This week, intropia hosted an exclusive AMA with Mitya Argunov, CPO and Alexey Bondar, research analyst of P2P Validator. We discussed a wide range of topics, from how P2P works with crypto whales & other well-known crypto companies, the FTX dilemma and why there’s no crypto in crypto exchanges anymore, to the latest trends transforming the crypto world.
For your convenience, here’s a transcript of the the thought-provoking conversation!
Questions and Answers
Q: Who are P2P Validator, what are you doing and what’s your mission?
A: P2P has been in the space for a really long time. We’ve been validators since 2018, and we’re all about supporting decentralization & the new wave of people coming into crypto. As validators, P2P is primarily focused on institutional investors. P2P also invests in various data services like RPC nodes & data infrastructure for foundation teams, developers, and ecosystem users.
Q: Can you explain how P2P does non-custodial staking and what is actually is?
A: Non-custodial staking means it’s done on the protocol level. To simplify, it’s like a bank deposit, because from the investor perceptive it’s relatively low-risk. Though there are a couple of important distinctions to mention: as we’re fully non-custodial, we do not take the tokens from our investors. On the network level, there is a connection that exists between their tokens and our validator. And the better we do as a validator, the higher rewards they will receive.
Q: How intropia and P2P are connected?
A: P2P was one of the first companies that started experimenting with intropia’s Introduce & Earn model, and the P2P founder was one of the first backers of the project too. At intropia, we’ve been working with a few critical technical positions like SRE engineer, helping P2P to source some great talent.
Q: Who are the biggest clients of P2P?
A: The historical customer base of P2P are crypto OGs, early ETH or Polkadot investors. Also, P2P works with established crypto institutions, companies outside the industry just dabbling in crypto, whales as companies, and whales as individuals. Probably the biggest P2P clients right now are Lido (a liquid stake solution) and CoinList (assists lots of different blockchain protocols with purchase & sale of tokens). P2P also provides infrastructure for multiple clients outside of staking.
Q: Is staking with P2P exclusive for the crypto whale individuals & crypto whale companies, or basically anyone can stake with you if they wish?
A: Everyone can stake with P2P because P2P has public nodes on every network they operate. They operate across 40 different networks now, the most extensive networks include Polkadot, Solana, and Cosmos, and you can pick them as a validator. P2P has public support channels, for example, on Telegram, for users to ask their questions, and it operates close to 24/7. In rare cases, there are restrictions imposed by the network. For example, to start receiving rewards in Polkadot, you have around 300 dots. Still, other than that, there’s no exclusivity.
Q: What about client anonymity? We all know that crypto whales are mostly prefer to stay fully anonymous, so how does P2P manage that?
A: If someone wants to stay anonymous, they can discuss it with us, but in most cases, staking is non-custodial, so they don’t need to provide KYC, and the funds always remain in the client’s wallet. We have 40 000 different addresses that stake with P2P, and out of them, we probably know a few hundred of them by just their Telegram handle and a few by their actual names.
This is very interesting from the product wise because, as a product owner or product manager, you usually would love to know as much as possible about your customer. In their case, trying to do that is almost against the crypto space’s ethos.
Q: Why is there no “crypto” in the crypto exchanges anymore and how FTX is related to it?
A: When I say there’s no “crypto” in the crypto exchanges anymore, I’m talking about centralized crypto exchanges.
The key point is to observe the CEX UI and realize that the token represented there exists in the database of the CEX, not on the blockchain.
Some exchanges vary on how they manage tokens on a blockchain. This means there can be discrepancies between what you see in the UI and what’s actually happening on the blockchain. People cannot directly manage their tokens on the chain, which leads to issues when trying to withdraw staked tokens.
FTX was an excellent example of that. It doesn’t necessarily mean that all centralized exchanges are untrustworthy. It is important to consider the way these platforms manage your funds.
Q: Is web3 dying or just evolving? What are the latest web3 trends sharing the industry?
A: Web3 is not dying, it’s just going through a transformation.
In the past, there were many applications that emerged within various ecosystems. These applications focused on distributing their native tokens to attract users. However, we will soon see a shift from this model to one that prioritizes capturing value within the application’s economics. It’s a much-needed shift. We also need optional privacy & Zk, which seems very interesting and promising as well. While Ethereum will continue to grow at a snail’s pace, it won’t be the only one. I don’t think alternative chains will perish, so we’ll observe more differentiation among.
P2P provides secure non-custodial staking services for professional investors, allowing token holders to participate in staking without the heavy lifting of running a node. Check out P2P website, follow them on Twitter and Telegram!
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