Gelato recently launched its v2.0 and announced the token $GEL. I've been watching the project since 2019 and thought would be a great infrastructure for smart contracts in general. This time, I had a chance to interview the team. This was translated into Japanese and posted in my weekly newsletter Bspeak!. Anyway, enjoy the interview.

*This is not investment advice and informational purposes only.

CoffeeTimes: Hello Gelato team🍦! Can you tell us what Gelato Network is in a nutshell?

Gelato: Gelato Network is an open marketplace to match developers’ demand for transaction automation with the supply of a decentralized network of bots. It empowers developers to build automated dapps and allows bot operators to earn revenue from running the infrastructure necessary for such automations. Further important members of Gelato’s ecosystem and community include the team that develops and distributes much of the technology needed for the marketplace.

Soon, after Gelato’s native token - $GEL - will have been released, its holders will also play a crucial part in governing the network and shaping its success and path into the future.

　 　 CoffeeTimes: What made you start this project? Gelato: We started the project back in May 2019 after we received a grant from Gnosis Ecosystem Fund (GECO).

ref: https://blog.gnosis.pm/gnosis-ecosystem-fund-update-ii-9bea803a97c8

Initially, we worked on automating certain aspects of Gnosis’s DutchX exchange back then. However, we quickly realized that the need for automating dapps is ubiquitous. Web2 users are completely accustomed to an automated User Experience thanks to centralized servers controlling a lot of your data. In Ethereum, and decentralized blockchains in general, this great user experience is very hard to replicate because here we explicitly do not want users to trade in custody over their data and funds to a centralized server for a better UX. This would sacrifice most of the benefits of the decentralized web. So in the summer of 2019 we set out to build a solution for developers and users alike that allows for a decentralized application layer with a slick automated user experience, without the need for users to give away control over their keys and funds - Gelato Network was born.

Luis and Hilmar, 2021

　 　 CoffeeTimes: What is Sorbet Finance? Is it like a side project on top of Gelato?

Gelato: Yes, Sorbet Finance is its own project that makes use of the Gelato Network in its backend. In Sorbet’s case it uses the Gelato network to continually monitor prices on DEX and then execute a users’ limit orders once their specified desired price target is reached. All that is achieved while the users keep full control over their funds. Also Sorbet now features Dollar Cost Averaging, which allows users to automatically sell a portion of a token spread out in several chunks and time intervals, to decrease the slippage per trade. Cool features like Sorbet that use Gelato Network to automate some aspect of a dapp can be built by any developer. 　 　 CoffeeTimes: You have announced several collaborations. Can we expect any other collaborations in the close future?

Gelato: Yes, for sure. We are in close talks with many of the famous and not-yet-famous projects out there on Ethereum, Polygon, BSC, and whatnot. Almost every DeFi developer needs automation and we’re here to help them get it. 　 　 CoffeeTimes: You recently have announced GEL tokens. What is the purpose of GEL tokens? If Executors bot act maliciously, it would lead to a crucial problem (front running or just harming dapp users). Does GEL token slashing prevent it enough?

Gelato: $GEL tokens will be used to 1) incentivise, govern, and police network participants and 2) allocate network resources efficiently.

Bots who want to earn a revenue from providing their infrastructure services to the Gelato network will have to stake a lot of $GEL tokens to attain and retain this privilege. This will open the door for more complex use cases to be built on top of Gelato, which might require an element of trust into the bots that will execute their automations. For such use cases having the bots put up a bonded stake, which can be slashed if they act maliciously, is essential. However, it’s worth mentioning that there are also many use cases which can be implemented so that they are trustless by default and thus do not have to rely on such a staking and slashing mechanism. Furthermore, the $GEL token will also be used to positively incentivize all network participants, developers, bots, and users alike that bring traffic to the network.

One other major use of $GEL is to efficiently allocate network infrastructure resources to dapps and users that demand them. Ethereum and other chains usually are constrained resource environments. There are only so many transactions that can fit into a block. Therefore, in order to scale a decentralized network like Gelato, decisions regarding the timing priority of transactions will have to be made by dapp developers and ultimately the bots that send them to the network. To gain priority in this technological resource allocation mechanism, developers and end users will have the ability to also lock up $GEL to assign different weights to their transactions. As a result, bots are incentivized to allocate more resources to such staked dapps or users, who, like them, are also long $GEL via their boned stakes. 　 　 CoffeeTimes: About token distribution, how would you plan on it? Gelato: At the moment we cannot share details with the public yet other than that we plan to do a public sale for $GEL tokens early this summer. Stay tuned, we will announce more details soon on our Medium and Twitter accounts. 　 　 CoffeeTimes: Okay further question about GEL, allocation/tokenomics are already fixed?

Gelato: We will announce more details about token allocation and tokenomics in an upcoming article. Right now this information is not yet public. 　 　 CoffeeTimes: How would the GelatoDAO become sustainable? I assume the protocol would take a fee based on transactions but can you elaborate the model?

Gelato: The GelatoDAO will be governed by people that have a vested interest in governing and maintaining the Gelato Network. For example, dapp developers that make extensive use of Gelato for their automation needs are strongly incentivized to participate in important decision-making around things like what features should be prioritised by Gelato’s core team in upcoming releases, what fees bots can charge, and whether certain bots should be slashed and kicked from the network, if they misbehave. Therefore, there is an organic tendency for many network participants to participate in the DAO to steadily improve the welfare of the network purely out of rational self-interest. In the future, the DAO could also retain a small network fee, but since its membership will likely largely consist of network participants the ultimate fee payers will have significant control over this decision themselves. 　 　 CoffeeTimes: Gelato seems to have a great connection with Gnosis and other DAOs (TheLAO / MetaCartel Ventures), how did you start and deepen these relationships with them?

Gelato: We partnered with MetaCartel early on in late 2019 when we applied for a grant from them and made it into their 3rd cohort.

ref: https://medium.com/metacartel/metacartel-cohort-1-6336cdca05db

Even though Peter Pan sat next to us in Berlin’s crypto co-working space Full Node from the start, we eventually really got to know him online. He was super helpful and interested in Gelato and really also helped us with closing our Seed Funding in late summer 2020. The LAO was also part of our Seed Round and we are in frequent contact with both members of the LAO, like Aaron and Pri, and members of MetaCartel, like Peter and Victor. They usually help us greatly with legal, strategic, or community-related questions. Being active in DAOs and just talking to their members is definitely a good thing every crypto entrepreneur should. 　 　 CoffeeTimes: Please tell us briefly about your future plans in the coming few months!

Gelato: Uh boi, there is a lot to unpack here but let us be crisp. For this summer the plan is to:

• ship, ship, ship: new automated features on Ethereum, Polygon, BSC, and Fantom. We want Sorbet’s limit orders to be on every AMM and we want more and more protocols to integrate Gelato for liquidation protection and automated transfers, withdraws, deposits and so on.
• launch $GEL
• launch the Gelato DAO and start involving $GEL holders in decision-making around which features to prioritise
• Developer mining programs with $GEL to get more developers to build on Gelato

Definitely join our Telegram or Discord communities to stay up to date. I am sure there will be feature releases for you or as a developer you have the opportunity to participate in our developer mining program, which we will launch after the $GEL token sale.

Roadmap：WhitePaper v1.0 　 　 CoffeeTimes: Can you give any words to the Japanese audience? Do you have any impressions on Japanese crypto scene? I think I saw a photo somewhere of when the team came to Tokyo

Gelato: Gelato had a strong Japanese community right from the start. We are super thankful for that and we definitely want to connect more with them. If any Japanese developers want to automate smart contracts, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Unfortunately, we have not been to Tokyo yet. However, after COVID settles down we will definitely go.

Our team is very multinational, we have members from Switzerland, US, Germany, France, China, Australia, and Egypt. However, we don’t have a Japanese team member yet. We are currently actively looking for frontend and backend developers with web3 experience, so if anybody in our Japanese community wants a job with us please apply here: https://angel.co/company/gelato-network! 　 　 (CoffeeTimes: By the way, why is the name Gelato? The bottom half of the logo also looks like Ethereum🍦) Gelato: Because everybody loves Gelato! 　 　 CoffeeTimes: Thank you for taking your time! Where can we learn more about Gelato?

Gelato: 🐦 Twitter | 💬 Telegram | 📺 Discord 🍦[email protected] 🍦http://gelato.network/ 🍦Gelato Whitepaper v1.0