PoolTogether Community Podcast #53 with Hamzah from Polygon

This is the PoolTogether Community Podcast. PoolTogether is the world's number one no-loss prize savings account. You can visit pooltogether.com to deposit. You're listening to the PoolTogether Community Podcast. I'm your host, Hot Mike, AKA Tim, AKA it's a beautiful morning and sunlight matters. I'm sorry if you live in Alaska. And I'm here with Hamza from Polygon, head of DeFi at Polygon. This is big time stuff right now, and I got to put my big boy shoes on. Hamza, thanks so much for making time for us.

For sure. Thank you. Thank you everyone for having me. Happy to be here.

Oh, if you could just give us your origin story, how'd you find your way into the crypto space? And then how does one become head of DeFi at Polygon? Just give us any pro tips or guide our careers, if you will, sir.

Bro, I don't know. I have no idea how, how I became, um, so to say, head of DeFi. Like, I don't know what head of DeFi even is, to be honest. Um, like, half of the time my team just shouts at me, bro, do this, do that. Um, like, they, they, they— I have a team of like 2, uh, 3, 4 people, uh, who, who just help me around ground with prioritization, with projects, with all those things. And yeah, I started at Polygon back in December 2020, January '21, something like that. I was part of Discord hackathons a lot. I come from an engineering background. I was coding On Aave, I remember Aave V2, and yeah, that's how I started. Yeah, there was no DeFi on Matic, on Polygon back in the day. So there was only QuickSwap. So after that, I was responsible for onboarding all of the DeFi that you see today practically on Polygon and a bunch of like NFTs, enterprise, like a lot of things. So back the day, I was like 4th person on the BD team. So that was fun. And now, yeah, now Polygon is decent size and we have to, you know, now with ZK and a lot of like layer 2s and these things coming, I'm pretty excited about what is going to come. I hope that helps.

Oh no, that was really good. And I was talking to a muted microphone, but that's okay. I'm a professional. We we see in the news all the time new partnerships that are happening with Nike, with Starbucks. I mean, that's all you need really is Nike and Starbucks. And and and I'm wondering how does Polygon land these deals? And when are we going to see these deals? And how can Pool Together get a piece of these deals?

Yeah, the last one is a very good question. Like mainly. Q1, Q2, you'll see a lot of these things come into fruition. I think Starbucks Odyssey, remember Ryan mentioning, I think it is going live maybe this week or maybe next week. Don't quote me on that, but I remember something around that. So, so, you know, I think that would be pretty cool. Starbucks is the NFTs for them. That's the Odyssey part. So I think they are going live this week or next week. So that's that. And then Robinhood, Robinhood wallet is going live maybe end of this year or early next, next year. I mean, like 1st January or something like that. So, so that, that is, that is also coming. Then, then what else? Starbucks, this, I mean, Instagram, Instagram and Meta is already live. You have seen, we will also be publishing some data on how many NFTs were minted directly via Instagram on Polygon. Then, you know, how much revenue did the NFT minters make? How much gas was done? All these, you know, things we will be making public. So yeah, like a lot of those things. Yeah, Instagram is already live. So yeah, that brings a lot of new users on-chain.

I was showing off my NFTs to my friends, my friends on Instagram, just to out myself as a crypto person. And I'm trying to get them to care about my NFTs. But I mean, I think one of the easiest ways is let's get millions of dollars deposited into PoolTogether. and delegate it to all the new normies, all the crypto curious, all the people that interact with the Starbucks stuff, with the Robinhood stuff, Reddit stuff. Yeah, Reddit was a big deal, right? Like all this, let's— I think delegation might be the way where they could already have a prize that they've won on PoolTogether. That's what I'm thinking. The second thing I'm thinking is how can we at PoolTogether replace Starbucks rewards points? Like instead of like getting a free latte, like you could win, get, we can, you can check every day in your Starbucks app that you won. Like, did I win $1,000? Did I win $100,000 weekly prize? Did I win the million dollar monthly prize? Starbucks, come on. That's better than a latte. I mean, Starbucks lattes are fine, right?

For sure. Yeah, 100%. I agree. I think, yeah, actually didn't think about, uh, about that. Yeah. Yeah, much better.

Yeah. And I'll just keep, I'll just keep bugging, bothering your team and other people in Polygon about that, and then we'll get something to happen. But I do, I do want to know, Hamza, how we can help you as head of DeFi. Like, what are the things that you're caring about? What are the things that you're focusing on? And how can PoolTogether help you be successful at your job?

Yeah, I think one very philosophical thing for me, which is why I really like, I like Pull Together. And, you know, very, very few people know this, but when I moved to New York, Leighton was the first person who helped me settle in New York. Like, he was the first person who I knew, the only person I knew in New York. This was like 1.5 years ago. So, I mean, I love PoolTogether from the whole concept point of view. But in general, I think the community is pretty cool. And I mean, I'm like, Leighton is a good friend, firstly. Then secondly, which I think is very cool about PoolTogether and which I also wanted to know from the community is where are the new users coming? Because for Polygon, like strategically, Latam has been a very important growth area for the past 2, 3, 4 months because probably like the whole half, half the second half of this year, just because, you know, like Argentina and Brazil have such high inflation rates and people just don't want to hold their currencies. And, you know, if we can make a real difference with crypto and DeFi, then I think that is a very philosophically aligned thing for me because that's how we get crypto to the next 100 million, not even 10 million, but the next 100 million users. Like, that's how I think. And I think BullTogether can help in that maybe.

Yeah. What are the front lines? I guess the Starbucks and the Robinhoods are kind of the front lines of onboarding Not sure if that's the case, that also might be the case in Latin America, but I think there needs to be this frontline thing, right, of people just getting that first digital collectible, people getting that first—

It's already there. It's already there. So Lemon Cash, which is— sorry to cut you off, but there's Lemon Cash, if people know, it is Argentina's biggest fintech. And I remember During the bull market, which was like February, March, Lemon Cash was the number one app on App Store in Argentina. Not even like fintech, it was the number one. It was bigger than Instagram. And they, they already minted over 500,000 digital collectibles on Polygon.

Wow.

For their users. So, so that, that is for their users. And they're doing a lot of interesting things with, you know, fintech frontend, DeFi backend on Polygon.

Oh, that's great. Yeah, I'm sliding into their DMs as we speak. That's really cool. Because I mean, what I was gonna say, I mean, what happens is like people get, they get that first little taste, that digital collectible or whatnot. And then like we saw spikes in our Valentine's Day campaign with NFTs, on PoolTogether. And then we saw spikes with our No Loss November. So if you increased your deposit in the month of November, you were entered to win $50,000 of delegation. And we saw now these are little accounts, like these are just like, you know, somebody putting a dollar into PoolTogether. But that's all we need, right? That's all we need for these lemon NFT digital collectible people is like, hey, your NFT now could win you potentially a larger cash prize, you should check it out. And so we see spikes in users. That's users. And then the question is, what are we valuing at Polygon? Is it users? Is it TVL? I know we say, is it integrations? I think those are kind of like the top 3 is like, what's the top, top for Polygon? Users. That's beautiful.

Always users. Always users. TVL is temporary value locked. It's not total value locked. It comes in. We have, I have seen this from 2020 when, you know, BSC was the craze, then Polygon became the hot, hot thing in town, then Avalanche, then Phantom, then Solana, and God knows what else was there in between.

Money just moves.

Yeah, money just moves. And that's fine. Like, to be honest, that's fine. That's good. that, you know, retail participants are like rational participants doing what they should do, which is absolutely fine. But users is where, you know, you make transaction fees and the Polygon validators who we are servants to, they make revenue and it should be profitable for them. Like, that's how blockchain is. The blockchain, if you look from a business, I mean, we should not really look at it from a business point of view, but if you look at it from a Yeah. Like, how should I say, like from a commercial standpoint, like Polygon validators need to make money. It's as simple as that.

Gotcha. So, so, um, so it's not TVL, it's, it's users. Then how do we know that users are users and not just bots and like hundreds and thousands of wallets connected to one bot? Or what's, what does that look like? Because we want humans, right? That's what we want. We want people. We're all about people here. At PoolTogether and Polygon?

Yeah, for sure. It's usually, it's usually like, it's usually like how I think of it is like, I mean, you can, you can definitely look at the history of wallets and figure out whether it's a bot or not. If it's repeatedly doing the same kind of transaction, it's simply a bot. But like, I've, I've noticed, you know, There is definitely growth of bots on most chains, like on most growing chains, because there is there is what you call inefficiencies to exploit. But but with the same time, you get a lot of new users. And the one thing which I which I clearly notice is the fact that is the fact that this is like you know fintech back front end DeFi back end. Like those can't be bots because those are real users on the front. And this Web2 integrations, like there you reduce, reduce bot. Like for example, like the Reddit thing, right? Like there was, it was very minimal bot, bot, like bot use because like they were all coming from the app. So that way, like you, you, you see that, okay, like these things are, are, are real users and you can, you can trust them. That's how— that's one way.

Totally. I think I also noticed that you're hiring for a BD position in Polygon for DeFi, right? I want to promote that position. What makes it— what is this person doing? I mean, I know what BD is. I know they're doing partnerships, but like, you know, what's their first like month look like? Or, well, it's onboarding, right? But then like, what are you hoping for this position to be successful in? This is kind of a gotcha question, but I just thought of it right now. I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to really get you. And I'm not interviewing for a job, okay? But yeah, go ahead.

I should tell Leighton that Mike is asking me for the job. But no, so like the DeFi team has been small, but I think with 2023 rolling in, you know, we have some plans. And just to take a step back, how I've seen DeFi and how we see DeFi is, and now that Polygon is decently big, still there's a long way to go, but how I think is that if we don't innovate, then the industry won't innovate. That is a hard fact that I have. That I have kind of accepted is that like if, because now real people, like new users will be coming to layer 2s, layer 2s. And now that we are, we are, we have a lot of things ready to roll in the next 2 to 3, 4 months. You know, we as an industry need, we as Polygon need to be on the cutting edge and bleeding edge. For a lot of like cool, cool stuff for for the industry to you know grow to the next to the next level. And this person this person will be helping me you know manage all these projects as well as like we'll be we'll be doing some innovative innovative things together to you know push to really push the industry because now with this FTX and all these things that have happened. I feel DeFi in the uninitiated, so to say, DeFi sentiment is the lowest, but it's still a long way to go so that we make a real impact.

Who are those key partners, do you think? I mean, Talus Guy in the chat just said that 2023 seems like the Kool-Aid Man moment for Polygon, busting into the room. So is it more partners? Like, I mean, you said innovation, right? So, I mean, there's Nike, there's these big brands, but it sounds like also there's like, what else can we do? Like, yes, there's the big brand play, but what else is there? Like, I'm trying to get like Decentral Games. I really love them. But talking to—

Oh, I love Decentral Games.

They're so great. The team is so powerful. They have so much potential, and I love the moves that they're making. When I talk to NFT people, they're rarely DeFi people. When I talk to gaming people, they're rarely DeFi people. And now they have this ICE lottery thing that they're trying to do that would— to burn ICE that the community made. But it's like, oh, but DeFi, there's so much power there. So I'm always like making that DeFi— I mean, specifically PoolTogether play with them and we're finding more ways to work together. But I do think that partnerships is like when you talk about Hamza, the new things to do. I just saw a tweet that said it's like our basically partnerships are the way that we're going to innovate here. And it's partnerships within the space, within each other, like DeFi crossing over to NFTs, NFTs crossing over to traders, all that stuff. But then also like, how do we mix with IRL stuff? So I don't know if you have any other like dream partnerships that you're thinking about for Polygon specifically. Like, I don't know if Lemon, if you're already working with them, it sounded like you were, but are there, is there anybody else that you would like if you could dream dreams? You could land them?

Yeah, I think I, I don't really think of like partnerships, uh, too much now because, uh, because you also have to understand that, uh, like we, we don't— like firstly, I don't like the word partnerships. So, uh, what for me partnerships are like, uh, not partnerships. What I mean is like we want to empower the builders. Like there is so much cool stuff happening in like core DeFi. And my job is DeFi. There is like a lot of like perp exchanges coming on Polygon. And I don't even think of BD as business development, especially for DeFi. I don't call it business development. I call it builder development because that's our goal as blockchain community to grow, to just provide the tools, provide the infra. Provide, uh, just provide an atmosphere so that, you know, builders can, um, uh, can, you know, just do their thing and innovate. Like, we don't really need to be there. We just be absent and, uh, and, and of course come there when required, but, uh, but be absent and just, uh, and just power, uh, power, empower the builders. And, and all these like Web2 things are fine, uh, but, uh, but we, we We are working with a lot of like interesting, interesting DeFi native projects. Like there is one which is doing 100% on-chain limit order book. Then there are a lot of interesting things being built on Balancer, being built on top of Aave. I mean, you guys are definitely one of them. And I know I know I was looking at our chat and I am seeing some really interesting updates coming in the next few months with PoolTogether. There are a lot of sports betting projects coming. There are a lot of prediction markets. I think, to be honest, I think Polygon is the only ecosystem that has such a holistic, you know, DeFi plus NFT plus gaming plus prediction market plus everything is there. Like, it's just a whole big country where you can use literally everything, every kind of product, every kind of social media now with Lens. Like, there are so many things being built on top of Lens. And with Polygon ID, you can obfuscate your identity. Not obfuscate, obfuscate is the wrong word, but control what you show to the wide audience and own your identity and not give it out to big, big social media giants for them to exploit, but control your own social graph. I think, I think Lens is going to be like a very, very, very big revolution for, for, for, for, to, to, to bring a lot of new people into the space.

But can you tell us about the zero knowledge, the ZK stuff that Polygon's doing and how that affects DeFi? Because it seems really exciting, but, you know, for the average listener, they might not be into optimistic rollups versus ZK rollups, that sort of thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Uh, so how, uh, how rollups work is basically they, uh, via some secure— just you have to think one thing is like via some security, uh, you know, mechanism, uh, they, they, they bunch up, they take a bunch of transactions, uh, roll it, roll it up into one and push and put the proof onto Ethereum. Uh, right now You, when you put the proof, there are 2 ways of putting the proof. One is a fraud proof where you put that the possibility of having a fraud is here. And, but I'm putting the proof on Ethereum and in 7 days there is a, there is a dispute period and you can, you know, anyone who finds like, oh, that like, so these are, these are optimistic rollups and this is what Arbitrum and Optimism do is that you can do a fraud, and I think one of them don't even have a fraud proof. But but but you can you can call out the fraud proof on Ethereum, and and that's why it is called a layer two. That's why it is called a layer two because it it takes security from Ethereum. But the problem there is that there is a seven day dispute period. So so right now, if you go on Arbitrum Bridge or Optimism Bridge. Native, their native bridge, there is a 7-day withdrawal period. But if you use some third-party bridge, so it's fine, but you have to rely on the third-party bridge. And like we have seen a lot of, God forbid, a lot of hacks and all of that. But with ZK, with ZK rollups or ZK EVM, which we are launching Q1, is that there will be no Uh, there will be no 7-day withdrawal because, because we don't put a— because ZK proofs don't put a— ZK rollups don't put a, uh, a fraud proof, but they put a validity proof. So what you have to think is that when, when the rollup is, is putting any transaction or any, uh, or rolling up any transactions to Ethereum, Ethereum, uh, believes it to be true. And there is no dispute. There is no, there is no, you know, like point of going back over here because, because it is mathematically proved by a concept called ZK proof, like zero knowledge proof. And, and that, and that basically goes, goes into Ethereum. And, and you can be assured that because of the math, you can always reconstruct that proof. and be that, oh, like, yeah, this is right. And yeah, like you can start, you can keep using the layer 2 with higher throughput, low latency, lower latency, higher throughput, lower gas with same security as Ethereum.

The final question then is like, how is that going to launch Polygon DeFi into the next era of dominance?

Yeah, I think it'll be because Because users big and small alike can start using the chain with low gas but with same security. So right now, a lot of people feel that Polygon is not layer 2, Polygon is not this. But we need to also— we understand that. But with layer 2, Like a lot of builders, you can do a lot of, you can do a lot of things on-chain. So a lot of projects have reached out to us and started testing on zkEVM who want to, who want to do this like options pricing and proving the options pricing on-chain and doing a lot of perpetual pricing on-chain because that way they don't really have to have anything centralized because a lot of today, a lot of like these order books that you see are basically run on AWS. And like, there's a lot of like off-chain centralized things, which is also bad for them because of regulation and all of those things, especially in the US. So, so yeah, that, that is a, that is something that you can do on-chain. And even if you add a layer of privacy with Polygon ID or Railgun or any of these like, you know, privacy mechanisms, then you can even, then you can even selectively hide, hide the processes and just show what you want to show. So that, that is like a fundamental base layer improvement, I feel.

No, that's great. Low gas, but same security. I love that you said BD is more builder development. Don't say partnerships when you're talking to Hamza. That's good. I got that noted. Empower the builders. So this is great. We have NCookie writing a question, so we'll just hit enter, NCookie, so we can make this the final, final question. Or if not, we can end it. I think we're going to end it. I think we're going to end it. You can answer it in the chat, Hamza, if you could. Hey, thanks so much for giving us time. We're really pumped about what the future of Polygon and happy that PoolTogether is on Polygon. I love that your relationship with Leighton carries on. Hamza, and I'll see you. Oh wait, here we go. Here's the question. As head of DeFi, what is a dApp that is being developed right now that has you most excited? Can you play favorites? Can you even play favorites?

Yeah, I can't play favorites because— but I really like, I really like the derivative space. Like, I like a few of them and I'll say because they don't have any token or whatever, so it's fine by me. But I like TimeSwap. I like Synquote. Synquote is an options market. Timeswap is a lending market, oracle-less lending market. Then I like Teller, which is consumer debt lending. So a lot of fintechs are using Teller Finance. And these are all Polygon native projects. Then there is, there is one that I cannot name, but it's a little early on that is building a 100% on-chain limit order book. On ZK, on POS it will start, but it will be going to ZK. So like these three, four, five projects, I'm pretty interested to see what what the community is doing on this.

Ending with the alpha, I love it. All right, Hamza, thank you so much. Everybody clap, hand clap. You're the best.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Sadheart Mike.

See you in Telegram. Bye.

Okay, bye bye. Thank you. Thanks so much.

Thanks for listening to the PoolTogether Community Podcast. You can visit pooltogether.com to deposit, and we'd love to hear what you thought about today's episode. So visit the PoolTogether Discord and let us know.