Yat Siu - The Labour Of Our Time & Work Of Our Minds: Moca ID & Digital Property Rights For All

Full transcript: Yat Siu on London Real

3:08 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Yatsu, the entrepreneur, investor, business leader, and gaming pioneer. You are the co-founder of Animoca Brands, a world leader in entertainment, gamification, and blockchain innovation. To date, you’ve invested in more than 450 companies with the goal to build an open metaverse based on blockchain technology and deliver true digital property rights for all.

3:34 Your latest innovation is the Mochaverse ecosystem and the Mocha ID, a novel digital identity system which you believe will revolutionize the Web3 landscape. You have recently said that in the future, we as individuals will become the platforms. Yatsu, welcome to London Real in Dubai. Thank you so much for having me. It’s always a great pleasure to be here.

3:55 And that was a great intro. I’ll have to just use that going forward. No problem. You can have it. And it’s such a pleasure to sit down with you.

4:02 I always say you are the man that everyone needs to listen to when it comes to all things metaverse. You first educated me on the metaverse back in 2021. We had a remote interview. I didn’t really know anything about it. And it all clicked when you spoke to me that day.

4:16 Since then, we’ve had some epic conversations about what it means to have digital property rights. You taught me about your term, digital colonialism. And we’ve also invested in quite a few animoka ventures, including Mochaverse, Jason Ma’s Open and Life Beyond, which is the new metaverse that’s going to be built on the Bitcoin ecosystem. And so we’re really excited to be partners with you. And I can’t wait to sit down with you today and go deep.

4:42 Let’s start with maybe the state of the union. We are now entering the early parts of 24. When you look back, what was 2023 all about? And what are we looking forward to in this year and maybe even 25? So 23 was definitely a year of reflection, consolidation, and protection, shall I say. I actually just had a chat just recently about sort of, do you think your travel is going to be sort of relaxing out there that the industry is basically better off, better ground than sort of the year before. And actually, I was saying actually quite the opposite. I’ll probably be traveling even more. Last year I traveled primarily because we needed to communicate to our own industry why they should still be doing what they’re doing, why this mission is important, why this is greater than just, you know, there’s a greater purpose in building a world that has traditional property rights, you know, remind ourselves that this is, you know, there are going to be tough times, but what you’re building is really important for the future of humanity, frankly speaking, in terms of what we see today. But now in 24, it’s very much about sort of, well, now the market’s grown significantly, especially if you think about what happened in Q4. There’s a lot of excitement because of Bitcoin’s body TF and the entire market’s rebounded. I mean, it’s hard to even believe that an asset class like Bitcoin basically doubled from just a year ago.

6:00 I mean, you know, it’s, and if you think about it just a few months before that, it would have been actually more like triple. I mean, this is insane when you think about sort of such a significant asset that can sort of accelerate in this manner. And can I think, so maybe the way you think about it is that Web3 was really about sort of, you know, making sure sort of, you’re sort of protecting the base, right? And so it was, I went to a lot of crypto conferences as well, really just espousing sort of, you know, why are we here and what we’re here for. And this year, our mission is basically to expand the ecosystem, that this is about growth. So I’ll probably spend a lot more time in non-crypto conferences as well, telling people about sort of why you should enter the space and educating them. Because frankly, I think in the, you know, in 2023, talking to, you know, people who are critical of an industry and trying to bring them in would have probably been mostly a waste of time just because everything was against you. And in fact, people left the industry. I’m not talking about sort of, you know, VCs that sort of, you know, left for AI.

6:56 I mean, yeah, sure, that happens, right? I’m just talking about just a lot of people were sort of wondering, is this really the right thing? And one of the promises is that, you know, people often attach themselves to symbols. And that’s kind of how you sort of, they’re like memes in their own way. And FTX was a meme. I mean, you know, free FTX collapsed. He was kind of a hero, right? And when he fell, everyone was like, wait, what happened here? And there was a kind of cognitive dissonance in terms of, you know, am I actually doing a good thing? There was that type of thing as well. And then of course, we had the large albatross in the room, which was going to happen to Binance. And to be clear, Binance is an incredible thing for the industry. But there was a lot of concerns people didn’t know. But I think the Binance settlement really told us two things that gave clarity to the market, which is really, you know, all we can ask for. The first one is that we treated like a big bank, right? They joined the ranks of HSBC or like, you know, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, whatever group you named, basically sort of been penalized for KYC, AML sort of issues for a large set of money, to be clear, but one that was certainly digestible, I believe. And the second one, of course, is that it also told us that the US does appreciate, I think, that Web3, crypto and blockchain is here to stay. Because they could have done a lot

8:10 Worse things, and they didn’t. And that told us very clearly that I think while there’s going to be regulation, and obviously, there’s going to be rail guards and all the type of stuff that you should expect, what we should not expect, is an intentional wipeout of the industry. And a lot of sort of conspiracy theorists were saying, you know, America wants to kill crypto, it wants to destroy it. That’s not true at all, right? I think it’s very clear that, you know, it’s certainly different departments, you know, in US government don’t have that same vision. And I think in some ways, that is the beauty of the American democratic system in the sense that, you know, just because one group doesn’t like it doesn’t mean other groups have to agree with it, you know, you are still, you know, in a liberal system, which has to basically protect the interest.

8:54 Oh, either the majority of minorities doesn’t really matter. The point is that, you know, there is a discourse to be had. And it was very clear that basically, blockchain, Web3 and crypto are here to stay. They could have done worse. How?

9:05 Well, they could have sanctioned it. Right. I mean, they could have, I mean, they could have treated, they could have, if they wanted to, treated like a, you know, like a Mexican cartel or something like that, right? And that would have been pretty disastrous. And certainly, again, I’m not in the backroom conversations. I don’t know anything that happened there. But, but to me, you know, that was, that was available. There were many reasons you could justify if you wanted to. And they didn’t. And I think they didn’t do it. And this is pure speculation, because they also appreciated that it was important to people’s lives.

9:36 Right. I think those, you know, it was going to affect people’s lives. It was going to be something that was important. And it was also an innovation in technology that was here to stay. I should also point out that in 23, many other jurisdictions, places like Hong Kong, went the opposite way and decided, we’re pro Web3 and blockchain, we’re going to grow this ecosystem.

9:55 And Hong Kong has seen huge dividends from this approach. I mean, if you think what happened with both Apefest and Fintech, sort of the Fintech Festival in Hong Kong, actually late last year, it was a huge success with, you know, so many people from the world coming to Hong Kong for the first time, because of their sort of, I guess, big sort of emphasis on Web3 and digital asset. And you’re based there and you’re on the Hong Kong task force as well. They said six months ago that they were going to bring bringing retail in or open to retail.

10:23 They are. And they are. Yes, they are. So you have a certain set of tokens that are tradable for retail. You have two license exchanges now in Hong Kong that are officially licensed. We just announced a partnership with one of them, which is Hashkey. So, you know, to do some pretty, pretty critical stuff and to help onboard more people. And, you know, of course, Hong Kong, as in other places, has had its sort of, you know, fair share of sort of small standards here and there. But the point is, is that they understand that this is the path forward and that you have to basically sort of grow the space and you have to make it safe.

10:54 And to make it safe, you have to bring in regulated players and you have to put a framework for regulation. And, you know, they went out with a consultation paper on stable coins, for instance, Hong Kong launched green bonds, for instance, you know, and I mean, we’ve said this earlier, but the HKMA actually, I think last year, even sort of issued a statement to the banks, basically saying, hey, you know, companies that are in web 3D and crypto need a bank account, too. Basically, you have to bank. And that was sort of huge news.

11:21 I can’t think of any regulator in the world or monetary authority that would have sent a letter like that to all of their sort of banking constituents. So you’ve been impressed with the action, not just the talk. They’ve really backed it up and gone even beyond what you might have expected. And I think just to be clear, and I think, you know, Emily had coined this sort of frame this quite well when she said that it doesn’t necessarily mean that the regulation is easy. It just makes it clear. And so clarity is all you want. And I think this is what people want in the US as well. They don’t necessarily want, they don’t need it to be easy, right? You want to be compliant and they want to understand what are the rules that we all think makes common sense that we can rally around.

12:00 Probably when you don’t have rules, you’re pushing people offshore, you’re pushing people away. In some ways, you can apparently wipe your hands clean and say, that was none of my business. But of course, it’s your business. You have to get involved. And I think that’s a signal. Right. So that’s powerful for Hong Kong. You’ve been a part of it.

12:16 And it’s going to continue to grow. I’ve been watching all the parties you guys had out there. I’ve been very jealous. I am going to come to Hong Kong for sure. It’s a lot of fun for this year, because I want to feel kind of the flavor of what’s going on there. The most important thing isn’t so much just the parties itself. It’s just sort of the end state that you see. It’s the energy. What I’ve noticed is that the energy, not just in people in finance or in business, but especially amongst young people, and young people are excited because I think they see prospects, they see hope, they see a path in which they can make a difference and in which they can be part of something that is greater than themselves, which is really, I think, what most people ultimately aspire to somehow, a mission and a purpose in which you can also grow and benefit from.

13:00 And I see this very similar to kind of like the growth of a national identity. You know, when you’re part of a growth story of a country or a city or a place, you build together and you have a sense of pride in it. And, you know, there’ll be tough times, whichever, but you’re fighting for it together. And there’s hope and the people who are building it aren’t just the people who have money. It’s actually people who don’t have as much money, but they see an opportunity. And this is, I think, one of the reasons why I think Web3 and blockchain is very much unstoppable. It’s not just in what we might historically have classified as developing countries, say like Philippines or Indonesia or Venezuela.

13:34 That adoption is going to happen anyway. And places like Philippines are very, very pro-crypto now. I remember, you know, last year I had the opening keynote speaker at the YGG conference, which is, you know, all about blockchain games. The equivalent of Gary Gensler, essentially, their sort of SEC equivalent chair was a keynote speaker to basically extol sort of, you know, the importance and purpose and vision of why crypto is so important for Philippines. I mean, it’s a complete different contrast. But of course, we know that has had a major impact in the country. But also when you think about the younger generations around, everywhere around the world, actually, how do they get financial inclusion? How do they actually get a participation? It’s only Web3. I can’t actually think of any industry in the world today which can include more people into modern financial rails than Web3. A lot of activity, as you know, was happening, especially in 2013 on AI. And while AI, I think, is very much, has a potential and has already demonstrated to be a net good to humanity and has a lot of great potential, the ones who actually benefit financially from it is a small elite club who got into open AI or who got into perplexity or who got into whatever major AI company. Those are the beneficiaries. That’s the Web2 model. Those are the people who basically benefit from it. And the regular person, remember, when you start using the AI,

14:59 You’re actually enriching the AI as well. The value of the AI isn’t just data that they fetched. It comes from the prompts, the questions you ask. Digital colonialism all over again. It is exactly the same model. So in some ways, we’re receiving some value, but we’re being fooled again as to who actually receives the real value behind it.

15:18 And it’s the companies and institutions behind it. So we’re again, feeding the beast so they can sell stuff back to us at a higher price or whatever price. And I think this is, again, the part that Web3 change is so fundamentally. And why I think we see this rebirth that we’re seeing right now, sort of this rising of sort of Web3 and crypto that a lot of people had sort of, you know, written off that are not in the street a year or a year and a half ago, is because again, when you think of it, there is no other industry I can think of that can include really the masses to opportunity, hope, and financial inclusion.

15:55 Right. It doesn’t even hold a candle to all of the possibilities of AI. This will probably educate and onboard more people faster than any other tech app. Right. And I think of AI as an accelerant to Web3. I don’t think of them as two mutually exclusive categories or even two parallel categories. To me, they’re completely integrated because the regular let’s call it person will benefit from the growth of AI because of Web3 because he can now have ownership as opposed to someone who will just feed someone’s central database. They’ll just get richer and deeper and better and stronger. And then they’ll sell it to you. I mean, I think of, for instance, like Tesla, great innovation, wonderful. But every person who drives a Tesla is making the Tesla smarter. And then they sell you a car that’s more expensive next time because it’s a smarter car. It’s like, who did what work? And I’m not saying that the car doesn’t have value and that you shouldn’t pay for the car, but the point is you contributed to making the car more successful. And I do believe that there are categories of people. There are some people who contributed more value to the car because they drive more.

17:01 And so if someone drives more and gives more data, why should they pay the same amount of money for a person who barely uses a car? I mean, I think it was entirely different, actually, even though it’s still ownership of a car. And the value paradigm is all in the data that generates AI. Yeah, very much so. So we covered the West. We talked about the East.

17:23 Talk about this region because you just kind of got to the Emirates now. But before that, I think you were over in Saudi. Correct. And a few months ago when I was here for Future Blockchain Summit, you had announced, I think, a letter of intent with Saudi government, but now they’ve actually invested in Animoca Brands. What does that mean? What’s it like doing business with Saudi? What do we expect from that region?

17:45 So I think you’re referring to the NEOM partnership and announcement. And obviously, we’re really happy about this partnership. What it means is that Saudi as a region is now seriously looking at how to enter Web3 and Blockchain. NEOM is this crazy project, right? It’s basically building out this special economic zone that’s basically like a small, its own country. And for anyone who hasn’t actually looked at sort of vision and dreams of NEOM, do take a look at it, how the line, octagon, all these crazy, crazy sort of projects.

18:17 But for someone like myself and people in, let’s call it our part of the world, it’s actually not that crazy to essentially build a new country because that’s what China did. When you think of the power of a Delta, when you think of Guangdong Province, when you think of Shenzhen, we have seen for those who lived in Hong Kong, a place that was essentially marshland for a while, that essentially turned into probably one of the world’s globally more successful and fastest growing economic zones, probably in the history of mankind, over a really multi-decade period. And similarly, most people around the world, basically, Buput said, Chinese experiments are going to work, their approach is nonsense, they’re going to spend all this money and it’s all going to fail. And today, China is competing with the US as a preeminent economy in the world, right? And this comes from executing a vision of really wanting transformation, but it also needs to come with a kind of top down purpose driven force, which China had and Saudi has as well.

19:21 So there’s many parallels and that’s one of the reasons we decided to really double down on Saudi because we do think certainly for the region and potentially beyond, this could be the Saudi age because you have a very visionary leader who basically is inspiring the nation. Some of the interesting parallels that we’re seeing as well is who’s coming back to Saudi. So what really helped China grow was what we call the return of the sea turtles. The sea turtles are people from China who had left China because it was not so great. It didn’t have all the education, didn’t have all these benefits. They went to study in the US and Europe, whatever, and they built a life elsewhere. They never thought they’d go back to- Austria, some of them went- Yeah, there’s a few of us that went to Austria and we hung out at the Danube, and we came back. And why do we come back? Because we saw a vision, we saw potential, we saw opportunity, and we saw basically a place that we could build something in a stable setting where we could also potentially make an impact that really, really isn’t just better for us, but better for the entire community that’s involved.

20:24 And that’s the same spirit in Saudi. So when you go there, you’ll meet, especially in the big cities like Riyadh or Jeddah, you’ll see people who are just excited about the future. Young people are excited about the future. It’s also a very digitally sort of native place. I think over 80% of the population is under the age of 36 or 38. That’s very young and they all play games as well. So you have an e-sports minister, for instance, right? And Saudi is also the largest gaming investor in the world. They have a sovereign gaming fund, essentially with Sabi. That’s like $30 billion in size, right? It’s quite something. So they’re really trying to transform the country and they want to build essentially a smart city and they want to basically have a vision in which they can sort of build a future nation with the best available technology of that, including AI and Web3. And that’s kind of where we come in. Our role is to come in and help them basically build out that vision. And obviously it’s not going to be an easy project, but we’re really honored and excited because that’s, again, part of our goal is to create impact and purpose. And I think there could be nothing more impactful than being able to have a role in playing a vision of the future that is manifested in a physical sense. What’s it like to do business in the Middle East? I’ve gotten to know some people here in Dubai and some different shakes. And I remember I had a conversation with one of them

21:43 And he said, some Americans were going to come through town and they were going to be raising money for a fund. And they said, oh yeah, we’re going to fly in for a week and raise money. And yeah, and he looked at me and he said, yeah, good luck with that. And he said, they came and they talked to us and they left with nothing because over here, it feels like to do business over here, the relationship is first, the business is later. And maybe that’s similar in Asia.

22:12 It is very much similar to Asia. And it’s funny you would mention that because the very first time I met Sam as an SPF physically was actually in Riyadh at FII. And that was the one time, and the only time also, I guess, saw him in a suit. And some people were sort of commenting on the fact, after the fact, of course, were saying, Sam wearing a suit, maybe that should have been a warning signal. But either way, the point was that that was exactly what they were doing. A bunch of guys were coming in, basically thinking they could raise some money.

22:43 Clearly he needed to raise money, but people didn’t know the circumstances. But how many times did he visit Saudi? How much did he invest in the region? What did he do? Did he try to make relationships? And I think the answer would have been fairly small in comparison. We spent a lot of time in the region. We didn’t actually look for money.

23:00 The kind of capital that Neom is giving us is obviously a big sum. But in the context of our business, not the material part, we expect to be making more investments and more capital commitments that ultimately in the long term will exceed that amount. We actually invested in Saudi’s very first NFT marketplace, Nukta, before we even had conversations with government. We saw a vision in the future and a great founder. She’s a woman as well.

23:31 And to us, this was part of what’s exciting. It’s not that she’s just building in Web 3. She holds a woman in Saudi, which is breaking all the old stereotypes, which of course when you’re in Saudi, you know those don’t exist anymore. That’s what I heard. You get there and it’s not what the papers tell you it is. Exactly. But the papers are describing a Saudi, I mean certain papers, shall I say, are describing a Saudi that might have been five to seven years ago. But that kind of vision that was building out there, and it was exciting.

23:58 And we saw an energy. And so when you do seed investing, by the way, you can’t build on the classic fundamentals. I mean, when we invested in 2018 and 2019 in companies like Axie Infinity and OpenSea or acquired the Sandbox, that wasn’t an industry you speak of. You had to feel the energy and you had to look at the sort of the spirit of what they’re doing and whether you believe in the vision and you back that. Because at the end, especially at that stage, you’re backing people to build something. And of course a belief in the growing industry, but you’re not backing a sophisticated, mature business that had like proof of track record.

24:35 That comes much later. And we saw that in Saudi. And also because there were so many active gamers in my first meeting with The Prince, basically of esports shall we say, was an esports competition right now. We were watching Rainbow Six for hours, commenting on the game, which of course to me was also eye-opening because my expectation for our first time visit to Saudi some years ago was more like, are we watching Kamala races? I mean, I know that sounds terrible, but that was just kind of the impression you have from outside.

25:06 And no, they’re watching one of the most advanced video games duke about and learning about sort of that culture. So it’s very exciting. And I would encourage everyone to look at Saudi. Whether you can be critical one way or the other, I understand. We’re not asking people to go in just blindly, but you have to see it yourself. Because there’s a little bit like when people were criticizing China as well, for living in Hong Kong and doing business in China, all the criticisms that were put out were from people who hadn’t been really in China in many ways, saying the whole system will fail and there’s corruption and all that kind of stuff.

25:44 They haven’t seen it. They haven’t touched it. This is not to say that there aren’t problems that need fixing it, but that’s true for everything, I think. Progress is never a straight line. It’s also not linear in any way. And it’s also not predictable. If progress was predictable, it’d be a very different world. The whole point about progress, the whole point about growth is the fact that it is edgy because innovation in its nature is edgy. If you don’t have edgy innovation, you don’t have changes that can impact the world and uniquely transform it. To me, they go hand in hand. That’s why I think, again, it’s easy to throw rocks from a distance. Come and check it out. Yeah. Now, that’s really well said. Another thing that I think is a misconception in this region is it’s easy to raise money. And you’re talking to people that aren’t as educated as the New York bankers or the Hong Kong bankers. I think this comes a little bit down to the fact that, one, maybe it’s a little bit of convenience to say, I’ve heard this comment. I always have to correct it and say, this is very smart money. I think the thing that some people might not appreciate is that I think the region, and by the way, I think this is true for the UAE as well. They’re not afraid of taking bets.

26:59 So it’s not so much about whether it’s easy or not. It’s actually very difficult money in the sense that it’s not difficult in terms of once your partners are great partners, but due diligence, informing them, understanding, all that stuff, I think it’s up there with all the most sophisticated VCs, maybe even more diligent, because often it’s government money or it’s related to governments. And as you know, that’s going to be stricter. But I think it’s a little bit of convenience in terms of, well, I don’t want to raise money here, so it must be easy. Or maybe also a little bit of sort of justification, right? These guys don’t know what they’re doing.

27:37 And I think this comes also because when companies are raising money from other industries, it’s like, let’s say, when Scopli was acquired, for instance, or when I forgot the name of the esports company that was acquired, or when they made all the investments in gaming companies. A lot of the criticism came from gaming companies that didn’t receive the investment, right? And then it’s like, oh, yeah, they got it. It’s not that they tried, it’s more just like a sort of maybe a kind of potential sort of justification out of that. But what I wanted to say was that they’re not afraid of taking bets, meaning they’re not afraid of losing money for the right causes, I think, if it doesn’t work out, because they recognize that inherently when you take investments, there are risks involved. But if it pays off, the value is way more than whatever you may have lost in other areas. That is the nature of investment, by the way. If you invest in something that you want to be certain, then you are a very different kind of investor than if you’re an investor who wants to create transformative change. One of the other areas of investment that Saudi is doing is green energy, which is, by the way, the same thing that China is doing as well, right? It’s arguably very risky. How can you really predict where that’s going to go at this stage, for instance? But the fact that they’re making these investments, some that will go wrong, those that will go right, are going to go very,

29:01 Very right. Because if you believe in green energy and sustainable energy, then that’s the general path forward. Yeah. They’re clearly comfortable with risk here because they’re building the tallest building in the world and the most beachfront property ever, and they clearly have a comfortable relationship with taking risk. Of course, with that comes probably good doodle. It does. And I think also as you make more investments over time, the doodle just gets better and more sophisticated because they’re learning in the process, too. I mean, we’re here in Dubai. What is Dubai? I mean, Dubai is, to me, the physical metaverse manifested in the sense that there is literally sand, right?

29:43 And they built essentially stuff from scratch, right? You know, the conference I’m attending is at the Palm. I mean, that entire space did not exist. And here it is with luxury hotels and tourists and commerce and trade and a vision. And today, Dubai is a place which is not really dependent on its traditional businesses, right? I think I read somewhere or heard somewhere that I think the region was really well known for pearls. Pearl diving. Yeah, pearl pearls, yeah. I mean, wow. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? Dubai was one of the pearl diving centers of the world. I mean, good on them. But if you didn’t make any investments on the future and we’d be having fishing villages and pearl divers and no vision and future for basically the region. So yeah, I think it’s outstanding. You need to have bold vision to build a bold future. A physical metaverse manifested. It is what it is to me. And it’s not only the physicality we see, it’s the mindset. They put together a type of world that they want to live in with certain rules and disciplines and motivations. And now they’ve attracted to their sandbox, if you will. That’s right. The community and the culture that vibes with that environment. And so you have people that are moving here from all around the world, because this is quite frankly, a better place for them to be. And it usually involves commerce, capitalism, usually involves them making money and working and providing value to maybe people

31:16 Back home. And it’s just an incredible place to be. I mean, the principles to me is not that different from when you think about the historical philosophical discussions around what is the good life. And Dubai is a promise of a good life for a certain kind of person. It may not be the good life for every person. It doesn’t have to be. And I think it offers an opportunity for people who are looking for the things that you just mentioned, for growth, entrepreneurship, hope, opportunity that are greater, bigger, or better than wherever they might be.

31:44 That is the story of America, by the way. Why does everyone immigrate to America? I mean, America being essentially a nation of immigrants. Again, hope, opportunity, entrepreneurship, capitalism, all these things, again, to live the good life, whatever that may be to them. Yeah, it is. There’s a lot of weird parallels. And there’s a lot of places where those break down as well. And I almost was seeing these two different places maybe in different life cycles as well. And so I think the West can learn a lot from this place. Unfortunately, I think it’s blinded by its own past and maybe ego. And it’s hard to see maybe some of the benefits.

32:21 I think the West is maybe less struggled, my view would be. The past may be a little bit of a perfection, but I think unfortunately, I think they’re too focused on the present, as in they’re not focused on the future. They’re focused on the present in terms of obviously the problems, which of course is relevant and not saying that it’s not important. And then they’re touching, because if they actually went back to their past to try to solve problems in the present, they’d actually come to similar conclusions in terms of, oh, wait, capitalism, that kind of works. But actually, we’re going further into a different rabbit hole for political reasons that for gender purposes, a lot of people are now embracing an anti-capitalist narrative, which I think is really, really dangerous, which is actually not how those countries grew.

33:06 None of these countries grew and had success and brought opportunity and created the narratives that we see today because of an ultra-socialist or perhaps even communist direction. But yet those conversations are now coming back. And that’s fascinating to me. So they’re not learning really from history, because just actually open up the books of history and just take a look at what worked and what didn’t work and take that judgment. And I know people can pick and choose, but I think by and large, capitalism is actually what built the wealth of nations around the world, as Adam Smith so rightly put it. Yeah. And this is very important because this will probably dovetail in some of the things we’re going to talk about.

33:44 And my stepdaughter’s in Boston right now going to a university there. And conversations of Marxism are the standard there. It seems fashionable in some places almost. Yeah. And it’s fascinating because like you said a couple hundred years earlier, it was built on the opposite and also the things that come along with capitalism, which are certain freedoms that I’m sure we’re going to get into. What I always find interesting with you, Yat, is that we start talking about blockchain or crypto or the metaverse and we end up talking about property rights and freedom and maybe what’s best for humanity. And I think most people don’t see how those are inextricably linked. You’re one of the few guys that always really tells me that, and I’m always left really thinking hard that this isn’t just about some world where you put goggles on. This is actually just a reflection of our own real physical world and what’s really important. And you wrote a really fascinating article on Medium recently, and I’m still trying to get my head around it, even though it’s not a long article and people should check it out. But you titled it, The Labor of Our Time and the Work of Our Minds. And you started off with a very interesting assertion of this concept of content as a platform and even us as individuals of owning that content and of us being the platform.

35:02 And I’m wondering, why did you write that article? How do you have time to write that article? Because you’re traveling around the world. And one thing you didn’t mention earlier that I want to call attention to is there was a leadership vacuum after everything that happened with Benjamin Fried and all the other scandals in 2022. And let’s just say plainly, you and your team stepped up and got out there and told the world that blockchain’s here to stay and Web3’s here to stay. And nobody asked you to and nobody officially anointed you. And I’m sure you would be the first to say it wasn’t you, but you were out there with Robbie and all your people just saying the word. And so that’s noticed and really appreciated.

35:42 Thank you. And it was important for us to make people know that it’s greater than that. And so our purpose of going out and as I said in 23 and all the travel was really to in some ways evangelize the space, but also to remind people that it’s not just about prices for instance, that it’s about a bigger thing, about digital freedom, about digital property rights, and that what we’re building is really ultimately of great benefit to humanity. And also, I mean, I may have said it earlier in your show as well, is that I actually think it also helps save a capitalist narrative. I mean, last year was a year where I spoke about this on the TED stage, which was an incredible experience at the same time, somewhat terrifying as I had probably shared with you. But important because that’s when I realized also that so many people didn’t understand what Web3 and blockchain and what crypto can really create and what the opportunity really is to people and to humanity. Did people get that, people could watch that talk online, it’s short, right? So it’s under 10 minutes. It’s like in a minute. Right. What was the reaction and did you find that people understood or could start to understand what Web3 was as opposed to a bunch of degens they could literally see, you know, in reflecting humanity?

36:53 So, I mean, I think that talk and subsequent conversations with different people actually really helped solidify the thinking that this was much greater than just what they see, because obviously when people talk about Web3 and crypto, often they just look at the price of Bitcoin, and that seems to be it. And the problem is that when you just look at prices, you kind of get blinded to what it really means. It’s like saying, you know, you look at currency prices or you look at stock prices and it’s supposed to mean something somehow, right? Yes, there’s value attached to it, but it’s beyond that for instance, right? And I think that’s actually when they understood that, you know, they could change capitalism at the fact that actually, yes, we are digitally colonized and that we are existing in the world where we’re giving value to the platforms that are actually essentially taking over all of our value and then basically spitting it back to us in like small chunks of many, many value and then selling it back to us.

37:50 Like all these things, once you think about it, you actually realize, wait a second, I am living in, you know, a dystopian metaverse, one which is completely controlled by those platforms. And, you know, I said this many times, you don’t own your Instagram handle. You don’t know, I mean, you know this yourself. I mean, your videos got de-platformed or content that someone disagreed with, for instance, but who is that person that disagreed with on that content? I mean, you know, I think, take Facebook as an example. Even recently, I think Canada had a problem with their news agencies distributing their news freely on Facebook because there was a conflict around prices that Facebook said, I want to pay that. So a centralized institution basically threatened, not threatened, took down effectively, I would say, the very thing that’s supposed to be a guardian of the democratic institution of a whole nation.

38:49 I mean, just think about it, right? And, you know, they say, yeah, you could access it differently or that kind of stuff, but that’s not true because we know today that most people will get their news on these type of platforms. They don’t go to the website, they get it from the platform. So the role is far, far more relevant than just saying you have choices because just because you have a choice doesn’t mean that actually you can reach it or don’t even know how to reach it because Facebook’s not encouraging you to say, well, you can’t read it here, but guess what?

39:17 You can go here and here and read it, right? They’re not doing that. They’re just not giving it to you. To me, that’s the same as censorship. And why do they have the right to censor anything?

39:26 And so that’s the issue, right? And in a government, in the country, you have a judiciary. At the end of the day, you have a court system. You can go and say, you can’t evict me, or you can’t take this away from me. But in the current web to platforms like Facebook or X or YouTube or Google or whatever you want to name it, actually, you don’t have any rights.

39:47 No, no. And that’s why I listened a little more intently when I listened to you yet, because I am on the sharp end of that stick right now. I had content that I spent 12 years putting up in my content, 2.4 million subscribers on YouTube, 14,000 videos. Most of my life is up there. I thought it was my digital property, but it wasn’t. And so it’s been taken away from me.

40:11 And now, my own freedoms of expression were threatened. I cannot take it to any court. I can’t even really talk to the company about it. And they use that threat now as a means of controlling everybody else. Now, some people I mean in the street say, oh, this is a good thing, Brian. Now people know that you’re censored and they can see it. I’m like, no, no, censorship works out of sight, out of mind. And that’s what they’ve done to me and many others.

40:36 And most people don’t know what’s happening. The insidious thing about this type of action, which by the way, is what typically is a hallmark of dictatorships and places that sort of have tyranny, even if you call it a benevolent dictatorship, is that you start to self-censor, because you start to say, well, maybe I shouldn’t say that, even if I think it’s important, because of the consequences that may happen. And that’s actually really dangerous. Freedom of expression doesn’t mean you get to insult people. I think there’s a distinction between that. You don’t get to hurt people. But you do get to share opinions that might be uncomfortable, or you do get to share something or talk about something that maybe someone doesn’t want to hear. And because of this emergence of a very strong cancel culture, people are worried about that. And then who ends up driving that aspect of that culture, someone somewhere gets to decide what is right or wrong. But he wasn’t actually appointed, whether it’s through a democratic process or a delegative process, it doesn’t really matter.

41:36 That person was not appointed in that role, because the people in the platform said, you’re appointed. It’s one thing if we get to elect maybe our censors, maybe some of those issues. But it also means that I don’t like what you just did. Everyone knows that it’s controversial. So maybe I can change that. The promise is that we don’t have that choice.

41:55 We don’t even know who they are. And they’re kept anonymous intentionally. The problem is that if you are worried about anonymous hackers in crypto and web3, or just anonymous people, you say, oh, he’s anonymous. So that’s bad. How can I trust you if you’re anonymous?

42:12 Then how should we trust an anonymous censor who I don’t know who you are? How do I know that you’re accountable for your actions when I can never find you? And again, it’s not for the threat. It’s for being accountable. Because if I know who you are, then my actions, even if they are unpopular, I live by a standard that I think there’s a reason and I’m ready to defend it because I’m willing to stand up for it. And anonymity works both ways. And that’s a problem in web2. Actually, all of our censors and all of the people who are controlling our rights are actually deeply anonymous to us. And yet that is okay. And yet when you’re anonymous in web3, that’s not okay. That’s a double standard. Massively double standard. And I hope people starting to see that. Obviously, if web3 continues to develop and people see those options and those parallels, it might be a bit like Bitcoin shows us the downsides or the problems with fiat currency. And hopefully we’ll get to a place. And by the way, just to close that thought, that’s also one of the reasons why we think Mocha ID is so important. Because we’re not about creating an anonymous world. Because the problem is that when you are anonymous, you kind of start to have less responsibility, or you disavow yourself of your responsibilities.

43:21 You’re saying that’s not me, because you can kind of pretend. And we see this, by the way, we see this in the early days of the web as well, if someone has an anonymous handle or handle you don’t know, they start acting in a way that’s not civil, or that’s not polite, or that’s not even appropriate, or maybe even aggressive. And so things like Mocha ID, which is, again, a way in which you can actually have now a public identity, but in a decentralized fashion, which is truly owned by you, you can start building reputation on top of it.

43:47 I don’t need to know that your name is Brian. Some people might want to put their name, but maybe I don’t need to know your name is Brian. But now you have a reputation that gives you all the benefits of having maintained a good reputation as in a good citizen, but at the same time also makes you think twice about abusing a situation, because you have something to lose. And this is the whole thing about how civil society works. And it’s somebody who’s going to go out and do really bad things, because he’s concerned, not necessarily just because he might get sent to jail, or have to pay a fine, is because the rest of society around will say, wait a second, what kind of a dude are you?

44:21 What are you doing here? Why are you stealing or whatever it is that you do? The social reputation around you is the defense of the social order and the social system. And if you’re anonymous, actually you can’t have that. And so you have more like anarchy.

44:35 And so I think the daily system is necessary that still has a way of protecting the kind of things of privacy that’s necessary. Because for instance, Instagram, you and I probably get, I mean, I certainly for myself, and I think it’s true for you too, we get impersonated all the time. People who are taking our fake names, are taking our name, but they’re being fakes, contacting our friends saying, can you send me some money and all that kind of stuff, right? Why? Because they can just pretend to be us. And there is no system for us to say who we really are. And that is an authentic person. And the person on the other end, he has to sort of guess and contact or do whatever before he really knows whether this person is real or not. This happens on all platforms, because we don’t have a way of doing it. Because the only authority that actually understands who you really are is the central authority, as run by the sort of black box that won’t tell you whether you’re real or not.

45:27 And doesn’t have a system of scaling it either. And maybe in some cases doesn’t want to either. So these are all things that are hidden to us. And a decentralized ID will solve that, like what we do with Mochaverse. It’s interesting, before we go into Mochaverse and Mochaide, I think a lot about this concept of privacy and everyone says, I want my privacy. But if you think about when we used to be hunter gatherers or in the tribe, we all used to be able to watch everybody else. And if you weren’t pulling your weight, and you were going to hear about it from the tribe. Now, if you’re a grandma, that means maybe you’re knitting the socks. And if you’re a mama’s son, you’re taking care of the kids. And if you’re a young man, you better go out and hunt that buffalo. But I mean, I always see it. Everybody could see what everyone was doing. And they had to be a part of the greater unit. It’s a system of accountability. It is. And it’s very human to have that. And yet, with the internet in certain ways, it’s a great way not to be accountable. But we really want it because reputations are important. And we follow people that have behaved in certain ways. And I don’t believe that people don’t want to be accountable. I think that at the end of the day, because everyone’s social, we do want to be connected. And we do need to have connection with whether it’s small groups, big groups, whatever that may be. And in order to actually be someone

46:40 In a social system, you have to have a degree of accountability. There’s no such thing as a leader that’s not accountable. I don’t think that’s possible, for instance. But the problem I think is that’s what happened with this sort of assumption of anonymity. It allows people to do things where they… Again, it is not that most… This is another thing. It’s not that most of the world is bad. There’s some people that have sort of this more Hobson view of the world that basically say, we need to protect everyone because most people are greedy and they’re bad and all that kind of stuff. I don’t believe that at all. Because if that were true, we all must be living in a police state. That’s the only way to control humanity if we all are tending negative. But in fact, I think we are broadly positive. And I think the legal systems in place are really to protect against the outliers. The outliers are the negative players. It’s not that everyone is an SPF, for instance. It’s like one or two of them as a percentage do this. So we need to protect against those guys. But if we build a world in which we assume that we’re really all bad, then actually we won’t have freedom. Because sort of freedom actually is a pendulum shift between safety and freedom. And I think the reason we can have a civil conversation, a stranger can come up to you in certainly most places in the Western world where you don’t have to worry about the fear of reprisal and so

48:04 On. People aren’t being nice to you because they’re like, well, if I’m bad, I’m going to get caught by the police. That’s not the first thing most people think. They’re just being civil because it’s nice to be civil because it’s natural to them. Yeah. No, I think you’re right. But it’s those outliers you have to protect. And online, they can multiply and be buck on bot.

48:22 So they become the voices. And they actually create an illusion that that’s what this is because they start, because they’re nefarious actors, so they do more damage. And so we do need a way of managing this. And the way to manage this is essentially by making it transparent. Like with almost everything in life, if you open it up, if you sort of lift the veil, as it were, then it’s hard to hide. It’s like shine some sunlight on it and it cleans it up.

48:46 And that’s why we do need an identity system that can preserve your privacy. This is where zero knowledge proof is fantastic, but still ensure that your reputation that you know, okay, maybe I don’t know your name is Brian, but I know, you know, your red tux, you’ve got mocha and red tux of mocha is a great guy because he buys these NFTs, he’s active in the community. He has a reputation. I don’t know his name is Brian, but I want to do business with him because he’s proven that he’s a good guy. And over time, he’s built his reputation. And then for you, maybe you don’t want to reveal your name, but you also don’t want to lose, you know, basically, you know, red tux mocha, because he’s the person who has reputation. And we used to identify that sometimes with companies we build, or with other identities like, like symbols, for instance, or in some cases, religion, for instance, those are other ways in which we attach ourselves to that identity.

49:45 And part of this religious group, I’m Christian, therefore, you must be good. I mean, again, these are not correct assumptions. But that was kind of what that meant as well, because there was almost a club, a safety of that. That was another way in which you can verify your safety, because the rest of the community vouched for you. And that’s what we can now see in spades and web three amplified. So if you’re a web, you know, if you’re a body holder or sandbox land holder, for instance, the rest of the community can now vouch for you and build your reputation, because of how you’ve been in a community. And so you’re verified, not by, you know, just who I say I am, but by what others say about you.

50:20 Right. So let’s talk about the mocha ID vision. And I remember when you told me about it, I think the first thing I said is, you’ve been working on this for years, or maybe this was one of the ultimate goals of animoca. And I don’t know if I got that right, but it’s something that it’s it feels like online, people have been trying to chase it for so long with the blue ticks and to get rid of the robots and let’s do this. But like, you know, you’re really explaining why it’s so important to have that identity. And it’s never really been solved. So when we first wrote about this concept in 2018, called content is a platform, we describe the world in world content itself, essentially, which is a digital asset in Web3, because it’s not just content, is a way in which you can build experiences and platforms on top, because communities build around. So instead of going to the app store, and simply to steam, or to someplace to experience and because that’s where the platform is, because you’re on someone else’s platform, ownership becomes a platform in itself. Now, the extension of that is that you then get that ownership one level deeper, which is your identity, because actually, the purpose of why I want to have the content become the platform or be of any platform, doesn’t matter whether it’s what we described in Web3, or whether it’s sort of, you know, what we’re doing with Apple, or so on, is I want to reach a human. I’m not actually

51:44 Participating in Apple, because I’m, you know, like in the app store ecosystem as a developer, because I have an interest in how great the AI is, or how beautiful, you know, the phone is, or something. I mean, maybe some of us do, but most of us engage in platforms because they want to reach humans. And so humans, to me, are the ultimate platform. Everything we do. I mean, even when you think about mid journey, beautiful art created by an AI. But who do you delight?

52:16 You delight a human. There’s not some AI high fiving each other. That was pretty cool. It’s other humans around the world say, I like this, I don’t like this. So the human is the ultimate customer, user, and platform, as in we want to reach them. So think of it slightly differently. Imagine in the physical context, you could reach every Lamborghini owner in the world authentically. Today, you might try to target people in the Lamborghini Facebook group that I don’t know how many followers it has, but I’m going to guess it’s going to be millions of people. Lamborghini never made millions of cars, right? Which means that your hit rate of, you know, targeting the Lamborghini fan community is going to be less than 1% to actually reach someone who actually really owns one and is really the customer you want to reach. Which of my advertising is essentially mostly a miss it industry. I mean, people talk about targeted advertising. And then we talk about conversion rates that are in the single digit percentage.

53:10 When you imagine playing darts, and you’re basically just hitting darts, and you’re mostly missing, and you only have a one to 5% chance to say, that was a great game. What game is this, right? Who benefits from missing the whole time? The platform is too, it’s part of the system. So in web three, you could target that customer directly, because you now know he owns his NFT, or he has his ID. And I may not know your identity, but I do know authentically you’re that person. So instead of trying to reach, you know, one to 3 million people in some vast market with which really a small percentage actually only assets that are worth targeting, you cannot go to every single Lamborghini, or Rolex owner, or person who lives in downtown London, or person who lives in DFC, whatever that means, you can reach that person authentically.

53:55 And you don’t reach him just by pushing advertising. That’s not how it works. You give the benefit to that person, you say, hey, I know you own a Rolex, come to my Michelin star restaurant experience. And let me basically show you what new cool products I have, which is what they do. But how do you reach that person? You don’t really know how to do that. You can’t actually afford to do that for a million people. But you can afford to do that for the thousands of people who are authentically the target you want to reach.

54:21 Today, we spend billions, hundreds of billions of dollars in targeted so called targeted advertising to try to reach those customers with a single digit percentage, no single digit percentage conversion rate. I mean, just think about how crazy that is. It’s crazy. How can you call it? I mean, to me, this is, it’s not targeted advertising. It’s no different to me than putting up a billboard. And it’s designed that way. So web two companies make a lot of money.

54:48 Exactly. And then how much of that money goes back into the very ecosystems that paid this money? Almost nothing. Zero, right? Zero, right? So it’s a highly extractive tax that doesn’t actually go back. And of course, these companies are really, really good at optimizing their tax, because it sits in Ireland, or wherever it is. And the consequence, of course, is that, you know, it doesn’t even go to the public coffers. The worry can be maybe put out in public infrastructure spending with that kind of stuff, right? I mean, they all go and say, yeah, but we pay our taxes. But it’s clearly optimized. I mean, Apple is sitting on 163, I think, billion dollars of cash. And I was reading that the top 13 wealthiest companies, which are mostly tech companies in the world, are sitting on a trillion dollars of cash right now.

55:28 A trillion, right? And of those companies, how many of them are actually actively investing in the very ecosystems that made them? And the answer is very, very little. I don’t have stats for this. But the fact that we have worked through, obviously, well, we as a company, as an animal, the brands have done over 450 investments in probably the last three, four years.

55:48 I think trumps the investments of probably all of those big tech companies combined over the same period. And that is crazy. We don’t have that kind of cash. Of course, we believe in the different ethos. But the point is that they could easily do that. And if they actually put money back into the system, if Apple created an ecosystem fund, and they took five or 10% of their cash, two things I think will happen. One, it’ll be bigger than any VC put together, right? In terms of like, you know, I think, you know, it’ll be like 16 billion sort of ecosystem fund. I mean, that’s like, you know, huge, right? Certainly bigger than most VCs I can think of. It would create a lot of excitement in the app store economies.

56:32 It would help people, you know, small indie game developers really sort of maybe, you know, or any indie developers really sort of come up because they can’t get any discovery or other opportunities in the space. And also, I think they would not have a problem paying 30% tax, because that’s the thing. When you pay a tax, you do so happily when you know the benefits come through, right? Whether it’s Social Security, whether it’s police force, whether it’s infrastructure, if you have nice roads, if you can conduct business safely, I’m happy to pay tax. But if the only reason you pay tax is the right to exist, which is what happens in most of these platforms today, and that’s highly extracted. So they have to put back into the ecosystem and they don’t, right? And so this is basically where I think Web3 really changes that.

57:15 And, you know, maybe just to sort of tie the knot on this, the reason why we describe that with Mocha ID, you can basically become the platform, is that I think that we are all platforms anyway, in our own way. Not just because we own stuff, and we want to be targeted, as I just described, but because we are influencing our own circle, because we’re social creatures. You’re a platform, I’m a platform. Some of us reach bigger, more people. Some of us reach, reach lesser people. That’s okay. That’s what Instagram and tech talk and Facebook harvested from us. We are our own platforms and we made them in aggregate the biggest platforms in the world. But actually, in the real world, you, your own platform, you get to monetize yourself pretty well, through your relationships, through your business, through your contacts, right? And you can build from that. But in Web2, you gave it to them.

58:06 So we’re not, not platforms. We’re already platforms. We haven’t found a way between and decentralize that because in the Web2 paradigm, there was a technical limitation. Someone had to host it for you. Someone had to maintain the service platform for you and do whatever they did and to sort of adjoin these network effects. But in Word 3, the network effects is on a common shared network or a blockchain. And that means we can all see each other and we can all build on top of each other. And that to me is the ultimate vision, where I’m not saying that social networks will go away, but the value shift of who gets most of the value in those new future social networks will go to the end user, will create more common prosperity, will create more growth, will create more wealth. And obviously, I think reshape sort of capitalist paradigm. There were a lot of people commenting around how capitalism is dead, right? And I think, I think Yanis or Fakas describes it as techno feudalism, right?

59:03 The former sort of finance minister of Greece. And I agree with the term techno feudalism. I don’t agree with his diagnosis though, with the idea that sort of, but he is right about one thing, which is that capitalism in these platforms is actually dead. So the death of capitalism isn’t just caused by, let’s call it quasi-socialist or sort of Marxist beliefs or growth in these beliefs. It’s actually driven by the flat that none of these platforms actually are a market.

59:35 Facebook’s not a market. Instagram’s not a market. Their platforms generate a market that suits them. When I do advertising, it’s not a market. There’s no bid ask. I have no idea whether the person who’s selling me a space is actually offering this. It’s not like a goal, I’d like to buy advertising. Brian, I want your channel. I’m going to sort of use a platform to charge, you know, I’m just randomly advertising into channels that could potentially target you. But their platform decides whether I get 5% Brian, 10% Brian, 1% Brian, or no percent Brian. I don’t know.

1:00:11 That’s not a market. That’s actually really much closer to a socialist market system where the state controls your property. And that’s what we have today in Web2. So the irony is that we say, yes, these are the richest sort of institutions in the world because of capitalism. But they’re powerful and they’re extractive precisely because they do not run capitalism in their own companies.

1:00:40 Right. And of course, we would expect that to happen if they take away our digital property rights, then how could capitalism thrive on this platform? Correct. And if we had them, there would be more commerce. Correct. Now, they wouldn’t necessarily keep as much of it, although they might. It would grow. It would grow. Yeah. But the user would share and it would grow. Yes. But since they’re not there, it turns into this really weird kind of, you know, monopoly socialist entity. Yes, exactly. I mean, it is literally the platforms, you know, in I guess a few quote marks, they control the means of production.

1:01:15 And so on one hand, you could say, you know, yes, it is, you know, when you think of it as a company, you say, well, isn’t that capitalism? The company owns a means of production. But I don’t think of these platforms as companies with the size of people they’re operating and running their nations. They’re like a state. You know, if you are able to cut off news of a whole country, that is no longer a company. That is essentially a state and has the ability to basically sort of, you know, direct your future and decide everything around you. And actually even the kind of news that I get fed, I don’t know how that works. I have no idea that what, you know, how the algorithm sends stuff to me. It’s not a neutral algorithm.

1:01:52 It’s not run by a constitution. It’s not run by a democratic process. None of that is free for us. Right. And so to me, I think this is why, you know, we have all these problems in the world. And so the way to break it up is essentially to build on blockchain in Web3, where we all become the platforms ourselves. And every NFT project, small as MAB, are generating much more value than any of these other platforms. And there’s a thing about something like board apes or even MOCAverse, right? When MOCAverse first started, it was a community of thousands of people, but it grew much bigger. But this community of thousands of people already had economic weight, that everyone who participated in it could benefit, kind of like a small little social network. Everyone who owns land and sandbox is the own kind of social network. Everyone who owns apes and board apes is his own social network.

1:02:43 Like, name the NFT project. That’s your community. Doesn’t really matter if it’s big or small. The point is that I have direct access to them. I’m not sitting on a platform, and we all get the benefit. And you can see the value formation. A user in Web3 is literally worth hundreds times more than a Web2 user for precisely that reason, because one is a free market economy, and the other one is not an economy.

1:03:05 Yeah, we just invested in a company called Shrapnel, and I had the CEO, Mark Wong, on the game, and he’s had a vast experience in the AAA gaming world. And he said, look, he said, we ran the numbers. We need one one-hundredth of those users, or less, to create a very viable company. And not only we make money, but everybody makes money, in fact. Because, I guess, because of that concept. Because of property rights.

1:03:28 Property rights. I mean, imagine your physical world without property rights. Imagine if everything was state-owned, and the state decided what you should get or what you shouldn’t get. Well, outside of the abuse of power, that means you couldn’t get a mortgage on anything. That means you wouldn’t have the right to develop a product or service for someone unless you get permission. That means we wouldn’t have the kind of diversity in clothes or whatever, because someone has to decide first whether these type of clothes are okay. In fact, maybe someone says, I don’t know if red suits are okay. You know, that doesn’t, you know, there is no free market, because we don’t have the ability to exercise our free will.

1:04:08 And that really is, I think, one of the biggest problems. I think it was one of Yuval Hari’s last books that I was reading, where he even says, even further than that, it’s the worst way to process information. Because capitalism can process that information, if you think of it just from that way, it makes the best decisions, usually on a local level, about what decisions to make. And as soon as you take that away from source, right, so the guys chopping down trees don’t make the decisions, the government makes them. It actually just becomes a really inefficient way to do anything.

1:04:37 Completely. And then everybody pays the price for that. And I guess we’re seeing that embodied in the value of capital being created when you pass that ownership on. Now, this concept of an ID, a lot of people have had this before. How are you guys going to execute on it? I know at one point, I was looking at some of your numbers, and you potentially have access to like 700 million users in the web, in the addressable space, because of all, I guess, the games and the potential interaction. So you guys have a really, a bigger chance of maybe making this thing finally work. How are the people tried? What are the mistakes? And then what are the challenges that even you’re facing?

1:05:18 So I think the biggest mistake that we’ve so far seen with any ID system, decentralized or not, is that they say decentralized, but they don’t really mean decentralized sometimes. They’re trying to control too much of it, partially because the traditional paradigm of the data is the ownership of the data. So if you’re building an ID system, you’re actually wanting to control the data because that’s how you have value capture, at least in the traditional sense. Obviously, a truly decentralized ID actually means that the value of the data and the ownership of the data actually belongs to the end user. Now, give you an example of how that might work. Let’s say data is distributed around 30 or 40 different companies, because I might be paying shrapnel, or I’m paying for kana here, I’m paying axi infinity here, I’m paying sandbox here, and I use the same ID to access all of them. In the web two paradigm, or the traditional ID system, like a Google login, whatever, the data itself gets shared in a single platform, and they own this. And then we trust that they won’t abuse or use some of that knowledge to whatever advantage. And this is the issue. Because while they may not say publicly or release the information that Brian played these four games, or he was in life beyond and he was playing Phantom Galaxies, they won’t say that. But they’ll give the aggregate AI mushed up data that gives them the analytics that says, well, people like Brian, like to play these games.

1:06:39 Therefore, we can do this, this, and this, and the other. And we’ll push him this game, or push him that product and service, right? That’s the abuse. This type of access to this information needs to be a market. And that market needs to be controlled by some key that says, okay, if I want that data from Brian, I need to pay you something, or I need to make you an offer for it. Say you’re okay to do that. And that’s where the Mocha ID comes in handy, for instance, because they just become keys for someone else to say, I want to access the data.

1:07:06 And so if I want to access 30 different data sources, for instance, and say, I want all these connections, because I need this for my analytics, then either he has to pay, or at least the end user can agree to say, the benefit is so great, I’m willing to do so. Right now we don’t have on-off switches, right? I mean, I’m just signing on with Google login, or I’m signing on with Facebook, or X. I have no idea what’s being shared both sides of the table.

1:07:32 And one side is enriched. And I just simply get permission to access the platform. But actually, the data I generate there, some of that ends up going to the centralized platform that basically just keeps farming us, right? And so this is where a 2D decentralized ID functions differently, because we actually will not end up owning and storing any of that data, except for things that we might do ourselves. To enrich the data, the end user has to give permission. For instance, let’s say he uses his ID to play pixels. That’s great. What happens in pixels, we don’t actually know most of what’s going on there. But if I want that pixels information, then I have to get permission. And the ID becomes a way in which the data that’s from those gets maybe fed up to whichever platform that analyzes it. And it becomes a market because I can say, okay, I’ll share this data in exchange for something or the other, whatever that may be. Is it an NFT? Is it a token? And we see some of that already in the form of airdrops. I mean, it’s a very primitive form, right? So airdrops is a way to reward people for an activity that gives data, that gives value of some sort. It’s not sophisticated, right? Digital identity and the growth of the reputation system and building with a point system and the mochaverse are all ways in which you can enhance that reputation later. But giving airdrops or giving free NFTs, allow lists. I mean,

1:08:53 These are all mechanisms that are trying to basically give value to people for contributing with their time, effort, and data. And think of this as simply multiply it and expand it in a way which your reputation can now actually now be amplified so that you can get more benefits. Because if you’re a person who has a good reputation because you create great value to the ecosystem, you will probably get higher value airdrops or more value in the same way that if you own a Lamborghini or if you live in a certain district, you’ll get more benefits because the company says, I want that customer because he or she has done amazing things.

1:09:28 That’s how we foresee the future. I mean, if you own a board Abe, for instance, you get more benefits because you own something that’s valuable. And on chain, you can even analyze these statistics. You can say, okay, he’s owned the board Abe and he hasn’t sold it for two years. Maybe that means he’s a great holder and he’s someone that I want as a customer.

1:09:46 So I’ll give you a benefit. And this is the other thing. This intermediates the advertiser because we can go directly to the customer and give them that benefit. In the gaming industry, the cost of converting to a paid user is $86. Poof. That’s because it’s a low single digit conversion rate. So it may appear that the advertising is a couple of bucks or sometimes, in most cases, $10 to $15. But the actual converted user ends up being about $86. And as I shared, almost all of that money that’s been paid in advertising actually doesn’t go back to the gaming industry as a whole. Now imagine, instead of paying that $86 to the platform, you pay to the end user, whether it’s an NFT, whether it’s tokens, whether it’s something.

1:10:34 But he may just sell it. Oh, thank you for that. It’s like going to a party and there’s free food. 10 people buy. Most people just have the free food, have some champagne, their cost, right?

1:10:47 And then they leave, maybe. But for the people who convert, who you just gave money to, the chances of their conversion is much higher. The chances also of them being loyal customers, much, much higher. The chances of them feeling grateful for the activity and maybe saying, hey, you know what? I didn’t buy something, but they have great food. Or they really know how to treat your customers well. Or it’s an opportunity to directly engage with the core audiences that you want to build up. It’s infinitely more powerful. And of course, ultimately, the money goes back to the target customer, or a large part of that value goes to them. And of course, if they make more money, they’re going to put it back into the ecosystem, maybe not in your ecosystem, but they’re going to put back in the ecosystem that you’re trying to promote. So if 86 dollars, or any sum that’s higher than what they get today, which is zero, actually ends up going to a gamer, even if that gamer doesn’t buy your game that you promoted, he will have spent that money on another game. And that other game will grow, which brings more people in, which grows the ecosystem. So that money isn’t just going to someone else. It’s growing the industry as a whole. That’s why Web3 is growing the way that it is, because even if one game grows and the other one doesn’t do as well, the whole ecosystem grows, because that’s how the network effect is shared across, because of what I just described.

1:12:08 Okay. And how is it going with Mochaverse, the Mocha ID rollout? You’ve also got NFTs that are going out to some of the Mocha ID people. You sent me a Neo Capitalist NFT, so thank you so much for that. I’m so honored. You know me well. And so that also is just a perk that goes alongside my identity in the future. Just explain how some of this has worked. And also the community seems really amazing and really engaged. And yeah, I got a lot of direct contact from people saying, oh, you’re Mocha fam, you’re Mocha fam. It was really interesting how I’ve got it in a community now. Yes, exactly. That’s right. I mean, again, this is the thing about content as a platform being Mochaverse, but now you as a platform as well, because people can reach out to you. They know authentically, oh, you want a Mochaverse, so you’re real.

1:13:01 You’re not pretending to want a Mochaverse. I’m not a bot. I’m not a this. Exactly. You’re not a bot, but also there’s a lot of people out there. I mean, if you think about photos being shared on Instagram or people sort of seeing identities, I drew this or I own this. I mean, think about all the influencers who are out there and saying, I traveled to this great place and I went in a private jet and I, you know, this is my Lambo. And it turns out that, you know, he took a photo next to a private jet and the Lambo was just something he walked back with.

1:13:25 And he creates a fake story about himself. How do you know it’s true? This is exactly what NFT solved. You actually own the asset in question, but independent of what it is, or you’ve been to the actual place, these are proofs, right? This is what we seek for, because there’s so much fake news. Even if you can say it’s innocuous, you know, it’s just an influencer talking about sort of having a great life when it’s fantasy, but it’s actually harmful if it’s a lie, because you’re telling people something that isn’t possible. And then they, this person might not even be qualified to talk about it because, you know, on social media, you actually don’t know whether it’s real or not, right?

1:14:00 So this is authenticity. And I think this is really what the world craves for. And especially in the future, where, you know, AI basically can completely sort of recreate us and be us in some ways. How do you ensure that you have sort of this identity? So this is one of the other big, big reasons why something like Mocha identity is so important. And what you can do with Mochaverse outside of joining this community and being the platform and being your own platform, is that it also gives you access to the entire Mocha ecosystem where we basically delegated a number of our voting tokens to the community. For instance, like with Apecoin, where they become, you know, not the biggest, but the most powerful, one of the most powerful voices in terms of helping shape the governance and the direction of it, because now I don’t necessarily have to be an owner in Apecoin. I can be an owner in Mochaverse. And I can now have a way in which I can be a participant in all of these networks. So we describe it as a little bit like a Dao of Dao’s, right? You have the ability to be, you know, by being part of our Dao, you can now actually have a voice in all these other Dao’s, because I know Mocha is one of those prolific investors in the area. And we like that a lot as well, because it actually creates a way in which those communities get engaged with the portfolio companies or the investments we’ve made.

1:15:12 Because actually, what happens is that they enter the spaces and they learn about it, and they want to then end up owning the assets and all that kind of stuff. And there’s a nice little cross pollination. But most importantly, it teaches them about Dao’s, which to us is really important, because in order to make the web space more resilient, we need more people to understand what does digital democracy look like? What does liquid democracy look like? How do you actually sort of navigate in that environment? What are the training wheels for that? And that doesn’t really exist. We don’t really get to exercise the democratic muscle much. But with Dao’s, we can do that. So that’s part of the vision. But of course, you know, one of the more short-term visions for us is to help sort of really grow the space by allowing a way to create an authentic layer for an end user to target and to basically grow from. One of the problems we experienced in the early days when we had to do KYC for our gamers to play our games is we do KYC for every new product we launch. Because it turns out that people use different wallets, not only use different wallets, they sell their wallets. So we had a number of allowlist drops where 40 or 50,000 of the wallets ended up being in the hands of people that were not originally registered because they just signed up for it and then sold it on to someone else who wanted to be on the allowlist. And we just ended up not really getting a real user or maybe it was

1:16:26 A bot or we just don’t know because the wallet itself isn’t enough as an identity layer. And also, if I KYC, why do I have to KYC every single time? If I can KYC your ID, then actually what happens is you can carry that sort of KYC effect over across multiple games and multiple ecosystem. And you can also KYC or reKYC, or you can have different KYC providers. It doesn’t really matter. The point being that that’s a way in which you can elevate your reputation layer on a single ID that then can be used by different platforms and benefit from that. And so you have one way in which you can verify that. And by the way, we don’t believe that there’s only going to be one identity system. We think there’s going to be many identity systems that will sort of collaborate together with each other to essentially enhance your reputation. So at the end of the day, you’ll have these different identities, Mokover is being one of them, and others attached to it or are part existing in your wallet. And that’s a way in which you create a verification across multiple ecosystems, because maybe that’s what you want as well, because you might have multiple identities. You might want to be a Mokover’s identity as a gamer.

1:17:28 But maybe if you’re doing financial trading, you don’t want that ID to be shared. And you don’t want people to know what you’re trading. You just want people to know what games you play. And that’s okay. But then, through zero knowledge, you can still tie them together.

1:17:41 And so if I need to verify you, I can actually do that by tying together different identity systems as well. So it’s not meant to be a mutually exclusive system of anything. It’s meant to be something that sort of mutually enhances the entire ecosystem. Who else is doing this? I mean, I know I use Stanley Kuleshevovave created Lens, and I use one of the Lens IDs to use Favor, which is a web-through social app that we invested in. And so I guess I have that NFT that proves who I am on that. And that way, the social graph is realized, et cetera. Is anyone else doing it right? Has there been troubles to do this? Is there trouble scaling this thing? Is it hard to actually match identities with people? I think the matching identities with people when you think about KYC isn’t really the hardest part. I think many people are addressing it different ways. For instance, if you look at companies like Unstoppable, DNS, I mean, they’re using a decision namespaces.

1:18:31 Not that different than you would think of domain names in a way. In some ways, if you own BrianRose.com, then that’s an identity layer as well. And I know it’s authentic, or at least you think it is. So there’s elements around that. But as I said, I think they all kind of come together, because the way we express ourselves digitally isn’t a uniform way. It would be foolish for us to think that our ID system should be the only system in the world. We think it would be big because of our ecosystem, because we have a very large addressable space, because we have probably the biggest web-through investor as well.

1:19:03 So we can really, really grow the ecosystem. But it would be foolish to think that we would be exclusive to the space. Also, I think it’s a wrong way to think. In web 3, it’s about a shared network effect. And we grow because we collaborate to grow the network together. We don’t grow because we want to grow at the expense of others. That is zero-sum thinking in very web 2. And that’s not how we want to think about that. We also think it doesn’t work. Because the other thing is that when you build open, actually the way to defend yourself against vampiric attack is to be more open. It’s not actually to create indirect walls. And if your business model is one that benefits from it being more open and more broader, then you can freely kind of quasi give it away, or at least it feels that way. That’s kind of how open source works. When you give away your code to the world, the world makes it richer for you to use something better thereafter. And in the web 3 world, you can now do that with value. So you can exchange that.

1:19:57 The problem is that when you build an ecosystem that has in its mind a way in which you would grow from closed benefits, even though you purport to build open, then you are subject to vampire attacks. And I think exchanges are particularly, when you think about NFT marketplaces, are particularly susceptible to that. Because the value that they offer isn’t actually specifically differentiated from a trading NFT standpoint. So I could do a vampire attack very easily, which OpenSea is probably one of the ones that have been most vampire attacks. It’s one of our earliest portfolios, still big company, and it’s still in terms of probably access for new users, the number one NFT marketplace in the world, not by trade volume, but certainly by customers and end users. But they’re subject to a lot of vampire attacks, because, oh, you trade on OpenSea for a year, I’ll give you this token, and you come to my platform or something, right? And what’s happened is that OpenSea, probably its business model was maybe unintentionally predicated amongst building closed, or at least benefiting from aggregating traffic, which is a closed model. And I think as a result of that, they are subject to these vampire attacks, which is also one of the reasons why centralized exchanges would have a really hard time opening up. Because if they did, then everyone would just sort of try to grab their customers and offering them air drops and benefits to sort of grow the

1:21:20 Ecosystem, which would be great for the end user, but not so great for the platform. But if you think about it differently, like OpenSea, you know, hypothetically, and again, we’re just postulated, and this is not any of the plans is that, you know, when they were growing the way that they did, maybe they should have become a protocol, an open protocol for everyone to build on, right? Then that would have been a way, you know, that’s a true decentralized ethos, it’s community owned. And of course, that becomes best defense, because now every customer, this is a key, every customer becomes an owner in your network.

1:21:52 And suddenly, the network effect is your network effect. And just because blur, or looks rare, or these guys show up and yeah, give me air drops, that’s cool. But I’m going to go back to the network. That’s actually helped me shape this because I’m a stakeholder. This is how layer ones defend themselves, right? I mean, at the end of the day, you know, people kept talking about the Ethereum killer, and they tried. And now everyone’s talking about scaling solutions, right? Precisely for that reason, because of the network effects embedded with it, because the network doesn’t belong to a centralized entity, it belongs to the world.

1:22:25 And this is why web three will ultimately win over web two, and capitalism will ultimately win over any type of control. Yes. And that’s exactly why, you know, when we think of mochaverse, that’s what I’m saying, the way to win in the space is to be as decentralized as possible, to be as open as possible, and to be as composable as possible. And the way that we help inoculate ourselves, let’s call it our own disruption, is we become the most prolific investor in web three.

1:22:51 Even during the down market, we kept investing in space, right? We are actually the web three because it’s not often everything, of course, but the point is we’re in layer one, and we’re in layer two, we’re in platforms, whatever, and we’re not saying everything will work. But that’s the way in which we don’t just help the community shape it, and obviously, hopefully get value and endorsement and love from the community. But also, it’s a way in which we become a beneficiary of the entire growth of the ecosystem, right? So even if we end up quasi cannibalizing something else, apparently, the rest of our portfolio and some other subsidiaries and other things we’re building will grow and flourish as a result. And so, you know, it may end up becoming a public domain, it may end up turning like GPS, for instance, but that’s okay, the rest of our ecosystem will grow, and as a result, we will still grow, and we will sort of benefit from the overall growth, which is also down to what I think successful web three companies or companies that want to have success in web three need to invest in the ecosystem.

1:23:45 I think it’s very hard to be in web three, as a company even, or as an entity, without actually having stakes in the ecosystem that you’re building. Because by definition, if you don’t have stakes in the ecosystem that you’re building, then you are almost forced to think zero sum, because you’re now only thinking about how to protect your gates, as it were. And, you know, you see this, by the way, the exchanges, on one hand, are obviously big platforms that, you know, are going to be in control of a large part of the ecosystem.

1:24:18 They’re also the most prolific investors. You think about finance, Coinbase Ventures, I mean, you don’t see the Hong Kong Stock Exchange investing, you don’t see NASDAQ investing, right? So the web three narrative and the web three method of growing in the space is to be an investor. And because you have tokens and NFTs, you can use this as a way of cross-investing the space, which is what we did. So imagine a future where we’re all kind of invested in each other, in an ecosystem, not majority, just have a stake in each other.

1:24:46 Are we going to collaborate more? Are we going to be competitive more? Yes, it’s competition, but we’re ultimately going to work together, because we all have a stake in each other. That, to me, is what web three means and what the future web three should be. So when Animoke is making money on Axi tokens, you take that invest in the entire ecosystem.

1:25:03 And when you’re, you know, when those are all appreciating, you’re constantly investing in the ecosystem. Well, it’s putting back. I mean, yeah, I think of this as, you know, think of it also in the sense of what would have happened if Apple decided to take 10% of the annual profits and invest back in the ecosystem. What would the Apple ecosystem look like? Very different. I also think companies would love Apple a lot more. I also think the ecosystem would be healthier. I think indie developers wouldn’t struggle the way that they are. Maybe, you know, I mean, governments have SME funding grants.

1:25:31 I mean, that’s what banks were supposed to do, but then it got to conservative, right? But anyway, the point is, why does the government bankroll SME loans? They’re not doing this because of profit. They’re doing this to advance their economy. They’re doing this to grow their ecosystem because they know that the SME industry is a lifeblood of their economies because everyone else gets to grow from stability because there’s hope and there’s opportunity and then it grows the ecosystem and then the restaurants can open and all that kind of stuff, right? That’s what you got to do. And as I said earlier, these web two platforms are countries as L1, L2s are in their own way. They’re countries, they’re nations, they’re economies.

1:26:06 So you have to give back to the economy. You get a tax, you pay a tax. What’s the benefit for that tax? Now, if Apple was only going to charge 5%, maybe different. Maybe then there’s more money in the ecosystem in itself that might reinvest in it. But if you take a 30% tax, which is a higher tax rate than the base tax of the US, right? And certainly twice the tax rate of Hong Kong, right? You know, just in the countries. What are you getting?

1:26:34 I mean, we get social security, we got police, whatever, right? What are these platforms giving us? Censorship in their store. Exactly. And control. And so back to this article, you start off as talking about the platforms and then you kind of end by quoting John Locke.

1:26:51 Sure. And again, people should really read it. It’s on the Atsus medium. But what was the thinking behind that? Because you talk about the second treatise of government that he wrote, where he really broke down maybe this fundamental connection between the human output and human thinking and property ownership. Correct. So Locke really believed in this principle, which I think all of us, at least capitalists, subscribe to this idea, that the labor of our body and the work of our hands ought to truly be our property. I mean, that’s a paraphrase of his actual quote. And of course, this was a time when people were building things with their hands, right? Like if I’m a farmer in my land, I get to nurture the land, it grows a tree, and I get to pluck the apple. The apple is my property. And I can do whatever I want with it. I can eat it, I can sell it, I can grow more apples, and I can distribute it out. He had some interesting formulas as well, which I didn’t mention in the article, like, for instance, just to make sure that you make enough and don’t sort of take too much. So he made another point around how it ought to be shared. But that’s a different topic, which I think is much more native to the Web3 ethos. If Locke was born or reborn on the Web3 world, I think he’d have a heck of a field day. He’d be like, oh my goodness, I can actually realize this doesn’t matter, because you can actually almost sort of visibly sort of enforce it in some way,

1:28:17 Which you couldn’t do, obviously, in back hundreds of years ago, right? Back in those days, right? But the principle is still this idea that our labor is our property. And then, of course, what happened was that with the Industrial Revolution, and with the sort of first wave of sort of good, sort of first wave for industrial capitalism, labor was disintermediate. And that’s basically what Marx described as, I guess, some, you know, I guess, alienation in the term that it was an alien experience, I would be working on these machines, I would be doing labor of these machines, but the output of that labor was no longer my property, it went to the company or the owner of those machines. And so, I was alienated from that experience and therefore created sort of this bizarre experience that was unnatural, right? So, in some sense, you could say that there was an agreement in terms of the property aspect. And just to be clear, I’m not a Marxist, but I’m just saying that he did diagnose, I think, the problems then, and maybe that’s one of the reasons why he’s fashionable today, is because I think he’s also diagnosed the current state of capitalism quite well in terms of the fact that when you think of digital state, again, there is an alienation, right? And so, I paraphrased it and changed the word and said, essentially, you know, the labor of our time, right? And the work of our minds, because that is a new labor of today. Our labor is in our hands, because a robot or a machine is

1:29:46 Stronger than you. That was a labor of hundreds of years ago. The labor today is our time, our imagination, our creativity. I mean, what is this? What is a podcast? What does it show?

1:29:56 What is software? You know, everything that we’re doing today, for the most part, is a labor of our time, right? Which is the product created from our minds. And so, that, we say, ought to be properly ours. And what’s the output of that is data.

1:30:12 So, it really is just saying what we’ve always been saying, which is digital property rights, and that we ought to have ownership of that. And it’s really taking the fact that a concept as old as what Locke defined is actually as relevant then as it was today, and the belief around this. Because what was powerful about Locke, and how he inspired Adam Smith, and, you know, generations of philosophers afterwards, and political sort of discourse, and, you know, the American constitution, and really the democratic process around the world, and the French Revolution, and just about everything that we sort of value today as a democratic and free institutions that we have in the world, came from this idea that we ought to own our own property, and that we have freedom attached to it. Because when you have property rights, then you actually have freedom. That was really sort of pivotal to his thinking.

1:30:56 Why did it catch fire? Why did it inspire so many people, despite the fact that when he wrote that, that wasn’t true, right? That wasn’t true of the world. And there was also competing views of what the state of nature should be like. Because it was natural to people. That’s what I believe, in the sense that when I finally understood that actually my labor ought to be mine, that idea is so powerful that you won’t give up on it, right? And you’re willing to fight for it, and you’re willing to die for it, and revolutions happen, and all that happened.

1:31:31 Because the idea was what’s so powerful, not the fact that I actually had it. This idea of, wait, hold on, I am doing this work. It ought to be mine. Why don’t I have it? And then people start questioning, and they start asking, and they start inquiring and saying, wait, I don’t understand this. Make it make sense for me. And then they go, wait, that doesn’t make sense. What would a better life look like? It would look like this. So to us, it’s the same. And so for us, it’s also what we’re doing in Web3. Web3 is not just a product or a database or a system. It’s a movement. It’s a movement for more financial freedom.

1:32:06 It’s a movement for owning our digital property rights. It’s a movement for our digital sovereignty. And that’s what property rights means as well, which is the same movement that happened centuries ago when we were thinking about our own freedoms on the basis of our property rights. So we are at that moment. But we are also, I think, at a fairly dangerous time, because for those who don’t understand that actually much of the world’s problems are caused by, I guess, this sort of digital colonialism that we have, is the fact that we’re now saying, OK, the problem is capitalism. And the whole point I’m making is that actually in the web to world we live in, it’s not capitalist at all, because it’s not a market economy. It’s capitalist as an output for the companies that are there, because there’s a stock market and the share price and the earnings. But actually what happens inside these economies of web two is not a marketplace at all. And so we’ve been disintermediated.

1:33:05 And so we’re feeling the same kind of alienation and the same kind of struggles that Mark spoke about earlier in Das Kapital and later on in the Communist Manifesto. The diagnosis is very similar. And that’s exactly the reason why it’s become fashionable in places like Boston. Because in intellectual circles, because they’re looking at it saying, oh, yeah, actually, he’s right. This is a problem. And this is everything that’s happening, because money has become futile. And the means of production is owned by Facebook or is owned by this. And we must do something. But of course, the thing that somehow people seem to forget is, OK, Marx was right about the diagnosis, but he’s not right about the solution, which is a dissolution of property rights. I mean, that’s right.

1:33:51 He has a completely different perspective in that sense. The outcome he came to is a completely different one. And we’ve gone through a century of history of how that didn’t work, as I had maybe shared earlier in this channel. My mom used to live in work in East Germany and work at the commercial over. I’ve seen what that will look like.

1:34:14 And I know that’s not going to work. And so for me, it’s become really important for people to understand that capitalism is a solution. But we have to obviously give more ownership to people, more distributed ownership, so that everyone can benefit from capitalism and go back to a true market economy and a true digital market economy, which doesn’t exist. The digital world is not a true market economy. And so we’re kind of talking the wrong narratives.

1:34:39 We’re basically saying, oh, capitalism is a problem because these companies are so rich. No, no, no, the problem is that these companies aren’t capitalists at all. Right. They’re caterships. They run a closed market. They are state controlled in their own way. They are the ultra, let’s call it, owners of the means of production. They’re socialists in their construction in their own way, and they control everything. And that’s what needs to be broken up and changed. But of course, the current institutional setup doesn’t work.

1:35:05 But that’s okay. That’s why we have Web3. And I’m a big believer that while technology advancements create problems, technology also creates solutions for them. In time, we’ve seen that cycle. And I think that’s exactly why Web3 and blockchain is so critical for us today. So Web3 is going to save the world.

1:35:21 I think so. I mean, it sounds a little bit sort of cliche, but I think it’s going to be a major, major driver because it’s going to give people more ownership and they’re going to be… I think it’s going to revive the promise and the hope of capitalism because now everyone can be included. I mean, what worked for people, if you think about sort of the golden age of America and its growth, you know, say, you know, 60, 70 years ago in a war aside, is the fact that everyone grew. The American dream was available to everyone because you could build and grow and participate, but also because we didn’t really have these kind of monopolies of the resources that way that they have because the governments didn’t really understand how the digital space would work. Also, we didn’t think of data as a commodity. The laws of data aren’t clear.

1:36:06 Data is kind of like everywhere. So how do I manage that? It’s kind of virtual, right? So you can’t sort of capture it in a way. Our laws are designed for capturing physical property, like oil or jewels or gold. So we capture it this way. So data is like our oil and we should be able to not just capture its value, but capture its derivative value because we’re the ones creating and producing it and giving it to the platforms. I think you’ve sold me on this because I don’t know what else is going to re-educate or change the minds of some of the people that are being adopted institutionally in our universities to this new system. I don’t see how we’re going to break out of these web 2 dictatorships because they’re very powerful, very hard to change the behavior of a YouTube or a Google or a Facebook or some of these things. And so web 3 is the way, right?

1:36:58 But and web 3 has the best incentives to do it because we don’t think, you know, if you think about how do you create a bloodless revolution, it’s going to be through economic force. All the closed markets in the world that tried to stay closed were forced to open because of free markets, because of economic opportunity. Or you could stay like North Korea. Good luck on that. Right. You’re talking about China specific. Well, China opened up.

1:37:23 Opened up. They opened up and its greatest growth and prosperity came from China opening up to the world. Yes, they may have embraced a different kind of capitalism, but it’s capitalism nonetheless. It’s also respect for property rights. And it’s not correct to say, like some people say, Oh, yeah. And this is the other problem about, you know, I guess quasi-Marxist and sort of say, well, look at China. It’s worked so great. What most people don’t appreciate is that China went from an entirely state owned country where they owned all the means of production. Everything was state owned enterprise to essentially owning, I think maybe it’s five or 10%. So it went through the largest privatization campaign in the history of a certainly recent history of any major nation. And if China stayed predominantly state owned enterprise run organization, you would not have any of this kind of growth that you see in China. So yes, there’s more control for sure. There’s a balance. But at the end, it was still the embrace of capitalism. It was still a respect for property rights. If I buy a place in Shanghai, I own that property. And most people who buy a property in Shanghai have a belief that they own this property. And if a government does not respect it at scale, what do you think will happen?

1:38:39 You think people are just going to say, Oh, yeah, no problem. It doesn’t work this way. So they’re sensitive. I mean, the dynamics in China, you know, are not such where people think that the people don’t have a voice. They do have a voice. They’re sensitive, but they do have a voice. Right. They’re always listening. Because you can’t dictate rules and people don’t follow those rules. And again, it goes back down to the idea. And the powerful thing about this idea that I have a property right, and that is my right. That is my freedom.

1:39:06 That is something that belongs to me. You can’t take it away from me. Or I ought to own it. And that’s this idea that is so powerful. And actually, frankly, that’s the amazing thing, the potential, also the dangerous thing about humans, is that when an idea enters our system, actually, you can’t get, you know, like, like, it’s, it’s there. And how do you fight it, right?

1:39:30 And as a, as a, as a dictatorship, you can’t, right, because, because it takes takes you over. And I think this is, you know, what America was so powerful, you know, because for most people, America still today, even though it’s waning, it’s not, it’s military. It’s not even the dollar. It’s the idea of America that gives it power. The idea that you can go there and do anything that you want to do. The fact that it represents freedom, right, and liberty. The fact that it has hope. That’s why people want to immigrate to America. That’s why people aspire to American sort of culture. It’s why people want to eat burgers, right? I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, obviously, you know, growing up in Europe and in the 80s and 90s, I certainly witnessed that experience, despite the fact that US went through a terrible recession, particularly in the late 80s and early 90s. The idea that America was a place to live and a place to be because it was just better for your rights and everything was, was all powerful. And, you know, I think I shared this before, but, you know, when I actually went to America, I was like, wait a second. This is nothing like I remember. I mean, I was, I grew up to an America in German speaking Europe where David Hasselhoff was the big icon. And you know, Knight Rider and Baywatch was my impression of America. So all sorts of freedoms was what I was imagining. I went to Worcester, Massachusetts.

1:40:52 I was like, this is nothing like the America expected, but the idea of America never left me. Right. And I think this is what’s, this is its real power. What’s next for Anamoka? What’s next for you over the next year and the next five years and maybe the next 10 years? Are you going to keep investing in the ecosystem at mass scale? What do you, what are your point? We’ll keep investing in ecosystem. We’ll keep growing it. The whole idea of this mission of growing digital property rights is something that is going to be a long journey and we’re completely ready to keep sort of fighting for it. And I think it’s a very worthy journey as well. I actually think this will solve a lot of problems in the world. When you think about, I said earlier about sort of where AI is going, how do you share the benefits of AI? How do you protect your rights in the world where AI can generate everything? Only blockchain, digital identity, Web3 can do that in a manner that is not controlled by central entity. So I envision the future where we all become stakeholders in everything that we help and construct, or we all get to share in the fruits of our labor, which is essentially our time at creativity and our imagination. And in a world where our physicality doesn’t mean as much outside of being healthy, the fact that you might be stronger than me and can carry 20 pounds more than me is kind of irrelevant in the age of robots

1:42:08 That can do that much better. So again, it’s what you have here. It’s how you spend your time. It’s how you sort of engage in your creativity, which I think is also much more naturally human. I think I may have shared this before, but there was a study about how children who took this sort of design by these people, who designed divergence thinking test for people who are doing this for NASA, did this for children from the age of five and then 10 and 15. And the children who were five, who were not yet exposed to school and roles and so on, 90 plus, maybe it was a 95 or 96, or some huge number of percentage of those kids scored divergently, as in they could solve all these problems. And here’s the crazy thing. Back then, the kind of ways they thought they could solve problems were not possible to solve because we didn’t have AI. But now, can you imagine, in many years from now, maybe not too many years from now, a five-year-old can have a crazy idea about how to solve a problem. And the AI was saying, you know what? That’s a good approach.

1:43:07 Let me figure out ways in which you could take that and enhance that. So maybe the child might not know the mechanics about to get there, but it will have the divergent thinking approach about thinking laterally, differently, divergently as to how to get there. And that’s a real superpower. It’s just a calculator that’s just amplified in infinity ways. And we get to own a piece of that.

1:43:30 That’s kind of how I see the future. And so things that we’re doing is, you know, financial inclusion is a big one. I actually think that in Web 3, the way that you onboard fully into Web 3 is actually if you have full, not fully, that you’re financially literate, that you have an idea of money, because most of the world isn’t that. And this comes down to the other problem. Why are people sort of, you know, drawn to socialism at the moment or drawn to even potentially communist ideas? Because you don’t understand money. And so as a result, they fear it. And so it’s much easier to say, I don’t want to control my own money.

1:44:04 At the state, control the money. They can handle it. But the irony is, of course, that once you overthrow that system, and actually you give it to someone else to control the money, and then they have all the power, and then absolute power corrupts absolutely, as we have seen time and time again. And then we start having history repeat itself again and again. So we obviously don’t want that. That doesn’t work at all.

1:44:25 So educating about money is part of the same process. Exactly. Because property rights and money are tied to understand the value of your property rights. You need to understand how money works, and you need to understand capitalism. And that’s also one of the things around why it’s so important for us to help onboard teachers into this ecosystem, because it turns out that they actually don’t know anything about money themselves. They can teach about money.

1:44:51 They’re also disintermediate from the system. They can pay the salary to do some work, but they don’t know how the economics work. They have no idea about how a school makes money, how the education system makes money. So they are disintermediate as well. And therefore, they don’t know anything about that and essentially live paycheck by paycheck.

1:45:08 Teachers are amongst some of the worst paid people in the world, even though they have such a crucial task in society, teaching our children. And if we can teach our children math and algebra, we can certainly teach them compound interest, and certainly teach them about basic investment principles, ideas around money. I think our children have all the capacity to do that. And what would a world look like when every child knows about money? It wouldn’t just create more liquidity in a bigger capital market and respect property rights and capitalism and freedom. It would also create a safer market, because you can’t scam someone if he knows what to do. That’s the other thing. So we create all these systems to protect people from scammers, because they don’t know. Do I know you’re right? Do I know this product’s real? How do I evaluate this? But if I have financial literacy, then I will be able to protect myself.

1:45:59 And if I want to enter something at high risk, I know it’s high risk. I know how to deal with that situation. That’s how the world will change. I love it. Property, ownership, financial literacy. What more could you dedicate your life to doing that are so important things, right? Last question I got to ask you, where do you get your energy from? You’re constantly traveling the world. You’re speaking on stage. Do you feel somehow guided by this higher purpose? Do you get tons of feedback from the community? What do you think you’re getting energy from? I mean, I live for building with impact and purpose, as I think I’ve said this earlier, and building for a purpose higher than your own, I think for anyone, or whatever that purpose is. I’m not saying that my purpose is relevant for maybe other people.

1:46:45 Is the way in which you’re willing to sort of hold all the energy and are willing to sacrifice things as well. And I don’t mean to say that sacrifice often has negative connotations. I understand why it’s negative because it feels like you’re giving up something for something else. Yeah, I mean, I could be playing more tennis. I could spend more time with family. All these things that are obviously really, really critical for a person. But if the purpose and mission is so important to you, that sacrifice is worth it. The point is not to say that you feel like there’s a loss. You feel that what you may lose here is worth it because the purpose you’re delivering is higher. And again, this is different for people. Some people might be looking for growth of their family specifically. I’m fortunate in that sense that my kids are older, my oldest is working, my daughter’s in school abroad. Those things are maybe not as affecting to me in terms of my priorities in life. But maybe if you asked me the question 10 years ago, then maybe I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did because my purpose was to be there for family and that was maybe much more balanced than it is today. I don’t believe, for instance, in such a thing as work-life balance. I think the word balance gives this idea of that you have to keep it somehow in check, that there’s one force or another. It doesn’t work this way.

1:48:11 Meaning that I don’t think it’s wrong that for a period of time you might be doing 90% work, but then also it’s not wrong that you mean 90% family. These seem like extremes, but if it’s what drives you, that’s where you get your energy. Because otherwise, you’re sacrificing something else. You’re sacrificing your mojo, your energy. If you’re suddenly saying, okay, I really need to do this, but I got to do something else to keep a balance.

1:48:35 Actually, what you’re doing is you’re draining your energy. You’re draining your natural source of power, as it were almost. What I feel like, why I have this energy, I do exercise and so on, but the drive for me to do exercise and take cold showers and run and all that kind of stuff comes again from the purpose. It doesn’t just come because I want to live healthy. Maybe, for some people, it’s I want to be healthy and I want to live to 200 or 130 or whatever. Sure, that could be your purpose and you’ll do your exercise. For me, to be able to do my work better is why I do what I do and why I try to be more conscious of my diet or maybe do more exercise.

1:49:14 Because I think the mission, I want to see it. I may never see it fully through who knows where it’s going to go, but I want to be able to help shape it. Yeah, one of my students remarked recently that I was doesn’t know where I got all my energy from and I just didn’t really think about it, but I just thought, wow, everything I’m doing I’m super passionate about and I never feel like it’s being forced on me. And then I kind of like, I didn’t optimize the rest of my life so I can do that more efficiently. But if you told me I couldn’t do that stuff, it would take away from me. I would hold the grudge against it. It would make me less, not more. And so yeah, one of my old mentors used to say, there’s no work-life balance. There are work-life choices and they have consequences is what he said. It is consequences, right? And I think this is the thing about, I mean, we won’t have time to discuss all that, right? But we are, I do believe, for instance, that we have free will, which is a big debate among some people. Me too, right?

1:50:12 And the whole point about that is the choices you make always have consequences, right? And which path you take, the consequences. And it’s not to say it’s good or bad, it’s just for consequence, right? And so knowing and understanding that will guide you towards the direction you need to go. And so yeah, I love that sort of work-life choices. I mean, that’s exactly what this is.

1:50:35 Super well said. Yeah, always a pleasure to sit down and talk to you. It always goes so much deeper than a blockchain or a specific metaverse. It all goes down to our core as humans. And like you said, as humans, once we see something, an idea that is better than other ideas, you can’t unsee it. It’s like that movie Inception, you can’t get that idea out of your head. And I was thinking about the concept of even human slavery. Once you convince a human that it was their natural right to be free and that they weren’t supposed to be a slave, go back to the Roman times. Well, my dad was and my grandpa was, so I have to be.

1:51:09 Once you get the idea that, no, you don’t, they’ll never go back there again. Because it’s such a better idea. I think the same is true about all the things that you’re talking about. Now it can take us a little time and we have to wash through the current paradigm. But once people see it and feel it and taste it and live it, then it will prevail. It has to prevail.

1:51:30 Absolutely. I think it’s also the reason why in Asia, people have a much deeper appreciation around Web3 and digital property rights, because they know what life was like when they didn’t have it. South Korea was poor than North Korea four decades ago. China was one of the poorest countries in the world in the sixties and seventies. And now both of them are amongst the richest and most powerful nations in the world. And it comes down to property rights, embracing capitalism. And they also know what it’s like to not have it. And I think the West struggles with something else. The intellectuals understand what the problems are. I think some of them are irresponsibly ignoring that, but that’s a different topic because of political purpose and political goals. But many of the young people don’t know what life was like because they haven’t experienced it. Everyone who’s talking about, we need to be Marxists and we need to look at socialism. We are not going to be the same people as well who say, and by the way, you can take my property. And that car, that’s not my car. And that house, the government can decide, can own that house. I mean, that’s not okay. And I don’t think most of them are going to say that that’s okay. So all of them will talk about how it’s fashionable to talk about Marxism. Ask them to say, okay, you give up your home now. Are you okay with that? I don’t think they’re okay with that. Give up your career choice as well. Correct. All the other things that come with it.

1:53:08 That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. I think the West, so the US now is suffering from yet too many generations, maybe assuming these things being too comfortable, rather than direct knowledge, some of the countries you’re talking about and grandma remembers and dad bad remembers and everybody remembers. And that’s a beautiful thing.

1:53:26 Exciting times, future super bright. Very exciting. It’s incredible that we spoke even three months ago and the market is now completely different and completely changed. Welcome to crypto. Yes. But this is the year of adoption and for web three. And you guys are at the forefront. Everyone is going to be out there making it happen. And I hope it’s an antidote to some of this Marxist talk elsewhere and hope it takes us to the next level. I just want to say thank you for three years of education for me and partnership and friendship. It’s just been amazing doing things with you, investing with you. And I look forward to our next conversation and how this market develops. So thank you. It’s a great honor. Always a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

1:54:07 And just want to thank web three TV for having us. We’ll see you next time on London Real.