6 Questions For…

We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes!

This week, our 6 Questions go to Cristina Dolan, co-founder and chief operating officer of InsureX Technologies, an alternative insurance marketplace based on blockchain, and CEO of InsideChains, which builds large consortia and marketplaces with economic token layers to facilitate the global exchange of data and transactions.

Cristina is an engineer, entrepreneur and author who has successfully embraced advanced technologies to build and grow disruptive businesses throughout her career in media, telecommunications, e-commerce and, more recently, fintech. As an early adopter of crypto and blockchain technologies, she co-founded and advised blockchain-enabled companies in climate tech, insurtech, healthtech and crypto trading. As a veteran of evolving networked technologies, she is currently focused on cybersecurity, which has become the most immediate financial material ESG and sustainability risk organizations face today, and co-authored a recently published book: Transparency in ESG and the Circular Economy, Capturing Opportunities Through Data (available at ESGdataBook.com).

1 What has been the toughest challenge youve faced in our industry so far?

In the early days of crypto and blockchain, I would speak on panels where people would say things like, Crypto and blockchain are only used by bad actors. Unfortunately there are still leaders that talk about the criminal activities that are enabled by crypto and blockchain that need to be stopped. It is amazing that they haven’t learned from the radical transformation of media and e-commerce through the evolution of connected technologies.

It is unfortunate that some leaders just don’t understand that the evolution of new technologies also aligns with the changing needs of communities. Technology adoption is one of the most important pillars of corporate sustainability! (Look at Blockbuster or Kodak!) When companies fail, it impacts the communities, partners and even the local tax base that pays for services like education. We live in a world that is evolving faster and faster, and regulators want more and more data and transparency you can’t stay in business without adopting new technologies.

The beauty of the hyper-innovation that has evolved from the interest in crypto and blockchain is unparalleled by any other disruptive technology. It has influenced innovation from cybersecurity, which utilizes cryptography, to supply chain, which needs transparency more than ever before!

Lack of understanding is probably the toughest challenge. It is hard to keep up with the accelerating evolution of technology in the context of social needs, like improved sustainability data tracking or improved controlled access to healthcare data.

Today, there is a requirement to be a self-learner just to keep up, and it takes up a lot of time. Even for those of us who are curious and love to learn and focus on solving problems with technology, the avalanche of evolving technologies can feel overwhelming.

2 Does it matter if we ever figure out who Satoshi really is or was?

I hope that Satoshi Nakamoto remains a mystery forever! While there has been a lot of detailed speculation around who was working on the foundational building blocks and who was influential in the public-key cryptography and decentralized architectures, it is important to keep the technology separate from the behavior or personal activities or an individual. Our networked culture is full of celebrity figures who have large social media followings and endorse products. This kind of celebrity would be a distraction to the impact and evolution.

Bitcoin is the grandfather of an incredible age of hyper-innovation which is hard to understand with all the complex interrelated layers, like economics, technology, politics, or simply how to transact with Bitcoin. Adding a celebrity layer to Bitcoin would just add more polarization and misunderstanding than what already exists, creating an unnecessary distraction or excuses to ignore the transformation that is coming quickly. Celebrity figures like Elon Musk have moved the crypto markets.

Organizations that don’t embrace technology will not be sustainable. We have seen many examples of this over the past few decades. Moving from a figurative representation to an actual human who will be depicted as having possible political or economic interests will only become an excuse for some leaders to ignore the requirement to transform to meet the needs of a changing society.

3 When you tell people you’re in the blockchain industry, how do they react?

Years ago I would publish social media posts about blockchain and crypto, and people would say block-what? At the time, I was working in the fintech space, where some peers in the institutional financial trading space would make jokes about it …there she goes again talking about crypto or blockchain Of course, many of them transitioned into the space later as their industry began to shrink.

Today, there is a totally different reaction. Many people are eager to learn more about the technologies and the potential trajectory of transformation. I do get a lot of calls from people who have lost their keys and want to know if there is a way to find them of course, if it was that easy to solve for lost keys, people would have unlocked some of Satoshi’s Bitcoin by now!

Focusing on cybersecurity, I do get a lot of questions about custody and security. There are so many people across all industries who are now doing incredibly interesting things in the space. It is fun to listen and learn about possible solutions to critical social issues utilizing the technology. People are now thinking about the use of these technologies within important or sophisticated business processes, and collaborating on possible solutions is now a lot more fun!

4 Which two superpowers would you most want to have, and how would you combine them for good or evil?

Speed-related superpowers would be the most valuable in a world that is evolving at hyper speed. While some people might describe me as being energetic, I would love to have the ability to do more and experience more each day!

First would be related to travel speed that would enable movement from one location to another location without traffic jams or airport check-in protocols, which have gotten more complicated with the pandemic. So much time is wasted in traveling. As we begin to plan more face-to-face meetings that require putting travel time into the calendar to arrive in time, it is clear that having the ability to travel at light speed would save time. While the carbon footprint for travel could be decreased since there would not be a requirement for traditional vehicles, I am sure that traveling at the speed of light would create some significant heat.

The second would be related to the speed of ingesting information and understanding it. The faster you can learn and connect the dots, the faster you can apply the intuitive understanding towards building valuable solutions for the growing number of problems our world faces today. This would enable me to do what I love to do, but even faster.

While living forever creates issues, including the increased demand for the limited resources on earth, the idea of being able to do and experience even more during our short lives is a good alternative.

5 Name the things you own that you’ll never part with.

This is a great question, because my answer today is probably a little different from things I would have listed years ago. For example, a passport, which has been my gateway for learning, connecting and growing is probably the most valuable tool I possess. While it can be replaced if lost, it is still one of my most important possessions because of the possibilities it offers to engage with people all over the world.

One of the lessons from the pandemic was in helping me understand how much I missed engaging with close friends all over the world. Unfortunately, during the pandemic, the passport didn’t offer the opportunity to travel, especially if it represented residency in a country with high covid cases. During the pandemic, the passport wasn’t as valuable as it had been throughout my life. It was even impossible to engage with close friends who lived within a mile of my home. While the evolution of conferencing tools has made it easier to video conference, the nature of the conversations tends to be more transactional and efficient, which eliminates the opportunity to learn or collaborate to the same degree. Travel is a wonderful gift. Unfortunately, we need more than just a passport to make it possible during the pandemic.

I have always loved beautiful watches the old-fashioned jeweled masterpiece kind and have a treasured collection that reminds me of important milestones throughout my life. It is such a treat to wear a beautiful timepiece, yet I rely more on my Fitbit these days to track my early morning runs regardless of where I am in the world. While I also have an Apple Watch Series 7, I still prefer my Fitbit with its longer lasting battery and its efficient metrics.

It is sad to admit that my mobile phone has become so important to my day-to-day activities, communications and work. While I don’t use it for banking and avoid SMS verifications because it can be a security risk, I recognize its value in remaining engaged and active both professionally and socially. It is becoming a bigger part of identity, and the required COVID-19 vaccine verifications are so much easier on a mobile device. While having the latest mobile phone isn’t as important, what is important is the connectivity and engagement. I love the ability to grab a spontaneous picture and send it to a friend or the ability to connect with people on demand. As an avid photographer with a large collection of amazing cameras from the old Rolleiflex, Kodak Brownie and an old tiny spy camera, to the latest Canon professional DSLR cameras and lenses, nothing beats the spontaneous nature of using a mobile device to capture an emotional moment and share it instantly with friends. There is still a time and place for these beautiful traditional cameras, but the smartphone has a unique use case.

I treasure the more traditional artwork my sons have made in school over the years, which I have framed and placed on my walls, because the art represents their interests and activities over the years. Time feels like it passes faster and faster, and having the ability to look at their art and pictures, which I have throughout my home, brings back the joy and wonderful memories.

6 What’s the future of social media?

Social media has evolved over the last two decades as networked devices, smartphones and specialized applications have matured while the people that use them are also evolving and aging. For example, Waze lets you know that people you may know are traveling nearby. You could argue that the shared economy is a derivative of social networks that enabled growing mobility and shared solutions within communities.

The nature of information that is shared on social media has changed as the demographics of certain networks have changed dramatically. Freedom of speech isn’t always welcome, and the ability to block opinions have polarized communities. There are a plethora of different communications tools which enable private communications. It is hard to keep up with all the different options and networks that friends prefer for direct communications.

There is a move towards smaller private groups on networks with encryption and security. Mobile devices have become a critical component of how people communicate and identify themselves; for example, some COVID-19 vaccine verifications are dependent on smartphone access.

While social media platforms where influencers inform large numbers of followers are still popular, they will need to evolve as the community matures. A different strategy will be required to attract younger digital native generations who have a different relationship with their digital identity and the digital worlds they play and engage in. How they communicate and engage may be an extension of the video games they participate in. It isn’t a surprise to see the popularity in NFTs when you look at the popularity of digital objects in video games over the years that have generated billions of dollars for popular gaming platforms. The popularity of digital worlds where identity is tied to digital representation of an individual’s interests and values will continue to rise.

While there will continue to be a variety of specialized social networks that cater to professional or other communities with common interests, the younger digital native generations are going to be more comfortable interacting and communicating through the use of their self-created digital identities in virtual environments. Technologies are evolving quickly to support immersive environments to facilitate interesting new interactions and experiences. The possibilities for the future are endless and not necessarily a direct extension of today’s leading social platforms. Who knows, maybe the future will be about sharing virtual experiences in the same way people share TikTok video clips? This will require easy ways to create the experiences, and yet we already see young kids creating interactive environments in Roblox.

A wish for the blockchain community:

Wishing the ambitious blockchain community continues in its excitement for problem solving and innovation. While not all problems will benefit from the technology, the energy applied to problem solving through the evolution of the technology is contagious and inspiring! Hoping the ideation and creativity grows more to address some of the world’s biggest problems!

We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and we throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes!

This week, our 6 Questions go to David Chaum, one of the earliest blockchain researchers and a world-renowned cryptographer and privacy advocate. He is the founder of Elixxir, Praxxis and the XX network, which encompass his decades of research and contributions in the field of cryptography and privacy.

David Chaum is the creator and founder of XX network, the first consumer-scale, quantum-ready online platform that enables value to be communicated and exchanged without revealing so-called metadata. David is a pioneer in cryptography and privacy-preserving technologies, and is widely recognized as the inventor of electronic cash. His work on cryptographic vault systems contains the first proposal for a blockchain protocol, containing all but one element detailed 26 years later in the Bitcoin white paper. Davids company, DigiCash, deployed a breakthrough cryptographic blind-signature protocol in 1995 to create the worlds first anonymous digital currency, eCash.

1 What do you think will be the biggest trend in blockchain over the next 12 months?

At the moment, nonfungible tokens seem to be all the rage. But I think in the next 12 months, youll see people finally appreciating what true decentralization is. When people realize they can have a seat at the table, that they can own and participate in the governance of an entity, thats when we will start seeing a lot of innovation and mass adoption in the blockchain sector.

People will start to realize how much VC money has entered this space over the last five years, and come to their senses about these false prophets.

2 What is the single-most innovative use case for blockchain youve ever seen? It may not be the one likeliest to succeed!

The Satoshi Vision the right and ability to participate in economic activity (and upside). Money is tied to incentivizing freedom and democracy by ensuring that political freedoms are never stifled and can be economically supported.

3 What are the top five Crypto Twitter feeds you cant do without, and why?

@Defi_Dad is one of my favorite new feeds Ive recently been put onto. Very insightful. He is a very level-headed, no BS, even-keeled person in this space, which is notoriously filled with shilling machines.

@rogerkver is a visionary who doesnt get enough credit for helping people. He is also a huge reason why we are where we are at on the road to mass adoption.

@snowden is someone who speaks truth to power, every chance he gets. He is not afraid to speak his mind.

@danheld is incisive, doesnt miss a beat. Everyone should be following him brilliant mind.

@laurashin has her finger on the pulse of crypto, she is the Barbara Walters of crypto.

4 List your favorite sports teams, and choose the single-most memorable moment from watching them. If you arent a sports fan, choose a few movies and a moment!

The final chapter of 2001: A Space Odyssey was enough to make me worry about the digital future. I saw it when it came out and it obviously made a big impact.

5 What were you like in high school?

Ummm I spent a lot of time at UCLA. Truth is, I decided to spend time at UCLA rather than going to high school. It was the 60s and we still had the freedom to do things like this.

6 What makes you angry… and what happens when you get mad?

People who dont realize that democracy is not a given. The health of our society is not a given.

It makes me angry that not enough people are worried about the potential bad outcomes that threaten us. This reality we live in where information and media are obviously manipulated, we get so many messed up outcomes that none of us want because our shared common sense gets lost in the shuffle.

A wish for the blockchain community:

Its over. Everything is global and decentralized. The governments, the corporations, theyll have to play catch-up, but its done. We are a global community. The governments think blockchain and crypto are in question theyre not. Its the future. Its now. Its arrived. Its done.

We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and we throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes!

This week, our 6 Questions go to Jane Thomason, an entrepreneur and thought leader in technological innovation, fintech and blockchain for social impact. She is also the founder of Supernova Data, co-founder of the British Blockchain and Frontier Technologies Association, and chairperson of Kasei Holdings, an investment company specializing in the digital asset ecosystem.

I have always believed we can change the world! For most of my life, I tried that in an analog way. In 2016, I discovered blockchain, and I realized it was a game-changing technology for social impact. I needed to be part of making that happen, so I left my day job and stepped into the blockchain world. Every day, I am excited by the innovations that are already changing lives, especially in emerging economies. I try to be the bridge between the old world and the future. We are at a unique moment in history when we really can reshape things and create a fairer, more equitable and inclusive world.

1 What is the main hurdle to the mass adoption of blockchain technology?

A lack of understanding in the wider community and the poor reputation of crypto, coupled with resistance from legacy players. In 2018, I predicted gaming would be the path to widespread adoption, and we are indeed seeing that. The more use cases are built where people can see the practical benefits, the stronger adoption will be. In that light, the COVID-19 pandemic has been an accelerant, as we have seen blockchain used in the secure transfer of health data, supply chain provenance, payments, remittances and cross-border transfers. This builds credibility and will drive wider adoption.

2 What do you think will be the biggest trend in blockchain for the next 12 months?

I want to say social impact and gaming, but I would be kidding myself. Right now, people are reaping huge rewards through decentralized finance, nonfungible tokens and GameFi. We will see that continue to accelerate. In addition, we will see continued growth in institutional investment and the proliferation of regulated blockchain securities funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

3 Whats a problem you think blockchain has a chance to solve but hasnt been attempted yet?

Can blockchain technologies support the activities required for the sustainable management of the global commons, through systems of governance, transparent decision-making, smart contracts, and decentralized mechanisms and incentives for collaboration, cooperation, consensus and trust?

Blockchain has the potential to connect a global decentralized community around a common purpose. Using tokenomics, blockchain is able to create a new digital economy using behavioral economics and game theory to incentivize and disincentive distributed community behavior and action. Tokens can unite and economically align people around a common purpose. Blockchains are fundamentally a way to create economies. The ability to create new tokens and to distribute and allocate these tokens according to economic incentives will lead to the creation of new economies.

Can we see these distributed token economies emerge around global commons issues like climate, preservation of forests and oceans, public health, and gender equality where we can all contribute, participate and benefit?

Social impact and global commons issues require a greater level of cooperation and collaboration than usual, among ecosystems that dont normally collaborate or converge. We need immediate collaboration to pave the way for digital transformation collaboration to help build and shape the technology, collaboration in engaging and educating governments and regulators, collaboration in building the talent pool for the future digital economy, and collaboration in developing a new global economic system that is human-centered, preserves the planet, and is fairer and more equitable for all.

4 What would you like to see tokenized? When, if ever, do you expect this to happen?

Investing in women! I would like to see the female economy tokenized and to incentivize investment in women-led startups and businesses focused on products for women, creating an opportunity to economically empower women and drive social impact. Women drive the world economy, and women control $20 trillion in consumer spending, growing to $28 trillion in the next five years. While data exists on female entrepreneurs, gender equality, employment and leadership, the data is fragmented and static. I would like to see the worlds first token economy to democratize investment in and empowerment of women and that uses data analytics to predict and track growth in the female economy globally.

The global focus on growing the female economy is accelerating as a result of the impact of the pandemic on womens livelihoods. A blockchain token economy has the potential to transform the way that womens businesses are funded and measured, and to accelerate investment and growth. This would also help to unlock the deal flow for women entrepreneurs in the early stages. Both investors and investees will be able to track and measure outcomes such as capital flows and returns, enterprise segmentation, and impact monetization access analysis to contribute to global research, and track and measure impact. We can incentivize investors with even a small amount of capital to support the increased participation of women in the economy.

With over a trillion dollars in assets under management, a less than 0.5% commitment to women would still equal more than $5 billion dollars. Only a small increase can mean massive change can be made blockchain gives us an actionable path forward.

5 Which alternate movie universe would you most like to live in, and why?

Is there a Bollywood one that I can join? I love all the fabulous costumes and dancing and exotic scenes. Let me know when the Bollyverse opens, and I will be there in a flash in my best frock!

6 Close your eyes and think of a happy place. What do you see?

For me, a happy place is with the people I love. I can be anywhere in the world, but if I am with my son, daughter and granddaughter and any of my very large adopted extended family around the world, that is a happy place!

A wish for the blockchain community:

You are building the future. Therefore, build us the kind of world we would all like to live in.

We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and we throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes!

This week, our 6 Questions go to Mati Greenspan, a crypto analyst and the founder and CEO of Quantum Economics, an investment analysis and consulting firm for the cryptocurrency space.

Mati is the former senior market analyst at eToro and a licensed money manager in the European Union. Hes the co-author of the e-book The Complete Guide to Fintech Trading and Investments and currently advises publicly for LunarCrush, Electroneum and Luno.

1 Does it matter if we ever figure out who Satoshi really is or was? Why, or why not?

Even though our team is currently conducting extensive research on this, I dont think well ever be able to say definitively, and I kind of hope no one ever figures it out. Theres a certain allure to the mystery of Bitcoins origin that I think keeps people engaged in the network.

2 What do you think will be the biggest trend in blockchain for the next 12 months?

Its really difficult to say that far in advance in an industry that moves this quickly. Im personally looking forward to seeing more utility-based nonfungible tokens (NFTs). Using them to unlock exclusive content, as event tickets or as part of role-playing games, is extremely exciting.

3 Whats a problem you think blockchain has a chance to solve but hasnt been attempted yet?

Thats a fun question. I would say free, fair elections are an issue that many countries face, and I havent seen enough effort in the blockchain space to solve this. Perhaps now that crypto-friendly politicians are being elected in the United States, well finally see it happen.

4 When you tell people youre in the blockchain industry, how do they react?

Most people I meet already know this, so it isnt much of a shock anymore. Increasingly, people are becoming more familiar with Bitcoin (BTC) and blockchain, so I suppose its becoming more commonplace to have a job in this industry. I always take joy in seeing people quit their square jobs to work for Bitcoin and do my best to help facilitate that.

5 Do you subscribe to the idea of Bitcoin as a means of payment, as a store of value, as both… or as neither?

Yes, both. For me, very much so. Most of my team at Quantum Economics prefers being paid in Bitcoin. Its far faster, easier and cheaper to deal with internationally than any payment app or bank. The third part of the trilogy that defines money is a unit of account, which is a bit more difficult to get used to, but more and more were starting to think in Bitcoin terms.

6 What would you like to see tokenized? When if ever would you expect this to happen?

Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. Ive been tweeting about it to the Louvre Museum for a while now. In my mind, its only a matter of time. Could happen any day, really.

We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and we throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes!

This week, our 6 Questions go to Lyn Alden Schwartzer, founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy, which provides an investment research service for both retail and institutional investors.

Lyn Alden began her career in engineering. After working in the automation industry as an intern, she graduated from college and started as a junior electronics engineer for an aviation simulation facility. Over the course of a decade, Lyn Alden worked her way up to become the head engineer of the facility, overseeing its project teams, contract staff and technical finances.

On the side, Lyn Alden also had a small investment research business that she enjoyed. Although she loved engineering and management, when her research business grew very large, it began to overshadow her prior work, and she left to pursue her research business full time. Lyn Alden covers macroeconomic trends, and since 2020, she has put a lot of research into Bitcoin, in particular.

1 What is the single most innovative use case for blockchain that youve ever seen? It may not be the one likeliest to succeed!

Money.

The unmistakably innovative use case for blockchain is solving the double-spending problem, thus allowing people to transact and store value without a centralized third party.

Everyone is looking for the next thing that blockchains will be applied to, but I think people underestimate how big that total addressable market is from the first real application of blockchains: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system.

The entire world has a store-of-value problem. Interest rates in all developed countries are below the inflation rate. For lack of good money, we have monetized everything else, such as stocks, houses, luxuries and other things. In other words, we store a monetary premium in otherwise non-monetary assets above and beyond their utility value, as we want to hold anything other than cash. This is a problem leading to tens of trillions, or even over a hundred trillion dollars worth of monetary premium stored up in non-monetary assets.

And then beyond that, a significant part of the world has a payment problem. International payments are costly and inefficient they face capital controls, they dont have good access to cheap micropayments, they can be sanctioned, they can be surveilled, they can be confiscated from and so forth. The ability to send censorship-resistant payments is huge, and its something that many people in developed markets dont think about too often, but theyre a huge deal for emerging markets in particular.

2 What are the top five Crypto Twitter feeds you cant do without, and why?

Thats a tough question because I like dozens of them. There are plenty of resources that I like from different platforms (e.g., podcasts, interviews, books, articles and so forth), but specifically for Twitter, I guess I have to go with @PrestonPysh, @Gladstein, @Adam3us, @Skwp and @Lightning.

I also like to follow people I disagree with, or broad crypto news feeds, so that my feed is always filled with multiple points of view.

3 If the world is getting a new currency, will it be led by CBDCs, a permissionless blockchain like Bitcoin or a permissioned chain such as Diem?

I think for a period of time, we are going to have all of the above.

Some countries like China are strongly pursuing the CBDC route, which gives them more surveillance and control over their economy and population. Theyll have a greater ability to surveil transactions, block transactions, automatically debit peoples accounts based on infractions or their social credit score, and program money so that it can only be used in certain places or certain times. It will also give them the ability to go around the SWIFT system, to give them more control over their international commerce with some of their trading partners.

Most other central banks have not done as many years of research into CBDCs as China has and are not able to move that quickly into a new currency system. I think what we will likely see in the United States is a growing usage of regulated and permissioned stablecoins, including entities such as USD Coin, Diem and others. This can be thought of as a public/private partnership in some ways as these technologies get more integrated into the banking system.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin has been operating for nearly 13 years with increasing adoption and is the digital asset that can be thought of as sufficiently decentralized, with the battle scars to prove it. My expectation is that itll continue to grow over time and become an increasingly attractive form of global collateral and global money. I think the world will maintain various currencies in various ways, but I expect Bitcoin to grow its market share quite a bit from its current small levels. I certainly wouldnt bet against it, and unlike CBDCs and stablecoins that degrade in value over time, Bitcoin represents a way for everyone to have inflation-resistant, confiscation-resistant savings that they can custody if they choose to.

Ive compared this to Game of Thrones. All the political leaders and their kingdoms fight for power and status, while an exponentially growing army of White Walkers builds from beyond the walls, with little respect for the human politicians plans and schemes. Politicians have plans for their currencies, but for many people, Bitcoin represents a better form of savings and, in some circumstances, a better form of payment as well and these advantages might very well interfere with the politicians plans.

4 What talent do you lack but wish you had? How would you use it if you had it?

I lack talent in music. There are some things that I learned I had a knack for them, like math and science. I also am decent at some creative areas like writing and storytelling. But music is a big weakness for me. Whenever I tried to learn instruments, it was a slow process and never really clicked for me. When I was a kid, I had a dream of playing in a rock band, but I didnt know the first thing about how to do that. Other dreams were ones that I had tangible ways to accomplish.

My husband can hear a song and then reverse engineer it in his head and play it on the piano. He wasnt taught to do that, it just comes naturally to him as a talent. I dont even know where to start with that its like hieroglyphics to me.

5 What do your parents/significant other/friends/kids tell you off for?

That Im a workaholic.

Im not as social as I should be, and I tend to prioritize work over relationships. I tend to get self-absorbed in my work and not show enough appreciation for the wonderful accomplishments, interests and activities of loved ones in my life. Its something I consciously try to improve, and I do think Ive gotten better at it over time, but its a challenge for me.

A lot of people have trouble getting started on a project or thinking of things to do. They have ideas, but they lack initiative or execution. I have the opposite problem where there are a ton of things I want to do, and then I actually start them and work toward completing them which on its surface is a good thing, but it comes at a cost. I usually feel on edge if Im not pursuing an objective and am not good at just being.

There is a healthy balance, and I havent achieved it quite yet.

6 Whats the future of social media?

My hope is that it becomes more decentralized over time. When social networks buy other social networks to become networks of networks, I dont think thats healthy for society.

Pendulums tend to swing too far in one direction and then eventually get pushed back hard in the other. On one hand, giving everyone a platform has made for a period of incredible innovation and connectivity and has weakened the gatekeepers. On the other hand, algorithms and pick-your-own-news sources have a tendency to pull people into echo chambers and contribute to polarization in society.

A large part of the rise of mega-corporations over the past decade is a result of benefiting from user data and making users the product rather than the customer. Google and Facebook did this abundantly by offering free software in exchange for collecting a lot of information from them. Amazon also collects a ton of data from retail companies on its platform and then develops its own in-house products based on that data.

It seems to me that people will wake up and want to take back their data. There will hopefully be better browsers, better search functionality and better networks, where people become more actively aware of the data being taken from them and start to take it back.

A wish for the blockchain community:

I wish for the blockchain community to lengthen its time preference and focus more on what can be built over 12 years and less on what can be hyped in 12 months. There is a tremendous opportunity here to focus on building solutions that make the world simultaneously more connected and yet also more private, by giving individuals more control over their money and data. The more successful this is, the more it will reduce boundaries that people cannot control, while also allowing them to put up boundaries that they want to.

We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and we throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes!

This week, our 6 Questions go to Han Kao, founder of thesis-driven investment fund Sanctor Capital and co-founder of crypto research company Crypto Briefing.

Han grew up in New York City and studied economics at Columbia University. He started as a software developer but soon realized he wanted to be an entrepreneur. Over the years, Han has founded several companies: a web development firm (ISI Studios) during the dot-com boom, events marketing (BDBG Marketing) and online ticketing (theDreamVine) companies from 2005 to 2015, and a mobile app studio (J Tech) in 2015.

In 2017, Han began publishing research on early-stage blockchain projects via Crypto Briefing. Today, Crypto Briefing is one of the top crypto research publications, with over 1 million monthly readers.

With Sanctor Capital, Han hopes to help guide other founders in the space to find their own success. It recently launched Sanctor Turbo, a Y Combinator-style mentorship program to support missionary founders.

1 What does decentralization mean to you, and why is it important?

To me, decentralization represents a tectonic socioeconomic shift for the modern world. For centuries, the world has relied on centralized governments, financial institutions and other centralized organizations to imbue us with a false sense of security and safety.

However, its becoming abundantly clear that those same organizations and authorities that we have granted these such powers to are often not acting in the best interest of their constituents and are merely looking after their individual selves. Moreover, the costs that we pay for this false sense of security are inefficient and harmful to the societies that these organizations serve.

From a sociopolitical perspective, decentralization helps distribute and democratize power and empowers the active participants of any given society (or organization), rather than those who are more privileged.

From an economic point of view, decentralization helps remove the costs, inefficiencies and risks associated with needing to trust intermediaries and centralized parties.

Simply put, it just makes everything better not necessarily easier, but better.

2 What is the biggest obstacle facing Ethereum today, and what is its biggest opportunity?

Coined by Vitalik Buterin, the blockchain trilemma refers to the challenges and trade-offs that exist between the three main facets of a blockchain decentralization, security and scalability. He notes that developers have to choose between trade-offs among the three facets.

While Ethereum is one of the most decentralized and secure blockchains that exist today, it is also one of the least scalable ones. The move to a more scalable, faster, cheaper Ethereum 2.0 has been, and will continue to be, one of the most complex and challenging developments of the Ethereum development community.

The goal post keeps moving for Ethereum 2.0, and developers are frustrated and are looking for alternative solutions. Developers today want to build applications on chains that can serve as the best foundation for the target use cases they have envisioned.

And the longer it takes for Ethereum to reach an acceptable level of scalability, the more opportunities arise for other blockchains to stake their claims on the market. We have already seen other blockchains such as Solana and Binance Smart Chain capitalize on this opportunity. and we will likely continue to see more momentum grow for other ecosystems like Cosmos, Polkadot, Avalanche and Algorand.

3 Which is sillier: $500,000 Bitcoin or $0 Bitcoin? Why?

Without a question, $0 Bitcoin is sillier. The U.S. dollar is probably the biggest scam in the history of the world. After the Second World War, 700 representatives from 44 nations got together (in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire) to figure out how to build a new global financial system. And since the United States had the largest reserve of gold, it pledged to fix the dollar to its gold reserve and make the dollar the international reserve currency for other countries.

However, by 1971 after racking up a huge deficit we began to run low on our gold reserves. So, President Nixon decided that the dollar would no longer be backed by gold. We have been off the gold standard since, and the U.S. dollar is backed by nothing other than the strength of our military. That sounds like a scam to me. But the problem is that there wasnt really an alternative until recently.

Its not really practical to carry around gold bars and coins when you want to buy something. You also cant transfer a gold bar across the world to relatives. So, Bitcoin is a viable solution for people who want to store their wealth in an asset others might be willing to accept in the future. And the more people see Bitcoin as money, the bigger it will become.

With a fixed supply of 21 million BTC and U.S. dollar inflation reaching record levels, Im betting that more and more people will be open to accepting Bitcoin as money. Were really not that far from $500,000 Bitcoin. Thats only one order of magnitude away!

4 What talent do you lack but wish you had? How would you use it if you had it?

I have been very lucky and have been endowed with a semifunctional brain to think through problems and with capable body parts to execute my brains commands. But I dont have any superpowers, so since you asked, I don’t think it’s too much for me to ask for the ability to create more time.

I wish I had the ability to create just one extra hour in the day for everyone for myself, for my partners at Sanctor Capital, for our portfolio companies, everyone. I would then take that extra one hour of U.S. time that I have and trade it on a time DEX for a block of Asia time. This way I can spend one less hour every night speaking to Asia and put that toward sleep!

5 Think of a favorite poem or song lyric. What is it, and why does it speak to you?

OK, I’m going to take advantage of this opportunity to be super cheesy here. A verse that comes to mind is from a song by Drake called Started From The Bottom.

Started from the bottom, now were here. Started from the bottom, now my whole team fuckin here.

When I went full time into blockchain and started Crypto Briefing, everyone thought I was crazy friends, family, colleagues, literally everyone. Why would you invest in these scams? Crypto is for criminals! Youre outta your mind! Tulips! Over and over, I would hear reactions like this.

Fast forward four or five years, and blockchain and crypto is now a real thing and on its way to global recognition and adoption. And my time operating in the industry has given me the experience and knowledge to be able to contribute to society in a really impactful way based on the projects we choose to back and support.

Its important to note that when I think of my whole team from the song, Im not just thinking of my partners at Sanctor Capital who grinded it out with me through the long bear market on reduced salaries, when everyone quit on us and we were months from pulling the plug I’m also thinking about every honest blockchain founder who went through the same exact emotional roller coaster in 2018, 2019 and early 2020.

The world has changed in a big way, and now we are at the forefront of a socioeconomic revolution, and we get to influence how we want the next chapter to read. Congrats to all the builders, the holders and everyone who didnt give up on their vision!

6 What should we be teaching our kids?

I have a lot to say about education, as I am the product of the notorious New York City public education system. I went to primary school in Queens and high school in the Bronx. Most of my classmates didnt graduate. I dont have enough space to say everything I want to say, so Ill just rant a bit until I run out of space.

Our education system and curriculum need some serious reform. For starters, we need to teach our children history the way it really happened, not the BS that fills our textbooks.

Next, we need to teach financial literacy starting from a young age not math, financial literacy! I wasted years of my childhood learning about trigonometry (yes, the sine, cosine and tangent stuff), and not a single time in my entire adult life have I ever used it. Im not saying that its not important, but it wasnt relevant as a core skill.

I would have been better suited learning about what a profit and loss statement looks like or how taxes work. I would have loved to have been encouraged to be an entrepreneur and taught more about entrepreneurship instead of having it be represented as something only for prodigies and geniuses. A lot of that is changing today, but not fast enough.

And yes, of course, blockchain and distributed ledger technologies should be mandatory classes!

A wish for the blockchain community:

Think big and have a little faith in yourself and your vision.

We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and we throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes!

This week, our 6 Questions go to Anton Bukov, co-founder of 1inch Network, a distributed network of decentralized protocols.

Anton has been writing code for more than 20 years (since he was 12), mostly C++, C#, Objective-C, Swift and SQL. Since 2017, he has been working on blockchain solutions, primarily smart contracts. Anton has contributed to several crypto projects, including MultiToken, Near Protocol where he was involved in the Ethereum-Near Rainbow Bridge and the Synthetix derivatives liquidity protocol, working on gas optimization of the smart contracts.

For some time, Anton co-hosted a YouTube show, CryptoManiacs, with Sergej Kunz, 1inch Networks eventual co-founder. Over the course of 36 hours at a May 2019 hackathon in New York City, they developed a prototype crypto exchange aggregator that became the basis of 1inch.

1 From smart contracts to DApps, NFTs and DeFi, we have seen so many of the next killer apps for crypto, but none have really taken off quite yet. What will stick?

I see some projects that are already taking off. This growth is exponential but still limited by blockchain capacity at this point. Everyone is expecting a layer-two solution that will eventually scale DeFi to a great number of users, triggering explosive growth.

2 What is the single most innovative use case for blockchain youve ever seen? It may not be the one likeliest to succeed!

True innovation comes when a project considers blockchain as an actor following strict, programmable rules rather than a passive database. This is happening for the first time in human history we have an ultimately honest (protected by consensus) instruction executor. Moreover, it is unstoppable in following instructions. Currently, the most exciting applications for me are automated market makers (AMMs) and money markets (aka lending protocols).

3 Do you subscribe to the idea of Bitcoin as a means of payment, as a store of value, as both… or as neither?

I respect Bitcoin I mean, the engineers behind it for being the first blockchain, but from my viewpoint, blockchains with smart contracts make much more sense at this point. Bitcoin can still work as a store of value, but as a means of payment sorry, I dont believe in it anymore. The Lightning Network and IOU tech can only work for a small subset of the community/population. Most people prefer to use less volatile currencies for payments, such as stablecoins.

4 Who makes sense to you, and who makes no sense whatsoever?

Innovators, inventors and smart people make sense, and this category does not usually intersect with popular people. Advice coming from popular people doesnt necessarily make sense for everyone, but few understand this.

5 Where do you stand on alien intelligence and the existence of life elsewhere in the universe?

I strongly believe in it the probability is very high. Overall, Im curious about non-protein forms of life. And Im curious about the lack of physics determinism. This could be the only reason for the possibility of life.

6 Which book has influenced you the most? Why?

I like sci-fi books from the 1980s. Maybe Frost and Fire by Ray Bradbury was one that made me think a lot about life and time.

A wish for the blockchain community:

Participate in hackathons and get engaged in building the decentralized future its a huge space with huge opportunities. All these crypto prices only help attract more attention to this industry. But the true gem is innovations and projects!

We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and we throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes!

This week, our 6 Questions go to Daniela Barbosa, general manager for blockchain, healthcare and identity at the Linux Foundation and executive director of Hyperledger.

At Hyperledger, Daniela is responsible for the overall strategy and operations of the organization, including staff, programs, expansion and the execution of Hyperledgers mission. Daniela has more than 20 years of enterprise technology experience. She has a masters degree in library (remember those?) and information science, which she put to work in the 1990s when the internet was becoming nascent for consumers and enterprises alike. An active voice in the industry, Daniela has been a featured guest speaker at many key blockchain conferences worldwide and advises the Hyperledger community on the use of open-source technologies.

1 What is the main hurdle in the way of the mass adoption of blockchain technology?

Onboarding. For enterprise blockchain, it is no longer a question of if the technology will work. We have seen plenty of proven enterprise networks across many use cases in supply chain, trade finance, digital payments, healthcare and more. It is how those networks are governed as active growing networks beyond the POC stage and how you onboard a diverse ecosystem of both small and large players.

In crypto, usability has a long way to go, as anyone who is not deep in the tech and has tried to set up their own wallet might tell you. Third-party services are certainly making some usability aspects easier, especially to buy and hold, but then we are getting ourselves back into the same game.

2 Looking at the top 100 projects in crypto by market cap, which ones stand out to you and for what reason?

Great, thanks for the question. I just spent 30 minutes falling down the rabbit hole. There are more than a handful on that list today that are leveraging our Hyperledger ecosystem… However, I had to pick one, it is Ethereum. The Hyperledger community has been part of the Ethereum ecosystem since the Hyperledger Foundation started in 2016. From 2018 onward, we have worked closely with the key stakeholders defining Ethereum-based solutions and use cases in the enterprise. In early 2017, our Technical Steering Committee approved the Hyperledger Burrow project, which was our first Ethereum-derived project that supports the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Then, in 2019, we welcomed Hyperledger Besu, a code contribution by ConsenSys. Hyperledger Besu is an Ethereum client developed under the Apache 2.0 license and written in Java that runs on the Ethereum public network, private networks and test networks and is designed to be enterprise-friendly for both public and private permissioned network use cases.

3 Do you subscribe to the idea of Bitcoin as a means of payment, as a store of value, as both… or as neither?

I obviously subscribe to the idea of Bitcoin (BTC) as a means of payment, otherwise I wouldnt have spent all my first Bitcoin in 2012. Today, I think it is both a store of value and a means of payment, especially outside of the United States. Just wished I had stored more of it…

4 Who makes sense to you, and who makes no sense whatsoever?

The young climate activists who are fighting for their (our) right to live on a habitable planet make sense. We need to support climate action initiatives, in the streets and with global funding for innovation and sustainable development.

People who stick with their principles without looking at facts and science make no sense. Even after being clearly proven wrong, they just double down.

5 What was the most embarrassing moment of your life?

I traveled halfway across the globe for a meeting, padding in about 36 hours before the meeting to be well rested. I then showed up two hours late because I had the wrong address and stayed at a hotel on the other side of town from the actual meeting location. Forever a Road Warrior.

6 Think of a favorite poem or song lyric. What is it, and why does it speak to you?

Bob Dylans I used to care, but things have changed. As Bob said when he received the Academy Award for best original song for Things Done Changed in 2001, it obviously is a song that doesnt pussyfoot around nor turn a blind eye to human nature. Yes, indeed. People are crazy, and times are strange.

A wish to the blockchain community:

Keep building.