On August 19th, a new episode of The Crypto Subscriptions podcast was released, featuring Eugene Aseev from Chainstack as the guest. In this episode, they discussed the inspiration behind the creation of Chainstack, the most effective ways to build a Web3 app, and much more. You can check out the full text and listen to the podcast right here.
Konstantin:
I want to welcome everyone to the fifth episode of the crypto subscription show, a podcast where we invite founders of subscription-based crypto companies and roast them on their business model and their view on the future of the crypto market. Today, we have an outstanding guest, the founder of Chainstack, Eugene. Eugene, please introduce yourself and briefly overview what Chainstack is.
I want to welcome everyone to the fifth episode of the crypto subscription show, a podcast where we invite founders of subscription-based crypto companies and roast them on their business model and their view on the future of the crypto market. Today, we have an outstanding guest, the founder of Chainstack, Eugene. Eugene, please introduce yourself and briefly overview what Chainstack is.
Eugene:
Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me. I'm Eugene, CTO and founder of Chainstack. Chainstack is the leading web 3 infrastructure provider. We're empowering, dapps of all sizes with our fast, reliable, and affordable infrastructure. What we do is basically provide you read and write access to blockchain data across 25+ chains. Of course, all the usual suspects such as Ethereum and, all the most popular tools, but also Solana, and more.
So we basically provide access to all these blockchains, starting from a free plan that is very nice for those who are just starting the journey in web 3 dapps development and up to large enterprises such as Chainlink, Trust Wallet, Layer 0, and many others that are our partners and customers.
Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me. I'm Eugene, CTO and founder of Chainstack. Chainstack is the leading web 3 infrastructure provider. We're empowering, dapps of all sizes with our fast, reliable, and affordable infrastructure. What we do is basically provide you read and write access to blockchain data across 25+ chains. Of course, all the usual suspects such as Ethereum and, all the most popular tools, but also Solana, and more.
So we basically provide access to all these blockchains, starting from a free plan that is very nice for those who are just starting the journey in web 3 dapps development and up to large enterprises such as Chainlink, Trust Wallet, Layer 0, and many others that are our partners and customers.
Konstantin:
That's an outstanding list of the partners that you have mentioned. Very, very big names. And we'll be really glad to know what is the story behind Chainstack, the origin. What inspired you to found it?
That's an outstanding list of the partners that you have mentioned. Very, very big names. And we'll be really glad to know what is the story behind Chainstack, the origin. What inspired you to found it?
Eugene:
Yeah. The story is pretty straightforward, actually. I was originally doing engineering and research in different software companies. At some point, I was working at a company called Acronis, which is quite a well-known data protection and security company. And, it was the year 2015, and we were thinking about, you know, working with blockchain, because it's immutable storage. So we were thinking, okay, data protection, immutable storage sounds like it makes sense. And, it was just after Ethereum came out and everybody was really excited about the programmability aspect of it. And so we started looking into it. And, at some point, we started working on the solution called Acronis Notary, which integrated blockchain in it. We basically were timestamping objects in the storage to blockchain so that there is an immutable proof that this object was created at this point in time, and you could later prove it and show a certificate. And we started working with exactly what I mentioned before, what is our value proposition in Chainstack. We started working with all these blockchain nodes, you know, to write transactions into the blockchain, read them, and it was a horrible experience. And so we realized that, you know, there will be a huge demand for this kind of, you know, APIs because it's basically very similar to cloud. You know, everybody started running their own servers in the early days and later realized that, you know, in order to run applications on scale, you need to have some more robust, geographically distributed, reliable solutions, that are managed by professionals. So we decided to go into it and basically become one of the first providers in the space to allow people to get this read and write access as a cloud solution for all the popular blockchains where dapps are being built. And that's pretty much how it started with, we were looking into solving our own problem, that we hit, because, you know, we had to switch between different clients, you know, like, Geth and Parity. And, you know, when Geth was not working, we failed over on Parity and vice versa. And it was just super bad in those early days. I assume now, especially in Ethereum, I would say it's much better if you want, you know, to self-host a node and have this built in-house. But, you know, you have now tens or sometimes hundreds of chains, and you need to be able to operate them all with higher uptime, reliability, and performance. And, that's where we are currently. So we started solving our own problem, but then it sort of unexpectedly grew into a separate business, which is quite successful.
Yeah. The story is pretty straightforward, actually. I was originally doing engineering and research in different software companies. At some point, I was working at a company called Acronis, which is quite a well-known data protection and security company. And, it was the year 2015, and we were thinking about, you know, working with blockchain, because it's immutable storage. So we were thinking, okay, data protection, immutable storage sounds like it makes sense. And, it was just after Ethereum came out and everybody was really excited about the programmability aspect of it. And so we started looking into it. And, at some point, we started working on the solution called Acronis Notary, which integrated blockchain in it. We basically were timestamping objects in the storage to blockchain so that there is an immutable proof that this object was created at this point in time, and you could later prove it and show a certificate. And we started working with exactly what I mentioned before, what is our value proposition in Chainstack. We started working with all these blockchain nodes, you know, to write transactions into the blockchain, read them, and it was a horrible experience. And so we realized that, you know, there will be a huge demand for this kind of, you know, APIs because it's basically very similar to cloud. You know, everybody started running their own servers in the early days and later realized that, you know, in order to run applications on scale, you need to have some more robust, geographically distributed, reliable solutions, that are managed by professionals. So we decided to go into it and basically become one of the first providers in the space to allow people to get this read and write access as a cloud solution for all the popular blockchains where dapps are being built. And that's pretty much how it started with, we were looking into solving our own problem, that we hit, because, you know, we had to switch between different clients, you know, like, Geth and Parity. And, you know, when Geth was not working, we failed over on Parity and vice versa. And it was just super bad in those early days. I assume now, especially in Ethereum, I would say it's much better if you want, you know, to self-host a node and have this built in-house. But, you know, you have now tens or sometimes hundreds of chains, and you need to be able to operate them all with higher uptime, reliability, and performance. And, that's where we are currently. So we started solving our own problem, but then it sort of unexpectedly grew into a separate business, which is quite successful.
Konstantin:
That's a wonderful journey. What year was it?
That's a wonderful journey. What year was it?
Eugene:
We started looking into this solution in this company I mentioned, Acronis, in 2015. So I think we basically released it around the year 2017, and Chainstack was started around 2018. I think we officially started the company in 2018, and it went to market a year later in 2019.
We started looking into this solution in this company I mentioned, Acronis, in 2015. So I think we basically released it around the year 2017, and Chainstack was started around 2018. I think we officially started the company in 2018, and it went to market a year later in 2019.
Konstantin:
So I would say, Eugene, you are an OG in the market.
So I would say, Eugene, you are an OG in the market.
Eugene:
Sort of. Sort of. Yeah. I'm pretty old. I'm pretty old. Yes.
Sort of. Sort of. Yeah. I'm pretty old. I'm pretty old. Yes.
Konstantin:
As you have mentioned, currently, you know, running node infrastructure for Ethereum is not a problem as there are many blockchain infrastructure providers. What sets Chainstack apart from them?
As you have mentioned, currently, you know, running node infrastructure for Ethereum is not a problem as there are many blockchain infrastructure providers. What sets Chainstack apart from them?
Eugene:
Chainstack is not Chainlink is not interested in Oh, you mentioned Chainlink in my brain. Oh, no. It's correct. Yeah. Sorry, Chainstack. It's a very difficult pattern. But for me, it's a pleasure to be, you know, to be kind of mixed with our, with one of our biggest partners. So I'm happy that, you know, people usually because, you know, in 2018 when we started, people were not really original with the naming of their projects. So, you know, this combination of words, you know, chain and stack, I wouldn't say it's very original. It's kind of self-explanatory, which is good. But also people were giving all sorts of names, you know, like chain, stack, Chainlink, Blockstack. And so a bunch of such companies, you know, appeared at this point.
Chainstack is not Chainlink is not interested in Oh, you mentioned Chainlink in my brain. Oh, no. It's correct. Yeah. Sorry, Chainstack. It's a very difficult pattern. But for me, it's a pleasure to be, you know, to be kind of mixed with our, with one of our biggest partners. So I'm happy that, you know, people usually because, you know, in 2018 when we started, people were not really original with the naming of their projects. So, you know, this combination of words, you know, chain and stack, I wouldn't say it's very original. It's kind of self-explanatory, which is good. But also people were giving all sorts of names, you know, like chain, stack, Chainlink, Blockstack. And so a bunch of such companies, you know, appeared at this point.
Eugene:
And adding Bitcoin to the name Yes. As where repo was where repo is well at the moment.
And adding Bitcoin to the name Yes. As where repo was where repo is well at the moment.
Konstantin:
Exactly. Yeah. Sorry for that.
Exactly. Yeah. Sorry for that.
Eugene:
No problem. So, basically, we are one of the, I would say, three leading providers on the market currently, together with Alchemy and QuickNode. And there are a lot of other smaller providers, but we basically are in this top-tier league. So what separates us from these competitors that we usually look at is an unbeatable price-performance ratio. So we offer the best performance, the best reliability for the best price, and this is a big differentiator for us and our customers, and that’s what they love. Of course, there are some other, you know, more nuanced differentiators such as, you know, we support a really big number of chains and with very high reliability. We support customizations on our services.So for instance, we have a service which is quite unique called dedicated nodes. Since the beginning of our journey, we ran dedicated nodes for our customers.So if they wanted their own node on dedicated hardware, we were able to provide it to them in various regions and various clouds. And so with these dedicated nodes, we offer a load of customizations in terms of networking, in terms of, you know, tuning the node, tuning the resources, and so on and so forth. So that really sets us apart. For example, if you ask, you know, Alchemy, ‘Can you guys please, you know, tune this flag on the nodes?’ Highly likely they will not be able to do so because they are focused more on the API side of things. We, of course, have API, which is elastic as well. We call it the global elastic nodes, but we also offer this dedicated node service, which feature-wise really sets us apart because this is quite a unique service on the market. But, really, for the majority of our customers, it's about the price-performance ratio, which we are very proud of, and we think we deliver the best value to our customers, among all other providers.
No problem. So, basically, we are one of the, I would say, three leading providers on the market currently, together with Alchemy and QuickNode. And there are a lot of other smaller providers, but we basically are in this top-tier league. So what separates us from these competitors that we usually look at is an unbeatable price-performance ratio. So we offer the best performance, the best reliability for the best price, and this is a big differentiator for us and our customers, and that’s what they love. Of course, there are some other, you know, more nuanced differentiators such as, you know, we support a really big number of chains and with very high reliability. We support customizations on our services.So for instance, we have a service which is quite unique called dedicated nodes. Since the beginning of our journey, we ran dedicated nodes for our customers.So if they wanted their own node on dedicated hardware, we were able to provide it to them in various regions and various clouds. And so with these dedicated nodes, we offer a load of customizations in terms of networking, in terms of, you know, tuning the node, tuning the resources, and so on and so forth. So that really sets us apart. For example, if you ask, you know, Alchemy, ‘Can you guys please, you know, tune this flag on the nodes?’ Highly likely they will not be able to do so because they are focused more on the API side of things. We, of course, have API, which is elastic as well. We call it the global elastic nodes, but we also offer this dedicated node service, which feature-wise really sets us apart because this is quite a unique service on the market. But, really, for the majority of our customers, it's about the price-performance ratio, which we are very proud of, and we think we deliver the best value to our customers, among all other providers.
Konstantin:
And for people unfamiliar with running a dedicated node, what could be the use case where people need to customize their node?
And for people unfamiliar with running a dedicated node, what could be the use case where people need to customize their node?
Eugene:
Right. So, people want to run the dedicated node in several scenarios. One scenario would be trading, for example. So, let’s say you want to be closer to, I don’t know, like, an L2 sequencer or you want to be closer to validator nodes because you want your transactions to go even faster. And so, for instance, you want to run, like, some BNB chain node in Tokyo, for example. This is quite a unique value proposition, and you can do it easily with Chainstack. Another example would be, and this is also related to proximity to your own servers. For example, you run a dApp, and, or you have maybe a lot of customers in a certain region, you know, so this is related to proximity and the choice of deployment for the node in terms of the data center in the cloud. Also, another big win for dedicated nodes is when you do something really heavy on the data side. So, for example, you want to backfill your own internal database with Web 3 data. And it’s a very intense operation. It usually requires, you know, days and a lot of resources to perform through the nodes. And you don’t really want to be limited by the number of requests that, you know, API providers give you because your costs will go through the roof, like, the second day you run this operation.So you know that to get all the data from the blockchain, you know, it takes in Ethereum's case, it might take a few days, and, you know, faster chains, it can take months in some cases. And so, you don’t want your bill to go crazy. And so it’s a typical scenario when people buy dedicated nodes because they basically, you know, buy it for a month or two, then they backfill the database. They pay a very low price compared to what they would pay in an API scenario, and they are very happy. Why do people customize dedicated nodes? Again, maybe they have some, you know, we have some customers that want to run something like custom tracing on dedicated nodes that they developed themselves, or maybe they just want to check change flags for their own, you know, trading purposes on the node that is that are not standard, and so on and so forth. And these are some of the examples of customization on the node side.
Right. So, people want to run the dedicated node in several scenarios. One scenario would be trading, for example. So, let’s say you want to be closer to, I don’t know, like, an L2 sequencer or you want to be closer to validator nodes because you want your transactions to go even faster. And so, for instance, you want to run, like, some BNB chain node in Tokyo, for example. This is quite a unique value proposition, and you can do it easily with Chainstack. Another example would be, and this is also related to proximity to your own servers. For example, you run a dApp, and, or you have maybe a lot of customers in a certain region, you know, so this is related to proximity and the choice of deployment for the node in terms of the data center in the cloud. Also, another big win for dedicated nodes is when you do something really heavy on the data side. So, for example, you want to backfill your own internal database with Web 3 data. And it’s a very intense operation. It usually requires, you know, days and a lot of resources to perform through the nodes. And you don’t really want to be limited by the number of requests that, you know, API providers give you because your costs will go through the roof, like, the second day you run this operation.So you know that to get all the data from the blockchain, you know, it takes in Ethereum's case, it might take a few days, and, you know, faster chains, it can take months in some cases. And so, you don’t want your bill to go crazy. And so it’s a typical scenario when people buy dedicated nodes because they basically, you know, buy it for a month or two, then they backfill the database. They pay a very low price compared to what they would pay in an API scenario, and they are very happy. Why do people customize dedicated nodes? Again, maybe they have some, you know, we have some customers that want to run something like custom tracing on dedicated nodes that they developed themselves, or maybe they just want to check change flags for their own, you know, trading purposes on the node that is that are not standard, and so on and so forth. And these are some of the examples of customization on the node side.
Konstantin:
Yeah. That totally makes sense and why people will choose this, although the, you know, the common elastic solution, which you have mentioned.
Yeah. That totally makes sense and why people will choose this, although the, you know, the common elastic solution, which you have mentioned.
Eugene:
Yep.
Yep.
Konstantin:
You also said, Eugene, that Chainstack supports a huge amount of chains, and you have mentioned a lot of different products, hosting, storage, and all of that. How do you plan your roadmap and define which new products and which new chains you would like to support next?
You also said, Eugene, that Chainstack supports a huge amount of chains, and you have mentioned a lot of different products, hosting, storage, and all of that. How do you plan your roadmap and define which new products and which new chains you would like to support next?
Eugene:
Right. So, I would say we, of course, you know, crypto is a nascent industry even though we are on the market for, you know, over a decade, but it’s still very new. So I don’t think that it’s as an industry realized itself very much. So, you know, the most exciting times are ahead of us, I believe. And so, really, there is no leader in this market that is absolute, you know, number one and will stay there for many years. So I think we're still in a heavy exploratory phase in terms of, you know, core infrastructure such as chains and other pieces of infrastructure like who’s going to be the leader. And so we basically invest time into understanding, you know, the fundamentals of all of these chains and try to see whether there’s strong adoption, a team behind each chain, and whether there’s a strong roadmap to generate a lot of interest from end users. Because what we are focusing on is servicing developers so that they can build the best, most reliable, most snappy apps for the users. But to begin with, we need to have users that will use these apps so that we have a community of developers building apps. So we are mostly looking into adoption.So, you know, I’m personally, you know, interested in adoption at this point, much more than technology. For example, when we started, you know, I was personally very interested in, you know, consensus mechanisms and other nitty-gritty technical details about the chain. At this point, I’m super interested in, like, adoption metrics of a chain. And when we look at the chain, we try to understand, okay, does it have a chance to onboard, you know, the next 100 million users or something like that? So that’s basically our criteria. This year, we are not going crazy to add new chains, for example. So we are being quite cautious not to invest time into supporting as many chains as we can because we already have a very solid portfolio. I think we support all the leading chains already as of today. And so, for us, currently, it’s about making a good decision on what are the chains to add next to, you know, focus our resources on the best possible options in terms of adoption.
Right. So, I would say we, of course, you know, crypto is a nascent industry even though we are on the market for, you know, over a decade, but it’s still very new. So I don’t think that it’s as an industry realized itself very much. So, you know, the most exciting times are ahead of us, I believe. And so, really, there is no leader in this market that is absolute, you know, number one and will stay there for many years. So I think we're still in a heavy exploratory phase in terms of, you know, core infrastructure such as chains and other pieces of infrastructure like who’s going to be the leader. And so we basically invest time into understanding, you know, the fundamentals of all of these chains and try to see whether there’s strong adoption, a team behind each chain, and whether there’s a strong roadmap to generate a lot of interest from end users. Because what we are focusing on is servicing developers so that they can build the best, most reliable, most snappy apps for the users. But to begin with, we need to have users that will use these apps so that we have a community of developers building apps. So we are mostly looking into adoption.So, you know, I’m personally, you know, interested in adoption at this point, much more than technology. For example, when we started, you know, I was personally very interested in, you know, consensus mechanisms and other nitty-gritty technical details about the chain. At this point, I’m super interested in, like, adoption metrics of a chain. And when we look at the chain, we try to understand, okay, does it have a chance to onboard, you know, the next 100 million users or something like that? So that’s basically our criteria. This year, we are not going crazy to add new chains, for example. So we are being quite cautious not to invest time into supporting as many chains as we can because we already have a very solid portfolio. I think we support all the leading chains already as of today. And so, for us, currently, it’s about making a good decision on what are the chains to add next to, you know, focus our resources on the best possible options in terms of adoption.
Konstantin:
Adding to that, you know, magic orb time, what is your personal take on the future of chains from the developer perspective? And what do you currently see as growing trends?
Adding to that, you know, magic orb time, what is your personal take on the future of chains from the developer perspective? And what do you currently see as growing trends?
Eugene:
It’s a great question. Of course, I’m not trying to give any advice, and perhaps this view also doesn’t necessarily represent a view on the situation.
It’s a great question. Of course, I’m not trying to give any advice, and perhaps this view also doesn’t necessarily represent a view on the situation.
Konstantin:
Yeah. It’s your personal question.
Yeah. It’s your personal question.
Eugene:
But my personal take is that I think this multichain future is here to stay.To begin with, this has been our thesis from day one when we started. So we believe heavily in multichain, multicloud, everything with multi in it. When we started building our first materials, it was always about multichain, multicloud. And I remind you, it was the year 2018, so absolutely nobody at that point thought about multichain, you know, because there was only, you know, on the public chain side, there was pretty much, you know, Ethereum, Bitcoin. And then there was a bunch of enterprise blockchain initiatives from, you know, from different big companies in Fortune 500, mostly. So, but we kind of grasped this idea that there will be no one winning chain, and so we always believed in the multichain future. I think at this point, it went a little bit out of hand. So I personally think we have too many chains at this point.
But I assume that it’s part of, you know, exploration of the market. Like, if we have too many chains, it means, you know, there are market dynamics that allow these chains to exist. There’s venture capital that is interested in investing in more chains because they can make bigger bets in the future in terms of platform adoption versus, you know, apps adoption. But, personally, I think we're in a moment where we have too many chains, and I expect this number to go down over time in terms of used chains because I don’t believe we really need, you know, hundreds of chains to transact upon. Maybe we need five, maybe we need ten. And the rest, actually, if we transact on the rest of the chains, we should not even know that we are transacting on these chains. So I believe there should be, like, a handful of chains that we know, that we transact on, and we consciously transact upon. And maybe there are hundreds of smaller chains that we transact on, but we do not even think and know that we’re actually transacting with some chain. It’s just built into some app. And this app doesn’t necessarily even tell us that it’s on the blockchain, but we are somewhere there. You know, under the hood, there are some transactions that are going on-chain, but we are not even aware of this. So that’s kind of my thesis on this multichain future. It’s definitely there to stay, but there will be, like, a handful of giant chains that have heavy adoption. And we are actually aware of the brand names of this chain, if you can say so. Like, you know that you’re transacting on Ethereum. You know you are, you know, going on the marketplace and you sell something, like your asset, that it’s on Ethereum. And for the rest of the apps, there will be some built-in chains, and we will not know the names of them because there’s no necessity to even know, like, how these chains are called.
But my personal take is that I think this multichain future is here to stay.To begin with, this has been our thesis from day one when we started. So we believe heavily in multichain, multicloud, everything with multi in it. When we started building our first materials, it was always about multichain, multicloud. And I remind you, it was the year 2018, so absolutely nobody at that point thought about multichain, you know, because there was only, you know, on the public chain side, there was pretty much, you know, Ethereum, Bitcoin. And then there was a bunch of enterprise blockchain initiatives from, you know, from different big companies in Fortune 500, mostly. So, but we kind of grasped this idea that there will be no one winning chain, and so we always believed in the multichain future. I think at this point, it went a little bit out of hand. So I personally think we have too many chains at this point.
But I assume that it’s part of, you know, exploration of the market. Like, if we have too many chains, it means, you know, there are market dynamics that allow these chains to exist. There’s venture capital that is interested in investing in more chains because they can make bigger bets in the future in terms of platform adoption versus, you know, apps adoption. But, personally, I think we're in a moment where we have too many chains, and I expect this number to go down over time in terms of used chains because I don’t believe we really need, you know, hundreds of chains to transact upon. Maybe we need five, maybe we need ten. And the rest, actually, if we transact on the rest of the chains, we should not even know that we are transacting on these chains. So I believe there should be, like, a handful of chains that we know, that we transact on, and we consciously transact upon. And maybe there are hundreds of smaller chains that we transact on, but we do not even think and know that we’re actually transacting with some chain. It’s just built into some app. And this app doesn’t necessarily even tell us that it’s on the blockchain, but we are somewhere there. You know, under the hood, there are some transactions that are going on-chain, but we are not even aware of this. So that’s kind of my thesis on this multichain future. It’s definitely there to stay, but there will be, like, a handful of giant chains that have heavy adoption. And we are actually aware of the brand names of this chain, if you can say so. Like, you know that you’re transacting on Ethereum. You know you are, you know, going on the marketplace and you sell something, like your asset, that it’s on Ethereum. And for the rest of the apps, there will be some built-in chains, and we will not know the names of them because there’s no necessity to even know, like, how these chains are called.
Konstantin:
Yeah. I've heard the quote that the best UX, Web 3 experience is that when you don’t know that you’re in Web 3.
Yeah. I've heard the quote that the best UX, Web 3 experience is that when you don’t know that you’re in Web 3.
Eugene:
Yeah. Precisely.
Yeah. Precisely.
Konstantin:
And what about, you know, TON? What do you think about that? Do you support it?
And what about, you know, TON? What do you think about that? Do you support it?
Eugene:
I’m mega bullish on TON, to be honest, for a simple fact that it’s purely product-driven. Because I know a little bit about Telegram, and I've been following, you know, Telegram development since the early days. And so I know the approach that the Telegram team and people around have, and they are focused, laser-focused, I would say, on adoption and on, you know, actual users and actual user scenarios. And, you know, so I’m super interested in the TON ecosystem. We’re going to support TON very soon.So I’m dropping some alpha here because this hasn’t been publicly announced yet. So we’re going to be announcing our support in the next month. So yeah. I mean, I’m looking forward to working with TON builders. We do our own research, and we see enormous demand from people to build applications on TON. And we see gigantic problems for this. And showstoppers, there are no tools. There are no reliable APIs. So we intend to fill in this gap and become the number one API provider on TON.
I’m mega bullish on TON, to be honest, for a simple fact that it’s purely product-driven. Because I know a little bit about Telegram, and I've been following, you know, Telegram development since the early days. And so I know the approach that the Telegram team and people around have, and they are focused, laser-focused, I would say, on adoption and on, you know, actual users and actual user scenarios. And, you know, so I’m super interested in the TON ecosystem. We’re going to support TON very soon.So I’m dropping some alpha here because this hasn’t been publicly announced yet. So we’re going to be announcing our support in the next month. So yeah. I mean, I’m looking forward to working with TON builders. We do our own research, and we see enormous demand from people to build applications on TON. And we see gigantic problems for this. And showstoppers, there are no tools. There are no reliable APIs. So we intend to fill in this gap and become the number one API provider on TON.
Konstantin:
Yeah. And it’s definitely something I heard from the developers on TON. First of all, that, you know, the competition for some DeFi products is not that big. And if you try to build something, you encounter a lot of lack of different infrastructural parts.
Yeah. And it’s definitely something I heard from the developers on TON. First of all, that, you know, the competition for some DeFi products is not that big. And if you try to build something, you encounter a lot of lack of different infrastructural parts.
Eugene:
Yep. Exactly. Well, this is basically the downside of being hyper-focused on users versus developers. But I think it’s better than being hyper-focused on developers rather than users because I would say that it’s easier to build, you know, technical infrastructure versus getting actual traction from users to your app. So, you know, it’s easy to fix the technology, but it’s hard to fix, you know, product-market fit and whether you have genuine interest from people to use your apps. So I think that’s exactly where we see it. So we basically solve these problems for developers, and we see this demand. And so we’re eager to solve these issues for developers, and that’s what we are doing. And, here we are. In a few months, we have this problem solved.
Yep. Exactly. Well, this is basically the downside of being hyper-focused on users versus developers. But I think it’s better than being hyper-focused on developers rather than users because I would say that it’s easier to build, you know, technical infrastructure versus getting actual traction from users to your app. So, you know, it’s easy to fix the technology, but it’s hard to fix, you know, product-market fit and whether you have genuine interest from people to use your apps. So I think that’s exactly where we see it. So we basically solve these problems for developers, and we see this demand. And so we’re eager to solve these issues for developers, and that’s what we are doing. And, here we are. In a few months, we have this problem solved.
Konstantin:
Exactly. The majority of startups fail because they cannot, you know, onboard customers, not because they cannot deliver the product.
Exactly. The majority of startups fail because they cannot, you know, onboard customers, not because they cannot deliver the product.
Eugene:
Exactly.
Exactly.
Konstantin:
One more question to continue about chains. What is your take on app chains?
One more question to continue about chains. What is your take on app chains?
Eugene:
I have a very special take on app chains. Why? Because I didn’t mention this, but Chainstack, when we started, was a private blockchain hosting company, largely. So we basically, our first product, we were always, like, super open towards a majority of, like, the plurality of chains over time. And so we were on both sides. I mean, we were interested in public chains as well as the private chains, enterprise blockchains, and so on and so forth. And, in 2018, now it’s a little bit of a fad already, but in 2018, 2019, there was a huge hype about enterprise blockchains and that, you know, IBM released large platforms and projects with Maersk and other logistic companies and finance companies. And there was a lot of movement towards, you know, let’s put stuff that enterprises generate on-chain and let them exchange on-chain. And so Chainstack was originally mostly doing this. So we were hosting private networks for such companies. And then when we realized, like, after a year, a year and a half of doing this, that the market is super small and most of the projects are just POCs, and then they don’t progress further towards production, then we focused on the public blockchain market. And that was very good timing because that was the beginning of 2021, I believe. And that’s when Polygon launched, and that’s when, like, BNB Chain launched and other L2s launched. And there was a lot of interest from, you know, developers and users alike to, you know, to do things on-chain. And, hence, we mostly forgot about our enterprise blockchain story, and we focused solely on the public chains. So now, with app chains, I see sort of a reincarnation of this old idea of private chains and sovereign chains. And so I have, you know, my personal PTSD towards it. And, while I understand the argument about, you know, separate block space and, you know, application-specific chains, I’m personally being very careful to be bullish on this thesis because, again, I think we have more chains than users at this point. And so, you know, I believe that this technology has a certain place, but, you know, I don’t make very strong bets on app chains at the moment that they're going to be big and that we're going to need thousands of chains. Because first, I think we need to see, you know, the interest from end users to come, and then the technology piece, as I mentioned, can be solved. So that’s my take on app chains, but it’s, I would say, a bit biased by my prior experience. But I’m very positive towards app chains in general. I'm just quite cautious because I've done this sort of mistake in the beginning of our journey when we focused on private sovereign chains, and I want to make sure that, you know, we make the right decisions. So while being generally positive, I’m also quite cautious on the app chain thesis myself.
I have a very special take on app chains. Why? Because I didn’t mention this, but Chainstack, when we started, was a private blockchain hosting company, largely. So we basically, our first product, we were always, like, super open towards a majority of, like, the plurality of chains over time. And so we were on both sides. I mean, we were interested in public chains as well as the private chains, enterprise blockchains, and so on and so forth. And, in 2018, now it’s a little bit of a fad already, but in 2018, 2019, there was a huge hype about enterprise blockchains and that, you know, IBM released large platforms and projects with Maersk and other logistic companies and finance companies. And there was a lot of movement towards, you know, let’s put stuff that enterprises generate on-chain and let them exchange on-chain. And so Chainstack was originally mostly doing this. So we were hosting private networks for such companies. And then when we realized, like, after a year, a year and a half of doing this, that the market is super small and most of the projects are just POCs, and then they don’t progress further towards production, then we focused on the public blockchain market. And that was very good timing because that was the beginning of 2021, I believe. And that’s when Polygon launched, and that’s when, like, BNB Chain launched and other L2s launched. And there was a lot of interest from, you know, developers and users alike to, you know, to do things on-chain. And, hence, we mostly forgot about our enterprise blockchain story, and we focused solely on the public chains. So now, with app chains, I see sort of a reincarnation of this old idea of private chains and sovereign chains. And so I have, you know, my personal PTSD towards it. And, while I understand the argument about, you know, separate block space and, you know, application-specific chains, I’m personally being very careful to be bullish on this thesis because, again, I think we have more chains than users at this point. And so, you know, I believe that this technology has a certain place, but, you know, I don’t make very strong bets on app chains at the moment that they're going to be big and that we're going to need thousands of chains. Because first, I think we need to see, you know, the interest from end users to come, and then the technology piece, as I mentioned, can be solved. So that’s my take on app chains, but it’s, I would say, a bit biased by my prior experience. But I’m very positive towards app chains in general. I'm just quite cautious because I've done this sort of mistake in the beginning of our journey when we focused on private sovereign chains, and I want to make sure that, you know, we make the right decisions. So while being generally positive, I’m also quite cautious on the app chain thesis myself.
Konstantin:
Sorry to say that, but, you know, saying that having PTSD from app chains is quite hilarious.
Sorry to say that, but, you know, saying that having PTSD from app chains is quite hilarious.
Eugene:
Yeah. Yes.
Yeah. Yes.
Konstantin:
Continuing with and finishing the magic orb time, what challenges do you foresee for blockchain adoption, you know, speaking about adoption in the coming years, and how Chainstack is preparing to address them?
Continuing with and finishing the magic orb time, what challenges do you foresee for blockchain adoption, you know, speaking about adoption in the coming years, and how Chainstack is preparing to address them?
Eugene:
Right. So yeah. So I think I've touched upon this topic, largely. We need to find this, you know, I wouldn’t even say, like, use cases because, in fact, DeFi is a great use case for blockchains. For example, ownership is a great use case. For example, you know, like, ticketing is a great use case, for example, for blockchains. Like, I try to buy tickets to different shows, including some of the popular ones, and it’s a super painful experience in Web 2. Like, there’s literally no way to transfer tickets securely from, you know, one person to another. There are some special sites where you can do that, but they’re all, little semi-shady. Before using them, you need to go to Reddit to double-check whether this site is a scam or not. And as a result, it’s not a scam, but then it’s, like, just a bunch of middlemen. And so it’s clearly suboptimal. So there are certain use cases that were materialized largely, like DeFi. I strongly believe in DeFi in general. I think we just need to give better access to DeFi to, you know, normal people, to the majority of people because now the adoption rates are so tiny because it’s very hard to use, honestly. Like, we are, like, the OGs in crypto, we are used to, you know, the Uniswap interface, which is very, very sleek, you know, and it’s pink and it’s nice and it’s welcoming.And, you know, it looks really simple for us, once we’re here for, like, 10 years or so. But believe me, like, when people try to get into this ecosystem from scratch, it looks super weird to them. Everything is super strange. All these names, like, even Uniswap sounds really strange. And, like, I literally try because I try to dog food crypto with my friends and family and people around. So I, you know, when we need to, you know, split the bills, I send people, you know, like, USDT on Telegram or I send them, like, USDT on Coinbase Wallet or something like that. So I try to dog food all the time. And when I try to onboard people, it’s really awkward these days because, like, we start the discussion. Okay. How do I use this? And they say, oh, you know, you need to install a wallet. And they say, oh, cool. So which application should I install? And then I start to think, okay. What’s the most user-friendly wallet, like, on the market? Like, I wouldn’t, you know, suggest people install MetaMask, for example, because it’s a bit clunky. And, again, it’s familiar for us as crypto natives, but I’m just trying to understand, okay, what’s the most user-friendly, easy-to-use wallet today? And then I say, okay, you guys need to install, like, Rabby Wallet because it’s got a very nice UI, very nice team, like, Rabby and DeBank, I think, are the best teams. And then, like, they install Rabby Wallet, and then I start to do certain things. And then I figure out, oh, you know, you cannot add, like, a custom RPC endpoint of a certain network where we want to transact. Okay. No go. Let’s move on. So what else can we do? Okay. Let’s install, you know, Rainbow Wallet. And they’re like, what? Like, Rainbow Wallet? Like, why would my financial app be called Rainbow Wallet? You know? And then I kind of, yeah, you know, I share this experience. Like, if I was about to onboard on some great new financial journey, would I want to use Rainbow Wallet as my core wallet? It sounds really strange to me. I don’t know. Maybe I’m a bit old. Maybe, you know, these 15-year-old, 12-year-old guys, they say, oh, Rainbow Wallet is a great way to store, you know, your coins and your dollars or whatever it is. But, yeah, I think, largely, we need to make easier entrance to existing scenarios that realized themselves, like DeFi, for example. We need to have just, like, you know, one-click, you know, deposit apps that will just not need any steps to get to it. Like, you have Revolut, you know, Wise. They’re pretty straightforward applications. And, you know, you don’t have to store any seed phrases anywhere. And so it just works. And the second thing, of course, we need to continue. I think we need to fight for more use cases for blockchain. Like, this example with tickets, I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s a good fit, but we have never seen, like, good, massively adopted apps that would help you to, you know, buy tickets, transfer tickets for events, and so on and so forth. And I believe this industry is 100% ripe for disruption. Of course, there are incumbents that don’t want crypto to solve this because, you know, otherwise, they would lose the business, etc. But I think we should continue fighting for compelling use cases for crypto and have more use cases that make sense. I’m a strong believer that, you know, not everything should be on the blockchain to some extent. You know, we don’t need to put all our, you know, social media data on the blockchain. It makes no sense. Like, there should be no Facebook on the blockchain, this kind of stuff. But, you know, some use cases like ticketing, for example, it’s just my personal pain as well. Like, whenever I want to buy a ticket or transfer a ticket, it’s so bad. So, yeah, we need to provide easy access to existing tools and scenarios, and we need to fight for more scenarios.
Right. So yeah. So I think I've touched upon this topic, largely. We need to find this, you know, I wouldn’t even say, like, use cases because, in fact, DeFi is a great use case for blockchains. For example, ownership is a great use case. For example, you know, like, ticketing is a great use case, for example, for blockchains. Like, I try to buy tickets to different shows, including some of the popular ones, and it’s a super painful experience in Web 2. Like, there’s literally no way to transfer tickets securely from, you know, one person to another. There are some special sites where you can do that, but they’re all, little semi-shady. Before using them, you need to go to Reddit to double-check whether this site is a scam or not. And as a result, it’s not a scam, but then it’s, like, just a bunch of middlemen. And so it’s clearly suboptimal. So there are certain use cases that were materialized largely, like DeFi. I strongly believe in DeFi in general. I think we just need to give better access to DeFi to, you know, normal people, to the majority of people because now the adoption rates are so tiny because it’s very hard to use, honestly. Like, we are, like, the OGs in crypto, we are used to, you know, the Uniswap interface, which is very, very sleek, you know, and it’s pink and it’s nice and it’s welcoming.And, you know, it looks really simple for us, once we’re here for, like, 10 years or so. But believe me, like, when people try to get into this ecosystem from scratch, it looks super weird to them. Everything is super strange. All these names, like, even Uniswap sounds really strange. And, like, I literally try because I try to dog food crypto with my friends and family and people around. So I, you know, when we need to, you know, split the bills, I send people, you know, like, USDT on Telegram or I send them, like, USDT on Coinbase Wallet or something like that. So I try to dog food all the time. And when I try to onboard people, it’s really awkward these days because, like, we start the discussion. Okay. How do I use this? And they say, oh, you know, you need to install a wallet. And they say, oh, cool. So which application should I install? And then I start to think, okay. What’s the most user-friendly wallet, like, on the market? Like, I wouldn’t, you know, suggest people install MetaMask, for example, because it’s a bit clunky. And, again, it’s familiar for us as crypto natives, but I’m just trying to understand, okay, what’s the most user-friendly, easy-to-use wallet today? And then I say, okay, you guys need to install, like, Rabby Wallet because it’s got a very nice UI, very nice team, like, Rabby and DeBank, I think, are the best teams. And then, like, they install Rabby Wallet, and then I start to do certain things. And then I figure out, oh, you know, you cannot add, like, a custom RPC endpoint of a certain network where we want to transact. Okay. No go. Let’s move on. So what else can we do? Okay. Let’s install, you know, Rainbow Wallet. And they’re like, what? Like, Rainbow Wallet? Like, why would my financial app be called Rainbow Wallet? You know? And then I kind of, yeah, you know, I share this experience. Like, if I was about to onboard on some great new financial journey, would I want to use Rainbow Wallet as my core wallet? It sounds really strange to me. I don’t know. Maybe I’m a bit old. Maybe, you know, these 15-year-old, 12-year-old guys, they say, oh, Rainbow Wallet is a great way to store, you know, your coins and your dollars or whatever it is. But, yeah, I think, largely, we need to make easier entrance to existing scenarios that realized themselves, like DeFi, for example. We need to have just, like, you know, one-click, you know, deposit apps that will just not need any steps to get to it. Like, you have Revolut, you know, Wise. They’re pretty straightforward applications. And, you know, you don’t have to store any seed phrases anywhere. And so it just works. And the second thing, of course, we need to continue. I think we need to fight for more use cases for blockchain. Like, this example with tickets, I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s a good fit, but we have never seen, like, good, massively adopted apps that would help you to, you know, buy tickets, transfer tickets for events, and so on and so forth. And I believe this industry is 100% ripe for disruption. Of course, there are incumbents that don’t want crypto to solve this because, you know, otherwise, they would lose the business, etc. But I think we should continue fighting for compelling use cases for crypto and have more use cases that make sense. I’m a strong believer that, you know, not everything should be on the blockchain to some extent. You know, we don’t need to put all our, you know, social media data on the blockchain. It makes no sense. Like, there should be no Facebook on the blockchain, this kind of stuff. But, you know, some use cases like ticketing, for example, it’s just my personal pain as well. Like, whenever I want to buy a ticket or transfer a ticket, it’s so bad. So, yeah, we need to provide easy access to existing tools and scenarios, and we need to fight for more scenarios.
Konstantin:
Yeah. Interesting points. For my personal experience, you know, trying to onboard people to crypto, the seed phrase was a constant showstopper because you have to somehow remember 12 words, and after that, the next screen, it asks you to randomly put some of them. And the majority of people are like, no. I haven’t copied that. I thought it’s, like, safe or stored somewhere else.
Yeah. Interesting points. For my personal experience, you know, trying to onboard people to crypto, the seed phrase was a constant showstopper because you have to somehow remember 12 words, and after that, the next screen, it asks you to randomly put some of them. And the majority of people are like, no. I haven’t copied that. I thought it’s, like, safe or stored somewhere else.
Eugene:
Well, this is literally why I’m so excited about TON. It’s not because of, you know, new technology. It’s not because it’s even, you know, a new blockchain, etc. It’s just because in order to use TON these days, you don’t need to install a new app. And pretty much everyone uses Telegram, and they can basically use a wallet within Telegram. And then, basically, you go to all the websites that support TON and authentication through TON, and it’s one thing to authenticate. It’s one library. It’s standard. So you go to any website that has, you know, TON integration, and then it’s the same widget. You can use the same wallets. It’s not like this crazy zoo in the EVM ecosystem where every site you go to has a different selection of wallets. And if you don’t have MetaMask, you always have some sort of problem somewhere because your wallet suddenly doesn’t work or it doesn’t work reliably and so on and so forth. So, yeah, I mean, the wallet thing sounds super simple, but it’s very important, especially for, you know, sort of long-tail adoption, not, you know, early adopter usage, but rather, you know, just normal personal usage.
Well, this is literally why I’m so excited about TON. It’s not because of, you know, new technology. It’s not because it’s even, you know, a new blockchain, etc. It’s just because in order to use TON these days, you don’t need to install a new app. And pretty much everyone uses Telegram, and they can basically use a wallet within Telegram. And then, basically, you go to all the websites that support TON and authentication through TON, and it’s one thing to authenticate. It’s one library. It’s standard. So you go to any website that has, you know, TON integration, and then it’s the same widget. You can use the same wallets. It’s not like this crazy zoo in the EVM ecosystem where every site you go to has a different selection of wallets. And if you don’t have MetaMask, you always have some sort of problem somewhere because your wallet suddenly doesn’t work or it doesn’t work reliably and so on and so forth. So, yeah, I mean, the wallet thing sounds super simple, but it’s very important, especially for, you know, sort of long-tail adoption, not, you know, early adopter usage, but rather, you know, just normal personal usage.
Konstantin:
Yeah. Absolutely. And, also, to some extent, I would argue with the social media argument. I would say that, you know, censorship resistance is still a big thing and a big use case for decentralized social networks. Luckily, we have the X acquisition by Elon, and, you know, before that, on the major social networks, there was a quite big problem of the speech suppression of a broader and growing amount of, you know, different topics. I would say, in a way.
Yeah. Absolutely. And, also, to some extent, I would argue with the social media argument. I would say that, you know, censorship resistance is still a big thing and a big use case for decentralized social networks. Luckily, we have the X acquisition by Elon, and, you know, before that, on the major social networks, there was a quite big problem of the speech suppression of a broader and growing amount of, you know, different topics. I would say, in a way.
Eugene:
Well, it’s not like I’m against the social use case. I’m against putting all the data from social networks on the blockchain. You know, this kind of super-maximized view on the blockchain that, you know, everything should happen there, which is crazy. You know, we shouldn’t probably put photos on the blockchain or something like that. But, yeah, I totally agree with you. Like, some super important information. Let’s say, you know, if you write a post, you can, I don’t know, have a hash of this post and store the post somewhere, etc., so that you have a trace of this post being published, etc. I don’t have any objections about the social use case. There are definitely some fit there, but for, you know, a subset of the social scenario as a whole because there are, you know, just so many different things, you know, like, text and photo and videos and streaming and so on and so forth. And, you know, not all this data should be on the blockchain. That was my point.
Well, it’s not like I’m against the social use case. I’m against putting all the data from social networks on the blockchain. You know, this kind of super-maximized view on the blockchain that, you know, everything should happen there, which is crazy. You know, we shouldn’t probably put photos on the blockchain or something like that. But, yeah, I totally agree with you. Like, some super important information. Let’s say, you know, if you write a post, you can, I don’t know, have a hash of this post and store the post somewhere, etc., so that you have a trace of this post being published, etc. I don’t have any objections about the social use case. There are definitely some fit there, but for, you know, a subset of the social scenario as a whole because there are, you know, just so many different things, you know, like, text and photo and videos and streaming and so on and so forth. And, you know, not all this data should be on the blockchain. That was my point.
Konstantin:
Yeah. I completely second you for that. You know, basically, storing videos and streaming does not make any sense.
Yeah. I completely second you for that. You know, basically, storing videos and streaming does not make any sense.
Konstantin:
Now a couple of questions regarding your business model. For a B2B solution, do you think it’s important to have a community, and how do you nurture one for Chainstack? I've seen you personally communicating in the Discord.
Now a couple of questions regarding your business model. For a B2B solution, do you think it’s important to have a community, and how do you nurture one for Chainstack? I've seen you personally communicating in the Discord.
Eugene:
So I would say that for a B2B solution, it’s not, you know, crazy important to have a community if we compare with, you know, a project that has a token, and that’s, you know, that does certain activity, you know, either related to NFTs, etc., where community is much more important. For traditional B2B SaaS, I think it’s not, you know, it’s not an existential threat if you don’t have a community. For such a nascent industry such as Web 3, I think it’s a differentiator if you have a community. By community, I mean not just, you know, some channel where people can come and ask, you know, just sort of technical support questions because you have technical support for that and, you know, people can write you an email or, you know, they can chat with you somewhere. But by community, I mean where people can ask, you know, questions not even necessarily related to your product and maybe look for a gig or maybe, you know, ask some question related to, you know, how to do this or that thing on the blockchain. We don’t, you know, really… I wouldn’t say we have an outstanding community by any standard. Yes, we run a bunch of, you know, communities in Discord and Telegram primarily where there’s usually a, you know, quite open discussion about things. And, you know, people are, of course, asking technical issues and problems if they appear on Chainstack and around, you know, their dApp building experience. But what we’re really heavily investing in is our documentation. We try to make it super friendly. We have this developer portal at docs.chainstack.com, which has really easy-to-use and friendly documentation with examples that are dynamic, and you can click through API calls, and you can generate results on the fly. And there are tutorials about, you know, literally every topic you can think about on any chain. So that’s basically our take on community because we are primarily working with developers. We want to offer the most delightful developer experience on the platform, and that’s how I think you basically get the hearts of the developers—by giving them the most easy-to-use, developer-friendly tools. And that’s what we try to do with our platform, of course, but also with our documentation that we invest a lot of time and love into.
So I would say that for a B2B solution, it’s not, you know, crazy important to have a community if we compare with, you know, a project that has a token, and that’s, you know, that does certain activity, you know, either related to NFTs, etc., where community is much more important. For traditional B2B SaaS, I think it’s not, you know, it’s not an existential threat if you don’t have a community. For such a nascent industry such as Web 3, I think it’s a differentiator if you have a community. By community, I mean not just, you know, some channel where people can come and ask, you know, just sort of technical support questions because you have technical support for that and, you know, people can write you an email or, you know, they can chat with you somewhere. But by community, I mean where people can ask, you know, questions not even necessarily related to your product and maybe look for a gig or maybe, you know, ask some question related to, you know, how to do this or that thing on the blockchain. We don’t, you know, really… I wouldn’t say we have an outstanding community by any standard. Yes, we run a bunch of, you know, communities in Discord and Telegram primarily where there’s usually a, you know, quite open discussion about things. And, you know, people are, of course, asking technical issues and problems if they appear on Chainstack and around, you know, their dApp building experience. But what we’re really heavily investing in is our documentation. We try to make it super friendly. We have this developer portal at docs.chainstack.com, which has really easy-to-use and friendly documentation with examples that are dynamic, and you can click through API calls, and you can generate results on the fly. And there are tutorials about, you know, literally every topic you can think about on any chain. So that’s basically our take on community because we are primarily working with developers. We want to offer the most delightful developer experience on the platform, and that’s how I think you basically get the hearts of the developers—by giving them the most easy-to-use, developer-friendly tools. And that’s what we try to do with our platform, of course, but also with our documentation that we invest a lot of time and love into.
Konstantin:
Wow. Sounds great. Sounds great. So for a product like yours, I don’t think there’s much drama also happening, which is the case for, you know, crypto projects with tokens, for example, where the majority of people fly in asking, ‘When moon?’ and things like that.
Wow. Sounds great. Sounds great. So for a product like yours, I don’t think there’s much drama also happening, which is the case for, you know, crypto projects with tokens, for example, where the majority of people fly in asking, ‘When moon?’ and things like that.
Eugene:
Yeah. Exactly. Well, fun fact is that a long time ago, we were thinking about because it was the year 2018, pretty much the year of ICOs, together with 2017—so early days, our idea was to launch a token for Chainstack, but I’m very happy that we didn’t do it, and we will never do it.
Yeah. Exactly. Well, fun fact is that a long time ago, we were thinking about because it was the year 2018, pretty much the year of ICOs, together with 2017—so early days, our idea was to launch a token for Chainstack, but I’m very happy that we didn’t do it, and we will never do it.
Konstantin:
When token? When token?
When token? When token?
Eugene:
Exactly. When token? Never, never. Yeah.
Exactly. When token? Never, never. Yeah.
Konstantin:
And what has the strategy been for growth and market penetration for you?
And what has the strategy been for growth and market penetration for you?
Eugene:
So, again, we've been on the market for the last five years actively. So we've changed over time, of course, like when this crazy growth happened, like we've seen in 2021 with L2s. That was probably running for 18 months. Our major challenge and strategy for growth at that time was to be able to service the incoming stream of people who wanted to use our platform. So we just basically invested all our time in that, and there was no problem with generating demand at all. In more challenging markets, like last year, for example, where there was no new influx of developers at the same rate that we've seen before, you know, we do all the regular things. We, obviously, try to improve our product most of the time so that, again, it offers the most delightful experience to our customers, so they don’t need to think twice before choosing Chainstack over some other solution. And in terms of sales and marketing, of course, as a typical B2B SaaS, we do B2B sales. Of course, we use Web 3 native channels, I would say, because our major customers are still Web 3 native customers even though we have, you know, some customers from Web 2 and from Fortune 500. But the biggest bulk are Web 3 native customers. So, you know, we go to the major events, and we do outreach to people in Telegram versus email or Discord, etc., or Twitter. So, and for marketing, we do some interesting campaigns. We played with coupons recently, which was quite successful. We are showing off our products more and more, especially in regards to competition. So we have this amazing landing page, which is called ‘Save on Your Infrastructure Cost,’ which shows exactly with the drill-down into particular calls and different scenarios if you’re a DeFi app or if you’re a gaming app, or depending on the scenario, there will be a breakdown of costs on Chainstack, Alchemy, and QuickNode. And we clearly show SKU by SKU how better we are in terms of overall pricing. So we do quite aggressive marketing, focusing on our strengths. And we explain our product really well so that there’s no second thought. Okay, how does this work? How does that work? So we want to be super clear, and we don’t want to hide any details. And that’s, you know, a continuation of our discussion about documentation—that we heavily document everything so that, you know, it’s very clear what our product offers, what it doesn’t offer, so that people are not confused or irritated by the fact that, you know, they sign up for a product and it has some promise, but it doesn’t deliver, etc. So we try to do our product marketing really well and focus on the strengths of our product, and it works for us.
So, again, we've been on the market for the last five years actively. So we've changed over time, of course, like when this crazy growth happened, like we've seen in 2021 with L2s. That was probably running for 18 months. Our major challenge and strategy for growth at that time was to be able to service the incoming stream of people who wanted to use our platform. So we just basically invested all our time in that, and there was no problem with generating demand at all. In more challenging markets, like last year, for example, where there was no new influx of developers at the same rate that we've seen before, you know, we do all the regular things. We, obviously, try to improve our product most of the time so that, again, it offers the most delightful experience to our customers, so they don’t need to think twice before choosing Chainstack over some other solution. And in terms of sales and marketing, of course, as a typical B2B SaaS, we do B2B sales. Of course, we use Web 3 native channels, I would say, because our major customers are still Web 3 native customers even though we have, you know, some customers from Web 2 and from Fortune 500. But the biggest bulk are Web 3 native customers. So, you know, we go to the major events, and we do outreach to people in Telegram versus email or Discord, etc., or Twitter. So, and for marketing, we do some interesting campaigns. We played with coupons recently, which was quite successful. We are showing off our products more and more, especially in regards to competition. So we have this amazing landing page, which is called ‘Save on Your Infrastructure Cost,’ which shows exactly with the drill-down into particular calls and different scenarios if you’re a DeFi app or if you’re a gaming app, or depending on the scenario, there will be a breakdown of costs on Chainstack, Alchemy, and QuickNode. And we clearly show SKU by SKU how better we are in terms of overall pricing. So we do quite aggressive marketing, focusing on our strengths. And we explain our product really well so that there’s no second thought. Okay, how does this work? How does that work? So we want to be super clear, and we don’t want to hide any details. And that’s, you know, a continuation of our discussion about documentation—that we heavily document everything so that, you know, it’s very clear what our product offers, what it doesn’t offer, so that people are not confused or irritated by the fact that, you know, they sign up for a product and it has some promise, but it doesn’t deliver, etc. So we try to do our product marketing really well and focus on the strengths of our product, and it works for us.
Konstantin:
I do think that the market still lacks some, you know, creative ways of marketing products. That’s nice that you’re experimenting with that and successfully with coupons. For example, I haven’t heard about that in crypto-related companies. One thing you mentioned, you know, the Fortune 500 companies getting onboarded. Could you share some things around what other use cases in the enterprise space Chainstack helps them with?
I do think that the market still lacks some, you know, creative ways of marketing products. That’s nice that you’re experimenting with that and successfully with coupons. For example, I haven’t heard about that in crypto-related companies. One thing you mentioned, you know, the Fortune 500 companies getting onboarded. Could you share some things around what other use cases in the enterprise space Chainstack helps them with?
Eugene:
Of course. Yeah. Whenever we talk to such companies, and I’m talking only about production use cases because I’m not talking at all about what they experiment with Because I’m sure there’s a lot of experimentation here and there. We just, as a business, have to focus on things that are going into production because that’s where we can produce the most value for our customers, and that’s how we can generate value for our business as well. So I’m focusing on production deployments only. And production deployments are, basically, all of them across, you know, enterprise use cases about Fortune 500 use cases are about finance. And when I talk finance, I’m not talking about your, you know, latest Solana SHIPCOIN that people launch on. When I talk finance, I’m talking solely Bitcoin and maybe sometimes Ethereum. So we had a call with our customer last week, and they were like, ‘Oh, you know, guys, we’re so innovative. We like Chainstack so much. We run Bitcoin nodes on Chainstack, but our team is like our innovation team—they're pushing the boundaries. So we're thinking about launching a solution on Ethereum, you know, in, like, 2025.’ And we're like, ‘Okay. Great. We'll help you with that. But that’s basically where the mindshare is. So they are launching products now, but it’s, you know, it's probably, I would say, 8 years, 6 years behind crypto Twitter, I would say. You know? These people, they don’t, you know, they don’t take crazy bets. So they basically invest in things that work. So they see, you know, that Bitcoin got some, you know, serious traction, and Ethereum is getting serious traction, and ETFs are being launched, etc. So now they're like, ‘Okay. Let’s look at this. How can we, you know, if it’s a financial organization, how can we enable trading of these assets to our customers, for example? And that has been the major, you know, interest from such companies. Very, very, I would say, conventional interest. Nothing crazy, so I won’t tell you some, you know, cool stories of how a Fortune 500 company decided to, you know, trade on Solana with, like, the latest token. But yeah, it’s very, very, very conventional interest in crypto. But it’s getting there, which is really nice, and we see more and more interest from traditional businesses and financial organizations in particular.
Of course. Yeah. Whenever we talk to such companies, and I’m talking only about production use cases because I’m not talking at all about what they experiment with Because I’m sure there’s a lot of experimentation here and there. We just, as a business, have to focus on things that are going into production because that’s where we can produce the most value for our customers, and that’s how we can generate value for our business as well. So I’m focusing on production deployments only. And production deployments are, basically, all of them across, you know, enterprise use cases about Fortune 500 use cases are about finance. And when I talk finance, I’m not talking about your, you know, latest Solana SHIPCOIN that people launch on. When I talk finance, I’m talking solely Bitcoin and maybe sometimes Ethereum. So we had a call with our customer last week, and they were like, ‘Oh, you know, guys, we’re so innovative. We like Chainstack so much. We run Bitcoin nodes on Chainstack, but our team is like our innovation team—they're pushing the boundaries. So we're thinking about launching a solution on Ethereum, you know, in, like, 2025.’ And we're like, ‘Okay. Great. We'll help you with that. But that’s basically where the mindshare is. So they are launching products now, but it’s, you know, it's probably, I would say, 8 years, 6 years behind crypto Twitter, I would say. You know? These people, they don’t, you know, they don’t take crazy bets. So they basically invest in things that work. So they see, you know, that Bitcoin got some, you know, serious traction, and Ethereum is getting serious traction, and ETFs are being launched, etc. So now they're like, ‘Okay. Let’s look at this. How can we, you know, if it’s a financial organization, how can we enable trading of these assets to our customers, for example? And that has been the major, you know, interest from such companies. Very, very, I would say, conventional interest. Nothing crazy, so I won’t tell you some, you know, cool stories of how a Fortune 500 company decided to, you know, trade on Solana with, like, the latest token. But yeah, it’s very, very, very conventional interest in crypto. But it’s getting there, which is really nice, and we see more and more interest from traditional businesses and financial organizations in particular.
Konstantin:
Yeah. Obviously, they’re not able to go through all those innovative processes where the protocols go bankrupt or get hacked.
Yeah. Obviously, they’re not able to go through all those innovative processes where the protocols go bankrupt or get hacked.
Eugene:
Correct. Yeah.
Correct. Yeah.
Konstantin:
That’s pretty obvious that they will go for the proven paths in their onboarding into blockchain.
That’s pretty obvious that they will go for the proven paths in their onboarding into blockchain.
Eugene:
But for us who are living and breathing Web 3, you know, sometimes it sounds really crazy when you talk to people and they say, ‘Oh, you know, our innovation department is pushing the boundaries. So, hence, we will start working with Ethereum.’ For you as, like, a person in this industry, having spent, like, 8 years there, it sounds really out of this world. But we should also understand that. And I totally understand why this is happening. And I'm really happy that this is finally happening, and, you know, people are running and launching production solutions, which is great.
But for us who are living and breathing Web 3, you know, sometimes it sounds really crazy when you talk to people and they say, ‘Oh, you know, our innovation department is pushing the boundaries. So, hence, we will start working with Ethereum.’ For you as, like, a person in this industry, having spent, like, 8 years there, it sounds really out of this world. But we should also understand that. And I totally understand why this is happening. And I'm really happy that this is finally happening, and, you know, people are running and launching production solutions, which is great.
Konstantin:
Yeah. That's something you could not imagine back in 2018—that these companies will get onboarded. It will be an ETF for Bitcoin and for Ethereum. That’s crazy level of adoption we have currently.
Yeah. That's something you could not imagine back in 2018—that these companies will get onboarded. It will be an ETF for Bitcoin and for Ethereum. That’s crazy level of adoption we have currently.
Eugene:
Yeah. I think people dreamt about it at the time, but, of course, it was too fast of a development if it happened within, you know, the same year. So as we see, it took us, you know, like, 8 years to get there or, like, multiple years to get there. So that’s actually the principle I use now in all the estimations I give when things look, you know, promising to us those who are, you know, living and breathing in this industry. Probably, we should add an extra, you know, at least 5 years until we can hit some sort of, you know, major adoption curve. One of my favorite examples that I have, because I’m very passionate about payments on the blockchain—because I still believe it’s a big use case also for blockchains is how the credit card industry developed. So the first credit card was issued in the fifties, and the majority of people started transacting via credit cards in the nineties. So, basically, it took 40 years to get to the point where people started using credit cards more than cash on average. So if we’re taking this forth and the credit card was a great, you know, invention, and it was, you know, for consumers in particular, very useful almost from the start because, you know, all the fees were on the merchant side. And it took so much time to build this, like, two-sided marketplace so that it made sense for everybody and so on and so forth. So I think every time we think about, ‘Oh, you know, it makes sense for traditional financial companies to go on the blockchain,’ let’s add 5 years at least until this actually starts to happen. Because in our minds, you know, we’re riding a rocket. So we think it will go there immediately, but we should just slow down and say, okay, let’s give it 5 years and let’s prepare for this properly so that we have the right solutions for these guys. For example, now, none of the financial organizations want to work with us or any other company if you don’t have a certain level of security, if you don’t have, like, security certifications, etc., if your providers don’t have security certifications, if you haven’t done penetration testing, etc. And all these things take time. So if you’re a new startup and you want to sell to these enterprises, it’s extremely hard. So you need to spend, you know, a couple of years at least on your own, you know, working on your internal stuff to be ready to go to market to these organizations. So, you know, at least it takes a couple of years from the providers themselves to get there. So, you know, take your time and get prepared for the big one.
Yeah. I think people dreamt about it at the time, but, of course, it was too fast of a development if it happened within, you know, the same year. So as we see, it took us, you know, like, 8 years to get there or, like, multiple years to get there. So that’s actually the principle I use now in all the estimations I give when things look, you know, promising to us those who are, you know, living and breathing in this industry. Probably, we should add an extra, you know, at least 5 years until we can hit some sort of, you know, major adoption curve. One of my favorite examples that I have, because I’m very passionate about payments on the blockchain—because I still believe it’s a big use case also for blockchains is how the credit card industry developed. So the first credit card was issued in the fifties, and the majority of people started transacting via credit cards in the nineties. So, basically, it took 40 years to get to the point where people started using credit cards more than cash on average. So if we’re taking this forth and the credit card was a great, you know, invention, and it was, you know, for consumers in particular, very useful almost from the start because, you know, all the fees were on the merchant side. And it took so much time to build this, like, two-sided marketplace so that it made sense for everybody and so on and so forth. So I think every time we think about, ‘Oh, you know, it makes sense for traditional financial companies to go on the blockchain,’ let’s add 5 years at least until this actually starts to happen. Because in our minds, you know, we’re riding a rocket. So we think it will go there immediately, but we should just slow down and say, okay, let’s give it 5 years and let’s prepare for this properly so that we have the right solutions for these guys. For example, now, none of the financial organizations want to work with us or any other company if you don’t have a certain level of security, if you don’t have, like, security certifications, etc., if your providers don’t have security certifications, if you haven’t done penetration testing, etc. And all these things take time. So if you’re a new startup and you want to sell to these enterprises, it’s extremely hard. So you need to spend, you know, a couple of years at least on your own, you know, working on your internal stuff to be ready to go to market to these organizations. So, you know, at least it takes a couple of years from the providers themselves to get there. So, you know, take your time and get prepared for the big one.
Konstantin:
Yeah. As a founder of a blockchain payment company myself, an innovative one, I feel it. You know, I’m the founder of Yoki Finance, and we are building a subscription payments use case for crypto and for companies with a subscription business model to start accepting payments in crypto. And currently, we’re in the phase where everyone’s reaction is, ‘What? Is that possible?’ They didn’t know that, you know, crypto is only for one-time payments. That sounds crazy for them that it’s possible. And I believe in the coming years, this use case will take over because it, you know, has so many advantages over even traditional subscription payments, which has been a mess for many people who are still paying for streaming services they don’t want to pay for anymore, just because they forgot to cancel that. And some software as a service has a very complicated interface when it comes to canceling the subscription. So Web 3 really solves that where you are able to just revoke your approval in the wallet, and you don’t even have to go to the application or the website for the service that you have subscribed to previously.
Yeah. As a founder of a blockchain payment company myself, an innovative one, I feel it. You know, I’m the founder of Yoki Finance, and we are building a subscription payments use case for crypto and for companies with a subscription business model to start accepting payments in crypto. And currently, we’re in the phase where everyone’s reaction is, ‘What? Is that possible?’ They didn’t know that, you know, crypto is only for one-time payments. That sounds crazy for them that it’s possible. And I believe in the coming years, this use case will take over because it, you know, has so many advantages over even traditional subscription payments, which has been a mess for many people who are still paying for streaming services they don’t want to pay for anymore, just because they forgot to cancel that. And some software as a service has a very complicated interface when it comes to canceling the subscription. So Web 3 really solves that where you are able to just revoke your approval in the wallet, and you don’t even have to go to the application or the website for the service that you have subscribed to previously.
Eugene:
So, basically, what you’re saying is that you can now centrally manage your subscriptions from your own, you know, self-custodial wallet, right?
So, basically, what you’re saying is that you can now centrally manage your subscriptions from your own, you know, self-custodial wallet, right?
Konstantin:
Yeah. That’s true. That’s pretty nice, actually. I’ve been thinking about subscriptions on the blockchain for a while, and there are a bunch of companies there, and, you know, we are exploring certain opportunities together. But I was always a bit skeptical on this not because it’s a bad idea, but because people don’t have crypto in the first place. So, you know, we need to have people who have crypto so that they are interested in paying crypto for certain services. And then we need to also find merchants who are ready to accept crypto so that people can pay their own crypto for the service. So I’m largely, you know, currently skeptical. It’s just because this market is so tiny. But I haven’t thought about this cool value proposition that you mentioned—that you can finally, you know, manage all your subscriptions from one place, and you can also revoke them from one place.I think that’s really cool.
Yeah. That’s true. That’s pretty nice, actually. I’ve been thinking about subscriptions on the blockchain for a while, and there are a bunch of companies there, and, you know, we are exploring certain opportunities together. But I was always a bit skeptical on this not because it’s a bad idea, but because people don’t have crypto in the first place. So, you know, we need to have people who have crypto so that they are interested in paying crypto for certain services. And then we need to also find merchants who are ready to accept crypto so that people can pay their own crypto for the service. So I’m largely, you know, currently skeptical. It’s just because this market is so tiny. But I haven’t thought about this cool value proposition that you mentioned—that you can finally, you know, manage all your subscriptions from one place, and you can also revoke them from one place.I think that’s really cool.
Konstantin:
Yeah. And the thing is that this place is not some company or something.It’s like any wallet that you have. You can just revoke the approval to any contract. And, yeah, it’s a chicken-and-egg problem. And also, you know, with the major population, Bitcoin is still the most popular cryptocurrency. And with Bitcoin, you don’t have, you know, valid smart contracts where you could natively use Bitcoin still. So, yeah, it’s just—it will be, like, the next step.
Yeah. And the thing is that this place is not some company or something.It’s like any wallet that you have. You can just revoke the approval to any contract. And, yeah, it’s a chicken-and-egg problem. And also, you know, with the major population, Bitcoin is still the most popular cryptocurrency. And with Bitcoin, you don’t have, you know, valid smart contracts where you could natively use Bitcoin still. So, yeah, it’s just—it will be, like, the next step.
Konstantin:
Right. And speaking about payments, what is your pricing strategy, and what are the most popular payment options so far for Chainstack?
Right. And speaking about payments, what is your pricing strategy, and what are the most popular payment options so far for Chainstack?
Eugene:
Right. So our pricing is a very traditional SaaS model. So we, in our Elastic Node Service, charge for API calls. On our dedicated node service, we charge for storage and compute. So, basically, you run a node, you pay a certain amount. And all our billing is hourly because we want to be very flexible, very transparent. So, of course, we have subscription fees for our plans, which are monthly, but the rest is per hour. So, you know, you make calls per hour, and you pay for these calls at the end of the month, depending on how many calls you made. Same for dedicated nodes—you pay for the resources that were consumed as part of your node service, and you can stop at any time, and it will not incur any costs. So I would say it’s a pretty traditional SaaS model—nothing too crazy here. On the payment side, we are very happy to be the first provider to support a wide variety of crypto payments because, again, I’m personally an ambassador of paying on crypto rails, and I’ve been doing it, you know, for many years. And, you know, we pay salaries in crypto as well for those who want to accept crypto as a payment, which is quite a big number of people in our team. So we are trying to dog food really intensively, you know, payments in crypto. And, hence, we supported paying with crypto for Chainstack, I think, more than two years ago already. So, originally, it was, you know, maybe 10 different currencies that we supported, including, you know, Ethereum and Bitcoin and USDC on a few networks. We are now extending this, and we just supported more than 100 new coins that you can pay with on Chainstack. So I believe we have the biggest variety of payment options on the market for this type of service. And so you can pay literally with, you know, Solana SHIPCOINs as well if you want, for our service. Somehow, people pay with things like, you know, Dogecoin and so on. It’s not a big number of payments. The majority of payments still come from stablecoins but also through native tokens as well, such as, you know, ETH and MATIC and TRX and TRON and a bunch of others. And, of course, the majority of payments as of today still come from credit cards. But crypto is actually picking up. I would say in some months, it can reach, you know, 20% of payments done through crypto, which I’m very excited to see, which I think is a really big number. And so I’m interested in whether this proportion will increase over time.
Right. So our pricing is a very traditional SaaS model. So we, in our Elastic Node Service, charge for API calls. On our dedicated node service, we charge for storage and compute. So, basically, you run a node, you pay a certain amount. And all our billing is hourly because we want to be very flexible, very transparent. So, of course, we have subscription fees for our plans, which are monthly, but the rest is per hour. So, you know, you make calls per hour, and you pay for these calls at the end of the month, depending on how many calls you made. Same for dedicated nodes—you pay for the resources that were consumed as part of your node service, and you can stop at any time, and it will not incur any costs. So I would say it’s a pretty traditional SaaS model—nothing too crazy here. On the payment side, we are very happy to be the first provider to support a wide variety of crypto payments because, again, I’m personally an ambassador of paying on crypto rails, and I’ve been doing it, you know, for many years. And, you know, we pay salaries in crypto as well for those who want to accept crypto as a payment, which is quite a big number of people in our team. So we are trying to dog food really intensively, you know, payments in crypto. And, hence, we supported paying with crypto for Chainstack, I think, more than two years ago already. So, originally, it was, you know, maybe 10 different currencies that we supported, including, you know, Ethereum and Bitcoin and USDC on a few networks. We are now extending this, and we just supported more than 100 new coins that you can pay with on Chainstack. So I believe we have the biggest variety of payment options on the market for this type of service. And so you can pay literally with, you know, Solana SHIPCOINs as well if you want, for our service. Somehow, people pay with things like, you know, Dogecoin and so on. It’s not a big number of payments. The majority of payments still come from stablecoins but also through native tokens as well, such as, you know, ETH and MATIC and TRX and TRON and a bunch of others. And, of course, the majority of payments as of today still come from credit cards. But crypto is actually picking up. I would say in some months, it can reach, you know, 20% of payments done through crypto, which I’m very excited to see, which I think is a really big number. And so I’m interested in whether this proportion will increase over time.
Konstantin:
And geographically speaking, where are the majority of your customers based?
And geographically speaking, where are the majority of your customers based?
Eugene:
The majority is in the Americas. And then it’s very distributed same as, you know, our industry, same as our team. We have a lot of users in Asia. We have a lot of users in Europe, and, you know, a bunch of users everywhere. But the biggest market for us is still North America.
The majority is in the Americas. And then it’s very distributed same as, you know, our industry, same as our team. We have a lot of users in Asia. We have a lot of users in Europe, and, you know, a bunch of users everywhere. But the biggest market for us is still North America.
Konstantin:
And for the US, for example, it’s still very complicated for companies to hold crypto on their ledger, and that is probably the reason the number is still low in terms of crypto payments.
And for the US, for example, it’s still very complicated for companies to hold crypto on their ledger, and that is probably the reason the number is still low in terms of crypto payments.
Eugene:
Well, I mean, I don’t expect crypto to flip credit cards. It’s very hard to flip credit cards, I would say, because credit cards are actually so convenient if you think about it. And also, you know, credit cards were such a cool innovation because they brought us from 0 to 1, because cash and checks were really not scalable, and they’re not reliable, and so on and so forth. And credit cards really added a lot of value to payments. And with blockchain, we now have a much harder problem because it’s, you know, previously it was physical to digital. Now it’s digital to digital. And how do we make it from a 1 to 2 kind of experience, or at least from a 1 to one and a half, so that people are, you know, incentivized to use crypto for payments versus, you know, credit cards, for example? And so I think it’s a really hard problem to solve. And I also think that people don’t compare properly when they’re talking about payments because they always say, ‘Oh, you know, we will revolutionize payments because banks are so clunky and they’re so slow, and the transactions are blah blah blah.’ But, really, we have a lot of alternative solutions which are quite heavily used, like, you know, Wise, like neobanks, and all this new banking stuff, which works really well, and it’s really cheap.So we use TransferWise, for example, for a lot of transfers as well whenever we cannot use crypto. It’s really fast and cheap. So I believe that startups in particular who are working on payments, they should forget comparin themselves to incumbents such as banks, but rather they should start comparing themselves to, like, neobanks and other companies like TransferWise, which are actually quite amazing.
Well, I mean, I don’t expect crypto to flip credit cards. It’s very hard to flip credit cards, I would say, because credit cards are actually so convenient if you think about it. And also, you know, credit cards were such a cool innovation because they brought us from 0 to 1, because cash and checks were really not scalable, and they’re not reliable, and so on and so forth. And credit cards really added a lot of value to payments. And with blockchain, we now have a much harder problem because it’s, you know, previously it was physical to digital. Now it’s digital to digital. And how do we make it from a 1 to 2 kind of experience, or at least from a 1 to one and a half, so that people are, you know, incentivized to use crypto for payments versus, you know, credit cards, for example? And so I think it’s a really hard problem to solve. And I also think that people don’t compare properly when they’re talking about payments because they always say, ‘Oh, you know, we will revolutionize payments because banks are so clunky and they’re so slow, and the transactions are blah blah blah.’ But, really, we have a lot of alternative solutions which are quite heavily used, like, you know, Wise, like neobanks, and all this new banking stuff, which works really well, and it’s really cheap.So we use TransferWise, for example, for a lot of transfers as well whenever we cannot use crypto. It’s really fast and cheap. So I believe that startups in particular who are working on payments, they should forget comparin themselves to incumbents such as banks, but rather they should start comparing themselves to, like, neobanks and other companies like TransferWise, which are actually quite amazing.
Konstantin:
Oh, my personal experience with Wise was not that good. For payments across borders, they have pretty high fees, and also they do freeze accounts sometimes without notice.
Oh, my personal experience with Wise was not that good. For payments across borders, they have pretty high fees, and also they do freeze accounts sometimes without notice.
Eugene:
But if you take crypto, if you take stablecoins, you know, they can also blacklist your addresses and so on. So I think with more maturity, these sorts of situations will—we will see more and more in crypto. I think it’s sort of inevitable. I’m not taking the, you know, anarchist view here on crypto that everything will be anonymized and, you know, absolutely not controlled by anyone. I think if we want to bring it to, I would say, the civilized world, then we will have to deal with things like, you know, blacklisting accounts, freezing coins, and all this kind of stuff. I think it’s just inevitable. We can still have a sandbox, you know, when we play with our exotic, rare coins and so on, which are not anyhow affected by this. But, you know, if we want to deal with the majority of people and companies, I think it should be there.
But if you take crypto, if you take stablecoins, you know, they can also blacklist your addresses and so on. So I think with more maturity, these sorts of situations will—we will see more and more in crypto. I think it’s sort of inevitable. I’m not taking the, you know, anarchist view here on crypto that everything will be anonymized and, you know, absolutely not controlled by anyone. I think if we want to bring it to, I would say, the civilized world, then we will have to deal with things like, you know, blacklisting accounts, freezing coins, and all this kind of stuff. I think it’s just inevitable. We can still have a sandbox, you know, when we play with our exotic, rare coins and so on, which are not anyhow affected by this. But, you know, if we want to deal with the majority of people and companies, I think it should be there.
Konstantin:
The watershed is already happening between, you know, the compliant companies and the noncompliant, anarchy, libertarian ones.And, obviously, the absolute majority of the liquidity will be on the compliant side.
The watershed is already happening between, you know, the compliant companies and the noncompliant, anarchy, libertarian ones.And, obviously, the absolute majority of the liquidity will be on the compliant side.
Eugene:
Yep. Absolutely.
Yep. Absolutely.
Konstantin:
I wanted to ask you regarding your retention strategies, but I really think that, you know, in your business model, naturally, the retention for an infrastructure provider is really high because it’s quite complicated to switch. And my question is, how complicated is it to switch from one infrastructural provider to another, and how do you ensure that Chainstack users stay with you?
I wanted to ask you regarding your retention strategies, but I really think that, you know, in your business model, naturally, the retention for an infrastructure provider is really high because it’s quite complicated to switch. And my question is, how complicated is it to switch from one infrastructural provider to another, and how do you ensure that Chainstack users stay with you?
Eugene:
Right. So in fact, thanks to the, you know, standardization of certain interfaces on blockchain nodes like Ethereum JSON-RPC, it’s not that hard to switch providers these days. So retention is still, you know, an interesting problem for us. I wouldn’t say, you know, it’s an easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy type of task for us.So we deal with that by, you know, making sure we have the best product again.So we invest a lot into reliability and performance, which are the biggest stickiness points for us as an infrastructure provider. Nobody wants to work with, you know, an infrastructure platform that goes down every other day. So we invest a lot into this, and we have amazing support. We try to build the best support in the industry so that it’s always available, always to the point, always useful. You know, it’s not just giving you templated replies from a knowledge base, like large B2B SaaS companies are doing nowadays, especially those who’ve been in the market for a while. So that’s—we love our users. We also want to give them the spotlight. So whenever anybody is using Chainstack, we are offering them to be highlighted in front of our community, show their numbers, you know, show their use case so that people know more about them. And so we usually do customer stories. If you go on our website, you can find, you know, tons of them published with very interesting companies that we’re happy to work with.So, yeah, these are a few things that we do.
Right. So in fact, thanks to the, you know, standardization of certain interfaces on blockchain nodes like Ethereum JSON-RPC, it’s not that hard to switch providers these days. So retention is still, you know, an interesting problem for us. I wouldn’t say, you know, it’s an easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy type of task for us.So we deal with that by, you know, making sure we have the best product again.So we invest a lot into reliability and performance, which are the biggest stickiness points for us as an infrastructure provider. Nobody wants to work with, you know, an infrastructure platform that goes down every other day. So we invest a lot into this, and we have amazing support. We try to build the best support in the industry so that it’s always available, always to the point, always useful. You know, it’s not just giving you templated replies from a knowledge base, like large B2B SaaS companies are doing nowadays, especially those who’ve been in the market for a while. So that’s—we love our users. We also want to give them the spotlight. So whenever anybody is using Chainstack, we are offering them to be highlighted in front of our community, show their numbers, you know, show their use case so that people know more about them. And so we usually do customer stories. If you go on our website, you can find, you know, tons of them published with very interesting companies that we’re happy to work with.So, yeah, these are a few things that we do.
Konstantin:
And I’m coming actually to my last question for today. What is the best way for our listeners who are listening to us online or will listen afterward on multiple podcast platforms? What is the best way to learn about Chainstack and start building on your stack?
And I’m coming actually to my last question for today. What is the best way for our listeners who are listening to us online or will listen afterward on multiple podcast platforms? What is the best way to learn about Chainstack and start building on your stack?
Eugene:
So the best way is, of course, go to chainstack.com. You can find all the information there, including all the resources that I mentioned, such as our Telegram channel and Discord server and, you know, all sorts of contacts can be found there. You can also ping me on Twitter. I’m very responsive. So if you have any questions or want to talk about any topics, feel free to DM me on Twitter as well. DMs are open. But, yeah, in general, for Chainstack, we try to build the most informative website so that you don’t need to go anywhere else to find information. So go to chainstack.com, and, you know, you can click a button to sign up for Chainstack. You don’t have to have a credit card to sign up. You can just try it out for free. And, yeah, let us know the feedback. Always happy to get productive feedback and improve our platform and service.
So the best way is, of course, go to chainstack.com. You can find all the information there, including all the resources that I mentioned, such as our Telegram channel and Discord server and, you know, all sorts of contacts can be found there. You can also ping me on Twitter. I’m very responsive. So if you have any questions or want to talk about any topics, feel free to DM me on Twitter as well. DMs are open. But, yeah, in general, for Chainstack, we try to build the most informative website so that you don’t need to go anywhere else to find information. So go to chainstack.com, and, you know, you can click a button to sign up for Chainstack. You don’t have to have a credit card to sign up. You can just try it out for free. And, yeah, let us know the feedback. Always happy to get productive feedback and improve our platform and service.
Konstantin:
Awesome. It was the fifth episode of the Crypto Subscription Show featuring today Eugene Aseev, the founder and CEO of Chainstack. Thank you very much for listening. You will be able to listen to this podcast on YouTube, on X, and on multiple podcast platforms such as Google Podcasts, Amazon, and many, many others. Thank you so much for listening, and have a great day.
Awesome. It was the fifth episode of the Crypto Subscription Show featuring today Eugene Aseev, the founder and CEO of Chainstack. Thank you very much for listening. You will be able to listen to this podcast on YouTube, on X, and on multiple podcast platforms such as Google Podcasts, Amazon, and many, many others. Thank you so much for listening, and have a great day.
Eugene:
Thank you, Konstantin. Great chat.
Bye, everyone.
Thank you, Konstantin. Great chat.
Bye, everyone.
Konstantin:
Bye-bye
Bye-bye
