GRTiQ Podcast: 139 Antoine Chaveron

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Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:00:18):

And this person replied to me, why would we trust your API? And I was like, “But my service is decentralized.” No, she had a point. She had a point. And so after this episode and a bunch of others, like for example, downtime and all this stuff, we were actively looking for how to decentralize data sources that we have.

Nick (00:01:05):

Welcome to the GRTiQ Podcast. Today I’m speaking with Antoine “Chav” Chaveron, CEO and co-founder of UNCX Network, a pioneering provider of DeFi services known for its innovative and automated token solutions. During this interview, Antoine talks about his diverse background, which includes early experiences, a young entrepreneur selling scooter parts online, some interesting work in 3D printing and a stint working in behavioral economics for a CRM firm within the pharmaceutical industry. We then explore his transition into web3, the origin story of UNCX and how UNCX leverages subgraphs and The Graph. As always, we start the discussion talking about Antoine’s educational background.

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:01:53):

I’ve been studying engineering in France, so before that I was just following a regular secondary and high school program. And then I studied engineering, which was primarily mechanical engineering in the north of France because as you may have heard, I have a French accent, I’m French. And so I studied in the north of France for four years. The master was five years, but the last year I actually divided, it was a semester abroad in Ukraine. So I got the chance to work in Ukraine for a research project. Which was completely unexpected in the way that it was not even so connected to the background itself, to the engineering school itself. It was about how to print a dental prosthesis with a 3D printer. So to tell you it’s absolutely unrelated crypto or to mechanical engineering as a whole. And then I finished by having an internship in Barcelona in a software company. So that’s how I started my career in the software industry.

Nick (00:02:54):

So what drew your interest in mechanical engineering? Why did you decide to pursue early on a career in studying that?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:03:01):

So when I was, let’s say a teenager, I used to be passionate about scooters and mopeds. So I used to basically, I actually built my own when I was 13 I think for 27 euros because it was mostly collective parts that I found basically here and there, let’s say. And then I actually liked it. So that’s how I started to basically play with parts, repair scooters, repair, pretty much anything that could be repaired. And I was close to being a moped or anything I like. So then naturally I got interested in mechanics and that’s how naturally I was into engineering and especially mechanical engineering. Yeah, that’s how I came across.

Nick (00:03:45):

So what was your early vision of what you would do with that degree? I mean, before you got interested in crypto and stuff and you thought about your career, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:03:54):

It’s actually a hard one because I was just mainly interested by these mechanical topics, but at the same time I was mostly about cars and energies. So I guess there’s some parallel to crypto. I mean if we conserve it, coal mining and all these connections between the two topics, but it was mostly about automotive, sorry, car industry at the first place.

Nick (00:04:18):

This engineering brain is a constant in the podcast, it seems like every second or third guest I interview has educational background in engineering. And I’m just wondering, does web3 have a giant call to action for engineers? Where somehow addressing problems in the world and that type of brain is like, “Yeah, I want to jump in web3 and address these types of things because there is some correlation here. I can’t figure it out.

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:04:44):

I mean, to be fair, I would agree. First of all, I would agree with your point. It’s on a daily basis that we engineers that ended up being working in web3 one way or another. But the common part is not so much in my opinion about engineering, but about the nerd aspect of it. I would also consider myself a nerd. Even though I like this mechanical parts, I was mainly selling it online, for example, because I started as repairing, but then I also found myself interested by the trading parts of these mopeds and I would do it online. And then once you start doing so much stuff online, you also come across video games. And then when you start talking about for example, we attend a bunch of conferences every year, and there is always a moment where you both realize that, “Oh, it seems like there’s some connection to video games or to basically web2 websites experience or let’s say internet experience.” I’d say it’s a mix between engineering and also interest over the internet or the video game aspect of it.

Nick (00:05:48):

That makes sense. And so I do want to go back to this unique opportunity you had to go to Ukraine. Talk to us about that. What was that experience like and what did you learn about Ukraine when you were there?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:05:58):

So first, yeah, it’s a funny experience. We were like, why did I end up going there? Which was probably the most recurring question I got from the locals there. They were like, “Why are you here?” Because they were like, “What did you do wrong to end up, because it was nothing Kiev.” So you have Kiev, which is the capital, and you have also smaller cities. And in my case, I was kind of in the middle of Ukraine. It’s the region called Poltava, and the city is called Kremenchuk, which is known for being an industrial city and not so far from a [inaudible 00:06:31], which was let’s say a very strategic base during the Cold War especially. Yeah, so basically what I did the year before is that I went to India for two or three months, and I really liked, it’s completely unrelated, but India versus Ukraine. But I really liked, there is a parallel that can be made about the differences between Western Europe, for example, Western Europe is one thing. Then you had India that was very different.

(00:06:54):

I really enjoyed the difference there, sorry, in India. And I just wanted to make sure that I could, the next experience as far as traveling and studying was concerned was also far from our Western European standards in terms of experience. So that’s why Ukraine was, it’s not geographically far, but there was some, let’s say, cultural differences and just a way for me to discover something else without going too far, if that makes sense. So this is why, and also the project itself got me very interested because really used the 3D scanners or 3D printers during my studies. So both the location and the project got me convinced a hundred percent.

(00:07:38):

And also the fact that in these engineering schools, we have different partnerships with different universities, and in this case it was a brand new partnership. So the fact that I would also open the partnership got me interested about actually doing it. So it was also the discovery itself, but the experience was great. Yeah, the experience was great. We had some issues with the language. And we also had also a bunch of older generation people, which I completely understand that were challenging me to actually know whether or not I was a spy, which is kind of funny. I mean it’s the older generation, I’m talking about 65 plus people. But it was part of the experience itself, and it was a six month long experience, but it felt like just a great experience for me.

Nick (00:08:20):

You said you were working on 3D printing for dental prosthetics, which interesting to me because 3D printing was so disruptive and you hardly hear about it anymore because now we’ve got blockchain and AI. And These are now the technologies everyone is talking about. Have you kept up on 3D printing? I mean, do you have an opinion? Is that a failed technology? Is adoption slow? Is there too much cost involved into it? I mean, where does that sit?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:08:47):

I just think that, okay, so you’re right. There was a hype wave back then. So when I was there, it was 2016. So yeah, there were a lot of people talking about it. It was the trend, if I may say back then. And on the project itself, I followed up to see actually what happens. And it turns out that they’re pursuing the research and now they have, it’s more than the research. They actually started to do it a few years ago. I think it’s pre COVID, so it’s like 2019, if I’m not mistaken.

(00:09:17):

Well, actually no later than last week I was on the call with a company that we help, which is not connected to UNCX network by any means, but we’re still in touch because they want to launch short to have a utility token for their ecosystem. And so they have basically merge products and some parts of it, they print it with 3D printers. So I was like, “Okay, you basically do the whole circle between fungible tokens, non-fungible tokens, because they’re pegged two FTs one way or another, if I’m not mistaken, an actual merge that uses 3D printers.” So it seems like it’s still there.

Nick (00:09:52):

Let’s go back to your story and your personal arc there. So what did you do after university?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:09:59):

So after this youth experience, I basically started the end of study internship in Barcelona, Spain, and I still live there because I really enjoyed the culture, the city, the experience in Spain and in Barcelona especially. So I started to work in a software company, which is called Fitnet, and it’s actually a French company that is providing ERP solutions for services company. So it’s like, if I may say the SAP for services companies. It’s like a smaller version of SAP that is specifically dedicated to a certain range of companies that sell consulting services. And so I was obviously, I started by training myself, and then I was in charge of basically the deployment of the solutions for the new contracted customers. And I also got involved at some point into the sales process, not because I was born salesman, but more about the specific cases.

(00:10:57):

So there was a standard product, like a standard ERP solution, which we twisted to adapted to a new market, which were to be a very precisely architecture companies that are also turning out that they’re also selling consulting services, but just in a different way. So I was involved also in the sales process to make sure that we could basically tweak the product to adjust it with their software needs without being a native, sorry, product adapted for these specific companies. So yeah, that took me, I think I spent there nearly to two years. I mean it was a great experience. I think if I may elaborate on what’s the best thing I learned there. So first, you don’t really want to listen to the solution provided by your customers, so it was B to B, so you don’t want to listen to the solution, you rather want to listen to the problem, and then while you have the problem, you can actually figure what the solution is.

(00:11:55):

So it’s mostly problem driven solution experimentation, if that makes sense. And the second thing is because it was like a standardized product, every company can argue that they have different needs, when it come to ERP softwares. But at the end of the day, between one consulting company and another, they may believe that they operate completely differently, but they have standard needs and similar needs. So I think where I’m coming from here is that what I learned is how to provide your customers with scalable services because it turns out that there is not a million ways to operate a consulting company, for example, for that matter. But you’d rather focus on what’s common between one company and another, and then they can also adapt themselves to a model that works.

Nick (00:12:39):

I want to double click on what you said about that product versus solution type of mentality. Do you mind going a little deeper there? Because I think it’s interesting in the context of web3 where you see a proliferation of infrastructure products and other types of gaps, but you wonder sometimes, are we addressing the solution that users of web3 actually need? I mean, how do you think through all that?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:13:01):

Yeah, this is a great question because in web3, we have witnessed and we actually still witness a lot of solutions like a solutions for A, B, C, Z. But the real question is what is the problem we often hear in podcasts or in AMAs, what is the use case? What are you fixing? And I think this is sometimes a question, I wouldn’t say that it’s forgotten, but maybe not put or not given as much support importance as it deserves. And that’s basically what drove us at UNCX Network to think about problems rather than thinking about solutions.

(00:13:41):

Actually, I’m not saying we did it the perfect way. We also had attempts, we were attempting or thinking about your cool tech, the layers of complexity over layers of complexities and so on and so forth. But this is more or less what I would like technical brain juice. But sometimes it doesn’t serve actually the market or maybe it would serve the market at a later stage, but there’s no such thing as a product market for these problematics that we tried to address, but they were actually not problems that they were just solutions that we thought about.

(00:14:11):

And you’re right, yeah, this is something we witness a lot in web3. So yeah, as far as my experience was concerned in this company, I really are grateful to my former boss because he was always even asking us or challenging us as employees to know what was the problem and not the solution. So basically this one got printed hard in my mind. I tried to use it as much as possible.

Nick (00:14:34):

That’s a great lesson to learn as a young person getting started in their career out of university. Eventually you move from Fitnet to Octana. What was Octana? What did you do there?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:14:46):

So yeah, the transition was natural in a way because after spending nearly a few years in Fitnet, so in the ARP company, I also liked the pipes of sales and the process, basically the commercial workflows. So I came across… I basically had the wheel to also look into what’s called the CRMs, customer relationship management platforms, which is essentially what, not exactly quite what ACTA provides, but ACTA is a solution that is integrated into CRM solutions, which are adapted to the pharma market, to the pharma company. So basically at Octana, we were a provider of let’s say specific intel specific suggestions that were natively pushed into ACRM solution for pharma companies. So for example, just to give a concrete situation here, so imagine you’re Pfizer or by a payer or j and j like a pharma company, so you use a CRM, so you’re not technically allowed to sell products, right?

(00:15:47):

Because this is pharma, this is medical products, so it’s not exactly the same process as we could know as sales. It’s more about influence. So influence that means you need to go and to advertise without exactly advertising your products like the new drugs or the new solutions that are delivered by one lab or one pharma company. And so what we were doing is to basically collect all the data from the CRM and based on all these, let’s say, input data that came from the CRM. We were able to give the sales which are not sales, more like medical representatives that are employed by pharma companies, which person to see as in which doctor they should talk to. And when they go to see them, they should also either speak about innovation or speak about the weather or speak basically where to orientate the conversation to make sure that you can influence the medical practitioner. What we call the HCP healthcare provider in the best way possible, so that it was smart suggestion for people that working into the medical representative sector.

(00:16:52):

So I really have to say that I love the tech because most of it was more than just algorithm database. We also had some machine learning components. There was also a product that was called the DSC, which stands for the decision support engine. Which was for the outside people, it was more or less like a big black box with all the input data and out of this black box you would have a suggestion of who to see and where and so on. But it was mostly like how to consume data in the smartest way possible so that you could basically deliver the right message to the right person as a medical representative, as a sales representative, if that makes sense.

Nick (00:17:30):

This approach to predictive behavior and cells is common. I mean, I recall reading once that companies like Target were able to determine if a consumer was pregnant long before that consumer may have known just by watching their behavior and the certain things that they were doing. But it’s interesting to learn that this exists in pharma. It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, but pharma in the United States, it’s got a pretty nasty reputation right now. And I don’t know if these COVID vaccines and however that story ends, if that industry will suffer more in terms of public opinion or not, but what did you think? I mean, what did you learn about the pharma industry by virtue of this role? Do you have a less cynical view or a more cynical view of what pharma is and what they’re doing?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:18:16):

So I think this is what you just said about the United States and the reputation of the pharma industry. I’d say it’s probably the same opinion or worse in Europe. I’m talking as a French here. I know that for example, in France, for example, if I take my family or my friends, they have let’s say, some opinion of me working in this industry, which I believe is fair enough. I know it’s controversial, especially, I mean without naming specifically some companies, somehow let’s say controversial decisions in the past. So yeah, I’m with you in the sense of this industry is not fully white and doesn’t have the opinion on their side, and that’s why I also didn’t stay there for a long time. I basically worked there for a year. So I was very interested about the technology more than the actual market, the pharma companies specifically for me, it was more about learnings about being a proficient and efficient database engineer because I was hired there on the more technical side, which I really loved actually.

(00:19:19):

And then after realizing that actually our engine and our tools were working, so you actually think about it twice and so we’re basically making more profitable pharma companies that already have a fair impact on the world as we know it today. I mean, it’s probably even more after the COVID and let’s see, after the next virus, we don’t know yet what’s going to happen. But the point is, yeah, this is also why I left because I was not a hundred percent matching what I believe in. And as far as I’m concerned, the pharma industry is very centralized, so it’s against what we fight for in the space. So yeah, this is, I’d say in a nutshell my opinion about it.

Nick (00:20:35): We are tracking your story here. You’re working at Octana, you’ve already worked at Fitnet. In advance of that at what point are you starting to become aware of crypto and web3 and your interest starts to peak? What’s happening to drive that?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:21:22):

So it actually happened before because the first time I discovered about BTC, especially Bitcoin, I was in 2015 when I was a student. And I discovered Bitcoin because as a fellow nerd, I wanted to discover the Dark Web. So basically I wiped completely a computer. I was booting on USB drives and to make sure that I couldn’t be tracked or hacked or by any means. And I discovered a website that people know as back then it was still the Silk Road. And I was interested by what is this currency where it’s actually one for both. I think back then it was a 250 or $300, and I was like, what is this currency like one for 300, for example? I think everyone’s pretty savvy. You ever traveled about, I don’t know, euro dollar foreign exchange, foreign currencies? There’s a slight difference, but one to 300 was something that is completely virtual and on the Dark Web.

(00:22:17):

I got very interested about it. That’s how I discovered the quit. But it was not like any form of professional involvement. The only thing that I did back then in 2015 was to read the white paper. And I’m going to be honest here, I didn’t understand it. So I had to read it a bunch of times, but that’s how I came across crypto for the first time. And then if I may elaborate on it, I also developed over the years, especially as a student, a natural interest over the financial system just to discover how it works. And I found myself sometimes with questions that could not be answered because the system is let’s say rather opaque, if that makes sense. And if you combine these two elements together, this virtual currency, transparent currency discovery, which, sorry, in my opinion represent freedom back then and the opaque nature of the financial system, if you combine the two together, I naturally got interested more about, well, digital currencies, cryptocurrencies, and not so much about the cryptographic aspect of things to be sure.

(00:23:22):

Let’s say I have a limited capacity here as far as fully understanding the hashes, the way it works, the different mechanics of encryption, but it was more about the transparent aspect of it. And yeah, that was 2015, 2016, 2017, and I kept looking into it as an individual. Of course, I started with a few investments, but when you don’t really put, I just had a finger or a hand deep in it. And I guess my conclusion here is that the more I dig into it, the more I got passionate about it. And that’s actually what drove me to quit as well. Ana, this company in 2020, I think.

Nick (00:24:02):

Antoine, I’m curious to get your opinion about the Dark Web and some of those early days with Silk Road. And the question is, do you think when the history books are written about the emergence of Web 3Decentralization, do you think that they’ll see or write that things like Silk Road and the Dark Web were precursors to this movement that they were first iterations of this Cryptographic decentralized web? Or do you think it’s just a strange artifact, just a strange side road to this whole development? I mean, have you ever thought about how all that will fit together?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:24:39):

I think this is one of the first serious use cases because at the end of the day, okay, if you forget what is sometimes sold on these marketplaces, which you can argue that they’re no good or bad for humanity. There is always the libertarian aspect of things. So we should low anything, but you can understand that it can also harm people. So maybe it’s not great to sell these products. This is debatable of course. But I guess the point that I’m trying to make here is that either way, it was a marketplace that was working and that good customers, happy customers, happy sellers as well. So that would be a first working system of an alternative system of payment that did not require a third party. So to me, I would rather see that as a precursor movement rather than just like a tryout.

(00:25:25):

Because for example, you can compare this to, and I could ask you this question back actually. What do you think about the first ever applications that were on the app store or the first applications that were on mobile phones? It was mostly absolute stupid stuff or colors or you could send to your friends like a color or the image of a beer or even Naked Peaks or it was not more. Yeah, I guess my point is it has to start somewhere, and it has to start with most people can understand. So in this case, marketplace is very adapted to make people understand that, “Oh, we can actually trade over the internet.”

(00:26:04):

I think if we want to push this one even more, we can argue that before with how we knew and how we interacted with internet, we would be able to trade with each other messages. That means data. We were able to trade photos, we were able to trade pretty much anything but value. And this first applications of Bitcoin through the Silk Road or similar platforms, for example, is actually the first, and it was the missing part of the internet, which was trading value on a peer-to-peer model. So yeah, I would rather see that as a precursor.

Nick (00:26:36):

I have a similar opinion. I think Antoine of how Silk wrote Dark Web will fit into the narrative. And I do certainly agree with you that it signals an interest from society in being able to create online marketplaces and to get rid of a lot of middlemen. It’ll be interesting to see how the history books treat that concept. So let’s go back to your story then. You’re working in Octana, eventually you move on and you go to work at a place called [inaudible 00:27:04]. What can you tell us about that move?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:27:06):

So I was very happy to move. So for the reasons that we discussed about, and also because it was my first, let’s say, professional crypto experience because this company. Plutus is so you’re probably aware of crypto.com, Binance swipe back then, but I don’t know if this is still active, but they were like DeFi card products, but not exactly DeFi because crypto.com is centralized, so is Binance. So with swipe, that got actually a card by Binance. But what Q Tools was trying to achieve and actually is achieving, is to basically provide you with a non-custodial exchange where you can trade [inaudible 00:27:45] for crypto and you actually load a debit card and then you can use the debit card for everyday purchases. And you have these loyalty programs with Cashbacks and so forth. So the idea is to haver decentralized DeFi card product. So technically once you load the fiat on the debit card, it’s not exactly non-custodial because it’s basically loaded on the card, so you have to spend it and it’s part of the banking system or the traditional financial system.

(00:28:13):

But that being said, I was really happy with this first experience, and actually I have very nice souvenir. Even though it was short because it was only three months because I left straight at the end of my trial period, which was three months because I had the other adventures waiting for me. So we can discuss about this in a minute, of course. But yeah, it was my first group to experience about this iCloud, and I was mostly there handling customer relationships like a B to C product. So I was responsible for the support team and am really grateful of this first experience. I mean, imagine you’ve been spending so much time on [inaudible 00:28:50] scanning and you actually have to use a first scan at works. That’s a feeling that many will probably experience and more. And yeah, it was a great transition.

Nick (00:29:01):

Let’s talk about this move you made. So in 2015, you become aware of Bitcoin, you go on the Dark Web, Silk Road, you see that people are using it and you’re shocked and surprised by it. You keep tracking it a little bit, it pairs well with your personal curiosity about how the financial system works. Then in 2020, you leave traditional industry you go to work in crypto. What had changed in the way you were thinking about crypto and the financial system that would cause you to jumping out of traditional industry and going to work in crypto?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:29:38):

To be fair, it was mostly about the passion becoming more and more of stronger by the day. I would be in denial saying that the market conditions didn’t impact me because 2019, 2020 we’re basically talking about the run-up of the industry. So of course things were also heating on the markets, and so there was more opportunities to join the industry. But yeah, I basically also figured that it was not so much about the bottom line that I would make as an employee, but I really wanted to work in the web3 space and crypto. So to give you even concrete data, when I changed my work from a tenant to Plutus, I think I cut 35% of my salary back then because I really wanted to get started in the web3 space.

Nick (00:30:29):

So if we apply then that early lesson, you described earlier about the problem versus the solution. You must be having some epiphany about the financial system and the way DeFi and crypto can impact the world. What were you thinking at the time? What was it that you saw that would change or benefit society?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:30:50):

Back then? When I made this change, actually I was mostly convinced the value proposition of Plutus, for example, was about the non-custodial aspect of things. You always hear these phrases that say, not your keys, not your crypto. And I think they changed now, but back then it was the catchphrase on the website. I was like, this is where I see a problem. Exactly. To me, it’s super important to remove as much as possible the centralized layer or the third party validation when it comes to value. So that’s the main problem that I was interested about solving when I joined this company. And it kept going this way because after Pluto, I mean it was going the same direction.

Nick (00:31:35):

Okay. So you’re working at Plutus, you did three months there, but sometime during your time there. I presume you have an idea for an entrepreneurial venture you want to start and pursue, which eventually becomes UNCX Networks. So what can you tell us about the origins there? What were the early ideas or impressions you had that led to this?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:31:55):

So actually it actually happened at the same time because when I was at act, I got already started on UNCX, which back then was named Icri. And so when I was doing the switch from ACT [inaudible 00:32:06], I was still doing UNCX at the same time. We started this journey in mid 2020, so in summer 2020, which we oftentimes refer to as DeFi summer, because Uniswap was basically popping off. There were a lot of tokens created per day, even sometimes per hour. So the journey started in parallel and it was a lot of energy spent because when you have to work full time for a company and create your own project at the same time, let’s say that you need a lot of energy, a lot of coffee, a lot of Red Bull and just a few hours of sleep. But yeah, we were basically… When I say we, it’s because I met my associate, my business partner on Telegram anonymously.

(00:32:53):

We met in summer 2020, and we worked together to solve the problems that we identified, which were essentially a lack of security on top of Uniswap with a lot of these rock pools. So the concept of having someone pairing liquidity in a decentralized exchange and just running away after some time lose the liquidity. So this is the first ever problem that we actually tried to solve. And I guess maybe you want to discuss a bit more in details about this one, because that’s probably what we could consider and still as of today, our flagship product. But yeah, so essentially to answer the question we were doing both at the same time, so a nine to five and another, let’s say founder’s job, it was a hell of a idea back then Summer 2020.

Nick (00:33:38):

I do want to talk more about your flagship product and dive deeper on all the great things you’ve done at UNCX. But before we do, I want to ask you about that entrepreneurial move. So was that a difficult move to make? I mean, did you feel like you were risking it all in trying something new or were you excited about it? Was it something you had always want to do as be a business operator?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:33:58):

I was always interested about starting my… Let’s say, through entrepreneurship, and I kind of did it when I was a teenager with this moped parts and everything because I was basically buying, preparing, selling. So I had the notion of how to have a treasury, how to have enough to buy the parts, to have to sell with a good price, talk to people. All these experiences, let’s say, of customer relationship. I had it let’s say rather early in my life, but then it was different here because we were talking about the crypto industry. And I was also basically launching a project or a company with someone I never met because as I mentioned briefly earlier, we met on Telegram. We were two nicknames on Telegram, and we worked this way for nine months, day and nights before revealing to each other who we were. So it was actually, I mean you may believe, or you may not believe this, but it was the best way to actually vet if a collaboration with someone can work.

(00:34:57):

Because if you’re working under anonymous status, you can basically fail each other anytime, and you can also truly be resolved. There is no such thing as a filter or as a corporate behavior. We’re just two people that are passionate about the same things, share the same values, both sometimes wear a tinfoil hat, conspiracy theories. I found a buddy for that purposes. The decentralization is at the core of our conversations as of today still. But anyway, the point is it was maybe a hard move for if you consider people support, because of course you tell to your parents or to your friends that you’re going to go full-time into crypto industry. That’s one thing.

(00:35:40):

The narrative is not exactly in your favor already because the industry has some bad examples or some association with laundering or all these examples that are sometimes pushed by the traditional media. So that’s for one, and for two, if you create a company with someone that you actually never even met and you don’t know who that person is, that doesn’t basically add to your case. So in that regard, it was, let’s say very exciting, but at the same time, not very supportive moves, which we could qualify as bold in a way.

Nick (00:36:12):

Only in web3 are entrepreneurs meeting up and not knowing each other’s identity for a full nine months as they launch new products. It’s incredible. It’s a new paradigm, and it’s probably exactly what the future looks like. Before we jump into UNCX and what you built, I always like to ask this question of entrepreneurs who come onto the podcast. What makes a successful entrepreneur? I mean, you are still in this journey. You’re still, I’m sure, working a lot of hours and still finding your way and path. But what are the early lessons you learned and what are some advice you can share?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:36:47):

I think one of the, let’s say the most used advice is try to do something that you personally care about, even though you don’t want. And it’s not a good practice to take everything personally. Once you start and once you create a business, you still want to be ideally working in something that you personally believe in outside of just a job. Of course you have business model business models that work, but I would recommend you to be interested about what you’re trying to do.

(00:37:15):

For example, if you’re not interested about socks, you might as well try to sell something else rather than socks. That’s the most simple example that I have that comes to my mind. So this is for one, and then the second is it’s the hard one is you also need to learn how to delegate, because for a long time we were only two people, but the transition to starting to grow and to have more people was something that we learned that it was actually needed because to give you some concrete data, for example, at some point we were working, I mean, in my personal case, 20 hours a day.

(00:37:51):

So 20 hours a day of work is sustainable, but not exactly in the long term. You need to sleep, you need to rest, and as much as you’re passionate about something. If you basically do only this, you may lose or weaken the actual passion that you have for this topic, for this industry in particular. So you also need to give time to yourself and to spend time with your family, friends, partner, both. But yeah, that’s also another angle that is very important. Learn how to delegate. And I would say, I mean, it depends if you raise capital, in my opinion, if you can afford not to, I would advise not to do it. We had the chance not to do it. As of now, we’re completely built from scratch. So it comes with other challenges because you can argue that you can grow slower or you have to grow slower than some, for example, competition.

(00:38:42):

But at the same time, it’ll lose you in a way not to work for anybody. You can remain completely in control and you don’t have pressure from investors or outside advisors or people that basically tell you what to do while you actually know that this is not necessarily the good decision for the company that you actually created yourself. So that’s ideally something that if you can afford not to do it, I would recommend not to as long as possible. Sometimes it’s needed to accelerate. And in that regard, that means you also want to grow slowly.

(00:39:12):

One of the things that we learned is that sometimes we would go for one solution without actually completely understanding the problem that we had. And by making these moves too fast sometimes, basically, I mean, you learn a lot through failure, right? Because once you actually hit the wall, you understand that next time you’re going to be doing it differently. But if I were still to give this advice to someone, I would say try to move slowly, especially with the space as we know it. The web free space moves very, very fast. So I think it’s also a good practice to sometimes just rest for a bit, think twice before moving or making an action.

Nick (00:39:49):

In preparation for this interview, I did note that you launched UNCX without any fundraising, and it’s remarkable that you did and that you’ve been as successful as you’ve been without it. And so I do love that angle of the story, and I hope listeners will appreciate the challenge, but also the incredible unique nature of what you’ve done. So if we go back in time, then you talk about this observation that you and your colleague made about rug poles on Uniswap, and this being a problem that you wanted to address, it remains the flagship product. You’ve added more things, but let’s start there. How did you address that and what was some early signals that you really got something here, this is working?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:40:33):

So yeah, the first error product that we had on the market from summer 2020 were the liquidity lockers on top of UNCX have V2. So we’re natively coming from Ethereum chain, even though now we’re deployed on multiple EDMs. And the reason we came with this product at the first place is that because we created a token, which was called back then UNC. And this token had, as you just mentioned, we didn’t have any fundraise, so we just listed straight on uni swap was like $50 worth of Ethereum and let’s say a very much like a lot of UNCX on the other side of the token.

(00:41:07):

And so people would simply not buy it because they would be arguing that somehow we could run away with the liquidity, which was a fair point. So that’s why we decided to commit to this liquidity, and that’s how we came up with the first, what we called the POL Proof of liquidity smart contract, which would allow people to actually… And we were the first users of the service, but which would allow liquidity providers that were actually token developers to store their liquidity provider position tokens for one year, two years, 265 years, which was the limit of the first contracts.

(00:41:45):

So at first, we just needed to use it ourselves to prove that we were here for our, we had good intentions. And so as we started to use it, people naturally organically started to see value on the service itself, especially small capitalization, because if you were a very big project backed by animals, 10 centralized exchanges, you didn’t really need to prove that you were a serious project. So these, let’s say larger blue chips or bigger projects didn’t really see the value of our service. And however, the small capitalization, micro capitalizations and medium capitalization back then in 2020, a lot of them were using our first ever service, the liquidity lockers on top of in two.

(00:42:26):

And we realized, because back then we were still anonymous and we realized that people would see value on the service when we actually ran some numbers and 10% of all the pairs that were created on Uniswap were locked in our smart contract. So 10% of all Uniswap in 2020 was a very… I don’t have exactly the precise TVL number because the APIs were clunky. I’m going to be honest, we were not using The Graph back then, but when we still that this was used by 10% of all the swaps, we figured that there was some serious interest over the product and it worked also to protect people. You had so many cases where people would participate in investing runs or the decentralized way and then people would lease and just runway with the liquidity.

(00:43:14):

So it’s not even that we pushed the narrative through marketing because we didn’t have that budget. We didn’t have a company, we were just two people behind their computers, but people naturally saw value over the service. And you could see if you were joining a telegram chat of a low capitalization product or project that you could do a small research and there would always have some people asking, is the liquidity locked with [inaudible 00:43:37]? And so that’s where we knew that we were onto something that actually we were solving a problem. Of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to security and on chain metrics. There is a lot more we’ve been working on, but this aspect was like when we realized that we were, let’s say, used with brackets so much, that’s when we knew that we were onto something.

Nick (00:43:59):

I’ll bet that was an incredible moment for you to realize that you are creating value in the world, and in fact, so much so that this has become a standard within web3. This is a default now of how things work and should work. Am I right about that?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:44:15):

It depends. If you take low capitalization, micro capitalism, like small projects, organic projects. Not the ones that are backed by let’s say tens of millions of dollars, you’ll very often see people locking liquidity, locking liquidity. Not necessarily the entire pools, but they would do this effort and it became even more than just an anti rockpool service. It also became a security service because for example, if your wallet gets compromised and the liquidity provider tokens are held in a single wallet, that can be an issue. And by basically storing them away to a smart contract like ours, it removes a vector of attack. And on top of it also becomes some form of exposure because we have a lot of users, we have a lot of people checking who is using our services. So whenever you up your liquidity with UNCX networks, you can expect people to actually check on what your company is doing, what your project is doing, what you’re trying to achieve, what’s your use case, and so on.

(00:45:18):

So at the end, it’s more than just anti rockpool service. And I just happened to think about something funny that we also realized and we were like, “Okay, we’re onto something.” Do you remember the Uniswap token airdrop? So it was, if I’m not mistaken, it was 2020. And so if you ever interacted with Uniswap, they would award you. I think it was like the base was 400 UNI token, which was back then like $1,500 or something like this. And for example, if you were a liquidity provider, they would award you more as you were providing liquidity to more than just one payer.

(00:45:55):

And so to give you, it is a funny stat, right? But because we had all these LP position that were stored in our POA proof of liquidity smart contract, we were obviously awarded a fat airdrop from the Uniswap team, which was worth more than 1.2, $1.3 million. But because this airdrop was stored in the Liquidity Lockers contract with no withdraw possibility, unless you were yourself locking your liquidity, you can still find this very big Uniswap token holder. That is actually our first ever smart contract service, and we never could get the tokens out. So there is a position somewhere if the next bull market Uniswap token goes like don’t a very parabolic, we’re going to be probably among the top holders, but these tokens are burned. So if you’re a Uniswap token holder, we burn some tokens for you.

Nick (00:46:44):

Wow. Wow. That’s incredible. Incredible side story to the growth and opportunities in the early days.

Nick (00:47:21):

Talk about how it’s grown since that time. So you found early traction in the market. You have this flagship product, it represents a lot of value. You’re seeing a lot of users begin to use it. Since that time, how have you grown? What other services, what other solutions are you providing?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:47:36):

So after the liquidity lockers, the next challenge that we decided to tackle was the token vesting because you may, for example, lock your liquidity, but you hold 90% of the token supply on your wallet. You don’t even need to remove the liquidity to dump on everybody else, if that makes sense. So we came with this new service of token investing, and the token investing plus the liquidity locker service gave us the opportunity to actually work on what we would call now an unchain launchpad.

(00:48:03):

So imagine the Uniswap of raising capital like crowdfunding, the Uniswap way, so anyone can basically use the platform to raise capital. So this is one of the products that we have, and we have had a lot of traction on this product, especially in 2021. Now it’s a bit different because people are not so much into, let’s say, the best launching conditions, which is perfectly understandable in four year cycle. So we’re just working on the product, but there is not that much of traffic these days. Then we also have a token generator. So if you want to, for example, create euro currency, you can either learn solidity or you come to our UI and you can create your token with the creative functions.

(00:48:43):

We had actually two versions of this product. The first one was very restricted so it was like a standard ESC 20. So it’s like you could mean something that we would call EMMT, which stands for ESC 20 non-minable token. So in a way, we were kind of cleaning people’s wings because there was no tolerance for creativity, because we were arguing that, “Hey, if you have too many too much creativity, you might as well just scam people.” But then we realized that there is no real point clipping people’s creativity or just removing ability to be creative. So we came with a new token generator with many creative features like analog taxes with flexion Maxwell. Its an bot like let’s say some fireworks over the creative functions that we saw across the space and we identified as interesting. So we have the service on the market, and we also have a service that to allow people to either create staking programs or forming programs.

(00:49:31):

So for example, if you have your own currency, you want to incentivize your community by one way or another, instead of creating your own stake in contracts or form contracts. You can basically use RUI to basically create this within a few minutes instead of doing all the work and providing yourself with a security assessment namely audit, which is also representing cost, obviously. So it’s just anything that we ever needed as ourselves from the services point of view, we always made it available for others. The only part that we didn’t have to use ourselves is the on chain launchpad, because as we never raised capital, we never used it ourselves, but the rest, it’s just basically what we needed for us, and we just make sure that it’s available as a service for others. That’s our take.

Nick (00:50:17):

Incredible to see this idea grow into what it’s become today. For listeners that are interested in learning more about UNCX and the community getting involved, what are some ways that they can engage?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:50:29):

So you can find us mostly on Twitter at UNCX_Token. You can also find us on Telegram. So we have a UNCX_token, but I would recommend for the best experience to reach out over Discord, you can find all these links. Basically, if you use the Twitter page of UNCX network, you have a link tree and you can access all the links, including our documentation. If you’re interested to read about the products, whether you’re on the investor side or on the developer side, because the services are of course orientated for developers at the first place. Imagine you want to create your currency. But for example, if you’re interested in to participate in a launchpad, you’re on the retail site. So we also have documentations for these users, so mostly Twitter. And from Twitter you can access anywhere or from the blockchain obviously.

Nick (00:51:18):

What’s your long-term vision for UNCX? How do you see it fitting into web3 and the DeFi space in the years ahead?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:51:26):

So as we progress towards our journey, we try to be more vocal than we were before. Of course, you can argue that maybe no ones listening to us. That would be a fair take. We have been mostly very quiet, but since we actually realized that we had some good points to make after the fall of FTX, especially because since the fall of FTX, you can argue that this is mostly a bearish market bear conditions across the space, but we have experienced aerosol in terms of service reduction, a massive bull market because people would emphasize security more than ever. So we realized that sometimes when we would attend conferences or attend onsite events, people would listen to the practices that we have in place or to the way we leverage the chain to basically remove the need for custodial or the need for a third party validator that is in one way or another, centralized.

(00:52:24):

So I guess to answer the question more broadly, we would love and we are pushing towards trying to become an authority in the space when it comes to on chain transparency around the topics that are connected to the token economics. So that means the token investing part, the liquidity locking part, of course. And then we’re also exploring how to integrate ourselves in the best way around Uniswap before, because this product is actually a killer product. I mean, that’s why we exist at the first place. This is also why we were, I’m going to be honest here. We were named UniCrypt because of Uniswap, right?

(00:52:59):

There’s an abuse like the similarity here. I think they didn’t like it so much actually. At first they were like, you guys make your name for yourself, which I believe is fair. I would probably be the same. Someone would name themselves UNCX Star. I would be like, “Okay, you guys can also make a name for yourself.” But yeah, so now just to wrap this one up, it’s more about try to not just stand as a service provider, but also as an advisor of the best practices when it comes to these problematics, because it’s still unclear.

(00:53:35):

People sometimes don’t really know what they’re doing or what providers that they’re trusting when it comes to especially investing. I think the stories about people that didn’t know what was the plan or people that changed the plan or all of that happened pretty much on the daily or weekly basis. And so with our experience, and not just as a provider, but also from the customers that we have. Because feedback is at the center of our scope when it comes to product iterations, obviously we have a lot of things that we’re not going to tell people what to do, but we can come across as a probably relevant advisor for these topics, especially yet that’s what we’re trying to achieve.

Nick (00:54:12):

Well, Antoine, as a lot of my listeners are enthusiastic about The Graph and the future of The Graph and the role it plays in web3 and certainly in DeFi. If you don’t mind, can you just talk a little bit about how UNCX leverages The Graph and how important it’s to what you’re building there?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:54:29):

So the usage of The Graph and especially of the Subgraphs for us was a natural step towards the decentralization related to data access. Because we have our products, we have our UI, but we also have integration on different platforms that are either charging platforms, portfolio trackers, analytics platforms, and so on and so forth. And before using The Graph, we were basically providing these additional platforms with APIs related to our data, but they were APIs that we would control. And I think I was specifically challenged, we had the chance to talk. In Croatia, it was a conference called Blocks Split last year. And I was explaining to someone in the room that we would be able to provide Coin gigo in that matter with data that would come from our API, and that would reflect either liquidity logs or token investing, basically to make sure that we were precise for calculating circulating supplies, which is, in my opinion, very important.

(00:55:24):

And this person replied to me, why would we trust your API? And I was like, but my service is decentralized. No, she had a point, she had a point. And so after this episode and a bunch of others. For example, downtime and all this stuff, we were actively looking for how to decentralize data sources that we have and how to provide these similar platforms with data of ours, which we argue that this is relevant data, especially for token investing and liquidity locking. And that’s when The Graph team last year came in. I think we met with especially some people of The Graph team last year in Paris in ECC conference. And we had a very nice contact, actually thanks to The Graph team. We had not only just professional, but also personal, very nice moments with the team who was nice to discover who is behind the ecosystem.

(00:56:17):

And then we basically started to build Subgraphs for our partners that use our data, that consume our data and also for the app of our own. So we’ve migrated recently our app, which was powered by centralized APIs of ours to a new version. And this new version leverages subgraphs to basically offer our users the data that comes from our lockers or our vesting solutions. So we deployed a lot of subgraphs, not just for our own usage as a platform, but also for the third parties that were relying on our centralized APIs, but to use the GRT ecosystem as subgraphs. And so I think one notable integration that you probably know and the community probably knows is Dex tools. So the next time you open Dex Tools and you see this suite little green unicorn next to the token pair, which indicates that the liquidity is locked as of now. When the pair is on Uniswap V3, the data comes from a subgraph and they’re currently working on the integration of the V2 liquidity logs using the data that comes from subgraphs.

(00:57:20):

So it’s not just us, it’s also the members of our integrated platforms or these companies that leverage our data, they’re going to use and leverage the data from subgraphs. So that means, I guess it’s nice for both Indexers and Curators of these subgraphs because you can expect the usage to go wider as we also provide more subgraphs because we started with the liquidity lockers, but we also have the vesting subgraphs that are out there and we plan to keep basically deploying subgraphs for all the services we have. So that means the token minter, sorry, the token minter as in the token generator, the launchpad and the contracts that are related to staying in farming. Basically, instead of having centralized APIs, we want to decentralize everything through The Graph and subgraph networks, ideally completely outside of the hosted service. But for example, if I take B and B chain, some of them are still only available on the hosted service if I’m not mistaken. But we’re leveraging the decentralized network as much as possible, yet that’s how we leverage The Graph and the subgraph network.

Nick (00:58:17):

Antoine, I want to ask you one follow-up question about The Graph and that story you shared about being in Croatia and this person talking about trusting APIs. You said that decentralizations at the core of everything that UNCX is doing, it’s part of the conversation and the culture. How important is the fact that something like The Graph that can provide access to Blockchain data. How important is it to you that it is decentralized and how important do you think it is to the web3 movement in general to have a solution like that?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (00:58:49):

I think it’s at the center of the picture because to me, the interconnectability between the different platforms. Because at the end of the day, you can argue that everyone leverages the chain data on these various platforms, but doing everything yourself or doing everything, if everyone’s working in a clustered way, then you can try. But it’s very hard to reach a true decentralized level of things because everyone’s going to do their own. I mean, you can argue that if everyone does their own cooking, it could work, but it’s just like when you browse on the internet. I mean most of the people, they don’t want to be servers, they want to be users. You could argue that if everyone could be a server, then internet would be decentralized in the first place. But the reasoning behind my thought is that no one wants to be a server.

(00:59:39):

They want some people to serve the others as users. And I think that’s where The Graph comes in because to me, the infrastructure that this put in place by the subgraph network for example, is a must. If one wants to argue that they’re claiming to achieve a decentralization level in terms of data access, because for there are a ton of use cases that would apply to leveraging The Graph layer, but in our case it was like a natural step. And at the same time a no-brainer because it was a wake-up call when this person, like you mentioned, told us like, Hey, why would I trust your API? Because you can put technically whatever you want there. I mean we could audit it or have it public, but at the end of the day, it is just like the Oracle debate.

(01:00:19):

They can always be if they’re not vetted by one way or another or themselves decentralized, they can always be manipulated. And that’s where for us, the usage of The Graph layer, it’s not just an added value is actually at the center of the picture. For us, it was more than just a migration. It matches basically what we emphasize because we stand as a decentralized services provider. And I think that yeah, that’s very important and that’s actually a key layer of the decentralization as a whole when it comes to web3 data especially.

Nick (01:00:54):

Well, Antoine, I only have one more question for you before I ask you the GRTiQ 10, and this question is about your vision for the future. So I talked a little bit about your vision for the future of UNCX, but UNCX plays in the DeFi space and DeFi is a huge component of web3 right now in terms of use cases and the value it’s generating. What’s your vision for the future of DeFi and some milestones you’re watching for over the next several years?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (01:01:20):

One of the things that permanently is on my mind is the regulation aspect of things is in my opinion, DeFi is here to stay. You can stop contracts from working anyway, but I really wonder how, and I hope we can find, and when I say we use both the regulator and actually the builders. Because at the end of the day, the users, as much as I love users, they go where the liquidity is, right? So mostly this market is liquidity driven, so it’s important that both liquidity providers, regulators, and builders find a common territory. So I’m really curious to see where it’s going to go because of course the regulation is itself going to take a while to adjust also geographically, for example, you may have some rules that apply on one side of the world and not on the other side. So it’s going to be also interesting to watch what companies are doing.

(01:02:12):

In our case, for example, we’re incorporated in Europe and sometimes in the space we see companies that have chosen sometimes the offshore approach or different approaches that are basically they end up with different set of rules that we have in Europe, for example. So I’m very interested to see if we can, and when I say if the regulators especially can come to a conclusion or just like a direction to be followed at the global level, it sounds very idealistic. I’m not going to lie, right? I hope this is possible. So this is for one and second, I really want to… I guess it goes with the topic we touched on earlier about the problem driven approach rather than only the solutions that people provide or that companies provide. So I really am curious to see how the next bull cycle, if we may say the next cycle of the market, not even financially speaking, but just the next cycle, the next phase of the market as a whole, what’s going to be the narrative or how to measure if a company is actually being used?

(01:03:22):

I’m going to just clarify this. I think in 2017 it was mostly about, or 2016, 2017, it was mostly about how much you’re able to raise as a web3 company. It was mostly driven by the fundraising or that’s how people would evaluate companies. So it was one thing. Then you have the last bull market. It was mostly about what’s the level of commitment to smart contracts, especially on the DeFi side for example. You have players like Avi, you have players Curve, how much people are willing to place and willing to trust your smart contracts and your technology as a whole. So this was like how much people store it, smart contracts in a way. And I feel like the next narrative, this is just my take, this is my vision for 2024, 2025, I mean hopefully maybe it’s never going to happen, but this is just my two cents here.

(01:04:09):

It’s more about how people are willing to pay or basically to commit funds of themselves for the service that the use is basically from the usage to the actual sustainability profitability of the protocols. Because I guess it’s an interesting data point to measure the profitability or the turnover of a web3 company, because that means if people are willing to basically pay for a service, especially in a very highly financialized industry in the first place, that means they’re solving something you wouldn’t pay for a service that you actually do not consider needed or you don’t need.

(01:04:45):

And so for me that that’s an interesting metric that is going to have its importance in the next cycle. You often see, for example, these not even influencer, but journalists or reporters or simply haters like wealthy haters on Twitter especially that would argue that wealthy companies are not companies and it’s just a bunch of kids that sell their own currency to make it sustainable. Otherwise, the game would be over. But I would argue that they disagree with it because you have a bunch of players and it’s not even players, but builders and companies that are solving problems and therefore that are obviously profitable. And to me, it’s going to be a key component over the next few years.

Nick (01:05:25):

Thank you for sharing that, Antoine. Well, as I said, we’ve now reached a point where I’m going to ask you the GRTiQ 10. These are 10 questions I ask every guest of the podcast each week. And they’re super fun. They allow us to get to know you a little bit better. And as I always say, it also helps listeners learn something new, try something different or achieve more. So are you ready for the GRTiQ 10?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (01:05:45):

Absolutely. Yes, I am.

Nick (01:05:48):

What Booker articles had the most impact on your life?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (01:06:01):

I think that’s an easy one. I would say the Bitcoin white paper. And if I had to say something less easy, I would say, okay, it’s a not very known book, but it’s from a Jake Stein, and this is the story about Antigo, and the name of the books is called I Sold My Soul for Bitcoins. It’s the story of Mark Carpless, the guy that was behind Antigo in 2016. So it’s like the rise and the sat full of Antigo. Yeah.

Nick (01:06:26):

Is there a movie or a TV show that you would recommend everybody should watch?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (01:06:32):

Yes, I would recommend to watch it over and over. And this is called The Big Short.

Nick (01:06:36):

What’s the best advice someone’s ever given to you?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (01:06:40):

I’m not exactly sure if this is some… Or if I just saw it or if I just read it or if someone told this to me. But I would say this is don’t trust and verify. And I think this is very well adapted to the narrative of blockchain and free access to the data. Especially over public blockchains, because I would always, if possible, trust the chain over a human being because greed is part of our DNA as humans. So yeah, that’s also a narrative that I like to use when I present UNCX and our services around the space. It’s like, don’t trust me. Trust the chain. Yeah, don’t trust, verify. That’s the one.

Nick (01:07:17):

What’s one thing you’ve learned in your life that you don’t think other people know or have learned quite yet?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (01:07:23):

I think that I learned how to feel the real passion about work. So if I may just consolidate here, I would say that I got the chance to merge work and personal convictions and beliefs. And once you realize that this is happening, it’s basically allowing you to unleash an insane source. It’s an insane source, sorry, of unexpected energy for most people that never got the chance to experience it. So for example, in my personal case that happened when I got to convert, say a normal employee job into something that was genuinely matching my values. That’s a real passion.

Nick (01:08:05):

How about this, what’s the best life hack you’ve discovered for yourself?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (01:08:08):

I try to always apply it since I discovered it. And the discovery is being honest about when you communicate. It’s even more than being honest, I would say it’s also about being blunt, basically breathing your opinions instead of trying to be correct or filter yourself all the time, if that makes sense. Yeah, I think I could myself discover this when I was starting this journey as an entrepreneur. Sometimes it’s hard I think, to speak in the name of a company, for example, because it just might come across as unprofessional or biased or basically your opinions over the company’s ones. And once you basically work with brackets for itself, you can be as honest as possible when you communicate. And that’s great. I love it.

Nick (01:08:58):

Based on your own life experiences and observations, what’s the one habit or characteristic that you think best explains how or why people find success in life?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (01:09:09):

I’d say finding success in life. I mean, you have many ways to see this one, but for me, I think the answer is pretty simple and straightforward. From my experience, I’d say it’s being happy to contribute or to work in something that you’re actually believe in. And that also makes the transition between work and something that you just consider something you love doing. You don’t see that as a work so much anymore if you actually see still this at work. And I think most people did not get the chance to find this yet. And I genuinely hope that they will, because as far as I’m concerned, it’s probably the most fulfilling feeling I ever got to experience myself, especially when it comes to work.

Nick (01:09:52):

And then Antoine, the final three questions are complete, the sentence type questions. The first one is, the thing that most excites me about web3 is?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (01:10:00):

Every standard is yet to be created or normalized. And I might also add that the space reactivity, like the web3 space reactivity and dynamism, which I never saw anywhere in my previous experiences, and that excites me a lot.

Nick (01:10:14):

And how about this? If you’re on X, formerly Twitter, you should be following.

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (01:10:19):

Don’t spend that a lot of time on social networks because I’m mostly head on my working and focusing on feedback and improvement related content when it comes to Twitter or X in this case, although I need to say that I give a lot of attention to the not so secrets that still claim to be secret of the industry of crypto. So I mean by that, especially controversial companies and controversial practices across the space. For example, if we’re talking about a specific Twitter account, I would say Bitfinex, the content about Tether.

Nick (01:10:54):

And the final question, I’m happiest when?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (01:10:57):

I get to see the financial word making a step, let’s say towards transparency. And when I say transparency, I mean in its a general sense. So for example, data access, so wing to The Graph usage of public blockchains or any type of public database. And I think it essentially relates to remove the trust me part as much as possible. So yeah, it’s a step by step effort and that makes me very happy every time we make a step forward.

Nick (01:11:35):

Antoine, thank you so much for joining me, and I really appreciate you providing not only a background onto your story, but also what UNCX is doing and all the great success you’re having there. If listeners want to keep in touch with you, follow things you’re working on, what’s the best way to stay in touch?

Antoine “Chav” Chaveron (01:11:51):

The best way is going to be on Twitter, and thank you for having me. Thank you so much. I think this was a great afternoon here. I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s the morning at yours, but it was a great afternoon here. But yeah, they can basically check me out on Twitter, so it’s Chav_UniCrypt, which is my handle. Or they can find me through the main Twitter account and join our communities because that’s one of the things that I learned after working for so long into a SaaS software company. Clients are the most important. And what I mean, clients, I’m in support. And so we’re essentially our called the team of ours, we’re roughly 25 people, but we’re always around the main chats and the community chats so that we permanently have the feedback coming from our users. So if someone has a comment, wants to join, discuss food, you guys are welcome.