Oracles in DeFi : Bridging AI & Blockchain for a Smarter Web3

In this insightful discussion Jason Fernandes, Co-Founder of AdLunam, is joined by Chris Brookins, Head of Business at Gora Network, to dive into the critical role of oracles in DeFi and how they are bridging the gap between AI and blockchain for a smarter Web3. They discuss innovations in decentralized finance, the impact of oracles on lending, credit scoring, and how AI-driven oracles can revolutionize data security and functionality in blockchain ecosystems. Tune in to learn how oracles act as the backbone of DeFi, enabling seamless, secure transactions and driving future innovations.

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Oracles in DeFi : Bridging AI & Blockchain for a Smarter Web3

SPEAKERS

Jason Fernandes AdLunam Inc Co-Founder

Chris Brookins Head of Business at Gora Network

Okay, we'll wait for the room to fill up for a few Minutes. Can everyone hear us clearly? If you're tuning in, please drop an emoji in the chat to confirm Awesome. All right, let's give it a minute and we'll jump right In. Alrighty. Everyone before we get into the exciting discussions around oracles coming up, this is going to be probably the most exciting discussion about Oracle since the Oracle of Delphi. I've got some exciting updates from the AdLunam universe. Let's get into it. First up. You know, I'll be speaking. I'll be moderating a panel at IFX Expo Asia in Bangkok on September 17. The topic would be crypto in Asia, The world is watching. If you're attending, let's connect web3 World is small, so let's work together to make it more accessible for everyone. Our co-founder Nadja Bester will be taking the stage at the Gatherverse AI Evolve Summit on September 10, speaking on a panel titled The workforce revolution, AI and human collaboration and action. You don't want to miss this one. Follow AdLunam on x to get the viewing link. Uh, AdLunam media arm Altcoin Observer is absolutely crushing it with our latest media partnerships. Uh, we're bringing you exclusive coverage from the European blockchain conference happening on September, 25 and 26th in Barcelona. We've also got an exclusive discount code just for our community. Head over to altcoin.observer to learn more, and just when you thought we were done, you can catch all coin observer at WebX Asia Tokyo on August 28 and 29th ,Wiki finance Expo in Bangkok on September 7, and the IFX Expo Asia, again, also in Bangkok on September 16 to 18. So we're everywhere. People Bringing the Future blockchain to you one event at a time. So fantastic. Now without further ado, let's welcome to episode 84 of Diving into Crypto, sponsored by AdLunam Inc., I'm your host. Jason Fernandes, co-founder of AdLunam Inc, a web3 investor advisor and mentor. Please join me in welcoming Chris Brookins, Head of Business at Gora Network. Chris has 10 plus experiences, experience in credit, blockchain technology and machine learning. He co-founded Rocifi Labs, a blockchain and machine learning development company that built Rocifi, an under collateralized lending and credit scoring protocol on polygon and ZkSync, NRA and on chain wallet analytics tool. He's raised 2.7 million from Arrington signum and golden tree, along with grass and Polygon, Avalanche, Moonbeam and axilla. Why don't you tell us more about yourself, Chris, why don't you maybe unmute and introduce yourself.

Cool. So does Gora actually do still credit scoring off of wallet. So does it? Does that something that they still do?

yeah, for sure. So that is one of the things. So one of the core initiatives, why we wanted to merge with Gora and vice versa, is that Oracle is a lot of time just do the same exact thing. So, you know, the big players out there, I don't need to name them, they just offer the same exact price feeds, and, you know, maybe some other ancillary feeds that everyone else does. It really doesn't add a lot of value, and there's no incentive for them to really push the needle forward, because it just cannibalizes their cash cow. So our thinking was that to in order to make our mark in this space, we need to offer something differentiated, and obviously our credit scoring, but then also potentially just data around a wallet, like net worth, their Ethereum balance, or their Bitcoin balance, or whatever it may be that can simply just be queried and then given through the Oracle network to a project, whether they want To target high value users for higher rewards, or whatever it may be, is something that's very valuable. And that was sort of the genesis behind the merger, so to speak. So in short, yes, that is still available through Gora.

That's fascinating. Actually,we're building a product that's leveraging alchemy APIs to pull various data around, specifically, like wallet balances and, you know, sort of how, like a wallet is constructed, what is a composition from a portfolio perspective, right? But, yeah, so that's really interesting that you guys are doing that Definitely would like to learn more about that. But how does it differentiate? How does Gora network work? I know you guys focus on you mentioned before AI got sexy. How do you guys leverage AI in what you do?

So I think there's a couple different ways, obviously. So the credit scores that are still being generated for any protocol that will query, that will ping Gore's API, if they are, they're looking like, give me the credit score on, say, your wallet address, or, you know, 0x dot, dot, dot. The inside or the score is being generated through an. Ml AI algorithm. So that's the lowest hanging fruit. There's three ways that, like Gora kind of leverages AI now in this new movement within the market. So we're keeping up with the waves, and one is through data feeds. So again, Gora like the credit scores being one of those. But also we're talking to other partners within like the AI space. We've got buddies over at PAL and AIT as well, and if there's any time, and also, we've ran a hackathon with Giza, who is a big player of on chain agents over in the stark net ecosystem. So anytime there's maybe any insights or inferences that need to come on chain, that can happen through the Gora, through the Gora network, through like the feeds, so to speak. The second piece is just straight data. So maybe they're on chain agents, like I was talking about with Giza and modulus labs, as well as another big player, maybe they're looking to build an on chain agent that automatically rebalances your portfolio whenever x, y, z happens. But they need price feed data, and they need some volatility data and whatever else it may be. They can get that from us, because we don't simply just focus in price feeds, we focus on a lot of different areas of data differentiation so that can feed into their on chain agents to make whatever decisions that they're going to make autonomously through their smart contract infrastructure and AI as well. And then also, go ahead,

sorry, I was just gonna ask so they API call.

I mean web3 API call, that is correct.

Ah, understood, fantastic. No, no, please go ahead. Yeah, no worries.

And I was just going to say the last thing is just taking some of the spare compute capacity that we have that secures that runs, essentially our Oracle network, and then transfer some of that to some of these marketplaces that have spun up for AI to actually help them, you know, retrain some of their models, or train some of these AI models that are being built in a decentralized manner. So those are the three main ways that Gora right now is really diving in both feet first into the AI space.

You know, there's an NFT company that they're building out likethey sort of enable people to create these dynamic NFTs, right? That taken certain amounts of data, presumably from oracles or wherever, and it's sort of updates over time, and things do like things that are happening within the Oracle that's sending data to the NFT is causing the NFT to mutate and change in certain ways. I think that would be like. That could be a very interesting experiment to where you have, let's say, certain different kinds of data that you know might change an NFT. It could even be a game, for example, that, like, change changes an NFT somehow, and then it pulls data, and then then that NFT is being updated in real time, something like that. It would be interesting. I wonder if that's a possible use case either, for what you guys are building have.

So I think, like, that's the beauty of kind of having ubiquitous but then, like, ubiquitous data availability, but then also a composable layer, like, so that it can be leveraged in all these different areas. So, like, it goes back to the original point where the big players don't like, they're just giving the same exact thing, because, again, like, they've got an incentive to do so because they're making money hand over fist, but that's great for them, but it's not great for the ecosystem and also, and ultimately, innovation, which is where we sort of step in to allow ourselves to like, tap in at the spearhead of a lot of these different like technologies. And what data can we provide to this particular AI provider that will allow them to train their models better. Can we give them compute can we take some of their insights and bring it on chain in a web3 native manner, so that a protocol can then leverage that insight, or whatever it may be, for a new use case? So everything that you're talking about is like right at the intersection of what we're focusing on, because there's all these new, unique use cases that I don't even know will eventually be spun up like that. Is something that I never heard about, sort of like a mutating NFT. And it sounds really interesting, in all honesty. And there'll be a million different use cases like this, which will ultimately crop up because of people like of like Gora, of what we're building so that innovation in these new technologies, but also new use cases, can come to the forefront. And, you know, solve problems or create novel, you know, goods and services for people. So, you know, in short, yes, and also that sounds really interesting.

So would you say that basically, the different. Data is like some of the bigger players, they're not incentivized to provide multiple pieces of data. They just sort of provide like the bare minimum, because there's not a enough use case, or for whatever reason, it's not worth their where them going after to provide multiple pieces of data, and it's sort of an Oracle, like gore network would be. It would have the ability to sort of zero in on, perhaps additional pieces of data that you could, you could glean from, from, you know, various different input sources, for example, yeah.

I mean, in a roundabout way, correct? So if anyone has read the book Innovators Dilemma, and you know, it's, I apologize for my MBA coming out here, but, like, it's the same exact thing where they they're dominating a space which is incredibly vital to DeFi and all like, different capacities. So it's, it is absolutely vital, like Oracle's make defy function, so they're dominant there. In some of these different areas that I'm talking about are still a bit avant garde niche, despite all the hype and narrative and money being thrown in AI and decentralized AI this and crypto slash AI that it's still very, very fringe and niche, like it's still up and coming. So why take assets and money that you can use to, like, enrich yourself, or just continue to enrich your cash cow and go after some of these small niches which may or may not ultimately pan out, whereas they can just wait for it to grow into something large and then try to compete at a later stage. Unfortunately, it's less viable to do that within a blockchain experience because the network effects are so strong, which is why we think, you know, focusing in some of these different areas, maybe some work, maybe some don't, but as they grow and become super large, valuable markets over time, Gora will be the primary beneficiary of taking that leap out of faith, because of the network effects that we will have built over time. So again, if you've read the book Innovators Dilemma, it's really a copy and paste of that, just with a different variety.

So we jumped right into Gora more, because I just thought it was so fascinating what you guys are doing. But sort of shift gears a bit. Tell us. Tell us a bit about, more about yourself. And sort of, how do you go into crypto? You say you're from the US, where? Where in the US did you live? Sort of, was it out of college? Were you always interested in in decentralization as a concept? Or, how did that come about?

yeah, you know, it's always interesting to see kind of how somebody gets into crypto, and then that also influences, like, the kind of businesses within crypto that they find appealing, you know. And I think sometimes it's almost like all real. Was lead to road Rome, you know, I mean, I was, I went to, I went to UT, Austin, and I was briefly an economics major. And for some reason it was really, really, really not my thing. I ended up in politics, majoring in government. And then one of the reasons I got interested in crypto in the first place is sort of, I was studying democratization, and whether it was, you know, in general, should be foreign policy to, you know, democratize other countries, or whether it's important for democracies to have, you know, like, what, what is it that makes a healthy democracy? And like, one of them was, you know, you have freedom of the press and so on, things that you would, you would think, but also freedom of like money, right? And transaction and and, and not non surveillance around that. And I think that's that sort of, in a roundabout way, ended up with me getting into crypto, even though a lot of what I do is is highly economics related, and that didn't have any appeal for me in the past, right? It's kind of weird how things worked out. Agreed. So what got you passionate about web3, specifically?

So there's a unique power within Web3, and like we're talking in its ideals and where it can eventually get to, I think web3, again, much like a lot in this space, is very in not nascent, but in its early stages, still being crafted, and we're seeing the full power. So the full vision of web3, I think, has the power to balance, like centralized, opaque and oftentimes corrupt systems via open source collaboration. So some of the things that you were just talking about as well, and I think web three has the power to solve many societal issues that range from finance to labor coordination to freedom of speech to freedom of moving your money without being looked at or even restricted with some of these fear fears around CBDCs and things like that. So ultimately, I think the world is stronger together like this societal coordination, and then also hive minds that have been brought up a lot of times. And I think web3 really embodies those ideals, and as all things that are growing in its early stage, we're still trying to figure it out, but it is that, you know, end state, or North Star, so to speak, that I think really is attractive around web three. It has, you know, the ability to change the world for a tiny sliver of the positive potentially,

yeah, I mean, that's why I think a lot of people you know are passionate about this in the first place. But now you have, you know, this new narrative, AI, and it seems like that's the only thing I think I read the other day, that 40% of investments this year by VCs have been in the iPhones. It just blows my mind, because it seems to me that there's probably innovation happening in other firms as well, sorry, in other industries. But I'm just curious, where would you see sort of AI transforming the blockchain landscape like so particularly, let's say DeFi or data security.

So I think AI is going to transform the blockchain landscape massively. So again, like, take this with a grain of salt. We're really in the early stages, despite the fundraising numbers that you put out and all the hype and everything that goes around it. A lot of, a lot of the space is still trying to figure out, like, okay, like, what is useful? Is there actually a need for this? You know, where is this? where's the demand going to come from? But ultimately, I think it's going to have a massive influence. So I think AI will influence defi the same way algorithmic or high frequency trading change the landscape of equity commodity market trading forever. So you know, previously, people, there were actual humans on trading floors, you know, doing X, Y and Z, and then there were the day traders that would look at charts and do all this other crap and technical analysis. And then high frequency traders just came in and just wiped them all out. So, like, it's all for show, and I think it will be something similar, maybe not in as sort of dramatic of a fashion removing humans from the defi space, but the impact will be as significant as that sort of, you know, measure there as well. And then I guess, regarding data security, you know, it will be more challenging process as the coordination and performance required for decentralized and open source models to actually become superior to the current centralized options. So that is a bit, you know, harder, but ultimately, if they can take the Proper steps. And their industry can take the proper steps. It has the ability to not only surpass in performance, but then, obviously, through privacy of data on, you know, immutable, uncensorable, all these different things that I think will be a really strong tick in the positive box.

So you mentioned, you mentioned how AI influenced tradfi Because, and that's interesting too, because that comes from your, you know, unique experience in tradfi. But how do you see, let's say tradfi and blockchain interact, these two worlds, particularly, let's say in the realm of credit scoring and and let's say lending. I know that one of the big use cases that I've heard of when it comes to block blockchain and is or decentralized finance, is sort of buying up things like factoring, right? So Invoice Factoring for small businesses, so bang up, buying up these invoices and stuff. But overall, like when it comes to lending and scoring, I know you mentioned under collateralized loans. How do you think the tradfi and you know, Blockchain are likely to sort of evolve together?

I think, they'll highly evolve together. So eventually you'll see a lot of infrastructure that was previously done so, like I've worked in banks, in my god, the infrastructure that the at least in the US, I can only speak from that perspective, that the US, you know, global banking system is running on, it will blow your mind, like it would absolutely blow your mind. Maybe it's been updated a little bit since my time there, which is pushing eight years, but it's, it's crazy, and so like eventually, all of that infrastructure will move on chain, simply from a cost perspective, efficiency, performance, innovation, ability to move money at, you know, a second versus needing to do some ACH clearing house, it takes three to five business days and all this other crazy stuff. If you've ever interacted with a bank in the US, at least, you'll understand what I'm saying. So I think ultimately it will bleed into like TradeFi and DeFi will begin to look very, very much the same over time. And then, I guess, like how AI will kind of influence that a little bit in regards to credit scoring and lending, same exact way that ML has influenced credit scoring now too, except it will just be faster. There's a more variety of information, of data that can now be imported into those models to possibly make credit decisions better in theory and faster there as well. So yeah, it will dramatically increase, but it also requires, you know, potentially reliable networks like Gora, to position itself, offer those types of things, you know, to some of these players that are looking to create these eventually, kind of aggregated type businesses where it's hybrid. So, yeah, that's, that's sort of my thoughts around it, and because

there's a lot of utility around, you know, credit scoring wallets and things like that. But you know, particularly because you don't, you don't just have information on on what they buy. You have information on how long they've held various tokens. And you could infer things like, when somebody got into their market, the kind of investor they are, that they get in, let's say the what was the price of Bitcoin when they've made a purchase of, you know? Let's say Solana. Gives you an idea of, like, you know, whether, if they got in, let's say four years ago. That tells you something about their risk appetite, you know. So I think there's, there's so much more data, and I don't think companies that want to get involved in in building this out themselves. I mean, that's not their goal. They really just want to essentially plug in call a service where they can, where service industry can provide them with information on a plateau and give them information about, you know, who owns this wallet, for example, and how did they? What are they? Are they people worth, let's say lending to, for example, but, or even trusting, for that matter, right? Like, let's say you're buying luxury watches, for example, and you could, you could have a wallet which would, which would have some degree of information out there that would be public, and that in its in and of itself, would let some degree of credibility, like, for example, this guy has held X amount of money in this wallet for X amount of time, and he's constantly had had, you know, multiple deposits come in, and he's never had any, let's say, suspicious filings or any complaints around those. Know, transactions, for example,

right? I mean, you so Oracle sort of play a crucial role in connecting blockchain with real world data. So I'm curious whether, whether anybody's working in the problem of maybe connecting it with connecting, let's say wallet information with open source intelligence around, let's say, through marketing databases and things like that, to build, like a more a more complete customer profile. What are the sort of latest advancements in Oracle technology? You know? How does it, you know, what are the things that you see coming on the horizon?

So I think that that's kind of two questions. So I'll work in reverse advancements, like within Oracle technology. I think the the biggest, the biggest thing is, you know, from a from a security perspective, and like, how it relates to the security of the protocols that are using it is making sure that the no network is decentralized, it's robust, it's performance so that, you know, a lot of times in web3, there's no SLAs getting from partners. It's just we're not at the level of professionalism that you would see in a standard web2 tech setting, but making sure that we can uphold those ideals and offer that to users that are that are leveraging the Gora network. So that is the biggest thing, like whenever you're talking about, how do we connect these pieces of technology, but then also make sure that it's reliable and secure, the a big topic or advancement that we're seeing is off chain computation within Oracle networks, and I don't think it's necessarily something new, so to speak. I think that capability was always there, but now with the proliferation of AI marketplaces, either for model training. Training, or like decentralized training, or even being able to take these different inferences and models that are built and buy those for whatever it may be, all these decentralized AI marketplaces, it requires GPU capacity to do so, and as I mentioned at the top of the call, Oracle networks potentially can provide some of that off chain computation capacity through GPUs that are being ran by our node operators to help these platforms train their models that can then be monetized in whatever particular way. And we're starting to do that as well. We made an announcement, I believe, at the beginning of this week, with AIT, that we are now providing them computation power to their particular network to help them mine bit tensor so that their models and everything that is going on in that particular platform can use some of our capacity train those and then ultimately go to their particular end users. So I think that is one of the more interesting developments within the Oracle space. Your original question like, is anyone taking this data and then mapping it with marketing profiles that was, that was not our original vision, but our second vision of raw so the company that you had mentioned you just called it at the beginning, no worries, was to be able to take these really detailed user profiles that we broke down of their on chain history and allow projects to look at those and essentially scrub for power users of a use case, or their platform or their chain that they really wanted to go after and target, realizing that air drops and these math campaigns and all this other crap, it's nice, it generates a little buzz, but the retention is close to zero, and you see that with even some of the biggest names out there, like blast, so being able to actually find users that need your protocol, what you've built, and then reach out to them in some particular capacity was really, really valuable, in theory, but we kind of hit, you know, a variety of sticking points, Which that's a different time for a different call. So that is the only team that I know of us that was really trying to work on it from that detailed of a perspective. But I still think it's a very nascent space there as well.

You said the company is called Gora, yeah, okay, apologize for that.

Yeah. Gora Correct. So that's, that's typically an issue as well. So no worries. Yeah,

we get, we're called AdLunam. AdLunam means to the moon in Latin. What we get, like, AdLunam just like, every possible accommodation, so, but, yeah, okay, cool. So with regard, with reference to AI and Oracle services, is there an issue with things like hallucination, or does it enhance the accuracy and reliability of data, or does it sort of maybe put that at risk?

I don't know if it puts it at risk. So I think the current stage where it's at, it can enhance it, especially from like having different data for maybe different use cases. But ultimately, it's going to require some iterations, like over time, so it's where it can take. It is something very interesting and fascinating, but we're really just at the initial stages to see, like, what are the true capabilities? But again, I think these models that are being built are sophisticated enough to probably, probably ascertain between like noise and some element of signal that is being given to them. But like with anything, if there's just an inundation of data, of course, it's going to spit out. It's going to spit out garbage. So if you just data dumped, you know, the last print of the Ethereum blockchain, like the last block into any of these large language models, it's just going to, it's godly goop. It's, it's not going to give you anything back remotely useful. So it still requires a certain level of data cleaning to give it to them and ultimately spin out some relevant insights there as well. So I think that's still a bit of a bit of a question mark, but nothing that we've seen thus far

cool. what about hacks? I know that you know. One of the, one of the big targets when it comes to hackers is oracles, particularly because they might, they may, you know, power things like, you know, casino games, for example. So what is that? Is that something that you know, you guys have had to deal with, or what steps are to be taken to sort of ensure that that's not an issue.

So I think, to clarify, at least some of the largest hacks, like quote, unquote, are typically not, are not a function of the oracles. Like the Oracles themselves aren't targeted. Generally, it's an illiquid assets price that is targeted, that is artificially manipulated as to like game the system, so to speak, so oracles in those circumstances do exactly what they're supposed to do, like offering the real time price feeds for whatever that particular asset is. It's the protocol logic and, you know, risk parameters, etc, and asset listing strategies that ultimately get exploited because they're going too far down the long tail curve and introducing illiquid assets that can be manipulated by not necessarily a large amount of money to ultimately game the system. Pump up the token, take out a loan, whenever the token price crashes back down, you've taken out a loan that is $20 million over value, like more than what the actual value of the collateral is, and you just walk off with it. So typically, those are the types of hacks and exploits that are associated with oracles. But really, the Oracle did nothing wrong. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. It really fell on the actual parameters of of the protocol. And then, like again, as we move into some of these different like avant garde niches that Gore is spearheading, where we're curating, you know, sports data and information, and maybe weather data for these different types of prediction market outcomes may like that is also something where having consensus of multiple different providers, like of data sources, that verifies that yes, the Steelers did, in fact, beat the Ravens Like there is not some sort of mishap or some sort of glitch or even malicious attack that is going on to make sure that the outcome is ultimately correct and that market clears accordingly. But I think that is more of an avant garde sort of issue which will be seen and ultimately handled in the future with providers like like Gora ourselves, but the math use cases are typically how I explained.

So probably it's more about people exploiting the way adapts and protocols interact with Oracle's, then the data from the org bills itself.

Yes, that's correct. Did you hear the last one? Are you maybe on? Yeah.

No, I was muted, yeah. So as blockchain ecosystems grow, you have cross chain interoperability becoming more critical, right? So what are the key factors that will drive the success of interoperable solutions in the blockchain industry? Is that, through any immunity, oracles like Gora Would you say.

you know, seems self a bit of self aggrandizing, but yes, I would say so. One of the things it's going to be like seamless flow and compatibility, in my particular opinion. So the ability to toggle between chain a to chain B to chain C to chain y, back to chain a. You know, that can be dizzying, even, even for de Gen. So like for math, adoption for just the the regular Joes and Janes, it's going to be a non starter. So having these intermediary oracles so that it can help aggregate all these different disparate chains, like seamlessly, like aggregate the data or liquidity, or whatever it may be, is going to be absolutely invaluable. And I think, as you mentioned, oracles are going to be a huge part of that, to make sure that it can flow as seamless as possible, and also it can help, you know, root up these different use cases and spin it up and like one that could be where someone wants to borrow on avalanche, but they want to have consider. Population of the assets that they have on avalanche and arbitrum taken like whenever they borrow on avalanche. So say they've got like, rap, etc, on both avalanche and arbitrum, and they want both of that looked at as collateral to be able to take out a loan of $80.80 USDC on avalanche. Like, will you need an oracle system that communicates effectively on both of those particular networks and can curate that information? Now imagine, like, Okay, well, this is kind of risky because we don't have a presence there. Well, what's the history of this particular user that wants to do that. Oh, just so happens this, this oracle network has the the usage history of this user on avalanche and arbitrary and Ethereum and, you know, Zk, or whatever it may be to be able to curate that. So in short, like these are just ideals and use cases I'm pulling from the top of my head, but that seamless connectivity layer is going to be really, really important for, you know, new innovations to be driven, but then also so that we can gradually introduce more users into the space, versus, like, Not just catering, catering to the existing Degens or existing users that we have here.

So I think ultimately what would end up happening is people would be developing on multiple different chains, different parts of their product that was the most efficient use case for that chain, and then maybe they fed into Oracle's certain pieces of data on one end, and then, you know, created on the other from another chain, and then just picked up where that left off, uh, did for the track, you know, calculations or manipulations of that data, and then, let's say, popped it back over to, uh, to an Oracle for them to be able to use that off of A third chain.

Yeah, approximately,

so you guys are built on algorand, but also connects to EVM chains like Ethereum and polygon. So how do you guys maintain security and efficiency across these different blockchain ecosystems?

So, like I without taking people too deeply within the weeds, it's just Gora was built around like decentralized, no consensus without some of the typical tradeoffs that you'll see for like, efficiency and like it, it didn't take any of those shortcuts from the beginning, and like we essentially just take that and then Continue to map that particular technology over to each scale or each chain that we scale over to. So it really starts with how the network was built around security, reliability, decentralization, straight from the beginning, and then taking that with each little extension, sort of a hub and spoke over to these different EVM chains that were gradually expanding over to making sure that the security, the consensus, etc, still kind of flows and routes from that master, but then It touches out into each one of those tentacles, so to speak.

So is Gora actually named after algorand? Is that guys name?

You know, I don't know that's before my time at Gora.

Quite a coincidence, right? That literally, the chain is built on, has the entire name of the company? Well, most of it totally,

totally feasible or potentially possible, but unfortunately,I don't have that answer.

Yeah, definitely worth finding out, I think. But, okay, cool, so web2 companies, you have these more traditional web2 companies. In blockchain. What are the key challenges and opportunities for these companies as they transition over to decentralized technologies? I mean, I know that some people have experimented. Some very traditional brands have experimented with, companies with NFTs, for example, and then not delivered. Musicians have done this. Even some of the big, you know, department stores have done this. So what do you think is sort of the best challenges and opportunities for for more web two company?

So I guess there's, there's, like, how you phrased it is, is, like a bit too. So like, if you're a web2 company and you're looking to get involved here. Like, you have to understand what the space is and what the space isn't. So like, I think, at the beginning of this year, whenever it looked like we were in a rip roaring bull market, everyone wants to tap into this new set of users, which is going to help them sell X, Y and Z and all this other stupid stuff. So, like, I can see how they want to do how they wanted. Do that, and then eventually pull the plug, because you sort of rush in and you're like, wait, we don't actually know what we're doing or offering, or this isn't as big. This isn't going to help me sell as many CDs, or whatever it may be, as I thought it was going to. So like web2 companies that are really looking to move into the space and have a footprint, have to actually understand that, and it can't just be a cash grab. And I think that's really difficult for a lot of web2 companies like our time in MasterCards accelerator, like they were very passionate about blockchain and the ability of crypto. But they, you know, their presence and like, what paths they were actually going to take was still very much under development. They just knew that this technology, and you know, cohort, had a really great capability for transforming finance, all the mechanisms around finance, essentially, and they don't want to be left behind. They want to make sure that they are coming along for the ride. But you don't necessarily know, because that's not their business. They're not DeFi experts. They're not blockchain experts. They're not crypto like they're traditional finance, and that's where people like us, where the opposite side of the coin, the web3 founders, we have the ability to not only speak to these types of individuals, but we also have the ability to try to educate them and then work with them, unfortunately, on their particular sales cycles, which is going to take a dramatically longer time than what We're used to within like crypto and blockchain. So it's a bit of, it's a bit of, you know, push and pull, where web2 has to truly understand, like, what it is did they and that they actually want to be there. They're not just trying to, you know, virtue signal or do a cash grab. And then also, for web3, if we really want these big players to come in and increase the amount of capital in the space and the users in the space, then we have to be able to work with them, and that is going to be painstakingly slow at times, but potentially it can be worth the pain 6, 12, 18 months down the line, if And when they do decide to make a big splash. So it's a difficult question.

Yes, you mentioned TradeFi, and there's been quite a bit of institutional interest in defi from sort of more traditional markets. How do you see that impacting DeFi in the future, particularly in terms of, you know, liquidity, innovation, regulation, what about, you know, things like contagion and the financial markets? Because, you know, we consider Bitcoin and a lot of cryptocurrencies to be non correlated assets with Vis a Vis, you know, more traditional finance. But I think that that is that gap, if it, if it ever existed, but you did many years ago as slim down significantly because the Florida traditional finances interest in things like defi and crypto. What are your thoughts on that?

So I think the first part of your question is like, what's the what's the impact of institutional interests, you know, coming to defy and I think it's going to, it's going to change it dramatically. So it's going to increase liquidity, in theory, it should increase innovation, although that typically moves a bit slower, despite popular belief in this space. And is definitely going to increase regulation, as we're already seeing within the within the US, there's certainly not going to be less regulation. There's going there's going to be more. So I think you can probably bet on all three of those. In regards to contagion, it's just tough to know, because it depends on how much the traditional finance industry is going to sort of try to take what is on chain and then bring it back into the opaque world of, you know, shadow banking and things that can't be seen. So why defy works is because risks are held in plain sight, and also everything is over collateralized right now, which isn't necessarily useful for a functioning global economy built around fractional reserve banking, however, but it still functions and it doesn't, it doesn't blow up. I think you can push the boundaries a little bit there. Obviously Rosie five was meant to be under collateralized lending, but it has to be out in the public to be seen. You can't be making loans on Bitcoin or Ethereum or whatever it may be that have zero collateral and all this other stuff, and it's held in the shadows, and no one can see who's got what, and is this there, and is that there? And that is a bit why some of these uncollateralized loans that were made in last cycle with like maple finance, to a lot of these market makers and other hedge funds. Ones, like a lot of these, did blow up, but the contagion was relatively contained, because everything was out in the open. You could see what was what, for the most part. So that's a big question mark. And if I do know greedy, you know bankers and whatever it else may be, they will try to bring it into the shadows, and that, in theory, is where regulation is supposed to step in to protect the institution or the individuals in the system. But as we see, there's a lot of regulatory capture right now, so I can't imagine that actually working out in the positive direction. So who knows? Question mark on that, but the original things, I think we'll see a dramatic increase in all three of those, probably over the next three, 510, years.

Yeah, I think one of the things that gave the market a lot of confidence is the transparency with which, you know, the FTX saga was dealt with, the transparency with which binance, that situation is has been resolved. And I think you know, that gives people a lot of confidence with that things are going to work, at least there, there are watch dogs out there and that they going to take action and in a transparent manner. So I think that's probably one of the, one of the benefits. But you mentioned cash grabs earlier, and I think that's one of the problems that a lot of web, two companies that are looking into, looking at getting into crypto or NFT or defi in any way, mainly looking just to make a quick buck and not looking at sort of more long term, sustainable models, right? And I think that's one of the, one of the issues. But what bring that? Bring sort of brings a to your personal philosophy. What's your what's your personal philosophy, and what sort of keeps you going through bear markets and such, what's the thing that drives you?

Um, I would say it's just, it's just to keep going. So small wins will add up over time. So if you just keep going and don't stop like you'll eventually reach your destination, and that's going to be different for everyone in the eye of the beholder. But you know, through that process, you're going to learn a whole bunch like about yourself and the world along the way. It were, we're a bit removed from the bear market now, although we're sort of, I don't know, oscillating back and forth and, like, yeah,

And, like, it was really difficult. So like, this is, this really isn't that bad, in all honesty, like the current market, but like the bear market, like the depth of it, last cycle was really, was really, really difficult and like, a lot of people shut down. A lot of people quit. A lot of people, you know, did things, and it just is what it is like you have to keep you have to keep going, and you don't know what ultimately the payoff or the reason for like you're going at the current time is going to be like that is only revealed to you at a later at a later date. But again, like through that process, you're going to learn a whole bunch about yourself and also learn a whole bunch about like, the world that we're in, Blockchain, crypto, and all these other things. So that's sort of like my philosophy, quote, unquote.

That's great. I mean, you have, you have to have something that gets you through the I mean, you're right. It's not as bad as it used to be, but there's been some really, really tough times in crypto, and presumably you've, you've been through that, and that's especially to get here with what you guys are doing, so it requires some degree of inner motivation and strength. Okay, cool. Let's get over to questions. We have a couple here. If you have any other if you have questions, hit the request to speak button, and we'll bring you up to share your thoughts, so you can feel free to use emojis and let us know when you're ready. Let's dive into some questions. Somebody, so somebody here says, Are there any bigger, big enough friendly tools or platforms that can help me experiment with oracles?

That's a great question. I will post something in the comment section afterwards. That's a really good question. I can't think of ones off the top of my head, yeah, so yeah, I'll grab that from the from the tech side of the house and definitely, and definitely send that over there. But I'm sure, if you just go to the documentation page to like go red.io and hit the documentation tab. There's going to be tons of information in regards to getting started, at least within the Gora Oracle like network. But as far as bringing up to speed on the ecosystem as a whole, let me grab some links and. I'll send those over. Yeah, I

think it'd be really cool. Because a lot of people, you know, they want to experiment with the kind of data they can get out of oracles. But maybe they they're not sophisticated enough to write code to pull that data via APIs and such. Maybe they just want to, you know, go onto a website and pop in some information, click Submit, and just see what pops out on the other side? So I think, yeah, specifically, people that you know are not developers that are just sort of new and want to try it out. Yeah, that might be, that might be something like that might be useful. Moving on, what for someone new to web3, what should they know about the role of oracles in the broader eco block, broadly blockchain ecosystem?

So ecosystem. Let me see, I would say you just look at Oracle's a bit like the brain of the whole of the whole ecosystem, not all of web3, but I think definitely for defi, you can look at it as the brain, because without the feeds that are being pumped into these different projects and protocols, they don't they don't function. But with that being said, it also comes with great responsibility as well. I mean, there's billions upon billions of dollars that are being secured right now through Oracle networks, the feeds that are provided for these protocols on all these different blockchains, so Ethereum and different layer twos there as well. So just for a simplest base, you can look at Oracle's as the brain of web three and DeFi it is giving the information to the system that is required for the system to function properly.

Yeah. I mean, will you really put it in perspective when you, when you talk about the amount of money that's dependent on, on an Oracle functioning exactly the way it's supposed to? So, yeah, this is a bit we're actually out of time, but this has been an incredibly insightful discussion. Thank you so much, Chris for sharing all your valuable knowledge with us. It's been been really, really interesting and fascinating, for sure, huge. Thank you to all of you tuned in, ask questions and engage with us before we wrap up. Don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter. Follow us on Telegram, LinkedIn and YouTube and catch up on past episodes of diving into crypto on Spotify. We're excited to keep you to keep bringing you more great content. So stay connected with us. Thanks again. Everyone. Take care. Thank you so much. Really, really appreciate your inputs. Chris, it was fantastic session. Thank you so much. Have a great day. You too. All right, y'all Have a great day. Thanks. Applause.