Episode #7: Multi-Chain Projects, Bridges & Arbitrage Trading
On today’s episode of the ACCEL Podcast, Scott, Eric and Alex welcome back ACCEL University Director, Chris (known as Drake in the community) to help explain the in’s and out’s of multi-chain projects, the importance of arbitrage trading, and why having a functional bridge is a must in the multi-chain space.
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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJDNIqPTp9kjsMPmPo119Zg
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Episode Transcript:
[Scott] On today's episode of The ACCEL Podcast, we welcome the return of ACCEL University director Chris, also known as Drake, to help explain the ins and out of multiple chains, the importance of arbitrage trading, and why having a functional bridge is a must in the Multi Chain space. As always, my name is Scott, and I am Eric. I'm Alex. You're listening to the ACCEL Podcast, Defining a decentralized future. One listen at a time.
[Alex] Welcome everybody to The ACCEL Podcast. Today, we welcome back Chris, A-K-A. Drake the director of ACCEL University. So, Chris, we brought you on the show today to explain the purpose of multi chain projects. At a first glance, they may seem overwhelming. Can you explain a little bit more about that?
[Drake] Hey, Alex, thanks for having me back on the show. I'm excited to be here. And yeah, absolutely. We can talk a little bit about multi chain projects. So basically, a multi chain project is any project that launches across multiple blockchains. And there's a couple of reasons why someone would do that. But the main idea is to allow the largest community and the largest user base to have easy access to the project. And depending on where you're located or where you might live, different cryptos and different blockchains might be more easily accessible to you. So being able to access those communities across whatever blockchain is easiest for them really opens up doors for your own project.
[Scott] Yes, I think that's one of the misconceptions we kind of see a lot in the DeFi space, Chris, is people don't really understand why people want to do that. But I think one of the main misconceptions is people don't really understand that a lot of people like to stay on one or two chains. They don't really venture out and day trade on multiple chains. Is that something that you really see as you're looking into the analytics of the different chains? Is there not a lot of turnover between BSC traders and Ethereum traders versus even throwing in Matic?
[Drake] Yeah, absolutely, Scott. And I think that's one of the things that we see pretty often is that you tend to stick with the chain that you kind of started with. I think for myself personally, for example, I started with the Ethereum chain. And even now, as someone who lives in New York, BNB and BSC aren't easily accessible here. So I know a lot of my peers and other people who might not have the same accessibility to other blockchains tend to stick to the one that they're familiar with. So definitely while there are some traders and some people who are very well versed across the blockchains and tend to interact with them all, we do find that a majority of traders, majority of the community, tend to stick to the chain that they're most familiar with.
[Scott] Okay, Chris, with that being said, I guess my one little follow up question to that would be, do you kind of see this as a positive then with the different chains allowing people to venture out a little bit, when you have these multi chain projects, it allows them to find that comfort zone in a project they're already in to venture out into a different chain.
[Drake] Yeah, absolutely. And that kind of loops back to that idea of providing the most easily accessible way for people to not only be able to participate in a project, but also to do so with a chain that they're familiar with and comfortable with.
[Eric] So, Chris, with that all being said, is it possible you could give us a little insight to us and the listeners to the pros and cons between multi chain projects? And which types of projects do you believe are more successful or predicated to each blockchain, if that even exists?
[Drake] Well, the one thing I will say is that for the most part, when it comes to multi chain projects, the advantages those pros outweigh any cons that might come up. And again, that comes to access and community and also being able to disperse your liquidity across these chains. You know, generally speaking, those pros outweigh any cons that you might see a couple of cons that tend to exist. And I'm sure this is something that we can touch upon a little bit later on today's podcast is when there might be price discrepancies across different blockchains. Right. And so that tends to lead to arbitrage, for example. But generally speaking, any cons that might exist because you're listed on multiple blockchains are just very small in the grand scheme of theme, in the bigger pictures. And then in terms of the types of projects that tend to be most successful when they are Multi Chain projects, this kind of loops back to the bigger idea of what we're seeing in micro crypto right now. We tend to see this gravitation or this shift towards utility projects. Right? There's a bit of a movement away from meme coins and things of that nature. And people and the community at large are now shifting towards projects and businesses with actual sources of value, actual sources of utility. And that's where we're seeing a lot of investing activity, a lot of volume. A lot of traders are kind of interested in those types of projects right now. And when you pair a utility project with the opportunity for it to be MultiChain, for example, ACCEL itself, you tend to get the best of both worlds. And really, you're opening those doors and also you're able to provide your utility sources across your multiple chains. Right. So now it's not just utility for Ethereum holders only. It's not just a theorem for anybody who trades on BNB side only. This utility can be implemented across the chains. So you're bringing your value to a larger audience. And those are the types of projects right now that we see are really popular at the moment.
[Eric] So it seems Chris, from your explanation, there really aren't that many cons when you can level out across different blockchains and give the opportunity to basically a lot of different buyers predicated upon what their purchase power is, whether it be Ethereum, whether it be Matic Polygon, whether it be the BNB, it seems to only have a plus or upside potential, which brings in, like you said, the Arbitrage and the other aspects of trading along all other blockchains, and especially when you brought an ACCEL as an example, dealing with the fact that we have multiple utilities that are coming to market, that it can only be advantageous for ACCEL to trade across multi chains.
[Drake] Absolutely. And the one thing I would say on that or the one comment I would have would be, I really think the only time you would see the Multi Chain kind of disbursement really lead to some negative side effects if some type of project were tried to do that without actually taking into consideration the manner in which they did it. Right. So, for example, if you look at ACCEL's rollout across the multi chain, something that is being very carefully considered and calculated, that type of rollout where you're bringing that project to multiple chains is being done the right way. So I would say that the only time you would really see those cons is if someone tried to make their project a multi chain project without actually putting in the footwork or doing the research to make it successful.
[Scott] So, Chris, now that we kind of have the basic understanding of how these multi chain projects kind of work, can you give us a little bit of a brief dive into the TA (Technical Analysis) side of it as you see the big benefits in these multi chain projects?
[Drake] Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, really, again, when we talk about how multi chain affects a project and what those benefits might be, again, what we're kind of seeing is the opportunity for growth being presented and also the opportunity to not only disperse your project across these chains, create multiple liquidity pools, but you're also seeing the chance to bring in Arbitrage Trading to your project as well. Right. So there's a couple of different aspects at play, but the basic idea behind all of them is that you're spreading your project out, and naturally, in doing so, you're creating a larger foundation for it. So by spreading it out across blockchains. Right. You're creating multiple liquidity pools, for example. And if you remember from our previous conversations on that, we talked about how having multiple liquidity pools actually helps the stability of the project. So that's another advantage that comes to that. It's another benefit to this like, functionality. And then when it comes to Arbitrage, which I think we'll definitely touch a little bit upon, now, that's where you kind of also see the opportunity to grow the project at a much more rapid pace than you would without this functionality.
[Eric] So Chris, our listeners could understand a little clearer with the Arbitrage trading and then being able to be in more than one blockchain, which currently run two, and I believe we're going to be moving towards a third and possibly a fourth. Could you give a little more of an explanation to give an understanding for maybe the newer traders out there who really don't get a total grasp of arbitrage, what it actually does to the coin price across these multi chains?
[Drake] Absolutely. So Arbitrage, again is trading when there is a price discrepancy in the coin. Right. And so that could be a price discrepancy across a specific exchange. Right. For example, so something that we talked about was maybe the price difference between Xcel on a decentralized exchange versus a centralized exchange, something like that. And being able to take advantage of that price difference where you could buy at maybe the lower price and sell at the higher price. For example, when it comes to arbitrage trading cross chains. Right. Really what we're seeing is the opportunity to welcome HFTs to ACCEL. HFTs high Frequency traders, generally speaking, are either traders with a large amount of capital or traders who take their capital and put it into a bot. And so now a bot or an algorithm has access to a really large capital. And what they can do with this is the bots can go ahead and they can place these high frequency trades, these really large quantity trades and take advantage of those price differences. Price differences across the multiple chains. Right. So one of the things that we might see, for example, and obviously at the time of recording this podcast, Xcel has not officially launched on the BNB side yet. We did just close the presale, but the actual launch itself has not started yet. But once that does, what we could see is if there's a price difference in the ACCEL coin value from each to the BNB side, being able to welcome that volume to our project, welcome those High frequency traders to the project and allow them to take advantage of that price discrepancy of that price spread. Now that might not sound like something that's advantageous to the individual holder. Right. How does someone else profiting from these price differences affect me? But the thing that the holders have to remember in our community as a whole is that the more volume ACCEL has, the more opportunities that our project has as well. Right. And so, for example, one of the things we talked about was how central exchanges, certain central exchanges will only list projects that have, generally speaking a million in volume daily. Right now, obviously, that million in volume might not be made up from holder transactions exclusively. And so when we welcome High frequency Traders into our project, when we welcome that Arbitrage, we give that opportunity. They can add to the volume of the project and increase the overall opportunities that are being presented to us. One of the other things that happens with arbitrage trading is that as this price spread is taken advantage of. Right. As the differences in price are being utilized, what actually will happen is that the prices will tend to gravitate or come closer, that spread between the prices will tighten as more people take advantage of it. And so the unintended effect or really the added benefit is that these people will end up bringing the prices of ACCEL across the different chains closer to the same value. And so having ACCEL at the same value for me as an individual holder, now that's an advantage that I can use because now I can swap maybe from one chain to another, and the prices are going to be very close. Right. They may not be exactly identical, but that spread might get tightened through arbitrage trading.
[Scott] Okay. That all makes good sense, Chris. So I guess a follow up question to that and something that you kind of see a lot with some new investors is they get a little scared by this idea of arbitrage trading. They don't really understand that the price is going to move up and down, like you were saying, and that people are going to have the opportunity to make some money on it. They look at it as a negative and there might not be a ton of balance. I know we touched on them a little bit in our last time we had you on. Could you kind of just give us a brief overview again of what these different market making services are and how they work?
[Drake] Yeah, absolutely. So again, the idea here is that these different services exist purely to make the experience for the individual holder a little easier. Right. And so one of the things that we touched upon previously was how when there's a price discrepancy between maybe a central exchange liquidity pool for ACCEL and then the decentralized exchange, these market makers can come in and in the same manner as what I just described, be able to tighten the price spread for us, be able to try to bring those prices closer together. And generally speaking, that's just going to create overall an easier experience for any holder in ACCEL. Right. So these market makers will come in and they'll be able to utilize transactions to drive the price a little higher or a little lower to try and match the other prices of ACCEL. Right. And when those prices get closer and closer together, obviously our stability increases. Obviously, the ease of doing transactions across different exchanges increases as well. So really having that functionality is just another benefit to ACCEL holders. And whether it comes directly from the exchange itself through the use of market making or whether it comes from individual bots that are taking advantage of arbitrage trading, either way, neither of those functions or neither of those trading systems are going to be disadvantageous to ACCEL holders. Right. We still get benefits from that experience.
[Alex] Thank you so much for breaking that down for us. Why would it be important for ACCEL to have its own bridge?
[Drake] Yeah. So ACCEL is building its own in house bridge, right. The ACCEL bridge. And essentially what that's going to do is it's going to, again, make the ability to navigate this multi chain project more accessible. If I have ACCEL on the ETH side and I want to swap it over to the BNB side because that's my personal decision or preference. Being able to do it in house, being able to have an in house cross chain protocol is going to make that transaction so much more easy. And in doing so, again, we start to kind of give our holders the tools needed to navigate all of this without having to worry about, do I need to use an external bridge? How do I get my ACCEL over to BNB? How do I make these swaps? How do I stick in the different pools? All of that stuff kind of goes away, all those questions or concerns when we have an in house bridge that we can kind of fall back on and rely on. And so essentially, that bridge is what's allowing ACCEL to communicate across these chains that it's listed on. And so I can go into the app or however the bridge is actually implemented once it is finally released to the public and make that transition, make that swap in the app and it'll be just the touch of a couple of buttons and I don't have to worry about really anything else. It'll all be 100% automated because again, that's going to be built in house to communicate directly with ACCEL and communicate across its multiple chains.
[Alex] Speaking of it being built in house, is there anything that you can give us without going into too much detail that's going to separate ACCEL's bridge from the pack?
[Drake] Yeah, absolutely. So, again, the idea here is ease of transaction, right. Making the experience for every ACCEL holder as seamless as possible. And so when you kind of look at the bigger picture for all of ACCEL's products and sources of utility, right. When we look at ACCEL's launchpad for Coin building and things like that, and you realize that there's a bridge built into our platform that allows us to navigate multiple chains in house, then you can kind of start to see that bigger picture, start to see how having that own bridge, and especially a bridge that works so well across these chains, becomes an additional resource to the holders, becomes an additional resource that we can take advantage of and provide not only to the holders, but to people that we might partner with, provide to maybe projects that ACCEL takes on, or when we have mergers and acquisitions in the future, being able to use that bridge to our advantage, however we need, is going to be a huge leg up on the competition because it's built in house, because we have our own protocol, because it's cross chain because it integrates into ACCEL platform. You kind of piece that all together and you're like, wow, this is really convenient and it's also really valuable as well, right? So we don't have to do any of that externally. It's all in house and it's all also available to ACCEL’s holders too,
[Eric] Chris all great information and with such clarity that really brings it home to our listeners and just so our listeners all know you can get all this information at ACCEL University and also at our YouTube channel and all of our socials thanks again for stopping by.
[Alex] Chris we really appreciate you breaking down everything for us about Arbitrage trading was very informative again everyone please check our show notes for our link tree. Please give us a like please give us follow subscribe if you'd like as always sit back and ACCEL.
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