Can you briefly introduce yourself

Hello everyone, I am Meng Yan. Co-founder of Solv Protocol , co-author of the ERC-3525 token standard, currently mainly responsible for the development of the ERC-3525 ecosystem, focusing on research areas including structured finance on pure chains, programmable payment networks, digital certificates, and account abstraction.

Since joining the blockchain field in 2015, I have been engaged in the dissemination, training and consulting of blockchain knowledge until I founded Solv in 2020. In 2019, I was honored to be one of the top ten blockchain education teachers in China. At that time, I focused on the dissemination, evangelism and research of the token economy, and achieved some small achievements.

I am widely recognized in the domestic blockchain circles for proposing to translate the English word "token" into "pass" and advocating in-depth research on the token economy. The theoretical framework of the token economy was established in the early days, so it has a certain influence in the circle. At the same time, I have also been invited to Tsinghua University, Peking University and other well-known domestic universities to communicate with students and teach related knowledge systems and information.

Can you share your opportunity to join the circle?

I think I have three circle experiences . The first time was in 2015 when I was working at IBM. In this year, IBM has undergone major changes. Arvind Krishna, an Indian technical expert, replaced the highly respected John Kelly III and became the helm of IBM technology and research. Soon after he took office, he announced that he would add blockchain to IBM's global technology strategy, which shocked me a lot. Because such a stark act of reform may be seen as a criticism of the previous strategy. So why change strategy so eagerly? I became intrigued by this decision, so I delved into blockchain and was fascinated. I was originally the earliest smartphone software development engineer in China. Later, I turned to the field of corporate strategic communication and learned knowledge in the fields of politics, economy, and finance. Combining my technical background with this knowledge, I found that blockchain and digital currency fit my interests very well, even if it was just a hobby or a professional direction at the time. I wanted to work on blockchain, so I took cryptography courses from Stanford and the University of Maryland online in my spare time, and a professional course on Bitcoin and encrypted digital currencies from Princeton University.

In April 2017, I entered the circle for the second time and decided to leave IBM to work on blockchain and AI. At first, I dabbled in both fields, but in August 2017, I decided to focus entirely on blockchain. In the first few years, I was mainly engaged in related work such as dissemination, evangelism, training and consulting, and I also achieved good results until 2020.

During the epidemic, I have a rare respite, and I can calm down and think carefully about my next plan. In my previous job, I was often on business trips, and there were meetings almost every week, so I had little time to think and discuss new things. But in 2020, I had time to reflect and realize that I should create something new. So, in October 2022, I launched a new project called Solv with my partners. This is the third time for me to enter the circle, because I was mainly engaged in evangelism and other related work in the blockchain field, this time I decided to devote myself to the blockchain field. This decision made me feel like a role change that required extra grit and determination. Our project originally wanted to create a new type of financial application NFT and named it "Financial NFT". We realize that existing token standards such as ERC-20 and ERC-721 cannot meet our financial NFT needs. Therefore, we decided to develop a new token standard on our own. So, starting in October 2022, we worked hard for 23 months until September 2022. Our token standard was finally approved by the Ethereum community and core developers, became the industry standard, and was accepted by the Ethereum community. Named ERC-3525 .

Core content : The first time I entered the circle was from 2015 when I worked for IBM. At that time, the company experienced major changes and introduced blockchain technology as one of its strategies. I have a strong interest in this, and after in-depth research and learning of relevant knowledge, I hope to switch to the blockchain. So in 2017, I entered the circle for the second time, left IBM to focus on blockchain work, and continued to develop in this field. Finally, in October 2022, I co-initiated a project called Solv with my partners, dedicated to creating a new type of financial NFT, and developed a new token standard ERC-3525, which was supported by the Ethereum community and core developers. This is the third time I have devoted myself to the blockchain field.

Can you talk about ERC-3425 and Solv in detail?

ERC-3525 is a new type of token standard. The token created according to this standard, we become a semi-homogeneous token, referred to as SFT, which corresponds to NFT. Initially, we planned to make financial NFT, but during the development process, we found that there are many areas for improvement in this field, so we gradually formed the SFT standard, which underwent four major revisions, and was finally approved in the fourth edition and become an industry standard.

So, what exactly does ERC-3525 do? The simple statement is that ERC-3525 is used to express digital bills . This word exists in Chinese, but there is no direct corresponding vocabulary in English. Digital bills are extremely common in life and business, including invoices, receipts, bills, IOUs, IOUs, rental contracts, etc., as well as some non-financial bills, such as vouchers, coupons, discount coupons, membership cards, etc. It is more common in the field of finance and commerce, such as commercial acceptance bills, bank acceptance bills, bills of lading, warehouse receipts, bills of lading, letters of credit, etc., and even cash and stocks can also be regarded as a kind of bills. There are also more complex structured assets such as options, futures, asset-backed securities, CDOs, MBS, etc.

At the end of 2020, we found that the entire blockchain field did not have a standard to express digital bills. Therefore, we decided to take matters into our own hands and develop a new token standard, ERC-3525, also known as SFT, for expressing digital notes. This standard has the following characteristics: First, unlike ERC-20, it is visual, similar to NFT, and can have a face with rich information on it. ERC-3525 can better express complex financial bill information, such as maturity date, interest rate, interest payment plan, etc., making it more intuitive and artistic. Second, it can be split, merged and calculated. Like NFT, it can also display a lot of information, but unlike NFT, ERC-3525 has the feature of being freely split. For example, you can split a bond with a face value of 1,000 into one with a face value of 700 and another with a face value of 300, which facilitates financial calculations and transactions. Third, it is a container that can wrap multiple other assets. You can package different types of assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and BNB into the same ERC-3525, which enhances its inclusiveness and packaging capabilities. At the same time, as a container, it can independently receive and process asset transfers without going through wallets or smart contracts. The last advantage is its combination ability, which can combine multiple ERC-3525 into a larger combination, further increasing the flexibility and diversity of its application. ERC-3525 is a very flexible token standard that can package other assets and combine them with other ERC-3525 to form larger structured and financially structured assets. This makes it a very powerful industry-level token protocol, especially good at expressing and processing complex financial assets such as bills.

As the technical inventor of the Solv team, we can see that the application space of this protocol is almost unlimited. However, we cannot make all the applications at once. We need to choose a clear direction and make one or two demonstration products to let everyone see the advantages and characteristics of ERC-3525. By playing a leading role in demonstration, attract more partners and developers to use ERC-3525 to develop various applications, whether it is games, finance or social networking. We hope that the product we make is not just a fake product, but an application that can really help solve problems and create value. Our goal is to provide truly valuable applications in the market and contribute to the development of the entire blockchain ecosystem.

In the Solv team, we have made three products successively, the first two of which are exploratory in nature. Right now we are mainly focusing on active fund management platforms. Active funds are managed by a fund manager (which can be a real person, a robot or an algorithm), and investors (including institutions and retail investors) can purchase fund shares to invest in the fund manager. After the fund manager gets the funds, he can take the initiative to invest and manage money, and distribute the proceeds to investors, which is similar to the traditional funds we are familiar with.

However, in the blockchain field, active funds have some security issues, such as the misconduct of fund managers that may lead to investor losses. In order to solve these problems , we have built a strong risk control system to ensure that fund managers meet the risk control requirements when operating funds, and at the same time protect the safety and interests of investors.

In traditional industries, funds can usually be divided into two categories: one is decentralized passive funds, and the other is active funds. In the blockchain, decentralized passive funds are automatically managed by some algorithms. Investors can mortgage their funds (such as Bitcoin, Ethereum or USDC, etc.) Calculate the income according to the specified rules and automatically distribute it to investors. The rate of return of this kind of fund is usually not high, and a few tenths of a percent are very common. Recently, there has been an inversion of interest rates on U.S. Treasury bonds, which has further reduced the yields of such funds. On the other hand, an active fund uses a living person or a quantitative algorithm to actively carry out position adjustment transactions in order to strive for higher yields. However, there are some safety hazards in this kind of fund, such as improper behavior of the fund manager, running away or conducting irregular transactions, etc., which may cause investors to suffer losses. In order to solve these problems, it is necessary to build a complete set of risk control security system. This risk control system must ensure that the fund manager uses some strategies to obtain higher returns when operating the fund, but at the same time, it must also ensure the fund's capital security and risk control. In this process, transparency and monitoring are very important, and emergency measures such as redemption or liquidation are required.

The product launched by the Solv team is an active fund, which will be launched on March 20, 2023. Through our strong risk control system , we can allow quantitative teams, market makers and investment managers with special skills to issue funds on our platform and raise funds from institutions or retail investors. These fund managers can obtain higher returns through active investment strategies. At the same time, we will carry out strict risk control and monitoring to ensure the safety of funds and protect the interests of investors. Because of the successful establishment of our risk control and security system, our products have achieved remarkable results in the DeFi protocols in the big bear market, and should be ranked among the top ten.

Core content : We have developed a new type of token standard ERC-3525, referred to as SFT, which is used to express digital bills. The standard has features such as visualization, splitting, merging and computing, containerization, and composition capabilities. At present, we are focusing on a product called "Active Fund", which ensures the safety and interests of investors through a strong risk control system. Our products have achieved remarkable results in the blockchain industry, ranking among the top ten in the DeFi protocol.

What is your most memorable experience in Web3?

The reason why I hold such a view on blockchain and digital assets is closely related to my personal experience. I focus on innovation, regard innovation and entrepreneurship as value investment, and be very wary of speculation. This perception is mainly the result of two experiences.

First of all, after I joined the blockchain industry, I experienced a ups and downs of a high and then a loss. I invested in Ethereum at the time and caught a big appreciation in early 2017. I feel that if it rises so many times again, I will be able to become financially free.

However, the ICO explosion in 2017 left me in a state of ecstasy. I invested in many projects, some of which came from entrepreneurs with prestigious school backgrounds, teams from Google, Tencent and other backgrounds, and some mysterious hacker teams. There are also some projects that have been endorsed by well-known bigwigs in the industry. Like many people, I blindly chased these projects and lost all the money I had made on Bitcoin and Ethereum in five or six investments. From this, I found that when the overall market is in a bear market, diversification does not guarantee that there will be projects that will make money. Even viable assets like bitcoin and ethereum go through ups and downs, and people with bright backgrounds don't necessarily understand blockchain better or take the industry more seriously than I do. Although they may have a deeper background in the technical field, and even have achieved success in the Web2 field, high-quality projects in the blockchain and Web3 fields have some unique characteristics. They pay more attention to community building and need an open community instead of Too much emphasis is placed on the background of the investor or founder, especially the educational background, but it is necessary to clearly judge the speculative mentality of the other party. I later reflected and found that many of these founders are not as persistent and persistent as I am in terms of cognition and belief in the blockchain. They came to pan for gold when the industry was hot, and then gave up due to lack of persistence and a deep understanding of the industry. , In fact, they are speculators who behave as entrepreneurs. On the contrary, many successful project teams do not have a glamorous educational background, but have strong hands-on ability, deep cognition and firmness in the direction of decentralization. In fact, this is also the root of creating value.

Secondly, over the years, I have made many friends in the crypto circle and observed their experiences. Although I can't specifically mention individuals or events, after long-term observation, I have a deep feeling that few people can get out of the casino completely, or make stable profits in the trading market. Although some people may earn huge wealth in the short term, such as catching one or two air coins or meme coins, or gaining high returns through leveraged currency speculation. When they are proud, they publicize some of their ideas in a high-profile way, which is often something that destroys the three views. But at that time, they were indeed angry horses in fresh clothes, and their momentum of berating Fang Qiu would affect many people and lead to confusion of values. But in the long run, most of these people will not be the ultimate winners. They may go bankrupt in the violent market fluctuations, or go to jail, or die, and more slowly lose all their money , exit the stage . I used to envy those who made huge profits, but eight years of observation made me understand that speculation, especially bottomless speculation and market manipulation, is a game of raising Gu, and the vast majority of people will suffer from the violent fluctuations in the market. In the middle, the mentality is particularly bad, and gradually loses reason and bottom line, and enters the game of mutual harm. It's not a cause I want to be a part of.

As a result, my investment and wealth concepts have undergone tremendous changes. On the one hand, at this time, I read some classic books on value investing, which aroused my thinking. Buffett has a very important point of view, the so-called circle of competence. Buffett believes that within this circle of competence, it is possible for people to beat the market. But building this circle of competence requires long-term accumulation and learning, and the establishment of sufficient knowledge and beliefs.

So I started to stay away from speculation and focus more on innovation and entrepreneurship. I believe that through innovation, we can not only create value for the entire industry and the community, but also build our own circle of competence. Only on this basis can we talk about luck. Through persistent efforts and deep understanding, I believe I can achieve more success in this industry. Therefore, I now put more energy into innovation and entrepreneurship, and regard this as my own value investment method, and believe that this will be a reliable path to wealth growth.

Now, I believe that no pain, no gain. What you get by luck is floating wealth, and real wealth comes from your own hard work and sweat . In fact, contrary to what the vast majority of people in this industry think, I stand by my beliefs. Many people think that the blockchain industry is gambling and speculation, and laugh at me as a nerd and a pedant. However, I don't pay much attention to these remarks. I have chosen a path that suits my personality and concepts. Through innovative and down-to-earth work, I have created something truly useful and valuable for the industry and the community. At the same time, I have built my own circle of competence and invested in it. In this industry, there may be relatively few people with a concept like mine. But I firmly believe in my own ideas, and I embody them through practical actions.

Core content : My concept is closely related to my experience. After experiencing ups and downs, I have become more cautious and no longer blindly follow the trend of investment. I believe that wealth comes from the circle of competence, from one's own cognition and ability, rather than relying on luck. Innovation and practice is how I build my own circle of competence, and I only invest within my circle of competence.

What do you think are the tracks with development potential in the future in Web3?

DeFi and the public chain track are the directions I am very optimistic about. L2 and ZK in particular, I think have huge promise at the infrastructure level. ZK can achieve optional and controllable privacy protection, and at the same time achieve almost unlimited performance expansion, which is a key technology for the blockchain to enter mainstream applications in the future.

The second track that I am optimistic about is account abstraction , that is, smart contract wallet. This technology will allow us to use digital assets and Web3 applications in the future as simple, convenient and fun as using ordinary mobile phone applications, thereby reducing the difficulty for ordinary users to use blockchain and digital assets. This will attract billions of ordinary users into the revolution of the blockchain industry, which I think is a very promising track.

The third track I am optimistic about is RWA. This track is to map real-world assets to the blockchain, turning them into programmable digital assets to achieve regulation and liquidity. Through blockchain technology, these traditional offline assets can become more convenient, mortgageable and circulated. I believe that trillions of dollars of real-world assets will exist in the form of digital assets in the future, which will become the largest, most sustainable and far-reaching direction in the industry.

As for Web3 social, although I think it also has a huge room for imagination, there is no ideal solution yet. I hope to see someone provide a convincing design framework that can reshape the Internet's account system, traffic system, information sharing, and privacy protection. While this track may develop in the future, I don't think it's likely to be anytime soon. At present, the theoretical and academic research results in this field are still relatively scarce, and more time and effort are needed to realize it.

Core content : I am very optimistic about DeFi and the public chain track, especially L2 and ZK technologies, which have huge prospects at the infrastructure level and can achieve privacy protection and performance expansion. In addition, I think account abstraction and RWA track also have great potential. The former can reduce the difficulty of using the blockchain and attract more users to participate. The latter can map real-world assets to the blockchain to achieve supervision and liquidity. . As for the web3 social track, although there is a huge room for imagination, there is still a lack of an ideal solution, and more time and research are needed to realize it.

What is your plan for the future?

My current focus is on the layout of the RWA track, because our 3525, as a digital ticket, has a lot of applications in the fields of Web3 and pure digital assets, as well as in fields such as games, in addition to the fields of encryption and digital assets. application potential . Especially in the field of RWA, we have incubated a company that specializes in digital invoicing solutions for central bank digital currencies and programmable stablecoins that issue real-world assets. The company was successfully shortlisted as one of the 14 best projects in the RBA Digital Currency Pilot Project and received high praise. Of course, I am also very concerned about the tokenization of national debt projects. We pay attention to how to realize the tokenization of national debt under compliance. This includes combining treasury bonds with stablecoins, making them more efficient with the support of 3525 technology.

The second is digital certificates and programmable money. I always think that payment is the largest application scenario of blockchain. Musk once said that as long as the blockchain can solve the payment problem, it will be super useful. Blockchain payment, I think there are two advantages, the first is borderless real-time clearing and settlement, and the second is programmable. The former has been widely used now, but it needs to cooperate with the progress of CBDC and RWA to enter the real economy and daily payment, while the latter is the most powerful super weapon of blockchain payment. We are also studying how to use 3525 technology to express various qualification certificates, such as tickets, business licenses, license plates and qualification certificates. Even a digital asset like an invoice is, to some extent, a certificate. I believe that ERC-3525, combined with digital certificates, can be one of the best solutions for implementing a secure, open and programmable currency system.

The third is account abstraction. We are exploring how to combine 3525 technology with 6551 technology to develop the next generation of smart contract wallets to provide richer functions and stronger capabilities.

The fourth direction is the field of environmental protection, which involves carbon emission control, waste plastic management and waste classification and recycling. These are areas that need strong support in the real economy, and blockchain and 3525 technology provide a very suitable solution. These directions allow us to use 3525 technology in the expression and management of real-world assets, which is a very meaningful application scenario.

Core content : I am currently focusing on the layout of the RWA track, incubating a company that issues digital invoice solutions for central bank digital currencies and stablecoins that issue real-world assets. Additionally, I focus on applications in digital certificates, programmable money, account abstraction, and environmental protection. These directions are very promising in expressing and managing real-world assets using ERC-3525 technology.

What are your thoughts on how to attract newcomers?

For the introduction of newcomers, I pay more attention to how to bring these high-quality users and high-quality funds and assets into this industry. So this part, in my opinion, has two parts. One is responsible. Now some people, including some regulators, hope that the entire blockchain industry can carry out responsible innovation. This statement may sound harsh to many friends in the future, and they may not be willing to accept it, but I think it is a very correct formulation. It is to innovate responsibly, that is to say, you have to consider what purpose you want to achieve by doing this thing? Is it to mobilize the greedy and ugly side of human nature, to take advantage of the weaknesses of human nature, or to promote the advantages of human nature, and then contribute to society and the economy? I think this includes making contributions to the organization. What I said is particularly thematic, but my true thoughts.

In fact, if I had talked to me three years ago, I would not have talked about these things, because at that time my understanding of this matter was not to this level. I really think so now, that is, there are many people who show their teeth and claws, and then tell you how to make money, how to get rich quickly, and tell you that this person is very real, not pretending, and not talking about those tall people. There are many people who sell this kind of persona, and he denounced those who talk about values ​​as hypocrisy. Then tell you, "I am very simple, I just help you how to make money". Many inexperienced people feel that this kind of person is sincere and naturally generates a sense of trust . But in fact, I have observed in the past so many years that such people are basically liars. Basically, I have never seen people who do this have particularly good results, because they lost themselves first.

Back to this topic, I still think we need to introduce better users, better institutions and better funds. From this perspective, I think the value proposition of Web3 is to return each of our accounts, data, and social relationships to each of us. This is a just concept. We do RWA to enhance the liquidity of assets, so that small and medium-sized enterprises and everyone can obtain financial rights, no longer rely on intermediaries such as banks. These are very just and positive goals. We should work hard to do these things well, attract high-quality users, institutions and funds into this industry, and let it grow healthily and sustainably.

I want to emphasize again that those who show their teeth and claws and seem to be happy with each other on the surface, in fact, their results are often not good. I have seen many such people, envied them, and even wanted to develop in their direction, but in the end I realized that their ending was not optimistic. Some ended up destitute and in hiding, and some even went to jail. I don't envy such a life at all, so I chose a more responsible, healthy and sustainable development path, not because of my personal high moral integrity, but based on my observation of the industry, this is a correct direction , is a promising and sustainable growth direction.

Ultimately, our goal is to enhance asset liquidity, promote social and economic development, provide more opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises and individuals, and enable everyone to obtain the financial rights they deserve. We hope to attract more responsible and high-quality users and funds with a good vision, and jointly promote the development and progress of the entire industry.

Core content : I am very concerned about introducing high-quality users, institutions and funds into this industry. Responsible innovation is important, considering the contribution to society and the economy. I believe that web3's concept of justice can attract more people to participate, enhance asset liquidity, and promote small and medium-sized enterprises and individuals to obtain financial rights. It is a wise decision to choose a responsible and sustainable development direction. Ultimately, our goal is to make a positive contribution to social development