 plan field of economic opportunity. I say this because leveling the plan field is precisely why I became a lawyer. I view the law not as something that is intended to maintain social order just by maintaining the status quo. I see it as a reflection of our values as they are today, but also as they change with our changing understanding of what is possible through technology, our changing desire to have one interact with one another, and in this way I would have to say that every legal question, for me at least, begins as a values question. Necessarily before you can create the law you have to decide for yourself what is it that we are creating for? What are the values that underlie our system? If you're creating a contract, a business partnership, what do we want to uphold and prioritize above all else? In cases of crisis, what would guide us to our decision? These are the kinds of questions that go into legal and rulemaking. And I mean you can think about it here, in our world, right? What happens when something goes wrong? What happens when the blockchain doesn't work as they expected it to work? What happens when there's fraud? I think we've all been here before. We know this conversation, we know this discussion, but what are the values that guide us to our resolution? Do we resolve the issue on the basis of ensuring that the original words of the original language is executed exactly as it was written down? Or do we consider that, well, actually the outcome that we want is quite different because our purpose is equity. So how do we get to an equitable outcome? Which path do we take? These are the kinds of questions that go into values. These are the kinds of questions that you must answer before you create your law. And in addition to creating the law and having your values, we have to also have governance structures that allow diverse people to shape and bring life to those values. So if I consider all of this in the context and of blockchain technology and the kinds of governance structures that we want to have in our systems, I wonder about the second question. How will blockchain change society and improve people's lives? I have to say that this question is a bit harder for me. And I say that because on the one hand I'm here because I absolutely believe that this is a revolutionary technology that can be that equalizer to bring economic prosperity to people all across the world, irrespective of their geography, irrespective of their background, and I'm so inspired by this. On the other hand, I also think that blockchain technology can possibly replicate the power and balances that we have today and possibly in a more permanent and destructive manner. So where do we end up? 200 years from now. Where will we have landed? Well, I mean I'm not here to predict the future and I can't and no one can but I do think that it's confident. It's something that I can confidently say that the technology for me will not be the decisive factor. And I say that because we're all on board that the technology is revolutionary. The technology is a hugely forward. This we know. What we don't know is how those values will be shaped through our government structures. What we don't know is who we'll be able to in times of crisis determine the path that we take. And the reason I say that these questions are the more fundamental questions is because we've actually been here before. We've seen systems built around these kinds of questions and issues and I think we can learn a lot. And in particular I think we can learn a lot from the American experiment. So if you allow me to just give a bit of background here I think we'll be able to understand what I mean. Because the struggle for American independence was in fact very much an economic struggle. Much like our own it was a struggle for economic justice. Because these new settlers who had come to the US in search of a new land let's call it and were wanting to govern themselves. They came for some it was a fun experiment for others it was a lackable attempt at competing with the British monarchy which was at that time a ridiculous concept. But nevertheless they created a society for themselves. Something they were proud of. Thirteen colonies governing themselves desiring to live by rules under their own terms. Nevertheless they were still tied to this monarchy. Because in every interaction in every economic transaction the monarch was in the middle demanding fees levying taxes requiring that no matter what these settlers would have to pay for this the monarch. And this was of course not what they wanted. They wanted to have a self governing structure. But what does that look like in the 1700s? They thought maybe maybe we can find a way to coexist with this monarchy. Maybe we can find a way to make it a bit better. Or maybe we can make our own monarchy. Maybe we can have a limited kind of government structure where I mean it's still a monarchy but at least we're in charge. So I guess it's a bit better. These were the kinds of ideas and discussions that we're quoting around at this time. Until January 10, 1776. Because it was on this day that the entire tone of the conversation changed and in fact the entire revolution changed. And this was because this is the day that an anonymous paper was published. And this anonymous paper was called Common Sense. The idea behind Common Sense was that we're looking at this problem from the wrong angle. We're thinking about how do we break away from this monarchy? Where are the problems with this king? But the argument here was that the fundamental problem is centralized power. And the argument was of course against centralized power but it was also argument for decentralization. Because the author, who we now know as Thomas Paine, argued that only through decentralization could you have a system that is accountable to its users. Only through decentralization can you allow for democratic processes to enable people to rule for themselves. But not only do you have decentralization, you have a system where you don't need to look for answers from the king. There's no need to have the king in the middle. We have the law. Our law is what governs what we do. So much so that, I mean, he said that the law is king. Imagine the words that we have written down are enough to govern all of our interactions. Why have anyone in the middle? Why be accountable to somebody who's not accountable to us? Now only would you have to have decentralization in the system to work. You would also have to have an idea that every participant in the system has the same rights as everyone else. Rights that cannot be taken away. Rights that are forever and fixed. Rights that are immutable. And in order to ensure that everyone knows about these rights, you would of course have to have a transparent system. Because you'd have to have a system where all of these rules are reported on an essential document that gives access to everyone to be able to read and understand the rules of the system. You'd have to have a transparent system. So imagine a decentralized system of immutable rights that is transparent. Maybe for us this may be something that will take for granted, or we think of course this is the obvious solution. But put yourself in 1776. Imagine the world as it was in 1776. This was truly remarkable. Truly a brilliant idea. Then and now. And with these ideals in mind, of course we started with the American experiment. The declaration of independence with these principles in mind was signed shortly after. 11 years later the constitution came. And the constitution was where we actually put down the governance structures that would bring these values to life. Unfortunately, if you see what resulted, there is quite a mismatch. So whereas we originally had this idea of a decentralized system that is open and accessible for everyone that gives justice to all voices, what we ended up with was a system that was actually quite closed and that actually only gave access to a very limited queue and required land ownership as a token of participation. So I guess the question is then, what happened? What went wrong? And I'm here to take accountability and say that lawyers got involved. As I guess is often the understanding, lawyers messed this up. And how did we mess this up? We messed this up because we only looked to ourselves for the answers. Understand that this revolution was a very legal one. And it was a legal one because as I mentioned earlier, there were many taxes and fees that were charged and this affected the practice of law. So normally these men decided that they wanted to create a structure that would give life to those values, that would provide that system of democracy and immutable rights that is transparent. So they set forth to write this constitution. The problem was it was only lawyers who were involved in this process. If you imagine that there were so many people that felt that the system had not been accountable to them, these lawyers included, and so many people who wanted their voices heard. But the system that actually resulted was designed by these men in this room. This was their death con. It looks a lot different than our death con, right? Because if you actually understand the situation a bit better, 32 of these men were lawyers. And the time when what it meant to be a lawyer was that you were white, you were wealthy, you were a land-owning man, you were a part of what would be considered at that point one percent of the population. In no way reflective of the society as it was then and certainly not a reflection of society as the US is now. These men undertook to create a system that we again bring life to these values. And I honestly think this was the day of law of the Constitution. There were no diverse perspectives or voices that were included in the governance structures that were created. There was only governance from one vantage point, from one viewpoint. And the problem with governing from one viewpoint is that you have blind spots. And what I want to say is that all of us have these blind spots. It's funny because in fact Abigail Adams, one of the wives of the founders, had to write a letter to her husband during this time as they were creating the system, urging her husband to remember the ladies. And she said this because she reminded him that in order to live up to those values that you articulated, you actually have to give voice to women. You actually have to give voice to everyone in order to truly have a democratic decentralized system. And she was so correct in her position because she understood that this is not a problem of her husband. It's not a problem of these men. It's a problem of creating structures only from our perspective and falling into the trap of believing that everyone sees the world in the way that we do. How do we avoid this? We avoid this by including other people. You don't need to speculate about what someone else would think. You need to just include them and hear their voices and understand how the values that you believe in are reflected in through their lens of the world. And it's funny because what was created was such a remarkable system. And I have to say that many of the aspects that make the Constitution so great are also the aspects that make it so difficult to reconcile with the realities of society today. And so, acknowledging that the system that we have are tools. Immutability, amazing, but it's a tool. And not every tool is right for every problem. Blockchain is an amazing tool, but the way in which we use it will determine how future users will interact with the system and whether or not they'll be able to interact. Because while the Constitution was an amazing invention and creation, it also resulted in the crisis that has brought us here. The 2008 financial crisis was also birthed in the U.S. And while some might think it's the system not working, in many ways, the idea that one percent of the population in the U.S. was able to put the global economy in jeopardy is very much the system being accountable to those who was designed to account for it. So, how do we then figure out for ourselves, being that we are also 11 years out from our own paper that sort of sparked our movement? How do we create a system that avoids this pitfall? How do we create a system that allows diversity in perspective, diversity of background to create governing structures? I say that even if we want to say that code is wrong, we have to understand that we're not here just to replicate the systems of the past. We don't want to just bring new faces to broken systems. We want to create new systems, inclusive systems. And whether or not the code is wrong, we are the ones who are going to determine the values that underlie the code. And we're going to be the ones that determine how we can govern to ensure that diversity is included in our system from the beginning. This is important for us because it's what will ensure the success of our system today and in 200 years from now. And I'm so inspired and encouraged by the fact that we're all in this room precisely from different backgrounds, from different countries, speaking and talking to each other about how to make blockchain better. So, in that way, I say let's keep building.