>> From the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, It's theCUBE, covering HoshoCon 2018. Brought to you by Hosho. >> Okay, welcome back everyone. We're here live in Las Vegas for theCUBE's exclusive coverage of HoshoCon. This is the first inaugural event of its kind. It's the first security blockchain conference, where all the top minds in the security blockchain decentralized world come together to try to work on, solve, and enhance the security profile of how the world's running. As we know blockchains run the infrastructure, and we need security. I'm John Furrier, co-host of theCUBE. I'm here with David Johnson, the CEO of Latium. Welcome to theCUBE thanks for joining me. >> Thanks for having me John. >> So, you're one of the brain trusts in the industry here at this event, trying to solve the security problems. Let's get into it, but first take a minute to explain what you guys do. What does your company do? What's your purpose to exist? Why are you in business? >> Well our main goal is trying to help get the message of crypto out and increase adoption in the space. We do a lot of things, we're a multifunctional platform. We're trying to make it easy by putting everything in one place. We believe that there's a lot of complexity, there's a lot of technical knowledge required. I mean, I've been in technology for 30 years, and it's really complex to use crypto. And we just think everyday people probably will not learn that. It's like they don't know why their car moves when they press the gas pedal, but they know that it does, and we're trying to solve that for crypto. >> It's like a car, imagine having to open the hood up, throw a switch, put the screwdriver on this, get a charge, go back in, run in, I mean just turn the key, come on. >> It's asking a bit much, at least that's our philosophy. >> Okay, so when you say moving a lot of complexity into the platform, are you talking about custody, are you talking about tech stack? What specifically are you guys doing? Is it technology stack, is it a framework, is it software, is it? >> It's a platform, it's a platform as far, it is a community where they can come in. It's a multicurrency wallet, it's an exchange. They can work for crypto, they can hire for crypto. So, again we're taking it from the client side, anything they would want to do with crypto, we'll try to put that in one place. >> So, you're trying to build a multipurpose platform where someone can run turn key. >> Exactly. >> A full end to end life cycle of crypto. >> That's correct. >> And why would they do that, build an app, marketplaces, is it business model driven? So what's your target customer looking to do? Are they developers, are they big businesses? >> Well, our target market is the everyday person who wants access to crypto, they're hearing about crypto, but they don't know how to participate. So, it starts off easy for them. They can come into the platform and they can perform a task on our platform, and now they're immediately a crypto holder, right? So, we just want to expose that space and make that access point as easy as possible. >> That's where they get people into crypto, is give the crypto away. >> And that's kind of what we're doing, we're giving them crypto for their production. >> All right, so give me an example. We're into crypto, we're doing a little CUBE crypto. How do we get involved? What do we do, how do we use you? >> Well one way you could use it, is you could use us if you were trying to, say promote something. That would be one way to do it. You want the community to get behind something? You want feedback. Say you have a website and you want feedback. You need Beta testers, right? You could list a task on our platform, our community base would see that listing, they could decide, I want to perform this task, and be paid in crypto. >> So you guys are looking at the, the Upwork-like crypto model. >> Similar, similar. >> So WorkCoin is another, is they competitive to you guys? >> I don't really feel like anybody in the space is a true competitor. There's crossover in some functionality, but because we're approaching the whole solution, as a wallet, an exchange, and a tasking platform, I don't really see anybody as direct competition. >> That's good, I like the platform approach. So having platforms that are open versus closed is what people are concerned about these days. How are you handling the open versus closed question? You guys let people own their own data. How is that working on the platform? >> Well, as it stands right now, we're a hybrid between blockchain and centralization and the reason for that is for scalability purposes. Blockchain tech is just not there. I know we all want it to be there. >> That's true, that's fair. >> But if we're honest, we're not there. So we're trying to build an enterprise application and we know that if that's 100% pure blockchain right now that you're going to run into scale issues. >> And for liability, many issues, we all know that. >> Yes, and data ownership is definitely a sensitive topic. As far as our approach on that, we're pretty open on what we're storing. Our biggest data point is really a TrustScore and you have full control over that by how you participate within the system. You know, good actors get the benefits of being a good actor and there's consequences if you're a bad actor in the system. And the way that we do that is, we have a verification system that's using biometric data, off of your face, and we're creating a unique digital profile tied back to the user. So unlike other platforms where they could just make a new account, become a bad actor, you can't do that on our system. So that's one space that's very unique. >> I think crypto's got a lot of opportunities to manage bad actors, if you can make the incentive costly, that's an interesting dynamic. Is that kind of what you guys are thinking too? Bad actors, always the problem is in web it's easy to be anonymous. >> That's it. >> You start a bot and get killed, you create a new one, respawn. >> I always say that the internet gave us this amazing platform for communication and networking and opened up a whole new world, but it removed trust, totally removed trust. There is no concept of trust. >> Yeah, reputation and trust. Reputation and trust are scattered. >> It's a big issue. >> A lot of people in crypto are struggling with two things. I want to get your thoughts and reaction to. One is community. >> Yes >> And the other is marketplaces. You're a classic marketplace. If you're doing tasks, gig economy, >> Yes. >> We know what that means, you share, you're open you're publishing. >> Sure. >> It's open, so check on the marketplace. Community is another one, how do you build a community? >> Sure. >> People raise these big ICOs and they say, hey I need a community. >> Yes. >> You can't buy a community. >> No, no you have to have something people want. And so that's the question, I mean in any business model you got to define what it is that you're building that someone wants. If you can't define that, then you don't have a business. >> All right so here's a pressure question for you. What's the hallway conversations like that you're overhearing and also you're participating in here at HoshoCon? A lot of smart people, I've overheard a bunch of conversations I just want to bust in and listen. >> Yeah >> I feel rude, but I'm just leaning in. Interesting people here, great dynamics. What are some of the hallway conversations that you're overhearing, and some that you're participating in? >> Well I think there's a lot of focus on the security levels of the contracts. There's been quite a few hacks just in the last couple days so that's been a buzz, and I think it's kind of interesting that we're at a security conference and then we have hacks going on. So there's been a lot of buzz around that. >> 'Cause people have been traveling on a plane, they attack when all the security guys are traveling. (laughing) >> Absolutely. >> Social engineering at it's best. >> Yeah, that might be the case, yeah. >> All right anything else, sessions you've been to? >> As far as the sessions go, I mean I think that Max put on a great session today. He's always an eloquent speaker. And so that was a great speech as far as I was concerned. You know, I think that it's nice to see that we're moving in the direction of acknowledging that security is a big deal in the space and I think it's great that Hosho's bringing that out. >> What's the biggest surprise this week for you here? >> I would say that the biggest surprise for me is just how well organized the event is. You know, I've been to quite a few events and the Hosho team has done a great job organizing this event. >> Yeah, and it's not too crowded either. It's the right mix of people. Of course, you know, they're video taping all the sessions so just lettin' everyone know, we'll put those videos up in theCUBE cloud and make them searchable for HoshoCon. So we're going to help get those videos out as well. Cool, so what's new at the business? How's things going? Give us the update, funding status? Employees? >> Things are going really well, we've actually seen exponential growth this month. We're registering between a 1,000, 3,000 registrations a day now. We've got about 22,000 verified members in our system and when I say verified, it again means that they've actually gone through a verification process so they can't duplicate accounts. >> And they've got a wallet, they're downloading. >> Exactly. >> They've got the wallet. >> Exactly, it's all in one. You register, you get multicurrency wallet off the bat. So we've seen a lot of growth and a lot of attention so far in this month. >> And which blockchain are you using? >> Again, we're a multicurrency, so we're tied-- >> You don't care. >> Well, our token is a ERC-20, but as far as how we deal with other blockchains, right now we have Bitcoin integration, Tether integration, Ethereum integration, and we're going to be adding ERC-20s. >> So you're using the ERC-20 mainly for smart contract on the transaction? >> Yeah, we're using the ERC-20 for our own tokens, yes. >> Okay got it, and the tokens for the gigs, the work, utility tokens? >> Yes, that's our token. >> That's your token, okay got it. >> That's correct, so they're getting, but they can take that immediately and they can change it out for Bitcoin if they like or they can hold our token. >> That's the exchange piece. >> Correct, it's all there. >> So multipurpose, yeah that's interesting. Great, well hey congratulations, David Johnson, he's the CEO of Latium, check him out. End to end exchange, getting work done, tasks. We certainly could use some UI on our project so can we put that in there? >> There you go, there you go. (laughing) >> Get some business down here, theCUBE, bringing you live coverage here at HoshoCon. Stay with us, we've got two days of wall to wall coverage. We'll be back with more after this short break. (techno music)