DEX Aggregators are a relatively new development in the rapidly expanding DeFi market, providing traders with deep liquidity and better pricing. Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) offer greater privacy and security than their centralised counterparts, which has resulted in a significant increase in activity in recent years. Vee Fernandes, Business Development Manager at Zeroswap, a DEX aggregation platform, joins us on this episode of Diving into Crypto to tell us all about DeFi DEX aggregators.
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Transcript
DEVELOPING DEX’S - ZEROSWAP
Participants:
JP ( Host)
Vee Fernandez ( Business Development Manager at ZeroSwap)
JP
All right, ladies and gentlemen, that being said, welcome welcome welcome to our next episode of Diving Into Crypto. This is JP from AdLunam, Inc. Talking to you about Web3. And today we have a special guest all the way from London, though he's originally from Goa, which is fantastic. We have Vee Fernandez. Vee Fernandez is the business development manager at ZeroSwap, who is our guest today. Right. We say hi to everybody in the room.
Vee Fernandez
Hello, everyone. Like Jervis has mentioned, I look after the business development of ZeroSwap. I'm not sure if you guys have come across or heard of ZeroSwap. So ZeroSwap is pretty much a DEX aggregator that offers guestless transactions on our platform. And we also have our launch pad, which is a multi-chain narrative as well. So, yeah, if you are interested, know more about ZeroSwap. My DMs are always open, so you can come chat with me or I can direct you to the right resources to get to know more about the project.
JP
Excellent. I'm certain that we'll have questions towards the end of the show. Vee, I'm sorry, I'm kind of losing you a little bit during this particular program. The voice is going a bit in and out. Just giving you a heads up in case you can sorry about that.
Vee Fernandez
Let me just connect via my data and then I hope it's better now?
JP
Let'S do one more test so that we can take this program off smoothly.
Vee Fernandez
No worries. So basically, if anyone wants to connect with me via DM and stuff, I'm open to share information about ZeroSwap and anything that you would like to know from here. How does that? Does that work fine?
JP
It's a little better. It's a little better. But if we can't, I will try and recap what I've heard you say and then you tell us if that works for you or not, right?
Vee Fernandez
Yeah. Perfect. Sorry about the connection.
JP
Awesome. That's okay. This is why we're going to Web3, right? Because Web2 still has a few chinks in its armor and we're trying to get it better.
Vee Fernandez
Correct. Always room for improvement.
JP
Always room for improvement. Amen. All right. Okay, so tell us a little about your journey going into Web3. When did it all start for you? What got you started into this new journey?
Vee Fernandez
So, basically, I'm not sure if anyone knows this, but my background is actually from airlines. So it's like a total opposite in terms of the industry. So where you're dealing with customers and stuff, and over here you're dealing with tech and also people. So I think the common denominator here is the people's skills is always something that's transferable. And that's always that has helped me transition into this industry. And on top of that, having a little bit of passion and obsession with the technology, with learning, and doing a lot of self learning, helps you get to where you are right now. So if anyone's planning to get into the space, show some passions, get some active learning done and approach projects, because everyone's looking, the space is looking for fresh and new talent. So definitely a way to go.
JP
Certainly. So just to quickly recap what we said, because we kind of blossomed them a little bit here and there, it's that if you have a passion and approach a project, if you have a passion to be in the Web3 space, it's absolutely a brilliant, brilliant space to be in. There's so much to learn, so many avenues in which your passion can be realized. Is that right, Vee?
Vee Fernandez
Yeah, that's correct. Especially like, if you don't have a tech background, don't let that hold you back, because there's other avenues that you can look into sales, you can look into community building, and there's other avenues that you can definitely grow from there.
JP
Certainly Web3 is the space at this point of time, ladies and gentlemen, for you to explore the skills that you have. And don't let technology hold you back from diving right into it. Okay, great. So let's take it from here. I understand ZeroSwap is a DEX. You also mentioned that you have various other verticals that are part of ZeroSwap. You have the launch pad, you have the DEX to focus a little about DEXs. Right. Very briefly, what is an understanding for a layperson? That is a DEX. Right. What is a DEX for a layperson? If you're going to explain it to them.
Vee Fernandez
Sure. So, just to keep it simple, like, in simple words, it's an automated and decentralized exchange where you can simply buy and sell tokens. So how it's done is this is done in a trustless and permissionless manner without any central authority. Sorry. To further explain it in a more technical perspective or to those that have already synthesized the basic definition of it. It's simply a set of codes that's built into a platform and that facilitates a decentralized peer to peer transaction in a very noncustodial manner with the use of liquidity pools rather than the market makers on centralized exchanges.
JP
Right, okay, great. So that being said, ladies and gentlemen, I know that there were a few technical terms thrown in there, but this is one of the easiest ways in which you can trade tokens that are listed in the simplest form of what this is. Right, okay. So that being said, let's move on to the next point in which we wanted to shed some light. Right. How does a DEX help a project and the community at large?
Vee Fernandez
Basically, like what I've mentioned about the DEX being trustless, decentralized, permissionless, and it's also open source nature of this platform, it also gives the users the full autonomy and control over their funds. I myself have great distaste for banks and corporations. So what this does is gives the users the freedom of choice to buy or to sell and stake their funds on a platform of their choice. This is even true for projects that are launching their tokens. They can add liquidity into the market in a permissionless manner and raise liquidity for their token through active swapping and staking itself. Having said that, there's also caveats to this and careful analysis and literacy should come into play for users because there's a lot of scams in DeFi and definitely no proper way to stop them as well currently. Right, right. DeFi is truly censorship, resistance and hence you can see all these bad players thriving in this field.
Vee Fernandez
So yeah, it can be a fantastic tool if used correctly.
JP
Okay, great. And given that we have obviously the caveats, if you look up, for example, Cryptorank, straight away you see about 30 pro DEXs listed. I'm sure that these are the ones that are featuring up there. There will be many more. There are hundreds of them. Right. So what is one of the ways that you can identify a good DEX? What are some of the parameters that somebody should look for?
Vee Fernandez
Okay, so basically if you want to get a DEX, should have a good liquidity. So something that would be synonymous with high daily volumes of transactions increase like a lot number of users transaction volumes, having a sticky community and in general brand recognition, some of the success indicators in the space. And also most projects need to realize this piggybacking on a strong community is such a huge flex. If a community believes in you, they would actually do the active marketing for you and bring in new, usher in new users. And this would essentially be an organic growth with zero cost of user acquisition.
JP
Right. Certainly there is a lot to do with the community, there is a lot more to do with projects. Are there anything else from an insider's point of view that really sets a DEX apart? I'm going to go out in Olympia and say that, hey, you know what? Okay, ZeroSwap is the kind of DEX that does this, that sets us apart from everybody else. What are those goals? What are those metrics that would set a DEX apart?
Vee Fernandez
Definitely. So I think I might have not understood your question previously, but what sets us apart is basically multi-chain narrative. Also, as I mentioned, we do offer guestless trades. None of the other platforms or DEXs, they're actually doing that. So having a multi-chain narrative, having guestless trades with zero trades, we don't charge any trade fees as well on top of the guest list transaction. So these are like few of the things that actually help us in being a differentiative force than competitors.
JP
Okay, so it is the community, it is also the USP of being gasless. How do you guys make that work? I mean that's, that's certainly something excellent. Certainly something that, you know, every user would want to have. I mean, I don't want to particularly pay fees for transactions that, you know, I mean gas fees, for example, for transactions that should be that easily traded. How do you make that work?
Vee Fernandez
Correct. I think as a project you should always look at ways to solve a problem that is already present in the ecosystem and work your way behind from it. So our CEO, who is Aayushi Jain, so she had this concept where you use your cards, any bank cards that you use, you don't pay any fees. Right. So why does this not happen in blockchain industry or in crypto industry itself? So you're always going to be challenging the narrative and you always have to work your way around it. So as to how we sort of fund this gas fees is like, when we raised the initial fund, we kept aside some funds that would initially help us propel this transactions and stuff. And also other than that, we also have a launch pad which is giving us an extra revenue that we can pump into the DEX. And also we also have acquired a new business last year which is called DeFi Visit.
Vee Fernandez
So DeFi Visit is pretty much a blockchain infrastructure layer that we can offer services with liquidity, let's say, creating token contracts for the new projects or investor dashboard staking contracts or even bridging solutions for that matter. These are the areas where we are sort of like gaining revenue and that's being dispersed into our DEX. And simply because we want to get adopted in the space, we want to provide a value in this space. So I think this is where we see a good use of revenue being pumped into a DEX.
JP
Okay.
Vee Fernandez
So yeah, basically to summarize that, it's just like you always have to find ways like tackle on a problem and then work your steps backwards and try and find a solution as you go through your journey.
JP
Awesome. Okay, I think we got it. Now it's really just focus on the solution. Focus on the solution to the problem that everyone's having. And that is something that can really propel you to a much stronger project and a stronger business in itself.
Vee Fernandez
Correct. Yeah. It also helps you to stay relevant in the space and at the same time cater to a wider community.
JP
Exactly, yes. And staying relevant I think is one of the key things that most projects and most Web3 companies at this point of time really need to fight for. Right. I mean, we're looking at a market that's wiping people out across the board losses and billions of dollars. But that's from a trader's point of view. Right. And then from a business's point of view, you have these situations where you're suddenly looking at the volume, the quantities dropping, right?
Vee Fernandez
Correct, yeah. And I think having the macro economics and also all the uncertainty that's going around with Celsius and everything is not helping the narrative as well.
JP
Very true. So how do you see DEXs staying relevant even more, right? During a point like this, during a bear market? Are there some strategies you'd like to share that will really keep us above water? What are your thoughts?
Vee Fernandez
Can you repeat the question again for me? I think I missed you for a little bit.
JP
Okay. So what I was asking was, when it comes to a bear market like this, right, obviously there's not a large quantum of trades going across the board. So what are some of the things that you think should be done so that relevance that volume and brings it back to business as usual?
Vee Fernandez
I think with the bear market, there's always going to be the sentiment around the bear market, right, where everyone's sort of on the hinge or they're protecting their assets. So it's pretty much a psychology, human psychology and behavior where when there's a fear in the market, they sort of like stay in a fearful mode and there's not much investment coming through. But in terms of how a project can survive in this time, you pretty much have to have a runway with the funds to survive this bear market. So that's one thing that you need to decide. And also building your community. Like I've said, community is one of the strongest forces that you can actually have in your support. So actively giving them timely information, communication, are some of the things that you can actually keep them engaged and updated and also at the same time, building and trying to find ways to innovate and differentiate yourself from your competitors would also sort of give you the upper hand as well here.
JP
Exactly. You keep innovating to stay afloat and keep that grind going, right?
Vee Fernandez
Correct. Yeah. In this bear market, that's what you need to focus on. Cut out the noise, focus on building, stay relevant. And when the bull market comes, you're going to be supported by the community. Who was there with you during the bear market as well.
JP
Okay, somebody had asked us before while we were doing some of the research. And these questions, and I think the question over here is that where DEXs are concerned, do you feel that they are recession proof, or do they feel the pressure the same way? They feel the pressure the same way the rest of the industry is doing? What do you think?
Vee Fernandez
Well, I don't really think anything is recession proof per se. And we've all seen the huge volatility in the markets lately, and I think that's due to the macro environment and all the news that's been going around, sadly. But like I've mentioned before, these are the things that you can attribute to a human psychology and a behavior. If there's so much fear and uncertainty, there's always hesitation in the market, right. Even though it's the best time to buy and scoop great deals when there's blood in the market and on top, crypto isn't regulated as well. So most of the institution big players and users, they are still waiting on the sidelines. So based on those two observations, I do not think DEXs, or like crypto in general, is recession proof, although I do see a great future nevertheless. But everything comes in cycles, right?
JP
It does. Indeed. Indeed. So speaking of that and coming in cycles, what is some of the innovative trends that we should expect from DEXs? I mean, every cycle is a learning one, whether it's a bull run, whether it's a bear market, whether things are just moving laterally. Right. Everything is a lesson to learn from. So what are some of the trends that we can expect to see from DEXs as a result of the learnings from this particular cycle?
Vee Fernandez
If I had, like, a crystal ball, I would be able to give you the clear answers, but based on what? The past can be a good indicator for the future. Right? So few of the DEXs have implemented limit orders, order books and stuff. DEXs are always innovating and finding ways to match that user friendliness and experience as available on centralized exchanges. Right. And personally, I do love to have a choice to set my own price targets rather than sell or buy at a market price.
JP
Right.
Vee Fernandez
And also a lot of platforms like Routers and Biases and three protocols, they have developed cross swap DEXs, which means you can pretty much swap inter, swap and interoperate between different networks. So this is still like an early stage of development, but I can see they've been fine tuning this over the year or two and getting great results at it. So what, having cross swap DEXs will not only be great for the market ed, but it's also going to be able for us it's also going to be a way for us to move the liquidity between different networks and avoid the fragmentation of the liquidity.
JP
Okay, so if I caught the last part correctly, you were speaking about liquidity. Could you say that again? Because we kind of lost you for a bit.
Vee Fernandez
Okay, so I was just talking about how the liquidity can be fragmented on different networks, and at the moment, there's nothing that's interoperable. So as a user, if you want to get onto a binance chain from ethereum change, you have the bridges, but they are sort of like complicated. The easiest way would be like you sending your money to Binance, changing it, and then withdrawing it into a BNB chain. So it is a cumbersome process, but some projects, like Symbiosis or Router, they can do it in one stop, in one transaction. All of these steps for you under their platform. So you don't have to be using several protocols to achieve to the same result. You can get the same result using one protocol in less time and more cost efficient as well.
JP
Okay, well that's certainly insightful considering it from that point of view and you've just shed a light on some of the mechanics in which it makes things easier for us as consumers to be able to understand and that ease. So thank you. Thank you for sharing that.
Vee Fernandez
That's all right. And also, I'm not sure if you guys have seen this or aware of it. Uniswap has actually acquired Genie. So what they are trying to do is offer more choices to their user onto one platform itself. Or let's say for QuickSwap, they've implemented like a fiat on ramping onto their platform. So what they are doing is they're making the process and onboarding easier for the user, so they don't have to go through one platform, do one trade, transfer the tokens onto something on your wallet and then start trading on the DEXs. So there's always room for improvement and innovation. So I think over the years the product is going to be on par as to the central exchange value add.
JP
Wow. Okay. Yes, I mean that certainly is something because every innovation in that you see that's happening out there, the more popular that becomes, it very quickly becomes a norm across the industry.
Vee Fernandez
Right, correct. And also like having a good competition around, like there's so many DEXs that like you mentioned, there's always a healthy competition where people where one DEX wants to innovate and it forces others to think outside of box and try to find another, better solution than the current one. So it's always going to be this fight for finding innovation and progressing towards a better future.
JP
Okay, speaking of innovation, upcoming trends, I know you don't have a crystal ball with you at this point of time, but what are your thoughts? I mean for the future that you see in the next, say next quarter, next two quarters, maybe even a few years from now, what do you see DEX is doing differently that is extremely exciting from your position?
Vee Fernandez
Other than what I've actually mentioned. I would say a better overall product with better UX and user friendliness. But I think at some stage I'll also like to talk about how the space is not regulated. Right. So I know it's a bit controversial subject, but having some regulation in place would stop some bad players in the space as well, right? Like having read some articles online, regulation will be made a top priority for DEXs with some sort of balanced approach and I'm sure with this happening there would be stop to bad players and also that would bring in more talent and more institutional investors into the space and it's just going to thrive. Having some sort of regulation, I'm not sure how you feel about it, but this is my sort of point of view.
JP
Of course. So, as you were saying, as controversial as it may better regulation will actually make it safer. You'll lose a lot of the scams and because of the regulation, people who are bad actors and bad players will naturally be restricted from getting into the space and working up the waters.
Vee Fernandez
Correct. I'm not exactly sure how this will be done or implemented, but one can hope we are heading towards the right and brighter future.
JP
Well, certainly. And that's a future I'm certain that we'll really welcome having, because it's almost paradoxical, right, that you're asking for regulation in a space where anonymity is extremely important. It's held dear by everybody.
Vee Fernandez
Right, correct. Yeah. It's a double edged sword, isn't it? We would love to have our privacy as well. But also with this privacy comes the bad elements and the bad actors in the space. So I think at the end of the day, we need more adoption. How do we get more people to adopters? Surely if there's some regulation, we can sort of convince people who are on the sidelines and also at the end of the day, just help you with anti money laundering and also get the user protection at the end that everyone sort of like wants.
JP
Well, certainly it's like, to paraphrase what Ben Parker said, with great anonymity comes great responsibility. Right?
Vee Fernandez
Correct. Exactly. Couldn't have said it better.
JP
God bless Ben. Right. I want to ask you in terms of the technology where it comes to building a DEX, right. And I know that this may not be something in particular that is your core focus area, but I do understand that a lot of developers look to do that as something that they may find as a project which they want to start. Right. How easy do you think it is broadly from where you stand, for people to use technology to develop a DEX? Is it like supremely complicated? Is it not as difficult as most people think?
Vee Fernandez
Oh, damn. So I should have brought in my tech person to answer this question, but from what I can say in terms of understanding as a layperson as well myself, the DEX is an open source, right? If you have the knowledge of the writing codes and a bit of the blockchain awareness, you can always build on top of the codes and fine tune a product. So obviously that's one way you don't have to have like 500 developers, like having to build a DEX from scratch. Again, there's always a groundwork and blueprint that's already been ready for you. So all you have to do is pivot and fine tune your product to better achieve that user engagement and user acquisition.
JP
Okay. While it may be easy, of course, we're just talking about the brick and mortar aspect of it. While it may be relatively simple for people to utilize technology to develop a DEX when it comes to actually running it. Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard from V Fernandez all the multiple moving parts that he and his team try to keep together running as a smooth oil engine. And it certainly is not something that's easy to do.
Vee Fernandez
I agree to that one. And getting user acquisition or getting people to come on board is not the easiest as well. So first of all, you need to have a product market fit for a product and that goes through several iterations and changes. So over time, you're fine tuning the engine yourself. And secondly, it's like, let's say you're using Zoom at the moment. You have no issues with privacy, you have no issues with anything. But there's a Web3 product which is called Huddle. I don't see a motivation or a need to move to change my behavior to go into Huddle. So I think there's other areas where it might be challenging to gain that adoption and also to change the user behavior.
JP
Exactly right. And that's always one of the hardest things when it comes to a market. Being a fellow marketing professional myself, that's the Holy Grail, right? That's what you want for people to do, to have that ease of use when it comes to adopting something different.
Vee Fernandez
Correct. Yeah. And I think having like an easy user interface and a friendly approach to your platform would always help, would do the trick. But also there's other areas where you need to focus on the organic marketing and all the stuff that comes behind it.
JP
Absolutely. Thank you so much for spending some time here with us today. Sorry, before we wrap up this program, what is a message that you would like to share with audience when it comes to DEXs as a whole, from your perspective, maybe your philosophy that you'd like to share? Go for it.
Vee Fernandez
Basically, it's not my sentiment, but I've heard this narrative many times. Not your keys, not your tokens. And I firmly believe in this because if you don't have full custody of your tokens, you can't really blame any central exchange or like, let's say you use finance, you lose your funds, you can't really blame them if you're not taking care of themselves of it yourself.
JP
Okay, so certainly controlling tokens is something that we all have to take responsibility for as to quote Ben Parker again, with great tokens come great responsibilities.
Vee Fernandez
Correct. I mean, that's the whole point of us going decentralized, right? Like, you need to have that financial freedom in your hand, so you need to act in a way that would be conducive to receive this outcome.
JP
Perfect. Okay, great. We thank you so much for spending your time with us today. Thank you for sharing these wonderful insights that you have on our program today. Thank you. Thank you for being here.
Vee Fernandez
My pleasure, Jervis. And thanks for the invite. It was a pleasure talking to all of you.
JP
Yeah, well, likewise. We and I hope to see you when you get when you do get down to Goa or if I'm ever around your part of town. We definitely should catch up.
Vee Fernandez
Definitely. And especially if any of you are in any of the events that I go to do, come and say hello. I would love to get to know your story about yourself.
JP
Sure. All right, ladies and gentlemen, you've heard it from Vee Fernandez, the Business development manager over at ZeroSwap. This has been absolutely fantastic. Please give him a reaction. At this point of time, since you're still on the show, you know where the buttons are, you know the options that you can use. Want to see everybody setting a heart, a clap. Thank you so much. Golly man. Thank you once again for attending this program today. We will be back next week at the same time at the same place. This has been JP from AdLunam, Inc, speaking to you about Web3. Have a good day. Cheers.
Vee Fernandez
Thank you guys. Have a good one.
JP
Yep. Cheers Vee.
