Andrew Nalichaev (Episode 755)

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[00:00:47]lees and you can check out sumsub at sumsub.com. What's up guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Blockash podcast. Your number one resource for all that is happening across the emerging tech space. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe wherever you listen to or watch the show. Today I'm joined by another wonderful guest, Andrew. He is the he is a blockchain domain expert also serving as CEO of Haya Finance and CTO of the Host Network. here on the show today to talk a little bit more about uh himself, his his roadmap uh here in 2026 and what he is kind of up to with some of these projects. Andrew, welcome to the show, man. Pleasure to have you on today. How's it going? Yes, you know, so far so good and you know, I really glad to be here and present my road map in the crypto space and that I I really hope that it will continue in the future. You know, more and more uh coolest projects will be developed by me and by my team.

[00:01:44]>> Absolutely. And it's a pleasure to have you on as well and uh looking forward to learning more to get things underway.

[00:01:51]Would love to hear a bit about yourself if you don't mind. Tell us a bit about your background.

[00:01:55]um how did you get interested in this space? Everyone's kind of got an interesting story so would love to hear yours.

[00:02:01]>> Yeah. So I'm I think that I'm in the space for a long time. Yeah. And more than eight years till now maybe more you know difficult difficult to count and but the most important part they all across the time I never switched to any other domains. So eight years here it's a real eight years right. So I started just with a classical finance finance and you know I finished one more uh you know like a bachelor degree in a topic of the blockchain you know and so it's pretty fun that I really work according my education but initially it was just about some new financial mechanism so you know it's just something unique uh in this space yeah but in but then I recognized that blockchain as a technology techology and this defy space can change not just a fintech and not how we think about like banks or you know it's a pretty popular slogo that we will uh bank unbanked people you know but in reality but in reality the potential of this technology much higher so and nowadays at wise we've worked not about just you know fintech but also for transforming some supply chains you know like a logistics some medical health care data tokenization of the DNA somehow you know so and more and more use cases and nowadays and I'm pretty sure that we will slightly at least touch this uh discussion about AI agents and about this machine learning in general and some uh GPTs or clo whatever but I see a huge potential here by integrating uh what we have any blockchain with what AI agents can provide. Yeah. So, if we will be able to touch this topic, it will be nice.

[00:04:00]>> Yeah. Yeah. It's it's very exciting. I think what we've seen with AI and how they've been able to I think find an intersection with blockchain and some of the exciting niches that are starting to pop up over the last I think the last two years. I think it's like 20 24 I saw this start to kind of crop up for the first time. And um I think there's a lot of cool things that can be done on chain with agents and and vice versa for security in the space and whatnot. So um I I definitely have some questions in regards to that. Before we do as well, like would love to kind of hear a little bit about um your roles with both Haya and Hosk. I know you're CEO for HA and CTO for HOS network. Um do you want to give us like a brief overview what those are all about? what your role kind of uh comprises of and uh what's your what's your day-to-day just give you give a bit more context.

[00:04:48]>> Yeah, sure. So, uh let's start from the house because it was the first uh project. So, the house network is L2 ZK roll up with some native DFI mechanism with account abstraction. Yeah. So, and we developed uh some you know uh chain itself, the whole default on top of it uh wallets that allow people to work not just with the house network but definitely with some other major you know chains. Yeah. So, and the core concept uh wi with how that it should be like some native yield mechanism. Yeah.

[00:05:28]And in the in the last crypto summary, let's say, yeah, it's it's really s sound like an interesting idea. Yeah.

[00:05:38]And uh and basically we developed it. Uh but then we recognized that the next step should be uh about the integrating of this uh DI stuff, integrating with some onchain activities and any onchain actions with AI agents. Yeah. And we and we decided to create the hire uh the agentic web solution that allow people to interact with many different um you know defy components with different chains with on and off ramping. Uh so it's like a I can say alter it's alternative interface to interacting with the blockchain in a non-custodial way. Yeah. Because right now everyone can create you know just an agent whom you need to share your private key and then just you know pray for pray for something but we uh absolutely on the other side I I can't agree that uh the people should share their uh private key with agents. Yes. So it's fully non-custodial solution and a user just can say okay I wanted to transfer 1,000 of uh 1,00 of USDT to my grandma let it be on the arbitum and agent transfer sorry but you don't have enough of liquidity on the destination chain let me please aggregate the liquidity across many chains across your Ethereum or Polygon or whatever chain it is uh and then make one transfer and the user sign it in the non-custodial way. Yeah. So I'm trying to say that you know uh we see this uh possibilities we see that more and more projects try to create you know their own agents for example like an openc for uh they say okay you're able to trade with NFTTS with our AI agents which is cool yeah it's really good but it's can satisfy any of the user like the a lot of and the biggest parts of the user intents you know how to work with the blockchain. Yeah. So it should be trust or it should be investment it should be whatever it is and the good news here that the high and the coolest part about the higher that it's as I said agentic web that means that it's different agents that responsible for the different actions for analysis for the news for the trading for on and off ramping for the sharing for whatever. Yeah. And any of the external agents can be added to this. Yeah. And uh in in a wise uh we create we just you know the hire was our really it's a first time when we try to build something like this it wasn't the first time when we integrate the blockchain with AI agent in a different way. Yeah. But the high is the first for you know interaction really. Yeah. And we uh and nowadays we work for the more cases for the banks you know for some institutionals for the companies who want to add to their I don't know like it it can be a wallet yeah it can be um some fintech applications whatever so all of it should include some you know AI components but it's it's absolutely can be implemented in many different ways. Yeah. And you know we see the higher is can be only one MCP to connect some external services and to be connected inside inside like a bigger uh bigger AI agentic AI systems.

[00:09:17]>> What opportunities do you maybe see for AI being integrated into like the finance side of blockchain like with DeFi for example? cuz I imagine there's like a lot of different possibilities there that we've kind of like briefly touched on here, but you know, fundamentally, how does that change the way people you think will interact with centralized finance in the future given um you know, the the ability for them to do things maybe autonomously or maybe have access to our private keys, something that scares me a little bit, but might become a reality. Um they'll maybe do trading and analysis for us. I imagine that's going to change DeFi quite a bit.

[00:09:50]>> Yeah, sure. So, let's start from the basics. Yeah. So the most understandable is just analysis. Yeah. So AI can analyze portfolio, can analyze the defy position and the health factor and whatever it is. Basically we implemented it in the higher. Yeah. Uh but it just a low level. The next step is a converting of the users intent into an onchain transactions but without execution. So the user said so my example yeah I wanted to send 1,000 of us to granny.

[00:10:22]Can you prepare the transaction for me?

[00:10:23]Yeah. Or can you analyze the transaction or some notifications uh news analysis whatever the next step um that I don't really like honestly but for the trading. Yeah. So the AI if for example you're a memecoin trading uh trader and you wanted to allow your agent you know to somehow interact with this trading platform. It's also can be but you know if something will happen who will be responsible for this. Yeah.

[00:10:54]So uh or you need to sit uh behind your uh or better to say like a closer to your laptop and just okay approve approve approve approve. So definitely not the best user experience. But the next step and what I really like this concept of of web for what does it mean?

[00:11:14]It mean that of integration of the agents with a blockchain. So blockchain is a layer of the truth and the blockchain it's also way how to provide some uh mandatory and how to provide some mandate to the agent. Please do it what you can do with my account only this one. So without sharing or disclosing uh any private K. Yeah. what you can do you on the what sum in a what scenarios what the limitations and in what case it also should be a time limited basically I wrote a lot of articles about this concept that we need for the fintech and for the blockchain that worked with AI agent we need some tools that will limit the agent what they can do in the what situation what the triggers uh the responsibility and definitely it should be just limited by money, by time and whatever it is. Yeah.

[00:12:09]So and luckily what I can see right now that nowadays uh the biggest companies start to think about this uh pay agent to agent payments or this uh mand uh uh mandatory whatever um in a way that okay blockchain is a pretty powerful tool you know to be this uh source of the truth to record the result of the AI competition. Basically you mentioned that your first time heard about integration of AI agent with a with a blockchain in 2024 you said right?

[00:12:44]>> Yeah I think so. Yeah.

[00:12:45]>> Yeah. So our first touch of this point was in the 2023. Yeah. So when we start to build some solution where we used a blockchain to record the result of the compliance check uh that may uh provided and made by uh AI agents on chain right but nowadays but it was just some algorithms I mean more like about machine learning but nowadays agents can ex execute yeah and for the execution we need to record what they can do in what in what conditions and just somehow limit them by uprising, let's say.

[00:13:29]>> Yeah, we we don't need a Skynet type scenario. But I I don't think we're necessarily in that realm. But yeah, it it's it kind of leads into another question I want to ask you about innovation versus products because when you have stuff like AI, it's fun to push fast and see what you can do with it.

[00:13:44]and agents is like a great example of that and what they can do on our behalf and how much we can I think delegate to them to do for us whether it's again trading running accounts interacting with other agents economically um like there's so many different things but that comes with risk too like there's a reward and risk uh to to running fast and breaking things as the old Silicon Valley notion goes do you think that maybe a lot of blockchain projects fail sometimes despite having impressive of tech simply because maybe they they go down the path of innovation so quickly, but they kind of lose sight a little bit of what the problem is that they're trying to solve. And this doesn't have to apply just to AI. This can apply to a lot of things I think we've seen in the blockchain space. Um what are your thoughts on that innovation versus seeking product?

[00:14:33]>> Uh yeah, it's a cool question. So uh I'm here more from the development side.

[00:14:37]idea from the technology side and you know I participated in so many projects with absolutely brilliant technology but they do not achieve any you know significant let's say results from the money perspective from the use cases yeah so you can even see right now that a lot of pretty cool and I am big fan of some uh technology solutions behind it but you know they do not achieve any user adoption, they do not achieve any use cases, right? So, and each time I said that, okay guys, we need a pretty strong marketing team just to let people know that sings exist and we can be like a best um best solution for the such problem. Yeah. And the services that we provide can be used uh to solve this problem. Yeah. because uh I mean yeah without marketing and even some uh some projects so you know for the last five years I talked with maybe 600 of the different uh like leads let's say or the projects who try say okay we wanted to build something and each time I say guys just you should be prepared that you will spend half of your budget just for the marketing you know just agree compete with it, you know, because without marketing, without this hype around your project, unfortunately like even brilliant technology, you know, just will fall. Yeah. But but uh other side what I heard from some mark guys from the marketing from this uh let's say project uh from the product they say okay we can spend any uh you know any budget for the marketing but without technology and without some real use cases it's still nothing. So you know we I think that the industry should be we should think that web three should be like a just a regular business sometimes. Yeah. Because because if uh you have some road map some cases. Yeah.

[00:16:55]So for the businesses you know the road map for the next two or three years it's absolutely normal. Yeah. And we can compare it with an entropic we can compare it with open AI. Yeah. So uh they ready to spend a lot of the money for the some compute for basically even for our tokens because we pay less that the tokens actual cost. Yeah. And they agreed with it. I can't imagine that uh unfortunately the most of the crypto project think okay we're in the trend right now. We're on the hype so we can you know attract some attract some goals in a few in the best case in a few months and what will be next we don't know because the trend can uh can change. Yeah. So I think that you know it's just a really first baby steps you know it's like a golden rush I I don't know. Yeah. But in reality, we should be more accurate with our budget and we should start from the problems and the technologies answer for some problems rather than you know the technology is the reason to build some.

[00:18:03]>> Time for a quick shout out to today's sponsor. Sumsub. Crypto is global, fastm moving and full of emerging threats. You need a verification partner that moves even faster. Sumsup combines blockchain intelligence, identity verification and behavioral fraud detection into one powerful platform. You can screen and monitor users at every step. Their AI powered system detects anomalies, account takeovers, and elicit wallet activity before transactions hit the blockchain, giving your compliance team superpowers. Trusted by 4,000 plus clients across fintech and crypto, Sumub helps organizations expand into new markets with confidence while maintaining full compliance with global regulations. Whether you're scaling an exchange, launching a DeFi product, or securing a web3 community, Sumsub has you covered. Check them out at sumsub.com. If you're like a builder like looking for a project or maybe even an investor looking to invest into a project um with all the hundreds of thousands of different projects out there, you know, sometimes chasing these narratives and hype cycles, is there a way to determine if a web 3 project has like genuine product market fit versus simply benefiting from market excitement or is that something that's actually very hard to see just because so many projects do do that, >> you know? So for me the uh the most important question do we really need a token for this project [laughter] and the if the token if the token is answer for some you know uh like a pain point okay all good yeah it can be h and the next question this project for me yeah the next question this project is it may is it just try to get the bigger piece or bigger slice of the pie or try to make the pine in general bigger if the second option okay it's really cool yeah so in my ideal world I can say think that you know and basically hi it's also answer for for this topic that uh the users should start to use your product without understanding that they actually interact with the blockchain yeah so you can imagine some granny's let's say who try to pay for some bills let's say or try to pay for uh I don't know like some food or whatever and she used you know the blockchain and but she don't understand you know the same example as with uh with the uh emails or whatever.

[00:20:29]Yes. So we just send it we who really know how it works or how the works the the smartphones or iPhones almost no one know how it actually works but everyone used it. Yeah. So I think if your product is fit few of these criteria definitely we can you know name few more criterias but the most critical uh is uh without a blockchain without this web three hype without of everything how do you think do there really people is it transfer for some questions or some painoint then all good. Yeah. Then you can ask the next question. Do we really need the token? And unfortunately, yeah, we can see that the most even with the best technologies and with the best solutions, but without this actual use cases for the tokens, we can see that their price goes down. Uh, and it doesn't matter what's going on with your product, with your business, and what's going on with with the price of your token. It can be absolutely uh you know two different processes and that basically not connected even to each other. I mean >> I'm I'm so tired of token launches man.

[00:21:47]I I swear like after 2021 I think a lot of people got tired of them too. Like there's just been so many that chasing that short-term speculation. It's kind of like burnt out I think a lot of this space. Do you have any thoughts on maybe how founders should approach that going forward? I know that token launches can be sometimes a good mechanism to raise capital for a project and I don't think that it's necessarily all bad. It's just it's approached with that like short-term mindset, right? What do you think that you need to do to change maybe like incentive structure, tokconomics, uh to to create a launch or token that's more focused on long-term value versus this short-term crap? But you know we still uh we're we're talking in the terms of the web three. So the what you mentioned yeah the tokconomics tokens lounge and whatever but it's not the answer just a tools you know for the something yeah so uh I think that we need to grow grow up a bit and start thinking okay like uh it's just a business I mean for example it the you're when you build some business strategy or you try to create some like a real world business or somewhere in the digital space you just calculate your revenue, you should calculate your row, you should calculate other parameters and if you will start from the such parameters uh then this token launch or rising from the uh web street capital or just getting some money from your idea then it's really just a tool you know to launch your product but it's not a name you know it's not a final a final final step for your project. So I really think that we need to use the same metrics as we used for just a classical business for the cryptoreated let's say projects. Yeah. And the good news here that you know in general we collected a lot of expertise how to make some deals, how to launch the businesses. Yes. I mean like I don't know like a thousands of the years you know for how how to how to establish some entities that will uh solve some issues. Yeah. started from I don't know when we just exchange the oil for water let's say right so but nowadays but nowadays if we use the same metrics for the blockchains and basically you see it yeah so the most of the cases is crossborder payments it's like a blockchain and stable coins and any tokens is here just an answer not a name yeah so uh we see a lot of uh like a businesses in the Africa Africa as an example who wanted to pay in the United Kingdom, right? But the bank transfer is taking a lot of the time. Yeah. And a lot of uh a lot of fees and a lot of commissions. So we can avoid and we can solve these problems with using uh stable coins. Yeah. And the blockchain is here just a lowlevel you know uh tool but not a name. Yeah. So uh and uh today's we worked with many of the institutionals. Yes. So for for some banks or fintech companies and they're looking at the blockchain not as just an idea of the you know I don't know of libertarian. Yeah. So it's not a concept just for them it's just a tool and if it's an answer so okay we need to use the same metrics uh to achieve some success in this field as well just from the regular business >> I agree what what other advice maybe would you give to like a founder that's maybe at the beginning of their entrepreneurial journey uh that you think maybe people should know a lot earlier on that that they tend to get through their uh experience as a founder and the mistakes they make but that they should definitely know early on.

[00:25:58]>> Okay, first of all you know I also saw a lot of the project who try to build something that's relevant right now but during this development in half of the year or in a year it will not be relevant anymore.

[00:26:15]Yeah. So you need uh make some prediction let's say about the trends.

[00:26:22]Yeah. You need to predict uh some expectations. Yeah. And definitely you need to make a pretty deep dive due diligence about what already exist maybe or and in each time just ask yourself okay if I see that it's a brilliant idea why no one you know uh implemented before. Yeah. And uh and just then when you see okay maybe you have some unique uh some even not a unique idea but some comparative uh advantage yeah unique that have just you yeah then it's totally fine for example if we are talking about the tokenization and someone say okay I want to tokenize what do you try to tokenize in in the most cases it's some apartments or the real estate you know so slightly like a boring topic so everyone can try to tokenize the real estate if you at least have one uh property so you can try to tokenize it. But in some cases when you have I don't know some mines. Yeah. Or you have the unique asset that or for example some industrial diamonds and you have your own factories that produce industrial diamond. Okay. So only you have it and you can check okay the secondary market does not exist for my own asset. So the tokenization it can be an answer for this right. So sounds great. Uh but so uh so only you can implement this. Yeah, the first question and the and just then you can start to uh just try to find some technologies that can be used or implemented to achieve your business. Yeah. And each time definitely the first research you will do with it some deep research of the chat GPT or uh cloud code or whatever.

[00:28:15]But then you still will need to talk with a real expert who spend years in this industry because because the most uh of the difficulties in in the most cases your solution will be somewhere between two maybe worlds. Yeah. Two components, two different narratives.

[00:28:36]For example, IoT plus uh blockchain plus AI agents. Yeah. So and the uh and uh the biggest mistake is just okay made some pretty small research. Okay, I can connect the blockchain with IoT with AI and all will be good. But in reality the most issues and the most effort you will spend not on the blockchain direction and not on the IoT direction but somewhere between you know and some gaps you know gaps in the technologies gaps even on the communication and I really advise you to work with some third parties I mean someone who provides one service another service okay try to combine it somehow but you know you still need some experts who will who worked previously with this one with this one you know and say okay you will faced with this problem this issue and you know with these difficulties and you will spend some time for example just for waiting some documentation or whatever and and because of the because you know the most of the documentation not a public one. Yeah. So you need to have uh you know some internal knowledge base and just talk with an expert but start from the question why no one no one else uh try to build it. Yeah.

[00:29:58]>> Yeah. I like it. So make sure you understand what you're getting into. You can't just vibe through life. Um and then you know due diligence and research very very important. Make sure you understand what you're getting into fully >> and then and just then you know start some discovery phase with an expert to go even deeper or to get some unique knowledge that you can't just collect from the AI agents or from the internet.

[00:30:22]Yeah.

[00:30:23]>> So what what are you up to this year?

[00:30:25]What can we expect from you? Uh what's on the horizon also for hya and host? Uh anything that we should keep an eye out for?

[00:30:33]>> Yeah, definitely. So as I said uh the with the hire we wanted to implement some um mandatory yeah based on the account abstraction in the last update to simplify the process of interaction with with the blockchain and with the funds and whatever. Yeah. Um and definitely I think that uh you know more and more integrations will be uh in a game right uh I mean some external services new blockchains whatever but in a more general I think that we will go deeper with institutionals in general yeah so not just this housed in a higher concept but in general our crypto you know uh let's say crypto community let's say our dev shots and we inside the invice as well will goes deeper into this uh integrations with institutionals integrations between the blockchain and the AI agent this web 4 narrative yeah and I'm not talking about that okay just agents that analyze my transaction right now is a web four definitely not yeah so the agents should be we should provide them just a possibility to execute something or do something without let's say our uh without our attention but we need to control this process. So I really think that and you know for some cases we are talking not about just you know financial but for I don't know like a defense maybe for some governments for the identity as well. Yeah. So I'm pretty sure that it will be like a next next trend, you know, in the industry in general.

[00:32:22]>> Exciting. Where can people go to learn more and keep up with all these exciting things you guys are working on?

[00:32:27]Websites, best place to go, socials, you guys have a blog. Um, where would you suggest people go?

[00:32:34]>> Uh, you know, so definitely my own website. So the most deep dive articles.

[00:32:40]Definitely you don't need to read all of it but you know just and.com you can just you know ask your agent to analyze it so you will be able to [laughter] yeah you know it's just an easiest way also we on our inner wise website we posted a lot of articles some expert tips yeah uh and but it's more you know for that general vision so if you're just thinking about what should I create. Please just you know follow just an open inner wise website and see what some articles you know expert tips and whatever interviews as well if you know what you wanted to build and you need some uh uh additional information. Yeah.

[00:33:27]So the you can check my website or you can contact with invice as well. So we pretty strong tech team here you know a lot of uh architectures a lot of domain expert and the coolest part about the company is that we have a separate domain separate for ML separate for the fintech separate for the IIT and we can you know internally copyright to answer any any of your questions so yeah something like this and and it you know access well definitely but you know uh it provides a less information with smaller And if we compare it with with other websites or the blogs. Yeah.

[00:34:06]>> So many social platforms these days. But yes, those are key ones.

[00:34:09]>> And it will be more.

[00:34:11]>> Oh, of course. Of course. And at some point we'll probably have agents doing this episode for us and on socials and and being our front-facing identities.

[00:34:19]So, uh we should enjoy it while we can, right? Awesome, man. Andrew, I appreciate it. It's been a good conversation. Um love learning about what you guys have been working on there at Haya at Host. um getting your take on AI in the industry, uh founders and what they should be doing, token launches, covered quite a bit. Appreciate it, man.

[00:34:38]Uh let's definitely talk again here in the near future.

[00:34:40]>> Sure thing. See you.

[00:34:42]>> Take care.