web3 community.

Key Quotes

Gavin Thomas:

"The success of any DApp depends on being where the majority of developers are. That’s why we built Ten Protocol to integrate seamlessly with the EVM ecosystem."

"By leveraging trusted execution environments, we bring scalable, selective privacy to Ethereum and beyond, empowering developers to build the future of decentralized applications."

Cais Manai:

"Privacy in Web3 isn’t about hiding value transfers; it’s about enabling complex applications to operate securely in a decentralized world."

"The beauty of TEEs is that they work today. They enable privacy and scalability while preserving the developer-friendly nature of the EVM."

"Our endgame is to rebuild the Internet on decentralized infrastructure, giving power back to users while enabling developers to create anything they can imagine."

Links and Resources

• Ten Protocol: ten.xyz
• Ten Protocol on X: @TenProtocol

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In this episode, Conor speaks with Yair Cleper of the Lava Network, about the critical role decentralised infrastructure plays in enabling the scalability and reliability of Web3 applications. Yair shares Lava’s vision for creating a decentralised RPC marketplace that ensures high performance, data reliability, and cost efficiency through incentivised participation. The discussion covers Lava’s approach to aligning incentives for node operators and developers, its rapid adoption across 40+ blockchains, and the potential for decentralised RPCs to reshape the infrastructure layer for Web3 and beyond.

Episode Highlights

Decentralised Infrastructure in Web3:
Yair explains why centralised solutions are ill-suited for Web3 and AI, underscoring the scalability and reliability benefits of decentralised RPC systems.

The Vision for Lava Network:
Lava Network is building a decentralised marketplace that aligns incentives for data providers while maintaining quality through metrics like uptime, speed, and reliability.

Incentive Mechanisms Driving Decentralised RPC:
Yair discusses how Lava rewards node operators for high-quality service while penalising bad actors through a staking and slashing mechanism.

Rapid Adoption and Use Cases:
Lava has already achieved over 80 billion monthly RPC requests and serves 2.3 million users across 40+ blockchains, becoming a key enabler for multi-chain DApps.

Expanding Beyond RPC Services:
The conversation highlights Lava’s plans to extend into other data primitives, such as subgraphs and AI data marketplaces, building a broader ecosystem for decentralised data access.

Key Quotes from Yair 

"We believe centralised solutions can’t keep up with the scalability and reliability demands of Web3 and AI."

"Lava creates a decentralised marketplace where data providers monetise their infrastructure while maintaining trust and quality."

"By using a staking mechanism, we incentivise honest behaviour and ensure that bad actors lose their stake if they don’t meet quality standards."

"Decentralised RPC systems give developers a simple, resilient infrastructure layer, eliminating the need for redundant, in-house solutions."

"The community-driven incentive model transforms infrastructure budgets into marketing for the ecosystem, benefiting everyone involved."

Connect with Yair and the Lava Network

Yair Cleper - X

Lava Network - X

Lava Network - https://www.lavanet.xyz

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In this episode of Chainlens Spaces, Conor Svensson sits down with Kai Wawrzinek, CEO and Founder of Impossible Cloud Network (ICN), to discuss their mission to decentralize cloud infrastructure. Kai explains how ICN leverages Web3 and decentralized technologies to address traditional cloud provider limitations, such as vendor lock-in, high costs, and single points of failure. The conversation covers ICN's decentralized approach to enterprise-grade storage, the role of token incentives in scaling the network, and how ICN enables a decentralized alternative to services offered by hyperscalers like AWS and Google.

Key Moments:

1. Background and Vision for ICN: Kai shares his background in gaming and how his experience with AWS led to the founding of Impossible Cloud Network.
2. ICN's Two-Tier Structure: Kai explains ICN’s structure, with the German entity focusing on services and the Swiss foundation managing protocol and network governance.
3. Decentralizing Storage and Computing: ICN enables efficient use of underutilized data center capacity, lowering costs for users and reducing dependency on centralized hyperscalers.
4. Incentive and Governance Model: Kai outlines how ICN’s token model aligns interests across hardware providers, customers, and participants in the network.
5. Future of Decentralized Cloud Services: Kai shares ICN’s roadmap, including upcoming token and node sales, and expansion of storage and computing capabilities.

Standout Quotes:

• "Our goal is to bring Web2 mass adoption to Web3 technology by offering compliant, high-performance, enterprise-grade cloud services."

• "With Impossible Cloud, enterprises get a more decentralized, cost-effective cloud solution, free from the vendor lock-in of traditional hyperscalers."

• "Through Web3, we can tap into global talent and create a network where data sovereignty and performance are core to the cloud experience.
• 
  
• "ICN enables data centers worldwide to connect and share idle capacity, creating a resilient, decentralized cloud infrastructure."

• "Our decentralized model provides customers with transparent pricing, high performance, and seamless data control across global nodes."

Contact Kai Wawrzinek and Impossible Cloud Network:

• Website: ICN Global
• Twitter | LinkedIn

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In this insightful episode, Dennis O'Connell, President of the ERC3643 Association, joins Conor to discuss the ERC3643 standard and how it is advancing tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) on Ethereum. Dennis shares insights into the association’s mission to foster interoperability and compliance in the digital asset space and how the recent U.S. election results could influence crypto regulation and RWA adoption in the U.S. and globally.

Episode Highlights

1. ERC3643: The Next Evolution in Token Standards
   Dennis outlines the importance of the ERC3643 standard, emphasizing how it builds upon previous ERC standards like ERC1400 to offer enhanced compliance, identity, and asset control features tailored for institutional use.
2. Importance of Compliance for Institutional Adoption
   The ERC3643 standard provides critical features for compliance and control, addressing institutional concerns around identity, governance, and regulatory approval, thereby enabling large-scale asset tokenization.
3. Impact of Trump’s Election on Crypto Policy
   Dennis discusses how Trump’s election win could accelerate crypto-friendly regulatory changes in the U.S., with implications for both the DeFi and RWA sectors, especially in areas like asset classification and regulatory oversight.
4. The Significance of MAS Recognition
   ERC3643’s recent recognition by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) through Project Guardian demonstrates its growing acceptance by global regulators and strengthens its credibility for large-scale institutional adoption.
5. Expanding Beyond Ethereum
   Dennis reveals plans to expand the ERC3643 standard beyond Ethereum, with initiatives to support other blockchain ecosystems like Move and Solana, aiming to establish ERC3643 as a cross-chain industry standard.

Key Quotes

1. "Standards are critical for the adoption of RWAs; they ensure interoperability and compliance that institutions require."
2. "The 3643 standard addresses identity and control on-chain, enabling institutional investors and regulators to adopt it with confidence."
3. "Trump’s election win could usher in a ‘go fast’ mode for crypto regulation, potentially transforming RWA policy in the U.S."
4. "Recognition from MAS is a major milestone for ERC3643 and shows growing global regulatory support for tokenized assets."
5. "Our goal is to expand ERC3643 beyond Ethereum, making it a cross-chain standard that serves the entire digital asset industry."

Links and Resources

• ERC3643 Association
• Dennis O'Connell: LinkedIn | X

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In this episode of Chainlens Spaces, host Conor Svensson speaks with Rob Viglione, co-founder and CEO of Horizen Labs, about zkVerify and the evolution of zero-knowledge (ZK) proof technology. Rob explains how ZK proofs are transforming on-chain privacy, scalability, and verifiability, and the role zkVerify plays as a verification layer optimized for cost and flexibility. The conversation delves into ZK’s applications in AI, gaming, and Web3, and how zkVerify offers efficient, universal verification that enhances trust across the blockchain ecosystem.

Key Moments:

The Origin of Horizen Labs: Rob shares how his early work in Bitcoin and the privacy-focused Horizen project led to his continued exploration of ZK proofs.

ZK Proofs for Privacy and Scaling: ZK proofs enable both private transactions and scalable batch processing of transactions, critical to blockchain infrastructure.

zkVerify's Efficiency Gains: Rob highlights zkVerify’s ability to reduce verification costs by processing proofs off-chain while staying adaptable to new cryptographic advancements.

Interoperability and Attestations: zkVerify supports multiple blockchains, offering a universal verification layer with attestations that can be broadcast to any network.

The Future of ZK in Web3 and Web2: Rob envisions ZK proofs as a bridge to Web2, allowing for verifiable, privacy-preserving computation and data monetization on-chain.

Standout Quotes:

"Zero-knowledge proofs are critical enabling technology for Web3 to scale and go mainstream by enabling secure and private on-chain interactions."

"With zkVerify, we’re building the most efficient layer for verifying cryptographic proofs off-chain, cutting costs and staying on the innovation frontier."

"We see the future as a modular industry, with services like zkVerify providing specialized verification, similar to how Celestia handles data availability."

"zkVerify offers interoperability across chains, providing attestations and results that can be used on any blockchain where needed."

"As Web3 grows, privacy-preserving tech like ZK proofs will underpin our digital identities, financial interactions, and secure real-world data connections."

Contact Rob Viglione:

- Website: Horizen Labs

- Twitter | LinkedIn

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In this episode of Chainlens Spaces, host Conor Svensson speaks with Sergii Grybniak, Head of Research at Blue Wave Inc. and the Waterfall Network. Sergii discusses how BlockDAG technology can scale Ethereum’s Virtual Machine (EVM), the challenges of decentralization, and the journey of developing the Waterfall Network from his PhD research. The conversation highlights the importance of solving the scalability trilemma—balancing decentralization, security, and scalability—through Waterfall’s innovative architecture.

Key Moments:

- Introduction to DAGs: Sergii shares his research on Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) and how they enable more scalable and decentralized networks compared to traditional blockchain architecture.

- Creating Waterfall Network: From Sergii’s PhD research to launching the mainnet, Waterfall Network’s journey toward solving the blockchain trilemma.

- Decentralization and Validator Setup: Waterfall's focus on decentralization and its effort to lower hardware requirements, enabling users to run validators on minimal hardware.

- Virtually Unlimited Sharding: How Waterfall plans to implement virtually unlimited sharding to achieve both scalability and decentralization across multiple network subsystems.

- The Future of DAG Networks: Sergii discusses what’s next for the Waterfall Network and why DAG technology could represent the future of high-performance, decentralized systems.

Standout Quotes:

1. "Directed Acyclic Graphs enable parallelism on multiple levels, making networks more scalable and decentralized."

2. "The more decentralized Waterfall becomes, the more scalable it becomes—we’re working to achieve both scalability and decentralization at all levels.

3. "Our network’s hardware requirements are low enough that people can run nodes on devices as old as 10 or 15 years, enabling broad decentralization."

4. "Waterfall is pushing the boundaries of decentralization, aiming to operate with millions of validators across continents, with a consensus mechanism that handles high validator counts efficiently."

5. "Virtually unlimited sharding allows us to create an architecture that’s scalable and decentralized across all network subsystems, not just at a surface level."

Contact Sergii Grybniak:

- Website: Waterfall.network

- Twitter | LinkedIn

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In this episode of Chainlens Spaces, Conor Svensson speaks with Sam Battenally, co-founder of RISE Chain, about the future of Ethereum Layer 2 scaling and how RISE is positioned to deliver a "broadband moment" for Ethereum. Sam discusses the challenges of transaction throughput, the advantages of focusing on Giga gas over TPS, and how RISE aims to deliver high performance through parallelized EVM execution and state access. The conversation also touches on RISE’s roadmap, decentralized sequencing, and the future of Web3 scalability.

Key Moments:

Introduction to RISE Chain: Sam shares his background and journey from high-frequency trading and Robovault to co-founding RISE, a high-performance Ethereum Layer 2.

The Importance of Giga Gas: Sam explains why Giga gas is a better measure of blockchain capacity than transactions per second (TPS), and how RISE aims to reach over one Giga gas.

Parallelized EVM and Its Challenges: Sam delves into the technical challenges of parallelizing the EVM to allow for greater throughput and efficient transaction execution across multiple cores.

Decentralized Sequencing with Ethereum: Sam discusses RISE's approach to sequencing via Ethereum’s validators and why this credibly neutral infrastructure is vital to RISE’s long-term success.

Future of High-Performance DApps: Sam outlines the types of decentralized applications (DApps) RISE aims to support, including DeFi, SocialFi, and on-chain central limit order books, to unlock Web3's potential.

Standout Quotes:

"We're building the first Giga gas Layer 2, targeting two orders of magnitude more bandwidth than current Ethereum Layer 2s."  

"TPS can be misleading. 10,000 Uniswap transactions are very different from 10,000 ETH transfers—that's why Giga gas is a better metric."  

"Parallel EVM execution is vital for scaling Ethereum. It allows us to execute multiple transactions across different CPU cores at once."  

"Decentralized sequencing via Ethereum validators is a neutral and scalable solution for RISE, avoiding the centralization trap."  

Connect with RISE Chain

https://www.riselabs.xyz/
X - @rise_chain

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In this episode of Chainlens Spaces, host Conor Svensson is joined by the Sourcify Dev Team—Kaan, Marco, and Manu—to discuss the evolution of smart contract verification and the future of smart contract transparency. The team dives into the origins of Sourcify, its role in the Ethereum ecosystem, and how they’re solving critical challenges related to source code verification. The conversation covers Sourcify's roadmap, its integration into developer tools, and their push to decentralize the verification process.

Key Moments:

1. Origins of Sourcify: Kaan explains how Sourcify started as a side project of the Ethereum Foundation’s Solidity team and has since grown into its own team focused on transparency and open-source verification.

2. Importance of Source Code Verification: Kaan highlights the central role of source code verification in blockchain’s promise of transparency and decentralization.

3. Challenges and Roadmap: Marco discusses Sourcify’s progress, such as scaling to handle contract verifications every second, and upcoming goals like integrating more smart contract languages (like Vyper) and decentralizing the verification process.

4. Verifier Alliance: The team introduces the Verifier Alliance, which aims to create a federated open database of verified contracts, standardizing the way verifications are handled across multiple platforms.

5. Future of Decentralization and Verification: The team discusses long-term goals for decentralizing the entire verification process, making it possible for users to run Sourcify directly on their devices, and the potential role of technologies like IPFS and zero-knowledge proofs.

Standout Quotes:

1. "Source code verification is the basis of everything—without it, blockchain's transparency and decentralization wouldn't function."  

2. "Sourcify is moving towards decentralizing source code verification, allowing users to run the process directly on their devices."  

3. "We see the most contract verification activity happening on rollups like Optimism and Base—it's where the ecosystem is growing fastest."  

4. "The Verifier Alliance will create a federated database of verified contracts, ensuring we cover most of the contracts out there and bring more transparency to the ecosystem." 

Contact Sourcify:

• Website: sourcify.dev
• Twitter: @SourcifyEth

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In this episode of Chainlens Spaces, host Conor Svensson speaks with Andrii Kliui, Senior Blockchain Developer at Web3 Labs, about proxy contracts on Ethereum and their importance in smart contract development. Andrii explains the role of proxy contracts, their key advantages like upgradability and gas efficiency, and highlights different Ethereum proxy standards. He also shares how Chainlens Blockchain Explorer helps users understand and interact with proxy contracts even when the contract is unverified.

Key Moments:

1. Introduction to Proxy Contracts: Andrii defines what proxy contracts are and how they delegate function calls to another contract.

2. Advantages of Proxy Contracts: He discusses key advantages such as upgradability, gas efficiency, better security, and modularity.

3. Different Proxy Contract Standards: Andrii highlights five Ethereum proxy standards, including ERC 1967 and the diamond standard (ERC 2535), explaining their use cases.

4. How Chainlens Supports Proxy Contracts: Andrii explains how Chainlens can identify proxy contracts and provide users with interaction capabilities, even with unverified contracts.

5. Recognizing Proxy Contracts: The process of identifying proxy contracts through bytecode analysis and providing users with detailed information on contract types and functionality.

Standout Quotes:

1. "Proxy contracts allow developers to upgrade smart contracts without losing state, enabling better flexibility and long-term contract maintenance." 

2. "Using proxy contracts can help save on gas costs by allowing developers to only update the logic while retaining the same contract state."

3. "Chainlens can recognize unverified proxy contracts by analyzing the bytecode, providing users with insights into the contract type and its functionality."

4. "There are different proxy standards, like ERC 1967 and ERC 2535, with varying levels of modularity and flexibility depending on the contract complexity."

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In this episode of Chainlens Spaces, Conor Svensson, founder of Chainlens and Web3 Labs, speaks with Arthur Remy, Core Product Manager at Verax Attestation Registry, a decentralized attestation registry built on the Linea Network. Arthur shares his journey from entering the crypto space in 2017 to working with ConsenSys and Verax. He explains the significance of attestations in Web3, their growing use cases, and how Verax aims to foster identity and reputation solutions for decentralized systems. This conversation explores how attestations can provide verifiable, public information on-chain, such as proof of humanity and reputation, and how they complement decentralized identity technologies.

Key Moments:

• Arthur’s background in crypto and product management at Linea and Verax.
• What are attestations? How they provide verifiable, public information on-chain and their potential for reputation systems.
• Current use cases for attestations, including proof of humanity and smart contract audits.
• Comparing NFTs and attestations—why attestations are better suited for certain types of information than NFTs.
• The role of Verax in building reputation systems and fostering decentralized identity on Linea and other chains.
• Privacy considerations in attestations and how zero-knowledge proofs could be used to maintain privacy.
• Attestations vs. POAPs—the differences and how attestation registries can add more depth to attendance-based reputation.
• Web3 identity and reputation—how Verax helps users control their data and reputation across platforms without relying on Web2 intermediaries.
• Verax’s future goals, including fostering innovative use cases for attestations and integrating more with security and reputation systems.

Standout Quotes:

1. "Attestations are public information that you want to verify on-chain and store in a verifiable and immutable way."
2. "Attestation registries are a new primitive for storing information on-chain, allowing more composability and easier discovery of attestations compared to NFTs."
3. "At Verax, we are working to foster identity and reputation use cases on-chain, where users control their data and benefit from it, unlike Web2’s value extraction."
4. "Verax enables platforms to look at a decentralized registry and display data such as a vendor's reputation, providing users with control over their information."

Contact Arthur Remy:

• Website: ver.ax
• Twitter | LinkedIn

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