Kevin Lu of Band Protocol on decentralized oracles for smart contracts

0:01i'm ashton addison from event chain for investmentpitch media and fintech news network and today on blockchain interviews we have kevin liu the head of business development and growth at the band protocol kevin welcome to the show and thanks for taking the time to be here hey ashton uh great to meet you and thanks for having me here i'm really excited to you know

0:20participate in the show and be connected with yourself as well talk a bit about you know oracle smart contracts and ban protocol of course definitely yeah there's a lot of things to learn still about oracle's specifically and smart contracts and the way that band protocol does it so if you want to just kick it off by elaborating on what is banned protocol how does the

0:40platform work and how does it integrate the real world into the blockchain yeah it's a great start um just to kind of kick it off i guess before we get into band protocol specifically it's really un important to understand that you know smart contracts aren't all that smart smart contracts and blockchain applications they have no easy access to external

1:01data and information and this is commonly known as the oracle problem um you can imagine um you know smart contracts as a piece of code uh living in its own ecosystem you know such as the network but it can't access information on other blockchains or data in a real world such as you know financial data um the key thing here um oracles is that um you know

1:23you need someone to fetch your data bring it on chain and essentially that's the job of band we bring external data outside of the blockchain to smart contracts in the most reliable and secure manner as possible and this is particularly important when you think about smart contracts who rely on inputs such as data to deterministically dictate the behavior

1:45and logic of underlying applications which could hold user funds you know you can think about you know a lending application quite simply they need price data to determine how much um do i give this user in terms of stablecoin how much do i lend out and how to manage the collateral that's in the system um band essentially you know the short summary is we're a

2:07cross-chain data oracle platform so we aggregate and connect reward data and apis to smart contracts allowing developers to create and their own custom decentralized oracles that essentially power decentralized applications in a secure manner very cool and so without these oracles essentially smart contracts would be super dumb you could say that um or you could say

2:33you know they just natively operate operating their own ecosystem you know potentially you know smart contract athletes don't all need data but you know when you're thinking about innovation when you're thinking about um d5 specifically you are going to need financial data market data definitely and now you talk about financial data and i understand that oracle's can work in

2:56different situations as blockchain technology grows into non-financial industries as well but of course right now the financial industry seems to be pretty hot um with integrating this in because the need for all of these exchanges that are popping up so is that where your number one target is for growth right now is just focusing on financial services that need

3:18reliable information um it's kind of like a yes and no um so our focus is to really go and support where smart contract applications go essentially we uh the data providers um or the middlemen to bring off chain data to bridget on chain so essentially you know if you think about the smart contract space right now um the buzz is all about decentralized

3:42finance so that is essentially where you know our focus is right now but it's not to say that you know this is going to be the focus in the next one year next two years we're essentially here to support um the industry as well as the space uh wherever it may go that's great and the d5 space is really hot right now uh you're right kevin it's done like a

4:0010-fold increase in uh in value that's been locked just throughout since before the summer of 2020 here so it's quite exponential growth do you see that as going in the right direction right now because you know there's always flaws when everything when something grows really quickly and you know tenfold in a few months is uh is a large growth but it do you know in the space overall

4:26for oracles and just for d5 is is or are are your oracles moving into the space properly in the d5 space and helping it grow for sure um i think we're playing key role here um you know especially when it comes to d5 itself again you know they rely on price oracles for lending you need interest rate or of course for stablecoin you need to you know value collateral um

4:49for us it's simply really about um you know again supporting the space where it's needed to securely build these these health applications we don't control you know who goods what or what's going to be built but essentially we want to make sure that you know this is done in the most reliable secure manner possible um on the d5 space itself um yes it's

5:07done 10-fold it's gone exponential is probably the right word and maybe even an understatement but i feel like in terms of the direction that it could go um it's really about solving a desperate or critical issue in traditional finance today i think which we still get to see um you know paypal adopting uh currencies payments also for merchants is a great start

5:31but um i definitely think we have a long way to go yeah well i really like that band protocol is cross chain as you mentioned and i believe you're already working with you know multiple blockchains um are you open to just working with any different blockchains that require data oracles or are you primarily working with you know in the d5 space it seems like

5:52ethereum sort of is handling the bulk of all of this liquidity providing yeah so for us um the focus is really to support um all the leading blockchain platforms you know from layer one to layer two essentially again it's really all about um going where the smart contract developers go going where the smart contract uh development goes and essentially um

6:15you know whether it's on ethereum uh whether it's on finance smart chain whether it's on matic network we are working really hard to stay really close and in touch not only with the development teams but also the adapts and teams that are building um the next generation of products uh the next generation of applications um on their space that's great and one of the other spaces

6:35i'm curious about for data oracles because it's also been quite hot throughout 2020 is nfts you know non-fungible tokens and non-fungible token marketplaces and soon right now it's mainly digital assets and digital art but it will move into real world assets as well you know is there a role a role for data oracles in the future of nfts as well you might notice i'm smiling a little

7:01bit because um nfts um yes they have created quite a buzz um it's really exciting space it's really new a lot more niche than um you know d5 already is but like you said you know nfts um can play a really big role especially uh leveraging blockchain technology um you know a common one is pokemon cards right um you can think about nfps as um you know a digital art you know that

7:25you solely own that you know you have verifiable proof on our blockchain that you own this particular you know png this gif you know some people say you can just copy and paste it but when you think about um other applications away from you know just digital artwork you can think about unlisted digital goods you know more namely like uh domain names uh social media

7:47accounts um also a big market which is uh in-game assets i'm not sure if you've played uh runescape or you know pokemon go a lot of people still trade you know gold pieces in runescape a lot of people still trade pokemon go you know for example if i want to sell you uh my dragonite on pokemon go essentially um you can create an nft that gives you the

8:08ownership of my dragonite but oracles will be needed to verify the ownership of this particular dragon as well as the price data if you were to work um you know if we were to work with an nft marketplace essentially we need to pull the data from web 2 markets to facilitate this transaction and um it's actually funny that you bring this up because um not too long ago we actually got

8:31connected with a team that's building exactly that nft marketplace for unlisted digital goods and i think this could be the next wave of innovation of blockchain technology still again very new yeah that's very cool and uh i'm excited to be able to actually use oracles and and buy and sell real world uh goods when the marketplaces become really mainstream

8:53it is super niche even more niche than d5 is right now but i think the potential is huge to tokenize everything from you know cars to houses and to collectibles as well so that's really cool so currently you mentioned that you're partnered with a bunch of different blockchains um so bana protocol is running smoothly you guys are still working on development i'm guessing to

9:17always continually improve and grow you know what does the roadmap look like for band protocol throughout the rest of 2020 and into 2021 yeah it's a great question um and don't want to leak too much info that i'm not supposed to but essentially you know on the integration side we're going to be telling channeling a lot of our efforts to again support um

9:38even more layer ones that relate to blockchain platforms and naturally this trickles down into supporting the developers that are building um applications on such platforms you know ensuring that you know they have access to the right data feeds you know defy again for price feeds um we're seeing a lot more insurance products pop up um you know that need you know weather data

9:58flight data you know essentially for let's say you know a crop insurance product for me it's really all about making sure that these teams are building again something that's safe and reliable for the end users we're probably still very far away from a perfect default application but you know again again we're in a stage of experimentation constant iteration and

10:20for me um and band protocol as an oracle who again is reliable to responsible to provide this critical infrastructure we want to stay at the forefront of this technology but on the technical side the road map for the next six months is um pretty exciting to say the least essentially a bit of context here um just recently on october 14th we upgraded our main net uh

10:43to phase one which essentially allows all 68 of our bar data nodes to support oracle functionality and earn a portion of the data request fees trickling into the next six months our next milestone phase two is to support premium and payable data sources natively on ban chain to allow them to automatically collect revenue to the data source owners so for context right now we our

11:09integration partners work with the data providers themselves manually uh to pay for access of the to these speeds uh this could be you know quite tedious for the data source owner as well as developer so we're really excited to ship this solution essentially uh the most interesting thing upon the completion of phase two is that depth developers will now be able to

11:30utilize most of the data available on the open internet wow that sounds big well it's exciting so we're running out of time but i'm curious are you mainly looking for strategic partners and other blockchain networks or are you also just looking for community members to join and help out with the protocol right now yeah so it's like kind of uh i guess you

11:51can break it down to those two so strategic partners we can kind of say our focus is again both these blockchain projects as well as blockchain platforms we're constantly on the lookout to you know find and help the teams that you know need off chain information whether it's you know pricing data betting data we're going to see a lot more you know essentially oracle's created

12:17for different applications you know bespoke applications you know one supply chain um you're bouncing this idea around with partner valves essentially you know if you could use um say you know the fedex api or some supply chain api to verify um a particular location of a shipment um i think you know for us it's going to be about not only finding these strategic partners

12:38but also letting the community know that you know if there is you know something that they want to build if there is a creative idea that they have in mind um it could potentially be unlocked through oracle's um and blockchain technology um so to answer your question quite directly um yes we're always on a lookout for more strategic partners um although you know for us i think

12:59it's quite safe to say that um a lot of the partners today they already are working on you know quite creative and innovative ideas um i can try not to say too much but i'm really excited to you know meet new people um there's constant hackathons going on there's one right now hosted by the avalanche team called money dance and we're really excited to

13:18see what comes out of these hackathons i think it's a really critical event um that you know really bootstraps the innovation of the ecosystem very cool kevin and yeah i'm really looking forward to the supply chain industry as well because it's just so big and if you can get one of those major corporate partners then uh that that will be life-changing for the

13:38industry and and for everybody that's uh you know doing commerce around the world so very exciting uh i will leave the link to band protocol your website and your community links in the description box below uh all the best with band protocol moving forward and let's follow up in the near future awesome sounds perfect um thanks for having me ashton you're welcome

14:07you