Levana Protocol brings perpetual swaps to Osmosis and Cosmos

0:01I'm Ashen Addison from the cryptocoin show and today on blockchain interviews with have Jonathan Carris the head of communications at Lavana protocol Jonathan welcome to the show and thank you for taking the time thank you for having me it's a great to be here you're very welcome excited to dive into uh Lavana uh the cosmos ecosystem and osmosis we actually just had Sunny from

0:22osmosis on the show and it sounds like the ecosystem is is growing rapidly right now and it looks like L is playing a part in that I would love to dive into everything that your team's been working on but maybe we could start with a highle overview from the top and and those who aren't familiar with Lana and haven't heard about it uh if you could explain a little bit about what is the

0:42project what are you guys working on and then we'll dive into all the latest details sure so uh Lana is a Perpetual swap uh on the on the osmosis blockchain um it's a unique Perpetual swap that it has segregated markets um meaning that each market exists independently um as really a a three prong Marketplace between long Traders short Traders uh and um liquidity

1:09providers so uh activity on one um Market does not have any impact on other markets which adds uh a significant um Improvement on on security uh and uh it allows for single-sided deposits on uh the liquidity side which earn will yield in kind so for example if you deposit Bitcoin into the Bitcoin Market um then as Traders pay fees to long or short

1:39Bitcoin you actually get paid every six second an APR paid out in Bitcoin and you know the same thing for the eth market the the osmo market and so on and another thing that this enables is for creating of more exotic markets like liquid state token markets so one of the most popular assets that uh exists on Leana today is the um the St atom market and we recently just added the St osmo

2:06market so you can be earning the risk-free rate of staking rewards while um taking on a leverage position or earning additional rewards as a liquidity provider uh the the protocol you know has a a long history we you know the team has been building this project for about three years now um been through a number of iterations um you know including uh we' originally

2:29deployed on ter um you know I guess it's almost 2 years ago wow it feels like a lifetime ago but we've been now live for um roughly a little over four months um and we you know have um seen a massive amount of adoption and we're super excited to um see uh you know we're super excited to see the you know as osmosis grows and as cosmos grow uh Lavana benefit from that

2:59as well wow very cool and a lot to dive into just in that um you know you mentioned at the beginning there about depositing in Bitcoin U I think that's really exciting you know when I was speaking with sunny he had a lot of hopes for Bitcoin and defi on bitcoin and it sounds like they're working on some even more functionality on the osmosis to integrate it more and as Bitcoin grows

3:24I've also seen a lot of uh more defi related things and ordinals and other things on the Bitcoin chain that's moving into Bitcoin uh which is probably good for the space um but you mentioned there about single-sided liquidity which I think is good because I feel like there's a lot of people that they have Bitcoin or they trade spot coins but they're sort of afraid of the

3:49implications and the costs of doing defi on double-sided of whether it's the you know the impermanent loss that they experience or just having to manage more positions do you think this is going to open up more people's eyes into hey I can contribute to defi uh in an easier way well absolutely I think that one of the the challenges also is just around

4:13complexity you know when you have uh um a lot of Blended pools or you have you know complicated Concepts around leverage uh it can be very challenging to for a a a person who has no experience prior um to come and to to trade um you know to to become a Trader or a liquidity provider and the the to just describe the high level of when you come to Lana you know the the website is

4:42built mobile first um it is uh it's um you know it's it's a relatively minimalistic user interface um if you come as a Trader you can decide uh to open an order immediately or to open it at a certain price um you can decide uh what you want your automatic take-profit price to be um you can decide what you want your automatic um stop-loss to be in order to to protect yourself and then

5:10you can decide your um leverage amount and if you're not familiar with leverage as a whole you know if you have 10x leverage on bitcoin then if Bitcoin goes up 2% you um roughly profit 20% you know if uh if you had if you had 30X leverage on bitcoin so then if Bitcoin went up you know um 1% then you would profit 30% obviously there's fees associated with it and it's

5:35not you know there's no magic wand um you're taking uh a risk that if the market moves against you that you can be uh liquidated but um at the same time um you know the the the the way that the system uh the user interface of Leana was designed was to make it very transparent if my you'll be able to see uh on the when you place an order if my my takeprofit um is hit I will profit

6:0440% which is x amount of dollars if my stop loss hits I will lose $10 you know or x amount of Y amount of percentage and so it creates a mental model that is very um friendly and approachable for the novice Trader but yet doesn't skimp on any of the advanced features that um more professional Traders need as well and what we find is that about a third

6:33of the Traders um that are interacting with Lana um come from a rather robust trading background uh you know whereas the the other 70% you know many of them that that the team has interviewed you know have mentioned that I never really was interested in uh leverage trading it was always it always scared me I never knew exactly how to um how to get started until I first tried Lana and

6:58that's all from the trading side what's really really interesting from the liquidity providing side is you come to um you know again a very simple interface which is mobile friendly and you get to decide um which pool do you want to contribute to do you want uh your uh your contribution to be um completely you know to be liquid so meaning you could withdraw it um or do

7:24you want it to have a lockup period and the the lockup period uh is by default uh 45 day linear unlock uh and then obviously the rewards if you decide to lock it up um you know for the 45 days then you get a higher percentage of the fees from Traders so the whole thing is designed to be very simple and it is a it's it's based on a new implementation

7:47of um a new implementation of uh Perpetual swaps or creating leverage which is called the well-funded model um which is the real Innovation there and it took us about 2 years this is is actually our fourth leverage product that the team has uh has uh designed and built um and it's designed to be um incredibly Capital efficient so that uh so that the fees can be lower for the

8:14Traders but the um but the um the the rewards for the liquidity providers is uh is higher than what you would find on other platforms and I believe um that Lana has become so popular uh from the liquidity depositors because many of the markets that are available um some of which are not even uh Cosmos tokens um like Doge or binance smart chain or you

8:42know the Euro um and then soon to be things like uh you know gold and soybeans and and other more exotic assets um there's no other place some of which you know within all of crypto uh and and uh you know and and uh at least uh most of it not with within uh within Cosmos so we offer uh a really easy way for Traders to get started and um we offer uh a high level of um you know of

9:13uh of aprs for liquidity providers and a strong guarantee of solvency um and I can talk a little bit more about uh what that means um when a leverage exchange becomes insolvent mhm very interesting and I like that you mentioned there at the end about Commodities and other things outside of crypto which I feel like are huge markets with you know quadrillions

9:38of dollars of derivatives as that I mean they're much larger than than all of crypto you know together at an extra zero at the end you know so it's a it's it's really I think an untapped um opportunity yeah definitely and you mentioned there about Capital market efficiency obviously making it as efficient as possible and easy to use but also so fast and and cheap and

10:01effective I think is important especially when you know people started on the decentralized side you know whether it's swapping on Unis swap on ethereum and you it's not very efficient at all um and of course they don't have leverage and stuff like that but you know you could be paying $50 uh for a small transaction which is ridiculous um but I know that the cosmos ecosystem is

10:23very efficient maybe you could talk about just the underlying technology briefly and then how that impacts the trading experience of the fastness efficiency cost of using leavon so the uh I mean first of all we are on top of Osmosis which is the the largest liquidity pool in um uh in uh all of Cosmos and it's one of the the largest uh dexes within Cosmos and we

10:53are um you know so we leverage no pun intended uh that liquidity on us osmosis um by providing a new use case you know we really extend the osmosis decks and the osmosis blockchain by taking that liquidity and then turning it into something that is um is uh can be significantly more useful you know when you only have uh spot opportunity you know if you if I have $100 so to speak I

11:22can only buy $100 of Bitcoin and I'll usually do that if I think the price of Bitcoin is going to go up if I think the price of Bitcoin is going to go down I can't really profit off of that um you know I could just I could sell into into stable coins or or something similar maybe a different asset um but when I um you know when I uh but with with leverage you're not

11:47limited by the size of your ticket you know by that that $100 that you might have you're rather limited by your conviction if you're very if you have very strong conviction um that $100 could be um 20 you know it could be uh it could be 20 times that amount 30 times that that amount and even with our Forex markets um we have uh you know up to 100x leverage which is very exciting

12:15and and definitely a differentiated experience you in uh all of Cosmos and in in many places within um in in crypto in general so it's uh we offer a lot of of uh a wide variety of use cases whether it's to hedge um against a position whether it's to be able to um you know profit from a market going downwards or chopping up and down and I think that the you know the the

12:44partnership between Lana and osmosis is um you know is very strong uh be because of the the support that the liquidity in the uh in the spot deck um has plus with the added utility of the leverage markets wow that's incredible and you mentioned their Forex I know I don't know the exact numbers but I know there are millions of traders that have been

13:11trading Forex for for for decades and implementing it on the blockchain should be more fast and efficient I'm curious on that transition and and when how you think that will happen in can we 10x improve 4X trading in the traditional sense and make it faster and cheaper for traditional people to start moving into web 3 and and prefer that over their the

13:36old ways that they used to trade Forex well I think it's a there's two different markets you know there's the there's the halves and the Have Nots um in in the world there's people that have access to um to Broad Financial Services um and then there's and that probably represents you know somewhere between I don't know let's say 5% % of the world but then there's the other 95% of the

14:01world which struggles to have access to um you know a broader sense of fin uh uh set of financial services so being able to within Defi and within an ecosystem which is growing like the the the cosmos um uh defi uh on osmosis um you know you provide a suite of applications that are all kind of Under One Roof that the same types of assets can be used um for any

14:29of uh you know for any number of use cases whether it's trading like uh leverage trading with perss on Lavana or you know it's a money markets or or borrowing um or it's dollar cost averaging and you know and having like you said that the you know there's a lot of people that want to be able to trade crypto there's even more amount of people that want to trade Forex there's

14:53even more amount of people that want to trade uh Commodities um and it's a it is it's great to be able to have that all kind of Under One Roof and then be able to provide it as a service to many of the places in the world and many of the people of the world that lack the the basic um Services of uh Financial equality or you know Financial Service equality and on the commodity side I'm

15:19not too familiar with the intricacies of how they're trading on whether it's the Chicago mertile Exchange or Commodities exchanges but I know probably gold oil other assets what are the first steps into introducing this Commodities trading into the blockchain aspect of it so um I think number one is education um just showing that you know that that is possible and that there's general

15:44interest um number two is that you need to have uh consistent reliable um uh or TR you know trustless oracle feeds um so we've been working with the pith team on that for a while now and you know we're very excited to to bring that to Market and um it is um you know it's a it's I think it's a it's a staging process and

16:12I think that you know if you look at like let's look just broader in the broader adoption cycle um uh within crypto that today um you know you've got uh inflation at levels that most people alive have never seen before you know PE inflation was a concept that maybe your grandfather told you when they said oh we've got um you know uh it used to cost like a nickel and a dime to

16:38go to the movie theaters and you're like well whatever but now you go to the store and you buy a Snickers and you see it's much smaller and it costs more you know you fill up your tank and you see it costs twice as much as it did a few years ago your grocery bill is 30% more than it was preo so that's something that puts uh economic theory and macroeconomics at the Forefront of table

16:59um you know dinner table conversations and and election cycles and then along those lines um the you know the the the narratives around uh Bitcoin and the Bitcoin having um opportunities like um you know ETFs within uh you know certain markets I know that the United States uh many you know different organizations have been trying to get um ETFs going

17:24for you know a while now and there's been significant progress on that um and so these two conversations kind of merge together which then drive adoption to learning out learning some of the basics and fundamentals of crypto um and I think kind of usually is Led with Bitcoin and so being able to have um a you know a lowcost um you know utility that adds uh trustless earning features

17:52to bitcoin that allows as Bitcoin to be used as collateral to be able to take on Leverage trades for um a plethora of different markets um the these are differentiated uh features which um you know it's kind of like once you know it's like uh it's kind of like that the saying that anybody who has a hammer in their hand goes around looking for a nail So

18:11eventually when you have a Bitcoin in your in your pocket in your wallet so then you start asking yourself well what can I do with this Bitcoin and I think historically we saw that the only answer was um you know you can put it in centralized services like um like blockfi or Voyager and we saw the previous cycle that because of the lack of transparency um there was information

18:34asymmetry which made it uh challenging for uh Market participants to be able to adequately uh identify their um you know to be able to accurately identify their um you know risk reward profile and but and now what we what we hope to see in the next Market cycle is that uh products like Lana will provide um

19:02Superior uh uh utility than what was only available on centralized services in the previous cycle and because of the increased uh trust factor that will um provide um you know that will provide a a real opportunity uh for uh adoption within the decentralized finance space great great insights Jonathan and

19:30I appreciate that you're bringing more utility on the transparent side and more decentralized side to bitcoin because you know people that were stung from those companies you mentioned uh hopefully there's they can move on continue in the space but I feel like there's a lot of people that are now looking for Solutions as you talked about the Melting Pot of inflation and

19:53your grocery bill and those people that weren't innovators and early adopters are now almost being forced to look for technology Alternatives as they see their gas and groceries are rising they're like hey you know we don't know a lot about technology but I think Bitcoin is an alternative because look at the store value and the appreciation of it uh and because of this inflation

20:16we almost need to move in there and then once they get that and then it clicks in their mind all of a sudden they're looking for utilities uh and it opens up the world of web 3 which is beautiful yeah absolutely absolutely and I think that uh kind of once you go down the rabbit hole it's very hard to come out of it uh and I think that um osmosis is in

20:37a very unique position and La subsequently Lana um as the most popular application uh you know dap built on top of uh of Osmosis that were in a very favorable position to be a a market leader and to continue the growth that we've had to date and just to throw out some numbers there you know we've got over 13,000 uh users uh on the protocol um we've passed over $1.1 billion worth

21:06of trading volume in the last um you know four month four plus months um the annualized fees assuming that there's zero growth you know this is annualized fees um from you know the be really the the the the toughest trenches of the bare Market um are um you know are from uh you know I think it's saw the number today on the stats page which you can see by going to trade. lana. finance

21:34stats um that uh you know it's been over it's an estimated $10 million of Annual fees collected and the and those fees are what pays the um you know the the very uh compelling uh real yield to the liquidity providers wow that's incredible and I saw that the Lana token also had just launched on osmo mosis hopefully that's making a compounding effect and does it

22:01drive more utility for the users as well that are using leavon well the the goal with the the token is to uh exist as a means to um unify the uh you know the the the users of the protocol um in the form of governance so it will be uh used you you'll be able to um as Lana grows um use the token to be able to Signal

22:31What markets should come to play um what the fees should be on each market how those fees are used to help the protocol grow um what new products and services will be created um to enhance uh you know the the Lana feature set um and so it's a it's it's a great way to you know it's important that the the token really reflect um the community of users around

22:57the product and we're very excited to um have you know we're we're just like now basically 24 hours into um there being a token so it's uh over the next I would give it you know let's say uh 6 to 12 months I think that we'll really see a strong Community grow that will be very vocal and um and impactful in the direction that the product takes mhm wow

23:26and moving towards 2020 before obviously there's some big events like the Bitcoin potential ETF being approved the Bitcoin having uh and maybe more institutional adoption and who knows what else for the other blockchains how do you think those events May impact uh Bitcoin action on Lana and just Lana protocol as a whole and and how is the protocol sort

23:50preparing for what may come in 2024 so I think that we want um to have a you know a strong narrative around uh the assets that people are interested in so that's why we're branching out you know into the Commodities in Forex Market that's why you know we have um dedic a dedicated market for um for Bitcoin we'll have cross uh um we'll have a cross collateral um Bitcoin

24:18market so you'll be able to you know long oil with your Bitcoin and you know or or short the you know the the the the CH you know the you know current like short the Euro with your Bitcoin and and things uh kind of more interesting in exotic assets and then also we'll have very simple tools where you might say you know I'm not sure which Market that

24:42I want to participate in I just kind of want to put money in and I want it to just kind of re be rebalanced based on where Traders are finding the most activity so that level of simplification is something that we're going to put a strong um uh uh focus on so that those are called vaults and so between um you know continuing to add more markets and uh more exotic markets um and continuing

25:05to simplify the user experience and I think that there's a bright future ahead for Lana and uh and the community around her wow that's very exciting uh I love that the team is sort of expanding both directions horizontally you know more exotic kind of markets but also I know a lot of people that that that are they just have Bitcoin but in the stock market they're like I just like my you

25:30know my index fund and I I just don't have time because I'm I'm working so I just want to put it in a vault or something that just rebalances it and let the AI do the work so I'm looking forward to seeing that and what is the best place for people to follow along uh with those updates and to use the protocol so I i' say Twitter is probably the the best place to look um you know

25:54that's it's a lana protocol uh and you can find a lot of our Social Links through the website uh lana. Finance uh and if you want to just hop right into the the trading platform it's trade. l.f Finance sounds great Jonathan thank you so much for the insights uh congratulations on a successful token launch and the volume of over 1 billion that's incredible to see in a short

26:17amount of time uh for on the osmosis chain there and I'm definitely going to take a look myself uh all the best moving forward into 2024 and let's definitely follow up in the near future awesome thank you so much for your time today