Sal Ternullo

But to your point, it is the same kind of waterfall of value capture.

At the protocol level, I think over time, we'll see this continued pressure, block space as a commodity, common kind of frame.

I don't think that's going to be any different here.

But on the functions and features that Near.com shows on cross-chain swaps and soon other features like lending, there will still be proper spreads and fees there, even as we start to see compression on the centralized side from competition to Coinbase and other major centralized venues with Schwab and Fidelity coming in and pushing fees down.

Yeah, I don't think it's about emulating having a robust ecosystem of those features and primitives natively to Near.

It's about leveraging the foundational technology behind intense chain signatures as a mechanism to tap cross-chain settlement and liquidity across any venue and platform.

And so in order for me to ultimately get to a place where I can take a loan out through Near.com, I don't need to have the lending pool with the best pricing and the best rates available on Near.

I'm able to tap into Ethereum and Aave to do that if I choose.

100%.

And this was the narrative that I think they pushed in 23 and 24 around chain abstraction.

It was like, you shouldn't have to know as a user where this liquidity pool sits that's going to give me the best rate.

You should say, I need to borrow $20 at the best rate possible.

one-click interaction, make that happen.

And that's what Near.com is doing today and with privacy embedded on confidential transactions.

Yeah, I think it's the difference between the way that we look at fees in Ethereum at the protocol layer versus at the middleware layer and the app layer.

So in your world and universe, do you imagine a future where there are no fees generated to Aave for loans and no fees generated to Uniswap for exchange?

They're always going to have some spread on the back end, and this is the same case with Near Intense and on the Ironclaw side as well.

And so it's not necessarily that the fee burn is fully derived from the protocol and smart contracts running on the network.

It's from the vertical stack.

Yeah, to some extent.