Powering the Future of Global Finance with Gurufin ft. Dr. Tillo Tulkinbekov

GM, GM! Welcome to what's going to be another fantastic episode of DevNTell. So, if you didn't know, DevNTell is a 30-minute podcast held every week allowing founders, hackers, and anyone in between an opportunity to come on the show and showcase what they built. And today, I'm really ecstatic to welcome Dr. Tillo Tulkinbekov, who is a Senior Blockchain Engineer at Gurufin. So, if you didn't know, Gurufin is Swift 3.0 for Web3. Their mission: to build the next generation of global financial infrastructure, bridging fiat and Web3. So, if you stick around for today's episode, you'll get to meet Tillo, learn all about Gurufin, his past research in the blockchain space, and more. All right, let's get into it.

GM, GM! Or GN, wherever you may be. Uh, welcome, welcome, Tillo. I'm ecstatic to have you on today, man.

I think you're on... you're on mute. Oh, you're on mute, Tillo. Here, uh, let's see.

Are you able to unmute? Yeah, there you go. Oh no, you had it.

Okay, hi. Can you hear me?

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, you're good, you're good. We're good. Yeah, welcome, man. Welcome, welcome.

So, thank you for having me. So excited.

Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. Uh, yeah, so I guess, uh, before we kind of get into all the great stuff you have prepared for us, uh, and getting all into Gurufin itself, would you just like to give a brief introduction about yourself for people who aren't familiar?

Yeah, sure. Uh, I am Tillo. Uh, I am a core blockchain engineer at Gurufin, and I've been in the blockchain space like more than six, seven years now, and even I got my PhD research on this area, uh, dissertation and everything, and even before that, I've been in software development, uh, for several years. So I can say like I've been in technical development for whole my career. So that's pretty much sums up about me.

Nice. And, uh, I see you have... you have your PhD, and it seems like a lot of your research has been in the blockchain space, if I understand correctly, right?

Yeah, exactly. Uh, my PhD from the start, I've been researching about the blockchain and big data integration. You know the blockchain is a very cool technology with distributed and everything, but there's a small problem, like it cannot store like big data. Like, we have big data solutions like IPFS and distributed storage, but actual data storage is not on blockchain, but on the other entity, or maybe distributed to several entities, but not on blockchain, not fully on-chain. So my research was how we can... how can we make it fully on-chain. So, uh, so pretty much about it.

Awesome, man. And, uh, I heard you, uh, published some pretty decent, uh, pretty big papers around some of these... some of your research. Um, is there any particular, uh, papers that you're... that you're quite proud of, or would want to share with the crowd here?

Uh, yeah, of course. Uh, actually I've been... I've published like more than five papers on this field during my PhD, and, uh, if I choose one of them, like I can tell the one which is published on IEEE IoT Journal, uh, about the big data integration on blockchain, uh, which... which divides the data into the chunks and saves to the different blockchain nodes. Like, it's fully on-chain and partially off-chain. Like, partially off-chain part is like not all the chunks are distributed, but the chunks are distributed to different nodes. Like, uh, so the nodes can have less storage usage but having the big data storing to the... to their storage, like in this way. And this kind of idea was actually renowned as one of the novelty... it was renowned for its novelty by the editors of the journal, and it's like... and if you know like IEEE IoT is one of the most popular and high-ranked journals in this field.

Wow, that's... that's so amazing, man. Uh, and we'll... we'll be sure to grab that, uh, article and link it for folks who are watching and listening today. Um, and yeah, I guess, um, in terms of all the work that you did in the research side of things, um, was there a particular moment of time where you're like, 'Oh, um, I might research might not be what I want to do, um, for the rest of my life, and I want to go on like the... the blockchain engineering side of things'? Or what kind of inspired you to... to take the leap of faith to become an engineer?

Well, absolutely not. Actually, since the beginning of PhD, my plan was not going for a academic field, my plan was to go deep into the engineering. You know, uh, there are... actually I've been a software developer before going to PhD, and, uh, I can say like software development doesn't really require PhD knowledge or deep research, but if you really want to understand the core engineering, core development, core implementation, like if you really want to understand the codebase of something big project, you got to do some research on this, like it... even if... even if I don't work on the academic field, but my PhD is being in use already, like in the engineering, or like when you want to understand deep about blockchain, it's actually very useful and especially it's same as AI, like if you want to be AI developer, you can just... you can just study about it, but if you want to be AI engineer, you have to do some research and you have to understand how this metrics and everything is going. And same thing applies to blockchain.

Of course, yeah, 100%, 100%. And, uh, I guess, um, how did you find yourself at Gurufin? Like, what led you to wanting to join their team, to embark on their mission?

Uh, well, actually, that was the time like I was choosing a good career for my future, like I was... I was not just looking for a company, I was just looking for something good, something that can change the economy, or it can make a little difference, so I can be a part of it. So, uh, and when I got introduced to the Gurufin vision, so something inside me told me, 'Okay, it's going to be it,' because Gurufin... actually that was the time, actually you know last five years, stablecoin industry is like booming and like everybody is saying, 'Okay, oh, stablecoins are the next big thing.' So everybody's talking about it. But Gurufin is not just a stablecoin business, like it's not just another stablecoin in the market. So it's introducing a new paradigm for stablecoin infrastructure. So we don't need another stablecoin in the market. What we need is a trusted, very reliable infrastructure. And Gurufin's vision is to provide this kind of infrastructure to the market. So, uh, that's why I got really moved with the vision of Gurufin and decided to join. And it has been almost two years since I joined, and we built everything from ground, like developed everything from zero, and lots of things we have done. I think pretty amazing.

Yeah, sounds like it, and I think you picked right. Uh, yeah, stablecoins indeed have blown up these last couple of years. Um, we're seeing a lot of people get excited, a lot of big name household names starting to think about how they're going to adopt it. Um, so it's really great to see a chain like Gurufin kind of out there trying to actually solve like some of these problems that perhaps these enterprise companies that might want to do cross-border transfers or whatnot but might be put off by like the regular blockchain interaction costs and whatnot. But yeah, it's also... I mean, I'll let you speak to it. Um, but did you want me to bring up the screen share right now to kind of get into the details?

Uh, yeah, sure. Let's do it.

Sure. All right, floor is yours.

So, here now let me introduce our Gurufin project. So we are building a new paradigm for stablecoin infrastructure. Actually this presentation is mostly about demonstration, so... In order to achieve this new paradigm, in order to achieve this, we are building a two-layer architecture for blockchains. Like a local layer for stablecoins and global layer for FX exchange.

So when we say a local layer, we are... we mention them GX stablecoin chains, which refers to the set of chains where each chain is independent from each other and compliant to the jurisdiction rules, regulations and everything. And each chain has its layer-one blockchain. Which means like, let's say KRGX for Korean Won equivalent blockchain, stablecoin, and JPGX for Japanese Yen equivalent. So every of these currencies have their own separate chain. And their own separate chain will be running stablecoin as a native currency. Which means they can pay the transaction fees and everything on the native currency. And it's a separate chain as fully regulated by the government, which means they can comply with the rules and everything. So it provides lots of advantages like that.

And we have a global chain, global layer as we call a Guru Station. It's a... it provides the FX hub, like if you want to exchange between stablecoins, so you just use our Guru Station. It's a very easy and cheap and everything. Now let's let me introduce very core features of our local chains as an example of KRGX.

So it's a fully one-to-one pegged stablecoin, which is like when we want to mint a stablecoin, it provides the automated minting and burning mechanism. So let's see it. So there's a video playing. Okay, first of all, what we have to do is to deposit some Korean Won into the bank, so it goes to the custodial bank. So let's say we are depositing 200 million Korean Won to the bank address.

And it goes to the bank custody account, and once it's gone, so automated process is triggered in the background, so which mints this equivalent stablecoin in KRGX in the blockchain. So actually this part is blurred out because it's actually real-time minting process and we already have a patent everything for this. So for privacy, we just blurred out. And after minting is complete... so you can just go to the scanner.

So we have a real-time scanner, which shows how much money we have in the custodial bank and how much stablecoin we have in the circulation. So we just minted 200 million, so it just increased. So it's one-to-one all the time. And next thing is about the transfer. So transfer is not new to the market, so it's a blockchain transfer, but what's more cool about it, it's a on-chain transfer, like on the same chain we don't have to worry about the inter-chain transactions, so it goes very smoothly.

And let me introduce about the global FX hub, which is the Guru Station. Okay, so we have a stablecoin chains as I just showed example KRGX, we have a stablecoin chains of USDX, EURX, JPGX, and it can go on like as much as needed. There's no limit for it. And each of this chain is compliant with the local jurisdiction rules and everything.

And there is a common features of these chains. So these chains are all the time one-to-one pegged by the custodial bank account and it shows on the real-time on the scanner. And there is a automated mint and burn, so it reduces the human factor at all. And there is a Guru Station which is a intermediary global chain which can provide global hub, global hub for FX exchanges.

So which means like if you want to, let's say you have a Korean Won stablecoin and you want to use it in United States, so you just go to the Guru Station and exchange, or even you don't have to... you can just use it on the wallet and automatically FX exchange is performed on through the Guru Station. So it performs. And FX rates are not actually maintained by the Guru Station. It's automatically got by the FX real-time FX rate from the trusted organizations like banks.

So which means like we don't just set our rates for the exchange, we use the real-time rate from the... because it's the real money, it's a fiat money equivalent stablecoin, and what we have to do is we have to use the real currency exchange, real rates and everything should be reliable. And the swaps exchange can be performed using a liquidity pool, which is available on the Guru Station. And DeFi, DEX, staking, everything is performed through the Guru Station for the stablecoin chains.

And another cool feature about the Guru Station is the 100% EVM compatible, which means like EVM is actually Ethereum is the most popular blockchain there is, so we make it EVM compatible so that developers can move their applications, decentralized applications easily and use cool features of Guru Station. And also it's a Cosmos SDK-based chain, which means it has a IBC protocol for inter-chain messaging with other blockchains.

Actually the IBC protocol is lately becoming common and general protocol for inter-chain messaging as you know, so since we provide it, so there is no issue with connecting other blockchains. And finally, but not the least, one of the coolest features of Guru Station is GuruPeg system. So GuruPeg when we say it, so we say a fiat-based gas. What does it mean? Like, if you want to use Ethereum as a blockchain, Ethereum price changes a lot and one day you are paying two dollar equivalent gas and next day you are paying ten dollar equivalent gas.

So it's changing a lot, right? So it's like very inconvenient. But in Guru Station we always update the gas price so that the users can always have a smooth transaction which is... no matter what the price of GXN coin, the actual gas fee we are paying for the transaction doesn't change in terms of fiat currency like a fiat-based. Let's say the transaction fee today is 1.5 cents, next day also same. Even if the GXN coin price changes a lot, the actual gas price we are paying is always stays intact and doesn't change.

So in this way we can always achieve the fixed and smooth transaction among FX exchanges between the stablecoin chains. Like when we want to exchange KRGX to USDX, for example, so we have to go through the Guru Station, right? So when we go through the Guru Station we will have to pay the gas fees in the GXN coin. So when we do that, if the GXN coin price is changing a lot, so it will be inconvenient, but with the GuruPeg system, it's always convenient and it's always fixed fee for the transactions.

So here is our project like Gurufin as I have introduced. So we are Gurufin, which complies locally and we enable to exchange globally. Like you just buy the stablecoin in your local area and you can use it anywhere in the world. So that's pretty much about demonstration how Gurufin chains works in the interaction.

Yeah, that's... this is really cool, man. Uh, yeah, so if I understand correctly, the first part of of what you showed um in the in the video, somebody basically um downloads um the Gurufin app and then they can transfer money, um actual fiat money into this app and then they can actually mint um whatever stablecoin they want um corresponding and like that amount will be minted on on-chain, correct?

Yes, absolutely. We have a Guru Wallet app, and using Guru Wallet app you can absolutely, uh, just deposit Korean Won and mint stablecoin, uh, equivalent, uh, easily and you can see and confirm everything. And of course there is some, uh, compliance rules depending on the governance. Like, uh, some government may ask like some minimum amount for minting or others. So, uh, they can apply rules but basically everything is possible.

Interesting, interesting. And you mentioned that um every stablecoin or yeah, every every currency is its own chain. Um, is it possible for Gurufin to support stablecoins that um were created outside of its ecosystem? So for example like USDC or or like Euro coin, USDT, and have those um be part of the Gurufin ecosystem? Or is it um a Gurufin-specific stablecoin that has to be um present?

Uh, well, actually, uh, USDC, USDT are the global leaders of the market. Uh, they are actually token-based stablecoins, not a native stablecoins. So we, uh, Guru Station actually supports EVM, so which enables to deploy the dApps for the system. So it's a token, it's a ERC-20 token, so it can be directly uploaded and used without any issues.

Awesome, awesome.

But that's not, I think... yeah, sorry, finished your thought.

You can hear me well?

Yeah, yeah, you're still there. Oh, uh, yeah, I think maybe there's like a internet delay or something. Um, but yes, um, I guess, um, for developers who are watching us today, um, what are some opportunities for them to be able to, um, pick up, um, with Gurufin and and start integrating, um, perhaps Gurufin into their apps to support, um, Gurufin native stablecoins?

Can you still hear me, Tillo?

Yes, I can hear you well. Can you hear me?

I can hear you, yes, yes. Uh, yeah, oh, yeah. So, no worries, man. So, uh, the question I asked was around, um, just how, um, how difficult is sometimes to use on-chain apps, um, whether it's to move money around, to pay for things.

And, uh, like how... how is Gurufin kind of addressing some of these issues, making it easier for everyday people to, um, interact or transact on-chain and maybe even enterprises? Oh no, looks like we lost Tillo. Uh, let's see. He should be joining back soon.

Uh, yeah, sorry folks, I think there is a three to five second delay. Um, but we will wait until Tillo returns. Um, but, uh, yeah, in the meantime, uh, Gurufin, uh, seems like a very promising promising ecosystem and chain.

And Tillo, I think is back. Tillo, you back?

Yeah, I think there is some disturbance in the connection. I'm sorry about it.

Yeah, that's fine, that's fine. Uh, can you hear? Everything's good? Yes, I can hear you. Okay. Yeah, oh, yeah. So no worries, man. So, uh, the question I asked was around um just how um how difficult is sometimes to use on-chain apps, um whether it's to move money around, to pay for things and um like how... how is Gurufin kind of addressing some of these issues, making it easier for everyday people to, um interact or transact on-chain and maybe even enterprises?

Yeah, actually there are lots of pain points in the existing solutions. Uh, let's say, uh, first of all, uh, actually nowadays everybody talking about it in the conference and everywhere like we have a stablecoin in the market and the... most of the stablecoins actually more than 99% of the stablecoin is US dollar based. So it's a huge dominion in the market, right? Uh, and the industry is 300 billion dollar industry, that's not a small money. And 99... more than 99% of it like a US dollar based like, uh... which means like in it's a fiat money, it's a real money, and we have in the Web2 like in the real world, we use local local currency like in Korea we use Korean Won. Japan use Japanese Yen, like everywhere we have local currency. But if we want to go to Web3, we are going to use US dollar. So it's a kind of funny. It should be different, right? The dominion should go and every country every currency should have their sovereignty, they have they should have independence on the Web3 as well. So that's one of the goals we address in the Gurufin.

And the other issue is like trust issues with the existing big companies like... let me give you some example. Recently, maybe you heard of the news about the PayPal accidentally minting 300 trillion dollars and burning it finding it was a accident. So that 300 trillion is a like very huge money like it's more than world GDP, you know. Uh, and this error is happening why? Because of human interaction. There's a very very small, maybe they just put like extra zeros and it happened like it's relied on the human and humans always make mistakes. And of course like PayPal just found out it's it's wrong and just burn it.

So but this kind of issues raise questions, okay, right? And also about the I can give example about the de-pegging issues of USDC, like when the Silicon Valley Bank collapsed and USDC was de-pegged to 88 cents something like that, right? So within hours like people just find out and they try to sell and it got de-pegged easily. So which means like it it raises the reliability issues like if I have like million dollars, I don't really want to keep it in stablecoin because if I have million now it can be like I can lose 20% of my assets easily or maybe all of them if something happens like something happened with Luna Terra, you remember. So if similar happens with one of these companies like, oh, I lose everything.

So it's a big huge risk. And which means like today's stablecoins are becoming intermediary tool only like if you want to change your asset from one form to another, okay, you use stablecoin. Uh, from real estate to cryptocurrency, you just use the stablecoin to move your asset from one form to another. So it's fine. But you don't really keep your assets in the stablecoin itself because it's not a long-term reliable asset. So, uh, but the question here, you should be able to keep your assets in the stablecoin because it's a one-to-one pegged, right? So you there should be guarantee like you can always you can always get it back.

Uh, and other thing is about the transparency issues. Uh, for example like companies, big entities which is available nowadays, uh they are providing the audit monthly or quarterly, right? So, uh, people don't really... they don't provide one-to-one pegging. But what if there is a possibility you can see the real-time reserve 24/7? You can see how much money how much money there is in the custodial bank 24/7. Like you can just go the scanner, and you can see which custodial banks holding the assets and how much money is being held there. And you can see how much stablecoin is actually minted on the blockchain.

And funny thing is like the custodial banks do not touch the assets. Like they do not invest, they do not touch the money. Like which means like once you deposit the money it's always there, it's not it's not being used, it's not updated... it's not being invested or reinvested. Which means like there is no risk for losing. So you invest, it's there at one-to-one all the time. So it's that easy. And other thing is like as we earlier discussed there is a dependability on the chains. Like most of the public stablecoins using a ERC-20 tokens, like different tokens. Which means they rely on the other chains.

Like if you are using some centralized entity like exchanges, okay there is a some simulation you can pay the fee in the USDT or USDC. But if you are in the development level and you are using exchanging the currency on your own, you have to pay the fee on the different currency. Like you want to exchange some USDT but you have to pay in Ethereum or you have to pay in Tron. Like it's very actually it can be small thing, but it's very inconvenient like you have to hold two assets at the same time, right? So, uh, it makes it inconvenient. So, uh, with the introduction of Gurufin stablecoin chains, we provide one-to-one transparency and automated minting and burning. So the humans cannot make any mistakes here. And you can see the reserves. And every every stablecoin is their own chain, so you can pay the fees on the native currency all the time. So those are the issues we are solving.

Yeah, and they're really important issues and I'm really happy to see a blockchain company out there, um, trying to address these. Um, so good on you guys. And um, as we're kind of approaching time, there's a few more questions I kind of want to get through. But um, for our developer audience who are watching us today, um, what's the best way for them to get started with um with Gurufin? What would you recommend?

Well, actually we are now launching our testnet very soon. It's coming live. Uh, so I would tell like developers to keep their dApps, tokens, everything, get ready. Like, uh, you can test on Gurufin testnet, and it's gonna cost very cheap, it's gonna be very fast, and it's gonna be really amazing. And if you're like not developer, just a normal user, I would say like just get ready, you can just see how it's going on and you can see actually the fees calculated in real time and gas price is changing like the actual fee is always same in the fiat-based amount. So and there are FX exchanges, you can exchange their cryptocurrency stablecoins easily through the FX hub. So everything just for developers and normal users can test out and just I want to say get ready, it's coming soon.

Wow, that's exciting. Some alpha, some alpha here. Awesome, awesome. Yeah, gang, you heard it here. So get ready for the Gurufin testnet. And, um, yeah, I guess, um, another thing I kind of wanted to touch on, um, so on top of stablecoins being very popular, um, this year, this last couple of months, um, we've seen a really big, um, uptick in the popularity of X402, um, the protocol for um payments that Coinbase has made. I just curious to to get your thoughts on on that protocol, um, if you have any, and um if Gurufin um will support that, um, that protocol as well.

Yeah, of course. Actually, uh, X402 is indeed becoming very popular with the introduction of crypto payments in the late applications. Um, of course, like, uh, it's actually application layer implementation, so Gurufin chains has no any issues with the integration of these possibilities. So, uh, the developers can just integrate to our chain, so there is no issues with the integration and support everything. But as you know, like the hype actually shows the need for this kind of payment systems, like a reliable and payment system. So, which means like, it's a... it's a good opportunity for Gurufin to provide the better solutions for the payment systems. So people can enjoy like low-cost and reliable assets for holding their stablecoins.

Yeah, well said, well said. And yeah, indeed it is exciting times. Um, yeah, Tillo, as we're closing out here, um, you mentioned it, um, testnet is launching soon. Um, what's the best way for people to keep up-to-date with all the things going on with Gurufin, and how can they stay on top of things?

Oh yeah, exactly. Uh, we have a website, gurufin.com, and we have a GitHub repository, which is public on for Guruchain. Uh, so and we have documentation and everything. So I just say watch out our website and watch out our pages on the X, Telegram, so we have channels on everywhere, Discord. So watch out our channels, so the news will be coming soon.

Awesome. I know I'm excited to to see what's going on, and I know our audience is also going to be excited to to get their hands on Gurufin and start playing around with it. Um, and with that, um, yeah, unfortunately we've come to time. Tillo, I just want to thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to join us today on the podcast. Technical issues aside, we ground it out, um, we did it. Um, but yeah, just want to thank you so much.

Yes, thank you very much for having me here. It was really exciting to talk about our project and get to know the audience. So thank you.

Certainly, certainly. And, um, yeah, all the resources, um, that we discussed, um, will be linked in the description below. So definitely give Gurufin, um, a looksie. Uh, check it out and like Tillo mentioned, uh, their testnet is coming out soon, so definitely it'll be something you guys want to start playing around with. And with that, I just want to wish everybody a very happy Friday, happy weekend wherever you may be, and we'll catch you back here for another episode of DevNTell next week. Until then folks, have a good one. Cheers!