What's Hot in Arbitrum? | Arbitrum Ecosystem Guide

Thankless Nation, we've got an excellent episode prepared for you today. What's hot on Arbitrum? That's the question. David, it feels like it's layer two season. I know we've said that a few times in the past, but this time it feels like a real bright spot in the crypto community. Layer twos are up. And among all of the layer twos that are doing things in terms of getting more transaction volume, getting more users, deploying more applications, Arbitrum is kind of in the lead. And so we are doing a deep dive exploration on the Arbitrum uh community. Why don't you tee up what's in store for us in this episode?

Yeah, so we got three community leaders who are also the experts, they're l co-founders, the core com contributors of whatever particular app on Arbitrum that they contribute to, but they're also just DeFi NFT power users across the broad Arbitrum landscape. And so we're gonna have a panel today of three Arbitrum power users uh that are building on Arbitrum, that are just community members of Arbitrum, community leaders of Arbitrum, because of all things that happened in 2022, all of the down bad things that happened in 2022, Arbitrum was not one of them. They're one of the few ecosystems that was growing throughout 2022, and you can really feel it in the energy of the community. So I want to know why is Arbitrum so hot right now? What is Arbitrum specifically as the team? What are they doing right? And what is on Arbitrum that these NFT organizations, these C5 apps, are really, really leveraging? There's a there's a bunch of energy going on, and I want to know why that energy is so high.

Guys, uh we're gonna get to the episode before we do. A few things to talk about. Number one is uh Alright, so Arbitrum, David, you've teed up the episode. Um what should listeners really be pa paying attention to from these three panelists?

Yeah, like I frequently say on Bankless, there's always a bull market somewhere, and the energy across the layer two ecosystem is probably at all time highs. Uh and that is is especially uh true about the Arbitrum ecosystem. Ryan, did you know that the Arbitrum Bridge contract is the seventh largest holder of ETH?

Number seven. Number seven. Yeah. Uh-huh. It's also one of the largest uh burners of ETH. And so the energy of the Arbitrum smart contract burning all that ether is coming right out of the Arbitrum community. You can see them in the chat right now. Yes, I am looking at them. And there's and so, like I said in the intro, there is there's I want to explore. How did how did Arbitrum do this? What about the builders on Arbitrum? Uh why do they choose Arbitrum? Uh Arbitrum doesn't even have a token. Uh things like Avalanche, Solana, uh like all these other layer ones have had tokens, yet Arbitrum is lapping them in TVL and transactional volume. What is going on over in Arbitrum? Uh so these are this is gonna be the meta of the show. These are gonna be the questions that we were asking the three contributors uh in the Arbitrum app layer. We got a representative from the Treasure Dow. We got a representative from the GMX uh uh lever um what do you call these things? Margin trading apps, uh, which fun fact, Ryan, was the best token to hold throughout 2022 where everything was down like 90% GMX.

Stablecoin?

Up 20%. It was up 20% in 2022. Yeah. Uncategorically winning 2022. And then also we got a game, the beacon. And so we're going to explore DeFi. We're going to explore NFTs. We're going to explore gaming because apparently you can do it all on Arbitrum. And I should say that there are disclosures that we usually we don't have too many disclosures to disclose, but on this episode we do. I own a material amount of magic tokens and also small brains, which are the unofficial PFP of the treasure ecosystem. And the Bankless Fund also owns some small brains as well. Oh, and Arbitrum is also currently a bankless sponsor, so there are plenty of conflicts of interest in this episode, but we've been promoting layer twos for a while now, so this should really come as no surprise.

David also owns some ETH too. We may talk about ETH here or there. Certainly I'm excited about this episode because I I feel like I'm going to learn a bit more about the Arbitrum ecosystem. So, guys, if you want to join us in that, then stay tuned. We'll be right back with our episode with folks uh at Arbitrum exploring this ecosystem. But before we do, we want to tell you the sponsors that made this episode possible.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this state of the nation, where the state of the nation is hot, because that is exactly what Harbage From is. Uh in the top right corner, we got Corell. Corell is the COO and co founder of Treasure Dow. Corell, welcome to the show.

So happy to be here. Thanks for having us.

Uh in the bottom left corner on your screen, we got uh Diego. Diego is over at the uh the Beacon, which is a game, I believe, inside of the treasure ecosystem. We're gonna ask about how that works. Uh, Diego, welcome to the show.

Hey guys, happy to be here. I'm the CEO and co-founder of the Beacon.

And then also in the bottom right corner we got CoinFlip Canada, the only Anon on the stream. This is why we've got his little uh profile picture over the Zoom chat. Uh CoinFlip, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me here, David. Longtime fan of this show.

Cheers. Well, it's been a while since we've had a panel uh up on Banklist, which is which is why I'm juggling both the stream and also the questions. Uh, but I think this is gonna go this is gonna be pretty fun, guys, because uh this is exactly what the systems, these protocol systems are supposed to do. Uh bring people together in the app layer to allow for some interoperability and also some lively, uh healthy growth. Uh that's what we're looking to talk about here. And so I want to start with this question. What exactly is Arbitrum doing right? Uh, because the Arbitrum ecosystem is one of the hottest things in Ethereum, uh, but not just in Ethereum, in all of crypto. Uh, like I said in the intro in 2022, uh the is crypto like deflated in 2022, uh, except for Arbitrum. Uh and so I want to know why that is true. Uh so uh Carell, I'll throw this first question to you. Uh from your perspective, what's what's going right in the world of Arbitrum?

Uh I'd say a ton of things. I mean, you know, we're coming into this from the vantage point of uh, you know, gaming and NFTs, of course. But, you know, I think for us, like we we came into Arbitrum, you know, late kind of 2021, you know, kind of shortly after they launched. So we were fairly early into everything. And, you know, I think the major theme and just kind of working not only with Arbitrum, but also everyone else here is that like this is a super collaborative and like, you know, largely kind of community-driven sort of effort. And so working shoulder to shoulder with everyone here. I mean, they're focusing on the right things, growing organically. Um, I mean, you you kind of mentioned it, and you know, looking at uh, you know, when token, which I think is a common theme uh across the board. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think there are so many different sort of game changers that have come out of this, you know, I think from a technology perspective, as builders and users, I mean, that that's been, you know, uh a huge thing for for us uh at Treasure and all the games that we're supporting as well. Um so I mean, definitely I think you know, there's there's that, that that's been a huge kind of part in and you know, I think why they're you know kind of playing uh the the right cards. And um, you know, I think the other part of that is everyone who's come here to build on top of the Arbitrum um, you know, uh network. And so, you know, for us, all the games, um, you know, uh a network is is kind of dead without you know dApps and protocols and things that are coming here. And so I think, you know, there is that sort of flywheel network effect um that is coming out from just having a thriving sort of ecosystem that is uh growing and building together.

Uh Diego, I want to throw kind of the same question. I think we're gonna just take this one by one by one. Uh Diego, from your perspective over at the Beacon, uh, and uh perhaps you could kind of illustrate how the beacon works on Arbitrum, because uh the if I understand it correctly, the beacon, the game, is built on top of Treasure Dow, which is built on top of Arbitrum. Is that how this works? And and overall, like can you talk about just the network effects that you've been able to experience over there?

Yeah, yeah. So to some degree, it so in

yes, the the Beacon interacts with Treasure, but it's not precisely built on top of on top of Treasure. It's built, in fact, in top of Arbitrum. Like all our contracts, all our small smart contracts are deployed

in Arbitrum, right?

But Treasure is like this sort of ecosystem that powers games for the most part. And the beacon as a game pretty much is tapped into Treasure's infrastructure in order to not only help it grow, but also us benefiting from the thriving ecosystem that they have.

But technology-wise,

yeah, it's an arbitrum project in that sense. Like it's everything is everything is just on the arbitrum,

on the it's an arbitrum on the

um

on the technical side of the equation.

What I do think that they've been doing well is a few things. I mean Corell actually summarized it

pretty well, but it's a set, it's a it's the fact that there's like this set of

interesting initiatives that are being that have been growing in arbitrum lately.

Uh very cool projects, and most of them are very

Community driven and very open towards collaboration. And I'd say that that's one of the key aspects to it.

But it's also the fact that for developers, and I would say that for users alike,

Arbitrum is a fantastic experience. Like for us, when we

deployed our contracts and everything we did on the Arbitrum layer,

um,

the experience was fantastic. It was really smooth. And from the side of our users, transaction speed is fantastic, and it's also on a very low cost basis. So I'd say that if you add like all these factors together, they really grant a

An experience that makes people well delighted of the exp of the experience. I'd say that that's one of the main things.

Yeah, that's that's from my side at least.

And of course, uh Corell and Diego are part of the uh NFT gaming ecosystem side of Arbitrum, but the DeFi part of Arbitrum Arbitrum is just as hot. And uh so I'm gonna turn now to CoinFlip Canada out of uh the GMX ecosystem. So, CoinFlip, talk to us about DeFi on Arbitrum. Uh I think that's kind of where Arbitrum really started, is starting with DeFi apps. Uh NFTs and Treasure Dow came not too shortly afterwards, but Arbitrum really got started with its roots in DeFi. Talk to us about the health of the DeFi ecosystem on Arbitrum. What about it is so special to you.

Well, in many ways, I mean, and and without it, without making it sound too grand, for me at this point,

Arbitrum DeFi is Ethereum DeFi. It's just but it's just become the natural home where

the applications, the gaps, the collaborations that you want to do

are possible in the environment that Arbitrum has built. Safe, secure, secured by Ethereum, which I think has been such a fundamental part of its success.

The fact that so many people have, you know, been willing to come over, bring their assets over to Arbitrum. Like you said, the number seven wallet in all Ethereum is Arbitrum Bridge. It just shows that

the comfort level with remaining,

you know, closely aligned within the Ethereum ecosystem has been just such a boon.

But it it's also been that, you know, and again, I I was probably involved in DeFi in the early days, but I wasn't involved in, let's say, in Ethereum in the early days.

And you talk to a lot of people, and they feel they say that

we have that sense that it's a small community still.

It's not a community that what it's really a community where people are building. The conversation is around product.

People are looking at how innovation actually applies, how it works together, how there is product market fit. I mean, I think it's just

it's it's really interesting that it sort of runs at a pace that is very

I think in crypto, nothing is human, but at a very human pace where people are actually

trying to figure out how they do sequential pieces. They're not rushing to

Deploy things that don't work and see what happens. It's I don't know. There's just a real sense of sensibility over there.

And uh coin flip, like I said in the uh in the intro, GMX is one of the few applications that ended up green on the year in terms of uh the token price, but also trading volumes. And I also butchered the uh the description. I believe the perhaps the correct uh correct description uh description of what GMX is is a derivatives exchange. But for people that never have you interacted with GMX before, or maybe derivatives exchange isn't the right name, and can you just uh explain a little bit more about the DeFi app, what it what it is and what does it do and what you can what you can do on it?

Yeah. So GMX is a

Oracle based uh perpetuals and spot exchange uh that's on Arbitrum and uh Avalanche.

Uh it basically works by aggregating the best the best off chain data from

large centralized exchanges and in time decentralized exchanges as their volumes grow to help create a deep liquid on chain market.