>> Announcer: From New York, it's theCUBE. Covering Blockchain Week. Now, here's John Furrier. >> Hello, I'm John Furrier, here in New York City, for on the ground coverage of Consensus 2018, it's part of Blockchain Week, New York. All the action's happening here, sold out show, tons of events happening in New York City. You got the New York City crowd, you got the Hollywood crowd, you got the tech crowd, all kind of coming together, entrepreneurs, the entire ecosystem. My next guest I Lars Rensing, who's the co-founder of Arc.io, its own blockchain, its own coin, CFO. Thanks for joining me today. >> Thanks John for having me here. >> So your signs everywhere I see, Arc.io, you're a big sponsor, top-tier sponsor. Congratulations. >> Thanks, thanks. >> Why sponsoring this event? >> Because it's a big event, lots of commitments, lots of people will be here, lots of important people are in this space, so like this is a good area to be and show ourselves more. >> You guys have a lot of traction with your offering, your project. Can you take a minute to explain Arc, >> Yeah sure. >> What is it? What is Arc coin, what's the development plans? You have multiple moving parts to this opportunity. Take a minute to explain. >> So what we're trying to build is the interoperability between blockchains, because we see that every use case probably needs their own blockchain, otherwise, you get one single point of failure. Where you you see them clogging up, old projects watered down because we have more blockchain. So every use case should have their own blockchain really. >> And also blockchain has different developer ecosystems too. You might want to have certain developers, like JavaScript might like Hyperledger, right? >> Yeah, exactly. Once every, like that's also what we are building with our SDKs, every developer in their own language, getting into blockchain is important, because there are not that much blockchain developers at all >> What's going on now? Obviously you guys are a blockchain platform. Developers really are engaging. What's your strategy with developers? >> So far we are working on our new V2. We started from scratch because we saw some limitations in our code, so okay, we needed to start from scratch, build a new V2, and we are internal testing that right now and working on that. >> Do you guys publish your roadmap? >> We publish a roadmap but we don't give dates. (John chuckles) Because we feel like we launch when it's ready, not when we set a date. We launch when it's ready. >> What's the community like for Arc? What's it like, what's the vibe? >> Really good, really commitment, working together. We're working actively with the community because we ask feedback from them. Like, with the V2 when we publish, okay, we're going to work on this project or on a V2, we ask community what's your feedback on it, and we actively took feedback from them and made it into the, in our development. So you're the CFO and co-founder, and you got a lot of co-founders, I know you got some other co-founders. >> Yeah. >> But I just love having a CFO that's not talking speeds and feeds on the spreadsheet. You also know the technology, you're in the community. I've been saying on theCUBE many times now that a new role's emerging in these companies of Chief Economic Officer. >> Yeah. >> 'Cause the token economics and the developer, there's interplay now between the business and the technology. Can you talk about that? >> Yeah sure. When we started, we really looked into the economics, how are we going to build it, how are we going to look into our Arc, the token is economize. How are people going to use it. So we saw that if you do an infinite supply of new tokens, because people are burning money. In this space it's still, insecure to sometimes lose you best basis. So money is still burnt. So you need some inflation to keep running your tokenization. >> You guys have an ecosystem? >> Yeah. >> What is your ecosystem strategy? You have developers. >> Yeah. >> Anyone else in the ecosystem that's notable? >> So far we are working on our core code, and when we are done with that, we are looking into partnerships and expanding our ecosystem with different projects. One of them is currently is Persona, which is a personal identity on the blockchain >> Lars, how did you get into all this? I mean, did you just fall out of a boat one day and fall in the water and say, hey blockchain? Was there a project, was it open source? Did you come in for a certain... Did you have an itch you were scratching? How did you guys get into this? >> I got into this because I have always had, my background is in construction, but I always had a passion for IT, and the new developments in that. So I started reading more about blockchain, and how it works and how it can change the world. So I said, okay, this vision is so great, I want to do something with it, and work more on this than my real job, and at the time I was not really practical to do both anymore, so I said okay, I'm going to full-time with this because I love this. >> When did Arcs all come together? What year, when did it all kind of come together? >> August or September 2016 we started. >> So you guys a couple of years ago, good. So it's a couple of years under the belt. So I got to ask you the question that comes up a lot here on theCUBE in my Cube conversations is, you have people looking at the new wave. >> Yeah. >> The infrastructure's changing completely over from old e-commerce web stack to a whole new network effect, decentralized and distributed, distributed computing's still very relevant, cloud computing of the source, now you've got decentralized. People are asking themselves, is a blockchain and decentralized apps a fit for me? So the question to you is, how do you answer that question? When someone says, "Why blockchain?" what's the answer? >> Depends, because you know always, blockchain is not always the answer. I think some people are putting too much blockchain on projects were are not really needing blockchain. And so I think it really depends on the use case or if it's needed. It's a solution to a problem. It's not always the... Not always needed, in that sense. >> John: Well, it's got to be a good fit. >> Exactly. >> You can't just say I'm doing blockchain and just throw it on top of it. >> No. >> It's got to be decentralized, it's got to be some... Well it kind of depends on the token too. Can you explain the token strategy? So let's just say, okay, I have a decentralized vision, architecture, but now I have to make my economic model match my token model. So there's certain coins, you have work coins for utility, you have you know Burn-and-Mint Equilibrium. So there's different approaches. What's your vision on how that's going to play out? Will it sort itself out? Is there a certain swim lane or a certain token model that fits a certain use case? Is there any patterns emerging? >> I think it really depends on what is needed, where are you looking at, where it's used for, is it just for utility, is it for security, it's really different but... So we said like, every use case would have their own blockchain, but because if you want to do something specific for your token, you can adapt to it, and not be stuck with the project you're working with. >> So you got to think it through. >> Yeah. >> Really do some deep thinking. >> Yeah. >> It's almost like designing an architecture for an OS. I mean it's really an operating system kind of decision to the business logic. Okay, so back to the event, you're a big sponsor. What's going on here for you? Obviously you've got great visibility. You guys doing any activities, are you showing anything, what's the big focus for the show for Arc? >> Just more, being out more to the world, bring everyone more, seeing what we are building and showing us like, and educating everyone what you are building and what you are doing and that we are actively working even with the French government about Arc. >> Why is Arc exciting for your contributors? What are they saying about you? What are some of the community mem... What's the feedback? >> That we are really engaged with the community, and that the community's even here, and we are actively talking with each other and even discussing the development with them, and even brainstorming with them. So we are really engaged with the community. >> Is there a differentiator that you have on your blockchain, is it faster, is it better, is it, what's the... What's the core thing that you tell people on why they should work with you? >> We are dedicated proof of stake, but in the vision that we are not vote multiple times, which your stake, you can only vote one time, and maybe that 80% of the coins in circulation are used for voting. So, and 51% to take is almost impossible, and there's lots of decentralization that delegates even. >> What does that mean for them? What's the impact to your partners and customers and users? >> The delegates are really helping because of their... Not only they provide a service to securing the network, they're also actively promoting our... Doing meetups, just everything, it's creating a great community. >> So it's growing? >> Yeah. >> Lars, thanks for coming on. Congratulations, you're a true entrepreneur. Love the hustle, love the fact you took a bold move in the big sponsorship. That was a tough decision, no, probably easy decision? >> No, it's a tough one. >> Big money. Good luck, Lars, with Arc.io, great project, got a good success, very community focused. Check 'em out online at Arc.io. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE. theCUBE.net is our URL, we're out in the open, we're in the open here on the floor at Consensus 2018, part of Blockchain Week New York. Thanks for watching, more live coverage after this short break.