DeFi, Stablecoins, Relending, & Solving Fragmentation. Discussion with Eneo Hollenbach, Relend Labs

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down the world of DeFi, the stabilizing role of stablecoins, and introduces relending—an innovative model boosting capital efficiency and yield.  He also tackles DeFi’s fragmentation problem, highlighting the need for interoperability and how Relend Labs is building bridges between isolated liquidity pools.  If you're curious about the next wave of decentralized finance, this is a must-watch. Join us on the cutting edge with Eneo Hollenbach and Relend Labs.

Transcript

00:00so hi everyone my name is Ravi I'm the co-founder CEO of Zeef and today on web3 voice we have very

00:10exciting guest Ennio Hollenbach who is the co-founder of Relend Network a very exciting

00:17concept in the roll-up ecosystem so hi Ennio and welcome to web3 voice hi everyone great great to

00:25meet you excited to chat about Relend excited to chat about rollups and let's go yeah so before we

00:33you know jump into the details of what Relend Network is doing I would love to know more about

00:41you how you started your web3 journey and how your journey has been so far for sure so I actually

00:48started off studying industrial psychology was really not into crypto so much and then I had

00:57two friends who got quite deep deep into it in sort of 20 they were in sort of 2016 2017 but this was

01:05now I've just finished uni and they started sort of chewing my head about off about it and so I got

01:11in quite hard at the end of 2020 started working for like a cross-border payments company and then

01:19really just dived into to DeFi mainly on the the business development side and worked for a couple

01:26different different startups over the past few years and then yeah it's brought me it's brought

01:32me to Relend which is is super exciting and it's good to be good to be on the on the founding side

01:39and obviously very different from working in a startup but was always lucky in terms of being

01:44able to work directly with with founders and small teams in the past and yeah it's a bit about me

01:51absolutely it's definitely challenging to work with startups but at the same time it's it's very

01:58fulfilling because uh you come across startups who are very innovative solving challenging problems

02:04so it's it's very exciting you always uh uh get to see you know what is happening and learn something

02:11new uh learn something exciting do something exciting so uh so coming to a Relend network uh we know that

02:22roll-up ecosystem has grown massively in last two three years and initially it started with few

02:28roll-ups coming into uh the ecosystem like Optimism Arbitrum and then some of the ZK roll-ups like we

02:35have ZK Sikera and then Polygon and then you know we have uh Tyco as a base roll-up and then you know

02:42the roll-up stacks came in which uh uh drove quite a few other uh startups launching their own roll-ups

02:50um so within this ecosystem Relend network is is um uh is again a very exciting startup so what what

02:58problem Relend network is solving what is your core value proposition that can help the roll-up builders

03:04sure so initially when we were looking we were actually looking at launching our our own chain um

03:12because the the issue that we saw in the roll-up ecosystem is that there's not necessarily the

03:17ability for chains to have sort of native credit um and along with that just the fragmentation of um

03:25of liquidity across the ecosystem we we thought needed to be solved a lot of these new roll-ups

03:32and their twos they're like obviously at the core they're solving Ethereum scalability and then they

03:37have their own unique um value propositions on top of that but mostly on the tech side so we thought

03:43if we provide i mean obviously now like some some of these new and sort of alternative layer ones have

03:49um like some some financial innovations as well um so then we were looking at credits and thinking like

03:57how can we essentially re-hypothecate um funds in the bridge to create a a system where credit's

04:05available as a cdp within the ecosystem and then is directly redeemable for usdc on on mainnet

04:11um and then in in sort of looking at this and building this we realized quite quickly that a lot

04:17of other chains and roll-ups uh are experiencing a similar problem and instead of just doing it for

04:23ourselves and having to sort of bootstrap an ecosystem from the ground up we can plug into

04:28these well-funded teams and really provide a solid value proposition in terms of

04:33many increasing credit um through providing stable coins to their lending markets um and yeah i mean at

04:40at the core we think the stable coin liquidity in crypto is extremely limited um i think it's

04:48probably quite widely uh widely hold view and it it really so say like if you especially look at

04:57some of these newer chains like uh swell or puffer where a lot of or the bitcoin the bitcoin ecosystem as

05:04well like 90 99 sometimes even of their tbo is like one one asset um like there's 500 million dollars

05:14of bitcoin on call for example um and then they're like having a cdp allows for some of like those those

05:22ops to leverage their positions provide stable coins into the ecosystem and and just have a much more

05:28efficient um d5 system overall so yeah i mean at the core we're solving stable coin liquidity um and

05:37we're doing that through through relending

05:40got it no i think uh that's an awesome problem you know we as you know roll up as a service provider

05:49work with quite a few startups uh not just in d5 but across different uh verticals and especially in d5 we

05:56have seen uh startups struggling as far as liquidity is concerned on their new newly newly generated or

06:03newly launched roll up um no i think this is uh you're absolutely right i think uh the roll ups have

06:10led to uh higher fragmentation i i know there are a lot of uh chain abstraction players now who are

06:18solving the fragmentation problem and uh you know we launched the partnership with with circle

06:24few months back where we provide native support for usdc but that is on the technical integration

06:30side but yes end of the day you do require liquidity and uh uh i think real and network

06:36becomes super critical for quite a few d5 startups so uh uh how easy it is for uh uh like like what are

06:47your criteria to onboard a roll up uh who wants to partner with you to uh uh solve their stablecoin

06:55liquidity challenges so the main requirements from our side are an operational like like obviously we

07:02can start with them before they're on mainnet but ideally they're sort of they're live on mainnet and

07:08they have a lending and borrowing platform um where we can supply our liquidity into and then ideally

07:15they also have like like some some native decks already as well and that that's enough for us to

07:22to sort of start those are the the main starting points um that then what we we work on is is then

07:29creating their obviously their brand is stablecoin so some of our partners are happy to sort of go with

07:36um our usdc as as the ticker and and others may want like the it to be seamless from a user

07:44perspective whereas all funds bridged into the ecosystem automatically arrive as this uh roll up

07:51usdc or roll up usd um like an example of that is plume for for that for their chain they basically

08:00have like if usdt or usdc is bridged into the ecosystem they receive plume usd that's not that's

08:08something we're doing just just to clarify but um similar similar concept in terms of from a user

08:15perspective it's seamless and then those funds can be uh we have articulated and then yeah so i mean

08:22it's it's definitely those two things but we open to speaking to anyone building a chain that intends

08:27to have an active d5 ecosystem got it right so uh primarily the requirement would be uh uh um some

08:36kind of lending protocol needs to be running on the chain which i'm sure uh d5 for a d5 protocol or d5

08:43uh focus chain it should be fairly easy to do and uh and and then you know integration is pretty simple

08:52uh uh you providing liquidity into the liquidity protocol of the of the lending protocol right

08:58yeah exactly so we we basically deploy liquidity based on the ecosystem's needs

09:08and we can like currently we can support sort of up to 250 million in usdc deployments

09:16um so but with with with a smaller chain we'll we'll start off lower and then we can scale that

09:22capital as as it's needed um yeah got it right so uh and i i see as part of the roadmap uh you've

09:34already started onboarding uh roll-up customers right so how do you see the early traction and and

09:39how do you see uh uh this relay network going to accelerate the overall of the

09:46adoption of uh uh roll-ups you know because i see this is as a two-way some of the uh builders

09:52who are not or who are sitting on fringes want to launch their roll-ups but they are struggling how

09:57the liquidity challenges are going to be solved with relend coming into picture i think they will

10:03find it much more comfortable to launch their own roll-up and at the same time roll-ups who have

10:08already launched and facing this challenge can use relend to uh solve the challenges so how do you

10:14based on the early traction how do you see uh the adoption happening

10:18for sure so there's been a number of different chains in different stages that we we're speaking

10:26with so one of one of our sort of first launch partners and one of the earliest chains we were

10:31chatting to was starknet um and they're obviously an ecosystem that's been around for quite a while but

10:38now they're in a stage where they're obviously wanting to revitalize their d4 d5 ecosystem like

10:44they have um like ongoing incentive programs and for them it's really like boosting the existing

10:51ecosystem but we don't have the benefit of being able to position ourselves from day one as sort of

10:57the go-to stable coin so we'll we'll start off with them and it's obviously nice in terms of

11:03marketing with a later stage chain where they're like their decks has a following they have multiple

11:10decks is their um lending protocol has got a community there's already like tvo on their

11:16lending protocol like high in sort of speculative assets but there's very low stable coin supply there

11:23so if we suddenly inject a whole bunch of stable coin supply uh we we're optimistic that'll be

11:30adopted throughout the ecosystem then with earlier stage chains um like we we are in touch with some

11:37who haven't launched it sort of plan to do some sort of pre-deposit campaign there so it's sort of

11:44uh yeah really just to position ourselves from from day one and then with the guys who've who've just

11:51gone live it's also then it's it's a little bit more can take a little bit more time to just select

11:57the right lending partner because they're like a lot of if if if they're if they if the if the

12:03defi ecosystem is quite small um to understand like will there be borrowed demand here if we

12:09if we put capital into a dex um and and then also for us it's just setting up incentives correctly so

12:18that it makes sense for users to borrow it because at the end of the day like most most users are profit

12:23driven got it no absolutely and i think i can uh uh see you know uh few startups within our

12:33um builder ecosystem who would be interested in this so we'll definitely

12:38uh connect you with few of our rollups um and and see uh um if they can utilize

12:47real and network to solve their liquidity challenges so uh since you're coming to eat denver and uh you're

12:54also i've you know partnered with us for the rollup day so i think we are very excited uh um to have

13:02you on board for the rollup day so what are your plans for eat denver any new exciting announcement

13:08that we are going to see there um i think yeah we're many we've got quite a small team so we'll

13:14we'll maybe give um the marketing side a break over that week as we we focus on like connecting

13:21with uh new rollups new layer twos um yeah really that that's our goal if we can like maybe to write

13:29a bit more context on your previous question we we've chatted to probably 40 40 plus chains um

13:37and the crazy thing is is like there's a whole lot more um the way that we sort of set up our code is

13:43is is that it's not it it basically the instances that we deploy it's we can do it quite quickly

13:53um so we we aim to really expand as as quickly as possible and increase the the amount of usdc out

14:01there got it absolutely and i think uh within the rollup day also we are expecting at least uh 150

14:09plus builders on that day so we are quite hopeful that you will get to meet uh quite a few uh roller

14:16builders some who have already launched some who are in the process of launching their chains

14:21and then uh um you know we have extended beyond rollups and i i think the way your model works it is

14:29not uh specific to rollups only you know end of the day the liquidity challenges uh is is across

14:36different app chains right the larger app chain scenario and we have recently partnered with our

14:42labs uh being their global partner for launching ever launch l ones and i can see you know this can

14:48be easily extended to people who are launching their app chains using l1 stack as well so um i think the uh

14:55uh the scope and the uh uh opportunities are immense here um and and as you rightly mentioned stock

15:03net stock net as i know uh about a month back they have launched their own stack so people who want

15:08to use their stack to launch their own zk rollups so i think uh the ecosystem is expanding now a lot of

15:14exciting developments are happening uh expanding the whole rollup ecosystem and app chain ecosystem

15:20um so yeah so i think uh this is very exciting so uh just you know uh last question um so how do you

15:29see the ecosystem expanding and and uh what are some of the roadmap items for relend network in 2025

15:37i think um i i mean our our most our most pressing one is is really just to get these these integrations

15:46integrations live um it it's we're sort of at that stage where we aren't uh everything's new like every

15:54time we do something it's it's the the first time that we're doing it um so i if i was to say

16:03uh give give sort of concrete roadmap items it's it's probably like go go live on sort of five

16:13five or twos like five to ten or twos by the end of of q2 and then that that could sort of

16:23expand quite quickly after after that um there's there's also some other interesting things that

16:32we're working on in terms of like you chat to a lending protocol and they're like the chain doesn't

16:39necessarily want to support a stable coin but now that lending protocol wants to have their own stable

16:44coin um so i definitely see other applications of the sort of same like same tech um

16:53um and then there's also the scope for like the way that our model is set up is that risk is

16:59segregated between different deployments so if uh like x xl2 goes down then yl2 will still be like

17:09one-to-one backed um but there are potentially benefits especially with these multi-chain um

17:17um like like stacks and like obviously optimism sort of like interrupt is coming is supposedly coming

17:28this this year so then potentially looking at doing a like one one bigger or seeing how a global a global

17:39stable coin would work could be interesting i think in that scenario we just have to make very sure like

17:46we would probably like to only work with uh more for deployments in terms of where we allow for the

17:51borrowing to to happen um yeah i think there's there's a lot coming this year and we we're taking it there by

17:59there got it no i think uh this is uh very very exciting and i think best of luck we already see uh

18:09immense potential uh and uh massive opportunities in the market and we are again very excited to

18:15partner with you guys uh we'll see you at eat denver we are very excited about the event and uh

18:21and uh uh with that you know i would say uh uh thanks once again to join us uh on web3 voice today

18:30and yeah see you uh in in denver next week awesome ravi great chatting keep all

18:38ciao you too thanks everyone thanks for joining at web3 voice keep building keep smiling

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