Welcome everybody to episode six of the Blockchain
Made podcast. Today I am with Sean from XNet
as well as Russ and Joe. And today we're going
to be talking about the first blockchain powered
mobile carrier. How are you today, Sean? What's
up, Chris? Glad to be here. Thanks for having
me. I want to get into talking about XNet, but
first I want to know a little bit more about
you and what your... introduction to crypto was
like i always think it's interesting to hear
from everybody how they found it and what led
them to become part of a crypto project so yeah
no for sure um so yeah i'll definitely have to
say my like deep introduction to crypto was probably
like 2019 late 2019 2020 and it actually ironically
started with What was then known as decentralized
wireless, but now broadly known as D -PIN, which
stands for decentralized physical infrastructure
networks. But it was basically my senior year
in college, 2020 bull run. Some buddies of mine
had discovered Helium, which was an IoT network
then through an Instagram ad, actually. So my
junior and senior year of college was just entirely
spent. diving deep into these networks, mining,
setting them up, learning more about it, connecting
with people in the space. And that was honestly
my hard intro to crypto. And it's interesting
because I think most people get introduced obviously
through Bitcoin and Ethereum. But I guess I kind
of had this niche entry through this new kind
of vertical emerging in crypto. So that's kind
of how I got involved. Since then, I went from
more of a passive participant, just mining, to
doing more active stuff. From there, I also part
-time helped out with the Helium Foundation on
the grant side. I worked at a startup accelerator.
And there it was quite interesting because I
got to see a lot of other types of blockchain
projects and try to help them launch, do a lot
of get -to -market stuff with them, help with
tokenomics. And then through there, I guess,
my focus has mainly been on the mobile side.
So this thing we call decentralized wireless
now. And my focus has been on mobile always.
And somehow through the great web of just connectivity
and knowing people, I'm good friends with the
guys at Escape Velocity. They're a venture firm.
Their main thesis is decentralized wireless.
And they kind of led me on to XNet. They're like,
hey, there's this new exciting project coming
in the CBRS mobile space, leveraging blockchain.
And they gave me an introduction there and just
really passionate about materializing the space
finally and just disrupting the entire kind of
incumbent that we know as telecom, the oligopolies
as we know them. So, yeah, it's my passion. I
just want to make a bigger impact. When I think
about decentralization, it's kind of, it's not
this completely permissionless, trustless, cult
-like society. But if we can abstract away some
power from where it's held today and distribute
it amongst communities, I think we can make a
long lasting impact and do something useful for
the community. So, yeah, that's kind of my background.
I thought it was interesting. You said you pretty
much found your way in with Helium because that
definitely brought a bunch of people into the
space. I think specifically into the deep end
space because it's kind of its own niche product,
different than traditional crypto. And it brought
a different crowd into it. So did you have a
bunch of hotspots hosted or what were you doing
with that? Yeah, so it was basically hosting
hotspots, finding locations in our college town.
It was actually pretty cool. I think it works
differently in a college town. Some interesting
dynamics there because being a student, I don't
know, you have like people just hustling, you
know, they'd be happy to get 100 more bucks.
But in the real world, it's like, oh, you're
only paying me $100 a month and you have to come
in my house and install this thing. So it was
interesting. It's like. The college grounds are
kind of a nice ecosystem testbed for these things
because it's easy to find hosts. It's easy for,
there's like no barrier, you know, people are,
students are more prone to accept these things.
So yeah, it was mostly hosting things and meeting
people. That was like kind of the biggest thing
out of this. Like you go to host, you meet someone
new, you have a new friendship. Some of my best
friends actually made through. just like these
mining dy network so it's been pretty awesome
yeah i wish i did that when i uh when i was at
my previous school i probably could have placed
some hotspots some places but i ended up doing
like i think i had two in my house and it wasn't
the best setup uh let's talk about some x net
some more so what is your role so at x net um
i guess my role on paper i like to say i lead
business development and kind of partnerships
within the crypto sphere and the deepened sphere
currently, but man, it's a startup. So, I mean,
you guys know how it is just running around everywhere,
doing what I can, you know, each day, basically
my goal is each day that someone, I can get someone
excited about Xnet. I've done my job. And if
I, if I haven't done that, then I haven't, I
failed at my job for that day. So that's what
I like to tell people. Awesome. So I did make
a video. talking about x net i believe joe did
as well but for those watching or listening how
would you explain x net so that anybody could
understand for sure no and really appreciate
you doing that video chris and joe um i think
it was well received um a lot of a lot of my
team members saw it and they loved it so very
glad you did did those videos i think it was
helpful um for a lot of people but yeah access
general mission is basically I guess the first
principle is sharing things makes things more
efficient and makes things more accessible and
equitable for the world, right? So the current
state of mobile connectivity has been pretty
drowned in stuff like regulatory capture, just
the oligopoly structure that the US has. when
it comes to mobile connectivity right there's
there's three or four main participants um how
it works is each of those participants participate
in a top -down structured spectrum auction every
few years and this is like trillions of dollars
they're spending billions of dollars actually
the us government's um net revenue like two to
three percent comes from these big oligopolies
AT &T, Verizon, T -Mobile. But yeah, and due
to this regulatory capture, there are only being
three or four companies that kind of dictate
what happens in the industry of mobile in the
United States. It leads to a lot of inefficiencies
and a lot of things that could be better, such
as pockets of connectivity that aren't there.
Like a lot of rural places don't have connectivity
because... These companies aren't incentivized
to do it because they're not going to make a
good buck there. Or say expanding networks, a
dense place like New York, obviously just with
compute going up, the need and demand for data
is kind of just like a left curve going up at
this point. People have predicted that by 2028,
the use of just the amount of gigabytes that
flow through the mobile ecosystem in America
will maybe three to five X. The current structures
aren't well equipped to keep up with what's going
on in the mobile sphere. And XNet is kind of
a testament to that. We want to fix the inefficiencies
of the Verizons, the T -Mobiles, the AT &Ts,
and basically create a shared economy of the
cellular networks. So XNet, we're basically using
blockchain and crypto incentives to bootstraps.
cellular networks in places where they're most
needed where the demand is the most so areas
that have poor connectivity right now or they
have capacity issues and we basically incentivize
and decentralize our radios through our community
in a token into these areas and the plan is to
basically resell our network back to the big
guys back to the oligopoly at a fraction of the
cost and share that revenue with the people that
help us along the way set it up and that are
just part of our community because that's how
we believe it should work and another big thing
with 5g coming our current the current industry
is just not equipped to be able to handle the
hardware demand and the intensive intensifying
of locations throughout the us so right now i
think 4g towers are placed every couple blocks
or a couple miles apart due to frequency measurements
and such. And with 5G, we're going to need basically
radios on every block, radios on every telephone
pole. And the industry is just not well equipped
to do that. And I think this is obviously a better
method, right? Just decentralizing the hardware,
the radios that you need to do it. And yeah,
go from there. So pretty excited. I know that
was a lot. No, I appreciate that. Oh, that's
great. I thought it was interesting that you're
talking about how these big telecom companies
and how they're not well equipped. And I remember
since I was a kid, pretty much for the past 10,
maybe 15 years, when you walk into one of the
stores like AT &T, Verizon, they usually have
a map of the United States and it shows their
coverage. And that map really hasn't changed
over the years. And there's a lot of dead spots
across the United States that people live in
and they are going to be occupied as the population
grows. They just don't seem like they are really
putting a lot of money into upgrading. It seems
more like they're putting their money into just
kind of maintaining the network. Yeah, yeah.
Right now where I live, the service is awful.
I have one bar on my phone, but it really isn't
one bar. And I think it's because of the amount
of devices that are connected to the one tower
in the area because I'm on a college campus right
now. So the need for a network that can handle
all of this bandwidth is necessary. And it really
doesn't seem like any of them are prepared. I
want to pivot here and talk about your potential
competitors like Helium and Pollen. Can you talk
about your ability to be a full mobile network
service and what that means? Yeah, for sure,
Chris. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of kind of
competitive advantages and maybe even disadvantages
of kind of launching when XNet did into this
environment. But yeah, XNet, we're basically
in mobile terms and technical terms, we're building
a true 3GPP, GSMA compliant, neutral host network.
And this idea that I brought up earlier that
sharing things no matter what makes it more efficient,
right? Sharing resources, sharing capital makes
things more efficient. And that's what basically
the neutral host enables. So basically what this
neutral host is, the XNet network is able to,
because it's GSMA and 3GPP compliant, I think
that might be the main competitive advantage
between networks such as Helium and Pollen. We're
able to interconnect with any telco. So it could
be Verizon, AT &T, T -Mobile, DISH. Any telco's
backend, which is their mobile core, and they'll
be able to roam onto our network. So Chris, like
you said, that example in your college campus
where you have a bar. Say we incentivize maybe
a group of your friends to go deploy XNet gear.
And we have a deal with T -Mobile or say Verizon.
And if you have one of those carriers, the beauty
of this, the neutral host model is that T -Mobile
or Verizon will roam on to the Xnet network and
you won't even know that you're technically using
the Xnet network. Well, you might because you
set it up, but basically that one bar you had
in that spot near your campus, you'll be fully
connected. You'll have four bars, full connectivity.
That's kind of the beauty of the Xnet model.
No other company has done it so far. And I think
this is due to a lack of expertise and telecom
and just knowing how this industry works. Obviously,
I kind of mentioned it was an oligopoly structure.
And I think that has a lot to do with it. Like
there's a lot of back roads. You have to know
certain people within the space. You have to
have these standards that are just been there
since the 80s. And companies like Helium and
Pollen are great. I really obviously I kind of
got the introduction to the space and they kind
of laid out the ground set and the vision that
the space could be in terms of how we could scale
it. But I think that was an area where they lacked
where XNet picked up the slack. They're like,
all right, we need to make this not a joke really
anymore, because these operators, they're like,
oh, yeah, there's some cool crypto telecom company,
but they don't really know what they're doing.
But now I think XNet changes that narrative.
We walk into rooms and. We're a GSMA, 3GPP compliant
network. We're building our network in clustered
footprint and actually building a real product
when it comes to the network. So I think that's
our main competitive advantage. And people get
that, you know, there's a lot of pull from customers
in the market, such as MNOs, and they get what
we're doing and excited to participate. So I
think that's the real advantage. And that's kind
of how we set ourselves apart. How would someone
be able to participate in XNet today? Yeah, Russ,
would you like to jump in on that? Yeah, absolutely.
I'm happy to jump in here and talk about how
dreamers like me got involved in this space.
So I can jump into a little background first
for some context. So I worked in the traditional
telecom industry at Verizon Wireless. I was a
principal engineer and built out thousands of
cell sites, mostly in the Midwest. But later
on, I was deploying equipment worldwide. and
had a bunch of junior engineers on the team that
I worked with to make sure we could get equipment
up and running, people's cell phones would turn
on, and they'd get as many bars as possible.
And then later on, I worked at U .S. Cellular,
focused on securing the wireless network from
attacks. So I left the industry twice, this traditional
telecom industry, mostly because I was just kind
of frustrated with where the industry was going.
So, you know, mentioned earlier the big carrier.
So, you know, I'm lucky enough to have been,
you know, in meetings with some, you know, pretty
big executives at Verizon talking about what
they really think, how they really view the market,
what we were spending, what our priorities were,
where we were building our capacity. And, you
know, it was, you know, very tightly controlled.
And over time, the focus changed quite a bit
from making sure we always had the best quality,
the fewest drop calls. Calls were always, you
know, if you got your phone, it was reliable.
It worked. And, you know, later on it came more
of, well, data and data speeds and, you know,
what is good enough. And I felt like we were
kind of dropping our focus a little bit. And
it was tightly controlled here. Like if somebody
complains, it goes into, and it's like this with
all the carriers, it goes in and that complaint
goes through, you know, systems of. of prioritization
and what can come out the other end you know
typically is only is you know typically not going
to help somebody who's saying you know i've got
poor coverage in this area they usually you know
have some sense of it but prioritize areas for
lots of internal reasons and if you just say
hey you know it's okay i just want to put one
up maybe in my house or my campus or my building.
It's a very long, slow and expensive process
to do that. And you got to deal with each carrier,
you know, independently, unless you're doing
what they call neutral hosting, like maybe for
a stadium. But typically a very long, very slow,
very complicated process. And so, you know, I
was very excited, you know, so, you know, similar.
um sean here when i first heard about helium
i didn't believe it i thought it was kind of
ridiculous and then as i saw it grow more seriously
built my own fleet signed up hosts uh etc you
know and i still have that that fleet today uh
and and really got involved and started doing
interviews with the community start talking to
people being one of the few people the background
and you know the traditional industry and hoping
that it would get better and be more open to
where as long as you follow the set of rules
that are out there FCC rules and, you know, some
fair rules from the carriers, you can fix the
problem of having bad service and also get paid
for it. I think it was really revolutionary.
A lot of other networks that are in the space
have shied away from this and are kind of scared
of this. XNet, I think, is the clear leader in
the United States of this concept and pushing
us forward. It's probably one of the toughest
things to do. This is a huge wall to climb. Other
networks have given up. have stopped saying they're
trying to do this or they put it on the back
burner um so uh you know it's really brave of
them i think to stick up and also the technical
quality of people on the team that trying to
get into people like tom who have an incredible
wealth of experience um incredibly you know smart
poignant and incredibly connected in the traditional
industry know all the big players know what they're
looking for know how to do technical integrations
uh you know uh you know have worked on mobile
cores before have actually production ready commercial
cores that are ready to go ready to integrate
can pass and easily pass an audit and make roaming
so much better and so much easier so so customers
have a seamless experience i think is a true
strength of it so what i do now is i you know
really work to help expand xnet right now i'm
really focused on chicago and building out that
area with isps so i really try to help explain
to normal people, normal businesses, what's in
it for them, why this makes sense, give them
commitments, and then help them. Basically, I
unlock this new opportunity for them and supply
the equipment for it, partner with them to put
these up, which is a difficult thing. Getting
good locations, having solid business relationships,
making promises and commitments and delivering
on them can be very tough in this space because
timelines change, networks change. Incentives
change very frequently. Another network here
is constantly changing. It's very hard to forecast
what you're going to make even next month. Stability
is key. Trust is key. That's why I enjoy working
with the XNet team. They're a team that's easy
to talk to. They're very knowledgeable, very
smart, but they're also good people to work with.
There's definitely some bad people in the space
who are very difficult to work with and think
they own the space. I don't think that's true
at all. We don't know. you know, exactly how
this is going to turn out. But I think it's going
to change very quickly. Eventually, the wall
will fall. And I think XNet is going to be one
of the first to say, look, we did it. Maybe it
took a little bit longer than expected, but we
were able to work with them and unlock this tremendous
opportunity. And, you know, the big opportunity
that we see, I think, in the near term future
is really working with wireless, working with
Wi -Fi and saying, you know, you can get paid
for Wi -Fi roaming is very exciting. And that's
very easy to do. There's several companies that
do this today. So that's a bit of my background,
a bit of what I do. I'm fairly open here. I don't
post on Twitter that much. I'm not as much of
a YouTuber, I think, as probably everybody else
here. But I'm very active and try to meet with
people in person. So I was at Mobile World Congress
earlier this year talking with many of the manufacturers
and projects in the space. which was very exciting,
very enlightening and really gave me a lot of
hope for the future, especially on a day like
today where, you know, the market's pretty far
down and you're seeing a lot of people capitulate.
I'm seeing more pictures of helium miners in
garbage cans I've ever seen before. So it's it's
definitely changing. Russ, can you elaborate
a little bit on your. Like the crowd share hosting
model, if people want to be involved, how they
could approach you if they have a great location.
Or they have hardware that they need to get out
to a location. Yeah. Yeah. So that's something.
Thanks for bringing that up, Joe. So a couple
of things. So I work with mostly by cells radios.
That's what I focus on. And if somebody has extra
radios, I can take those radios and basically
unlock them to work on any network that's out
there. So, you know. xnet makes a lot of sense
in xnet areas especially you know special areas
where they have incentives with taxes uh and
that's you know where i help so there are multiple
opportunities across the country you know evolving
every day every week of where to deploy chicago
is a big one there's several places in the midwest
they're looking for for radios and for partners
uh so you know even within the space that's what
i do i'm just trying to help move the space forward
by making commitments uh using these radios through
as much as possible and unlocking them so that
we can uh get the most value out of them and
i think xnet's also something xnet did that other
projects have not done is they've made a commitment
to open radios so they don't try to lock them
down or say nobody else can use them or force
their manufacturers to sign you know on us agreements
like you know like other projects do, where they're
not supposed to let the radio be used with anybody
else. They're very open and competitive, which
is, I think, a sign of confidence in what they're
offering. One of the things I wanted to ask you
about was we're looking at carrier roaming. So
carriers, customers offloading their data to
these CBRS radios. Is there some sort of quality
assurance model you guys follow that? would bring
confidence in this type of operation yeah uh
so a big part of it is don't you know uh is don't
treat like cvrs um you know exactly like wi -fi
it's a little different so a big part of it is
doing proper um you know kind of in the wi -fi
world they call it like a you know a site audit
or an rf audit um so so i've got access to tools
that help me simulate where you're putting this
equipment, what it's going to cover, and what
are going to be the quality levels, aka speeds,
you're going to get. So that's something that
I've done for, you know, probably last year.
I did probably over 100 ,000 sites. It was a
tremendous amount of sites I had to go through
and rank based on quality of where they're going
to be and how they're going to work. So that's
it. While I do do most of my work with Bicell's
radios, I also do it with Blink radios as well.
And there's unique RF models for how those radios
work that is very different. You can't just do
one for one and swap them out. They behave very
differently. So I think proper site planning
is a big one. a reliable backhaul having a reliable
agreement i think put in place having a written
agreement i think is very important and actually
having repercussions in there what happens when
things go wrong what if speed gets impacted what
if it takes longer than expected for agreements
to go into place or for revenue come in things
like that so the most popular model that i do
is mapping it out based on mapping it out get
an idea of what a site will earn of course we
don't know exactly what it will earn until it's
up but um we try to be conservative so that's
that's very reliable and that served us very
well and kind of intentionally under promising
and over delivering as much as we can in the
space and then on top of that the most popular
model is revenue share and that cuts a lot of
people out who won't won't agree to that so even
in a down market like this yes we're all making
less but At least we're all still making something
and we're not wasting a lot of time needlessly
moving sites around or dealing with people who
don't believe in this as much. At this point,
they're more in it for the money or for quick
money. They aren't in it for a slow, consistent,
quality, long -term site build. So that's a pretty
big difference. I don't know of other, you know,
I think all serious professional. deployers who
do RF simulations at this point, but definitely
your smaller deployers don't have access to these
types of tools or equipment. I appreciate that.
It's a tremendous answer, but I think I meant
to aim that at Sean and accidentally said Russ.
Yeah, no worries there. I can take a, obviously
stab at it from my perspective, but Russ, I mean,
yeah, you nailed it on the head. I mean, coming
from someone that has seen this world. intensely
right at verizon being an engineer at verizon
i think your perspective definitely has tremendous
value here but um just a little more on that
um again like like kind of similar with russ
i've been involved with um interfacing with some
of the carriers we've been talking to some of
these big mnos and have talked to some of their
top level executives big big guys right and They've
also talked to people that have come before in
this space. No need to mention names, but the
main issue there was no one actually had a network.
The first pillar, right? You need a network that
will function, whether that be CBRS, Wi -Fi,
whatever technology it may be. You need a network
that can serve people and connect to someone's
phone efficiently, right? Just full stop, period.
And the first problem in this space was we had
radios just dispersed everywhere. Like there's
no quality assurance on where these radios were
deployed. Whereas XNet was like, this is wrong.
We need to deploy. Like telecom networks are
mostly deployed in clusters. So you can kind
of concentrate bandwidth and serve a certain
need. Say that area has bad connectivity to begin
with. So that's the approach XNet took. We're
like here. Here's radios that are close by. It's
called contiguous coverage. So if you're moving
through the zone across these blocks, you'll
still be connected. It's not like, all right,
I'm in this busy mall shopping center. I go from
point A to point B. There's only one radio in
that vicinity. So as soon as I walk 10 steps,
I'm going to fall off this coverage or there's
not going to be enough radios to fulfill how
many people are in this area. So just in terms
of quality assurance, I think, The first, first
step of having an actual product, in this case,
a network that can serve people and serve mobile
devices and provide connectivity is the most
kind of quality assurance that Xsense took while
taking this approach and building out our business,
Joe. So Russ mentioned the other members on the
team. Could you talk a little bit about them
and their skill sets that they have? Oh, yeah,
I'd love to do that. Frankly, just just a brief
refer. Like, these are some of the smartest people
I've honestly met. Obviously, I'm not that old
yet. A lot more experience to live. But some
of the smartest people I've been had the great
chance to interact with and work with and be
part of a team with see how they think. But yeah,
our leader, our CEO himself is Richard Duvall.
And he was actually an executive at Google X.
He's been a secret research team at Apple. He's
led like many, many PSYOP projects and technologies
in their infancies. Even like things like AI,
he was working on like AI models, machine learning
algorithms back in like 2010, 2009. So yeah,
and most notably Rich. launched a connectivity
project he was the head of it called project
loon at google um you guys can i won't take a
deep dive into that but a lot of interfacing
with telecoms a lot of interfacing with building
networks and what what went wrong there's some
papers on it maybe we can link it chris for the
readers to have a broader understanding but yeah
the rest of the team too just top level people
um donald and tom came from deep deep deep decades
experience in telecom they built wi -fi offloading
businesses in asia asian markets um decades worth
of signing roaming deals roaming partnerships
and yeah they're just it's just a great group
of people um i'm honestly pretty privileged to
be be amongst them and i think they have what
it takes we have what it takes to kind of bridge
the gap between the oligopoly of telecom and
this new idea of using blockchain incentives
and crypto to, you know, distribute and share
resources amongst everyone. So I think it's definitely,
we have an exceptional, exceptional team. Can't
talk more highly of them for sure. That's great.
It's a fundamental part of a succeeding project
is to have a good team and people that know what
they're talking about. It's good that there's
people coming from, different industries all
together and sharing their knowledge, which is
- Oh, yeah, yeah. And just another point on that,
something that our friends at Escape Velocity
Ventures, EV3 Sal, always says is one of the
biggest signals as an investor to them is when
they see a bunch of smart people, say like Russ
and Joe, right? Coming from these traditional
telecom backgrounds, even like most of our team,
Rich. Donald and Tom, Alex, coming from traditional
backgrounds and leaving that for something like
this, right? That's a really, really big signal
on the market and just the conviction of the
space when you have people that have produced
tremendous value in our society doing other things
in science and technology. And they're coming
into this deepened space to kind of revolutionize
how wireless connectivity is thought about. in
the United States and maybe one day across the
world. So it's definitely a very, very bullish
signal and very, very happy to be building this
with them. Yeah, absolutely. I have one or two
more questions. I'm curious, does XNet have any
plans to be listed on not only an exchange, like
maybe even a deck? Because I know that's pretty
easy to address, but a centralized exchange and
or? Any sort of sites like CoinMarketCap or CoinGecko?
Yeah, I actually won't spend too much time talking
about like DEXs or SEXs. But yeah, I actually
just got us listed on CoinGecko. So XNet is up
and running there. It's great. Awesome. We're
also more on the DEX side, working some partnerships
with IoTeX. They're launching kind of a lot of
deep end products. So be on the lookout there.
You'll probably see more and more there. So if
XNet were to succeed with your short -term goals,
what's the future roadmap look like? Is it going
to be more locations? Are there going to be different
incentives? What do you guys got in mind? Should
roaming agreements and partnerships come to fruition
within the coming future? And do you have to
continue to build this ecosystem? Yeah, no, great
question. I think getting that first roaming
agreement with the major... participant in the
traditional telecom industry is definitely kind
of the biggest step and then obviously interconnecting
with them and getting their customers to roam
onto the extent network proves out the model
right so that's that would say is our goal obviously
it's taken a bit longer than we've expected but
the fact that we're even here and it's happening
right now i think is a really really revolutionary
thing that people shouldn't shouldn't fade at
all right because this is we're talking about
trillion dollar telecom industry that a small
startup with like i think we have 10 full -time
people right now is setting to disrupt so i think
it's it's very bullish but yeah on future plans
i mean the plan is to have mno's there's four
big ones as we know them get agreements signed
with all of them get all of their get all of
them to roam onto the extent network and in parallel
with that expand right Work with them, see where
they have pain points. Each of these companies
definitely have pain points in certain areas.
They might be different areas. So work with them,
fill those pain points because we can do it at
a fraction of the cost. And yeah, then expand
to MVNOs, right? Those are like your Mint Mobiles
and Visible. I've seen a lot of ads for Visible
from Verizon. They honestly have to pay MNOs.
to use their network. So paying someone like
Xnet is basically a no brainer, right? For them.
And yeah, I think once we start landing these
roaming agreements and our buy burn starts happening
and just, I didn't bring up this point, but every
dollar we get in revenue from say Verizon, Dish,
AT &T, T -Mobile, or whether it be Mint Mobile
or Revisible, we use 40 % of that to buy and
burn the Xnet token off open markets. And I think
this will really kind of start the flywheel that
I envision maybe in the next 10 years that XNet,
you know, just spreads like wildfire. The incentives
are there, aligned. There's enough demand and
liquidity in markets. And at that point, people
can just put up a 5G radio on their balcony,
right? We can get one in every apartment. And
I think that's the true vision of XNet one day
in the future. It's obviously optimistic, but
I like to think big. I think that's where I see
us in 10 years. One thing that I did mean to
ask earlier on in the interview is, if you're
looking at the X -Men Explorer, what is the significance
of the gold and silver hexes as well as the blue
outlined areas? Yeah, so basically the different
colors, right? Gold, silver, and blue. I'll start
with gold. I actually wrote a paper on this.
I think it's pinned on my Twitter or you can
check out my sub stack, but I called it the decentralized
telecom gold rush. So basically these gold, silver
and blue are kind of denominations of our token
rewards. So basically think gold is gold. So
you're getting the highest incentive reward and
it's basically one -to -one aligned with the
demand that's present in that area. which we've
used, which identified through telco industry
tools, everything that the telcos use to plan
networks, map out, see where there's dead spots.
We use the same tools along with some proprietary
data to pinpoint those locations saying, hey,
this is where there's all carriers or some carriers
have critical, critical pain points. And this
is where the XNet reward token for deploying
is the highest. So it follows similarly, as you
asked, gold is the highest, silver and blue are
eligible zones. There's not high, high demand
there, which is why it's not as much incentivized,
but it's great auxiliary coverage, right? So
once we fill the gold hexes, silver hexes, people
can come around and hopefully when we start that
buy burn 40 % of revenues, people can start filling
those up too. And I mean, anywhere you go, it's
excellent. It was still going to be a cheaper
alternative, but. It's just very important to
focus on a specific area at first when we're
obviously we're launching with limited resources.
We're trying to build a minimum viable product
and get this stuff going in within like a year.
So that's basically kind of the twofold purpose
of those things. But yeah, it's demand aligned.
It's incentive aligned. It's an incentive alignment
pretty much, I guess, is like a two word answer.
One thing I wanted to jump in on that you touched
on and, you know, like why would carriers do
this? And this is really, you know, you mentioned
like EV3, they put out some excellent kind of
research on the space and why this model makes
sense. But I wanted to, you know, highlight that
really specifically why a carrier would want
to work with XNet for neutral offload if it's
of a sufficient quality is because it saves them
a lot of money to put up like a Verizon site
or AT &T site or T -Mobile site. even for what
we would call a small cell so maybe just on top
of a light pole that could easily cost several
hundred thousand dollars which sounds crazy but
when you add up how long it takes the approvals
that are needed the cost of the contractors it
gets very expensive very quickly not to mention
it it takes a long time typically six months
or more can take years and here i mean if you
can being able to put up a site for a tiny fraction
of that cost with good backhaul with good radios
with a good global core i mean you can do it
for a tiny fraction of that and you can do it
very very quickly with the right incentives as
well so that's why i think carriers are are very
interested especially in the current environment
we're in now where it's so expensive to borrow
money and to build out infrastructure this just
seems like a very obvious thing to do like why
wouldn't you do this Obviously, you know, XNet's
working on the details that matter quite a bit
because they control their networks, they control
the customers and the traffic. But the pressure
for them to open up and to do this, I think,
has never been higher. So I want to build off
that last statement Russ made and pose a philosophical
question for everyone here, something I've been
contemplating lately. So let's say XNet does
break down this wall and prove the deep end concept.
decentralized physical infrastructure networks
that are community incentivized. And they break
the barrier of utility value inflow being greater
than the token emission outflow of value. What
to say that proving this model gets significant
attention from the venture capital and investment
crowd, and they decide we don't need all this
crypto stuff. We don't need tokens for this.
We can do this with fiat currency. We know it
works. We know it can be profitable. Let's get
rid of the crypto crap, as they would call it,
and do this with fiat because it opens up a larger
crowd, more options to host this type of hardware,
to host these networks. What are your guys' thoughts
on that? Yeah, I can take the first stab and
then you guys can kind of fill in where I leave
off. But yeah, I think that's a great point,
Joe. There's still... I guess dealing with these
physical infrastructure networks or just kind
of real world assets that are being put on chain,
there's still this kind of mishap, right? Because
there's this, we have small communities that
know about the space. It's obviously like walking
over, say if I walk over the other apartment
across my street and explain this to some random
person over there, they're going to be like,
I don't want. a crypto like i don't want a token
like you know that's that's where often i've
also pitched x net a lot here um in denver to
traditional kind of startup week events traditional
startups you know not much um experience in blockchain
and crypto and that's where the fall off point
kind of happens it's like you're following they're
following everything up until the point where
you mentioned the token and then they're like
huh like why can't i just give cash well all
right so it's like the crypto Obviously, there's
a speculative nature to it. That's just how the
markets work. But sure, you may have more upside,
but I completely agree with you. There should
be systems denominated. I don't think like the
VC model where they just dish out like millions
of millions of dollars to build this stuff up
will ever work. But I do think one day like the
token being taken out of kind of the system,
right? Like people having off ramps. So say...
This person can set up a radio at their house
and every month they're just getting a bank deposit,
no wallets involved. They're just getting a bank
deposit in US dollars for the token conversion
that's happening. But I think to get to that,
achieving like a lot of volume of real world
revenues and just having stable, sufficient liquidity
in the market is definitely an important step.
But yeah, Russ or Chris, if you want to kind
of expand on. I think it's going to be dealt
with on a case by case basis because I don't
think Xnet is going to be the only blockchain
powered telecom company in the future. I have
a feeling similar to Helium. When you have a
pioneer in the space, there's a lot of people
that will come and try to just create competition
because it's no good to have a market without
competition. It makes both companies strive to
be better. And I think in the case of Xnet. because
they are the first people in this space to go
for a fully functional network. They're going
to have an edge over anyone else that tries to
join, especially with the team that they have
and the experience that they have. It'll be interesting.
They could go either way. And if they do decide
to go with just cash, there's not really much
that the crypto industry could do other than
convince them that crypto is the future and show
them the benefits. Basically, what I was trying
to say is if these telecom companies decide that
they don't want to use crypto, I think they will
gain an audience in the fact that they'll be
able to use just cash for all their funding and
whatnot. But the crypto industry is continuing
to grow. I think it's going to hurt them in the
long run. And I think if they want to be around
in the long run and they've been around for a
couple of decades now, if they want to still
be relevant in the future, I think they're going
to have to look at. hand that is dealt to them
and see that, hey, crypto is really gaining some
traction. And specifically this company called
Xnet. So let's take a look at them and let's
see what we can do. And I think that's what's
going to end up happening. Or you're going to
see what happened to Blockbuster and many companies
in the past where they pretty much don't adapt
to the changing environment and their companies
just cease to exist. Yeah. And just one more
point to that. I think we, Russ and Joe, we talked
about it. recently a few weeks ago on the x net
podcast but this idea right chris you mentioned
that these oligopolies have existed basically
connectivity is like whatever fundamental right
it's it's needed right so these companies are
going to be needed but if you look at apple right
kind of one of if you want to have a good look
on where markets are headed you you look at what
apple is doing you look at what google is doing
you look at what amazon is doing to kind of get
a glimpse into what the future of technologies
will look like and what sort of competition,
what sort of businesses will be present in that
future. And Apple is kind of the biggest signal
for this because obviously most people in America
and across the world are Apple customer of an
Apple phone. And they recently pivoted to only
being eSIMs. So an eSIM is obviously you don't
need the physical SIM card in your phone anymore.
It's all kind of on the back end. And they have,
I think it's up to eight eSIMs now on their newest
models, which basically leads you to showing
that the future of connectivity and wireless
networks is going to be agnostic. It's not going
to be that you have one or two networks serving
all your needs because how the demand for data
and just the projected growth is going. The current
companies are not equipped to deal with it. So
Apple envisions a future where there's going
to be multiple, multiple networks that have hardware
that are providing connectivity. And you'll just
be able to scan a QR code and download an eSIM
and be able to use that network anywhere you
are. So I think that's definitely part of this
whole puzzle, too. And it's a very, very bullish
signal from the market itself that we're progressing
towards a different future in wireless connectivity.
Bullish times, folks, bullish times for sure.
Russ, would you like to give your take on that?
Yeah. So actually this comes out of really, you
know, several discussions I had at Mobile World
Congress. So as this, you know, we're definitely
in a tough market. This is when your belief in
this market, belief in this movement really gets
tested because economically it can be hard to
make sense right now. You know, several people
I think right now are running. you know having
trouble kind of carrying their their current
costs but are hopeful that that'll you know that
will change very soon and flip very quickly which
i think it will as well these problems with being
able to pay people whether it's in fiat or crypto
or a more stable crypto like usdc uh i think
are going to be solved very quickly there's a
lot of people know about this problem and There's
a lot of, I think, bridges and solutions currently
being developed. They're going to make it very,
very easy for revenue to go out, whether you
can pitch to somebody and not even mention the
word crypto, and they get paid in cash and just
say it's a revenue share of what's earned. Keep
it very, very simple. And I think that's going
to be easier and easier, especially next year.
There's going to be several solutions, I think,
in the market coming up that are going to address
that. And I'm very excited for the space as well.
There are many opportunities to where it's not
just putting up XNet makes sense, but other projects
in the space that aren't cellular make sense
as well. They're trying to get other data. There's
GPS data. There's weather data. There's noise
quality data. There's all types of data they
can get. And a lot of it could be done in the
same location, sometimes with the same hardware.
which is very, very exciting. So I think that
is a problem in the industry right now, especially
if you don't want to get classified for switching
crypto for cash. That's something you definitely
don't want to do. There are some contract solutions
that are out there, but getting a solution where
it goes to cash, I think that's going to become
more and more commonplace and cross -chain in
the very near future. So I'm very excited about
it. I think it's only going to get easier and
better. But this is it. This is the bear market.
Your resilience is being tested, and we'll see
what it's like on the other side. Well, I'll
give my take on it, answer my own question. So
I'm not necessarily a crypto maxi. I'm a decentralization
maxi. I'm a big advocate for this shared economy,
shared infrastructure model built by the community
in a manner that people are able to be compensated.
for their efforts or for their assets that they're
willing to provide and share, right? It gives
the power back to the people, puts the money
back in their pocket. And whether that's done
with a token or with fiat doesn't really matter
to me. It's the concept. And if crypto proves
this concept of the shared economy, the D -PIN
or community, incentivized and driven projects,
I think will have done its job for the good of
humanity. So I do believe it's very possible
that we do see community incentivized projects,
deepened projects that will not be crypto based
in the future. They could even be blockchain
based without the token. There's blockchain records
of not necessarily transactions, but events.
Well, Sean, to wrap this up, how would one get
involved in the project? Yeah, for sure. Well,
first of all, kind of as Joe said, if you're
interested in just the first principles of decentralization
and something that excites you, we're building
something of real value to the world. And we
believe that decentralizing it can provide a
lot for people, for communities that don't have
access to Internet or that need better connectivity
and stripping away some of that power from these
existing oligopolies. first of all, just join
our Discord, you know, become a part of the conversation.
Even if you don't have capital or resources to
participate, we'd love for you to give your two
cents, give your feedback, just be a part of
the movement, right? We're only as powerful as
our community is at the end of the day, right?
Where we want to be expanding. So please join
our Discord. And from there, yeah, you can kind
of get on ramp to the XNet community and see
if there's an opportunity if you live in the
US to deploy. your own network help with that
or just participate in community protocols community
calls developing proposals it's all an open community
and we believe in kind of the community's participation
in it so definitely we'll be linking the discord
probably wherever you post this video chris but
come on board we're happy to have everyone help
us on this mission Thank you Sean and Russ for
coming on today and Joe as always for helping
co -host. If anyone is interested in XNet, be
sure to check out the description for more information.