The UN, the Pirate Party, and Bitcoin - Alexis Roussel, Bity

Transcript

[Music] hello and welcome to the blockchain and us we're pioneers and thought leaders talked about their journey in blockchain technology crypto assets enter token economy and I'm your host manuel staggers if you enjoyed this podcast please give it a top rating and review on iTunes and feel free to follow me on Twitter at Manuel's dagger this episode is brought to you by christos storage crypto storage offers a proprietary solution to enable professional storage of crypto assets the gorge is secured both physically and digitally on the highest grade hardware security modules with detailed configuration possibilities for individual based

access control to learn more visit [Music] www.hp.com/recycle ik law and has served as a governance specialist for the united nations alexis was also the president of the pirate party of switzerland to promote a human centric and distributed approach of a technological society he is involved in the discussion around regulation of crypto currencies in switzerland and is frequently in the swiss media when it comes to privacy and digital rights

issues and now to the interview so in my last interview series I didn't get a chance to speak to you Alexis but I'm very glad we can do this now even though I know you have a lot of stuff going on it's 8 p.m. you're still at your office in inertia tale but hello Alexis and thanks a lot for making time today for this so how how did you get into into the space into the whole cryptocurrency space how did you get started with this very little story see I mean I started business-wise in 2013 but I've been looking at this and watching the space

for some time basically I'm I'm a lawyer specialized in new technologies so I did my studies in the 90s and back then it was the internet bubble I was son of engineer working in space environment my father was a space it was great because it was all about the adventure in going to space and when I was a kid but he was a really fun of computers so he pushed me a lot in that direction and then I started doing legal work in legal databases and I was not always interested in the technical part

and I started working for the United Nations as specialized yeah making a database for a full court and basically what happened is that I with this mixture of the law and tech I discovered a field which was the how the society is using tech or how Tech is influencing to society and that would that's my whole stories about okay how do those two come along together and I've been doing this for the in the UN that's my first career for seven years in the UN I was like called eco in governance officer basically I was helping communities or

cities in Africa and Eastern Europe to add digital services to their - cities what kind of what kind of services the world owes you know what that was really simple you know having the website was already a good thing by then and then having someone else read it you know when you wish you were sending an email to the city you know these kind of things I mean we were thinking about which things were complicated but for them that was already a big step everything but and but during that time I made a lot of research I was I was a lot inspired I was close to the cypherpunks movements and and being like

really infused by those ideas and then at the same time working at the United Nations I was close to government officials that were trying to understand these changes these these what what Internet was brilliant as a change in the society and basically this is when something really struck me that was in 2003 that was the summit on the information society and I was participating in the organization and there we discovered that I mean every state official from any reasonable democratic country had one question in

their in their mind was okay how do we control this incident and how do we control the people on the internet and how do we make all these totalitarian systems in place so that we control everything and I was listening to them and I was saying but you're a democratic you know presenting in the democratic country and they said yeah yeah we're democracy people voting and this is fine they gave us the mandate to do so and I was like no there's something wrong is there was a mismatch between whenever those people were thinking digital around in the digital side of life then they were there was they they were losing all their ability to think as the markets or Democrats or units

and I analyzed that that much and I figured out that these people were coming from schools from political parties from a whole construct of things which helps them to take decisions because those people there you have to deal with a lot of subjects or such as about internet one day but they have to do housing the next day and employ the the the next thing so they have to jump in one topic to another so they have our guidelines ideological and constructions guidelines for them to be able to to propose ideas which is okay and and I figured that these these things didn't have any thing related slightly there

was no construct yet I need to construct available for people at very high level or any governments to be used so this is when I was I really quit the Uni I already saw that that was in 2009 there was a party that came there was the pirate party I came I came on a very specific topic it was a it was copyright issues it was security issues and so the pirate the pirate party sorry to interrupt but it was the pirate party out of Sweden Sweden exactly the first for the first before that 2009 was what

it was creating in Switzerland and when when it when it came out I was really listening to this and I I found that the generation people who were joining there had had the will to to be on that ideological construct that is would be needed to to organize a society of tomorrow in a more human way I felt that so that's where I took part of it that I actually ended up taking over the presidency of the Swiss Pirate Party for for two years how did that how did that go over with your work at the UN no no I had to stop

having the UN was like I had to be out of the UN to do political work you know not allowed to to have political activities when your staff of the UN so it was just I was in another life I was working in the private sector in Geneva and and it was it was really so I could like implicate myself in there and we really started thinking about okay how does the digital society would look like you know and we try to work out our way out of just the copyright issue or a security issue but okay how would have the pirate in talk about employment and

housing and health and social benefits and everything you know and how do we imagine this this life but we figured out that a lot of basic constructing basic conceptions like good peer open source collaborative consensus based system who wants to use those ones in in this concept of perfect pirate society and we also discovered that the human being was not but basically we were the pirate movement is a humanist is a core humanist movement but that understand

that the digital digital life has taken part of it is part of our life too so in that it's an extension and and and then at one point during all this thinking and it was like hours hours of like during night writing for the partying going deep discussion with everyone suddenly in middle of this we have weekly stuff happen and we have well we see these things like Bitcoin coming shelling up but people were saying oh it's an experiment and I'm very know when people tell me something I usually tend to believe so someone tells me your bitcoins just an experiment let me touch it just right that's it but then this is what I do I

don't touch it an experiment but I was looking at it was interesting and I think that it was 2011 when the wiki accept and assault was was kicked out of the visa network was kicked out of his bank accounts and he came to swizzles that was just a tiny bit before I become active at the party the pirate party and actually is that this first party party helped him to open a bank account here in Switzerland and the disrespe party was also the first one to make a dns for their direction so this was part party still owes the WikiLeaks that CH account which was the first one to be used after

they were shut down so I mean there was no sonication basically we don't like censorship in that way and and also we realized that we don't like financial sense censorship and there is something crazy happened is that there was this really unprecedent in switzerland is that the post office where assault went and opened a bank account actually shut down his own bank his bank account without any judicial process and and this is really unheard of in systems and they it really felt like no one at the government - she did anything about it so I really felt like they just were pressured by an

external force by the US or whatever just to shut him down and they said okay this this really felt and this is one week he started to use bitcoins okay I will switch to dick on and now I'm never happy because they're sitting on VidCon wish it were skewer more than 30,000 bucks I mean they don't have to worry about but this was like really a case of resistant to censorship to financial censorship and and for me it was also the case of understanding that basically money in the digital society is also money is also information and basically

it flows the same way it wants to be free it flows automatically it can be it has to be peer to peer it has to be consensus based that may set that makes sense and Bitcoin in the middle of this was just rising as as like the perfect match for for this there was maybe one of the very first youth cases right yeah [Music] before it was the first time I think we clicks is like really the first big events where people say I was actually useful in the case of censorship and because it's and it's fitting in sport was because it was said to be resistant to be anything for a job but and that's interesting because in the price of

Bitcoin is also reactive to this as soon as someone is trying to attack Bitcoin in some reason or another and it shows that it's resistant and it can be or it's useful in crisis scenarios then then it it attracts people and this is exactly so happening 2011 with WikiLeaks did happen with Cyprus in 2013 we're also Bitcoin was a way to twist tape wrongdoings from the government and and so we'll see more and more Bitcoin showing up as as something which is resisting some wrongdoings from an institution or you know any kind of

authority and every time it will then people will see how it actually still works so in the price increase it's one of the price mechanism of Bitcoin but the so that from that moment really became clear that Bitcoin had place and and then we had a good argument because we're in Switzerland Switzerland is a very conservative country it's it has some a lot of things which look like looks like the crypto ceiling right that we know right now it's open source I mean the country is pretty much open sources that people following the rules the people like to follow protocols it's good sense these days it's multicultural

so we you could be whoever there is a lot of this different religion different different languages I don't say it's perfect but I mean it's one of the countries that matches the most the open source create enemies and well in a sense it I mean it's the world oldest democracy if someone said I think is Voltaire was that within history the Swiss people in the Swiss nation will be right and then the Swiss historian took this from modernist have added to this phrase yes but at least as long as long as they tell about it you know so so

sooner they don't show much about what they're here they're twisting after all this was was interesting about Bitcoin is that you know I was I was bragging being for for some time as a politician I was bragging about freedom of speech in about don't touch on our digital rights and or build our digital rights and don't serve a mean don't do Big Brother don't put the train horses Michael in a police state there's a train of horses all of this they have been doing and we didn't have much grip in discussion you know maybe like they don't do this than that and people say it's a yeah but you

know terrorism is important and whatever kind of for is more important so it doesn't matter if we just for internet because most of people didn't realize the the impact of digital digital life and then suddenly you have something which touches something much it's very core it's about it's about the value something it's certainly in the digital realm has value and it's a piece of code which is basic cryptography and it's based on a lot of work but by a lot of people it's based on open sources based on a community it's based on its it's running on a peer-to-peer network and it has all these things that no one

understands and it has bad now and people start to use it as a way of payment and and this is what I understand like ok now I know how I'm going to give the Swiss people as they I'm going to invite them the money aspect you know because when you talk about money then everything is very serious so you can get down these people on the table and talk about a really serious topic and and this is exactly what happened is that the the development of of the of the crypto sphere and the crypto findings fear in Switzerland in general is being taken very seriously so first first people say oh it's a scam or whatever and then very quickly they're like oh no

it's like something behind it's just not easier in the garage making strange things we don't understand actually has value and it didn't there is money flows and everything and there's value being generated another and and then it becomes a serious topic so so so then in Bitcoin becomes the trial horse to actually infuse in the society those those new norms about how a digital society should look like and and for something really stupid like digital signature for example the Swiss government has been trying to do like many governments to do to make a digital identity skiing with the signature and

and they've been failing project after project discussing millions of millions because they try to do a system where basically the key is generated by the government and then giving to them to the user so that they can sign but that does that's not how signing work signing is comes from you as a person you have to generate your own keys and then you can sign with your own signature and this is this whole simple concept of self signing and self generated identities is is now being pushed to cryptocurrencies instances I like this

what do you think about this whole current debate of using the blockchain maybe more than than Bitcoin itself it's that's a natural way and you will be using more and more luxury you will be using it more and more for all the things what I see now is that that people are pushing in a lot of projects which is which is really brings a lot of innovation you know people trying out a lot of tokens and new systems and using buck Schafer many different things they a lot of those project failed to to reconnect to the basics is that first when you when

you're building a blockchain based society first you to have the transactions and the core values being sent so how to do a transaction how to value what is being transferred how to decide how to know to know if the transaction was good enough and start making business around these transactions and controlling you he's managing your keys and and and so many increases you create a base a baseline of knowledge in the crypto finance and and then once you once you start to trust the system for the most fundamental things is transfer value then you can start putting other things on it and you can start to put logic logic in smart contracts you haven't be

a bit more complex interaction and and then then then only with time when those systems are being cherished as the most valuable social connection interactions records that we have then we will start to record something else on there you'll start to record real life would be record recorded on there and we can we can we can interact there but right now there's there's there's two ways I see in the blockchain space where people are with going with too far is that some of them are yeah like inventing use cases

very far-fetched which is in a sense very good in terms of innovation we need to go down that far and to show it also shows that what is possible to be doing but it's a bit like inventing Google 95 93 that was the movie too early why is that you think because it's far because it's hard for them it's hard for whole organization that has been set up for some of the banks are like a hundred years and 200 years old and they've been working in process never have a culture which is based on the paper culture and and they have been moving into the ideas

into the IT space using computers but they filamentous of their understanding of life does not include this part yet so if you come with cryptocurrency and suddenly you tell them it's the CEO who needs to digit digitally sign a transaction that's not something the whole system they have been building is not in my mind a they might be able to change into to leave and some of them will but they they have too much too much things they I've been hearing too much the the story about people saying

oh just Asti I just got to do it you know and and when you're going to the crypto space you need you need responsible people who are able to cope with the responsibility of like signing the transaction any money transfer it's it sounds tech on the technical level very stupid it's it is very sometimes it's very trivial but it's the whole approach it's not it's not just an IT guy can fix that in the corner it's it's actually a whole culture you have to build in it's the buy in you need from the top as well yeah which is which is absolutely lacking currently right I mean if it's only done elsewhere elsewhere - yeah starting they're starting crypto

projects but it's it's like what happening now in those big big corporation or banks or whatever is that you have at the top maybe they actually don't even know about it that's case but if they do know about it is then they go like a out they do an experiment and they ask like some guys in a corner to disturb or to start a more serious project but they it's not a fundamental culture change in the company it will lead it to it it will lead to it and and when it will come it will be quite damaging for their companies it will be as hard or maybe even harder then when telecom company became Internet company telecom provider just having a network of cables and

providing a phone service and there was the only service or providing and suddenly they come into the internet world and they have to reprogram the whole business on top of internet and today they're still providing the phone service but the phone service is just one of the service next to Internet video and other things so there will be the it's obvious who who mentioned that the first time but I really like this his reusing his his analysis about struck infrastructure inversion you have an infrastructure University happily and basically you have a current infrastructure and auction in this case

and the open block chains are bringing a new infrastructure now you need to reprogram everything but the way the infrastructure is organized has has an impact on how you organize the business on top of it mmm-hmm well that's an excellent chance for new companies to come in yeah but at the same time a lot of old companies will be able to make the shift I think that's possible look at the telecom sector they actually some of the companies did manage to go through but for some of them it was really hard they have to go through a really big change of culture change a brand change of how the whole way they

were treating and servicing consumers so like the product they had to imagine that when you were setting up an ISP in 92 or 93 or even before what before you thought you were yeah at first you were working without any yeah yeah different types of protocol you had to choose and you were making a you're giving a modem to the people and the phone line and and you fast forward 20 years later you are giving a set up box with video and and array and fiber and lots of services so you have to be able to to foresee these kind of changes some companies like so

you have new companies that came and were able to push these kind of changes because they have the divisions and and some of the big companies were able to the traditional companies were able to tie the game and to to to also move in the direction but it was hard for them you also started a crypto company yeah I met my first partner and basically we met because he was looking for understanding he's an entrepreneur and real estate has nothing to do with with Bitcoin and he bought some Bitcoin and

he wanted to have some understanding so he he knew what that saga was like our part guy and so he he wanted to see me so we hooked up and and basically yeah at the end of the few hours discussions that we have about partially me explaining what I thought the importance of Bitcoin was in society and in history and and him explaining also how he was seeing the market and things like this we said let's just do something and the first thing was okay what do people need in 2013 when you're talking about Bitcoin and it was the first thing

people needed was buying and selling and this was so he said okay let's just buy in some Bitcoin mmm fawful retail for people just to go in there and and then we started from there you look at the market at that time and it was very very small there was like two companies that she project people starting okay so we just went for it and and the first months was before we set up the company we set up the camp in like late December 2013 and it was registered in January 2014 and the basic work was regulatory framework to see okay how is Bitcoin to be treated and and that was that was a

long part I was working alone like studying all the financial systems for the legal system to finally to kind of free for two to kind of imagine how the government will react when they will they will have to deal about VidCon and and at the same time at one point there was a parliamentarian who started to ask the question about Bitcoin and say hey I saw this TV show in the US where people are buying drugs was Makani we should do something about it in systems and something started like this and the government instead they they kind of they they they they put the question

aside but they took the they took this the question is an opportunity to start answering because there were some real purchased showing up at that moment and basically what they said in 2014 with their the basic report the first report on crypto currencies that they did was exactly what I thought your - of research so basically that might my file the file with the regulator was just fitting in what we want what we acted that the government will say and then we could stop we could start it immediately and so basically we just started by an estimate you know today Miriam in Geneva a story of who is

Bitcoin know somewhere and getting bitcoins on some exchanges and have an excel file to record all the transactions one by one and at the same time I had one of my first partner who is the CTO that time so building the machine that we have from scratch and that started like this it sounded like this and it took it took a long time to to work out because then we had like a lot of challenges regulatory challenges and banks we didn't had a bank account for like a year and a half since whispers we had to

to to to face constant questions from from regulators and spending a lot of time explaining them auditors they have no clue so they had to be we had to explain to them so we spend a lot of time building this knowledge in our in our actors around us so if you were one of the first exchanges in Switzerland ten the least yeah so so so that that's the specific of the Swiss market is that in 2013 I I for me was very very clear that an exchange like like you understand in exchange like cracking

felonious bid coinbase whatever was not possible in Switzerland unless you have a bank line and banking Isis for me he was there from 2013 and a lot of projects have failed you know understanding this unity and so so that's why we chose to brokerage way so brokerage is like are you buy from I company and I don't I don't keep your your your money you just send me bitcoins I'll give you your first Frank and if you send me Swiss Frank I'll give you bitcoins and that's it's very simple and I'm never holding your funds and that's the core that's that's today yeah

how the market it's written in is organized what you look for for a professional if you look to buy bitcoins in Switzerland that's the way it's happening result of competition and the only way you can have a Bitcoin bank let's say and you can deposit your money in an exchanges if you're abroad and so this is smart in the sense that the Swiss government by imposing non-us was going to Swiss regulation by opposing us to have a banking license we make something very much more sound much yeah it's much sounder community because we don't take the risk of taking a lot of

deposits and then disappearing make sure you know it for the safety of the Christian era Switzerland is much more yeah it's safe for in a financial way but at the same time because we kind of provide no one else which we can provide these service people go outside in much more shady and non regulated environments and and so they still actually face a lot of risks so it has a positive effect because it forces the industry to build itself in a very safe way and it has a negative effect that's actually their consumer protection is not really achieved because people go

outside and use another pick so most services and they have a high risk and if someone screws in in the US or anywhere else in the world they have no legal way to find them right I mean back then I assume you could just do something and see how it goes No this isn't we have a system which is traffic based and and this is usable by everyone and you can you can do a lot of things based on traditional if you if you're moving below those freshly and those thresholds it's about how much you make how much money you have how much clients you have and you have this like financial Liberty at small levels and

you can test things and and a lot of companies don't a lot of projects don't don't know that so sometimes most of the time is by ignorance or sometimes even if they know it they're so afraid of causing causing the stir of the regulator that they don't use these discretion mechanical chemical and this is how we started we started in January when we started we put the first machine in February and when we put the first mission we have no license but we knew that we could do up to like it was like two millions to mean Frank in a year of turnaround - and

that's okay that's under threshold and you don't need a license you know you no need to be financial intermediary if you do this but why not what I did at that time is I record I record kept a record of all transactions so whenever the regulated came after told me oh you already started before you had the license I could show them yeah but look I was under the pressure so it's mine okay so so so Switzerland has this this system which allows you to test it has a kind of yeah it has this threshold mechanism which is good let's take a quick break for a message from our sponsors

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leading Swiss providers with vast experience in finance and IT security to learn more visit WWF no storage CH your interactions with the regulator or maybe with the financial authorities how did they unfold so one of the key things in Switzerland people have to understand is that their regulator all the regulator's because there are many of them it's a two to two level system the regulators do not receive any funding from the government unlike most

of the regulators around the world and why is this important because who pays the money is actually who hotels were where the direction is going so the regulators in Switzerland and all of them are paid by their members who are regulated by the regulator so if you're a bank you actually I remember we are affiliated you're authorized by FEMA and you have to pay fees to FEMA okay so you are providing money to film or to pay for it salaries and the same for companies which are financial in Germany like ours we use a system which is called the self regulated organization we are member of those association and

we're paying fees to be regulated it's a it's a voluntary system and which means that there they are being paid by it by us by and and since two years they see that all new projects are being done in the crypto space all new applications is being done the crypto space and there is no traditional companies which is being built today no to you know new membership request that comes from the traditional finance so they see very daily see since one year they understand that the the wind is shifting is moving and they they have to embrace this change because otherwise if the

regulatory system in Switzerland doesn't on board cryptocurrency come to companies what will happen could look Irish this company will stay in the legal space or non regulated space and they will just lose members until they don't have any more members and you don't have any more financing so it's very funny that this mechanism is pushing the regulators in Switzerland to be to listen to the new companies especially if there is a strong movement in one direction they have to be open to this to this movement and to find the right way to apply the law how it is intended to be and in Switzerland the

the financial regulation is intense based so you look what what is the the core intention and then you you you apply this this tutor to the music this is the situation and in that sense they have been were calming welcoming not very hard for me maybe at the beginning and I had some discussion with some people who saw because I was a Ponzi scheme and two months later the guy was my supervisor so that was some crazy crazy scenarios but in general they're like opening up very much because they have this money incentive

themselves and but the other size they have to work on their competency level because now they are entering into a space where there they were they're forced to enter into the space we are first in them to go there and they try to understand what's happening it's hard and they try to then propose some technical measures for example and we answered to them with cryptography answers answers about protocol answers about the answers are technicals to a lot of things that they request and they have a lack of understanding that I have a lack of being able to answer to those to the to the things they treat they ask them suddenly they ask us to to give a

feedback and the feedback we get they are not able to analyze them to answer to so this is they need to do to work a lot of them on their competencies yeah and this is this is this is creating a bit of trouble in the community right now in general that regulator wants to do something good but they need to work on their competence level how are they going about that well they start to talk about hiring people in the field but the last conference question was asked to represent the Finland and they already

set up tecna's so like a dedicated desk and this desk today it was set up for the FinTech so you were set up for crowdfunding lending robo-advisor and all these these things before and now it's focused I can percent on crypto related stuff so so they it's about the best but it's still mostly people who still have to go more go deeper into the technical detail but they're out there they're running their way but again it's it's a cultural change and it's not about just one desk but it's the whole institution there's

to embrace and the style changes that's going to take time yeah cool are you happy with being in Switzerland and running your company out of here because I mean some some companies or some founders I speak with they are somewhat frustrated and they say we have to go somewhere else can I get a bank account here yeah we have we have it for like now in the Univ we have it with the control bank which means that it's it's kind of a state bank right here I mean a lot of people don't I let's say I took the convincing

party very seriously I took a lot of time going and making pushing the right buttons in the intersociety in my states around me and and finding for example that finding the right people in the local governments in the bank in the economy here to point out that a state a local continental bank mandate is to help the the local economy and by not providing a bank account to the crypto world it's fear they are failing at this corner late and due to point that

correctly in the in the right way it's my we were Mallory managing here initiative to to to unfold this and it was more mostly in comprehension issue and now there's a there there is there is a kind of there is an agreement between the state and the bank that they will actually look at crypto project as long and of course as long as it fits the local economy so you set up your office here create jobs here and then they'll talk so it's a bit hard still okay it's not just about calling the bank here initiative and say hey can I have backup that doesn't work you have to show your you're creating jobs here

but at the same time we also managed to to allow companies that we have at least two now and the other but this is a model which is going to be replicated that companies are being created in the shuttle without the bank account and they are being registered and Bitcoin or ether has been used as as capital to be to be right answer and registered to the business registry so it also shows to the local economy hey we don't need we don't need completely banks so of course my business need been in the bank because we are like into those world we do the gateway between Fiat and crypto but some of the new business model don't

need that and they have a service provider like us so they can still paid things in crypto it's just regulated for us so so this not creates the balance like yeah you're you are the bank you still have a role in your current economy and if you if you do that if you perform that role actually we'll make money out of it then they are making money out of the the crypto we'll follow us for sure so yeah so it's a lack of yeah it's it's a lack of understanding of what the role of some of the banks is and and and but at the

same time I can understand the banks are being faced there's a lot of quests of a lot of scary things and they have no clue how to analyze state so it's hard for them to so I do it is not so that's why I spent so many hours in like me showing up the right things and making the right person and right systems maybe it's like you said at the very beginning with WikiLeaks there was no tool first to do it without the bank and now there are tools and companies are using ether and Bitcoin and sidestep the whole you know requirement to have bank accounts do you get a lot of questions from entrepreneurs who want to come to

Switzerland and start a crypto business [Music] we send everyone to the representative the state because there was mr. blockchain at the state and he's he he knows all the community here and I mean someone who wants to actually sell ownership that he can go to that person and he will be driven around for for a visit and he would have everything in hand to decide to the 20-minute yeah so he's feeling idea so if you look at the ecosystem in Switzerland or maybe more

specifically in the French part of Switzerland right around inertia tell how has that changed in in recent years [Music] 30,000 people the cartel is 300,000 people's is very small so I think we created around 50 jobs right now initiative so it's 50/50 jobs in maybe four or five I would say five six six different companies which are almost all how differences into the protons and and we do we all do different things where there's a the city whose financial territory there is a research team true

level there was a law firm yeah there is a there's a minor stake in a minor on Komodo is good which is called and the node there is a hardware and hardware wallet company natural form which is working on a project I don't know very well they didn't have a few there and so that's about 50 people there there's a fund there's a crypto fund also be managed from the shuttle cool so this is a real this is a small community we know each other we we work also together and this fit is but it's tiny if I look on the rest of them emoji there it's a bit

more complicated because there is a lot of there's a lot of high protection like a changes on blockchain that but real companies which [ __ ] with real clients and will turn over there is not that many I don't know much of them and shuttle has been focusing on real activities even though it's small we know we're not big companies in shuttle but we have a real activity and we actually produce things and we have customers and they stern which I don't seem much in in the rest of the movie where there's a lot of [Music] yeah it's Tim we're still reading this

in the in the thinking face and in the seeding face and and not much custom already project what do you think needs to happen that maybe more people get into this space as entrepreneurs or also that more people adopt the services that these new crypto companies provide we don't need to we don't need to make the train go faster

businesses are shifting towards this for many reasons and one of the business case that we will see more more and more and now we have one with the ICO parties okay how you create your company how you fund your company your project is using the the ICO model and in this world this will evolve into managing your shares directly on as a token and basically you are your you're creating you're creating your project you're creating your company and it's a registered company instantly like any other company but suddenly you have a way of managing your your shares which makes them directly

available on the market and they're liquid immediately and and and you can you can trade you don't need to go to the Swiss books to trade shares of Nestle or Swiss watch whatever you can you can trade the local company neatly and that will generate no you will create a very interesting ecosystem when more companies will start to use these like mister you know a manufacturer who's who decides to to actually raise his capital set up and record his shareholders equity equity as tokens and

and that all these things was very tiny legal changes that will be done that's not a problem it's going to be done because the Swiss are quite a very rational if they see they see a good business case they will just accept those changes and we can make those token extol Kenaz the equity our token can be reality can be legally recognized very quickly so that that's one of the things that is going to happen and then and then there's another thing which is more about how it's going to how bad it's going to happen in the rest of the world crypto finance is breaking a lot

of conceptions it's breaking a lot of pre-k supriya range arrangements or power structures for now we're still tiny ten things I agree but once you have a whole economy which is building there and you have like we see people from the east Eastern Europe so you use crypto as a way of payment and and I'm not talking about geeks or tech companies I'm talking about industrial companies who are thick or sick of corrupted countries and money that is worth nothing and so they started using crypto currency of the way means of

payment in their in their businesses and we see that happening so and this is going to create tensions in other countries more and more and switzerland has a role is already already you can see that that will have a role of refuge if you want to build your business on crypto switzerland is going to be one of the if there is a really major crackdown on the planet mr. Singh will be one of the last places where they still do it you know when things go both south it's good to be in Switzerland yeah it's based on those core principle because here is valuing

the consensus is value in an open society is valuing multiculturalism if they know something some people might disagree but we still we have different languages we have different religious and they were and we have to come a tool to to come over those those those differences to build our democracy here so yeah we the Switzerland is a very anti fragile system by itself and so it attracts system it attracts businesses or people who are yeah we're being honest go away from system which doesn't allow them to be fear since you were working

at the UN and and you were in the cyber Punk movement and then you started the pirate party in Switzerland have some of your views changed they become they were more refined yeah maybe you you get you get less aggressive and your your arguments are being you're trying to push arrogance a bit further and in the reflection and that's just a like kill them all and we will survive anyway we'll win anyway peer-to-peer is going to not guilty they kill the music industry

Needham and just at the peer-to-peer system go work maybe there's less radical today but but actually the changes we're pushing on much murky I'm pushing for a change for example which is the the follow-up of role of this is that in the Swiss Constitution we notice that all these tech changes when we're trying to make laws that have a technological aspect they all fail to see that the digital part is actually part of life that's it

today digital science is everywhere and so I'm pushing out for a change in the Constitution which recognized the existence of our digital self and so basically in the Swiss Constitution it says that you as a human being or your you have a body and you have any you have a mental sphere and those two items are protected and they are protected to so that you constitutionally can guarantee your Liberty you need to be free of aggressions against your body or against your your soul to be to be a

free thinking person and being able to to enter it to be to be a good citizen to vote and to be a good businessman and entrepreneur in and to engage yourself and sign documents to make business and now - we're pushing forth to extend this notion to reduce yourself so you have you have your physical self you have your mental self and you're acting digital safe and the self and this digital self is recognized by the Constitution and the highest level then we can then maybe we give tools to people to think oh then maybe we can try to see that to guarantee in the liberty

and the liberty of Congress Liberty of movement of this digital self we actually to protect this person as a digital engine being a part of the person so this is going so this this thinking UNAM pushing for this change in article 10 of the Constitution and this very simple change might have like big impact in the society in the coming year when it's enacted hopefully it will and and and these these thinking going that far in the in the thinking I need to go through all this process of like also

being maybe more radical at the beginning in my thinking and then being more iterative you know say okay things might take steps and try to hack the system the right way sometimes you want to try to see just you see just the consequences until you want to fight the consequences and always reaches together root cause and what is that the thing that you can reprogram easily so that the rest will naturally follow and the that's one of the thing I found out incident that if you say we have we are a digital self we have a digital self then automatically we were talking about signature at the beginning

you know signature today is given by a state this is your digital identity this is how you have to sign and then the crypto world do you have your you have your self generated signature and if you think it about a more philosophically and there is a this human person is actually has a digital self then the digital signature coming from the self generated digital signature is just a just an element of your your digital person with it yourself and it makes sense like your physical signature your written signature is a part of your is an expression of your your only person to and then all the construction of the

law behind just follows you don't need to to to make a very convoluted systems to to impose a state generated signature to to to the to the economy you just let the economy define what what is the best self generic just self-generated signature scheme and we'll find out the right it will maybe the digit become signature radiates another type of signature that will will prevail as the standard signature system there was the kind of trial it comes from far away you know it comes from the PGP comes from disciples who were building and crypto

in our case also with building the the PGP web of trust and people were doing very tribal tribal social mechanism work okay I see you I recognize you as a person so I sign your sign your key your real person behind this key okay that's good and all these experience all this has been there's been a lot of experience that the way the safe things was not able to take this issue into account yet southern Switzerland we're going to push for that change and I think it's going to bring a lot of good business suddenly we'll have an economy it will be a digital economy which will actually be the an economy

where which is the result of the action of people who have a digital part it's not a digital economy which is trying to serve people in the physical world and they're trying to to take their data and to use this data against them it's actually an economy made by people with the digital self in for them and this is kind of a would be serving them and crypto as a spacer cool yeah it's it's fascinating I mean I could go on this and listen to you talk about this for four hours like this you're very active in in the community I mean I often see

you on Telegraph groups answering very detailed technical questions about crypto and blockchain technology what in your view what is maybe a common misconception that a lot of people have about this whole space the main conception is about how much value represents one tiny tiny bit of line of text which is represent which is representing a hash of a transaction or yeah just just this record in the blockchain people don't see the value

peoples don't see the efforts the the millions of hours of work of people the community to come up with something which works the the amount of energy it can be good or bad in terms of like power consumption you can see that in a good way or bad way but still there is a lot of our which is dedicated to this the there is this this is really often used a little magical way it's not magical it's just a perfect in equilibrium of game theory that Bitcoin found and all of this allows you to tree build you seek a security system that when you use

it and you make a single transaction and you transfer a tiny bit of information you have this immense value of the first time you have a piece of code that you can only use once and you have the guarantee that it's not going to be able to be used a second time and that's crazy and most of the people and a lot of people even it's done don't don't see this this value and this is why Bitcoin has much value compared to all other cryptocurrencies because they kind of proven that in regard this how you build the value it's the most robust and the

most beautiful system there exist until not maybe there's a lot of crazy great systems which are coming and we like everywhere we started really to work on all the system and to to embrace other systems but Bitcoin has this beauty which no one was able to stick with what do you think needs to happen that maybe it becomes more obvious you know what what a great invention to 3d is it's impossible to notice the changes it's like your smartphone okay I don't want

to compare the smart phones VidCon I'd rather compare like okay let's compare internet because with with the coin and people don't didn't realize that suddenly there they woke up one day and internet was everywhere and we use everywhere they bring goods services and bad services but they they don't realize that try to switch internet for one day in an office so even one hour and it's crazy no one is working anymore so it would be the same no we can we can brag how much Bitcoin is great and and and that's efficient I committed was a genius and everything in 10 years time in 15 years what the whole become world

economy has been reprogrammed over Bitcoin and Easter and whatever blockchain that would be at that time people will just notice and I would be normal like so so I don't think something needs to be changed because the movement is so strong because it really benefits to the it allows people to be mean to be failure at the same time it will also create crazy things we wonder we don't want to see and I mean really I don't know how in certain countries they will use this technology to go against people

so I'm also afraid of the world will building there there is these two tendencies and and if you look at the I often compare that now in digital we just started the digital Industrial Revolution we just started right now with a cryptocurrency being one of the key elements but Internet is the first but then the crypto the crypto economy and it should compare the if you compared the the previous revolution the the physical Industrial Revolution it had to go through a lot of phases and one of the

phases was to get rid of the old system the old monarchy this it was based on rules which didn't fit the new economy and which was paper-based and free market based and been alluded to immense it that needed to get rid of the old system to be able to go to the Americas and set up new markets and new industries so we might have to go through this at the wall at the scale of the world we will have to go through this and then one thing will happen is that once we will generate new types of

governance new types of governance system in societies to handle de life I hope it won't be that breaking through those making those changes I hope it won't be too harsh but then it will create something great we will create it will push us in the real digital industrial revolution and then and then we see what happened with with the first revolution the first revolution ended up in applying the mode all those industrial elements to tutor to the

worst that you can imagine it we applied it against the human being and the second world war and everything was which was around I see it as as the as the booty small as the you know you take all that you can you take hundred years of building up industries and processes and going to the try to to to build marvels of the Industrial Revolution so you use all these competencies and all this work against the human itself and you create mass destruction either through war other through extermination and and and the human being might do the same on the digital revolution revolution we will

Sparkle a great Industrial Revolution we will have great things and at the same time at one point I fear it will just turn back on ourselves and and how are we going to tackle this so people have no progress do you or do you have kids Alexis yeah do they understand Bitcoin do they understand what the blockchain is but I mean my son he understand one thing he understand that bitcoin is cool because it doesn't have borders you know it doesn't stop on the border and you know in Susa you have to use a stress

spying and then we go to France and part of the families and friends we have to u0 and for him this is a bit strange why do you okay what used to different country bitcoins cool there's no border and I think that that that he getting at the end then then you know I have this I have this syndrome but a lot of people who live in the tech have and when they have kid is that like I'd rather have my kids to learn how to code that's coming there they mean I also really want them to be like a lot of outside and reading and doing a lot of stuff and they don't

have access to IT equipment that much yeah the the akiza was broken so that forces them to do a lot of other things and and then I will bring them in and teach them hopefully the rent was cool ah fantastic if I mean if there weren't any crypto currencies or no Bitcoin and no blockchain what what do you think would you be doing right yeah I missed that one so I really want to use this this

this this change but I mean so be working in my house too I wish I would be still building the [Music] music life around internet and around the how him how he could maybe even being better by using communication tools like internet and I mean eventually cryptocurrency would come back anyway if you use it they can go away but now the state waters there was

a big discovery and Bitcoin crypto is broken then goes to the to the phone goes to the waste and for some I don't know some really really that with quantum computers showing up and breaking everything yeah then we were just stuck again because that's just an idea which is present it's it's like infinite internet this is not a it's not a it's a technical realization of an idea and and you can see every country where they try to take into the away from like Tunisia Egypt Syria at the beginning they rebuild their network

immediately immediately there were there was some people with reconnecting phone lines or even cables across the border to just have to connect internet to de piel to people people work I think in Egypt also Egypt for some time for like one day or today they were exchanging on private networks or universe' South so the idea is there you don't stop just rebuild it again so yeah if cooked all goes well which is really good because that's future great I mean I really enjoyed this conversation thanks so much for taking the time today Alexis [Music]

thanks so much for joining us today more info on our guests and our sponsors is in the show notes of this episode and on the podcast website the blockchain and us comm to help people find this podcast it's important that you download subscribe and give it a top rating and review on iTunes or on the podcast platform of your choice I'm Manuel staggers and I thank you very much for listening [Music] you [Music]