Rebuilding DeFi Liquidity with Katana Network

GM, GM, welcome to what's going to be another fantastic episode of DevNTell. So, if you haven't heard, DevNTell is a podcast held every week allowing founders, hackers and anyone in between the opportunity to come on the show and showcase what they've built. And today, I'm ecstatic to re-welcome D_D legend Billy Campana, Billyjitsu, aka, who's a DevRel at Katana. So, if you didn't know, Katana is a DeFi-first chain delivering deep liquidity and sustainable real yield. So, if you stick around for today's episode, you'll get to meet Billy, learn about all the latest developments with Katana, and how you could get started using them today. All right, let's get into it.

GM, GM, welcome back on the show, Billy. Ecstatic to have you on, man.

Awesome, awesome, Narb. Yes, good to be back. We get to be back under a different banner now, under the Katana banner.

That's right, that's right, some sick swag you're wearing right there, man.

Yeah, actually, I made this myself customized. I have, like, you know, the t-shirts are cool and everything, but like when I fight, like I have a rash guard so this is kind of like a more of a slick kind of thing. So like when I'm wrestling or anything, like it... I wanted something that was cool and like the Katana colors are kind of flashy so I'm like well, I guess it's like free advertising and it's called Katana, so like it has something to do with the warriors, so like... it works.

That's awesome, that's awesome. I think if it's custom made, I think Katana should start selling it. I think it would sell pretty well.

It's an exclusive team only one. I did a run in the very, very beginning and I was like 'who in the team wants one?' I mean, not everybody's like athletic but I'm like 'it's cool anyway, it's a cool shirt, I'd wear it' has the Katana logo on the side and... yeah, I don't know. I did by design has like a little discoloration... like has a little sword slash.

Amazing, amazing. And yeah, I guess swag aside, for people who might be watching today and aren't familiar with yourself, would you just like to give a introduction?

Absolutely, absolutely. So yeah, I'm Billy, Billyjitsu on Twitter. Um, I got it... I got started in the crypto game in 2017, uh, like right before that rush. So like I I got in early, I was just talking to some folks, I've always been into tech and, uh, you know, then we had the 2017 December rush and I thought I was a genius. I'm like 'oh, why should I invest in stocks and anything, this is easy money, right?' and then I held it all the way... I I round-tripped. Round-tripped it all the way through 2018, 2019 and kind of just cruising along with it, you know, here and there buying some stuff on on there and, you know, saw the ETH at $80 at moments as well. And like in 2020 during COVID, like when DeFi summer came around, that's when I was like 'whoa, this is really exciting'. Like that really, like blew my mind of like what you could and couldn't do. And then obviously 2021 prices were going up and there was nothing else to do because you were all stuck at home. So like I started really getting into smart contracts, learning how to code. Um, once upon a time I was an engineer, computer engineer way back when, but I didn't, uh, really like the the industry... it was pretty cool, but I felt more of like a just a technician than actually creating stuff. And so like I had basically run my own business doing IT consulting for security. Uh, so I hadn't touched code in like years. So like VS Code and GitHub and all that... like 'what is all this stuff?' So I spent like most of my time just kind of figuring it out on YouTube. And what I learned was, if you don't know what to ask, if your Google-fu isn't good, it's very difficult to learn how to do anything. So when I'm trying to learn how to do smart contracts and do everything like how to make a token and then every... I see it all the DevRels 'come back next week for part two' and then there was never a part two. I'm like 'where's part two?' and then I would be looking and looking and I would watch YouTube videos for 45 minutes to get that one function that I needed that explained, you know, like I would that would be like 'man, I just I wish there was an easier way to do it'. So my DevRel style as I ultimately started working in it became the frustration of like what it is when you're starting out. and it's like a lot of assumptions. A lot of saying 'oh, you already know this' like 'no I don't!' you know. So like as I'm coming in, I'm like 'okay, you know, when I'm coming into like brand new interfaces or brand new anything, like what do I need? Just kind of hand it to me' and that's kind of been like my DevRel style coming in through like this evolution of like learning and going through and as I was learning, that's how I learned about Developer DAO. I saw one of Nader's videos of like... that's literally one of the YouTube videos I was looking at. I'm like 'whoa, this is cool, like there's a whole group of people that are into smart contracts'. Uh, I minted the NFT on there and I joined and it was overwhelming of like all these projects and a lot of developers that were aspiring on there. So it's, uh, you know, it was kind of crazy evolution that I became a contributor to that and that's kind of like what led me to my first gig in DevRelations and then kind of evolved from that. But DeFi is my heart and soul, like that's what like gets me excited about smart contracts. Like being able to have it open to anybody. Like DeFi is like 'you could do rich people stuff, but be poor', you know. I can do that, you know. I like if I talk to like an accounting manager 'hey, I have $500 that I'd like to invest' he'd be like 'yeah, bro, just come back when you come in with a few more zeros, right?' but like if you want to learn stuff, like DeFi is like one of the best places where you can learn more about traditional finance than traditional finance if you don't have a lot of money and I thought that was really cool and so like that's been my biggest draw.

Amazing man. Yeah, and you have quite the tenured background and I yeah, I can attest you're a DeFi wiz. Um, if people don't know, uh, Billy is the champ of the DeFi investment side of Developer DAO. So, uh, yeah, and and we're really grateful, uh, for him being here in the table to guide us through that. Um, but, uh, you mentioned it too, like before the... like the way you would learn and I learned I learned smart contract development the same way, it was just finding tutorials, kind of reading up on your own and people would give you just enough to kind of get you from like zero to one or one to two, but then you were kind of on your own, uh, to go figure out the rest of rest of it. Which is which is like I I love the challenge, just go force force something to be be learned. Um, but, uh, times have changed now. Uh, in a couple like now everything is, um, Chat... sorry AI-driven. You can go ask your ChatGPT or your or your Claude how to do something. It might not be correct, but it'll kind of go through the same motions now.

Absolutely, yeah, yeah. I would say Katana is a very AI-heavy, uh, focused on there as like not doing the work for you, but creating like frameworks and saving a lot of that mundane time on there. It does make you way more productive on there, especially like creating a ReadMe, right? Like I I remember in hackathons I'd be like 'oh, I'm tired. It's 36 hours in, I have my code working, frontend working' it's like 'oh my god, I gotta do a ReadMe' and then you have to spend all that time. Now I can say 'hey, can you look at all this code, put the ReadMe and then you can clean it up, right?' So like when it's not not like critical stuff, AI is very helpful for like for frontends and like, you know, quickly making adjustments on stuff that you understand the code for. Yeah, definitely I would not put my money in a purely Vibe Coded contract, but... you know, it's definitely helpful. I use it on the daily for different things on different tasks and automating stuff. So it's definitely and that's kind of one of the things that I'll be showing you guys today as well, like part of Katana's like AI tool.

Amazing, yeah, and I'm I'm really curious, uh, to to see it in action. But I guess before we kind of get into that, um, just to set the scene, um, DeFi is is great, um, for everything that it does and everything that it's done to this point, but I'm sure, uh, you can attest that there's still some problems, um, with overall accessibility and whatnot. I guess, um, in your mind you've you've been in the space long enough, like what are some of the still, um, some of the gaps, some of the bigger problems in the DeFi space, um, before it can get truly adopted worldwide?

Uh, number number one issue for sure and one of the things that stops me from like going all in is trust, right? Like every so often you're going to see 'this got hacked', 'this was hacked'. $24 million lost, $36 million lost, $100 million lost and then we hope that we get it back and some people takes the losses. Uh, that that's definitely a big issue, right? Like especially right now when you look at rates, uh, on Mainnet or something, like you're putting, you know, a million dollars at risk for 3%... eh. Or you could just take it out in a couple T-bills for 4% and have it insured, right? You know, so like those are kind of things that that are are really a a big hump of like 'why how come I'm not going all in?' I'm strategically putting like what I'm willing to lose for what the return is in certain aspects on there. Given that, you know, Katana has some pretty heavy incentives right now that that make that risk worth it, right? So it's definitely... if you haven't seen what's going on, definitely check it out. But that's by far the number one thing of like saying 'hey, mom, put your life savings on here', right? Like imagine like something possibly like there's always that risk factor. So, you know, it's one of those those biggest hurdles we have to do. And now with AI, people are using AI for good, I've seen a lot of those auditing things and then people are also using AI for bad, a lot of blackhat activity, right? So they're scanning all the old contracts, looking for exploits. So like it's going both ways, so it's always a constant battle of, you know, where we get there. Every every time there's a hack, we get harder and you harden our contracts, we get them stronger. Eventually we're going to get there. It's just, uh, it's not yet, right? So like there's always some form of risk anytime with DeFi, uh, even with the frontends too, right? Like even though if you have the most basic levels of DeFi, there's a lot of different pieces, a lot of different Lego pieces that can fall apart and then basically house of cards come come crashing down because some rounding error happened on some oracle. You know? It's like 'man'. So it's one of those things. And then, uh, getting TVL as a DeFi founder, right? Looking at it from both sides as a founder that's trying to start out with, uh, you know, getting things going, if you don't have initial capital to to make yourself legit, it's very difficult to get started, right? Cuz me as a user, I'm looking in and I see a brand new vault and I say 'hey, only $100? Oh, they're going to rug me, right?' Like you're just trying to start and if you don't have initial capital to show people 'hey, like there's been enough trust in this to put a lot of money in here' uh, then then it's like 'well, why should I do it?' and like and there's no money to do incentivize people to do that? So that becomes a problem and and that's something that Katana kind of like looks at as well and like those initial ones because we've kind of been there, right? As as builders and what we've been there in that thing like we have these ideas but it just doesn't take off. So like what are those missing factors that take off?

Yeah, yeah, wonderfully said and yeah, I agree I agree wholeheartedly, um, with all of it. Um, and and I guess, um, perhaps some of these these problems, um, Katana is is looking to solve. So, uh, I guess, um, what would be your, uh, so-called elevator pitch of Katana, uh, for people watching today?

Well, it's not so much of an elevator. Let me share my screen really quick on here. I'm kind of making like a like 'what is Katana' on here. So, uh, yeah. The next-generation DeFi chain. Like what we are is a very opinionated chain. I don't want to say we're exactly an app chain, but we are are focused on on exact narratives, right? So you as a builder, you as a user, you know, have you ever been somewhere on a restaurant and with someone that's very indecisive because they have a ton of options, right? Like you you can go to like a burger joint that serves tacos and serves spaghetti or something. It's like 'let's just get a burger, right?' and then you go to a burger joint that only has burgers and they say 'hey, you want a single or double?' right? Your decisions are made quicker, it's a lot less stressful, right? and that's kind of what Katana's doing in a sense. We have an orchestrated DeFi stack. We have a set of core apps, right? one DEX, which is SushiSwap right now. One lending borrowing app, which is Morpho, and one Perps, which will be coming out eventually soon, some something long. There's no fragmentation like on what to bet on, right? So think of it like an Apple Apple ecosystem, right? There's one iPhone whether iPhone Pro or whatever, but you know 'okay I want a MacBook' you know exactly what you do. As a builder, you know exactly what to bet on, right? Morpho... Morpho's not going away, right? So if I'm building something that's going to have leverage staking or leverage looping or anything like that, it is going to be built on Morpho, right? There's been many chains that we see right now, especially now, that there's a lot of dapps out there winding down. Imagine you built your leverage on top of that. So now your Lego piece underneath just fell apart, right? and so now with this orchestrated DeFi stack, you can now create strategies that you know are not going to go away and they're being built together, right?

The number one thing about this is capital gets put to work day one, right? On the chain. Anytime you bridge into Katana, those those bridged assets are getting put to use in like a productive strategy on ETH Mainnet, right? So theoretically, you could say we're we're one of the most ETH-aligned L2s out there because we're actually doing something on ETH Mainnet, right? It's not like 'hey, we'll we'll get you back and we'll pay some sequencer fees'. We're doing that already, but we're also doing stuff something on the ETH Mainnet directly on there. It also builds in chain-owned liquidity, right? So that means less slippage on there. So as the chain grows, as the TVL grows, the chain-owned liquidity will be there. So when people will pull out liquidity or when chains so-called die, you know, there's no liquidity, there's no exit... like the chain owns a lot of that liquidity. and anybody that's done founder stuff, renting liquidity is vampiric, right? So like 'oh, man' like 'okay I have a million TVL and then okay the terms have ended, you pull it out, you haven't made enough money, now what?' right? So like having access to that deep deep-owned liquidity is something that that makes you great. Like you have less slippage and your rates are a little bit better, right? And then the KAT token, right? That that's basically kind of like the vein of this whole mountain of DeFi, uh, is like your your emissions kind of go through through like your voting system on here. So you are I guess the the one of the best examples for that would be like let's say airplane miles, right? You're a constant flyer, you're a user of that airlines that specific airline you always go specifically with that airline you earn those miles. Now, you know, as this major mile holder, you know, that you've been using on there, you get to vote like on where the routes are. You know, let's say I was going from LA to New York but we have to fly through Atlanta or do something. It's like 'you know what? It's better if we go through the Texas side or the South side and come up with it, we get less turbulence'. And then you as a voter get to decide that on there. and you get to decide where the emissions go. So for those that are like not familiar with like, um, Aerodrome or Velo- ... Velodrome or Solidly or Curve, uh, basically you you lock up your tokens. You can do whatever you want with the tokens, but you can lock up your tokens and that gives you kind of like a voting power. Um, and then there's there's ongoing emissions going out that incentivize dapps on here. So like for for Aerodrome, like you can incentivize a a pool ETH-USDC or wrapped BTC-USDC, um, and then you can get incentivized to do for your work, so you get basically vote how that works. Well imagine that on the chain level, right? So when you when you work as a dapp on a chain, you're kind of on your own, right? You have to have your own token, you have to have your own incentives and then you hope that maybe the DAO will throw some of their tokens on there for the chain and then you get some incentives for like two months and then those go away and then your TVL gets lost. Well imagine if you were able to vote for your dapp theoretically indefinitely, right? So if you have stake in the game and you're a user in the game, as as a vKAT, which is the staked KAT token, you get to vote where the emissions go, right? So you can right now at this current time frame we're limiting only it to DEX LPs so like you get to vote for like ETH-USDC, ETH-wrapped BTC or whatever your pool is. So if you are a user and I'm supplying liquidity to the ETH-USDC pool, I'm going to vote for the ETH-USDC pool so I get more APY, right? Like as a DeFi user, it makes sense. Like I'm I'm in the game, I'm a user, I'm going to vote for what makes most for me, right? Cuz I'm a I'm a user. But as the the chain expands and as our mode road- ... roadmap clears out, and we start seeing this, we're going to be able to vote for things entirely on the chain. So I can vote for markets on borrow-lend, I can vote for markets on like Spectra yield tokenization, PT tokens. I can vote for incentives on PerpsDEX for volume, right? Like 'oh, you know, I'm I'm in this position, I have this delta neutral strategy, what works for me?' right? And ultimately you can vote for your dapp, right? The biggest thing for builders is that moat of getting TVL and having incentives. and the moment your incentives leave, everybody kind of leaves. I know cuz I leave, right? If the incentives are not there and there's a better opportunity, it's like 'no hard feelings, I just found a better opportunity for me, for my money, my risk' right? So I'm going somewhere else. But if you can keep voting and keep those emissions coming to you, then I'll stay there, right? Cuz it makes sense for me. And that's kind of like the value prop of what Katana does, is like being able to do this this kind of like flywheel type of scenario where you are the voter. Like if you're a user of the chain and you have, you know, your stack or if you're actually definitely using something in there like you're using a DEX LP, you're borrow-lending, you can incentivize your own position with your own votes. and that's kind of like one of the biggest value props that I've seen that's very unique on there. So it's happening on the Layer 1 level by, you know, using the ETH alignment on those strategies and on the Layer 2 level you're getting your emission votes as well and like it just basically the more people that come in to participate, you can't just sit there, you have to actually participate, the the more you get out of the chain.

Wow. Wow, yeah, that that seems... like that looks really awesome. I'm not going to lie. Yeah, yeah.

That's why I joined.

Yeah, yeah, there you go, there you go. Uh, and, um, and I I might have missed it, but, um, the entire incentivization to to keep the token token staked and in the network is so that you can participate in these types of votes and, um, basically, um, there's some like game theory behind it. I I've read, but that's essentially the crux of it, correct?

Ultimately, yeah, yeah. There's also like different strategies on there. We have, uh, relayers. Uh, we're going to have something called avKAT that you can then delegate some of your voting, uh, delegations on there. So you have you have to like do that service and then, you know, it'll auto-compound things for you so you don't have to like vote like bi-weekly or something. I know it's a little bit of homework. Some people like it, some people don't. We're doing different options. But again, it is very designed by people that actually use DeFi. and and one of those things is like I actually use the chain, to be honest. Like I have my own money on there, I have some investment strategies on there cuz there's there's a lot of people... and right now we're getting cleared out in the space, right? Now like people are are moving and leaving in the chain. Uh, there's a lot of people that didn't actually use the product they sold. So like I like to tell people like 'I actually use this product, right? Like I actually have stuff staked in in Katana on there. I'm farming it so I will be voting and I'll be doing it cuz I believe that works. As a DeFi user I've seen the frustrations, I've seen like the fragmented liquidity. I'm like 'all right, this is something that's worth working towards'. Yeah. Sick. And, uh, I I know you also mentioned it earlier, but you also have some alpha for us, um, regarding AI. Oh yes, definitely. So... I have seen a lot well, even like coming back to it, AI is definitely a major factor of like everything that we're building on here and like a lot of people you look at the timeline AI everything and I see a skillset. So I kind of built out an MCP server. It's not live yet, but it's it's in there. But, uh, I wanted to make a good MCP server, right? I didn't just want to make a a crazy one. So like I know this one takes a little bit of time on here, so I did some pre-set and I'll I'll do one live. Um, but, uh, MCP server basically has it. So now that we know that we have one DEX, now that we know we have one borrow-lending, one Perps, one KAT token, one one system to to kind of rule it all, you don't have to use that many tokens in order to scan opportunities on the chain, right? Like, uh, if you had to scan like every DEX, every aggregation, every every thing on the chain, it would take too much on there or you'd have to like your RPC would be dead. But now that we know we have one of each, we can run really good information on the MPC servers of like what's the status of this, what makes the most sense for me. So I created this MCP server for myself to begin with. What's the best strategy for me to do this? Like I don't want to keep looking at Dune Analytics and do this and things change, I just want to ask the question and then build out a contract, right? So ultimately, I I did that, right? So I was like, uh, you know, let me pull the data of... oh, sorry. Uh, okay. 'Can you tell me the current status of all the Sushi pools, which ones have the highest incentives?' right? Our incentives model all run through Merkle, right? So if you're a builder out here and you're looking to run like some some models or auto-compounding services, all you have to do is grab all the incentives from Merkle and then auto-compound them to whatever strategy you want, right? Very simple, one one one, right? Kind- kind I always compare it to like the Apple ecosystem, because I want to buy an accessory for my MacBook Pro, I'm not guessing the dimensions or anything. I already know. 2026 MacBook Pro, these are the dimensions, this is how it works, right? An instant framework. and that's kind of what we want to do at Katana. So I was like 'all right'. It's going to go look and it's going to look at all the pools that are available, how much volume, what are the reserves, you know, what is the balance. and then what are the incentives by APR. Like 'okay, boom, here's the fee schedule, this is the APR that it's dealing with'. and then it has its own like again, I have to work on some disclaimers on here because it's not financial advice, it's just giving you the data on there of like what what it is and what's available to you in a single thing. Like as more agents and more DeFi agents start coming out, a lot of frontends aren't going to be as used as much, right? They're going to look at the data and they're going to make the decision based on the data. Better than saving tokens is talking to the MCP server that's very optimized. And I was like 'hmm, do I want to use an MPC- ... MCP server or not?' because every time you connect one, it does take a little bit of tokens every time you ask a question. and there's a lot of Open Cloud users or you know, Cloud version users. So like tokens are very big, you know, reserve for me of like 'do is... when I connect to MCP server, it's got to be worth it', right? and and so like I wanted to make sure that was optimized on to to the maximum capability on there. So like, you know, if I said 'hey, you know, what if I wanted to, you know, pull all the lending Morpho vault opportunities? I want to deposit my USDC on Katana. Like what is what is one of the best APYs available on here?' So it looks at Morpho. and if anybody that's worked on Morpho realizes that the Morpho contract is static, but all the markets change and they grow indefinitely, right? So there I can get certain markets and I don't want to keep updating it so I have scripts running in the background that will do search indexing for you to save the tokens so you don't have to search it yourself, blowing your tokens. and then return just like the top top like 10, 15, uh, datas on there. So you so you can say 'hey, like these are all the ones that you can look at and if you want to deposit for that with the incentives'. Also basically the direct markets, maybe you don't want to go through a vault manager, maybe you want to go direct to the market. I do that a lot too and so I deposit on there and see what kind of utilization 'hey, you know, is it liquid? Is it not liquid?' right? All these things a DeFi person would understand... would would appreciate, right? and if you're learning, these are the numbers of things that you want to look at, right? And so, you know, it'll give you and then ultimately what's my return, right? Like where's where am I going to get the most returns on there, who's who's doing the curation, you know, that kind of stuff on there. Um, and then like 'all right, it'll give me a like a general idea based on APY but again that's, you know, up to you at your discretion to use on here'. And then for those that are a little bit more advanced, like looping strategies, right? 'What's the best looping strategy?' So I have to consider when I'm looking at looping strategy how much liquidity is there, what are the fees on the DEX when I got to sleep, how many bips am I paying, is there any slippage on these things, right? So like this can be a tool that you can learn or that you can use to build off of, right? and so it'll go through all the looping strategies available on there. and this takes time, this took two minutes because I'm scripting, looking at all the different markets all all the different things. So that's why I kind of like pre-loaded it a little bit. But then it's going to return 'hey look, this is one of the best ones on here, this is how much volume, I suggest doing five loops because of the liquidity, so when you unwind you don't, you know, get wrecked'. You know? So like there's a lot of things that are considered that are very useful for DeFi users, DeFi power users that may be running through Excel scripts. Everything's moving towards AI and it's inevitable, right? So it's like 'why not basically, you know, cater to that that audience on there'. So as you built into the MCP server, you could get the skills directly if you want to directly but this this is pretty much how it works and it's like giving me different type of like, you know, loop strategies, how much liquidity is available, give me a flag on that say 'okay, there's only like two loops because the liquidity is not there', right? So as more markets change, I can't hardcode that, right? I have to let the AI do its thing on there. So like that's one of the biggest things on here. and then ultimately what everybody cares about, can you actually build it? Yes, if you wanted to build a smart contract, wanted to build a looping strategy, right? These are low tokens. So I just want to show you like the token usage.

Can you help me see which ETH-USDC pool I... uh, has the most rewards? and I really was worried about token usage. That that was my number one thing cuz again, I was a $20 Claude user and anybody that was using $20 Claude with Opus, two prompts and you're done for five hours, right? Like I I be like 'man, this this sucks' because I can't do anything, right? And then the people with $200 they were just, you know, flying all day. So I was like 'all right, let me make the token usage as small as possible, as minimal as possible'. So I have scripts kind of like running on the backend and just the the tokens return the data, right? Like so just the data gets handled by the tokens on there. and so yeah, like this is kind of like just giving me the general idea of like what's available, uh, what what's here, like how much it's making. So like it's doing all the numbers for me and it's just returning on like, you know, what what kind of data I get with minimal. I think that maybe use like 200 tokens or 300 tokens. Not thousand, done. But like I want to build something like... can you build me a smart contract to handle the rebalancing? That's going to take some some tokens, right? Because now it's going to do the logic in the, uh, in like the smart contract stuff and then building it out. But basically it knows what it needs to do and it's going to help me do the rebalance for this on there. So like it's going to like pull the ABIs that are already loaded, it's already set. So like that way it's going to like search and do everything for me. So when the MCP server goes live, I want it to be a really good tool for everybody to to learn, to use, actually be a useful MCP server than just 'here's smart contracts, here's the docs, go build', right? And that was kind of like my biggest value prop of like 'what would I use on there?' So, you know, those those are kind of like how I would go. and obviously you can see it going and it'll build you stuff. So like I I built it for users and for developers to go both ways depending on how they wanted to to go with that. But yeah, that that's the MCP- MCP tool. I have so many acronyms in my head, it's like crazy. But that's the MCP server tool that I'm building for Katana on there. Yeah, it's just me on on that, um, I'm owning it, that's my stack. So if there's any problems, definitely holler at me or or blame me if you're getting your tokens blown out. But definitely, uh, you know, something I'm very considerate of on there. and so I'm going to skip it because I'm not going to blow those tokens, but ultimately this is what it can- what it's ultimately wanting to do.

Awesome. Yeah, that that's so dope and yeah, it's awesome you also... you subtly mentioned it, but, um, you said that you basically built something that solves a problem or something that you wanted to make more accessible for you, um, which is one of the key cornerstones of anybody who's trying to start a business or or start a a new venture, right? So, um, you got to build something that solves your own problem and and then you kind of take it from there. So, and and I guess, um, any any any more alpha around when people can start playing around with the MCP server or...?

I'm hoping in the next week or so. Um, I'm I'm getting an official link, right? I have it testing on a personal link, you know 'don't click random links in crypto, right?' So I want to make everything official, nice and safe. I'll probably make like a like a tutorial guide on there like how to install it to your cloud and get that up and running and then, you know, show people how it goes. It works for everything, like if you're using Codex or or whatever. It's built for for all the agents on there, but I just use Claude personally on there so but basically for for every one of them. If you don't want to do the MCP server, you can get the skills directly if you want to directly and then use that scale. But just people tend to forget and then again I wanted to make an MCP server worth the tokens.

100%. And and yeah, uh, as far as I've I've read, um, the token usage comes from the fact that the MCP server when you start it up, it's got to load the entire schema of the um, of the toolsets and whatnot as inside of the context and that like blows it up every time. and we're we're seeing, at least I've seen a little bit, um, people are kind of getting around that by building CLI tools. Uh, like Google... Google released their whole workspace CLI like a couple days ago to kind of like lead the charge there.

That that's ultimately going to be the next step, right? Like I think AI changes so fast that like you'd have to be jobless to keep up with like how fast it's moving because it's like so many things you play. Yeah, CLI is definitely the next step. Again, an agent-first experience, right? Of like docs docs are great, but agentic servers and skills are better because it's already built in there. and as we move it, but we still have a long way to go before we do that. So we definitely want to have people use the app and use that on there. Um, you know, as we're going on there I kind of wanted to show like what's happening on Katana, so I I killed my screen but let me get bring it back here. Um, but one thing I did want to highlight on there for DeFi and what it is as I share my screen again...

Is like there's an ongoing incentive campaign right now, uh, on the Katana Earn. So if you are in the regions of of Binance and OKX, if you have that if you are living in that I do not so I cannot take advantage of it unfortunately, but I would absolutely love to, is, uh, you know, there's crazy incentive campaigns happening on both concurrently right now. Uh, I think there's alpha on like something else maybe popping up in the mix too, but uh, as we head towards the end of the quarter on there... I mean there's there's major incentives on there like, um, you know, I think... I think there's like a 50 million campaign on OKX and 40 million, don't quote me on that, I'm doing that off the top of my head, but like of KAT tokens that are going in there and then that will let you own a piece of the stack as well and then you can devote it in there. So like just just think of it like imagine getting early on Aerodrome or Velodrome kind of stuff, you know, like being able to get voting early and get all those crazy like incentiv- ... I don't want to promise anything but like those those are like cool things to to get on. Everybody wants to be early on there so like if you're in that zone it'd be great to like get in there and like start experimenting with the voting and see how Katana plays out in the flywheel.

Awesome. And yeah, I mean, uh, weekend's coming up, so no better opportunity to to start messing around with that. and yeah, I mean, uh, we'll have all those links, um, that Billy has just shown, uh, in the description of the podcast. Um, if you're watching us live, uh, I've just dropped them in the, uh, comments, uh, so you guys definitely check it out. and Billy as we're coming to time here, um, we've seen at least in the beginning of this year up to now, um, a lot of bearish, uh, sentiment, um, in the, um, Web3 blockchain DeFi space, people, um, for lack of a better term jumping ship, uh, to other other opportunities. Um, for those people who are still in in the space or some people who might still be on the fence of whether to stay or not, um, how would you kind of describe the the opportunities that are still in in the space of DeFi?

I I think right now blockchain, crypto technology has really shown its value prop in like the financial aspect of it like, you know, escrows, payments, payments has been blowing up a lot. You know, those those things that we were very excited about in 2020, 2021 as new devs started coming in, uh, are now showing its face, like it's a little bit more institutional now, right? and so not not so much DAOy, but more like structured on there. DeFi is still extremely valuable. With AI and like, you know, kind of logging into like engineering jobs in a sense, it's very hard for juniors to to kind of get a start. What is going to set you apart is your ability to understand how these mechanics work, you know, get your hands a little bit dirty with it because experience is what's going to make you set apart on these these kind of things, right? If I didn't know about, you know, looping strategies or anything like how can I design an MCP server around it, optimize, right? So like those that's kind of your value prop of like with these things that you see like product-market fit, those are the things I I really dove in on. Something I didn't see were product market and we're seeing like the the market kind of faded out. Could there be another opportunity? Absolutely. You know, everybody always say consumer kind of apps. We might get there one day but the tech is just not there yet. We're we're working on it. and if you want to be a pioneer for that, that's going to be a hard way up, but you could, right? But if you want to, you know, see where like those product market... I mean there's there's tons of people like you look at institutionals, they're looking for DeFi leads. All every day, right? So DeFi infrastructure, DeFi smart contract advisor, you know, uh, curators. They're all looking for it because there is value in that. So it's just that has shifted a little bit to a little bit more institutional style on there, but it's not like there's not opportunity. And and with AI, it's kind of exciting because you can see a lot of creativity fly on there and like with AI auditing in a sense, we're not there yet, don't just use AI, but now you're not stuck on on having a 50K audit before you can deploy your product, right? I think that was a major stopper right now because I can make a website and it's not financial, so no big deal. But if I wanted to make a smart contract and deploy, a lot of ideas happened and they all get stopped at that auditing cost. 50K, 100K, right? and so that that dream dies. So now with AI and having the excess to to get much better idea on security, maybe those costs will come down greatly and then like you can get more experimentation again and we can start seeing some really cool ideas spark on there. So like both sides of the table on there of what what can and can't happen on that.

Yeah, I 100% agree. and yeah, I mean, uh, yeah, I I've seen a lot of, um, smart contract quotes... or smart contract audit quotes, um, as pretty yeah, unless you already got the dough or have some VC money, uh, yeah, it is indeed out of the reach of some people. But there's other alternatives around and, um, AI with where it's at today I I think can squash a decent amount of like the beginner errors at least. Um, but yeah, we'll see how it evolves. I I think it's exciting. It is, it is 100% exciting.

And yeah, I guess with that, um, we're at time. Uh, Billy, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come chat with us, uh, dropping some alpha. Uh, yeah, I'm certainly quite bullish on Katana and I'm really keen to see it continue to evolve, uh, as the years come come along here.

Absolutely, thank you, thank you for having me. Yeah, Katana team has been grinding. We're literally working I I don't think I've ever worked more in my life in the crypto space to be honest so it's been pretty pretty hefty yeah, so yeah. Very good stuff, very exciting. Yeah. So thank you so much for having me, Narb.

My pleasure, anytime. Uh, and yeah, with that, I guest I 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, have a good one folks. Cheers.