PowerPool Twitter Spaces AMA with Mellow Protocol — July 3, 2023
PowerPool and Mellow Protocol have completed their joint Community Call AMA and discussed PowerAgent v2 and their potential partnership.
If you missed the call, we’ve prepared this Recap article!
Spaces Recording: https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1vOGwMymMXVxB
Speakers:
Gordon Gekko: @gordongekko_CVP
Vasily Sumanov: @vasilysumanov
Alex Euler (Mellow Protocol): @mellowprotocol @0xAlexEuler
Recap:
Gordon: So, to sort of set the scene, if you like. Why are we talking about Defi automation? Why do we even care? I think it’s important to realize that in the beginning, Defi was pretty much manual. Part-time degens did their own thing and that worked a little bit. But when you look at the main primitive Defi functions, things like AMMs, for example, the first versions were built several years ago by people like Bancor and then Uniswap. But by now these AMMs have been through several iterations. Uniswap is now on Uniswap 3 and Uniswap 4. Bancor has just released Carbon. These latest versions of AMMs don’t work anything like the original AMMs. They’re totally different. And the reason is that the first versions of AMMs were set up to attract passive liquidity providers, but they just did not work. They did not and do not generate sufficient sustainable rewards for passive LPs in most cases, especially not for uncorrelated tokens. The whole Defi world learned about IL and toxic flow the hard way. By now there have been many academic studies published pointing that out. And so the AMMs have had to evolve to provide a better deal for LPs. That’s why you now see Uniswap 3 with concentrated liquidity and now there’s also Uniswap 4 with programmable hooks. They’ve done this because they know that manual passive LPing on earlier version AMMs doesn’t make sense.
Gordon: But when Uniswap version 3 introduced concentrated liquidity, everybody quickly realized you can’t do this manually. Even the full-time individual degen can’t do liquidity management very well manually, and gas fees on Ethereum are always a barrier. And so AMM liquidity management became an obvious opportunity for people like Mellow to offer automated services to manage LP positions. And the new programmable hooks in Uniswap version 4 are just extending that process. Meanwhile, you have Carbon from Bancor responding that not only do they have concentrated liquidity, but they have asymmetric liquidity where you trade different limits in different directions. There are also now proposed new AMM designs that use fee increases to repel toxic flow and protect LPs. This continuous innovation is good, and inevitable if AMMs are going to scale their liquidity by offering a better deal to LPs, but no one can do advanced liquidity management manually. AMM design has just gone beyond the point where the average degen can/should passively LP responsibly. If you still want to LP in AMMs, that’s fine. But now you need automation services like Mellow or others to LP on AMMs effectively, and a similar story can be told across many Defi primitives. So essentially, that’s why we’re here. We’re here talking about how automation starts to facilitate Defi which really does useful things while protecting your capital.
Gordon: So with that, I think I’ll introduce Vasily Sumanov, the Director of Research for PowerPool, to talk about PowerPool’s PowerAgent automation network and what it is. There aren’t a lot of protocols like PowerPool because PowerAgent is in fact a whole separate network and a new kind of ancillary ‘helper’ network. And then we’ll introduce the Mellow protocol and we’ll take it from there. So, Vasily, can you introduce PowerPool?
Vasily: First of all, nice to meet you all guys. Thank you for joining this Space. There are a lot of people here today. I’m really excited that automation has become something that people really want to know about. So who is PowerPool? PowerPool began as a manager of automated pools and multi-token indices, which we now better call PowerVaults and PowerBaskets. We built a lot of automated optimization solutions and launched them on the market in collaboration with protocols like Yearn, Balancer, etc. But in 2022 we decided to re-architect everything to focus on generalized, decentralized automation using our own network, the PowerAgent Automation Network. By then we had a lot of experience in this field and we decided that autonomous automation is something that really needs to be generalized, you know, composable and really working well. When we started doing this, the existing solutions to automation were quite weak in terms of decentralization, in terms of guaranteed transaction execution, and with little use of cryptographic incentives as well. So because there was no best solution, from 2022 up to today a lot of teams were using, and are still using, their own specialized, centralized bots while they wait for a better solution. Currently, there is no dominant automation network offering the best solution, like ChainLink for oracle networks. We think PowerAgent v. 2 can be the dominant network in the automation space, operating across most if not all EVM chains. Automation has very broad potential applications, going even beyond Defi. There was no established architecture or approach, and centralized home-rolled bots are often single points of failure. So we decided, you know, to dig deeply into it. So we have dedicated a whole year of internal-development and academic research to building the best-in-class decentralized crypto automation network for the market. We’re now in the Sepolia Testnet stage.
Vasily: So I will just briefly share some of the most innovative features of the PowerAgent v. 2 networks. The first unique innovation is automated slashing. No other automation network in the market has truly automated slashing, without any multi-sig authorization or any manual action. PowerAgent will automatically slash Keepers if they do not execute their transaction on time or on condition in automatic mode. This is a big innovation currently being tested in Testnet.
The second unique feature is that we can apply different Keeper selection mechanics to different types of jobs because there are different risk profiles for jobs. A routine vault harvesting job and a position migration job are entirely different in terms of risks associated with the job as are liquidation protection in MakerDAO, etc. We can apply different selection algorithms that can be, you know, more efficient in this or that type of job.
The third unique feature relates to off-chain events and off-chain triggers that we can take into account or use as triggers using ZK-proofing. This is under development at the moment. We also aim to deliver it very soon. I think we have something really big here and can expand the use cases a lot and make it a much more flexible solution.
The fourth one is gas efficiency. So PowerAgent is really well optimized. When you’re talking about Ethereum, it’s really important to minimize the amount of gas spent for all the Keeper network operations, like Keeper selection, and all the additional things for transaction execution. Because Job Owners will pay for using this type of network. So we are now at least twice as gas efficient as any of our competitors because of code optimization, etc. This will be quite important for Ethereum. But eventually, PowerAgent will be deployed on all EVM-compatible chains. We are already applying for grants from EVM chains that are not even fully launched yet, in order to be the automation ‘helper network’ and part of the infrastructure layer on those chains from Day One.
Vasily: We are currently testing PowerAgent v. 2 on the Sepolia testnet. The next step will be to go live on Gnosis Chain because they use the same consensus as Ethereum. It will offer us and our Keeper nodes easy onboarding. Also, it’s a mainnet environment, but with safe testing and low gas cost. Gnosis Chain is also a low-cost chain allowing us to do a lot of testing in a near-Ethereum environment without a lot of unnecessary gas costs for these tests. I think that we will go live on the Gnosis Chain by the time of the upcoming Ethereum Community Conference, and I will be there to meet anybody who is interested in participating in development, testing, and integrations with other protocols, etc. I’m open to any type of meeting there. So let’s meet, chat and build something cool.
Vasily: To make it easier to recruit Keeper nodes, we have now also partnered with DAppNode. DAppNode is the biggest provider of node/validator software for Ethereum, targeting nodes for solo staking, for independent validators. Because automation requires access to the RPCs, we think that for a truly decentralized and robust network like PowerAgent, Keepers should have their own private RPCs instead of relying on fragile RPC-as-a-service solutions like Alchemy, Chainnodes, Ankr, or something like that, because these can shut down and create issues such that Keepers wouldn’t be able to do anything without access to the data. So we have partnered with DAppNode. DAppNode now accounts for more than 40% of Ethereum nodes on the network. This is quite a big share of the still expanding Ethereum network, and it is mostly home stakers and independent validators.
Vasily: PowerAgent is fully supportive of the narrative that we need to provide more revenue sources to encourage more independent stakers and home validators to preserve Ethereum decentralization. PowerPool DAO in general is wholly committed to defending the maximum decentralization of Ethereum. Via our partnership integration with DAppNode, we make it easy for anyone running a DAppNode Ethereum validator to also launch a PowerAgent Keeper node on top of their Ethereum validator and earn extra fees in ETH. This provides additional ETH income for any DAppNode validators choosing to participate as (permissionless) PowerAgent Keeper nodes. As PowerAgent branches to other EVM POS chains, Job execution fees will always be paid at least partly in native tokens, like BNB, GNO, AVAX on Avalanche, etc. on every chain. In addition, Job Owners can add some other local token payments on top of the native token fee. So the value proposition for EVM POS validators is very clear. If you launch PowerPool’s PowerAgent Keeper node on top of your validator, you will earn more real yield. It’s simple. If you are selected to sign some transactions, you will get gas cost compensation and also you will get one (native) or more rewards on top of that. This makes running small validators and home staking much more financially viable, thus encouraging decentralization on every chain where PowerAgent operates.
Vasily: We plan to keep onboarding significant numbers of validators as Keeper nodes until PowerAgent becomes quite a big ancillary or ‘helper’ network on every supported chain. We are aiming for around 100 Keeper nodes per chain and hopefully more on Ethereum. So 100 or 200 Keeper nodes is our target at this time and hopefully, this will be even more in the future. So if you are running a validator, and you are interested in earning additional income without doing much, you just simply launch the PowerAgent Keeper node… you can do it with one click from the DAppNode bundle. You don’t need to learn anything, it is just a one-click solution. And just like that you are adding more ETH or other native token income on top of your validator earnings. So the value proposition of PowerAgent to Keeper nodes is quite clear. Currently, we are aiming not to ask prospective operators to launch new Ethereum validators, but rather just to ask current Ethereum validators to launch PowerAgent keeper nodes in addition. This is our current node acquisition strategy, and it is very consistent with the overall Ethereum decentralization and maximum international home-staking agenda.
So this was a not-so-brief introduction to PowerPool and PowerAgent v. 2. We have a lot going on, and there are not a lot of other DAOs with this kind of history, scope, and accomplishment. Much, much more to come. The research and innovation underlying PowerAgent v. 2 has already been published as an academic article explaining how random Keeper selection works, how weighted Keeper selection works, etc. So now let’s introduce Mellow Finance as an example of how automation is adding value in Defi.
Mellow: Thanks. I will give a short introduction and maybe some kind of history of the Mellow protocol. What we are doing right now is liquidity management and this involves the optimization of yields. And also we manage liquidity for large protocols where you need to manage it in the optimal way. We actually started a couple of years ago when Uniswap V3 just started and it was pretty obvious that the whole model of opening these price ranges was something that needed to be managed with great care. So to do it correctly there are a lot of variables involved and there is just no way that every individual LP on Uniswap would be able to do it well. We expected that a lot of issues would be there, which did happen after. So we started to think about how we can actually try to alleviate this pain for the end users and maybe make a solution which everyone can reuse. And that’s how we came up with Mellow Vaults Design, where everyone can just LP into our vault. We have the automated strategy, which is a smart contract, and it goes by specified rules and then it manages the liquidity in Uniswap for all the LPs that are in our vaults simultaneously. So this obviously saves some gas costs, but also saves LPs from unnecessary risk, which they can face if they go and try to provide new liquidity by themselves. So we started with that and then it was pretty obvious that it is still really hard to consistently earn something on Uniswap and you need some kind of hedges, or maybe you need some more efficient liquidity utilization.
Mellow: We also expanded to other protocols like Gearbox. That’s where we built several strategies to earn more yields. Also, we’re managing the liquidity for other protocols on Uniswap as well. So that’s what we’re doing right now. And unfortunately, Ethereum doesn’t have a notion of automation or some kind of a cron job that triggers repeatedly. So you have to do it sort of manually. We tried to abstract out this part where there is just some external entity that could automatically send the transactions which does this liquidity management from time to time. And generally, this is the period of three days to a week or something like that where at each point in time something should be triggered and the transaction should go to rebalance the funds inside the vault. And obviously, we can do it manually. But then it’s like you have to have someone that is awake like 24 hours a day. And this is not something that is easily done. And because we live in this new era of automation, that’s why we try to automate this stuff and that’s why we are very eager to see solutions like PowerPool’s PowerAgent and, you know, Gelato and other players in the field who can actually automate all these jobs working with blockchains.
Vasily: Yeah, thanks. But could you maybe explore a little bit deeper? You know, what kind of automation do you use, and how should it work? I mean, what is the on-chain trigger, and how are these positions moved? Just a little bit deeper for the audience.
Mellow: Absolutely. So the thing is, let’s say we have a strategy and it has deployed the liquidity into the Uniswap pool in a specific price range. Now what we want to do is when the price goes somewhere close to the edge, we want to rebalance the liquidity. So let’s say the price started at the center of the interval, then it moves to the edge and now we want the interval to to be shifted so that the price is again in the center. We are actually doing all this on-chain. So it sort of closes the previous liquidity position then makes some swaps, then creates the new liquidity position which is centered around the price, and pours all the liquidity there. So that’s something that happens off-chain, but there are two challenges. First, you need to track the price. Obviously, the trigger for this rebalance is a price-based trigger. So you have to monitor the price. And as soon as it goes out to some specific values, then you have to react.
Mellow: So you need to have some off-chain bot or keeper that will actually send the transaction which does the rebalance. So that is the first part. The other part is that Uniswap is a bit tricky in terms of getting the slippage thing. So if you just send the transaction that it could be actually sandwiched, someone could move the price and then it can actually drain your liquidity and you just get rekt with that rebalanced transaction. So to alleviate that, thresholds or minimum amounts that you need to supply and again off-chain. So that’s like the other part where the bot actually needs to be a bit smart. So it needs to understand how much liquidity it expects to be poured in. And if that amount is kind of lower then it means that you were sandwiched and the transaction needs to be reverted. So it is difficult to make the bot not only trigger watches for the price trigger but also needs to be a bit smart to get threshold values to supply into the transaction call.
Vasily: Yep. So it’s pretty interesting. So here you can see that using flashbots is quite important to the MEV thing, right? Because MEV is quite dangerous here, right? For liquidity providers. And you said that you need off-chain triggers as well right? So you need to have a combination of on-chain and off-chain triggers to make the strategy really work well. Am I correct?
Mellow: Oh, yeah, absolutely. But then again, even if you’re using flash bots, then you also need to be taking care of these things with the price manipulation because flashbots have these options or whatever, and there is no like 100% guarantee that the transaction would not be met. So yeah, it is obviously useful to avoid that.
Vasily: And could you maybe elaborate on off-chain triggers?
Mellow: Yeah, absolutely. So what we actually do is based on a periodic basis. We just kind of wake up every 10 sec to see what’s going on with the price. We’re trying to get the oracle price because it’s a bit more stable. And if, if the price is at some point that we need, we know that we need to rebalance, then we do it. So you put on-chain the logic if the rebalance should be triggered or not. And then on-chain logic just checks the price if it’s here or there if the rebalance is needed. Then all you have to do is just to call the function. It will return true or false, or maybe just be executed or revert it and you just do it via static call. And if it does, then you just send the actual transaction.
Vasily: So I think Mellow is quite a good example of why ZK-proofing and off-chain computation is critically important for the future of Keepers because I think that not only Mellow, but many other protocols have some off-chain conditions to be correctly automated, and correctly executed. This is very important and I think that one year from now, the landscape of Keeper networks will evolve and that all major L1 networks will integrate some kind of infrastructure like PowerAgent for off-chain events, off-chain computations, etc. because without them they just cannot move forward and there is a LOT of competition form alternative L1s.
Vasily: I also want to ask, how often are these transactions executed? Just from a historical perspective, is it one or two times per day? I mean, of course, we cannot predict it. It depends on the volatility in the market. Right? So I think that volatility is the main trigger, effectively a generalized trigger for the whole thing, because if the market is flat you don’t need to change the trading upper zone, but if demand for the token in the market has moved significantly, maybe you will need to change it even several times a day. Do you have any data, maybe any insights on it?
Mellow: Oh, yeah. So for us, it’s like I said, it’s generally I would say it’s like a couple of days or a week and this is a per vault basis. And now the next thing is we have obviously like ten vaults or something like that. So it means we are doing it a bit, maybe every day or something like that we look at the whole protocol, but I can easily imagine that this could actually be much more frequent triggers. The obvious natural reason for this low frequency is that on Ethereum each transaction has its own significant gas costs. But that’s not that big of an issue on L2s. So that’s where I can imagine that there could be strategies that are doing it more frequently or less frequently. It just really depends on how the price moves and volatility and all these things.
Vasily: Yeah, I think it’s known that the Mellow products are something really interesting for simulations because there can be different strategies for moving the ranges. I think it’s still a relatively unexplored area of designs and I think the L2s will unlock a big amount of new stuff. What do you think about the L2s from Mellow’s point of view? What do you think, what the L2s will be like? Will they dominate by liquidity and by applications for Mellow solutions? We have Optimism, we have Arbitrum, we have Polygon, and now zkEVM is also in the house. So what do you think is the future of L2s? I think that probably maybe 1 or 2 L2s/rollups will become like a settlement layer, for example, the GMX case showed us that a good rollup solution can attract a lot of liquidity and a lot of traders. So what do you think? What is the target L2 chain for the next year for Mellow? What do you expect? I know it is not possible to predict everything now, especially in the bear market where a lot of liquidity providers are still very conservative and not moving significant capital to new chains because nobody knows if they will work well or not. And the time for getting liquidity back to Ethereum also depends on the nature of the rollup. But what do you think about that? You know, this big new world of L2s and rollups, which could be the winner in terms of liquidity? Because I think that Mellow will deploy where the liquidity is the biggest, where the demand for such products is higher.
Mellow: Yeah. I think there are two parts to this question. The first one is how Mellow works and the second is where the whole L2 evolution is going. As Mellow, we are actually kind of followers here because we are service providers. So we’re just looking for the guys who are deployed and who have capital and we are pretty much agnostic. As long as it’s an EVM-based chain, we don’t need to rewrite any on-chain logic. We are very fast to deploy on the network as required. So right now, in addition to Ethereum, we also deployed on Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, and even on Moonbeam. So in this case we are pretty much agnostic and we are just trying to go after the guys who need the automation solutions. In terms of the whole evolution of the L2s, it largely depends, I think, on the security of the solution and the ecosystem that is built around it. I think at least some solutions will be migrated to L2s. And in this case, I think maybe ZK chains, but I think they are kind of a bit uncertain. If they prove that they are really secure and they have a settlement on Ethereum, which is guaranteed by Ethereum or on Polygon as such, then I think they have the most chances of getting at least technically these new solutions. But again, all this largely depends on the whole ecosystem building, how many devs will be attracted to the network, and how much liquidity will be there. So yeah, I think Ethereum most likely will still exist. And again, it’s not right now, it’s not very clear how much liquidity will be left on Ethereum because this obviously will be the most robust and secure solution. But again, if there will be a very good ecosystem development from other chains, then it probably makes sense to migrate to those tools as long as they’re secure. Ethereum in this case will be a kind of a security layer for all these L2s. Currently it just largely depends on many unknown factors. So I don’t have any prediction of how the liquidity will be distributed among these chains.
Vasily: Yep. I think nobody can predict it now, but I personally bet a lot on zkSync, to be honest. I think that ZkSync could be potentially a very, very big player and I think that we need to pay a lot of attention to it. I also want to ask about Mellow v2. I heard some rumors that you will deliver something really big soon and it will unlock even more automation use cases and allow people to build really cool stuff there and make something automated and very new there. So could you maybe elaborate a bit about it? How can we unlock the whole new world of automation for the products of Mellow Finance? What about the function optimization that you shared with me recently?
Mellow: Yeah, sure. So one obstacle that we came upon when we deployed Mellow V1 is that each new strategy and vault now requires a significant development effort to make it live. And I don’t mean it’s super huge. It generally takes like 2 to 3 days for us to make a new vault. But still, there is a need for some guys who know the protocol, know DeFi protocols really well, and then they can do that. What we want to achieve in V2 is we actually want to enable nearly everyone just to go to our platform and then specify kind of a target function for the asset allocation they wish to maintain. Then click the button to deploy it. And then the strategy involved will be live and will be managed automatically. So that’s what we want to do. And under the hood, it involves two kinds of entities. The first is we are employing the mechanics of Dutch auctions under the hood, and that’s why we need a kind of an automation bot that watches for the vaults that needs to start these auctions and stop them. So that’s something that needs to be off-chain and that’s where obviously we need some off-chain automation solutions. The other is a bit more involved I would say, and this is the actual rebalancing bots. So they kind of try to go into the vault and understand what they need to do in order to bring the system back to balance. And these bots also could be run. I mean, they will be run obviously off-chain and potentially they will have some logic for rebalancing and all these things as well. So that’s like the second part where we will obviously need an off-chain automation solution.
Vasily: Yep. Very cool. So we will expect a protocol that people can use as a building block for automation somehow. So I can, as an independent developer, build something on top of Mellow. I think we can definitely also integrate PowerAgent underneath there, and it can be instantly used for automation right after the deployment.
Mellow: This involves a sort of competition so everyone can make their bot and then deploy it. And as soon as the bot is the fastest to deliver a better-balanced transaction, then it earns some additional yields for that. So every developer can go build their own solution, which is more efficient than the others. And then basically have the yields of these rebalancing bots.
Vasily: Yep, I got it. So I think this is very good. You know, competition always leads to improvement in efficiency, and I think that we need to avoid manual whitelisting and just see who will be the leader. So, yeah, Gordon, do you have anything to add? I think that we see that increasingly Defi really becomes not Defi triggered by users but Defi built and triggered for users. So the user will do less and less with his own wallet, many fewer manual actions, and yet get more results from it. So I think the majority of protocols will require increasing automation. For example, Uniswap v3 is almost impossible to use in standalone manual mode by an average user. Some whales may have their own custom strategy. They can build their own bots and I know such kinds of whales. But anyway, I think that for any retail users or typical funds that invest in liquidity provision for income, I think it’s much better to use a strategy provider like Mellow that is automated and has some history and traction, and an open source that can be used by everyone because I think we don’t need a lot of custom solutions on the market. It’s quite evident that if people build their own automation solution they will need to develop it themselves, support it themselves, make it work all the time, and take all the responsibility.
Vasily: Because I think that we are now at the point where the accessibility is transferred to the solution itself and to the automation network, and the user then has less responsibility for his actions. This is good because Defi is now too complex. People just cannot be farming 10 protocols themselves. It’s not possible at all. So I think that the whole automation narrative will become bigger and bigger over time. And I think eventually the majority of protocols will require significant automation that can be automated by autonomous Keepers, by automation networks like PowerAgent, and that ancillary, helper networks like automation networks are now a whole new sector of protocols, offering Ethereum-based infrastructure. So Gordon, could you maybe add a couple of words on it, on your view, on the whole thing?
Gordon: Okay. Thanks, Vasily. As mentioned in the introduction, we can see that most of the underlying Defi primitives are moving to more sophisticated versions that better protect investors but require more and more automation to do it. I think a couple of things merit more comment. One, I don’t think most people have understood the meaning of a keeper bot. I don’t think most Defi degens actually realize that there is often a keeper bot working with their money and they actually know nothing about it. They really have no reason to trust the keeper bot, but they don’t even realize that they’re trusting it. So I think that with a big focus on decentralization, everybody’s now very concerned about, for example, Ethereum validator decentralization and so forth. But the same thing is true of all protocols that use keeper bots because the keeper bots are not decentralized. And I think that’s going to become increasingly clear to people that, hey, why do we trust the keeper bot? What is it that makes us trust it and why shouldn’t we instead use a decentralized autonomous network? In the past, the answer was, well, because there aren’t any really trustworthy, decentralized automation networks. And yes, okay, in the past that was true and that’s why people resorted to keeper bots.
Gordon: But now there is at least one trustworthy, autonomous automation network, and not only that, it lowers the barrier to entry for all types of protocols to become smarter via automation and off-chain computation. Back when PowerPool was working primarily with Yearn, there were only a few guys who really knew how to automate and optimize Defi with the keeper bot. And you know, devs like Andre Cronje realized right away that expecting everybody to keep on writing their own little bots wasn’t really the way forward. So it’s been a while coming because there were a lot of problems to be solved. But now I think with PowerAgent v. 2 we’ve lowered the barrier. People can use automation in their own Defi strategies, even individuals can use it. And that’s one of the main impacts of having a fully autonomous, decentralized automation network. A lot of stuff that devs used to have to do in order to have a sophisticated strategy that uses the latest primitives, they don’t have to do that anymore. They can look at examples of existing automation and just cut and paste and the result is trustworthy because they can even run their own PowerAgent Keeper node and participate in the shared automation network. The more protocols that do this, the more decentralized, reliable, and trustworthy the PowerAgent network will become. People will trust it because so many other people who are running it are also using it. So I think someday ‘keeper bot’ will be a bad word and something that people just don’t say. Because first of all, it won’t be necessary. And second of all, because it raises all kinds of red flags. It’s like a trap door or a back door and at best a single point of failure.
Gordon: The other thing I didn’t mention in the introduction was that DeFI is now multichain, you have Ethereum L1s, you have L2s, and you have competing L1s and some of those even sprouting L2s. So I think that future strategies are going to have to start becoming multichain and this just puts another nail in the coffin of the idea that you can do things manually or you can write your own keeper bot. In the future, you need not only an autonomous automation network, you need a multichain one and that will be Power Agent. It’s just inevitable and people will drag their feet and say, no, no, no, our keeper bot works well and increasingly people will start asking questions because you know, that’s just the process. But I think that the more protocols that use it, and even participate in it, the more examples of task automation they can see working and it will just accelerate.
Vasily: Gordon I think that in the future, any centralized keeper bot will be considered like an admin key to the protocol, like a single point of failure. Remember the Anchor issue last year? In 2022, there was a hack because the bridge was controlled by just one private key. Yeah. Could you imagine a bridge controlled by one private individual? Unbelievable. And when this private key leaked to bad individuals, they just minted a lot of tokens, swapped them into the AMM, took out the BnB and it was like a hack. I guess it is a hack. You know, all smart contracts worked well. Just somebody used the centralized private key to get all the funds. So there was a clear single point of failure and just somebody using it in a way that it shouldn’t be used, unfortunately.
Gordon: I agree. I mean, most rug pullers don’t have to be very sophisticated to execute a rug pull. But if you want to execute a rug pull in a really sophisticated way, you put it in a keeper bot and you use the keeper bot to do the rug pull. I’m not sure there have been any real cases of that yet, but there have been cases of keeper bot failure, and that costs people money and that again is something we are not supposed to have. We’re not supposed to have single points of failure. PowerPool, PowerAgent v. 2 is now here to address these problems. These are now solved problems. These are no longer problems. These are non-problems. But what’s required, of course, is the education for people to realize, oh, decentralized automation networks are the solution. And, you know, and that’s why we have public sessions like this. Because it’s the only way to get the word out. There is no other way to get people to realize, actually, we’ve been doing this wrong. Here’s the right way and it works.
Vasily: I agree. So let’s think. Maybe we have some questions from the community? I don’t see a single one here, so I think if so, maybe we can add some closing notes to the AMA and finish it? Alex, what do you think? Maybe you want to add something there?
Mellow: Oh, yeah, I think I’ll just add that, we’re very excited about these new automation solutions that are emerging and very keen to look at how they work and hopefully use them in our protocol. And we are very like, we think that this whole automation space is going to grow and a lot of different builders appear right now. So yeah, I think the future is very bright here.
Gordon: You know, I think the PowerAgent v. 2 is a huge improvement over previous attempts to solve the problem of autonomous trustworthy automation. And it may not be perfect, but it’s so much better than everything else that it just deserves a good, solid, testing. Everybody needs to kick the tires and bang on it and either satisfy themselves that it does what it says or show us what we need to do to improve it.
Vasily: As for me, I think the main closing note is just ‘let’s build, let’s deliver’. Let’s see how it will work. So, as I said before, propose something. A test net, integration, or a test of your jobs. We are hoping to get to the negotiation stage during the Ethereum Community Conference. I will be there. If someone wants to meet with me, I will be happy to meet and chat about how almost anyone can contribute to our protocol. Maybe can we automate your needs? Also, maybe you have some developers’ grants. We have Keeper and Ecosystem grants. If you have a protocol you want to integrate PowerAgent, maybe eliminating your own legacy home-rolled keeper bot, we can help with covering the cost of that. We can provide small grants of up to $20K for this purpose. So it’s quite simple. Let’s meet at Ethereum CC to see. I will be there.
Gordon: So thank you, everyone, for listening. Anything else we wanted to add?
Mellow: No, thanks, everybody. See you. Finally, go forward with this and hopefully we will have one more aim when you know it will work at least as an awesome testing solution for automating something built on top of Mellow. And we’ll see how it works. So I’m really curious, you know, to get to this main stage as soon as possible and just deliver.
Vasily: Yeah. Thanks, everyone for joining, guys. It was a nice time talking to you.
