 What's up guys today? I am Coming to you live from Edcon here in Toronto. I got my good friend John pallor with me If you guys know who John pallor is John pallor is founder and steward of How do you pronounce that? Opolis and also founder of ETH Denver by the way by the way I've been to a lot of hackathons. In fact, I've personally done hackathons myself hands down hands down Your fucking hackathon was the fucking shit Thanks, like congrats on that that was dope like custom painting like the curation the quality the small details like It felt like you weren't even at a hackathon. It's like a high the one of the most like high-class events possible That's what we were going for. That's what we were trying to do. I love it. I love it. Yeah, my pleasure Thanks for organizing it. Thank you for supporting it likewise likewise So basically what I want to talk to you today is about well since we're at Edcon here Tokens You know let's talk tokens. Let's talk tokens. What was the saying that we said earlier friends. Don't let friends Create useless tokens. Yeah, that was Jeff Coleman. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it was great friends. Don't let friends Build useless to build useless tokens. Yeah, they don't and so you don't let friends do that. No, you've been in space for a while I've been in space for a while. Yeah, and 2017 was obviously a shit show when it came from ICOs and tokens Yeah, I went from zero to a hundred miles an hour. Yeah, real quick. Yeah, real quick And so, you know, we're 2018 Q2 right now a lot of talks of regulation SEC talking about it a lot of exchange is being banned on a national scale in certain countries As you see right now in the ICO space. It's more or less pre sales as opposed to public sales, right? It actually defeats the whole purpose of originally what ICOs intended to be a democratized very democratized version of investing was averted back to the old way of saft and pre-sale accredited investor It's only the rich get richer But obviously still investing these useless tokens. So like in the last year or so and based on your experience in the space and Based on what you know about the technology like what's your current stance on ICOs and tokens? I Think generally ICOs are overused. I think that When the SEC says that All if most if not all tokens or security securities at this stage Their argument for that is actually not a horrible one because most of the projects don't have any sort of functioning System or software or tool so there really isn't any utility. It's a future promise of potential utility As we know most of the projects never make it to utility. So there's a huge problem with that I think Wyoming is in the right direction. So from a stateside perspective Wyoming pass on legislation that created a new asset class That basically defines a utility token one of the components of that requires though that the that the utility token is actually Usable at the moment of issuance So they're saying okay. We'll allow utility tokens, but it's got to be usable like now So it's not securities. It's a utility. So utility. So what's the definition of utility token utility token is is basically a digital asset that's being sold with Use with actual use for goods and services inside of a technological path So wouldn't be like 90% of these ICOs was literally a payment token, right, right, which is which is very very Simple thinking in my opinion. It's not it's not innovative at all payment token payment transfer is is like v1 of tokens I think much more interesting uses of utility tokens are going to be around governance and Just more much more complicated uses of tokens. I don't think that you're going to see I don't think it's gonna be I Don't know fashionable the word, but I don't think you're gonna see people doing Things that are gonna like there's gonna be a precedent set and I think once the precedent set and the hammer comes down on some of these projects People are gonna stop doing certain behaviors because they don't want the same thing to happen to them What regulation comes down on a national level or even I mean currently the Colorado State houses considering Legislations around the same topic sure It's gonna be really interesting to see what actually pops out of that because I think that is going to be Really the guidance that gets used for how people are preparing their projects in the future So it's sort of hard to tell April was the lowest Quantity of ICOs in eight months So like I think people are seeing that they're kind of putting the brakes on well This might take on it like For the most part 99% of these ICOs. They don't even need a token. They don't need a token And they can use ETH. They can use ETH, but we can even step back and subtract it a step further They don't have a business. Yeah, well, they don't even need a blockchain. That's precisely it Yeah, so they might have a business, but you don't need to blockchainify everything. Yes So we talk about this a lot In our Colorado ecosystem like we get people coming to eat Denver and and proposing projects and asking for input and ideas all the time and The first question we ask Ourselves if not them directly is why do you need a blockchain? Yeah And if they can't answer that question if they can't give us a little You know quick and it has to be compelling. You can't be just well, you could do this or you could do that Yeah, but why would you? blockchain is slower Today, it's not as efficient. It's more expensive transactions cost-buddy like what are you actually creating? That's going to solve Let's say less of a technological problem sure and more of a social problem Like how does this actually solve a social problem? And if all you're doing is looking for blockchain to create efficiency You're in the wrong game because efficiency is not the name of blockchain right now. It might be You know once we solve scaling, I mean there was a two-hour panel yesterday here with Vitalik and many other brilliant minds talking about scaling solutions around a technology that doesn't scale right now so like Yeah, I mean we're if if you're talking efficiency in Streamlining things if you're not Truly creating a solution for a meaningful social problem, then I wouldn't consider using blockchain It just doesn't make any sense. Yeah, 99% of these I see as like you said don't need a blog Well, they're opportunists. Yes there. So there's there's two different Well, there's several camps that I see in the crypto space And I have opinions about all of them, but I think the thing that's Troubling for me is the ICO space Because when you look at the ethos of what blockchain was originally about even coming from Satoshi's original white paper It was a really around solving a social problem It was around creating impact and democracy for people and creating just better systems. Yep I don't see that in 90 some odd percent of the projects that come through they're opportunists and that's You know look capitalism is a very very good things But but it's a tool capitalism is a tool just like anything else and tools can be used for very selfish and kind of greed-driven purposes and That's just to me strikes against the ethos of the space entirely and so, you know You're talking about Wyoming. They're making interesting or they made the legislation. Yeah, they may they passed it It's past the governor signed it. So yeah Wyoming is officially The most crypto friendly state in the country right now. Now that doesn't mean a ton Colorado We believe that Colorado has the same sort of tendencies and innovation and we should be fine We should be and we're we're working on it. Yeah, we're working with the governor's office We're working with the office of economic development international trade We're working with the Colorado Technology Association. We're working with influential lawmakers. We're working with our national congressman One of which is running for governor. His name is Jared Polis. He's chairman of the blockchain committee in the US House he is He made the statement actually at a meet-up yesterday my friends who are back in Colorado Said that he made the statement that Colorado will be blockchain capital of the US now I Don't want to get down the Colorado rabbit hole too much and she'll Colorado. I think generally You know it'll speak for itself, but yes There's there's there's going to be some very interesting things coming So what do you think your predictions are in like the next six months? What's gonna happen the industry as a whole? well Yeah, it's gonna be interesting. I I am I Don't know that the the space could advance a ton until we solve scaling sure I think that there's there's a whole There's a whole just trail of dapps and But scaling is complex because they're not just scaling the tech Yeah, I know I scaling the governance with the tech as well. I know it's not an easy problem In fact yesterday, I think somebody mentioned I'm trying to remember who that they predicted a year from now We wouldn't be that much further on on solving the scalability So what that means for six months? I think until the regulatory Environment calms down. I think you're gonna see a reduction in ICOs, which I think is a good thing I think you're gonna see potentially some some interesting things just happening in general markets and how cryptos are trading. I think a lot of the Opportunists and FUD people are gonna go away for a while And we're just gonna build I think this is I think probably the six to two six to 18 months is going to be a Heavy just building period and the people that are serious about the space are gonna stick around the people who actually believe in The ethos of decentralization and the good that can bring socially and politically to the world Are gonna do it they're gonna they're gonna put in the time and and it's gonna be easier to spot legitimate projects Because right now it's hard, you know in a bull market everyone's smart Everybody's smart everyone's smart and everyone thinks they're smart and it's really dangerous business because bull markets don't last forever No, and it's actually not good that they last forever. So like this perpetual like let's go to 300,000 Bitcoin and You know $40,000 ethers. Yep. It's like look If all you want to do is be in it for the money Go Wall Street That's what they're about. That's what they do, you know do a high frequency trading like I know people Financial engineering is the name of the game. It is it really is and and I know I know I've got friends that that have spent time on Wall Street. I've got friends that are professional commodity traders I mean these guys are pros. They know how to extract dollars. Yeah in gaming market, and you know what I Don't agree with it. I don't do it. I don't see any value being contributed So instead of being an opportunist and an extractionist I'm very much of the mindset of contribution first So thinking about well like the like what you had it on your Twitter profile is steward. Yeah, it's a keyword Yeah, so I don't see myself as an executive of any sort. I see myself as a role-player So every team has to have certain players and skill sets come to the table I believe in the notion of steward leadership, which is I Don't I'm not a I'm a stakeholder, but I'm not an owner. I'm not a CEO I'm not a I don't I don't believe in that sort of hierarchical governance because I don't think that it empowers people to be creative and express their best and That's what we need. We need people not just me. I mean, I've got some ideas. I think that are interesting I Certainly have no trouble sharing them. I love talking about my thoughts, but I'm also equally as interested in what other people think because I think that that is Where you do where you're learning is through the expression of others Mm-hmm and stewardship really gives people the opportunity to become their best selves Instead of managing them, you know, I don't I think managing people is Not only an insult to intelligence and creativity, but it's it's actually Sort of a weird way of slavery, you know, I mean It's I use that term sort of loosely and it might be sort of offensive in some ways But if you think about it's indentured servitude in some ways Managing people to do processes and checkboxes and you know, you look at the so I'm in the employment space I've been in the employment space for almost 20 years and Our project is around decentralizing employment, right? So we're Well, what do you kind of plug up? Well, I'll do that in a minute. Let me just collapse my thought here but you know, so just a collapse on the Stewart leadership That gives people the opportunity as opposed to management It gives people the opportunity to be their best. Yeah to express their best as I say, it's like express your best Like what's inside of you that you were uniquely created to express in this world? That can contribute something Awesome, like what is your what is your inner badass? What is that? Because I want to see that now some people are not used to that They're like well, what do you want me to do is I don't I don't know what that looks like, you know So anyway, it's a process and people are evolving and I think the the thinking and consciousness around this is evolving I think that You know the next 20 years in the way we engage with work is going to change More drastically than it ever has in like periods of hundreds of years. Yes historically largely driven by technology and The democratized systems that we build that actually facilitate that and you're working on this with Opelus. Yeah, so opelus is is basically decentralized employment protocol and What it what it does is effectively give people portable Self-determined as I call it self sovereign not just identity but employment so we have It's a it's a Dow, but we call it a decentralized employment organization that we're building so this Entity construct would allow a group of individuals to consort together and Become employed by this entity that would then in effect be portable 100% Anywhere they want to go sure so This entity would also provide them benefits. They would have Stake they would stake tokens So talk about you a real live use case for Decentralized governance in tokens They would stake tokens and each deo would have their own set of rules around how many tokens or what the requirements are for membership Mm-hmm, and then they would vote on certain benefits or different components or features of the deo that they would want or get and If they don't like the outcomes of whatever governance Decisions are made they can move to one that fits their social and political beliefs more in alignment So one feature that I use as an example for this is there's a lot of political talk around Ubi yeah, so you know libertarians like that's bullshit. I'm not paying for that Sure, it's not it's you know taxation theft. I get it like if I don't want to pay for something I shouldn't necessarily have to be forced to do it Mm-hmm, but the beautiful thing about this is whereas today employment centralized around an employer who makes all these decisions for you You can actually align with groups of people Not just in a geography, but digitally That allow you to choose whichever social and political system Fits your benefits that you would like to see. Yeah, so you could as a deo vote on having Ubi as a component It's amazing and you could self-tax yourself, you know and be a part of the key. The key though is Opting in choice choice choice. Yeah, it's completely democratic so If I want to go be a part of the libertarian You know group and yeah, and then just bare-bones stop and I'm young and healthy and I don't really care about Saving for retirement or whatever like I can go do that Sure, it just cost me less to do it sure and but then I get to choose that So I'm effectively gonna tax myself at whatever rate I want to contribute Yes, and but my employment's never affected so I can so the way that we see The future of work is I call it the velocity of workers is going to accelerate So right now people are half the labor force in the US is going to be looking for work like right now right now right now oh, yeah, and Gonna be a gig economy like asa well 30% of people are already Participating mostly side hustles today. Yeah, but by 2025 you're gonna see a large portion of people doing gig full-time Yeah, and you're gonna see half of the US labor force Participating in the gig economy by that so the the old-school w2 is gonna start going down because people want flexibility They want freedom they don't they don't want the post-war war to post-depression era Security pension like because it doesn't exist in here. There's no that promise that age and era has so is super pass Sure, so I could work for six companies at one time. I could have three of them be international I could Port my employment anywhere. I want to go and if I need to apply for a home or whatever I have stable employment. I have the same benefits. So when I go from project to project it doesn't affect me beautiful People want to find more information about what you're doing. Yeah, what's the best resource so? We're in the process of updating our website right now so opolis.co you can there's some information there We're we're keeping it sort of thin on the website intentionally if you want to get in touch with me You can do so by John at opolis.co Follow me on Twitter is at power John And yeah, I love talking about this. So the future of employment is is I think in my opinion Probably one of the biggest use cases for blockchain. I agree and it has a practical use It really does actually solve a major social problems. Yeah, which I don't know how else you solve it You know because you can't just create technology around this. They've tried for 20 years in Silicon Valley to throw 20 billion dollars in solving, you know the connection problem between talent and work and LinkedIn sold out to Microsoft because it didn't solve it. That's right And LinkedIn was the hope for solving it But again, there's there's just mechanical issues with that that model So which we're obviously seeing in Facebook and others that the centralized data model and that's I'm excited what you're doing Yeah, yeah, I know he's John and thanks. Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure. Cheers