(electronic music) >> Live from Toronto, Canada it's The Cube covering Blockchain Futurist Conference 2018. Brought to you by The Cube. >> Hello everyone, welcome back to The Cube live coverage here in Toronto, Canada Ontario for Untraceable presents Blockchain Futurist Conference. Two days we've been here. We're on day two, amazing event here, great community, I'm John Furrier your host. Dave Vellante went back east so he was here yesterday. Our next guest Pablo Gonzales is the Founder and CEO of Genesis Blockchain Technologies, welcome to The Cube thanks for joining me. >> Thank you for having me. >> So I'm glad to have you on. First of all when Bradley Rodder says oh watch out for that guy, you must be smart because we trust Bradley so but you're doing something really cool. The future of trading and exchanges has been a topic that everyone's been talking about but not a lot of people have been actually moving the needle on. You've got some movement here, people doing here but no one's actually had the full package and they're running as fast as they can to do it. You guys have done it. >> We have. >> How? Take a minute, what have you guys done? What is the product? How did you guys do it and what can people use today? >> Thank you. So it's no longer hot air, as you said. A lot of people are saying what they're going to do. We're here to say what we have done which is very different. Yesterday up at the main stage we launched the world's first decentralized exchange on a mobile platform. We're fully licensed by the Costa Rican Commodities Exchange, we have brokerage license, a currency exchange license and a money remittance license. We already possess the licenses, we're not in pursuit of the licenses we have them. What we did obviously we pursued an MNA strategy, we acquired companies that were over a decade in the business and we just transformed them and cryptomized them, as I use the term and launched the exchange with those licenses and platforms. We listed the exchange with over 40 coins. Over four billion dollars of shared market cap and over half a million dollars of daily trading and liquidity. >> So this is right now going on in Costa Rica, mainly if stable. Is it stable? How's the stability there? >> So Costa Rica is extremely stable, they haven't had an army for over 50 years, it's considered a world-class country for banking, for international businesses so much so. Amazon, HP, Intel, all these humongous companies have large operations in the country. >> And their posture to crypto is they've come out formally. >> Yes. >> To state well what's the posture from Costa Rica? >> So they consider cryptocurrencies a commodity and not a security and that's why went on to pursue a commodities exchange license. >> So that opens up doors for you to do this. >> Of course it opens up the doors, think about it. So you can now trade Bitcoin with gold. In our exchange, not as of today we're going to launch that in January, so now you can trade cryptocurrencies with commodities and cryptocurrencies with fiat currencies. >> So I'm just kind of speculating here in terms of my mind where I'm going with this. Almost imagine the shakeup that's coming. It's like a blender, we trading gold and Bitcoin it's just like who would have thought that was possible a year ago? >> That's correct. >> They've been compared, people compare Bitcoin to new digital gold but actually comparing them this is going to shakeup like a blender. >> That's correct. >> Blend up the commodities market. >> Disrupt it. >> What's your vision? What do you see happening? >> I just think that a lot of people are focusing on they say on one of the interviews earlier today, one of the interviewers was asking me is that Bitcoin to the moon? I'm like guys we need to stop. If we want this industry to really grow and develop stop using those analogies. We need to create a community that's larger, we need mass adoption and I think by including the commodities into the equation you're catering to the traditional investors that are a little bit uncomfortable with cryptocurrencies because they don't know about them but they know about gold and then all of a sudden now you compare gold with Bitcoin. >> It brings retail into it. >> Yes. >> It brings a real retail market. >> That's correct. >> You know I just want to say something. I agree with you 100%. These news outlets out there, these other people they tend to focus on the price of Bitcoin and it's almost like okay can we get over that? Yes it's going to go up and down, if you're in the long game it should be 20,000. Okay we can buy that but let's talk about what people are doing. Who's building something? >> Yes. >> That's the focus. So if I ask you now that question, hey Pablo what have you built and what you you going to continue to build if this is a foundational product, what are you guys going to do on top of it? What's the build plan? >> Thank you. So yesterday we launched the decentralized exchange with 40 coins. We're going to add probably between now and December another 110 different tokens. We're doing 20 for now and in January we're launching a centralized exchange so that's where we're going to add the fiat currencies and the commodities. >> What date again? >> End of January. >> Okay got it. >> Then we're going to make an announcement in November at one of the conferences in Malta and so we're reserving the date and everything else for that but in May of next year we're launching over the counter trading desk with full KYC AML you know counter terrorism financing, all of the world class policies and by this time next year we're going to be launching our institutional platform. So we want to be a one stop shop via the currency exchange that we own. We already have the ability from the Central Bank of Costa Rica which is amazing to issue Visa cards. So now our users, besides trading, they can take their crypto with them from their mobile phone, convert it to fiat and pay, you know, for gasoline, buy groceries. >> So I'm an entrepreneur, I got my own cube coin coming out, cube token, security token or utility, what's in it for me? If I asked you Pablo what's in it for me? What do I get out of it as a business? Are people going to start trading my coins? Am I instantly going to have an over the counter so as a business what do I have to worry about? What's the benefit? What matters to me? What's the impact? >> So if you were to be a coin to list on our exchange you mean? Well first of all we all know exchanges now to list on them you know they're changing, some of them I'm not going to say the name. >> They're charging a lot of money. >> Yeah 400 BTC and crazy amounts like this. We are going to charge. It's a business at the end of the day but what we're looking for with the coins that we're going to list is partnerships and seeing what ways we can do more entrepreneurial projects to change the landscape of the industry together as an exchange and a coin because potentially what a coin is is a company. You know what's behind the coin is what's important to us and not the coin itself. As the company develops and progresses so will the coin's price appreciated value or depreciated value and so yes, besides facilitating trading fees and lowering that, up listing and so forth what we're bringing to the table wants to be much more dynamic. >> You got to balance you know business that you got to do with infrastructure build out. It's like the old telecom days you got to build some cell towers before you roll out mobile. You got to build this entire retail global fabric. >> Yes. How does community play in for it? Obviously community is very important. I agree with you that's big time. How are you guys building your community? Tapping into anything else? Obviously Untraceable has got a great community. How are you going to grow your community. >> So as an exchange there could be a conflict of interest we have to be really careful how we get involved in the community but what we want to do is by selected partnerships with projects and coins. The coins are already doing their work. They are appealing to a community. They are raising the money from that community what we want to do is we want to partner up with those coins, the coins that are worth partnering up with and that way our reach automatically will multiply. On top of that of course we want to work with government and banks and institutions. We believe, it may not be popular what I'm about to say, you know the good old honor kids that came to the hardcore crypto, forget about central banks and centralization, I don't think that that's ever going to happen. I think the more we cooperate with government, that the more we work with them, we together can shape the industry and the landscape for good. I do believe in that. It's a collaboration and cooperation with governments and banks to us is pivotal. >> I mean you can be a coach to the regulatory. >> Absolutely. >> You can be an advocate and partner. >> We are being. >> And not an enemy. >> In Costa Rica, so before they considered and they took a position on whether is was a commodity or not you know they approached us and we were teaching them so much so that a congressman that was going to be at the conference and couldn't make it, he's the founder of the Libertarian movement in Costa Rica he created a think tank of crypto because of us that now has Latin America reach. Think about it, there are 1.3 billion people in Latin America. >> They have mobile phones. >> Exactly. That can now learn about crypto and so we're going to capitalize on this. >> It's a real democratization, what you do is change a society. If you continue to get this right this is really key. Congratulations. Now I want to ask you personal questions so I love the hat, you look great. >> Thank you. >> How did you get here? Were you scratching an itch that was around this? Was it, how did you get to the point where you said hey I'm going to go out and build the first exchange. I'm going to roll up the companies, wire them together, cryptotize them and go nuts and build an exchange. I mean how did you get here? What's the story? >> Thank you well, it's a story. I began entrepreneurial projects over 10 years ago, been in the private sector, because Costa Rica is a services company we put together a call center. Took it from like four people to 4000 people in four years. I went on to like building my own sports brand in over 10 countries but then about two years ago a few companies from Canada they called me from here, they called me to help them go public in the Canadian Securities Exchange. I took two companies public last year and after that I was saying to myself and the crew guys what do we do next? How can we really disrupt the industry? And one of the things we were talking about was man, we're in a decentralized community that brags about decentralization, trading and centralized exchanges. How ironic is that? >> Yeah it's got to change. >> So we said you know what let's be the pioneers, let's head out on a quest to build the world's first mobile decentralized exchange and we achieved that. It's unbelievable. Now you hear all the big guys, the whales talking about we're going to come up with a decentralized exchange because that's what people want at the end of the day and we were able to be the first ones ever to give that. >> And stability is critical. I mean I was just at a bank starting up a new account for a new startup that we're doing and they're like is this a blockchain company? I'm like no, no God no, no, no we're a media business. >> Those are bad guys. >> So you can't even open a bank account some places. So this has really got to get fixed and I got liquid, I got fiat currency, I got to make movements around. The retail market, whether it's trading, investing, it's got to be converted over to the new world. >> Yes, yes. >> I mean it's almost like a full changeover. >> That's correct. Obviously I think that it'll be a transition process. It'll take some time. There are some banks that already getting more involved into the process. What's interesting in our case is we even got the Costa Rican Central Bank to be our bank. Think about it, we're not banking with any private bank or public bank but the Costa Rican Central Bank and I think that more and more banks will follow suit as they see good use cases. The ICO craze of last year, I don't think that it did any good to the greater good of the community. If anything it brought a lot of prejudice. >> It's a black eye. They'll be a hangover on that but that's like the dotcom bubble. All those things on the dotcom bubble actually happened so I think you're going to just see get that jested out of the system. >> Inevitable. >> And focus on quality. That's what happening now. >> Inevitable. >> Pablo thanks for coming on. Pablo Gonzales who is the Founder and CEO of Genesis Blockchain Technologies. First ever exchange bringing all new magic to the marketplace. This is The Cube bringing you the content magic here in Toronto, Canada. I'll be right back with more. Stay with us. Live coverage after this short break. (electronic music)

>> Announcer: Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico, it's theCUBE covering Blockchain Unbound. Brought to you buy Blockchain Industries. (upbeat music) >> Hello everyone, welcome to our exclusive coverage here in Puerto Rico with theCUBE on the ground for extensive two days of coverage for Blockchain Unbound in Puerto Rico where all the action is. It's a global conference where investors, entrepreneurs, thought leaders are all coming together to check out the future and set the agenda for Blockchain cryptocurrency and the decentralized internet. My next guest is John Hartigan, Executive Vice President in Intiva Health. Welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> So we were talking yesterday with Hash-Craft, CTO, you guys are part of that ecosystem, you guys are doing some of these things with health. Take a minute to explain what you guys are working on and your value proposition. >> Sure, so, Intiva Health is a career and credential management platform for physicians and all licensed medical professionals, and it streamlines and automates the credential management process that they have to go through every time that they either change positions or take on temporary work. And the Hash-Craft integration is allowing us to do instantaneous credential verification. Currently the state of affairs in the granting of privileges at a particular hospital or a facility can take literally weeks and in some cases months to complete. It's a very analog process, and with our integration with Hash-Craft, it will take seconds. >> So I was watching The New York Times today, an our Wall Street Journal article about verification of work history. This Blockchain is certainly a good example of that, but you're now getting it into more of health, what is the use case, what's the low hanging fruit that you guys are going after with your solution, and how does that evolve and how you see that evolving? >> Well, so, like I mentioned, the current verification process for the granting of privileges in a hospital setting, it is pretty much unchanged since the 1950s. The internet helps a lot but what you're talking about is somebody getting a credential paper file with 25 or 30 documents, and opening the file and picking up the phone and calling, and verifying the reputation and provenance of that particular physician. And it's truly a bureaucratic nightmare. It's red tape to the nth degree. And so that represents thousands and hundreds of thousands of hours and billions and billions of dollars in waste that could be reallocated to better patient care for example. >> The big use case we're seeing education, the workplace, but now healthcare. I see a perfect storm for innovation. Healthcare is not known for moving fast. >> John: Correct. >> HIPAA regulations in the past couple decades really put a damper on data sharing for privacy reasons. At that time it seemed like a good call. Has things like HIPAA, has the cloud computing model opened up new avenues for health because everyone wants great healthcare, but the data is stuck in some silo, database. >> Database, absolutely. >> That's the problem. >> That's absolutely a problem. >> So what's your reaction to that? >> So the approach that we're seeing a lot of organizations take is they are attempting to go after the EHRs and the EMRs, the Electronic Health Records for Patients. Of course that is something that needs to be fixed. However the medical space is truly influenced, the main stakeholders are the physicians. They sit on all the committees, they run all the budgets, they make the policy. So it's imperative that we address the physicians and get their buy into any kind of significant change. And what you're seeing now is states, as well as other organizations including the federal medical board, the Federal Association of Medical Boards, as well as the State of Illinois, Wyoming is here, as a matter of fact, representing, and they are all looking at Blockchain solutions for this verification problem for the medical space and remaining HIPAA compliant. >> Let's talk about security because hospitals and healthcare organizations have been really good targets for ransomware. >> John: Absolutely. >> And so we're seeing that mainly because their IT systems have been kind of ancient in some cases, but they're right in the target of, they don't have a lot of IT support. One of the things about Blockchain, it makes these things immutability. So is that something that is on the radar, and how is, I mean, not necessarily ransomware, that's one example of many security issues 'cause you got Internet of Things, you have a slew of cloud-edge technologies-- >> John: Yes. >> That are emerging, that opened up a surface area for a text. So what's your thoughts on that? >> So, as you mentioned, the traditional models have been layered on top of each other overtime. It's a patchwork situation. And because it's a patchwork situation, there is vulnerabilities all over the place, in facilities a lot of times. And besides that, the medical space is probably 10 years behind the times when it comes to technology, maybe five at a minimum. The model that we're using, you mentioned earlier that there are siloed information in these different facilities and hospitals, and that's absolutely true. So all of that information, you have facility A, facility B, facility C, they all have information on one particular provider or physician, but they don't talk to each, and that information is at different levels of accuracy and timeliness, you mentioned time and date stamps. So our model works where the information follows the provider, okay, it's all built around the provider themselves, and then the individual facilities can tap into that information, and also they can influence the information, they can update it. So everybody will then be talking to each other in an anonymous fashion around the one provider updating that information and making it the most accurate in the market, and we get away from the old SaaS model. >> Before we deep dive in here, I'm going to ask you one more thing around as you walked into healthcare providers and then the healthcare industry, you're a different breed, you have Blockchain, you got different solution, the conversation that they're having is, let's put a data leg out there, again, centralized data leg. ISPs are doing that. We know with cybersecurity, any time you have centralized data resources, it's just an easier target to hack. >> John: Correct. >> So it's clear that centralized is not going to be the ideal architecture, and this entire movement is based upon the principles of decentralized data. >> John: Yes. >> So what's it like when you go in there? It must be like, do you have like three heads to them? Or are you like a martian, you're like speaking some foreign language? I mean what is it like, are there people receptive to what you talk about? Talk about some of the experiences you had when you walked in the door and knocked on the front door and walked in and talked to them. >> So it is an interesting situation. When I speak with CEOs and when I speak with COOs, they understand that they're vulnerable when it comes to their data, and they understand how expensive it is if, for example, if they have a HIPAA breach, it's $10,000 per occurrence. Now that means if somebody texts patient information to somebody else on a normal phone, that $10,000 every time that happens, okay. And so if it's a major data breach, and a record of files if they have 50,000 files lost, I mean it could be a killing, a business killing event under the right circumstances. So I tried to educate them about-- >> Do they look at Blockchain as a solution there? Or are they scratching their heads, kicking the tires? What's the reaction? >> They're interested, they don't understand exactly how we can apply Blockchain, and we're trying to educate them as to how that is, we are capable of doing so. We're explaining about the vast security improvements by decentralizing the information, and they are receptive, they're just reticent because they're very, tend to be more conservative. So as these organizations like the State of Illinois and the Federal Association of Medical Boards, as they start to adopt the hospitals and facilities, they're starting to look in and oh say, "Hey, this is a real thing, "and there may be a real application here." >> Talk about your business, you market, you go on after obviously healthcare, product specifically in the business model, where are you guys? How big are you? Are you funded? Are you doing an ICO? How are you using token economics? How is it working? Give us a status on the company. >> Sure, so, we've been in business for approximately two years. We're a funded startup out of Austin, Texas. We are born actually out of a practice management company which is an important point because a technology company trying to solve this problem would really struggle because there is a lot of bureaucracy, there's a lot of nuance in how the system operates because it is evolved overtime. So that gives us a very significant advantage. We have an operating platform that has been out for a little over a year now, and we have thousands and thousands of physicians and other licensed medical professionals that use the platform now. >> Are they paying customers or are they just users? >> No, so the model works like this, it's free to the providers, it's also free to the facilities and medical groups, and so we allow that platform, that utility for them to use. How we monetize is we have other curated goods and services for the providers along their career journey. So, for example, continuing medical education. All providers are required to take so many units a year, and we have a very robust online library of CME. And we also have partnerships with medical malpractice organizations. >> So it's a premium model. You get them using the platform. >> Correct, that's right. >> Where does tokens fit in? Where does the cryptocurrency fit in? Do you have a token as a utility, obviously, it's a utility token. I mean explain the model. >> Correct. Yeah so we just announced last Friday. in South by Southwest that we are launching a token, a utility token, and it'll go on sale April 19th. And basically how it works is the providers, the physicians will earn tokens by taking actions in the platform that update their data for example, or if they look for a job on our platform, or if they do different tasks in the platform that improve the veracity of their data, and then they will be able to use those tokens to purchase the continuing medical education courses, travel courses, medical malpractice insurance, a number of different resources. >> Token will monitor behavior, engage behavior, and then a two-sided marketplace for clearing house. >> Exactly. >> How does the token go up in value? >> We have multiple partners that are involved, so the partners will be also purchasing advertising time, or it's a sponsorship model, so they'll be able to sponsor within the platform. So the more partners we bring in, the more providers we have, the value-- >> So suppliers, people who want to reach those guys. So >> Exactly. >> You get the coins, you see who's doing what. You get a vibe on who's active and then >> Exactly. That's a signal to potential people who want to buy coins. >> Yeah, and when we announced that we were doing this token, we had multiple partners that we have been in business with for the last two years, saying, "We want in, we want to do this, "we want to get involved." Oh another thing that we're doing with the token, we have an exclusive relationship with the National Osteoporosis Foundation, and we put forth to them that we would like to set them up with a crypto wallet so that they can accept donations, and then we would also match those donations up to a certain point that they receive in crypto. So we want to help our organizations, our not-for-profits by facilitating crypto acceptance. >> So talk about your relationship with Hash-Craft. It's two days old but it's been around for two years, they announced a couple days ago. It got good feedback, a lot of developers are using it. It's not a theorem but that's the compatibility to a theorem. You're betting on that platform. How long have you worked with these guys, and why the bet on Hash-Craft? >> So we were looking at Blockchain Technologies about two years ago because we realized, as you mentioned earlier, the security issues we have. We have to be very aware of the type of data that we're holding. So at the time though, there were significant issues with speed, significant issues with storage, and how it would work by actually putting a credential packet into Blockchain, and the technology frankly just wasn't there, and so we started looking for alternatives. Thankfully we were in Texas, and we happened to run into Hash-Craft, and they explained what they were doing, and we thought this must be too good to be true. It checked off all of our boxes. And we had multiple conversations about how we would actually execute an integration into our current platform with Hash-Craft. So we've been in talks with them for, I think, a little over five or six months, and we will actually, it looks like be one of the very first applications on the market integrating Hash-Craft. >> It's interesting, they don't really have a Blockchain-based solution, it's a DAG, a directed acyclic graphic model. Did that bother you guys? You don't care, it's plumbing. I mean does it matter? >> So actually the way that it is established, it has all of the benefits of Blockchain, and none of the fat and sugar, so to speak. I mean there are a number of things that they do that Blockchain-- >> You mean performance issues and security? >> Performance, speed is a big one, but also fairness on the date and timestamps, because with the verification system, you have to prove, you have to be able to prove and show that this date and timestamp is immutable, and that it has been established in a fair manner. And they have been able to solve that problem, where the Blockchain model, there is still some question about, if you have some bad actors in there, they can significantly influence the date and timestamps. And that was very significant for our model. >> Alright, well, congratulations. What's next for the company? What are you guys doing? What's the plan, what's the team like? Well, excited obviously. What's next? >> So we are going to be announcing some very big partnerships that we've established here late spring. I was hoping to do it here now, however we've-- >> Come on, break it out then. >> I would like to but I have to be careful. So we have some big partnerships we're going to be announcing, and of course we have the token sale coming up so there'll be a big-- >> Host: When is that sale happening? >> So it starts April 19th, and it'll run for about six weeks. >> What's the hard cap and soft cap? >> Yeah, we prefer not to talk about that, but let's say, soft cap, about 12 million. And we have some interested parties that want to do more, and so we're looking at what our best options are as far as setting the value to the token, and what the partnerships that are going to significantly impact it will be. >> Well, great job, congratulations. One of the big concerns to this market is scams versus legit, and you're starting to see clearly that this is a year, flight to quality, where real businesses are tokenizing for real reasons, to scale, provide value. You guys are a great example of that. Thanks for sharing that information. >> We're really excited, and it's very exciting to bring this to the healthcare space which is, as we said, conservative and somewhat traditional. And we believe that we will be setting the standard moving forward for primary source verification. >> And you can just summarize the main problem that you solve. >> Yeah, it is that analog primary source verification of the credential documents, and when our platform goes live, we will literally be putting hours of time a day, something like eight hours back into the providers' lives, and back to the money of that, associated with that back to their pockets, which we hope translates into better patient care. >> So verification trust and they save time. >> John: Absolutely. >> It's always a good thing when you can reduce the steps to do something, save time, make it easy. That's a business model of success. >> Absolutely and more secure. >> John Hatigan, who's with Intiva, Executive Vice President from Austin, Texas here in Puerto Rico for theCUBE coverage. Day Two of two days of live coverage here in Puerto Rico, I'm John Furrier with theCUBE host. We'll be back with more live coverage after this short break. (upbeat music)