Smart Layer: A token- and user-centered future

 Author: orangefans; Source: Orange Book

One ​​day, Victor gave me on the chain I was sent a kitten NFT and said that the kitten can play games, feed and bathe it directly in the wallet, and can also send messages to his cat, all of which can be done directly in the wallet without opening additional websites or applications. You can play it with the interface of Kitten nft.

I had a feeling at that time that there was something about this cat. Anyway, I have never seen anything like this in the currency circle over the years.

I chatted remotely with Victor for two hours and came up with this article.

Put new clothes on traditional tokens

< strong>Orange Book: Why can this kitten nft do so many things directly?

Victor: Because it is a smart token (https://www.smartlayer.network/), and a traditional token (erc20 or 721) is something completely different.

Let’s first take a look at how traditional tokens work. In the current Crypto world, tokens, applications and wallets are independent of each other. Take Dai as an example. It is an ERC20 token. The wallet will directly present it with a standardized front-end interface, displaying its name, balance, and a transfer function. When you want to use other functions of Dai, such as minting more Dai, or redeeming Dai's collateral, you have to open Makerdao's website, because Makerdao's website and Dai token are the same issuer and the same trust anchor. , so it is the most credible. Then you connect your wallet to this website and prove to the website that you own Dai. Only when token, application and wallet are combined, you can perform complex operations.

The operation experience also jumps between the interface of the website and the wallet. For example, you click on a redeem on the website, and then a box pops up in the wallet. You click to send. After the wallet sends it, you You have to go back to the website to see if the transaction has been processed, because the wallet will not give you any additional prompts to tell you that the redemption operation has been completed, it is just regarded as an ordinary transaction.

This is the traditional approach. You will find that if you leave the front-end interface of Makerdao's website, the Dai token is like going out wearing only a pair of underwear, and all other clothes are on Makerdao's website. Dai only has the transfer and a few basic functions provided by the underwear, such as being a standardized ERC20 token that can be recognized in the wallet.

Smart token’s approach is to put Makerdao’s website aside, which can implement more complex logic and functions, which is good. Let’s add a front-end of its own to the Dai token. This front-end is also written by Makerdao and has Makerdao's signature on it, so its security and credibility are the same as Dai token.

Then we use the ERC5169 standard to associate Dai's smart contract with its own front-end. From now on, no matter which wallet or application Dai is in, who wants to call this token will see that this token has an ERC5169 interface. , you will know that it points to its own programmable front end, and the wallet or application can call this front end to use the full functionality of this token.

For example, if Makerdao wants to provide Dai users with an official default legal currency deposit and withdrawal function, it can add this logic to the front end of Dai. Signature with Makerdao to ensure security. In this way, Dai users can complete the exchange of Dai and legal currency directly in the wallet, which is safe and convenient.

Orange Book: This example of Dai and fiat currency exchange is quite interesting. It reminds me that many new people have just entered the Crypto world. Many old people think that the default knowledge is that they don’t know, such as where to buy Dai? I just don’t know at first, so I search for it. If I search, I may find a phishing link, and my money will be gone. The safer way is to ask friends who have entered the industry earlier, but this is also a problem. What if you don’t have such friends around you?

The example you gave is equivalent to Makerdao using the smart token method to transform Dai, and directly attaching a safe default channel to Dai. New users do not need to Just ask others or search, and you can complete the purchase directly in Dai's own front-end, without the need to obtain additional relevant knowledge.

Victor: Following what you said, there is another point. Even if you don’t have Dai, when you want to buy Dai, ideally Next, you can check the user agent (that is, the wallet you are using) in the Dai contract and find that it provides a purchase channel officially endorsed by Makerdao. Then the agent will compare the purchase channels you originally wanted to use on other websites to see if they are consistent. If it is consistent, the agent will put a small check mark on it. If it is inconsistent, it will give you a prompt. It does not stop you, but just prompts you that you are not using the verified channel. You can use it if you want, but I have a verified one that can achieve the same function. This is just an example. In fact, it applies to various scenarios. As long as you want to use this token, the wallet can call the front end of smart token to complete some functions.

Orange Book: I also thought of a scenario where many new users will buy fake coins when they buy meme coins. If they use If Smart token is used to send meme coins, can it help everyone identify the authenticity? For example, to determine whether a certain coin belongs to the same organization as the official Twitter account, that is, I posted a meme coin and at the same time made a meme coin Twitter. Can I prove that both the meme coin and the Twitter account belong to me?

Victor: This is very easy. Because we have added a programmable front-end to the smart token, it is strongly related to the token. They are safe and trustworthy, and the trust anchors are consistent. You can add various things to this programmable front end, such as your website signature, or the attestation of your Twitter account to prove that you own this Twitter.

If we hope that token can achieve true mass adoption, it will involve a lot of off-chain logic. After all, most of our real-life behaviors are still off-chain. of. The sum of these off-chain logic and the on-chain logic of smart contracts is the complete token.

Back to the kitten nft. The smart contract of the kitten itself has many functions, such as proving that two cats are friends, and actions such as washing and feeding the cat, which are all transactions on the chain, provided by the smart contract.

But cats send messages to each other. The message itself is end-to-end encrypted. It does not happen on the chain. It is too expensive and expensive. It makes no sense, just like SPAM. You can imagine the storage of this message as a non-blockchain server, regardless of whether it is decentralized storage or the smart network we use, a decentralized service network, just like decentralized AWS. , but it does not serve applications, only tokens.

There is also the cat picture UI and how to call the Javascript code of the smart contract. These things cannot be directly stored in the smart contract. There is only one ERC5169 interface in the smart contract, pointing to the programmable front end. So where is this front-end stored? Again, it is also under the chain, whether it is decentralized storage, a centralized server, or our smartlayer network, so the front end itself is also part of the off-chain logic.

If we compare smart contracts less precisely to token backends or special types of servers, then we can actually match them with other types of Backend or server.

In fact, we are already doing this on Dapp. Part of the backend of Dapp (such as Uniswap) is a smart contract, and part of it is directly placed in the centralized On the server or IPFS.

Applications and smart tokens are complementary rather than mutually exclusive

Orange Book: So you are proposing a new idea, can you not apply it?

Victor: It’s not that you don’t need to apply it, it’s an additional addition on the basis of application. It's a bit like in the past, companies had websites at the beginning, and various functions were attached to the website to interact with users. Later, the mobile Internet came out and the website still remained, but I will make an additional mobile application. It’s not that you and I are the same, but each has different usage scenarios. Therefore, if it is suitable for token, follow the token, and if it is suitable for application, it should be done on the application. It is not a substitute relationship, but a mutually complementary relationship.

Orange Book: Indeed, the operation on the mobile phone is particularly obvious. If you need to jump between applications and wallets, the experience It's very bad. It would be great if some operations could be completed directly in an interface of the wallet, such as chatting with a kitten.

Victor: Simple interactions such as kitten chat are particularly suitable for Smart tokens, and the input and output are very simple. But if there is another cat world, like World of Warcraft, where cats can walk around, kill fish and monsters, and do various things with a high degree of freedom, then a website or application will be needed for these, which is not very It is possible to complete these functions in a token's front-end interface.

Recently, a team in our lauchpad has developed a decentralized public account product. Merchants can use the public account for private domain operations. They send users a smart token NFT. Some simple information such as membership level and points are directly recorded in the smart contract. Other information can be presented using a programmable front end, such as cooperating with other merchants to push you a coupon. Regularly give discount coupons to members of specific levels. These operations can be completed directly on the nft interface in the wallet. It is very close to the money and the user, so the opening and conversion efficiency is high.

Another point is that this feeling of ownership is very important to users. In the past, could you say that you had a public account? Can you say you own a merchant app? cannot. But now you can say that I own a token given to me by this merchant, and it becomes something that you own. In today's business environment, if you want to convince a user to use your product, whether it is a website or a mobile app, it is very difficult. But if you want to give me an asset, let alone how much the asset is worth, most people will say, OK, give it to me, I can keep it first. You won’t say that you want to give me assets, but I don’t want them. This subtle distinction can have some benefits for conversion and distribution.

So they want to use our technology to create a decentralized public account, and combine it with JoyID (a web-based wallet) to allow ordinary users to click With one website link, you can have an asset application and a wallet at the same time, a trinity. How is it achieved? The first half of that link is JoyID, and the second half is a long series of cryptographic proofs based on our attestation technology. When the user clicks on this link, he creates a JoyID wallet, and the JoyID wallet will read The long cryptographic proof in the second half, and then the corresponding token is directly imported into this wallet. The asset application and wallet are all integrated into one. It is done with one link, and the user can start using it directly. Add this wallet to Google Wallet and Apple Wallet, and you can find it anytime you want, and you can use it offline.

Extreme composability requires smart token

Orange Book: In the ideal blockchain world you envision, many functions will be implemented by tokens, rather than mainly by dapps like now.

Victor: Yes. Fundamentally speaking, there are several logics. One is whether everyone is just talking about achieving composability and portability, or do they really imagine that such a future will happen. If you want extreme composability and portability, that's the future we envision. The reason is very simple. For example, as a user, I may use 1,000 different applications in my life. These 1,000 applications constitute the digital world of my life. Among these 1,000 applications, I am the only one they interact with. So if you want maximum composability and portability to happen, it must happen here, not in any of these 1000 applications. Because for me, I am the center and intersection of all these applications.

Looking at the blockchain world, wallets follow the users themselves and are user-centered. The other one is token, which is user-centered. But apps are not user-centric. I can carry the token everywhere, the token is with me, and the application is outside and not within my control. Therefore, token is the carrier that truly has the potential to maximize composability and portability, not the application. If we cannot build a super platform application and connect all kinds of things to this platform, we will go back to the era of centralization.

The so-called decentralization does not mean that everything has no center, but that from another perspective, it is actually user-centered. Every user is the center of his world, and everything else is decentralized.

So tokens should be the center of the future blockchain world. Tokens are first-class citizens, not applications. Give the token its own programmable front end, allowing it to be used in different systems.

From "thinking through" to "thinking through"

Orange Book: I heard that you are going to be listed on the exchange recently. I saw that many people participated in the warm-up activities you did for the currency listing. I feel that you have made a big change this time. I am very curious. How did this transformation happen?

Victor: Let me go, I have suffered losses for so many years. To put it bluntly, when we first entered this industry, we just pretended to be aloof. We feel that we are engaged in technology, not speculating in currencies, so we have not paid much attention to the investment properties of this token. We feel that we should focus on the application properties and functions of the token. What can it do? Where can it be used? What kind of scenarios can be realized? Then in the middle state, I feel that it is not possible to completely break away from the investment attributes, so we still have to do it. We also need to have tokens, and our tokens must also pay attention to the investment attributes. Finally, I have recognized the current market, and that’s it. The biggest potential you can borrow now actually comes from the asset attributes of the token, rather than from the other side of the token - the application attributes. Assets and applications are actually two sides of the same coin. You can never strip away the asset attributes of a token. It is a token and it has ownership. Regardless of whether it can be transferred, it is an asset, just like your brand and Identity, these are your assets and cannot be transferred. Not to mention those that can be transferred. Everything that can be transferred has asset attributes on it, so it is something you can never peel off.

In the past, we have always emphasized the application and function of tokens, and all narratives are also told from this perspective. What is connected to this narrative? It may be mass adoption and various other complex forms of applications that may take a long, long time to come. And what is connected to the asset? It is now the hottest Crypto Retail market, token trading. There are only a few applications there, which are very scattered. Tickets, cars, loyalty programs and various other things are very concentrated. Assets are very concentrated here, so now when some friends come to us to talk about projects, I will ask them, how can you abstract an object that can be traded and speculated in this thing you are making? This object can help you greatly leverage The current Crypto market.

If you make a Crypto project but don’t take advantage of the most important Crypto market at the moment, then don’t do it. Go and do the normal Internet. Start a business, or do AI, or wait another five or ten years. Now if you want to survive in this market, you must abstract a tradable object in your application or infrastructure, a token that can be used for value discovery. Only then can you connect with the largest Crypto market and draw nourishment from here.

I think it’s a little too late to think about these things. Otherwise, if you look at the applications we made in the past, Autograph NFT was well received but not popular at the time. Why wasn't it popular? Because there is nothing to speculate on. If we add a bonding curve mechanism like friendtech and tokens to enable value discovery, the application may become popular on its own.

Orange Book: I remember that Autograph was quite popular at the time. Did anyone give you any suggestions at that time that you should turn it into An asset ready for speculation?

Victor: Yes, but I can’t think of it.

Orange Book: What is the key to this idea? Recently, a friend of mine also said that it is easy to figure it out, but difficult to think about it. I'm curious what you think.

Victor: I think it was forced to a certain extent. At the beginning, everything went smoothly for us to start a business and raise funds. Later, for a period of time, we were able to be responsible for our own profits and losses. Later, when we started to consider issuing tokens, the financing also went smoothly. When everything goes smoothly, you will feel that the thing you want is okay and you can go on like this. In the past few times when the market was bad, it actually didn't have a big impact on us. When the first wave was bad, we were able to make money ourselves, and when the second wave was bad, we had financing. So far, this wave of words has had some impact on us. We have been expanding for a while, but it feels that something is not right, so we have reduced the number of employees. This process is actually quite painful, because they all spent a lot of effort to recruit them, and they are all good people in all aspects.

Then if you look back, it has been nearly 7 years. Although many investors who have trusted us have not said anything, you will feel that everyone is just waiting. It's been a long time. I think these things in various aspects can be regarded as suppressed. You will feel that many of your previous ideas are actually wrong. Plus you'll see a lot of wealth effects. If you look at Friendtech’s protocol income of more than 20 million in two to three months, you will think so too. If you are just starting out, starting a business may be OK in the first five years, and then you will actually have more and more ideas in this regard. How do you help your investors create wealth? How can you help your community, trust your users, and make them rich? What do you want to see when you come in? What everyone wants is to work with you to realize your ideals, but that is not the case. Most of the things that others entrust to you, they actually have to get something in return. You can't drag these things down indefinitely and let everyone wait with you. So I’m thinking about it now.

The main thing now is to get our community and users to form a circle, and let’s go outside the circle and spend money together. Didn’t we send out a cat loot some time ago? That one is quite fun. It is a smart token xNFT with asset backup. If you don’t like it, you can redeem it. It has several pools. This is a good attempt. Our community worked together to make money to people outside this circle and sent 1,000 NFTs. Everyone who participated made money very happily.

Orange Book: Very good. I feel that many friends around me have made this change recently, from rejecting speculation to at least accepting it. , I don’t know if it counts as a hug, but everyone’s experience is quite similar, whether it is pressure or the motivation generated by pressure.

Victor: People like us are slow to enlighten.

Orange Book: It’s okay. I think it’s slow, but I won’t go back if I want to.

Victor: There are also advantages, it is more solid.

Orange Book: Yes, the lessons and experiences you have accumulated in the past are all very valuable.