Meta Pool: Lessons From Five Years of Liquid Staking

0:00 Well, I am very pleased to be able to bring to you, share with you hopefully the the first entry of hopefully a long series of episodes that we are going to be releasing, talking to a lot of builders, a lot of folks who have been in the existing blockchain space and folks who are coming from the institutional side and actually building the technology that's bringing digital asset technology, blockchain techn technology and what can be built on top of it to the world and doing a lot of that.

0:35 Pioneering that needs to be done and experimenting on the edge in you know whether that be startups with as little as one two people to organizations with tens of thousands of employees and you know hundreds of billions trillions under asset management. So this is the first conversation that we're having under the finality podcast name and we were lucky enough to have a wonderful talk with Claudio who's a co-founder at Meta Pool who has been in the blockchain space for over half a decade at this point coming up on six to seven years.

1:19 They were one of the first teams in the NEAR ecosystem and we get to hear exactly, you know, how they kind of found their way into that and obviously Meta Pool is very heavily involved in the liquid staking side of the NEAR ecosystem and also some other ecosystems as well like we discussed how they're getting into the Solana ecosystem and you know more that they've been working on since then but we get to hear a lot about Claudio's 6 plus year exper experience and how they've built and how that the way that they've been building and shipping things has changed and how you know recent market dynamics have made them see what is the actual opportunity and what is the magnitude of the opportunity and what are they actually going after next so got to cover

2:07 A whole lot of interesting things in this discussion with Claudio but of course first before we dive in my name is Owen I'm a co-founder here at Guardian we've been doing digital assets security in the blockchain space, working with some of the most highly targeted organizations in the world that have billions of dollars in digital assets at risk and they're constantly being tested and they are certainly a target.

2:32 Working with those teams to figure out you know first of all how can we have absolute smart contract security and then how do we actually secure the entire digital asset stack involved around what sits on a blockchain. So, of course, we are here and and our vision is really to be able to empower innovators to redefine the way that money, information, and assets move around the world.

2:55 And we are excited to be able to show up every day and solve the hard problems and and build the solutions that need to exist for that to happen and for the world's finances to come on chain safely. So, without further ado, let us get into this conversation with Claudio from Meta Pool. But to be honest, I always I love to start things off and just ask folks about like how did you find your way into DeFi because I know you came in 2020.

3:25 What was the path in because it's always some circuitous route.

3:31 Yeah, it's it's not a straightforward route for sure. so yeah, so for me is I always been involved in software.

3:42 At that time I was working for Atlassian. and but I heard about Bitcoin back in 2017. Really didn't think too much about it.

3:53 Yeah.

3:54 Just some some crazy kids doing stuff with some servers in the university

4:00 And then and kind of Yeah. Well, that's going to get you in trouble. So, I kind of stayed away from that. Yeah.

4:07 But then there was this 2019 how I got involved with blockchain technology was that I had to send money over from Mexico to Spain

4:21 And so they they had the euro at that time.

4:24 The issue here is that at that time I had a Citibank account. The reason that I have that and this is crazy because I'm I'm originally from Tijuana. So for us, the border between the US and Mexico is kind of none, right? Just go up and north and whatever.

4:40 They we didn't have too much issues with visas or anything like that.

4:45 And so it was pretty normal to have a US bank account, right? So having access to US dollars was never an issue for us, at least

4:53 For people that are northerners and from the border.

4:56 And so and Citibank at that time operated in Spain. So it was a pretty straightforward. So I deposited whatever dollars, Mexican pesos to US dollars, right? And then from US dollars to euros.

5:09 And normally since it was a from Citibank to Citibank branch, it take around maybe 72 hours, which at that time was really good. It wasn't like seven days or eight days.

5:20 Yeah.

5:21 But the fees were like like crunching me at that time. I think that time the euro was around precoid and it was around like 24 dollar 24 pesos per one euro and I was getting cramp on the fees and I was like okay like there's needs to be a way and so at that time Bitso was a centralized exchange in Mexico they were just starting to launch with Ripple and Ripple had zero fees and so what I had to do well again running through hoops right so I created a Coinbase account with my ID in Spain and everything and so and my Bitso account and I start to send XRP

6:03 So no fees. Mhm.

6:05 So pretty at that time 2019 was really kind of like XRP army, right? And so it was it was kind of a little bit going up into right. Not not crazy,

6:16 But it was really good because

6:18 I sent over my XRP and I even got a little bit of extra. I made money, right?

6:24 Reverse fees.

6:25 But then the most important thing was the offramping. The off-ramping was no fees with XRP. And so I said, "Shit, this is this is it." And so like like this is some it's it's not easy,

6:39 But for somebody that has some technical knowledge, this is super good.

6:44 Like [ __ ] the fees, [ __ ] the banks, right? Like because what happens sometimes is that the the the wire didn't go through even though I went to my branch.

6:54 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like I went to my branch like the the the cashier already know knew all the deals because I was doing that every month. Uh-huh.

7:03 Sending money to to relatives and then sometimes it didn't go through and now you have to send an email and it was like for €300 or something, right? It was like why would I bother like like stressing?

7:17 Did you have at the time like services like Moneygram? Do you remember those?

7:23 Yeah. No, no, no. Money Gram was but but they they they just Yeah. The fees are I'm not going to pay that. Like I was I was okay paying the fees on the bank but not on Moneygram.

7:33 It's just a fee for you to send and a fee for you to retrieve.

7:37 Hell no. Like that was not

7:39 Like people who use and money is really big in Latin America, right? And in Africa it well it used to be but then people understand that there's m much be a better way. But sometimes people don't know. And this is the lack of information. It's not the lack of wanting to save money. It's just information, right? For for them, it's it's easy because it's on a 7-Eleven or it's in a convenience store, right?

8:04 And it's also convenient for the other person receiving the money, right?

8:09 And so that's how I got involved. That was my first like aha moment that this is going to be something big.

8:14 Yeah.

8:16 I didn't know at that time how big. And so fast forward to 2020 late 2019, I got invited to CoinList. So I got an invite for for beta testing CoinList at that time like back in the Silicon Valley days. I was really have good connections there and so I got an invite to Angel List. I managed to do a couple of like angel rounds there.

8:43 Very little money but anyhow but it was interesting because you need to understand that in Latin America raising money from venture money was non-existent. This is 2015 2016. It was just unheard of. And angel list at that time for me provided something that was that's that also an aha moment. Hey, you can crowdfund right but even though it was all only for accredited investors and it has it it had its red tape right at the end of the day but they invited me to CoinList and so I was fortunate enough to participate in all of the CoinList offerings from 200 late 2008.

9:21 Yeah, late 2019.

9:23 So, I got into Solana, I got into NEAR, I got into Internet Computer Protocol, I got into AVAX, I got into Rally and a few others that I can't I I I can't recall right now, but those was those were the good ones.

9:37 Yeah, probably a whole lot of bad ones as well.

9:39 And so, yeah. Yeah. And also, yeah, a lot of noise as well, but also good. And and so what happened there is that being like a total geek, right? It's like you go to the forums and whatnot, right? Or in that time wiki pages, right?

9:54 Yeah.

9:56 And and so I started tinkering around around a couple of the of the protocols. Solana was one of them really like the first first iterations were really bad. Network was going down. not a lot of documentation as well. And you need to understand that my background is working with Atlassian. I'm working with Google, working with Facebook, whatever.

10:18 And so at my past startup, we were the first company to use the YouTube API. And so we were I was really used to having like from A to Z

10:29 And a person I can talk to or chat and here was

10:35 A a wiki page and then Discord.

10:40 Discord

10:41 And I was like is first thing I said to myself was why did I put money in this? like I'm going to a game chat application that at that time I didn't know like for me the the the only introduction to that type of world was Twitch and it was because I s a couple guys but I was always more of a of a not getting really involved in any of the of the chatting or whatnot

11:08 And here with Discord you did you did have to go right and I was like oh god the avatars and all that stuff I was like I don't understand right and so through the NEAR Discord I met my co-founder because at that time NEAR was just putting on M was just about to launch on mainet and they were allowing people to basically migrate their CoinList wallet to their NEAR wallet and then stake it

11:44 And that's how I first experienced DeFi because this is okay. I'm going to go grab my tokens and I'm going to deposit them in this smart contract. I am the owner of that and then I'm going to get paid for it in order to secure that network. It was a little bit kind of abstract at that time.

12:05 And so my thinking was, and this is I this is I don't know if this is very Latin American or Mexican or what whatnot, but I went to a Discord and said, "Hey, like who's who is the one that is running a node from Latin America and so they pointed to Lucio

12:26 And so and but then okay, okay, Lucio, why is he Brazilian or whatnot?" And so what I did was basically I started chatting with Lucio in English, right? And yeah, well blah blah blah blah blah. Oh, you Yeah, I'm here. I'm And I said, "Where are you from?" Buenocidis. I'm like, "No way." Like in Spanish. Like, "Dude, why are we speaking in speaking in in in in English?"

12:52 Yeah.

12:53 And so, and so basically that's how I started that relationship. I started I ended up staking my my my initial NEAR on that node and then Lucio came to me with the idea about liquid staking and now that was 2020

13:13 It was all testnet and at the end of the day like okay so it is a virtual representation of the amount of tokens you stake plus the staking rewards and it's on a nonre rebasing which means that it's always acrewing independent of where you send that token which is an IOU and I was like okay this is this is kind of scammy right like it's like can can can this hold and like because at the end of the day you're delegating that staking rewards and the initial and the initial asset to another smart contract So, it was a little bit of kind of like a Hail Mary moment where you're trying to get in but you don't really know and there's not a lot of information and you have to make the bet.

14:19 Yeah.

14:19 And that's how I started with DeFi. basically getting to know the developer behind the smart contract and then take making an an educated bet, right? But in my case, it was a hailmary because I was not I couldn't read Rust language. I like the the non-custodial custodial solutions were like kind of abstract at that time, right? there was only one wallet which was at that time was maintained by the NEAR team and I was like okay where am I putting my investment in right so for me it was the hell Mary at the end of the day everything turned out good we ended up creating Meta Pool and and we had we had this moment kind of like on the movie the social network where Justin Bieber drops the D right at initially Meta Pool was called

15:20 Metastakingpool.com

15:23 And I was talking to Lucio was like that's too big man let's drop staking.

15:28 Yeah

15:29 And then just create Meta Pool and was and the the.com I was like no man this is an application let's do the av created metapool.app a as our main URL.

15:43 And so I was always the kind of like the business side behind it. And I previously raised money as well. And so we had had kind of like that experience.

15:52 And then 2021 just hit, right? It was DeFi summer. We started integrating with Dexus. We started to understand lending and borrowing as well. And since this is a non-rebasing asset, so it means that it's accuring value every second, every epoch, sorry, which is 6 hours. So then you can create a self-paying loan as well. That was a big narrative back in 2021.

16:19 And so we launched with no funding, no grants, nothing because at that time I was working full-time for Atlassian. And what I told Lucio was like, "Dude, I'm not going to like I have a really great salary here, man. Why would I just drop this and go this DeFi route and with all these avatars and psudonmous folks, right?

16:42 I didn't even get I didn't even understand the crypto culture at that time.

16:48 Like I said,

16:50 I understand for a lot of the US residents that they they they had to go sudonmous, right? to protect their their their their personas. But anyhow, I I still didn't kind of understand that. And what I said to Lucio is like, "Dude, like I've launched a couple of products. I helped launch I built products that go from zero to 1 million monthly recurring revenue at Atlassian."

17:14 So, I've already done that.

17:15 And what I told him is like, dude, like I I can launch this. I see no issue in that. It's pretty clear value proposition. What's our target audience? like that. I I already have my own playbooks, but I said like like let's just launch it. Let's do 3 months and with 3 months we'll see if this is sticks, if this has any any any stickiness to it and then let's try to figure it out.

17:42 And so we launched back in in in August. so we just passed our our our fifth anniversary August 22nd in internally it's August 20 22nd

17:56 Outside we say it's August 23rd because on August 22nd we put it on

18:01 On mainet right we tested it

18:04 We did our fair share of of security as much as we could right and back in 2021 there was not a lot of

18:11 Yeah and and it was Rust language right there was just a few guys that really understood like the logic behind a NEAR smart contract, let al let alone an ERC20, right? It's like a it's a NEAR smart contract.

18:26 And so luckily the core team from NEAR gave us like a a good code review and whatnot.

18:33 Mhm.

18:34 And with that kind of like a blessing and we were off, right? The next 6 months is just a blur. In 72 hours, we went from zero TVL

18:47 To 26 million.

18:50 Holy [ __ ] That's

18:51 And at that time, I was like, and I was like, yeah, 72 hours without sleeping to be honest, right? The Discord was like puking people there trying to like lock everything up, right? And then the scammers also come in and like what the [ __ ] and then grabbing as much folks that I could trust from a Discord server to moderate it, man, because I didn't know nothing.

19:18 And it was pretty crazy, right?

19:21 And then NEAR goes also parabolic at that time, right? It hits $8, it hits $9, $10, $16, $18, right?

19:30 We were also printing staking rewards to be honest, right? And so it was very a very good year, right? And you don't understand until until it's done, right?

19:44 And Claudio that that sudden surge that you saw in your volume like you said the next 6 months suddenly became a blur. Was that also a big part of it? Would you say it was more the fact that you know your solution here just was very much in demand and there was nothing like it or would you say that the way you approached it obviously because you also say your experience your background you know where you were working before you have constant experience where you're you're launching products and turning them over to million-dollar projects.

20:16 So was it more your direction something you did? What was it exactly that caused that surge? Well, it was a it was first mover advantage, right? At that time, there was no other LST NEAR and that's what I told Lucio. Like I said, hey, is there anything like this in the on the market? No. Then let's [ __ ] go.

20:37 Like at the end of the day, I said like we we can't wait. and even even at that time Proximity Labs which was kind of like the the arm the DeFi arm for for the NEAR ecosystem kind of was coordinating the launches of different projects. So we got in contact with them and they say hey we were supposed to launch in June.

21:02 The issue for the the reason for that is that in September it's the it's it's Atlassian's big conference at that at that way back

21:10 And so I said hey dude like I cannot launch six weeks from there because I also have other launches and I have like 20 people that I depend on that I do a good job like it's not only this and so we wanted to launch in June

21:26 Okay

21:27 And they kept pushing like no do July and then because we need to launch several decks and then Aurora was also launching at that time which is an L2

21:38 And then like we were I was like oh dude like I I don't understand and Lucio was like hey these guys are kind of core team let's just listen to them right

21:47 And just take it from there and it was it was good that I and and this is kind of like the symbiotic relationship between me and Lucio right even though he's technical he kind of has a feeling for kind of the the ecosystem around DeFi applications more than me.

22:06 And so he said, "Yeah, because we need a DEX because once you have the token, you need to put it on on a DEX, pair it with the NEAR and then you create and then you put incentives around it and that's how you create demand loops, right?" and and yeah, it was first mover advantage. That's that's the first one.

22:26 The second one is that

22:29 Lucio really created the first nonrebasing LST in the world like the reason we launched we we raised from Dragonfly IOSG ventures right and there's a couple of big guys Dharma Capital it was because of this technology innovation that Lucio created right I had the ability to tell the story and and really put things in perspective and and drive and play hard ball with investors because we said, "Hey, we're doing at that time we were doing like around 3,000 NEAR per month,

23:06 $60,000 at that time." And I said, "Like, like why we need you? What what do what do you bring to the table?"

23:13 Yeah.

23:14 And that's the conversation we have with Hive, right? at that time, like Dragonfly was just getting started. It was just Hiv's money. and I said and and when I and when we talked to his eve, we also dodged a few bullets there. because we were it was a FTX's fund. I can't recall I I forgot their name.

23:36 Oh, yeah. Yeah.

23:39 Blew up.

23:40 The one that blew up. Well, it was either that fund Three Arrows Capital or Dragonfly to lead our round. Three Arrows Capital was at that time like the the kind of like the hottest venture firm. But for me and I met I met them here in Mexico. They were they were flying in to go to Ethereum Rio.

24:10 And I hosted them for a dinner here. And a crazy thing that happened was that they said, "Okay, like how much you're gonna be how much you're gonna be raising? and when you raise money from us and your investors, we'll give you 10% APR on your stables if you give it to us."

24:32 And I was like, "Uh, I haven't we haven't even closed and you're pitching me to put my money, your money, and my investor's money to you." and with the and yeah kind of like a a very I don't know wasn't didn't feel right didn't feel right that at that time right and and we dodged the bullet on that one right because I talked to Lucio hey they're offering us 10% on on on on our on all our tokens our stables and our staking rewards and he said yeah that's a good that's a good business, but at the end of the day, that that yield is not real.

25:18 It's not coming from where is it coming from, right?

25:21 It's not worth the risk.

25:22 Bills were not Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I don't know what that and and I and we had a small conversation like is this custodial non-custodial? And say, no, it's a it's non-custodial but that but there's a part that's custodial and 80% of those assets is are on a custodial wallet. and who has access to those and we kind of went into it and they kind of didn't come back to us

25:47 And then we we dropped those conversations.

25:52 With the with FTX's fund, we said no because at that time there was a couple of projects that were very upset on the way they were working with them and so we went with Dragonfly.

26:05 But yeah, we we were lucky all around.

26:08 We were lucky all around for sure. Yeah, it was. I mean, looking back, I guess it really was like a minefield like with with hindsight as 2020.

26:17 Yeah. Yeah.

26:18 There's a lot that blew up

26:20 In that area in general. But, yeah. So, I'm I'm interested. Do you guys use Do you find yourself using Discord that much these days? Because I I feel like it was the place where onboarded, you know, probably hundreds of people, but I feel like we don't really use it at all anymore. We we use it more of customer support than anything else.

26:44 Kind of like ticketing

26:47 Because kind of like still it is the go-to place for people to get on boarded

26:51 Even though by now like LSTs are a commodity, right?

26:56 Like people really understand

26:58 They much rather go to Twitter and and and add you than anything else. And and for certain countries is really restrictive. For example, for our community in in Thailand we use WhatsApp. In Indonesia we use WhatsApp. Then for for Korea we have Cacao. And so there's a couple of like we we at the end of the day you have to cater to the needs of your users.

27:30 And putting everybody on a bucket on discord is just we we quickly understood that it was not going to fly but still but people kind of are comfortable being onboarded there and then customer support is done elsewhere.

27:46 Yeah. So I mean let's talk about the last year because it's probably been a big difference then you know 2021 and and starting out. So I guess you know had all this initial success, initial traction, you guys raised and then obviously you know didn't immediately lose it all in in FTX and and three arrows capital which is great.

28:12 How much did you guys raise by the way?

28:15 No we're I we don't disclose how much we raised.

28:17 Oh okay. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. but you know hopefully it was enough to I mean it was a good perfect timing to raise and then you know obviously I think 2022 maybe like November stuff started to fall off.

28:33 Yeah. Yeah. FT FTX collapse, right? And we were never really and this is something we we got emails from everybody, right? Because most projects did engage in this kind of like three arrows capital schemes, right? Where they were grabbing order stables, putting it either in Celsius or any of these other platforms and getting a yield and kind of paying operations with that.

28:59 Mhm.

29:00 We didn't do anything around that. What I told Lucio is like we grabb staking rewards and that's what we use to pay operations for the big projects, big initiatives, sponsorships or whatnot. We use our funding and that's the way we roll, right? Luckily for us, we we managed to like one of our modes was basically most of our team members were in Argentina, in Mexico and Latam.

29:24 So our burn rate was not really high.

29:27 Yeah. And so and we always kept a tight tight ship as well. and so for us it was a very important part of running a business because we saw it as that, right?

29:44 Yeah.

29:45 We treated our contributors kind of like as employees as well, right? even though we're a DAO and that was the other thing, right? at that time Dows were really like part of this part of the structure for raising as well.

30:01 And so we we felt that it was really good. and so we kind of use the structure use our governance tokens called mpDAO to well support our investors right and then the community as well even though that was the biggest lesson. because I think MakerDAO is a perfect example, right? Like they went in from being full on a DAO and then kind of dropping everything and then creating Sky.

30:31 We didn't go that route. We kind of like we're still kind of like doc footing everything. Y

30:36 It's painful because reality is that there's no tested business model around a Dow right now in the sense of business that that it's sustainable, right? There's no sustainable framework that I know of around a DAO. And so we're kind of like that we're kind of on a standstill right now with that. We kind of put everything on hold because it was just not not happening.

31:03 We even went and did this crazy thing. and I'm saying crazy because it is. We grabbed all the staking rewards that we were generating back in 2023, puted it on the DAO, and distributed to token holders. So, we managed to distribute close to $1.5 million during 2023, 2024, and 2025.

31:29 Mhm. sad to say that didn't generate a lot of traction. Like it it generated traction but not enough to make it it wasn't no the I'm going to backtrack on this one. It wasn't sustainable

31:42 Like any incentive program in crypto none of it is sustainable long term. Mhm.

31:53 And so that was that the the biggest lesson that we got from from coming from 2022 into 2023 where we said we thought hey everybody's bleeding. Let's do this structure where like more staking come in more distribution to folks but at the end of the day people were just bleeding the the protocol for what it what it was worth.

32:15 Yeah.

32:15 Which is totally fine. And at the end of the day, that's market dynamics. And Lucio is very very anarchist in that way, right? Like let let the market dictate, let the market and and I was like, "Okay, I'm going to follow this lead." but at the end of the day, we kind of like I we kind of stopped.

32:35 We said, you know, Lucio, this is not going to we need like fullon bearer nuclear bare market in 2025. Like dude, we need to stop. Like we need to just stop. Like we need to just

32:48 Go back 20 spaces, right? Or back to go and and just lick our wounds and and men up and women up and let's and move forward with a different structure. And then

33:02 And if people understand,

33:06 Then those are people we need to we will be taking care of, right? and and and gladly a lot of our community members understood, our investors understood as well. And so and here we are still trying to figure it out. but but yeah, we we also and and coming into 2025, right, we faced kind of like our biggest and that was one of our biggest challenges, but the universe had something more for us, right?

33:34 And so we had one of our biggest hacks. Well, the only h we at that time we were always very upfront about hey our contracts have been audited.

33:44 We haven't had any security issues. But then 2025 comes in we start to diversify. We were first only liquid staking on NEAR. Then in 2022 going to 2023 we diversify. We launch on Ethereum with the distributed validator technology DVT technology with SSV networks and we launch on Ethereum. Then we launch on Aurora, then we launch on ICP, then we launch also on story and so a few we start to diversify.

34:15 The issue with that

34:17 Is that yes, you can be an expert in Rust language, but when you go to solidity, there's where there's going to be gaps. There's going to be knowledge gaps because that's it's it's natural. Nobody can at that time there was no AI,

34:31 There was no Vive coding, right? at least to go through your your your code base and so and so yeah anyhow so we started we launched on Ethereum and u in 2023 we did the proper audits right but at the end of the day even with proper audits right there's humans behind looking at your code maybe today it has changed quite a bit but at the end of the day it's a And and I'm not throwing here anybody under the bus, right?

35:06 We have good partners, Halborn, right? And we have a few others, but it's we're human, right? And humans make mist mistakes. So, we got hacked in June of last year. the the hack was basically allowing people well the hacker what it did is it minted more of our LST close to 23 million.

35:34 It was in the headlines that we got hacked for $23 million. Reality it was it wasn't

35:39 Because at the end of the day we did safeguard the assets right anybody that had minted at that time was called mpETH. There was no you could redeem it. There was no issue. The issue was is with our fast unstake feature which is basically a one-sided pool. You grab you have ETH on one side, you grab your MP, you burn it, and you get ETH back.

36:06 The total of that pool was around $125,000. And so that's what the hacker really took. Yes, it minted 23 million but there was no markets neither on in base. Oh no, it was Linea and Ethereum. there was no no assets no there was no liquidity in Linea and on and on mainet to support those 23 that 23 million hack.

36:35 But they got away with 120,000. luckily here there was a white hacker that front run the attack and so we managed to recuperate most like yeah all of it. $122,000 we recuperated.

36:51 Nice.

36:52 We paid him a nice bounty for it

36:54 And and yeah and it was it was 96 hours without with without sleeping but but at the end all good.

37:03 And always a little pug. Claudio, did you have obviously you mentioned of course you had one security partner involved that critical so exactly that's what I was going to ask did you have multiple onchain security partners involved which you answered right now it seemed to be the case and both of these of course unfortunately critical was was able to get through even though they audited.

37:30 Yeah. I mean you guys did everything that projects are supposed to do multiple audits and it still happens.

37:37 Yes. And the issue here was not so much for the staking contract it was for the fast unstake contract. Right. So this is very important. like my two cents for for folks out there mo it is good practice to create modular modular smart contracts or different smart contracts

38:00 For a couple for modules in in in your DeFi application. liquid staking is no no no stranger to that. So you have your staking smart contract

38:10 Which is the one controlling the minting and burning of the LST,

38:15 The distribution of the main asset to the different validator nodes and and having a good ledger to avoid also rogue validators to come in into that pool and contaminate it as well. And then you have the fast on stake feature which at that time was quite

38:36 Which was the novelty at that time right back in 2021 right that you can instead of waiting

38:42 Six epochs or like seven days or whatever you just get it quickly with just a minor fee that you're paying.

38:50 And so that was that was the main main main issue we we had. but anyhow but it's it's just yeah for as much as prepared as you can be understand that you need to be prepared for the eventuality of having a security issue right and just have the right people around you and and and to be fair also the security the security teams that audited smart contract they also did like their proper followup once the once the hack got announced Right.

39:24 And so, so we I I I can't I I can't complain about their level of professionalism. at the end of the day, like I said, everybody's human and everybody makes mistakes, right? The only thing you can counter is

39:39 They could do

39:40 Yeah, sorry. Go right ahead.

39:41 The least they could do, I was going to say, cuz they their job was to protect your code, right? And they let a critical slip through which luckily we had a good Samaritan cross our path. You know, he he returned the money, but least they could do is is provide follow-up audits considering what happened.

40:01 Exactly.

40:02 Yeah. And this was in what was it? early 2025, I think. I remember seeing this on the timeline, but it was early 2025, wasn't it?

40:14 Yes. Yes, it was June June if I can recall. Yeah, 17th June 2025

40:21 Was when the hack happened.

40:24 Yeah. And I mean that was kind of I guess I we would say maybe it was like the middle of the bare market. So I guess already you know you guys have it's been tough and then I guess that hits. Where are you guys at June of 2025? Like what's the team morale and the direction right now?

40:42 Yeah. So, so right now it's a little bit better to be honest. So, so like Ethereum wasn't wasn't a a great success. We we have around 1.2

40:55 1 point yeah 1.3 million in TVL. Most of our TVL is in is in NEAR where we have close to 108 million right now. and so yeah, we we're still continuing to operate as I said before. H we're still bullish on in crypto. We did have to downsize because it was this past bare market was quite brutal pricewise and and more importantly demandwise as well.

41:27 There's not the reality is there's not a lot of new people coming in

41:32 And we kind of and you any any industry needs that

41:38 Crypto being no exception, right? and so I think overall as an industry we we could have done better in the sense of under and really open things up to really to the broader audience. I think we never really got an opportunity for it outside of the crypto casinos, right? Which is fine. I kind of understand that. But at the end of the day, if we wanted for this industry to be much larger, we needed and especially in DeFi, we do we do needed to do more of a a broader and industrywide onboarding instead of fighting for who was the fastest blockchain, which to be honest by now, nobody gives a [ __ ]

42:30 Right?

42:31 Exactly.

42:32 How decentralized your network is, nobody gives a [ __ ] right? it's it's sad to say it's important the decentralization aspect right

42:40 Just for when you're on boarding somebody they need they need to find a value proposition around what what software or solution you're offering to them. Stable coins are a big play but at the end of the day the infrastructure behind it plays a very secondary role right and so that's kind of like tough lessons learned that we're getting right now.

43:05 Kind of like licking a little bit of our wounds and trying to understand what's the next phase. I think this AI boom is important because it's going to the payment rails for that is going to be crypto for sure but again like coming from big SAS there's a consolidation play that's going to happen and and we need to understand like what's the next bounce of the ball and that and that we're as an LST protocol we're also trying to figure it out where do we stand right and And it's just something that keeps us awake awake at night but excited during the morning, right?

43:46 Like what's the next step? Where do we see ourselves getting into?

43:50 And so and so yeah.

43:54 And in terms of Claudio, the next steps that let's say you've already brainstormed so far based off the lessons you've learned. Anything you want to share with the audience that you think you know are valuable learning lessons that have made you adapt to new ways for the future? First, you need to understand if there's real demand for it, right?

44:14 The the the gut instincts and I got a hunch that this is going to work. It's not going to fly anymore. That's reality. You need to understand that you're really fixing a problem or part of a solution for it. And if you're not just a feature, right, which is something that is kind of happening to us right now like NEAR right now they're focusing on NEAR.com, right?

44:40 Which is kind of like a all in all solution, right? There's Texas you can use intense to swap whatever Bitcoin to Zcash, Zcash to Solana or Zcash to stables, right? And where does the LST play come into there? Right? We also launched a couple last in 2025 we launched a node studio allowing folks any for anybody with no technical expertise to run a validator node.

45:14 We also launched a loop staking solution on Solana giving you kind of like the best APY in the business for staking in Solana. But at the end of the day, the hard lesson here is that staking it is a commodity, right? They don't they don't especially in Solana, right? It's hundreds of tokens, stake tokens, right? I think there's there's not a solution in place for NLST anymore, right?

45:43 And so that's a tough lesson for us for anybody out there is understand that you can adapt. Understand that there's real demand and the life cycle of that demand

45:54 Because I think that's something that it's not going to be forever. You need to evolve and you need to understand like what's the next bounce of the ball, right? For us is allowing folks to run validator nodes with no technical knowledge. It's still very small addressable market, but it's something that all protocols need, right? At the end of the day, decentralization will play an important role eventually, but still it's very early stage.

46:20 And I'm sorry to say this, but yes, we were saying we're still early back in 2021 and 2026. It seems that it's still the it's still the moto, right? yes, traditional finance is coming. Yes, more banks are using blockchain technology, but these are big companies that want to roll their own. They're not going to use any any other software that they cannot fully control.

46:48 And there here comes the issue around like custodial, non-custodial, sovereign individuals or not sovereign individuals. Eventually, I think it's going to it's going to be a full-on pendulum swing, right? Where we go on the centralization route, all the tradey coming in and then back at it at DeFi, right? And this is where we need to prepare and where Meta Pool is preparing for that next next bounce of the ball.

47:16 Yeah. Yeah, DeFi is especially tough because even when you find product market fit, it seems like the cycles are so fast that you know you might have product market fit for like one or two years and then the next product that will have fit is completely different. So you have to build a team that's specifically good at iterating to the next kind of fit for the market consistently if you're going to maintain revenue.

47:43 Like you said like the the revenue in DeFi is not it's not as sticky as we would like it to be for a lot of these business models and it could be very tough when we get into these bare markets. I mean I think would you say was 2025 or 2026 harder or 2026 so far that is in terms of like the market?

48:10 That's a good question. I think it's it's I think 2025 was hard because it's when you realize that the yield is not is not sustainable, right?

48:25 Yeah.

48:25 And that gives you start you start to pick up a little bit of perspective on on where you're heading.

48:32 Mhm. Now 2026, I think it's pretty it's kind of written on the wall that you need to align to AI one way or another, either on your internal processes

48:48 Or as your partners. and you need to experiment. I think 2026 is this experimentation phase for D5 protocols to really understand where they're going to meet meet demand

49:05 And so and that's kind of wallet solutions that's going to be apps custodial non-custodial solutions and I think it's pretty it's pretty open right even big projects such as like hot wallet right they were gaining a lot of traction action and now they're kind of like a little bit stuck on a rut. Because this is this is another important factor and and in in one that you need to understand is that your first 1,000 10,000 or 100,000 users are not going to be related at all to to your next 1 million users or half a million users that are coming in.

49:50 You need to fire the initial ones

49:53 To maintain the new ones. And that's and nobody nobody has the experience of doing that in crypto. Everybody wants to hold

50:03 Whatever user you have, legacy users you have and sometimes you have to fire them. That's a tough reality

50:10 In software that in crypto I think we still haven't quite learned.

50:15 Yeah. Yeah, I mean you've got I think a really interesting perspective on this because I mean you've done it at the highest you know pretty much the highest scale like at Atlassian and launching

50:27 Is it mostly B2B software products that you've launched and that's like it's in the same realm but it's an entirely different game in terms of like finding product market fit. Was there anything that like was just like totally blindsided you on that matter?

50:47 Yeah, I I think I'm I'm most comfortable working with big partners and and

50:52 Yeah,

50:53 And and and and having and doing kind of like the the networking if you want to say around those type of environments. like I have good relationship with a bunch of protocol foundations bitco or some or fireblocks right utila backpack okx and like kind of like that's kind of my environment going for the end consumer this is something that we kind of started on a separate project called metal that's a stable coin project that we're we're launching here in Latin America

51:30 And so that kind of going back on a more of a V2C route,

51:35 But how do you use the onboarding? How do you use the the KYC AML, right? How do you kind of like facilitate that? And so, yeah, it's been it's been an interesting two years to be honest,

51:46 But still bullish on DeFi, still bullish on decentralization because that's what got me into crypto. now I'm kind of more of a came to realization that yes, sometimes you have to do boring trafi stuff in order for to be in this industry, right? It's like this is kind of like me evolving as a professional, right? Or as a founder

52:12 That okay, I used to do this all this now kind of go into the middle and then now we're on B2C. And so, yeah, it's been an interesting route. Never never bored. That's that's

52:25 Yeah,

52:26 That's the common denominator this last five years. hopefully getting more sleep now, but still hungry for for to be part of this next wave

52:38 Of adopting new crypto users through stable coins,

52:44 But still maintaining our staking and liquid staking roots as well.

52:50 Yeah. Yeah. And I think a big part of finding like what actually is going to be an opportunity like you mentioned like you need to find something that actually has demand. And to be honest, the only way that you do that is just by like trying things and just like putting it out there and then seeing what actually hits up against reality.

53:09 And like you could sit there and if you're, you know, the smartest person in the world, you could try to come up with exactly what what is going to be the model that just takes off. and then you put it into practice and it just doesn't happen. There's some piece that just like oh people just don't really want it because of this thing over there or there's already a solution.

53:27 It's just not a a pain point that they have. So yeah, I've always thought that it's really just about the speed, the rate at which you can launch new offers and products and then get some kind of feedback signal on it. And I think you guys even have like a is it kind of like an incubator where you guys are launching or or like helping other teams kind of go through this

53:55 Process? Yes. So, so late last year we understood like okay what's the next bounce of the wall? and we also wanted to give our team members an opportunity for them to run their own projects and so we incubated a few projects internally metal being one of them. Yeah,

54:12 We haven't really I think this is the first time I'm stating this publicly. we had Bichu with another gaming platform, non-custodial wallet as well called Monate and then another kind of like raffle staking raffle solution as well.

54:30 Mhm.

54:31 Yeah, because at the end of the day, that's how you you need to try, right?

54:35 Yeah.

54:35 We understand that staking is a commodity. there's not going to be any more LSTs, right? it's kind of like run its course. we we do need to be professional and and maintain the project because that's our commitment to our current current investors as well.

54:54 The only issue is yes. Yes, it's not going to be a billion dollar business. That's the kind of like the the strong message that that we had to to discuss with our in our investors last year

55:07 And earlier this year that hey it's not going to be a billion dollar idea. It's just yes, if knock on wood knit NEAR goes to $100, well, okay, fine. That's great, right? But that's

55:19 But the the reality is that's that's very it's a long long shot, right? It's a hail mary and

55:28 I'm into building stuff that is not going to be hail mary. I like to take chances on people.

55:34 Yep.

55:34 Not not on businesses to be honest, right?

55:37 Yeah.

55:38 I'm not in the business of betting. on on on businesses, I bet on people. that's something that I'm okay failing at because as you get better, you you get to know people such as my co-founder Lucio and and which is like a yeah dream come true to be honest, right? Somebody you can understand, somebody that you're at the same level, somebody that understands yourself, your what you bring to the table and what you don't bring to the table as well.

56:09 Yeah.

56:09 And so anyhow, so that's that's kind of where we are right now.

56:13 And what is like the ideal opportunity for you? would you be more interested in having a shot at a billion dollar business if there's only like let's say a 5% chance that you achieve that outcome or would you rather have like a hundred million business but there's like a 30% chance?

56:35 Like what kind of profile appeals more to you? no. I I go for the billion dollar, right? If there's a again, really important, right? You need to make an educated bet. if if it is if it there is a market is it is a billion dollar market and it's just a 5% chance all the way because

56:54 Okay,

56:54 You might not land on the 1 billion.

56:57 You might eventually land on the 100 million, right? That's that's the great thing about doing that stuff. And so, if if it was the 30% and get a 100 million, then I just rather work for somebody to be honest. Go from 9 to5 and then

57:12 Come Friday night, you log off out of Slack, turn off your phone and

57:19 Enjoy the rest of the of the weekend with your family or loved ones, right? And so,

57:25 But to be honest, I'm a builder. That's what we like to do. We like to take bets, right? make educated bets and and try to understand what's the next bounce of the ball. That's kind of what keeps me excited. It keeps me on our toes and young at heart even though I have more

57:44 More gray hairs as we as the as as the years progress. But but

57:49 Tell me about it. But what okay what is the billion dollar opportunity for Meta Pool right now? billion dollar opportunity. So for us is understanding how AI agents will can use staking as as their infrastructure.

58:09 That's the biggest play. we tried we we we tried a few things on and off with NEAR AI. it's still a work in progress. Cloud Pump was another project from Salon as well that we're talking to the founder. Shout out to to Bunny.

58:30 He's there actually. He's he's in New York

58:33 New York builder.

58:35 But still it's a a AI agents right now are interacting basically with other agents, not so much the protocols.

58:44 Mhm. because there's still a lot of work to be done on the on the custodial side of assets, right?

58:51 Yeah.

58:52 Even on the temporary side, there's still a lot of glitches. It's still not

58:58 It's it's it's an unfinished product. And so, yeah, we're kind of just keeping tabs and talking to a lot of builders on the NEAR AI side, on on the Solana side as well, and just trying to be in in the loop, right? and just whenever that opportunity comes, then we're hopefully going to be prepared for it. and just yeah, take it one step at a time.

59:22 Hopefully not do not fail disastrously around it. but make educated bets on it.

59:31 Yeah. And I think I mean you guys have been building up the infrastructure for this that would sit underneath such a thing for 5 years. It's not like anybody could come in and just very easily immediately just like oh yeah here's the solution. So there is definitely at least a little bit of a moat around that and I know so you guys recently launched the this loop staking product on Solana.

59:56 Is that something that you guys would try to put into such a thing?

1:00:01 Yeah we still don't know right. We we still for us it's kind of on the staking side and how agents can interact with it or interact with a validator node as well.

1:00:11 The the only issue on the Solana side is that it's very much running a validator on Solana is very capital intensive. It's not trivial.

1:00:19 Yeah.

1:00:20 On the NEAR side it's a little bit less expensive.

1:00:24 It is still it is still $50,000, right? It's not petty cash.

1:00:29 Yeah. Yeah.

1:00:30 But but manageable. But on the Solana side, it's $10 million, right? So, it's just not gonna happen.

1:00:36 You're not you're not gonna put an agent to have access to that,

1:00:40 Right?

1:00:42 And so so anyhow, so we're trying to figure it out. No, our loopsticking token is more so for people that would like to get that are sitting on Solana on on tokens of Solana and they want to get extra yield, right? That's basically it. We keep it we also learn from keeping keep it things simple, right? for newcomers coming in.

1:01:02 That's the best APY. Hey, you have Solana. There you go. You can just have a 9% APY, 9.2% or something.

1:01:10 That's good.

1:01:11 Do nothing. Yeah, it's pretty pretty cool. And so like at the end of the day, it's a kind of like a stake and forget kind of kind of process there.

1:01:25 And what's the leverage from what market are you guys using? sorry.

1:01:36 What's the leverage from like what's the underlying looping?

1:01:40 Yes. So, we're using Kamino. We we're using Kamino

1:01:43 Kamino to do it.

1:01:45 But we're using our own smart contract. The the only difference between Kamino and us is that

1:01:50 Yes, you are delegating your tokens to the Kamino smart contract. With with mpSOL, you're not. You're always in control of those assets. Mhm.

1:01:59 Okay. I see. And then Yeah, it's just completely autopilot stake and forget 9.2%.

1:02:06 Yeah.

1:02:07 Pretty good for pretty blue chip as well.

1:02:11 Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And so so yeah, so that's kind of and and this is where as a builder you need to realize the limitations on on on what you're building, right? If you build something too complex, then you're just setting up yourself for failure because you need to kind of

1:02:30 Like go through this whole ordeal to explain your product to somebody that has very little focus

1:02:40 Time to focus on the details, right?

1:02:42 Mhm. Or like Yeah. People are just Nobody has any time to pay attention to anything these days.

1:02:51 Exactly. And if I don't understand it, like it's it's definitely not like I would say 98% of the stuff that was going on in DeFi in 2022, 2021, it was like there was like a whole map and like the dock section. You're trying to figure out like where is the yield coming from? Like people just need very simple, very blue chip, very straightforward lending markets and leverage.

1:03:14 So yeah, I think this is that's DeFi kind of toning down and finding its real market fit there. And those are the products that are going to be really scalable. Like the simplest stuff has the most TVLO, you know, however many billions. You have a

1:03:30 Yeah.

1:03:31 And now maybe you have Morpho, you know, these are simple things that get billions.

1:03:36 So, yeah, completely makes sense to me. and where can people go if they want to check that out? Obviously, we'll we'll link to the website down below.

1:03:45 Yes, it's metapool.app.

1:03:51 O.app. Yes.

1:03:53 Excellent. So, we'll of course we'll we'll give a link down below and we'll we'll link of course you know socials for for Meta Pool. but I mean beyond that, anything else you want to shout out before we close it out?

1:04:06 No, giving you a very much Thank you, Owen. Thank you very much Ashkan for your time. just sitting down talking shop is always g gives me a lot of perspective on what we built and achieved over during this 5 years. Sometimes you kind of miss miss that you're just in kind of like autopilot sometimes just not a lot of firefighting.

1:04:29 Knock on wood, right? It's very very chill right now. but really yes, we we've come a long way and there's a lot of learnings. still a lot of learnings. I hope I'm I'm hopeful that more hungry founders will come to the industry, right, and build some cool stuff.

1:04:49 We're trying to support as much as we can as well. incubating a couple of projects,

1:04:54 But yes, it's it's still exciting times. There's still a lot of unmet needs that require innovative products. And so here we are to support and build and and that's what got me into crypto from the from the get-go. So yeah, really exciting. Thank you very much for your time.

1:05:12 Yeah, lots of opportunity. Absolutely. Thanks for hopping on, man.

1:05:16 Thank you. Thank you very much.

1:05:17 Pleasure.