Epicenter - Learn about Crypto, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Distributed Technologies - Anthony di Iorio, Arthur Corry, Ethan Wilding & Michael Perklin: Bitcoin Decentral Toronto

Episode Date: June 30, 2014

Topics covered in this episode: Anthony di Iorio (Founder Decentral, Founder Ethereum, Toronto Bitcoin Meetup, Executive Director Bitcoin Alliance of Canada) Arthur Corry (Managing Director Decentral Accelerate) Ethan Wilding (Resident Philosopher and Ethereum) Michael Perklin (Bitcoinsultants, Director Bitcoin Alliance Canada, Founder Crypto Currency Certification Consortium) Episode links: Decentral Decentral Accelerate Bitcoin Alliance Canada Bitcoin Toronto Meetup Crypto Currency Certification Consortium (C4) Bitcoinsultants Bitcoin: The End of Money Kickstarter As We Know It Bitcoin: The End of Money - Matt Miller Interview This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/026

Hello and welcome to Episinter Bitcoin, the show which talks about the technologies, projects, and startups driving decentralization and the global cryptocurrency revolution. My name is Sebastian Kutjoua. And I'm Brian Varen. Today's June 29th of 2014. And thanks very much for joining us for episode 26. Today is a bit of a special episode because we don't have a guest as usual. Instead, we'll be showing or playing a conversation I had in Toronto with the guys from Bitcoin DeCentral. I've been kind of on a North America trip.

I'm about to head back to Berlin, but I was also stopping by Toronto and talked extensively with the guys there. Yeah, but before we get into that, there's a couple things we want to talk about. So we did our interview with Mike Herr last week, which was very exciting. Yeah, which was super exciting. And the response that we got from that, just kind of both took us by surprise. I was also traveling last week. I just got back today, actually.

It was in south of France with some friends. and Brian, you sent me a message saying that things were kind of blowing up on Reddit and we also got covered on CoinDest. So it's by far our most popular episode and think that the discussion on Reddit is kind of a testimony to, you know, the, well, I mean, to what Mike was saying is that there's some problems right now in the Bitcoin Core development. And it is kind of worrying. So I think people are taking it seriously. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, Mike said some things that were controversial and our controversial, and they're very quotable.

So the Reddit post was, I think Mike said, you know, we are in a state of crisis. This is a crisis period for Bitcoin development. And the development on the Bitcoin core essentially has completely stopped. And of course, because Mike is such a well-known and recognized. person, people post down Reddit and there was a huge discussion about that. I mean, people disagreed with him. Some people supported him.

It was very controversial. So there's definitely people who don't view it the way he does, but it's an important topic and it's created a lot of conversation. I know in Reddit there was more than 200 comments kind of

discussing these statements by Mike Hearn and a lot of people weighed in from like Mike Hearn himself to Peter Todd and other guys. I had never really heard of this problem with the core development, right? So what's interesting about this is how it kind of just took me by surprise and maybe took others by surprise as well. I mean, we see everything.

The infrastructure is being built on top of Bitcoin, but in a meanwhile, well, what Mike's point of view seems to be is that there's underlying problems in the core development. So will that eventually catch up to all of the innovation that's happening on top? and will Bitcoin continue to be a good platform to develop on if there's no development being done at the core? I guess it's kind of the question that we're asking yourselves. What I thought was also interesting is one thing Peter Talt said on Reddit. And so his point was that the problem is not that people aren't working enough on Bitcoin or there's not enough resources on Bitcoin.

but it's that we simply don't know a lot of like how to do things because like the science isn't there. So, you know, for example, one thing we talked about with my current as well was transaction fees. And I kind of think we both agreed and a lot of people agree that there's something that's changed there. But how exactly that can be done is kind of unclear. So a lot of there or another thing is the centralization of mining, you know, it's obviously a problem. but it's very unclear what the solution is. So I think his point was that, well, what's actually missing is that the sort of science and actually the knowledge of how to proceed,

I saw in another conversation on Reddit that Gavin Andreessen actually blamed Peter Taught for the lack of development because he keeps, I think he also criticizes the developers a lot. So it's not entirely clear what the problem is, but it's quite, quite clear that if you look at the whole Bitcoin ecosystem, all that money flowing into companies, there's actually very little happening or, you know, very little of that money is going into Bitcoin development itself. Well, I guess that just goes to show that, you know, the internal conflicts, which she talks about, are actually there, because if these guys are kind of going off on Reddit. I mean, even if you looked at the antagonism against Mike

Kern on Reddit, it was very strong too. There's people, you know, some people were being very negative about him. People are, so, so that's definitely there. There's no question. I wasn't aware of what Mike Hearn said, which was that this was the reason why some of the Bitcoin developers, and in his view, that everyone except Gavin and Driesen, aren't actually working on important things because even if, even small, things but important things create a huge controversy.

So yeah, it's interesting, worrying certainly. And yeah, well, hopefully this will perhaps his own project, Lighthouse, will be a solution to this. I don't know. Yeah, so if you haven't listened to it, check it out. It's on our SoundCloud page. We'll see it there, episode 25 for my current. Before we kind of move on, I want to briefly talk about documentary, which is called Bitcoin The End of Money as we know it.

And they are running a Kickstarter campaign. And I've talked with the guy who's doing the documentary. His name is Torsten Hoffman. And he's a German but living in Australia. And they're now running this Kickstarter campaign. It runs until

July 12th. Now the documentary is meant for sort of a general audience to introduce him to Bitcoin. He does a lot of interviews with kind of well-known Bitcoin people like Andreas Antonopoulos, Roger Ware, Nicholas Carey, and others.

And, you know, I've talked to him. I think it looks like a great project. What's also cool is that some of the interviews he did, at least two of them, are available in sort of the raw footage on YouTube. And the one I really liked was with Matt Miller.

I'm sure many of you know Matt Miller, he's that bald guy from Bloomberg, who, you know, he lived on Bitcoin for a week purely. And he's been covering Bitcoin for Bloomberg. And he's been doing a really great job. And so he talks to him, like, how did that happen? How did he get into Bitcoin? And like how has been his interaction with Bitcoin community is a really great interview. So, yeah, I think, you know, check that out.

It looks like a great project. If you want to support it, there's a few different options. You can basically get the basic reward, the $20 reward is just to get the movie. You know, you get a streaming link and bonus material and things like that. What's kind of funny, though, is if you get a higher reward, there's, for example, with the $85 reward, you can become a trillionaire. So what that means is they give you banknotes. you have like one from ex-ugoslavia with nicholas tesla on it and then a

simbavian 10 trillion dollar banknotes you can get so i guess it sort of um is a reference to the deflationary aspect of bitcoin to have these banknotes of super inflationary currencies that you get as a reward if you kind of give a bigger support for the project that's really funny it is pretty funny I mean the Tesla thing is cool because Nicholas Tesla himself was such a iconic figure and of course

they have a 10 trillion dollar banknote it's kind of insane yeah if you want to check that out just Google Bitcoin End of Money and Kickstarter or alternatively the link will be in our show notes so you can find it like that

it's going on until July 12th and then the funding is mostly there I think also the movie has been mostly shot. So there's this not one of those kickstaters. At least I think it's not where you know you sort of have to worry whether it actually gets finished. So I think this will happen and it's going to come out pretty soon. I think at the end of the year. So I just want to take a minute to talk about Coin Summit. As you guys know, we will be at Coin Summit. It's coming up real quick. July 10th and 11th, we'll be doing some interviews there and listening to some talks and also producing

content around that conference. So if you want to go to Coin Summit, you can request an invite at coin sum.it. Yeah, and also let us know if you're there, you know, we can meet up. So you can meet your favorite podcast hosts. So just very briefly before we get started with the main content, Bitcoin Essential is one of quite a few Bitcoin centers in the world. I've seen a few now.

I've seen the New York one and some others. And I think Bitcoin Decentral or they're actually changing the name the DeCentral in Toronto is by, you know, the most impressive, ambitious project that here is in this space. It's a big house,

the four-floor house, I think like 500 square meters or something in a prime area in Toronto. They have meet up there, co-working space, accelerator. And so I was visiting Toronto kind of on my way to a wedding in Chicago

because I wanted to see Bitcoin DeCentral. And I met, made up with the guys there and then interview with the guys, or some of the guys there. And the guys that are in this conversation are Anthony DiOrio. He's the founder of Bitcoin DeCentral.

He's also founder of Ethereum. He's an executive director of Bitcoin Alliance of Canada. And he's also a founding of the Toronto Bitcoin meetup. The other guy is Arthur Corey. He's the manager director of the central accelerate, which is their incubator or accelerator.

Then there's Ethan Wilding. He was a former philosophy professor, and now he's sort of the resident philosopher there, works in all kinds of things and also involved in Ethereum. And then there's Michael Perklin, who's a Bitcoin Sultan's, director of Bitcoin Alliance in Canada and at the founder of a cryptocurrency,

certification consortium. All those guys will talk in their interview and we'll introduce themselves as well, talk more about the project. The main focus was sort of the accelerator and their project or their goal to incubate

and accelerate a lot of startups in Toronto, especially startups that focus on decentralized application in those kind of Bitcoin 2.0 protocols. So enjoy that. Hi, so I'm here in Toronto visiting Bitcoin DeCentral.

I'm very excited to be here. I've heard a lot about Bitcoin D. Central. And since I'm working on setting up something similar in Berlin, I was extremely excited to visit these guys. And I'm sitting here with Anthony DiOrio, who started the center and with his whole team. So perhaps to start this podcast, we can go around and have all the guys introduce yourselves. So do you want to start off, Anthony?

Sure, I'm Anthony Gioro and we open this building on January 1st and I do the trauma Bitcoin meetup groups, a bunch of us that work on it now. We do it every week. I work with the Bitcoin Alliance of Canada. I work with Ethereum, CryptoKit, Decentral. Yeah. This is, I'm Arthur Corey. I'm a managing director here at DeCentral and I came to one of Anthony's meetups.

then I couldn't help but devote my life to this amazing emerging space. So in the building where we're sending up an accelerator, supported by a venture fund, and that's fueled by a co-working ecosystem and all events and all kind of community things we're working on. My name is Michael Perklin. I'm also here with the Decentral Crew. I wear a lot of hats in the Bitcoin space. I work alongside Anthony with the Bitcoin lines of Canada. I also work alongside with C4, the Cryptocurrency Certification Consortium.

And I have my own company that's based out of this building, DeCentral, Bitcoin consultants. We are a Bitcoin security consulting firm. All of these hats are fun to take on and off working here at this space with all these bright individuals. My name is Ethan Wilde. I used to teach philosophy at Wolford Gloria University and University of Warloo. And I became obsessed with Bitcoin and realized I want to just immerse myself in the space.

And now I work here at Bitcoin Central. So perhaps we can get started off by talking about the project. You guys are all involved in and you just Bitcoin Central. So how did you guys get started? So from doing the meetups for a couple of years in Toronto, having a space of our own was always something that I had my eye on because doing meetups at bars or doing them out of louder places, there's always the, it's not the ideal setting to have presentations. To get a dedicated space in Toronto is very difficult, but I had to add my eye on a location where we could do the meetups, where we could do a co-working space and eventually an accelerator program. Just a place where people in the space can get together and ideas can flow. And I realized I was hanging out at coffee shops previously with, you know, four or five people in the Bitcoin space.

It was really exciting. And I figured a whole building where we can get people just immersed in this amazing technology that's Bitcoin and decentralized applications. And blockchain technology and have a building where all this can come together, something that I'd wanted to do for a while. And it finally came and I was able to do it earlier this year. When you get started with the meetup? So you said a couple of years? Yeah, 2012. Near the end of 2000, actually not, just in the fall 2012.

Okay. Yeah. And we do every week now, every Wednesday, Bitcoin Wednesdays in Toronto. I think consistency is really important. So people know, without even have to visit the meetup groups or anything, they know that every Wednesday can come down here at 7 o'clock and, you know, be with other people that are involved in the space and we're doing a lot more, or the plans to do a lot more presentations. We're doing Skype callings now for people in space. We had Tatiana. We're

on yesterday talking about Tatiana coin. And we get really good turnout every week. So I encourage people to do meetups, just try to be really consistent with them and try to do them as frequently as possible, even if you're getting five, ten people out to them. Yeah, so that's where the space came about was from the meetups and then wanted to have a whole building dedicated to Bitcoin and decentralization and blockchain technology. Did you have the accelerator in mind at the very beginning when you started the space? Yeah, we wanted to have, it wasn't just to be a co-working space. The plan was to have an accelerator program.

I didn't know much about them. I mean, I knew about incubator spaces, but accelerators, which are fast-paced, shorter-term periods, sets of deliverables that people then graduate from after, say, a three-month period. So this is where Arthur came to one of the meetups, and he had run the first. I'll let you talk a little bit more about what you've done in the space. Sure. I came from the West Coast. I came from Vancouver, British Columbia, and that is a short plane trip from San Francisco.

So Vancouver had a really interesting ecosystem that was a little bit ahead of Toronto, even though it was smaller. And so I had a taste of that. And then when I came to Toronto, I realized that that just wasn't happening here yet. You're talking about the accelerator ecosystem? Yeah, startup ecosystems and how startups connect with investors to find financing to grow their companies. And that's really what an accelerator does. So I started the first here in town.

And because of its success and the model that I created around that, which was actually supported by government money, after about two years, I found that it was a successful business on its own, but it wasn't really scalable. was and I wanted to go on and do something bigger and luckily I saw Anthony's vision and was able to plug in to that at the right time because the decentralized sector, the decentralized app sector is now seeing more investment than any other particular tech sector and the interest around it is global and phenomenal so we're getting in touch and being contacted by some of the thought leaders around the world. Our network is just

fascinating and we're talking to amazing people every day and we're seeing real invention awesome you said it's more investment in the decentralized application and any not actually investment happening as of yet but I would say interest interest the buzz around it is definitely and and is more than anything else that you're seeing some of the newest funds popping up in the valley are related to Bitcoin it's It's interesting too that you guys are focusing on the decentralized application side of it because I've also talked, for example, the plug and play people and that's not their focus, right?

Their focus is also more like the wallets, this kind of infrastructure side. The vision that we had was to not make it anything to do actually with Bitcoin, to focus on decentralized applications. But I think we're also going to look at, you know, things in the Bitcoin space that do stand out, but for us, it's about decentralization. In fact, we're changing the name, and we've already changed the name to decentralial. It's not going to be Bitcoin Decentral anymore.

The space will be decentralized and that's a brand that we're going to go with. But it'll still have close ties to Bitcoin as well. But I think just being, focusing on decentralized applications, you know, it's a little more appealing to investors,

I think, to give them the vision of not just the Bitcoin space, but saying, hey, there's this technology, this blockchain, technology, this consensus open transparent system, and you can say, you know, it's like what Bitcoin has done, but it's going to be so much more than that. So when soon as you start talking a lot about Bitcoin, some people, they don't, they already, they can dismiss it, but I think it's a technology, the underlying technology, which is what can get people's attention with. And that's what we think is exciting. And that's what we think it'll be so much more than

the Bitcoin space. And can you talk about the progress with Fond, like, when you're getting started or I know the first batch is not here yet but you told me you've already found the companies yeah yeah we have a full cohort chose because of the legal aspects that you know we're being very careful in the instructing the fund and we're going to some very senior and experienced advisors we're talking to people from around the world on what best way to approach this would be will be accepting a mix of fiat money and bitcoin from investors originally in the fund.

That's the plan. That's the plan, but it's really interesting. You have to sometimes get the chicken the egg syndrome where you have, well, this is how we want to do the plan, but do the investors want the plan set up like that? So sometimes you want to reach out to the investors, but you don't know who's actually committed and you want to tailor your plan to the way the investors are,

depending if you're going after institutional investors or going after high net worth individuals. That's right. So both of us not even being involved in the finance sector or not even managing or having a fund before because Arthur, his Accelerate Program, was not a fund-based. It was just direct investing. That's right.

Our intention was to make it a fund-based, but with the Canadian landscape, we were given government money that we couldn't. It was just a fantastic. We took it, and we built a portfolio of 18 companies. But this, what we're doing here is really kind of, it's the model that came out of the States. It's that venture capital, you know, private entrepreneurial model. And are you investors?

mostly Canadian or from overseas? We're probably now looking at just doing it in Canada, but it's still on the table. There's a lot of decisions being made, a lot of the deal with what the investors want, with regulations in different areas, with costs. Once you start doing a global fund, and you start saying we want European investors,

American investors, setting up limited partnerships in those countries and compliance. It gets really expensive. So we're still investigating it. But what I think we have decided is that we'll be working with a finance team to plug some holes that our partner and I don't have in that sector that are going to help us to investigate the funding, get the term sheets developed. So it looks like we're performing a partnership with some other individuals,

which are going to help us at that end. You can imagine the complexity working in the space where, you know, you know, there's an association whether or not we take any companies in that do actually have what would be defined as cryptocurrencies. We are working in a decentralized app space. So we want to make sure that our investors are protected no matter what happens to the regulatory environment around the fund. Yeah. And you mentioned you're taking Fiat and Bitcoin.

Is one of the reasons that some investors are only allowed to put in Fiat? Do you have to come with that challenge? I think ideally we'd like to have goals accepted, but it really is going to come down to the investors and the individuals that we decide to work with. We could come down to foreign institutional investors that might not have Bitcoin. They might only have Fiat. It may not want to deal with Fiat. So we're not exactly sure, but I think we would like to be in the space where we are accepting Bitcoin as well. But who knows how it will turn.

And perhaps what about the startup side? So we've talked a bit on investor side. Startups going to be primarily from Canada or are you also trying to attract American, maybe European startups even to relocate here? Yeah, so we would like to be global and we've done, I'm not sure how many interviews we've done yet, but we've had a 40 years or so applications and we've interviewed 15. Yeah, and they're surprisingly spaced out. Yeah, we've had guys exchanges from studying up in Mexico.

Yeah, all over the world, people have applied. And what we do is we form a panel and we have, you know, as many people as possible. what we can on this panel, giving advice to the teams and seeing if they're at the proper stage to come into the program. And we definitely have some teams selected that we would like to take part. It's a matter of now structuring the fund, getting the investors. And we are hopeful within a month, month and a half, that we can have some, the first cohort teams working as the space is ready for them to be here. Listen, our goal is to really just be launching decentralized app startups out of this space.

like from nine to possibly more at a time. Yeah. So you can imagine the effect that's going to have on the city and the world if there are that many of these type of disruptive companies being created. Yeah, absolutely. Is it, I don't know how it's in Canada, but is it easy to get companies, maybe to get visas for people who want to relocate here?

We've looked into it. We've seen that most of the accelerator programs, or they kind of focus on the country that they're in. But we've done some research. We have an in-house legal counsel. We've done some research, and we've seen that, you know, we don't think it's going to be an issue to get the visas for three-month programs. I think one of the main things is they need to have a company already established in their country.

Yeah. And there are some things to do, but we've looked at it and we think that we're confident that we can open it up to global market. And then, you know, we also have plans to franchise, a model that we're doing in the future as well. And we have a mentorship base right now already. hundred people, which we want to continuously increase. So right now we have a lot of the top thought leaders in the Bitcoin space as well, a lot of people that aren't in the Bitcoin space that offer, you know, different aspects of

their professions that they can contribute to the teams that are coming in. And we, you know, I've got a thousand mentors in my mind that I'd like to have to support five or more franchise locations around the world. Yeah, and I think that would be very exciting. I think like, for example, I've been looking, you know, I also am talking a few about this, looking at if there's something possible I can do in Europe. And I know this. So far, I guess all the funds are in the U.S.

I guess you guys will be the first one. Well, there's actually one in Australia. There's one in Australia? Yeah, it's actually a large one that started up in Australia. And there have been tons of interest. I probably had 10 to 15 different countries and even multiples in different countries that were approached me to say, hey, once you get this off the ground, I'd love to do a similar setup. because I believe the space for DeCentral here,

it's a, it was a carefully planned model of meetups, getting people together, getting them excited, getting them in the co-working space, getting teams form, reaching out to entrepreneur communities, reaching out to developer communities, getting them excited about the space, hopefully get them all together to start forming companies, putting them up in the accelerator program,

pushing them out, hopefully to put them in front of investors, give them the mentorship that they need. So it's a whole, you know, process with DeCentrously here, and I hope that people can say, hey, here's a turnkey package that I can use in my city. Are you guys agnostic regarding the protocol? Because, you know, people are building on all kinds of different, you know, kind of party or Ethereum or NICS.

I know I know you were involved in Ethereum as well. Yeah, both Ethan and I are. You as well, okay, yeah. Yeah, we're agnostic here in D. Yeah, we don't, I don't want to tie yourself down to any one particular platform. I think there's different platforms that do certain needs. Like for example, we had Tatiana discussing yesterday why she selected counterparty instead of using MasterCoin for her coin she put out. So there should be ones at work.

Some that offer certain features that other ones don't. So I think it's important to be agnostic in the space and go with whatever it works at the time. And are you interested mainly in developing on the applications that are being developed on top of those, or also perhaps in the development of such protocols themselves? I think both, but I think our focus will be on the application. top of the platforms. What's great about this space, DeCentral, is that really any startups or any companies can work at the space and you have instant access to people who are doing exciting things

in the space, whether it's employees of theory who are working out of here or employees of really anything. I mean, my company, Bitcoin consultants, when we got started out of this space, it was great to have a desk available. It's great to have these resources available and it really helped launch my company. And the fact that, as Anthony mentioned, it's completely agnostic, regardless of what decentralized technology you're working on or working with, as long as you have a place to get that work done and to tap into the minds who are making great waves in this industry, it's excellent to have. And when you're passionate about this, you're attracting other people,

depending on whatever field they're working in. And then they all seem to come in and get excited about, you know, just set for a lot of space. And the Bitcoin ATM brings in a lot of interesting people there. Yeah, and it's been successful. It's been good. We had the first Bitcoin ATM in Toronto. The first one made by the Ottawa company, Bid Access.

So made in Canada. Made in Canada. That's right. And yeah, it's been good. And that would trust people in as well. And then they're learning about Bitcoin. One of our great tools is, Bitcoin magazine as well, which is an amazing place for people to learn about Bitcoin.

So we're handing those out a lot, getting people their first wallets, giving them a magazine to learn a lot about Bitcoin. Can you talk at all about companies that are going to be part of the first cohort? We can't say specifics as yet because we haven't officially invested in them. But I can say that there are... We've been our eyes on a few. Yeah, some are working, they're targeting the Ethereum platform. Others are, we have some, yeah, what else can we say about them?

But it's about us getting the fund structured and being able to offer them something, and hopefully they're around still by the time we're ready to do that. So we definitely have our eyes on some, but I mean, the best ones are going to be. The thing that surprised me most is that they're really creating things that are real world related. They're actually, like one of them has a hardware component that will be, you know, it's going to be out there and it's a real world. This is not just an online business. It's related to the blockchain, which is very cool. Yeah, that is cool, yeah.

Yeah. And can you talk about the fun size? Or like, how are you? Yeah, we've got two options. Either we're going to go big and that's going to be. So our initial plan was to have a fund and have an accelerator program that does two things. It's actually invest in companies and invests in the currencies. the token systems associated with the decentralized application companies coming through our

program. So we thought that that was a great hybrid model and something that's never been seen before. So you have a traditional investment like tech stars or where they'll take a percentage of the company and invests in the companies. But then we're also seeing the model like the Bit Angels Fund, which is David Johnson and Turpin and Brock Pierce as part, where they're investing in the token. systems. They're not really actually focused on the companies or investing in the token systems. So we thought it would be an excellent to kind of put the two things together. But now we're

realizing that there are other issues to deal with when you have investors investing in currencies, as well as the companies, and it adds another layer of complexity. So if the ideal situation for us would be a fund somewhere around the $50 million mark where we could also invest in token systems and in the companies and then franchise and use a global fund to fund the franchises and use the mentor network to mentor the global franchises. However, if we decide to just focus on Toronto and get it off the ground, we're probably looking at maybe a $5 million fund and just focusing on the cohorts and the teams out of here.

Can you talk about those complexities if you invest in both the company and the currency? Yeah, well, some investors won't necessarily want to invest in the token system, but they'll invest in the companies involved in decentralized applications. So it might be a matter of us splitting the fund in two and having a separate fund. Because some investors have preferences. Yeah, and then it comes down to tax, comes down to their tax situations. It's really, it's not as easy as we thought. And you might have four different investors that have different needs

and want you to structure the fund in certain ways. So it's better on their taxes. It's quite complex. So the easiest pass for us might be for right now to come up with a traditional model, one that's proven, get it structured, and go with that, and then maybe introduce a second fund for the token system, because I believe we are in the position here that we have the knowledge of the space. We have the knowledge of what seems to be coming out in the next generation,

decentralized application space, where we could probably make pretty good decisions on the currencies and token systems that people want to get into it, but they don't know where to put it, and we could offer the guidance. And as Bitcoin was, of course, these tokens will be, you know, very high return investment. It's different than startup equity, which is startup equity is normally a safe investment now with accelerators. You'll see good accelerators creating a return of about 10 times in five years. And the token systems offer another way to, you know, offer value to the investors.

it's an expert. It's a fund that needs expert management. So I guess if you are focused on investing in the companies, though, then does that limit, for example, can they still do open source software, or will then there be too big that somebody just close it? That's a very good question. It's a very good question.

It's something I'm struggling with with my, with one of my company's crypto kit. There's people coming out and working on in collaborations on open source software projects, which is great, and it's going to help the community, but there also has to be ways to monetize certain technology, too. So I think it's a, we probably bring in companies that do offer either a team that is a phenomenal team

and has some type of competitive edge or some type of technology, proprietary technology, but I mean how do we invest in open source companies it's a tricky thing it's really difficult in part we're supporting it at the earliest stages with the co-working space and the environment and then also opening up you know opening up our mentor community slightly to to select companies that we want to help out before they even come into the accelerator and just making connections with investors as mentors so it did Because there's the stage before everything else where protocols you mentioned,

you know, and investing in protocols who supports the growth of the protocols before even apps are built on top of platforms. Right. So it's a whole, all these stages somehow need to need to have support. And right now the very earliest grassroots stages are pretty much volunteer. Yeah, and we are supporting it by what we do it. Yeah. I mean, just the community event that we're all. involved in supporting the space.

I mean, we're in this to make money, too. There's no doubt about that. Yeah, it's very interesting. I was talking to Mike Kern earlier, and I guess he's thinking of some of these same issues like how do you monetize open source, and I guess with his crowdfunding platform, that is exactly, he's trying to tackle that challenge.

I don't know if this is necessarily a model that is profitable, It's more like a model that maybe gets funded the things that a lot of people want to get done, but there's just no way to monetize them. But I think what's really fascinating is something like, let's say, Ethereum, is how you can make open source software and open source protocols, and maybe still monetize them if you have its own currency. Right.

So I guess we'll see how that works out. That's an opportunity that we're trying to figure out how to capitalize on best that other accelerators don't. and funds really don't have it as of it. And it really has this kind of this opportunity that you take, maybe whether it's like a public good or something like that, and you turn it into something you can actually invest in. And then that's, I think that is amazing.

What's unique about it is that traditionally when people would invest in open source, they would offer services that go alongside open source. Red Hat follows that model, and there's examples, the Mozilla Foundation follows a model as well, where they open source the product, but they charge for the services and helping people integrate it in their systems. With Ethereum, there's the open source platform, but there's also the token system which fuels the platform. So it doesn't fit into the same, I guess, traditional open source model that came before it. It is still open source, but it's a completely different spin.

And it'll be interesting to watch to see how it develops over time. I mean, it's much more direct. I guess if you look at even Red Hat in Linux, even if Red Hat's a very successful company, if you look at how popular Linux is, then Red Hat is not that big, you know, if you compare it to like Google or Apple or Microsoft. So I think there's a lot more potential

with something like that Ethereum. Absolutely. We can still monetize on the decentralized applications as well. You don't have to make those open source per se. Yeah, but then it's who's monetizing on that. I mean, it's a struggle that we've had with Ethereum is the for-profit, non-profit entity. And we've gone back and forth with different approaches.

And, you know, do we want to be the ones that are, that are deciding and charging for the application. We want to be the one developing. Are we going to focus on the platform? And it looks like we're just going to focus on the platform. Yeah. It looks like we are not going to have an arm that's going to be actually doing any for-profit work.

But that's still being worked out right now. But it is a debate within our team. But it looks like our focus will be on getting this product out and getting this open-source platform out and let other people be developing the, products that are built on top of it. And then if your model will be the current, you know, Ether, the expectation that that will gain value as people will have applications?

The value proposition, you know, we're putting out the fuel that runs it. You need Ether in order to run the system. I'm not sure where the value proposition on Ether will actually go. That's not something that we are focusing on. It's about this is what's needed to run the platform. We're selling a product of Ether, we're selling it for Bitcoin, which is what our plan is. So we're trying to distinguish this between a token system and make you clear that this actually is a product, it's not a currency. It's not an investment vehicle.

Ether is a product, it's not a currency. Yeah, we consider a fuel. We consider it something that runs our network. Okay, it's not something that you're going to be using to buy and sell goods with. Yeah, I understand that. Yeah. Right? And you need gas in order to run your car.

You need fuel, you need Ether in order to run the platform in order to decentralized applications. Any computation will need Ether in order to run. So that's where I see the value of Ether is required, just like Bitcoin is required to run to run the platform. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, no, that makes it all that sense. In one allegory, I guess, is that with Bitcoin, the perceived value of Bitcoin goes up

the more you're able to use that token for goods and services. Whereas with Ether, the more decentralized applications that are written and that exist for people to run on their own, now the more valuable that fuel is because you can do so much more with it. Exactly. The more demand there will be for the fuel. Well, perhaps we can talk about the Bitcoin Alliance of Canada as well a bit. I know this is a bit like a foundation, As far as I understand it, but what's interesting what I've heard of it, but perhaps you guys can go into detail,

is that you're trying to do this very decentralized and sort of, quote, quote, democratic, and I don't know if that's the right term. That's right. The Bitcoin Let's Canada is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and educating the Canadian public about Bitcoin in Canada. it was formed with a very, I guess, interesting take on choosing the first set of directors. Anthony, maybe you want to talk about that. Unlike what other people or what other organizations are doing where they just sort of pointed themselves when they were born, the alliance took a different approach. So I very closely studied when the foundation was formed and what I realized by listening to the community,

was that there were a lot of international people that were not really happy with the way the foundations formed. It was basically a group that decided who they were and announced themselves. They announced their sponsorship. They announced the people. And it really didn't have the involvement of the rest of the Bitcoin community, yet they were intending to represent the international Bitcoin community.

And a lot of people really saw them as a group of Americans deciding what's best for Bitcoin. When you don't have the support of a large majority of the community, you're in trouble from the beginning. And that's what I saw with the foundation. And when I looked at starting something in Canada, I learned from what the foundation did. And my whole thing was to get the mass support of the community.

You want to get 90% of the community. You want to get 90% of people believing in what you do it. And in order to do that, we made press releases and put them out nationally to let people know, hey, this is the idea that we're coming up with, a Canadian organization that can represent Bitcoin the media that can represent Bitcoin and get merchants accepting it, can represent Bitcoin and regulators and banks and just get people informed about Bitcoin. So we put multiple press

releases out to let the community know that this is our intention and that anybody that wanted to participate was able to participate in the formation of the initial board of directors. And we had two groups, we had a voting group and we had the actual people applying to be on the board, the candidates. The candidates and you couldn't be both. It was one of the other. But you ended up with a vote. But you couldn't be both. No. If you were voting on who it was going to be a board of director, you could not be applying

for the board position as well. So that was to prevent that you wrote for yourself? Exactly. And I myself applied for a position so everybody else did on the director. And we ended up with 15 people that formed the voting committee. And we ended up with about 12 or so people that wanted to be on the board. The election team selected the eight board members. Initially there was eight, yes.

Initially the eight board members, the voting committee then, disbanded and the board members took over. So this basically was an inclusive way of doing things where there were multiple national press lists put out that gave people months to say, hey, this is what's happening. If you want participation, contact us, let us know that you're interested in one of the proceeds like either being on the board or being involved. I spoke with hundreds of people from these press releases. And then we selected a team that was representative of the community where afterwards, no one can come back and say, hey, I didn't know about this or how did you select yourself?

Well, this is the process that we use. It's open. It was transparent. We believe it was fair. And now this group of eight was selected to continue forward and represent the community. We've got legal counsel. We have accountants, a couple accountants that work for us. We just put on the Bitcoin Expo in Toronto earlier this year.

It's a volunteer effort. Nobody makes money on this. The directors make any money. The Expo is an complete nonprofit event. 100% proceeds were put back. to the community. Nobody was paid. It was complete volunteer effort. So we're doing this because we believe this is a community center of what we do, what Michael and I do and the other board and the other members of the alliance do.

And it's, you know, I think we're respected for the way that we've done things. And I just wish we had more time to do more efforts in the national Bitcoin space. Well, I think that sounds great. I mean, you know, there's been, you know, Germany, it's all spent, foundation started etc and I think mostly people have gone the other way also because it's easier right and there's a few reasons why your Duke gets easier and also because there's just not the community out there yet and you need to help people to spearhead the program one way might be better than the other but it's good that people can see there are different models

and they can choose which best works for them when they're setting something up and I remember the first time that I heard about the alliance and it's one of the one of the meetups here in Toronto before DeCentral Existed. And Anthony, you approached me and told me about it. And I remember the first thing that I thought was, oh, of course someone's making another group to combat the foundation. How many groups are they going to be all jockeying to do the same thing? But in that bar over that one beer when we were talking about it, the vision was completely

different and it really resonated with me. On the one hand, the foundation, they put themselves in charge of the code, of the protocol, and of the Bitcoin technology that everyone uses worldwide. But the Bitcoin Alliance of Canada, the vision that Anthony shared to me when he first told me about it was it's an educating group. It's a networking group that helps any Canadian learn about Bitcoin and find different people who are doing different things in the Bitcoin space. Oh, are you a merchant looking to accept Bitcoin? Hey, talk to that member of the alliance. Oh, are you a developer?

You want more resources to learn how to do it? You talk to this guy. And this sort of net alliance of Bitcoin contacts across Canada, it strengthens Bitcoin in Canada and it acts as an outreach. And that's a much different goal than what the foundation had. So very quickly, my initial hesitation of starting yet another group, was quickly washed away once I understood it was two completely separate goals. Are you guys also focused on lobby work and regulation here?

Yes and no. We don't actively go out to lobby. However, we have been engaged in conversations with members of provincial parliament, with the Ontario Securities Commission, and now the British Columbia Securities Commission. Because we are a networking group of Bitcoin professionals across Canada, We are, I guess, a natural magnet for people who are looking for more information. So there have been members of Parliament reaching out to us.

There have been regulatory bodies reaching out to us just to learn more about it. It's a lot. I think we'll have some disagreement within our board, but I'd like to see it as not as a lobby group as an information providing group. When people are looking for information where they're providing, if they're not ready for it, that's fine. I am not here personally to push anything on anybody, just provide information. I think the merits of Bitcoin in this technology sell itself. I think that's absolutely required, especially with the technology so new as Bitcoin, where the media says, oh, you know, it's being used to buy drugs,

and hackers are using it and stealing money, whereas the actual technology itself has nothing to do with drugs or theft. It's an easy way of sending payments over the Internet. So to have this information resource available to regulators, to learn what Bitcoin truly is, and to separate the media hype from the reality, I think is absolutely essential. But it's interesting that you guys are thinking kind of also the way you face it and network and you focus on the community and the connection because I think, you know, that's different in other places. It's interesting.

I guess that also kind of represents. It represents a name alliance, which is interesting. All right. It's very keys in the name as well. That's why the alliance was chosen, and that's why the Global Bitcoin Alliance is, which is an organization now that's, you know,

it's a group of national organizations that have gathered together to share resources and best practices to help grow Bitcoin communities worldwide. And that's, you know, the name is really important as well. And it's just a friendship that doesn't need contracts. It doesn't need just let's help everybody grow their Bitcoin communities and provide them with the tools that they need and information resources and just instead of, you know, be open

and transparent, we do monthly meetings now with the Global Bitcoin Alliance. And, you know, I've met some great people that represent the Israeli Bitcoin Foundation, represent, representatives in Australia, representatives in Netherlands that have built up these communities and don't need to have chapters really. It's just groups that let the national and local levels take care of the tasks, but we just kind of are there to share what has worked for us so that we can help grow the communities. Yeah, I think I don't know to what extent that's also a reflection of you guys, views on regulation, because I know some people feel like this is something that should be actively approached, you know, we should try to help make Bitcoin friendly laws.

There's always to think like it's much more important that you just built Bitcoin and companies and infrastructure. And I guess after it's hopefully, you know, it will be at such a point that when regulation comes, it has to be big-confident because it's so far progressed. Every group has its own, you know, view on regulation and rules. And that's why with the Global Bitcoin Alliance at least, we just want to share resources. That's it. We're not taking a position as a whole entity of this is what we want to do with regular. No, we're just here to.

let the local national groups do as they please. We support it and we share what's worked for us, but really we don't take positions on action, any hard position, not anything. The Bitcoin Alliance of Canada is much the same. I've received emails from our members across Canada who are, when they heard that we were talking to the OSC, they were very mad, and they say,

Bitcoin should not be regulated, shouldn't be touched, the alliance shouldn't be doing this. And I've received other emails. That's the Ontario Securities Exchange, or commissioning. Yes, I've received other emails. where people were very happy that we were spearheading this effort. And really, we didn't do anything other than simply exist. They reached out to us for information.

So I think it's great that the alliance is engaged in these discussions, but the alliance itself doesn't have a for or an against position when it comes to regulation. We're just a resource for anybody who needs to learn more about Bitcoin. Perhaps, Ethan, let me ask, you came as a philosopher into Bitcoin. How did that happen? Well, there are a lot of philosophical issues, right? With decentralized technologies, we've had ideas about how to reorganize governments and economies, but it hasn't been feasible until, ultimately until Bitcoin.

There have been a lot of previous attempts, though. And, yeah, I think the idea of being able to build, I mean, more more, modern stuff with decentralized autonomous organizations, but ultimately how do you take, make a viable economy that doesn't rely upon central authority, like to control it, to print money, to ultimately take you into war and using your money for such purposes. It ultimately gives control back to individuals, allows them to have bank accounts without getting approval from a central authority. I mean, the list goes on. These are all matters like how we deal with like humans and our own finances, or rather how we do with other individuals and conduct commerce.

And in the past, of course, we know with our previous systems, you've had to have had another organization or broadier government to help dictate or control that or meet out transactions to make sure they're valid. Even third parties. And third parties like Visa and PayPal. That's another thing. One of the things that really spurred me on quite some time ago with, in Fort's Bitcoin, was when WikiLeaks was when, when Visa and MasterCard and PayPal stock, there are transactions to WikiLeaks.

I thought, well, this is absurd, right? They haven't been convicted of a crime. They haven't been charged with a crime. And yet, the U.S. government has come in and exert political influence on these companies and prevented money that in other individuals intended to give to this corporate or give to WikiLeaks legitimately. And anytime you have organizations exerting that sort of control, I think it's a problem.

And I feel if we want to give money to them, I don't want to be restricted in that regard. And this is just touching the tip of the iceberg of it. And on the philosophical side, I mean, it touches on almost every aspect of philosophy. So it's just inherently interesting to me. That's why I did previous. Were these issues of decentralization things

you have been thinking about before you come to Bitcoin? Or was it kind of that Bitcoin brought these off? Tangentially, because it's we didn't have a viable way of looking at some of these problems in the past. There had been certain attempts previously, I guess, you come across and think, oh, that's really interesting and nice, but we don't know how to move forward on that. Yeah.

And then reading, yeah, reading articles here and there about it just started to spur the interest. And then more recently, a bit more than a year ago, I got a bit more obsessed and fucking that this is a much better solution to some of these problems and started investigating it further. and that's where I find myself today. I mean, there's still, it's a bit tall for the top of what we're discussing at the moment. But there's, yeah, that's how I got into it. So did you end up quitting your job as a professor to?

Yeah, I was a lecture at Wilson School and Wilford-Lory at the time. And, yeah, it's been a great switch. I think that academia moves quite slowly. For instance, I told, sent out mails to the, or emails to these faculty of business and economics, at the university's and to say, hey, we've got a Bitcoin Expo coming up. You know, maybe you guys should attend this. Of course, you're professors of economics and stuff. This is inherently within some of their domains.

It should be. It should be, right? And they just don't see it. They're very slow to move, and it's not the space I want to be in when it comes to being part of the developments that are taking place. Yeah. I mean, I'm a version economist, and I find it amazing how there's not more, interest or research or fall by economists on Bitcoin and it's it does not make sense to me.

It's typical though. It'll change, but they all have their areas of expertise and it's a tough to. They're very stuck in, I've learned something and they have their expertise and it kind of throws everything over and then of course that's also hard to give that on. I think the way to get expertise now in this space is to immerse yourself in it and you know, get information and knowledge and communicate with, and members who are active in the Bitcoin or decentralized technology communities. But you do get also, you do get the, we won't paint them all with one brush, we do

get a lot of, there are a lot of economists and people that are delving into it. Yeah, no, there's obviously exceptions. Yeah, that's what it's done. Yeah, of course. Yeah. This comparison has been made many times and they kind of will have to make it one more time, but we saw the same thing when the internet started revolutionizing business in the late 80s and early 90s. People who were stuck in their way of doing it, you know, paper,

they didn't see a need for this new electronic way of doing the same thing. They didn't see the benefits. They didn't see the cost savings. And, I mean, looking back, it's plain to see that it changed everything. And it made everything a lot better, a lot more advanced. we could do so much more with so much less. Bitcoin is going to do that. And while there are some people like those of us around this room who see that as just an obvious conclusion,

many people out there who either don't understand the technology as thoroughly as we do or haven't, I guess, thought a step or two ahead to see what this could mean for the future, they would be resistant to that change because they don't see the benefits. But just like the Internet changed the world in the 90s, Big one is changed the world with or without them. So where do you see, perhaps kind of touching on that, where do you see the interest of businesses in Canada or use in terms of adoption by users? How is that developing?

I think that it's been slow in terms of brick and mortar locations. At least there has in Toronto, we know Vancouver and out west, to have quite a bit more acceptance with local businesses. I think online, it's done fairly well. I think now I think we're going to see more and more larger businesses accepting it. We're seeing that worldwide life, but we're also going to see it, particularly in Canada, Tiger Directed, large computer online store. Do they only do online or does a retail store that also accept Bitcoin?

Good question, good question. But I think we're going to see larger chains, larger stores, accepting it, which will lead to more and more getting on board. But it is also up to the community builders. It's up to the organization such as the Alliance, such as the Bitcoin Foundation, to get merchant adoption up. And I am seeing a lot more response from the merchant service providers, such as BitPay, CABortex, who are making efforts to get merchants,

and in particular retail stores or in particular brick-and-mortar locations accepting Bitcoin, get those Bitcoin signs on those doors. to when they're accepting Bitcoin, and I think it will snowball. I think one of the biggest impacts that happened to Toronto is actually Anthony's ATM because it got the regular community aware of what was going on. And just everyone I talked to, you know, practically everyone knows the Bitcoin sign, and that's where it is. So having a physical storefront and having something like an ATM that's actually easy,

with people to onboard people, I think is key in building Bitcoin. Bitcoin communities and introducing people to new technologies in general hands-on. Yeah, the press went nuts for the ATM here in Toronto. Yeah. And the sign we have out front because we are in probably one of the busiest corners of downtown Toronto. And the amount of visibility that that orange Bitcoin sign gets up on a daily basis is massive. I've got to think, and I'm going to sit outside one day and count the cars and the eyes they're going by it. but I've got in my head about 100,000 people a day

are passing by and seeing that sign. And there's traffic jams there, so they're stuck in front of that signs we're looking at it. I'll go back to your question about the adoption. I don't see physical brick-and-water adoption of Bitcoin to be really that material to Bitcoin's success. On the surface, as a payment system, you think, well, the more merchants that accept this payment

than the more successful that payment method is. but when you look at Bitcoin itself, it's a protocol. It's money over IP, just like email is a letter over IP. When people are dealing in brick and mortar shops, they're not necessarily sending an email. If I have to communicate with you and I'm in the same room as you. I'm not necessarily going to write you an email. I can just talk to you or I can jot something down on a piece of paper.

The advantages of email are when you're far apart from people, when you're dealing with companies remotely. And when you apply that sort of thinking to Bitcoin, the fact that you can buy a coffee with Bitcoin isn't really that powerful. The real power of Bitcoin is when you can settle your invoice for your mobile phone with zero fees. or when you're sending money back home to your parents in a foreign country, again, zero fees. Without Western Union taking a cut, without PayPal taking a cut, those are the true powers of Bitcoin. So the fact that it's that brick-and-water merchant adoption is a little bit slower, I don't see that being material to Bitcoin's success. I disagree, but I think having brick-and-water is really valuable because a lot of the press or a lot of people that are accepting at brick-and-water, they can see it as press office. opportunities and I don't want to see those Bitcoin signs outside those windows that

show we accept Bitcoin and people seeing that sign when they're walking by because those people might not online see what Bitcoin is or no one but just seeing that orange Bitcoin be wherever you're going in out front of locations when you're walking around I think is is amazing and can really help to speed things up yeah I mean I I really read too that that ATM and the press thing is really powerful like in Berlin we've had room 77 you know which is a bar by your plotso which has been accepting Bitcoin now for over three years and uh i think that had i think he calculated once that he's gotten about 100 million views through different media coverage

or all over the news and it's just something you know when a newspaper comes and they want to write about something they can go somewhere take a picture there's like the same bitcoin accepted here sign you can talk to someone there was an ATM there too you that's not there anymore but like you can take a picture like that is extremely powerful. It's true yeah the reporters that I've seen are learning about Bitcoin a lot of them will say okay they can come to the ATM and they're gonna buy a Bitcoin and then they'll say okay now where can I go on spend it because I want to see exactly how it works yeah so yeah it is good to have a I mean I think it's good to be

able to go buy a coffee and locally with you guys have any cafes or here in Toronto not yet we've got a restaurant that accepts and we have some there are some different businesses, but not any bars yet that accept it. And I think it's not that we know of. Not the, yeah, I think we would know about it though. But it's a matter of us, we've got to get on that merchant adoption this year. I think it's something that the Alliance wants to focus on. I think even to central here, we've got to start doing some massive plugs and getting up there and taking our volunteers and start going door to door. Yeah. Well, one of the plans for the alliance this summer is a Bitcoin across Canada event where everyone in, you know,

in any city or any town in Canada, they can print out a handful of pre-built flyers that the alliance will be giving up to everyone for free. And we'll be asking everyone on the same weekend to go up and down all their main streets in their town, going to each brick and mortar shop, spending no more than five minutes in the store with them, let them know what Bitcoin is, give them the sheet. If you have any questions, contact your local Bitcoin representative in that town here, and just seeing how many we get. That's a fantastic idea, yeah.

One should do this globally, I think. One of those things, which we seem too, I think, I mean, just to add to the point about adoption and how we get people to use it, you just need to get people paid in it. Like what blockchain. Info does, all of their, like, they pay all their staff in and try to do all their transactions

in Bitcoin. We hopefully maybe do like 50, start 50-50, but if you get the businesses, myself paid in Bitcoin. And you just put it into their bank account, so I'm like, got it, they've got an incentive to... Oh, yeah, absolutely. to use it and it's already in their hands. They don't have to do any extra steps.

And then once you get a lot of people with Bitcoin wallets and having reasonable value in it, they're going to require the businesses start accepting it as well, or at least the businesses will see that it's a payment option that they should implement. Do you want to say a few more words on your Bitcoin's company? So you do security consulting. That's right.

So my history is in, cybersecurity and in cybercrime. I worked as a as a forensic investigator and as an information systems auditor for Fortune 500 companies here in Canada. Same as my partners. We all met in school where we were trained in information sciences. That's the science of security theory. I guess is the easiest way to put it. So we are taking all those classical cybersecurity. security and cyber crime, I guess, skills. And we're applying it to Bitcoin companies and into Bitcoin technology. So our clients are Bitcoin exchanges, Bitcoin gambling websites, and other other platforms

that are making use of Bitcoin technology. They're holding phones for customers. Exactly. When any company holds money on behalf of someone else, that company is now at risk. because if they lose those funds, not only are all their customers out of the funds, but they lose reputation, there's market share. I mean, nobody wants to be the next empty gocks or the next flex coin. So my team of auditors, we go under, we take a look at your source code,

we make sure that not only are you using the Bitcoin protocol correctly, but you're also not storing the Bitcoin keys in places where they can be vulnerable to attack. When it comes to working with Bitcoin, Either someone has worked as a Bitcoin developer for a long time, but they're not a certified security professional. Or someone is a certified security professional, but they've never really worked on Bitcoin. My team of six members, we overlap both of those on the bend diagram.

So I hate to rip on MT. Cox, but ever since they had those security failings, it's been great business for me. And I guess does that also tie with the C4 that Anthony, you two are doing together? No, C4 is a little bit different. So, whereas Bitcoin Consultants is a consultant firm. C4 is a nonprofit organization that is designed around. So it's a nonprofit.

Yes, it's a nonprofit. Its goal is to certify Bitcoin knowledge in professionals. So a lot of industries have recognized. certifications. For example, in the security industry where I come from, there's the CISSP, certified information systems security professional. It's a difficult certification to achieve, but it means that you understand information systems well enough that you can secure them on behalf of your customers. Accountants, they have the CA designation as a certified accountant, and that means that they meet the minimum level of knowledge required for an accountant.

Unfortunately, at least not until today, in the Bidwins, space, there is no bar or any measure by which people can assure their employers that they understand Bitcoin technology. So that's what C4 aims to do. We've been working hard over the last couple of months to build the certification body, and I'm happy to say that within the next month, we will be launching and certifying the first set of professionals. There are two certifications that it will be available at the start with more following soon in different cryptocurrencies.

The first two will be the certified Bitcoin professional or the CBP, and the second one will be certified Bitcoin expert, the CBX. Certified Bitcoin professional is geared more towards accountants, to sales professionals, to anybody who needs to deal with Bitcoin technology. in their daily jobs, this can prove to their employers and to potential employers that they understand Bitcoin enough to create a wallet on behalf of the company, to manage the funds, to back up securely, the key management, and also the privacy aspects of Bitcoin. Why do you not want to reuse the same address twice? Things that all of us in the Bitcoin space, we take for granted because we've learned about this technology, but other professionals in other industries may not know.

The Sirifa Bitcoin expert has a different focus. That focuses more on developers and technical experts, security auditors. People who would hold a CBX designation would be able to build a transaction at the byte level. They'd be able to sign the transaction manually. They'd understand all the nitty-gritty details inside the blockchain. So this is more geared towards people who are developing Bitcoin applications or are working on Bitcoin wallets and other infrastructure. So between the two designations, there are two ways for any professional to show that they understand Bitcoin enough to assist their company in the Bitcoin space.

So that's going to be long and charging exam, it sounds like? The CVX will be, yes. It's being modeled after all the existing exams that are already in other fields. For example, the CVX is going to be about 250 questions, all multiple choice. so that will be proctored in a physical space. Whereas the CBP, the certified Bitcoin professional designation, that's going to be an online multiple choice test of maybe about 75 questions. Well, thanks so much, guys, for joining me today and for talking about all your projects.

Thanks for visiting Toronto. Yeah, no, it's been great to visit the space and talk with you guys. It means it's really exciting what you're doing. I'm extremely excited to see what comes out of the accelerator. So just, if you don't learn more about that, I think, you know, there's a website Decentral.ca, which is the website for the accelerator and the co-working space and your events here. Then the website for the certification, what's that? Sure, it will be linked off of DeCentral.c.a's website very shortly. But in the meantime, you can visit it at Cryptoconsorium.org.

Cryptoconsorium.org? Okay, thanks very much. Is there anything else? people should check out if... Yeah, the Bitcoin Airlines of Canada was... Bitcoin Airlines of Canada. Bitcoin Alliance.C.A.

Okay, well, thanks so much. And I look forward to see where you guys are all, you know, six months from that, from now, and I'm sure we'll be catching up. If you want to support the show, or if you want to follow us on Twitter, first of all, we are Epicenter BTC.

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