Kevin Liu is a software developer, co-founder, and Product Lead for Metis, an Ethereum Layer 2 Rollup platform. He is also the Decentralization Coordinator of the MetisDAO and the CEO of ZKM, a general-purpose zero-knowledge proof system developing Metis' hybrid rollup. ^[1]

Education

Liu earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Management from Tianjin University in 2001. He later graduated from the University of Chinese Academy of Science with an M.B.A. in 2007. ^[1]

Career

In 2003, Liu began his tech career as a brand marketing specialist for IBM, a global tech company. He then moved to Novel SuperTV and became an investment manager, where he worked until 2010. Afterward, he transitioned to senior investment manager at Analysis International, an investment banking company, and stayed there until November 2011. ^[1]

In 2011, Liu became VP of strategic development at StarsChina Technology Ltd., a technology production company. He worked there until 2015 and moved to Toronto to take on the VP position at the company’s Canada office. ^[1]

In 2018, he co-founded Token Economy Labs Inc., a company reporting the latest crypto and blockchain trends. A year later, he met Elena Sinelnikova and Yuan Su at a collaboration conference held by CryptoChicks, a blockchain education platform for women. Together, they co-founded Metis, an Ethereum Layer 2 Rollup platform. ^[1]

In January 2023, Liu became the CEO of ZKM, a general-purpose zero-knowledge proof system, creating Metis’ hybrid rollup for Ethereum to make a universal blockchain layer. ^[2]

Interview

About Metis

Liu sat down with the Blocmates Podcast in November 2022 to discuss Metis. The interview began with him discussing Metis’ mission and goals: ^[3]

“It has a very clear mission and vision. We hope to onboard traditional businesses to the web 3.0. In order to do that, you will need a very solid technical infrastructure to support the high transaction volume and also at a very low cost. So that is currently what we are building, the Layer 2 smart L2 technology, to enable people to onboard onto the blockchain at high speed and also trade at a very low cost.”

He also shared how a company can’t be successful in the blockchain world without knowing traditional finance, saying: ^[3]

“There's a firm belief from us that blockchain is not just about finance. As you can see from the physical world, finance is built on top of real business operations. If you don't have this foundation, finance will be like a tree without roots. It will be just like what is currently happening, with trading or scams being very common. But for us, we believe that blockchain needs to support real business operations first, and then finance or DeFi can work as a large financial market to support all these real business operations. So, that is currently what we are building.”

Liu was later asked about the challenges Metis faced as they began developing their community and ecosystem: ^[3]

“Actually, it was quite exciting with workable infrastructure as the first step of our achievement. As we're beginning, we hope to support a lot of builders to onboard and develop in our ecosystem. So, we put a lot of resources and even more power into that. I think there are some lessons learned because we would try to help, but there are some boundaries that we might not be able to fine-tune. So, I think that leads to our new profile, which is the Community Ecosystem Governance Program launched. We hope to hear the community's voice on which projects we should support instead of our team deciding that. So, I think that's one of the lessons learned when you support projects; there should be some extent we need to leverage.”

When asked if asking real-world businesses, like Nike, to become a DAC and join the blockchain industry was a little ambitious, Liu responded: ^[3]

“It still will take time, but during our communication with those traditional companies, I can see a trend that blockchain is not something unfamiliar to them or they have no idea about. Actually, many companies are considering blockchain solutions. I think there should be some entry point for them on how they can benefit from leveraging blockchain technology or our leadership platform. So basically, the easiest way is marketing and the community, how to leverage their own users and to be more engaged with their product or platform. Yeah, I can see some solutions. But, um, I agree with you. It will take time, yeah, but we can definitely see the trend and we hope to be part of this trend.”

Liu also explained how DeFi is essential and how to build it towards the future: ^[3]

“First, DeFi is still very important to the whole ecosystem, not just the media's ecosystem. I mean the whole blockchain consists of, uh, the key is to define the role it's gonna play in the whole framework. It's, um, for now, like maybe 99 percent of the business in the blockchain space is DeFi. But for us, we believe, uh, at least, you know, 30 or 40 percent of the business should be real business, real-world use cases. With that foundation, DeFi can work as the financial market, just like the real-world business. You still need a very robust financial market to, you know, contain all these, uh, you know, trading and also, you know, lending, borrowing. But, you know, it should be built on some solid foundation, which is the true use cases building on the blockchain. So, uh, I think that's, uh, part of our understanding.”