J.D. Seraphine - Raiinmaker: Transforming The World Through Media & Technology

Full transcript: J.D. Seraphine on London Real

2:54 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is J.D. Sarafin, the film and TV producer, media technology pioneer and blockchain expert. You bring over 16 years of experience on the cutting edge of the entertainment industry, working with the biggest names in film and TV like Leonardo DiCaprio and Natalie Portman, with your hit Broadway play, Rock of Ages, nominated for a Tony.

3:24 You also directed the groundbreaking documentary series, Open Source Money, about the rise of Dragon Chain and the global evolution of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. You are the co-founder and CEO of Rainmaker, one of the fastest growing web3 companies designed for the social creator economy. Rainmaker is an AI powered super app that rewards users for generating AI content and training AI models, while ensuring creators of all sizes earn crypto when they share content to social networks.

3:54 You believe Rainmaker will have a massive positive impact on the future of the global cultural landscape, and that the merging of AI and web3 will empower people from every corner of the world. J.D., welcome to London Real. Thanks for having me, Brian. It’s great to have you here. I just want to start by saying that Rainmaker is one of our portfolio companies here at London Real Ventures, the world’s first media-powered investment firm, where our mission is to transform the world by investing in cutting-edge web3 and AI companies, while giving our partners marketing exposure across the London Real media platforms and our academies.

4:26 We heighten awareness, create customers, and build communities by leveraging our global audience and extensive network. J.D., I am super excited to be part of this journey with you. It’s so congruent with everything that we do. So, let’s jump in. What is Rainmaker?

4:41 What is Rainmaker? Well, first, I want to say we’re grateful to have you guys on board. I think it’s easy to take for granted the importance of having the right people, the right companies supporting you on your journey as an entrepreneur. When we started Rainmaker, actually, it goes all the way back to 2018, so it’s a six-year journey for me to learn as a technology entrepreneur how to actually navigate a very challenging landscape, especially coming from the U.S., all the challenges that we’ve seen there with regulators, not being clear about how to engage in this new, powerful technology in terms of blockchain and cryptocurrency.

5:24 It’s been an interesting journey to get here. So, Rainmaker started in 2018. The initial focus was, how do we quantify the value of each human’s contribution on social media? So, when you look at our current social media landscape, users are posting content and they’re engaging, and they’re creating all this informal value for brands or things that they’re passionate about. And they’re not getting anything for that.

5:47 So, we actually have on the media side one of our biggest IPs is a project called Atari, which is the story of Nolan Bushnell, who was the founder of, not just of Atari, but he’s like one of the godfathers of the whole, not just video games, but digital technology revolution. And think Steve Jobs and Wozniak worked for him at Atari before they created Apple. Parts for the first Apple computers came from Atari. So, one of our biggest media IPs, Atari, is essentially Nolan’s like official biopic or whatever.

6:12 That’s the one we’re doing with Leonardo DiCaprio and his production company. So, that brought me into the space in 2018. And now we’re saying, okay, how do we create a system, a platform that can look at the 3 billion gamers around the world and reward them for the social influence engagement that they would drive when we bring that project to market? Once I got in though, it was like this technology is going to transform the entire world. And my main passion really is around creating impact.

6:38 I believe that we’re at a critical juncture as a species where humanity absolutely needs to make an evolutionary leap in order to create heaven on earth, to create a new world. And so, for me, everything I do with Rainmaker, the media company Vision Tree, all of our efforts are around that. How can we create that impact? I think you and I aligned on that. So, once I got in, Atari was the thing, kind of the thing that motivated me to come in.

7:04 Once I came in, I was like, I just went full on down the rabbit hole. We started investing, started building. The Rainmaker social creator app launched in July of 2020 initially with a beta launch to support open source money, which was the first documentary series to be funded with cryptocurrency to then air on cable television in the US, which in and of itself, in the middle of COVID, was a whole different challenge. That’s big though. It was big and it was cool and it was a fun, crazy journey.

7:31 As we documented what the SEC was doing, kind of coming back to my journey, as I was an entrepreneur trying to figure out how do we do this in a way that’s safe and compliant and legal and so many challenges that you face as an entrepreneur, which I think being a producer prepared me to face those challenges because when you’re a producer, as you know, it’s like you’re wearing multiple hats, you’re solving problems. There’s a lot of similarities. So, initially, that’s where Rainmaker was focused around the social creator side of things.

7:59 About two years ago, when AI technology really started exploding in terms of its exponential rate of acceleration, we were like, look, we obviously need to shift and make sure that we’re incorporating this powerful technology along with Web3 and blockchain into what we’re doing at Rainmaker. So, first we focused on generative art content creation in the application itself. And then more recently, we launched the ability for users to actually train stable diffusion models inside the Rainmaker app and be earning cryptocurrency or rewards based on the value they’re contributing to training AI.

8:34 So, imagine the original focus was like, what is the value of each user’s contribution with their social content? Now it’s evolved to say, how do we quantify the value that each human is contributing to train AI, either through direct feedback or through their data? Because as we go into this AI-powered digital economy of the future, which is just rapidly accelerating, you have Microsoft and Google and all the usual huge tech oligopolies that are essentially like owning these really powerful AI models, how do we ensure that humanity as a whole is not left behind?

9:07 And I think that’s where coming back to that empowerment piece, we’re saying, okay, there needs to be the right infrastructure that is able to quantify the value of each human’s contribution to training AI. So, we built the application Rainmaker AI super app that’s running its iOS, Google Play, your users can download it right now and go and enter crypto and have fun and generate cool art. The art people create is like amazing in the application. But simultaneously, about two years ago, the bigger thing that we started building was the actual network protocol, which is also under the brand of Rainmaker.

9:40 So, the ability for users to have an infrastructure, or applications rather, where they can actually leverage decentralized AI and scalable web 3 infra for sports, gaming, entertainment, creator economy, these mass adoption use cases. So, not focused as much on like what other EVM networks are doing, but how can we build products and solutions that really empower the next billion people to come into AI and web 3 infrastructure. So, that’s really what Rainmaker is focused on right now is that decentralized AI and web 3 network that can power the next generation of applications.

10:14 So, Rainmaker AI app is the first app or first application running on the network. The future is, you know, we have a fan engagement system that we haven’t announced publicly that will tease a little something today, but we have multiple professional sports teams that we’re working with that we’ll be announcing in the coming months that are partnering with us and developing that, which is running on the same thing Rainmaker network protocol. We have other exciting like AI applications that are in development that we’ll be announcing over the next like three to four months as we go to market with the main net of the network itself and then the coin token alongside it.

10:49 This is so exciting because look, when the chat GPT moment happens, you know, and you know, I went deep down the rabbit hole of AI. Now, because of this show, I was able to invite some pretty heavy hitters to talk to me about AI. So, Mo Gaudet, old friend of mine wrote a book called Scary Smart x Google x guy who literally quit the company when he saw what they were doing with AI. I spoke to Peter Diamandis. I spoke to Dr. Ben Gertzel of Singularity Net.

11:15 I spoke to Max Tegmark, the MIT professor that asked for the six month halt. And I spoke to Hugo de Geras who wrote a book called The Art Elect War who predicts a billion deaths because of AI. Okay, I went deep. And I got very concerned about our big tech companies running AI because those same people censored me and do things that aren’t always in our interests. And so I started looking at what are the alternatives?

11:38 Like how can we create this decentralized AI? How can we make it to where there’s really it’s the humans that we’re looking out for, team human? And that’s what’s really exciting about what you’re doing. And I was wondering if you could explain this concept of decentralized AI infrastructure because we hear all the time about open AI and we hear what Google’s doing with Gemini or Bard or whatever the hell. And we just assume it’s there and that there’s not an alternative.

12:06 But that’s what you’re creating, right? I think creating the infrastructure that can power those more decentralized versions of models that are being trained with human data but humans are being rewarded or compensated in some manner. And there’s a more democratic approach to how not only the data that’s being used to train those models but also that there’s some fractional distribution of value back to the individual or the human. So to say if you’re going to use my data to train an AI model, I should get something for that.

12:36 Right now these guys have hoovered up all this data because basically in the web two world we all said, well I want free applications, you know what I mean? And then signed whatever the consent was and basically said, whatever data that flows through here basically is owned by those companies. And so yeah, we got free products to use which does add value. Look, being an entrepreneur, you can’t, I don’t think, ignore that it’s easier to be holier than now and I think go to one extreme or the other.

13:02 I think somewhere in the middle is to say, we all got a bunch of really cool free products to use that did actually provide something in our lives. And some of us were even able to build businesses that ran on those, you know, were able to leverage those companies or those networks. Now over time they’ve messed with even like in the case of YouTube and what they did to you guys which is obviously, you know, undemocratic and wrong and all, you know, we could go down, you could go into the layers that better than me.

13:26 I think that there’s that balance of saying, yes, that was at one point to get to where we needed to get to, that model made sense. But where is the next, you know, where is the next level up for humanity? And it’s to say that we all need to have a sense of, not a sense but an actual real ownership in this digital economy that’s being birthed. Otherwise, where are we going from here? You know, like people worry about AI taking people’s jobs and you’re eliminating jobs and whatnot but a lot of these jobs that are going to get eliminated aren’t necessarily like the highest and best use of human consciousness and potential.

13:59 So I come from the school of thought is like, okay, well, how can this technology empower us to be the best versions of ourselves? I believe that each human inside of us has this divine spark, has this unique thing that we’re here to bring to the world. And I think the old system didn’t empower the ability for most humans to be able to ever like get out of that and the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to get off the bottom of thinking about food, shelter, security, basic stuff to be able to say like, who am I?

14:27 What am I here to bring to the world? What am I here to express? And I think AI and Web3 together, the confluence of those two forces, those two powerful technological revolutions represents the opportunity to empower humanity in a way that we haven’t seen in hundreds of years. Now, that being said, it doesn’t mean that that’s without problems, without challenges, you know, like it’s like, you know, and I say heaven on earth is possible. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t suffering.

14:57 Of course, there will still be suffering. There’s a bill that’s going to come due for humanity in terms of the choices that we’ve already made. The question is going to be like, how do we set up future generations so they have a chance to create that world? And I think these technologies give us that opportunity. Yeah, I do think you’re right.

15:14 There is a ideal future where AI allows everyone to express that unique gift. And I think everyone has it. But I’d say 99% of the people on the planet never get to find it because they’re too busy working a job. They hate to buy stuff they don’t need to impress people they don’t like. Or whatever it is.

15:31 Or they can never get out to express. I mean, hell, I could still be a banker right now, chugging away, making money, thinking it’s making me happy. And I would have never gone on this crazy journey where I’ve created this thing that’s now bigger than me. So imagine if everybody did that. You know, I always say, imagine if in your city, everybody showed up as the best version of themselves every day.

15:51 The bus drivers, the best bus driver ever you ever had. The baristas, the best one you’ve ever seen. Because they’re all living their passion. It would be incredible. And I see a future where AI empowers that.

16:02 I also see a future where AI dominates in the wrong hands. It takes that power away. Something that Mo said to me in the form of Google guy, he said, Brian, I’m not worried about the AI. I’m worried about the humans that control the AI. And that’s when he sees potential darkness if it’s in the wrong hands.

16:21 And we’ve already seen, like the folks at OpenAI, the news has come out that they were running out of data. And so they went to YouTube and decided just to take all the data from there, even though it was against all the policy violations. But they were fiending so much for the data that they’re already breaking rules to get it because they realize you just maybe pay the fine one day. And so we know what Silicon Valley looks like and that’s why it’s exciting to see kind of what you’re doing.

16:46 You mentioned Web3 and AI. Why do those things go together so well? It’s like the two great tastes that taste great together. Like the chocolate and peanut butter that make this Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. I was actually at Consensus last year and I was backstage with Yatsu of Animoca Brands.

17:01 And just casually he said, look, Brian, I think that crypto is going to empower AI because AI is going to be full of these microtransactions and all these separate entities that have to communicate with each other and pay each other. And it was just an aside comment he made that I hadn’t heard anyone say before. But you’ve been thinking about this for a while. So why is that the ultimate combo, would you say? Well, you look at blockchain or cryptocurrency systems, you know, global, frictionless, borderless, the ability for digital systems that are autonomous to be able to transact at a speed and scale that legacy systems can’t support.

17:40 So it’s really the only payment infrastructure, economic layer that could really power this new AI, you know, powered economy. I mean, it’s happening. Like you said, whether or not people are going to act like this should or shouldn’t happen, it’s already happening so fast. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. My whole thing is like, can we make sure there’s a version of it where humanity gets to contribute to it in a meaningful way so that it gets enough of us programmed into it in terms of the right data, right?

18:07 So put a little more human in the AI. That’s even why on the Rainmaker thing, we say the human powered AI network, which is kind of like twisted on its head, because the reality is data is what’s powering these AI models. It’s all about the data, right? We all know that now. Like you said, open AI is like we have to get more data.

18:25 So what our network, what Rainmaker does better at scale is being able to say, Brian contributed this data to this model at this moment in time and that had a specific value based on what our smart contract, which is AI powered is looking at and the model that is being trained with your data. So the applications that are building on our network are very focused on specific high quality data from a very specific user that’s training a specific model for a specific purpose. And that’s very different than like this broader kind of catch all where you see a lot of decentralized AI that’s like, you know, GPU, internet of GPUs, these different things.

19:01 Which again, these are all interesting, fantastic ideas to play around with. For us, we just feel like the focus is really about empowering the individual human. When I look though, coming back to your original question about, you know, AI and web3 together, and that’s I guess kind of coming back to what I’m saying. What value can web3 actually bring, or blockchain in this sense, bring to AI that really makes a difference? Because you’re like, well, does AI really need, you know, blockchain infrastructure with it?

19:29 And I think it’s a valid question and I think for anyone that’s building in this space, it’s one that we have to ask and keep asking ourselves. And so again, looking at what our network already that we had developed was good at, it was saying, okay, taking each user’s unique identity slash reputation, their behavior slash data, and then plugging that into these smart contracts and models where we’re able to then quantify at scale millions of people and saying, we know that this model was trained with this data from this user and times that, times a million or times a hundred million. That’s the network we build is able to do that at scale, which, you know, we feel confident that’s at a level in terms of a performant blockchain that’s beyond anyone else, you know, any of our competitors in the space.

20:10 There’s a lot of people who are kind of moving in the similar kind of lane side by side trying to attack this problem. We feel we have a unique position there in terms of the actual network we built and what it can do and what it can do well. But that’s where coming back to Web3 and AI, it’s like, well, what can Web3 do that actually really adds value? Because it shouldn’t just be a buzzword catchphrase, you know, to raise money. It’s about how does it really provide value at the infrastructure level?

20:36 And that’s where, you know, that’s where we build with Rainmaker. And it can also give you that provenance of the data that went into the AI model that creates an output. And I think people are starting to realize that. And when you go to the Google and the Gemini and open AI, sometimes it hallucinates. Sometimes it gives you the woke answer.

20:54 Sometimes it gives you that. And yet you have no idea where the data came from. A lot of that data has probably been even obtained illegally or by breaking copyright or from you and you’re not getting paid. But you also don’t know what went into it and so you don’t know the result. And so some of the exciting things happening with companies like you is that we can go back and look.

21:10 You can compensate that person. And then you can know what goes into that. Because it is all about the data. And garbage in is going to be garbage out and we’ve already seen examples of that. So if you can create that on the blockchain, it’s so powerful because the AI’s of the future, we’re going to all want to know, okay, what went into that?

21:27 What created this result? And how can we be sure that it’s something that we believe in? It’s people that we know. It’s real humans. And this is pretty exciting, you know, that you’re creating that.

21:38 I mean, I think we’re not like creating it. I mean, it’s already running at scale, right? It’s huge. I mean, the application is 75,000 plus downloads. And that’s, you know, that’s where we’re seeing that starting to come into some parabolic growth on just the application layer.

21:51 But the goal of the app is to like kind of, I would say like to dog food the methodology in a sense of like, how do we dynamically better quantify the value of each human’s contribution to AI? And so I think we’re already doing that at a scale and we’re already live in the market. And I think that it’s moving so fast that in order for anyone to really actually be a part of it, you have to be moving at breakneck speed. I often liken it to being an entrepreneur in this space is kind of like you’re in the air and the plane’s on fire and you have to figure out how to rebuild it before you like crash and explode on the ground.

22:27 So we’re moving fast, but, you know, the plane’s still on fire. Hopefully, we get it done before we hit the ground and explode. What’s D-pin? Because this is a term we’ve heard recently, but it’s something that you’ve been working on for a long time. I think it stands for Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network.

22:44 And contrast that perhaps to the GPUs that are in a data center that Microsoft spends $10 billion to power open AI. You’re actually putting the physical infrastructure out in the world and also sourcing it from humans out in the world. Maybe you could talk about those too, because I don’t think people understand what it is or understand why it’s so important to have D-pin. So D-pin, like you said, Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network already in terms of the world of blockchain, this has existed for many years.

23:15 This is not new. Right. Even the Bitcoin chain, the ledger’s located on all of these. Oh, yeah. I mean, you could look at Bitcoin as like the most powerful D-pin that there is, especially in terms of compute.

23:25 That’s why there’s been some people recently proposing and saying, what if we could take all of this radical amount of computation that’s happening on the Bitcoin network and actually direct it to be used for things like, you know, actually underpinning the computational power of decentralized AI systems? It absolutely should be. The fact that that computation is just being used to only secure the ledger that’s saying, I sent you .1 Bitcoin and you sent it to that guy, which is cool, trust me.

23:51 I think Bitcoin’s done stuff that no one can touch. Like in terms of censorship-resistant blockchain network for transfer and store of value, like nobody has touched it. Nobody has even come close to it. That’s the reality. When you look at the core fundamental of what it is, now because that network is now essentially the most powerful supercomputer on the planet.

24:09 When you look at the collective computer, the Bitcoin network, it blows everything away. So the thought of like leveraging that for other things to me is an exciting idea. Now Bitcoin, Maxlist may not agree. So and I don’t want to argue with them about it. But what we focus on with Rainmaker is saying, okay, how do we again bring it to the individual user?

24:27 Make it so we build a network that anyone can come on and contribute some value, whatever it is, be rewarded for that value that they’re contributing. So right now on the network protocol, people are able to, via desktop, laptop, and mobile devices, actually run a validator node on our network. So right now there’s 150,000 plus nodes running in testnet. So that’s people on a mobile device, which is happening via the Rainmaker app. All they do is sign a terms of service.

24:51 Each user has not only the validator code running in the background, software that’s essentially looking at the network and saying, are there blocks that I need to sign, transactions that need to be confirmed, or is there the decentralized computation of AI data that needs to be processed using the GPU power of my smartphone or laptop or desktop device? And so that’s like high level. To me, I would say we’re more focused on what I would call like lightweight D-Pin, meaning like not as much saying, oh, we’re going to render the next Star Wars movie or we’re going to render heavy computational stuff.

25:26 Although we can do that in a decentralized, parallelized computation across all the devices that is capable on Rainmaker now, we’re more focused on the data side in terms of, again, this user validating and verifying this data was used to train this model and doing that in a very distributed manner. So I would say at the core level of our network, we have what’s called the user action layer, which is that Brian Rose logs into Rainmaker app, he generates a piece of art, he trains a stable diffusion model through data labeling. All of those actions are being actually signed on chain with your own cryptographic keys.

26:00 So the first layer of the network is basically thousands or millions of users signing proof on chain of their own behavior or actions, which is radically decentralized. It’s, again, philosophically a little different than other EVMs and other networks, which are great at what they do. We just, again, are very focused on a specific approach to mass adoption, scalable application of decentralized AI in Web3. So, yeah, in terms of the D-Pin side, again, bringing it back, the ability to process in a decentralized or distributed manner AI computation and validation or verification of consensus across all of these devices, which anybody can be a validator on the Rainmaker network, which is, I think, pretty cool.

26:41 That’s super cool. Is anybody else doing this? There’s a lot of D-Pin projects. I mean, there’s… I think that we have a very unique set of ingredients in terms of what we’re doing and how we’re doing it and why we’re doing it, but there’s a lot of D-Pin projects.

26:56 There’s some amazing projects out there that are doing really cool stuff. But I think what we’re doing is, again, our lens is always about how do we actually empower the next 50 million, 100 million billion people to build a real infrastructure that can scale. I think when you look at a lot of EVML2s, ultimately, once you go all the way down the path, they run into the same scaling issues. I mean, you can see it with Solata. You can see it with different networks that are meant to be more scalable than Ethereum.

27:25 And Ethereum works. It’s just not cheap. And so if you want to do something at scale and have a lot of data that’s actually on-chain, which is part of the whole value prop that blockchain represents, is to say that we know this data hasn’t been changed. We know that 100% that immutability factor, which can underpin these new economies. When I think of big picture when I got into blockchain, and you had the opportunity as a filmmaker, because I have that side of what we do, to interview hundreds of the smartest people in the industry.

27:55 So good, right? What helped me to like hack my way to like understand something that’s really complex and difficult, by sitting across from smart people and just saying, hey, tell me what this is. And being able to download and download and download all these people. And what ultimately I came away with is to say, blockchain is transforming the way that value is created and distributed. And this idea that we can take all this informal value that’s out in the world, that right now maybe a lot of those legacy big web two companies are kind of, you know, hoovering up for themselves, which again, they’re just running a business.

28:25 They’re not doing it in an evil manner. They’re just looking to increase profit margins. But for us, it’s like, well, now we have the ability with these new systems in a more decentralized way to empower more people through the formalization of this informal value. So like in the case of, say, a sports team, because we’re working with some sports teams, as I mentioned earlier, you have fans that are creating all this value in an informal way. And there’s no feedback to them.

28:49 There’s this flywheel opportunity to say, you know what, Brian, what’s your favorite sports team? Oh, I’m really more of a, of like a UFC person. No, but even same thing, if you’re a fan of a fighter, right? Yeah, I mean, like, I have so many fighters that I like, but you know, like Charles Olivera, he’s like a Brazilian champion. I’m a huge fan of him.

29:06 So even as a UFC fan, and UFC would be an interesting use case, you’re creating a lot of times this informal value when you’re basically out there talking about what you’re passionate about, or engaging as a fan, but there’s no system that’s been able to formalize that in a way that provides some sort of value back to you, which deepens that relationship between you and the thing you love. And I think that’s what we’re constantly looking at building is the infrastructure that can support that. And then also take that data and say, well, this data now can be used to train a model, which now makes the business smarter that transform the relationship with you, makes your experience better as a fan, all of the above.

29:43 Let’s give some value back to you for your data that’s being used in this new way. So that’s how we see it big picture. I think what makes you different is that you think about the human as not only a node operator, as someone who can contribute to AI, but a human as a creator. And so I look at deep end things, and deep ends are amazing, but sometimes your computer is running like a mini 5G local network, which is great. And that’s fine, and having that decentralized is definitely an option we want.

30:13 But you’re thinking about the human as all of these different aspects, and that makes it really exciting. And I look at the UFC now, you watch it on TV and occasionally they’ll post a tweet of somebody famous. That’s about as interactive as it gets. And if you want to bet on it, maybe you go to some other network. Now, you can see the evolution of this.

30:32 Both of us were in Dubai at Karate Combat, and you see these guys that have a token, and now they have the token that you can bet on and you have a little more interaction, but like I see a future what you guys are doing, where, yeah, I make a video with a prediction, or I talk about a move, or I talk about this, and then that gets tapped into the network, and I get rewarded, and it’s this whole dance. It feels like we really are on a web 1.0 or 2.0 world when it comes to the things we love, like sports. Yeah, because there’s that parasocial experience, right?

31:03 This idea that not only you can interact with the thing you love, but there is also you and your community interacting with it. And I think there’s been a lot of companies experimenting to try to crack this, and it’s not an easy thing to crack at all. We’ve got a specific, I think, focus on the infrastructure side about not just our own applications, but giving infrastructure to other companies that want to come and build solutions that look to formalize that informal value around sports, entertainment, gaming.

31:30 We have a couple games in development on the network that we’re excited about, because again, I think that’s a very powerful vertical to attack in terms of, you know, how do we quantify the value? Same thing of people who are playing games and what they’re contributing on the infrastructure side. So, yeah, I think we’re approaching it from a number of angles a little bit differently than other blockchain companies. So hopefully, at the end of the day, that thesis will be proven true based on performance.

31:58 And you’re not trying to create another layer too, because you’re not sure that that’s the solution. Ultimately, your stuff’s going to be written back to the Bitcoin chain or the Ethereum chain. That isn’t an end and means to an end, in your opinion. So it’s similar, I would say what we do is similar to Cosmos or similar to Avalanche and subnets in the sense that like Rainmaker’s AI app runs on the Rainmaker network protocol and it’s almost like it has the equivalent of its own layer one instance that runs on, has its own smart contracts, its own NFT, minting, token creation capability, DDID, all of that is built into the protocol.

32:34 The finalization of consensus on our network, even for all those applications, happens when a validator signs the block, which is essentially the final smart contract computation, they sign that and then it’s notarized onto a public chain. So Bitcoin, ETH, BNB, we just add a base, there’s another network, which is actually where our token is launching on base because I think there’s a lot of exciting stuff around that ecosystem and obviously Coinbase, as a player in the space, we feel like one of the more solid partners. So when you look at all that, it’s like, okay, well, if you hash the proof of consensus on Bitcoin, essentially our network can be super scalable, super cheap, modular, you really could do anything with it at scale, but it’s very secure at the same time because that hash on Bitcoin ties back all the way to Brian logged in, a Rainmaker trained in AI model, did all this, those actions that were signed with your own keys, all of that data is rolled up to a hash on Bitcoin, which means that in order to change the data that’s happening there, there’s an unbroken string of trust, you’d have to literally be able to change the ledger on Bitcoin.

33:41 So you do the math, it’s like, we just inherited radically all this security, but our network can be super fast and scalable and do all these different things that allow us to power more mass adoption like solutions. So people ask me, is it an L2? It’s like, no, it’s its own blockchain, but it’s similar again, more in that cosmos type vein. Nice. What’s the next year looking like for you?

34:03 You’ve alluded to token launch, which is always very exciting. And I would guess nerve wracking time because you only get one. What does that look like? And what is, like I said, the next year look like for you as far as business development, partnership, hiring, raising money, all that stuff? Well, I’ve been building for six years.

34:22 So I’ve literally built through two bear markets without launching a token, which one part of it is coming from the US and figuring out like, how do we navigate this legally speaking? And it’s a challenge. I won’t lie. It’s like, it’s taken a lot for us to get here. And I feel sometimes fortunate, blessed that we’ve survived.

34:41 Like you look around as an entrepreneur. People see you when you’re at this place like where we’re at now, we have a lot of momentum and things are going our way and things are trending in a very positive direction. They don’t see you when you’re in those dark, dark nights of the soul and you’re staring into the abyss and you’re like, did I make the right choice coming down this road? Which now we feel a lot more confident and the answer is yes. If you asked us six months or a year ago, it may not have been as clear.

35:05 Six months, we were like, yeah, this looks like, okay, we’re gonna, this is gonna be good. But a year ago. End of 22, like post FTX and just quarter 23. I mean, those were dark days, right? Yes, very dark.

35:17 And if you’re in the US, I’m sure a lot of companies threw the towel in. I mean, I think even non-US, a lot of companies threw the towel in because it’s difficult to find a way. I mean, luckily we had been through enough cycles. I knew the industry was gonna come back. I knew the market would turn.

35:32 And so it was like, okay, how do we look at where we position ourselves so that when it does, we’re finally really there in terms of having like enough real value that we’re bringing to the table, enough real utility for the token, having a real full on decentralized AI, web three blockchain network that the token is that main source of utility. So now we’re at that place where it’s like, okay, all the pieces are there. So the token launch upcoming, you know, very soon, next month, we’ll have announcements going out, which you guys will be a part of.

36:02 The mainnet of the network itself. So we’ve been in testnet since August of last year. So Ethereum, Toronto, Blockchain Futurist, we launched, which was intentional. I love Tracy and that team. And Ethereum launched in Toronto.

36:15 So it’s kind of like, let’s go there and launch. It’s just cool. So now like coming into mainnet launch is a big moment for us. It’s coming up the next few weeks. Then we have these other applications and enterprise partners that we’ve already been working with for months that we haven’t announced publicly because we wanted to make sure the time was right in terms of, you know, the cadence of bringing new exciting stuff forward and launching it.

36:36 Also making sure that the network itself was ready for those next wave of applications to deploy. So there’s, again, one on the sports side that we’ll be announcing very soon that we’ve got some amazing executives from the sports world and big teams we’re partnered with. So that’ll be announced in the coming weeks. We’ve got a couple games and a few other, we’re actually adding it, I feel like every week or two we identify like a new partner, a new application that we’re bringing in and bringing on the network.

37:03 We’re more focused on like quality over quantity. And again, I think there’s a lot of networks that are already out there. If you’re like, you know, you want to build like an L2 Perp DEX on Bitcoin, like that’s already, there’s plenty of networks for that. That’s not what our networks for and there’s nothing against that. It’s just not what our focus is.

37:19 So I would say those enterprise applications. And then the other thing is the continued evolution of what we’re doing on the AI infrastructure side. Because that landscape is moving like, I don’t think people understand the speed at which it’s moving. So we’re doing our best to like look at those, the deep invalidator nodes, that you’re bringing in data scientists and engineers and looking at how we really like fine tune or hone what’s happening with the deep inside of our infrastructure.

37:46 So there’s constant updates, like there’s a new version of the nodes that’ll be launching in like 45 days. And then we, I think by the end of the year having on the roadmap to have like even more powerful capabilities in terms of that decentralized AI infrastructure. Okay, I want to go deeper on the AI, but before I do that, do you find it’s challenging to explain what you do to a sports team or to, maybe less to a game because maybe they’re already in the digital world.

38:11 But like say to a sports team, is it hard to explain exactly what you do and how it’s going to help their team? Because it took me a couple of gets when you first came on our call and pitched it. You know, it’s not like, okay, we’re a layer two. It’s like, we’re this and we’re this and we’re this. You empower creativity, you’re decentralized infrastructure, you have an AI component, and you also have this chain and this coin.

38:35 Now I get it, it’s clicking really well and it seems really amazing and unique, but does it take a few iterations to get people to buy in? Well, the first major team, I’ve spent a few years bringing them along. I think now, even for us as a company, you’re constantly honing your ability to articulate what you are. And even what you are is constantly evolving. So to say that, and I think you have to have that mindset.

39:00 If you don’t have that mindset as a startup, you’re going to die. Because literally the world, like I said, is changing so fast. And if me, the only advantage I have over the bigger companies is that I’m small and I’m nimble and I can decide, wait, that’s where the puck is going. The puck is here, but it’s not going to be here very long because in AI, it’s shooting. So it’s like, I have to get there.

39:21 And as an entrepreneur who has a smaller company than a Google and these massive guys, I can take my team and I can say, you know what, that is where there’s more opportunity for us to create something in the market that’s unique, that will allow us to have some sort of piece of the market that’s ours, that we really can bring some value. And so I think that’s where we’re constantly evolving. So even from when you and I first talked to now, I think our ability to articulate who we are and what we’re doing is actually better.

39:48 And I think it’s constantly, I’m never satisfied, like as an entrepreneur, I’m never satisfied, not only with how we’re articulating it, but what we’re doing. And I think it drives my team a little nuts sometimes because I’ll go to them and say, look, I think we have to look at this now. And they’ll think like, they’re ready, like, oh, okay, we finished the product, we’re ready to ship it. And I’m like, that’s good, but now the product’s going there and they’re like, okay, J.D., what are you doing?

40:12 This is crazy. I think you have to do that to an extent. You have to be willing to constantly refine, pivot. So I think with the sports teams, it’s like anyone else. Like, what is the value it’s really bringing to them and their fans?

40:25 It’s not about like, I think for blockchain, when we’re like, we’re very close to this breakthrough that a lot of us have been working towards and talking about the next billion users, the next billion users, bridging web two to web three. We were kind of one of the first companies, I feel like there was like out there with that messaging and which again, all of a sudden, they look around and I feel like every other person I see saying that, which is a good thing. I’m not like, oh, they copied it.

40:48 It’s like, no, that’s the point. The point is, we have to start thinking like, we’ve all been on a crypto island, basically, you know, transacting with each other, almost like a casino where it’s like, we’re all playing with each other’s chips, which is fun. I think that’s how you create and kind of like almost like a sandbox and you learn, but we have to bridge to where everyone else is and get them over here or we have to go over there with the technology. And so everything we’ve been doing from the beginning is, how do you create products that have a web to like user experience so that grandma can do it?

41:17 Anyone who’s non-crypto native can come in and use the product. It’s easy. They understand it. It’s fun. The user experience matches or exceeds what they get with, you know, an Instagram or other products that they’re used to.

41:29 It has to be at that level. Otherwise, we won’t win. And so I think that’s, we start from there and saying to, you know, our partners on the sports side, because they’re looking for solutions. How do we deepen the relationship with the fans? How do we create opportunities for them to engage with us in more meaningful ways that allow them to be rewarded for all the value they can create for the team and to deepen that relationship?

41:51 The thing that excites me most about sports is, you know, I love sports. I grew up in the U.S. Big NFL fan, big NBA fan, big, you know, baseball was my first love. And NFL kind of took over just because I got into football like a lot of people in my generation. So it’s like, I’ve always looked at like the fans really should have a little more ownership in what’s happening there.

42:13 The value that’s being created, they should be getting a little more back for it. And so, and again, you kind of have to like slowly work towards my big picture vision, like big dream would be, let’s create a system where fans are actually own some portion of the teams like the Green Bay Packers. And I think that, like, cause that’s again coming back like big, big picture. What does web three, what does it really mean? What’s ownership, right?

42:36 I think as opposed to web two, it was like, obviously it was all about, you know, the bigger oligopoly companies owning, you know, owning the data, owning everything. And web three, we own the data, we own the value, the individual user, the individual human. And so how do we with sports engineer systems that say, okay, these aren’t fans anymore. This isn’t some sort of passive relationship. This instead becomes, you know, we’re partners, like we’re actually really partners.

43:02 And the value that I bring as a partner as a fan, you know, as a fan now I’m getting something back that deepens that relationship. And I think what we’re hearing or what we’re getting in the conversations we’re having with teams is that they’re looking for something like this. They’re looking for a way to like deepen that relationship. But it has to be done in a way where they understand the value that around that is being properly measured and tracked. And it isn’t being gamed.

43:25 Because obviously in the digital world you deal with bots, you deal with a lot of nefarious actors, deal with a lot of fraud, a lot of fake stuff. And so I think again that’s coming back to what can blockchain infrastructure provide. Well that provenance, that proof that this human contributed this data or this value or trained this AI with this piece of behavior from them. Now the team knows, they know, like right now I don’t want to mention the team name because we haven’t announced it publicly.

43:51 But they’ve got five million fans in their database and they could not tell you which one is the most valuable or least valuable. They have no insight on it. Now there’s limited amounts of data. They have it in kind of pockets. They might be able to see, oh there’s a certain amount of like ticket buying data we see or merch buying data and they know who their season ticket people are.

44:11 But it’s in silos and it’s not like, there’s not a lot of intelligence across the organization from a data standpoint. So what we’re able to bring them is an infrastructure that helps them to bring that in a way that’s not only what they already have is being able to be put into this new system but also what’s being generated in a very decentralized way by the fan themselves. We’re like we know for sure that this was this data, this action was generated by this device because there’s an immutable cryptographic key pair that’s signed on chain proof that Brian Rose bought a ticket to UFC.

44:45 At this time he went to the event, he posted on Instagram, he bought a shirt. You know like all that action is being written on chain with your own keys and then there’s some value that’s being given back to you based on the actual value of that. And that’s where I think to a team it’s like they’re starting to get it where it’s like what is the next version of that kind of data infrastructure where AI and Web3 could come together and create the infrastructure value but again on the product side be able to have the fan just have a beautiful fun experience.

45:14 I mean that’s what they’re looking for and that’s what we’re bringing them. I hope Dana White’s listening because this is something that would excite him because he gets excited by these huge gate numbers that he’s getting at these stadiums now. You know the UFC is a lot of times the most successful event in stadiums now including Madison Square Garden. And it’s a great metric but if he could look and listen to what you’re saying right now and think okay that’s great Dana but you could probably get 3x, 5x, 10x the revenue and the fan would be 3x, 5x, 10x more happy and engaged if you could go even deeper and say okay how can we take this to the next level and that’s what’s screaming out for a lot of these organizations that are still living kind of in the past of what’s the pay-per-view, what’s the gate, let’s do the next thing.

45:58 You know and this is exciting and sports teams seem like the perfect thing because there’s so much passion there, right? And there’s so much more you can get and they want to give so much more but it seems like the next level. Identity, how do you solve that problem? Because in blockchain it’s something people have played around with. Stanley Kulichev of Aave who’s been here in the studio created this thing called Lens AI where they’re trying to create you know an identity NFT that kind of follows you around.

46:25 Yat Su from Animoca Brands who’s been on the show five or six times has his Mochaverse ID that they’re rolling out across for an investor in that as well. How do you solve that issue? Because it’s a huge issue going forward. You nice have a nice bit of infrastructure you just mentioned like a phone that a lot of people don’t have. That’s a huge edge.

46:42 But how do you do that and is that a big part of what you do? A hundred percent. I mean my CTO had already spent a lot of money developing a very robust DDID solution decentralized digital identity solution that we’ve now partnered we had partnered actually right before we got into building the network we had partnered with him around that because we understood the value of identity and obviously like it being not just something that’s siloed to Bitcoin or blockchain or crypto but something that’s a wider problem in digital networks and platforms.

47:14 So decentralized digital identity the ability to understand that you Ryan and similar to what Aave is doing or Lens AI there’s a similar philosophy around the NFT as a dynamic you know again non fungible token just means a unique string of code. That’s all it really means when you kind of strip away the you know it’s not about a board ape or it’s not about a doodle or these things which are cool again these were early experiments to say okay what does it mean when a community comes together? How do we measure the dynamic value of people wanting to be a part of this group?

47:47 Obviously there’s some people who game that and screwed some people and stuff that was not good that happened there but there’s again these experiments that are giving us like these kind of exponential advancements in energy investment things that come in to advance the industry. So I think we look at the NFT in our infrastructure same way that there’s a dynamic reputation based system that’s looking at all your behavior. So even if we come back to the validator let’s use that as an example.

48:13 Each validator in our network the amount that they earn is looking at a variety of variables. How much coin do they have staked? How much have they burned? How many blocks have they signed? Did they actually pass KYC level 2?

48:25 So even our KYC is decentralized meaning it uses a best-to-breed provider in the back end. All that we keep we don’t hold any of the PII. We pass a person through like they basically verify that they’re standing like okay I am Brian Rose I’m really from London you know I’m a real human that the proof on chain is hashed and your PII is destroyed we don’t hold on to it. So it’s a more decentralized version of what your legacy companies have been using. So we’ve been playing around with this idea again of how do we make sure that we quantify your reputational value inside of a network or system or on an application.

49:02 You know so in the case of a sports team we’re looking at all that behavior where not every fan should be trusted in the network at the same level. So it’s about how do you quantify dynamically and score each individual human. Same thing when it comes to that now let’s zoom back out again we’re talking about AI models. Well if we know that Brian is has a certain score reputation in the system and JD has a lesser score should our data have the same value when it’s being contributed to train AI the answer is no it has to be dynamically weighted based on what especially based on that model it may not be that I’m a lesser human it might be that as a fan I haven’t done as much to be ranked as highly to be ranked as high in the system right.

49:43 So we look at it in that way we’re very interested in taking that behavior which is immutable tying that into the individual users decentralized digital identity in our network and then having that interact dynamically with smart contracts that are distributing value based on your actions based on the value that you’re creating. So coming back again big picture in that formalization of informal value right how do we quantify what each human should get it has to be done in a way that’s fair and immutable that’s I think what blockchain can bring in you know Yacht and Mokaverse or you know they’re doing it in their way and they’re attacking it from a very specific angle I know that the Aave guys are you know they’re like DeFi wizards right so they’ve been they’ve done stuff that is revolutionary and groundbreaking again our focus has been more on doing it in a way that that is abstracted away as much as possible meaning it’s there it’s running in the background but for the individual user it doesn’t really like to me they don’t care how it works and this is what I was trying to get earlier and I think I got away from the thought it’s not about how it works it’s about what value does it bring to the individual human like until we get to that place we haven’t gotten there that’s the transition this whole industry is going through right now yeah right it used to be look what I built and now I’m going to teach you how to use it

51:07 And now it’s you know look what I built you’re going to use it without ever knowing it exists and that’s what a lot of this transition is it has to be it has to be and you also have the physical device which a lot of these companies don’t have so you’ve got this d-pin you’ve got these physical pieces which can really aid identity in a huge way and you can tell if Brian’s iPhone is running a hundred bots or just his info on there that’s huge for you well I think if you want to build something that’s mass market ready everyone on the planet is carrying a smartphone and now with satellite internet and you know that’s coming like internet connectivity is about to become literally you know worldwide ubiquitous there right so now everyone has a smartphone and everyone has the internet we talked about coming back again what is it why are we doing this why does it matter like what was the promise of why we started on this journey like you said you could be a banker I could just be making movies and making money and not have the stress of like how do I navigate you know regulators and this and that and all the politics and all the all the craziness that we’ve had to navigate so it’s like well why are we doing it because we want to empower humanity at this important moment that’s the most important thing and so looking at how do we get there how do we build the tools that actually do that well we have to bring it to the smartphone

52:25 We have to focus on what we’re doing and engineer it so that anyone on the planet can come and participate and join you know this AI web 3 blockchain crypto revolution and that’s essentially everything we do comes from that place of how do we make sure every human on the planet has an opportunity to be a part of this doesn’t mean that everybody’s getting the same amount of value because obviously if Brian sets up a node and he stakes a million dollars of coin and he burns a bunch of coin he’s like you’re gonna obviously be getting more as a validator than someone who’s just running a node on a smartphone in Africa but they’re still able to participate too that’s the whole point it’s not supposed to be and this is why some of the problems I get into when I look at what Bitcoin has evolved into a little bit like I said as a technology as a network it’s doing things that no one can touch still but there has become this like centralization of power inside of that ecosystem which is very real and pronounced especially with the ETFs and not to take a left turn down that road but it’s just to say that I’m more focused on big picture why did we start down this road?

53:26 And to me it was about empowering the individual human with a new economic system that would allow us to take the old system and not necessarily destroy it but rather create an alternative because right now most of the planet you look at half the planet they’re still living on hell and earth they’re still waiting they’re still sitting there saying like I have this all this potential I could feel inside of me as a human that I want to bring to the world and yet I’m still trying to make sure is my family gonna have a handful of rice today? am I gonna have clean water to drink which is the next I mean that’s the thing the scary thing that’s already hitting in a lot of places and it’s coming is like the clean water crisis is a very real thing so I think it’s like how do we create systems that financially empower people and bring them into this revolution so that in a decentralized manner humanity is able to rise up to solve the biggest problems that we’re facing because that’s the only way we get there you mentioned AI and I’d a little go a little deeper because you say you’ve said three times now this is accelerating faster than anyone can imagine and I would agree with you but I’d say you go stop somebody on the streets right now in London and ask them about AI they’re pretty oblivious to the fact that it’s growing exponentially and what the ramifications are gonna be in three months time let alone three years time where are we right now?

54:39 What do people need to know as far as how fast that’s moving and how that future is gonna be affected? Well what comes to mind immediately is something you touched on which I initially felt it around crypto and blockchain and I would say to people I said look this technology is either gonna empower humanity or it’s gonna be used to enslave us and I looked especially at I don’t want to name countries you know what I mean because I feel like it gets I don’t want to turn this into a political thing but there’s those that have a more authoritarian view of the world and that is to say that they believe in that and there’s that when America was formed there was a political philosophy that was brought from Europe liberalism that essentially that philosophy underpinned the creation of the United States of America and it still exists in some form of fashion and people there not necessarily in the political systems or the economic structures of the country but it does exist I think it’s very much alive and well in the world of crypto, blockchain and the people that I’ve been fortunate to connect with here so I would often tell people like hey when you look at crypto and blockchain it’s like people are gonna either be empowered or they’re gonna be enslaved by this technology and I think it’s not gonna be one or the other like when it takes all you’re gonna have like some federation of that in different pockets around the world so my passion for a long time

55:52 Leading into the SPF, FTX stuff which really derailed a lot of these conversations was to talk with powerful people in the government in the US especially on the Democrats side and say look guys there’s a bigger problem that you guys are not aware of and that the more democratic versions of this technology are actually winning the fight but it’s not being led by you because you guys are so dysfunctional you can’t even figure out how to you know vote on whether or not we should give a guy a ham sandwich you’re certainly not going to figure out how to navigate this fast moving technological landscape which is cryptocurrency blockchain technology and the new digital you know payment structure economic system of the future there are other governments on the other hand which are highly centralized and authoritarian in the way they do things and they can take a million people stick them in a factory and say you’re gonna work on this and they’ve already said I mean China already said by 2024 they were gonna own the blockchain they declared it in 2018 but our government again is sitting there so dysfunctional for a variety of reasons I don’t want to get into so I spent a lot of energy and time and money trying to educate you know government you know especially high ranking senators which I won’t name who got what I was saying and saying look there’s a bigger problem you guys shouldn’t be focused on attacking you know those companies like Coinbase

57:03 That are high quality companies that you know that are basically trying to lead in the right way you should instead be focused on working with those people that understand the technology so that you can catch up so that the US government and all the power and might that it can bring to the table can actually you know impact this in a positive way in a global sense and I think right now we’re still at this like weird crossroads where like how much of the world is gonna live on infrastructure that’s a lot more authoritarian than those of us that are more like liberty minded would like versus the more liberty focused version of this that takes the individual their rights and puts that at the center of what’s most important and I think when you look at AI now just to bring it back to your original question it’s the same thing when you we talked when you met you kind of touched on it a bit earlier but like the future of where this is going is I believe that AI will either enslave or empower humanity in a very real way and I think I believe that it’s going to empower us I come from that place and that’s the place that we that we live from and that we build from that that’s being said I only have so much power and influence over that I think the individual humans should become a little more aware if they can about how can I work to be a part of or support a version of this technology with my choices every day that’s going to lead to a more empowered and democratic version

58:24 Of that technology and I think that’s where we are today is like right now we’re at a moment where that’s being decided by everybody’s actions small little actions every day it’s not about the huge things man it’s about little things every day that people are doing that they may or may or may not be conscious of the implications of where that’s taking us you know in the future and so my hope is is that we can play some sort of small role in ensuring that humanity has a brighter future I mean that’s everything we do comes from that place again and I think that you know we’re at a moment where AI I believe we’re at that renaissance moment for humanity I think that this technology is going to power a whole new renaissance like we’ve never seen across the planet I think a lot of the fear around the governments have or that people have I understand where it’s coming from but I think we have to quickly move beyond it because we’re so close to this tipping point but when things start to unravel in the way that they can unravel it’s going to be very hard for us to operate in the world like we can look at COVID as like a walk in the park compared to what’s coming for humanity because of the choices that we’ve made and because we’ve lived in a very we lived how we had to live to get to a certain place in terms of our ability to actually scale economically now we have to make that leap and I think the only way we do it is by empowering people at scale

59:42 Across the world it’s not about Google and Apple and fate you know, Meta or these different companies like they’ve already helped to I think accelerate technology and its adoption across the world and I think they’ve played an important role that’s undeniable but now I think what is the next level for humanity the next level for where technology can take us and that’s where I believe we have to get to quickly How many years until AI starts to really change our lives? It’s already happening right now I think it’s already happening in ways that it’s already happening in ways in the background that people aren’t even aware of and already was by the way this is the thing like there was already machine learning that was hard coded into things like Facebook that I mean Facebook and the psychometric data profiling and the Cambridge Analytica scandals and all that there was already a ton of AI that was already functioning at scale inside of those systems people just didn’t know it so it’s already affecting our lives in a very real way where will it be when we get to a place where maybe it empowers us in this global sense I think within five years I think within you know basically think like turn of the decade we’ll be at a place where we see this confluence and again hopefully the big players I would love to see them evolve it’s not just about you know entrepreneurs and startups but I think people like me and companies like us

1:01:07 We can also kind of force them to say you know what there’s a way for us to decentralize our mindset a little bit about because they’re powerful enough and rich enough to say you know what maybe there’s a way that we can actually help to create this better world too because we have the scope and scale to be able to say you know what let’s make some tweaks and how this is being done let’s evolve our mindset to the next level I know a lot of people get like and again I think if when you’ve had them directly affect your life like you guys did in the case of YouTube it’s easy to be like obviously rightfully very negative about what’s going to happen but at some point we’re like look man whatever happened in the past it’s about like right now what can we do to make a shift because like again coming back full circle we don’t have a lot of time and we’ve got to find a way to shift right now I’m just wondering if they’ll give up the control to make that shift but if it’s in their interest I guess they will AGI is a term that gets thrown around there artificial general intelligence you know human level intelligence is that something you think about is that something that’s going to change everything when it happens or do you have your own opinions about that?

1:02:10 Well the thing that I think about is we have to make sure that these new artificial intelligence systems are programmed with enough humanity like real humanity and I think that’s to come back to like if there is you know we will have AGI I mean again to what extent does it already exist in certain places that we may or may not be aware of that’s a whole different rabbit hole to go down right but I think the I think how do my big thing is how do we make sure that there’s enough humanity that’s programmed into AI so that you know we don’t end up in like Terminator 2, Skynet like oh we looked at this and you guys are the because we kind of are the locusts if you look at humans and the planet I mean we’ve literally you know I mean that every you know every scientific kind of metric that you look at like it doesn’t matter whether you believe in like climate change or this and that’s like you just have to look at like we’re in the largest we’re in the largest loss of species since the dinosaurs I mean every natural system on the planet is like in like it’s in a free fall so it’s like we got to do something otherwise it’s not about like the planet will be fine it’s a question of what does the future look like for humanity that’s the real question and I think you bring AI into the mix it’s like how do we how do we imbue enough humanity into AI that’s where my you know that’s what I think about yeah you’re about to launch a token

1:03:31 We are in a bull market you know pretty much as a consensus on that what does this bull market look like in crypto how long will it last you’ve been through two bears what kind of thoughts advice predictions reality you see in the coming years you’ve got a big smile on your face well because here’s the thing like my feeling my gut feeling is the bull run is going to be a little shorter than we want it to be isn’t it always that? no but I mean like 21 that was shorter than we wanted it also got cut short but it also like it had a pretty good it had some legs because there was there was this broad base of like retail adoption that came in and the NFT wave actually played a big role in that as much as there was a lot of you know stuff that went on with that which again was was not so good and it was a a bit nefarious or shady there was also a lot of great innovation that happened there and I loved seeing so many artists empowered around that I thought that part of it was cool but if you looked at all this money that came from governments around COVID and stimulus and this and a lot of that then flowing into you know into digital assets and that really being the thing that was driving a more broad based growth in the market this cycle has been driven more by institutional inflows from ETFs if you look like the consensus is like retail is not back and still right now they’re not back and why?

1:04:51 Well because they got burned and they got burned pretty bad and if you talk to a lot of people like I was talking to some people I think a couple weeks ago and they were like oh yeah is that is that Bitcoin thing? it’s kind of back isn’t it? and we had already hit an all-time high and I’m like we’ve already hit all-time high and people are like asking themselves if we’re back that’s not a good sign and that’s because honestly people don’t forget like when you you know that that’s like the downside or kind of the dark side of some of this stuff is there’s people have made a lot of money in this space at the expense of ordinary people that’s that side of it is not right and honestly that’s where like regulators kind of have a point where it’s like hey man like this has to be addressed and but the beautiful thing I would say is like look at SPF like you want to say like argue that you need more laws it’s like you were able to use the law the law and might of the US judicial system and he was in he was in another country and he’s now in federal prison right so like to me like the systems exist to hold people accountable and I think they’re doing a fairly good job of especially identifying the most obvious egregious you know violators of that and I think it’s a smaller percentage than people think I think there’s a smaller percentage that are actually like actively trying to screw people I think that most a lot of times

1:06:03 Entrepreneurs are doing everything they can but we’re in a very challenging landscape from regulatory to market conditions so where does the bull run go from here I mean I think we have we still have a good bit of time left I think for people it’s interesting because the meme coin thing like right now basically there’s like meme coin AI coins and then everything else that has a lot of like real utility is actually kind of like it’s kind of been going sideways so I think there’s been a lot of frustration from projects and saying like man we’re like a real we’re a real thing and really like this guy just launched dog with hat or fill in the blank meme coin and it’s ripping but again remember there is something about there being a democratic thing about people deciding with their crypto or their capital what is worth what so not to say that I you know I think there’s something that’s positive around the meme coin stuff there what do you make of the meme coin craze like what do you see there because you come from a creative background what’s going on there well I think humans like I think they like fun stories and I think they like things that appeal to them in that way that are funnier you know that they can connect with on an emotional level I think that part of it is working right that part that’s scary and again that’s there where people are some people just getting just destroyed because they’re coming in they’re trying it’s like it’s like lottery casino stuff

1:07:25 Where people are coming in and trying to jump on these things hoping that they find the next dog with hat or the next you know Aladdin so to speak and they ride that green candle to to their heavenly heavenly high of whatever that you know they’re that financial piece that they’re trying to get but I think there’s something good to take from what’s working with the meme coin stuff but there’s again this other kind of dark side of it which is there’s a lot of there’s a lot of people that are getting ripped off so it’s like there’s somewhere in the somewhere in the middle I feel like there’s something good we can take from it luckily for us like being a project that has legitimate you know AI infrastructure you know we’re leveraging the Bitcoin network so there is some kind of Bitcoin tie into what we’re doing you know from a narrative standpoint I think our project is sitting in a good place and actually has a lot of real utility and you know we’ve spent a lot of years building so I know what we have is very sound but also like our token is called coin and it’s launching on base so there is a certain kind of meme you know meme like quality even to that if you think about it and it wasn’t planned it’s just kind of organically happened that way but I there’s things I like about the meme coin stuff and I have friends that are you know I don’t want to say who but have launched you know meme coin projects and that not just with the idea of making a quick buck

1:08:41 But actually building a community and then that having plans to continuously actually develop stuff and you can look at the ship guys who I’ve had a chance to meet and get to know a bit like the fact that they were able to build this massive community in this very powerful token economy and now they’ve rolled out all these actually like very legitimate technologies and products and tools into that community to me like that’s actually kind of like or doge is doing the same thing those are kind of the models to say like where could some of this meme coin stuff actually lead to some really cool innovation because once you have that capital and the freedom if you have you know visionary creators and innovators now they’re able to go and just build technology and they don’t have like a 16 Z saying well you know we really think you have to go this way Brian you know or you need to go that way not this way versus a creator an innovator being able to say like okay I have resources what is that thing that I feel like the world needs or that my community wants and now they can go build that thing so I think in that sense there’s a positive side to it the dark side is you know the rugs the scams which there’s a ton of them and I think if you don’t know how to navigate it it’s like wild west rough in terms of the meme stuff right now yeah again when I see memes I always say well that’s a that’s a symptom of something of people craving connection

1:09:57 Culture you know identity membership that kind of thing and it’s real and so people jump into it because they want that you know I think Yat always said what he said he said crypto is a store of value NFTs are a store of culture and it’s an interesting way of thinking about that I mean everything about us expresses our identity and our emotions from the jacket you’re wearing to my suit to everything we’re constantly signaling who we are to the world through our choices and meme coin is or an NFT or whatever is another way Franklin Templeton like the Wall Street firm is now covering Doge as an asset class for good reason through the whole bear market it sat up there sitting at number 10 in coin market cap and she was at number 13 and it weathers this storm so you have to acknowledge there’s something there and I always tell Bitcoiners you know Bitcoin was a meme coin for a couple of years a bunch of dorks and their internet nerd money that had nothing to do with anything and no value and they just punted it around and loved to talk about it and be in their little cult or club and even after pizza day it was still kind of a meme coin and they might argue with me but I think I’m right and so look what that created so you’re right and then I’ve seen the Shiba guys and heard from what they’re doing there and again you could take that community and then build something beautiful but if it turns into gambling and you’ve never traded financial assets before

1:11:17 It can go wrong real quick you see people see it and then they sell their home and mortgage it and put everything on 10x, 100x leverage dog with hat and then it all turns wrong so that can be dangerous I mean I think what’s fueling that because like some day somehow we have to go down into like the foundation like what’s the root of a human doing that because we all have this we’re like yearning to be free to be empowered financially to not have to worry like how am I going to pay my rent next month and I’m going to go work a job that’s way below my potential as a human because just so that I can pay the guy that owns the place that I live in or I can make sure my kids have what they need and so people are like looking they’re like just yearning for a way like give me an exit give me a way to get to a place where I can be free as a human and that’s where I think we have to figure out a way to engineer systems that empower that without people having to you know be the one in a million that you know picks the right meme coin to buy it you know and then rockets up which again more power to those people their lives are great now and I think there is something unique about and I mean a big part of this is saying community again that democratic thing of like well if Bitcoin the community element is really the only reason it survived right it wasn’t about the core technology and obviously that that’s always been undeniable that’s underneath it

1:12:40 But the community that’s on top of it which now is you know massive and huge and you know I would almost say almost like zealot like religious in its belief about what Bitcoin is and its power that it represents which like I said earlier is undeniable in terms of what it does better than anything else but that community is what made sure that Bitcoin survived the test of time at least to this moment and it’s no different with meme coins except that obviously again Bitcoin already had that other element it already had that real utility that core technology and I think I would argue that it had something else which is that commitment to create a more democratic decentralized you know liberty driven economic system now does it have certain shortcomings and flaws yes obviously Ethereum came along with the purpose of saying hey Bitcoin isn’t able to do certain things that we want to do so we’re going to build this other network that will do these other things and kind of on and on and on it’s gone in terms of all the different technologies you see kind of in networks and protocols that are coming up I believe in a more open asset future where you have these different networks that people are interacting with that have a very specific utility and purpose and that interoperability between the value of those networks I think is critical to having a truly decentralized global web free future it’s not just about Bitcoin or Ethereum or you know any one

1:14:04 Network I believe that there’s going to be a federated future with all these blockchain networks yeah and just going back to the meme coins you can take that a step further this is something actually Anthony Pompliano like tweeted out the other day and said the reason people are trying to escape the economic prison VSA and meme coin investment is because of our broken fiat currency system you know so you can go down that rabbit hole and it gets pretty interesting pretty fast where no one can afford to do anything I mean Michael Saylor says most businesses shouldn’t even bother trying to run a business they should just buy Bitcoin because they have no chance of competing with say the fan group or the top few because the game is rigged against them with the amount of money being printed I don’t know if I go to that extreme but he’s got a point and people somehow know that the system they’re in is not a way that they can be financially independent which has this nagging anxiety that takes over what it’s like to be a human and I always talk about this with my students I say we’ve never we’ve never had sound money and so in the future one day where we have sound money and say it’s Bitcoin like it literally will change the human experience it’ll change our relationships with each other it’ll change the way we interact with the world and a lot of people think well Bitcoin’s not going to do that well or crypto’s not going to do that but it can

1:15:24 Because if you live in this world and you go and get your job and you get paid in this money that someday feels like monopoly money like and that happens over and over again and let’s take it to an extreme and you’re in Brazil in the 80s and all of a sudden it’s worth nothing or you’re in Russia in the 90s and it’s worth nothing like when you get up the next day like at some point you’re going to just become cynical and nihilistic and just detach because it all feels like BS at the end of the day and like imagine the contrast of that where what you earn is real and it holds its value and again you can invest in property or digital property that holds its value if you can own a network that you’re a part of I mean it actually changes the way you show up to the world every day it has big implications and I’m curious for your thoughts on that I’ve been meditating on this a lot recently. I think we would have gotten here if it wasn’t for again this evolution that we’ve gone through in terms of financial systems and capitalism is very good at most capitalism is very good at making sure that resources are allocated in the most efficient manner possible to achieve scale. It’s not very good at deciding this thing deserves investment over this thing because of the outcome for the broader whole.

1:16:49 Capitalism doesn’t even care about that it just cares about how can we make maximum profit with minimum cost. That’s all it cares about. So I look at financial I look at the fiat systems of saying okay in order for us to get to where we needed to as a species we’ve gone through this evolution of different economic systems which is normal and now it’s like well the next level is the next level and that’s what I was trying to say to the different folks in the U.S.

1:17:15 Government that we’ve talked to is you guys aren’t even ready for the next level yet. I think that there’s been some strides made in recent times from what I can gather from afar but there’s also been some steps back in terms of attacking the most real credible players in the space in the U.S. which has made it not a friendly place to be as an entrepreneur who’s building or innovating in this space. And so I think the next level is the next level. These new Web3 and AI power technologies can power a whole new economic system that’s global, that’s frictionless, that allows the individual user to be empowered. I think that’s the future that we’re moving towards ideally.

1:17:57 It’s going to be interesting to see how something like the U.S. government gets there which controls people with their currency. We’ll see how that goes. What’s a former filmmaker who wears cowboy hats doing as the CEO of a blockchain company? Do you ever ask yourself that? I think people probably ask themselves that when they look at me.

1:18:15 I mean I don’t think it was it wasn’t necessarily it wasn’t like a planned thing. It wasn’t like I said out and said I want to be an entrepreneur but I’ve always my whole life been entrepreneurial. So even as a filmmaker or producer I’ve always been entrepreneurial. We’ve always run independent companies. We’ve always raised financing independently.

1:18:37 Each movie is almost like its own company. It’s almost like its own startup. All the challenges that go into that. So I was well prepared for being a founder CEO of a technology company. You know I think of it as like any tech company. There’s all the growing pains you go through as an entrepreneur. I didn’t have the luxury of having like the Silicon Valley like pedigree where they just blessed me and like carried me on a litter and here you go here’s all the money kid. It was like I had to really figure it out and learn it.

1:19:09 We definitely made mistakes along the way. You know built products that didn’t have the right market fit and took money from some of the wrong investors and you know I would say we’ve almost made every mistake or I did as an entrepreneur but I think the good news is I learned from it so now six years in I feel like we’re poised to do some amazing things. But again like to me all that I really care about is creating maximum positive impact in the world through media and technology.

1:19:37 That’s as a human what drives me every day. Media and those stories we tell which changes the way that humans think like this is what you’re doing every day. You’re transforming the way people think and see the world the decisions they’re making which is not only changing their lives but it’s actually changing the entire planet because the planet’s being shaped right now by you know trillions of decisions being made by billions of people every day. That’s what’s shaping the world. Now we may not be conscious of those or those decisions might be driven by I’m just trying to get the carrot I’m trying to get the rent money so I’m over here doing this thing but ultimately like our collective decisions are shaping the planet we live on every day. So if you change how a human thinks at scale times that times a million hundred million billion people that’s the fastest way it’s really the only way to change the world. And then you look at technology well it’s changing the systems that change the way that we live every day and so that’s what got me excited about building technology and creating a company and leading it which has been incredibly difficult. I won’t lie like I could lie and be like oh it was easy and you know no problem. It’s like no it’s been very challenging and as I said to you before there’s times where you’re on the journey and you’re like looking into the abyss and you’re thinking oh man did was I supposed to go down this road? I don’t know

1:20:51 But then you come through the other side and you have a breakthrough and you’re like okay like yeah I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. My hope is at the end of the journey you know in terms of whether it’s with this company or with my life I’ll be able to look back and say you know what I reached my potential I impacted the lives of a billion people. Like I think Brock Pierce who’s an old friend of mine his whole saying of like the definition of a billionaire in the new world is someone who positively impacts the lives of a billion people. I think that’s a beautiful way to see it. I’d love to be a billionaire in that respect. I think we’d all love to be a billionaire in every respect but if I have at least a billionaire in that respect I will feel like I did what I came here to do.

1:21:29 Love that concept. I got to interview Brock at the future blockchain summit in Dubai in October then he came here and did an episode here and then I saw him on his boat in Dubai and that’s a great definition of a billionaire. That makes it even harder to accomplish. That’s a beautiful thing. One of my mentors says success is on the razors edge of failure and he always says if he ever speaks to anyone they tell them their business is going great that they’re lying and that’s just the ultimate truth if you’re an entrepreneur.

1:22:03 You’re always got a monkey on your back you’re always looking over your shoulder. Any success you know is short lived you know you have to constantly innovate if you want to survive and that’s just the truth and that can drive your team crazy but that’s the only way that you’re still here talking to me after six years. And again sometimes you can really wonder what the hell you’re doing but when you break through it’s like okay all right that’s why. I guess I am doing the right thing and that’s just the life that it is. I don’t think there’s any other way around that. Ten years from now what do you think Rainmaker is at? What do you think you’re doing?

1:22:37 That’s 2034. That’s when Michael Saylor says 99% of all the Bitcoin is going to be mined but what does it look like do you think? You know it’s interesting it’s hard to predict as fast as this is moving where we’ll be ten years from now especially as a company. I think you know like every company I think we look at you know do we build enough technology and value that some other company buys us or we license the technology. I think what’s a little different about coming from a web three or blockchain point of view is there’s this inherent view on decentralizing that value creation distribution.

1:23:18 Normally if you’re doing a tech startup you would want to build it get to a certain place have an exit. So in terms of Rainmaker is that something that we go down that road eventually? I don’t know the answer to that. Again my main North Star is how do we impact as many people as possible? How do we build technology that empowers as many people as possible because I think as long as we do that then the rest of the details will work themselves out. I think that AI is going to play an undeniable role in where we’re going and that ability to empower people so that those jobs that we used to have to work because we needed to pay the rent we no longer have to work because there’s autonomous systems that are doing that work and instead us as humans are empowered to actually be more creative be more innovative to create a world together where you know I just think of a tapestry of a human expression and I think if our technologies that we build can help to empower even just a fraction of that creative expression and empowerment then in 10 years then I’ll be happy that we’ve done what we were supposed to do. That’s that renaissance you’re talking about. Yeah I believe that’s a renaissance moment and we’ve had I think the promise is there I think in humanity we all feel it somewhere inside of us like it’s just there like we know that there’s this potential. There’s a dark there is a dark there is a dark idea or there’s this or there’s this counter

1:24:44 Energy to me like I represent that I walk around I carry the energy that we will do it as a species. That’s how I live my life every single moment every single day. I don’t care what the news media says. I don’t care what this negative naysayer that one says about me or that idea don’t care about it. I walk with that energy because I believe that’s the only way that we actually have a chance to turn this thing around and there’s a lot of people that would want you, me, your followers anyone listening to this video to have fear doubt and carry that energy and carry that darkness that oh no like humans are evil by nature and there’s no way we can solve these problems and we’re headed towards like an apocalyptic future where you know we’re like Mad Max and we’re scratching around in the dirt and you know you and I end up fighting over the last cup of water you know ten years from now we’re in the prairies of the U.S. and you see me and I see you and there’s a cup of water and we go and some people will leave that and that’s what they’re holding onto and what I told is a different energy.

1:25:46 Yeah that’s super important. We’re fighting over the last can of dog food like in Mad Max. That would be a luxury at that point. I ask this question sometimes JD if you could pick on the phone and call up 20 year old JD I’d like to meet that guy and give him some advice based on what you know now. What would you tell him?

1:26:04 20 year old JD was wild dude. He was definitely very wild. Well look I think what’s weird is that I’ve always had whatever I just share with you has always existed inside of me. That’s where I like everything I say about each human having this inside of them is based on my own experience of having this inside of me and wanting to figure out how do I bring this to the world. How do I find a way to not only bring it to the world but to make money at it, build a business around it, you know support a family. I have three kids. I’ve been a father since I was 24 so I jumped in very young to like that responsibility which definitely made me have to be more disciplined about finding a way to create businesses. I mean I’ve always, that’s why if you ask as an entrepreneur like how does a filmmaker wearing a cowboy hat think he can be like a CEO, founder of a blockchain company. Well because I’ve always had to eat what I kill.

1:26:54 My whole adult life has been kind of shaped by having to go out there as an entrepreneur with kids and a family relying on me and find a way to succeed and not always doing so, finding some guys that I failed when I was trying to succeed many times especially as an entrepreneur. But I would just tell 20 year old me that in spite of how difficult it might seem or how there might not seem to be a path towards bringing forth that dream to empower humanity at a global scale that actually 100% it’s gonna happen. And I think there was times when I was 20 that I felt a lot of despair when I looked around me and I saw like I’d see the homeless guy on the street in LA and I’d see a guy you know wearing Gucci’s stepping out of a Lambo, like stepping over that guy to go eat a $500 lunch or whatever. Nothing against that but to me like the stark contrast in the world where it was like there’s so much to the planet and I was acutely aware of like you know everywhere from Africa or the third world where people just again were struggling to survive yet there was all this like gross accumulation of wealth and so few hands.

1:27:58 So you had these people living in a way that like kings and queens couldn’t even imagine a couple hundred years ago or even a hundred years ago and then you had people living in like complete depravity and no hope. And so I think as a young man you know the whole Winston Churchill thing if you’re not a liberal when you’re 20 then you have no heart. I looked around like you know very progressive politically like how could this be that there’s such injustice in the world.

1:28:24 And so I think that fueled me in a lot of respects and I think as I got older you know that perspective becomes a little more balanced in understanding the dynamics of how you know the world is developing and how we all shape our own reality through our choices as individuals. And so I would just tell 20 year old me like to have hope and know that just trust the process and maybe not feel like so much like you’re in a hurry to get there because part of it is being able to be patient because I think sometimes when we look to rush we miss you know we miss what’s right there in that moment. Yeah. On that same note like to the 20 year old that’s listening right now located anywhere in the world I mean the states China Africa wherever you know they’re negotiating a different reality than you grew up in. Okay now it’s highly digital in some ways more divisive more stressful you know now they have a digital identity that to them is probably more important than their physical identity unlike when we grew up you know.

1:29:20 When I grew up the thing I had to have as a 16 year old was a car because a car represented my freedom. My 16 year old stepdaughter had no interest in a car because she had that freedom through the digital networks fascinating. Lord knows what my boys will want when they turn 16 but what advice do you give that 20 year old out there who’s trying to negotiate this world and also looking at blockchain maybe they’ve started to experiment a little bit and see this whole parallel financial system just thoughts from you.

1:29:48 What’s funny is I went through that with my boys like they get to be 16 and when I was 16 the day I turned 16 I got my car I was like I’m gone and for them it was like I got them there but I had to give them a little kick in the ass and they’re there that actually I think my 16 year old is about to get his license but not on his 16th birthday. So it’s interesting I in terms of generations I am the oldest of the millennial generation or my like literally the very so I kind of look at it as like I almost represent the vanguard that moved you know that generation that moved from analog to digital. So I remember what the world is like when it wasn’t digital but I also was right there as it became digital.

1:30:28 So I kind of have one foot standing on both sides versus like the fully digital native generation like my kids and your kids and those that are 20 now. I think the beautiful thing is anything is possible right now the tools that exist especially with crypto and AI and tools that are out there and products like literally a human can do anything like right now what a 20 year old can do I mean they have a huge advantage over dinosaurs like us is that they’re more native and fluent in it they can just step in and they just pick it up and absorb it. So I think between crypto currencies and financial empowerment on that side and blockchain and AI and the ability to create at scale like as an individual human I mean the tools that exist now and then I also think about on a global level there’s nobody that you can’t get to there’s nobody you can’t get to directly like you might have to get creative and you might have to actually really commit yourself you can get to anybody in the world now you know maybe it’s a little harder to get to like Joe Biden or Donald Trump or the Pope but I’m saying in general like the vast majority not that those are the first people people want to get to right now but you could get to you know you could get to a Brian Rose right you could get to people out there so like find those people that are your most inspired by that maybe you want to learn from and I think that if you if you try hard enough you’re going to be able to connect with those

1:31:50 People and they might help you to accelerate your path forward yeah JD we are super excited to be on this mission with you and Rainmaker and I think at the very end of our Zoom call we had weeks or months ago when you started talking about your core values and your commitment to this concept of freedom for individuals man everybody was just nodding their head like this including me and what you built is incredible the more I hear about it the more impressed I am the more I hear about it the more I’m convinced that you will be a leader in this space and be a massive massive part of this system and I’m just super excited man so thank you for all the hard work. Thank you for pushing through two bare cycles and you know wishing you all the best for the rest of this year token launch you know rolling out mainnet and announcing all these sports teams and all these partners yeah it’s just going to be epic being a part of that so thank you. Yeah thanks for having me man my pleasure man great convo alright man take care