Podcast Summary
This podcast episode features Jay Jog, the co-founder of Sei, an open-source layer 1 blockchain. The discussion revolves around the core thesis of Sei, the current state of the blockchain market, and the challenges hindering the adoption of on-chain trading. The unique value proposition of Sei, its consensus mechanism, and the importance of user experience in the blockchain space are also highlighted. The speaker also discusses the future of blockchain, the composition of their user base, and the importance of execution environments in Web3. The podcast concludes with a discussion on Sei’s economic model and the different types of MEV in the ecosystem.
Key Takeaways
Sei’s Core Thesis and Value Proposition
- Exchange of digital assets: Sei’s core thesis is that the exchange of digital assets is the most fundamental use case for crypto. The platform aims to offer a better user experience for trading applications by focusing on optimizations that improve time to finality, latency, and gas fees.
- Fastest chain in existence: Sei has achieved a time to finality of 390 milliseconds, making it the fastest chain in existence. This is achieved through their unique consensus mechanism, Twin Turbo consensus.
- Single-slot finality: Sei’s consensus mechanism is based on single-slot finality, which requires consensus among all validators before a block can be added to the network. This improves user experience and reduces risk for traders.
- Parallelization and front-running prevention: The introduction of parallelization has helped achieve 20,000 orders per second on the network. The network also focuses on front-running prevention through frequent batch auctions.
- User experience and decentralization: Sei aims to improve user experience and increase decentralization by allowing end users to verify transactions rather than having a large number of validators.
Future of Blockchain and User Base Composition
- Web 2.0 user experience: The speaker emphasizes the importance of building a user experience in the blockchain space that rivals Web 2.0 to attract activity and trading.
- Monolithic vs modular chains: The speaker believes that monolithic chains will offer the best performance in the future, while modular chains may provide benefits in terms of experimentation and strong narratives.
- User base composition: Early adopters of Sei tend to be crypto-native, followed by retail users and then institutions and sophisticated network participants.
- Developer attraction: The focus is currently on attracting developers to build a pipeline of high-quality applications.
Execution Environments in Web3 and Sei’s Economic Model
- Execution environments: The speaker believes that in the future, execution environments in crypto will be built into the chains, supporting various types of smart contracts.
- EVM compatibility: While EVM compatibility is not essential for success, it helps with alignment with the Ethereum ecosystem and can be beneficial for developers familiar with Ethereum’s smart contract language.
- Sei’s economic model: Sei’s economic model involves Mev (Maximal Extractable Value) redistribution as a way for validators to make money by prioritizing transactions based on incentives from users.
- Economic sustainability: The speaker emphasizes the importance of economic sustainability and ensuring value accrual for the Sei ecosystem.
Sentiment Analysis
- Bullish: The speaker is bullish about the future of Sei, highlighting its unique value proposition, focus on user experience, and economic model. The speaker also expresses optimism about the future of blockchain and the potential of monolithic chains.
- Bearish: There is a bearish sentiment expressed towards the challenges hindering the adoption of on-chain trading, including user experience and gas fees. The speaker also acknowledges the challenges to unlocking growth in the ecosystem, including the bear market and the need to onboard retail users and developers.
- Neutral: The speaker maintains a neutral stance on the debate between monolithic and modular blockchains, stating that both have their benefits and drawbacks. They also express a neutral view on EVM compatibility, stating that while it is not essential for success, it can be beneficial for developers.
