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XTalks: Open Source Tech IP: Benefits & Challenges
Recorded: April 9, 2024 Duration: 1:06:40Space Recording
Full Transcription
Hello? Can y'all hear me?
I can hear you.
Awesome.
This is going to invite a few people up on the stage.
And then we'll begin this one.
Can you guys try and unmute yourself, see if that works?
Yes, hi, it's Graham.
Awesome, it was lovely hearing you.
I guess we can kick this one off and I'll just add speakers as we go.
Cody, would you like to kick this one off, what we are going to talk about?
And of course, we are also going to talk a bit more about Xtalks as well.
So would you like to begin?
For sure.
Thanks, everybody, for joining today's episode number 39 of Xtalks.
We've got a pretty good topic for today, addressing open source tech IP and the benefits and challenges
of taking your code open source.
So we've got a pretty good amount of panelists up here that will definitely weigh in on today's
subject.
So before we begin, if you haven't already, go ahead and please re-share this link to this
episode so that we can get more people out there.
Likewise, be sure to follow a lot of the panelists that we have speaking today.
They've taken time out of their day to join us in this conversation.
So please reward them with a follow.
They definitely deserve it.
So with that being said, let's kind of dive in today's topic a little bit.
Before we do, let's kind of give a little quick intro.
My name is Cody.
I'm the chief experience officer at Layer 1X.
We are sponsored by Layer 1.
Blockchain Layer 1 is a fully decentralized blockchain that specializes in bridgeless interoperability.
And as a result of that, we're able to do some pretty, pretty fantastic stuff and have
already been able to help quite a few different projects in the process of going multi-chain.
So our main ethos is that we want to unite all of the chains, projects, and users across
the Web3 so that we can basically start building that kind of utopia that we're all looking for,
which is a united utopia Web3 experience.
So without further ado, let's kind of take a few minutes and allow our panelists to speak
and kind of give their 30-second elevator pitch.
And so let's start with, let's see here, who's first on my list?
Liana?
Hi, everyone.
My name is Lina Grunhofer.
I've been building in Web3 since 2020.
I've had the privilege of working for a bunch of different brands, more so recently the
Solana Foundation, in the past of Game 7, NFL Rivals, and so forth under my marketing
agency, Zeitgeist Labs.
And more so recently, I'm building Solana's New York City community called Offline.
So really excited to be here.
Thank you for having me for another talk, Lairon.
Yes, welcome back.
Let's see here.
We have Blue Collar.
Do you want to go next?
Yes.
Hello, everyone.
Thank you so much for inviting me on another Layer 1 X space.
I always love the spaces and panels you guys put together.
But my name is Travis.
I am BD in communications for Vayner Blockchain.
We are an L1 blockchain that's currently in testnet.
We'll be launching our main net here this month.
We've got some campaigns going on on Galaxy, Velocity, and a few other places.
Vayner is an L1 focused on the entertainment and multimedia sector mainly.
However, we do have a lot of different brands and projects and stuff with RWA, AI, and some
other features that have onboarded onto the chain recently.
So I'm very excited to dig into this talk and talk about open source benefits, pros, and
cons.
Well, welcome, welcome.
Kevin, you want to go next?
I would love to.
Hi, everyone.
My name is Kevin Yunai.
I'm the founder of a project called rwa.inc.
We are a real-world asset tokenization and investment ecosystem, and we are soon launching
our token on various central exchanges and launch paths.
So, yeah, that's a little bit about me.
Perfect.
Gramey?
AmoBot?
I think you changed your handle title since the last time I saw you.
Well, it still doesn't help.
I've now even put my name and it still doesn't help.
I'll find one eventually that's really easy for the host to understand, right?
But this is my third attempt and I thought I'll just give you my name now rather than
some acronym.
Anyway, yes, I'll continue.
So, I'm an anti-money laundering advisor at AmoBot, and I also co-chair with the International
Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications.
At AmoBot, we provide KYC, KYT software and crypto investigation services, which is essentially
to support law enforcement investigations and to help financial institutions and essentially
cryptocurrency businesses to mitigate financial crime risks within the digital market.
So, one of the things we can offer is if someone wants to do a quick pre-check, they can just
do an address check.
They don't have to buy subscription or contracts.
We can just do them sort of ad hoc and to get a risk score effectively.
So, I won't go too much into that, but that's effectively what we are.
We're a quick-to-use, easy-to-use system.
And that'll do for me for now.
Thanks.
Awesome.
Yeah, well, welcome.
Yeah, I'm also joined by Sam, who's on our L1X handle, who is my co-host.
And then we're also joined by Inna, who is our Xtalks resident badass and puts everything
together for us.
And so, I'll let her introduce herself as well.
She's the, by the way, she's the, this army knife.
Yeah, sorry to jump in, but yeah, that's what we call her.
Thank you so much.
I hope you can hear your Swiss army knife tonight, because I'm experiencing, like, real
troubles tonight with Twitter.
But yeah, please confirm you can hear me.
I'm not talking to you all.
Okay, cool.
Perfect.
Yeah.
Lovely.
Well, yeah, on behalf of L1X and also Xtalks specifically, I'd like to thank everyone who ever stepped in
or will step in into our spaces.
Really appreciate you all.
These spaces were created to unite us, to explore existing and new projects and protocols
and give everybody a chance to step in and expose themselves.
We're growing quite, quite fast.
And it's fascinating every time we meet someone new or we have people who already are regulars.
Every time it's an amazing space.
So I thank you for everything.
And yeah, I'm passing on the mic on to Cody, who's going to lead this conversation.
Frankly speaking, this is one of my favorite topics, because I think it's very controversial, right?
You never know what's best.
Go out there publicly or keep your privacy and, you know, remain exclusive.
It's an interesting dilemma, I would say.
So yeah, let's go into it.
Thank you, guys.
Yeah.
And just a reminder, before Cody does a deep dive into this rabbit hole, I just want to let you all know that you can use the comment section
if you have any sort of questions for us or the panelists or speakers.
Or if you would like to jump up on the stage, just simply raise your hand or request the mic and I'll let you up on the stage.
Passing over to you, Cody.
Yeah, thanks.
Yeah.
So let's just kind of set the stage for this.
You know, as I mentioned, this is a pretty interesting topic.
And so with that being said, you know, Wall Street definitely runs on secrets.
Silicon Valley runs on patents.
Crypto runs on code for all to see.
But does open source really mean true transparency?
Can you own an idea that everyone can fork?
Is your investment safe when it comes to rules that are and things that are constantly up for grabs?
And so that's one thing that we definitely want to dive in today is on the benefits, the battles, and the deep philosophy behind the going open source with your crypto code, especially for projects.
So with that being said, let's...
Hi, everyone.
I apologize.
I think I was invited, too, but I was not introduced.
So does it make sense for me to do that?
Heck yeah.
Go for it.
Go for it.
Go for it.
And apologies for my proactiveness with this.
But my name is Ian Arden.
I am a developer turned venture builder turned VC.
So happy to talk about this topic.
I run a fund registered in the Cayman Islands called Memple Ventures.
But the way I got into fund management is definitely through, like, the technology.
I have built a lot of code myself.
Some of the companies I touched were sold to large enterprises for, like, dozens or hundreds of millions of dollars.
Happy to contribute to this conversation.
Thanks.
Great.
Well, welcome.
We appreciate you being here.
So the first question, let's kick this off.
With many developers now entering crypto from traditional tech, how does their experience with open source and Web2 differ from what they may encounter in Web3, specifically within DeFi and native blockchain source code?
Feel free to jump in.
Yeah, I'd love to start.
Because I touched both.
And I can say one thing, that the Web3 open source, because code is law and whatever is in the code, if there is a vulnerability, it will be taken advantage of.
This means Web3 open source is much more polished out and tested.
The security audits are there.
So the quality is definitely, like, much higher than in the Web2.
The Web2 strategy usually presumes that there is, like, open source for the free and private usage.
But if you want real quality and support, you will go and turn into the enterprise subscription client, and then you will pay for it, and you will get some extra features and stuff.
So in Web3, you will have everything out there.
And Web3, you will have everything out there right away.
End of message.
Yeah, no, those are some great points. Anybody else want to add into that?
Guys, literally feel free to jump in. Over.
Yeah, don't be shy. There aren't any cues or stuff like that. There's jumping.
Plus, I can't see hands. I am not personally a dev, so I don't have a lot of insight into this question particularly as far as the differences between Web2 and Web3 in that angle.
But with Web3, I'd say that a lot of times, especially with a lot of stuff pertaining or around Web3, you're dealing with a lot of money or liquidity in various ways, where I feel like some of the Web2 open source code is not necessarily tokens or some type of smart contract or something that can be exploited for financial gains quite as easy.
But Web3, you definitely have to be a lot more careful because a lot of the stuff that we're doing in the space, whether it's from a blockchain layer, a dApp layer, or anything else, usually has a lot of opportunity for exploit financially.
And to really take advantage of people, drain contracts, drain liquidity pools, drain wallets, route transactions differently, things of that sort.
So I think open source has a lot of pros to it because the more eyeballs you have on code, you can always have your code audited, but even the auditors can miss something.
And we see it all the time in various bridge hacks or different hacks that had audits or even multiple audits at times.
And there's still these vulnerabilities, when you open source your code, you can put a lot more eyeballs on it to find some of those, you know, lesser known or lesser found kind of exploits in that way.
But also to Ian's point, it can also be exploited, you know, by the black hat hackers as well in that regard.
And as well, like, mistakes could be populated, hey, so like, it has so many angles to this.
I generally wanted Cody to put up a little poll for all our speakers and say, like, who is, you know, who is for going public and who is for staying exclusive.
But I suppose it's very hard to say there is no hard yes or hard no, because there are so many variables to it.
Ian, I think it can really depend on kind of what, you know, the code is for or what your, you know, project or business is about.
You know, personally, like things like wallets, I really like an open source wallet, not because I can read the code, but I trust that, you know, a popular wallet that's been open source, that code's been kind of gone through pretty well, multiple times by many other people that know what they're looking at when they're looking at these things.
But at the same time, I think there's a lot of use case need and even reason to keep some of your code and things of the sort closed.
Oh, I definitely agree with that.
I definitely agree with that.
Looks like we've got a new speaker on the panel.
Olivia, do you want to take a second and just kind of introduce yourself to the listeners?
Or no?
You might want to unmute yourself.
Yeah, I'm sure they must be using a bridge.
And that is why it's sitting in the line.
Potentially.
Potentially.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, Olivia, if you want, if you're having a hard time speaking, maybe drop out and drop back in.
And that usually tends to help with the bugs that X spaces have.
So we'll come back to you.
Yeah.
Travis, I think you bring up a really good point there on a couple of different things.
Just kind of as a follow up question, then, you know, you mentioned some things need to be potentially open source versus other.
You know, I feel like crypto projects definitely need to protect their IP as much as area and as much as possible.
And, you know, within that, when, you know, in Web3, when you do go fully open source, you do open yourself up to some of the IP gray area.
We'll call it where code is definitely reused without proper attribution or anything like that.
And so how can Web3 projects protect themselves and or worse, lose investor confidence as their valuable ideas are up for grabs in a decentralized development process?
Yeah, I think that's like kind of a tough line.
You really got to walk, you know, because like you said, you know, especially when you're first starting up, it's so easy for someone to like come in, rip off your idea, pump a bunch of KOLs, marketing, exposure, whatever else.
And then suddenly, like you're not known and someone else is taking your idea and you're, you know, you're your product basically has suddenly just kind of leached off what you were doing and gain that exposure.
You know, I think even with decentralized protocols, you can keep stuff, you know, very closed, especially early on while you're building, while you're rolling out, while you're kind of creating that product and experience.
And from there, you know, I think a lot of the times, if you have a good product, you've got a good user experience, you've got a good business and you actually, you know, care for your consumer and your consumer experience overall, you're going to have that natural leg up over someone that just comes in and rips your code and tries to do the same thing.
Um, because creating something is great, but creating something that that's an enjoyable experience, that's functional, that works and that, that people, um, you know, kind of keep that goodwill towards is completely different.
Uh, you know, I can go rip off code from, uh, you know, if layer one X's, uh, code is all open source, I can go rip it all off and put out, you know, layer 1.1 X, uh, you know, chain everything, but I'm not going to have the same infrastructure, the same, um, you know, uh, as far as people infrastructure, as far as people, the same experience and really the same kind of vision and, and execution as, you know, layer one would have.
Um, I, I would assume that you guys will be doing that much better than, than I could and, and kind of slapping it together.
So, you know, I think it's kind of a tightrope act and you don't always want to, you know, open source it out too early.
Um, but also, you know, I don't know if you really need to be that afraid of it once you've really got your feet on the ground.
Um, there's always going to be competition.
There's always going to be coming, someone coming along, but, you know, at the same time, you don't have to open source everything from your company.
Um, or, or from, you know, if it's open source and a smart contract, that's great.
It doesn't necessarily mean like, you know, the UX and UI is going to be the same, or the interactions are going to be the same or anything else that that goes in front of that.
And really the user facing side of that product.
Um, but, but yeah, it's something that, you know, really from application to application and product to product, it's going to be very different.
Some things, you know, are going to come out open source from the get go out the gate, uh, wide open and kind of be, uh, more of a tool in that kind of sense, uh, where, where some of these companies and stuff are going to be building, maybe open source in small parts of their, uh, business or product product or, or open sourcing, you know, along the way, uh, in various stages and steps.
Yes, those are, those are great points.
Go ahead, Kevin.
I was just going to give the mic to you.
I just wanted to say, I mean, from a valuation perspective, I think still, even though IP is important, I think investors and VCs and more look more into like the cash flows, the amount of holders.
And all, you know, all those matrices, because everybody knows today with AI and all the movements going on, that it's, it's really becoming very, very easy to code almost anything, right?
Also with the open source.
So IP, I think in the future will be much less prioritated by investors.
And I think concepts, traction, community engagement, that, that is the new oil, so to speak.
So I don't think we should be too worried about that's the easy part.
Like, if you want to copy somebody, uh, I think what is hard to copy is the love from the community, the trust and the team and all that.
So that, that's my view, at least on it.
This is a very interesting, very like, um, different point of view.
In my opinion, again, like, um, I always look at a source, for instance, as the whole idea behind the protocol and the project, the foundation of it.
And then everything that is around it as if, you know, supporting products, community and, uh, you know, marketing and also investors and, and, you know, everything that goes with it.
But you have a very interesting idea that is kind of like, in my mind, right, it's a reversal, which is brilliant.
Like, I, obviously, you know, it's just a great angle to look at.
I mean, it's not like we, we just throw out all our secret sauce out there and say, just come and copy us.
We, of course, protect everything we can.
Uh, but I'm just saying that it's, it's not as, you can say, it's not as dangerous as you think.
Because that's really, you could say, the easy part for people to imitate how your product works, I will assume.
But, um, there are more, um, it's more different point of view and, and, and that's my point, actually.
Speaking on behalf of Solana as a whole, um, I know that super team, which for those that don't know, is a group of developers, um, based out of the East, um, came together to basically find bugs and so, so forth, um, on Solana a few years back.
Um, and have instead created bounties and accelerated project completion to help them, um, really become the community centric ecosystem.
Now, I think open source as a whole has helped them, uh, you know, obviously expand their breadth of knowledge, obviously lean into bugs that weren't, um, as beneficial for the ecosystem and so forth.
And has since grown into this awesome, um, um, global, uh, team that has really just helped the crypt, that crypto, um, in particular thrive.
So looking at the IP angle, I think there's a lot of power in magnitude in terms of people and breadth and width.
And, you know, you're only there, I keep missing the quote, but it's like you, um, it, I forgot what it was, but essentially I think there's power numbers.
And the more that we can add people together, the better, so.
Yeah.
Can I throw something in there?
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
I think it's really interesting what Kevin mentioned about this community, because it's sort of like resonating through all of the people that are in the crypto space.
Anyway, when they first got involved, the, the idea of this sort of decentralized community, and then you've got the good actors and the bad actors.
So I think, yes, it's a great thought and I'm, and I'm very, um, would do anything to be part of that movement for, for the different parts of the world to communicate with each other, uh, would be excellent.
However, I need to put my compliance hat on because that's what I do.
Um, so we really need to identify who these actors are in this space.
So if we can't really got this community, but we don't know who they are.
If we live in the same town, we can meet and we can talk.
Right.
But if we're just, uh, on the other end of another PC, then anything can happen.
And it does.
But the open source part of me is interesting here, but the, the word that goes on the back end of that is intelligence.
So we use open source intelligence, um, for the transaction monitoring for two reasons.
One, I think from an individual perspective, it's that there's a moral standpoint to it.
And, but most importantly, I think if I speak to any operators, the most important reason they do it in the monitoring is because they're regulated and they need to keep the regulator happy.
So they want to avoid fines and all these things.
So open source intelligence really helps to be able to, for compliance teams to be able to understand, um, uh, how genuine, uh, or any illicit action going on with this.
I think by going to the, uh, addresses from the internet, first of all, there's lots of fuzzy matches, lots of incorrect data.
So it needs a lot of work done to it to be able to get it to be, um, evidence.
You know, it's not a confirmation.
It's just gaining evidence all the time.
So you've got to build some confidence in that environment for the, for a score to happen.
So we've got a risk score that's, uh, calculated and it's based on what, you know, what information does that come from?
And this is just another spoke in the wheel that adds, um, more security to a transaction and a risk score to say whether you should or shouldn't do it.
Um, so the intelligence side of it can only help if a lot of information is going into it.
If people are sharing these, uh, risk factors and, um, different things.
Cause especially when we're looking at terrorist financing, it's crucial.
Um, there's, um, in the, in the EU, we have the six AMLD, which is very similar to fat app where we have like, there's 22 predicate offenses.
And if you pick up most of them that you see on the transaction monitoring and, and, uh, OSINT is very, uh, uh, important in this area of gaining that extra information.
You've done your KYC on someone, you've checked them out and KYB, et cetera.
Um, and then you're looking at the transaction, but to get the OSINT information in as well, really strengthens the case.
Um, especially when we're looking at terrorism, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, all of the big stuff, theft and robbery and cybercrime sort of come together.
So as much as many points that can come in there to give us an overall picture is really beneficial.
So I'm, uh, you know, an advocate in open source intelligence.
I think, uh, it's, it's in flux.
It's always going to be moving.
So the more identifications are going to be required all the time and more evidence is going to be required all the time.
And as this grows, because it's, you know, it's not going backwards, it's only going forward.
Some say a fast rate of knots.
I don't quite agree.
I think we're still having conversations we were having maybe 10 years ago, really.
So, but, but it's, the ideas are certainly racing ahead.
And I, and I love that idea of what Kevin said that, you know, for that to actually happen needs a lot of work, doesn't it?
It needs a long way to go.
Um, but for the actual outcome to be that would be, um, certainly worth something investing into from a,
personal and business perspective.
So I'll push the pause button there.
No, those are definitely some great, great insights.
Uh, thanks for sharing that, especially from a compliance, uh, point of view.
Um, you know, uh, let's, let's just pause there real quick before we jump into our next question.
Um, uh, for those that are just listening in, my name is Cody.
I'm the chief experience officer at layer one X.
And today we've got a pretty deep rabbit hole discussion going on regarding open source,
uh, tech IP, um, and the benefits and challenges behind it.
So if you haven't already, please go ahead and share this space, uh, so that we can get this,
uh, topic out.
It's a great one.
As I mentioned earlier, uh, likewise, uh, our panelists are working extremely hard to kind
of answer these, uh, uh, uh, hard questions I'm throwing at them.
So they definitely deserve a follow.
So please, please go and follow them.
Um, likewise, if you guys have any questions for our panelists, please be sure to drop those
in the comments, uh, section and we'll get those up, uh, to our panelists here a little
bit later in this episode.
So, um, kind of, kind of going along the narrative of what we were just talking about with, you
know, communities and, um, being able to, you know, uh, tap into, uh, a lot of eyeballs
on the code to make it better.
Um, we've talked about some, some exploits that could happen as a potential of code going
open source, um, and, um, you know, the need to not have all of the open source to be able
to build on top of that, I think is a big one, but, uh, let me come at it from a different
angle.
Um, you know, with, with, uh, some projects that are, are, uh, kind of owned and operated,
I guess you could say, uh, by DAOs, um, what, what are the unique challenges of having an open
source development when your whole project itself is governed, uh, potentially by anonymous
community members and can exploits happen more often in DAOs or, uh, or do DAOs make the projects
a little bit more secure?
I think, uh, your membership base of your DAO, um, you know, really kind of, you know,
weighs heavy on that, uh, you know, it can definitely, um, help with security if you've
got the right kind of group together.
Um, because more, I like, we kind of touched on earlier, more eyeballs, uh, the better as
something that, you know, 20 people might miss that, that 21st person, um, catches something
that, that could be, uh, you know, preventing a large exploit later down the road or, or, uh,
some kind of detrimental, um, happenings to the, to the code or project overall.
Um, so, so really kind of like your, your DAO membership makeup.
If I've got a DAO of NFT DGENs, uh, then I'm not going to feel as comfortable or secure as
opposed to if like, I had a DAO of builders and devs and, you know, uh, uh, community leaders,
um, in that sense, um, because, you know, like, like we said earlier for, for every, uh,
you know, exploit or, or, you know, potential bad code out there, you've got your white hats,
but you've also got your black hats out there.
Um, and so really when you have a DAO, I think it also goes back to, you know, kind of what's
the makeup of it?
Well, what's the, what's your membership?
Like what, what's your group like, um, overall, we, we know that there's some really great
ones out there.
Um, you know, maker now being, being one of the, you know, top dogs out there, I think.
Um, and then you've got your, um, not as great ones or, or maybe not as established ones that,
that don't really have that trust built, um, um, necessarily.
Hello, can I jump in?
Sure.
Thanks, Sleazy.
Hello, I'm Sleazy.
I'm not a project representative.
I'm just a community member.
So I was thinking about this anonymity aspect.
I feel like it's been kind of vilified in the, uh, media lately.
Well, not lately, I've the last, uh, quite a few years, but it's not as something that we
would normally think in Web3 community, because, uh, we are kind of, for the use to anonymity,
normally people would perceive anonymity as somebody who would try to scam people.
But, uh, we have been in many, uh, spaces and many discord communities and forums where
people that, you know, are pretty much all anonymous, except maybe for a few, which are
influencers or actually docs themselves to represent the project.
Uh, I remember this saying, give a man a mask and he will reveal his true self.
And that is kind of, uh, where it's going.
You can perceive it as someone who would be a bad person on the inside, but you can also
perceive it as someone who would actually have the liberty to express, uh, his true, uh,
feelings and ambitions.
And, uh, at the same time, it's not as anonymous because when you are anonymous, but you always
keep using the same name, you kind of build a reputation around your name, even though
it's not your physical name, let's say of your physical person, because especially in
DAOs, uh, you have money involved in building your reputation.
When you are trying to make a decision, you would try to influence other people using the
reputation that you've built with them.
So I feel like anonymity is not as big of a deal and maybe it could even be better, especially
because you are, you are in the DAO with people who are like-minded, uh, as you while in web
two, you would usually go with people who are just, uh, who are just corporate people that
you would normally not try to even be friends with because that's, uh, in some, uh, corporate
sharks, that's how it works.
But yeah, that's my idea here.
Can I just jump in there and answer to Sleazy something?
Um, I think it's some very valid points there and I like your quote, um, because essentially
that's what it is.
But in that process, a lot of casualties can happen.
So in my experience, I don't get invited to DAO parties.
If I say I'm in compliance, the door shut.
So, um, and if I'm going to be really bold, lots of deep, heavy fraud and money laundering
as going through DAOs.
So it does come with that double-edged sword, right?
There's some really good stuff out there.
There's some really bad stuff out there.
There's really bad stuff happening in the banks that are fully regulated and I'm fully
controlled and there's really bad stuff.
And, you know, so either way we go, wherever we go, we're going to find this intention.
What's your intention?
Good or bad.
But I'm just wondering how quick it takes to actually disclose that.
How long does it take to find that?
Ah, this guy was a bad actor.
He had bad money.
We all bought into this and the trap door has been opened.
So I would try and reduce as many casualties as possible in the process of it actually happening
in the first place.
But it seems like we need to learn.
We need to, we need to get burnt and then we realize how hot it is.
But, um, sorry to be pessimistic or party pooper, but yeah.
Every party's got to have a pooper.
I'm just kidding.
Uh, no.
I got my coat.
I got a taxi booked.
No, no.
I think it's good that you come at it from that perspective as well, because, you know,
the, you're, you're absolutely correct.
I mean, there, there's going to be fraud.
There's going to be, um, exploit.
There's going to be bad actors, uh, in, in every, every project, good and bad.
It's, it's the standards.
It's the protocols that you have, the guardrails that you have set in place to protect your,
your community, protect your IP, um, protect your name.
And in essence as well, um, you know, and I, I would like to generally think that, uh,
out of the majority of humans on this earth, majority of us all have good intentions.
Um, especially when it comes to community projects that we are passionate about and,
and getting behind that we can, um, that we can move things for the better cause.
I mean, that's why we join, um, you know, specific groups.
That's why we, um, you know, apply ourselves to certain brands because we resonate with
the lifestyle that they, they, uh, kind of promote, um, that kind of stuff.
And so, you know, I, I, I definitely agree that there, there's always going to be that out
there, but, uh, that kind of leads me into another question.
And I wanted to talk about is this, you know, in coming from a, uh, uh, SAS world background,
uh, software background in UI UX design, you know, I've, I've had my opportunity work
to work with quite a few different giant companies.
And, um, you know, many of these have had open source, um, uh, kind of, uh, communities
as well to, to basically help them improve the community as they say it.
But, uh, a lot of times those are just big companies, uh, profiting heavily from community,
free community labor.
Do we see that that could potentially that same mentality spill over into projects and do
web three, or is it a different type of narrative?
Is it a different type of, uh, reward system for those that are being, um, offering up
their time, their knowledge and expertise to, uh, be part of the community?
Well, for projects, I think that a lot of them hope that they offer it up for free because,
uh, that, that would be great.
But, um, I, I think a lot of, uh, you know, DAOs and, and projects themselves, uh, typically
have, you know, bounties or rewards or some kind of token payout or whatever that may be
for various, uh, you know, contributions to, to code, to, uh, vulnerabilities to, to those
kinds of things.
Um, if I'm understanding the question, I'm sorry, I had a phone call come in right at the beginning
of the question.
Yeah.
I just had a phone call come in as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're, you're, uh, yeah, the, you know, the basic question is, is like, obviously in
web three, there's a lot of payment structure that needs to be put into place bounties, that
kind of thing.
And so the question is, is do you, do you think we would ever see community members just
coming over out and, and kind of jumping into the open source community and to help improve
it out of the kindness of their hearts or do, are we going to have to pay to get it people
involved?
I think that might depend on the size of their bag in a lot of situations.
You know, if I'm a huge holder in a particular project, then, um, yes, I'm going to contribute
everything I can for, for anything that I think could make price go up.
Uh, but, uh, I think overall, you know, you know, the reward incentive, the reward structure
and in web three, it's, you know, it's such a unique opportunity with, uh, the tokens and
things of the sorts, uh, that, that you have tokens or airdrops or NFTs or accesses or whatever
it may be that you can reward community with, um, for their contributions.
Uh, we're in a real unique position with that.
I think from more traditional industry, uh, in that way.
Uh, yeah.
So I would also say that there are not really enough engineers in web three space.
So for them to do the job for free, the only reason why I would see they would do that
is if they actually want to get a job by building a reputation, by contributing to open source
pretty much.
I think Kevin was like mute, unmute, mute, unmute.
Kevin, I know you had something to say.
You go ahead, please.
Oh yeah.
I was, I was just thinking about, we're sitting here.
I have some problems with the sound here.
And I was just thinking about the fact that X should really go open, uh, source and get
those, uh, load balancer issues, uh, solved.
So that was kind of my, I was laughing a little bit about it.
And I think really there's big problems in, in, in, in X's, uh, connection.
So, uh, sometimes we simply fall out from the, from the sound, from the, from the app here.
But that being said, um, uh, a little comment from my, but I don't know if you are, you guys feel
sometimes you drop out from the, from the app.
Every day, it seems like we fall out from the app.
So you're definitely not the only one.
Uh, Elon definitely, if he's listening in, um, definitely needs to improve the experience
on, on X basis for sure.
A hundred percent.
Um, but yeah, you're not alone there, my friend.
He should be capable of doing it.
Yeah.
He should be capable of doing it with all the amazing things he, he's doing.
So yeah.
He might give us the same answer as he gave to Disney.
Well, maybe, maybe if the code was public, we could have found someone, not, not me definitely,
but someone could have found the problem.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Um, so, uh, one last call for, for anybody that wants to ask a question to our panelists,
uh, please drop them in the comment threads below.
Um, we'll, uh, Sam, if you want to go through and start looking for a couple of those, uh,
I'll turn the mic over to you here in just a minute.
But, uh, you know, I, I do want to kind of emphasize one thing, um, that, uh, you know,
our founder, Kevin, he, he is, uh, I do have to say that he's definitely got a mindset out
there for, uh, developers who want to develop their skills in web three.
Um, those that want to kind of make that transition from web two to web three.
And really, I mean, to be honest, you know, web three is definitely a, a wild, wild west.
It's, it's anybody's show at this point.
And, uh, it's just prime for, for opportunity for, for anybody, not just coders, but, uh,
you know, um, marketers and, and, uh, influencers and things like that to get involved in it.
Um, and one of the things that I, I love the approach that he's really starting to try to
take is, is, um, encouraging developers to come in and develop, um, you know, specific
components that can be leveraged by, by other people.
Right.
And, uh, and in a way that they can actually be rewarded for their efforts as well.
Um, so think of like, uh, you know, NFT, uh, royalties that, that an artist can get, um,
you know, a coder is an artist in a different form and in a different medium.
And some of the contracts that they can write, some of the code that they can do is definitely,
in my opinion, a form of art.
And, uh, cause there's some pretty amazing coders out there and why, why shouldn't they
not get, um, you know, rewarded as well, uh, especially the, the good actors we'll call
them, uh, that are out there really to, to try to enhance, uh, certain things.
And, you know, uh, as, as many of us are, are trying to build out projects, if there's
a, if there was a marketplace, which L1X is definitely working towards for, uh, projects
to kind of tap into a library of different components, it's, it would make life easier,
uh, knowing that some of these things have already been vetted.
Um, if you're not very knowledgeable in creating like a payment gateway for fiat to crypto or
vice versa, that, you know, that one's already been built by a specific developer, um, that
has been proven or by a different project.
And so that's where I feel like open source can really become a powerful tool, uh, for,
for people with inside of crypto, but it also can, can have its, um, it's, it's moments
as well.
Um, because I feel like not every, if you take the code of L1X for an example there, I can't
remember how many lines of code Kevin mentioned, uh, that he, he and his developer team is have
developed, but it's in the tens of hundreds of thousands of lines of code.
Right.
And so, you know, with that being said, I don't feel like in, in that every project needs to
see 100% of the code.
I think it was you, Travis, that mentioned that earlier is, is that not everybody has to
see the whole entire thing of code.
They just need the, the specific components, um, that allow them to basically build, uh, what
they need to, to do.
Right.
And this is the same in web three as it is in web two.
And, uh, it's, it, it all boils down to that.
And so, you know, for, for me, oftentimes when I hear people stating that they need all of
the code, sometimes it raises a lot of questions in my mind as to why they want that.
Um, are they trying to look for specific things, uh, so that they can grab IP?
Are they looking for specific things so that they can, um, you know, uh, kind of build things
out, uh, maybe fork it, um, you know, that type of thing.
And so that kind of leads me to my final question of, of where, where we go before we turn it
over to the, to the, uh, um, community questions.
But, you know, as we write this code, um, we, we all know that code is definitely going
to become the, the future, um, the rules of, uh, future economies within web three.
And, uh, you know, many people need to become very fluent in that language.
So my question to you is, is, um, by opening, you know, open, if, if open source becomes that
powerful equalizer, will knowledge, not financial create a new, um, divide among us as people?
Um, I think it could definitely, um, you know, create the divide in some ways and from those
who are skilled enough to understand it or, or play with it or, um, enhance or build off
it versus those of us who aren't, especially when we talk about, uh, you know, code being,
being, you know, web three is going to be a major financial driver.
And if I can get an advantage, um, whether that be, you know, front running a transaction,
whether that be, uh, you know, getting in earlier than, than the next person, being able to submit
a transaction faster somehow, um, however that may be, it'll definitely give me an advantage.
Um, but we see those same advantages in every industry.
Um, you know, there's definitely a divide, you know, even with, with traditional stocks
and such, um, but from, you know, the, the wall street guys to, you know, the potatoes like
myself, uh, I, I don't have the same access to the same information to the same strategies
or, or, or even the same processes, uh, that may streamline different things in different
ways.
If, if me and, uh, you know, Warren Buffett are both going for, for the same stock, he's
going to get in there at a better price than I am.
Um, and he's going to get out at a better price than I am.
And that's just the reality to it.
But, um, you know, as we move more and more into a digital infrastructure age, I think, uh,
just like, you know, smartphones to our, to our grandparents or our great grandparents
were, we're foreign and unknown, and we can probably navigate them much better than they
can and, and take advantage of several different things that they may not be able to.
Um, I, I hope our education systems and, you know, our next generations and stuff, um, things
like code or at least basic understandings of them become more common knowledge.
Um, you know, at least I hope so, because when, when I look at it, I see like foreign
hieroglyphics, um, and I, you know, would, would dream of a world where my kids and their
kids and everyone else can at least at the bare minimum, get a basic understanding of
what, you know, someone's looking at, um, and that because of how our society is moving
and how, you know, digital infrastructure is becoming so much more vital to, to everyday
life.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I also have a quick take on this.
Uh, I feel like the knowledge divide is all only going to get, uh, it's going to shrink
rather than increase because when you think about the projects, uh, they are really making
the effort to make the white paper as simple to read as possible.
Uh, anyone pretty much could do it.
So maybe it's F with a few exceptions, uh, that are maybe overly technical, but if you look
at the traditional structure, uh, the higher up you go, the more difficult it becomes to
read it.
Like there is no way I would understand anything that's a legal document.
And, uh, if you are presented a plan, like in a corporate, which is like 500 pages long,
they obviously make it specifically so that people would not read it.
Like I remember something like, uh, the constitution of America was like on two, three pages long.
Like the entirety of it was just this short.
Uh, so yeah, I feel like in web two, it's done specifically, they are not transparent.
And if it is transparent, they bloated specifically.
So people would not treat it while in the pub three, it goes the other way to make it as accessible
as possible.
And then there are people like me who are trying to break out and do web three by actually
reading information and making it simpler.
If you read some of my, uh, recent tweets, but yeah, that's enough.
Shelly.
I love your stuff.
Sleazy.
Keep it coming.
That's, that's why I was open to follow after you Sleazy, cause you're, you're able to correlate
that so well.
And, um, you, you can almost, I almost think, oh, did he write that for me?
Cause I can think it, but I can't always say it and you can just deliver it so well.
So I appreciate it.
Um, but you're right.
These white papers need to be understandable now for a crypto industry for the regulator.
So they need to understand how you're doing it.
Well, you're doing it.
How do you make your money?
Where's the security?
Where's your data?
Blah, blah, blah.
Where's your liquidity?
What's your exit plans?
All this information now, but it can't be a 500 page document.
You're right.
So, um, but I think going back to the question to add, hopefully to add something, um, I think
there's this consistent thing with transparency versus anonymity.
And I get both.
If I was extremely wealthy, I'm not, but if I was, I may want, maybe not want all my data
out there on the internet for people to use and abuse.
So yeah, I get the anonymity, but also then you're going into business with someone, they
want transparency.
And essentially, you know, if we are looking for, I'm looking for enough information to
get satisfied within my knowledge and skillset, but I'm looking for red flags.
So like you mentioned, if someone is asking for the data, they don't really need, you need
to know that.
Right.
And that's a red flag.
You can do business with, I think we're all over 21 now.
I think I am for sure.
Probably double that and more.
So I think the risk management is the key thing with all of this.
If we're going into a high risk environment, which we clearly are in, we can look at the
stocks, but it's a different world.
We're in a high risk environment.
Right.
And we sort of like that.
And then we're asking for some security, hard, really difficult to get the two together.
So really good risk management skills, I think is applied at every level from an investor,
developer, retailer, every aspect of it.
So yeah, thanks.
No, that was, that was some great insight.
So we have a couple of community questions, but they're geared more towards layer one X.
So I'll just kind of spin them.
Many of them are just asking how we are planning on protecting our IP, but I'll flip that over
to you guys.
How, how, how would you protect your IP while becoming open source decentralized versus kind
of keeping things centralized within your own projects or what have you seen?
Yeah, I think it goes a lot back to what we talked about earlier where like you can, you
can open source code, but that doesn't mean you have to open source, you know, all of your
code or, or everything, just the pertinent things.
So, you know, things that people would need to build on layer one X or you know, that they
would need to tap into or utilize to, to really be successful.
You know, you know, launching and operating there is really kind of the most important stuff.
All, all the other, you know, code and stuff like that that's not as pertinent, isn't necessary
to open source.
And a lot of that really has the bread and the butter in it.
You know, creating a smart contract and stuff like that, or, you know, tweaking some kind
of a code to make some kind of, you know, more highly optimized contract and things of
the sort is great, but it'll only take you so far.
It's not a product.
And really the, the combination of everything is your product.
And you can, you know, you can still have IP protection while open sourcing those critical
points.
You know, if I go and fork your code, I'm going to have a small, small part of your overall
experience of your overall product.
And I'm not going to have anything that, you know, I can market or expand like you guys
could.
I don't have the plans.
I don't have the foresight and I've got a whole lot of other pieces I've got to create
around it.
So, you know, I, I know there's a lot of fear around the whole open source of your code.
Oh my gosh, everyone's going to come.
They're all going to rip it off.
There's going to be a hundred of me.
But, but I don't think that's, you know, necessarily always the case.
There may be a hundred components, uh, of things that you guys are doing out there,
but it doesn't mean that it's, uh, a hundred products.
Yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
Um, you know, it's interesting, um, being in the U S the U S patent laws, uh, are just
nuts, especially when it comes to trying to patent software.
Um, a lot of VC companies actually view them as liabilities on the books for, for a lot
of their investments.
And so, you know, I don't know how it is in other countries, but, uh, you know, it's, it's
interesting because a lot of, uh, big tech companies here in the U S keep it all inside
of their, what they call the black box.
Um, that only a few people know the, what's inside of that black box.
And they do that for a reason, um, to try to help protect their, their IP.
Um, so I definitely agree with you on that one, Travis.
So, um, yeah, uh, we're, we're coming up on the hour.
So, uh, let's take just 30 seconds.
So we appreciate all of our panelists being with us today.
Um, great insight, great, um, expertise being shared around the open source, uh, tech talk.
Uh, I think we've given our listeners some, some things to definitely think about.
So on your way out, uh, if you want to just answer, you know, for those that are non coder
type people, uh, what kind of advice would you give them when they're evaluating different
projects and things like that, uh, to help protect themselves from, you know, potential
exploits or, you know, um, you know, things like that.
Uh, and then just go ahead and tell people how they can find out more about you and your
projects.
Yeah.
For me in particular, um, because like I said, I am a complete potato when it comes to,
um, a lot of that stuff and reading code and everything else, uh, that, that is not
me by any means.
But, uh, some, some of the things I do is one, what is the other community like, you know,
you're trusted or, or are there people that you at least put some trust into in there?
Um, whether it be other builders in the space, other developers in the space, whatever that
may be, that, that the people that have that knowledge that you don't, um, and really kind
of understanding that the project, the vision, the overall goal, and does it seem like something
that's even possible or attainable?
Uh, something that, that, that can really work.
Um, because a lot of that can really tell you a lot of the ethos of the team, you know,
if they're making these outlandish statements and, you know, outlandish goals, they're putting
out there of what they're going to do.
Uh, then it may be, Hey, we're just trying to soak up some liquidity and things of the
session.
It may be something you need to look into a little bit more.
Uh, but, but really having those kinds of trusted sources for me, um, even if it's someone
I don't personally know, but I, I know their involvement in the space, um, or, or in other
projects or whatever that may be, kind of adds a layer of trust, uh, for myself when, when
looking at some of those things.
So that's kind of my take from, from someone who has no idea what they're looking at when
they look at any kind of code.
Okay.
Okay.
Um, about you want to go, maybe we try Olivia.
I don't know.
I have very, very little.
Still bridging.
Yeah.
All right.
Depending of approval.
Yeah, exactly.
Maybe we'll give it up, uh, one last call out for, uh, Amelbot or Olivia to kind of jump
in and say their 30 second outro.
Last call.
No luck.
All right.
Well, thanks everybody for coming.
Uh, we appreciate you, uh, appreciate my cohost, uh, Sam and, and, uh, Anna for, for
putting these together along with, uh, our other partners, uh, ex cohost as well.
Um, these topics are always, uh, fun to do kind of a, we try to always do off, off the beaten
path of topics that are shared across multiple different, uh, uh, AMAs.
And so, uh, try to come at it from different perspectives as well.
So we appreciate our panelists.
We appreciate you guys for listening in.
Um, if you can, uh, our next AMA, please mark your calendars for the 15th of April at,
I believe it's 8 AM Eastern standard time for episode number 40.
Uh, this one should be a really good one because it's all about burning crypto bridges.
Um, we're going to be talking about the, uh, need for, for bridges in the future, uh, if
we're even going to need them, um, and kind of dive into some of the upcoming technology.
Oh, do we have Amelbot back?
Amelbot back?
You've just got my, you've just got my attention.
I'll see you on that call.
Thanks.
Yeah.
I'll send you the invite.
I'll definitely, I'll definitely will.
And also we have a couple of more upcoming, um, topics that are super cool.
Like, um, Cody suggested we do one on community food.
Uh, so, and, and how it could potentially actually, you know, um, sustain the whole community
system, you know, so that, that one will be very interesting as well.
So, yeah, we have a few of them lined up.
And, um, uh, if you guys keep an eye on, uh, X talks, uh, handle, you will see all spaces
announced and please, please feel free to always, um, poke me and say, Hey, I just want to step
in and you be my guest.
Yep.
Uh, definitely, uh, follow the X talks handle.
That would be great.
Uh, so thanks again for our panelists, uh, sleazy, my man.
Thanks for coming up and, uh, representing the community.
Uh, great insights is, as always keep those, uh, uh, very concise, uh, explanation, uh, diagrams, uh, infographics, we'll call them coming.
They're, uh, very helpful for the community.
So we appreciate it.
So other than that, uh, we will talk to you guys later, keep innovating, keep uniting all of crypto.
And we'll talk to you guys later.
Thanks everyone.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Ciao.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
