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The Crypto Subscriptions (Episode 7): GetBlock

The Crypto Subscriptions (Episode 7): GetBlock

On September 13th, a new episode of The Crypto Subscription podcast was released, featuring Nataly Lahuti, the CMO of GetBlock. In this episode, we discussed the unique features of GetBlock, the challenges and trends in blockchain infrastructure, and the evolving needs of Web3 developers. Don't miss this insightful conversation! You can read the full text and listen to the podcast right here.
Konstantin
So we are starting the 7th episode of the crypto subscription podcast, where we invite entrepreneurs, founders, and C-level executives of subscription-based crypto companies and put a spotlight on their business model. As always, hosted by Yoki Finance, the web-free subscription payment gateway. Today, we have an outstanding guest, Nataly, the marketing director at GetBlock. Nataly, hi. Please introduce yourself and your role at GetBlock.
Nataly
Hi. Sure. Thank you so much for the introduction. So, yeah, my name is Nataly, and I'm Chief Marketing Officer at GetBlock. I have been leading GetBlock's marketing strategy from the onset of our company in 2019. And our marketing department includes content marketing, marketing, search engine optimization, community design units, and so on. So, on the whole, I have more than 10 years of experience in the Fintech industry. So, I guess, I would like to introduce you to our project briefly. Is that okay?
Konstantin
Yeah. That's definitely why we're here today.
Nataly
Okay. So, GetBlock is a blockchain-as-a-service platform that provides instant API access to full nodes from multiple blockchains. And, since our launch, we've supported many individual blockchain developers and Web3 enterprises, helping them save months on development and thousands of dollars on engineering costs by offering some unmatched pricing plans and features. And we're proud to work with companies like Chainlink, Trust Wallet, Elliptic, and be partners with such blockchains as BNB Chain, Polygon, TON, Tron, and more. So, we provide custom infrastructure solutions and a backup system based on the project's needs. We also help maintain blockchain nodes across multiple networks, ensuring they're always available for even the most complex use cases. So, basically, we're offering ready-made RPC node solutions for cryptocurrency services. So via a set of APIs, we are connecting applications like exchanges, devices, wallets, to blockchain nodes, allowing them to read and write information. So this is like a short and brief introduction to our service.
Konstantin
Yeah. That's a great introduction. You have mentioned that you are in the company since 2019. When was the company founded? And do we know the origin story, what inspired its founding?
Nataly
You know, like, GetBlock kicked off exactly in late 2019. Yeah. So I've been working on this project since the start. So, initially, you know, there was an idea to build just an aggregator of blockchain explorers, like, Blockchain.com, for example. And, actually, we did it. It's like one of our products, but not the main one. And why did we decide to start doing infrastructure for crypto projects? So, first of all, it was like a natural step for crypto segment evolution. The projects in crypto were scaling, getting more and more mature, attracting the largest audience, and, you know, they were not so happy about their self-made infrastructure any longer. And, as such, they badly needed new infrastructure to build on. At the same time, we saw that the market at that time was, you know, dominated by big names already, like Infura, Alchemy, or Ankr. But the demand for the infrastructure was rising, and we thought that, you know, there was still a place to fit in, and we were actually right. So, you know, at the same time, building infrastructure is really challenging, and, I have to say, boring. Maybe sometimes, you know, it's like a different universe for crypto projects. As such, it is way more resource-efficient to outsource all this stuff. That's why we decided that the concept of a system as a service provider of private RPC nodes would just work.
Konstantin
Yeah. But I've got a question. Why do crypto developers actually need RPC nodes for people unfamiliar with blockchain development?
Nataly
Well, you know, every cryptocurrency-based application reads data from the blockchain. And the vast majority of them are also writing something here. So, in order to do so, every application should just get connected to blockchain nodes, to blockchain full nodes. And just like I briefly mentioned before, running such a node is quite a hard, sophisticated process. So we just run full nodes to let developers get rid of this. We just let them get connected to blockchains via API endpoints. So, simply put, with us, a developer just comes to GetBlock, gets his or her RPC endpoint, copies and pastes it into the code base of the application. And, you know, this is where the magic happens. This is the place where an app becomes a dApp, I would say.
Konstantin
Yeah. That makes sense. Because if you are not into blockchain development, you have that understanding that blockchain is transparent, and you can see all the transactions happening in the explorer. You can interact with that directly. Why do you need another layer to build on that? But if you dive deeper, yeah, that is the reason for that. You have mentioned that GetBlock, even when it started, there were already quite popular companies operating in the market. So you were in a very competitive environment. What makes you different?
Nataly

Yeah. And, you know, now maybe that time in late 2019, there were maybe about, I don't know, maybe 20 node providers. And now, there are more than 100, and I would say even more than 150. So, first of all, the thing that makes us different nowadays is the number of blockchains supported. For instance, this provider can only connect you to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Polygon. And that one has all major layer 1 and layer 2 blockchains. So, at GetBlock, we definitely have one of the most diversified offerings with over 50 blockchains in store. Also, various providers offer various API interfaces. Typically, WebSockets and JSON RPC are just what everyone has. And we also offer gRPC, GraphQL, and, you know, only our dev team knows what else we have to offer. Then, I would say that pricing is what truly makes a difference in our segment. It's not just about, like, A is cheaper than B, and B is more expensive. No. Some providers charge you for the shares of computational power you use. And this might be a little bit confusing. So every operation comes with its own price, and you have to consider them all. At GetBlock, we either count the requests you send or time for unlimited connection. And, I would also say that flexibility is the thing that makes us different. So, in a nutshell, it's about how much the provider can do for you, beyond its regular menu. You should always be able to communicate with your platform to accomplish any possible synergy. Some of the biggest players in our market lack this opportunity, but we are doing our best to stay open to every client, our BD, customer support, marketing side, and so on. And I would also mention, of course, here our customer support team that works 24/7. And when I say it's great, I really mean it because I know that many users have problems with their customer support from other providers, and they tell us about this issue. But our customer support is just great. The guys are really great and so fast.
Konstantin
Yeah. Especially in the current year where every company tries to use AI and cut the cost for customer support, end users end up in the loop, speaking with AI and not having any problems solved.
Nataly
No. We do not have AI. No. Completely.
Konstantin
You have a finger on the pulse of the crypto development community. What trends do you see currently, and what use cases and application types are becoming more and more popular?
Nataly
Well, regarding the first question, crypto developer skills are evolving, and so do their requests. They become really demanding. Only RPC nodes are not enough for them any longer. They need dApps, indexers, APIs, and so on. So, increasing the sophistication of dApps and their depth is the most powerful trend, I would say. And, what about the use cases? Let's just mention the latest ones. We started together with our partners. We fuel a number of wallets and analytical applications. For instance, we're running EVM nodes for a Tangem hardware wallet, and we're offering a couple of RPC endpoints for Airdrops by DropsTab, one of the fastest and most popular Telegram bots with trading alerts. And what did we make for both? We significantly streamlined the process of development and cut the infrastructure cost by about 15 to 20% as per the estimations of our partners.
Konstantin
That's huge. Have you seen and in terms of the blockchains, which ones are becoming more popular among developers? What are your insights at GetBlock?
Nataly
Yeah. You know, currently, we're focused on TON a lot because a lot of applications, Telegram applications, the mini apps, they become trending. And I think the demand for TON is rising, and GetBlock is one of maybe the only ones, not the only one, but there are just a few providers that support TON. So, the demand for this blockchain is rising currently. And, also, you know, it depends on the market exactly. If some airdrop or something like this happens, the demand for one or another blockchain can increase in one day, and it can even finish in two days. So, mostly, our customers prefer to use Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, and Tron, I would say.
Konstantin
Oh, that's interesting that Tron is on the shortlist as well.
Nataly
Yeah. And sometimes even the infrastructure company cannot help when Tron gets shut down by the number of users who join, like the DEX, airdrop, and, you know, I have some friends in the TON development community. They're expecting the same with the Hamster combat announced airdrop.
Konstantin
Yeah. And speaking about, you know, these types of applications that are bringing blockchain adoption to the industry, what challenges do you see in the coming years in terms of blockchain adoption? And how does GetBlock prepare to address them?
Nataly
You know, it might be an odd thing to say, but, you know, we don't need more networks. We just need better infrastructure. First of all, it's about UX/UI. Nobody would like to use a decentralized application, which is slower and less user-friendly compared to regular ones, even with all the perks this decentralization brings us. And, you know, as I already mentioned, Telegram Mini apps are becoming trending, not even just because TON is the best blockchain, but because they are easy to use themselves. And, you know, at GetBlock, we'll be doing our part like we did it previously. We are just going to build a new generation of dApps with our high-level infrastructure. That's all we can do here, I suppose.
Konstantin
That's a great answer. And as we imagine that there will be a huge inflow of new users and, subsequently, new developers as well, I have a question. As a person with a marketing background, what has been GetBlock's strategy for growth and market penetration currently? And what are your plans regarding that?
Nataly
Regarding our market penetration strategy, you know, we're going to expand to the Asian and American markets as our servers are going to be located soon in those regions. We are going to work with these new communities on their local platforms, like, for example, with the Chinese users. We are going to work on their local platforms like Weibo or WeChat. We will visit crypto events located in those regions more often. For example, next week, we're already going to Singapore to Token2049. I think, like, everyone does. And, as I mentioned, developers are demanding new features, new add-ons. We are working on the product that will cover this demand, which is called Crypto APIs by GetBlock. And, you know, there is not so much to share more. Sometimes, it looks like an endless loop. We just build something. We collect feedback. We check metrics. We discuss it. And we are just getting back to building. It's like a pretty boring scheme, I would say.
Konstantin
I have two questions from your answer. The first one is, basically, I imagine that such a product as infrastructure for development has quite a high cost of switching between providers, so it's quite difficult, I imagine. Do you mostly target new developers who are just getting onboarded into Web3, or are you trying to attract users who are already in the space?
Nataly
So, you know, I think this is where the work between our two departments, marketing and business development, is divided. So, we, in the marketing team, I think we're mostly focused currently on new developers, new projects, startups. We're even going to, for example, very soon launch a startup program where we are going to choose qualified startups, and we are going to provide them with our free infrastructure. Our business development team, they're mostly focused on the bigger projects, on big enterprises because such projects usually need direct communication. They need presentations, personal presentations, demos, and so on.
Konstantin
Yeah. Definitely makes sense. You have mentioned the launch of the crypto APIs. Could you tell more about what that is?
Nataly
So, you know, it's going to be just a tool, like maybe some of our competitors already have. It's going to be like a separate aggregator of different APIs that are going to help developers track information, collect blockchain data, and index it in a very simple way. We are trying to communicate with different companies because we are not working solely on this project. We are working with some other companies and projects as well. So we just want to launch a tool that is going to have the widest set of various APIs like NFT API, Token API, and so on.
Konstantin
Yeah. Got it. So you would like to have everything in a single API?
Nataly
Yeah. And the more, the better.
Konstantin
That makes sense. And, as a CMO of the project, you are, I guess, in charge also of community building. And GetBlock is not a token project. It's not a mass-market crypto project. Do you think it's important to maintain a community? And if so, how do you nurture GetBlock's community?
Nataly
Talking about the community. So, you know, we can't say, like, we are bringing the next billion users to crypto, you know, like all these fancy projects from LinkedIn, I would say. So GetBlock is not about bringing the next billion users to crypto. So instead, we are focused on three pillars of working with this community. This direct community management through Discord or Telegram.The community-centered content management through various announcements, initiatives, research, and, of course, participation in various events, online events, offline events, hackathons, and so on. And, of course, we can't say that we have special hype managers. We don't need artificial hype as we have no native token and so on. So our community strategy is all about honesty, open-mindedness, and, like, a little bit of nerdy humor for geeks because they're reading it, and we try to do it.
Konstantin
How frequently do you receive requests for the token?
Nataly
Oh, actually, quite often. Yeah. Every year, we receive this request, but we are not ready to start working on it yet. And we don't see it as a useful case for us at the moment because we don't want to get involved in all of this marketing and stuff about our own token because it's a totally different product, a totally different community, and we have to hire a whole new team for doing such stuff. So we prefer to focus now on the infrastructure just to make it better, faster, and more reliable.
Konstantin
Yeah. It's always a double-edged sword with the token launch. Like, on the one side, it's basically a marketing tool for a crypto project. You'll have a lot of eyes on your project while you're launching the token and having it on various platforms. On the other hand, the project will be judged by the market cap. And there is a huge difference between how a company is operating and what the current market cap of the token is.
Nataly
Yeah. And all the people are not going to be our target audience anyway. So, actually, our second product that we have, the Blockchain Explorer, works separately, but it's not so much bringing relevant users to our main product, the nodes. So they're existing separately because the audience is different.
Konstantin
Yeah. Completely makes sense. And how do users prefer to pay for your service? I'm asking as the CEO of a crypto subscription payment company.
Nataly
Okay. So, you know, actually, we were among the first to activate payments in major cryptocurrencies. And we also accept fiat payments, as well. So it's up to customers to decide in which way they prefer to pay. While purchasing any plan, you can choose to pay via crypto or fiat. This is, yeah, a great option, which not all the competitors may offer because, mostly, some of them allow you to choose between the options only on some higher, more expensive plans.
Konstantin
Yeah. And what are the most preferred blockchains if you're familiar with that for payment?
Nataly
For the payment? I think it's still paying in Ethereum, as I remember, mostly.
Konstantin
Yeah. And that's interesting because, you know, it's not the cheapest and the best blockchain for the payment industry.
Nataly
Yeah. But maybe still they rely a lot on this chain. But in terms of trust, people are still, you know, trusting Ethereum a lot.
Konstantin
I would like to, you know, take a look into the near future. Where do you see GetBlock in the coming years?
Nataly
You know, we're focused on achieving goals every day, but the answer again is going to be just quite simple. We just want to increase our share in the market and just build the fastest dApp-free infrastructure even for reasonable money. So, we're really working on it, and let's see where the whole crypto industry is going to be in the next years. We really depend on the market situation as everyone, and it's a little bit hard to predict anything in the current world. But we'll continue working hard.
Konstantin
Yeah. We are coming to my last question for today, and it is, what is the best way for listeners to learn more about your company and get involved?
Nataly
You know, as we are mostly a B2B service, like, the only real way to know us better is to actually set up an account and try our endpoints. And if you're not a developer, you can just come to GetBlock, sign in with MetaMask, and just browse through our account. And if you're not a developer at all and you don't own or work for a Web3 project, you can still take advantage of working with GetBlock by participating in our referral or ambassador programs. They are available. And just give us a follow on X and visit our blog. We will really appreciate this.
Konstantin
And do you like to tell more about the affiliate program? What does it entail?
Nataly
So the affiliate program is quite simple. When you register for our program, there is an affiliate account in your main account. So, you have to get your referral link, and after that, you can just credit it anywhere you want. If a person makes a purchase through your referral link, you are going to receive some commission. It's up to 50%, depending on the amount of the purchase that they make. So, yeah, the referral program is quite simple. Like everyone has. So if you're involved in the Web3 community or something like this, it might be a way to earn a bit. And, as for the ambassador program, it's like if you are an influencer in the field of Web3 development, you can participate in that program. You can be the face of GetBlock. You can present our company. You can write some educational materials if you like, and they will be published on your blog and on our blog as well. You can also represent our company at various events and so on. We just have to qualify you as an ambassador, but it's going to be done as part of an interview.
Konstantin
So, basically, you have a lot of opportunities to join, to earn, and to spread the word about GetBlock.
Nataly
Yeah. You can still get the advantage of working with us.
Konstantin
I want to say thank you, Nataly, for joining today. Today, it was the 7th episode of the crypto subscription show with Nataly Lahudi, CMO of GetBlock, and Konstantin Sharokov, CEO of Yoki Finance. You can listen to this episode on all the podcast platforms like Spotify, Google Podcast, Amazon, YouTube, and, of course, on X. And see you soon.
Nataly
Thank you so much for having me here today. The conversation was great. Questions, I liked them so much. Thank you once again.
Konstantin
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Nataly
Bye.