Rong Chen, Founder of Elastos: The Man Building the New Internet

Rong Chen is building the world's first decentralized internet powered by blockchain. Rong Chen is the Founder of Elastos. In this conversation, Rong and Anthony discuss working at Microsoft in the early days, building network operating systems, why the decentralized internet is important, how Elastos is pushing the pace of innovation, and where Rong thinks dapps may have gone wrong. BLOCKFI-----BlockFi allows you to keep your crypto, put it up as collateral, and receive a USD loan funded directly to your bank account. They do loans ranging from $2,000 to $10,000,000, and they're perfect for helping you reach your financial goals of all sizes. Visit BlockFi.com/Pomp to learn more about putting your crypto to work without having to sell it. CRYPTO. COM-----Crypto.com is a pioneering payment and cryptocurrency platform that seeks to accelerate the world's transition to cryptocurrency. With the vision of "cryptocurrency in every wallet", the Crypto.com App offers a full range of financial products with competitive pricing, well designed UX and high security. It is the best place to buy, sell and pay with crypto. COINMINE-----The Coinmine One is like an Xbox that turns your electricity into Bitcoin. You just plug it in, connect to wifi, and tap on the crypto you want. It’s so easy anyone can do it. Everything is controlled from the Coinmine mobile app and the Coinmine keeps getting better with over the air updates that add new coins, features and services to your Coinmine. Visit coinmine.com/pomp to get a Coinmine and earn crypto for powering a new world. ETORO-----This episode of Off the Chain is sponsored by eToro, the smartest crypto trading platform, and one of the largest in the world. Join 11 million other traders and create an account at etoro.com and build your crypto portfolio the smart way.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Anthony Pompliano?

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• 0:44Anthony Pompliano?

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• 1:27Anthony Pompliano?

  add tokens that can be mined, or increase the efficiency of the device. Similar to how Tesla does car software updates over the air, Coinmine's sending these passively to thousands of Coinmines around the world on a periodic basis. Pretty damn cool. When Farbood and the team pitched me on the idea of an Xbox or PlayStation-like box that could mine cryptocurrency in your home, I was immediately sold. I invested in the business, have a device personally, and keep telling people to go to coinmine.com/pom so they can save a lot of time if they want to get started mining today. CoinMine has a partnership with our third sponsor for this episode, BlockFi. BlockFi is one of my favorite companies in crypto because they allow users to deposit their assets in a deposit account and immediately start earning interest. Think about it, if you keep your digital assets on an exchange or in cold storage,

• 2:11Anthony Pompliano?

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• 2:53Anthony Pompliano?

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• 3:36Anthony Pompliano?

  If you see someone on the platform you like, you can set your account to mimic their trades. They buy Bitcoin with 5% of their portfolio? Your portfolio buys 5% Bitcoin. They sell 50% of their Ether position? Your portfolio does the same thing automatically. Copy trading is awesome, so go join the 10-plus million other traders on eToro and start trading all the most popular cryptocurrencies today. They're one of the largest companies in the space, and you can get started by going to etoro.com. Again, that is etoro.com, where the entire team is ready to get you started in just a few clicks. And don't forget, go subscribe to the Off the Chain daily newsletter. You can go to offthechain.substack.com. I write a letter of news, analysis, and opinion every morning that goes out to more than 40,000 investors. See you there.

• 4:21Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to Off the Chain, simply the best podcast in crypto. Let's kick this thing off. Rong Chen is the founder of Elastos. In this conversation, we discuss working at Microsoft in the early days, building network operating systems, why the decentralized internet is important, how Elastos is pushing the pace of innovation, and where Rong thinks DApps may have gone wrong. I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you do as well. Alright guys, bang bang. I'm sitting here with Rong, super excited to have this conversation. There's a lot of people excited that we're gonna talk today, so thanks so much for coming to do this.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Well, thank you so much.

• 5:06Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. Let's jump right in. What's your background, kind of pre Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, blockchain? What'd you do before?

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Well, my background is I came to this country, I came to New York, January 4th of 1984. That's when the internet, named internet, from OperaNet. And also, that's when Unix opened source to universities. So I went to the University of Illinois to study operating systems. And ever since, it's been 35 years.

• 5:36Anthony Pompliano?

  In 1984, you went to go study operating systems?

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Yes, I did.

• 5:40Anthony Pompliano?

  That's pretty good foresight.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Oh, it's a fluke, cuz look back. At that time, I thought we're just studying, you know, come to this country with more advanced computer science research. But on the other hand, I overlooked, that was actually the year, if you look at Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Macrol, and Apple, actually, all founders were born in 55.

• 6:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Right, all, right? So you're just saying, that's a generation of innovation. It's just born at the right time. I would put it this way.

• 6:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Were you born in 55?

• 6:21Speaker 01

  57, so only two years.

• 6:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Ah, you're a little late.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Little, but then not too far. That's the thing. At that time, what I overlooked was, we're just saying, okay, everything is given, should be naturally, that's what we study. Instead of seeing, that's a great opportunity. I didn't see that part. To this day, I still regret.

• 6:43Anthony Pompliano?

  I see. And so, what did you do after school?

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Then I went to Microsoft Research.

• 6:51Anthony Pompliano?

  What was that like?

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Uh, that's in ninety-two, doing operating systems. And later on, I moved on to Internet Explorer, which is the browser. I was the tenth employee of Microsoft IE. And from there, we moved on naturally, going to Design.net.

• 7:08Anthony Pompliano?

  What was Microsoft Research like? Like, what was that culture like?

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Well, it's a very open. At that time, ninety-two was very, very small. Cause actually Xerox PARC, IBM, Yachtang Heights, and AT&T Bell Labs were the better-known ones. And no one really wanna go to Microsoft to do research at that point. But I ended up there just also by some accidents because of I was from China. I couldn't be hired by IBM, AT&T, or Xerox PARC. So because it was a communist country, right? And so Microsoft was my only, not chosen choice.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  But looking back, I was really, really fortunate.

• 8:01Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  To catch the wave of the whole, you know, Windows, Internet, everything.

• 8:08Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. You ever hang out with Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer?

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Met a few times.

• 8:12Anthony Pompliano?

  What are they like?

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Well, they're... Steve Ballmer's a very nice guy, actually.

• 8:18Anthony Pompliano?

  He's a nice guy?

• 8:19Speaker 01

  He is. And Bill Gates, nice to the employees, but kind of mean to executives.

• 8:27Anthony Pompliano?

  So he was nice to the employees, but mean to the executives? And any funny stories that you have?

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Well, you know, at that time, because Microsoft was small, and all new hires got a chance to eat dinner at Bill Gates' house.

• 8:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Wow.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  At that time. And so I remember I went, right? Because the reason I went is because I wanna see he was the richest guy in the world already at that time, ninety-two. And so I was fascinated, and you know, we're just, okay, go to the richest guy's home and have dinner. And was very, very moderate. And the very first question, you know, our co-new hires asked, asking Bill was, "Is it really your home?"

• 9:14Anthony Pompliano?

  So he was the richest guy in the world in 1992 and you guys go to his house and no one believed it was his house because

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Hardly any footage here.

• 9:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Wow.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  And also it's an old house.

• 9:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that's awesome. But he but like I think that's part of the beauty of him, right? The Warren Buffets of the world, etc. Is that they don't care about the material things.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Right, and also I also appreciate, you know, his mother did so much for United Way. And we follow suit and we helped contribute to the to the cause.

• 9:45Anthony Pompliano?

  That's awesome. All right, so at some point you moved to China and you lived there for what, last like 20 years or so?

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I returned back to China in year 2000 after we designed, we started the project called DotNet, which I'll mention because DotNet meaning we're going to design a operating system for the network instead of designing an operating system for the computer, for a device, right? Which is really my passion because I believe that's the real solution to solve the internet virus issues, DDoS attack issues, the piracy issues. But unfortunately, you know, we started, we had that dream, 99, which is literally 20 years ago. And which until today, it's still not being accepted by the community.

• 10:39Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. Where where'd you live in China?

• 10:42Speaker 01

  I live in Shanghai.

• 10:43Anthony Pompliano?

  In Shanghai, what's that like right now?

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Well, it's a for the past 20 years, it's improved so much. It's a it's a very modern metropolitan now. Yeah, with all the neon lights and stuff.

• 10:56Anthony Pompliano?

  And I've never been, but the photos I've seen, it kind of looks a little bit like Las Vegas or like Times Square.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, maybe more lights.

• 11:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. And so what's the current situation on like the geopolitical front, right? So you've got, I think here in the West, most people are educated by the mainstream media. The mainstream media has a very kind of specific perspective of China, both at the technology industry, but also kind of the political stuff that's going on.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 11:30Anthony Pompliano?

  You lived there. You were on the ground. Like, what was your general take in terms of how do the citizens interact with the government? And then how does technology companies and engineers play into all of that?

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Well, the Chinese employees, right, engineers, they work really extremely hard because of, they have this mentality, you know, because for the 30 years ago was a relatively poor country. Open up, and if you see what it has today, it's catching up really, really fast because of the engineers working, they call it 996.

• 12:07Anthony Pompliano?

  996?

• 12:08Speaker 01

  So yeah, basically, they work from 9 to 9 for 6 days a week.

• 12:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Wow.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  That's what it is, right?

• 12:14Anthony Pompliano?

  From 9 to 9, 6 days a week, that's the work ethic.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. A lot of companies require, or most of the employees, work that hard.

• 12:23Anthony Pompliano?

  It is, there's a gentleman in Silicon Valley, I'm gonna forget who wrote it, but they wrote an op-ed here in America, and they basically were pretty blatantly saying that China is outworking the United States, right?

• 12:39Speaker 01

  By working hours, yes.

• 12:41Anthony Pompliano?

  And they were talking about this idea of, one, the amount of work, right, in terms of the hours. Two, a lot of people were actually living in like kind of company-sponsored facilities, right? So almost like dorm rooms, if you will, especially the younger engineers and things like that. And they were basically just talking about like, you know, America can't get comfortable, right? And if you want innovation, there starts to be hard work involved with it. And if you go and you look at other places in the world, they may not have the same perspective we do in terms of work-life balance, you know, all these kind of things that are popular in the US now. That's not necessarily popular everywhere in the world, and it leads to very different kind of work cultures.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I I believe in a way that saying it's true because of uh for the first generation, like me being the first generation immigrants. We work harder than most of the uh the native borns, right? But let's say even in China, the second generation, especially the one child policy. The kids tend to be more spoiled. So I'm not sure if this kind of mentality will last. But definitely for the time being, right? That's the case.

• 13:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And and so right now it's true, but demographics can change and and things can can definitely evolve. But but um it it's interesting to think through. Uh and then what is the um kind of the the whole blockchain in China situation, right? Because it seems like that changes quite often.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Right, actually, I was surprised uh on the October twenty fourth and actually made announcement on twenty fifth. Uh that uh you know, the government will go uh full throttle blockchain, which is little uh uh surprised everyone. Uh but looking at it, it's not quite uh out of the blue because of uh. There's a saying, right? You know, China is a big government instead of a a smaller government in the United States. A bar big government, meaning it has a lot of power, resources. And absolute power implies absolute corruption, which is true everywhere.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  In a way, uh the Chinese employees or the government are very efficient. Because even for government officials, they work uh Saturdays. You call them up, they come uh to have business meetings.

• 15:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Right, so they don't really take weekend off. Uh but on the other hand, given the power, uh there are indeed some corruption, red tape and everywhere because of. Let's say a uh lot of so many so-called state-owned enterprises, not just necessarily government per se. But let's say a state-owned enterprise, high-speed rail, power grid, you know, those. Companies are huge, like a million employees, two million employees.

• 15:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Wow.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  And also, if the CEO cannot fire the other county level, let's say, a power.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Supplier, then where's those efficiency or where you know there's a corruption because of they can turn off your power, you know, asking for, you know, bribing.

• 15:52Anthony Pompliano?

  State sanctioned mafias.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  So then you can see if they do have blockchain and keep track of provenance and recording of the documents, then I do believe that'll streamline a lot of those red tapes.

• 16:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And it sounds like they're not only interested in just cryptocurrencies, but also in blockchain for a whole bunch of different applications. But the one here in the US that's really, I think, caught people's attention is this DCEP, right, the digital currency. What's your thoughts there?

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Digital currency and electronic payment. If you've been to China for Alipay, Tencent Pay, that WeChat Pay, right, it's almost everywhere.

• 16:38Anthony Pompliano?

  And this is just people use their mobile phones to pay?

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Right. Basically, when I was, when we're in China, it's a cashless society now. Basically, you go anywhere, you don't, you don't need to bring your wallet. You just bring your phone. That's all there is to it.

• 16:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Amazing.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, very, very efficient. You pay peer to peer. You pay all the vendors. So given that that's the case, right, and the government asks the electronic payments to replace the paper bills, then they're promoting something like in the airplane where there's no wifi signal, no mobile signal, you can still shake your phone and pay peer to peer with airdrop, your virtual money.

• 17:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Right? So then basically they don't promote cryptos. They promote something, you trust me, you trust the state-owned banks to have consortium chains. Then we're issuing, they're issuing those crypto.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  Uh, currency, right, to replace the, not really replace, to uh, kind of uh,

• 17:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Like augment?

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Augments or uh, the, the Alipay and, and WeChat Pay.

• 17:57Anthony Pompliano?

  So, I buy that it's way more efficient, right? I buy that it can really help the user experience, etc. Uh, I think that the downside, though, is uh, it could increase like the surveillance and, and the ability for um, whether it's the government or private enterprises to see what citizens are doing. Is that part of the conversation in China now?

• 18:18Speaker 01

  That's not necessarily, has that anything to do with cryptos? If you've been to China, you see surveillance cameras, almost.

• 18:25Anthony Pompliano?

  It's pretty crazy.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Pretty crazy.

• 18:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  But then, that's really uh, i- i- it's a different issue. It's not related to the uh, the blockchains.

• 18:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it, well, when, and part of my question is really, uh, is that part of the conversation, right? Like, do citizens realize that? Or uh, are most citizens just, this is what I grew up in, this is all I know, and so it's normal?

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Of course, uh, all citizens are aware of, if you just open your eyes, right? You see uh, cameras. So, then, Asian culture is uh, somewhat different from the Western culture. Because of uh, if you go to Japan, you go to Korea, go to China, uh, they're all tend to be overcrowded historically, for thousands of years. And uh, so then, kind of uh, they live on the religious, they have a commune, you know, one helping the other. More like uh, group, they have sense of group, instead of more individualism, you know, like uh,

• 19:26Speaker 01

  being a uh, one person, like last blood, you know, who can, one person, Rambo could save the world. That's kind of a different mentality.

• 19:36Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. Um, as you think about this, uh, you eventually moved on and started uh, Elastos. What was the first time you ever saw blockchain, or Bitcoin, or crypto? Like, like, how did you uh, initially get interested in it?

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Well, actually, I started, I I went back to China, started this network OS. As I said, I quit Microsoft uh for one single, simple reason, because Microsoft at that time decided to do a network OS, which I full-heartedly believe. And but on the other hand, at that time, they wanna do it in C sharp, like a Java equivalent, intermediate language, which uh uh I don't believe. I want it to be more fundamental. I wanna do it in native CPU instructions. So then, because it's a different level of abstraction, I believe computer science has to go down to the metal, go down to the CPU level.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Uh that was the reason I went back to set up my own operating system venture and trying to design a network OS. And one thing lead to another, by twenty twelve, I got some investment from Foxconn, which is. Uh from Foxconn? Foxconn, which is one of the biggest uh uh companies in the world, right? They make a hundred percent of the iPhones, assembly, uh blue-collar workers assemble all the iPhones, iPads, and also like a Kindle um eBooks and stuff. Um Foxconn does a lot of research as well, even though it's overshadowed by the workers.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  So at that time, I got some funding from them doing the industrial IoT, doing the smart home OS. So then, we can make uh smart homes uh uh safer and uh protect the encryption, uh protect the privacy of citizens, right, uh or the users.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  But uh in around the end of uh twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, we run into some uh issues, so I have to find alternative uh uh investments. There, I found uh blockchain because of, for two things. One is uh because of the Ethereum at that point, and also uh uh Bitcoin price went up like crazy. Everyone learned the term. And also, uh people start to do uh risk funds using those uh cryptos. So when I was looking for funding, definitely that's something caught my eye.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  And when I study those crypto projects, right? And especially a lot of those so-called smart contract-based blockchain projects that talk about DApps. They talk about ecosystems. And then, and also when I researched on YouTube and what is Ethereum in one sentence? And the founder of Ethereum saying that's a world computer, right? So those term jargons caught my eye because of what's a computer? I've been doing computers all my life. And we started from paper tapes, a core memory back in China.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  So which is really, really the fundamental old machine. And we've been doing ecosystems as a trained Microsoft operating system designer or architect. Because when you talk about Android, when you talk about iPhone, what do you say? You know, basically they build ecosystems, right? They build apps. So then I would study more about what is a world computer? What is a DApp? What is a ecosystem? Then I realized the blockchain world, well, they are, they are very innovative. But on the other hand, they are lacking of some fundamentals.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Because of they're not trained to be the designer of a computer or a ecosystem. So that's where I find we have a chance. Got it. And so what is Elastos today? Elastos, just by name of it, right? Elastic Compute. Elastic Compute, okay. Elastic Compute, actually, I named it in 2002. Okay. And Amazon came up, coincidentally, Elastic Compute, 2006.

• 24:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. What is Elastic Compute?

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Elastic Compute meaning virtual machines all over instead of physical machines. Basically, you spawn, you create virtual machines on demand. Instead of, because making a hard, a hardware computer, it takes resources, takes time. But if you make virtual computers on demand, which is setting up us in a completely different level. Right? And so Elastic is according, because we've been working on this virtual machine for, since 2002. We've been working on this smart home network since 2012.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  And all we need is another really key piece of puzzle missing, which is the blockchain. Give us the decentralized IDs, give us the decentralized everything, so then we can build a decentralized web.

• 25:14Anthony Pompliano?

  And so Elastic is literally Elastic OS, kind of putting those two words together?

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so when you get started, what was kind of the original idea in terms of what you could build? Was it one single product? Was it to go after the whole ecosystem? Like, how did you think about it?

• 25:30Speaker 01

  At that time, we were going after the network computer. But that, but in year 2000 network, meaning the local area network. Let's say you have a room of 100 employees with 100 PCs. Can you manage them as a, as a whole? Like if you look at the autonomous driving in a Mercedes-Benz vehicle, modern vehicle. There are about 100 CPUs built in, right? Can you imagine, are they 100 computers or are they just a single computer on four wheels? So that's a different perspective. And the one computer perspective have a better control over the

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Controlling security, controlling the virus issues. Yeah, that's when we started.

• 26:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so when you get started, one of the things I've heard you talk about in the past is this idea of like a smart web, right? Maybe talk us through how you define smart web and how that differs from that WWW web that we all know.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  And a lot of people in the blockchain world talk about the value internet, saying the old internet is the information internet. I think there's a guy called Don Tabscott, who gave a TED Talk, right? He summed it up as the old internet, everything you share is a copy. You share on Facebook a photo, that's a copy of the photo. And the value internet, if I give you a Bitcoin, then I don't have it anymore. So that's has a scarcity, which is the of value.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  And then, but then, on the other hand, the community is short from saying, if you give me a token, usually for a trade, for goods. And currently, the goods you trade are offline goods. Can you trade online virtual digital assets, right? People are talking about building a virtual economy, so then you can trade, protect user data and trade user data. But trade user data, that's where we come in. If I give you a user data, the last internet giving you a copy, which a lot of piracy and doesn't have much value.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Even though you can keep the prominence, you can record this barcode or digital signature of the file on a blockchain. But you cannot protect the piracy.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Or virus, then really you still don't have much value for the digital assets. To send a digital asset, you have to send a code. You cannot just send a file being played by media player, right? So if you sign a binary code over, the binary runs and validates itself. And check blockchain, do you still own it? Let's say if I send you a binary code, which is my encrypted my personal data, right? I send it to you. And if I sold it to you, you run it. I still have a copy on my hard drive if I run it.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  And they say, okay, Ron, you don't have the right anymore, right? So that's where when you share value, value internet, really you're sharing code. When you have the information internet, right? That's WWW. When you run sharing code, we call it the smart web. Smartphone meaning the phone that runs apps. The internet runs apps are the smart web.

• 29:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so that's smart web. Talk to me about, is it decentralized? Is it not decentralized? Like, how, how do you think about building it, right? Because you, you described what the functionality of it is. But, but how do you think about actually building something like that?

• 29:44Speaker 01

  We are, actually, I'm glad you asked. We're really, really close because we're into, we have pretty much got everything built. The last big missing piece would be the browser and the website. The browser will be released first week of January. So basically in three weeks, we're going to release the browser. Basically reminding me of ninety-three, when the Mozak browser was released.

• 30:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Marc Andreessen.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Marc Andreessen. That's January of ninety-three. Throughout ninety-three, basically the University of Illinois set up the, the WWW web at that point. So we're really, really close from shipping the smart web browser.

• 30:29Anthony Pompliano?

  But before we get to the browser, there's kind of three levels, as I understand, in terms of the stack of what you guys have built. Going after this idea of the smart web allows you to send value or code rather than the information web or WWW. What are those three kind of layers, if you will, to what you guys have already built? Because I think that framework, at least it helps me understand better as to why you think the smart web is so important.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  At the fundamental layer, we do like ELA token. That's the token we issued. Merge mine with Bitcoin, meaning the Bitcoin miners, when they update the software from Bitmain, actually, they could merge mine. Basically, you don't spend extra power. You mine both ELA and BTC.

• 31:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, so explain this concept, because I don't think a lot of people have heard this before. Merge mining is, I'm a miner. I bought some hardware from Bitmain or whoever. I plug in my equipment. I get the internet hooked up. I get it ready to go. I start mining Bitcoin.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Where do you come into that? How do I?

• 31:40Speaker 01

  Basically, you configure that software, because it's the feature, the latest feature is built in now.

• 31:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  So then you turn it on, then you can get extra some tokens.

• 31:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And when I'm mining on the Bitcoin blockchain, and I'm validating those transactions, and I'm securing the Bitcoin network, what am I doing on your end?

• 32:00Speaker 01

  There's a set product. You also secure the ELA mainchain and also mining the ELA tokens at the same time, right? Currently, there are about more than 50% of the Bitcoin miners also mine ELA tokens.

• 32:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, really?

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, which make us the third most powerful mainchain in the world, hash power-wise.

• 32:25Anthony Pompliano?

  And that hash power is approximately 50% of Bitcoin miners are not only securing and validating the Bitcoin chain, but they're also doing yours as well?

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. When we stepped in into your office, we just checked, that was 52%.

• 32:42Anthony Pompliano?

  52%. Wow. I didn't know that. That's a very big number, actually.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  It is a big number. So the reason why we have the mainchain is because everyone believe in Bitcoin. And it's not being controlled. And given that main chain, you know, we merged mine with Bitcoin. So we we gain the trust, right? Of course, high confidence, no one, I mean, I wouldn't say no one, very, very hard.

• 33:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, and and what I think you guys have done here, and correct me if I'm wrong, is you've essentially said, uh, Bitcoins miners make it incredibly secure and make it incredibly decentralized in nature. And so if we are able to incentivize or kind of go along with those same miners, then we'll be secure and we'll be decentralized as well. And so you're kind of rooting the decentralization and security of your blockchain in with the the folks that are mining and validating the Bitcoin.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Right, and also we give the Bitcoin miners a higher calling because they are helping us to secure the new internet, right? So new internet, what's the value of a new internet? Of course, if you look at the old WWW web, there's no IDs. So everyone could fake everyone else or impersonate or being a dog, you don't know. So given the decentralized ID, so on top of this main chain, we're building decentralized IDs. Currently, the Elastos decentralized ID is W3C compliant. And so given those IDs and also giving the main chain,

• 34:24Speaker 01

  so we can encrypt messages peer to peer.

• 34:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, OK, so you got the merge mining with Bitcoin, right? That's kind of that foundational layer. Then a second layer on top of that is this idea of a decentralized internet.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 34:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Right, and internet involves identity and a whole bunch of other things. But the idea is you've got a blockchain, that blockchain is super secure. It is decentralized because you're basically riding along with Bitcoin's blockchain in terms of using their miners to help you. You build a decentralized internet on top of that. And then there's a third layer, which is more around kind of governance and consensus.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Right, the the second tier is, actually, it's a peer to peer network.

• 35:05Anthony Pompliano?

  OK.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  It's very much like a FaceTime or a Skype or.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  BT, BitTorrent or Napster to start it. But all the old peer-to-peer network, they have a central website. Right? So they are liable or they are controlling. Then can we make those a central

• 35:27Speaker 01

  website being decentralized rooted back inversely to the blockchain? Right? They used to have a governing website. Now, the it's kind of put it the other way around. The blockchain is what's. The blockchain is the the website. So it's not controlled by Apple or Microsoft. Got it. And there's another notion from ninety-two saying the network is the computer from the inventor of Java programming language. That was a long time ago, right? And as I said, Microsoft.net was trying to do a operating system for the network computer. And the second tier of our so-called a carrier network or peer-to-peer decentralized peer-to-peer network is literally building this

• 36:13Speaker 01

  new smart web computer. And to have this computer is decentralized, but yet on top of it, there are users. We hope to have billions of users, right? And and also for this decentralized computer, we need administrators. Right? This, let's say, we decentralized the exchange. Who should be listed? Or when we have a new smart contracts or new governance model, algorithm, should we kick that in? So it's more like the first amendment or second amendment. You know, those communities, should we run this? Let's say currently we have a four percent inflation.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  Every two minutes, we have five more tokens mined, right? Is that a good number? Four percent, is that too high, too low? Should, you know, the community make a deep learning algorithm to adjust the inflation rate? So definitely, those are governed by smart contracts or programs. Okay. And the administrator, the consensus decides to kick that in, right? That's the administrator of this smart web computer, of this work. And who acts as the administrator? Currently, we are going to kick off this election, or so by the first week, by the end of this year, or by the first week of January. There's, there are 12 seats.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  So anybody is welcome to run. Of course, you have to get the vote from the community, right? And two thirds of the council members and vote will decide on whether we're kicking another smart contracts to run this community. Got it.

• 38:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Want to know who has the best URL? Crypto.com. That's right, crypto.com. They're a crypto platform with one goal: motherf***ing mass adoption. That's why we're all here. We're trying to get crypto in every wallet. Crypto.com is helping people do that through buying, earning, lending, and card payment. Everything you could want at crypto.com. Go help your boy out, tell him POMP sent you. Download the app or visit crypto.com. POMP's got you, always. Ever wanted to get into mining and didn't know how? Don't worry, your boy POMP's got you. Everybody got some electricity and wifi? All you gotta do is go to coinmine.com, you buy a coin mine. It's like an Xbox or a Playstation that helps you turn your electricity into Bitcoin. That's right.

• 38:45Anthony Pompliano?

  You purchase it, it shows up at your doorstep, you pull it out of the box, you plug it in, connect to your wifi, five minutes or less, you're mining Bitcoin. All you have to do is control it from the mobile app they provide, and then you receive over-the-air updates that add new coins and new features on a consistent basis. Kind of like how Tesla does over-the-air updates and updates the car software. Just your update in your coin mine. Consumer mining made easy. That's right, go to coinmine.com. Tell them Pomp sent ya and thank me later. One more word from our sponsor BlockFi. Their new interest account allows you to securely deposit your Bitcoin or Ether at BlockFi and receive 6% annual interest paid monthly in cryptocurrency.

• 39:27Anthony Pompliano?

  This rate actually compounds, so you receive a 6.2% APY, which is very attractive given the alternatives. So you can actually take your Bitcoin, you can deposit it with BlockFi, and get paid an interest rate of 6% in return. Go check out blockfi.com/pomp. Again, blockfi.com/pomp to sign up and start earning interest on your crypto today. And one of the things that I think you've talked a lot about is you've got this merge mining, you've got this decentralized internet, and then you've got kind of the cyber republic governance. But the decentralized internet services, right? This idea of flipping decentralization.

• 40:09Anthony Pompliano?

  You know, in the crypto community, I think a lot of people talk about these DApps, right, these decentralized applications. And, you know, they run around and they say, "I've got a decentralized application." And I always joke that Jeff Bezos controls the entire decentralized application market because everyone's building on top of AWS.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 40:28Anthony Pompliano?

  So how decentralized can it actually be if you're just building on top of AWS?

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Basically, in my opinion, a app, first of all, let's go back to the app.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  Eighty-four, when I first came to this country, at that point, Unix was open sourced, right? Barely.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  Long time ago, 35 years ago. And at that time, there was no distinction between system developer and the app developer. Because in 84, there's no, literally almost no applications. Like TCP IP is running in the user mode of Unix, or Linux for that matter, right? But it's not really an application in consumers' minds today. Because in consumers' minds, whatever runs on Android phone, on iPhone, that's an app. TCP IP is part of the system.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  But Unix or Linux doesn't really distinguish whether you're a system programmer versus application programmer, kind of intertwined, mixed. So that's why we see a lot of viruses, because application pretend to be the system and taking advantage of the loopholes and shortcomings, then they still use their data, right? Then if we're saying you lost those computers, we build virtual machine. So that's another layer. The virtual machine runs apps. Apps runs inside virtual machine. Below virtual machine, above kernel, that's called a system server, which does not exist thirty-five years ago.

• 42:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  But today, which is so obvious, right? And if you look at a lot of blockchain projects, they're basically still using the old web, using the old Linux. Because they just do the recording of the hash on a smart contract or on a blockchain. But on the other hand, it's also all the programming logic is running on the website. If Amazon shuts the website down, or some virus attacked like a DYN.com, right? Or the DNS resolution attack, then the whole internet got broken, then everything shuts

• 42:52Speaker 01

  down. So if any app that can be manipulated by a third party shuts down the website, which is not an app, because you've sent ten thousand dollars on a kitty. But then if the websites run out of business, then the kitty is not running anymore.

• 43:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Basically, there's failure points, right? There's this idea that the website is a centralized point of failure, that if somebody's able to shut down that website, you don't have the portal into the decentralized world, and therefore this problem.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  Right. So then, in that sense, it's not, the app can still be manipulated, can still be shut down, right? Even though the smart contracts cannot be shut down, but the app, the app can be shut down.

• 43:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  And so then, that's the When I study the the DApps, the ecosystem, or the work computer, that's actually, I realize that's a big, big loophole. So we need to fix. So that's where the Elastos come in and building the carrier network and without letting, currently, like the first tier is Bitcoin miners. The second tier actually is a depass.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Machines. The depass, right, if you run the machine in Amazon Cloud, in Alibaba Cloud, Microsoft Azure Clouds, you were there, you're there just for a simple reason, for rewards. And you run a virtual machine, you don't even know what's running in the virtual machine. On the Docker, right? So those are the, actually, waiting for tasks, waiting for jobs. The job could be hosting a web service of a website. And so then, the programmer of the website cannot control the machine which runs the website. Because if you see today's website, it's written and operated by the same party.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Then the website should be written by one party and operated by different parties.

• 45:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the downside of that? So I see the the upside or the advantage, right? What's the downside?

• 45:09Speaker 01

  I don't really see a downside, that's really a great step forward. Because of, we really should separate them.

• 45:17Anthony Pompliano?

  And and really, what this does is it adds this sense of decentralization, so that you don't have the same parties controlling the entire stack, on the vertical integration of the services. Now you get more of a fragmented approach in this decentralized internet services. Is there any loss of efficiencies or anything like that? Or you you feel like everything, it still kind of works how it's supposed to work?

• 45:41Speaker 01

  It should work out as supposed to work. A little bit, because of if you have website, right? Of course, it's a little bit more efficient, but given the current internet, given the fiber optics in and out of homes, given the virtual machines, because virtual machine itself lose some performance from the naked hardware. But then, given the the current state of art hardware, right? Because humans don't evolve that fast. We can watch a movie, you know, fifty. Sixty frames or thirty frames per second. And sixty frames giving you a very smooth feeling. But after fifty frames, you don't really feel anymore. But the computers evolve.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  So then, given the current state of art hardware, the virtual machine layer lost some performance. Let's say ten percent, twenty percent. It's acceptable. And also, the other side, to put it is, if the websites without a fixed IP addresses. It's very hard to, for the DNS resolution attack, for the middleman attack, or spreading viruses. All those issues are gone, right? And in return, you know, lost some performance, but gained so much.

• 46:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and and so if I'm a developer and I want to go build in this ecosystem or build these truly decentralized applications. I really have to think about, you know, what's the application I'm building? How do I prevent there being a centralized website? How do I actually look at what cloud or hardware I'm using on the on the server side? Like, there's a lot of different levels of complexity and kind of nuance here. How are people learning about this, right? Because it feels like most engineers grew up in a world where everything was centralized. That's how they were taught. Where do you see that education happening? And how are people kind of learning about building in this in this new decentralized world?

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Well, a lot of people, because of, as I said, Unix was from like early eighties. And basically, the most, a lot of young programmers, they're born without seeing something different. They see Windows and Unix, right? For their whole life, whole young life. And so first of all, the hard part is a change of mentality, to be more open minded. But on the other hand, given my background, because of right now, in those years, nineteen eighties, the TCP/IP and operating systems, they're intertwined. So if you look at today, all the internet gaming,

• 48:19Speaker 01

  all those applications who deal with internet, they have to, application programmers have to deal with internet themselves. To open up a socket and to send network packets. And also if a consumer lost their password, you know, they blame on the users, right? Saying, okay, why don't you pick, select a stronger password? So that's, if we're separating applications from the network, if we're separating using the DID and keep track of the digital signatures and the user own their own data, they don't have to remember their password anymore and the developers doesn't have to deal with network anymore,

• 49:05Speaker 01

  the programming would be much, much easier to write. Because they don't really have to think of those so-called transactions or internet timing issues. Those ones are handled by the system.

• 49:22Anthony Pompliano?

  And so as you think through this, what's the end goal? Like, okay, everything that you're saying ends up getting built, it works. Where do we end up? What does that like final stage look like?

• 49:35Speaker 01

  I'll summarize it up in two ways.

• 49:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Technically speaking, now, because people are seeing IT industry evolve so fast for the past seventy years. And finally, we're at the stage, the IT industry in terms of what's network, what's programming model, what's operating system, we're maturing, finally. And we name it the elastos, elastowas, meaning there's no more. Literally, if you look at, we're not really bragging. Because if you look at the Windows, Windows 10, no more Windows 11. That's according to Microsoft.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  No more Windows 11, meanings Windows 10 forever. When we do name, when I name it, the last OS in 2002, we kind of anticipated no more new operating systems. Because this is an operating system for the network. How can I force the, the peripherals, let's say, the TV screen in your room to update the device driver when I came in? Because the next speaker, should you download the, the, the device driver? If you have web services all over the world, how can you force those web services to upgrade or downgrade according to your OS? If you don't, if you are the ecosystem, right?

• 51:05Speaker 01

  And people, species live and die. There's no single point we upgrade of, of a machine, right? Of, of the network. You upgrade machine, but you don't upgrade the whole network. So that's why when we design a network OS, it has to be the network of forever, right? That's technically. For the consumers, when we finally could have this kind of trading peer-to-peer, token for goods. And that's a new economy. Because the old web, everything's owned by cartels. All the books, all the movies.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  I mean, God forbid if Amazon out of business, all my eBooks, right, are gone. It's not like the old books I can put on my bookshelf. I own them, I can give it to friends. But my eBooks, I cannot give it or resell it. If we could have this peer-to-peer trading of digital assets, that's kind of a.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  Private ownership or capitalism for the first time on the internet. That's a huge.

• 52:21Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. How does identity play into this? Right, you you you've mentioned a couple of times, it's like decentralized web and identity. Where does that play in?

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Well, decentralized app, because on this new internet, we need to have some sort of identity. Because I know when I I'm chatting, who I'm chatting with.

• 52:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Does it have to be my real identity?

• 52:45Speaker 01

  No, because that's another thing. If you look at it today, I just mentioned the passwords. If you look at your driver's license, it has a driver license number. It all has your birthday, it has your gender, has a lot of more information. But which is, again, not enough if you want to travel abroad. You need a passport. Or if you want to go to a hospital, you need some more, a a a different set of IDs. And in some cases, you want to anonymous, sometimes you want to be real name. So then, a ID meaning just a cryptic hash, all right, 256 in in length, the digit.

• 53:26Speaker 01

  Then, given that, you have multiple profiles.

• 53:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  And then, so you want to sign in with your real name profile, or you want to sign in with your your alias, or you want to. Then it's up to you, but nevertheless, you'll sign with your your private keys. If you sign, you gave information, let's say, if you're logging to Facebook. Or some other apps, you log in with Facebook ID credential. Then, I'm, again, what I'm saying is, in theory, Facebook could impersonate you. Right? Maybe they don't, but then they could. They're saying, okay.

• 54:11Anthony Pompliano?

  You're trusting Facebook.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  You're trusting Facebook.

• 54:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Company to use your credentials only when you've said, use my credentials for websites that you've sent it. But at any point, they could go in.

• 54:22Speaker 01

  To log into the other apps which use a Facebook login.

• 54:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Correct. And, uh, but for the DID, just given the number, given your gender, your name to Facebook. The Facebook still does not have your, uh, private key. So it cannot impersonate you to log into some other websites.

• 54:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so what you're talking about is, uh, I create an identity. And that identity has almost multiple layers to it. So, uh, I want to act anonymous. I want to act pseudonymous. I have pseudonymity for multiple, you know, services or various verticals. Then I've got my real identity with minimal information shared. I've got my real identity, um, you know, with a lot of information shared. And then I've got kind of full blown, here's everything I got that's real. All of those different types of identities play into various aspects of my life or services I use. But I'm in control of choosing which one I use.

• 55:19Speaker 01

  Because if I, if you tell me your name, right? I'll validate through your public key, which is public information. I know you're the only one, you could sign it off.

• 55:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  So that's really, really critical to this new internet.

• 55:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And, and some of this too is, um, there, there's a lot in crypto, I think, where people are trying to solve some of these problems around. Um, you know, one of the examples I always use is these like zero knowledge proofs, right? This whole idea of if you go into a bar and, uh, I show you my ID. All you need to know is, am I 21 or not? You actually don't even need to know how old I am, right? But instead I just showed you my name, my address, you know, all, all these different things. Well, in the future, there will be some way to just say thumbs up, yes, 21 or over, thumbs down, no. That is very simplistic, right? In terms of how identification, uh, is used in a scenario. But that same type of mechanism applies almost every single time you use ID, right?

• 56:18Anthony Pompliano?

  How many times do you go somewhere and people say, you know, show me your driver's license?

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 56:23Anthony Pompliano?

  But it's not for driving. They just want to know that that's really you, right? A photo and a name. And what cracks me up is if you've ever gone to the airport or the bank or anything and they say, "Show it to me." If you have a photo where you had a shaved head and now you have hair, or you, you know, you used to have a beard and now you don't, the person doesn't know, right? They're just, they're just happy that someone has an ID that kind of sort of looks like the person and then they approve it, which probably isn't the most secure thing to do, right?

• 56:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But ID is only a very, it's only one part of the story, right? Because that's why we built this new smart web. It's not just the ID, but also given your ID, given the wallet, given the capability to run those virtual machines so you can conduct business. You can do something, right?

• 57:18Anthony Pompliano?

  How, give us kind of a status update of how things are going, right? So we understand how it works now. Any milestones or data that you can share in terms of how it's going?

• 57:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, so far this project has been around two and a half years. We started in August 2017 and we started to, we started the main chain in December of 2017. And then August of 2018, we started merge mining and also we implemented the first versions of DID. Currently, we're trying to do the second incarnation, which is W3C compliant. And we are, we have already pretty much finished the peer-to-peer network, decentralized peer-to-peer network.

• 58:05Speaker 01

  We have around more than 200,000 nodes running the peer-to-peer network, which is not the blockchain peer-to-peer, which is the, really does the all, the heavy lifting. We call it decentralized carrier because it does all the logistics.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  Like AT&T, Verizon does all this data transformation, or the video voice transformation. And also on top of it, we're going to build a virtual phones, virtual machines, right? Launch them on demand. So then that's where the first one would be the browser. The second one would be some macro websites running on top on top of those setup boxes. Two hundred thousand of them right now running. So we'll have some of them being the docking stations. And which is, we'll start from early January next year. And we expect 2020 would be exciting year, like 1993 all over again.

• 59:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it is, I think for the entire industry, 2020 and 2021 are going to be worth paying attention to for sure. Where, before I get into the rapid fire questions, where can people find more about Elastos and find you on the internet? On the centralized internet?

• 59:22Speaker 01

  There's a elastos.org.

• 59:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  And then there's a cyberpublic.org. And then for developers, there's a elastos.academy. So they can find all the technical.

• 59:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Specifications and stuff.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  And, yeah.

• 59:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  Training courses as well.

• 59:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Very cool. What about yourself? Where can people find you?

• 59:42Speaker 01

  Well, find me online. But also, we, I personally, if I came to this country 84, I was not a teenager at that time. I was doing grad- graduate studies. So I try to, because this, we are going to build a new internet next year, early next, starting early next year, right? So the internet definitely is beyond one person. I'm really, really happy and feel relieved. The team really is doing decentral- we have decentralized teams all over the world. And they're self motivated to build this new world.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  And so me, I, my role is kind of getting smaller and smaller, diminished throughout the year. So I kind of plan for myself. We promised to the community because one- For four years to build this new internet when we started in August 2017. So I'll be around until at least August 2021.

• 1:00:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Are you planning an exit? Are you gonna leave?

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  Well, I would think Satoshi would be a good role model.

• 1:01:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. Very, very interesting.

• 1:01:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Rapid fire questions. What's the most important company in crypto other than your own?

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Well, I think Ethereum is, we learned a lot.

• 1:01:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Why Ethereum?

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  Because of the work computer and also the smart contracts. Currently, we do have the sidechain running, the Ethereum sidechain running on top of Elastos. We're baiting almost all, I mean, the older versions of Ethereum EVM. All of the smart contracts are running. So I wish that thank, give our thanks to Ethereum community.

• 1:01:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Very cool. What's the one regulation or law that you would change or improve if you could, either here or abroad?

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  Well, I think in the US, of course, is more of so-called brag about legal. You know, everything is according to law, so many lawyers and so many things, right? And crypto is a new thing. And I hope the Congress folks should be more open-minded.

• 1:02:06Anthony Pompliano?

  That's fair. What's your most controversial thought in crypto? What do you believe that everyone else disagrees with you on?

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  I don't believe blockchains can create a ecosystem by its own.

• 1:02:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, explain that.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  They need a second tier. Because the blockchain for performance for, basically blockchain is one computer. Whether you call it work computer, it doesn't really matter. One computer won't solve internet problems. Internet meaning a network of computers, right? So anybody trying to build an ecosystem or dApps on one blockchain is bound to fail.

• 1:02:42Anthony Pompliano?

  I think that's pretty controversial. What's the most important book you've ever read?

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  Well, I read like Taoism books teachings or Shakespeare when I was in college to impress girls. And I still believe that's important.

• 1:02:57Anthony Pompliano?

  You read Shakespeare to impress girls in college? What was your favorite book?

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  Well, all those, I read them all, put it this way.

• 1:03:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Very cool. Aliens, you believe? Are they real?

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  I, I'm agnostic, either way.

• 1:03:15Anthony Pompliano?

  No, no, no, no, no. You can't take the agnostic position. You either believe or you don't believe. What do you think?

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  Well, I don't really believe.

• 1:03:24Anthony Pompliano?

  You don't believe?

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  But I do believe, a lot of people believe that inspired us, right?

• 1:03:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  To pursue.

• 1:03:30Anthony Pompliano?

  So you think that aliens probably aren't real, but the promise that they may be out there inspired us to go look?

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  Right, because let's say going out of space and do a lot of scientific research. That's important, but I personally don't necessarily believe it's there, right?

• 1:03:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, why?

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  It's been similar to the way we grow up.

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  Lot of those stories or teachings. And I won't go explicit. And turned out, right, it's, I don't believe.

• 1:04:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, so you think aliens are like a religion?

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, but then the way we grow, grew up.

• 1:04:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  Right, a lot of things we were taught. And, but then on the other hand, doesn't really stop us from come to the US, come, you know, to study, to keep on driving ourselves.

• 1:04:27Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. So, do you think we went to the moon?

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 1:04:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, alright, just checking.

• 1:04:36Anthony Pompliano?

  And then I always end with you getting to ask me one question. What, what one question do you have for me?

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  If you got to meet Alien or Satoshi, which one do you pick?

• 1:04:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, if I got to meet Alien or Satoshi, uh, definitely Alien. I, I actually, I actually think we are much better off not knowing who Satoshi is. I hope we never find out who he, she, or they is. I think part of the beauty and strength of Bitcoin is the fact that we don't know who that person is, right, or that group of people. And so I don't want to be the person who ruins it, frankly.

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  I see. I would think, you know, it's fascinating to tell, for him to tell the life story, why?

• 1:05:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes. So, so like, if, if they revealed themselves.

• 1:05:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Then I think there'd be a ton of really cool things to find out, but I want nothing to do with being the one to reveal if put in that position. And also like, go grab a beer with an alien, right? And I got a lot of questions for the alien. Like, we start with like, where are you from and how long did it take to get here would be two at the top of the list.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  But if you see the how far the telescope, those gigantic telescope have 30, you know, millions of, I don't know, it may not be millions of light years, right? It'll be forever from the travel.

• 1:06:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, but if you, if you think about, that's just our galaxy, right? And there's other galaxies. One of my favorite things, 2019, that I read was, somebody was able to identify that there was two galaxies colliding with each other. So like, what happens then? I don't really know. The idea that galaxies could collide is pretty crazy. And then they basically, if I remember the article correctly, and I probably don't, but I think it was something like, you know, two or four billion years from now, our galaxy is going to collide with that galaxy.

• 1:06:35Speaker 01

  So everybody is doomed by that.

• 1:06:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and it's like, maybe, right? So I think that we just don't understand how big the world really is. But, but if I had to choose, definitely choosing an alien over Satoshi, so we'll see. Listen, thank you so much for coming in and doing this. I really appreciate it. And obviously, I think a lot of the ideas and kind of ethos of what you guys are doing is shared across the Bitcoin and crypto community in terms of kind of this decentralized future, right? Taking back a lot of the self-sovereignty and identity, etc. And ultimately, I think that the kind of that censorship resistance, whether it's in money or in infrastructure,

• 1:07:17Anthony Pompliano?

  is going to play a pretty big part in the world moving forward. And so you guys are one of many teams that are working on this. And I think it's pretty exciting. So, so thanks for coming in and explaining it.

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  Thank you for the opportunity and I appreciate that.

• 1:07:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, for sure. We'll have to do it again in the future, once you guys get farther along. Alright, sounds good. Thanks so much.

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:07:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Hey everyone, Pop here. If you liked this episode of Off the Chain and want to help us take crypto to the top of the apple, Spotify and other podcast charts, please do us a favor and rate, review and subscribe. To review, simply go to the Off the Chain homepage, scroll down until you see the five blank stars. Taking 15 seconds to fill those stars in and leave a quick review goes a long way in helping us take the entire crypto ecosystem to the top of the charts. I appreciate you listening and see you next time on Off the Chain.