 From New York, it's theCUBE, covering Blockchain Week. Now, here's John Furrier. Hello everyone, welcome back. I'm John Furrier. We're here on the ground, actually on the water, on the majesty boat in New York City, as Decentral has their big unveiling, Anthony Diorio, CUBE alumni, good friend of theCUBE. It's having a massive event here in New York City, celebrating the new releases of their new platform, their new hardware product, actually called theCUBE. We'll talk about that with Anthony, but moreover, it's part of a big holistic Blockchain Week in New York City, exciting new projects from new financial products, the cryptos enabling technology innovation, a lot of personal people going doing deals. So, what's going on with you? You look great, we are at the party. We are. You're looking good. People are going crazy loud out there. What's your change? We're on a boat. I think this kind of environment is very friendly to the kind of community that is created by Blockchain naturally. So, I really commend Decentral and Anthony and all of their efforts around this in that they're now creating an environment where I can't walk five feet down the hallway without seeing somebody else that I know. And the important thing about that is that now we're really creating this big digital conglomerate. We're creating a network of people where I was just speaking to someone outside, and he said that it's amazing to see people sharing all kinds of information about their new projects, their recognizing that there really is enough pie for everyone. There's not, it is a competition game, but really that we should really compete on the application layer, and that we should collaborate on the code base. We should collaborate on security, and we should collaborate on these really big issues, like regulation and privacy. So, it's amazing to see all these people. And that's important, that's an open source ethos right there. It is, yeah. Really work together on a project, not product, because there's a difference between a project and a product. And open source is, that's language, it's important. Yeah. That's ethos. I love that. What's going on in the boat? We'll share some anecdotes of what's happening here, people who didn't make it, couldn't make the boat. They're giving away some cars, Aston Martin's got the bracelet here. What's some of the hallway conversations on the boat? What are you hearing here during Blockchain Week? Well, first of all, Blockchain Week has been an amazing opportunity for the Blockchain Research Institute to really showcase the work that we are doing, to express our interest in enterprise Blockchain, but really also to support the growing community that is happening in the world, and more so in Canada. We believe that Canada has an amazing opportunity to be a leader in Blockchain, and they are already, really. A significant amount of the people here are Canadian, you know, Anthony is a proud Canadian, lots of different companies are, and one of the major initiatives that we had at Consensus was the Canadian Pavilion. So, we gathered together 23 Canadian Blockchain companies. By the way, you needed a bigger room. We did, I know, I know. Because there was so many companies, you could have done it in your own conference. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But the key part with that is that we really wanted to showcase the amazing Canadian innovations that are happening so that people recognize that, you know, Canada and the, more specifically the Toronto Waterloo Corridor is the next Silicon Valley, it's the next hub of Blockchain and of Quantum Computing and of AI. And so, if you take those three together, really those are Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott, our two co-founders. They authored a report for the World Economic Forum and they argued that Blockchain really is the third leg of the stool, that we need to provide an atmosphere for innovation and this was a really good way for us to do that. And certainly it's got money tied to its applications now have a financial component, token economics, a real key enabler in this too. Certainly Blockchain, check, great, we love it, everyone loves Blockchain but it's the token economics that kick in, that are starting to see money, things, applications tying into tokens and coins. Yeah, I think, but that really creates a lot of, it creates a lot of confusion, it creates a lot of noise. Suddenly, you know, in the first generation of the internet, we said, you know, government hands off, we wanna, you know, we wanna regulate this ourselves, this is our thing, it's the age of information, like Don Tapskott said, you know, we're entering the internet of value. But in entering the internet of value, we're now no longer dealing with just information, we're dealing with things that matter to people, we're dealing with identity and privacy and physical assets and real estate and all kinds of different things that are really foundations of the economy. And in this case, we really need the community to come together and support a regulatory environment because if we don't, then the regulators will and it won't work in our best interest. Yeah, it's gotta be open, open always beats proprietary. I'm so convinced of that, open source software, which I've lived that generation when it was, we were fighting for, you know, Unix versus Znew, copyright with AT&T and then it was a tier two citizen, now it runs the world's tier one, open source one. Exactly. And the model is proven, it's coming to crypto and do you see that coming clearly or? Yeah, I do. Do people get that? Do people generally feel that way? I think people are starting to get it. I think as platforms like, you know, obviously Ethereum, but as platforms like Hyperledger and R3's Querta and the Quorum platform from JP Morgan, as these platforms grow in size and grow in membership and grow in collaboration, people will see that the way to collaborate, it's all about this, I don't know if you've seen the graphs about fat protocols. Now we're entrusting our payments and our identities and our, you know, the things that really matter to us, we're not giving them to the application layer anymore. We're giving them to the protocol layer and if we're giving them to the protocol layer, then we really need to collaborate to ensure that all of that information is correct all the time and the only way we're going to be able to do that is to be able to create open source platforms and open source activities where everyone is able to participate. That's the only way we can create prosperity and something like this. And if you want to take the code and do something downstream, there's mechanisms for that. Yeah, exactly. That's the collaboration. There's lots of enterprise clients like Procter & Gamble and Exxon Mobile and PepsiCo and others where they're very interested in enterprise blockchain but at the same time, they want to be able to leverage the security of the public chain, right? It's, Matt spoke at Aeon X, had a really, really interesting comment about two weeks ago. He said, I think, and he apologized in advance, it's like, this may be controversial but I really think he's right in that he said, you know, five, 10, 20 years down the road, we won't know the difference between an enterprise blockchain and a public chain, right? Like, we will be able to have- It should be, he's right, I agree with him. Exactly. We will be able to have, we'll get to a point where it will be dumb not to use the public chain. It will be dumb not to be able to leverage the security of it because if you and I enter into, you know, if we build our own blockchain together, I mean, that's great. But one of the interesting things too, you missed the panel because you might've seen Jimmy Song's debate with- I did, yes. That was very provocative. So he's got a point on it, there's two sides of the coin, you know, no pun intended, right? One is what you're saying, that enterprises can come in. What Jimmy was saying is that it's a waste to use the public chain now because of some inefficiencies. He's technically accurate, but that's going to get better. So I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. No, no, I agree, but I think there's a lot of solutions to come in the next year or two or three around interoperability. And I think at the end of the day, everyone should be able to use whatever blockchain that they think best fits their features, but that they should integrate with a company like Aon or Icon or Metronome or all these other interesting interoperability projects where you're able to leverage the security of the public chain, but also be able to continue to have your own ecosystem together. You know, I saw it in a John Tapscott about this when I interviewed him at an IBM event and I'm old enough that I've seen a couple, some of these waves that I live. And I hear the same arguments all the time. Oh, the performance is not there compared to this. But these are waves, these are shifts, right? So, PC, oh, no one's ever gonna do anything with that. You know, it goes on and on, web. Oh, it's so slow to dial up and load a web page, but all of them were shifts in growth. Growth was coming behind it. So that's the wrong conversations are happening. The growth is coming. So you guys really nail it with your analysis, I think, at your team because it is the shift. It is about not necessarily getting in the weeds over, did this one thing, is it good now? Yeah, or will this upgrade work? Or will something really move forward? I think that, so Don actually said in 1992, in paradigm shift, he said that leaders of old paradigms often have trouble embracing the new. And so for us at the Blockchain Research Institute, we really exist to bridge that knowledge gap between top tier executives like Fred Smith and Rob Carter from FedEx, like Internewi at PepsiCo. We aim to bridge that knowledge gap so that they just better know how to flow funds within their own company. You guys are doing great work. You guys are doing great work. So I'll take a minute and give a plug real quick. Love your work. Explain some of the things you guys are doing. You're on the right track. I can say I love what you're doing. I looked at it, it's right on, but you're open. You're not like, you know, down on your fist on the table. You guys are cool. Take a minute to explain to me what the work you guys are doing. So we're doing AD projects on the strategic applications of blockchain technology in a variety of industries. So our research fits in three categories. We have verticals where financial services is obviously our largest vertical, but we're also looking into projects in retail, in manufacturing and supply chain, in healthcare, in government, in media, in telecommunications, in resources and mining, you know, you know, pickaxe mining, not bitcoin mining. Real mining, old school mining. Old school mining, yeah. And then we're also looking at a lot of the management applications of blockchain. So, you know, the first generation of the internet didn't really do a lot to change the structure of the corporation. It allowed us to find people all over the world. I can find people to do anything, but I still have to negotiate a contract with them. I still have to enter into an agreement. I still have to establish trust. But if we now have this amazingly fluid technology that allows us to lower the cost of search, the cost of negotiating contracts, the cost of contracting, and the cost of establishing trust, then that blows the windows and the walls of the corporation wide open. And in that, we are really striving to help our member organizations understand that. The nature of the firm is changing. Economic theory of yesteryear being disrupted really fast way. Yeah, definitely. Blockchain. Thanks for coming up. Oh, one more question. Yeah, sure. This week, what did you hear and the out there in the city? What's your observation? For the people who didn't make it to New York, a lot of great face-to-face, a lot of great engagement, good networking, good contacts, growing ecosystem, but still a tight knit community, people know each other, they're sharing information. What did you hear? Share some data, some insights that folks couldn't get if they didn't come. I think for us, a lot of the reason that we are here is that it's a peril if you don't show up. It's being part of a community. If we are going to show a leadership role in this community, then we need to show up for our coworkers. We need to show up for companies that may not be able to advocate for themselves. I've met so many interesting companies this week that either do not have the resources or they're trying to raise money or they're trying to be investors, and the life of an entrepreneur obviously is a tough one. And for us, we have a growing pioneer membership at the Blockchain Research Institute where we aim to connect large corporations who are looking to invest in different blockchain platforms, but don't know where to start. And so we run essentially a whitelisting service where we are partnered with lots of amazing companies like Paycase and Shift and ColliderX and Aeon and all these different companies where they're really working to move the ball forward as well as make an impact. So yeah, for us it was looking for more innovative companies, but also doing our part, showing our role. This was one of the first times that I actually saw Don Tatskot and Alex Tatskot actively taking meetings and participating in the conversation and being present and being there. So for us, it was a lot of, it was presence. It was a lot of presence. We're thrilled to be here. You having fun? I am, yes, yes. Behind us is a boat. We're on it. We're in the front part. We're in the Anthony Diario private suite lounge where you can relax. I think it's kind of a green room. Behind us, awesome DJ, four stories of boat going down New Yorkers past the Statue of Liberty. A lot of action. Let's get back to the partying. What are you saying? Sounds good, sounds good. All right, I'm John Furrier. Thanks for watching. We're on the boat. New York City, thank you for watching.