Cross-chain bridges are designed to address the issue of blockchain interoperability. Cross-chain bridging protocols allow users to transfer digital assets from one blockchain to another. Aanchal Thakur, co-founder of Spherium Finance, joins us in this episode to talk about cross-chain bridges and token transfers via blockchain bridging.

Join us on our AdLunam socials

Visit our website at Website .

Follow AdLunam on Twitter and LinkedIn to stay updated, as you engage with us on a daily basis.

CROSS-CHAINS IN CRYPTO - SPHERIUM FINANCE

Participants:

Jervis Piera ( Host)

Anchal Takur ( Ceo of Spherium Finance)

Jason Fernandes (Co-founder of AdLunam Inc)

Nadja Bester ( Co-founder of AdLunam Inc)

00:23

JP

Without further ado, welcome. Welcome welcome welcome to our next episode of Diving Into Crypto, where we are today going to talk about breaking the chain cross chains in crypto with a very special guest. This is JP speaking to you about Web3 from AdLunam, inc. Before we begin, I'd like to share that these speakers' views are their own and any information shared is meant for education purposes only. That being said, ladies and gentlemen, please remember that you can like at any point of time and share this space with other people in your network so they can also learn a lot more about the wonderful world of Web3. As we dive into crypto. That being said, ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome to our twitter spaces the CEO of Sparium finance, Anchal Takur, yay.

01:19

Anchal Tukar

Thank you. Thanks, JP. I'm so glad that we are talking about cross chain. The environment right now in crypto space is so gloomy and people are losing interest. People are just thinking about what is the next big thing, while what we really feel is that we already have so much to delve upon and to develop on and to build on that we are not at all thinking about where the market is going. We have seen these cycles earlier. We know what will happen after some time. So we are not at all thinking about where the market is. Rather, it's such a great time to see so much adoption coming to the space of blockchain and crypto. It's so nice to see projects like AdLunam coming up who are reinventing the way projects are launched. So glad to be here and we're.

02:21

JP

Glad to host you. Anchal, I'm glad you started off with that, just directly took a deep dive into it. I want to take it a step back before we go all in. Anchal, tell us one thing, what drew you to Web3? What started your journey? Because I understand that you're a finance professional, so what made you make that shift?

02:42

Anchal Tukar

For me, basically, I'm a finance professional, but I've been in IT for a long time as well. I've been a product manager. I've been a functional consultant to a lot of financial institutions, banks, international organizations. So for me, DeFi especially was a very very prominent field. But I started off with blockchain and crypto like many other people with Bitcoin. So Bitcoin was the first and foremost force. I heard about Bitcoin. My father actually introduced me. He was not aware what Bitcoin is, it's only his son. So he just said that one of my friend is investing somewhere, so can you just create my account and buy some Bitcoin? We have to send this across to a company in Italy. That was the first time I just researched what Bitcoin is. I created an account with some exchange and bought some Bitcoin, sent it to Italy, and I was really blown off with the speed, to be honest, with speed and cost, because earlier I had done cross border transactions while I was working overseas and it used to take two to three days for the money to be credited in the account.

04:02

Anchal Tukar

And then there was a fee of 5% to 6%. And when I transferred using Bitcoin, the fees was very low and within ten minutes the amount was transferred. So that was one thing which excited me about Bitcoin and I started to learn more and more. There was a scam also. This particular company was a scam. We lost some money, but I started learning about Bitcoin and crypto and what blockchain is and how it is actually different from any other means of cross border transactions. And I was not a Bitcoin believer, I was an Ethereum follower for a long time. But as my journey evolved and as I understood about how decentralization works, how community is important, then I realized the power of Bitcoin as well as blockchain and what we can do with it. And that's how I met Sash also, and we started to work on a DeFi product so that we want to we want to make it accessible to everyone.

05:13

JP

Okay, so I can see that there's some very deep motivations that drew you, of course, into the Web3 verse, right? It starts from home and kudos to your dad. I mean, if your dad at that point said, hey, you know what, this is what we have to do, he's very forward thinking.

05:28

Anchal Tukar

Yes, that's true. He is used to trying a lot of things. He always does. He tries everything new that comes up. He's always very excited and some things work, some things don't. But every time he's probably just like me or maybe I'm like him, that we get bored of following the same things all the time. We always keep on searching for the next big thing or next better thing.

05:58

JP

Exactly right. And that's exactly how that progression is going. And you can see that also with the things that are today. Since we're on the topic, how do you think more people from earlier generations, that not from maybe a digital age at all. What would you want to tell them when it comes to saying, hey, you know what, open your mind to Web3 and the blockchain technology in cryptocurrency, what would you want to tell them?

06:31

Anchal Tukar

07:41

Anchal Tukar

So it's so difficult for youngsters who are tech savvy that expecting the older generation to embrace this new tech is very difficult. The only way we can bring them to this field is by making it very simple, very straightforward and like one click, bringing it a phone, making it easy and safe. Safety is also paramount, which is right now. To be honest, I don't think that there is anything more risky than having a crypto wallet. Anyone can just hack it like MetaMask is getting hacked on a regular basis. So how can you ask a person at an age of 60 or 70 year old who's having a pension to take a risk and put his money in a MetaMask wallet which can be hacked tomorrow? So we need to work on security. We need to make it easy, as easy as possible if we want mass adoption in this field.

08:52

JP

Right. And I think you're absolutely right. I think you hit the nail on the head here, right. Because the generations today want the ease of having to do something which is a few clicks and not so much having to go through a process. The older generation can't quite figure that aspect out. But at the same time, as an industry as a whole, the situation that we all face is that how do you protect and how do you keep secure whatever is there online? Yeah, you hit the nail on the head there, Anchal.

09:29

Anchal Tukar

Yeah.

09:31

JP

Okay, so that being said, Anchal, a little about the space in which you are and something that you spoke about earlier. People are looking to given the market conditions, people are just looking for the next thing, right? So they're always looking to hop from one particular space to another or from one particular trend to another.

09:56

Anchal Tukar

Yeah.

09:59

JP

Is that what got you rather what is something that you're seeing so frequently in the space that you are?

10:07

Anchal Tukar

I would rather say that I'm very surprised with the way blockchain space is moving right now. There is always a hype cycle and then there is a downfall and then there is stabilization. But to be honest, in this space of blockchain, people are just moving from one trend to another while we have not even brought even a single trend to mainstream right now, right? If we try to say our NFTs mainstream no is metaverse mainstream no. Is DeFi mainstream even now, after three years, we had a TVL of 1 trillion at some point, and still it is not mainstream. 1 trillion is nothing. There are banks which have more valuations than 1 trillion, and our whole market was smaller than that. So we have not brought in even a single aspect. It has become mainstream till now. So unless we make it a point that if a project is launching, the project is long term, it sustains for at least 10, 15, 20 years, then only that kind of business will survive.

11:24

Anchal Tukar

12:38

JP

That specifically is where DeFi is trying to come in, right? And that's specifically where DeFi is trying to make it in.

12:47

Anchal Tukar

But then we find projects like Terra, we find MLM schemes where people create difficult and complex to understand processes where people don't understand where the loophole is. I mean, with Terra, I've been telling my team, plus the people I've met for a long time, that their model of LUNA is not sustainable, it is not backed by anything, it is not going to work, and they're just raking in billions of dollars of money. And I knew that this will fall down. I did not realize that it can happen so quickly. And if it can happen so quickly for an 80 billion project, then just think about the projects which are small. Those projects can go out in a night, they can go out in an hour itself. So we need to create business models which are sustainable, which are revenue and profit generating. Most of the crypto projects are just sustaining on the token value.

13:59

Anchal Tukar

They're not generating profits, they're not generating value for the token holders as well as for the people who have invested in those projects. There has to be a revenue model. Any traditional startup you see, any startup, whether in the space of AI or hospitality or any startup space, there is always a question like this is your revenue? At what point you will become, maybe after two years or five years, at what point you will break even and at what point will you start generating profits? So there has to be a critical point. Those kinds of questions are not asked in this space till now, which is strange. And that is because serious businessmen are not entering this space. Serious people are not entering the space. Proper business models are not being created. And DeFi is a very very serious space. That's what I feel because people put in their money, hard earned money in those ecosystems.

15:05

Anchal Tukar

So it's a very serious space. And I really hope that with the market the way it is right now, all the non-serious projects and investors leave the space and only the people who understand the space and who are serious to make it grow enter this space at this point of time. So that when we go to the next Bull Run, all those projects and all those people who are serious actually take this industry forward.

15:38

JP

Exactly. Once again, I think you're resonating exactly what most investors and most entrepreneurs in this space, new projects that are coming up, that's exactly what they should do. Right? Because you see that in mainstream, that's a question that you get asked whenever you're in front of a VC or an investor. They ask you, hey, what's your breakeven point? What's the value you're creating? So I take what you said in terms of create more tangibility in a space that's in some ways intangible. So that certainly is fantastic. To add further to the same point. Anchal add further to the same point. Right. You do mention that we now have to start using in many ways what's in mainstream, bringing that into the Web3 arena very broadly, the Web3. And that would include having the same processes and having the same, in some ways, the same metric from your point of view, right?

16:46

JP

So that you have more sustainability in addition to this. What would you want more finance professionals to do so that they can guide people in the Web3 space? I know that you want to show a few days ago, so I'm going to ask you that same question, but I am hoping for different answers.

17:09

Anchal Tukar

Yeah. JP. Actually, I'm not saying that Web2 is better than Web3. I never say that. But I know one thing for sure, that Web2 works. It works till now. Everything in Web2 space has some processes which are set up, have their business models which are set up. There are serious people working in Web2 space. We are building Web3 and we want to make Web3 go mainstream. If that has to happen, every professional, whether it is finance or otherwise, they have to start bringing those processes here. They have to start bringing those setups here they have to start building business models which are sustainable. Like we are in bear cycle right now. Projects which are actually dependent only on tokens to sell in the market and then sustain those projects will all vanish in this period because the tokens have no liquidity at this point.

18:14

Anchal Tukar

So you need to have revenue from your project itself and projects which do not have revenue models will not be able to sustain long term bear cycles. This is just one example, right? Other than this also there are projects which are dependent upon user demand which goes down in the bear cycles. Many projects are dependent totally upon the hype cycle which is there, which goes down in these bear cycles which is not there, which is nonexistent altogether. Then what kind of projects can sustain bear and bull cycles? Both those are the projects which actually have real world use case where the people will use them whether it is bear or bull market. So there are many projects which I can actually start naming. I mean there are list of projects which people used when there was bull cycle. But if you remove the bull cycle the APIs go down, the returns go down, the sheen of those NFTs go down the drain I would say rather.

19:28

Anchal Tukar

So at that point of time there is no use for those projects. So you don't have to build something just because there is a demand at that point of time. Like play to earn games. How many games can people play to earn? That earning also has to come from somewhere, right? How many people will pay to see our game? Or to the winner? Or for the NFTs, how many people are ready to pay? If we have so many play to one games that even the existing play to one games are not able to survive, then the whole industry falls. So you need to create models which are required even in the bear cycle. Even when the economy is down, those models will sustain. So that is what we need to think about. Like finance, everyone requires finance. Everyone requires modes to send money from one location to another.

20:30

Anchal Tukar

Even if the economy is down, even if the market is down so Bitcoin or Ethereum or these transaction volumes can go down, but they will still continue to run. People still need those things so they are going to sustain. So when as an investor you are looking at tokens, then you have to look at tokens from the business model sense that what is a project which will be needed in bear cycle as well, not just in the bull cycle. So that is how I think we should look at the whole market. And even for the new entrepreneurs who are looking at entering this space, they should look at models which are there in Web2, which can be replicated in Web3, but which are actually needed not just to cash in on the hype. Hello, JP, are you there? I think JP is having some issues.

21:51

JP

Learning so much more. So hit that like button. Let me see your reactions. Come up on this channel as this is happening. Go for it. It's a little hard button over there and then you get a.

22:05

Jason Fernandes

Jervis, I think you're cutting out.

22:12

Anchal Tukar

Yeah, somehow I'm not able to hear JP. I mean, most of the time.

22:17

Nadja Bester

Hi Anchal. In the meantime, I'll take over for a little while he's getting back online. I'm wondering in terms of these projects, we've seen so many things, especially when there's a bull cycle and everyone's kind of jumping on the bandwagon. But how can we prevent this kind of thing from happening? Because all of the investments are flowing into these hype cycle projects when it's a bull market. But I mean, the problem to me seems not only to stem from the projects themselves, but from the ecosystem in general because of all of these funds flowing into these projects. And they have a very short life cycle, as you say.

23:02

Anchal Tukar

So Nadja, actually, I would say one has to ride the hype cycle also. So every investor should actually put aside 10% 20% of their portfolio for riding such hype cycle. Investing in projects which you know are not good, but you're just entering into them because you know, you'll make money in the hype cycle, but for the long term, people who are investors for the long term or when you're since now AdLunam is a launch pad. So what kind of projects you should launch or yourself should invest in as a launch pad? I would always suggest that anyone should look at the business model, always look at what they're building. Is the team capable enough? Are they too early? Like sometimes projects just create ideas and for years they're not delivering anything to the market. So if they're not delivering anything, then they'll be dependent only on the funds raised and probably the tokens which are there in the market to survive for those years.

24:08

Anchal Tukar

So it's better to normally invest in projects which have built something which have a user base, who have a business model. Like to give you an example, I know a very prominent wallet provider which does not have any revenue model at all. So they have no revenue model, they just allow access to different they're an aggregator. And while that project came to me for investment, I checked their pitch deck and I knew the team as well, very capable team. But when I checked the business model, I realized that it's only an aggregator which is not earning revenue from everywhere, anywhere. So I did not invest in that project. The project did decent amount of revenue then decent at the launch, but it went down after some time. And I normally invest for long term. I don't just invest and get out like most people do.

25:10

Anchal Tukar

I'm not that quick on my feet to invest, take profits and get out. I invest for long term, so I did not invest in that project. But if you are a long term investor, if you are interested only in good projects, I would suggest always look at projects from the side of whether they are going to generate any revenue from themselves, for themselves. Like if you see OpenSea or Unstoppable Domains. These two projects, they don't have any Token and they are highly profitable companies, highly profitable projects. Any day their Token comes in, I will be the first one to stand in the line to buy their Token because they already have so much revenue, they are so much profitable that see, Web3 brings the benefit that you have the whole world as your market. And you can do it sitting anywhere in the world with a very small team.

26:10

Anchal Tukar

And that is the power of Web3. And when we are using blockchain and Web3, we get so many such options, such gems in this market where people create business models which can actually survive for years and can earn a lot of money without having a lot of overheads as well. Like, if I ask what is the team size of Uphold or maybe Unstoppable Domains or even OpenSea, it will not be a huge- Hey, JP, you're back.

26:43

JP

I'm so sorry. For some reason, I think this is a classic example of what you meant by we've not quite explored Web2 well enough to jump to Web3. And maybe these are some of the classic examples of how we should make. The system a bit better. Sorry about that. I had a technical issue.

27:11

Jason Fernandes

Anchal, please go ahead.

27:12

JP

Sure, go ahead.

27:13

Jason Fernandes

Please go ahead and finish what you were saying, please.

27:16

Anchal Tukar

Yeah, so I was just saying that there are so many good projects which are not even launching a Token. I'm waiting for them to launch Tokens. To be honest, I'm waiting for Unstoppable Domains, OpenSea or such projects to bring their Tokens out because they are such projects which have revenue which are going to sustain for long term, where I can invest and sit tight for ten years, 15 years, 20 years, and can leave a legacy for even my kids at some point. But if you invest in projects which are short term, very short term, you make money in the short term, but then you never know when that money, we can go back to zero. So that kind of hype cycle, normally, myself I don't invest in because I'm not very quick at taking profits, I sit tight, but otherwise I feel that people have made a lot of money in the hype cycle.

28:10

Anchal Tukar

You should keep some amount of your portfolio aside for riding such hype cycle as well. I don't do it, but people should. People have made a shitload of money.

28:25

JP

Absolutely going through a cycle like this and it's exactly what you're going to see in days to come. So, given that we are going to separate the wheat from the shaft at this point of time, how do you see the future of this technology being propagated, especially when it comes to cross-chain? What do you think?

28:52

Anchal Tukar

I think cross-chain is the future. So many chains are coming every day. Many chains have started gaining a lot of user base as well, a lot of adoption as well, problem for a user investor as well as even for the people who are creating projects right now, the biggest trouble for them is to identify which chain they should build on. Like if I today decide that I'm building a project, I mean something a smart contract and I decide to launch it on maybe Polygon because it's gaining a lot of attention and tomorrow Polygon faces some backlash and some other chain becomes more prominent, then I will lose my user base. I will lose the hype that I had. So that kind of an issue can come up for any project founder. It can be for the users who have put their funds aside in that particular chain.

29:50

Anchal Tukar

So cross-chain I think is the future because users should have this capability to move their funds around from chain to chain, whichever is needed. Tomorrow if a chain comes in which has maybe near instant transactions, no fee and much more scalable with no downtime, everyone will start moving towards that chain. So then users should have this capability to move. cross-chain projects should have this capability to go to that particular chain. So I feel cross-chain is the future. We have close to prominent chains. If I talk about prominent chains, we have close to 20 prominent chains right now which have some kind of a user base. So if I talk about 20 chains, for a project founder, it's a nightmare actually to decide where they should be. So it's important that it should be very easy actually for a project founder. They can just decide, okay, whichever is the most prominent chain.

30:53

Anchal Tukar

Okay, Ethereum, let me launch my project on Ethereum, my token on Ethereum. But I will move my token cross chain to any chain which has users. So it should be very easy for them to move across chains. It should not be that difficult of a decision because at the end of the day when you're bringing your product out, when you're going to the users, your users are only concerned about the use case. They're not concerned with chain you are using at the back end. So for them it does not matter. So it should not be a big trouble for project founders as well. They should be able to move the tokens crosschain. They should be able to have the use cases on multiple chains, whichever they want to be on. So I feel cross-chain is the future. I mean, you can't actually stick to one chain.

31:45

JP

Fair enough. That being said, Anchal, what do you see as the fundamentals of a good chain? Because like you're saying, there's 20 out there, right? So in case somebody wanted to choose one, what are some of the fundamentals they should look for?

32:03

Anchal Tukar

The top most priority for me, since we are working with multiple chains and we see and use so many chains, integrate so many chains. So what we have realized is that the biggest point that I give to any chain is availability. Like how many times I mean, what is the uptime for a change chain? Can you say that 99% or 100% of the times your transaction will go through? That is one thing which I feel is the most important factor for anyone to look at because if you're launching your token on a chain where uptime is say 80% so 20% of the times your users will come back to you with issues, with problems, with tokens stuck somewhere or transactions stuck. So you have those many new cases where you have to solve those issues, you have to take those tokens out and send them manually or find a way to solve those issues.

33:07

Anchal Tukar

So in order to make your own project or your own system automated, it's important that you look at availability as the top most criteria. That change should work all the time so that you have least number of customer support issues. That's the biggest point I feel should be there. Second most important thing is does that chain have user base or people are comfortable with it? If you go on a chain, where the wallet? I mean MetaMask does not support that particular chain which is the most used wallet right now. So if you are going and launching on a particular chain which is not supported by MetaMask, you'll actually lose 70 80% of the users because people would not just for your project may not prefer to download a new wallet so that they can use your project. So make it as easy for the users as possible.

34:13

Anchal Tukar

See if the users are comfortable using that particular chain, it's not difficult. So user experience, availability, I think are the top two most important criteria. Third point is about security. But security is actually a concern in all the chains. It depends upon your own coding and systems and design. So security is not up to the chain, it is up to the design aspects and the coding skills. The third most important point which I feel for a project is their security aspects while choosing a chain. I think the most important point, even more than the fee is availability because even though Ethereum chain has so high fee and people are always crying about it, we still have maximum number of transactions on Ethereum because it has the highest user base and it has the highest number and it is always available.

35:12

JP

Right. I think you nailed it there. Because availability with any service, right? That's exactly what people want. They want it to be reliable, they want it to be dependable, they want. It to be secure. Certainly. So that really does give us some idea about how to choose a chain going forward. In addition to that, Anchal, from your point of view in the sphere that you are right, what makes it your job easier to go cross-chain? Is there any point with chains that they should look at that makes cross-chain simpler?

35:56

Anchal Tukar

Sorry, I didn't understand the question properly.

36:01

JP

When you're going cross-chain, what are some of the fundamentals that a chain should have that makes going cross-chain easier?

36:09

Anchal Tukar

I would say we are building all the blocks required for a project to go cross chain. So you don't have to think about the technical aspects or ease of use because we are solving that issue. What a project has to actually look while going cross-chain is normally a business decision that do I want to bring my liquidity on this particular chain or not? So am I going to get more users if I go to this chain? If I launch my product or my tokens on this particular chain, will I get more users, will I get better adoption? Will I get better hype? These are the questions which you should actually think about. How to go cross-chain is not a question because we are working on that only. We are building all the products which are required to go cross-chain. So you can just come to Spherium, talk to the team, whichever chain you want to be on, if it is EVM compatible, we'll be supporting it.

37:08

Anchal Tukar

So you can just go cross-chain without even fee nothing for the first 50 projects. So projects can actually go cross-chain without paying any fee and also they can list on a cross-chain text, they can use cross-chain staking services. So all those building blocks we are working on them, most of them are also live on main net. So that is not a concern. Concern is which chain you want to be on. A project founder has to decide that which particular chain makes more sense for his business.

37:44

JP

Okay, so choose the chain. Obviously that makes more sense for your business and from a point of view of a chain, build your network well so that you get a larger user base and integrate of course with something that's available with MetaMask. That change should be there on MetaMask. Okay, I think that puts a lot of this in perspective. I'm going to throw open the questioning now from the audience because I can see that there are some people that do want to ask a question. So if you do in the audience, first give me a reaction to what you've heard so far and then you can hit the request button on your mic to ask your question. Go for it. All right. Okay, I think we Jason, do you want to get the ball rolling?

38:36

JP

Go for it.

38:46

Jason Fernandes

Sure. I'm curious about what you are talking.

38:53

Anchal Tukar

Jason, can you repeat the question?

38:56

Jason Fernandes

Sure, I said I was curious on what your thoughts on NEO protocol is. I know you mentioned EVM compatible chains. I know-.

39:08

Anchal Tukar

JP, we are able to hear. I think you are having some audio issue coming little late. Also, your audio is coming late.

39:17

JP

Okay, I'm going to hold and you can take Jason's question. Go for it.

39:21

Anchal Tukar

Yeah, thank you.

39:21

Jason Fernandes

My quick question is about I know you mentioned EVM chains. I know that obviously NEAR does have an EVM compatible chain, but for the most part, they're not EVM compatible. Just curious what your thoughts are on NEAR as a protocol and its growth.

39:38

Anchal Tukar

NEAR is so good. I would say some of the chains which I really like, one of them is NEAR protocol. They've built a very sustainable chain. It's not EVM compatible. There is an EVM compatible L2 solution that they have, which is Aurora. We have integrated Aurora in our bridge, and we'll be integrating Aurora in our decks and other products as well. So NEAR as a chain is quite good. The best part is their team is quite responsive and supportive as well. I did find some lack in the documentation aspect when I was checking Aurora's documentation. They still need to work on it more. But otherwise I feel that NEAR is a good chain. It's quite responsive. I've not heard any time that it has gone down, but I'm sure that it needs more adoption. As far as adoption goes, there are chains which have more adoption than near.

40:42

Anchal Tukar

NEAR, I think, needs to work more on the adoption front. But otherwise, technology wise, near is quite good.

40:51

Jason Fernandes

And I've also heard some things about Hedera and how they're still sort of getting to the point where they're usable. I know that they've made some investments in grants in some projects, but those same projects are not actually able to launch on Hedera due to technology limitations.

41:15

Anchal Tukar

For Hedera it's not on MetaMask. That's one thing that I've already complained to them, to be honest. They're not supported by MetaMask. They are EVM compatible, but not supported on MetaMask yet. So we had to install a new wallet, do different things for them. So Hedera as an institutional chain is quite good. If you see their consensus mechanism, it is unique. If I talk about Solana, which has a unique consensus mechanism, I can actually compare Hedera's consensus to Solana's consensus mechanism. It's very fast. It's quite unique. Technology wise, they are quite good. My biggest concern with Hedera is, again, the same thing that I told about NEAR. Very good technologies, not enough adoption. They made it a DAO. And DAO has its own pros and cons. The pros are that it is quite decentralized. Not no centralization is there. But then unless you have centralization, the decisions take a lot more time to implement.

42:33

Anchal Tukar

And that's where I feel that Hedera is lacking. They can actually implement a lot of things very quickly which are going very slow because of their DAO structure. So Hedera as a chain and as a technology, they have a very good consensus mechanism, they have a very good tech at hand, but because they're going slow in the way of they can improve the chain and the adoption, even though they've given a lot of grants away and their grants are also quite good. It's not a small amount of grant that they normally issue, they give a decent amount of grant which actually helps projects develop on them. But if you see the grant process, that also takes a lot of time. The responsiveness is also slow. And even on the technology front, I'm sure whichever projects you're talking about, the projects would be facing some issue and the tech team would be slow in response.

43:32

Anchal Tukar

That is where I feel Hadera is lacking. They need to get out of the Dow module, they have to bring certain things to centralized aspect. As I told earlier as well, Web2 works very well. We are moving towards Web3. But before something can be made completely decentralized, you have to ensure that it has reached that critical mass where it is working autonomously, automatically, without any support and where only a few decisions are required. Because once you become a Dow or become completely decentralized, decisions take a lot more time to materialize. That's where I feel Hedera lacks.

44:17

Jason Fernandes

That's excellent opinion. Sometimes having too much democracy can hurt. Nadja, would you like to jump in with any questions?

44:30

Nadja Bester

Yeah, I think Anchal just as a final question to follow up on my previous one, I was wondering in this market that we are seeing at the moment, how do you think this is going to influence the future evolution of the industry? Because we have new projects coming in all the time, they jump on the hype cycle and then the next second the market goes down and the outfit account. So do you think that this is having an influence on how the industry is going to evolve in future?

44:59

Anchal Tukar

I really feel Nadjaa that we need these bear cycles to weed out very low quality or projects as well as people who are investing only for the hype cycle, these kind of bear cycles. I know that once the industry matures, such kind of bear and bull cycles might not come. We won't see such kind of 50%, 90%, 80% fall in token prices once the industry matures, but that will take a lot of time. AI has been in existence for I think over 50, 60 years right now. And still right now we are seeing only few, first few robots being built who are able to do certain activities. And Blockchain has been there for close to 13, 14 years right now. So we are very early in the cycle and that's the reason we are seeing such kind of a downfall. And then bull cycles which are, I mean, these kind of markets do come and go, but it's very important that we have such bear cycles because in these bear cycles, only you come to know which are the long term projects.

46:14

Anchal Tukar

Because if some project has started in a bull cycle, sustained through the bear cycle, in the next bull cycle, you will see that project can actually do 100 X as well because that project was able to sustain the low point. So projects will come and go even in this bear cycle. I always tell people in my team, when we discuss, or people with whom I normally discuss about all these aspects, that we need to always look at fundamentals, not just the technical aspects. Like something is growing within numbers, look at the fundamentals, look at the business model all the time. I always tell that these pitch decks which are coming for most of the projects, always look at the business model. Those decks normally talk only about what is the problem and what they're solving. No, that is not the business model. Anyone can say that, okay, I'm going to make this world a better place.

47:13

Anchal Tukar

But how? How exactly are you going to do it? And do you have that capability to achieve whatever you're saying? So that is what I look at. This bear cycle is good. I hope it is not very long. It is just enough to weed out the weak hands so that we can have more strong people sustaining in the industry in the long term.

47:44

JP

Okay, I think we have one question that's coming in from Lawrence. Lawrence, go ahead. That would be the last question that we're going to take for today before we bring this program to a close. Go ahead.

48:02

Anchal Tukar

Hi, Lawrence.

48:08

Lawrence

Hello.

48:10

Anchal Tukar

Hey.

48:13

Lawrence

Hi.

48:17

Anchal Tukar

Please go ahead with your question.

48:22

Lawrence

Yeah, I think I kind of had a little bit of a comment in the sense of the markets traditionally, capital markets, money markets, stock markets, all are kind of coupled together. And I think the question is. At some point because kind of talking about Bitcoin a little bit as the daddy of all crypto. So is that decoupling going to happen where it's not tied? When stock markets fall, then crypto falls as well? Or what is the separation between Bitcoin and all the other cryptos in terms of market?

49:12

Anchal Tukar

Yeah, so Lawrence, actually earlier in the previous cycles when stock market used to fall or gold used to fall, crypto used to go up. So it was inverse relation between Bitcoin and normal stock market because people used to consider Bitcoin as a hedge against traditional markets. But as more and more institutional adoption is coming in, lot of money has actually flown in from traditional markets to crypto market now. So what happens is that when traditional markets fall now so at that point of time, those institutions which have invested in traditional markets as well as crypto, they are at pressure that in order to ensure that they are not liquidated in the traditional markets or there are no margin calls, they have to liquidate their assets everywhere. They have to get back into cash or fiat. And that's the major reason why now we have a direct relation, not inverse relation between traditional markets and crypto.

50:23

Anchal Tukar

So I feel that this correlation is going to continue and will become even more stronger going ahead when more and more institutional money. Right now, to be honest, most of the institutions have not invested more than 2% to 5% in crypto markets and still that amount of money is so much that it has a huge impact on crypto market. So once they start investing 10,% 20%, 30%, 40% of their portfolio from traditional market to crypto market, that direct correlation that we have will become even more stronger. And it is possible that crypto market might now the things tables might turn at some point and crypto market fall or gain might impact stock market at some point, indirect correlation. So that is also a possibility after a couple of years. So this correlation is going to continue. I'm sure Bitcoin being the daddy here for other tokens, that's also something, but this is something which has continued since the beginning that people normally follow Bitcoin and that is something I think should continue for some time.

51:36

Anchal Tukar

52:37

Lawrence

Okay, can you hear me?

52:40

Anchal Tukar

Yes, I can.

52:43

Lawrence

Okay, yeah, that was an excellent analysis. So the more money that moves into institutions, institutional investments, then the more correlated it is. And that kind of sucks because I hope it decouples. But that's a very good point that you made. Yeah.

53:12

Anchal Tukar

That decoupling is very difficult. That can happen only if we actually have stock market like gold is a hedge against stock market or oil. Then that kind of decoupling can happen only if actually Bitcoin becomes the reserve currency which is against the fiat, and that is not happening very soon, I'm sure.

53:37

Lawrence

Yeah. Okay, thank you.

53:41

JP

All right, okay. Thank you, Lawrence, for that question. Okay thank you Lawrence for that question. And Anchal, thank you so much for spending your time with us. We have had, I'm certain, of very exciting times. So, ladies and gentlemen, once again, let's put our hands together and give a huge round of applause to Anchal, who spent so much of her time, her insight, and her valuable experience with us here today. So, Anchal, this is for you. I know everybody at the other end is unmuted. They can't hear you, but I'm certain that they're clapping. So give us a reaction, people. And Anchal, I hope you had a good time on the show as well.

54:14

Anchal Tukar

Yeah, I had a great time. All the questions were very good. In fact, I would say we had low attendance rather, because of the market conditions. I've seen a lot more people getting excited at anything when the market is good, but we had very good and important points discussed today. I'm sure that we'll listen to this later on as well. And these are important things people should understand. In bear cycles, you actually see people who are veterans and who are going to be in this industry for long.

54:48

JP

Exactly.

54:48

Anchal Tukar

Thank you so much. Thanks for calling me here, guys.

54:58

JP

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for tuning in this time. Remember to tune into Diving Into Crypto next week at the same time. And to everyone here, have a good evening. Have a good day. Good morning.

55:12

JP

Cheers.

55:15

Anchal Tukar

Thank you. Thank you so much.

55:17

JP

You're welcome.