#22: Chris Whinfrey, Founder @ Hop Protocol | A bridge that moved over $2.4B worth of tokens between Ethereum & L2s to improve the blockchains' UX

Web3 Talks: Stories & Tips from the Builders

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HopExchange is the leading bridge between Ethereum & L2s. Chris shares the story behind the project, how they designed their airdrop and why they decided to give the community so much power.

Timestamps:
1:39 How Chris ended up in crypto and why Ethereum inspired him to build

3:20 The story behind the HopExchange: Auditing, DeFi Summer, and bet on L2

8:29 How they acquired their first users: timing, whitepaper & Twitter

10:07 What they've done to acquire Liquidity Providers

12:01 Methods to separate real users' signals from the aidroppers' noise

14:55 How they tracked down airdrop farmers

18:10 How do they care take of the community as there are only 4 full-time HopProtocol team members

19:54 Why they trusted their community to give them full power over the protocol for the next year

22:40 How they organized their airdrop to make it go smoothly

25:42 Why it's great to have the top DeFi founders such as Kane from Synthetix, Stani from Aave & Stefan from Gnosis on the cap table

27:35 What's the plan for the next few months for the HopExchange

29:20 Why MEV, CowSwap & NounsDAO blew his mind

33:50 Story of Rotate - their community's Sherlock Holmes - who took down Sybil attackers

35:55 Where to learn more about the Hop

36:23 His guests' ideas