Talking Crypto #66 - Sal Ash
Primer: Sal Ash is one of the multisig signers of Alchemist. In this episode of Talking Crypto, he shares with Gabriel his background, how he came into Crypto, and his involvement with Alchemist. Learn about the various products that Alchemist offers as well.
Background
An investor in some notable projects, including Alchemist
Is in Lobster DAO, one of the premier crypto chat groups
First learned about Ethereum through a Reddit post. Read about it and invested a small amount of money in it. The concept of a decentralized internet computer made sense to him
His background is in real estate. He manages funds — attracting investment to buy houses, renovating them, and flipping them for a profit
Majored in Civil Engineering and Construction, but the typical engineering job did not work out for him
After getting into crypto, he got interested in coding and learned how to code. Worked as a developer for two years. Did not do anything blockchain-related
Knowing how to code gives one an upper hand in crypto
Advice For People Without A Coding Background
He started by learning Python, which is an easier language to learn
After learning Python, people could move on to Solidity
Hasn't actually learned Solidity yet, but his background in Python allows him to kind of piece together what's happening in Solidity code
With programming, it's not so much about the language, but what you are trying to do with the data
Programming is not the be-all and end-all. It's about playing to one's strengths. For example, people could network and get even further ahead than programmers
"So don't start with a hard language. Start with an easy language that enables you to understand the concept of storing data and manipulating it. Once you have a basic understanding, then go on to something a bit more difficult." - Sal Ash
His Investment Activities
Managing his own funds but also working with a small group of people/small VC called Phoenix
Spent half his time with Phoenix and the other half of his time working with Alchemist
Alchemist
Was pretty early to Alchemist. Got in when the price was very cheap
Alchemist was made by Stephane Gosselin, a major developer involved in numerous projects
As more information came out on Discord, he found the project pretty cool and innovative
Decided to stick around and eventually became one of the multisig signers
Stephane Gosselin
Is heavily involved in Flashbots
Flashbots is a collective of researchers
MIST Token
Token Utility
Token is separate from their products
What Alchemist is trying to reach for is a community and a token that can attract founders to build stuff with it
Token has inflation. Inflation will be directed towards founders to attract them to build stuff with it
Trying to generate a positive feedback loop:
Build more —> attract more value —> token price increases —> app is worth more —> attract more founders
Some people described Alchemist as the Y Combinator of crypto that is funded by inflation
This model has given them 3 products (mistX, Copper, Crucible)
Advantages:
By not defining what the token does, it attracts a certain group of people to it. Project is also able to pivot and work on whatever it makes sense to work on
Stephane is not involved in the day-to-day running of Alchemist. Everyone just adds their own opinion and the project ends up being decentralized and not run by a single person
Disadvantages
Lack of a clearly defined roadmap means it can be difficult to communicate to the community what you are going to do
"When it [Alchemist] launched, as you mentioned, it was like, no roadmap, and that was like a very big idea. Like, we're just gonna make this thing and then we're gonna figure out what to do with it. Yeah, I think that was a pretty interesting model." - Gabriel Haines
What Does It Mean To Build On Top Of The Token?
Projects are initially being funded by the token
A revenue-generating project could come to an agreement with the Alchemist community to spend a percentage of their revenue buying back MIST tokens
Products can also be built to utilize MIST
Projects who are launching their own token could also give a percentage of their supply back to the Alchemist community for their support
By launching with Alchemist, projects receive the community, marketing, and various other forms of support
mistX
A DEX aggregator
Main innovation is how transactions are submitted
Their system is built on top of Flashbots
Allows users to send transactions to a mining pool
Benefits:
Users do not need to pay to cancel their transactions
Users do not need to pay for failed transactions
Transactions are private until they are confirmed. Hence, sandwich bots or frontrunners are not able to extract Miner Extractable Value (MEV) from your transactions
Transaction is always mined at the top of the block
The DEX isn't a Flashbot. What the team has done is to create a system for normal users to interact with Flashbots
Team of 5 working on this DEX
Differences Between CowSwap
A competitor of theirs
CowSwap is made by Gnosis
CowSwap batches transactions into a block to prevent the possibility of MEV
If there's a buyer of a token and a seller looking to sell that token, the orders are matched within the block so that both parties can save on transaction fees. If they can't match the order, CowSwap will submit it to Uniswap, SushiSwap, etc.
CowSwap does not use Flashbots
Copper
A launch pad. A fair way to launch a token. People can buy and sell into the auction while it's going on. This allows for price discovery
Alchemist was launched through a Balancer LBP. At that time, the Balancer UI was not very accessible for people
They built a UI for Balancer LBPs to make it easier for other projects to launch a protocol or a token
Copper is basically a frontend for users to participate in Balancer LBPs
Copper is looking at how they can enable NFTs to launch through these kinds of fair auctions
How Does Copper Give Value To MIST Holders?
At the moment, it doesn't
Their focus now is to attract more users to Copper
The launch pad space is quite competitive. Need to justify why users need to pay to use the launchpad
Crucible
A Crucible is an NFT that acts as a vault
Tokens can be added or removed from it
Crucibles can also be transferred from one wallet to another
As they are NFTs, they can also interact with other smart contracts
In a normal staking program, users have to deposit their tokens into an external staking contract. With Crucible, the staking contract can verify the presence of those tokens in the wallet without those tokens leaving the wallet. This reduces gas costs as well
Another use case is that people can sell their entire NFT portfolio in one go in their NFT Crucible vault
The vault can also be fractionalized to increase the number of owners and for holders to vote on what to do with its contents
Another use case is in blockchain gaming where the in-game inventory and character information can be tied to a Crucible vault. This would enable the trading of blockchain game accounts
"You can have your whole character, all your equipment, everything inside this NFT, you can just sell it off. That's pretty cool." - Gabriel Haines
How Can Someone Build On Alchemist?
Hop into their Discord and tag someone from the senior team
The team will be improving on how they communicate to the rest of the crypto sphere
Are There Any Other Projects He Is Working On
Not working with any other projects
Still does investment in projects
Origins Of His Avatar
Had to choose a profile picture at work
Thought of the most neutral thing, which is a blank face
Why Did He Choose To Be Pseudo-Anonymous?
To protect himself
Doesn't like to mix work with his personal life
How Can Listeners Take Action?
Join their community
They are looking at ways to become as inclusive as possible
Best way to get involved in crypto is to join a community project. Does not have to be them. There are other communities out there as well
All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Summaries are prepared by The Reading Ape. While reasonable efforts are made to provide accurate content, any errors in interpreting and summarizing the source material are ours alone. We disclaim any liability associated with the use of our content.