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Bridging Physical and Digital Worlds with Blockchain
Recorded: April 2, 2025 Duration: 1:28:54Space Recording
Short Summary
The discussion highlights significant developments in the crypto space, including the launch of projects like Alatex's smart device blockchain integration, the growth of RWAs surpassing DeFi market cap, and innovations such as Nike's digital sneakers. Trends in Deepin, AR, and AI are also emphasized as key areas of focus for future growth and investment.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Thank you. good morning everyone this is yay networks the founders show volume 36 bridging physical and
digital worlds with blockchain it is a brave new world out there where we are
redefining ownership on blockchain and creating a new sense of digital ownership which has become
increasingly mainstream over the past five years or so it'll be really kind of interesting to see
where visual goes where rwas go rwas with nftAs on ERC-20s. We've got people turning to digital ownership,
not only as a means of consumerism, but also a means of self-expression on some level. And that's
where it gets really kind of interesting to me. We have a lot of speakers today as always. So if
you're in the audience and you should be up on the panel, put in a speaker request right away. It will definitely
get you up here as quickly as we can. Thanks to my producer for doing that. So we're going to go
ahead and jump into the topic while everyone gathers. I thank you all for joining me today.
It's a chilly, early spring morning here in the middle of Pennsylvania.
I don't know where it is, wherever you are, but you can still feel a little bit of that
winter, but the warmer weather is coming.
So that's inspiring.
Hopefully the market will do the same thing.
Let me go over to, let's see, we've got diffuse protocol diffuse.
Why don't you come on and say hello and tell me, you know, what does the bridging of physical
and digital worlds mean to you?
Uh, Hey, Hey, thank you for asking to join.
Yeah.
My name is Vadim.
I'm founder CEO of diffuse and like, and for us, it's quite important to take part of,
uh, infrastructure to go up part of infrastructure to make the things bridging from real world to, to web three.
As trustless as possible.
And we are here to, to make it real.
Right.
Okay.
So, um, great.
I mean, you know, so do you see digital ownership, you know, bridging, uh, physical
and digital worlds, is this ultimately about ownership to you or how, how do you
see that, uh, that playing out, uh, diffuse protocol?
So, yeah, actually to, to, to say like my words about how, w w what we're aiming
to, to do and how it's working.
It's like a
permissionless and trustless infrastructure that available verifiable data.
So what does that mean? It means that once you can create a ZK proof of any data that happened in Web 3 or in Web 2.
You can use this data together with the proof
and it bring the same level of security
as it could be something that in normal way.
And for us, it means like this.
So yeah, regarding your question.
So I mean, the reliable data
and the way we can create the key proof and leverage the security of it, it's the most important.
Okay. I'm going to go over to Mariela. Mariela, come on, say hello and tell us what you think.
To go back to kind of our thesis here, what does the bridging of digital and physical worlds mean to you?
What does it mean for mainstreaming and physical worlds mean to you what does it mean
for mainstreaming and the way people relate to blockchain in general hey guys nice to meet you
mariela business development lead at alatex and obviously we're working on deep end so what better
a specific example of bridging the real world with blockchain that deep end and it's uh connecting
all smart devices to blockchain which is actually what we're building. There's a huge need of more connectivity, more efficient infrastructures, etc.
And also for people to be able to invest in all this infrastructure that until in and invest in solar panel farms or in telecoms, etc.
But number two, because the only way that the supply side can go as fast as the demand side is,
because we have AI and we're all connected, etc., is to decentralize this infrastructure.
And the smartest and more efficient way to do this
is utilizing blockchain.
So yeah, happy to dive in deeper later,
but I don't want to hoard a conversation.
But definitely for us,
it means gathering all this data from devices
and also building infrastructure
that's built on blockchain for trustability,
credibility, and also for major scaling solutions.
All right, great. All right.
Great.
And thanks for being on, Marielle. Let me go ahead over to Tahir Mahmood.
Tahir, you know, how would you define that?
It sounds like the kind of thing people just put in white papers and probably have been
putting in white papers since like 2016 bridging digital and
and blockchain worlds that's an idea that can point to rwas it could point to fractionalized
rwas on erc 20 tokens or uh you know on nfts with collectibles for you know, what do you see as kind of the nexus
of where that bridge is happening
between physical ownership and digital ownership?
What do you think Tahir?
Great, no, thank you so much for that.
So, you know, what's interesting,
I always consider myself as the old person in the room
being, you know, at technology over 40 years.
And, you know, I always describe it as, you know, the Sum 40 years and you know i always describe it as you know the
sumerian started with tablets we had single entry bookkeeping double entry bookkeeping there was even
this thing uh triple entry bookkeeping with momentum accounting which was all about just
verifiability you know the bottom line at the end of the day is what is blockchain i mean the whole
idea is it's been able to put something and no, you can't backtrack, you can't change it.
It's immutable. So ultimately, that representation of the real world side onto a ledger, we've had that around a lot longer than blockchain.
So to be fair with you, I don't see anything new here. We're just another step change in technology. So instead of doing it with sort of centralized databases, you know,
today, every pound note or dollar I have in my pocket is something that's represented in my
bank account, but, and I trust my bank, but do we really trust the bank? So, you know, everything
the other chaps and people on the call have said, totally agree. You know, it's about, like you say,
verifiability, ownable, interoperable side of things. And really that's where, to me, it all lies.
So again, I'll pass the call on,
but that's where we sit at Colonel.
We're here to bring all of that together
with our middleware.
It's interesting.
I'm a fan of antiquities myself.
It's true that before written language,
you know, one of the first things that humans,
you know, were able to
do on tablets and so forth, or on early vellum, would be to keep track of tallies for trading and
that sort of thing. So the impulse has been there forever. We've been looking for examples and ways
to keep track for a long time. But going over to Kim, I feel like digital
ownership, you know, Kim, you being from Decentraland, I'm sure you have an opinion on this.
You know, being, now that we've moved, we don't, as consumers, we don't buy for purely logical
reasons. That's absolutely, I don't, I think anybody on this panel would contest that.
That's absolutely, I don't think anybody on this panel would contest that.
So are people dipping into buying digital objects for the same kind of emotional reasons
that once they would have, you know, purchased items of clothing or cool hats,
like I'm looking at my cool Gravity Falls hat over here or something like that,
where it becomes also a matter of self-expression or wanting to associate oneself with a certain brand or a
certain vibe or idea what do you what do you think about that kim i completely agree my wallet uh
definitely says that we don't buy for logical reasons um so yeah we definitely see that people buy for a variety of reasons. So all like the
wearables in Decentraland are NFTs. And we see people buy some because they're rare. And they
just want just like in the real world, like you want that super rare piece that came out from
your favorite designer, because it means something to people to know, wow, you have an exclusive piece. That definitely happens in digital fashion too.
If something is known to be more expensive or top tier, for example, we have some L1 wearables that
were released on Ethereum into Central End. So that means they're like part of the OG fashion
collection. And some people want that just like they want vintage clothes in real life.
And then some people totally buy for just personal love or personal lore, or like you said,
their digital identity. So maybe they, in the physical world, present themselves one way.
For example, I'm usually in sweatpants and a ponytail in the physical world, but in the digital world, I really want to express more of my personality when I jump into the central end.
So, like, I have a hot pink ponytail and I have these really cool boots from my favorite creator.
Or maybe I wear this, like, super sleek avatar body painting by this creator, Rustan.
avatar body painting by this creator, Rustan. So I think people do have a little bit more of that
creativity and self-expression in the digital worlds where their NFTs are like that expression
of art and creativity that maybe is harder to do in the physical world. Changing your hair color
every day is difficult, but in digital, that's super easy to do.
Right. Definitely. That is a great point. Let me go to over the reality. Has our relationship to ownership changed with the advent of digital ownership? I think certainly it was a tough sell.
And when the first few physical objects, like the guy who started,
Oh, I'm trying to remember the name of the tech publication.
He sold his, uh, condo as, as an NFT, like, uh, you know, seven years ago or
something, um, you know, uh, are we so, but it felt like a very early use case
and not like a really mainstream thing.
Do you think that that's changing?
Man, Justin, what a question what's a good question it's a really good question um yeah it's changing slowly um well uh for for decentraland like for for metaverse or virtual
world platforms for like Decentraland
and Spatial,
and I'm going to bring in Second Life
and all these other platforms
where there's real world
like assets and NFTs.
We are seeing more people
buy into that
for whatever reason,
emotional,
for whatever Kim had said.
I believe that that was her name.
But, wow.
In terms of like the Web2 people,
I'm not sure.
I just need my coffee right now.
But definitely,
I'm being honest.
Definitely we're going to see more adaption
towards what it means to own these digital assets could you do that does that
make sense yes yeah you started breaking up a little bit but you know go ahead and uh and
summarize can you can you repeat the question again okay we're talking about bridging fish
physical and digital worlds so we've got fidgetal we've got tokenized RWAs, we've got NFT tethered RWAs.
You know, this was pretty fringe stuff seven years ago.
At this point, you know, have we changed our relationship to ownership to include digital ownership?
And since ownership and purchasing is inherently kind of an
emotional thing as well as a logical choice for consumers, how do you think attitudes are shifting
around it? Oh yes. Okay. Yes, definitely. Definitely. I'm going to relate this to over
the reality. So when over first launched in 2018, and then they finally opened up their platform, which literally is a digital layer
over the real world where people can buy virtual land over a specific geolocation.
Definitely, real estate is a big thing in Web2, so it became a big thing when OVA opened
up its platform. So we saw a lot of people
purchasing these hexagons or overlands over various locations in the world, be it for emotional,
sentimental value, or they just thought that if they could own the whole layers of a stadium
or parts of Central Park, then they can use it for an investment type of opportunity.
So we were seeing the type of mentality or mindset that people have always had. Let's
talk about real estate and property. And now transferring it over to the Web3 in a digital
format. And what's great about it is these virtual layers that they were purchasing that
were really over physical locations, it really meant something because not only that,
the platform that Over has is you're able to create XR or augmented reality experiences over it.
And that is a huge thing in terms of marketing and community engagement when you are
creating these experiences to engage with community or surrounding a brand. So definitely
it was something fringe, but we're definitely going to see more of it, especially, I'm going
to throw this in, and I don't know how exactly it relates, but it will, especially oncoming a physical AI.
Okay. All right. Well, that, that will be interesting to see. Certainly a physical AI
is you get into something kind of future looking and it certainly is going to change everything
that much. I can, I can easily agree with, let's go over to HGV, HGVGVIS and kind of ask the same question. Fashion has always been a form of
identity and self-expression. Are we tapping into that same idea with digital ownership? You see
Bored Ape Yacht Club and their spinoff streetwear brand brand lots of other brands uh you know i've seen vodka
there's the board ape uh water of course there's tons of examples out there um you know is this
becoming a matter of self-expression and of you know purchasing self-expression purchasing an image
as much as it's uh becoming about making any sort of investments.
What do you think?
Yeah, GM, hello, everyone.
So I'm a founder of AGVs and also the Fashion Matterverse Conference.
platform with also like people from web to web 3d creators so um from my side like digital and
So from my point of view, yeah, we are a digital fashion platform with also people from web to web 3 creators.
physical connecting together in the fashion field it's really really strong right now and i we can
see in the past few years a lot of luxury brand they are also doing so it's not only about
authenticity this is one part for luxury brand they are doing this but i see like
digital fashion can add another layer let's say self-expression your belonging and gamification
to let people to be more enjoyable more than the piece the physical piece you own so i feel it's
like an extension of your life so also i I think for all the NFT we bought,
we are not only buying them for an image itself,
it's also a part of like we belong to this community
when they are having the events all over the world,
we enjoy it and we feel it.
So that's the part I see really, really important
from the digital world and the physical world,
how they are merging and
how they are affecting each other and one more thing i think about fashion is it is so specific
so when you're linking a physical word um a product object to a digital one actually the
digital one can be whatever like can be fire fire element or water, which does not exist in this world.
So we can try to blend in two words.
It's kind of related, but give you more than like what this word can be.
So that's also from the creator side of view.
We can add a lot of very experimental things into the physical object so that's very interesting from the
creation side and also community building because everyone have their other like a very a lot of
sorts so we are blending all the things together and from the nft we can have different uh um share from the all our contributor so that's also very fair for the um
um creator economy from the point of view yeah right that makes a lot of sense i mean and to
what uh kim and said before it's interesting that you've got people who are buying digital objects
kind of for themselves,
or maybe, and I know that there are some sales going on like this, like you can have the hat
or the shoes as a physical object, and then also get them as a digital file so that theoretically
you can incorporate them into your metaverse platform or incorporate them into some gaming platform, for example, or as your PFP. And it
really kind of like creates an interesting situation where you've got kind of your digital
identity versus your IRL identity. And in many cases, people with several digital identities,
you can see all over web three, people have promoted a specific part of their digital
identity in a way that's clearly, you know, they're putting that PFP of a boredy ape or
a pudgy penguin forward. They're not putting their own face forward. So it creates kind of a different
twist in social interactions and social media. I want to go over to Mawari and ask about,
it seems like if this phenomenon is going to coalesce around one thing, it's like we've got
ERC-20s for fractional ownership, and we've got NFTs for more of a collector vibe or, you know, owning an individual object kind of ownership, soul ownership.
You know, what do you see as, you know, the platform where the most interesting activity is happening right now around digital ownership?
Do you think that, I mean, NFTs were obviously huge in 2020 through basically 2022.
They still have their place in the ecosystem. were obviously huge in 2020 through basically 2022.
They still have their place in the ecosystem.
Do you think NFTs are going to make a comeback
around this fidget kind of idea,
or do we have ERC20 tokens kind of coming in
to fill that void because it allows fractional ownership?
Okay.
Hello everyone. Luis from Mawai here. You can hear me, right?
Yes.
So, okay. So I will turn sideways the question, and I apologize for that. So let's not put the
heart before the horse in that sense. Like, technology is useful, but let's not start with, okay,
so we need an ERC-20 or we need an NFT for this.
I mean, it's more about like the use cases in the end and what's a specific purpose and
whether it actually makes sense for it or not.
So when it comes to digital ownership, like we've been discussing fashion.
Okay.
So we're working a lot, yeah, with augmented reality, extended reality, and focusing a
lot on Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
I mean, for them, their digital identity is more important than sometimes even the the real identity so for
them it makes sense to actually yeah have ownership of nike shoes for their avatar
ideally perfect if it's interoperable or not for that type of use case uh yeah and an nft uh
Yeah, and NFT makes sense.
So, but that being said, I mean, I'm in my forest.
For me, that doesn't make sense in that sense
to spend money on the digital ownership
of a digital asset that, of an avatar
that I may not be playing every day on the game, right?
Just an example.
Then we have another type of physical per se,
which, and this is not even physical,
this is just more like virtual.
For Mawari, as we work a lot with augmented reality,
we actually have two type of physical verticals, as I would call it.
One of them is anything that is augmented or being overlaid in the real world as content or enhancing a user experience.
That's actually blending the physical world with the digital world that's quite simple.
Second one is infrastructure.
So we have, yeah, deep in physical infrastructure that is serving a very specific purpose in
the case of Mawai delivering that digital content into the real world, that's also a digital.
When it comes to infrastructure and fractionalized ownership, again, not an investment advice.
That actually makes sense because, for example, let's imagine in the case of Mawari,
For example, let's imagine in the case of Mawari, we need GPUs and compute power close
to where the end user is because we need 3D rendering and AI inferencing at a low latency.
So let's imagine that we're having an experience in New York and this person is wearing his Ray-Bans and needs a digital assistant to
recommend him where to eat. So at that specific point in time, we need compute close to New York.
And I'm based in Japan. If fractionalized ownership
will allow me to actually have ownership of that infrastructure
that I serve in that specific user in New York
without me actually having to own the physical asset there.
Because I may not be rich enough to own real estate in New York
and put a server there.
So I mean, just in short this depending on
the use case is how actually this uh technologies uh willable um from my personal point of view
where i see where this is making a lot of sense and it's evolving quite rapidly is in in in the
deep in industry answering your your question
press press definitely definitely so that takes in kind of a different direction are you talking
about not only uh you know retail investors but also people who are investing in uh deep in our
our infrastructure because they want to make use of that infrastructure like the original idea
of any network utility token correct exactly all right well interesting by the way everyone who's
listening folks at home go ahead and follow all these brilliant people we have on uh on the panel
i i am expecting alex from uh rarible to also drop in, but I don't know if Alex has gotten a meeting or something.
So I pinged him.
Hopefully he'll be coming as well.
But thank you to everyone for dropping in on us today.
Go ahead and follow these good people.
And thank you to Yay Network for hosting the show.
Yay Network is the leading investing syndicate.
They are early investors and contributors to many projects, three of which are already listed
on Binance, including Movement Labs, Bubble Maps, and Chain GPT. You can check out their website
at yay.network. So thanks to them for hosting the show in general. Let's go ahead and talk about
who is threading the fidget needle really well at this point. you know like who is uh an example of this happening uh positively
right now uh you know do you agree with mawari constantine that uh you know this is uh at this
point and right now the deep end narrative has control of of this uh tokenized you know control
of of rwas and and building out something physical,
the connection between physical ownership and digital ownership?
Or do you see another strong use case out there that really kind of like
has your imagination for something that will really advance in 2025?
You with us, Constantine?
All right. I hope everybody else can hear me let me go uh back over i was here i was not sure i was not sure that you you're still gonna call me no i was i said your name it's okay man just just come
on uh let us know what you think do you agree with mawari that essentially dpin is owning this bridge between physical and digital ownership
or owning the narrative in 2025 or what about some of these earlier use cases uh you know fashion
uh you know buying cars buying apartments buying designer clothes you know either through nfts or
for or art through fractional ownership you know where is the use case that interests you right now?
Who's doing it well?
Well, to be frank with you, like, you know,
we invested in several deep-end companies, like, you know, as a group,
and some of them are doing well.
Some of them are struggling.
I think there's too many deep-end projects right now.
It's very hard to differentiate which one is going to work.
I mean, I still build it over the narrative,
but if I'll be completely transparent,
I don't think they're going to drive the trends right now.
I'm actually a big believer that right now the real-world assets like,
you know, the RWA are going to be like the most impressive use case.
Like they're going to merge with DeFi.
The projected, you know, market cap of
RWS right now is going to surpass like the entire DeFi market cap. It's going to happen this year.
So if you think about it, liquidity brings more interest and brings more marketing dollars and
brings more investors and it brings more attention. So I would, I would defer to RWS and DeFi as the core that will drive
the new kind of narrative
and you can see what is happening.
In terms of NFTs,
even though before that
I had my own RNFT marketplace,
we did a successful collection
of 5.5 million in 2021.
Unfortunately, I see the trend is not as colorful and the reason being I mean you can see like even what by bits recently just completely
discontinued their NFT platform many other top players are doing the same did did i think because there's not enough demands where right now as where we are it still
went only through two cycles as opposed to tokens right that went through you know many cycles right
and we have much deeper liquidity much more interest from investors and etc nfts is still
like in my opinion they have the place in the digitization and the
fidgetals, as some of the colleagues mentioned here, are a big trend. I do believe that big
brands will apply them more and more. However, as an industry, we need to figure out how to add
more liquidity, how to make sure that this is going to be the driver because if there's not
enough demand right and you have more supply i mean the economics 101 it just doesn't work this
way right so that is why i do believe there is just a few more cycles uh like have to pass until
nfts will come at least close to the liquid tokens right right well you know I hope that
there's I mean obviously of NFT being a file format it seems like the old ways that NFTs
were incredibly popular in 2021 2022 which with the generative projects were, you know, they were pretty hyped at that
time. So I can see how that's not necessarily coming back or at least not necessarily in 2025,
but there's certainly a lot of things you can do with NFTs. You know, what do you think, Kim,
who is doing Fidgetal well right now? And, you know, what would be a better name for Fidgetal?
I bring this up every time just because it doesn't flow off the tongue trippingly.
It just seems like a word that's kind of holding us back,
the same way that RWAs start doing better since they stopped calling them stable tokens.
What do you think?
I agree with you. I hate the word fidgetal, but I just haven't come up with an alternative that is as obvious in understanding.
I've always liked what 90CC has done with their chipped physical products in general.
I love in Decentraland, we have a few community members
that have their DCL wearables and a real product. One is called Sinful. He has this Mew sweatshirt
and anyone that buys the NFT, they ship out a physical sweatshirt. And I think that's a ton
of fun to have the products mirrored. I still think there's so much more to be done here though. I don't know that it's been like done really, really well to scale yet. And I think it's still
really hard to do. So I'm excited to see more brands bring it to life and bring it to these
different virtual worlds. I think with VRM exports, that ability to buy a digital item and then bring
your avatar multiple places makes them even more exciting and interesting to purchase and have them.
I personally did the Nike drop that they did and got the sneakers, the This Is Not a JPEG sneakers,
and I think they are super fun,
very much a if-you-know-you-know type of thing in this space.
So I still think there's so much more to be explored, honestly.
But if anyone can say something with a better word, I am down.
May I suggest one?
Yes.
Go ahead, yes.
I would call it something like omni-real or meta-real,
so something to combine the physical and real
parts so it'll be more engraved as an idea uh-huh all right well i you know i kind of like it that
that keeps it pretty tied to metaverse with meta real what about ar and vr uh ai agents uh you uh, AI agents, uh, you know, like to kind of, uh, shift topics there. Uh, you know,
does the idea of, uh, of digital ownership kind of take on a different meaning when we're not
just talking about, um, metaverse, but also like metaverse from anything that becomes,
you know, enhanced reality on some level or another. Uh, what, what do you think,
uh, Mowari
is there an appetite for that out there
are you with us Maury yeah there you go yes sorry I I was talking on mute uh yeah the
the definitely um it is still very niche I I have to say, but there are some places where this is happening.
For example, in Japan, the company was founded in Japan and we're working a lot with virtual YouTubers.
Virtual YouTubers are just normal youtubers that do it through
an avatar so we are enabling them to actually appear in the physical world
through augmented reality streaming that's what my way does as a business
and they just like normal youtubers they have fans and and these fans think about twitch or even
youtube uh they monetize right with tips with a lot of digital things that um generate income for
the for the streamers so in this, also in extended reality that is actually happening,
it's not per se digital ownership, but it could turn into some sort of ownership in the future.
But as an example, some of these fans to actually meet in the real world with the virtual YouTuber, ranging from $20 up
to $500 depending on the popularity of the VTuber, to have a two-minute conversation
with the XR headset and actually almost feel like they are in front of the virtual YouTuber. So this is opening.
It is a very niche vertical,
but it is opening the gates for this new digital economy.
And I do see that, yes, blockchain can actually help
as we scale this service, not just to be on... on right now we're doing it at events as physical
locations but eventually just the same as a youtuber in 2d in youtube or in twitch is streaming
eventually this will be streamed to people's homes with headsets and and that's where
memberships uh detailed goods that are gifted to to the avatar
and so on and so forth will will be part play part of this uh business model right definitely you
know uh kim oh actually let me go over to uh otr otr first um you know do you think that uh ai agents in in vr and ar ai agents and metaverse
are they making uh you know kind of a big impact in metaverse are we ending up with a situation
where people are going to be sustaining you know or probably already are sustaining multiple wallets to kind of like, so I not only have my IRL identity,
I'll have like multiple blockchain based virtual identities, you know, maybe one, I have one
wallet for my DGEN buying another wallet for holding Bitcoin or whatever. That's already
happening to a degree. Now we've got this mix of being able to throw AI agents in there as well um you know
is this going to become uh like the movie Inception very quickly I'll go to you too Kim well let me go
to to OTR first over over the reality what do you think are we uh are we are we getting to this
hopelessly nuanced situation I don't I don't. Maybe I should embrace it because it's creative,
but it also sounds terribly confusing on a personal level.
What do you think?
OTR.
Oh my God,
Justin.
I'm like,
OTR.
Who's he talking about?
I don't see any OTR speaker.
Then it's like over the reality.
I thought,
okay,
my bad,
my bad.
Giving us a nickname.
Woo.
Uh, well, again, like what Mawari said, it's still a very niche vertical, but with the onslaught of AI agents.
And interestingly enough, there's a guy down there who has his head with an orange baseball cap popping out of a banana.
who has his head with an orange baseball cap popping out of a banana.
I know this is a little bit of a segue,
but he actually runs AI building workshops on Spatial.
And he's literally fantastic.
It's all free.
And he uses all these different LLM models and stuff like that.
But in terms of are we going to be seeing them more?
Well, yes.
But who are the audiences that are
using them? It all depends. I know that we are a privileged bunch. We hang out in the same circles,
in these Web3 circles where these emerging technologies, we get to be in spaces and know about them, and we're curious
about it, and we get to deep dive and delve into them. Whereas people in, I hate saying Web2 are
normies. I really do, but I'm just going to say that for clarification. Yeah, I say it all the
time. Don't worry about it. I mean, the people not into Web3 tend to hate Web3. That's what I find
in my day-to-day life. So it definitely is
a distinction, although it's one we're trying to break down.
Yeah, that's 100%. So within that distinction, it really is a niche vertical because we're so
comfortable talking about AI agents and we are so comfortable predicting the future.
We know where the future is going. Pretty much each and every one of us are futurists in our own right. But then when you
have this whole mainstream audience that still runs like the economy, they still like purchase,
they have a huge purchasing power in terms of like things they buy in a non-Web3 ecosystem,
or in terms of things they buy in a non-Web3 ecosystem, and then what?
So this has really siloed these conversations, which is great,
because it's great to engage and stuff like that.
But for me, yeah, we will be seeing more use of AI agents in AR, VR.
We're seeing it already. We're definitely seeing it
already. Right. You know, Kim, I know that you had something you wanted to add to this too.
You know, are we going to run into a situation where not only can Justin have
multiple avatars or multiple established identities in the digital world, which certainly a lot of
people are already doing with SOC accounts and alts online, especially platform to platform.
But you add this AI wrinkle into it and you can have Justin hanging out on Decentraland
and co-locating on four other platforms as well.
Is that kind of the reality that we're getting into now?
Is that how people are dipping into this?
Or how is AI impacting or AI agents impacting Decentraland and other kind of metaverse spaces?
Absolutely.
It's so funny, we were actually all talking about this yesterday because Erica Wenger, who is a VC, put out a post, I think it was a few days ago, that said, DAU is dead, we need a new metric for the post-AI era. about daily authentic users. So how can you pull AI agents out of that? Because honestly,
when I go into Decentraland or other virtual worlds, like I want to hang out with real people
because we're all about those social human connections. And so like a world filled with
AI agents to me is not that exciting. It may be for some other people, but I think trying to figure out how can you set up systems that detect real people versus AI agents? Are there certain scenes where AI agents make a ton of sense, but other scenes where you're like, okay, I'm trying to have like a human connection here.
where people are bringing their avatar and splicing their time or their
identity into multiple different spaces.
Right.
But there is,
I mean,
obviously I think AI should be a tool,
but personally,
I'm a little concerned about the humanness,
all coming out of spaces that are meant to bring people together.
I remember having a discussion with the wombats like two years ago I
think they did their concert in Decentraland I hope I'm not confusing
it with another platform but I was talking to the drummer from the wombats
kind of their spokesperson and he pointed out how it was going to be a
recorded concert and I'm like well then you could be in the audience and it's a
go well I guess we could be right we could be playing on stage we could also
be in the audience we also talked about them actually turning into wombats which
they thought was a funny idea we had um this year's metaverse music festival some of them
were live and some were recorded and the cool part about recorded performances like that is
that the artist can interact with the fans while they're watching their own show and they never get to really like watch their own show as the audience experiences it um so we did do that a
little bit for this year's music festival which is every november and it was so fun for people to be
able to like talk to those artists live and like get understand how they got their inspiration or
what part of this song is their favorite or those types. Again, those human interactions can happen.
Yeah, definitely.
And of course you do need the human element in there or else it becomes, uh, you, you
end up with empty dollhouse syndrome, which is kind of like, uh, the complaint about like
Sims four, for example, I'm, I'm someone folks who you already don't know.
I like life simulation games generally
speaking uh i'm going to go over to uh to diffuse protocol uh and then i'll go uh actually otr i'm
going to come back or over the reality i'll come back to you in a minute i want to get a couple
more people in but or another better example in some ways is the latest iteration of um of uh animal crossing new
horizon where you had this very quaint game and by kind of making it bigger they also made it feel
empty like you're kind of missing the interaction in a lot of ways let me go over to diffuse protocol
uh there's something you wanted to add to this you you had your hand up. Yeah, yeah. I just want to highlight the fun facts
that AI agents at the current stage
just want to prove that they are something
that from other side of the border,
all these guys are trying to verify
that they are real engines
and the action was provided by AI model,
not the humans.
So it's just like fun fact to this discussion about the.
Sure.
Sure.
But definitely it's going to change the things on these digital spaces.
It could potentially change it for the better.
I mean, it's very easy to pursue how it could change it negatively, but
certainly AI functionality has been helping out RPG type
platforms for a long time. If you look at gaming, but you know, let's talk about, you know, what
creative opportunities are being opened up in the digital world that weren't there before. What
kind of a here, I'll go to you to hear, you you know who has an opportunity now whether you're talking
about the artist or the developer um who you know maybe didn't have an opportunity before
I'm sorry Tahir you're saying yeah no no thank you for that so you know what's interesting I mean I
really enjoyed listening to the different perspectives from everybody else and you know
what I want to add to this is um I've been in i was involved in the fashion industry in the sort of mid to late 90s quite a lot and one of the things at a particular
kind of clothing firm we created was the centers which would enable you to not only look you know
read your heartbeat or internal body temperature but even muscle activation and using augmented
reality the uh we did a proof of concept where basically using your mobile phone,
a trainer could hold it and look at you as a person and using a QR code to identify you
because that was the easy way to do it.
But we went moved on further.
We could even identify you using AI, the rhythm of your heart.
And that is so unique and distinct that you could not,
it's better than your retinal, your fingerprint or so unique and distinct that you could not it's better than
your retinal your fingerprint or anything else and that you cannot differentiate so we use that
to augment over the top of it the whole of the heart beating the muscle activation everything
else so you could actually mimic the human as a digital twin at a level of you could not imagine. And that was done in 2019 before COVID and everything else happened.
So this idea of digital twins, edge computing, smart cities,
all of that, you know, has been a great movement towards it.
And obviously we ended up in the world of metaverse.
And then we've subsequently ended up with, you know,
now we have blockchain and the idea is how does blockchain really work with
this? And again, you know now we have blockchain and the idea is how does blockchain really work with this and again
you know this aspect of is blockchain or is ai now going to lead us to a dystopian society where
you know maybe it will take over and become skynet so all of this or or the matrix you're also like
what you're describing starts to feel like and then all we have to do is create a one-for-one simulation of our current world.
It's like simultaneously exciting and full of potential.
It's bringing together AI and blockchain and VR and kind of turning them into this one mammoth thing.
thing. If the technology was five years more advanced or 10 years more advanced when COVID hit,
I wonder what that would have done. The implications are really quite interesting,
aren't they, Tahir? Think of it this way. We, at that stage, developed an AI platform where if you
were actually wearing those smart connected clothings, you could detect a
pandemic and any disease or anything. I mean, AI already is presenting itself in such a way that,
you know, the best way I describe it is we at Kernel, you know, what we offer is the ability
to turn the whole of the ecosystem, which is whether it's on-chain, off-chain into one sort
of space. You know, it sounds crazy, but on Twitter space or X space.
So the idea is you can have a transaction
that I can execute on any contract, on any chain or off
chain, but the AI agents are really important
because we're implementing what's called AI tethering.
So this thing of AI models misbehaving,
needing a backdoor to stop them if they misbehave,
are they true realities?
Can you detect that it's an AI agent? All of these things. I mean, this is a great part of
what we're doing at Kernel S Tech. So what I've enjoyed about this conversation is that
when people talk about digital identities, multiple digital identities, you know, there are
experiments and research papers. Recently, I've been reading about how literally based on my interaction of a model that I've been sort of just working with for the last
year I can literally say to it lift all the weights from that model and the
biases about me and put it into that world of there and it can go and live in
it within that world in fact maybe even get educated in that world and I'll drop
it in a world of let's say schooling to do with being a doctor so it goes off and learns to
the doctor taking the original concept of me and then comes back and literally
I am a doctor you know so I can live in different world so all of this I think
is you know it's just literally around the corner you know I started AI in the
mid 80s you know I studied a masters in literally around the corner. I started AI in the mid-80s.
I studied a master's in neural networks in 1993, so I've been at this game a very, very long time.
I've definitely, I mean, I was the first to buy Vision Pro from Apple
and start programming with it and see what I can do.
AI is here to stay, and we can see the speed of it
with quantum computing and everything else.
So I'll just conclude with, for me, I've loved loved this conversation i think all the different projects and what everyone is
bringing to people ultimately and i think someone who sounds like a vc all needs to be integrated and
and interoperable and that is that you know i'll do the mic drop what we do at kernel
all right perfect uh love it you know let me go over to uh mariella and then i'm going to go
to hgvis you know what industries do we expect to be uh really hit by this trend by the physical
experience over the next five years what do you think mariella i think everything in all honestly
like uh here in the comments of everybody else, for example,
the AI agents are becoming also like a new marketing tool.
We have our own AI agent, for example, Vino, and he has grown his own community on his
own.
He comments for us and everything.
And people know he's an AI agent, but interacting with him is so easy.
Then even Web2 folks and stuff like that are interacting with them because they don't know in the back end it's an AI agent. It's just easier for
them. So I think all industries and I'm seeing a lot of new initiatives and projects which
really excite me. Obviously we're in deep end. So we can see specifically like telecom
industries, you know, all the infrastructure, whether it's weather, whether it's internet, whether it's all smart devices,
they're migrating.
But the thing is the trick here,
or I wouldn't say the trick,
but the success point here is making it seamless.
You wanna connect to an experience
where the user doesn't even know
that there's blockchain behind it, right?
We're migrating to this new internet area
where, you know, just like the internet people
don't know they're typing, you know, an IPS address
into their, they just Google and type in something.
That's the kind of experiences that we're seeing.
So I think all, actually all industries
will be affected by this, especially with regulation.
We have Mika in Europe.
We have Trump, even though he's making a lot
of i'm not going to comment on that but even though there's a lot of things going on in the
us it's still opening the doors for traditional investment and traditional players to come in
and we're seeing a lot in deep end so yeah very excited and i think uh anybody who's smart enough
to create this interaction between web two and web three those are the
people that will come out at the top right right okay that that's a great point you know uh hgvis
uh you know what do you think what industries do you see this touching obviously you've dealt with
art and fashion you know where but art and fashion has a tendency to sort of lead the way in certain kinds of social
trends which then roll out to other industries who do you see adopting this maybe over like the
next five years um for me i think a previous speaker was saying i think every it will move to all the field, all sections.
And from my side, I think art and fashion, for sure.
Right now, we are seeing a lot of AI engines.
Also, we use a lot of like mid-journey, also runway to make videos, make images.
And we see a lot of artists.
They are also improving with like, let's not say only the AI part, but human and AI interactions.
So we are putting our creativity and imagination together to bring the world another beautiful
piece.
So the concept is very important.
And also, I think for the fashion industry also, compared to other industries, I would say it's a little bit still behind their using it, but not too much.
And there's a lot of technology that we can, in the future, we can put into also the augmented reality perspective view to the physical world and also um i think uh for other um more important industry like uh this side like
decentralized scientists like also i need a lot of people they are really um using a lot of
technology to moving forward i think it's very important yeah yeah definitely you know i'm gonna go over uh to you uh gi thanks for coming
on the show this is this is gi from uh from yay uh protocol of course or yay network that is uh
you know gi what industries do you see this confluence of ai and AR and VR and metaverse.
And of course, the NFTs, metaverse and NFTs have in common that they had very big booms a couple
of years ago. Then when it doesn't go exactly like pundits were projecting at the time,
people kind of write it off. And that's also a mistake because the technology is still there
you know who do you see picking up the torch around the this kind of uh information around
these kinds of capabilities and doing something really positive with it you know whether this is
deep in you know building out the connectivity and the ability to create these kinds of experiences. People are going to want to get on board once these enhanced
experiences are more widely available.
You know, how do we bridge that gap and what, uh, you know, companies
or what industries do you see threading that needle best right now, Guy?
Yeah.
Hey, Justin, a great question and also great listening to the other speakers so actually about these
parts I think a lot of people are overlooking augmented reality things like the met glasses
Apple vision have been a huge success and actually ai is already integrated into metaglasses
uh you can you know use it anywhere like look at something ask yo what is this what is that
how can i go to this place i mean all with the voice control uh so this uh shift this revolution
is already happening uh but i would say it's kind of like silently happening.
It's not like so much noise right now.
People are more like looking at AI stuff more specifically.
But I would say that augmented reality
is the next big thing.
And we as investors,
we are very much interested in this part.
We are really looking to deploy in augmented reality
while everybody is overlooking.
I think this is the best time to get in
because I believe end of this year, next year, this will be huge.
I mean, just think that what we are used to,
it's to always look at the screen with your phone, with your laptops and so on. But very soon, it's all going to be in your vision.
You just have all your computer, AI technologies, everything. You can just use your voice,
your hands and, you know, it will be really practical do you think people are that's yeah
go ahead no no please please go do you think it's the consumer technology is it because the oculus
just didn't uh you know have the kind of pickup upon initial release that people were hoping for
well oculus um i'll say it's a bit outdated technology. You know, this is a pretty huge thing.
It's heavy.
I mean, it's not so convenient.
It's more like a game, right?
It's just you are at home, you like to play around.
I mean, it's more like you want, it's more VR.
So you want to be more like in virtual worlds.
Right.
But Meta Glasses, Apple Vision, this is more like the real world with the kind of like extended
artificial things around you so that's you know you don't see like metaverse
but you are in your own world but you know you just have access to i don't know like your contacts
access to, I don't know, like your contacts, your AI agent is walking with you.
I don't know, explaining you something.
You are having a conversation.
I mean, even this is already possible, right?
People already like calling chat GPT, having deep conversations with it.
So basically it will be the same.
I mean, it's already the same,
but now it's just a different way.
You can actually not just speak,
but you can see these agents and have direct face-to-face communication.
So I think this is really the next level
where really virtual and reality like just uh becomes one um and uh yeah
i mean in you know we're based on our research and everything this is like the next big thing
that is coming uh i mean it's already happening yeah but once once the technology gets better
more even more practical lighter more convenient. It will be just
mass adopted by everyone. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. You know, it reminds me, I'm just
going to show my age a little bit. It reminds me of when I was working with a big weather provider
and we were a data partner for Apple. And, you know, know, up until the, you know, Steve jobs did his, his famous
presentation of the first iPhone, there was still a lot of discussion about how to get people to
download apps, how to get people to use, you know, the mobile web and mobile apps more.
And then the right device came out and mobile app downloads skyrocketed and the entire thing
changed.
So I like what I'm getting for what Guy's saying is that although the first attempt
at releasing like AR or VR technology might not have blown our socks off from a consumer
point of view, like the right device can make that entire world blow up
because the kinds of things are being offered on Decentraland
and other metaverse and AR platforms
are definitely things that people will be into
if we make it easy enough for them to be into it.
I'm going to do another shout out to Yay Network.
Yay Syndicate has founders, angels, developers, KOLs.
They provide not only capital, but valuable guidance and connections and hands-on support.
You know, go ahead and check them out.
They are at yay.network.
Thanks to them for putting together the show.
You know, let me go over to what we've spoken to yet.
Diffuse.
Let's go back to Mawari.
You know, let's talk a little bit about what's going on.
Follow these people, everyone.
We have very smart panelists today.
Go ahead and give them a follow.
You know, Mawari, what's it going to take to build out a Web3 or a blockchain-based system
where we can handle the kind of throughput to create the graphical experiences,
whether you're talking about AR or VR, you know, that are required?
Like too many GameFi projects and Metaverse projects are going back to uh you know
Google Cloud essentially in order to provide their uh in order to provide that throughput yeah how
do we you know build out uh through deep in the capabilities native to blockchain
okay that's a good question uh because actually that's what we're building uh and we've been
and we've been doing it since 2017. uh okay so first of all uh when we talk about um 3d or real
time 3d uh ar and vr uh we are talking that the content delivery is not just copying images into different
locations and then replicating to the end user.
We are talking about, for example, an AI agent or a detail assistant.
You have the AI inferencing, you have the real-time rendering that needs to happen
in real time so that actually you can have that perception
that is present, that is talking to you,
and that is not just some copy of the content.
So obviously, photorealistic content needs heavy processing.
It's not something that smartphones or, like Guy mentioned,
the Ravens can handle.
This needs to be offloaded to servers close servers close to the end user this is where the pin
actually excels because it's uh it's much more difficult to and and we had that problem uh we
we built our core technology for five years almost six years on stealth mode, we partnered with AWS and we partnered with
GCP and they couldn't help us scale because the way their architecture and the way they
build the data centers is not for distributed compute.
And what it takes to really scale this to mass consumer is distributed compute.
scale this to mass consumer is distributed compute.
So we went ahead and we embarked into Web3.
At the time, we didn't even call it deep in.
Now it's a term called deep in.
But we built a technology to do this distributed real-time rendering and now as a consequence also AI inferencing and
why blockchain is necessary here is because as I talked before like if you
want to probably provide your compute to this network you're joining a transparent system in which we need that checks and balances
that is fully transparent to everyone and make sure that we have a thriving economy
per se.
Whereas in the case of an AWS or GCP, they just mark up whatever they can,
and it's not transparent for neither the end users
nor for the platforms per se.
So that's one element that is missing.
The second element is, again, the form factor of the devices.
Right now, yeah, we have the Quest 3, we have Apple Vision Pro,
and it boils down to that.
If they are not as light as a Ray-Ban or their contact lenses,
mainstream users will never going to use this
as we are using our smartphone today.
And goes back to, OK, we need to offload that compute power
into nearby servers.
A good step, actually, I think yesterday,
Meta announced the first Ray-Bans that will have a display.
So that's actually a big breakthrough.
Wow.
Really, really, really excited about that.
And the third one is content.
Just as we had YouTube and Instagram creating a new paradigm shift that it made it so easy to create 2D content and make you feel like you're an artist in the end or a good content creator.
We need something similar for 3D and XR.
Right now, the cost of production of an AR application and the time to market is way too heavy.
I think AI soon will change that.
And this is just my personal opinion.
I mean, not all platforms need to be full of AI agents talking to each other.
I mean, AI agents are here to help us enhance creativity
and enhance ourselves, like augment the human race itself.
So having AI generate 3D content in real time,
that's what it will take to have this ready player one
minority report or Blade Runner type of future.
That's what our company was built for.
We're making it happen at small steps,
but we see that, yes, as he said, it's imminent.
It's already happening.
And probably by 2030, we'll have a certain level of mainstream.
Right.
Well, I hope that the real future is less apocalyptic than those examples.
As a fan of science fiction.
I hope that we get the advantages.
Unfortunately, all movies are dystopians.
But it doesn't need to be dystopian.
Well, I hope not.
I hope that it turns into something that can enhance people's lives.
I think we've seen this several times, right?
The first there was, yeah, I'll go to you next, Constantine.
First, there was the internet, this personal computing, then the internet,
then ubiquitous and mobile computing, and now AI and AR and VR, essentially. But
Constantine, obviously capitalism doesn't do anything without a clear path to monetization.
How are we going to monetize these kinds of experiences? Clearly, Zuckerberg got this wrong
to the tune of like $3 billion when he when he tried to develop meta
he was originally convinced people want to do doctor's appointments and stuff in uh in a virtual
world and that turned out not to be true so you know what are are people looking for how do you
package and monetize all these capabilities which obviously have enormous potential. Well, yeah.
I mean, it's a great question and a big one.
So I'll try to unpack it into smaller pieces.
So, of course, I think it all starts with financial ecosystem
and then it goes to other applications.
So from a pragmatic standpoint of view,
I'm speaking to very different people,
like people who are lobbyists, people who are into like, you know, into right now focusing on Stablecoin Act.
And I like the more I have never been to those type of conversations, like very deeply.
But frankly speaking, now I understand that probably Stablecoin Act and I'm really happy personally that we're going away from CBDC which many other countries
in the world are actually going into so in the United States that's my personal
hopefully we are we've said some things about the digital dollar that make Justin kind of go what
but hopefully we don't mean CBDCs yeah well at least and at least I would say like you know
this particular administration was very loud and clear,
like in all the reports that they're not proliferating this path,
and they're focusing on actually establishing, let's say,
we see circles going public, so that's amazing in my opinion.
So the bottom line, once we have liquidity and very clear framework of how stable coins are operating, if you think about it logically, it also helps a lot.
United States's economy, because Tether, by the way, is the seventh biggest investor in U.S. Treasury bills.
Right. As you compare even with the countries as a private company, which is impressive in my opinion.
And now if we go deeper into that, how do we bring this liquidity to the world?
That means probably right now the entire market cap is $250 billion.
It has to become a few trillion dollars.
So that's a layer one.
Then through stablecoins, I do believe any other alternative assets whether it's an nft or
another utility token will have a much better capability of driving the price action to a
different level because you know the frequency of right now getting into some of the assets
it's pretty complex like we look at the defi like i've studied it's like very deeply we also have an
ai agent that is you know uh with account abstraction, trying to remove the frequencies through different chains.
But for anyone who's listening, like, let's say for the first time or just wondering, like the reason why in DeFi there is less than 8 million users right now is because it's very complex to be onboarded. We're talking about 15 to 21 steps or 15 to 21 clicks to actually get to
any staking pool. So it doesn't even pass the grandma test. I'm not even talking about any
other test. So we need to get to a point where it's going to be one to two clicks solution and
build, cooperate with payment gateways that will actually bring new users so that it will be easy, like what we're working on,
to actually integrate with five different ones to cover the 120 countries
and eventually allow that from fiat to stablecoins
and then to other alternative assets, there will be no frequency.
There will be no frustration.
People will get on the market very easily. It will be seamless experience similar to what robinhood did if you think about
it like you know they didn't invest stocks or bonds they just provided impressive uh onboarding
experience right and usability i think the more we focus on the users and their experience as a
first impression of our industry,
then we can build a lot on top of this, right? Then we can build impressive solutions and more
sophisticated things. But if you, I'm talking to like, I'm every week, what I'm doing right now,
I'm taking five different people who are very traditional, who don't have any wallet,
people who are very traditional, who don't have any wallet, anything at all. And you know,
I'm learning so much that we live in sometimes in a bubble of the complete decentralized world,
while others don't have even a clue what we're doing. So to bridge this gap, we need to be a
little bit closer to what are the actual needs of users, in my opinion. And that will be,
I would say, much better application. And then on top of it,
of course,
there's many other beautiful things because my belief in I agents will
actually govern any portfolio management,
any processes much more efficient than any human being.
It's going to happen in the coming five to 10 years for sure.
Right.
The question is who's going to,
who's going to onboard them?
What discovery platforms,
what platforms will allow it
so that like there will be trust built because by default i discovered trust is the biggest issue
in our industry the second user experience and the third one that it will be actually efficient
to a degree that a user wants not to the degree that we think it is right right excellent well that's a great answer
constantine kim what do you think man we we've got uh we've got fractionalized ownership we've got
nfts we've got subscriptions or will it be something else how are we monetizing these
reality enriched experiences driven by ai and AR and all this leading edge stuff.
How, how are we, uh, what, what is the most reasonable way to try and package that and
get people, you know, within our tiny little space, but also outside of it to, uh, you
be willing to buy that.
Yeah, totally.
Um, I think people are just going to have to experiment with
what works best for them as creators and their audiences. I think the biggest thing,
as everyone's been talking about, is just frictionless opportunities to buy. We integrated
like credit card buying, crypto buying, everything that makes things a normal buying experience for
someone that isn't
in web3 the more web3 is on the back end the better we are all going to be from a ui ux
onboarding perspective it's so tough like constantine said we're trying to onboard people
every single day into things like decentraland into wallets into blockchain buying and until they really care about ownership um
it it doesn't matter the web3ness of it doesn't matter and so there's just so much education
needed before we can even worry about monetizing it and getting people there because if they never
find it and they never onboard you're never going to monetize. Definitely. Okay, I'm going to give you the speed round question first, Kim,
because we're going to wrap it up.
Let me just remind everyone at home to go ahead and follow these guests.
We usually run about an hour, really about an hour and 15.
Now it's an hour and 16, so I'm going to go ahead and wrap this up with one more question.
But do follow all these people who have donated their time
and their experiences to come
talk with us. It's a big subject folks. Uh, you know, what we're talking about today, and it
strikes me as like, this is going to include our favorite toys to play around with in the next five
years or so. So that kind of leads me to my next question. What bold prediction do you have for us,
Kim, in regards to the next five years around blockchain-powered digital experiences?
Oh, wow. I don't know if it's bold or maybe obvious, but I think the next big fashion brand will be digital first rather than physical first.
digital first rather than physical first. Sure. It is certainly a way to test your audience and
see what's going to be popular before you start generating it at scale. That would make sense.
And on top of that, there are things you can do in a digital world and experiment with
that can be ported over to IRL, but it all, I mean, it's, it's interesting. It makes the task interesting for
the designer. What about over the reality? Same question. Next five years, what's your bold
prediction for Fidgetal? Oh, wow. I'm with, I think it was Kim who said that. I'm with Kim,
but I think the next bold thing with Fidgetal is we're going to be seeing more wearable devices
like XR real glasses,
snap lenses, and stuff where they're literally merging augmented reality with our physical world.
It's happening. And it's just like Gwe said, AR is a huge component of the future. And a lot of
people may not be aware of it, or maybe they are, but mainstream will soon adapt it once we get the
wearables in place and infrastructure it's just going to happen pretty much like how
we didn't have uh smartphones in our hands until we do now yeah until the iphone came out i mean
there are people that were very into their blackberries i was one of them but blackberries. I was one of them, but blackberries were not making us download,
uh, mobile apps is that as soon as I, as iPhones happened, it was an overnight kind of thing.
I remember cause I was producing apps at the time. Well, not me personally,
but let me go over to a diffuse protocol, uh, your bold prediction for the next five
years in physical. What is it, man? Oh, thank you for asking. I think me personally love idea of shared economy.
So where everybody can split everything in fraction
and benefit from it.
So I think it makes a lot of sense
because of infra, web free and all in general.
And I hope we will be proud that can conserve these needs in the future.
I hope so.
Awesome.
All right.
Great to hear.
Same question for you.
Thank you very much.
I'm just going to add a little comment here.
You talked about the iPhone and the BlackBerry.
I'm not sure if you're aware, but I hold the potential push email, which is what created the BlackBerry, which I invented in 1993. So the journey pre-internet,
going through the handheld phone, the QWERTY keyboard, I've been part of that and instrumental
in even the patents that I hold. I know this journey quite well. Now, number two, what do I
see in the future? Well, I started AI working
in Prolog and Lisp in 85, 86 on voice and image recognition using AI. What do I see in the next
five years? And with blockchain, what I see is what I keep telling everybody else, you should
never know that there is AI or blockchain. And, you know, one of the gentlemen spoke about, you
know, user experience. I mean, Apple is a user experience company.
It's not a tech company.
That is what it is.
And to me, the problem with Web3 is, and this is the problem that I've with it is, is coming from my background is everybody's too involved with, look who I am, how good I am, because how technically superior I am, because I've created all these new AI standards
or these fantastic work called account abstraction,
and that will solve the world.
It is not it.
I hope, in the next five years,
AI will actually help us create a better user journey.
That's great.
Those are great observations and good for you.
I did not know that you were involved with uh with rim uh or rims that much at the time that that's fantastic uh you know it was
a great company a great network for a while there uh you know i know that they're still around i
think doing government contract stuff and everything but i think people it's easy for
younger people to
forget how uh like really blackberry was so dominant at the time i was so uh in love with
it and and so was you know everybody else was into mobile at the time let me go over to gi you know
what do you have your eye on from an investment standpoint what development are you kind of not
financial advice of course what what kind of development are you keeping an eye on as an investor um well we are very focused lately
in deep in um ar and ai as well so these are the three biggest narratives i think for the years to come um so we've been really focused on that but
i would emphasize more on the deep in um this is really the underdog i would say that is also being
overlooked so yeah deep in seems to have the problem that its narrative just isn't very sexy
until you explain to people what it is that they're actually
trying to do. I feel like we had the same problem with RWA a couple of years ago when they were
introducing them as STOs or stable tokens. Let me go to Constantine real quick to get his opinion,
then I'll come back over to you over the reality before we close it up.
Uh, Constantine, uh, next five years, what big innovation are you looking for?
You with us, Constantine?
All right, let's go back over to over the, uh, over the reality.
All right.
I just wanted to, I'm right um write on the how how to make
deep like deep end isn't a sexy thing it's not because deep end is just literally building the
infrastructure for the future it's almost like was fiber optics i think about it when aol launched
i know i'm i'm i'm thinking my age but when when aol AOL launched, um, there was Netscape on Mozilla and all that stuff, all those browsers.
I know Justin, you're laughing.
Yeah. No, I was there. I was there. Right.
And then they had the EJ. I was working for a web company. Right.
And then they had the EJ jack, that EJ, whatever,
that blue cable that was dial up on.
And then nobody can perceive wireless. I mean like wireless.
And then, so, and there was fiber optics and there's cell towers.
So to me, that's, that's how I see.
I mean, so that's how I see Deepin.
We're building the infrastructure for the future for other third party, I don't know, hardware, software people to use.
So it's definitely not sexy, but it's some, some people have to do it.
Sure. Well, that's true. And I've seen, you know, possibly because part of my viewpoint is coming from running shows like
this. Um, you know, very often I find that the subjects that are most fundamental for people to
talk about are not the subjects that people are most interested in tuning in to hear about. Uh, for instance, I could do a lot more shows on like security and taxes, and
nobody would argue that they aren't important things to know when you're
in, uh, the digital asset space.
They are, it's just not the most hype shows you can do, man.
They like, I always feel like I'm making people do homework when
I do those kinds of shows.
But anyway, this has been
a lot of fun. It's been great to talk about this nexus, not only of where all this leading edge
stuff, you know, we've got Deepin, we've got AI, we've got RWAs, we've got Fidgetal, we've got the
resurgence of NFTs, and of course, Metaverse and AR VR. That's a lot of stuff to all combine
into one idea, but it's fascinating. It'll be really interesting to see how things do continue
to develop. I think ultimately this is a war that's going to be won at a consumer technology
level. As soon as one of the big players gives us something that's cheap enough, easy to use.
Um, and you know, just basically good enough user experience.
We'll be using it like crazy.
Wow.
Kind of like echo did with the, or kind of like Amazon did with the echo dot, for example,
they, they gave them to us all practically for free.
And now we have listening devices all over our house that, uh, you know, frankly, I have
trouble doing without we, uh, we use them for everything, but Hey, it's been a really
interesting conversation today.
Thank you so much for everyone coming for coming on.
Thank you to all of the guests.
Please go ahead and follow them.
Thank you to everyone for tuning in.
Thank you to yay network.
If you're stuck or have problems with scaling, generating revenue, or bringing awareness to
your product, yay might be able to help you go to yay.network or get in touch with Guy
who's on the panel or Mike who is definitely in the audience and they'll be glad to help
you.
And thanks to them for hosting the whole show for us today.
We put together some great, really pretty, pretty heavy conversations a lot of the time
and, and it's, it's great fun.
So we will be coming back at you again next Wednesday at 3 PM UTC or 11 AM ET, that is
because it's daylight savings now.
So 11 AM and we look forward to seeing you back here again.
If you get a chance, do remember to take some time to connect from your devices at some point today.
It's just a good habit to be in if you can do it.
And I think these days it requires conscious reminders to be mindful of that sort of thing.
But we love you guys.
Thank you for coming to our show today.
Thank you to all my wonderful guests.
We will talk to you very soon.
All right, everyone.
Peace. Thank you.
