Even if you're not an avid 'Cosmonaut,' you're likely familiar with Sunny Aggarwal, the co-founder of Osmosis Labs. With an infectious smile and a vibrant personality, Sunny's presence is magnetic. He's the kind of person whose deep intellect, quick wit, and unbridled passion light up any room he's in.
We had originally planned to connect at Devcon, but life had other plans. The conference was overshadowed by the worst floods in 75 years, transforming the bustling city and disrupting many scheduled events. "There's always Cosmoverse in October," Sunny smiles optimistically. "We can catch up in person then."
I was also looking forward to seeing what outfit Sunny would wear; he's known for his impressive collection of eye-catching costumes, ranging from a 40lb suit of chainmail to a Chinese General's outfit with a striking helmet. "Ah, I save the better outfits for the huge events like Cosmoverse or Osmocon," he explains. "If I wore a special one for every event, my costume budget would get way too high," he laughs. On the video call from his New York apartment, he looks considerably more low-key today.
As the Cosmos ecosystem's premier decentralized exchange (DEX), Osmosis recently celebrated a landmark $32 billion in all-time trading volume. I asked him how it feels to lead the most popular project in Cosmos and achieve such a monumental milestone.
"I think someone said Osmosis DEX wanted to get to $40 billion [in a tweet]," he replies, "but I'm waiting for $100 billion."
Sunny is unabashedly ambitious. Did he ever imagine Osmosis would become such a phenomenon? He ponders for a moment:
"The immediate demand it got when we launched was truly surprising. Cosmos had a lot of high-value assets that weren't traded on centralized exchanges, but we didn't realize how big of a need that would be."
The journey wasn't all smooth sailing. Sunny has been in the Web3 space since 2017. Like many battle-hardened OGs, he's lived through his fair share of ups and downs—crypto crashes, bear markets, and major implosions like Terra (LUNA) and FTX. I asked about the most stressful situation he's faced so far, and he paused:
"I think I would have to say the Osmosis launch week. It was my first time launching a project, a company, and a blockchain all at once. There are a lot of last-minute things you don't think about."
Osmosis had publicly announced its launch date, and unlike the abundance of code projects that kick their launch dates down the road, Sunny was adamant about not moving his. But as more and more last-minute items kept piling up, the launch date loomed over the team's head like a dark cloud.
"Osmosis went from idea to launch very quickly," he says. "We went from development to launch in only three or four months and we procrastinated on a lot of essential tasks until the last two weeks."
Would he have done anything differently with the benefit of hindsight?
"I would have organized things better in advance. When you launch a project, there's more than just the code. There's a lot of operational work to consider and it takes longer than you think... I would have done all that a lot earlier."
Osmosis launched with a team of six and, despite the scrappy start, now has 45 full-time employees:
"I like the size we're at now," he says. "We're small enough that you still know everyone and can do full team offsites, but we're big enough to pursue major unique product lines in parallel."
How does he handle the stress of being at the forefront of an ever-evolving industry? By throwing himself out of planes. Sunny's a fan of flying and is learning to pilot a plane, and is also taking a skydiving course.
"I find it's best to put yourself in a position where you can't touch your phone, like flying a plane, or skydiving," (or hurtling toward the ground at 120 miles an hour). "Crypto markets aren't volatile enough, I have to add more adrenaline," he laughs.
Spending so much time in the air, Sunny also loves to travel, and if there's one place closest to his heart, it's Switzerland. He's long been fascinated with the mountainous European country and its rich history, culture, politics, and economy.
He even taught a class about Switzerland while studying at Berkeley. He wouldn't want to live there, though, as it's "just a little bit too slow." Sunny prefers the fast pace of a city like New York or "being at the epicenter of technological innovation" in San Francisco's Silicon Valley. He also loves Berlin, where his co-founder lives and has many friends. "It's like a second home."
Beyond continually scaling Osmosis, serving other Cosmos ecosystem projects, and racking up his air miles, Sunny's a keen reader. One of his biggest idols is Peter Thiel, whose writing and "way of thinking" greatly influenced Sunny's worldview. Beyond Thiel's Zero to One, he recommends the book Swarmwise by Rick Falkvinge, the founder of the Pirate Party political movement in Europe. The book details how Falkvinge started a political party and turned it into a decentralized force through a concept called "swarms."
He elaborates:
"In consensus protocols, you have this concept of safety-pro and liveness-pro protocols. In safety-pro, you can never fork, you come to consensus on everything and then you make progress. Liveness-pro protocols are constantly forking but they're making rapid progress; you don't have to get the buy-in of the whole group to make a move... In the early stages of an organization where you're focusing on growth, you need that liveness-pro so you don't get bogged down in bureaucracy."
As a self-proclaimed "Bitcoin maxi," Sunny does not doubt that the original crypto is the best money for the world; but the glacial pace of development doesn't align with his need for constant innovation. That's why he worked on Cosmos interoperability in the first place, "building the appchain infrastructure for Bitcoin." What's he most excited about right now?
"Definitely the Bitcoin revitalization. Ordinals changed everything; there's been a cultural shift with all the Bitcoin L2s happening. I'm confident that we'll get a successful soft fork in the next year or two."
Wouldn't that be a detriment to the sound-money qualities and adoption of Bitcoin as an asset? "It's the limitations of Bitcoin that have caused the need for so many other money-like assets, but now Bitcoin can appeal to more people and do more functionalities, like bring in DeFi, privacy, social... there's a lot of stuff we can do on top of Bitcoin now."
What would Sunny be doing if he didn't spend his time disrupting traditional finance? "Robotics." Before working in crypto, Sunny studied robotics in college, and he'd like to return to his roots someday.
"There are different ideas I've had. I spent a lot of time thinking about smart systems... I'm very interested in anything that has a significant political impact. That's why I got into crypto in the first place."
If you want to connect with Sunny, follow his personal X (formerly Twitter) or Osmosis account, or head over to his website for ideas and insights. You can also explore the frontier of DeFi by trying out the Osmosis DEX.
