Securing Smart Contracts

Market Disruptors podcast. Today I am sitting down with Olga mac and she is the VP of Strategy at quantz Stamp. They look at smart contracts and we dive into smart contracts, what they are, why they're important, how they're being used, problems that we could find with them, and how we can mitigate the risks. So much good information in this that you need to hear about smart contracts, which really the whole system revolves around. So let's go ahead and

just jump right into with Olga. Everyone, Welcome to another episode of the Market Disruptors podcast. Today, I am joined by Olga and she is the VP of Strategy at quant Stamp. She's a co author of a book, The Fundamentals and Smart Contract Security UM. She's an attorney by trade, but she's also been kind of in the digital Space, Payment Space worked with Visa in the past, a really unique perspective and I'm excited to have you on OLGA. Thank you for joining time Market's fantastic to be here.

I appreciate you're in white. All right, So, UM, we got a lot to talk about today. UM, but why don't you just kind of frame it up a little bit UM for those that don't know, I mean, I gave you a good intro, but for those who don't know, tell us who you are, kind of what you've been doing, how and how you get to the space, and specifically what you're doing now. So, as you mentioned, I'm a VPF Strategy at quant Stamp. Quan Stamp is on the

interstection of blockchain smart contracts and security. Way make sure that the smart contracts that companies and projects put out in the world, UM that they're secure and that the assets that people put in them are not stolen or locked out. Uh So, to the extend you care about your assets, UM, I highly recommend thinking about how secure they are. UM. As as you mentioned in my prior lives, I have been uh an attorney, I've been at numerous startups. I've also been a big company such as Visa and

law firms. I am a tech lawyer by design. UM. I've been on the cutting edge of various technologies, and I've been always on the privacy security side. So those are sort of my passions. They seem to be very combineable in blockchain and crypto, and I'm really excited about

the space. Yeah, so that's interesting. So your background being in tech UM security and privacy UM, which I would imagine would have been would was a challenge in the more centralized days and today with a new technology because I give you like a lot of new tools that you can use to really help the privacy and security piece. So you have the right security and privacy and not

new challenges. We've had them for a while. We had them before Internet, We've definitely had them during Internet, and we will have them in web to three point oh and and and and more. UM. Those are challenging their evolving challenges UM, and they with every technology, you have different different flavor of challenges and so it's really fun

to see the evolution of the challenge. It's also fun to see the evolution of solutions, and frankly, it is also fun to see UM how other people who challenge space the crooks because they have access to the same technology and um and and it is an ongoing, evolving space for everyone. Yeah. So one piece of the space that I'm super interested in and everybody should because it's really the lynch pin maybe for the whole space, is just the smart contract piece. And so I wanted to

spend some time talking about that. UM. And as you mentioned with quans stamp, you're looking at smart contracts security. UM. Now when we were talking before we started, you said it's it is the space, right, so it kind of is everything. UM, So maybe just tell us a little bit kind of like what smart contracts are and how they're being used and why they're so important. Yeah. So smart contracts are you know, that's sort of a still a name. As everyone knows, they're not smart you know, Mark,

you're very smart. Um, they're not that kind of smart. UM. And they are not really contracts. They're not they're not a bunch of legalies where you sign your name at the bottom. What they are they are pieces of code. And those pieces of code do three things. They store rules, they verify rules, and they sell execute rules. So they do those put the functions U and many folks compare them to vending machines. So if I would like to have a snack of choice, I go to a vending machine,

I put a dollar. Um Uh, it stores rules that if you put a dollar, you get as knack of choice. Once I put a dollar, it verifies that this dollar is correct and that I meet the amount and then tower while a beautiful moment, I get my snack of choice. So that's like, it's like logic, right, if this, then that this, then that it's and and they get very powerful when uh, there's more than one smart contracts and it is a back and technology, most consumers do not

see it. If it's done right, and it's highly combinable with other technologies like data or AI. And in fact, when you combine that, that what makes it super powerful. Um and so that that's the technology, and it can power quite a few things, and exciting applications are possible with it. Yeah, I've heard, you know, I get a lot of questions about smart contracts, and people think they're going to replace like law firms and things like that.

But I don't think that's quite it, right, So it's more about logic, if this than that and the more about the way things can kind of work together and not so much like rule or govern over things. Is that is that about? Right? Um? Let me I I have a little bit more. You you sort of right, but let me give you one nuanced way of looking at it. Um, there is a world of smart contracts.

Let's sort of imagine the event diagram. There is a world of smart contracts, and there is a word of legal contracts, and imagine that those are two circles, and there is an overlap. So there are some legal contracts that may be replaced by smart contracts. And there's also some smart smart contracts that are not legal contracts. And there are some legal contracts that are not smart contracts,

so there could be an overlap. And uh, there is a really great white paper by the Chamber of Digital Commerce to what extent if the contract legal contract becomes smart contract, whether it's enforceable um. And there are a number of law of view articles and there in a white paper, and most scholars and practitioners agree that should this become a legal issue, it is highly likely those legal contracts will be enforceable UM if they're executed by

smart contracts. However, you are correct that most smart contracts are not legal contracts. They're just pieces of code. And the beautiful thing about those pieces of code and the reason why smart contracts are in my view, the application of blockchain is that they embody sort of traditional business lodger, any business, any function sort of operates on EVE then E then statements uh, and smart contracts are sort of an opportunity to to uh combine it all together and automated.

And so that's why you see most applications of smart contracts at this time in in inefficiency type of space, in making things better, faster, reduced paperwork, cheaper, those types of things. That is the first wave of application of smart contracts. My prediction that we're gonna be in this space for a while um, and that would actually fuels

adoption and curiosity by many enterprises. But I think over time, especially combined with other with other technology and data, um, you, we will be able to solve what I call unsolvable problems, problems that we sort of gave up solving or didn't even think that other problems. Uh. And the next wave of innovation will be combining the technologies and completely rethinking how we do business. Yeah, so if if I have this right, then you said, there's like the there's like

the legal contracts and the smart contracts. So legal contracts are ones that might need to be decided on by somebody, right, So like you and I have a business contract and there's a breach and we have to go before arbitrator, judge or something to rule over that contract, versus like a smart contract, it's something that would be decided on by the code, right, and it would, And so it's really more about ways that things are working together and not like the legal contract that that would be a

different way, because like laws, like something that's argued it over right and sometimes decided on. If some parts of legal contracts could be automated, and some contracts legal contracts, anybody whoever negotiated a ligal contract know that they're often deliberate gray areas because parties may or may not know what's gonna happen in the future and may want to

be able to argue about that future. So to the extent you want to have a bright line and self execution, um, you may want to put smart contracts on that function. And to the extent you may want to have a gray area maybe not, So there's sort of benefits to both those decisions to be made. So let me give

you an example. Sometimes, you know, if you are clear about what performance leads to payment, you may want to put it on a smart contract just to make sure that you don't have to invoice and you automatically get payments.

In supply chain, you often have this kind of UM records that have to be submitted for the objects to move through summers and so if you want to automate that function UM and you get various clearances and various permissions, if those are automatically submitted, the they you have automatic execution of the function. So some things that are are great to be for to be put on smart contracts, uh, and some things that are probably still gonna be part

of our legal universe. Sure. So um as as part of Quanstamp, you're looking over smart contracts and helping to make sure they're secure and stuff like that. So I'm guessing you're you're really at the forefront of these smart contracts and really seeing what's going on. So how are they being used today, Like what's really happening today or what's what's right on the verge, like what's kind of like this next wave of worre smart contracts you're really

gonna be making an impact. So you know, look, I mean it's a little bit hard because, uh, blockchain smart contracts attaching many industries, and it's a little bit hard to say who is a little bit for their head there,

you know, that is changes somewhat they date. We do know that blockchain is smart contracts, you know, have sort of a very obvious financial implications, and bitcoin being one of the sort of first application and various other financial players adopting the technology quickly, more quickly than others, you know, suggest that that's sort of an obvious place and we see quite a lot of development, um But there are other applications, you know, Uh, supply chain, the industry I

just mentioned has had quite a lot of progress as well. IBM is doing quite a lot of work in it, Oracle is doing quite a lot of work in it, and many many other companies. Um. So sufflically, change space is like just one area that's really using it. I think also the decentralized finance space would be another area that was probably using a lot of smart contracts as well. Right, So yeah, decentralized finance. UH is part of the sort

of finance trend that I just discussed. Yes, that that is the number one applications at this time, but there are other areas and and logistic is another one. But you also see it in in numerous others. Okay, I'm curious. You know, in in we kind of saw the protocol wars where we had you know, Ethereum came up as a smart contract platform, and then we had all these other smart contract platforms that came out. Um. What about Bitcoin?

I've heard, you know, there's talk about you know, side chains and things like that where people are starting to do smart contracts. Are you seeing any of that? Can you comment on any of what may or may not happen with smart contracts on the Bitcoin either probably side chain or something federated chain. We see many folks dabble,

and smart contracts one of them. They are numerous others. Um. I think we see the world where because smart contracts functionality is so powerful and it embodies traditional business logic UM, and a lot of people realize that and so UM without specifically commenting on what bigpoint our theorem does, UM, I think we'll see the world where that functionality will be embedded in many platforms because it is so powerful, because it is so cool too many businesses, and I

think there is realization. I think the challenge for the technology at this time is that looking forward, that we're gonna have numerous platforms embed that functionality. How do we make sure that those platforms talk to each other? Um, that is an interesting challenge yourself. But yes, I think

I think it's smart, smart conscious functionality. And if you look for example at at um uh patenting a smart contract functionality is one of the top five functionalities that are being patented in the United States and China, which leads patents in blockchain. And so my prediction that smart contracts will continue being the for functionality and that we will also need to solve a challenge of platforms talking to each other. So then, um, in the future, at

some point in the future. UM, you think this argument right now of bitcoin versus all all coins is uh, smart contract platforms can run small cartracks, Bitcoin can't. But you think there's a future where Bitcoin runs smart contracts just like other platforms do. In some way or another. I think there is a future for manual platform to have a functionality related to smart contracts, and I think it's an evolving field. It's definitely an experimental technology at

this point. A lot of new stuff is, frankly even today, is coming out from universities like the University of Waterloo, Stanford, m I t H, University of Singapore. So it's a highly experimental technology and we'll see more and more we developed. Yes. Okay, Now, um, you had said when I want, I think before we started the actual show. Um, I had mentioned where I said it's a big piece and said smart contracts are actually the piece. Um, so what do you mean by that? Like,

why is it? Why are smart contracts so important to this entire ecosystem? Uh? I think it's because it really under pains and I think we've never looked the way we do business that smart contracts just embodies logically how the business has done a lot of business. If you ever worked for an enterprise or any company, a lot of business could be reduced to a bunch of evvent statement. You pay me, If you pay me, I'll give you services. If I give you services, we're then I have relationship. Right.

So there's a lot of event statements embedded just sort of by default. And so smart contracts the reason they're so powerful is because we have many enterprises, because we have many services, we have many instance statements, uh, sort of assumed in our daily lives and our businesses, and smart contracts can very easily or more easily than other things automade that. Yeah, Okay, it's kind of like a bunch of systems. So like the best businesses in the

world really build the best systems. Um. Think of like franchises, where like something has always done the same way, if this, then that right. So um, So if that's the biggest piece of the system, um, which I agree with you, right, I mean in order for all this to work, we have to have that smart contract, that logic in there. Um. But if if that's big of if it's that big of a piece, then it's it's important that we get

it right. And I think that's where quand Stamp comes into to like look at these smart contracts and see problems that maybe there. I know, throughout history we've seen some big problems, right, so I think there was the Ethereum one, there was this parody one, right, so we've seen big problems with smart contract failures and um, I guess you guys are trying to help solve that problem. Is that correct? So let's let me talk a little

bit more about what could possibly go wrong. Yeah, smart contract because you know, on the one hand, day in body, business logic, and they're super powerful. I think of them as a very very sharp knife. Um. On the other hand, remember they are pieces of code. And who writes pieces of code? Humans? Humans right code? And so what is

the problems with people doing things? Well, the problem is that humans people professional error probe, they make mistake and so what we see and the classic example, you know you mentioned parity as I'll mentioned something else, The classic one is a doubt problem. One little miss step in a code, one little mistake can have millions of dollars disappear, and people will you know, if you ever talk to

somebody who has been affected by this problem. For example, our founder a Quantum, one of the reasons he founded this company is because he has been affected by this problem. If you if you ever talk to somebody or who was part of thou Um, you know what how and is that money was disappearing. Folks have been watching at real time and they could do absolutely nothing about it. It's sort of like witnessing and violence against yourself. You just stand there smile, right, and it doesn't matter how

much money people lost. People who were part of it have a very almost primitive reaction to this violence, right to this funds disappearing in front of their eyes, and that that was very disturbing, right, and they couldn't do much about it. So that is the challenge with smart contract is that on the one hand, they're very very powerful.

On the other hand, they are created by humans. Humans make mistakes, and so there your funds can be locked out, your funds can disappear, your assets, right and remember which you can put on a smart contract doesn't have to be financial asset. It could be any asset. It could be, for example, a real estate asset. It could be August reputation, August privacy because that's an asset as well. So they

store assets that are quite valuable. And so it's important to make sure that there's no code problems because those, especially in public blockchains, they are open. The code is open to two for everyone to see um and there are people who are really good at finding the crooks, finding the challenges the code and taking advantage of it and so yes, on the one hand, it's a powerful knife, but that knife could be used to to cure and

that knife could be used to kill. Um. And so it's very important to use this tool in an intentional way and take precautions. It's a you know, it's it's no different. It's a it's an age old problem. Right. You have bankers, and you have bank robbers, and the banks are trying to stay a step ahead of the robbers. Or we have virus makers and anti virus makers and there,

and it's always this race. And UM, remember when I said that, you know, the good guys and the bad guys have access to the same technology, right Exactly, I can understand the challenge you must have or our company, like Content might have, um in a sense where all this code is written by humans, and everybody writes it a little bit differently. Um. And then there's all these different platforms and languages to write it on, so there's like a limited amount of combinations. UM. So I could

understand it. It could be very difficult. Uh. Could you talk at all about maybe a process of how you do that or how that's done? Yeah? So, um. Actually, so that while there's a potentially infinite number of combinations.

We also know that some smart contracts are more tested than others, so there are increasingly number of templates and best practices that are emerging to help developers to write smart contracts that they don't have to recreate the wheel every time because some smart contracts are already tested and so there are organizations that put out templates. We created a Smart Contract Security Alliance where we work with enterprises and project to put out best practices. So that is emerging.

There will be more and more of it because you know, just like lawyers don't have to write every contracts from scritches because many clauses have been litigated. Uh, similarly, developers don't have to write a code from scritch and they can take advantage of the code and it makes it much easier for auditors to double check. But part of developing safe smart contracts or any code, especially if it houses assets, is to basically go through the process of

of audit, and we provide that service. We're also building protocols and tools to make sure that the that smart contracts can be checked for vulnerabilities at scale, because if you imagine the world that will be dominated by smart contracts because if then it is so embedded in our collect the logic, then it's very important to get to the point where you can just sort of take all your smart contracts, put them in the black box and make sure that you're safe. Right, that's the ideal world.

So we are building those tools, We are building those protocols in the meantime as this technology developed, and as we're building, were also providing services. And we're not the only ones. There are other people who do this. They all have slightly different UM method that I'm doing it. I personally like the way we're doing it. We have a number of PhDs from the university or Waterlook who

dedicated their life to studying, understanding developing smart contracts. So the way we do audits is that we basically take smart contracts and give it to three people to audit independently, and then they compare results and UH compete as to who's gonna find most vulnerabilities. We find that through that process, UM, we we get it, get it right, and we get really good results UM. And then we also in the process educate our clients, helped them at that better practices UM,

and just generally be safer. Yeah, I think, Um, it opens up a lot of conversation that we maybe haven't had in the past. Um but but but maybe we should have. So obviously we talked like I just mentioned viruses and things like that we've seen recently, Um like uh, all these uh, these hacks where they've locked the computers right, locked the data. I think the City of Baltimore just like had their whole system locked and they had to

pay the ransom. And those are like vulnerabilities and Microsoft software. I believe that the NSA knew about and exploited whatever. Won't get into that, but my point is it was it was it was a bug, if you will, or some sort of a something in the Microsoft software that allowed these hackers to get in and locked that system down.

And that's kind of similar, right, So, just like Microsoft should be responsible to make sure the code can't be hacked, the smart contract people need to also be responsible to make sure their code isn't hacked. Kind of the same thing, right. Human error. Humans are good at developing avel solutions, and they are prone to error, and sometimes small errors are costly, and there's always people that are motivated defining those errors, and there are people who motivate their crooks who want

to exploit them. It is not to say that we should not be developing technology. It is not just say that we should hide our money or assets under the mattress. It is to say that we should we should approach technology was our eyes open and we know that humans make mistakes, and that means we should double check what humans do. Yeah, yeah, I think, Um, you know so so knowing that those types of problems already exist today, Um,

we're we're kind of aware of that. But now we're talking about like money or wealth or value, whatever you want to call it, whether it be intellectual property or whatever. But when you're talking about money, I mean now we have huge, huge sum at risk and so it just requires extra extra you know. So I like to talk about assets and remember those assets that held by smart contracts, maybe money. They could be tangible assets like real estate.

They could be intangible one. They could be all us reputation. That could be all us privacy, all us intellectual property. So those types of things. So I tend to think of them as more as assets, and people care about their assets, whether they're tangible and tangible monetary or has the rights. Sure, Yeah, that's a that's a great point. That's that's a great point. So, um you talked about UM you guys started like some foundation or organization or

something like that. I'm curious is there or is there now or will there be some sort of uh maybe like a rating agency where like UM, companies can be more trusted than others. I mean, I know we're really in the infancy right now and maybe it's not established, but do you think there's a way where the consumer knows, Okay, these guys are more trusted reputation wise than others. We I can tell you that what today when we are projects, we provide reports to those companies and projects that we've

done it. Many of them really like it. Our reports are highly comprehensive. They rate all kinds of challenges that could possibly go wrong, give feedback, and they rate whether or not those challenges are life threatening or kind of nice you have, So we probably quite a lot of feedback. We know that companies like it will also know that. Frankally, regular regulators in many countries like ASTI. Well, UM, we've received main requests for which you just basically described as

sort of very signed for blockchain. We are deeply aware with UM understand that this is an emerging technology. It is changing day by day. But we know that we our reports are reports after we audit. Smart contracts are basically hashed on blockchain if client wants and and so there is an opportunity to provide that UM kind sumer

reassurance that UM that smart contract that they're using. UM. Okay, So for the for the average like I said, consumer consumer assurance, like, UM, you know a lot of these smart contracts are inconsequential UM, And I don't really care. You know, if if a supply chain management smart contract doesn't work and maybe an invoice gets mixed up. I

mean that's not the end of the world. UM. If I have a million dollars sitting in my DeFi account and that that gets exploited, and that's a whole different thing to me. UM. So seen as uh, seeing as we're getting more and more assets, wealth value, whatever you want to call them, put onto these smart contract platforms, UM, what do you think some of the risks are that that people should be aware of, that we should be watching out for. Well, there's gonna it's a develop it's

a developing technology. There's numerous risk it's evolving. UM. You know, maybe being a smart consumer is really a prudent thing. UM. I'm not so considered to tell you do not use this technology because I love this technology. I think it's a powerful technology. But understand it is a developing technology. A lot of it is still at the universities. I like being, um, the first adapter, and I like I will for my education and to be on the cutting

edge of technology. I will even risk some money. UM, I will not risk all of my money. UM. UM. You know you can be part of the various solutions, you can try different things. UH, you still should retain your common sense. UM. You have to understand that smart contracts are developing. It's gonna take time for them to become a mature technology. UM. There are numerous platforms that are coming up. So UM, if you like being open minded, if you like trying different things, I highly encourage you

to do it. Just keep your common sense. Do not put all your assets in one place. That is that that is made of experimental technology. That is smart. Um. You know we all at some point have to pay mortgage or random and and and buy food. It's even smart when you talk about stuff that is tried and true. For example, this is the Microsoft bug. I mean Microsoft's been out a long time and like yet you know, people have lost a lot there. Um, you know, whether

that be banks or investments or stocks or whatever. So you never really want to put all your assets into one basket. So uh, and I agree with you, right, and an emerging technology is even more important, so you should definitely practice that more so good point. I know for me personally, UM, I have multiple hardware wallets and I don't even put all my all my stuff on one hardware wall. I have it on multiple hardwall It's

just in case something happens to one or whatever. Right, So even diversified to that level, and I think I think that makes great sense, Um, great strategy. And I can tell you that most people in the industry, myself included, do the same. So you you just you just have to be smart. Yeah, you just don't want a single point of failure and you don't want to lose everything to one one thing or or or be severely impacted. Now, UM, we've talked about you had you had recently gone and

spoke with the Digital Chamber of Commerce. Um, and I think you that was invest in Washington, d C. Is that correct? And you were kind of, uh, you're kind of educating if you will, some of the congressmen, etcetera while you were there. So yes, So Digital a Chamber of Commerce is a great organization that composed of leaders in blockchain, smart contracts, and crypto. They include members that are highly reputable and well known of companies and law

firms and accountants and consultants. They also include many well known projects. So it's a great group of people. Annually organized UM a education day and manuela sort of fly to Washington, d C. And meet with members of Congress, both in the House and Senate to to help them understand this very complicated to anology. UM. You know, block chain smart contracts are is a very very complicated technology. There is a reason why a big chunk of quand

stamp are folks who have PhDs. UM. It gets really complicated really quickly, and so we try to make sure that UM members of Congress before they make any decisions, before they ask any questions, they're highly educated and aware of what this technology is with the benefits, what the challenges are, where it is in its development. UM. We really believe that education is powerful. I personally educated many, UM many members of Congress of the United States. I'm

also fairly active in California. I've gone to SACRAMENTUM many times. I I firmly believe that educated people, educated legislators on average, make much better decisions, and so I always prioritize educating people about this amazing technology that has a huge potential. I was, you know, there is a couple of day is a testimony I think a week ago, a week or two ago on on the whole Facebook Libra, and

I was, I was actually pleasantly surprised. I think it was the second day of testimony to hear from a lot of these uh congressmen and representatives that were there that actually sounded pretty knowledgeable. I was actually pleasantly surprised that do you find more than not that people are starting to be more aware and are kind of being educated or are they do? We still have a long

way to go. I think what Libra did, independent of what position you take on just just bitcoin and just kind of cryptocurrencies overall, but Libre specifically, because Congress is focused on it, has raised blockchain issues. And yes, I find that our members of Congress want to learn more in the same way they want to learn more about

other issues. I also know that many of their stoffers are very young and grew up with technology and so uh and and many of them are very curious about this technology, and many of them want to learn more about it, and many of them want to help their their representatives and centers, their bosses to to be knowledgeable about it. So I can tell you there is a lot of effort to educate everyone from many ways, digital Chamber of Commerce doing its busy and numerous other organizations

that do that piece. And I'm I'm really thrilled to see education being prioritized by our agencies, by our legislators, by by our government. Yeah. I like that point you made about the staffers being younger and maybe trying to help them out. I never really thought about that, but

that's an important point. You know. Sometimes I I look at the the meetings, the committee meanings are having or whatever, and you see the age of the average policymaker there, and you know, it's just older people are raised in

a different generation than the younger people. And I have kids and they're they're raised in the digital age and everything is digital to them, right, And and then you have you know, my parents, and they're old and they weren't and so I'm afraid you have these old policymakers put in policies in place that will be there for a long time. They are going to affect this younger generation. There's like this divide. So um, I think, right, there's

generally a correlation between age and technologies. For every correlation I find there's numerous exceptions. Uh, there are quite a number of people who my parents age who know more about technologies than I do. So I think one has to be very careful about making age based sort of generalization. But by and large, you know, if you talk about average people, there is a correlation. And it is great that you know. And and we know that members of Congress,

especially members of the Senate and to skew older. Uh so there will be a correlation. I am really pleased to see that this this correlation can be offset by very young stuffers who are very eager, who went to school, who grew up with different technology and see the world in a very different ways. So so yeah, so it is it is balancing each other out. But yes, there is there is a correlation, and yes there is a

skewing too, more than older population and our legislation. You you had mentioned that there's a lot of focus on the whole Facebook Libra thing, and I don't know how much you want to dive into that, but I'm just curious. UM. The focus that it's doing, UM, is that bringing more awareness to the overall space. So they're focused on Facebook Libra, but now it's bringing more awareness to the blockchain space overall. And is that a good thing to bringing good attention

or bad attention or is any attention good? You know? I think UM, Facebook is a high profile player generally speaking in many industries, and it's doubling in blockchain brings and eagerness to be educated. And I'm excited about that eagerness to be educated when we're having conversations that we're not had before that we're put off to to have some other day. And now you know, you know, because Libra has been testifying in Congress, those members have to

be educated, UM, and they have been prioritizing education. I think prioritizing education is overall highly positive thing and I'm excited about it. So it's a net game. It's it's a it's a conversation that had to be had. Yeah. Yeah, like I said, I was, I was. I was really surprised some of the conversations that were coming out, and I was pleasantly surprised seeing the level of education that some of these people had. UM. So overall, I think

it's good. UM. We definitely see a big division though. I mean there's some people that don't you mentioned going before UM and it's going to Sacramento in California, and I know we have a very outspoken representative in California that thinks it should all be outlawed and no one should be allowed to own it. So that's obviously another side of the extreme. So it's interesting to see how

that's going to play out. You know. I find that there's always gonna be an outspoken outlier in every jurisdiction UM and and they exist in every state. They exist in on the federal level as well. UM. Focusing on outliers in anything you do UM may or may not be a put in thing. I think buying large people I meet and I now I'm now educated members of many federal and California agencies, and I've talked to many

legislators and regulators. I would say the predominant, the predominant mood is open minded, and to me, that's a positive thing. And yes, there are outliers, there outliers on the either side. Okay, good, Well, we're running out of time, so we got to try and wrap this up. I just want maybe ask you

another question because you have a very unique perspective. I think, being with your background digital security, privacy, being in the forefront of this kind of smart contracts and talking to Congress a little bit, so you kind of have this like unique perspective. Um, where do you think we are u, you know, in the adoption of this and and maybe

where are we in the next couple of years. Are we still really early and people should just be patient and wait, or is there something that we see gradually picking up and and and kind of where do you see that over the next year or two. I think we're definitely on the earlier side. We're definitely not in the very very beginning. We are on the earlier side. We're also on the side where there is a number of kind of proof of concepts and small deployments that

are happening at various enterprises and projects. So it is an opportunity for this technology to really show what what it can do, and a lot of that is focused on gaining efficiencies, which frankly, you know, drives a lot of adoption among enterprises. If you can show that you can make it bigger, faster, cheaper, that is usually a highly,

highly compelling reason to adopt this technology. Having said that it is very early, we do think that security challenges are not that they have to be sold at least to some extent for for the mass adoption. Um, you know, regulators are having conversations about smart country, box chain, crypto. Uh, there needs to be some clarity for mass adoption as well. So we are fairly early, but the conversations are happening, the technology is developing, people are sort of struggling with

various problems, as they should be. We see the shift from you know, again, if you look at sort of patent trends, most of the patent trends in the past have been in from the universities. That is changing. A lot of patenting is actually happening in enterprises. So what that said yet, that this industry is here to stand stay and that enterprises and projects are heavily investing in this industry, and that it will be a technology that will change the way we do business and live our lives.

It is a bag end technology, so if it is done right, we will not see it. Our lives will just get better and and that will be our new normal. In the same way as we no longer write letters to each other and write emails, and we just have many more communications and our lives got to guess arguably better. Um. And that's the seamless process. That that is what I expect what happened with blockchain and smart contract Sure, at the end of the day, it just has to be

a better, a better, a better technology. So I agree with that. Well, good stuff. I appreciate the conversation. UM. Hopefully, hopefully that is useful for everyone listening. I know, uh, paying attention to smart contracts and being smart with them is a big piece that I'm practicing, so I hope everyone else is too. UM. But Olga, thanks for so much for coming on. I appreciate the conversation. And are you active on social media or anywhere that people can

keep up with you. I am very active on LinkedIn, I'm somewhat active on Twitter, but LinkedIn is where I tend to hang. So I open two connections and help everyone who needs to be helped, either with resources or in any other way, or direct them to resources that quant stem It is absolutely delighted to be here. Thank you for finding giving me this opportunity to share my passion. I am thrilled and I very much look forward how the world will change and and become better with this

amazing saying technology that has a lot of potential. All right, thanks so much, you're bet hey. If you like this episode of the Market Disruptors Podcast, please help us take this to the top of the podcast charts. Just please do me a favor and rate, review and subscribe. Taking fifteen seconds to just leave a quick review goes a long way and helping us reach more people and disrupt more markets. I really appreciate you listening and I'll see you next time on the Market Distructors Podcast.