Jordi Alexander on BTC vs. Alts, Market Maker Dynamics, and Macro Outlook

One of the core issues we heard about awhile back on our podcast with Jon Kol from Hyperlane was the ‘indexing’ problem of the modular expansion. Essentially, if we are going to exist in a world of 1000s of chains, we’ll also need to have a streamlined process for data. This is where yesterdays post with Lava Network fits in the puzzle (RPCs). Staying on the data tooling pattern, today’s post is an interview from ETHDenver with Jack, the founder of Routescan. Andy and Jack discussed Routescan’s journey over the past few months highlighting the growth of their expanding community with over 50,000 users. They also touched on Jack’s approach to embracing modularity by unlocking new block explorers across appchains, rollup frameworks, and subnets. Enjoy this today’s interview live from ETHDenver and Modular March.

24 Maalis 202412min

Wow. What a day yesterday. Our modular market map absolutely blew up on X. Including in this map, under data tooling, is Lava Network. Lava is modular RPC data access provider for modular chains. Our discussion today is centered around how Lava's modular data access layer is facilitating better connectivity across various blockchain environments. A Remote Procedure Call (RPC), is a vital mechanism for accessing blockchain data. This enables users to perform a wide array of actions, such as checking balances and executing transactions, through effective communication with nodes. The idea here is simple: IF the modular expansion plays out how we think it will, we will have thousands of modular chains which will need RPCs so users can interact onchain. The current solutions are not very extensible and if they are, they lack privacy and/or speed. Lava will take marketshare from the big names of the space who have been monoliths for sometime. Rob sat down at ETHDenver with founders Yair & Gil to discuss where Lava fits in the modular thesis.

23 Maalis 202416min

Dymension was the second massive modular launch following Celestia. Yesterday, the first RollApp on Dymension, NIM Network announced their genesis rolldrop to $DYM stakers, Pudgy Penguins, $PRIME holders and other communities. Of course, we asked Yishay what he thinks of NIM and other RollApps deploying on Dymension. We have been strong believers of Dymension since the middle of last year and brought on Yishay, the founder, to discuss the progress since inception and the evolution of their rollapps. Dymension is taking a phased deployment approach to their technology to focus on stability, liquidity, and seamless interoperability with their eIBC implementation utilizing an intents based interop solution. Yishay spoke on the importance of scaling in a modular fashion by providing their ecosystem RollApps with grants and other support. As we navigate through Dymension’s architectural evolution from “2D to 4D”, we embrace this new modular ecosystem being built part by part. Watch this video for a catchup into the Dymension ecosystem.

23 Maalis 202430min

The explosion of modular appchains is happening. Head over to Celenium, Celestia’s main block explorer, to see the chains using Celestia for modular DA. These are typically happening through RaaS providers who offer a seamless setup process. Today we are focused Gelato’s approach to modular appchains, and specifically how founder Luis sees similarities in how Web2 & Web3 scale. We learned how Web3 is drawing inspiration from the evolution of web2 infrastructure, and whereby applying the principles of modularity, we can address scaling challenges effectively. Another interesting, yet relatively experimental concept is zero gas appchains. Its a bit confusing to us how this would really work in practice, so we asked Luis about the edge cases and possibilities of spam attacks. He answered quite well. We also dove into the modular framework which Gelato provides for builders, allowing them to be selective in their modular chain design based on the specific usecase at hand. Overall, we enjoyed this presentation and hope you do as well!

23 Maalis 202445min

In a world of 1000s of rollups and chains, the problem to tackle is unification of these otherwise isolated execution environments. In today’s Modular March presentation, we sit down with NEAR founder Illia to take a look at their data availability layer, account aggregation, and chain abstraction toolkit. We ask Illia about the potential of NEAR DA, how sharding really works for the L1, and his plans to grow adoption for the DA solution compared to others on the market. However, what was particularly interesting to us was this idea of account aggregation whereby enabling a single wallet to participate across multiple crypto experience, NEAR is building a better end user experience. Illia went on to illustrate his larger vision for chain abstraction of the modular future and how he sees this playing out in the near future. NEAR will continue to play an important role in connecting the modular expansion at the user facing level, in today’s presentation you’ll learn how they plan to do this.

23 Maalis 202453min

We were speaking to a liquid fund in Denver who just wouldn’t deploy capital into DeFi products on EVM because of the risk of re-entrancy bugs and other exploits. However, what they did mention was they wanted to deploy into Movement’s upcoming L2 and they are actively deployed on Aptos, because of the security of the MOVE programming language. When we heard this, we knew our bullish conviction in Movement since summer of last year was going to pay off. In today’s Modular March presentation we speak with Rushi Manche, co-founder of Movement Labs, and ask him “Why Movement?” like, really, why? He took us through why he’s so bullish on M2, along with the MoveVM. Rushi’s energy and ambition is rooted in addressing some of the most pressing issues facing blockchain adoption today: enhancing security, reducing transaction fees, and creating an open framework for developers to build. Initially created by the minds at Facebook for the Diem project, MOVE programming language stands out for its security and robustness… But, is it really the best tech? As you know, we’ve set out in modular march to not be a shillfest, rather to seek the truth amongst the noise and learn alongside you. We do just that in today’s presentation. Enjoy!

23 Maalis 202434min

The value accrual model in the modular stack is akin to that of the rise of the early internet. According to Tarun, founder of Gauntlet and a prominent angel investor, we will see more and more specialized usecases for applications which are highly expressive. As a result of this, the need for a modular stack becomes more and more apparent. We really enjoyed this conversation which drew inspiration from the evolution of the internet and computing to paint a clearer picture of the modular future. We’ve been quite deep in the technical weeds during Modular March (exactly where we want to be), so it was refreshing to host a discussion that goes beyond technicalities and instead touches on the practical application layer of modular blockchains. Hope you enjoy and feel free share with your friends who are trying to answer the question “why modularity?” & “where does the value accrue in the modular stack?” for the future of blockchain scaling.

23 Maalis 202431min

One of the biggest things we are leaning into is the design choices behind the certain builders decisions. We really want to understand why projects are choosing execution environments in specific modular architectures. In today’s video we sit down with Cartesi’s co-founder Felipe to gather insights for builders. We take a dive into the differences between app specific rollups and general purpose chains and how choosing a modular stack composition based on the usecase. Felipe sheds light on the “cone of innovation,” a model created by Cartesi which illustrates the dynamic interplay between computational capacity and data availability. By emphasizing the importance of tailored execution environments, Felipe highlights the need for careful consideration of various factors such as computational intensity, developer resources, and privacy concerns. The optionality of execution environments and the strategic decisions behind them play a pivotal role in shaping the future of modular blockchain applications. One of the core reasons were here is to give builders a choice.

23 Maalis 202447min