Initia: Incentively Aligned Appchains - Ezaan Mangalji, Anil Lulla & Jose Maria Macedo

Blockchain architecture is constantly being forced to adapt to new technologies, as well as to meet new demands from users and builders. While the idea of apps building their own chains was first explored by Cosmos, it lacked the support and tooling to see it succeed. Later on, rollups also took the centerstage of Ethereum’s scaling roadmap, but due to their general purpose design, it led to a cannibalistic ecosystem. Initia learned from these 2 models and combined the best of both worlds: it built a full-stack framework for a seamless DevEx from the get-go and, more importantly, it designed its tokenomics in order to ensure maximum incentive alignment for its appchains. While the former decision removed the need for each separate chain to reinvent the wheel and risk ending up ‘a jack of all trades, master of none’, the latter ensured that appchains would not extract value away from the L1.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Ezaan’s background
• From building on Terra to Initia
• How Initia is rewriting the appchain thesis
• Initia’s enshrined liquidity & vested interest program (VIP)
• Metrics & Initia’s bet on crypto innovation
• Solving liquidity fragmentation
• Delphi’s involvement in Initia
• Future roadmap

Episode links:

• Ezaan Mangalji on X
• Jose Maria Macedo on X
• Anil Lulla on X
• Initia on X
• Delphi Digital on X
• Delphi report on Initia

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.