>> Narrator: From New York, it's theCUBE, covering Blockchain Week. Now, here's John Furrier. (digital music) >> Hello, everyone. Welcome back to theCUBE coverage here on the ground. Here in New York City for Consensus 2018, sold out event. This is the premiere show for the Crypto Blockchain world. It's part of Blockchain Week, New York City, #BlockchainweekNY, for New York. A lot of events going on. Everyone's here, a lot of breaking news. I'm here with CUBE alumni, Dan Bates, ImpactPPA. He was on with us in our show in Puerto Rico, at CoinAgenda. Dan, great to see you, thanks for comin' in. >> Thanks, John. Glad to be here. >> So, you've got some hard news. Tell us a little about the conversation we had about, couple weeks ago, in Puerto Rico. You got a great mission, renewable energy. You got a token. You've been busy. You got a concrete deal. You're doing business. You're not just saying it, you're doing it. >> Yeah, shocking. >> Take a minute. What's the hard news? >> All right, so we're really proud to announce today, that we signed a deal with the Indian government, which is essentially going to lift 50 million people out of poverty. Women. How they're going to do that is they're going to help restart their textile industry. It's called Harit Khadi. It's an old craft of India, spinning cotton into really high quality fabric. What they're going to do is they're going to put an energy efficient loom in a woman's home. It's going to be powered by our technology. And the whole process, all supply chain and payment will be managed by our token. >> Take a minute real quick, to explain the technology. I know it's recycling. We've done it before. But for this first, while we're going to get context for this big news, what's, real quickly, what do you guys do? >> We install renewable energy systems on rooftops. In this case, it'll be a rooftop. In many cases, it's large microgrids. So, we use wind and solar technology to drive to batteries. And then we allow people to pay for power on an as needed or pay a you go model. It's very much like what M-PESA does in Africa. We've de-centralized electricity. De-centralized M-PESA for electricity. >> You took an economics utility, great thing. By the way, state of California, where I live, just mandating all new construction have solar panels. Not sure they're going to tokenize it. They might be getting it all wrong. But, you do an amazing mission. Great technology. But I'm amazed by the real deals you're doing. You got a PO in hand, real business. >> Yes. >> Signed. >> Yes. Sealed and delivered. >> Yes. >> What is it? How much, what's goin' on? This is big news. >> Yeah, the purchase order that we have is going to represent one quarter of 1% of this project. It's designed to put 125,000 women to work. I can tell you the number has a lot of zeros on it. >> So there's real cash in the barrel? >> This is a nine-figure-- That's right. This is nine-figure purchase order, that we have out of them. It's a big deal. 100 million plus. >> Yeah, 100 million plus. >> Just as a POC. >> Just on the POC, yeah. What we're going to be doing is we're setting this deal up now. End of June, early July, we will doing the inauguration on the first textile facility in Kahana, which is a city in India. And Prime Minister Modi is slated to cut the ribbon, to set this project in motion. His goal, and the Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises, Minister Singh, whom I met with a couple of weeks ago, they are committed to bringing 50 million people out of poverty. >> So this is really high impact, in my opinion, pun intended. You got a ImpactPPA. You got a mission-driven organization, real problem, growing middle class, by the way, is coming fast and furious. >> Exploding. >> You're connecting energy with token economics. Real money's on the table. Real impact to people's lives, with democratization. In this case, it's not, but it could apply to any other thing. This is just one example. >> That's right. This is the largest, in my opinion, from my view, from my vantage point, this deal alone, the pilot actually, that quarter of 1%, is the largest commercial blockchain project in the world. I can't see of anything else that's even close, right now. >> The claim has been made. The largest commercial blockchain deal in the world done by Dan Bates, ImpactPPA. Congratulations. Great stuff. Great to have you on theCUBE. >> Thank you, John. >> We want to ask you now, shift gears to the event. You were out late last night, networking celebrating the success, doing more business. What are you doing here? Obviously, you're not done. It's the beginning of a big deal. There's only one deal. What other things you got goin' on? >> Oh, we got projects. We just signed a partnership with the Earth Day Network. They're responsible for launching Earth Day, 48 years ago. We've got a project with them, 50 by 50. We're going to be doing 50 installations around the world with our partnership by their 20th, or their 50th anniversary in 2020. We're here talking to protocols. We're here talking to strategic partners at Consensus. And it's an amazing show. The energy around here is just unbelievable. >> You know what I love about your project? And you know, we've talked before, but for the folks watching, you combine a mission-driven, high-need deal, electricity, with technology. I mean, it's.... If I'm a young person, I want to be in this business. How're you onboarding people? You guys are hiring? What kind of people are you hiring? >> Well, of course, we're looking for developers to help us with the token piece of it, the blockchain piece. We're also looking for guys who can help us get this thing to scale. That's going to be really critical. So we're talking to a whole bunch of guys around protocol to see who can bring on board, in this case, 125,000 people, like tomorrow. We're also looking for energy guys, engineering guys, because we've got projects all over the world. Don't forget, we're still doing those 42 cities in Haiti. Microgrids all up and down the West Coast of Haiti to help these people lift themselves out of darkness. We do that too. >> Dan, congratulations. You guys're doing great work. >> Thank you. >> I'm proud to know you, and I really believe in what you're doing. Thanks for doing it. >> Great. >> Appreciate it. >> Thank you very much, John. >> theCUBE coverage here in New York City. Big news. The largest commercial blockchain deal that we know of, that we've seen. If there's others out there, come challenge that and let's see it. Real offers being done. Dan Bates, ImpactPPA, CUBE coverage, here in New York at Consensus Blockchain Week. Be back with more, thanks for watching. (digital music)

I'm from San Juan Puerto Rico it's the cube covering coin agenda brought to you by silicon angle hello everyone welcome to special cube covers we're here exclusive conversations at coin agenda we just had blockchain unbound Puerto Rico is where we're at and we'll covering all the trends and latest news and analysis and cryptocurrency blockchain decentralized internet my next guest is Dan Bates founder and president of impact PPA Dan great to have you on thanks John glad to be here so one of the trends I'm noticing is a couple things flight to quality on the ico side first of all lot of the Deadwood's being pushed aside by the community still some stuff out there that you know might not have a business model but good entrepreneurs doing it then you start to see real use cases emerging I interviewed Green Chain they're disrupting how produce grains movement between suppliers and buyers and other impact mission driven stuff like how do you solve the energy crisis right we're in Puerto Rico right the grids half alive everyone knows that you're doing something really compelling take a minute to explain what you guys are doing is you have a token up and running what are you guys doing what's your value proposition so what we do is we've created a system by which you can now have renewable energy delivered to developing nations and we've taken the intermediary out of the equation whereby the world bank historically would take years to fund a project if they would do that they're big trepidation was how do you get paid at the end of the day so what we've done is we've come up with a solution that allows for generation of rent you know with the energy using renewables and track it all the way through to a payment rail if you will that a user can now prepay for energy on their mobile device it's m-pesa if you know what end pace is in Africa 70% of the transactions in Africa are done on a mobile device we are decentralized and pace up for energy so ok mobile app I get out you everyone can think about BRR and all the benefits and Airbnb brings you just have stuff happened talk about what's under the hood what's actually disruptive about what you guys are doing give some specifics because you're tying into Isis and jittering energy using the blocks you have a token how does it all work okay so what we do is in in the in the ability to fund the project getting the World Bank getting USA USA ID out of the equation what we now allow for is the community typically we are very liberal or tend to skew liberal right we actually believe that climate change is real and we want to help support these economies and these new types of you know betterment of the planet right but we don't expect that to be a philanthropic effort so people will buy the impact token which will fund projects that will then create what we're doing right now it's an AR C 20 of what we call a gen credit not a secondary token it's a credit that allows people to access the ledger so a guy will go down to the store just like he does right now and he charges his phones with more minutes or with a data plan it's fiat to a plan a digital currency we do the same thing it's now fiat into a gen credit we call it that allows them and transact with the blockchain so we get identity we get reputation we get trust and honesty about those transactions using the blockchain okay so where does the energy come from because the energy sources now are interesting because you're seeing people do great amazing things solar panels wind farming they see an Asia top of the apartment buildings there's a lot of wind yeah generally but how do they move that power into the market all right so what we do is right now we're using wind and solar rooftop or micro grid for instance we just finished a project in Haiti doing 150 kilowatts for a town called les a wha they haven't had power in two years a hurricane matthew prior to Hurricane Maria coming through Puerto Rico Puerto Rico's in a similar situation right so we created this micro grid using their existing infrastructure of transmission to distribution then we put smart meters on the home that smart meter connects to the blockchain and now people can have power at their homes pay-as-you-go awesome so what I've been to some of the hurdles you guys have had obviously to me it's a no-brainer of energy being tokenized is that makes such sense why wouldn't you want to do that obviously these regulatory issues that are incumbent legacy Dogma or or specific legislation of paperwork what not where's the efficiencies being automated away with the blockchain and what are some of the hurdles that you guys have gone through to get to this point all right so we work in the emerging economies of the world oftentimes there is not the kind of regulation that we have in the US or in the developed world like the EU something like that so when we go out to remote we go out to remote places like you know in Kenya and Ethiopia Latin America wherever it might be we don't have some of the Institute's that you would have if you were trying to set this up in Palo Alto I don't have to worry about PG&E and an interconnect and an off take and all that so what we do is that we'll go out set up a micro grid we're giving power to people who may have never had it before so all those regulatory layers are stripped away they're grateful for it that can they pay for it yes they can't afford to go buy a solar panel and a wind turbine on batteries and inverters nor would they know how to hook it all up yeah but they know that if they can buy power on a cellphone like they're already doing for other goods and services now we've got a game-changer Dan talk about the token economics I get this the payment rail piece mobile app no-brainer I get that check okay easy to use now I want to as a buyer of energy there's a token I some children there where's the other side of the marketplace how does that token economics work do you just take us through a use case and walk us through that example sure so as I said the impact token is our base token that will be the the value token that purchasers will buy in order to fund projects once we go beyond that and we now have what we call a Jen credit it may not be a token in the traditional sense or a coin it's a credit that allows us to transact with the ledger that way we can know about these people one of the greatest opportunities that we feel that we have in the marketplace is identity and reputation you have a billion two people who don't have a connection what if we could learn about those billion too and understand how they use power and where they use power so Jen credits kind of off chain management that you're doing you write to the ledger for in term util access right for that Tran action I got to ask you about things like spoofing why can't I just take your energy this is where the tokens become interesting because I mean it should solve the spoofing problem well right and you know energy energy needs to be passed down copper it's got to go on a wire that doesn't mean somebody's not going to cut the wire and bootleg it and all that stuff smoothing is not going to be the problem in this case it is a physical connection that needs to be made our smart meters allow for us to turn on or off let that connection by the user right if he doesn't pay you don't forget it yeah you know there's vandalism they're stuffed all over the world and we have methods in place to try and mitigate that as much as possible you you saw our platform that we're building we're tokenizing our media business amazing you liked it was good thanks for the plug there I was an aspirin and we were talking last night about our you know generational gap between us and our kids and you have your son here and your son's working with you my sons Alex working with us we have a young team as well I want you to talk about someone who's so experienced in the business you've done a lot of variety adventures from you know film to entertainment technology us older veterans it's the polite way to say it have seen the movie before they've seen the waves this is a huge way but this wave is gonna be can surf a few of them hang ten on our boards but this wave is really gonna be powered and led by the younger generation what's your thoughts share your vision of the role that the younger generation has to take here and what makes them capable in your mind okay so I'm gonna answer that question two ways first of all I'm so enamored with what the younger generation is trying to do with this corruption let's change the existing paradigm and make something better that's what blockchain allows for all sorts of industries goods and services right it's gonna be amazing what these guys come up with that's one of the things I love about doing this thing right I'm an old guy and I get to hang around these young people makes me feel young again yeah but the other thing that we have and I think you share it as well as we have to offer to these young guys experience right it's not like we're gonna go out to a market that we don't know about and try and explore it for success you know I've been in the renewables business for ten years delivering projects to 35 countries I got my boots on the ground I got my hands dirty doing this for 10 years now and I think the other part of that building this project and making it successful is the team that we've put together behind it we have an advisor who advises presidents dr. Michael Dorsey that's really important that's valuable that he understands the global marketplace the way he does the other one is Vinay Gupta who has been in blockchain since the 90s and has always wanted to work in the developing world with a block came distributed ledger technology that's really important I think I want to just double down and we amplify that point this is not a young man's game only exclusively it's such this markets attracting alpha entrepreneurs older veterans because as you said earlier it disrupts every vertical that's right so experience and mentorship bringing people together that can help that's right celebrate the disruption that's right driven by the young guys cool I love that but it's not like Zuckerberg made this one comment oh if you're not under the age of 30 then you don't know such delivery he got his ass handed to him on that but in this case this market is open and willing to learn and the disruptions the mission that's right and this team matters that's our experience the makeup of your board makeup of your advisors since a roll for everybody look experiences capital right it is its own virtual currency having been in all these countries having worked with presidents having worked in the 90s you know since the 90s and what that is valuable it's intangible but it is valuable dan I think we just invented a new category in the ico category an advisor tokens [Laughter] cottage industry believe tokens anyway but imagine if you could actually measure an advisor yeah the quality of adviser and the roles that they play absolutely as a token that's coming up next in our our next I see oh hey I really appreciate what you're doing I love how you work with your son father-son team you recognize the role of how the generations can shift together love it love your mission thank you thanks for sharing the news coverage here in Puerto Rico been here on the island all week getting the best stories the best people sharing them with you were open content that's the cube doing our part here at coin agenda for one day we're not gonna be you tomorrow go to Vegas just came back from watching unbound great stuff John let me give you the the URL if you don't mind no problem please if you want to go learn more about us impact PPI calm great job impact PBA calm is the cube live coverage here in Puerto Rico more after this short break

>> Narrator: From New York, it's the CUBE. Covering Blockchain Week. Now here's John Furrier. >> Hello everyone, welcome back. This is the CUBE here in New York City on the ground for Consensus 2018. Part of Blockchain Week New York City. I'm John Furrier your cohost of the CUBE and Enrique Rodriguez is here with me. He's a blockchain guru and he's part of the Crypto Consulting Group. Welcome to the CUBE. >> Nice to be here. Thanks for having me. >> So love that big coin little thing there. >> Yeah. >> Come on are you holding som bitcoin right now? >> Yeah yeah. >> So tell me about your project says in the hallways here and checking in on what's going on. You're working with Andrew Prell the alumni. >> Yeah. So. >> On a cool project, so explain what that is. >> So the project with Andre or what we do? >> What you guys do first. >> Yeah so essentially you know there's a big problem right now with people trying to get into the space. There's a lot of pitfalls new comers fall victim to and there's not a lot of education out there. It's really fragmented across the internet. So what we're really trying to do is provide you know really great resources to people that are looking to get into the space. We essentially want to be the on ramp for people looking to get into the crypto space. >> Where you located? >> Louisville, Kentucky. Yeah so it's a different location. I think that's why we stand out quite a bit cause we're trying to bring such a new and disruptive technology to a place that's not so on the leading edge of technology sometimes. >> And you know it's cool about it too is I live in Silicon Valley. It's good to be the epicenter, everyone's got to go to Silicon Valley. The blockchain phenomenon and crypto in general is a global thing. >> It is. >> It is not one place. You can be anywhere. >> Absolutely. >> What are you doing, what are you working on with people? What are some of the things that your projects attacking. >> Yeah so right now we're really working on our educational events. We're really putting together just great content for people to come and join us and really just learn about the tech. We're also working with Andrew Prell from Silica Nexus project. He's having ICO soon and one of the things we're doing for them is really auditing the accounts that they have their tokens in. So they have in their tokenomics they have funds set aside for the team, for the advisors. All these different things and they also have ten investment funds that they're going to be using to essentially get more developers to develop on their project. So we'll be auditing those transactions that they send out just to ensure the transparency and that people know the investors that are putting their money into this project. Know where those funds are going. >> So basically it's an audit trail but it's not code review. So when you do smart contracts, there's one aspect which is code review. >> Yeah. >> And the other side of this, the coin so to speak is the transactional efficiency and affectiveness. >> Yeah no absolutely so if out of this wallet they send ten thousand droids to this developer or this project. We are essentially going to be putting together reports for that. So it's all about auditing and the transparency available. >> So you're automating his system end to end so he can manage it. >> Absolutely. >> Cause alternative is what? What's his alternative. Andrew's in particular. >> Yeah I think he went to the big four and they really didn't know. I guess display enough knowledge about the blockchain, the blockchain explorers and all those things and really came at a high price and so instead of do it themselves. It's something that we do on a regular basis. You know blockchain exploring, just looking up transaction. Second nature to us so I mean it's really good fit and it's an industry first. So really could be a break through for ICOs to come so we're hoping it works out well. >> Enrique how did you get here? What's your journey and tell your story. >> It has been awhile so. So I'm 23 years old, around the age of 20 I started hearing about bitcoin and blockchain. I worked at UPS in the international department in Louisville which if you're not familiar. We have the world port, the biggest automated hub in the world but we were having a lot of problems with the supply chain. You know packages going missing, invoices being fraudulent. A lot of manual paperwork. So really just looking into some of these problems and trying to find a solution. Stumbled into blockchain and really went down the rabbit hole and haven't came up since. I started telling people about it, meeting with people. >> So you became an enthusiast, evangelist. >> Yeah and so I mean it's really grown from me meeting people in restaurants, coffee shops and now we have office. We have eight consultants working with us and really trying to make a national network of people that can just educate. You know investors and individuals on the technology. >> Are you happy you made the move? >> Oh so happy, you know I work for myself now. It's really the happiest I've ever been. I'm passionate about something that could potentially change the world. And so I love the space I'm in. Just being here with so many like minded individuals you know from so many different backgrounds. It really is a beautiful thing that CoinDesk was able to put together here. >> And it's also cool, a lot of new people are coming in. Both old and young. I mean old guys like me and so Dan Bates on just before. We're kindred spirits, we're the old dogs. He's doing real business but the young guns are making it happen too. >> Absolutely. >> So it's not about ageism. Lot of us old system guys know this is all one big operating system. >> Even with our clients, we have people as young as 15 coming in like hey how do I figure this out and 85 people that don't even have email set up. You know want to get involved in this space. I mean we have a wide spectrum of people. >> If you got an AOL account we're ignoring you. Although I just try to turn my on that instead have the throwback. >> That's what it is. >> I got to ask you because one of the things I've really been apart of in my whole life in computer science is open source. Even when I was renegade back in the old days now it's tier one. Open source, cloud computing, has really and open source particular. Really built the idea of a community. >> Absolutely. >> The blockchain community is very small still young tight knit and growing. So as people come in, what's your advice to people entering the community. How thy should align, what should they do? >> Yeah this is something that we have to deal with a lot and so whenever because a lot of the headlines that go around. You know the bitcoin bubble all the crazy gains the lambos. People come in with this mindset that it's a get rick quick thing. You know they want to dump money into the newest ICO or the next big bitcoin and well you really have to educate them on is that this is a long term play. We're still very early in this space. Never invest anything that you're not willing to lose and so a lot of these. We call them the commandments actually just in a podcast episode on them. So there's a lot of just base level things that we try and enlighten our newcomers in. It's been a really great because a lot of people whenever they learn about this technology under the surface. It's just enlightening and so it's been great the community grows. >> A lot of businesses are growing into the community. A lot of people are joining the community but also a big trend is that big business and small medium sized businesses are looking at as an opportunity. So I got to ask you the question right which is I see a lot of people out there that are passing themselves off as code gurus because they bought bitcoin in 2013. >> Oh absolutely. >> They don't, but they haven't actually built anything. >> Yeah. >> So a lot of people are hiring fraudsters. So I'm not saying, there's nothing wrong with trading bitcoin and being involved in the currency. >> Absolutely. >> But the difference between someone who buys currency and builds the next generation with the community. How does someone vet that person? How does some a business owner how do you figure out the pretenders from the players? >> Yeah I think it's really about getting to know the person that you're talking to about this. Seeing how transparent they are, their ideologies, why they're in this space. Why they bought bitcoin a lot of these fundamental questions that you could tell a lot about a person from their answers. Because we've come across that a lot. Whenever reason I started this company is because you know over the past three years or so it's been a lot of trail and error really trying to figure this stuff out. >> I always ask too, what have you built. >> Yeah no absolutely and so we're currently actually in the beta version of a platform that we want to build that's essentially going to allow us to connect these consultants as well as a portfolio tracker but. >> I got to ask you the question. What's the coolest thing you've done? >> The coolest thing I've done, probably getting my pilots license a month after my drivers license in high school. Just in general you'll be able to leave school and go fly planes. All of my best friends were in a class. You know it was really, it was amazing. >> Surreal, Enrique great chatting with you. >> You as well. >> Awesome voice. So glad to have you on the CUBE and good luck with your venture with Andrew Prell. That's cool project and on the things you work on. Best success to you. Enrique Rodriguez here on the CUBE breaking it down. Lot of new action going on, lot of great voices. Lot of talent coming into the community of course it is a community. It's tight knit, it's early growing super fast and as the crypto action. This is the CUBE bringing it all to you. I'm John Furrier we're watching after this short break. We'll be right back.