[Music] [Applause] I'm Peter verse and welcome to the queue we're having a quick conversation with Megan Eisenberg CMO of MongoDB a leader in the next-generation database market and you're gathering the community in a couple weeks yeah the people who are trying to build these next-generation applications what's going on yes so it's our largest annual user conference it's in New York June 27th and it will be at the Hilton Midtown and we're going to do some major product announcements we talked earlier in the year February about MongoDB 4.0 transactions are coming so we'll have that huge announcement as well as several other products so would love to invite developers in the area to come and learn more so it's a great opportunity for the developer and other communities associated with advanced data management to come together share ideas share stories make progress advance the cause yes yes Megan Eisenberg CMO MongoDB thanks very much for being on the cube thank you [Music] you

>> Announcer: From New York, it's The Cube, covering Blockchain Week. Now, here's John Furrier. >> Hello everyone and welcome back, I'm John Furrier, co-host of The Cube. We're here on the ground, in the middle of all the action. Consensus 2018, I'm here with Andrew Prell, with Convergence. Cube alumni, we met in Puerto Rico, industry legend, veteran, been around, welcome back. >> Thank you, like to be here. >> So Convergence, you guys got a unique opportunity, we did a deep dive on YouTube, check Andrew Prell, Convergence, youtube.com/siliconangle, great video to watch from Puerto Rico. Quickly, one minute, explain what you guys do, and then we'll get into the new hot news. >> All right, so we're reimagining the whole video game space. We marry the consumer game industry to the out of home entertainment industry, into one operating layer, where all devices get to play against each other, in the same game space. Then we put our virtual currency on the Blockchain, to eliminate all the fraud and theft that happens when people try to convert their digital assets to actual cash. >> Okay, so what's the news real quick? Give us the update, what's going on, what's the update? >> Well see the update, we had initially named our token, back in September of 2014, while we're building everything out. We had named it Nano. Raiblocks, put it out on the Blockchain, just what a month ago, month and a half ago, as Nano, so we had to rename the token. So we announced, and we've already burnt them, put them on the Blockchain, they're in our wallets right now, on May the fourth, we announced our new token, as the Droid coin. So May the fourth be with you. (laughter) These are the Droids your looking for. So we have the Droid coin now in twenty different wallets ready to start deploying them as our white paper states. >> And you get the big momentum going on. Team updates, any new personnel, what's going on, what's the progress? >> Well the personnel actually, we just had a major event, called run for the unicorns, we had it in Louisville, Kentucky, derby week. And we took all the VIP's and press and that to the derby at the end of the week. It was a really great event. There's when we rolled out the coin, we had the team up on day two talking through all of it. It was really an awesome event then, we're now here at Consensus talking with Ledger. What they're doing right now really works well with our investment funds. 'Cause we did the, we talked last about the virtuous circle of a token based investment fund, and where we're breaking up ten funds allowing the VC's to have nine of them, and go up against the DOW on the Blockchain. Well the vault that the Ledger has, we're starting to walk through with them because we'll bring it to it's limits and it really seems like something awesome for, you know, just the whole Blockchain industry in general, in having that security at a industrial level or a institutional investor level. >> Andrew I would literally appreciate you coming back on. Real quick, what are you learning here at the show? What are doing, any business deals? Let's get the update on the ground here for you. >> On the ground here for me, we're actually have several major deals in the works that we're trying to close right now. If all goes well, by the end of this week, if not next, we will be done closing our funding rounds, period. And then from that point on, the only way you'll be able to get our tokens is to buy them from some of the startups that we're investing in, so. >> Great model. Check out our YouTube video with Andrew, deep dive, changing the gaming industry a whole nother level, really innovative solution and business model. And the tech underneath is all cutting edge. Andrew thanks for coming on The Cube again, giving us a quick update, I'm John Furrier here on the ground at Consensus 2018, in Manhattan at the Hilton Midtown for Blockchain week, New York City. >> But did we tell them where they can find our stuff? >> Go get, give the URL plug. >> Yeah, ico.silicanexus.com and fund.silicanexus.com that's where you can find all of our information on everything we're doing. >> All right, good luck with the progress, we'll be right back with more coverage after this break. >> Thank you.

>> Announcer: From New York, it's theCUBE, covering Blockchain Week, now here's John Furrier. (upbeat music) >> Hello and welcome back, this is theCUBE's coverage here in New York City in Manhattan at the Hilton Midtown for Consensus 2018 part of Blockchain Week New York. Our next guest here is Greg Landegger who's with Smith Parsons and Whittemore also known for Bit Digest, investor in this space since the beginning, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you for having me John. >> So I've got to ask you, you've been an investor in a lot of coins and equity deals the space is now busting out, I mean first of all are you amazed by the amount of people here? >> I'm more than amazed, it's surreal. >> And you now have an interesting culture of new investors in the space coming in. What's it like for you working with the new investors? >> So we are a single family office that started originally in 2014 and the way I describe it is for the past few years I was the loser at the lunchroom, everyone was making fun of me and then last year all the cool jocks wanted me to sit at their table. (John laughing) A lot of our bankers, all the traditional firms, started calling up saying, "What are you doing? What is this bitcoin thing that you've been spending your time on?" >> So you had a nice little cover story there for a while but can't ignore the returns, at the end of the day. >> That's exactly right, last year was too good a year. >> Alright, so talk about some of the dynamics that you're seeing here at Blockchain Week. What are you seeing? What's the top story, what's the big news that you think is most important? >> I think the news right now is that there's real development going on, I mean we're all waiting, the holy grail to me is coming up with an institutional custodial project. Ledger Wallets announced something today so we're very excited about that and there's more and more effort being done in that area. And that's really what'll bring in more people into the market. >> Big controversy yesterday in the panel about you know Blockchain washing or you know seeing blockchain, pretty heated argument there, your thoughts? I mean obviously, it's early, embryonic, it's growing really fast, I've heard the same arguments when the web came along, too slow, you know it's not fully functional, but it was still early. Same here? What's your take on all this? >> As an investor we'd like it to be must faster, but realistically everything's surpassing any expectations. I mean nobody, if you talked to people early last year we would laugh about people predicting bitcoin at 2,500. >> So with the coins, talk about the investment you're making in coins. >> So we invest it. >> 'Cause that's different than the equity. >> It is, but we had a learning experience where one of our companies ICOed, we chose not to participate in it and it was the wrong decision, it really told us we need to be on the equity side as well the coin side. >> When was that? Early on or? >> Last year. >> Last year. >> The middle of last year. >> Okay, so what kind of coin deals are you doing? What's that profile? >> So we do a little bit of everything, I mean we've come up with a term rebel coins which are the top six coins, it's Ripple, Etherium, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, and Lightcoin, we like those. Then we invest in a total of about 20 coins. >> And the blockchain doesn't bother you in the performance and all that good stuff? >> No because we're making a bet on the future of different things >> Long game. >> It's a long game for us. >> What's your criteria for investment? You obviously get the, you're kind of a rebel in yourself, but your returns are there, I've seen this movie before in the web, but everything happened in the web and the returns were made you know really before the dot com bubble popped around 2001 timeframe. But there's still great returns, but the decisions were interesting then. How do you make your choices? How do you know what a good deal is? >> It's, I'd say 80% the team. Do they have the experience? Do they have an understanding of what they're doing? I mean I have a lot of great ideas on things I know nothing about and know I'll never succeed in 'em. So if we find a team that is experienced in an area, understands it, has a real go to market story, >> Interesting enough. >> that's exciting us. >> Okay so it's the classic criteria with a twist. How about running hard? You say really you got to run hard in this game it's a fast-moving, unlike the dot com bubble, this thing is highly accelerated, you got to, you can't be sittin' on you butt on this one. >> No agreed, you've got to be very aggressive in the area, but I think with the ICOs there's more money up front than people typically had and that's really what's changed the market a lot for us, is it's not a deal where the venture capitalists go out and give a million dollars to five companies, wait to see what happens, now those five companies are able to raise a lot more money, but it doesn't guarantee they'll succeed. >> Greg you've become kind of a great known investor, certainly the Bit Digest is well-known for great following there. I got to ask you the double coin question, pun intended. There's the good and the bad, name something that's really good about this industry right now, that people should know about that might not be familiar. And what are some of the things that you're concerned with? That you want to see kind of stopped, or bad behavior eradicated? Share your perspective on the double coin side of the life if you're in the crypto world. >> So let's, starting with the bad, I think it's education, people don't understand what's going on. We keep on hearing about Mt Gox, Silk Road, that's in the past, bitcoin, and I use bitcoin as a general term at times, but you know it is not a, I mean it's a transparent currency, it's safer than a lot of other things out there, people don't understand that and I blame the media a lot for just repeating the story, maybe it sells papers, but just people aren't explaining what's really going on in the market. >> That's the Ed model for you, if it leads, if it bleeds, it leads, and that's a story. No but I think people see the ICO things too happening right? They go, "Okay, there's been some scams on the ICO-side, so I've heard that story, you know I'm worried about that." >> I mean I've spent some time in the microcap space I dealt with a lot more questionable people in microcaps than I deal in crypto. >> You mean in the traditional market? >> Traditional, pink sheets area. >> So I think what's different now, I'd love to get your perspective on that I see at least, observation wise, is you have an open source ethos kind of community model where there's a lot of self-governing going on. Are you seeing the same thing? Is there people talking, it's a tight knit community, still small, growing, is there like a special self-governance thing going on in the finance world? I mean you know there's been talk on people kind of organizing, syndicating, pooling deals together, which is natural. But how about the self-governing aspect of it? >> You know I think, I mean people, the funds or the actual token offerings themselves, that's still something that needs to be addressed, people haven't done it in the same way a typical equity raise would be done and a lot of the different fund managers, let me back up by saying this is the most open market I've ever seen where everybody is willing to talk to each other to try and share ideas and make this grow and a lot of the fund managers are now looking at it saying, "We need some more governance." There're things going on today, such as in the ICO market, if you invested in equity, you never thought that a ICO offering may occur originally and is it a liquidity event and what happens? So we're trying to come up with some governance that hasn't existed but probably needs to be, but to be fair the companies that we've been lucky enough to invest with are supporting the ideas. >> Yeah so there's liquidity going on. It's a new kind of liquidity. What is that liquidity? Where is the liquidity? It's not just a Kickstarter campaign, there's actually liquidity going on. >> There is liquidity going on and I think we're trying to figure out how to now take equity that is established in the traditional sense, we talked about security tokens, but the companies that are actually have issued ICOs are trying to determine how to give a dividend or some form of liquidity to the shareholders and that's a new market. >> Greg does the domicile matter to you? Where they are located? I mean I've heard things like special purpose vehicles have always been kind of an analogy. >> I mean traditionally I will say no, our attorneys would say yes, but if it's a Cayman, we've invested in some Cayman companies, Europe, Asian companies, so that really doesn't bother us that much, again it's the team >> It's not a deal killer. >> It's definitely not a deal killer. >> But you'd prefer, obviously, security token, in the US. >> Delaware-based would make us the happiest. But if they have a real team behind it, if they have real attorneys, real auditors, we'll look past that. >> And global reach, that's a big factor. >> Absolutely. >> How much is global impacting this world? I mean, we're in the US, we're kind of turning into it. >> It's incredibly, but I think the one area where we need to do a better job is in expanding it, I mean there are a lot of foreigners at this market today, at this event, but it's, we know the US market really well, we don't know what's going on in Asia, we read the trade magazines and that's how we know what's going on there's efforts now, I'm even, Consensus announced today they're having an event next year, or this year, in Singapore. We need to have greater reach to share what's going on around the world versus what a few people are telling us. >> John: You see that as a big issue? >> I do, we don't see what's going on in China today, we don't see what's going on in Singapore, the Philippines, and that's where a lot of the effort is going on. >> Well I think you're right, I think one of the things and that's where fake news on Facebook, you know with the whole election here in the US and now outside influence, whether it's terrorist groups or propaganda-based systems, quality of the data >> That's exactly right. >> is a really important with real time. >> And the data's limited today, I mean it's not. >> I agree, I mean we totally agree with the same thing. Okay final thought, walk away this week from big data, not big data, Blockchain Week NYC, your big walk away here this week. What's your takeaway? What do you take home? >> We went in the right direction, I mean that this is still developing, we're not there yet, there's still a lot of work to be done, but long-term whether you believe in digital currencies or not today, this is something that central governments are looking at in supporting, enterprise is getting into it, and this is the future. So we made the right choice. >> And is it only going to get better you think? >> Absolutely. >> Yeah I think stability-wise, technically, and the business models are starting to shake out. Just quickly before, I know you got to go, thank you for your time, quickly token economics, big part of the business model side of it your thoughts and reaction to how that's going and how people should start thinking about that if they could meet their criteria for some sort of de-centralized business opportunity. >> So I think, it's looking at network usage, I mean that's really the way we look at it today, the fundamental model doesn't work, or we haven't been able to determine how to do that, but adoption, it's growth, and that's how we've focused things and see where it is. >> Well congratulations for all the work and all the work you're doing and that continue to do. Thanks for coming on theCUBE, appreciate it. >> Thank you very much. >> Great to have a big-time investor on theCUBE here. Big-time investors, we had entrepreneurs, we had folks from Europe, Lithuania, all over the world here on theCUBE, we're out in the open. This is theCUBE covering Blockchain Week New York City Consensus 2018, I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. Stay with us for more, after this break. (upbeat music)