Erick: 0:00

I always look at blockchain tech as a great opportunity for us to create collectively systems that are transparent to help human coordination in many different initiatives, and we are working to provide this infrastructure and see these things happening.

Joeri: 0:20

Hello everyone and welcome to the Web3 CMO Stories podcast. My name is Joeri Billast and I'm your podcast host, and today I'm joined by Erick De Moura. Hi, Erick, how are you today?

Erick: 0:35

Hello Joeri, I'm doing great. Thank you, and it's really a pleasure to be here with you and your audience today.

Joeri: 0:42

Yes, pleasure to have you, eric. So, guys, if you don't know Erick, he's the co-founder of Cartesi. He brings over 20 years of software industry expertise, encompassing software, business development processes and system architecture, and Cartesi is a powerful modular blockchain protocol that supercharges the Web3 space. There is no one else that could explain it better than you, Erick, so feel free to start with, maybe talk a bit more about yourself, but also explaining what Cartesi is about and what your mission is.

Erick: 1:19

Sure, thank you. Yeah, all right. So, yeah, I come from an engineering background software engineering. Cartesi is a project that was founded in 2018 with the aim of making the life of developers much easier when they develop decentralized applications. The final goal is to open up the design space of the apps for Web3, right, we do that by scaling computation and bringing a programming environment that's much more similar to what people are used to in the traditional internet. That's the short version of it.

Joeri: 1:53

Yeah, I like that because lots of the time people on the show they give a long explanation, but this is what we call an elevator pitch. When I meet people on a conference, I ask them please tell me this in three sentences what you're doing. So really, really love that. But, yeah, the concept of modularity and that's a concept that is used by Cartesi can you elaborate a bit on that and what it means exactly?

Erick: 2:20

yeah. So just before we deal with modularity, just to give some more color to what Cartesi does, we know that traditionally blockchains that support smart contracts, like Ethereum, they had a monolithic design, like a single chain that supports everything from data storage, availability to execution and Consensus, and everything in a single system. In modularity, we're breaking things in different pieces.

Erick: 2:48

Cartesi comes to scale computation without loss to the security of the underlying blockchain and also provides a way, an environment for developers to create applications using traditional software stacks. So instead of programming in Solidity let's say a smart contract they would find a real operating system like Linux, where they can develop DApps using traditional software and tools. So when you combine the scaling of computation with the richness of the Linux environments, then it's a leap in terms of possibilities for decentralized applications, right? So in the modular landscape, cartesi positions itself as an execution layer. It's not storing data, it's not there to provide strong consensus. That's left to the underlying blockchain. Rather, it gives developers and applications an execution layer that's quite different and unique, as I said before. So that, I think, is a good way to introduce modularity and how Cartesi plays its role inside of the modular landscape.

Joeri: 4:00

Okay, okay. And so how does Cartesi's approach to modularity differ from traditional monolithic blockchain architectures?

Erick: 4:12

Good. Yes, the first, most important reason for Cartesi to decouple and be an execution layer modular, separate from the chain, is that we want to achieve greater computational scalability. And be an execution layer modular, separate from the chain is that we want to achieve greater computational scalability. So in blockchains or in blockchain layer tools like Arbitrum, optimism, ZKsync, normally you have a layer two that is shared among many applications and their users as well. In the case of Cartesi, each application has its own, let's say, layer two or its own roll-ups, meaning that they have an exclusive computational power for themselves, so they are not sharing their limited resources with other applications and their users, and that's how Cartesi achieves a greater computational capacity when compared to traditional blockchains and compared to other layer tools.

Erick: 5:15

So the first reason for Cartesi to be modular and be an execution layer is to allow each application to have its own chain, let's say so it's a scalable chain. The second reason is for Cartesi, also in the module landscape in general, is to give developers flexibility. They are able to customize, to set their solutions according to their needs, so they might choose their proper layer one, their proper layer one, their proper layer two, maybe use Cartesi as a layer three. They could choose their data availability solution, their sequencer, so they will stack these different modules in order to meet better their needs for the applications they are developing, because in traditional monolithic chains it's a kind of one-size-fits-all solution that's not really good for mass adoption and a sustainable future for blockchain applications okay.

Erick: 6:14

how important is collaboration between these different projects and protocols within the ecosystem?

Erick: 6:22

so the modularity is very important and I think it's a necessary step in the future of blockchain of the industry. If you look at the traditional internet industry and the computational industry, everything is modular, right. People want to develop applications for Web2. They are using software from different vendors, patching things together using, let's say, patching things together using, let's say, the AWS or any other cloud infrastructure with a certain operating system, and then different libraries and software stacks. It's all a collaboration of many different providers and software that came from different origins coming together. You don't have a single software company giving Web2 application developers one single solution for everything. That's not how the internet works. As the blockchain industry is achieving maturity, it's getting closer and closer to that kind of design. It makes sense that, as we approach in this modular era, that certain projects specialize in certain pieces of the blockchain stack and do a very good job at certain specific things and let other people do their better jobs at other things, and that's how everybody can build a much better blockchain infrastructure together. That's what's happening now, with different projects working on, let's's say, data availability systems on a different kind of consensus, sequencing execution layers, like Cortesi is doing, so they can excel at what they do.

Erick: 7:56

The challenge comes when we need to put these pieces together, so, of course, nothing's for free. This brings greater complexity when we have to put all these pieces together. So the module landscape is still maturing. It's going to take some time for all these pieces to come seamlessly together, for the users to have a good user experience and for everything to be very secure. But it's just a matter of time, because these teams are getting together, collaborating more and more and eventually they'll figure things out. In the case of Cartesi, I can give an example that we are working closely with other projects in the modular stack. For instance, there is a close collaboration with the Espresso Sequencer team, where we are working with them to come up with examples integrating things. So this kind of collaboration is essential for the future of the industry.

Joeri: 8:52

Makes sense. Yeah, collaborations indeed very important. Yeah, collaborations indeed very important. But for my listeners, I would say, to give them a better view on Cartesi, can you give some more practical applications of your technology in the current blockchain space?

Erick: 9:10

Yes. So, as I said, our objective from the get-go was to open up the design space, give blockchain applications a much broader spectrum of possibilities. Originally, if you look at the kinds of applications that you have in the Ethereum ecosystem and even recently on Layer 2s, it's a kind of a certain repetition of certain DeFi systems and some NFT systems as well. But at the origin of the blockchain movement there was an expectation that we could decentralize many more kinds of applications, many more use cases, but we haven't seen that so far, and that came basically because of scalability issues. It's one of the things that we're tackling here. So the Cartesian tech is ready now, with some use cases being implemented. People prototyping some applications and some projects are more advanced now as well, and we have quite cool innovative use cases that are coming up in things that were not possible to be done in a decentralized fashion before. To give an example, there is the company called Air, the project called Air Impact, that they have a kind of holistic platform for ecology, air quality control, and they are using Cartesi to run more complex calculations to make carbon credit calculation transparent on the blockchain. This is one actual project that's happening now.

Erick: 10:47

Another example of the use of our technology is a bug bounty system that is completely decentralized, that's in Web3, the security is very fundamental. Applications need to be very secure because normally they deal with a lot of money, so security is at the fundamentals of everything. So normally in Web3, people use platforms like Immunify, where projects put their code there to be tested and try and white hat. Hackers can go there and try to hack them for a price. But they use traditional web two platforms because there was no way, let's say to Cartesi, to decentralize a bug bounty system. And now one example is that we are for the first time, through the product called bug buster, decentralizing software bug bounties on chain. So just to give you like two use cases that are novel in web 3 that go beyond, let's say, defy and nfts. I could give you more examples, but that gives you a taste of what Cartesi is doing so far.

Joeri: 12:00

Okay, something that comes up in every podcast episode around Web3,. You already mentioned collaboration is very important, but also community very important. So I would love to hear from you the way you build a community with Cartesi and also the role the community is playing.

Erick: 12:22

Yeah, community plays a fundamental role. Cartesi is a decentralized project and we are working to make it more and more decentralized in terms of governance and public participation of people. So all of our development and research is done on Discord channels. People can come in, they can read, they can participate, bring ideas as well. We have a technical forum, a forum where people can participate in decisions about even the technical evolution of the system. Also, we have a grants program where funds are allocated from the Cartesi Foundation to promising applications coming in the Cartesi ecosystem or tool links coming in the Cartesi ecosystem, and all of these things are the public participation is instrumental for these things to succeed.

Erick: 13:18

In the Cartesi grant program, for instance, proposals are sent in the public forum and at some point people that hold CTSI, the Cartesi token, they can participate in voting in the approval or denial of such grant proposals. Also in the public forum there are proposals of what we call meta-governance, where people can also suggest new governance features or directions to the project. Yeah, we are. I think projects in Web3 are experimenting a lot with decentralized governance. It's something new. So there is also some amount of trial and error and quick, fast adjustments for us to mature. So we are in the process of also trying things and learning, getting feedback and improving, but that's the trend. The trend is to get people more and more involved in everything related to Cartesi, from technical decisions to funding management.

Joeri: 14:21

I like the idea of the public forum and, of course, those people already aware of Cartesi. How are you engaging with other projects or maybe developers that are not yet in your community or in your network?

Erick: 14:38

Yes, aside from participations in conference events, hacker houses, lots of things that we do to promote developer participation in creation of new projects, we also work together with part-time projects, as I said before. And yeah, so I think when you put together the grants program, the hackathons, the events, the technical forum, the community on Discord, that's how, putting everything together, we managed to increase the adoption, participation and also bringing more awareness to developers out there about the potential of the technology.

Joeri: 15:20

Okay, makes sense. I also love to talk about what happens next, for how do you see Cartesi's role in the future of blockchain development? Interesting to hear that.

Erick: 15:34

Yeah, we started Cartesi with the belief that we are bringing one piece to the blockchain ecosystem, the modular ecosystem. That's going to be super important. It's basically an execution environment that's similar to what people do in Web2, what they use in Web2. So it gives them much more power. So we are working to make this tech ubiquitous, accessible by everyone. So the future of Cartesi is toward greater and greater collaboration with other projects, making sense of ourselves in this tapestry of Web3 and spreading the tech as much as we can and help other parties, new developers, new projects come and collaborate also with the future progress of the technology.

Joeri: 16:28

Okay, and I always love to ask is also what are you excited about right now? What are some upcoming developments or initiatives that you're focusing on with Cartesi?

Erick: 16:41

Yes, there are a set of things, educational initiatives with the academia so there are very nice projects going on with different universities hackathons and collaboration with professors in different, as I said, universities. There are events that we are promoting. For instance, it's going to be in ETHC Belgium very soon it would be nice to meet you there and it's a kind of orchestrated development right. We're trying to put all these pieces together, move with all of them to gain adoption. This is a very important moment for us because the tech is ready to be used. Of course, there are many things that need to be done to improve, but it can already be adopted. So it's a very important moment for Cartesi to make the tech visible to new developers, and we are hoping that we are going to have new experimentation, new applications that are going to surprise even ourselves.

Erick: 17:48

I have an idea. There is an event that I like to run from time to time. It's called the Experiment Week. It's a week that we ask all the developers in Cartesi to stop what they're doing, to just hack together and try to come up with new inventions and unleash their creativity for a week. So in this upcoming week, we're going to have an experiment week at Cartesi and we are also inviting projects, who are partners, to come and give a neutral talk to inspire the people at Cartesia to also build together with their stack, with their solutions. So that gives you an idea of the different initiatives that we're doing to bring these pieces together, foster collaboration and adoption.

Joeri: 18:37

You mentioned ECC. Yes, I will be there. Actually, it's because of the olympic games it's not in paris, but it will be in Brussels, and it will just be for my move to portugal. Actually, at the moment I'm in Belgium. Would love to meet you there, Erick. Is there anything else that you would like to share with our audience at the end of this podcast episode?

Erick: 19:02

Yeah, I always look at blockchain tech as a great opportunity for us to create collectively systems that are transparent to help human coordination in many different initiatives, and we are working to provide this infrastructure and see these things happening. I would love to see blockchain being used to bring more integrity in general to human initiatives and transparency and accountability, and we are always very excited when we have new people coming with new ideas to surprise us in new ways to use Cartesi. So I really would like to leave, as a last word, an invitation for people to come and participate. Even if you're not a developer, you can come and participate in Cartesi in many different ways Bring your ideas or contribution to the forum and just helping to spread the word. Everyone is welcome.

Joeri: 20:01

Great, and if now people are listening to this show and they are interested in Cartesi, where would you like me to send them?

Erick: 20:08

You can send them to. Cartesi. io is our website. From there, people can easily get access to Twitter, to our Discord community and everything. So I think cartesi. io is a simple entry point for people amazing guys.

Joeri: 20:25

If you're now listening to the show but not at your computer, everything will be in the show notes. There is always a blog article linked to every podcast episode and eric's links will be there to find. Erick, it was really a pleasure to have you on the show today.

Erick: 20:43

Likewise, and I hope to see you in Belgium soon.

Joeri: 20:47

Yes, we will see each other in July. Guys, if you're not listening to this episode and you think, oh, this is amazing, I need to share it, please do that. All the developers, web3 people, people, entrepreneurs, everyone that could be interested in eric's story, feel free, and I would encourage you to share this. If you are in belgium at itcc, come and speak to us. We would love to hear your feedback about the podcast episode. If you're not yet subscribed to the show, this is a really good moment to do this, and also, if you haven't given me a review yet, this would really help me to get even more people listening to the show. So that would really be. I would really love that and, of course, I would like to see you back next time. Take care.