#1 Stani Kulechov, Aave’s new stable coin $GHO and becoming a Dad

Hello and welcome to another interview episode today we’ve got Stoney coletchov the founder of Ave and lens protocol stani it’s a pleasure how are you doing very good thanks Chris for having me here I’m a super uh big fan of yours um and and I I collect a lot of your videos

On lens tube so I’m excited to be here that means a lot thank you thank you thank you so for people who don’t know who you are just real quick you know less than 10 seconds kind of you’ve started Ave and lunch protocol and then let’s dig into what is lens protocol

What is web3 social and why do we need these yeah so I’ve um I’m an innovator in this space I’ve I’ve been building um uh for the past few years many um on the um these interest Finance side so RV protocol obviously is is quite well known um

The E5 protocol uh that allows you to supply cryptographic assets and earn yield on those assets without giving up custody and using a a transparent blockchain based uh protocol um and it stores now a billion sort of value um in in the smartcore Jacks as well and is governed by the um avidao

Which is incredible and then uh lens protocol is solving another kind of um problem we have so the the way we see that uh we people we love to connect um whether it’s in real life and online and I think uh we connect even more online than we do in in real life

Um and we’re using platforms where we create a lot of um yeah we we share our identities we we create a lot of Social Capital uh content we share news um but something that we don’t have is the the actual ownership of our uh Network that we create so lens protocol

Is is giving that ownership to the users um so you can create a profile that is secured by the um the blockchain and also your audience uh is secured by the blockchain so whoever follows you and and whoever you distribute your content to um that carries with you whichever

Application you are using uh on lens or if if lens is integrated in any application which is quite cool because uh it means that uh uh not only have the the ownership but you can create different kinds of ways uh to monetize uh your content uh which is uh

Incredible for uh creators but at the same time it really puts us who build these applications to think about you know what could be the best experience to keep you on a application or a platform so that’s that’s in short what what lens is there’s roughly 116 000 uh profile profiles minted

Um it’s some polygon it’s still in beta so it’s a completely um uh publicly yet but um it’s it’s been quite interesting uh now since it’s it’s uh less than a year uh from the launch itself and why is the ownership such an important aspect I think ownership is important because

It really changes the Dynamics of how we uh how we create content and and how we value uh the content itself so um in in the current world what what I see is happening is that we are we’re using a lot of the social media platforms

Um and we are creating content there uh we’re giving a lot of data we’re sharing and amplifying content uh and this uh social media platforms they have become um kind of like a public town squares um but in a way where the the the platform really controls the the

Algorithms and also how your content gets visibility but you can’t really leave the platform without um uh retaining your audience that you you created over the past years uh with your hard work on uh publishing content for example so I think once you change the Dynamics in a way where you know that

Piece of infrastructure doesn’t below anymore to the platform itself but the platform can or or an application can leverage that infrastructure but it belongs to the user um it changes the Dynamics in a way where um the the applications they need to really think how to get more alignment uh with

Their users and especially with the creators because um that is something that is actually an area where creators has been producing most of the content on online uh but aren’t getting the benefit and of of that value capture and capitalization um almost at all um at this point but I think like mostly

Um for the mainstream users I think if we are able to create more better ways and easier ways to uh own content and monetize it um we will see more incentives to actually come to web3 and use lens as a web 3 social layer um and that way we will see new

Experiences and more incentivized um uh content as well which means that um that way we get more people into uh using web 3 social data line because the experiences are more noble and it’s faster to build the three social applications so that’s like that’s what I’m thinking about where things might

Move uh into adoption so mainstream business necessarily don’t need to care about the ownership but it’s baked in but because the incentive network is so strong for creators to come in uh create content that creates a better content liquidity which gets mainstream um uh adoption as well

Absolutely and then what do you think it’ll take to get to mainstream adoption and how will we know you know when we’ve succeeded as web 3. besides um having a infrastructure that is um for the benefit of the users and and creators for example the other thing is

The the experiences itself so developers build uh play a big role in the lens ecosystem in in fact our very first users were uh developers that really wanted to play around with the protocol and build various kinds of um applications and and for example um the lenser as an app it’s an open

Source application build one um engineer doing a hackathon it’s open source anyone can just Fork it and create their own version of it so think about the same way as you could go to Reddit and just take credit and create a modified version for your own um Community

Um but down the line what’s interesting is that these developers are constantly putting more and more effort on building new social experiences so we’ve seen a lot of things that has been recreated of existing social media landscape into more uh lens powered um web tree social covered applications lens tube is

A good example of that but now we’re seeing more and more um clients and mobile applications built on top of lens actually starting to um gouge their audiences so they they create different Focus points and and also we’ll start seeing new experiences and I think there’s one application

Called Enzo Collective so they actually want to create a digital closet uh for users so you can actually collect nfts that has have a physical um uh item in item attached into that which is basically clothes and you can collect them and add into your wardrobe so it

Just showcases that many of the future experiences are might be a bit more novel um and what what it means is that they might not be directly social media applications but they have this social layer true lens protocol and because you’re already using one of these applications you can easily just use

Something new that is built because you don’t really need to jump out of the network but you’re in the same um uh social draft in that sense and every single application built on lens or integration actually expands its user base um but benefits the the existing users

So I think it’s building those new experiences and and better uh onboarding is is how we get closer to more regular users yeah a lot of a lot of cool stuff Enzo is a super cool app um the chatting with them a little bit lately as well um and you’ve mentioned before in

Interviews that you know way back in the day you had kind of played around with and worked on you know social apps social network type deal what about building lens has kind of surprised you so far and then you know you touched on it with some of these new kind of app

Use cases being built but where do you think that the ecosystems headed in general yeah I think uh it’s starting to come to a point where we see some of these uh Integrations and applications that are are taking a bit their own uh interpretation of what what they want to

Show to the uh end users and and what type of content is important for them so uh I’m very surprised for example to see uh butterfly focusing quite a lot on the music uh side and the credit is very beautiful um music player and and actually like um super uh

Uh excited how much progress it has been because butterfly is developed by zero X Mo who is just one developer in the team and has been able to create very um smooth experience and and also highlighting different creators that are specifically in um the the kind of like a music part of

The social graph and saying for example with orb they’re they’re in general um putting more focus on on creators and also they’re working on building actually an algorithm as well so if you think about the lens protocol it’s it’s a big ocean of um data and it’s up to the um

The applications and their use cases to decide how to use that data and how to compute so you don’t necessarily need everything that exists in lens for your user base but you might want to curate for example um a specific audience um and tailor them a specific use case

And what’s extremely exciting for me is to what I’m being closely monitoring is is the content supply chain so for example that in the future you could create a um content for example on let’s say Lancer the open source desktop or web application and you can set their monetization settings someone

Can mirror it in another mobile application let’s say on on butterfly and then someone will collect the content on orb um because a particular algorithm might find that content for you discover it so what happens here in the content supply network is supply chain is that

Um the the collect fees could be shared uh between uh the application that is collecting it’s the algorithm that the application might be using an open source algorithm for example and rewarding the the the the Builders of the algorithm uh the application where a user could have mirrored that content

And and the the mirror and then the original application where the content was created in the Creator so you and then you can also add split fees so that Creator even can add additional um ways to split Fields between other creators or who contributed into that uh

Do that work and you can already do that uh by the way on we all know the lens ecosystem so this all just uh changes completely the way we think about and create content today and just incentivizes every single thing that is in in part of that content supply chain

Uh process so I think that’s where we’re heading out in the ecosystem and then how do you think or what things have you seen that creators have done well to kind of take advantage of all these powerful tools that lens offers them I’m super surprised about the uh the

Curiosity of creators and and how much actually um they care about lens that’s that’s been super surprising so we’ve um we started from pretty much ground zero so we built the protocol uh for beta on mainnet um and it’s it it it’s been interesting to follow that when we launched the

Protocol there wasn’t a single application built we started to see um clients being built mobile apps uh different kinds of tooling you can like see like who who work in your close Network in in lens um data tools as well um and just seeing the whole ecosystem

To grow and one of our fears has been that you know what will happen if we um we build the protocol without an actual app but we’ve seen that it actually is better because it gives space for other builders and developers to come and build those uh interesting

Um experiences and from the Creator’s perspective I I’ve been super surprised how um given the state how early everything has been creators are the most active ones on lens including Engineers that they are actively engaging with the audience and and sharing content and um dropping content on online directly

So that’s that’s been super surprising how much they care about uh what we build um and believe in it um and you know I I’ve as a Creator myself like I used to create decent amount of music I used to be a DJ for five years so

Um I kind of kind of like understand the Curiosity angle that comes um um to creators but it’s been amazing to see that how much stay they’re excited about lens and sharing content absolutely and then a lot of people when they think about lens the first immediate use case they think is social

Media but lens is trying to be much bigger than just social media right the entire social layer for web 3 how you know and that was one of the things that got me most interested about lens in the very beginning was I realized how many developers were building different apps

And different use cases where do you think that that ecosystem is headed and are there maybe some ideas or Alpha that you can share that you know somebody who is interested in building an app on lens could kind of take and run with yeah something that’s fascinating is

That we we we wanted to engage the community in the beginning to build uh specific experiences uh to Showcase that how web3 social could actually function uh with a similar user experience that we expect any mobile or online application so for example when you post content on lens you

Um you don’t you know you don’t sign messages you don’t pay for gas and the content is reflect reflected right away um and all the blockchain logic is abstracted away uh from the users and this is a new thing this is something that we actually had to design in our minds

Um and and kind of like evangelize across the ecosystem that we have to build um very um standardized experiences and that’s the kind of like a floor um and there’s no actually ceiling for how what the user experience can be I mean if you go to dumpling.lol so

That’s an example that there’s like a TV that is uh on lens and pretty much you can swap between a change between channels uh I think uh you have a channel there as well uh Chris so it’s it’s just like it showcase it’s like you

Have this kind of a 3D TV build on lens and you can comment and uh that’s where the the kind of like a social layer perspective comes because you can just integrate lens into any existing application especially Victory application because um lens um audience is is web tree native so if

You have a project that is web3 or you want to share news to a web3 audience that’s where basically um that’s what the most interest is that that’s a connecting interest between all the people online but because they’re also humans they have different kinds of identities they talk about music

Um you know they talk about um different I I’ve been um posting a lot of a lot of things about Ubi Universal basic income and asking questions from the um lens users for example so there there’s different kinds of uh interest and effectively the way I explained is that

It’s we’ve we’ve taken different kinds of um properties of a social uh media Network and and make them into a web 3 uh format and offer them that as a package um that that the these applications and and Engineers they can actually choose what they want to use from so some of

The things are on chain infrastructure some of them are off chain um infrastructure and it really depends on the use case but the easiest way to actually um uh uh add lens is just an integrated integrating maybe the comments part that that you can allow lens users to comment into your

Um web 3 application so effective what we will see in the future is that um uh lens can be pretty much everywhere and it doesn’t need to effectively be about uh social media but if you want to make blockchain more social lenses the way to do it

Absolutely and sorry this is going to be a fun question this is a question that everyone always asks everyone always wants to know win token when airdrop lens tweeted an emoji of a parachute a little while ago and then deleted it costs a whole bunch of speculation so when when air drop

So the so just to give some history and background so lens in the state that it it is so we’ve I mean we’ve been building the protocol for uh year and a half uh for the past I’d say past um the main net release was last year’s May

So it’s been roughly over the past almost a year focusing on um the version two of the lens protocol uh so we’re very technical team so we um we do a lot of um research on on what the users uh like and and what kind of features are important for the people

Who are building uh wetlands and trying to improve different kinds of uh parts that we have uh currently so we’re focusing on the uh virginity of the lens protocol and hopefully are able to launch uh quite soon and there is a lot of interesting uh improvements but additional features

That uh will take uh the lens protocol to another dimension um we also have in mind how kind of like the lens V3 of the protocol will look like and I think that’s what that’s the part of where it’s going to look like a bit more of having pretty much a set of

Um web three social Primitives that could be applied to any particular use case then we’re working quite a lot on the scalability aspect that we are focusing now as well so our goal is effectively ensure that lens can scale into mainstream and just to give another example is that

Um Twitter had 25 000 transactions um per second during the World Cup uh Fifa championships uh uh final game and our solution could do uh 50 50 000 transactions per second so twice of the amount um of that so it just showcases like kind of like the

Um tag that we’re uh focusing on at this point so that’s where my all my energy is is pretty much going and and and also half of my energy is going on into the uh our ecosystem as well so it’s that’s where things are now so do you have any comment on the

Deleted tweet that everyone always wants to know about we can talk more about office okay very cool that that’s a good segue so talk about go is coming out for anyone that’s listening on this audio only gho which is a stable coin created by Ave so what is go a lot of Protocols

Are coming out with stable coins now it’s a huge area that a lot of people are working on and you know what is go and why do we need another stable coin yeah so go go and say um over collateralized uh stablecoin that is backed by the over colorization of the oven Market

And it’s different than what we’ve seen in the past because you can actually earn on your collateral when you supply into the other protocol um and also meet go what’s uh fascinating for me kind of like a what I personally want to solve um is that we’ve created uh quite

Amazing infrastructure and decentralized finance so we have a way to earn yield uh we have to we have a way to swap assets between one asset to another um in a way where you don’t give up costly um and have it in a transparent way what

I what I think is is valuable to solve now is the idea of um how we could actually solve payments as well because um if you think about Bitcoin the original idea was to solve ability to settle peer-to-peer transactions um and with ethereum what happened is

That we have this um virtual computer so you can create programmable Finance but something that we haven’t solved uh quite yet is is the payment aspect so how we can actually start using blockchain-based payments um and I think that’s where go has a lot of potential so it’s not going to be only

Focusing on on the liquidity inducing class Finance but actually how we can get go into places where you know there’s um a hundred or fifty percent of inflation Argentina being a very good example of that so um we want to kind of like go build better infrastructures for code to be a

Bit more um uh in the payments infrastructure very cool and then let’s switch gears a little bit here and kind of ask them off the wall things that are kind of random kind of fun here um I’m sure you saw apologies one million dollar bitcoin price and 90 days

Bet do you have any thoughts on that yeah I I think it was quite a handsome bet uh that’s really um I mean yeah yeah I I don’t know if I should should you know that’s that’s something higher just just for the sake of uh fun but uh

I mean you know it’s Bitcoin has it’s it’s some interesting properties I mean effectively it’s a store of energy converting units of energy into um units of account and it’s it’s interesting to see like what like what had Bitcoin will take in the future um I do think it has a like extremely

Important place in the whole um crypto space in terms of like valuations I I have no idea my I focus mainly on on the tech side of of everything that I do um and you know I I mean I I wish that that that prediction will come true but you’re polish yeah

Cool all right or do a little rapid fire here um french fries crispy or soft um something in the middle something in the middle okay pizza or Burger This is a hard one I I would say um I would want to say boats but I would say pizza okay and if you could only have one for the rest of your life ice cream or soda definitely this soda do you how do you drink your coffee um with milk

Um usually a cappuccino um or espresso but I I know just to give some details I liked um the uh the drip coffee that’s the uh that’s the one I’ve been enjoying lately with a little milk in it yeah cool do you ski or snowboard ski uh so Beach or mountains outside Beach

Okay um who do you think is one of the most underrated lens creators this is hard one because whenever I stumble upon a new crater on lens I I kind of feel that I I kind of always feel that you have undervalued like I think the network is

Full of undervalued creators and it’s actually quite fascinating to see uh I’ve seen like the creators that have been already in the platform for half a year and they have like their audiences and um their fans um I’m I’m super interested in seeing like because everyone in lens in some way are

Undervalued that what happens um uh in in few years and how this network that they create that they actually own um will help them but I think all of the creators on lens are are are undervalued gems I agree what uh how would you decide to find Social Capital that’s I think we

Missed that yeah I um well Financial capital is just units of numbers in your um some sort of uh Ledger um Veritas like um exchangeable value um in terms of Social Capital it’s something that you know you you create because of your identity um and your social uh behavior

Um so interesting thing is that Financial capital is something that some folks have um social capital is that what every single person in the planet has just an example is that if you um if if you asked ask sugar from your neighbors and they lend it out to you

That’s a transaction based on Social Capital because your neighbor knows you um then um if you for example lose your lens profile for some reason um you can still recreate your Audience by flagging that hey here’s my new profile like this regard the old one um so it’s something that is very hard

Just to kind of like take from you um and and it it definitely is something very new and unique because now that you’re able to like concretely own it on a online environment uh more freely um it creates a a interesting um a philosophical um questions as well so that’s that’s social capital

Very good and then a couple couple more quick questions here um did you you’re from Finland so did you grow up playing ice hockey and do you have a favorite Finnish hockey player yeah yeah yes okay I think um I I played until I was fifth uh I think

15 16 so I went to a sports high school as well so it was a big part of my life um I think I had every day either one or two practices um so I I think the best player ever um is uh his

He he’s quite an OG uh in in the Finnish ice hockey um I think that’s that’s probably my favorite he’s a legend he’s a legend but I’m from North Carolina and the Carolina Hurricanes have Sebastian Aho who is on oh yeah he’s good too he’s my favorite right now uh and what

Position did you play uh forward so a plane forward but also I played um a couple of seasons in in defense as well defense is harder it’s it’s a lot of responsibility it’s not as much fun either scoring goals yeah um okay couple more what is the most d-gen purchase that you’ve made

Um oh my God there’s there’s so many uh I I think probably um crypto dig butts is is quite region yeah do you still have it yeah yeah I I think I never sold like an nft maybe one or two but most of them I have so

Very cool and then what’s one thing that most people don’t know about you one is the most uh that people don’t know about me I um there are a lot of things as well but what I think um it’s interesting is that I love to um

I love to run a lot so that’s that’s something that is I like to do in my free time um I haven’t been able to do that much since the launch of the lens protocol but that’s something I normally do they want to do more often awesome and then last question

First of all congratulations on being a future dad and what are you most excited about and the one question that people were dying to know have you decided on a baby name yet thank you so much um it’s it’s definitely going to be also like a busy year uh because of that

Um there there’s some there is some potential candidates uh for the baby names um Chad could be one um hello Chad um but yeah nothing nothing uh said in stone yet very cool when I know it I will definitely cheer on lens awesome well do you have any final

Thoughts or any questions for me as we wrap up here maybe nothing special what’s been the most um what’s been most exciting uh for you kind of like as a Creator’s uh perspective on on lens would as it’s interesting and one of the reasons I most got interested in lens in

The first place even as a Creator was a developer ecosystem um you know it’s but what’s the quote whatever the devs are working on nights and weekends is a future of tech you know and then yeah you know what looks like a toy today is actually the future right

Um so as a Creator those tools that I think that are going to come are going to be incredibly interesting um it’s just been a lot of fun there’s so much love in the community you know being a Creator on lens and meeting a lot of the people there

Um and then you know the ability and then as a Creator you know wanting to grow my community and my following you know being able to take my followers from app to app you know it’s it’s interesting that you know if lens Works which I wouldn’t be here but I didn’t

Think I was going to but in the future you know if all this plays out in the next decade you know the people that are putting in the Blood Sweat and Tears today to build a following to grow a community I think are going to pay massive dividends for the create leaders

That are here and stick around so um those are the things that I’m most excited about and reason why I’m here in the community no this that’s amazing to hear and I I think it’s something that like reinforces our ideas about why and our region what we’re building here

And it’s always like super exciting to see that um like I I get super ex I get super happy when I say Chris you are specifically because it like reinforces the reason why we’ve why we are building a lens and why it’s valuable um so it’s super nice to hear that

I appreciate that Sonny thank you well Stony thank you this has been a blast for everyone listening in thank you for sticking with us this long um Stoney keep it up we as a community are rooting for you as a builder and all the team and everyone on the lens team

You know on the growth team and everyone that’s helping um the community is grateful for you and we’re excited to see where the future goes so thank you thank you so much Chris for having me

#1 Stani Kulechov lenstube
stani.lens
@lensprotocol , Aave lenstube
aaveaave.lens
new stable coin $GHO and becoming a Dad.

Collect one of only 25 of this NFT podcast collectible here!: https://chriscomrie.com/1-stani-kulechov-AEga

Stani Kulechov is an innovator in the Web3/ Crypto space and Founder of Aave Protocol and Lens Protocol.
In this collectible podcast episode we touch on things such as:
– What is Lens Protocol (the decentralized social graph and identity layer)
– What is GHO, Aave’s new stable coin
– Stani’s most degen purchase
– Why he’s excited about becoming a Dad
– Rapid fire questions! (including how he takes his coffee and his hockey history)

Subscribe on Spotify: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/4DFVTdpb4zb

0:36 What is Lens Protocol?
3:13 Why is ownership such an important aspect?
6:03 What will it take for web3 social to succeed and how would you know when it has succeeded?
9:11 What has surprised you about building Lens protocol?
15:18 What is the vision for the Lens ecosystem beyond social media, and what potential opportunities exist for developers interested in building apps on Lens?
21:46 What is GHO and why do we need another stable coin?
24:01 Is Balaji correct about Bitcoin going to $1m
25:16 Rapid fire questions
26:35 Most underrated Lens creator?
27:41 How to define social capital?
29:34 Stani’s hockey history
30:54 Most degen purchases
31:30 One thing not many people know about you
32:21 Becoming a Dad

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