Why would somebody like centransilation because it probably doesn't make sense in a lot of situations. Right, And if you live in the developed world, like a lot of people do, especially those that are purchasing n FPS, we live in a society that's based off the endorsement models. Right, Like you go to the bank, You're happy you're banking with ship.
You're happy you're banking with Bank of America because that is a standard and a symbol of transparency and a symbol of, like, you know, a certain level of service that you can expect to have from these parties. You go to West Africa, you go to undevelop the parts of the world, you don't have that same luxury. I'm will Lucas, Mrs Black Tech, green money. I'm gonna into to use some of the biggest names, some of the brightest mines and brilliant ideas. I feel black and building
simply using tech to secure your bank. This podcast is for you, Solo se says, chief operating officer and co founder of Calaxy, open social marketplace for creators by creators that aims to reimagine the entertainment industry and fundamental ways which we all interact with digitally. I'm at solo in person to April Tech Exact Miami, where he spent a lot of time talking about how the metaverse will change
the game for influencers and marketers a solo. If he were to zoom, I would say three to five years from now, how might the metaverse change our lives in tangible ways? What will be different and say than it
is right now? Yeah, I mean, I think from my perspective, the metaverse is something we've been working towards for the last couple of decades, right you think about it, with the rise of social media within itself or Xbox Live or gaming platforms, online gaming and the bloom that we've seen over the last couple of decades, the metaverse is
something that's been here for a while. I think we're just seeing new use cases of technology and the integration with blockchain and how powerful it really can be in terms of putting together more collaboration and allowing for those coptunities to happen. So when I zoom out five years, I think that the metaverse is gonna be very key to the way in which that we meet with people, the way we collaborate, the way it waits. The world smaller.
If you've looked at the world, you know, the history of the world from the beginning of the time UM, the world has continually became a smaller and smaller place UM, which has created many pathways to more collaboration UM and integrations and things like that. So I think we're gonna see meta versus be a lot more interoferable. I think
that's the next step. UM. You know where you're you know, personality and image is helpful in one place, leveraging it to another place and just that interoperability aspect um that is so easily achieved from blockchain is kind of what I can expect us to see in the short to medium term. But UM, you know, it's definitely something that's here to stay. But quite honestly, I think the misconception
at the moment is it's something that's new. UM. It's definitely been something that's been a pinnacle of the way in which that we've you know, grown up with technology and you see kids nowadays, I think they will only know a world UM that is integrated with a metaverse. Right my little brother who is seventeen in high school now, like they're very very you know, gen z e ars are very into the Internet, They're very into the world.
They're into their virtual personalities and things like that. Um, so I think we're going to continue to see more of that in the future. You've done this a couple of times in that statement. I don't think people appreciate this enough. But you talk about the metaverse in the plural. When I hear people talk about the metaverse, they talk about the metaverse like there will be one that we're all in. Can you describe why you're using it in
the plural form? Yeah, I mean, I think the main thing is there's it's too early to tell where the where the victors will be. And I think the ethos of blockchain is really not necessarily about what the best investment is or what the best technology is. It's really about having use cases for different things. Right. So, like the technology that underpins many cryptocurrencies, right, um has a lot of use cases that make sense for certain things,
but not necessarily sense for other things. Right. So extrapolating that and thinking about the metaverse, right, I think the technology that underpins the metaverse will admittedly be different, whether it's coming from different ecosystems or in general that use cases. I think what we're gonna see is that convergence into essentially sure, there will be one metaverse, but the technology
that inderpends it. I guess that's definitionally how we've thought about the metaverse has been attached to the technology, hence
the plural nature of it. But I think the world will only be as successful or as like the best place to be will be when there's that collaboration that happens, so interoperability something that's really big and Web three right now, um, and so you know, personally, from my standpoint, I would say that the biggest uh you know thing that we're gonna see in the future is really that convergence of all these different metaverse and so it doesn't really matter
you know, where you're spending money and things like that. When I would like to analog it to basically think of a credit card, right, so, like you go to a bank, you buy you know, you get a credit card, you have a line of credit. When you leave the country, you're still able to use that credit card, and all the stuff that you need to worry about is really taking care of on the back end, right, Like you don't have to think about Oh, well, I'm in Europe, so I need euros, so then buy it's wipe my
credit card. It just happens, right, And I think that's kind of the you know, practicality point of it too. But then also like when the world becomes that way, that's when you see a rapid adoption of the metamors. When it's that simple. The best technology that we have and I always say this and no you and I were talking about it last time, but the best technology in the world has created a convenience factor and it's
easy to use. It's never been something that's been required to use a dictionary or encyclopedia to gain knowledge on it. It's something that makes sense right all of us, you know, a lot of us drive every single day and we don't know what actually happens under the hood of our car. Um you turn the key and you press up, right, Like technology needs to get to that point for mass adoption. It doesn't need to be the case that you need
to be an engineer to drive a car. So why do you need to be a cryptographist or some blockchain nerd to really be participate in the meta rise. So that's kind of what I mean by interoperability, it's for
a convenience factor if anything. So, are you saying that there may be, you know, a metaverse for work in another metaverse to hang out with my buddies, like like a group chat sort of metaverse like to where we just all have access to this one, but there may be another one that I hang out with family on.
Are you are you? Are you saying that it may be that sort of situation where there's several different things I would say from your from the perspective of us, it won't really matter, Like I think there will be enough interoperability and integration to the point where everything happened seamlessly.
So even if in theory you're switching metaverse is like your user experience, your journey as a person will be remain constant, right Like, So that's kind of what I'm getting at, Like, I think that's kind of the future of this technology is when it's as simple as plug in play. Um, you know, no matter where you are, you buy a pair of air pods, it doesn't matter
if you have this iPhone, that iPhone, that whatever. You can use them everywhere, right Like, interoperability is what I'm talking about, Yes, I look at so I have little kids and I watched them grow up in this world where they would rather have And I'm kind of diverging from just metaverse but also n f T s and things like that. I would I would bet you if I handed them a twenty dollar bill and twenty in roebucks, they would have a difficult time picking which one is
more valuable to them. And so what would you say about because you just talked about this, We're already familiar with the metaverse has been here for some time in some other forms, but with the generation that is coming up, in the generation now your yours in mind, where we are getting adopted to this thing, what does that world look like? Are we spending most of our days with
goggles on? And is that what it looked like? Uh? Yeah, I mean I think this is an interesting question just because of the fact that it kind of gives you Big brother Rob's right, Like you're really wondering about what the world really looks like. Are we ever gonna have human the human interaction again? And I think, you know, just like with anything, I think there are use in
cer technology that makes sense, um all the time. Just because you have a car doesn't mean it's the best thing for you to do, like to drive from New York to l A. Like you'll probably hop on a plane, right, So, like, I think you just take it that way, Um, you know, you take it one step at a time and kind
of see what the use cases developed. And the beautiful thing about this space is, at the end of the day, the best use cases for the technology haven't been discovered yet, right And to like, the way in which that we're even thinking about using the metaverse can be very different
from what actually materializes in the future. And so I think right now the most important thing is for people, you know, like us, people of color, like they really need to embrace these technologies and kind of become early adopters of them because they are going to underpin a lot of the different things that we do in the future.
But ultimately, like in terms of what it looks like, you know, I think we'll definitely seeing a lot of different integrations of it in the workplace and then potentially in the social scenes as well. But outside of that, right, like when you're thinking about grocery shopping or you're thinking about working out, whatever it may be, you know, it might be something that would be interesting in terms of
like what those use cases develop over time. But I'd be pretty confident to say that, you know, in the next three to five years, you know, we'll be spending a lot more time in the metaverse as a general population, with the heavy users probably aping into it a lot more than others. But now is the time to just become aware and really learn about what these technologies could be useful for. I'm glad you mentioned that because I wonder, particularly around n f T s, are we asking the
right questions about what they can mean for creators? Because I was I was watching, um, you've probably seen this. Tiler the creator had you know, a rant about n f T s that last week, and he was talking about, you know, what is an n f T like when he's really outside he's got friends who are building speakers by hand, and he's traveling all over the world and little little cars, and he's really experiencing life in analog right, and his questions like, what isn't n f T when
we're doing these things for real? And so what my question is like, are we asking the right questions about today? Are we asking the right questions about the value of a digital asset. Yeah, I think the most important thing when you think about digital assets is that the idea of value in general, like take a step back, have to do with what we assigned to it as people. Right, Like at the end of the day, like the dollar
is just paper. It's just like it used to be backed by gold, it used to actually be representative, representative of something else, but at the moment it's just paper.
We assigned value to it. And so when you think about what we assigned value on generally as a side society is over the last two decades, like I've been pointing to before, is we've assigned more value to what we've seen behind our screens and in the virtual world than we had you know, the previous years before, right, And so when you think about n f T s, I think they fall in that same bucket where you know, I think in one vein yes, like I think digital
assets are going to have a value just because of the fact that they're you know, digital assets. But I think the utility argument is going to be what becomes very key and helps, I guess, allows people to really understand even though it's not a situation or a concept that we're that's you know, all that new or unfamiliar right, Like like I was saying before dollars or what we assign them, and we seem to accept that and accept that as commonplace. There will be a time where n
f T has become that as well. But you know, in this sort of pivotal transitional inflection point of time, UM, I think what's gonna happen is you're gonna see the utility argument grill where you're gonna see that use of the n T as an actual good or something that's helpful in your life and that will allow you to bring some sort of tangible value to you. Um. I think that in conjunction with us understanding about how we really assigned value to things as a society is like
super important. Um And so like I think what the most important thing is like as a as a creator, you understanding all the I P that you sit on in all of these different things. This is the most efficient way for you to monetize your intellectual property on
a perpetual basis. That is super important. And collectiles the creator, they have such a big following, they're already you know, have such a status about them that they're probably able to do all right for them though, But the real kicker is when you have mid creator, middle labs, people that are you know, looking. I don't know if people do research these days, but the amount of people that make their primary means of income off of the Internet
has skyrocketed over the last five to ten years. So for those people that aren't rich, like those people that you know have been able to create a life for themselves on the internet their influencers, but they may have trouble paying their bills. Like that's why this technology is super important for them, right. It recreates and it basically makes the situation way more equitable for those people where
it's actually counts. You know, you mentioned that you know when things become easy to use, and you don't have to be a computer scientist to understand that. That's when things, you know, get that mainstream adoption, et cetera. And I wonder if p FPS these profile pictures sorts of n f T s are just an easy way for us to understand what it can do. Because you mentioned utility, so I wonder, like, is is the p FP the board ape, the crypto, the crypto punk, the you know,
pick a pick one a noun or whatever. Are they just like one oh one levels of what an n f T really can mean for us. Absolutely, those are the entry points. And I think when people ask you about what an n f T is, right, Like, I think people will get very confused right there, like what is an m T? And then I think you step back and you explain what the difference and you fungible
in a non fungible asset. And then you take a step forward and you're like, Okay, why do I care about this digital image that I could easily take a screenshot of? Right? And the fact of the matter is it's really the idea of ownership and be able to prove it. Bragging rights. That's humanity, right, Like we all love to brag about all the stuff that we do own and everything that we're associated with. That's just human nature.
And so profile picture verification basically the idea of having you know, verified n f T s as your profile picture is a sense status, right, That's what people really care about. And so like, if you can go and make it your profile picture, two, can you took a screenshot of it? That's very different than the person that if you click their in tells all the meta day about this actual mpy that you own. Right, that's like the equivalent of basically going to a museum, finding the
Mona Lisa and taking a picture of it. Great, you have a picture of the Mona Lisa. So does everybody else. But that person that can actually say they verifiably own this sort of asset is going to be able to say something that you could never say. Right. So, I think seeing more avenues like that pop up, we'll add that utility argument, which kind of makes the NFP something that's useful. Now it's a bragging right now, it's an item.
And then also when you think about those projects, their clubs, so their access, right it allows you to have access to certain things and be able to say certain things that other people fundamentally can people are there are people out there that are belonging to country clubs that never frequent or visit them, but just want to be able
to say I'm a part of this club, right. So this is all human nature, and so I think when people are trying to make sense of this, try to create analogs to the normal life that you will understand, to try and understand for something that it's completely not like or something that's different, right, And so I think those are a few things that you really think about it, and then you think about, you know, the idea of that access being pinned too, like an event or something
like a physical item or an experience that you can really get, and then you really see the true power of entities UM a bunch, you know, and then five years down the line, I might rewatch this, might rewatch this and be like wow. So I really only talked about you know, five of this actually ended up being worth you know that I'm interested in your take on this UM idea because and it's particularly around the investment thesis around you know, crypto Punk's board ape and et cetera.
Because I was thinking about n f T s and you know, you can anybody can go to Open Sea, which we talk a lot about on this show, and you know, find something they may want to buy, something they want to invest in. And for the longest time, I would not buy an n f T if it was not stored in like I p f S or you know off you know, outside of somebody's you know, a w S server or whatever wherever they're serving it. Because I was you know, cautious around the idea of
a rock plot. This thing could go away. You know, it wasn't decentralized. It was stored on somebody's central you know thing. And I wonder, I had to rethink that because I'm thinking, why does it have to last forever? Why does it have to be you know, immutable? Why does it have to If I may not care about this thing five just now, I may want to sell it, like does it have to be on I p f S? Does it have to be on the Interplanetary file System?
And I wonder what your thought is when you might be buying a n f T. Do you care much about where it's stored? I have personally care where it's stored. Um, but I'm pretty deep in this space. But I think in the rise of security, and I think, you know, I think it's interesting because I think for me, as a blockchain enthusiast, somebody that's very deep in this space, the idea of decentralization really resonates to me also being somebody from West Africa and like having a different point
of view when thinking about decentralization. It's super important, right, So like when you take a step back, why would somebody like centralization because it probably does make sense in a lot of situations, right, And if you live in the developed world, like a lot of people do, especially those that are purchasing n fp s, we live in its society that's based off the endorsement model, right, Like you go to the bank, You're happy you're banking with Shape.
You're happy you're banking with Bank of America because that is a standard and a symbol of transparency and a symbol of, like, you know, a certain level of service that you can expect to have from these parties. You go to West Africa, you go to undevelop the parts
of the world, you don't have that same luxury. So like, already in my mind, the way in which I think about a bank is very different than somebody that grew up in the developed world, right, And so I think what we're seeing and obviously you see now Latin American country, you see countries in Africa, Nigeria is a very large trade of crypto. You have people that are embracing this idea of decentralization because you don't have to trust the other side of it, right, And so like for me personally,
that resonates with me. But I think in terms of you know, every single user there might be centralized solutions or you know, even taking a more step back, the idea is centralization and decentralizations and spectrum right, like, you're not entirely decentralized, you're not entirely centralized, or you don't have to be right, and so in my mind, I think everybody kind of lives on that spectrum where they're at.
For me, it's probably more supposed to decentralization perspective, just because I know that the merits of the technology are and the tough of my personal I would say for everyone, I think you kind of move at your own risk, and you could take this, you know, a different level too.
When you're buying crypto, right, you can buy a crypto a decentralized exchange all day or exchange like fp X and coin base, Right, I think most people average people going to the central exchanges because there's a certain level of vetting that happens before you actually buy the asset. But I think also just really depends on who you
are as a person. Out of what I was I was reading something you were talking about the idea of tokenizing a person and I'm going to ask you to dig into this and what that means, because what could it look like? You know, because Galaxy, your company, was the original idea was, you know, to financially empower NBA players to you know, securitize themselves. You know, so when you realize that this could work for more people other than just b A players, like, what does it mean
to tokenize a person? Yeah, So in my previous life, I was an investment banker. I worked in securitization, and you know, in securitization, as people probably have seen from The Big Short and a lot of other financial movies that were about the financial crisis, he learned about um the different ways in which people have used securitization technology to do really cool things and unlock trapped liquidity and
assets that are traditionally liquid UM. So I think when you think about something like an NBA contrast, it's something that you're pretty dependent on the cash loow streams coming in over a period of time to access that money. So if you think about my co founder, Center Dentuity, he plays on the Dallas Mavericks, now UM you know him that the person could unlock that trop liquidity by tokenizing himself right. And so what we did is a couple of years ago, we went into a battle with
the NBA. We actually ended up getting sued for him tokenizing himself UM. The reason why they sued, or the reason why they were upset about doing that because they weren't fully aware about what the use of the technology was and they were worried about the intentive issues that could come with a player getting paid up front versus later on. So we ended up moving to a bond like structure through a securitization UM. And I think what that really allowed us to be is really empower the
creators and the assets that they are themselves. And so when you think about, you know, back in the day, when you close your eyes, there were people, you know, even when I was citing um and banking ver there um, there were people wondering about, how would you ever tokenized Lebron James, Like he's so famous, he's so big as a person, Like how probably veria, how you Lebron James as a person. And that was kind of the first
step in really us doing that. And so like we thought that through these tokens or personal tokens, personal tokenization that's kind of our first step into eventually having somebody like in his Zko Elliott, somebody like a Tiana Taylor, somebody that's a very large person with a publicly verifiable market cap UM for them to be tokenized UM and for people to be able to participate in that ukation that is them as the asset. And so that's kind
of where we started. Eventually moved into the idea of monetizing yourself as a creator, and that means a lot of different things. Forever people so like Spencer happens to have an NBA contract that can be token on, but a lot of people, their image and their likeness and their communities are worth tonizing. And so with Calaxy, we decided to take that idea and basically take this foreign concept of blockchain and apply it to things like social
media and commerce that things are already familiar with. So you take personal tokens and you use those as the method of being able to purchase things like video calls, things like video messages, exclusive content, things like the cameras the Patreons of the world that are putting out for
the top ten percent of these fans. UM. We took that utility and attached it to a blockchain based asset um, and so we did that because we thought that one, you know, there's a market for that to be involve validated by the success of those platforms, but too, it's a unique way to kind of introduce the idea of a social token and your own economy and be able
to kind of monetize yourself as an asset um. And so the beauty of it is, at the end of the day, no matter what happens to Calaxy, what happens to any other application on the creators got there any world with your token, you get to own your tokens no matter what um. So if Calacu went bankrupt, God forbid, obviously that's not what we're going for. But the idea is really if it went your tokens would exist forever, just like your n f t s would exist for
exact where ever, etcetera. And that's the point of the centralization. A lot of creators that make money off of these platforms, if they go under tomorrow, the awful revenue stream is gone from that, and so we're kind of moving away from that. And that's kind of like our journey uh with the contract ce Curavation and Ultimate Calaxy. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because I was when I first got into U n f T s Ross Gold and would have introduced me to the idea of, you know,
how I should invest in entities. And my first n f T was an NBA Top Shot n f T and I'm still not completely sold on it, and maybe you could educate me because it doesn't feel like it's it's not it's not interoperable. I can't move it and I don't really own it. I just kind of own it in this this place, like I can't take it. I can't take it and move it around with me.
And so m I wonder because you just talked about you know, if if if I'm investing in something on Calaxy, if Calaxy God Forbid goes away, it's still yours, Like it doesn't feel the same like on an NBA Top shot. So it helped me understand if I'm wrong there. Yeah, so I would say so shout out to the NBA Top Shot guys. Dropper Labs is actually an advised through Calaxy. UM. He's a good personal friend of ours, you know, to the business and so um there are formerly partners of ours.
We're super excited to talk about what our plane might look like. Um, but you will be able to essentially move some of those assets around and be able to kind of brag about from the assens that you do own. Um, so I would probably leave it there for our you know, talked about how we will plan to work are together. You'll have to stay tune and follow us as a project on ourselve shows and obviously follow them for how
we plan to work together. But um, in terms of that, yeah, Like I mean, I know that the flow blockchain and what they've been doing over there, they've been the biggest I think they've been the biggest sale behind you know, the wave that we're experiencing now. When it comes to n f t s. Everybody loves tech and everybody loves sports, and I think what those guys were able to do is really help, you know, create a very cool use
case of the technology, right. And it's quite funny that n f t s are the thing that got people talking about blocking and crypto and you know, there's so much utility that comes from the in the structure that in depends it. But um, you know them, that's the project they're they're definitely doing a lot of great things and they're you know, working on their ways to come up with different ways for people to be able to
use their talk top moments move their top moments. And then obviously, um, you know other projects that are building on the flow blockchain as well, Like they have a lot of different things coming as well, and so for them, we're we're we're very bolish that project, um as well. It's I was I was gonna. I did download the howasy app. I'm on the wait list actually, so I have a question about how it could work, so maybe you could help there. Yeah, I'm on the wait list
for the beta. But there's a question about storytelling because from what I understand about how collexy works, it's best in the immediate if you already have a following. And so I wonder and you can correct me if I'm wrong in that idea, but I wonder how it could work for somebody who's trying to build a following. Yeah, no, absolutely, So I'd say from our perspective, it's great to have the big names. It's a big the celebrities, because it
brings notoriety to your project. And we live in the endorsement model world right, Like we talked about that, right, So if you have a platform that DKL is I cool. I'm arriving with that. I'm a creator, That's how I moved. But I think what we really value at Calaxi is the middle class creator, Like that is gonna be what we hang our hats on at the end of the day.
So that's a segment for us that's super important, has a lot of our intention, right and so yes, nice to help out the people or build a platform and make sense for the people with a million followers. But those people that don't have quite crazy following, um, you know, they too are content creators, and they too are famous to somebody, right, Like, at the end of the day, they are famous to somebody. If you have people that are looking at for your content, supporting your content, willing
to pay in support for your content, you're a creator. Um, We're all creators in our own right, and so for us at the platform right now, these is a very concerned plan to help um, you know, through different programs and different creators stimulus things that we're looking to do hopefully on in the ecosystem to promote the growth of
the creator middle class. But it's definitely super important. Um. I think in gay one, it's super nice to have the large creators to bring notoriety and bring um buzz to your project, But the middle class is super important for us. So talk about like the differences in because when I hear this, I immediately think about things like indiego go and Patreon and you know, crowdfunding, you know, or even like fan base on the others high we
you know, shout out to Isaac. I wonder where Calaxy fits in the idea of you know, incentivizing or you know, subscribing to content or whatever from an influencer. Yeah. Absolutely, I would say Calaxy is its own beast Quart honestly. And I know everyone's gonna get on their phone and they're gonna get on these calls and kind of seeing
this praises of their own products. But there is nothing like Calaxy in the market, right, There's nothing that makes it super easy for you to create your own token and have a marketplace for you to redeem the access and use it for something, right, Like that's the difference between what we are and like the blockchain slade. So we sit at a very unique intersection of Web three and Web two. Right, So the Web two components are
the ones that you're talking about. You're talking about You're talking about fan Time, you're talking about Patreon, you're talking about Cana, You're talking about all these things. But those don't help you with ownership and i P they're not built on a blockchain, right. So basically what we did is we saw that there's a market here and we believe we're all of the opinion here at Calaxy that
the world is moving to Web three. Regardless, you're gonna have web to Entrance looking to move into Web three, and you're gonna have new Web three guys like ourselves try to capture market show there. We want to be those guys that meet the massive audience in a way
that makes sense for them. So, like we took the utility, the commerce, the things that people are buying on these apps, attached it to a social presence of blockchain based appet asset, and created an app where had a user experience that was super easy for these creators to be able to ultimately use them. And so I think from our perspective, um, you know, that's what makes cality very unique is we ultimately want to be that stop shop for creators to
monetize themselves. We want to be the easiest arm ramp into Web three for these creators um as well as their fans. And so you know, you're able to do things like those video calls, the videos like those video calls, video messages, the subscription content and things like that of that nature. But you're also able to do n f T s. You're also able to do different DeFi plays.
You're all to be able to tokenize yourself so that maybe one day, if you're Lebron James and you went broke, for god forbid, what knows, like what reason you own happier token? Supply you walk into a defy like bank and because you're Lebron James and you have a publicly verifiable value, because you have a token with a token that's circulating and supply you can borrow money against that right Like, it's a completely different world of possibility that
you're open to by one. And so that's what makes it very different. And fundamentally we can do a lot of things that other other platforms can. So I wonder your your ideas on medium to long term regulation of these things. And because I think about and I've heard you talk about this like Squid Games, that that token that they put out and you know, they were a popular show on Netflix and they somebody put out a token around it in rugpool like these they scammer that
took off with the bag. And so I wonder when you're thinking about how we look with regards to relation in the near medium, near term, do you is that something that you embrace, you want the government to look at this, or do you believe that the decentralized, distributed population of people can govern themselves. That's a great question. I think it's a very well discussed topic right now. I would say from my selective the regulatory landscape is
very unclear. UM. So I think what people in industry, experts, people like myself around UM the industry are waiting for, excited for the clarity that we do that. I do think there's a role for regulation to play UM And I think when you think about blockchain in general, I think it's an educational experience that needs to happen. Right you need to understand the differences between a decentralized e
change and a centralized change. The squid token where people are able to basically rug pull people out of it. You need to understand that, Like when you're buying something up a decentralized exchange, there is no sort of vetting process that really happens for an aspet to it listed there. So like that's different than what point based chooses lists, right, very different than what it chooses to lift um. So I think that perspective, the educational aspect of this is
super important. And then when you think about securities analysis, and I have capital markets tact so I think that's why that we've been able to leverage a lot of our galaxy. But uh, it very much that really understands the it vary SOLF really depends on your understanding about what the goals of regulators are and essentially what the definition of everything is, Like what really is the security? Right?
Like if you ask the average person, even if they own millions of the allays of stocks, they asked them what a security, they probably couldn't tell you and like under ten words, right, Like, yet we all participate in those markets. So like, I don't think it's gonna be to the point where you need to understand every single in out for it to be you know, a massive option, because there are a lot of people that buy stocks that don't really know what they're buying, but they're buying
it because it's a routine. It's a something that we embrace as a community. I think moving words, you know, at least in the early days of blockchain, it's definitely helpful to understand what security is so they can understand what you're buying and buying into and like what the government it looks like. Necessarily, founders and creators like myself that are building in this space, they need to be absolutely aware about what those things are. So I do
think there's definitely a role for regulators to play. Um. I think it's also equally important for people that are building in the space to do the work and do the diligence to really understand, um, you know, what it is that they're they're building on and what they're looking to build towards. You know. I remember this is kind of still have a converse conversation that we have when people are learning the code. They're like, Okay, what programming
language should I use? Should I learn JavaScript? Should I learned rail? Should I learn anything? So a lot of those that confusion stops them from even making the first step into learning how to program. And I hear now is a parallel conversation on different blockchains. So we talk a lot about ethereum because most n f T s you know, running through ethereum. And I heard you have a conversation when we were done in Miami about Hidura
and why you use Hidura. So if you could give us like an elevator pitch on maybe not elevate, maybe a long elevator ride on the different block chains and why you choose some over others. Yeah, no, that's a great question. Uh man, I love this question. Okay, So I love Hidera one. Uh we love Hidera. Spencer is a big fan of Hidera as well. And I think when we really think about block chains in general is there's usages that make sense for a lot of different things.
Until like what Ada has done very well is one they've created an algorithm that is asynchronous business TINAE fault tolerant. It comes to full financial finality in a matter of seconds.
Also in general, like when you're thinking about what we're looking to build a high volume commerce app, transactions to people need to be very very very short, right, Like when you go to the store and swribe your card, like you don't want to weight there in line for an hour or thirty events before your card goes through, like it needs to be in seconds. Right, that's the type of experience that we're going for in calix see.
And that's same type of experience that we need in the brought in these you know, greener more you know, greener, newer audiences that are coming into web three. Um. And Additionally, when we think about a company or like blockchain rather sorry like Canderaction, technically not even blockching, it's a blockchain alternative called hash graft UM. And I think because of that, um, that's kind of that technology is unlocked the different things
with speed, transparency and security. Right, they've done that very well. Um. And additionally, the blockchain is owned by and governed by
a number of different fortune companies. And so when I think about the adoption of blockchain, UM, you know, the beauty of it is when you think about there, you're thinking about Google, You're thinking about Deutsche Telecom, you're thinking about l G, you're thinking about all these Nemorra, You're thinking about all these very large companies that people are already comfortable with any in an endorsement society, right when
you think about Ethereum, like they're faceless people validing your transaction, and yet it's decentralized. But the government can't wrap their head around that in the same way that like they already audit and already probe these other companies from the
other side, right when you think about Hedera. So when you think about from that perspective, I'm very bullish on the government looking at Hedera and being okay or at least a lot more okay with it versus the annanymity it's attached to some of these other blockchains, right, So
that's kind of the one thing too. And then at a very general level too, when you think about blockchains in general, the most important he is really thinking about, you know, you have a trade off between centralization and
decentralization being insecurity, those like their your funnels. Right, So when you think about Hedera, yes, it's a little bit more centralized than something like Ethereum, because you know there are the thirty non council members and things like that, so yes, you know who they are, you know, validating your transactions. But it's a lot different than the millions and billions of nodes that are validating transactions from the theorius networks. So because of that, it's a lot faster.
And the way they get around security is the fact that these companies have a big reputational risk from doing that things, so they're not gonna do bad things. So that's kind of how they get over the fact that it's more centralized than a decentralized, you know, protocol. But
that's kind of how they've solved that issue. And so while that they've been able to come up with the ideal at least for us trade off between security uh centralization as well as speed, right, but that might not make sense for somebody that's looking to buy or settle twenty million dollars of real estate. You want that to be the most decentralized immutable protocol UM and you don't care if that money shows up in twenty five minutes UM.
You just want to make sure you're twenty million dollars gets there, right, And so there are different uses for different blockchains until like a theorium might make sense for that UM if you're trying to sell a high value n f T because they'll market right now for a theorum is undeniably the biggest, and you want to sell a million dollar NFC, Well, there's a lot of people that owns millions of dollars with a theorium, less people owning million dollars of aage bar, right, So I think
you're going to have to think about these different things
and facets to determine know what makes sense. And then lastly, for us, you know, on their minting an FT is six at one dollar, and that's something that resonates really well with creators because these gases can be uneconomical for people looking to monetize their own ID, especially if you're not somebody that's gonna sell a million dollar n f T. Right, I can do an NFP drop where I dropped a thousand n f T s, and I know that I will predictably grow at a constant rate, which is a
thousand dollars um one dollar per n f T. And so I think that's kind of how we think about UM the use of Padera and why we chose to build on there. You know, I love that I want to end this talking about the metaverse and giving people like an introductory you know, thing to do. So there are folks who hear metaverse and now metaverse is you know a lot, and we're trying to we hear about
people throwing concerts and the metaverse. We here meta Facebook is doing in the metaverse, Microsoft is making a play. And so if I really want to understand the world we're going to, what would you say? They are some easy maybe not super easy, but things I should do. How can we responsibly be early adopters in the metaverse? Yeah, I would say the most important thing is do your
research and do your own research. I would say A good place and started obviously crypto Twitter, So like Twitter has a lot of different places for you to kind of make your niche and really see the type of content you're looking for. At this point, I only see blockchain based content because that's what I care most about. I would say there's a lot of metaverse discourse that happens on that on those forums, I'd really try to
double down and really understand what's kind of going in there. Um, and then if that also might be intimidating, there's a lot of podcasts out there that are super helpful for you to understand this type of stuff. We didn't quite make this a Metaverse show. But our show on Coin Desk New Money with Spencer and Sol we talked to creators about how they're monetizing themselves. Um, you know what the metaverse might actually mean to them. We do touch
on that as well. UM, So that could be something that helpful as a tool, but by hearing it from people that you want to hear from, um, that are going to talk to you in a very colloquial manner um, that's something that could be very helpful. Um. And then also just participating, like I think everybody should start with, you know, having a metal mask, having some sort of wallet, um for kind of get yourself in the space, and
then starting to participate in these things. And I know that you guys are doing a lot of great stuff that avrotecting gravity when it comes to the metaverse, and I think that might be the best way that a lot of people, at least from our arena, um, you know, get involved with the metaverse. Like I think that's great
what they're you know what what there. But i'd start with to start And so I mentioned this because you know, we sort of there was a period of time I say about a year ago to eighteen months ago, where all we were talking about it seemed like to me was A R and VR and what that was going to mean. And then it seemed like we just blew past that and said, you know, forget that what three
is here? And we just forgot you know, like a R was supposed to take over and VR was supposed to take over, and so I got introduced to this world of the metaverse and like, you know, one of my favorite movies, you know, be a Ready Player one. And so how how can we think about experiencing the metaverse today? To your point, doing a lot of study, a lot of research, what are easy things we can do to experience it today? Yeah, I mean I would say that there will probably be in the very next
short term. In my opinion personally, I think there will be a lot in the gaming sphere that comes with them at a risk. And I think, like I said before, it's very much so an analog to that train of thought when you think about Xbox Live and like people playing Halo back in the day and having online personalities and the utility of it. I think it's gonna be an expanded sense of that. Um, you know, I think even on our panel, we had tween he was talking
about how it felt like a big video game. Um. In some ways, that's very true, and I think that's gonna be the you know, the first way to see it and expand on it. And I would say that that would probably be the first thing, um in terms of that, Like I would be on the lookout for that. If you happen to the game a lot, um, that'd
be super important. But also there's just a lot of events that are gonna be done in the beta verse, like COVID definitely helped propel that to the Ford until like things like Afro Attack and things like, um, you know, other conferences and things like that for you to kind of dive in and really get your feet wet um are probably the first places to start, you know, if you want to like learn by trial on the fire if that means sense Black Tech Green money to production
of Black They Afro Tech on the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeart Media. It's produced by Morgan Dubonne and me Well Lucas, with additional productive support by Love Beach and Rissa Lewis. Especially thank you to Michael Davis. Your main hall on's a car savan Yan. You know like the Wine. Yes that's his real name. Learn more about my Guess and other tech distrum as an innovators at
afrotech dot com. The video version of this episode. We'll drop the Black Tech Green Money on YouTube next week. South Tap is enjoining Black Tech Green Money. It's just a five star radying on iTunes. You can beat your money. Peace of love, yeah,