WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.859 Welcome to the Innovation Conversation, a podcast 00:00:02.859 --> 00:00:05.419 about innovators, both in business and real life. 00:00:05.879 --> 00:00:08.380 Hosted by myself, Ricardo Rescual and Harry McCona. 00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:11.699 This podcast is also sponsored by ODEV Tech. 00:00:12.439 --> 00:00:14.640 ODEV Tech is your premier software development 00:00:14.640 --> 00:00:18.019 partner. Make sure you check them out at odev 00:00:18.019 --> 00:00:22.399 .tech. The podcast is also sponsored by Notion 00:00:22.399 --> 00:00:25.359 .so. Notion is offering six months for free for 00:00:25.359 --> 00:00:27.839 new users. Make sure you check out our website, 00:00:28.039 --> 00:00:30.600 thestoreofevents .co .uk to read in the software. 00:00:31.460 --> 00:00:33.659 Hi, and welcome to another episode of The Innovation 00:00:33.659 --> 00:00:35.740 Conversation. Today we are joined by Benjamin 00:00:35.740 --> 00:00:38.579 Whitby. Benjamin, welcome to the podcast. Carter, 00:00:38.619 --> 00:00:40.560 thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure 00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:42.200 having you here. Benjamin, would you like to 00:00:42.200 --> 00:00:44.659 introduce yourself to the audience, please? Yeah, 00:00:44.700 --> 00:00:48.420 I'd be delighted to. My name is Benjamin Whitby. 00:00:49.079 --> 00:00:54.259 I am a technologist, quantum physicist, investment 00:00:54.259 --> 00:00:59.200 banker. 20 years in capital markets and been 00:00:59.200 --> 00:01:02.859 in the crypto space since rabbit hole 2013, four 00:01:02.859 --> 00:01:06.540 times 2017. So did you ever buy a pizza with 00:01:06.540 --> 00:01:10.219 the Bitcoin? No, I never ever got to kind of 00:01:10.219 --> 00:01:14.140 do anything that kind of crazy. But yeah, the 00:01:14.140 --> 00:01:16.840 rabbit hole moment for me was when I was still 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:22.359 working at HSBC and one of our staff put 50 Canadian 00:01:22.359 --> 00:01:26.079 dollars into Robocoin ATM. which was the world's 00:01:26.079 --> 00:01:32.040 first ATM in Bitcoin and I ended up having to 00:01:32.040 --> 00:01:33.719 go and sort that out, walk the guy around the 00:01:33.719 --> 00:01:37.019 car park, then read the white paper and just 00:01:37.019 --> 00:01:42.000 had the most kind of amazing kind of revelation 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:45.799 how you just see forwards with technology and 00:01:45.799 --> 00:01:48.900 you can see where things are going to go and 00:01:48.900 --> 00:01:52.239 just saw that all of capital markets was going 00:01:52.239 --> 00:01:56.709 to tokenize saw this in 2013 and then spent four 00:01:56.709 --> 00:01:59.310 years in HSBC trying to get them to move the 00:01:59.310 --> 00:02:02.969 needle before then kind of going full -time into 00:02:02.969 --> 00:02:08.830 crypto in 2017 and now launched our latest protocol, 00:02:09.270 --> 00:02:12.210 which is a cross -chain protocol. So yeah, it's 00:02:12.210 --> 00:02:15.349 really exciting. So I guess what prompted you 00:02:15.349 --> 00:02:18.349 to make a move from investment banking in a more 00:02:18.349 --> 00:02:21.569 traditional role to the space? So I started my 00:02:21.569 --> 00:02:28.819 career in early 2000s, late 1999, early 2000s. 00:02:28.979 --> 00:02:32.680 And I ended up kind of working for one of the 00:02:32.680 --> 00:02:35.599 biggest, Lloyds of London, so the biggest insurance 00:02:35.599 --> 00:02:40.120 market in the world. We did all the Y2K challenges 00:02:40.120 --> 00:02:44.500 there. And whilst I was there, having come out 00:02:44.500 --> 00:02:47.759 of university, having access to the internet, 00:02:48.259 --> 00:02:51.520 to then come into the working world and being 00:02:51.520 --> 00:02:54.610 told No, you can't access the internet. No, you 00:02:54.610 --> 00:02:57.710 can't have email. No, you have to use Lotus Notes. 00:02:57.729 --> 00:03:00.909 I was like, this is like go back in time. And 00:03:00.909 --> 00:03:04.370 yeah, obviously then we went through, um, web 00:03:04.370 --> 00:03:08.469 1 .0 and email, the web kind of, and the internet 00:03:08.469 --> 00:03:11.770 kind of propagated through all of our industry. 00:03:12.689 --> 00:03:17.250 And I felt that the same kind of position I was 00:03:17.250 --> 00:03:19.889 seeing same kind of position with Bitcoin in 00:03:19.889 --> 00:03:24.099 2013 with this, it was like, Right, here we now 00:03:24.099 --> 00:03:27.199 have something that is going to make the internet 00:03:27.199 --> 00:03:30.379 able to operate with digitally scarce assets, 00:03:30.680 --> 00:03:34.199 which is really important. So my generation, 00:03:34.319 --> 00:03:38.060 we grew up kind of copying cassettes and CDs 00:03:38.060 --> 00:03:40.780 and NPCs and things like that. And you got used 00:03:40.780 --> 00:03:43.719 to being able to share digital assets around 00:03:43.719 --> 00:03:47.800 with everybody. And so to have something that 00:03:47.800 --> 00:03:51.259 is digitally scarce, See game changer and was 00:03:51.259 --> 00:03:53.300 like this is gonna change capital markets forever 00:03:53.300 --> 00:03:56.659 Which is really why I persisted with HSBC for 00:03:56.659 --> 00:04:00.280 so long because I thought it's gonna be now they're 00:04:00.280 --> 00:04:01.840 gonna see it. They're gonna see it It's gonna 00:04:01.840 --> 00:04:04.740 happen. It's gonna happen But they chose either 00:04:04.740 --> 00:04:06.939 not to see it or they were moving too slowly 00:04:06.939 --> 00:04:10.240 and I just got quite bored and decided that it 00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:12.280 was a there was an opportunity that was too big 00:04:12.280 --> 00:04:15.159 to miss and Four had to kind of jump in with 00:04:15.159 --> 00:04:18.019 both feet because you only really get one life 00:04:18.139 --> 00:04:20.199 in terms of doing what you're doing and you have 00:04:20.199 --> 00:04:23.139 to be doing something that you absolutely fundamentally 00:04:23.139 --> 00:04:26.379 believe in. So I guess you can almost call yourself 00:04:26.379 --> 00:04:29.339 an accidental entrepreneur, in the sense that 00:04:29.339 --> 00:04:31.399 you had a very well established career in life 00:04:31.399 --> 00:04:33.779 and then you moved to the crypto space. A wise 00:04:33.779 --> 00:04:35.959 move by the way, but at the time I guess you 00:04:35.959 --> 00:04:38.579 must have felt quite scary, you know? Yeah, it 00:04:38.579 --> 00:04:42.920 was quite scary. I did it eight years at HSBC. 00:04:43.040 --> 00:04:45.360 I had a great network. Before that I was with 00:04:45.360 --> 00:04:49.139 PwC and Accenture and I thought actually people 00:04:49.139 --> 00:04:53.819 would kind of understand where this was going 00:04:53.819 --> 00:04:55.939 and would see through the noise and see to the 00:04:55.939 --> 00:05:00.680 technology. And then obviously we had a couple 00:05:00.680 --> 00:05:03.040 of good years and then a couple of really, really 00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:11.220 tough years with like 2021 to 2024 really now 00:05:11.220 --> 00:05:15.759 until when kind of all the the regulators in 00:05:15.759 --> 00:05:18.319 the US are going to change. We had to endure 00:05:18.319 --> 00:05:22.060 Operation Chokepoint and really it's being made 00:05:22.060 --> 00:05:24.399 to feel like a criminal because you're building 00:05:24.399 --> 00:05:26.319 technology that is going to change the world 00:05:26.319 --> 00:05:28.439 and it just feels wrong at so many different 00:05:28.439 --> 00:05:34.100 levels. But yeah, you do. You have to kind of 00:05:34.100 --> 00:05:38.560 embrace and take what you know and then reach 00:05:38.560 --> 00:05:42.100 for something new. You know when you when you 00:05:42.100 --> 00:05:44.420 told your peers they're gonna move into the crypto 00:05:44.420 --> 00:05:47.079 space and blockchain space How did they react 00:05:47.079 --> 00:05:50.079 to that back in? Bitcoin hit 20k for the very 00:05:50.079 --> 00:05:54.740 first time when I resigned and They were like 00:05:54.740 --> 00:05:57.180 it's gonna be amazing. It's gonna go up forever. 00:05:57.180 --> 00:05:59.839 And it's like well, that's just not gonna really 00:05:59.839 --> 00:06:03.079 happen And then obviously we went through the 00:06:03.079 --> 00:06:07.079 doldrums in the Bitcoin space. So I think About 00:06:07.079 --> 00:06:09.220 six months after I had resigned and kind of come 00:06:09.220 --> 00:06:11.439 out into the space we were down at three four 00:06:11.439 --> 00:06:14.699 thousand dollars per Bitcoin Which now seems 00:06:14.699 --> 00:06:18.220 like why didn't I buy so much more Bitcoin and 00:06:18.220 --> 00:06:21.600 some more crypto? and the answer is you can never 00:06:21.600 --> 00:06:26.899 have too much, but the reality of Kind of getting 00:06:26.899 --> 00:06:32.279 engaged in this space is Significantly high -risk 00:06:32.279 --> 00:06:35.240 right? So you've got all the benefit all the 00:06:37.339 --> 00:06:41.019 challenges of traditional entrepreneurial activity, 00:06:42.060 --> 00:06:44.139 layered on top with the fact that it's really 00:06:44.139 --> 00:06:45.939 difficult to get a bank account. It's really 00:06:45.939 --> 00:06:48.079 difficult to operate. It's really difficult to 00:06:48.079 --> 00:06:52.399 launch a token. It's because it's all been structured 00:06:52.399 --> 00:06:54.519 in such a way that there have been so many barriers 00:06:54.519 --> 00:06:58.639 put in front until this point about progressing 00:06:58.639 --> 00:07:02.819 this technology forwards, that it's only now 00:07:02.819 --> 00:07:06.259 coming into this next wave of regulatory oversight 00:07:06.259 --> 00:07:09.660 that I am truly excited for how this industry 00:07:09.660 --> 00:07:11.639 is going to accelerate. You launch also your 00:07:11.639 --> 00:07:13.920 own project now, which is Governor, if I got 00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:16.180 the name correctly. Can you tell me a bit more 00:07:16.180 --> 00:07:22.240 about it? Again, it's a journey of frustrations 00:07:22.240 --> 00:07:27.860 and awareness and an observation of the gaps 00:07:27.860 --> 00:07:30.480 that exist within the common technology space. 00:07:31.839 --> 00:07:34.800 One of the challenges when I came out of HSBC 00:07:34.800 --> 00:07:39.560 and kind of did this first DeFi project was that 00:07:39.560 --> 00:07:42.220 actually we didn't have governance over our own 00:07:42.220 --> 00:07:45.879 assets. As a team, we didn't have governance 00:07:45.879 --> 00:07:49.399 over those. We had the ability to be sovereign, 00:07:49.620 --> 00:07:54.240 self -sovereign, as in you know your private 00:07:54.240 --> 00:07:56.519 key, I know my private key, we've got the ability 00:07:56.519 --> 00:07:59.259 to sign and you know, as people in the investment 00:07:59.259 --> 00:08:01.480 banking space know and will have experienced. 00:08:01.959 --> 00:08:05.959 we all got these RSA tags that kind of generated 00:08:05.959 --> 00:08:08.819 codes at a certain kind of frequency, and you 00:08:08.819 --> 00:08:11.920 then kind of had to type in your unique code. 00:08:12.779 --> 00:08:14.899 And so we were very used to kind of being able 00:08:14.899 --> 00:08:17.720 to coordinate things, knowing that we were submitting 00:08:17.720 --> 00:08:21.779 something that we could effectively sign without 00:08:21.779 --> 00:08:26.019 being the full sole holder of those assets. And 00:08:26.019 --> 00:08:30.439 in corporations, you need to have for a signature, 00:08:30.560 --> 00:08:34.039 for a Overview, multiple signatures, multiple 00:08:34.039 --> 00:08:36.500 sign -offs. And in the early days of crypto, 00:08:36.639 --> 00:08:39.659 we never had that. So there were two kind of 00:08:39.659 --> 00:08:42.100 real innovations that came through. One was the 00:08:42.100 --> 00:08:45.580 innovation of the multi -sig technology. And 00:08:45.580 --> 00:08:48.000 secondly, there was the innovation of MPC technology. 00:08:48.740 --> 00:08:51.919 And MPC technology stands for multi -party computation. 00:08:53.059 --> 00:08:55.659 And the combination of all these different technology 00:08:55.659 --> 00:09:00.330 pieces into different layers We can now, in the 00:09:00.330 --> 00:09:03.389 crypto space, put a structure and framework in 00:09:03.389 --> 00:09:08.370 place that means that we can represent and reflect 00:09:08.370 --> 00:09:10.809 the same processes that happen within corporate 00:09:10.809 --> 00:09:13.269 structures today and investment banks through 00:09:13.269 --> 00:09:16.230 social engagement, but do that on a technology 00:09:16.230 --> 00:09:19.330 basis as well. And then once we've done that 00:09:19.330 --> 00:09:24.330 with people, how can we then empower and give 00:09:24.330 --> 00:09:27.629 AI agents the ability to go off and hold their 00:09:27.629 --> 00:09:30.500 own keys? and be effectively self -sovereign. 00:09:30.519 --> 00:09:33.840 So you can build a completely autonomous agent 00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:38.519 as a smart contract on the blockchain, enable 00:09:38.519 --> 00:09:41.399 that with a key infrastructure that allows them 00:09:41.399 --> 00:09:45.539 to generate, create, control different addresses, 00:09:45.820 --> 00:09:49.480 different assets on the blockchain. And that's 00:09:49.480 --> 00:09:53.700 affected what Governor is. It's a framework that 00:09:53.700 --> 00:09:58.970 enables self -sovereign control from all different 00:09:58.970 --> 00:10:03.769 types of users and different kind of endpoints 00:10:03.769 --> 00:10:07.610 including AIs and user agents that enables you 00:10:07.610 --> 00:10:12.169 to control absolutely any asset on any blockchain. 00:10:13.070 --> 00:10:15.169 Now that's really important. That's really important 00:10:15.169 --> 00:10:19.070 because these blockchains when they exist, they 00:10:19.070 --> 00:10:22.610 come into life and they become islands of liquidity. 00:10:23.610 --> 00:10:26.980 So you have the assets that exist on Ethereum, 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:31.419 the assets that exist on Solana, on Solana. Those 00:10:31.419 --> 00:10:35.059 two worlds do not talk to each other. Now, we're 00:10:35.059 --> 00:10:39.320 getting to a point where I believe with the forthcoming 00:10:39.320 --> 00:10:43.320 changes and regulations that enterprises will 00:10:43.320 --> 00:10:46.399 be launching their own blockchains. We've already 00:10:46.399 --> 00:10:50.460 seen this with Sony. We've seen this with a number 00:10:50.460 --> 00:10:53.669 of different block... blockchain companies like 00:10:53.669 --> 00:10:56.629 Coinbase and Kraken, where they've launched and 00:10:56.629 --> 00:11:01.049 they're operating now, their own permissionless 00:11:01.049 --> 00:11:04.230 blockchains. So these blockchains being called 00:11:04.230 --> 00:11:07.830 DAP chains. And if we have the same types of 00:11:07.830 --> 00:11:10.450 problems and challenges with those DAP chains 00:11:10.450 --> 00:11:14.230 being islands of liquidity, then it makes it 00:11:14.230 --> 00:11:18.049 very difficult to do composable transactions. 00:11:18.730 --> 00:11:22.220 And it's It's almost as if you're a tourist and 00:11:22.220 --> 00:11:26.220 you landed in a new country without a credit 00:11:26.220 --> 00:11:28.100 card or a payment rail, the first thing that 00:11:28.100 --> 00:11:29.860 you've got to do is you've got to go and take 00:11:29.860 --> 00:11:32.960 your local home currency and do a conversion 00:11:32.960 --> 00:11:36.559 into the currency of that national state. So 00:11:36.559 --> 00:11:38.720 if you go to Ireland, you maybe need to change 00:11:38.720 --> 00:11:42.000 from English pounds to Irish pounds. If you go 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:44.580 to France, you need to change from English pounds 00:11:44.580 --> 00:11:48.379 to Euros. And that conversion to that kind of 00:11:48.379 --> 00:11:51.139 new currency possession is the first thing that 00:11:51.139 --> 00:11:53.279 you've got to do before you can do anything. 00:11:53.559 --> 00:11:56.120 So before you can go and have coffee and a croissant 00:11:56.120 --> 00:12:01.000 in France, you've got to have euros. Now, Governor 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:04.259 effectively makes it frictionless for anybody 00:12:04.259 --> 00:12:07.419 to come and take their existing pounds and go 00:12:07.419 --> 00:12:10.500 and purchase a coffee and a croissant in France, 00:12:10.500 --> 00:12:15.779 in Paris, without having to do that dance of 00:12:15.779 --> 00:12:18.830 currency exchange and movement, et cetera, et 00:12:18.830 --> 00:12:22.870 cetera. And what's really, really important on 00:12:22.870 --> 00:12:28.470 this is that all of these chains, we have Bitcoin. 00:12:29.309 --> 00:12:33.570 Bitcoin is today 60 % market dominance, 60 % 00:12:33.570 --> 00:12:36.149 of all value in crypto exists within Bitcoin 00:12:36.149 --> 00:12:42.070 ecosystem. And there is no way to utilize that 00:12:42.070 --> 00:12:45.120 value. without going through some kind of wrapping 00:12:45.120 --> 00:12:48.259 or exchange process at this moment in time, which 00:12:48.259 --> 00:12:53.139 sounds fine until you realize that the local 00:12:53.139 --> 00:12:58.320 governments that have existed in this space have 00:12:58.320 --> 00:13:02.360 been writing regulations about income tax, capital 00:13:02.360 --> 00:13:06.639 gains tax, transfer and exchange of assets. And 00:13:06.639 --> 00:13:10.700 so they see at this point in time, if we go back 00:13:10.700 --> 00:13:13.929 to the I've got pounds, I want euros to buy a 00:13:13.929 --> 00:13:16.990 coffee and a croissant. They see that transaction 00:13:16.990 --> 00:13:18.730 where you're taking your pounds and turning it 00:13:18.730 --> 00:13:21.830 into euros to do that transaction to buy a coffee 00:13:21.830 --> 00:13:26.009 and croissant. They see that transaction as a 00:13:26.009 --> 00:13:28.009 transaction that unlocks capital gains requirement, 00:13:28.370 --> 00:13:31.049 which means that you lose an awful lot of your 00:13:31.049 --> 00:13:33.090 value when you're going between these different 00:13:33.090 --> 00:13:36.649 chains as a retail user, as a corporate user, 00:13:37.289 --> 00:13:39.480 or potentially as an AI user. you're incurring 00:13:39.480 --> 00:13:41.220 all sorts of different risks and challenges. 00:13:42.200 --> 00:13:45.059 And so what Governor does is it enables you to 00:13:45.059 --> 00:13:48.519 avoid in so many different ways through collateralization 00:13:48.519 --> 00:13:52.440 and generating loans against your assets, the 00:13:52.440 --> 00:13:55.720 ability to unlock value without incurring capital 00:13:55.720 --> 00:13:58.840 gains costs, income costs, et cetera, et cetera, 00:13:59.120 --> 00:14:01.299 because of the way that you're using your assets. 00:14:01.799 --> 00:14:06.029 And importantly, probably most importantly, a 00:14:06.029 --> 00:14:09.210 way of making sure that you're staying self -sovereign. 00:14:09.429 --> 00:14:11.970 Okay, so you enable people to make the payments 00:14:11.970 --> 00:14:17.929 in whatever currency they wish to do so and by 00:14:17.929 --> 00:14:20.330 converting, do you also convert to fiat or how 00:14:20.330 --> 00:14:22.909 does it work? I'm not touching fiat at this moment 00:14:22.909 --> 00:14:26.450 in time. In order to do fiat, you do need to 00:14:26.450 --> 00:14:28.889 be kind of regulated entity, that's one of the 00:14:28.889 --> 00:14:31.929 things. It's very clear, you need to make sure 00:14:31.929 --> 00:14:36.230 that you're doing KRC. and we're just operating 00:14:36.230 --> 00:14:40.610 within the DeFi space. So the positions really 00:14:40.610 --> 00:14:45.009 are try forward look again and say, right, okay, 00:14:45.029 --> 00:14:48.629 we're gonna come to a position where, and there 00:14:48.629 --> 00:14:53.690 are two big risks. The first is that we create 00:14:53.690 --> 00:14:56.870 an environment that makes it impossible for AI 00:14:56.870 --> 00:14:59.669 agents to go off and do various different things. 00:14:59.929 --> 00:15:02.509 Now, if you've got an action that you want to 00:15:02.509 --> 00:15:04.929 go off and do, you don't want your AI agent to 00:15:04.929 --> 00:15:07.870 get stuck blocked. You want to be able to empower 00:15:07.870 --> 00:15:10.889 them to travel through the entire kind of block 00:15:10.889 --> 00:15:14.389 sphere and different blockchains without kind 00:15:14.389 --> 00:15:17.509 of having problems. So the ability to create 00:15:17.509 --> 00:15:20.610 addresses on all of these different blockchains 00:15:20.610 --> 00:15:22.750 in a programmatic fashion is really important. 00:15:23.850 --> 00:15:27.610 The second thing to kind of watch and worry about 00:15:27.610 --> 00:15:34.000 is the way that we have defaulted into use of 00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:40.460 bridges today and bridges in this space have 00:15:40.460 --> 00:15:42.519 proved to be very successful, proved to be very 00:15:42.519 --> 00:15:45.980 popular and are being used by people that do 00:15:45.980 --> 00:15:48.200 not understand the risks. I always pick on the 00:15:48.200 --> 00:15:50.620 Arbitrum team and I love the Arbitrum team because 00:15:50.620 --> 00:15:53.440 I think they've got one of the best DAO frameworks 00:15:53.440 --> 00:15:57.360 out there at the moment but if I use the Arbitrum 00:15:57.360 --> 00:16:01.399 bridge As an example, as it stands today, they 00:16:01.399 --> 00:16:04.519 have got round about three and a half billion 00:16:04.519 --> 00:16:08.620 dollars worth of ETH on their bridge. Now that 00:16:08.620 --> 00:16:13.659 bridge is secured by a 9 of 12 multi -sig run 00:16:13.659 --> 00:16:16.080 by the Security Council of the Arbitrant Foundation. 00:16:17.440 --> 00:16:22.759 At some point, when ETH finally comes out of 00:16:22.759 --> 00:16:28.289 the doldrums, that three billion worth of value, 00:16:28.950 --> 00:16:32.570 say three X's in the next cycle, could become 00:16:32.570 --> 00:16:36.250 close to $10 billion. And that means that every 00:16:36.250 --> 00:16:40.149 single user that is holding and securing that 00:16:40.149 --> 00:16:44.710 contract is effectively securing a billion dollars 00:16:44.710 --> 00:16:47.769 worth of value. Now at some point the money, 00:16:48.009 --> 00:16:50.970 monetary value of the assets that they are holding 00:16:50.970 --> 00:16:55.220 eclipses the risk of going and attacking any 00:16:55.220 --> 00:16:59.100 one of those nine people. And so Governor flips 00:16:59.100 --> 00:17:02.580 that on its head and allows individual users 00:17:02.580 --> 00:17:07.519 to create and control assets, not through a centralized 00:17:07.519 --> 00:17:11.579 bridge that holds $10 billion worth of value, 00:17:12.259 --> 00:17:15.880 but to enable 8 billion people to hold a dollar's 00:17:15.880 --> 00:17:18.559 worth of value on their own bridge, as it were. 00:17:18.759 --> 00:17:21.740 So it really flips it on its head and the attack 00:17:21.740 --> 00:17:24.240 vector in terms of the cryptography attacking 00:17:24.569 --> 00:17:26.869 A bridge with a small amount of assets in there 00:17:26.869 --> 00:17:30.190 is exactly the same as attacking a bridge with 00:17:30.190 --> 00:17:33.750 a large amount of assets in there apart from 00:17:33.750 --> 00:17:36.490 the maths is the same, but the social element 00:17:36.490 --> 00:17:39.529 is very different. So the social element is you 00:17:39.529 --> 00:17:41.990 need to attack one person and you'll unlock maybe 00:17:41.990 --> 00:17:45.630 $100 worth of assets. Whereas if you attack the 00:17:45.630 --> 00:17:47.990 bridge holders, you attack one person and you 00:17:47.990 --> 00:17:51.269 unlock $10 million worth of assets is a very 00:17:51.269 --> 00:17:53.750 asymmetric risk that you're addressing there. 00:17:53.869 --> 00:17:59.029 Um, so governor helps move towards much, much 00:17:59.029 --> 00:18:02.650 lower reduced, uh, risk model than current exists. 00:18:03.789 --> 00:18:05.869 How, how'd you come up with this idea? First 00:18:05.869 --> 00:18:08.130 principles thinking. I mean, I studied physics 00:18:08.130 --> 00:18:11.269 for, uh, my degree and I always liked to kind 00:18:11.269 --> 00:18:14.750 of deconstruct things back into their first principles. 00:18:15.170 --> 00:18:18.410 It's something that we're all kind of taught 00:18:18.410 --> 00:18:22.880 to do as artists and kind of go. find truth and 00:18:22.880 --> 00:18:25.880 then evidence that truth. And yeah, it's always 00:18:25.880 --> 00:18:28.720 good to go back and challenge. Was it challenging, 00:18:28.720 --> 00:18:31.000 you know, launching the idea, getting to the 00:18:31.000 --> 00:18:32.880 point where it is now, or did you actually found 00:18:32.880 --> 00:18:35.200 a lot of people in the community saying, you 00:18:35.200 --> 00:18:37.000 know what, I believe in this, I'm going to support 00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:40.220 this 100 %? It's actually been really challenging. 00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:45.619 It's been really challenging from the people 00:18:45.619 --> 00:18:47.339 that we know, the angel community that we know, 00:18:47.500 --> 00:18:50.319 that we've met in London and in various different 00:18:50.319 --> 00:18:53.970 other parts of the world now. to nearly eight 00:18:53.970 --> 00:18:57.329 years in the crypto space. It's been relatively 00:18:57.329 --> 00:19:01.990 easy to get involved in that first year of funding. 00:19:02.650 --> 00:19:05.309 In terms of the next stage of funding, actually 00:19:05.309 --> 00:19:10.009 incredibly hard because we're faced with an environment 00:19:10.009 --> 00:19:13.849 where we have these amazing crypto assets that 00:19:13.849 --> 00:19:16.970 are still significantly undervalued compared 00:19:16.970 --> 00:19:21.619 to what they will do in society. If you're talking 00:19:21.619 --> 00:19:24.039 to a venture capital firm and they're sitting 00:19:24.039 --> 00:19:26.980 on a various different size of portfolio, they're 00:19:26.980 --> 00:19:29.500 maybe not necessarily at this point in the cycle 00:19:29.500 --> 00:19:32.519 looking for that outsize risk. They might want 00:19:32.519 --> 00:19:35.740 to just put, so they've got 10 million bucks 00:19:35.740 --> 00:19:39.519 that they've got on their tickets to write tickets 00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:42.039 for. They might just decide, actually, we're 00:19:42.039 --> 00:19:44.740 just going to put this into Bitcoin for the next 00:19:44.740 --> 00:19:49.480 12 months, ride it through 3, 4X. where we've 00:19:49.480 --> 00:19:52.200 got to and then take profits out. And so it's 00:19:52.200 --> 00:19:56.440 a very difficult time to convince people to kind 00:19:56.440 --> 00:20:03.519 of walk away from a three, four X position until 00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:05.519 they've had that liquidity moment. So I think 00:20:05.519 --> 00:20:09.900 that the market will start to free up in 2025, 00:20:09.900 --> 00:20:15.480 but maybe not towards the end of 2025. And the 00:20:15.480 --> 00:20:18.099 challenge is that you would have come across 00:20:18.099 --> 00:20:24.099 this Previously, good ideas don't wait, right? 00:20:24.500 --> 00:20:28.380 If he waits and wait for the funding opportunities 00:20:28.380 --> 00:20:30.559 to be right, somebody else will build your product. 00:20:30.720 --> 00:20:32.740 That's a good point. I was just about to ask 00:20:32.740 --> 00:20:34.920 you one thing, which is I talk with a lot of 00:20:34.920 --> 00:20:37.099 entrepreneurs and there's always that element 00:20:37.099 --> 00:20:40.700 of madness in whatever new thing they're trying 00:20:40.700 --> 00:20:43.720 to build and develop. How do you manage that 00:20:43.720 --> 00:20:46.240 yourself? How do you manage that fine line between 00:20:46.490 --> 00:20:49.250 I'm doing something new and that's never been 00:20:49.250 --> 00:20:51.470 done before and this is sheer madness to even 00:20:51.470 --> 00:20:53.369 try and do this in the first place. How do you 00:20:53.369 --> 00:21:19.039 balance that? target that you possibly can, whether 00:21:19.039 --> 00:21:22.460 that's users, whether that's assets, whether 00:21:22.460 --> 00:21:26.460 that's kind of position in terms of the goal 00:21:26.460 --> 00:21:30.000 of launching a rocket that gets to Mars. You've 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:33.740 got to have that big end vision. And so for Governor, 00:21:34.160 --> 00:21:38.259 the vision's pretty, pretty big. It's unlock 00:21:38.259 --> 00:21:41.180 all trillion dollars worth of assets in the crypto 00:21:41.180 --> 00:21:45.539 space, so that a single chain, the smallest chain 00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:48.240 can use three trillion dollars worth of assets. 00:21:49.380 --> 00:21:52.099 So you can launch your smart contract on the 00:21:52.099 --> 00:21:56.519 smallest chain and utilize three trillion dollars 00:21:56.519 --> 00:21:59.940 worth of liquidity without having to go and attract 00:21:59.940 --> 00:22:02.259 liquidity because when all of these new different 00:22:02.259 --> 00:22:05.039 chains launch they want two things. They want 00:22:05.039 --> 00:22:07.400 eyeballs and users and developers coming into 00:22:07.400 --> 00:22:10.619 that position. Now if you can take away the friction 00:22:10.619 --> 00:22:14.720 of one of those things you're going to win and 00:22:15.019 --> 00:22:18.539 Yeah, we did the numbers in terms of the burn 00:22:18.539 --> 00:22:20.680 rate. We did the numbers in terms of the opportunity 00:22:20.680 --> 00:22:23.440 cost and the opportunity that was on the table. 00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:28.380 We need a tiny, tiny fraction of those assets. 00:22:29.200 --> 00:22:35.240 Like 0 .30 is one of those assets. We've tremendously 00:22:35.240 --> 00:22:40.119 successful. Tremendously successful. So it's 00:22:40.119 --> 00:22:42.660 an opportunity that really kind of needs to be 00:22:42.660 --> 00:22:46.079 played out. I think that Again, the layers of 00:22:46.079 --> 00:22:48.660 experience, the layers of technology that I've 00:22:48.660 --> 00:22:50.940 encountered through my career, it all points 00:22:50.940 --> 00:22:53.279 to this direction. It really kind of has led 00:22:53.279 --> 00:22:55.420 me up until this point. What do you think your 00:22:55.420 --> 00:22:57.720 old pals at HSBC would say if they see you now? 00:22:58.579 --> 00:23:01.279 I mean, I hope they're one, I hope they're engaged 00:23:01.279 --> 00:23:03.980 in the crypto space. I hope they're lobbying 00:23:03.980 --> 00:23:09.119 internally to do interesting projects, tokenizing 00:23:09.119 --> 00:23:12.480 assets. I think they are. I think a lot of them. 00:23:12.619 --> 00:23:15.000 moved on to various different other projects. 00:23:17.299 --> 00:23:19.500 There's a lot of movement with the Santander 00:23:19.500 --> 00:23:21.480 team. There's a lot of movement with the UBS 00:23:21.480 --> 00:23:24.720 team. JP Morgan has got a really great team, 00:23:24.920 --> 00:23:28.220 kind of making some really great strides, no 00:23:28.220 --> 00:23:33.099 matter what Jamie would say. Yeah, the staff 00:23:33.099 --> 00:23:36.220 get it. The senior management get it. There's 00:23:36.220 --> 00:23:39.380 an asymmetric risk there as well, in terms of 00:23:39.380 --> 00:23:43.289 the regulations that have been in place. by Gary 00:23:43.289 --> 00:23:47.109 Gensler have been downside risk against going 00:23:47.109 --> 00:23:49.730 against the SEC is too great considering the 00:23:49.730 --> 00:23:51.289 business that they have on their books at this 00:23:51.289 --> 00:23:54.089 moment in time. What has been frustrating for 00:23:54.089 --> 00:24:00.289 me has been the attack on the space from the 00:24:00.289 --> 00:24:02.630 regulators against the upstarts that are coming 00:24:02.630 --> 00:24:04.309 through. That brings me to my next question, 00:24:04.390 --> 00:24:07.210 which is how do you, let's say I'm a newcomer 00:24:07.210 --> 00:24:09.630 in the crypto space, I don't get the blockchain, 00:24:09.710 --> 00:24:12.579 all those things. How do you separate between 00:24:12.579 --> 00:24:14.900 what's good and what's not so good? Because there's 00:24:14.900 --> 00:24:16.500 been many cases where people look at it and say, 00:24:16.579 --> 00:24:18.799 oh my God, this has been a complete scam. But 00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:20.799 in reality, there's actually quite a lot of applications. 00:24:21.039 --> 00:24:23.480 And we know for a fact that very powerful applications 00:24:23.480 --> 00:24:26.079 are being created nowadays. So how do you, when 00:24:26.079 --> 00:24:27.619 you look at things, how are you able to separate 00:24:27.619 --> 00:24:29.940 between what's really good and what's an absolute 00:24:29.940 --> 00:24:34.579 scam? It's really hard. It's really, it's really, 00:24:34.579 --> 00:24:37.539 really, really. And the position comes at two 00:24:37.539 --> 00:24:40.970 different levels as well, because You've not 00:24:40.970 --> 00:24:43.450 only got the challenge of the project and how 00:24:43.450 --> 00:24:45.950 much funding that they might have and the idea 00:24:45.950 --> 00:24:49.289 But also you've got this new dynamic and the 00:24:49.289 --> 00:24:53.849 funding is great, right? I mean since So I was 00:24:53.849 --> 00:24:59.029 I was at PwC before HSBC and kind of was at PwC 00:24:59.029 --> 00:25:01.490 just as kind of Sarbanes -Oxley was coming through 00:25:01.490 --> 00:25:04.470 and kind of like all that kind of was coming 00:25:04.470 --> 00:25:06.869 to the table and then obviously Lehman happened 00:25:06.869 --> 00:25:10.180 and that was a really kind of groundbreaking 00:25:10.180 --> 00:25:16.480 moment. But there were scams even in that position. 00:25:16.940 --> 00:25:19.599 So the best regulation is not going to stop the 00:25:19.599 --> 00:25:22.640 scams. We can list. Lehman is a really good example 00:25:22.640 --> 00:25:26.279 in terms of that was a giant scam. We can say 00:25:26.279 --> 00:25:29.839 Bernie Madoff was a massive scam that the regulators 00:25:29.839 --> 00:25:33.240 signed off for many, many, many, many years before 00:25:33.240 --> 00:25:35.670 it kind of bubbled up and actually kind of the 00:25:35.670 --> 00:25:38.769 emperors called out for wearing their clothes. 00:25:39.049 --> 00:25:42.630 In terms of how do you determine if a crypto 00:25:42.630 --> 00:25:47.150 project is a scam or not? It's really difficult. 00:25:47.509 --> 00:25:50.930 It's really difficult. The position that's currently 00:25:50.930 --> 00:25:54.829 in my car tries to put framework together that 00:25:54.829 --> 00:25:58.509 means that you can move forwards with a little 00:25:58.509 --> 00:26:02.170 bit more confidence. But for me, it fundamentally 00:26:02.170 --> 00:26:05.920 comes down to Do you have a team that you can 00:26:05.920 --> 00:26:10.140 identify? Are they real people? Because it gives 00:26:10.140 --> 00:26:12.880 you a great deal more confidence than having 00:26:12.880 --> 00:26:17.680 an undocked ghost team. Do you have technology 00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:21.500 that's legitimate, that's been verified and tested 00:26:21.500 --> 00:26:24.420 at some level at some stage? And then do you 00:26:24.420 --> 00:26:28.799 have a market that's receptive to actually receiving 00:26:28.799 --> 00:26:31.880 this product? Because if your market isn't there 00:26:31.880 --> 00:26:34.420 or the market is being actively regulated against 00:26:34.420 --> 00:26:36.940 you, then you're never going to have a market 00:26:36.940 --> 00:26:41.940 to sell into. But I think now we're getting to 00:26:41.940 --> 00:26:46.279 a stage where we are going to see more legitimate 00:26:46.279 --> 00:26:48.519 projects coming through because a lot of the 00:26:48.519 --> 00:26:52.079 projects that were launched in 2018, 2019, a 00:26:52.079 --> 00:26:55.900 lot of those were exceptionally early projects 00:26:55.900 --> 00:27:01.849 that ultimately ended up not returning value 00:27:01.849 --> 00:27:06.369 to users and consumers. But now we're ending 00:27:06.369 --> 00:27:09.609 up with a position where you can start to engage 00:27:09.609 --> 00:27:13.650 in these projects as an end user in a way that 00:27:13.650 --> 00:27:16.569 you couldn't necessarily easily get involved 00:27:16.569 --> 00:27:21.089 with traditional early stage venture. So, you 00:27:21.089 --> 00:27:24.150 know, the whole Sarbe Zoxy thing that happened 00:27:24.150 --> 00:27:27.250 after Enron really kind of raised the stakes 00:27:27.250 --> 00:27:31.420 in terms of the IPO game. and has meant that 00:27:31.420 --> 00:27:36.880 it's really kept normal people out of that investment, 00:27:36.920 --> 00:27:39.660 that early stage risk taking. So only accredited 00:27:39.660 --> 00:27:43.119 investors have been able to access entrepreneurial 00:27:43.119 --> 00:27:46.740 risk. That's meant that only VCs have entered. 00:27:47.359 --> 00:27:49.640 Really, IPOs have been a last resort that have 00:27:49.640 --> 00:27:54.160 been taken after a product has demonstrated to 00:27:54.160 --> 00:27:58.920 reach product market fit and launched into the 00:27:58.829 --> 00:28:02.230 into the market with users, et cetera. I always 00:28:02.230 --> 00:28:07.230 remember going back to some of the kind of classic 00:28:07.230 --> 00:28:10.450 books that I recommend that people read and one 00:28:10.450 --> 00:28:12.150 of them. Which ones? Which ones do you recommend? 00:28:12.869 --> 00:28:14.930 I mean, it's all the classics. So it's all kind 00:28:14.930 --> 00:28:18.549 of, you know, stuff like The Lean Startup, The 00:28:18.549 --> 00:28:24.190 Zero to One, Hard Things About Hard Things. And 00:28:24.190 --> 00:28:26.869 it's in Hard Things About Hard Things where they 00:28:26.869 --> 00:28:30.750 talk about this journey that they were going 00:28:30.750 --> 00:28:34.930 through, the cloud -based company, where they 00:28:34.930 --> 00:28:38.069 literally had days' worth of runway left and 00:28:38.069 --> 00:28:42.269 had to do an IPO. And you think, it's just insane 00:28:42.269 --> 00:28:44.369 to be able to say, look, we're going to go to 00:28:44.369 --> 00:28:47.309 market and we're going to launch an IPO to raise 00:28:47.309 --> 00:28:49.990 capital for a new venture. You tell people that 00:28:49.990 --> 00:28:51.369 now and they're like, that's not what an IPO 00:28:51.369 --> 00:28:54.509 is for. An IPO is for to provide exit liquidity 00:28:54.509 --> 00:28:57.569 for the VCs. and all of the employees that have 00:28:57.569 --> 00:29:00.390 worked there and put sweat equity in, et cetera, 00:29:00.390 --> 00:29:04.470 et cetera, et cetera. And because of that, we've 00:29:04.470 --> 00:29:07.529 got a very kind of channel position in terms 00:29:07.529 --> 00:29:10.069 of the funding market. The funding market had 00:29:10.069 --> 00:29:13.390 doubled down in terms of Silicon Valley and lots 00:29:13.390 --> 00:29:17.049 of different activity being launched out of Silicon 00:29:17.049 --> 00:29:19.869 Valley because they were the people that were 00:29:19.869 --> 00:29:23.450 able to understand and assess the risks. cycled 00:29:23.450 --> 00:29:26.829 that capital through from their exits into their 00:29:26.829 --> 00:29:29.750 new fundraising activity. And it meant that it 00:29:29.750 --> 00:29:35.250 was pulling teams into Silicon Valley. So I hope 00:29:35.250 --> 00:29:38.450 that now we're entering this new kind of token 00:29:38.450 --> 00:29:44.410 forward token market economy that teams around 00:29:44.410 --> 00:29:47.890 the world will be able to put good ideas onto 00:29:47.890 --> 00:29:51.519 the table, get funded. from people all around 00:29:51.519 --> 00:29:54.000 the world and solve problems in a much more dynamic 00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:57.880 way that can not just be software, but could 00:29:57.880 --> 00:30:00.519 also be hardware as well, because, you know, 00:30:00.640 --> 00:30:03.779 things are much harder than bits. So you see 00:30:03.779 --> 00:30:07.400 the future as a bright thing? Yeah, definitely. 00:30:07.640 --> 00:30:12.039 I mean, I think anybody that exists in the space 00:30:12.039 --> 00:30:15.740 in terms of wanting to kind of engage in technology 00:30:15.740 --> 00:30:20.259 has to be an optimist, first and foremost. Either 00:30:20.259 --> 00:30:23.160 that or crazy. One of those two things, right? 00:30:23.440 --> 00:30:24.839 Ben, if people want to reach out to you, how 00:30:24.839 --> 00:30:28.960 can you do so? What's the best way? So I am on 00:30:28.960 --> 00:30:32.700 Twitter mainly. My Twitter is Benjamin J Whitby 00:30:32.700 --> 00:30:39.220 and I'm open for DMs. People can contact me last 00:30:39.220 --> 00:30:41.960 week. The project name that we're running with 00:30:41.960 --> 00:30:48.089 is Governor Down. It's GVNRDAO. And yeah, we're 00:30:48.089 --> 00:30:49.710 really excited to kind of bring it to market 00:30:49.710 --> 00:30:52.529 and make sure that we can do something that's 00:30:52.529 --> 00:30:56.910 really impactful and not only help users and 00:30:56.910 --> 00:31:01.430 individuals engage, but also teams, builders, 00:31:01.950 --> 00:31:06.549 developers, and new blockchains. So we hope that 00:31:06.549 --> 00:31:09.990 we are the first team that come to when they 00:31:09.990 --> 00:31:19.559 launch new chain. 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