>> 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)

>> Narrator: Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico. It's "The Cube", covering Blockchain Unbound. Brought to you by Blockchain Industries. (Salsa style music) >> Hello everyone. Welcome back to "The Cube". This is our exclusive coverage in Puerto Rico for Blockchain Unbound. This is a conference where the local entrepreneurs, industry legends, financiers, funders, everyone's coming together from Blockchain cryptocurrency in the decentralized web. A lot of great use cases. We have the politicians as well here in Puerto Rico, kind of enticing the community to do more here. I'm John Furrier with "The Cube". I'm here with Luis Macias, who's is the CEO of Grain Chain, a start up out of Texas, doing very interesting things with Blockchain, and a really good example of really the value proposition of reducing steps it takes to get something done creating value, and then sharing that value. Luis, good to see you. Thanks for coming on. >> Thank you for inviting me. >> So we talked yesterday, here off camera, about what you're doing on, but I want you to take a minute to explain to the folks what you guys do, and why Blockchain? What's the difference? >> Sure. So, I would say about 5 years ago we got approached by a large scale farmer, and he asked us to find a solution to be able to modernize his business, you know. As we all know, the farming industry is not as technical as a lot of the other industries, so we went out and searched and we just couldn't find a solution. So we built the appropriate solution to take a seed from the ground and take it all the way to the commodities market in an instant, instead of 3 to 4 weeks. So basically what we do is we join the buyer or the buyers of the actual soft commodities, and we allow them to create smart contracts with individual farmers. This ensures not only the payment to the farmer, but it allows the farmer to get paid instantly. What does it do really for our overall industry? Our buyers gain instant custody of the actual grain the second it crosses the scale. That changes everybody's life dramatically. >> So the middle man gets kind of disrupted, but before we go in that, I want to kind of dig, >> Sure >> it's important because I'm from California. >> Okay >> It's a huge farming thing there, cultural thing going on there. What's your background? How did you get here? I mean, how long have you been doing it? >> Sure. >> And when did you jump on the Blockchain as an opportunity? >> So we've been developing software for the last 17 years. We've done it for the insurance industry and for state governments, and we are in Texas and we a have personal relationships with many farmers. We saw a problem and we needed to solve it. In the last year, we went ahead and started applying the Blockchain to the process. And the Blockchain is a perfect form. When you have two parties who really, really don't need to trust each other, and need to trust each other with a distributed ledger, you've got a perfect scenario. If we're about to write a contract and a thousand people be able to verify that contract, and we're able to transfer money from one person to another without the two parties being involved, we've got a perfect scenario. >> Yeah. That's awesome. >> And that's where Blockchain really, really effects the agricultural industry and our farmers. >> You know I said on "The Cube" this morning, we were talking about it last night with some folks, the killer app for Blockchain is money. >> Yes. >> The common thread in all this is money. Just like the first computer in the TCPIP revolution, it was email. There's a 20 year killer app. We hate email now, but the point is you're in the money transaction business, but there's a supply chain involved. This is where it gets interesting. This is where I think you're onto something really nice here, because you are essentially creating a better contractual environment between buyer and seller, but the product still needs to move to the market. >> Yes. >> This is where you're innovating. Can you talk up, specifically, about how you're disrupting that piece? >> Sure. So, basically what we're able to do, is not only allow farmers to involve themselves in the forward and future's market, also the spot market within the actual system. So, it integrates with the actual trading applications, but it also integrates with their future's market and forward's market contractors. So, we're taking a group of people who are not very technical and we're giving them that ability to do what the big brokers do >> Yeah. >> In the overall industry. >> Just give an example, a run of the mill example use case. >> Sure, sure. One of our farmers who's got 5 million pounds of corn does a forward market with a buyer, the second he processes the scale, it will settle that contract instantly, and then it will actually notify him and say it is in your best interest to go ahead and close the other 3 million pounds because the price just spiked. He hits one button. He makes more money than he's ever made on any contract he has done in the past. >> And that's because what happens? What was the old way? What was the old way? >> The old way is he pretty much put it in the silo, and sent the papers to an accounting office. Three or four weeks later, he figured out how much he had, then he gave it to a broker to be able to look at the actual inventory. They put it up on the market, and they make the actual commission. >> They make the spread. >> Yeah. >> They increase, they mark it up. >> Exactly. >> They take the spread down, and they still got to send paperwork back to the guy and say "This is what we sold". >> Exactly, and then eventually get paid. This pretty much turns that entire process into an instant action. >> This is a game changer. This is basically taking all those steps, and a lot of potential miscues could happen in that process. >> Absolutely. >> Time wasted, errors. >> And there's, you know, I don't want to put any bad actors, but it also eliminates the bad actors out of the scenario. Our governing system actually integrates directly into the scales, gets signatures from the scientific reading instruments, so we're removing bad actors and we're removing errors, and we're speeding the process. >> You know, I have a computer science degree, and software background, like yourself, but also got an NBA from Babson College, one of the words they use in the NBA class is "value chain". >> Yeah. >> The "value chain". You know, the activities as part of creating value. Kind of a document thing, but the word Blockchain, value chain, really this is the perfect example of the kinds of use cases that we see in Blockchain. >> Absolutely. >> Moving a product to the market, reducing the steps it takes to do something, saving time, and being more efficient. >> And having a complete trust system. You know, when you have a farmer who's paying a 1% premium to be able to ensure to get paid, a 90% and there's still litigation in everything involved, this completely eliminates that scenario. >> Yeah. The other thing we talked about on "The Cube" this morning and yesterday, I was saying was that killer app's money, which is great, money has to move around. That's what we see activity on, and some bad actors there for sure, but marketplaces is also the other killer app. Do you agree? I mean, because you're essentially creating a marketplace. You need a marketplace. >> Absolutely. I actually just got approached about 10 minutes ago from a local Puerto Rican gentlemen who's restarting a farm after the weather event that happened here. He's trying to figure out how to get honey into the U.S. market, but is scared to sell it to just anyone. He asked me if it's possible to be able to set up smart contracts with all the random buyers that want to buy his honey. >> Yeah. >> This is an exact scenario where we are helping a community who has to start over and figure out who to sell their product to. >> You know Luis, this is a great example of, kind of, categorically what I'm seeing across the disruptions schemes out there, which is, in the cloud computing era, Amazon Web Services created a catalog of services that allowed you to use resources without having to build stuff up from scratch, provisioning servers. This is kind of happening here, where you're starting to see a sense of services or players, a catalog of services, >> Absolutely. >> happening in business. So essentially you're going to the next level. This seems to be a consistent pattern. What's your take? >> Yeah. Absolutely. It's allowing the smallest guys in the industry to the biggest guys in the industry to take advantage. When you have people using Amazon Web Services, you're having massive corporations and the one business man owner. What we're doing here is, we're giving the same opportunities for both classes of people to be able to scale, and put their product on the market without having to do a massive investment, >> Yeah. >> Or be scared that they're going to get robbed. >> It's a great value proposition. I'm sure you've got a lot of investors knocking on your door. Take us through what you're doing right now. You're doing an ICO? Are you raising money? And, what are you expansion plans? Because I know you're in Texas. Are you in California yet? I mean, a lot of agricultural activity there. >> So. >> What's your growth plan? >> So what we're doing is, we're doing a Token So Event, and we're doing a private placement sell to accredited investors. We're trying to respect all the SEC regulations out there. We're launching that at the end of this month. We are currently based in Texas and we also got approached by the Mexican Government to apply the technology to the state run silos in Mexico, so what we're looking for is really finding people who want to help us scale this product world-wide and being able to participate in our sale. If you're able to go onto our website, grainchain.io, and sign up to our white list, that'll allow you to get some information on how to participate. >> Grainchain.io >> That is correct. >> Like as in the grain of a seed. >> Absolutely. >> Okay, I'm going to ask you about Puerto Rico. >> Yes. >> You've been here a couple days. What's the vibe here? Why is this such an important event? A lot of people who are watching this aren't here. What's happening in Puerto Rico? What are you hearing in the hallways? What is some of your conversations? And, what are your observations? >> I mean, I think that the reality is that Puerto Rico is trying to embrace technology, and trying to embrace an industry that can support the people here. We've seen a lot of the devastation as we're driving around, but Puerto Rico is back up and running. So, the reality is that I feel very, very strongly about, not only supporting the local economy, but the fact that they're supporting real technology and providing and trying to get real solutions into this country to restart. >> And the young people are really engaged on Blockchain crypto. >> Absolutely. And you know, you'll have a lot of young very very aggressive developers. I've met a lot of people here, who've come here. A lot of locals who are looking for work in Blockchain and developers. So we're very excited to really really see that everything is kind of kicking back up here in Puerto Rico. >> Well, my final question for you, Luis, is as an industry participant and developer and player, what is this wave about? You know, you put your industry hat on and expert hat on, what is happening? I mean, what is really happening with Blockchain Crypto and decentralized applications? Because there is so much action, people want to get on this wave and surf this puppy. What's happening? In your personal opinion, what is this wave all about? >> I mean, I think that this is, again, not comparing to the dot com era, but it's giving the average person the ability to get into real industry. It's allowing everyone to be a participant, an investor, a developer, an overall embraceor of the technology that you haven't seen in a long time. Usually the software development and putting out products takes a lot of technical skill, and this is really kind of encouraged everyone to embrace it, look at it, and allows everyone to participate. >> And so basically the democratization of society. >> Absolutely, but it's also the democratization of a world economy, not a local economy. >> And the locals can play and customize it for their own personal needs. >> Absolutely. >> Well Puerto Rico's got a great opportunity on the loose. Thank you so much for coming on. CEO of grainchain.io, I'm John Furrier at the Blockchain Unbound Conference. Day 1 of 2 days of coverage. We're talking to all the experts, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, investors. More live coverage after this short break. (logo music)

(lively music) >> Narrator: Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico. It's The Cube! Covering Blockchain Unbound. Brought to you by Blockchain Industries. (lively island music) >> Hey, hello everyone. I'm John Furrier. We are reporting on the ground here in Puerto Rico for Blockchain Unbound, a global conference of leaders from around the world who are coming into Puerto Rico with the local entrepreneurs, with the local ecosystem, to talk about the future of the digital nations in the world, digital transformation, also cryptocurrency, Blockchain...all the people are here, The Cube is here, as part of our 2018 kickoff of all the crypto Blockchain shows. My next guest here on The Cube is Gustavo Diaz Skoff, who is the founder and president of the Young Entrepreneurs in Puerto Rico's society, also heavily involved in the ecosystem. Thanks for speaking with me. >> Thank you. >> John: So, what's going on here in Puerto Rico? Also, we just talked with Michael Angelo, who is the co-founder of Edublock, but we're talking about a whole transformation going on in Puerto Rico. What's the young culture like? What's the old guard say? I mean, are people... What's going on? What's the mindset? What's going on in Puerto Rico? We know the hurricane that hit, but, again, looking past that, what's the cultural vibe right now in Puerto Rico? I think the cultural vibe right now is that there's a little bit of a hesitation, but, at the same time, there's a lot of excitement. Events that, like, for example, the one that were hosted yesterday, Law 23, that brought the local and the vicinity communities together to actually clear up and like lowered those stations and actually bonded and brought more energy into the whole push. I think that is the overarching vibe here in the island, it's just like awesome. There's...something's happening. We don't know quite yet what it is, but there is a historical narrative of the island, and there is definitely a very bullish view of the island. So what's really going on here is that the people are excited, but you got the whole world descending upon Puerto Rico. We grabbed a lot last night with the party. >> Yeah. >> We put out a nice sizzle reel this morning, but the vibe was awesome. People were dancing, a lot of people smiling. >> You were there? >> We were there! We just put some up on our telegram channel. >> I was the organizer of it. >> Congratulations, really awesome. >> Thank you. >> John: Outside, nice weather, things were great, but it really is about the cross-pollination. It's about the culture of Puerto Rico, maintaining the culture in Puerto Rico, seems to be the top story that we hear from folks here. Yes, we like to bring in the industry, but don't tell us what to do. We're Puerto Rico (laughing) you know, don't stomp on our land! I'm not being...but I mean there's kind of a vibe like 'look it, Puerto Rico's proud.' But that's got to translate into execution... what's the young guns doing? >> So, this is the reality in terms of what the young guns are doing, and, sadly, sometimes they're a very sad story, and the reality is like when you look at the world economic forums competitive reports, we have the sixth-largest conglomeration of trained scientists and engineers in the world. Holy shit! That's insane. But, at the same time, we have 90 percent of them being unemployed or underemployed, because we don't have like technology companies that are actually requesting and demanding that type of knowledge. And so, that's where we're actually failing in terms of execution, because we're going to end up working for a bank or for a government agency, and so there's not that many opportunities to actually go and build that. And now, just looking at the whole shift and how the world has basically come into our shores, it's like, wow. There is an opportunity to actually use this human capital and work together and just start developing and challenging ourselves locally to keep building, either as an entrepreneur or as an intrapreneur. >> John: You know, Brock Pierce, I thought, said it great today on the keynote he gave here at the Blockchain Unbound Conference, "It's a global 'we' going on; it's a 'we,' not a 'me.'" >> And I think, you know, someone who's seen many waves in my life, this is the biggest wave ever, because it's creating essentially a flat world, it's global, so it's not like the old guard, gatekeeper, migration paths up, so the migration for up the ladder, if you will, in society for a young individual was kind of structured in the past. >> Now the ladder has fallen. It's flat. (chuckling) >> Peter Thiel, who at one point was looking at paying people not to go to school, literally the world is your oyster with this new technology, because now it's a global fabric. There's no central authority. You have access to open source software. It's fully connected. So now's the time to make it translate. What do you hope for for the community in Puerto Rico to make that connection in the actual property flow, the relationships. What are you guys looking for to have happen? >> Yeah. So the answer is going to be a little bit historical, and that goes back to the question I asked off of the camera, was like, "Do you know where the first special economic zone was built, the first SEZ was built?" It was here in Puerto Rico. And for those that don't know, that was the economic model that we used as a human race in 130 nations in 4300 zones around the world to transition our economy from agriculture to manufacturing. And I believe that, right now, we're building that fabric. We're starting to reconstruct the second generation of an SEZ, and, whatever is happening here, to either build better cities, where people are able to access their food, are able to access capital, are able to access opportunities in a way that it's de-risked. I believe it's being built right now. And I think that is where we're heading. Because we already did it 71 years ago, and this is just the perfect concoction to re-do it. >> John: You know, I talk with a lot of leaders. One of them, in particular, Teresa Carlson, runs Amazon Web Services' global public sector, which is government, schools, and whatever. We're seeing for the first time, and this is what, I think, Amazon sees, and they're the leader in cloud computing, which is phenomenal, which, again, levels a lot of gatekeepers, if you think about it that way. She talks about digital nations, that we are now at the front end of the beginning of a wave where sovereignty, at a national level, with this no-border, kind of digital culture, is a huge opportunity. >> Yeah. >> How are you guys recruiting? How are you spreading the love? How are you spreading the word? Because it's not just developers, it's about the communities. >> Well, first of all, I think it's important to actually say that it's better, I think, Puerto Rico being a free associated states of the United States of America, it's like the best place to actually test this philosophy and push for that. I think that the way that we're actually starting to recruit that is by spreading out into the world and saying, "Hey, this is happening, come back." As I was mentioning, in May, we're going to Washington DC to present over 23 organizations that are working on basically all that's happening, and be able to bring more consciousness, bring more tools into the island and be able to build, essentially, the future of it. >> Tell me about the things that you're working on right now. You mentioned before we came on camera some of the things you were doing in Washington DC. What are some of the things you're hoping to accomplish over the next year in your role, inside the community here in Puerto Rico? >> I hope to, with Edublock, be able to help more students get into this space, be able to leverage better connections and relationships with these corporations that are in need now of Blockchain developers, and be able to have that circle of flow of the people here in the island and the people internationally that are looking for talent. That's my main goal. And if I could put a number of it, it would be amazing to have 500 students recruited, or with an internship, within corporations by the next 365 days. >> As you guys at Edublock are creating a separate event forum for what's happening at Blockchain Unbound to the education community, because it's pretty pricey to come to this conference, it's an investor's conference, it's an industry conference. You're seeing a world coming together, a lot of people coming in from the crypto blockchain community. What are people talking about in Puerto Rico about this migration and this intersection of the two worlds? Is it good, bad, confusing? Are people trying to figure it out? What's the vibe? >> They need more information. They need more data. (laughing) We only have a few articles, and that's it. >> John: Yeah. >> My father, for example... >> John: Articles from centralized news organizations, not trusted news organizations. >> Yes, yes. >> What does the decentralized data say? >> The decentralized data say is that this is a good technology, and we need to be careful, like we need to understand it correctly. And we need to raise awareness around the community, because it can either go really, really, really, really, really well, or we can repeat the past couple of years in the island. >> It could fail miserably or be a home run. >> Great stuff. We certainly want to expose the information and share what the stories of the key things that we're...you're doing a great job. You guys are doing great work. We support you from Silicon Valley with The Cube. >> Our job is open, free content, which we're doing here in Puerto Rico. We're with Gustavo Diaz Skoff, who is the founder and president of the Young Entrepreneur's Club here, Entrepreneurial Society, in Puerto Rico. We're on the ground, getting all the top stories and sharing the data with you. I'm John Furrier. Thanks for watching. (digital music)