Will EVERYTHING be TOKENIZED? Symbiotic on RWAs, DeFi Infrastructure & Crypto’s Future

Añadido: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00][music] >> Hello, hello to all the web free answers out there. This is Max speaking and welcome to the new exciting episode of synopsis. Well, another episode and our new guest. So, please welcome. Today we have Misha Butyatin, co-founder of Symbiotic here. Hi Misha, how's it going?

[00:00:28]>> Hey, good. Good.

[00:00:30]>> Well, awesome. So, I know you have a solid background and before we get straight to the main part of today's discussion, so actually Symbiotic and real world assets, let's begin with some introduction to warm up a little bit. So, a few questions if you don't mind. And well, the first one for starters is that you started in big four work work within Polkadot ecosystem, founded audit company Statemind before Symbiotic. What actually uh in your experience made you want to build Symbiotic?

[00:01:05]>> Well, like yeah, we like the industry started like when I first joined it was sometime ago.

[00:01:14]I kind of saw the problem like an opportunity almost immediately, right? Because everything is open source.

[00:01:22]Everything is available on chain, even the contracts that are not well uh like when the like you only have binaries and the code is not open, you can kind of decompose it and like de- decompile it and figure out how it works.

[00:01:38]So, first of all, that's really cool, right? Because people can work on projects and update them and upgrade them and do a lot of with them. But the other part was that like the same code can be like easily reused on mass, right?

[00:01:54]Uh the the problem that I saw that were a lot for a set of reasons people kind of redeveloped the same primitives over and over and over again.

[00:02:09]And not like making them better and but just like trying to create some sort of like IP for themselves or like hype around themselves. So the common infrastructure was not actually used that that that well, right?

[00:02:25]And like every like there was a point where we had like thousands of blockchains running at the the same time not really different from each other like hundreds and thousands of protocol doing the same stuff. Right? So what it introduced is basically a lot of security vulnerabilities because every one of them like try to like re-implement the same stuff in in little bit different way.

[00:02:51]And yeah, having a common infrastructure is something that like will basically do what crypto was set out to do from the beginning like make it the barrier of entry way lower for newcomers that want to experiment that want to try stuff.

[00:03:10]Right?

[00:03:11]So that's why I was interested in Polkadot before that then in like in shared security in general.

[00:03:18]And that's why like when I realized that the moment has come where uh this can actually be achieved in a meaningful way like I started Symbiotic.

[00:03:31]>> Got it. So for sure you have a certain vision so you saw an opportunity, you saw the technology, and you saw the pain points which you can solve and address too. So that's really cool and I would say the fundamental skill for an entrepreneur and a founder. And uh well, also you have a really good hard skills because even non-technical person like me sees these kind of opportunities. I will not be able to decompose or decompile or do any other stuff with it. So, the more interesting it makes to know the next thing I would like to ask you.

[00:04:08]So, you've been close to the industry through multiple cycles now and the question is what's the one insight most people still get wrong about how blockchain infrastructure actually works.

[00:04:23]>> Well, yeah, like I I still see a lot of things like I I still see a lot of comments and general like view like people presenting their view that blockchain is about like not having middlemen, right? Like to to work directly with the financial and other primitives.

[00:04:44]And that's not what blockchain is in my view, right? It's not what what industry is like in general in my view.

[00:04:51]Right? To for you to send transaction to blockchain like say Ethereum blockchain, you'll have to go like through like 10 intermediaries.

[00:05:00]Right? So, we're not decreasing the the number of intermediaries and middlemen. We are actually increasing that, right? You go to like you send your transaction to RPC. RPC sends it to like block builder. Block builder sends it to like some like auction relay and then like auction relay sends it to like proposer in the and then it materializes like in in pool or somewhere that sends it back to you. Basically, like through an explorer that's like third party as well.

[00:05:28]Uh but like the power of power of crypto in general is that middlemen can be interchanged.

[00:05:36]Right? You don't have to change the entire like bank if you don't like the interface.

[00:05:43]If you don't like interface of MetaMask, you just move your wallet to something else.

[00:05:47]If you don't like how the transactions are handled, you can like change your RPC. If you don't like that like the blockchain that you're under like you just transport your money somewhere else and like you get an entirely different experience.

[00:05:59]Right, or go to a like L2 and like get cheaper transactions, faster speed, but like a security several security assumption.

[00:06:06]So, it's not like the the gating is is really harder to like way harder to implement.

[00:06:12]Uh and because gating is really hard to implement and like vendor lock is really hard to implement, then that gives that competitive uh environment where people can actually like the when the companies actually need to cater to use an user and not just like think about yeah, like I will I'll going to like lock you in and just going to then start abusing you.

[00:06:35]>> Yeah, absolutely. So, uh sounds reasonable. Thanks for sharing and although the industry is maturing, we still have to uh work this with a misconception and uh do this educational kind of contribution. So, uh thanks for that and uh well, now we're pretty warmed up, I would say, and let's move on to the main topic of today's discussion. So, uh let's start with the the basics. Uh what is actually Symbiotic today?

[00:07:03]Uh people knew you as a risk-taking protocol. Is it right or how you describe yourself uh today?

[00:07:10]>> [clears throat] >> Uh yeah, like let's let's let's let's start like I restaking is a word, right?

[00:07:19]Uh it's a term that uh used to um well, but it was used for uh basically inherited inherited and shared security.

[00:07:32]Right? So, you have like you stake one token, you and you secure multiple proof of stake blockchains, uh like validated services, basically.

[00:07:41]Right? Uh so, it was bridges, uh data availability layers, rollups, everything between.

[00:07:48]So, yeah, Symbiotic started out as a like again, as a infrastructure for people not to like reinvent the wheel, right?

[00:07:58]And two main like the the main direction here was infrastructure.

[00:08:05]So, we kind of like used shared security and restaking interchangeably for a while.

[00:08:10]But the more we grew inside the industry, the more we actually talked to people.

[00:08:20]The more we saw that restaking element with it was not actually like what people were interested in.

[00:08:27]They were interested in two things, right? Not developing the code.

[00:08:32]Right?

[00:08:33]Not Not going through the same hurdle that people go through. The restaking element with was not actually that interesting, right? They were willing to pay for the security.

[00:08:44]They were willing to go through the entire process of launching their own token and like doing things that well, that were common.

[00:08:53]But the main hurdle for them was to actually to to deploy and develop and run the system that was secured.

[00:09:05]Right?

[00:09:06]In that way and we we worked with Lombard on their like CCAP implementation, with Manta on their fast finality, with other networks. And look, I think we delivered value there.

[00:09:20]But as we moved further like away from restaking and in general like infrastructure, we started seeing financial applications coming on board, right?

[00:09:32]We kind of playing planned around it, but that was still like a huge surprise the amount of interest that we got.

[00:09:41]Uh what I mean by financial applications is actually under underwriting.

[00:09:46]So basically kind of the same problem, but like from completely different angle.

[00:09:55]Uh as an application that like as a application that requires collateral, um it's kind it's really hard for you to get your like first capital and then scale uh because like that just the uh the amount of research that curators need to do uh for your infrastructure, how you receive funds, how they're handled, like what are the mechanisms, like what are the risks inherent to that, even before they go to your product.

[00:10:26]Right? Like even before they start to work on the nitty-gritty of like how the capital is actually going to be used.

[00:10:32]It's It's like the whole song and dance.

[00:10:34]So you basically have like two opportunities here. Uh two two options here. Uh the first one is to just give like curators a blank check and just deploy the vault with a multi-sig.

[00:10:48]Uh so like long-term financial applications are basically impossible in that because you need to actual you need actual commitments for that. Or you can go the route and like actually spend like months on research.

[00:11:01]So our initial idea of shareable infrastructure kind of worked really well for this.

[00:11:08]So we launched our first credit like our help launched the first credit application, so cap. Now it's like around 400 mil already, which is for a completely new primitive, which is kind of really cool, especially in the market that we're in.

[00:11:24]Right?

[00:11:25]Uh Nexus the then like insurance protocols came on the came along and the ask was the same.

[00:11:33]Like get us like the framework and capital acquisition vehicles that that are going to be like that are going to be easy to understand for for capital providers and that we can like easily onboard more people with.

[00:11:52]And after that we we've got like other trading strategies, delta neutral strategies and other applications that were completely outside of usual infrastructure. So proof of stake networks and like consensus algorithms and everything like that.

[00:12:10]So yeah, no like this is like this was actually really cool because that's like how customer development works, right? Like you you can you come with one idea and like in the meantime it it evolves.

[00:12:25]Right? When you work and we talk to people and you actually ask people like about the problems like the walls and yeah, like so we we kind of evolved out of staking I would say.

[00:12:37]>> Well, sounds awesome I would say and also sounds like a lot of information but you managed to put everything in order and well, thanks for that. And still addressing to our audience, if you guys have any questions left after this detailed answers, drop it in the comment section and hopefully the next time probably we meet here with Misha, we will go through them as well. And well, we are moving on to the next question we have for today. So real world assets are the dominant narrative in institutional crypto right now. What does Symbiotic specifically change for that markets?

[00:13:19]>> Well, like it kind of is something that is really close to what our mission is.

[00:13:28]Uh because yeah, RWAs are coming on chain. Like there is no doubt about that. Like we the the the like everything that's tokenizable is going to be tokenizable on chain.

[00:13:39]Right. Uh like it's going to be tokenized.

[00:13:42]Like every asset, every like probably in the future every flat, every everything that can be made into token will be made into token.

[00:13:51]Uh the problem here is that like we we can do it in two ways.

[00:13:58]We same as like with vaults because it's kind of really close in in complexity.

[00:14:04]Uh how can like it it either is going to be like just an accounting unit, right?

[00:14:11]In blockchain. So just basically I give you receipt.

[00:14:14]Uh you're KYC'd, KYB'd. I know who you are.

[00:14:18]If your token like it's really good from one one standpoint because if you're like lose your wallet, I can just print you another one.

[00:14:26]Or if somebody steals that from you, I can just print you another one. It's fine. Like but uh and like tokens are actually not composable with anything because how do you like use the use tokens that are don't actually represent ownership in a meaningful way in like lending protocol, right? Because I just going to tell people that like I No, please stop it, right? Like I'm not like No, there is no liquidation for me because like I don't want to.

[00:14:53]Uh I I just like I lost my wallet or something.

[00:14:57]Or uh and like this is going to be a gated and permissioned and well not that composable of environment.

[00:15:05]So they're getting like they're still like the tradi- traditional finance will still get a huge unlock.

[00:15:11]Like 24-hour 24/7 trading.

[00:15:14]They will have like really fast optimized document flow and transparency. Like the things that we present as an industry.

[00:15:21]But they will get like a small part.

[00:15:23]Like basically everything that we worked on since 2020, I guess, like like Uniswap and now we're coming online, they will not get.

[00:15:34]And that's not going to be great, right?

[00:15:37]Uh but like the other option is to make it composable.

[00:15:42]But, for that you need an infrastructure that's auditable, that actually has limitations of like what creators can do, like some uh security features that are not yet present in the industry. And that's where Symbiotic comes in, right?

[00:15:57]Like the our our goal here is to create a framework that uh is so easy to use, hopefully, and is so um presents benefits that uh like traditional finance might want to dig their fingers a little bit like deeper into the DeFi rabbit hole.

[00:16:19]>> Well, sounds great. Thank you. And you talk about liquidity for RWAs. And the on-chain market capitalization of tokenized real-world assets exceeds $35 billion. Uh what is actually working in terms of adoption and what is still just a promise?

[00:16:42]>> Well, yeah, like the the other super important problem for like I mentioned that they're not like they they they are not like actually like ERC-20s in a meaningful way, right?

[00:16:56]All of these extensions and locking mechanisms and like uh mint and burn mechanics are not like very crypto native so far.

[00:17:06]Uh and the other part is liquidity, right? Like we in in like the industry uh that we've built is actually uh well, it's really high like fast pace.

[00:17:20]Uh so, people are not that accustomed to products that have lockups like more than like three three 30 days and 90 days, 180 days.

[00:17:32]Right? It's usually maybe like it's it was reserved to curve with their V tokens. Uh or with vesting for tokens or unlocks for tokens. But otherwise, yeah, like depositing somewhere your funds and not being able to withdraw them for 90, 180, and 360 days, this is not commonplace in crypto.

[00:17:57]But for actual financial products, it's way more common. Lockups even multi-year lockups are they're they're prevalent for some use cases, especially in insurance. Right?

[00:18:09]Because how can you safeguard something for a year if your funds are available to you to withdraw each day?

[00:18:16]Right?

[00:18:17]Uh and in terms of tokenization, a lot of the products that are especially the juiciest ones that investors cannot like this is the the other thing that like blockchain was always solving for. Uh the everyday users could not access before because it was gated and it was like hard to like you needed like 5 million, 10 million deposits just to get your foot in the door.

[00:18:42]Uh to democratize that to do what we've always like done really well to enable access.

[00:18:50]Uh You need for for people to be more okay with with the long lockups or you need to have an instrument for them to get out early.

[00:19:01]That to get out early. Right? And that's like what one of the problems that Symbiotic is trying to solve is to make an like make an infrastructure for you to get out of assets that are really long lockups.

[00:19:17]>> Get it. Thanks for clarifying and I would say you have a pretty good skill of explaining things in a really understandable manner and that's why I believe you will easily deal with the next question. So I'm personally not in UBI crypto, but I'm not a technical person as well. So I'm just a regular user and for me and I believe for the majority of our viewers who are like me, next question would be pretty interesting. So could you please walk us through and tell like when someone deposits capital into a vault of Symbiotic, what actually happens to it and what can a curator do with it versus what they are not allowed to do?

[00:20:00]>> Yeah, so the difference between Symbiotic vaults and vaults with other protocols is the limitations that are set for a curator.

[00:20:11]So for a lot of vaults, like I would say majority of them, you have a multi-sig that's hidden behind them.

[00:20:20]Yeah, there might be like miracle root checks and like other things, but in general and generally they can do basically they have a blank check to deploy the capital.

[00:20:31]Right, it worked for a while, but with new um with new hacks and in general contamination between deposits between like lending protocols and asset issuers and like bridges and everything.

[00:20:48]With the DeFi getting a lot deeper, I think it's more getting more and more clearer that there should be like some clear framework of what you can do as a curator and what you can't do.

[00:21:00]Right, when I deposit I should be able to see the the entire map of like things that where my capital can be deployed to.

[00:21:07]And that's where Symbiotic is quite different because we have uh really strict guidelines in terms of smart contracts, right? Like we not guidelines, but like the strict limitations.

[00:21:19]Right? So, if you want to deploy to different applications, they're quite predetermined.

[00:21:25]Uh and the deployment strategy is quite um determined as well because you have uh clear uh clear uh lockups, clear um like clear withdrawal mechanics, clear slashing mechanics that we developed for the initially for the blockchains and like infrastructure and technical infrastructure. And now basically the same applies to finance.

[00:21:53]Right? Because like because the proof-of-stake network should be able to 100% know that they can slash operator if it misbehaves. Right? There is there can't be no uh like guessing here.

[00:22:06]So, the same goes for infrastructure, right? Like if you commit a capital if you commit capital, the application should 100% know that in any case they can liquidate you or like withdraw your funds if the like the claim event or claim event uh exists.

[00:22:26]Um So, basically like we we provide a commitment engine that go that stands behind the the vault here.

[00:22:35]Uh in in general uh yeah, like I I think like the closer that we have in terms of uh the predetermined system is Morpho.

[00:22:46]They have adapters, but the adapters are quite limited in what they can do.

[00:22:51]That's why we see that curators in Morpho they like can can do like predefined set of things. But they are more um well, laser-focused on lending markets, and our system can be used for like basically anything.

[00:23:08]>> Well, sounds amazing, I would say, and I believe that today we uh made not if not a deep dive, but made a a pretty detailed general uh picture of what you are building, and that sounds interesting, and I believe that the majority of our viewers will go and make even a deeper own research after that, and well, now in this fluent manner we came up to the final part of today's discussion, just not to uh blow up people's mind with too much information. So, we have a few questions for endings, and the first one is could you please share what trends or exact projects outside of Symbiotic have your attention right now?

[00:23:56]>> Yeah, no, like I means that's why like working for Symbiotic is really nice, right? Like we have our pies all like our fingers are almost in every pie. Right? There is little protocols that we are not interested in helping.

[00:24:13]Uh but generally I would say I'm really excited about insurance use cases coming on chain, right? Because uh the more we have like sustainable yield sources available, and more composable they are with other like applications in in DeFi, the better it is, right?

[00:24:32]Because like 2022, maybe 2023, right? We only had like staking to pay for stuff.

[00:24:39]Right? Just like Ethereum-based, Ethereum and Solana-based yield that like kind of was spread around the entire DeFi.

[00:24:46]And it was not a great time to be to be in DeFi in general, right? So, like the more sources of yield we have, and the more diverse they are, right? That not every every one of those go in uh go in under the same time.

[00:25:01]Uh I think insurance is like really good for that uh in general because it's kind of uncorrelated.

[00:25:09]Right? So, the if the market is like a fearful and like everyone is at risk, yields in insurance go up.

[00:25:17]Right? Like when they go down everywhere else. And vice versa.

[00:25:21]Uh and uh private credit is really interesting, I would say.

[00:25:25]Uh and like again, like our fellows from Paradigm uh Tempo is really interesting protocol.

[00:25:31]Like a agentic payment. I we were dreaming about that like maybe even 10 ti- 10 years before. It was called M to M payments, but still like machine to machine. It was before like agentic uh term was uh used widely. But generally, yeah, like way they they're doing great job like with their integrations and generally like the ease of setup where Yeah, that would be the the things that uh yeah, in Bitcoin DeFi. Like it was like we were waiting for this like for a long time, but still um Yeah, uh that would be nice for Bitcoin to become a smart chain at some point.

[00:26:09]That would be amazing, I would say.

[00:26:12]>> Well, that's awesome. And I would say that's uh pretty fresh view. So, guys, put the notes, keep an eye on on these uh three big things mentioned by Misha.

[00:26:22]So, uh thanks a lot for sharing because really nice to know what uh the real builders within the industry are tracking because the landscape, the industry is uh uh always evolving. Thousands of uh projects come and go, and uh well, once again, thanks for sharing.

[00:26:43]And uh we came up to the final part of our discussion, the traditional one.

[00:26:48]Time for uh sharing some piece of advice with the audience. and uh I will formulate it as a follows. So, what's your advice for builders thinking about entering the infrastructure layer of crypto today?

[00:27:05]>> Yeah, don't start at number one or at two. Like that that would not be recommended. But in general, uh yeah, focus on the the the well, value proposition for customers. Well, identify customers. I think crypto is uh is coming to a point which I really like, where we don't talk about imaginary customers anymore.

[00:27:31]Right? Like everyone is not talking that they have like a trillion users waiting to be onboarded.

[00:27:36]Uh yeah, we talk about like the it's maturing a lot.

[00:27:41]So, make sure that like there is an actual problem that you're trying to solve.

[00:27:46]Right? It actually exists somewhere.

[00:27:48]Uh and like find at least like 10 people that are willing to pay you for it.

[00:27:54]Because like usually they're from from years of experience before you start talking about like payment.

[00:28:03]Like people usually will just support you.

[00:28:06]Uh and be try to be nice.

[00:28:10]So, yeah. And in terms of general outlook, especially for builders of capital intensive strategies, uh come to us.

[00:28:19]Like we will give you a framework to get capital.

[00:28:24]>> Well, a great call to action and the first part of your answer is also so true. So, having imagination, a good imagination is actually essential for founders and builders, but don't imagine billions of customers and address to real needs of users. That's great. And well, if you are building right now, you heard the second part, so address to Symbiotic, reach out to Misha, and well, be happy. Keep building. And for today, that's pretty much it. Thank you very much, Misha, for joining, for having this positive fluent discussion. Hope to see you in more episodes, and wish you best of luck, and keep building.

[00:29:09]>> Thank you for having me.

[00:29:10]>> Yep. And of course, thanks for our audience for watching till the end. So guys, you are the best. Thanks for following us. So follow Symbiotic, follow Misha on socials not to miss the big things. See you in more episodes.

[00:29:22]Bye-bye, everyone.

[00:29:24]>> Bye.