Jake Campton on VeChain’s Hayabusa mainnet launch and ecosystem evolution

0:00I'm Ashen Addison from the Cryptocoin Show and today on Blockchain Interviews, we have with us Jake Captain, head of comms for Vchain. Vchain's been on the show over a number of years and so much has happened including the recent Hayabusa mainet launch. Uh we can talk about staking delegation, real world use cases, and major partnerships with huge companies like UFC and much more. Jake,

0:24welcome to the show and thanks for taking the time. >> Great to be here, Ashton. Thank you for having me today. Appreciate You're w you're welcome. So glad to see Vchain sticking around >> since you know 2017 days and before and you know it's uh it's a feat in itself just to have a successful chain that's been running over multiple crypto cycles and continuing to grow and now the most

0:46recent mainet launch is taking it to the next stage as well. I'd love to kick off our conversation by just starting with a bit of a high level on Vchain, the whole vision and then we can dive into the new mainet launch and everything else. >> Yeah, absolutely. I mean Vchain for those who don't know as we're our USP in this market is we've always been focused

1:07on real world utility and uh you know applications that can be used daily by people or companies. Obviously we were famous initially for our work in supply chain and luxury and authentication. I think that's how a lot of people got to know us. Um, you know, and those use cases still kind of go on, but we've evolved a lot of what we're doing since then. So, uh, launched a kind of BTOC

1:28app platform in more recent years and, you know, that's, um, seen success as well. And that's all around using web free in your daily life, you know, tokenization, getting rewarded for for things you can do every day. Um, and yeah, continuing to upgrade the protocol, of course, as you alluded to, to make it ready for today's world. It's not 2017 anymore. A lot a lot has

1:47changed since then >> definitely and yeah I'm excited to dive into that. I saw a few different consumerf facing apps where you know tokenization uh DPIN and real world assets are becoming uh more mature since the last cycle and now more people are getting involved and yeah supply chain is great and I know Vchain is leading in that for many years but there's now so

2:09many more use cases that are that are kicking up and more people uh across North America and the world that want to get involved in by contributing in it you know and maybe and maybe you can touch on that uh the consumerf facing applications. [snorts] >> Yeah, sure. So, um well, Veter is the name of the platform obviously borrows the the Vchain prefix and essentially

2:33it's this app platform governed by a DAO. So, it's got a kind of quite unique um approach to how it's run, but essentially it embodies this X to earn ethos, which X in that sense just means, you know, the unknown variable. You do an action, you get a reward. So you perform an action. It could be for instance um like driving your Tesla. So one of the one of the apps we use is

2:55called EV and you can drive to work using a Tesla. It will record your charge data. You know it's plugged in plugs into API on the on the vehicle and um yeah basically it will reward you for for taking an electric vehicle versus a combustion engine or um BYB which is about working out and fitness you know so improving your health uh or reducing waste in the form of an app called

3:18Mugshot. So, it's quite a fun one. It's like you go to a cafe, uh, if you use a reusable mug, you know, you can instead of a disposable paper mug, you know, you get a small reward. And the rationale there is there's something like 500 billion cups produced and thrown away every year. Um, and if we can impact some percentage of that, you know, that has a monetary value ultimately to the

3:39companies and to the economy um, and all that stuff. So what we're doing with these apps is kind of monetizing and tokenizing these instances of small like amounts of value. Um yeah, and materializing them through the power of web 3 because it you know provides a perfect kind of layer to very cheaply record data that can then kind of be verified and and uh trustlessly you know

4:04um what's the word assured at a later date. So >> yeah, leveraging unique power of blockchain in in that sense. So it's quite cool. It's quite fun. Lots of apps about 50 at the moment. >> Oh, wow. That's that's really cool. I'm definitely going to check that out. I can leave a link to that for the viewers as well. Uh, you know, I love that stuff is just getting gamified. Like I just

4:23saw that that first Tesla example. I saw that uh Tesla actually was giving away uh free lifetime charging to the people who got all of the badges that charged in all of the different locations and stuff. And you know you're earning you're getting value like you're doing things but actually you're contributing at the same time to the Tesla network in

4:44this case you're contributing to the decentralized networks value and input and data and you get rewarded for it as well. So on the reward and circular economy part how does that tie in after you're contributing through the apps and veter? Um well the the notion of the circular economy is all about you know sustainability re returning um you know uh materials to the start of the life

5:09cycle. Right now we have the linear economy. You produce it, consume it, you throw it away. Obviously the rationale of the circular economy is essentially making things more circular, more sustainable, less impactful overall. I know sustainability in some people's minds kind of kicks off this uh I don't know it's become a bit politically challenged in recent years but obviously

5:27the way we're approaching it is purely about logic and costsaving and it's kind of we've kind of got that business mentality to it which I do think is actually quite important you know um to actually make the economic case with sustainability because it's not just about doing good and the holier than now um kind of notion that can come with sustainability. there's a business and

5:48economic case to it. I think it's something like 14 trillion dollars. There was a report put out by BCG that was uh essentially you know valuing the this the sustainab the impact of sustainability on the economy by like 2030. So you know it's it's about efficiency but also um you know with with health apps for instance like you working on your health is a sustainable

6:10outcome because then you have less impact on your finances and the economy down the line and resource consumption you know. So maybe that sounds a bit robotic to use that example, but you know, sustainability isn't always just about necessarily like planting trees and stuff. It's it has a lot grander implications than uh you know, just objectively good things for everyone

6:30really. >> Definitely. And I feel like this is a a natural extension of Vchain's you know supply chain competitive advantage in in the beginning because there's many different things you can look in the supply chain but it's not just about you know making sure that your Louis Vuitton is not counterfeit. It's also making sure that you know each step of the way

6:52you're proving the authenticity uh with with something whether the coffee is fair trade and organic and that everyone's following the sustainability and that they're doing it in a sustainable way and like now you're tying it into everything. Yeah, it's a really good point uh you're making and actually a nice segue because we've just struck up a partnership with

7:14a company called Record and they're working on digital product passports in Europe. So Europe's just put in uh this regulation called ESPR and it's all about essentially the circular economy so to tie it back but they want everything to be able to be re-entered into the production cycle. So with that, you know, the Bosches of the world, like the guys who make, you know, um washing

7:36machines or whatever or all kinds of appliances, these now need to be um like fully recyclable, but also their life cycle needs to be transparent. So like where was the material sourced from, you know, uh the the production process, the purchase, then ultimately the recycling. So they're getting a digital passport essentially powered by blockchain, powered by Vchain's blockchain. Um, and

7:59yeah, this is something that's being mandated in Europe right now. So, end of 2026, uh, companies above a certain size will have to have this in place. So, it's a big market opportunity. And then, um, by 2030, it's basically everyone else has to have it, uh, ready. So, it's supply chain plus sustainability. So, it's like a real natural extension of,

8:18uh, all that stuff we've done so far. So, it's quite a quite funny and good opportunity for us because we've been doing it for years. So, >> that's very that's very cool. I love I'd love to see more traditional companies getting involved and maybe they don't even know that underneath it's being powered by web 3 and that's the reason that you know it's all coming together

8:36and that's really the way to drive blockchain adoption into the mainstream is having an underlying and you know the people don't have to worry about it. They just they can check into it and see the front end sustainability like on their banking app but they don't know like what's the programming language underneath. Uh but and that's what it's sort of the goal has been all along is

8:58to cut away the jargon and focus on the value and like driving results. >> Couldn't agree more. >> Yeah. Bang on. >> And now I want to dive into this Hayabusa mainet launch. So with all of the growth that Vchain's had over the years, this was something that's been years in the making. Now it has just launched. So first of all, congratulations. Can you talk about the

9:21need for a mainet? why it's important and and what it does for the blockchain ecosystem now that this is launched. >> Yeah, sure. So, we it's quite an extensive piece of work. So, essentially it has merged with the Vchain form mainet. Big upgrade there. [clears throat] It's changed quite a few things. Um one is the consensus. So, now we've shifted from proof of authority to delegated

9:45proof of stake. What that means in summary is like basically um the node infrastructure is now public and permissionless. So before because you know we're an old blockchain in an old regulatory environment um enterprises wanted to know who was running the network right. So at the time they didn't like Ethereum because you know they didn't know the node the validators

10:06were. So we had infrastructure where people had to undergo a KYC process. Um and essentially the nodes were known to a select group of of people. Um obviously that's a bit of an anathema to a lot of people in crypto. Yeah. Some saw the business case of what we were doing and they loved it and then others saw that and were like oh that's not decentralized and blah blah blah. Um

10:26obviously regulations have moved on now and we've come into an environment where actually they want the blockchain to be decentralized and everyone's now understanding the value proposition. So um you know we've done it for for that need really to to get in line with Mika which is the Europeans's kind of um crypto regulation framework. >> So that was one of the big major

10:46changes. So now we have you know if you want to be a validator feel free you can anyone can do it. Um and then the main ones for I guess the listeners is the tokconomics upgrade. So we've tweaked how the tokconomics work. Um I think as it's gone live it's something like a 40% reduction in VTO which is the SCAS token that VET produces. VET being our primary

11:07token. Um so we basically get this big reduction in generation there. Um before every VET token would generate VTO. Now only staked VET tokens generate VTO. And the secondary benefit there is you've the pool that is generated is now only rewarded to stakers. So at the moment it's like 15.6,000 6,000 people and uh you know all the VIO that was been generated before is now only given to

11:32that pool of people. So the rewards per person goes up quite considerably. >> Um again we did that to balance the needs of the time which is businesses love cheap transactions but users like juicy rewards. So how do you reconcile that you know when obviously in the old in the old paradigm it was having cheap transactions meant that the validators didn't necessarily get a good

11:54>> or kind of return they would want or that would be attractive. So yeah we we've basically rebuilt the tokconomics to make it more um attractive overall better at value capture. So obviously as transaction volumes go up demand for Va goes up. But now you're now the market is is going after a smaller pool of gas token as well. We're trying to kind of

12:14fine-tune the the um >> what's the word? Sorry, supply and demand dynamics as well to make it capture value better because ultimately if you have too much VIO and not enough being bought then of course the uh the maths goes the long way. So >> yeah, it's a it's a it was our move to capture value meet with regulatory needs. Um and actually sorry I'm conscious I'm waffing quite a lot here

12:38but there's there was three parts to this overall um road map and I won't go into too much detail on the other bits but we also introduced a gas fee market which um that was to combat the fact we have such low transaction um costs because obviously someone could span the network with relatively low uh amount of capital and then also added 100% base fee burn again to help try and create

13:03that deflationary environment. um and a more attractive tokconomics because you know the ultimate rationality is investors and major entities are starting to move into the space and actually since we've done the upgrade we've announced several uh large investor partners like um Draper Dragon who's obviously Tim Draper's fund um Fenbushi Capital we've had Krock we've

13:26had a couple of other institutions join us >> and obviously they want to support the network and the growth and and all that stuff but of course they're still looking for like a field and they want if they're going to put their money to work for you then, you know, it's got to have that um something in return kind of thing. So, >> Mhm. >> Yeah, we've been able to kind of meet

13:43those needs with this upgrade. And shout out to the team because it was not an easy feat. You know, you're changing so much at once and it all went off without a hitch and obviously the CTO was like very nervously watching as it all uh unfolded. But yeah, I mean, amazing achievement really for for what it was. >> Yeah. No, it sounds amazing. It's like

14:02they say when Ethereum upgraded [clears throat] their consensus algorithm, they say it's like changing an engine of an airplane while the airplane's flying. You know, it's got to keep going. >> Um, so that sounds great. Obviously, more decentralization. If the the cost stays low and the transactions throughput is is still fast, sounds like an improvement. Um,

14:26and now you're saying more any anybody can get involved. What's the main advantage? If somebody, for example, they've seen Vchain around, maybe they have a few of the tokens, why should they join and contribute in the network as an individual? >> Yeah, I mean, if you're already holding tokens, um, then, uh, I guess there's no real reason why you shouldn't want to

14:50because I mean, at the end of the day, it's it's free like percent on your position. And there's a secondary benefit, which is this fee better app ecosystem. the nodes that run the rewards do have some interplay with the with the V better environment. So you can actually benefit from having a Stargate node as well. So if you're interested in diving deeper into Vchain

15:10using the Veta app platform getting stuck in there, then it makes sense to have both. And to be honest, if you're if you're in it for the long term anyway, you're a long-term value investor and you're you're setting and forgetting, then you you might as well. At the end of the day, it's it's free money. Um, >> yeah, >> for sure. You know, I feel like it's

15:30>> Fchain's been around for a long time, but it's still continuing to grow. And, >> you know, I I know some of these people that they don't like the 2017 and before projects because they think there's not a lot of volume or interest because there's new fancy things, you know. Um but I feel feel like Vchain is an outlier in that in that you're growing

15:53and obviously you're seeing these huge in uh partners come and invest fani Tim Draper's fund those are huge to have you know new interest in that uh now at this stage I feel like that's making a huge difference for Vchain sticking out as like a legacy chain >> definitely I mean we we've got a history and a reputation that's [clears throat] quite unique in the space obviously a

16:15big focus on the real world utility We still run um a lot of uh like enterprise applications on chain that we're famous for. Obviously the Walmart one. I think we mentioned that warming up, you know, that's that's a classic still ongoing. Um luxury brands on chain. We actually just recently announced Lululemon. They're using our chips in in China specifically. So mainland China just to

16:35differentiate. But um yeah, Lululemon's using our our stuff there. And you know, we've got I think off top of my head three partners in the wings. One to be announced next week. Uh, so I'm not gonna say anything just in case, you know, I mess up the the clip, but um, yeah, and then some two really exciting partners. I mentioned one at the start of the show, but, you know, very very

17:00well-known global uh, US entity and we're going to be joining an industry partner on a really cool um, joint venture which is all about like AI and 2D material research and all just just really cool stuff. Um, super sci-fi, really like merging worlds with blockchain and super high-end technology and yeah, really, really cool. I'm I'm a massive tech node myself, so this kind

17:25of stuff right up my street. >> Definitely. No, I agree. And I was just going to ask about that because you know 2025 so far has really been the year of AI and it's and blockchain projects have been integrating it but also you know the AI industry is far surpassed the interest of blockchain and everyone's using it in day-to-day all day. Um is this partnership sort of

17:51the gateway into getting more involved with AI with with Vchain or are there other things? I mean we are providing you know layers of authentication like you know a data layer essentially a trustless data layer. I mean there's there's lots of nuance to the um uh to the partnership. I mean we're not obviously we're not the AI partner. There is a >> other entity that's delivering that

18:15stuff but it's for the purpose of research and uh super high-end kind of um materials discovery essentially. You know you may have heard of graphine. you're familiar with uh you know this 2D material. It's like a wonder material used for solar batteries. It can make your shoelaces really strong. It can build a sky you know an elevator to the sky. All this

18:36crazy crazy stuff. >> Um but that's a whole emerging field of research for other metals. So you know tin or you know whatever I mean every metal everything at that level just suddenly gets new properties. So they're trying to like now use AI to go to that level, discover materials and then mix materials and and just find crazy stuff and then obviously

18:57>> least that out to labs across the world and they can start doing you know just very high-end physics um research and discovery and yeah bring bring cool stuff to light. So [snorts] >> super cool man. It's like you know pioneering um the really like frontier technologies coming together. >> Definitely. Yeah, it's it's growing so fast, you know, with I think that

19:17there's a lot of people that they maybe they have some Vchain, but it's on a centralized exchange or they're not really contributing in the ecosystem and maybe they're not technical. They don't they don't, you know, a node is something that they're not interested in, but maybe they're interested in staking or finding some way to contribute. What what's the easiest way

19:34to like start contributing through the app or or or the platform? Like how exactly can they get started without getting all technical? Yeah, very good question. It's always important. Obviously, something we pride ourselves at Vchain is trying to make uh using Web 3 nice and easy. I think that's the goal of the whole industry really. Um still a lot of work to go

19:53there. But for us, if you if you're interested in getting started, you can go to VWorld. So, that's our that's our main wallet application. Um if you want to stake, you know, like we've been talking about on Stargate, it's a nice easy earn button. Take you to the right page. obviously add your vet tokens there and essentially you can just spin up a node from there. So it's a very

20:13seamless process. Um and if you want to get involved with Veter apps as well, they've got B delegation built in which is this feature of Vchain where you know you don't pay transaction costs. So >> the logic there is you know your your auntie can pick up Mugshot and start using it and not have to worry about paying transaction fees stuff like that. So yeah the the whole kind of app

20:33ecosystems supposed to be very easy. We might be seeing it through Blinkers because we are web 3D people. But um yeah, certainly feedback we've gotten is it's very slick and yeah, definitely recommend going and checking it out. If you're interested in um seeing V better, you can access that as well from the discover tab which is in so it's all it's all contained. It's a nice little

20:54hub of all things Vchain basically. Yeah, I feel like that's a great way to start by exploring the different apps on why you're interested in V better and say you you start using it and you don't have to, you know, figure out how to onboard onto the exchange and then then you know you get some tokens and you're like oh now I should probably financially contribute earn some off of

21:16this in in the more financial based products staking or you [clears throat] know if you get a lot uh delegating and contributing to the network taking uh taking advantage of those advantages. >> Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And obviously, you know, our goal is bring value to the network, help it grow. This is um a rationale of the VBA ecosystem is B2C. It's very scalable. So, you

21:41know, I think we're up to 5 million users at the moment. Uh something like 40 million 45 million tokenized transactions and we only launched in um last June. So, it's obviously started to ramp up >> quite nice, which is which is good. uh and yeah just just trying to basically be the best we can be and [laughter] keep keep growing the blockchain and uh

22:02yeah you know the the whole sector is growing I mean obviously at the moment it's pretty tough pretty like you know the sentin is in the floor really [clears throat] but um when you look to the institutional world or the regulatory environment or the government appetite or whoever anyone outside crypto is like wow this is great emerging technology most people in

22:22crypto right now obviously feeling the pain of the price a bit. Obviously, plenty of exceptions to that, but [clears throat] you know, it's uh that's just the reality right now. So, the trend is up and to the right. That's the main thing. So, you know, stay strong, find good protocol and uh and ride the wave. That's the key message. >> Definitely. I appreciate all the

22:42insights, Jake. And maybe is there anything you can hint at high level for now we're near the mainet launch is obviously huge. mature that out over the end of 2025. Sort of a a grander vision for 2026 and where you hope to grow in the different areas. >> Yeah, we've got a really major milestone actually. So something that we don't have which is a limiting thing for

23:05Vchain and we're going to solve is the JSON RPC. I don't want to go too down the tech or rabbit hole, but it's this crosschain communication protocol and we when we launched we just launched with something slightly different because at the time it was meeting the needs of the environment >> but obviously [clears throat] as the world has gotten more uh interconnected

23:24with blockchains specifically not having it has been a hindrance. So when you go to trust wallet you know where's Vchain? It's not in there. >> So that's actually something we'll be solving um next year. Uh, and that's a really big deal for us [clears throat] because we've got this app ecosystem. We want to take it to the world, but people have a hard time um, getting to us. So,

23:44you know, we we built some bridges through Wan Chain and, you know, we're starting to get that external liquidity, but that will probably be one of our biggest existential um, achievements, let's say, because it will really allow Vchain to get more involved with other networks and really kind of accelerate our growth among the wider cryptoverse. we've kind of been in

24:04a bit of a bubble. So, I think and that's about to end and that would be a very great moment I think for uh for the network. >> Yeah. No, that sounds really exciting. Um I would love to follow up with you in 2026 as that develops out and [clears throat] I feel like, you know, yeah, maybe it's a little bubble, but it's a a multi-million user bubble, so

24:23bigger than most other bubbles. So, I think you guys are doing okay. >> Um but yeah, that's been a that's been a a a setback for the blockchain industry overall. If you want to have a huge mainet and your own chain, then you got to be compatible to the ones that have large network effects and especially for liquidity, you know, u all the blockchains need to be able to

24:44communicate and work together if we're going to grow it into the trillions and quadrillion dollar size of the derivative markets. You know, we're we're we're still early days. Uh and you guys are really early being back a few cycles now. So, >> but it's great to see the growth. It's great to see the growth of the new partners and the the new mainet and more

25:05applications that are consumerf facing. Um I'm more excited about Vchain than ever. >> Oh, good to hear man. [laughter] Still here after eight, what was it? 2018 I think I started working with Vchain. So yeah, been a long time. >> Yeah. Awesome man. Well, I will leave the links to uh the the news about the mainet launch, the Veter app, VOorld, anything else relevant about Vchain, and

25:31also the socials uh X and and wherever else the communities are gathering all in the show notes below. Wishing you and the team all the best. Congratulations on the mainet launch and the continued adoption and we'll love to follow up in the near future. >> Thank you, Ashton. We will do. It's been a pleasure chatting. Thank you for having me.