okay welcome back everyone we're here live in monaco for siliconangle thecube's coverage of the monaco crypto summit i'm john furrier your host we're here with al berger the founder of the digital bits blockchain digital bits is presented it's an open ecosystem they're the main presenters bringing everybody together al burgia is the man of the hour al great to see you cube alumni great to see you again john thanks thanks for having me back on the show it's been this is an inaugural event yeah you you and your team put together the digital bits foundation um the digits blockchains enabling technology the proof is in the pudding as i always say now you're seeing companies building on top of the ecosystem why monaco this is inaugural event what's going on here what's the motivation what does all this mean all this stuff coming together share uh why monaco i mean there's uh it's part of this next chapter for us things are happening in monaco and and um um we've yet to unveil that and we thought you know what better place to unveil what we're doing in monaco other than to do it in monaco so that was really the genesis of what gave birth this idea to have the monaco crypto summit um but that evolved beyond just sharing the nexus of it all there are organizations that here that have come from all over the world and will be sharing for the first time how they're also utilizing the digital bits watching not bad to come to monaco in the summer though it's pretty pretty nice area beautiful views yeah summer time in monaco is always great but this inaugural event first of all i love the name so congratulations on the name i think it's got a lot of legs to it i think this will be something that's going to be around for a long long time so it's a good good call there there's a lot of other dynamics going on prince albert's got some involvement he's interested in crypto we're going to hear more about that in the yacht club presentation later tonight you got startups companies building on top of the capabilities of digital bits you know you and i have talked in the past on the cube about the technology um your technologists uh followed a lot of your adventures to success and exits multiple exits in tech silicon valley knows you everyone knows you know around the world it's kind of like a cloud game but it's decentralized you've got infrastructure platform applications um there's super applications and decentralized device to all kinds of new stuff going on so you have a stack kind of going on here in a decentralized way and been validated by all the big names jumping in and changing their business models and horowitz you name it now a global financial markets converging on this huge opportunity around crypto and d-apps everything's happening so what's your reaction to someone who's been through many cycles built companies and sold them and been successful what's your analysis i mean this journey is then different and you has a unique some similarities but definitely some unique characteristics in prior journeys uh in in you know venturing off to found a company and so forth and for me it's been obviously the traditional way um you know prior to this obviously it was in the valley and and had uh uh quite the journey um what i would say this time is um with all that's happening in blockchain and cryptocurrency it's the amount of say capital formation the amount of people involvement in into an early technology into an evolving technology and there's various subcategories now across nfts metabours and um and all things fungible um there's a global stage immediately and um and it sort of creates these sort of mini vortexes of getting more people involved um it's it's kind of some semblances of like the dot-com bubble in a sense but with a much bigger ecosystem um in comparison to what we saw in the 90s um the thing about blockchain is that it it needs to the more successful blockchains out there need to evolve into becoming as decentralized as possible and so as to use your analogy of stack i mean it is incredibly important to have contributors at all layers protocol layer application d app layer in many corners of the world but it all starts with an idea so it's really hard to go from point a to point b um like any other new opportunity and so for us it's been a journey we're evolving in this next chapter um and a lot of that will be evident today throughout the course of the summit we'll start to see and start to feel even more so how uh the digitalbits ecosystem is is becoming more and more decentral we're going to see a bunch of folks coming on us off stage are going to come here sit down on thecube and chat with me about their opportunities how would you describe for the folks watching now what's going on on stage here all day and then obviously there's a vip gala tonight at the yacht club with prince albert in attendance and his team and a bunch of big power players what's happening here what's the what's the vibe what's the purpose what's being presented can you just quickly share uh take a minute to explain what's going on so relative to to the summit um it's you know organizations uh platforms um there's there's uh a few metaverse uh platforms here that will be um i mean they've been in in existence but they'll be unveiling um their connection and how they're leveraging the digital business watching for the very first time and so um but also other categories as well even um soon here massive multi-billion dollar real estate development all coming to um the digital blockchain so this is the physical world massive uh resort um real estate development completely being tokenized you just had some success in digital assets obviously the roma team i saw the announcement on on youtube was pretty big um you get digital bits on the jersey a new player so caught my attention you got sports teams you got here you got applications people building on top of digital bits why for us it yeah vision is needs to be supported by a strategy um from inception it was finding ways to take an enterprise go to market strategy and and uh some of it may be a bit of trial and error in the early you know onset from 2017-18 when it when the journey kind of began for the digital biz blockchain but um also part of it is timing and one of the things that we saw more recently again kind of like the journey and the stack you're referring to before nobody foresaw the pandemic nobody foresaw that the whole world would be at home staring at a screen um and figuring out what to do with their time and many of the world for the first time began to learn about blockchain and cryptocurrency for the first time in the onset of this pandemic and so that became a huge accelerant for the space and so um another quote you know i've i'll take away from you that i you know recall you saying many years ago um you need to have a horse on the track to be in the race yeah we're very fortunate to have a horse in the track by having already a number of years of development um awareness so that when there's kind of like these market shifts that can become an accelerant we're in a position to to move with the industry um and so it's been an incredible couple of years i mean it was great for you guys yeah and so there you know there's different contributors in the ecosystem some some that i'm affiliated with that have done things in the sports space um and other things that i'm not affiliated with there's a lot of things that again are emerging today that are happening in different categories or themes of metaverse for example um and i'm humbled by it just simply by the virtue of the fact that they're utilizing the digital that's watching but i had no um stake in building what they've built in terms of this is enabling technology so just to kind of pivot off you said yeah the pandemic was a tailwind now for um this movement for many reasons one people sitting at home boy hey this is technically vegas work on the blockchain two the future of work or the future of how things are organized is was remote work remote work is like next door neighbor to decentralization like i mean come on you're talking about people going this is not the future is not where it used to be that kind of galvanized a lot of people and also the business models have shifted so now post pandemic everything's hybrid which is virtual physical so that's the perfect storm so total acceleration agree um and we're seeing the traction now what's interesting about what you guys are doing is you're enabling people to build apps on it that's the platform and and that's that's again what i want to ask you is i had people always ask me what's digital bits so i'm going to ask you what is digital bits well digital bits is both the name of a blockchain it's also the name of a cryptocurrency the native cryptocurrency of the digital bits blockchain and so um it began 2017 as a fork of stellar in terms of the original repository um and you know there's a question i was asked earlier today in a press conference of like oh there's all these blockchains well we're still in this like early stage uh this early part of this uh evolution and so i i don't necessarily see a lot of what's happening out there as competitive but rather complementary because in unison you know there's different use cases different categories uh where kind of a blockchain can find its array of adoption in in this sort of phase of it all um for us um we've been referred to as a few different things one of which is you know the aspiration become this blockchain for brands i think today we'll learn that it's become much bigger than that in terms of its capability it's not necessarily that um it's as a result of new technology it's the tech a lot of this technology has been there it's just how it's being exploited and used um we're unveiling today for example and part of now this chapter for me is working with um community um developers hold on before you get there so okay i see digital bits i love the name by the way so thanks for that you kind of get to the news now you have a press conference take me through the press conference what's the news what are you guys announcing here today so the press conference we we did share not everything uh there's more um uh likely in store by the end of today that's not on the agenda uh and and maybe i'll be back on the show later today um we will have you back we'll find out come on but in terms of in terms of what we shared so far at the press conference um uh it was centered around two key themes i wanted to um obviously talked about the array of things to come today but focus on some of the things i'm directly involved in one of which was nico swap and the other are the number of things involved here within monaco so in terms of nico swap um by way of nane nico and in the spirit of decentralization nico in ancient greek means victory for the people so we thought that was a fitting name for the platform it's a decentralized exchange platform on uh the digital bits blockchain um filled with liquidity pool technology automated market making technology it's it's but by way of comparison digital bits is version of let's say a uniswap but lower cost faster and so forth and there's a number of organizations here today that will uh are announcing that they're deploying on nicos bringing their token to the digital bits blockchain and and launching um on on nicoswap so we're i'm super excited about that this is you know part of evolution and part of fostering decentralization um and so what that enables is by virtue of uh being able to again help helping other organizations getting their horse on the track the common denominator for us is digital bits it's um you know the fact that every application every utility token every nft you know does require digital bits including the digital bits currency to provide that security to to be used for gas fees and and and so on and so forth so um the blockchain itself the cryptocurrency it's kind of a common denominator beneficiary uh the one way you can kind of think of it um but yeah we shared a lot around an ecoswap um uh what it looks like and um its key functionality and and who are some of the organizations that are uh on on board day one the other part of the press conference today we shared um was more monaco centric digital bits in monaco and this journey is just beginning uh it's super humbling it's super exciting for me to be a part of it um there is again no real particular order there's a an ecampus that's focused around cyber security and blockchain education for both private sector and public sector so um academia so skills government issues solve some skill gap correct right it's an organization a financial institution a whole department needs to know more about blockchain how they can leverage it um digitalbits um is the blockchain um that is forming the first part of the curriculum for this ecampus that's launching here in monaco with uh uh an organization called amvini the other thing uh that we shared and announced uh today is that um the first sov first and only sovereign cloud in europe is the monaco cloud as recently launched what makes it soft and in essence is a few aspects of its characteristics but digital bits blockchain nodes are being deployed in the monaco cloud um and so beyond the nodes that already exist it's um the network is further being let's say hardest to bring your scale in resiliency you know the whole thing around censorship resistance right the more nodes there's a huge strategic aspect to obviously deploying nodes in in sovereign clouds um and so in europe the first for that is the monaco cloud so we're really honored to be working with the team there and mvne and so forth for that and then um and then as well um a number of months ago we began a journey with the prince albert of monaco foundation um the the chair president is uh prince albert and um the uh vice president ceo is olivia windham who was in attendance at the uh at the press conference as well and um and we unveiled um the foundations uh platform entirely built on the digital bits blockchain uh utilizing the digital bits cryptocurrency um as well as uh nft ticketing and so forth uh so we unveiled that we showcased that for uh for members of the press um how it will be used and and so forth some of the questions you got um i mean it went everywhere from um there was a regulatory regulation question related to europe um to questions around decentralization what are what are we doing how do we compare to uh proof of work you know why why digital bits a big part of that is i think we have a lot of common values with um the foundation of prince albert foundation uh around the environment being eco-friendly and so on and so forth and so um um questions of that sort you know how what do you know what's the next chapter look like and and how how um is more and more decentralization in my view going to be fueled and you said you got some announcements you can't talk about um coming okay so is that what's that going to be related to you get a little bit of teaser on that is it going to be something how big we be massive is it the grand finale or is it it's not a finale the unveiling it's an op unboxing of a new deal what's what's what is it a deal is it technology um it is uh um it's it's um large uh organization um that um is is leveraging uh both um the digital bits watching and digital body swerve that one okay good well al thanks for coming on and congratulations we will catch up with you either at the end of the day here on the live program or we will be at the yacht club in monaco yacht club tonight for the big event we hope to be live there but if not we will report on that yeah thanks for having me john all right congratulations digital [ __ ] really rocking the world here in monaco love the name digital bits makes tons tons of sense platform to enable applications this is the future you're going to start to see this decentralized model that kind of looks like cloud computing but not it's a technology enabling the creative and the and and the application transformations to decentralization it's coming almost every single category will be centralized we'll be covering a blanket on the cube i'm john furrier thecube thanks for watching [Music] you

(upbeat music) >> Live from Toronto, Canada, it's theCUBE, covering Blockchain Futurist Conference 2018. Brought to you by theCUBE. >> Hey, welcome back everyone, here's theCUBE live here in Toronto, Canada in Ontario for Untraceable presents Blockchain Futurist Conference. I'm John Furrier here with Al Burgio, Julie Lyle for the wrap up of the show. Special guests, industry legend Al, serial entrepreneur, Julie, CMO, Barnes and Noble. >> (laughs) >> Great career you've had and you're here new to, first time, we're going to have these big events. At the wrap up we try to get a handle on it and I think the big story here, for me at least, was, during this week, you got a futurist conference, while the price of crypto was plummeting to an all-time low for the year. Yet everyone's upbeat, 'cause they're talking about the future, not about prices. This has been a big part of what we see, build out durable companies, real entrepreneurial activity. Sure, they want to make profit. People scrounging a little bit here and there but most of the time upbeat. >> It's hard to judge things or understand things from afar, John, and people tend to look at prices all day long but that doesn't necessarily give you an indication of what's going on with blockchain technology with some of the organizations out there. The team at Untraceable by far a leader, not just in Canada but internationally with people that are able to try out the entrepreneurs and what have you and it's events like this with just a couple days you get yourself brought up to speed and keep your finger on the pulse. >> Big names. >> Yeah huge names. >> And a futurist event, you got to have some players, some whales on the money side, check, got whose actually inventing the future, entrepreneurial hustle, pitch competitions happening, so all this is blending together. Julie, your perspective, first time seeing a crypto culture community, what's your observation? >> Well I would echo what Al has said about the event itself, it was really well organized and what I was impressed with, surprised actually, but impressed with was the combination of both the technologists as well as the investors and those that are trying to understand how to build these commercial communities and commercial applications out. For a marketer like myself, it's difficult enough to see around corners, but to understand this technology and to have people here who are really trying to target it at solving a specific real-world business problem, it seems like a natural extension of the march on towards bigger and greater, more powerful communities. >> And the technology is interesting, because in previous jobs you've had, you've innovated with data, real-time user data, user experience. Now the shift of token economics potentially could have a huge slingshot advantage to create new opportunities, instrumentation, targeted experiences. Seeing that big time here but the plumbing's not yet in place. It's like the roads aren't paved out. When is blockchain going to be good? >> Yeah, so everyone, there's a clear sentiment: blockchain's the future, the visions are amazing. Ironically, the name of the conference is the Blockchain Futurist Conference and so you have some visions of this that are maybe five to 10 years out, but many of what others are working on, it's the here and now, right? >> Yeah. >> You have opportunities that can demonstrate product market fit today. Others maybe within the next 24 months and they're working hard to do that, fostering their communities of early adopters, businesses perhaps, consumers. In the market in general there's this concern, when's the use going to happen. Quite frankly, we're seeing early stage projects, companies going to market extremely quick. Normally this is the stuff that private companies do. You don't hear the successes and failures; most fail. >> Irrational exuberance certainly happening, going on, but that's ending, you're starting to see that with some of the bubble popping a little bit. It's not so much a mega pop, it's more of a big air coming out of it. But I want to ask both you guys, as senior industry players, because I see couple things happening that are eye level: Token economics is driving a new business model innovation. Blockchain is infrastructure, making things go immutable, having advantages of decentralized infrastructure. And the middle between the two is interoperability. These are the core themes. How do we get all those working together and what would be the benefits of all those working together? Interoperability is a big theme of this event. >> Yeah, it starts with obviously having a forum where you can collaborate with like-minded individuals and you're hearing a lot of these conversations happening and getting a sense of what people are working on as well. It's a new emerging technology. In terms of interoperability, I tend to look at integration as perhaps more important than a focus around interoperability, looking at pre-existing systems in the market and really identifying ways where they can slowly, gradually use aspects of or features of blockchain to really start this shift and this movement and this evolution towards web 3.0. >> Julie, your observations about business model innovation, opportunities that marketers and senior people should be thinking about, mindset-wise? >> Loyalty, obviously, would be a great application, but I think there's far more sophisticated business models around actually, again, the communities, the power of networks, right, and artificial intelligence, blockchain and just what the internet and technology is doing to drive those communities and to empower those consumers. That's where this is headed. It seems to me like a very natural extension. I would also say though, that there's a lot of work to be done in corporate America, private or public businesses. There's a lot of infrastructure to build that interoperability and to make it a seamless experience that will either drive value and adoption or won't, and we've seen that with other technologies fail as well. >> We've seen the same classic adopts, cloud computing, same thing >> Absolutely. >> Amazon, no one's ever going to use it. Oh my God, let's make it consumable and easy. Boom, usage goes up. >> Absolutely. >> Same kind of thing going on here. >> Yeah, user interface is evolving for all things blockchain. >> Alright, guys, thanks so much for coming on. Final predictions, you want to dare make a prediction, Al? >> Before a prediction, one of the things I'd really like to highlight for this event really was having the opportunity to share the stage with someone like Larry King. >> Take a minute to explain what happened. Larry King, the legend-- >> Legend. >> Was here, explain what happened. >> The CNN Larry King. We had fellow legends on the stage and I was humbled to be in their presence. Larry King really was here. He had the opportunity to interview some of the brightest minds in blockchain and in a lot of ways help bring legitimacy to this event, let along the space. Conversations that we'd hear in the hallways of people having conversations with people that they know and sharing with them that they were attending this event and oh, is it blockchain, is it bitcoin, you're going to one of those conferences and then mentioning that one of the headliners was Larry King, is all of a sudden-- >> What was he like, what was your impression of him? Certainly getting up there but-- >> I would say it's exactly the Larry King we know. His questions were phenomenal, really engaging and he knew how to direct those questions. Each question he had for the right fellow attendee on stage. It was awesome. >> Awesome. Well, congratulations, a great job. That's a wrap here, live in Toronto, Canada in Ontario with the Futurist Conference CUBE coverage. Special guests, Al Burgio, Julie here at theCUBE. Thanks for watching, see you next time. (upbeat music)

>> Live from Toronto, Canada, it's the theCUBE, covering Global Cloud and Blockchain Summit 2018. Brought to you by theCUBE. >> Hey, everyone. Welcome back to CUBE's coverage in Toronto for the Global Cloud and Blockchain Summit, part of the big event also happening for two days, Wednesday and Thursday, the Blockchain Futurist Conference, here in Canada. I'm John Furrier, Dave Vellante here. Next guest is the founder and CEO of DigitalBits.io as well as Fusechain and serial entrepreneur and also the mastermind behind this inaugural event. First time a cloud blockchain conference has come together, bringing the two communities together. Al, great to see you. Thanks for coming on. >> Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming to Toronto, Canada. >> It's our pleasure. Certainly as you know, we love cloud. We cover all the big cloud shows. We're dominating that market in terms of coverage and access. And we just started covering blockchain in 2018 with theCUBE, although on SiliconANGLE since 2011 with the written word in journalism. But this is interesting. You are the brainchild behind this event, and I want you to explain why you came up with this event idea because this is the first time that you got two worlds coming together. You're bringing in the cloud DNA, and that can go back to like, classic networking and think big hosting providers, the Exodus and the Equinox of the world. These guys are the same guys who built YouTube's back end and Facebook. Large scale network guys with this new emerging blockchain world because there's some connections points, and it's super important, and no one's ever done that before. What's the motivation behind a cloud and blockchain summit? >> Well, if you think of the internet, all that data, all that traffic, substantial majority of it is flowing through data centers, infrastructure providers globally. And within many of those data centers you have cloud providers, whether it's cloud computing, SaaS, Software as a Service, cloud providers, you name it. And now we have upon us this emerging blockchain technology. Many are referring to it as Web3.0. And I'm obviously a big believer in that this is the next evolution of the internet. We got Internet1.0 in the 90's. We had Web2.0 with social sharing economy and so forth, and along the way, each step you had your first movers, your willing followers, and then the unwilling followed. It's been that powerful the last two occurrences that we saw with the evolution of the internet. Web3.0 is that next thing. First movers, willing followers, the unwilling. Every time you have this something very innovative, obviously there's a big engineering initially starts amongst, you know, a community of engineers, and then it starts to go mainstream. Obviously a lot happens in between conception and going mainstream. And if we look at the 90's, Linux played a substantial role in the acceleration of innovation. It really extracted, you know, it took a different approach to software, really leading open-source. >> It took down some proprietary incumbents - Unix. >> Absolutely, absolutely. And free and open-source software, but it still needed to be supported. Which version of Linux should enterprises embrace? And at that time, it was very important with what we saw emerge with things like Intel, IBM, Dell, HP, and so forth getting behind organizations like Red Hat and their version of Linux, now known as Red Hat Enterprise Linux. >> IBM put in a billion dollars into it. >> Yeah, exactly. >> Steve Woz, yeah. >> So with regard to that, you know, it was all about the hardware validating, right? These trusted vendors to the enterprise. And them kind of validating a company, or endorsing a company, in effect, like Red Hat, really helped provide a guiding light to the enterprise. Now it's not about hardware, it's about the cloud, right? Cloud computing providers and so forth. And in that ecosystem, it's not just AWS. It's not just Microsoft. There are many data center providers that have built a cloud computing offering that are supporting substantial financial institutions, substantial organizations within healthcare space insurance, and many, many other industries. So they play a very important role in supporting an enterprise, whether implementation, integration, and consumption of technologies, including new and emerging technologies. And so as we have, sort of, before us, this emergence of blockchain, obviously having lived in the cloud and infrastructure community for a number of years with that last company I had founded, know a lot of the key stakeholders. And even though I'm all in on blockchain, you know, I pop in every now and then in that world. What I found was two different extremes. You have CTO's and even CEO's of cloud computing organizations, and others within those organizations, totally high "Get It" factor. And you had the other extreme, multi-billion dollar cloud computing organizations, you know, data center organizations, where again, the leadership is still trying to figure it out, in some respects, not fully paying attention yet. And I saw that this is definitely emerging. Again, you'll have first movers, willing followers, and the unwilling. They're all going to get there. But it hadn't gotten there yet. And so with regards to this event, I saw a huge opportunity to really put something out there, allow it to ultimately take a life of it's own. There's a new organizer that's going to be coming forward and driving the ship with this event. But ultimately, there needed to be a forum, not just here in North America, but in every corner of the world, the Global Cloud and Blockchain Summit, providing this opportunity for that convergence, and for both communities to really share knowledge and accelerate, fill that gap. And I saw it's there. It is there. There's amazing things being spoken on stage as we sort of are sitting here, with leading innovators, and so forth, from both sides. There was an amazing keynote today by Anthony Di Iorio, one of the co-founders of Ethereum and founder and CEO of Decentral and Jaxx, really helping support the event today and making a contribution. His talk was phenomenal. That's kind of the thought behind it, and it's, you know, here we are. >> I want to pick up on something you said, for our audience, you know. I mean, for guys like you, Al, that are deep into it, you understand this very well. But you talked about Linux, and how, essentially, the Web was built on Linux. So if you were a Linux developer back in the day, and you wanted to "invest" in Linux, you didn't have a vehicle to do that. You could put your time in, you know? You could maybe join a company and maybe get some stock. But there was no way to directly invest in Linux. Well today, there is. With blockchain and cryptoeconomics, you actually can, whether it's tokenize your business or participate, you can buy tokens. And so it's a whole different incentive structure. And many in our audience are sort of new to this, kind of the unwilling, if you will. >> Yeah. >> And that's an amazing new way to create capital structures. >> And very powerful. I mean, prior to this tokenized revolution we're seeing here, it was a cool open-source project that as an engineer you wanted to be part of this, contribute your time, and quite often you would ask your employer to permit you to have 10%, 20% of your time to commit to these projects. Maybe you would even ask for that in your job interview. And you'd maybe get the thumbs up, you know? And so, your employer's, in effect, subsidizing your time to really contribute to projects and code that you're very passionate about. But if they got busy, economic cycles and what have you, and it's like, "You know what? We need you at 100% focus on your day job." All of a sudden, that community, that open-source community is losing perhaps a very valuable contributor, right? And there's really no way for that direct incentive from that project. And that's really what that is now. Projects can be created. You think of, you know, some blockchain's like an operating system, you now have an, you know, to use the Linux comparison, now let's say an operating system can have it's own incentive, a reward or compensation structure to really help attract engineers and other valuable contributors to not just give birth to a project, but help make it sustainable. >> Yeah. >> And, you know, eventually maybe you're quitting the day job because it's able to be free, open-source, and providing an enlightening self-interest. >> I'm getting some messages here, direct messages, listening to you talk. So I want to share them with you. One guy says, "Hey, Al. What's the deal with the different blockchains? How do I tell?" So I'm not an unwilling. I'm a wanna-believe. I'm not the front-end, but what do I pay attention to? And there's so many different chains. You got people promoting certain things. I don't know whose stats are real. You got two kids in a garage, >> Yeah. >> who just did an ICS. So the question is essentially what's the difference between all these chains? What do I have to look for? Is it latency? Who's solving these problems? What's the big deal, and how do I determine better chain from another chain? Are they all going to work together? >> Yeah. >> What's your thoughts? >> Things are moving incredibly fast right now. And it is difficult to keep up to speed. You know, maybe it was just bitcoin at one time and one chain to focus on. Then there was Ethereum and all these others. Now there's many, many more. So ultimately, it is about information, staying current with that information, doing your due diligence. But you really need to have a community that you're a part of, that you can, kind of, share in your evaluation and monitoring of what's new and emerging. >> So community's important. >> Very important, very important. Just say trusted advisors, trusted peers, and you kind of take a collective approach at this. Nonetheless, we're in this pioneering era, mass innovation happening. What's winning today, you know, may not necessarily be continuing to win tomorrow. But you really need to maintain a discipline, and take a peer approach to staying current. In terms of public chain, private chain, they're all going to play a role, and they are playing a role, in different use cases. There's clearly a use case for private chain within enterprise, within say, you know, trusted circle of supply chain participants. Maybe you want to bring some efficiencies to all that. >> So use case drives the chain. >> Yeah, absolutely. But public chain is a phenomenal phenomenon. Among other things that we hear a lot about it, it's given birth to the ICO. The new way of capital formation that is unbelievably awesome. The world has never seen anything like this, where. >> Explain that. Capital formation dynamic that you're referring to. >> Yeah, so the traditional way, whether it's in Silicon Valley or any other part of the world, you have an entrepreneur that maybe they haven't had a big exit where they can fund their own next venture on their own. You know. Smart intelligent people with a brilliant idea, and they're doing that friends and family route, right? The due diligence checklist isn't that long. It's like, you know what? Love my son. He's the smartest kid on the planet. You know, you give him a few dollars and a few other friends and family, this new emerging entrepreneur. And if there's evolution there, things are picking up traction and so forth, then maybe you're doing an angel round. And there's this sort of structured process that history's sort of define for us. And then from an angel round, you know, you have this early stage company emerging, and new milestones being reached, and then maybe there's a Series A venture capital round, and what have you. And then you have the, you know, the Series A, Series B, and so forth, right? The typical approach to things. A very regimented Silicon Valley has been a dominating force of the venture capital community, and that form of competition >> But the dynamics are different than the venture capital. >> Yeah, so that's the way that we've always, sort of, known, right? Many early stage companies, the process they go through. Many, many meetings behind closed doors, and so forth. >> Cloak and dagger, black box. >> Yeah, so concept of crowdsourcing, still beholden to the financial systems that're up there. How do you really foster community up there? And raise maybe a few million dollars? >> So what you're saying is is that it's easier to raise money now? Easier? >> It absolutely is. You have this new meeting of exchange where you have cryptocurrencies like Ether. And you're basically sharing your idea with the world, and all of a sudden, saying, "Hey, here's our token economics. We'd like to reach some capital." And then whether it's minutes, hours, or even weeks, you have capital coming to you from different corners of the world, and it's coming to you in seconds. Highly efficient. You have these universal currencies now emerging, and it's an amazing sensation, and it's a new form of capital formation, and with capital formation, you have innovation. So I believe that, you know, we're just going to continue to see an acceleration of innovation, globally happening, and not just in certain pockets of the world now, in many, many corners of the world. I mean what's happening in Asia's absolutely phenomenal in the blockchain space as well. It's not just interesting here in North America. In fact, in some respects even more interesting, depending on how you look at it. >> Describe what's happening in Asia. You guys talked about this last night in the fireside chat. >> Well, I mean some of the publicly available information is that you can just simply see, on many of the cryptocurrency exchanges out there, an insane amount of volume, more so than in any other corner of the world. And so you have a very active investor community up there, a trading community, token-buyer community, what have you. >> And where are the pockets? >> Very healthy. >> So it was China, and then things sort of shifted to Japan. >> Well, >> Where do you see the action? >> maybe where the centralized exchange in happening, but I think it's still a lot of the same people. It's not like it got shut down in a country, and those people just lost their desire. They just found an alternative means to continue to participate. >> Right. >> You know, South Korea, it's phenomenal. You have Hong Kong. You have Japan. You have Singapore, among many of the pockets. But then it's everywhere. I mean, you're meeting people from Vietnam, Thailand, India. They're all very active investor communities and utility token buyer communities. And it's very healthy. Yes, you have, you know, a correction every now and then in this market. But you have that with any sort of new, exciting innovation. But it continues to thrive up there. It's phenomenal. >> Yeah, you're seeing one of the main uses of bitcoin to buy alternative currencies. >> Yep. >> That's sucking huge amounts of volume. >> It's an easier currency. I mean, in a matter of seconds or minutes, you can have a currency go from a bedroom in Florida, you know, here in Toronto, to a project in Singapore, or vice versa, without going through bank. >> So again some more couple questions from the crowd. If you want to reach us, tweet us, either direct message or tweet @Furrier @DVellante. Happy to take your questions for the guest. But one says, "Do we buy now?" >> (laughs) >> Second was, "Do this side step the tariffs of the China, Japan, U.S. thing?" Obviously outside of the United States, we're the world power in the United States. But now that power is shifting. You see China and here in Canada, a lot of crypto-DNA here. So interesting. Your thoughts on buying? (chuckles) On the dip? Or crash? Or however you look at it? And then the international dynamic with China and Japan and others? >> So many are seeing it as a dip. I mean, the reality is, if this is new form of capital formation, it does share similar characteristics, nonetheless still to traditional or early-stage investing and venture capital, in many respects. Not every start-up succeeds. In fact, you know, over 90% traditionally don't make it. Even if they make it to a Series A round, they may not make it to a B round, right? And so, the fact that you have, some people kind of are referring to the Wild Wild West. I don't necessarily see it that way. It's just finding it's way, right? And it's going to get to a mature state. >> Well I think people look at the bubble, and they think Wild Wild West, but the interesting thing about it, you know, we talked about it off camera last night, around international is, and no one really knows what the STEEMs will be. This is going to be a completely different landscape than anything we've seen before, whether it's standards or execution. And I hear the argument all the time of "Oh, it's unregulated!" It's really the United States that's taking a more regulatory approach, you know, the SEC is essentially scaring straight everybody and saying, >> Well they're trying to figure it out. >> Well they're trying to figure it out, but also they've kind of slows things down, the process. But that being said, it might not have to be formally regulated. Because you mentioned Linux. The role of self-governing communities is a very interesting dynamic. No one's actually said and analyzed what a regulatory regime, globally, would look like, if you factor in, kind of, the open source concepts, with self governance because communities are very efficient, and we got money involved. >> Yeah. >> It can be even more efficient. That's called a marketplace. >> You know, people have disposable income, and they decide what they want to do with that disposable income. You go to a restaurant, you go buy some groceries, you invest, you maybe buy some commodities, right? And where we put that money, the value we had that we wish we could exchange for something else, some of it goes into some regulatory worlds and some doesn't. I want to go buy some you commodities at the grocery store. I mean, it's a free and open transaction. There's no KYC or AML per se and that happens. >> But food has to get to the supermart. My point is. >> Marketplaces don't require regulation. >> Exactly my point. That's my point. >> Or additional red tape, right? But where we put other capital deaths. So whether you're buying share certificate, early stage investing. There's SEC filings, perhaps. >> Who regulated Linux? >> Who regulated Linux? I mean-- >> (laughs) >> It was self governing. >> Benevolent dictatorship with Torvalds. >> But the capital formation was different in the Linux industry. >> Yeah. >> It was the more traditional path that you just described, and so those were-- >> But I guess what I'm saying is that, you know, have a token. Some token could represent a commodity. Some token could represent a security. So there needs to be that distinction and a framework of clarity so that we understand what needs to be regulated and going on that path. And so I think that's, kind of, part of finding it's way over the past 12 months or so is this distinction. Some countries were very quick to say, "Here's a framework.", like Switzerland. That clarity here is taking some time here in Canada and the U.S. >> Yeah, and I think they should let things foster and incubate a bit because you don't know the gestation period of real technology, and I think I'm cool with community-oriented governance Because people will lose a boatload of case; some will gain. But that'll all sort itself out. And with good community involvement, it'll happen faster. I just find that a better path. I mean, some people can't stay with that tension. They overreact. Some people can't handle the risk. But you got to see how it plays out at some level. >> You definitely do. But there's also an opportunity for self-governance. You know, you have-- There's the regional internet registries, right? So you have ARIN RIPE in Europe and so forth. You know, if you want an IP address and so forth, there's a self-governing body that defines policy and how these things are going to be deseminated here in North America. The government, kind of, sets off with that. >> The DNS system. >> You know, absolutely. This is valuable-- >> Yeah. You know, you have national security with internet, but how IP's are deseminated, it's self-regulated. So at the end of the day, if the community doesn't decide to say, "Hey, some of these things, well let's define self-governing bodies." And if they can play a great role in it all, fanastic. Otherwise, then maybe the government steps in" If that's the type of country it is where they like to engage. >> Al, everyone's reimagining new opportunities with blockchain and crypto. You've certainly got good venture with DigitalBits. We'll certainly have a conversation later here this week about that. I know you got to get back for a panel that you're going to go on now. So thanks for coming on. And congratulations on the inaugural Global Cloud and Blockchain Summit. Looking forward to talking more about it. So theCUBE live in Toronto for coverage of the Global Blockchain event here with cloud. And then tomorrow kicks off the big show here, the Blockchain Futurist, about 2,000 attendees. That's really going to be connecting the dots of the future. TheCube will be there as well. Stay with us for more live coverage after this break.

>> Announcer: From New York, it's theCube covering Blockchain Week. Now here's John Furrier. (uptempo techno music) >> Hello everyone, welcome back. I'm John Furrier, your host of theCube. We're here in New York City for Blockchain Week New York as well as Consensus 2018. You're watching theCube. We've got two great guests here. Cube alumni Al Burgio has been on many times. Hot start ups, Digitalbits. He's got a great project, and it's really getting a lot of traction. Been there before, fellow entrepreneur. He's got big news and he's with Jaime Leverton, general manager, VP in Canada and APAC for Cogeco Peer 1. Saw the press release, congratulations Al. >> Thank you, thank you John. >> Jaime, welcome to New York. >> Thank you very much. >> So Al, talk about the deal that you did with these guys. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> News went out so what's significant about it? >> I think it's very significant to the Blockchain space. In a lot of respect it's very powerful technology that a lot of people speak of when it comes to distributed ledger technology. But in some respects with regards to let's say certain industry it's still just starting to work its way into the space. We basically are trying to drive innovation at multiple levels, and we can achieve that with the support of great partners like Cogeco Peer 1. I'll let Jaime explain what they do, but from a partnership perspective. You can think of what we've created at Digitalbits really is this open source technology that we want many people to consume, not just consumers but the enterprises, SaaS companies and so forth. So a lot of those companies live in Cogeco data centers worldwide. And so they're a natural partner for us. They are a company we always see in the forefront of innovation, and they're doing it with Blockchain. So really excited to have them as a partner. >> Jaime, I want you to take a minute to explain what you guys do, and how that fits into Blockchain. >> I think it fits in incredibly well. So for those of you not familiar with Cogeco Peer 1. We own and operate a global network, so we have our own connectivity, as well as 16 data centers globally. We have our own private cloud. We partner with the hyperscale public clouds. We have managed hosting, co-location. We work with 6500 enterprise customers around the world who live in our data centers or on our networks. And we really believe that Blockchain is the future, and there is no better place for it to live than an infrastructure like ours. >> Cloud computing was always poo-poo. Oh cloud computing, no one will ever give up their data centers and hosting and cloud came together. But that drove a lot of growth. The same thing is happening now with these networks. You're seeing Blockchain needs to run on something. Just like the old argument was cloud is going to kill the server business. Well servers still need to be bought. So blockchain needs to run somewhere. >> Absolutely. >> On servers. >> Yeah. >> So some decentralized servers but some big ones too. >> Right. >> Is that how you see it? Is it actually what I'm seeing happening out here? >> That is exactly how we see it, and I feel very blessed for the infrastructure that we built. The reputation that we have in this industry which is literally perfectly poised to support web 3.0 and everything that is coming. Starting with partnerships like this. >> Al, I want to get your thoughts about. You know the networking business. You've done a couple start ups in the area and trends. You've done all that stuff. You guys just did some news out there where they're spinning up. Something we saw what happen with Stellar. >> Yeah. >> Okay, can you explain this nuance point 'cause it's an inside baseball geeky thing. >> Yeah. >> But it's really significant for the industry. >> Well at the end of the day, everyone is talking about enterprise adoption, enterprise adoption. But as we've just discussed. The enterprise today, the hardware is not their possession anymore. And so, they don't need to be the only organization to be able to support what the enterprise wants us to do or even a SaaS company. Many, in fact the majority SaaS companies don't manage their own hardware either. And they're relying on cog dividers to provide that compute storage and so forth. So there needs to be that proficiency. And almost like a standard, and not necessarily one. Let's say Linux is a standard. Windows is, there's different flavors of Linux. There's database technologies and so on. But whichever they're choosing to use. It needs to be supported at every layer of that digital supply chain. And we are basically, we see that. >> John: Yeah. >> And we're working with partners at every level there. The ones that we know get it. Really understand compute and network. 'Cause it's very important. >> We're in the hallway here. We're in the middle of the floor here at Consensus. So we've been hearing a lot of hallway chatter. And I always like to eavesdrop, being the journalist reporter guy that I try to be, as you know. But I hear a lot of things. One thing I heard all week consistently is that I'm going to spin up some Blockchain nodes. So it reminds me of the old days of spinning up clusters. Like storage clusters. So this notion of spinning up a Blockchain cluster I've heard or I've heard provisioning clusters or what does that mean? To spin up a Blockchain. Is it that trend that we're seeing? >> If it is a primitive Blockchain. Bitcoin for example, it's the grandfather of all let's say blockchains that we're familiar with or this era is familiar with. It does a few things. Processes transactions, anybody could spin up one and what have you, but if you want to take something and make it enterprise great. There needs to be APIs. You need to be able to know how to integrate. Consume those APIs and so forth. And so not every company is going to know how to do this. There's a gap. There's a shortage of Blockchain engineers. There's a shortage of engineers period that understand this stuff. So it has to be supported. It has to be supported. There needs to be companies that can support the enterprise to consume those. So spinning up is easy for an engineer that's efficient in Blockchain to say. Yeah, we're spinning up nodes. We're going to take our work really hard. Purchase hardware, deploy it, ship it many, many, many months. Maybe they'll use Amazon if that's well suited for them or some other platform provider like Cogeco or what have you. But the challenge is what's everyone else going to do? If they're not proficient at technology, they need partners that get it. And that's where managed cloud comes in, and that's where we're very focused. >> So what does this mean for Digitalbits and your project? I'm just trying to squint through it. It's nerdy, geeky stuff but I like it. It's networking but now you got a project called Digitalbits. You got some horsepower with the Cogeco deal, so you spin up Blockchain I can imagine. What does it mean for the Digitalbits project and the impact of what you're trying to do? >> It's an open source project, and from our perspective, we want to see many, many enterprises, and many, many SaaS and other organizations use this technology. It's not going to just happen. You don't just build it and they will come. So you need strategic partners that see the value in it. Whether directly or through lines of business that they have. And co-evangelizing this technology and supporting the enterprise and their consumption. And so again, partners like Cogeco really help us create that new standard of technology that they can consume and it becomes mainstream this way. >> Jaime, what's your take on this? Obviously you did a deal with these guys. What was the benefit of you doing it? Also your customers moving in the direction of having a decentralized application set of infrastructure to provide power the next generation. Why this deal? Why these guys? >> I think when we look at who we partner with and build out our ecosystem. It's really about the relationship with the individuals behind it. We're very much about trust. We've worked with Al before. We believe in his vision. We know that he goes at projects with passion and integrity. And ultimately the reason we did this with Digitalbits is because we believe in what Al's doing, and his track record. >> Well he knows technology. He's also been a successful entrepreneur. >> And he understands networks, sorry to jump in, but really understanding that the power of the cloud is only as good as the power of the network. And the closer you can bring those things together that's where the magic really happens, and no one understands that better than Al. And when you look to build that Blockchain going forward, that's what you need. That's the power that you have to be able to harness, and we don't have to educate him. Jaime, you've been doing a lot of innovative things. We were just talking before we came on camera. You got an innovation award last night in Ottawa. You couldn't make it down for the big party we had last night. >> I'm sorry I missed that party. >> With Jeff Besos' brother. It's really, really cool. What are you doing at innovative that you can share. I love what you're doing. It's great work. What are some of the innovation things that you're proud of that you can take a moment to share? >> We've partnered a lot with the incubators in Canada. So really working with start ups, next generations technology, supporting the people that we think are going to build the future. So that's where we put all of our attention as oppose to on a traditional large enterprise focus. Our focus is NextGen emerging incubators. We've had a lot of success in the gaming industry with artificial intelligence, which is really booming in Canada. Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto are creating incredible new companies focused on AI. A lot of them are partnered with us in our data centers and using our technologies. So really I just see us continuing to push further and further as the industry moves. We want to be there moving with it. >> Are you going to be on the Canadian boat tonight I call it the Canadian--? >> Yes, I'm going to be on the Canadian boat tonight. >> The Do-rio yacht. >> That's right, yes. Hopefully the rain subsides, but yeah I'll be on the boat. >> Great, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it. Al, congratulations on the news. Big news from Digitalbits open source project. Gaining steam, really disrupting the old loyalty platforms as one of its used cases. Check it out at Digitalbits. Any URL you want to share Al for the project? Digitalbits.io. You're watching theCube. I'm John Furrier, your host here in New York all week for Blockchain Week. Thanks for watching. (uptempo techno music)

(techno music) >> Announcer: Live, from New York, it's theCUBE. Covering Blockchain Week. Now, here's John Furrier. (techno music) >> Hello and welcome back. this is the exclusive coverage from theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, the co-host. We're here in New York City for special on the ground coverage. We go out where all the action is. It's happening here in New York City for Blockchain Week, New York, #BlockchainWeekNY Of course, Consensus 2018 and a variety of other events, happening all over the place. We got D-Central having a big boat event here, tons of events from Hollywood. We got New York money, we got Hollywood money, we got nerd money, it's money everywhere, and of course great deals are happening, and I'm here with two friends who have done a deal. Al Burgio is a CEO of DigitalBits co-founder, and Nithin who's the partner at Arcadia Crypto Ventures. You guys we've, you know, we're like family now, and you're hiding secrets from me. You did a deal. Al, what's going on here? Some news. >> Yeah, well first John, thanks for having us. We always love coming on the show, and really enjoy spending time with you and so forth. We, you know previous conversations that we've had, we were not out there fundraising. But really had the opportunity to meet a lot of great people Nithin and his firm being definitely one of them. And as a result of that, really building this, say, following, these relationships within the venture community, more specifically the crypto venture community. When we were ready to actually go out and do, let's say a first round, for us it happened very quickly, and it was a result of being able to leverage those relationships that we had. For me, it was kind of remarkable to see that support come and happen so quickly. Normally venture, it's just a process. Many many months. >> John: Long road. >> Then a month to close. >> John: Kiss all the frogs. >> Yeah, here it's like, you know, people can do due diligence on the fly, You have an opportunity with events like this. >> John: They're smart. >> They're smart, and and there's an opportunity to really foster these relationships in this really tight-knit community. And, you know, Nithin and his firm being obviously one of those. And so when we were ready to go out and do our first round, it happened quickly, and I'd like to think that in a lot of ways, it happened amongst friends. >> Well, you're being humble. We've been covering you, you've been on theCUBE earlier, when you just started the idea, so it's fun to watch you have this idea come to fruition, but you're in a, you're hitting a TAM a Total Available Market that's pretty large. And that's one of the secrets, to have a TAM. Aggressive bold move, we'll how it turns out for you, but you know, you got to have the moonshot, you're going after the loyalty market, which is completely run by the syndicate, what do you want to call it, the mafia of loyalty. >> Yeah, well, I would say that in some cases, those that are supporting us see that as really just one use case. Because we built this general-purpose blockchain, one of the use cases and one of the first use cases that were out there to support, happens to be the loyalty space. >> John: Big. And it's massive, highly fragmented but massive market, and we can solve a lot of liquidity issues with our technology. But then it goes beyond that. So it's a big market at the start, and then that can scale even greater from there. and I think that's part of what, I mean obviously, I'm not going to speak for Nithin. >> Nithin, let me weigh in here, pass the mic over. Nithin talk about the deal, why these guys? I know you met 'em, you like Al, and the feedback I've heard from other folks is he's a classic entrepreneur and that obviously, the entrepreneur gets the deal, but obviously you don't just give money 'cause you like someone. What about this deal is it that you guys like? You guys been there early, you got some great people on your team, what about this deal is it that you like? >> Sure, for us, Al met pretty much most of, almost all the criteria that we had, okay. That we had when we go, the thesis before we go fund someone. We don't get so many deals like that. Usually we get you know, they made 50% of the criteria, we might still put money because you can't get the 100%. So one thing, Al as a founder, he's experienced, he has done it multiple times before, he sold companies. Tech guy, which is very key for us. A tech project is very key. Okay, second thing, he's built the whole thing. It's not like he's raising the money to go and build it. He built it, now he's raising money to go for go to market strategies, which makes sense. He's shown it, and we tested it out. So like, we were completely blown away. He has a team behind 'im. He's built a team on every side, on the marketing side, on PR, events. And the idea, this is a general blockchain, but he's addressing a very specific issue. It is a real problem. Loyalty points, or rewards points, or gift points. Or whatever you call them. It is segmented, it's fragmented, and this is a chance. And there might be many people who are trying to solve this problem, but I think Al has the greatest possibility, or probability, of becoming the winner. >> You and I have talked on theCUBE before, both of you guys are CUBE alumni, I know you both, so I'll ask you, 'cause I'll just remind everyone, we've talked about token economics. One of the things that's coming up here at the Consensus 2018 event in New York, onstage certainly, and some fireworks in one of the sessions, is like if you're not decentralized, why the hell are you doing a decentralized model? So one of the criterias is, the fit for the business model, has to fit the notion of a decentralized world, with the ability of tokens becoming an integral part. What about this deal makes that happen? Obviously, fragmentation, is that still decentralized? So, how are you sorting through the nuances of saying, okay, is it decentralized the market for him, and this deal? Or does it fit? >> See no, decentralize is one thing okay, in here, more than decentralized, I would say there was the platform, so that all the companies can come in, use this common platform, release it, and as a user you're getting a chance to atomically swap it if you don't like something. Most of the reward points or loyalty points go waste. Maybe the companies want it to go waste, I don't know if that is. >> It's a natural burn at equilibrium going on anyway right? Perfect fit! >> So that is the only, that was the only doubt that we had. Would companies want this, because do they want their customers' loyalty points going waste rather than swapping it for something else? That was the only question that we had. Well, that's a question that will get answered in the market. But otherwise we hadn't seen something like this before. >> What's your take of the show so far? We saw each other in the hallway as we were getting set up for theCUBE, for two days of coverage, in New York, for Blockchain Week, New York, what's your take? Obviously pretty packed. >> Oh my god, it's so packed, and it's great, the show is going on. It is bringing a lot of money in, it's bringing all the investors in a new money, old money, traditional money, nerd money as you said. >> It smells like money! >> Everybody's coming in. See the beauty about those things coming in is, you're going to get a lot of people from other fields that are going to come into this field to solve problems. 'Cause earlier, if there is no money coming in, you're going to have very smart people, or very intelligent people stick with physics or whichever was their field. Now, they're going to look into the space because they're getting paid. See that brings more people who are intelligent, and who can solve problems. That is very key for me. >> Al, I want to ask you as an entrepreneur, one things you usually have to struggle with, as any entrepreneur, is navigating the 3-D chess you got to play, whether it's competitive strategy, market movement, certainly the market's moving and shifting very quickly, but you've got growth, big tailwind for you. What's your takeaway? Because now you have new things coming on. Every every day it seems like a new shoe is dropping. SEC's firing a warning on utility tokens, security tokens are still coming, are now coming online, but that looks very promising, and then ecosystems become super important. You guys just announced news this morning around the ecosystem. >> Yeah, tomorrow we have some. We had some news today, but we have more tomorrow. >> John: Well talk about the news. >> Yeah, so we have a multi-tiered go to market strategy. Obviously in the loyalty space, again I want to emphasize, it's just one use case, but it's a massive one. You have brands, the enterprise. And many of those those enterprises or brands may operate their loyalty program internally, in terms of like back offices systems, in some cases they're outsourcing the app to a SAS provider, some application provider, that's kind of hidden in the background. But let's just say like Hilton. I use Hilton, it's the location for the event, but Hilton, you have this user experience using this app, but maybe that technology, the SAS application that's powering that, is actually not Hilton technology. And so let's just say, there's 30 million people in the Hilton program and there may be 30 million of them on the Marriott, coexisting on some SAS application. And so that's another important category for us. SAS providers and so forth, supporting that industry. And then last but not least, today, whether enterprise or SAS company, many cases not touching their own hardware, right? They're using the cloud. >> So they're outsourcing the backend. >> Yeah, and so you have managed cloud providers. >> So what does it mean for the market? I don't understand, I'm not following you. >> Well, I guess what I'm saying is that there needs to be a common standard, across enterprise application provider, in global cloud community, cloud is the new hardware. >> True. So horizontally scaling loyalties as we were (mumbles). >> Exactly, so we have, we're basically securing partnerships on all three levels, to make sure that, if you want to use new technology, you want to ensure that it's widely supported, across a variety of partners you may want to work with if you're an enterprise. Whether, a software company, cloud company, and so forth. You want to be able to ensure that it can back up the truck. So we've basically signed partnerships at all of these tiers. You're going to see news in the morning. It's late here on a Monday evening. So tomorrow 9:00 a.m, major cloud company, one of the major cloud companies, and there's more to follow, making an announcement that they've joined our ecosystem partner program, and supporting this open source technology in a number of different ways. Which we're really excited about. >> You see ecosystem as a strategic move for you. >> Absolutely, this is, for us, this is, it's all about helping the consumer, but it's not about one consumer at a time for us. It's very much an enterprise play. It's one enterprise at a time. And with each enterprise we basically add to the ecosystem millions if not tens of millions of consumers instantly. >> Nithin I want to ask you a question, because what he just brought up is interesting to me as well. As a new thing, it's not new, but it's new to the crypto world, new to the analog world, that's not in the tech field. Tech business, we all know about global system integrators, we know about ecosystems, we know the value of developer programs, and community, all those things, check, check, check. But now those things are coming to new markets. People have never seen an ecosystem play before. So it's kind of, not new, it's new for some people, it's a competitive advantage opportunity. >> True, it is. See the whole thing is so new, that you can't even define it at this point. It's very hard to define. It's like, see, as an example I would say, none of us thought that when the iPhone came, there would be a 60 billion dollar taxi sharing economy that comes out of it, right? Same thing. Blockchain comes, we just don't know. And it's very hard to predict. >> New brands are going to emerge, I mean if you look at every major inflection point, I point to a couple that I think are relevant, TCP/IP was created, internetworking. >> Yep. >> That essentially went after proprietary networks, like IBM, Digital, Stacks, but it didn't replace, it wasn't a new functionality, it was interoperability. >> Yes. >> The web, HTTP, created a whole new functionality. >> Yep. >> Out of that emerged new brands. >> Yeah. >> So I think this wave's coming is a, new brands are going to emerge. >> Here, what's the brand, I don't know what's going to emerge. There it was interoperability. >> John: Well, new players. >> It's here, it's more, the collaboration. The collaboration is so huge, it's the scale is so huge, in the sense you can collaborate across the world. You're cutting those borders, there are no borders that can hold you. Even though interoperability happened in internet, There were the Googles, and the Facebook, that still had those borders. >> Well, don't put it, Cisco came out of that, 3Com, and those generations, but the hyper-scalers came out of the web. >> Yep. >> So I'm saying, well I'm saying, I want to get your reaction to, is I think that is such a small scale relative to blockchain and crypto because it's global, it's every industry, it's not just tech it's just like everything. So there's got to be new brands. Startups going to come out of the woodwork, that's my point. >> It's not yet time for the brands to come in. See that's the whole thing. So let's put it this way, the internet was there from 1978, if you really look at it, ARPANET or DARPA, those things were there. Email was there, but it was by 1997, or by the time we all came to know Google it was 2001. There is that gap between the brand forming, because it has to permeate first, more people have to use it, like what is the user-- >> Everything was was a bubble, but everything happened. I got food delivered to my house today, right? It happened, people were saying that's a crazy idea. >> It's now it's going on, right. So it's the timing and they know the time for it to permeate so here, how many people are using Bitcoin, and to do what? Most of them are just speculating right? There's very few real use case of remittance or speculative trading, that's what's happening. See that's what I said. The other use cases, it has to permeate. And that comes with more user adoption. And the user adoption initially is going to come from the speculation. >> I think it's a good sign, honestly I think it's a tell sign, because I remember when the web was new, I was in coming out right and growing in the industry. People were poo poo, oh that's just for kids. The big company's said, we wouldn't, who the hell is going to use the World Wide Web? Enter the search engines. >> I remember that like it was yesterday. I forget that I'm not a kid anymore, and I had the opportunity to be an entrepreneur during that era. One of the things I want to add is that, we had, I think what Nithin is really pointing out, it started with the infrastructure, you had network engineers and ISPs, you know, and email. But what was the enterprise application here? What was that consumer application, and that followed right? So it started infrastructure, then it evolved. Once we saw these applications, enterprises started to go crazy. Whether it was the Ubers of the world surfacing, or enterprises reinventing themselves, that's kind of the next wave. >> Well, this is why I think you're a good opportunity. 'Cause I remember licking stamps and sending out envelopes to get people to come to a seminar, held at a hotel. That's how you did it in the old world. The web replaced that with direct response. >> But there's some, there's something else-- >> The mainframe ran faster than the web. You're replacing an old loyalty, that's like licking the stamps. It's not about comparing what you're doing to something else. >> There's also something that helps, that we're not acknowledging, that really helped take internet from 1.0 to 2.0, it's Linux. You know I remember websites were insanely expensive. It was Windows servers, it was Sun Solaris, all of this crazy, expensive, server systems, that you needed to have, so the barrier of entry was extremely high. Then Linux came along, and you still needed to have your own data center space, and so still high, but the licensing fees kind of went away. >> And now with containers and Kubernetes-- >> Exactly. >> I made a bet I was going to get Kubernetes in a crypto show. >> Anybody from a bedroom could start a company, right? You could do it with your pajamas still on. >> John: Well orchestration's easier. >> Absolutely. So this has started, this really, revolution. Now you have blockchain and you start to introduce enterprise-grade blockchain technologies, it's the next wave, you know, it's not VoIP, it's value over IP. >> Okay, I'm going to ask both you guys a final question, to end this segment here at the block event. I know you guys want to get back, and I'm taking you anyway from the schmoozing and networking and the fun out there, deejay. Predictions, next year this time, what are we going to be? What's the we're going to look like? What's going to evolve? I mean we had a conversation with Richard, who partnered with you guys at Arcadia Crypto Partners, saying the trading things interesting, the liquidity has changed. What's your take? I want you guys both to take a minute to make a prediction. Next year, what's different, who's out, who's in, what's happening, is it growing? >> So I, you know, I would say this, surprisingly, CTOs, I love CTOs, but many CTOs, I would say that well above 50% of CTOs, still can't spell blockchain. Really, and what I mean by that, really understand the transformational power what this is, in terms of how this is really web 3.0. This is going to change so many industries, create so much value for consumers, help businesses and so forth, and we're going to cross that 50% mark. >> Next year. >> With CTOs-- >> 50% of what? Be clear on-- >> Basically, we're going, in terms of the net, that blockchain's going to capture, and really enterprises and not just enterprises, service providers and so forth-- >> 50% of the mind share or 50% of the projects? >> Yeah no, I'm talking it's, people aren't going to be saying, oh, blockchain, isn't that Bitcoin? They're going to really understand, and they're going to understand that impact. And over the course of the next 12 months, we're going to see that. And it starts, obviously in many cases, with the CIO, CTO of many companies. There are definitely a lot of CIOs and CTOs on the forefront of innovation that get it, but what I'm saying is that more than 50% don't. >> So you're saying-- They're very busy in doing what they're doing today, and it hasn't hit them yet. >> To recap, you're saying by next year, 50% of CTOs or CTO equivalents, will have a clear understanding of what blockchain is-- >> Absolutely. >> And what it can do. >> Absolutely. >> Nithin, your prediction, next year, this time, what's different, what's new, what's the prediction? >> So, one of the key things that I think is going to happen is there's going to be a lot more training, and knowledge that's going to spread out, so that a lot more people understand, what blockchain is and what bitcoin is. Even now, as Al said, he was telling about CTOs, if the CTOs are, that's the state, that they can't spell blockchain, imagine where the real common man is. You've got people like Jamie Dimon coming on TV and saying he doesn't like Bitcoin, but he likes blockchain. I'm like, what the heck is he saying? That he likes a database? >> He was selling it short 100% (chuckles) >> Yeah, he likes a database. And then you have Warren Buffett coming over there-- >> Rat poison. >> And then this is rat poison. And like my question is, does any of his funds buy gold? Do they buy gold? He was telling that this is only worth as much as the next buy buying at a higher price. >> What's Warren Buffett's best tech investment? >> I don't know, I think he bought Apple, he started buying Apple now, right? When it's reached a thousand bucks? Or it reached a trillion dollars or close to that, or 750 billion? >> The Apple buy was 2006. If you were there, then you were good. >> Yeah, but-- >> So, your prediction? >> Market wise I don't know, what's going to happen? I'm expecting this, the crypto, the utility token, or the crypto market, to be at least a six trillion dollar business. But it'll happen next year? Definitely not. But I've been proven wrong, like I was expecting it to happen by 2025, but then it went to 750 billion by December. Well, it's not too far. >> You did get the prediction right, in the Bahamas at POLYCON18, about the drop around the tax consequences of the-- >> Right. >> People slinging trades around, not knowing the tax consequences. >> Right, right. We don't know because, who knows? Because what is going on over there, is IRS is still saying it's a property. That's what the last (slurs) is. SEC is saying it is all equity, and the CFTC was saying it's commodity. So what tax do I pay? >> Okay, lightning round question, 'cause I want to, one more popped in my head. The global landscape, from an investor standpoint, the US, we know what's going on in the US, accredited, SEC is throwing, firing across, bullets across the bow of the boats, kind of holding people in line. What percentage of US big investors will be overseas by next year? >> Percentage of-- >> Having, meaning having deals being done, proxy deals being down outside the US, what percentage? >> It's still going to be low though. That is going to be low, because that, I don't think the US investor, means the large scale of those investors-- >> You don't think the big funds will co-locate outside the US? >> There will be some, but not enough. >> Put a number, a percentage. >> Percentage-wise I think it's still going to be less than 10%. >> Al, your prediction? >> In terms of investment? >> Investment, investors saying hey, I got money here, I want to put it out there. >> Outside of the United States? >> Share money, not move their whole fund, but do deals from a vehicle. >> Do deals outside. I think I agree with Nithin. >> Throwing darts at the board here. >> No, I'm going to clarify. There's definitely massive investment happening overseas. In some respects probably bigger than the United States. So that's not going away. If anything that's going to grow. But your question is, in terms of US entities, making abroad investments, overseas investments, versus just domestic? I think that trend doesn't necessarily change. You have the venture community, there are certain bigger venture funds that can have global operations 'cause at the end of the day, they need to have global operations, to be able to do that, and most venture funds aren't that massive, they don't have that infrastructure. So they're going to focus on their own backyard. So I don't necessarily think blockchain changes the venture mindset. It's just easier for them logistically to do due diligence on their own backyard and invest in those. >> Guys, always a pleasure. Great to see you. You guys are like friends with entourage here, great to get the update here at Blockchain Week. We get to Silicon Valley week, we'll connect up again. I'm John Furrier, here in New York, theCUBE's continuing coverage of crypto, decentralized applications, and blockchain of course, we're all over it. You'll see us all over, all of the web, all the shows. Thanks for watching. (techno music)

live from San Juan Puerto Rico the cube covering blockchain unbound brought to you by blockchain industries hey welcome back everyone live here at the cube in Puerto Rico for our extended coverage exclusive coverage two days wall-to-wall I'm John for the coast the cube co-founder Silk'n angle Media Inc we're here at Alber geo founder of digital bits I owe two days our racket here in Puerto Rico Puerto Rico great to see you thanks for having me guys keep alumnae you're like you know my wingman on the crypto yeah we both were at poly Connie - you're the only cube alumni their first show in crypto as we start our tour now we have a mask probably like 40 interviews so now have 40 new cube alumni but a great community growing a new level of interesting dynamics I want to get your reaction to in any wave there's always a start entrepreneurs making things happen then the promoters the promoters and the entrepreneurs cheerlead each other they cheer lead but it gets up to the point where there's a lot of growth and then the next levels a new set of stakeholders investors global players new stakeholders governments are it's happening now for me this is the moment I starting to see the ecosystem going to that next level blockchain unbound the event we're here at Puerto Rico is a combination of developer conference industry conference investor conference economic world forum rolled into one so it's kind of a unique thing you've been doing a lot of presentations your sponsor here even though your startup a lot of conversations do you agree with that your thoughts your reaction yeah there's definitely the topics or the presentations both yesterday and today have covered all those areas that you discussed with in addition to die would say there's a focus on Puerto Rico itself I mean this particular event that we chose to sponsor which like to point out that everyone is promoting our logo simply by wearing the lanyard for the event but you promise not even out yet no we actually we had an announcement this week so we issued a press release basically articulating for everyone to understand the vision for our blockchain and also announcing that it's going to be launched on Monday so we're really excited about that the team's been working really hard over the past you know number of months working away and we have more exciting news that obviously would be coming up very shortly in terms of what we've done and so forth but our actual blockchain network is going live on Monday I know slaughter is also a sponsor they had a hot deal you've a hot deal your Protestant alia is coming out on Monday you have an announcement what is the product the digital bits it's an open-source project yeah so what's it going to end blockchain infrastructure protocol so I'm watching you know network that we've launches but anybody can tokenize on this blockchain however the specific vision for our project is to support the loyalty rewards industry we see a huge 1/3 of points every year that I guess you go unredeemed the in the United States alone is over 100 billion dollars and perceived value points sitting on the balance sheets of these issuers from retailers airlines so on and so forth it's a huge liquidity issue that number grows every year and so that's what that's one dot o and blockchain has the opportunity to bring loyalty rewards obviously many other things into to dot o and change that game of them and eliminate tremendous amount of friction and challenges that traditionally been experienced by consumers businesses and so forth in the space and so on our blockchain businesses whether it's their existing loyalty program or new loyalty Ramkin tokenize that program on our blockchain and you know so we're not ourselves operating loyalty program but we are very much supporting that industry and in addition to that these various points that are tokenized on our blockchain can be you know consumers could trade points say four points be and so on that's awesome also al you've been also active in the community here in Puerto Rico I've noticed that you've been involved in a lot of activities here on site Puerto Rico since the hurricane sideways big problems aid now getting back on its feet of this community has been doing a lot of stuff you've been very answering that what's going on explain to the people what is the vibe in Puerto Rico is it is it rebounding is it rebound is on the rebounding coming back the role of check the attacks breaks there's a lot of things going on here and there's a number of events obviously this week and going into early next week under this theme called restart week you know from what we've all learned is that there's still a lot of parts of the cylon without power and so forth what's really great I think about this event among other things is that all the proceeds from this event it's a non-profit so go to the people of Puerto Rico and beyond that there is a community here whether it's you know early in the morning for the course of the day and so forth they can you know arrange initiatives and what-have-you to you know do things here to help give back and there's a not I don't think it's just isolated this week has obviously been a lot of news in terms of things that have been happening leading up to to now and and things happening in the future blockchain you and the botching community put the current securities and so forth are really focused on wanting to help you know this island and I think it's a wonderful Island I mean it's you know it's my first visit here but I you know it's it's not it's not hard to fall in love with Barbara Cuba's landed here for two days we're wrapping up two days of coverage what's your observation in the hallways I hear a lot of things happening I heard one VC our investor not VC but now a token investor seven deals mo use a lot of smart people here so the block tower guy earlier I see all the legacy whales are here so the entrepreneurs are here a lot money flowing around there you know so there's obviously a lot of news in terms of how regulation is evolving some jurisdictions faster than others in terms of the introduction of clarity and what-have-you but that clearly doesn't appear to be flopping the enthusiasm in blockchain I mean and it's just further validation in terms of how powerful this technology really is and and you know we'll continue to find its way into into society and so forth I you know well I think it's people have faith that you know in some of these jurisdictions that aren't necessarily moving as quickly that they'll get there and and so you know as a result of that people just continue to stay in the game because it's great to be early so I got to ask you about the just overall activities on-site off-site cowan agendas around the corner tomorrow yes response to there as well by the way well you're flush with cash why sponsor I'm just curious um so because you're a start-up you don't have a product that's right but you pray to the company yes yeah and so we were getting our brand out there now we're coming out of stealth mode this is the first event that we chose to sponsor when agent obviously being the second and so very important we want to let consumer as businesses you know the community know what what we're doing with watching and you know we have and again the course of the next few weeks additional announcements will be making in terms of great people that are involved great partners and so course we're really excited to get that up and the utter in the open and at the end of the day when you build a product marketing is important alright and so this is a great community to support proceeds are going to the this particular event foresees go to a great cause and a lot of great people here so you know among the people on the planet that we would love to have know what we were up to and so that's why we made the decision so as you're doing an IC oh we're not doing an IC engine yeah okay what what are you doing so we have a lot of interest obviously in our project and you know we basically are taking alternative compliant approach to to this and we'll be announcing that obviously at some point in the future but when I said the legal practice no one in practice that one I'll try to knock you off your game go back and rephrase the question so how are you financing this so the great thing is that we've done nothing crypto in terms of creating you know having capital to build this so meeting your own capital yeah we had our own capital so digital bits was born in a company called fuse chamber so a few chain races traditional equity to go do what it wanted to do and among those things was to give birth to this open source project called digit the digital bits project and so you know we didn't need to prematurely create a token just for the sake of having a funding event so we would have capital to build this we did not need to do anything crypto related to be able to have capital to build a blockchain now you are doing crypto related so the show what what's happening with us is that again the network goes live on Monday will be clearly distributing for the market the utility and you know organically you'll see use of what we've done and obviously during stealth mode we evangelize with key partners and prospective partners which gonna be on that your launch who's gonna be using your chain so it will be obviously businesses that are looking to tokenize but in addition you have names we have names what you know unfortunately I can't say the art this time I get announced my money we will be announcing in the future yeah so not on Monday okay I'm Monday we we've Monday on the launch will announce who are amongst the new additions to the team as well on Monday I've been following the launch will will now so who some of the partners are as well well rumor has it you got a hot deal I can tell by your body language you try not to reveal it what's been the reaction for this project it's been phenomenal I mean it's you know obviously as an entrepreneur to to see a vision become a reality and for others share to share that enthusiasm is is is you know it's humbling and so but you know we're very focused we know it's still you know it's a saying that I like you know you know you know with in early in the early days it's not necessarily the time to you know crack open the champagne you still have to demonstrate product market fit you have to help build a market in our particular case so there's a lot of hard work launch it's a start line it's just like it's only a step along the whole process so a lot more steps ahead but we're very focused we know we believe we know what we need to do and it's gonna be a phenomenal year for us all right what's coolest thing you heard this week and the weirdest thing you heard this week no coming no calm that was the weirdest thing you heard okay we know some weird things going on ow cube alumni wingman on the crypto for the cube great to see you good to have you back on thank you very much good stuff Alberto entrepreneur founder of digital bits yo I'm John furry - cube more coverage here in Puerto Rico blockchain unbound after the short break

>> Announcer: Live From Nassau in the Bahamas, it's theCUBE covering Polycon 18. Brought to you by Polymath. >> Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of Polycon 18. We are in the Bahamas. It's theCUBE's coverage of the cryptocurrency, ICO's, blockchain, the entire industry on token economics. This is sponsored by Polymath, they're the host, hosting us here. They make a securitized token platform to help people tokenize their business. I'm here with Dave Vellante, and we're here with Al Burgio, Cube alumni, one of the only Cube alumni here. Now we're adding more, good to see you. >> Thank you for having me, guys. >> Thanks for coming on, Al, you're the CEO/founder of a blockchain venture, Fusechain, and open-source project, DigitalBits. >> Correct. >> DigitalBits.io, we talked about this on studio in Palo Alto, around the project, how's it going? Are you doing an ICO, what's happening, what's the momentum, talk about what's going on. >> Well the momentum is great, um, as we can see by an event like this. I mean, the attendance in phenomenal, the discussions are great, and there's definitely an ongoing movement towards blockchain, cryptocurrencies and so forth. And we're obviously very excited to be a part of it, and equally so been experiencing phenomenal success while we've been in stealth mode, and we're excited to be sharing that in the coming weeks to the public. >> I always try to get data out of you, but you're like an iron trap, man. You like, will not reveal it. I saw you in the hallways this morning, and even last night at dinner, I mean, surrounded by investors you're getting, and people throwing their cards at you. That's a good sign, I mean, but it's still early. This is an emerging ecosystem, and you're a senior entrepreneur, so you're attracting that kind of interest in the venture solid. What's the story, what's the story of these investors? What are they interested in, why are they approaching you, why the appetite for your project? And how are you approaching as a seasoned ICO, most people want to promote the hell out of their opportunities. You're not, you're taking a different approach. >> Well we definitely, obviously we'll turn on the marketing engine with a full tank of gas. And you'll see that in the coming weeks, but we've been able to definitely have, you know, a significant number of conversations while in the stealth mode phase. Really I think what's attracting a lot of the interest is that we've identified a massive market opportunity. And really where blockchain technology can help, among other things, bring a liquidity to a space that does lack liquidity, and that for us, is the loyalty rewards market. It's a multi-billion dollar market, and we feel that what we've built with the DigitalBits protocol and the DigitalBits network is really going to solve a big problem out there for businesses, enterprises, as well as consumers. And you know, we're excited to be bringing that to life, and with phenomenal support from ecosystem partners, among others. >> Let's talk about the show. We're going to bring you back tomorrow when we wrap up, cause I know you got a lot of meetings and scheduling, you got to check out the sessions, so I want to get your take on the show after the fact. But going into the show, you have some early conversations, some early data's coming in from these hallway conversations and interviews. What are you seeing, I mean, what's the bottom line? Is it ICOs are hot, the SEC is coming down and putting out subpoenas, a wave of subpoenas recently. The advisor role, you got venture capitalists, it's unregulated, they're selling, they're pumping, they're dumping. You know I know of a couple people that are in some coin deals that are, you know, venture funds, but they're also marketing. >> Yeah. >> The same thing, so they're getting their hand slapped. What's the state of the industry? >> I think, you know, there's high energy in the space. It's moving really fast, and some organizations are getting overly anxious, moving perhaps a little too fast without getting their ducks in a row, and maybe perhaps that's resulting in some wrist slapping. But overall, you know, this is a big evolution that's happening. And what we're seeing obviously is a new asset class, but it can take the shape of perhaps the security, or utility, and you know, the law applies to these things differently. And so, you know, people need to do their homework. >> So you were at the VideoCoin event last night. That had been very successful. We're going to have Halsey Minor come on shortly for an interview, seasoned entrepreneur, he's back at the game. I mean, this market's attracting pros. We had the Goldman Sachs guys now run BlockTower, institutional investors, you got pro entrepreneurs coming on, and you got the young guns coming up. I mean this is really kind of a really robust, fertile environment. >> I think it's only the beginning. We're going to see a tremendous amount of ongoing pedigree enter this space. Every day we're seeing evidence of ongoing validation, and you know, it's by no coincidence that we're already seeing some phenomenal pedigree, and I think you know, like I said, it's just going to continue. >> What's the one observation that you would share to people that are watching about this event? Obviously lot of Canadians here, you're Canada living in the U.S., but it's not just Canadians, it's a global economy, what's your observation? >> Sorry? >> What's your observation of the show? >> There's definitely, if I look at the attendee list here, it's this convergence that's happening. So you have Wall Street or the Canadian equivalent, which is Bay Street, you know traditional investment banking, brokerage-type institutions that are here, very curious in terms of how blockchain will impact the securities markets. And then you have the innovators that are on the forefront of this really driving the technology that's going to support and help even that industry evolve. So there's a lot of talk here, in particularly as it relates to that category of things. >> Lot of whales, a lot of influencers, a lot of advisors, a lot of money here, lot of action. >> Lot of action. >> All right, Al Burgio is the founder and CEO of Fusechain, and the sponsors of DigitalBits.io, it's a great open-source project, check it out. I'm going to still try to get some information out of you, cause you're still in stealth mode, but you're good. >> Thanks for having me, guys. >> Thanks for coming on. >> Cube alumni here in Bahamas for theCUBE coverage. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante. More coverage after this short break.

(uptempo orchestral music) >> Hello and welcome to a special exclusive conversation here in the studios of Palo Alto, California. I'm John Furrier, your co-host and theCube co-founder of Silicon Angle Media. We have exclusive, breaking launch here from a Cube alumni Al Burgio, who's the founder and CEO of Fusechain, a hot start up going after the blockchain, a little bit of open source. This is a launch. This is new information coming out. You still (indistinct talking) for the first time talking about your project again Cube alumni. Welcome to the theCube conversation. >> Thank you for having me John. >> You're the founder and CEO of Fusechain. >> That's correct. >> So you're just in Miami, 5000 people at these blockchain conferences which are exploded the biggest wave. Crypto and Blockchain in tandem are creating a very attractive and intoxicating market. It's the biggest wave we've seen in all the alpha entrepreneurs going out there. Some scammers too are trying to get into this market. We've documented that on theCube. But it's the biggest wave we've seen in a long time. You're out there. Talk about what is Fusechain? What's the story? Gives us the update. >> Sure. So Fusechain is a blockchain technology company, really founded to support a new open source project that is also coming out of stealth mode called the digital bits project. It's focused on disrupting the coalition loyalty industry. What we refer to as let's say one dot of loyalty in rewards. We feel that that market is ripe for disruption. A lot of frictions, others I'm happy to talk about in that space and we feel that blockchain in a decentralized model with the right partners and coalition could change the game. >> So you've got a T-shirt for us. I appreciate it called digital bits. New open source project. What I like about what you're doing, first of all you got a great track record. You have a ton of start ups you've done in the past and again great exits and you always have a good eye for where there's disruption and certainly crypto is dislocating industries, not just disrupting. Radically changing the makeup so before I dig into that. I want to get into digital bit. It's a little bit open source. So you have an open source project combined with what you guys do, so it sounds like you're what Red Hat was for Linux. You're for digital bits, is that? >> That's right so we are. So Fusechain is focused on building applications that are interoperable with that blockchain to support enterprises which is merchants, retailers, hotels so forth that would be working with the digital bits project. And so we feel that there is an opportunity to monetize that building let's say SAS type models around these applications and supporting and helping make digital events very successful. >> So it's interesting, I was observing when I was in New York last fall and I walked into a funds conversation with a bunch of guys. And people were trying to grop where the action was and I raised my hand and said, you can tell a good deal by the ones that are going to take down and incumbent industry, not just the player. You're taking a similar approach which I like about what your deal is. What is it about your approach and what is the target and how are you going to attack that? >> Sure, sure. First and foremost, really focused on blockchain and what was important for us characteristics wise and we felt that it needed to rapid transaction in terms of nature. Seconds as opposed to blocks, let's say every 10 minutes like a bitcoin for example. Because we are focused ultimately let's say on the consumer space. So we first and foremost on how our approach to developing this protocol and supporting the digital bits project. From there it was what industry did we feel would be best suited for this and this is how we gravitate into the loyalty industry. There is already a learned behavior in loyalty. People look at points as let's say a form of currency. They know how to go join one earn and what have you. It's like human mining, if you will and so we wanted to fit let's blockchain technology loyalty as opposed to fitting loyalty into blockchain. The other thing that I liked in terms of us going in this direction was really looking at. There was a lot of different ICOs, blockchain projects out there and so forth. We're the first to market with this. We're the first to market with that, but what's the incumbent doing in corporate America? Let's say, they're probably sitting and waiting and there's nothing preventing them copycatting and doing the same when there's enough of an established market. What I liked about loyalty more specifically the coalition models. We didn't feel that with a decentralized model. Putting into the market a decentralized model that they could replicate that the same way, It's like if you look at Netflix and what they did to Blockbuster. Blockbuster could not pivot quite the same way. We feel that loyalty dot one, specifically the coalition programs, will have a challenges in adopting blockchain in a similar manner. And so we feel that for that reason what we're up to here with this plain venture it's going to be highly disruptive. >> Let's get to the business model after we talk a little bit about the actual tech and the products. So you have digit bits and I notice you guys have a trade mark on that going on. But it's going to be open source. So what is digital bits? Is that the coin? Is it a utility token? How does it work? What are you actually doing? >> So digital bits is the name of the open source project. It's the name of the blockchain protocol. It will be the name of the cryptocurrency, so all the name of that cryptocurrency to that blockchain once it's put in circulation. And the project itself, we will ultimately see that spun into a foundation so it's the name of all of the above in terms of what digital bits is. Fusechain is a contributor to that project and we obviously like what it stands for. We're building parallel management platforms and so forth. Others are free to do this as well and have begun to do so. That will help make that project successful. >> So in other words, it creates a code from digital bits and apply it but you're going to be a token in the project. >> Yeah, if you think of, use Red Hat as an example. So there was open source project out there, various Linux type projects back in the day and big enterprises wanted to take advantage of that. But who was going to support them doing that? So Red Hat obviously established a very successful market in doing that so in a similar manner. We want to support digital bits in a very big way. We're building applications that businesses are going to need so they don't have to go build them themselves, and it will bring those markets. >> Who are you targeting? You're targeting existing businesses that have loyalty. You're trying to take that business away from them. Isn't that new? What the-- >> So coalition loyalty industry is fairly well established. >> John: What does that mean coalition? >> Coalition is multi merchant so in the United States, a brand known as Punti, that happens to be owned by American Express, but you can go to Macy's earn Punti, ExxonMobil and so forth. Canada is very big market for this as well so you have air miles, major grocery chains. >> John: They're always expiring, I hate these programs. >> Well that's the other issue with them. So there's tremendous friction and frustration now with these programs that exists. We're looking to disrupt that as well and provide-- >> So how do they work with you? Give an example of the use case that (indistinct talking). >> Ultimately we feel that, from a coalition standpoint often times the merchant is paying a reoccurring fee to support that program. So let's say big grocery store or hotel or what have you and in order for the privilege of their customers to be able to earn let's say, while shopping online at their store or in that facility just for the privilege of their users to be able to earn, the merchant is having to pay the operator that program, before the consumer has done anything with those points and so it's a big cost to them and we basically just to quantify, it can be as much of an 80% savings verses what the merchant would have to pay the support. One dot to support this decentralized blockchain base solution. >> So you guys are a decentralized application or are you a decentralized platform or you an infrastructure protocol? How do you categorically define yourself? >> So digital bits is definitely an infrastructure protocol but focus specifically on loyalty rewards and so just to, it's really opened in that sense that various businesses can join and support this. In a number of different ways whether it's pre-existing products, platforms that they have. They want it to be inoperable or they simply want their users to be able to now earn this form of loyalty. And we have in the coming weeks, you'll see announcements from other brands, some let's say blue chipish and others up and coming early stage companies with doing loyalty in a different way, joining the digital bits project to take advantage of the tokenize economy. >> I like this Red Hat to Linux in metaphor because I think no one's actually seen that yet happen. I see a lot of (indistinct talking) happen certainly the (indistinct talking) a decentralized apps or de-apps as they are called is huge growth market. We see a big tsunami coming with de-apps, decentralized applications. So will I be writing decentralized apps on your platform infrastructure? Is that they're doing? How are they implementing in your mind the Fusechain and the digital bits? >> So I mean there's basic examples of the products in market already, let's say multi-coin wallets. If they wanted to list digital bits as another cryptocurrency that their app supports then they can support the project in that way. So there's a number of different ways that the developers are established. >> I can build my own wall. I could integrate it into a pre-existing coin wallet. So you're pretty flexible, you're agnostic on how to gets done. >> Exactly, exactly. And this is why ultimately digital bits will be spun into a foundation. >> It will establish some policies around this so it's not completely naked but some governance. >> It's always tricky, you got to be careful. >> Well, governance from the standpoint of I'm looking at it from the perspective of how merchants, the terms by which they would disseminate digital bits to their consumers. >> So some lightweight governance. Is it hardcore governance or lightweight? >> No, I would say lightweight. So it's making sure that there's no bad actors at least at the time of-- >> (indistinct talking) a non-profit apart of the Fusechain? >> No, no, non-profit. >> Okay, okay so let's get into some of your journey. I see entrepreneurial journeys are happening all the time. A lot of people are jumping into the ICO and our crypto blockchain as a start. A lot of my alpha friends are doing it. It's just like wow. This is a big trend. It's disruptive. >> Al: Oh highly. >> Where there's disruption, you're going to have entrepreneurs but also scammers. We'll get that in a second but talk about your journey. ICO, you got to get formed. Get a little form, it could be expensive. We've documented theCube with Goodwin, a law firm in the valley that's doing a lot of ICOs. It could be expensive. There's tax consequences so how are you looking as an entrepreneur? You have opportunity recognition, check. Now you got to put it together. Utility token, are you raising money, are you doing the ICO? Can you give us some details? >> So it's utility token. We are raising money Fusechain initially is focused on raising capital, let's call it the old fashioned way. So Fusechain itself is taking in equity investment not involving any cryptocurrency. >> So no token sales on that simply. >> Is to date but a digital bits itself will be partaking and raising capital for the project. >> With Fusechain's ICO or their own ICO? >> No, no, it will be the digital bits projects. >> So will the ICO go through Fusechain or will go through digital bits? >> It will go through digital bits. >> Okay so you got a utility so that involves a token sales. So you're going to do a private, that's equity for Fusechain and then a token sale for digital bits. >> Al: Correct. >> Okay, that's nice-- >> Call it the pre-presale in advance of it actually being widely disseminated. >> What is the utility of the platform because that's the how we test? >> Yeah, yeah so we're keeping it really simple to start. We feel that we'll be able to demonstrate other utilities with this project, but similar to other projects out there if you're familiar with Ripple and Stellar and so forth. Some basic utility, you need to have some of the coin to be able to send coin. And so we're keeping it relatively simple from that perspective. There's security benefits. >> So the utility you're going after at launch is token sharing. >> Correct. >> Okay, and the activity is loyalty based for the merchants? >> Yes, and consumers so ultimately, digital bits stands for all these sort things I've just mentioned integrated together in this decentralized model really focused on giving back to users. So first and foremost, users being consumers that use these programs and the merchants that have historically supported these types of programs. In addition to that, digital bits is also focused on giving back to society. More specifically aligning itself with charitable organization worldwide that the project itself will be able to give back to. >> You're the (indistinct talking) guy. Your last (indistinct talking) you successfully sold it and exit pairing and networking. One big global network now. So I want to get your perspectives on entrepreneurs and how you've been traveling. We tried to get you last week here on theCube to talk about you're project and getting out there now but you've seen a lot of the events you're out in the field, you're own in the trenches. What's the landscape like in crypto and blockchain? Can you offer any observations? Good, bad and ugly, what's it take? >> I was for example recently last week I attended the North American Bitcoin Blockchain conference down in Miami, nearly 5000 people. Tremendous buzz, great pedigree among speakers. Both domestic speakers worldwide and people I would say from all walks of life. A lot of people are interested in either in the space or very interested in the space and I don't have the numbers in terms what the attendance was last year at that conference. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's 10x-- >> Are these new in tech? Are they tech gurus? What's the makeup and profile of folks in here? >> Overstock.com CEO. One of the keynote speakers of this and obviously a very well established company heavy in blockchain with their subsidiary t0 as well as some of the up and comers. Great pedigree, more specifically associated with the blockchain space but really supporting a lot of these events and being great evangelists for all things blockchain. >> So I get your perspective again. You see many ways of innovation, we're talking before we came on camera. I've been saying and when we talk privately in the valley here and in other places that this is like a dot com bubble, but it's accelerated. Everyone's getting their surf boards and jumping on those big waves. Some think there will be a crash. I think they'll be a probably a reset. There's just too much action happening and again the dot com bubble. Everything actually happens. >> Al: Yeah. >> So a little anecdote there but the point is there's some scammers. >> Al: Yes. >> There's some bubble activity. How are you sorting through that noise? What should people look through? Because when people are like, "Well I'm skeptical. "You're riding a hype wave right now. "What's the real deal?" >> The reality is with anything super exciting, there's always scammers. You have to take traditional stocks. There's always the penny stock scammers let's say and so this is not necessarily something exclusive to blockchain tokens or what have you. We see this in the traditional capital market systems and equities that are out there today. I'd say that this is very much mid 90s internet in terms of equivalent. The benefit of blockchain is that the internet exists so social network and Facebook. The ability to get news out there, widely disseminated, The internet existed. That infrastructure is helping to support the rapid growth trend that we're seeing with blockchain. So I would say that it is a bigger phenomenon than the internet was in the 90, by virtue the internet now existing. >> I got to ask you so one of the things I always is that there's no value being created. It's really a mirage right? So this thing about blockchain is there's a lot of value creation opportunities. As an entrepreneur, you get to see that and certainly see it from the Fusechain and digital bits. If someone said to, "Al, this thing is a bunch of hype. "Where's the value?" Where's the value? Why is crypto and blockchain attracting all these entrepreneurs? Why is it so intoxicating? Why is it attracting all walks of life? What's the value creation opportunity? >> Put cryptocurrencies aside for a moment and just focus on blockchain as a technology and really what it stands for. It is truly revolutionary. This is something with capability to have distributed ledgers solving the double spend issue. All of these things that historically could not be done with the internet or other forms of technology. And so it's very powerful in terms of its applications in areas of let's say even supply chain and how businesses can have this trusted collaborative platform or technology where you don't have to trust any centralized corporation, other institution or what have you, and it just works. So that is the technology itself is highly powerful and it's already evident that it's touching a number of different industries. So outside of the cryptocurrencies, let's say craze. Blockchain is definitely here. It's here to stay and it's just going to continue-- >> That's a fundamental infrastructure shift. >> Absolutely. >> Alright, so let me give you the little snarky comment that get on Facebook all the time. "Ah John crypto, this blockchain. "Have you seen a distributed database before, lol?" That's some snarky comments. So the naysayers will be like, "It's just a distributed database ledger." And then some people will be like, "I just don't see the business case. "Why do people actually need blockchain?" What's your take on those two points? >> I think that, that's a great way to look at it. Can you solve that problem with just using regular database? And probably often times the answer is yes, so blockchain shouldn't necessarily be used for everything, but there is certain things that historically, and again-- >> (indistinct talking) is one. >> Exactly, yeah. >> (indistinct talking) attracts. >> Absolutely, and so there's a number of industries where having it be blockchain based is definitely better than dealing with distributed databases. >> I've been commenting. I'm pro-blockchain as you know. Pretty bias, people know that. However what I say to folks is look, there's a dynamic going on here that's revolutionary at the infrastructure level. I think that's true. That will play out and then I think immutability and then the decentralized nature of apps. It will be a whole another genre of software development whether it's media (indistinct talking) to software. But ultimately it's these communities, if you look at in the media business. I was just at Sundance. There's new artist coming on that have their own audiences. >> Al: Right. >> So those are crushing the elites. So you have a revolution where the common person or group of people could get together in an unstructured way, a decentralized way to take on elite or huge industry incombantants or industries themselves. That's a phenomenon. That's kind of nuance. >> Al: Absolutely. >> It's real. >> It's absolutely real. Think of open source traditionally. You needed your employer to sponsor you. Hey if work for you, can I spend 10% of my time on a open source project? The open source project itself never really had a mechanism to provide support form of remuneration. Now by tokenising and so forth these native currencies an idea can provide a potential for reward and we're seeing that happen, and so it no different than any other great idea. 90 plus % of start ups don't necessarily make it. 90 plus % of blockchain ideas may not make it but the reality is, a community with a great idea can kick off a project on their own and stand the test of time. >> Well Red Hat became popular from Linux which was a second tier citizen in an open source. Now it's tier one also open source is running things so I got to ask you a final question on the business model. How are you guys planning on making money? Is it from support in the open source projects specifically, more services on the coin side. Is it managing the coins? Do you have visibility yet into that model? >> Yes, so I would say yes to what you just said. So Fusechain will create shareholder value in a few different ways. One, obviously being one of the first supporters to the digital bit project. We obviously want to see that project wildly successful, coin appreciation and the asset appreciation that potential could occur there will create shareholder value for Fusechain. In addition to that, Fusechain is building applications that will be SAS like in model. We'll be able to derive a reoccurring revenue. (indistinct talking) models but we'll derive reoccurring revenues. >> For the ecosystem of saving the digital bits actually it evolves. >> Right, merchants, you can go build softwares yourself or here's a subscription based platform that you can use and we'll provide support as well. >> Having fun? >> I'm having a blast. It's the 90s all over again. >> It the twinkle of the eye. I got to say, it's super intoxicating. I'll take hit of that blockchain in next segment with you. Appreciate it, it's really awesome. Blockchain and crypto, really amazing revolution. We're doing our part to unpack it, analyze it and also look at the good deals out there. This is SiliconANGLE theCube here in Palo Alto. I'm John Furrier. Special exclusive to you conversation with Fusechain coming out, talking about their project for the first time digital bits with Al Burgio, the founder and CEO. Thanks for watching. (uptempo orchestral music)

(upbeat music) >> Hello, everyone. Welcome back to theCUBE's extended coverage. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We are here in Monaco at the Yacht Club, part of the VIP Gala with Prince Albert, DigitalBits, theCUBE. theCUBE and Prince Albert celebrating Monaco leaning into crypto. I'm here with Natasha Mahfar, who's our guest. She just came on theCUBE. Great story. Great to see you. Thanks for coming on. >> Thank you so much for having me. >> Tell the folks what you do real quick. >> Sure. So I actually started my career in Silicon Valley, like you have. And I had the idea of creating a startup in mental health that was voice based only. So it was peer to peer support groups via voice. So I created this startup, pretended to be a student at Stanford and built out a whole team, and unfortunately, at that time, no one was in the space of mental health and voice. Now, as you know, it's a $30 billion industry that's one of the biggest in Silicon Valley. So my career really started from there. And due to that startup, I got involved in the World XR Forum. Now, the World XR Forum is kind of like a mini Davos, but a little bit more exclusive, where we host entrepreneurs, people in blockchain, crypto, and we have a five day event covering all sorts of topics. So- >> When you host them, you mean like host them and they hang out and sleep over? It's a hotel? Is it an event? A workshop? >> There's workshops. We arrange hotels. We pretty much arrange everything that there is. >> It's a group get together. >> It's a group get together. Pretty much like Davos. >> And so Natasha, I wanted to talk to you about what we're passionate about which is theCUBE is bringing people up to have a voice and give them a voice. Give people a platform. You don't have to be famous. If you have something to say and share, we found that right now in this environment with media, we go out to an event, we stream as many stories, but we also have the virtual version of our studio. And I could tell you, I've found that internationally now as we bring people together, there are so many great stories. >> Absolutely. >> Out there that need to be told. And the bottleneck isn't the media, it's the fact that it's open now. >> Yes. >> So why aren't the stories coming out? So our mission is to get the stories. >> Wow. >> Scale stories. The more stories that are scaled, the more people can feel it. More people are impacted by it, and it changes the world. It gets people serendipity with data 'cause we're, you know, you shared some data about what you're working on. >> Yeah, of course. It's all about data these days. And the fact that you're doing it so openly is great because there is a need for that today, so. >> What do you see right now in the market for media? I mean, we got emerging markets, a lot of misinformation. Trust is a big problem. >> Right. >> Bullying, harassing. Smear campaigns. What's news, what's not news. I mean, how do you get your news? I mean, how do people figure out what's going on? >> No, absolutely. And this is such a pure format and a way of doing it. How did you come up with the idea, and how did you start? >> Well, I started... I realized after the Web 2.0, when social media started taking over and ruining the democratization . Blogging, podcasting, which I started in 2004, one of the first podcasts in Silicon Valley. >> Wow. >> I saw the network of that. I saw the value that people had when normal people, they call it user generated content, shared information. And I discovered something amazing that a nobody like me can have a really top podcast. >> Well, you're definitely not a nobody, but... >> Well, I was back then. And nobody knew me back then. But what it is is that even... If you put your voice out there, people will connect to it. And if you have the ability to bring other people in, you start to see a social dynamic. And what social media ruined, Facebook, Twitter, not so much Twitter 'cause Twitter's more smeary, but it's still got to open the API, LinkedIn, they're all terrible. They're all gardens. They don't really bring people together, so I think that stalled for about almost eight years or nine years. Now, with crypto and decentralization, you start to see the same thing come back. Democratization, level the playing field, remove the middle man and person, intermediate the middle bottlenecks. So with media, we found that live streaming and going to events was what the community wants. And then interviewing people, and getting their ideas out there. Not promotional, not getting paid to say stuff. Yeah, they get the plug in for the company that they're working on, that's good for everybody. But more share something that you're passionate about, data. And it works. And people like it. And we've been doing it for 12 years, and it creates a great brand of openness, community, and network effect. So we scaled up the brand to be- >> And it seems like you're international now. I mean, we're sitting in Monte Carlo, so I don't think it gets better than that. >> Well, in 2016, we started going international. 2017, we started doing stuff in Europe. 2018, we did the crypto, Middle East. And we also did London, a lot of different events. We had B2B Enterprise and Crypto Blooming. 2019, we were like, "Let's go global with staff and whatnot." >> Wow. >> And the pandemic hits. >> I know. >> And that really kind of allowed us to pivot and turn us into a virtual hybrid. And that's why we're into the metaverse, as we see the value of a physical face to face event where intimacy's there, but why aren't my friends connected first party? >> Right. How much would you say the company has grown from the time that you kind of pivoted? >> Well, we've grown in a different direction with new capabilities because the old way is over. >> Right. >> Every event right now, this event here, is in person. People are talking. They get connections. But every person that's connecting has a social graph behind them that's online too, and immediately available. And with Instagram, direct messaging, Telegram, Signal, all there. >> It's brilliant. Honestly, it was brilliant idea and a brilliant pivot. >> Thank you for interviewing me. >> Yeah, of course. (Natasha and John laugh) >> Any other questions? >> That should do it. >> Okay. Are you going to have fun tonight? >> Absolutely. >> What is your take of the Monaco scene here? What's it like? >> You know, I think it's a really interesting scene. I think there's a lot of potential because this is such an international place so it draws a very eclectic crowd, and I think there's a lot that could be done here. And you have a lot of people from Europe that are starting to get into this whole crypto, leaving kind of the traditional banks and finance behind. So I think the potential is very strong. >> Very progressive. Well, Natasha, thank you for sharing. >> Thank you so much. >> Here on theCUBE. We're the extended edition CUBE here in Monaco with Prince Albert, theCUBE, and Prince Albert, DigitalBits Al Burgio, a great market here for them. And just an amazing time. And thanks for watching. Natasha, thanks for coming on. Thanks for watching theCUBE. We'll be back with more after this break. (upbeat music)

>> Live from Toronto, Canada, it's theCUBE, covering Global Cloud and Blockchain Summit 2018. Brought to you by theCUBE. >> Hello everyone, welcome to the live coverage here in Toronto for the Global Cloud and Blockchain Summit here put on as prior to the big event this week called the Futurist Conference. TheCUBE will be here all week with live coverage. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante as we expand our coverage with theCUBE into the blockchain and crypto token economics world. We're here on the ground. We're covering the best events. We started in 2018 initiating CUBE coverage on the sector. Of course we've been covering Bitcoin and blockchain going back to 2011 on SiliconANGLE.com. Dave, we're here to kick off what is the first inaugural event of its kind, combining cloud computing coverage with blockchain, and as we had on our fireside chat last night, we discussed this in detail. Cloud computing and blockchain, either going to be a collision course or it's going to be a nice integration. And we discussed that. This is what this show is all about, is it's really about connecting the dots to the future. The role that cloud computing will play with blockchain and token economics, a variety of different perspectives, but again, this is the first time we in the industry are starting to unpack the mega-trend of cloud computing, which we know is like a freight train powering and disrupting, and we cover it in detail. But blockchain is certainly transforming and reimagining business and process coming together. >> Well, we're here in Toronto, which of course is the birthplace of Ethereum, and it's interesting to see how Toronto has attracted so many developers in the software and engineering space, and there's a huge crypto community here. I'll give you my take on the cloud and blockchain. I don't see them on a collision course. I see blockchain, and we've talked about this, and crypto as a part of this other layer that's emerging. You had the internet, you had the web. On top of that you had cloud, mobile, social, big data, and it was essentially a cloud of remote services. What we're seeing now is this ubiquitous set of digital services of which blockchain is one. And to me it's all about automation, machine intelligence, blockchain being able to do things without middle man. You made that point last night on the fireside chat. And I think it's complementary. You need cloud for scale. Everything's digital, which means data. And you need machine intelligence for automation. And that is the new era that we're entering, and blockchain is playing a big part of that because of its inherent encryption, its immutability, and its ability to show proof of work. So it's a key component of a number of different digital services that are going to transform virtually every industry. >> Certainly, then, that's a tailwind for the industry, and certainly we see that. All the alpha entrepreneurs, alpha geeks, and a lot of the business pros see blockchain and token economics as a dynamic that will certainly change things. Today in Toronto this week, certainly not a good week for pricing of currencies. The crypto market is down, Ethereum and Ripple are at yearly lows. And communities are kind of getting scared. We talked with Matt Roszak, an early investor and founder of BloQ, last night about the price declines, and he said, "I've seen this pattern before. "These price selloffs also kick off "the next wave of growth." So there's a kind of a weeding out, was his perspective. But you can't deny that over the past 24 hours, 30 billion has been erased from the crypto market caps, and the greatest decline is happening under Bitcoin's dominance, and still increased over, still 56% over the year. So Bitcoin seems to be holding more value than, say, Ethereum. Ethereum and Ripple really under a lot of pressure. So the insiders, some are scared, some are like, hey, we've seen this movie before. Waves are a little bit rough right now, but they're in for the long game. So this is a long game going on and then there's also money being lost. >> Well, Matt was saying bet the farm now. He said he's seen this before. Take everything, the mortgage, the house. I'm not sure I would advise doing that, but this is the time, buy low. So just for the numbers, Bitcoin's high last November/December was 19,000, it's down at 6,000 now. So as you say, it's still up almost 50% for the year, but if you compress that timeframe to nine months, it's down 60%, so very, very volatile. Ethereum, on the other hand, last September was trading at around 240, 250, and today it's in the 260s. So back to where it was last September. The curve on Ethereum sort of looks like it did end of last summer, whereas Bitcoin is still almost 70% up from where it was last September. So quite a bit of difference between the two cryptocurrencies. And you mentioned Ripple, IOTA, many of the cryptocurrencies-- >> Ripple's dropping 90% from its 2018 highs. 90%. (both laugh) Some money was made and lost on that one, so again, we always say when the music stops you better be sitting in a chair. Otherwise this is bubble behavior, but you know Matt and others and the insiders are saying they're still bullish because of the pattern. Even though it's a selloff, it's a weeding out process and they see still good deals going on. And again, this is going to come fundamentally down to whose technology's going to be adopted, what kind of application can be written on blockchain, which is seeing some promise in the enterprise. Just yesterday Microsoft announced a blockchain as a service kind of thing with proof of authority and new concepts. IBM, we've been covering IBM with blockchain, their work with the Hyperledger standards. You've got the enterprises. Amazon has kind of telegraphed, they actually put a professional service note out where they are doing some blockchain. The big clouds are getting into the game, so the question is, will the clouds suck all the oxygen out of the blockchain room, and will there be room for other blockchains? Again, this is the big debate. Is it going to be a fragmentation of a series of blockchains, or will there be some sort of set of standards? Again, we don't know what the stack's going to look like because the best thing about blockchain is you could roll it out and implement a portion of the stack and still coexist with whatever standards emerge. So again, these are the questions. >> Well, one of the conversations that of course is going on is actually, the number of transactions that's occurring with Bitcoin is way down, it's probably down 20% year to date. The other conversation is we all know that Bitcoin and Ethereum, the transaction volumes can't really support what we do with Visa or even Amazon. There's a discussion in the industry going around about what if Amazon shows some other coin? Like Ripple, for example, which has much higher transaction volumes. Or what if Amazon tokenized its own business, came up its own cryptocurrency? What would that do to the price of Bitcoin, if all of a sudden you could transact in Prime using AmazonCoin or something like that? And we know that Amazon understands how to scale, it obviously understands cloud. That's why I do see cloud and blockchain as complementary. It's very difficult to predict the future. There are those who say Bitcoin is the standard, it's got the brand. There are those who say that Ethereum, because it's much more flexible and you can program distributed apps with it, have a great future. And then everybody points to the transaction volumes and says, this is just a Petri dish for the future where new technologies will emerge that scale better and can produce. >> What's interesting last night on the, we had a fireside chat with Al Burgio, serial entrepreneur, founder of DigitalBits, and Matt Roszak, obviously founder of BloQ and investor, he's on the Forbes billionaire list, super active, very engaged on a lot of advisors, Binance is one and many other deals he's done, it's interesting, you got two perspectives. Al is the networking guy who knows plumbing, knows how networks work, and Matt's a token economics genius. So the two have interesting perspectives and the battle royal going on right now, in my opinion, is two things. I think token economics is a wonderful thing that's going to happen no matter what the standards are, 'cause token economics really is the value to me of the cryptocurrency that can be applied to new business models and efficiencies. The blockchain is a land grab, and here's why. I think whoever can nail the plumbing and the pipes of the infrastructure reminds me of the early days of the dial-up web, when you had points of presence and you had the infrastructure had to be laid down. Although slow, people can dial up and get the internet, then obviously the internet got faster and faster. Blockchain's struggling from that scalability performance issues, and so the question is, on a public blockchain, you got to have the supernodes, you got to have the core infrastructure plumbing nailed. I think Al Burgio takes that perspective. Then everything else just will flourish from there. So the question is, what do those hurdles look like? And this is where the cloud guys could either be an enabler or they could be a foe against the core community. Like you said, Amazon could just snap their fingers tomorrow and take out the entire industry with one move. Just, we're going to do our own blockchain as a service. Everyone uses it, here's our token, and then a set of sub-tokens would have to be coexisting with that. And that could be a good thing, we don't know. This is the discussion. >> And governments around the world could do the same. US government could do Fedcoin, the Chinese government could do Chinacoin. I mean, what would that do to the prices of cryptocurrencies? I mean, it would send it into a tailspin, you would presume. And it was interesting. Matt Roszak on your panel last night, I asked the question, well, traditional banks lose control of the payment systems. And granted, he's biased, and he was definitive. Yes, absolutely. But the counterargument to that, John, and I'd love your thoughts on this, is the US government and the banks have a lot to lose. And they're kind in bed together and always have been. So one would think, with the backing of the US, its might, its military, et cetera, that they're not just going to let the banks lose control. Now, to his point is, why do you need to pay transaction fees to a bank? But you're paying transaction fees to somebody, even in crypto. >> I think our government in the United States is really asleep at the wheel on this one. And here's why. One of the beautiful things about the internet was it was started through collaboration in the universities in the United States. The United States enabled the internet to happen, and the Department of Commerce managed it. The Domain Name System was managed in a very community-oriented way. Again, community, keyword. As opposed to all this, that history is well-documented. If people aren't familiar with the history of the Domain Name System, DNS, go check out the Wikipedia, research it. It was run by a bunch of people who managed the database of website names. And that became sacred and was distributed. >> And funded by the US government. >> Funded by the US government, but the community managed it. The problem with the US government today is that they are meddling in areas that they actually shouldn't be even playing in. You got the SEC, it's shutting down everything right now just by the threat of subpoenas in the ICO market, which puts the overall country into a handicapped position, because now the innovation of blockchain and the entrepreneurial innovation that's happening is stunted, and it's just shifting outside the United States. So what's happening is the money flow and the energy and the activity is so high that incubation's not happening in the United States, although a lot of people are working on it. There's no funding mechanism. The capital formation of blockchain's different than venture. It's not super different, but somewhat different, but it's happening outside the United States. Certainly the Chinese will be in benefit of this. And if the Chinese wanted to shut down blockchain they would have done it by now. They're actually fostering it, and it's an opportunity for someone on the international stage to get a lever in the United States. So that's one. The second thing is they can enable crypto if they wanted to and I think they really should look at that and I think the banks are central organizations, the World Bank, they're under a lot of pressure. They don't know what to do. So when I talk to people, that's the same answer in so many words, is the government and the regulators really just don't know what to do. >> Well, and Matt made the point last night, Matt Roszak, that when he talks to these banks they're talking about using blockchain and they're very excited because they're going to take hundreds of millions of dollars of cost out of their, you know, infrastructure and their processes that are just not very efficient, and that's going to drop right to the bottom line. And of course they're in the money business, so that gets them very excited. His point was that's really not what it's about. Yeah, that's nice, but it's really about transforming the businesses, and that's why I asked the question about banks losing control of the payment systems. Opens up a whole new opportunities, whether it's financial services, healthcare, automotive. And again, to me, it comes back to digital, which is data, plus machine intelligence plus cloud for scale. You called it. I think at IBM Think, you coined it the innovation sandwich. Data plus machine intelligence plus cloud for scale. Put that together, that is the innovation engine for the next decade plus. >> The innovation sandwich, unlike a wish sandwich, where you wish you had some meat in the middle. You know, this is a good point. Let's end this kickoff and get into some of the interviews here with these really early thought leaders in this new conference. This is the first of its kind, cloud and blockchain, and we're going to certainly continue this in Silicon Valley with theCUBE summit coming up and our events that we do. But let's get some predictions out, because remember, this is theCUBE. Everything's going to be out there, it's going to be on the record, so we can look back and say, hey Dave, remember in 2018 when I asked you what's going to happen? So let's get into a prediction. What do you think's going to happen? I'll start and you can think up an answer. So here's my prediction on this whole blockchain world. Not so much crypto or token economics. It's really two predictions. With respect to blockchain, I think you're going to see an exact movement that the cloud market took, and I think it's going to happen in three phases. Phase one is all the energy's going to go into public blockchain, and public blockchain will be figured out first, and people are going to get excited by the new operation models of blockchain, specifically the decentralization of how that works and the benefits of decentralized blockchain, immutability, no central authority, and all the benefits of blockchain. I think it's going to be very rapid growth in the fixing of blockchain. Speed, scale, that's going to happen very quickly. And it's going to happen publicly. Then you're going to see private blockchains. You're going to see on premises kind of like blockchain. Kind of like the cloud, people have onsite, private. And then you're going to see a hybrid. The hybrid will look like multi-chain solutions. This is almost an exact trajectory that cloud computing took, because blockchain feels like a cousin of cloud or a brother or a sister. So it's related, but not exactly, but I think it's kind of the same trajectory. Public, private, hybrid, which is a multi-chain model, and I think that's going to be the standards. That's going to be the market track. On the token side, I think you're going to see a couple key tokens, like certainly Bitcoin's not going away. I'd be doubling down on Bitcoin under 6,000, like everything on that. That should hit 20,000, in my opinion, over the next timeframe. But there's going to be a lot of token integrations. My token integrates with your token and almost natives and secondary tokens kind of blending together where people with coexist tokens on one platform. So it's just too powerful not to have that happen. So that's my prediction. What do you think? >> I think as it relates to blockchain, I think blockchain becomes, in the enterprise I think it becomes an invisible component of virtually every industry. 'Cause every industry has waste, can improve efficiencies, and blockchain becomes a way to, whether it's supply chain or settlements or shared ledgers, I mean, there's dozens of applications for them and I think blockchain becomes a fundamental component of a digital infrastructure, and it's starting now and I think it's here to stay for many decades and beyond. And you won't even see it. It's just going to be there. It's going to become a fundamental part of how we do business. On the token side, very interesting, obviously, hard to predict. I think that you're going to see continued volatility, of course, I think that's a safe bet. But I also think it's potentially going to get worse before it gets better. I think there's going to be a shakeout. I think you're going to see, there continues to be pump and dump scams going on, the US government's getting more aggressive, a bunch of subpoenas went out, and people are still trying to understand what that all means. So I think it's going to be rocky roads for a while. I think you're going to see a big shakeout, like a big dip, and then I think it's going to power back. I think the crypto is here to stay. And it's very, very hard to time these markets, so my advice is just buy, trickle buys on the way down and hold. HODL, as they say in this world. And I think 10 years from now it's going to be worth a lot. >> Alright, you got it here, theCUBE. We are in Toronto for the first inaugural Global Cloud and Blockchain Summit. Of course, part of the big event here in Toronto, Futurist Conference, which we'll be there live. Wednesday and Thursday, the kickoff is Tuesday night for the opening reception. It's theCUBE coverage continuing for blockchain and crypto markets. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante. Stay with us for more live coverage here in Toronto.

>> Live, from Toronto, Canada, it's theCUBE! Covering Global Cloud and Blockchain Summit 2018, brought to you by theCUBE. >> So, welcome to the Global Cloud and Blockchain Summit. I'm about to hand you over to John Furrier, who is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of SiliconANGLE Media and Executive Editor at theCUBE, he's about to do a Fireside Chat with Al and Mathew, I'll let him introduce you to them as well. He's also involved in a major blockchain project himself, so he's going to get into that with those guys as well. So, and tomorrow we start at nine, in the meantime, enjoy the evening, enjoy the food, enjoy the chat, and I'll let you go. >> Okay. Hello? Thank you Ruth, appreciate it, thanks everyone for being part of this panel, Fireside Chat, want to make it loose, but high impact for you guys, I know, having some cocktails, having a good time. If there's any questions during, then at the end we'll pass the mic around, but. We want to have a conversation, kind of like we always do down in the lobby bar, just talking about crypto and cloud, and we ended up talking about cloud computing and crypto a lot because those are two areas that are kind of converging, and the purpose of this event. So we really wanted to share some thoughts around those two massively growing markets, one is already growing, it's continuing to be great: the cloud, and blockchain certainly is changing everything. These two important topics, we want to flesh them out, Al Burgio is the Serial Entrepreneur/Founder of DigitalBits, he's founded companies both in cloud and blockchain, so he brings a great perspective. And Matt Roszak, leading crypto investor, entrepreneur and advocate, well known in the crypto space for goin' way back, I think you gave a couple bitcoins to some very famous people early on, we'll get into that a little bit later. So guys, thanks for being part of the panel and Fireside. First question is: we know how big the money is, I mean the money is crypto is is flowin' around the world, and cloud computing we've seen specifically, and certainly in coverage now with Amazon's success, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft and others. Trillions of dollars being disrupted in the traditional kind of the enterprise, data center area, and blockchain is doing that too, so we want to get into that. But first, before we get into it, I want you guys to take a minute to explain for the folks, just to set the context, the kinds of projects you're working on. Now Al, you have DigitalBits, Matt you're investing and you're finding a lot of interesting token dynamics. So just take a minute. Al, start. >> (mic off) So-- Everybody hear me okay? Alright, perfect. Well thanks for that lovely intro. Yes, my name is Al Burgio, I'm, I've founded a few companies, as John mentioned. Before the cloud there was internet, (light laugh) and so it started for me in the late '90s in the e-commerce era. But more recently I pioneered what's known as Interconnection 2.0, and I did that with the company called Console, for those that may know PCCW, recently it was acquired by PCCW. And with that we disrupted the way networks at the core of the internet were connected together More recently I've founded the DigitalBits project, and now DigitalBits blockchain network, and with that, you can kind of think of that as the trading and transaction layer for the points economy and other digital assets, and you can do a lot of really interesting thing with that, it's really about bringing blockchain to the masses. >> Matt, what're you workin' on? >> So, Matthew Roszak, Co-Founder and Chairman of Bloq. Bloq is a enterprise software company, we do two things, the premise is the tokenization of things, so we think the money identity, new layers of the internet are going to be tokenized. And so, we go to market in two ways, one is through Bloq Enterprise, and these are all the software layers you need to to connect to tokenized networks, so think a wallet, a node, a router, etc. And then Bloq Labs we build, and partner with, some of the leading tokenize networks and applications, so we build a connective tissue and then we actually build these new networks. I started this space as an investor over five/six years ago, investing in some of the best entrepreneurs and technologists in the space build a great network. But I love building companies, and so my Co-Founder and I, Jeff Garzik, built Bloq two and a half years ago. And then lastly, also serve of Chairman of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, so, so if you believe in these new tokenized money layers, identity layers, etc, regulation comes into play. Certainly today from an institutional adoption level, and so if you care about this space, you need to spend time to kind of help that dialogue improve; this technology moves way faster than folks in DC and elsewhere, so. >> And the project that we're workin' on at SiliconANGLE, is we've tokenized our media platform, and we're opening it up to a token model, and have kind of changed the game. So all three of us have projects, want to put those in context, we build everything on Amazon Web Services, so, the view of the cloud, we also cover it. The cloud computing market is booming, we see that Amazon Web Services numbers empower the earnings for Amazon's company, obviously Apple's trillion dollar evaluation those are clear case studies; but blockchain could potentially disrupt it all, and Al, I want to get your thoughts, because even today in the news at Microsoft Azure, which is their big cloud provider, announced blockchain as a service. And folks that are in either the data center business or in cloud know the shift that's happening in the IT world, but no ones really connected the dots on where blockchain intersects, and also, is it an opportunity for the cloud guys, what's the landscape look like, so. What's your thoughts on that, how are they connected, what does it mean, how does a cloud company maintain their relevance and competitiveness with blockchain? >> Well, just pointing on the fact that, you know, today we had that new Microsoft, the Azure cloud, their support and evangelism for blockchain. You know, a company, I think it's very important that this isn't an ICO, two kids in a garage saying their doing something blockchain this is a massive, multi-billion dollar company; and making a decision like that is not trivial, it's many, many departments, a lot of resources, before such a thing's announced. So, that's, not only is it validation, but it's a leading indicator as to this trend, that this is clearly something that's important. And a lot of people, if you're not paying attention, you need to be paying attention, including if you're in the cloud industry, 'cause many companies obviously do compete with, with Microsoft and AWS, so. It may be still early, but it's not that early, in light of the news that we saw today. With that, I would say that, a lot of the parallels I like to kind of, if I was an infrastructure provider I'd look at this from the standpoint of the emergence of Linux when it first came on the scene. What was important for companies like Red Hat to be successful, they had competition at the time, and you had shortages of Linux, let's say engineers, and what have you. And so, a company like Red Hat built a business around that, and they did that by how they kind of surfaced and validated themselves to the enterprise of that era, was partnering with hardware companies, so, it was Intel, IBM, and then Dell, HP, and they all followed, and then all of a sudden, which version of Linux do you want to use? It's Red Hat, you're paying for that support, you're paying Red Hat. And, you know, then they had their hockey stick moment. Today, you know, it's not about hardware companies per se, it's about the cloud, right? So cloud is the new hardware per se, and many enterprises obviously are looking at cloud computing companies and cloud computing providers, infrastructure providers, as the company that they need to support them with the infrastructure that they use, or sorry the technologies that they use, right? Because they're not necessarily supporting these things and making sure that they're always on within the basement of that enterprise, they're depending, or outsourcing, to depending on these managed IT providers. This was very important that whatever technologies they're using in the lab, that ultimately their infrastructure partners are able to support the implementation, the integration, the ongoing support of these technologies. So if you think of blockchain like an operating system or a database technology, or whatever you want to call it, it's important that you're able to really identify these key trends, and be able to support your customer and what they're going to need, and ultimately for them, they can't have a clog in their digital supply chain, right? So, it's clearly emerging. Microsoft is validating that today, you know, clearly they have the data, that they're seeing for their existing enterprise customers, and they don't want to lose them. >> Yeah, but remember when cloud came out; you and I have talked about this many times Al that it wasn't easy to use, I remember when Amazon Web Services came out, it was just basically, it was hard to command line, basically you had to use it, so, it became easier now, it's so easy and consumable. Blockchain, similar growing pains, but, we don't want to judge it too early with the opportunity that it has, it's going to get easier, what're your thoughts? And it has to scale by the way, Amazon, at a large scale. >> Yeah, I mean-- >> So blockchain has to scale and be easier, your thoughts? >> Another kind of way to think of it is, to not necessarily think of cloud computing, but the evolution the internet went, you know, in Internet 1.0, you know, we went through this dial-up modem era, things were very raw back then; great visions we had of the future, like, it's going to be amazing for video one day! But, not during dial-up modem era, and eventually, you know, it eventually happened. And user interfaces improved, and tool sets improved and so forth. You know, fast forward to today, we have all of that innovation to leverage, so things will move a lot faster with blockchain, it did start very raw, but it's, it's moving much faster than anything we've seen definitely in the '90s and in the last decade, so. It's just, you know, it's a matter of moments, not years. >> And I think Al brings up a great point on leverage, because Amazon leverages infrastructure to a point where it's larger than Google, Azure, and IBM's public cloud combined, and so yeah, massive leverage there. And so, when these big cloud providers provide this blockchain as a service, it is instrumented and built on top of their existing infrastructure, not necessarily on blockchain infrastructure. So, it's an interesting dynamic where they're putting it on top of existing infrastructure that's there, but what's being build right now is the decentralized Amazon Web Services. So you have every layer of Amazon being re-imagined, like, and incentivized so you have distributed compute and access and storage and database. And so, what will be interesting to see is that, given this massive opportunity, will Amazon and some of these other incumbent cloud providers become the provisioning networks of the future? Of all this new decentralized resources that get, again, if you want storage, you have to start having smarts to say: if I'm going to go to Sia or Filecoin or Genaro or Storj, compute, etc; you have to start being a provisioning layer on top of that to kind of, you know, make that blockchain essentially work. So, it'll be interesting to see the transition 'cause today the lightweight versions to say yeah, I have a blockchain as a service strategy, and that's like, well done, and check the box. Now, the question is how far in this new world will they go down? And, as it gets more decentralized, as universities and governments, corporations, plug their access utility into these networks, and to see how that changes. That is much bigger than the Amazon of today. >> I think that's an interesting point, I want to just drill down on that if you don't mind, 'cause I think that's a fundamental observation that every layer's going to be decentralized. The questions I think I'm asking and I'm seeing is: How does it all work together? And then what's the priorities? And the old model was easy; got to get the infrastructure, got to get servers, (laughs lightly) and you know, work your way up to the top of the stack. What cloud brings also is that: a software developer can whip up an application, maybe a dApp on a test network and go viral, and the next thing you know they have a great opportunity, and then they got to build down. So the question is: What are you seeing in terms of priorities on stacks, portions of the stack that are being decentralized and tokenized, do you see patterns, trends, as an investor, is there a hotter (laughs) area than others, how do you look at that? >> Well, I think it's, it's in motion right now it's, like I said, every layer of AWS is getting thought through in how to create these digital cooperatives, I have excess storage, I'm going to contribute it to this network, and I'm going to get paid in tokens when a user uses that storage network, and pays for it in those native tokens and so that, coupled with all the other layers, is happening. From a user perspective, we may not want to be going to pick a database provider, a storage, a compute, etc, we're likely going to say: I want a provisioning layer, and provision this and execute this, much like if we, you know, there'll be new provisioning layers for moving money, I don't care if routes through Lightning or Litecoin or Doge or whatever, as long as the value gets across the pond or the app gets provisioned appropriately based on you know, time, security, and cost, and whatever other tendance are important, that's all I care about, but; given the depth and the market for all that, I think it'll be interesting to see how these are developed with the provisioning layers, and I would think Amazon or Azure, the future of that is, is more provisioning than actually going and doing all that at the end of the day. >> That's great. I want to get your thoughts guys on innovation. My good friend Andy Kessler wrote an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal around, an article around the government, the US government getting involved. You know, there's Twitter, Facebook, the big platforms, in terms of how they're handling their media, but it brings up a good point that with more regulation, there's less innovation. You mentioned some things outside the United States, it's a global cloud, cloud's operating globally with regions, it's a global fabric. Startups are really hot in this area so; how do you view the ecosystems of startups, in terms of being innovative, things happening that you think that're good, and things that aren't good, obviously I'm not a big of the government getting involved, and managing startups, the ecosystems but, blockchain has a lot of alpha entrepreneurs jumping in, you've looked at all the top ventures, the legit ventures, they're all alpha entrepreneurs, multi-time serial entrepreneurs, they see the opportunity and they go for it. Is the startup environment good, is there enough innovation opportunities, what're you thoughts on the opportunity to be innovative? >> Yeah, Al and I were just talking about this before the panel here, and were talking about our travels in Asia, and when we go there it is 10, 100 X of energy and get-it factor, and capital, and the markets are just wildly more vibrant than you know, going to some typical markets here in San Fran and New York in North America, and, so it's interesting to see that when you heat map the world, what's really happening. And you know, people are always saying: oh well this, this FinTech, or InsurTech, or whatever tech, is going to make a dent in Silicon Valley or Wall Street. This technology, this new frontier, is definitely going to do that. I think some of that will get put into more focus based on regulation, and there's two things that will happen; there's obviously a lot of whippersnapper countries that are promoting a safe place to innovate with crypto, I think Malta, Gibraltar, Barbados, etc, and there were-- >> Even Bermuda's getting in on the mix now. >> Yeah! I mean so there's no shortage of that, and so, and obviously this ecosystem outpaces the pace of regulation and then we'll see like the US doing something, or you know, other fast followers to try and catch up, and say hey, we're going to do the cryptocurrency act of 2022, miners get free power, tax-free, you know crypto trading, you know just try and play catch up. 'Cause it's kind of hard in the last year or 18 months we've seen this ecosystem go from this groundswell to this now institutional discussion; and how do you back end the the banking, the custody, all these form factors that are still relatively absent. And so, you know, we're right in the middle of it. >> It's a whole new way, you got to follow the money, right? Al, you and I talked about this; capital markets, you know entrepreneurs need to raise money and that's a good thing, you need to get capital to do stuff. >> Yeah, this is a new phenomenon that the world has never experienced before, it's awesomeness when it comes to capital formation; you know, without capital formation there is no innovation. And so the fact that more capital can be raised, it's the ultimate crowd sourcing in such an efficient period of time, capital being able, the ability to track capital from various different corners of the world, and deploy that capital to try to fuel innovation. Of course, you know, not all startups or what have you succeed, but that was true yesterday, right? You know, 90% of startups fail, but they all will give it some meaningful amounts of checks, people were employed and innovation was tried; and every once in a while something emerges that's amazing. If you can do that faster, right, when you have the opportunity to produce more and more innovation. And, of course with something so new as cryptocurrency, things like ICOs and what have you, people may kind of refer to it as the wild wild West, it's not, it's an evolution. And you have-- >> It's still the wild west though, you got to admit. (laughs) >> Well, it is but, we're getting better at it, right? As a world, this isn't the Silicon Valley community getting better at venture capital or some other part of the United States or Canada getting better at venture capital; this is the world as a whole getting better at capital formation. >> Yeah, that's a great point. >> In the new way of capital formation. >> And I wanted to just get an observation on that. I moved to Silicon Valley 20 years ago, and I love it there, for venture capital and new startups, it's the best place in the world. And I've seen people try to replicate Silicon Valley, we're the Silicon Valley of Canada, we're the Silicon Valley of the East or Europe, and it's always been hard to replicate, because it was a venture model, and you needed venture capitalists and you need money, you need a community, the culture, the failure, the starting over, and just, you know, gettin' back on the horse kind of thing. Crypto is the first time that I've seen the replica of that Silicon Valley dynamic, in a new way, because the money's flowing, (laughs) and there's community involved in crypto, crypto has a big community aspect to it. Do you guys see that as well? I mean I'm seeing, outside the United States, a lot of activity. Is that something that you're seeing? >> So, the first time we saw, well, last time we saw everybody trying to replicate Silicon Valley was first internet, you know, there was Silicon Swamp, there was Silicon Alley, there was silicon this-- >> Prairie. >> Every city was >> Silicon Beach. >> A silicon version of something, and then the capital evaporated, right? We had a mass correction happen. What wasn't being disrupted was value exchange, right, and so this is being created now, it is now possible for this to happen, and it's happening, we're seeing amazing things, Matt said, you know, in Asia. It's a truly awesome force, if anybody has an opportunity to go, they should go, it's unbelievable to experience it, and it really opens your eyes. >> And you've lived through a lot of investments during those .com days and through history now, you've seen a lot of different things. Your observations with the current state of the capital formation, startup landscapes, the global ecosystem around crypto and how it's different from say venture or classic rolling up companies and those kinds of things? >> Yeah, you hear a lot of this, you know, we're in a bubble, it's speculative, etc. And I think that when you look back at history of infrastructure, whether it's railroads, telephony, internet, and now crypto and blockchain, it's interesting, like, if you said: it would take this amount of money to innovate and come out the other end of internet with this kind of infrastructure, these kinds of applications, with these kinds of lessons learned, nobody would sign up for that number, right? It needs this fear, and greed, and all the other effervescence of markets to kind of come out the other end and have innovation. I think we're going through a very similar dynamic here with crypto and blockchain where you know, everything's getting tokenized, everything's getting decentralized. We're talking about fundamental things like money, you know, it's not like we're talking about pet food and women's shoes and airline tickets, we are talking about money, identity, things that will enable like other curves to really come into focus like in and out of things and the kind of compounding of intersections when some of these things get right is pretty extraordinary. And so, but I like what Al said in terms of capital formation and that friction to get from, you know, idea to capital to building, is getting compressed Yes, there will be edge cases of people taking advantage of that, but at the other end of this flow will be some amazing innovation. >> What do you guys think about the, if you had to answer the question with one answer, of what is the high order bit of why blockchain's so important? For me, I see it, from my standpoint, I'll just start, I see it making inefficient things more efficient for any use case, and that's being re-imagined, which is everything from IOT or whatever. Efficiency is a big thing, at least I see that. What do you guys see as a high order bit in terms of you know, the one thing that you'd say blockchain really impacts the world in terms of you know, impact, financial, etc? >> Well, I think with decentralization and all these things that we're seeing it's kind of evened the playing field. It's allowing for participation where parts of the world were unable to participate. And it's doing a whole lot of things in that area. And that's truly awesome, to really grow the economy, grow the global market, and the number of participants in that market in all areas. That's the ultimate trend at what's happening here. >> And your information? >> Absolutely, and I think there's two things, there's this blockchain dialogue, and then there's this crypto decentralization, tokenization dialogue, and on the blockchain side you have lots of companies engaging in blockchain and trying to figure out how it applies to their business, and you hear everything from McKinsey and Goldman saying financial services will save 100 billion dollars in operating expenses by applying blockchain technology, and that's great. That is probably low in terms of what they'll save, it's, to me, is just not the point of the technology, I think that when you kind of distill that down to say hey, for a group of folks to use this technology as a shared services thing to lower opex a trading settlement and decrease that, that's great, that is a step stone to creating these tokenized economies, these digital cooperatives. Meaning you contribute something and then you get something back, and it's measured in the value that this token is, like a barometric kind of value of how healthy that ecosystem is. And so, regulated public enterprises, and EC consortiums around insurance and financial services and banking, that is all fantastic, and that gets them in the pool, gets them exercising on what blockchain is, what it isn't, how they apply it, but it's, at the end of the day for them it's cost reduction The minute there's growth or IP, or disruption on the table, they're all going back to their boardrooms to say: hey let's do this, this, or that, but, if there's a way, my favorite class in college was industrial organization, and it sounds weird but, it was, it kind of told ya like how to dissect an industry, you know, what makes them competitive, who the market leaders are, and then, if you overlay like blockchain networks with tokens, with incentives, interesting things could happen, right? And so that future is going to be real interesting to see how market leaders think about how to tokenize their network, how to be, how to say: no I don't want to own this whole industrial network, I have to engage with some other participants and make sure everybody is incentivized to climb on board. So that I think is going to be more of the interesting part than just blockchain-ifying a workflow. >> Well let's just quickly drill down on that, token economics, what you're getting to. So let's assume blockchain just happens, as evolution of technology, let's just assume for a second that it's going to happen in a big way, it's private, public, hybrid chains, with all that good stuff happening, but the token economics is where the business value starts to be extracted, so the question for you is: How do you describe that to someone to look for, what are the key elements of token economics? When does it matter, when is it in play, and how should they be thinking about it? >> Yeah, I mean token economic design and getting a flywheel going to create a network and network effects is really important. You could have great technology, but Al could be a better marketer, and he gets tokens adopted better, and his network will do better because, you know, he was better able to get people to adopt and market a particular, you know, layer application. And so, it's really important to think about how you get that flywheel going, and how you get that kindling going on a particularly new ecosystem, and get users adoption and growth. That is really hard to do these days because some people don't even know what Bitcoin is, let alone to say I'm going to tokenize this layer, and every time you contribute, every time you take an action, you're going to get rewarded for it, and you're share the value of this network. >> Can you give me a good example of what's happening today that you can point to and say: that's a great example of token economics? >> Well, you see, I mean the most basic one is shared file storage, right? You know, it's like the Filecoin, Sia, Genaro model where, you know, you contribute you know, the unused storage in your laptop or your university data center or a corporate data center, and you say I'm going to contribute this, and when it's used I get these tokens and, you know at the end of the day or week or year you see what these tokens are worth, and was that worth your contribution? And so as these markets develop, and as utility develops, we'll see what that holds. >> Al, you got an example you could share? DigitalBits is a good use case obviously. >> Actually, I'm not going to use DigitalBits (John laughs) just to be neutral. This is one that Matt will know very well, definitely better than I, but one that I've-- the simpler something is, the easier it is for people to understand, and its like oh that makes sense, you know. You know, Binance is one that's very simple, you know it's a payment token, if you pay with some other currency, you pay, you know, Pricex, if you pay in the next few years with their token, you'll get the service at a discount. And in addition to that, they're using a percentage of profits, I think it's every quarter, to buy back up to, ultimately up to, 50% of tokens that are in circulation. So, you know, it's driving value, and driving return, in essence, if I can use that word. So for a user it's simple to understand, for someone that likes to speculate it's easy for someone to understand in terms of how the whole model works, so it's not some insanely complicated mathematical equation, that we can yes we can trust the math. And so in some cases, some adoption is going to just be, you know, attract participants based on simplicity. In other cases the math is important, and people will care about that, so, you know not all things are necessarily equal, and not necessarily one method is right, but there are some simple examples out there that that have proven to be successful. >> That's awesome, one last question, before we open it up if anyone has any questions. If anyone has any questions, if they want to come up, grab the microphone, and ask the three of us if you've got anything on your mind. And while you're thinking about that I'll get the final question for these guys is: A lot of people ask me hey, I want to be on the right side of history, what side of the street should I be on when the reality comes down that decentralization, blockchain, token economics, decentralized applications, becomes the norm, and that re-imagining actually happens? I don't want to be on the wrong side of history. What should I be doing, how should I be thinking differently, who should I be following, what should I be paying attention to? How do you answer that question? >> I think, at the basic level, you know, turn off your phone, lock your door, and study this technology for a day, it's the best advice I could give. Two: buy some crypto. Once you kind of have crypto on your phone, in your wallet, something changes in your brain, I think you just feel like you-- >> You check the prices every day. (all laugh) >> You lose a lot of sleep. And then after that, you know, I think you start engaging in this space in a very different way. So I think starting small, starting basic, is an important tenet. And then, what's amazing about this space is that it attracts the best and brightest out of industry, and law, and government, and technology, and you name it, and I'm always fascinated the people that show up and they're like yeah, I'm in a 20 year, you know, veteran in this space and I want to get into blockchain, it just attracts some of the best and brightest. And, I think we're going to see a lot of experience coming into the space, you know, this has been a, what I'd say a bottoms up groundswell of crypto and blockchain and the evolution of the space. And I think we're starting to see more some more mature folks come in the space to to add some history and perspective and helpin' the build out of this, and to build a lot of these networks. I think that the kind of intersection of both is going to be very healthy for the space. >> Al, your thoughts? >> Definitely agree with Matt. Definitely to lock yourself up and just try to absorb information, everyone has access to the internet, there's plenty of information. If you don't like to read go watch a few YouTube videos, just people explaining the stuff, it's really fascinating, the various different use cases and so forth. You definitely have to buy some, and, you know, whether it's five dollars worth, just go through the whole experience of being able to trade something of value that a few years ago didn't exist, and be able to trade it for something else of value is a pretty phenomenal experience. Then trying to go buy something with it, it's even more of a fascinating experience, I just bought something that used, again, something that didn't exist a few years ago. But, what I would add to that as well, you really have to get out there; if you keep surrounding yourself with people saying aw, this is, eh, whatever, >> It's never going to work. >> It's crazy, it's for criminals, and all that fun stuff. You're going to be last place. So coming to conferences, obviously future's conference you're going to meet a lot of interesting, great people, and that consistent experience, you'll learn something every time. You know, at the end of the day, I remember, I'm sure all three of us remember, with the birth of the internet there was many people that said you know the internet thing, it's crap, it's for kids, you know. And we had first movers, we had willing followers, and then the unwilling followed, you don't want to end up being-- >> The unwilling followers. >> Yeah, the unwilling. >> Alright. Does anyone have any questions they'd like to ask? Come on up. Yeah. We're recording, so we want to get it on film. >> So I have two questions. The first one is for you, Al: Two years ago I interviewed with IIX before it was Console, and I want to know why you didn't hire me? (Sparse laughs) No I'm kidding! That was a joke. Actually, I thought each of you brought up some good points, minus you Al. (chuckles) I'm just kidding. But what I really wanted to ask you guys is: so you talk a lot about this, the tokenized economy and kind of the roadmap and the things to get there, you talk about sediment layer, right, Fiat to crypto, sediment layer, your identity protocols, your dApps, X, Y, Z, right? The whole web 3.0 stack, I want each of you, or I want at least input from both of you or all of you, what are the hurdles to getting to a full adoption of web 3.0 stack, and make a bold prediction on the timing before we have a full web 3.0 stack that we use every day. >> That is a awesome question actually, timelines. You could be, being in technology, being in venture, you could be right, and you could be off by three, five, seven, 10 years, and be so wrong, right? And then at your retirement dinner you could say: I was right, but Tommy wasn't right. So, this is really hard technology, in terms of building systems that are distributed, creating the economic models, the incentive models, it takes a lot to go right in the intersection of all this. But it's not a question like is this happening? No, this is happening, this is like, it's in motion. The timelines are going to be a little elusive, I'm way more pragmatic, I was one of the early guys in the early internet, and you know everything was going to be .com and awesome and fantastic. But the timelines were a little elusive then, right? You know, it's like when was, people are thinking of today's Amazon was going to be the 2005 Amazon, you know, it's like, that took about another decade to get there, right? And people could easily just buy stuff and a drone or a UPS guy would just deliver it, and so, similar things apply today. And you know at the same time we all have a super computer in our pocket, and so it's a lot different. At the same time we're dealing with trusted mediums right? The medium of money, the medium of identity, all these different things they're, they're things that you know if I say download Instagram, and let's share cat pictures or whatever, it's not a big deal, our trust is really low for that, let's do it. For money, it's a different mental state, it's a different dynamic, especially if you're an individual, a government, or an enterprise, you go through a whole different adoption curve on that, so, you know, it is at grand scale five to 10 years, right? In any meaningful way. And so we still have a lot of work to do. >> My answer to that question, it's a good one, your question was a good one, my answer's a little bit weird because it's multi-generational. The first generation pivot was when the internet was born was because of standards, right? The government had investment. The OSI model, open system interconnect, actually never happened, the seven layers didn't get standardized, only a few key ones did; that created a lot of great things. And then when the we came out, that was very interesting protocol development there, the TCP/IP stuff, I mean HTP stuff. I don't see the standardization happening, because cloud flipped the stack model upside down because Amazon and these guys let the software developers drive the value. It used to be infrastructure drove the value of what software could do, then software became so proliferated that that drove the value of the infrastructure, so the whole cloud computing equation is making the infrastructure programmable for the first time, not the other way around, so. The cloud phenomenon's all about software driving the value, and that's happening, so. It's interesting because with blockchain you can almost do levels of services in a cloud-like way with crypto, I mean with blockchain and token economics, and have a partial stack. So think that this whole web 3.0 might be something that no one's every seen before. So, that's kind of my answer, I don't really know if that's going to be right or not, but just looking at the future, connecting the dots, it's probably not going to look like what we've seen before, and if the cloud's an indicator it's probably going to be some weird looking stack where certain sections are working, and then evolution might fill in the other ones, so. I mean, that's my take, I mean, but standards will play a role, the communities will have to get involved around certain things, and I think that's a timeless concept. >> Timing. >> Oh, timing. I think it's going to be pretty quick, I think if you look at the years it took for internet, and then the web, everything's being compressed down, but I think it's going to be much shorter. If it was a 20 year cycle in the past, that gets shortened down to 15 with the internet, and this could be five years. So five to 10 years, that could be the impact in my mind. The question I always ask is: what year will banks no longer be involved in anything? Is that 20 years or 10 years? (laughs) Exactly, so, yeah, follow the money. >> So I would say that in terms of trying to keep your finger on the pulse with things and how you kind of things, see things evolve; things are definitely moving a lot faster, you know in the past you would probably say seven to 10, I'm not sure if I would say five, sorry five to 10, it definitely feels to me that it's five max til we could start to see some of these key things fall into place, so. >> So could you answer the first question? >> What was the first question? >> Why didn't you hire me? (audience cringes) >> We've met before? Sorry. (all laugh) >> I have a question, this is Dave Vellante, Co-Host of theCUBE. And I want to pick up on something John you just said, and Matt you were talking about Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, it's not about them saving hundreds of millions of dollars, it's really about them transforming business, so. And John, you just asked the question about banks, I want to actually get your answer to this: Will traditional banks, in your opinion, lose control of payment systems? Not withstanding your bias. (laughter) >> Yeah, I am definitely biased on this. But, I mean, I've been in front of the C-suite of banks, credit card companies, etc, and I said, you know, in about a decade, the center of what you do and how you make money is going to be zero. And, 'cause there'll be networks, and ways to transmit money that'll be by far cheaper, or will be subsidized by other networks, meaning, and those networks are Apple, Amazon, Alibaba, you know, Tencent, whatever networks that're out there, that're engaging in collaboration and commerce and everything else, they will give away payments as just a courtesy, like people give away messaging or email or something, as a courtesy to that network, and will harden that network, and it'll be built and based on blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, so they don't necessarily have to worry about, you know, kind of subtle payments. But these new networks will start to encroach on banks, the banks are not worried about other banks today, the banks should be worried about these new networks that're being developed. >> How many people still have a home phone line? >> That was elegant, I like that. >> You know, I mean there's a generation of people that still like going to banks, they'll keep them in business for a while. But I think that comes to an end. >> I mean, when we covered a lot of the big data market when it started, the argument was mobile will kill the banks outlets, and now with ATMs there's more bank, more baking branches than ever before, so I think the services piece is interesting. >> And also, if you look at even the cloud basis, the software as a service, SaaS space, a decade, decade and a half ago, you would ask SAP, Oracle, what have you, what's your cloud strategy? And they'd be like cloud? That's just more efficient delivery model, not interested. 90 some billion dollars of M and A later, SAP, Oracle, etc, are cloud companies, right? And so, if banks kind of get into that same mode to say well, yeah, we need to play catch up and buy digital currency exchanges and multi-currency wallets, and this infrastructure and plumbing to be relevant in the next world, that would be interesting. But I think technology companies have as much an advantage to do that as as financial services companies, so it'll be interesting to see who kind of goes into that, goes into the crypto ecosystem to make that their own. >> It's interesting. We were talking before we came on and the OSS market, operational support systems is booming, and that's traditionally been these big operational outsource companies would manage big projects, but, if you look at in the first half of 2018, there's been a greater than 20 billion dollar commercial exits of companies through private equity merchants, IPOs, around OSS, and that's where we see operational things happening, CoreOS, Alfresco, MuleSoft, Pivotal went public, Magneto, GitHub, Treasure Data, Fastly, Elastic, DataStax, they're all in the pipeline. These are all companies that aren't cloud, they're like running stuff in cloud, so, this could be a tell sign that potentially the the blockchain operating market is going to be potentially a big one. >> Yeah, and then even look at BitMate, the world's largest miner in crypto. So, they did about a billion dollars in profit last year, did about a billion dollars in profit just in the first quarter going public, just raised a billion dollars last month, at a reportedly 50 to 70 billion dollar evaluation in Hong Kong in the next month, and the amount of money they'll raise will eclipse what Facebook raised. And so I think the institutional, the hardware, the cloud computing, the whole ecosystem starts to like resonate and think about this space a lot differently, and we need these milestones, we need these, whether they're room huddles or data points to kind of like think about how this is going to affect your business and what you do tomorrow morning. >> Any more questions from the crowd? Audience? Okay, great, well thanks for attending, appreciate you guys watching and listening, and guys thanks for the conversation; cloud and blockchain convergence. Collision course, or is it going to happen nicely, Al? >> Yeah, I think it's going to be a convergence, I don't see it necessarily as a collision course. >> And a lot of money to be made on this opportunity these days, and cloud convergence with blockchain. >> I concur with Al, I think there's going to be convergence, I think us most smarter players will engage and figure out their models in this new crypto and tokenized era. >> Thanks so much guys, appreciate it, give these guys a round of applause. (audience applause) Thank you very much. (bubbly music)

>> Narrator: Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico. It's the CUBE, covering Blockchain Unbound. Brought to you by Blockchain Industries. (upbeat Spanish-style music) >> Hey, welcome back everyone. We're here in Puerto Rico for exclusive CUBE coverage, I'm John Furry, you're host. Here, with Blockchain Unbound, this is a global event. From everyone from Silicon Valley, New York, Miami, Russia, Eastern Europe, all over the world, and Puerto Rico coming together, talk about the future of the economy, Blockchain decentralized apps, and more. Our next guest is CUBE alumni, and part of our inaugural crypto currency coverage, from Polycon 18, back to give a command performance, Nithin Eapen Chief Investment Officer at Arcadia Crypto Ventures, good to see you. >> Good to see you too John. >> So, you had a great showing at our first crypto event, PolyCon, great to see you back in the trenches, you're out, hard-working, pounding the pavement, doing deals. What's your analysis here, I mean, you're here networking, you checked out the sessions. What's your take? >> We've met some really good founders, really good projects, so that's the key thing that we are looking for. The main idea as our tagline says, "We back Blockchain's best." We are looking for the best founders. We are looking for the teams, then for the idea. Anything that's decentralized, we are backing them. >> So, network effect has been a big part of the conference I've been having. We talked about security tokens, utility tokens. A lot of interesting things going on here, but there's a backdrop. You've got multiple events going on. You've have Blockchain Unbound, run by Blockchain Industries, great team, which put this event together in five weeks. So, shout out to those guys. >> (laughs) You have Coin Agenda, >> That's coming! going on, another event going next door, which is after this event. And then you have a lot of series of little events, meet-ups, the local community had a great crypto mixer, Puerto Rico, a lot of action. >> Too much action, and it's like at the same time, look at it, TokenFest in San Francisco, another 2,000 people over there, here people are on the waiting list, so much action. >> And that's going on this week, as well. You have anyone going to that event? >> I know, I've got a lot of friends going over there. For me, it made sense, this is closer. I thought I would meet a lot of them. Puerto Rico is better I found, you know? >> A lot of big money here, a lot of smart money. >> A lot of smart money, a lot of big money. >> John: Global? >> Global, and the greatest part of Puerto Rico is, it's bringing this concept like, they have reduced taxes for US people to zero percent for individuals, for the next, until 2036. Now that's a big difference. If you want to change your domicile to Puerto Rico, for your business it's 4% corporate taxes, and individual it's 0% now, that's... >> John: But you got to move here. >> You got to move here, okay. But you don't have to give up your US citizenship. Now, I think what's going to happen right now is they're going to be other states maybe going to compete for this, or other countries are going to compete for the capital to flow, where does capitol flow to? Capital will flow to cheaper places, or lesser taxes. >> So, I got to ask you, I was talking to you earlier this morning, here on the CUBE I said, "There's two killer apps, one of them is money." Money is the killer app. >> No doubt! >> Your reaction to that? >> It is, okay all of our lives, let's say for your son, or my kid, or for me, what my parents, when we went to school, why did they make us go to school or learn, they tell us, "Okay you got to go to college!" Why, they want us to have a better life, they want to have a better car. How do you get them, you want money for them. But in none of those years did somebody teach you, how does money originate? What is money, is it something you should buy the Garmin? So in everything that we go for, unless we're the Buddha or Jesus himself, we do it for money. >> Well you bring up a good point. I mean I have a immigrant background from my family, my wife's family as well. >> Where did you come from? >> Well I'm actually Native American, I mean American. >> Okay But two, three generations back they, Ireland, >> Ireland, okay! French Canadian, a little bit of Armenian in me but that's okay, all kind of blended. I'm in the melting pot, I'm not 1st generation but, in Boston where my parents were from, very much an immigrant town, and they didn't have any money. So if you look at now, what's gone through the financial dot-com bubble, which had some impact, but the financial crisis is 2018, if you look at what's happened since then, the generation of millennials there in more debt. They're not realizing college, it might not be the thing. So we went to school so that we can have a better life than our parents did. Now it's like everyone's realizing that, shit we're screwed. So watching as a path, of freedom. >> It is! A new way to create wealth, capture the value, but in a new way. >> Yes, because you have a chance to be a part of an economy without, a permission of a centralized organization. So, earlier if you wanted to work somewhere, you needed an organization to work. This is making it much easier to be a part of the economy. to contribute, to help people to get help, all this is happening and you don't have to go to school. Maybe school is overrated, our colleges overrated. It is too expensive, you spend 200 thousand dollars on college. What is your ROI, when is your ROI? Maybe some disciplines have it. But this is your chance to.. >> Well, you you know that we love media and our disruptive media at the CUBE is to do things differently, but lets talk about some current events that's been happening. So this week, John Oliver created a video trashing crypto currency, it was actually funny. But it got to the Brock Pierce part, and he really had it out for Brock Pierce. He absolutely destroyed him. >> He did! And since then, he lost his place EOS. They wiped away all his DNA of evidence with the company. This is a comedian, at John Oliver, you're a freaking comedian. What gives him the right to I have that kind of influence on someone's job when he's just telling a joke. There's no actually substance of any facts of any kind at what he's doing, So that's a central authority figure that took an editorial comedic routine, and put it out there, but people think that's news. >> See, >> That's not The power of media, that the power of all the old traditional media, is that they had a bigger reach. I think it's going to change, it is going to be the YouTube's. And it's going to become a decentralized YouTube equivalent, or a decentralized media equivalents. Like, a lot of people have made memes and you know, fun videos that go viral and they'll take things down. The same, John Oliver obviously, he has us laugh. >> He's funny as hell though. He is funny as hell! >> You got to admit, >> He's pretty funny! The bit was really good, >> But end of the day, but he really went after Brock Pierce. Something was going on there, he took him down. >> See the traditional industries or traditional media they want to take down everybody that they don't consider, the birds of a same feather, this is somebody weird, like Trump, they try to take down Trump. They will try to take down anything which doesn't fit their globalist, elitist agenda. End of the day, like Brock Pierce sitting on a billion, and John over with his comedy, who has the bigger laugh? I don't know, if you ask me. >> When you have F U money like Brock Pierce does, I'm sure it rolls off his shoulders. But it does impact the ecosystem a bit. Basically EOS has erased his name in any capacity. So, obviously this impacts to public opinion. So these comedians and news rep, they have an obligation to share the data. Editorializing, I mean I do it all the time, don't get me wrong. >> (laughs) But, there's a point, consensus is part of the algorithm now in these Blockchain and Crypto communities where you have Blockchain as a store, against him. >> Okay! But consensus and transparency is a huge deal. >> Nithin: Yes! >> This is part of the formula. >> I know but see, the whole thing... When John Oliver does something, it's not about consensus. He can do it, okay, it's going to change! It's like this, when Bitcoin came in 2009, the traditionalists were coming up at the story that, "it is fake money, it's not going to go anywhere." Then it became one dollar, they were just laughing at it. Then became 10 dollars, they said it's going to go down. Then it became hundred dollars, they did the same thing. And it's only after long time they will realize, "Oh my God, it's changed." The rock has been pulled under my leg. It's like when Amazon came, all the traditional retail guys said, "Nobody's going to go and buy a book without touching it." Now we have Toys "R" Us that just went bankrupt. There's no more Toys" R" Us, you know, you have to buy your toys pretty much from Amazon at this point. >> Well everything in the model of future will be all contexual so, videos, comedian, news articles, reports, editorial, all will roll into one thing. That's going to be a great thing. >> Yes! >> And media is going to take a lot of, natural language processing, it's going to get transcript link. I think you're already doing it right, you're going to take a transcript of what I speak, you're going to attach the words, you're going to attach it to brands, you can sell that, and that is going to be the future. >> Well lets get some of that intellectual property out of your head and into the camera, and for the audience. What are you hearing in the hallways here, obviously this is a great networking event here. Lot's of agendas, phenomenal, as well as we had over sold almost by double. There's people out in the hallways, it's sold out, so there's a lot of Lobby Con going on. There's a conference within the conference going on. >> Nithin: It is! We call it Lobby Con! >> (laughs) What are you hearing in the hallways, what is some of the cool things that's new to you, that you're discovering? >> So lot of people are now telling me they are very excited about security tokens. They're telling me they're buying security tokens. I asked them, which security tokens? It's not there yet, okay. See, that's where I tend to differ. If security tokens are going to be the big thing, I'm going to be buying it because we are informed. >> John: Buy everything that moves. >> We buy it as it moves, but, security token, my question is, so you're trying to make something that is a utility, now you're going to make it security? So that is equity markets, there is a CC for that. And you're going to fit this in over there, I'm like, I don't know, what are people trying achieve? This is a free market and they're trying to bring it into regulation. >> What's a red flag for you as a, security token implies directly that you're securing something. What are they, >> You're pretty much What are people securing, equity, future cash flows, dividends, what are some of the vehicles you've seen? >> At that time they are pretty much secure, or securing future cash flows as dividends. They're going to give dividends, they're saying if you're a token holder, you're going to get dividends. My question at that time is, then why do you want a token, why can't it be in equity? Oh, you think you can come with their argument that it's more liquid, but equity's a liquid. I don't think it isn't a liquid. But it is a great way to go around and secularize a lot of things. You can have a small business, think of it, you and me we have a small business, let's say we have a partnership We have a small... >> We have a small business, We have a small business, we have a partnership. It's very hard to exit out of a small business. If we can fractionalize the ownership of a business thru tokens, and there might be people are willing to buy, put thousand dollars in, and maybe I can exit at some point. Otherwise there's no exit for me. It's very hard to exit out of a small business. Now then, what's the difference between that and equity? I don't know you know, those lines are blurred but, I'm happy for the fact that something like that will give liquidity to a lot of small business owners. America is a country of small business owners. Across the globe it supports small business owners. If it brings liquidity, okay I'm happy with that. But it's really beating the purpose that we don't want a centralized power controlling us. Because now that you have Google and Facebook that banned crypto-currency ads. Why, Women's Day, all our data, they give us a free access but they hold a lot of our personal data. I'm thinking, the guy who brings in the, a decentralized search or a decentralized social media, I'm going to invest in them. I don't care if their a success or if the success will come later. There are going to be multiple libertarian investors like me that's going to invest in them. >> What I learned was that money is a killer app, and I'll stand by that. I think marketplaces are also the killer app. You ever think, >> Perfectly true! that this conference, that kind of validates where I was thinking was, the people who nailed a business model, that's the critical, critical pacing item. If you screw the business model up, you go sideways. The technology risk isn't as bad as the business model decision risk. So I'm seeing the successful ICOs, or plays, have a lock in on the structural value proposition and to be directionally correct, with an understanding of what the hedge is on the technology. >> Yep! >> So they can manage it. So it's like programmable plumbing. They're recognizing that dynamic. The other thing that I'm learning is that the money flow from other countries is massive. If you want a money launderer from Colombia, it's coming in from Metadine Narcos. It's coming in from Japan, and China. Bitcoin and Blockchain is a money transfer opportunity so, I'm seeing a massive amount of money, flowing in >> Capital is flowing, in massive waves. >> it's flowing in. >> And it's good, and even if these projects fail, it's a good thing because, you had all this money that was stuck somewhere, that flowed in, and as I said, many of those projects are going to fail. Let them fail, because this money has flowed in, you will have a lot of people come and work on these projects, and eventually the correct solution will emerge. >> And new structural dynamics are at play. And new investors are coming in. >> New investors, so many new investors. You know the funny thing John, after we met at Polycon, I think that 99% of the people I meet here are totally new. All the guys we met at Polycon in Bahamas, totally different. I only know very few people that I met over there. So that means a whole set of investors, or common people, who just want to learn about it, totally new. That's really good! And who wins here, the average citizen entrepreneur, the average citizen player that wants to start something whether it's a banking, a service provider of some sort, a entrepreneur, or a new financial instrument or firm, all have greenfield opportunity here. >> Because, see earlier when you wanted to raise money, I was talking to a founder the other day, I asked him, how hard it was for you to raise your first raise, like 10 years ago? He was telling me that he walked the doors across multiple VCs, to kind of scrap in one and a half million dollars. And then he did his second loan after eight years. >> He'd have to crawl on his knees to get that. >> And that too, you won't get the attention, you need to know reference, now you have a chance to go to the world, and monies were, so easy money coming in is a bad thing in a way that most entrepreneurs will feel the investors will lose their money. but that's different, but it at least you have access and you can try to think that you had any in mind earlier. You had no option, they would take a big stake. Now there's no dilution, this is pretty much cloud funding on steroids. You have a chance to go to market, you get the go to market money and see if it works. And if it doesn't work, let's fix it after that. >> Nithin, I got to get your thoughts on building a company, 'cause obviously, you're also not only in this as an investor, you're also doing strategic advisory work for people building the venture architecture and then the actual build up plans for their venture. So you've talked about this in the past, you have a relationship with some protocol guys, you can check with them, there's some good network there. But there's also a dynamic with this industry where the business development aspect of it is really important. People are partnering, >> Very very important. And there's a way to partner and a way not a partner. There's a way to do token economics and there's a way not to do token economics. What is your advice, to companies that have a good thing going on, they have a tail wind at their back, they got wind in their sails, but have to make some hot partnering decisions. Looking for fellows, fellowship in that ecosystem. How do you advise folks in this partnerships and then talk about token economics after? >> So the first thing I would tell founders is to reach out. This community is very very supportive. Like you can reach out to me, you can reach out to other guys, LinkedIn, Facebook, or come to these events, and in the hallways. Say your idea and you need help, because you will need help, you cannot run this alone. You are running a company, you are running your team. Have a good team, that's a first thing. Have a great team, great founders, vision, execution, you need that. The next key thing is, you have to think about marketing and how do you market, you need to get some big names on your board who can reach out to their network and tell them about your idea. And they reach out of the rest for you. >> So networks are super important. >> Super super important, like... >> So advisor, that their advisor selection should be based on their network that they bring to the table. >> Right, so the first advisor selection is the guy who will help you flush out your idea properly as tokens. The next advisor set is a marketing advisor or a technical advisor. The marketing advisers also very important because you need to market the product, get the money in, because end of the day, you need money to build it. You need to pay your employees, whether it's in Bitcoins or in fear, It doesn't matter, one of these is required. So you have these three things, then you need to build strategic partnerships in your business. Say, let's see your a loyalty points guy, like Al is doing, You know Al right? >> Al Burgio, >> From FuZe Chain now doing DigitalBits. Hot deal, hot deal! >> Hot deal, hot deal. >> Look at what Al did, he went out, he got his strategic partnerships with the loyalty guys, now he's got the brand, the strategic partnerships, he's built a product already. The money he needs is only for go to market so that he can push it to multiple companies and get them on the chain. Brilliant idea so, strategic partnerships, advisors, founding team, and then, show the idea to the people. Go out there, let them know that this is what you're doing, why this idea is great, how big is the market, there was a problem that you're solving, what is your solution. Explain yourself frankly and honestly, and I think the community will reward you, to go and find your dream. >> Great point, be honest, ask for help. Again, I can't reiterate my experience of, I'll share, is during the computer revolution, Internet revolution, Web.1.o, and now partnering in the early days when it's forming, can make or break a company. Make or break a company. >> Very True! So, note to that, okay now, token economics. >> Nithin: Sure! >> Sounds easy, but you really got to make sure that you have a good economic framework that matches the value proposition. Talk about what you advise there. >> So last day of the one founder restart to me, ICO is going on for our seventh day into the ICO. He's raised less than 300 thousand dollars. I meet him, and he needs help. After what, seven days into the ICO, all I could tell him is, shut off your ICO, it's not going to raise money. He's like, "Why," and I'm like, he said, "read this paper." I'm like, "There's nothing in this paper "I can put money into." And he's like, "Why is that?" So I asked him, so how many companies has he put his money into, how many points has he bought? Four years, he has not bought a single coin. And he's flustered something by himself. So he's never bought a coin, and he's expecting people to buy coins at his price. So I tell people, either you should notice, you should be an investor yourself. So there are different kinds of investors, there are institutional investors that are funds, family offices, and then are retail investors. If you're not any one of these, or any one of in this group, how do you know what these guys are buying it for? So reach out to them! >> That's where the advisory comes in, Know your customer! >> Know your customer! And not the KYC in a different way, but know 'em from a marketing standpoint. Know how the retail, >> Exactly! purchase is made. >> Because if... >> If you yourself are a buyer, at least you have some idea. If you've never bought a token, and if you're, I had another founder tell me that, my tokens are worth hundred million. I'm like, you don't have a user, you just have a product. You're tokens are worth shite, if you ask me. It's worth zero, I can tell my house is worth hundred million dollars. It's only worth as much as the top buyer. How much is he willing to pay for me? So I told the founder, I'll pay so much for this price because I think, if it's about that, there's a huge risk as the main investor coming in. He doesn't agree! >> So lets talk about some, how rounds are being done now. So one trend that I'm seeing, not, I shouldn't say trend, a few deals I've seen done, but it seems like a trend, I'm trying to get validation on this, Where people are avoiding the public ICO altogether, doing all privates. >> Yes! Basically over subscribed round. Trend, dynamic, real deal, what's your thoughts on reaction to that? >> It's just that the founders are adapting. Because if you go to the public, the moment you're going to the public, what's happening is, there's the SEZ component. Whether it's a utility and they can come after you, so they have made it private. And then they went after, and even further, a lot of the founders that I know, they just stopped accepting money from US entities or US individuals. Well it's a bad deal for a small investor. See the big investors are wealthy investors. They all have an external entity where they can invest into it. What about the small investor who was investing thousand dollars or 5,000 dollars? Now you have pretty much shut out his chance of getting into a great ICO. So the founder is going to raise his money from maybe Korea, Japan, China, and Singapore. He's going to form a company or a foundation in Cayman, or Lichtenstein, or Gibraltar. The small investor is a loser. The large institutional investor has no loss in this process, so, that is the founder adapting because he does not want, >> They want to manage, >> They don't want it to become lawsuits, basically. >> Compliance, audits, SEZ problems, they don't end fencing problems. >> So now let's compare, in contrast, different kind of companies. US based company, wants to raise money in the US, they do accredited. But they want to go outside, say Asia, or an Asia company wants to raise money in the US, what's that dynamic like, what are the issues? >> I think what's going to happen is they going to, some of them are going to register themselves as a security token, some of them are going to do just a reg D for very high net worth individuals. And the common, the the public round, they going to raise it from the China, the Korea, Japan, or is lobbying them. And that's what I think, multiple small countries are going to come into the space, which they know now, they can get the capital flowing into their company, and they going to allow their rules to be lax. They going to let capitol flow through. And then US will have to change, or maybe UK will have to change, whoever is against this will have to change. Capital means money, belt capital, and resource capital, like humans, we tend to move to places that are freer. Why did I move from India to US, or why did your parents or the earlier generation move to US? >> John: For a better life. >> It's a better life, the real better life is, you have the freedom over your property, the fruits of your labor. If the fruits of your labor are taxed at 50% or thirty, the more it goes up, you just don't want to work anymore, or you're going to to search for that place that will tax you less. >> Like Puerto Rico! >> Nithan: Puerto Rico! >> Are you bullish on Puerto Rico? >> I am bullish on Puerto Rico because, these, if they can sustain this, and have the rule of law, means they can protect people's wealth, like from crime and all those things, crime or being kidnapped. These two things happen, I'm telling you, most people will move or some of state will have to change their laws. >> They got to get >> the security up. Nithan, thanks so much for coming on the CUBE. Really appreciate your insight. Thanks for sharing! >> Thank you very much. This is the CUBEs exclusive coverage from Puerto Rico where we're getting on the ground here. Getting all the data from the Blockchain Unbound Conference. Part of restart week. I'm John Furry here, we've got more coverage after this break, thanks for watching! (upbeat electronic music)

(upbeat electronic music) >> Narrator: Live from Nassau in the Bahamas, it's theCUBE! Covering Polygon '18, brought to you by Polyman. >> Welcome back everyone, we're live here at theCUBE in the Bahamas, this is the live coverage in the Bahamas for Polycon '18, I'm John Furrier, this is a wrap up of our day two. We're going to do show wrap up, brought in special analyst guest, Dave Vellante, they had to jump on a plane, head back to Boston, get out before the snow storm, to head to California. Al Burgio and I are going to wrap it up. Al, serial entrepreneur, founder of FuseChain, and CEO of FuseChain and DigitalBits, an open source project, had you on yesterday, we also were out scouring last night and getting all the data. You were the only Cube alumni at this event, now we add in another 20, good success, good to add more, thought leaders into the family, with Polycon, but big story here is the security token. I mean, I was talking to the founder of Polymath, and Genevieve with Grit Capital, and just my take is, looking at the ecosystem, it's been a sigh of relief on one hand, oh my god, finally, documents we understand accredited investors, no scams, a feel for a good, solid foundation to get funding, no rush to do a utility token, because although utility is super important, people were using utility tokens to get funding, using that money and running as fast as they can to build a product, sub-optimized kind of role there, so again, big news there. >> No, absolutely, it's been, it's the natural evolution and companies like Polymath and Secure Ties and others are helping with this natural progression and birth of the security token. There's clearly a lot of people here interested in that, lot of action, lot of new announcements at the event as well. >> John: What jumped out at you for news announcements? >> The news, I guess. >> John: Ecosystem news is big. >> If we go with the latest today, announcement with Barbados Stock Exchange, folks at Polymath, it's interesting. These emerging markets embracing new technology, it's the next wave and a lot of capital is going to be raised this way. >> What did you learn last night, I mean, first of all this event just for the folks watching, was a real interesting event, it was a 400 plus attendees, really an industry conference about, what the thought was, you had whales, billion dollars of whales here, called whales, which they have a net worth in billions and millions, hundreds of millions, then you have investors, variety of investor types and then entrepreneurs, all coming together. I heard a lot of different things last night, what did you hear? >> You know, it's interesting, I mean a lot of people were sharing their perspectives. Some are presenting different perspectives of the future, (laughing) >> Come on, spit it out! >> Others are, you know, really, in some cases, stating the obvious. But there's definitely a strong ecosystem that's coming together here, strong alignment on a number of things, irrespective of where everybody's sort of come from or the industry that they're in. A lot of people want to see this new ASA class, come and grow and be very successful. So, you had YouTuber influencers here, you had CEOs of well-established organizations, and up-and-coming CEOs of a lot of these blockchain emerging companies. There's definitely tremendous synergy amongst some of them as well, in terms of how they're sharing perspective, and how they're, in some cases, working together. >> Liquidity has been a big option, I heard people talk about liquidity. What's your take on that? What's your observation of how that's evolving? >> Well, I think there's a huge opportunity with areas where traditionally, they've lacked liquidity. Or there's been minimal liquidity, tremendous friction and challenges in terms of being able to leverage what one possesses. Blockchain really presents a huge opportunity to change the game there, as it relates to DigitalBits and what we're focused on, we see a huge opportunity in all things loyalty rewards. There's in a lot of cases, these centralized organizations, you can kind of think of them like a central bank, and people have had these difficulties in earning points, if it's a pair of golf clubs you want, you maybe have to earn points for maybe three years and you get tired after a year. >> That's your venture. >> Yeah. >> I mean FuseChain and DigitalBits specifically is solving a big problem. >> Big problem, there's tremendous lack of liquidity in all things loyalty rewards. >> What's your angle of attack there? Obviously disrupting the pre-existing and somewhat fragmented loyalty programs. I mean, I'm in so many, I don't even use the airlines things anymore. I get so many points, I never use them, I try to use the good ones that I use a lot, like Southwest or whatever, as an example, I use because my kids need to fly to an event or soccer or whatever. But other ones, I've lost all my points. I don't even know the number. I mean, where the hell is it? >> Well it's. >> What email address did I use? >> It's about perceived value, right, maybe you started off with some degree of enthusiasm and had a higher perceived value, but then towards the end it goes to nil. 'Cause it's really. >> John: But I can't get (mumbles) with my points. This is the problem I want to ask you. >> Traditionally, what you see now, a few weeks ago we saw announcement by Singapore Airlines, announcing by August their existing loyalty programs and we place them into a blockchain. We're seeing examples of this almost every week now, companies are embracing blockchain technology and what this allows for now is a more frictionless transfer of points. So, for those companies that are embracing blockchain technology, if you have points, and yeah you could potentially, after you have X number of points, go and redeem them for something you like, but in the meantime, you get discouraged, maybe you love Southwest, but maybe some of these other programs, you could trade them and hand them over to someone that actually could take advantage of it and get an alternative asset that you have a higher perceived value for. >> Digital currencies and gaming has been around for a while. We've seen the young guns get that, that's like a fish to water. Obviously loyalty has different assets than old school techniques, old stacks, technology, if that. So anyway, I ask you the question, how is blockchain disrupting the loyalty program that is the massive billions of dollars being spent and earned in that market? >> A third of points never get redeemed. There's a huge problem with many corporations, they have, as they're issuing points, it's a liability on their balance sheet. More points get issued, it's a hemorrhaging issue. It could potentially create solvency issues for companies. There's actually been professors from some reputable organizations that have really done a tremendous research in this area, it really evolves nicely into what blockchain can do. >> Like, give me an example, I mean what is the disruptive nature of it? Is it storing of the value? Is it trading on that value? Is it, I mean what is the real one thing that blockchain does to the loyalty program? >> The fact that it allows for a more frictionless transfer of points, so for the programs that are tokenizing their points on a block chain, it empowers the user to be able to directly transfer those points. >> So you guys of FuseChain and DigitalBits, you're tokenizing loyalty. >> We're supporting organizations, our big mission is to support organizations that have either existing loyalty programs or wishing to create new loyalty programs to be able to tokenize those on chain, and the ability to then allow the consumers, the users of these points programs, to, in addition to the traditional uses, redeeming them perhaps in a rewards store or what have you, the ability to transfer them for other assets that they like. >> John: So if I understand this correctly. >> Other points that they like. >> The trend that you like, or would like to see continue or happen, is retailers or loyalty programs would tokenize themselves. So, there'd be, literally, thousands and thousands of loyalty tokens and you would be the platform to support that? >> That's correct, absolutely. So, I've used the sort of red hat analogy, we have FuseChain as well that's really focused on helping support enterprises that maybe are struggling to spell blockchain. But they see all the value. >> That's everybody. >> Well from a technology perspective. Similar to Linux being born, enterprises needed to go to companies like a red hat, to support them with the integration, maintenance, so on and so forth of such technology. We're focused on having an evolving ecosystem of other organizations that can support enterprises that have loyalty programs, consume blockchain technology. >> You're a tech entrepreneur, I'm a tech entrepreneur. I have a media business, you're building another business, you sold your last business, you're very successful. You and I always talk about this, but I want to ask you here live on theCUBE, as a tech entreprenur, what is the opportunity that this ecosystem of tokenizing your business, using blockchain, how do you look at it and how would a solid tech entrepreneur look at this opportunity to integrate it, a new enabling technology, what's the orientation, what's your view on how tech entrepreneurs should look at it, and how do you look at it? >> Well, so, if we just, as it relates to the liquidity issue, this is a very powerful thing. Right now, perceived value for many points programs is very low. So, if the perceived value, you solve the liquidity issue or you create technology that can help solve the liquidity issue, the opportunity for the perceived value to be perceived in a more optimal light, everybody kind of wins. The merchant, the business that is issuing these points, they now have a more desirable asset that they're issuing, and as a result of that, consumers have an ever-growing desire to want to be part of these programs and earn points. So this is, it's fascinating when you start to think of it, in terms of. >> Technology is applying, 'cause it's the application of societal impact, whether it's a retailer or a non-profit, tokenization is happening. >> Absolutely, and it's happening obviously, not just in loyalty rewards, we've seen it happen, starting to happen now in other spaces, and with different. >> John: Your big takeaway, obviously. >> ASA classes. >> You've done a lot of work, and I know you can't talk about it 'cause you're in start-up mode and you're doing some financing right now, but just generally speaking, and I'm totally, the landscape of this ecosystem, health-wise, feels like the security token has been a good thing, utility token is still evolving, under observation, obviously SEC and other regulatory challenges, good, bad, ugly, I mean still scams out there? We're hearing the community loud and clear, we're going to stamp out the scams and flush that through the system, as fast as possible. Your take on this ecosystem? >> I think those that are taking their time to build great technology and doing it at the right pace will build great products and ideally do it at such a rate and in such an order that they'll stay out of trouble. (laughs) We're seeing a lot of great entrepreneurs come together, surround themselves with their own ecosystems and building great platforms. I think where we see others that are moving a little too quickly, they might trip on their shoelaces. >> Yeah and people don't, I mean the general consensus is "You're going to move fast, but you don't want to be in jail." Literally, I heard that quote here on theCUBE. (laughs) Investors we've been meeting, we've had on theCUBE but also we've chatted, I know I've seen you chatting, sidebars, I've had a lot of sidebars, Dave has as well, conversation among investors, not necessarily with you, I know you can't talk about it, 'cause that's, it's a hot deal, but I mean, in general, generally speaking, what's the conversations in the investor landscape that you're seeing and hearing here? >> Its interesting, everyone is trying to find their own point of view or speculating in terms of what's going to happen next. I've heard comments in terms of arbitrage as a result of income tax, people realizing that transferring between alt coins is actually likely taxable, and accountants making new investors in the space aware of these things, and having to potentially sell to be able to pay that bill. Then there's others where a lot of us are seeing this as an emerging technology, the actual use of certain, let's say, utility coins, it has not yet been demonstrated. That doesn't necessarily suggest that a particular project is bad, things do take time, I mean, we saw in the 90's with the internet, I mean, remember starting in that space, I call it the dial-up modem era, (laughs) You know, but we had these big visions of video, and theCUBE could not be possible at that time. But the vision of a Cube could be, you know, a wonderful thing, people could've bought into that. You kind of ride the trend, evolve your technology, and then you disrupt and you help change the game. >> Final question, obviously your business is, you're doing some things here, how did the show go for you here? You feel good about it? >> Absolutely. Obviously this is not like an Amazon, some of the other events we've been at but. >> It's more intimate. >> But. >> John: But there's money here, there's billionaires here. >> Absolutely, and look at any of those type of events, I mean they start with thousands, and tens of thousands, and the next year it's twenty thousand, we're going to see that kind of growth in this space as well. It's great to be involved in it early, but there's definitely quality, high-profiled individuals here, high net worth individuals, and they're investing their money in this space and they're going to help drive it forward. >> I remember the first show we did with Amazon and meeting Andy Jassy for the first time, first of all, really like him a lot, sports fan like me, but he's also really smart, a great operator, he made a comment that some of the best companies are ones that are misunderstood in the beginning, obviously we run a different kind of media business, people don't really understand us, cryptocurrency and blockchain is funny because everyone understands it, but doesn't understand it. (laughing) They understand how big it's going to be, and there's money involved, so that's the key learning that I had this week, was, yeah, we see the big opportunity, we can see money being made, but people still don't truly understand what it is. If you talk to all the smartest people, whether it's Jeremy, that came on at 26 years old, to Bill Tie, they say, "We're learning, everyday." The women in tech, the CryptoChicks came on and said, "This is learning environment, "this is still not understood." >> Absolutely. >> "And this is the big opportunity." >> It is a huge opportunity. In the early 90's, people didn't understand the internet, and there's a classic program episode of The Today Show, and I think it was Bryant Gumbel trying to understand what is the internet, you know, and so forth. Fast forward, here we are. Fascinating things, there's smart individuals that can see and embrace the vision right away, others were scratching their head but eventually, we'll all get there. (laughs) >> Al, great to see you and great to see a Cube alumni here too, I'm glad you were here, 'cause I get to know at least one person that I know intimately of Cube alumni. We added 20 more new Cube alumnis, the sun is setting here in theCUBE, day two of wall-to-wall coverage, I'm John Furrier, really excited to have been part of this event, it begins, kicks off our 2018 cryptocurrency tokenizing the world, blockchain, top events, theCUBE will be there, theCUBE is there, it's relevant, we're going to be tracking all the signal, and extracting it from the noise and sharing it with you. It's a wrap up of the cryptocurrency token economics decentralized internet at Polycon 18, here in the Bahamas, thanks for watching. I want to thank all the crew here, great job, and you guys watching. More to come! Stay tuned, check out siliconangle.com, thecube.net, and wikibon.com, of course, CubeCoin coming soon, stay tuned for what we're doing love to tokenize that business, everyone's doing it, it's really relevant and thanks for watching. (upbeat electronic music)