Through the 2025 version of the Paris Blockchain Week, BeInCrypto sat down with Alexis Yellow, CEO of Yellow, a crypto venture engaged on a completely new paradigm based mostly on Satoshi’s preliminary imaginative and prescient for Bitcoin.
He talks concerning the upcoming Yellow Tokens, a brand new sensible contract mechanism, and making crypto initiatives extra utility-driven.
Alexis, are you able to introduce your self?
I’m Alexis, a software program engineer by background. I labored on the European House Heart early in my profession, however my crypto journey began fairly unexpectedly.
Again in 2013, an previous good friend from college reached out—he was working at Goldman Sachs and advised me a few venture that wanted assist. He mentioned, “There are 12 individuals in Silicon Valley printing pretend cash.” That venture turned out to be Ripple.
Ripple ended up being our first shopper, and that have actually helped me grasp the potential of crypto.
Regardless of the skepticism surrounding the area, I noticed actual innovation. Ripple’s CTO was a Bitcoin Core contributor, and Vitalik Buterin was concerned with the staff earlier than Ethereum.
Truly, Buterin was planning to hitch Ripple. He was particularly enthusiastic about their consensus mechanism, which impressed me, too.
So, we began in 2013 by doing market-making and tackling challenges in crypto liquidity and infrastructure.
One factor that all the time caught with me was Satoshi’s thought: We’d like methods the place belief isn’t a prerequisite. That concept formed a whole lot of my considering.
Round 2018–2019, I made a decision to start out Yellow. We later merged with a French alternate expertise firm known as OpenWare. Combining my market expertise with their tech, we launched Yellow Community.
So, it’s a buying and selling infrastructure designed to let establishments, like Société Générale, commerce straight with main gamers like Binance without having to belief them.
Buying and selling with exchanges like Binance with out trusting them, do you imply belief as a counterparty?
Precisely that’s on the core of Satoshi’s imaginative and prescient. At Yellow, we’re engaged on a unique mannequin of trustlessness utilizing state channels, which characterize a brand new paradigm in comparison with conventional blockchain methods like Bitcoin or Ethereum.
In these methods, you might have tens of 1000’s of nodes, say, round 30,000, validating every transaction. It’s a robust mannequin for safety, every validator has a monetary incentive to be sincere, and there’s no method to roll again a confirmed transaction.
The identical applies to staking networks. However that construction simply doesn’t work for high-frequency buying and selling. You’ll be able to’t have 30,000 nodes verifying each microsecond commerce. It’s just too sluggish and inefficient.
For instance, some networks attempt to resolve this by lowering the variety of validators to 21, however that compromises the extent of belief and decentralization. Our strategy is basically totally different. The Lightning Community evokes it, however we’ve taken it in a brand new path.
With the Lightning Community, you may transfer cash immediately by opening a state channel. At Yellow Community, we use comparable state channels however as an alternative of transferring funds straight, we switch revenue and loss in actual time.
As an illustration, when you purchase a Bitcoin for $100,000 and it rises 5%, the $5,000 revenue is straight away transferred to your pockets. The commerce is settled immediately, peer-to-peer, with cryptographic proof.
To make sure safety and equity, we’ve constructed a wise contract known as ClearSync. If a counterparty refuses to settle, as we noticed with the HyperLiquid concern just lately, ClearSync can step in and arbitrate the commerce.
It verifies the declare and, if legitimate, ensures the rightful celebration receives what they’re owed. So, it’s a trustless system that also permits for the velocity and adaptability merchants want.
It’s not utilizing flash buying and selling?
No, it’s peer-to-peer buying and selling. Nothing is quicker or extra environment friendly than a direct state channel between two events. Revenue is transferred immediately. That’s the core of this new paradigm: trustless buying and selling, the place settlement occurs in actual time.
Let’s say we’re buying and selling and the connection drops, no downside. If I made a revenue, it’s already secured. I may not obtain the asset, like Bitcoin, however my revenue in {dollars} is locked in. There’s no must belief the opposite celebration to settle appropriately.
Is it efficient revenue or a declare to revenue?
It’s efficient revenue, denominated in {dollars} or no matter foreign money is locked as collateral. Right here’s the way it works – two events lock in $20,000 to commerce Bitcoin. That quantity represents the utmost they’re prepared to threat.
If the commerce ends in a $5,000 revenue for one aspect, that quantity is immediately settled, even when the opposite celebration refuses to finalize the commerce.
If each conform to settle, I ship you $100,000, you ship me one Bitcoin, and each our collaterals unlock.
Can you turn to stablecoin?
Completely. In actual fact, we’re working with stablecoin issuers to create partnerships and potential investments in Yellow.
Are you able to give us an thought of the dimensions of the Yellow Group? How many individuals are there? What number of transactions do you course of ?
We haven’t formally launched. Earlier than the warfare in Ukraine, we had a big staff of over 100 individuals. Many have since relocated, largely to Poland, however we nonetheless have workers in Ukraine. Proper now, we’re about 50 individuals globally.
In the meantime, you may observe exercise on our analytics web site, BundleBear. On Polygon, we’re already the fourth most energetic app. On Linea, a brand new protocol by Consensys, we’re primary with over 229,000 customers regardless of not being reside but.
We are able to see in your web site that you’re providing your expertise to be able to listing any token with out going by a CEX or a DEX. Is that a part of the venture?
Precisely. The Yellow Pockets is sort of a Layer 3; it lets customers work together with any chain seamlessly. It now helps cross-chain swaps, like shifting tokens from Polygon to Binance Sensible Chain, with zero charges. It’s designed to take away friction from cross-chain buying and selling.
Do you cost in your companies?
No, not for the state channels themselves. We don’t monetize trades straight. The Yellow token performs a safety function, a “vital evil,” like ETH or BTC.
Your safety deposit will get burned when you behave badly and refuse to settle. It ensures honesty in a peer-to-peer surroundings. Consider it like a miner dropping their reward for attempting to cheat.
How do you make cash from the utilization of your service?
The token financial system is the inspiration. Identical to ETH or BTC derive worth from utilization and community participation, the Yellow token does too.
It’s wanted to put safety deposits within the community, and over time, its utility and adoption by trade gamers will drive its worth.
If somebody cheats, their token will get burned—creating deflationary strain and reinforcing good conduct.
Is the token already traded?
Not but, however we’re planning to launch within the subsequent couple of months. We’ll mint 10 billion Yellow tokens; ideally, that quantity stays near that.
If too many tokens get burned, it may point out points within the system. It’s a built-in sign to watch the well being and integrity of the community.
Are you going to start out it with an airdrop or one thing of the kind?
No, we’re centered on utility-based distribution. Most tokens will likely be bought straight within the markets the place they’re used. Ethereum didn’t launch with an airdrop. Neither did Bitcoin.
It is a B2B infrastructure venture—similar to Ethereum and Ripple. Whereas the community is open to everybody, our core customers are companies and institutional gamers.
That mentioned, the fantastic thing about crypto is that the ecosystem is open. Anybody who believes within the venture can become involved and profit from the community impact, without having to be a developer or an insider.
Something necessary that we omitted?
Sure, only a few cryptocurrencies are utilized in the actual world at present. Bitcoin has confirmed its worth as a retailer of wealth.
Ethereum demonstrated its utility through the ICO increase. USDT fills a significant hole in locations the place {dollars} are onerous to entry.
We imagine Yellow can turn out to be the fourth pillar. It’s fixing an actual want in crypto markets: scalable, trustless, high-frequency buying and selling. And we’re making it open supply so the entire trade can profit.
I feel this strategy, state channels for velocity and sensible contracts for decision, will redefine how buying and selling infrastructure works. It’s splendid for gaming and different fast-paced purposes the place blockchains by no means actually match.
Blockchain isn’t all the time the reply, particularly when you’re utilizing 30,000 nodes to validate a recreation transfer. That’s simply not environment friendly.
With Yellow, the buying and selling aspect is dealt with by cryptographic state channels not full decentralization. But when one thing goes mistaken, we nonetheless fall again to a wise contract to arbitrate. That’s the stability we’re bringing.
Additionally, we’re engaged on a brand new ERC commonplace for this. Within the subsequent 3–4 years, I anticipate that 10–20% of recent crypto initiatives will undertake this structure.
General, We’re not simply constructing a product, we’re introducing a brand new philosophy for a way decentralized methods can function extra effectively.
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