"Terra hit us incredibly hard": Sunny Aggarwal of Osmosis Labs

Sunny Aggarwal has vivid memories of some of the worst days of his life earlier this year. The blockchain co-founder and his Osmosis protocol were hit hard by the Terra-LUNA collapse and are still recovering from its fallout today.

“The Terra crash hit us really hard because we were one of the biggest DEXs to provide liquidity to TerraUSD and Luna Classic,” he explains, “At one point it was more 50% of our cash."

"I always tell people that the Terra Luna Protocol was created by someone with an IQ of 50 or 150. And frankly, I can't say which one."

Aggarwal is a co-founder and leads the development of the $225 million Osmosis DEX, which at one point eclipsed $2 billion in TVL before winter hit crypto.

The rise of inter-chain bridges

Osmosis is a decentralized exchange (DEX) operating on Cosmos, the creator of the interblockchain communication protocol (IBC).

At the time of the last bear market, the development of cross-chain technologies, allowing users, data and tokens to transfer between chains, was close to being at the edge of the unknown.

Laser-focused on token price movements, few traders were across terminology, like IBC, Tendermint, or Cosmos. But five years later, nearly 50 blockchains use IBC to perform more than 10 million IBC transactions daily in the ecosystem. And it still has over $1 billion in total value locked in the protocol despite the massive market sell-off.

Besides his blockchain work, Aggarwal is known for his eccentric selection of hats.

Beyond osmosis, Sunny Aggarwal is also known for his splendid collection of hats. Source: Sunny Aggarwal

The meme that launched a career in crypto

"A good friend of mine walked up to me and said, 'Did you know that Dogecoin just sponsored the Jamaican bobsled team?'" he recalled. “What is Dogecoin? What does it mean?'”

Aggarwal first became aware of the existence of cryptography during his senior year at Bridgewater-Raritan High School in New Jersey. At the time, cryptography was a relatively new phenomenon and there were no extracurricular activities or school clubs on the subject. Instead, the idea of ​​blockchain has spread the old fashioned way.

"That phrase made no sense to me," Aggarwal told Magazine. "But I'm still fascinated by what I don't know, so I went home that night and searched for Dogecoin for the first time."

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Like many others, Aggarwal found the idea of ​​Dogecoin interesting and quite amusing, but didn't really expect the coin to evolve into a billion-dollar market cap asset with celebrities who take care of it.

Instead, Dogecoin became a gateway token allowing Aggarwal to explore the vast realm of digital currencies. So, during his freshman year majoring in computer science and political economy at the University of California, Berkeley, Aggarwal joined a small blockchain club and began teaching the subject to a class of about 80 students during his tenure. first semester.

Blockchain at UC Berkeley has since grown into a thriving community. Source: Blockchain at Berkeley

"For me, the best way to learn something is to teach it. At Berkeley, there's this cool concept where students can teach as long as they're supported by professors. And so, my computer science teacher Dawn Song gave us the green light.

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