The Wolf Of All Streets - Co-Founder Of Ethereum Anthony Di Iorio: Centralization Is Still The Biggest Issue

Episode Date: September 18, 2022

Anthony Di Iorio is one of the co-founders of Ethereum, along with Vitalik Buterin, Charles Hoskinson, Joseph Lubin, and Gavin Wood. Are they still friends? Why is Anthony still in crypto and what problems is he trying to solve now? Why is decentralization still one of the biggest issues in our industry? We covered this, the switch to proof of stake and much more in this incredible conversation with Anthony. Anthony Di Iorio: https://twitter.com/diiorioanthony Andiami: The Quest for Liberty https://andiami.org  ►► Get 20% off on your ticket to W3BX. Use my code: WOLF20. Register here: http://web3expo.live/  ►► JOIN THE FREE WOLF DEN NEWSLETTER https://www.getrevue.co/profile/TheWolfDen  GET UP TO A $8,000 BONUS IN USDT AND TRADE ALL SPOT PAIRS ON BITGET FOR ZERO FEES! ►► https://thewolfofallstreets.info/bitget   TRADE ON THE WORLD’S BEST DEX, BULLISH: ►► https://thewolfofallstreets.info/bullish/youtube  Follow Scott Melker: Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottmelker  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wolfofallstreets   Web: https://www.thewolfofallstreets.io  Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30N5FDe  Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3FASB2c  #Ethereum # Merge #Crypto The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own and should in no way be interpreted as financial advice. This video was created for entertainment. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision. I am not a financial advisor. Nothing contained in this video constitutes or shall be construed as an offering of financial instruments or as investment advice or recommendations of an investment strategy or whether or not to "Buy," "Sell," or "Hold" an investment.

Let's go. It's become a meme to say that crypto fixes everything. Well, it certainly doesn't fix everything, but it does fix or help a lot of things. And we have amazing visionary builders like Anthony DiOrio who are trying to use crypto and other technologies to better the lives of people. We talked about that, everything that he's building, as well as the success of the Ethereum merge. He was a co-founder of Ethereum when they were already talking about the move from proof of work to proof of stake. So it has to be very gratifying for him to see it come to fruition. I can't wait to share this amazing conversation with all of you. Last year, the mainstream media was reporting that you were quitting crypto altogether, selling your stake in everything over safety concerns.

Yet here we are having a talk once again about crypto. What happened there? So as with normal media reports, they'll hone in on one thing or hone in on a few things with a headline. But really, there's many different things that were leading to my decision to just, it's not really leaving, it's more expanding out into other things that are important. And for me, getting beyond crypto, which is a good tool for a lot of things, there's a lot of other problems the world's facing. And a lot of people in the space that I'm in are problem solvers. We've, you know, amazing technology problem solvers.

And the idea was there's, I've got a tool in my tool belt that I've used for many, many, many years in the crypto space to decentralize tech space. But there's larger problems out there. put it all together is to figure out how I can still do what I want to do, which is be a problem solver for larger things and solve larger world problems, at least working on that via frameworks I've built over the years to solve problems and always have the blockchain side of things in my tool belt. But how can we expand that out so I'm not just known as that crypto guy or that blockchain guy? And some of the other thoughts was also, yeah, safety is one of the things that's always been for years for me it's uh you're dealing with with um you know the more freedom people are looking for that comes

with comes with responsibility and um in our space the idea is that is that you're your own bank right and and you're a lot of times that comes with with other risks and things associated with that so um the idea was it's a much safer space to be solving larger problems and not being involved in the crypto space. But I found a way to bring both things together, what I'm passionate about and what I want to be doing into something that works on both fronts. So I'm still very active in the crypto space. I still run Decentral, my company that makes Bitcoin wallet, Jack's Liberty. I'm still starting a foundation on building the next generation of problem solvers and leaders, which is where I want most of my time to be going because the world has large problems.

And I think leadership and problem solving, I've found across the board, are the two lacking things that no matter what sector you're in, that's the missing piece of a stakeholder. How do we think outside the box beyond the way that a traditional system works? How do we think differently of it, using more advanced problem-solving techniques to create more wins for more people so people feel they're not being discluded from the situation? Tech is a good example of sufficient business models that need to be rethought about. So that's where my passion is, is solving problems. And how do I become a leader to help others and spawn a next generation of leaders and problem solvers?

Being your own bank, it's spectacular until you realize that there's people who like to rob banks. Yeah, yeah. It's the idea that there's safety with your money being in a bank. There really is. And I have, you know, I've gone to cash over the last year or so with a lot of stuff. And there's a certain sense of safety and security with your money being in a bank. There really is. And so it's not a black and white thing. There's also downsides. And the people in Cyprus would tell you when their governments took their money out of their bank accounts, there's a certain risk to potentially have your money in a bank account. So it's a gray area. Some people can be very more divisive of saying there's no way I ever put my money in a bank or I'm only going to do crypto.

I'm more of a middle ground person. And the idea is that there's benefits of both. There's benefits of having your money on an exchange. There's benefits of having your money in your own secure keys. People are different and people require different solutions and things. There's benefits of having your money on an exchange. There's benefits of having your money in your own secure keys. There's different, people are different and people require different solutions and things. So it was a, I didn't want to be that, that person that's just focused on crypto and known as that.

And that was more of the decision of why, what I wanted to expand out into. But of course it's when you do a headline, they grab onto certain things and the safety thing was something that was brought forward a little more prominently than was intended. Yeah, I love how you just described the importance of diversification, not in just what assets you own, but where you store them, right?

And I think that's an important point, even for people who believe that you should custody your own assets, that maybe you don't want to custody all of them and you need to have them in other secure locations just in case the worst happens. i want to focus more on what you were talking about so now that you are branching out not leaving obviously but expanding what is it specifically that you're working on and what problems are you looking to solve okay so the last few years while i was running my company still in the crypto space um kind of two things we've been focusing on. One is infrastructure building. So about 10 years ago, before Ethereum, when I got into Bitcoin in 2012, I understood pretty quickly that we have a new iteration of the internet that's on the horizon.

And then I kind of saw this Web3 idea of a user-controlled internet back then. I mean, that's why I got into Bitcoin, the empowerment opportunity to be my own bank. The ability for me to be in control of my money, my communications, my identity was through these technologies that I saw emerging, which started with Bitcoin, which we further advanced with Ethereum. But the idea of what are the tools that were needed for the internet to get off the ground? Those similar related tools will be needed for a user-controlled internet. So I'm talking about things like the browser, which was back in the day, the thing that the average person enabled them to get onto the internet, right? You have these browsers and

you had the way it's an interface for people to engage and interact. So I started building wallets back in 2013 as the equivalent in this new world for being able to manage and move value. And along the way, other similar things like cloud services emerged in the early 2000s to provide ways for developers to build on the internet and to expand things out. Well, the same type of infrastructure is needed for Ethereum and for Bitcoin. So I've been building infrastructure for years, my company has. So all the pieces over the last 10 years we've been putting together to advance a user-controlled internet is becoming more and more prominent now with the talk of Web3 and people trying

to talk about metaverses and talking about a user-controlled internet and getting away from the Web2 models and the aggregation that has happened in a centralization of a few companies and the power they now have on the internet and the power that these large companies have, my opinion needs to be put into the hands of the individuals. And that's kind of what the mission has always been for 10 years. So moving forward, there's a project that I'm working on that'll be announced in November, and we've already kind of made some pre-announcements to it and have a white list open right now is called Andiami, A-N-D-I-A-M-I, andiami.org. And the idea is how do we help enable a user-controlled internet by allowing individuals to connect directly to these technologies like Ethereum and Bitcoin and all these other technologies

without needing third-party intermediaries or trusted intermediaries in between. And an example of that is that for my wallet, Jax, everything is done on AWS. We run infrastructure, customers rely on us to send their transactions to the protocols. That's a weak link because if something happens to my company or Amazon says you guys can't do that anymore, our customers have no way now to send their transactions using our system. So how do we move off of AWS and how do we actually create equipment and computers that everybody has their own at home? And that's what we'll be presenting is a blockchain computer, a blockchain system that's going to empower

individuals to be their own nodes very easily and to not be reliant on trusted third-party intermediaries to connect them to these technologies in the future because there is a centralization happening now of infrastructure on a few centralized bodies. So Ethereum is becoming centralized because all the infrastructure is being run on other cloud service provider systems. And that's not really the ethos or the mission of Ethereum and other technologies to be decentralized. So nodes are very important. Nodes are reducing. They're becoming centralized. And our mission is to increase the nodes of Ethereum and Bitcoin and other relevant technologies

and empower individuals to be further in control of their digital lives, their money, communication and identity. So it's a project that's been 10 years in the works, and we're finally bringing it out to the world. And it'll be announced in November. What's better than listening to the Wolf of Wall Street's podcast? Listening and watching the Wolf of Wall Street's podcast live. Well, they say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but this time that's not the case

because I'm hosting a stage at a conference from October 10th to 13th. That's the WebEx conference. I'm going to be bringing you live podcasts, live panels, masterclasses from the leading minds in the industry. This is going to be absolutely epic. It's going to be live streamed, recorded, and presented to you live. You can come have a happy hour with me, eat dinner, potentially play golf, and watch all of your favorite content being recorded in real time. Guys, the link for this is web3expo.live. That's web3expo.live. Use code WOLF20 to get 20% off your ticket. WOLF20 for 20% off your ticket. Guys, let's hang out in Vegas, October 10th through 13th.

So even when you're leaving crypto, your expansion is very much crypto native. It's just less a protocol or a coin, but it's still the same ethos of what drove you into crypto in the first place. And to talk about a very important point there, we always rail against the importance of decentralization or how centralized or decentralized something is. None of it's decentralized when you describe it like that. If it's all running on an Amazon web service, then decentralization right now is a complete and utter myth. Yes. The infrastructure right now is not really decentralized. The incentives for someone to run their own node doesn't exist. They're difficult to run. It's so much simpler for developers and

businesses to rely on a third party to provide them with connections so that it's easy and they don't need to run their own infrastructure. But yes, it's the antithesis of the way that the system should be. So just like custodial wallets and non-custodial wallets, a lot of people don't understand non-custodial wallets where you actually hold the keys yourself. There's other risks and attack vectors that you might not understand as not being someone that doesn't develop software. You might not understand that there's a certain libraries that may get secretly attacked that are used that could lead to an exposure of something that happens. So there's other risks and it's not just a black and white situation. So there is decentralization happening. It's following the

Web2 models that needs to be changed so that these technologies can become more robust and more decentralized. So that is the mission. But the this foundational structure that I want to do to help build this superpower team of problem solvers and leaders that think differently and can make radical change with larger problems. So that's how I'm tying my passion and what I want to go into with what I'm good at. And at the end of the day, it's all problem solving. I mean, entrepreneurship is problem solving. business creation is problem solving it's figuring out whether there's a problem it's figuring out how to create a better way to do things and if you're doing it in a way that is improving people's lives which is the mission and the goal I've always tried to do then that's something people can get behind and you create movements of alignment between stakeholders and

that's that's kind of the change that I want to help bring about. So grand vision it seems very daunting how many people would have to be participating in Andiami for it to actually And that's kind of the change that I want to help bring about. So grand vision, it seems very daunting. How many people would have to be participating in Andiami for it to actually become a viable, you know, replacement or competitor to an Amazon web service or something like that? Right now, people can run their own nodes. Most people don't because there's no incentive like there is to mine to do it. But if you can piece together all the things that, you know, incentivize structures for running a node, which is something that we're going to be bringing to light,

how can you actually incentivize someone to run a node? Okay. How can you incentivize them to keep the node up? And then how do you gamify it in a way that they're being rewarded for running a node, which helps to contribute strength to these different technologies? So the system that we're putting together um has in a project and the idea is how do you create the best project ever that's

what we're always striving for is how do you create that formula to create a project that is going to to be complementary and help all these other ecosystems to flourish and grow how it's going to provide leadership and problem solving to an industry. So I think the things that I've been in for 10 years and with the track record in the past, and now thinking, how can I do something that's going to help not just Ethereum, but other technologies, and it's really solving a problem. I think it's got a pretty good chance. And I've just been building 10 years. We haven't focused on user acquisition and whatever we've done.

It's just learning. It's trial and error. And we've come up with something that I think makes it very simple and easy for anybody to contribute to these networks and become a node. And I think that's something that if you could run a box and be rewarded for doing so, you're creating a whole new type of mining system, which is what we're going to be presenting on the table. So I don't know exactly what it's going to take to get to be an Amazon behemoth.

But our idea is a decentralized network of node infrastructure that anybody can utilize that doesn't have the centralization risks and the potential interference with government demands or decisions that have to be made in order to, you know, if your's on that server the government doesn't like that you can't do that so now anybody that's running on that company's servers now has to take down their stuff and we've seen that with tornado cash and we've seen it require the demands of companies like coinbase to make decisions whether or not to limit and restrict addresses all these things kind of don't matter when it's in the hands of the individual to do it themselves it's that intermediary that can can be swayed or can be maybe not aligning well and if you can directly connect to these technologies it puts the risk off of my shoulders it puts the risks off these companies shoulders and puts it in the hands kind of of the individual being in control of their own system and they can make their decisions.

So I don't know what it's going to take to beat an Amazon on that. And that's really not the goal. But it's if we can lead to more nodes and more decentralization and if I can help contribute to that for all of these important technologies, that's a win. So the goal is effectively to create a parallel system for those who understand and care and not necessarily, certainly at least initially, to replace the systems that exist. We're not going to have a brand new internet in five years that's completely decentralized. Exactly. You're right with that. Do you think that we could get there in 20 or 30 years where literally we have decentralized systems that are powered by individual nodes around the world and that's the preferred system over Cloudflare and Amazon and all of these that we've seen issues with? I think so. I think a user-controlled internet comes first with the

user being their own server. You can't have a user-controlled internet unless the user has that option and choice to be their own server. I think that the time depends on how much fight and how much fear and all these other elements that can help, you know, slow down eventual systems that will come into play. I'm convinced that eventually it will be like that. But it's a matter of who knows when it's and how long it will take based on a number of other macro factors and micro factors that come into play when there is massive change that is happening with something as big as the way the internet works or the way that incumbents understand that there is a better way maybe and if they do things differently they could win in this new world but it all depends on how much people are going to be fighting and pushing back

and how much leaders can come forward and say this is the way to do it and provide a plan that's going to still be able to recognize deficiencies or problems that governments might be recognizing. And they're looking for people to come and leaders to say, here's a better way of doing things that everybody's going to win by. And we've taken into consideration what governments and regulators are trying to achieve. We've taken into consideration where technologies are heading. And we've taken into consideration that in a global marketplace, those that go forward and do things are going to reap the rewards.

And those that are more timid or are doing things based on fear are going to get left behind. So how do we come together and provide wins for particular countries that will lead to more jobs and more productivity? All those things that I think governments and regulators want, but don't know how to do it. So that's where leadership comes in. Yeah, I think a lot of it likely just has to do with time and a new generation

replacing an older one, a generation that's more tech savvy or tech native and understands the problems with privacy. You have a very optimistic view saying, you know, maybe the incumbents will get it and change to a better system. I find that incumbents rarely evolve and it's kind of has to be ripped from their cold dead hands. So it's a matter of just replacing them, not convincing them. Yeah, we definitely don't agree on that. I mean, that's the way it may be a bin, but a better way would be to accept and understand what those incumbents problems are, what they can still be utilized for skill sets to bring to your table in the new way,

and putting it all together so that your solutions actually show to them that there is a better way. And the better way includes them. And the better way says, we're going to help you solve your problems if you think about it differently in this aspect. And that's, again, where problem solving and leadership needs to come in. You can't just exclude people or else you're creating enemies. If you can figure out what those people's problems are and how you can provide solutions that help them get to where they want to go, then you've got allies. And I think that's really the mission of my problem solving formula or what it is. It's win-win-wins across the board of alignment with all stakeholders involved.

And it's not easy, but that's anything new and anything changing from the way it's always been is not easy. And that's what needs to be thought about. I think you can't say those guys are out and let's not think about them. How do we bring them along in a way that they're going to realize it's a better way to do things? Well, Bitcoin arguably is one of the first systems that's taught us the lesson that that's possible, right? Because the interests of the individual are aligned with the interests of the group. You can basically be someone who would theoretically be a bad actor.

There's just no incentive to do it. Right. So the best way for you forward is and if you want to even just simply make money is to behave and be a good actor within that network. Yeah, it's all a game. It's a game with rules and the rules need to be followed. And you get dinged when you don't follow the rules. And it's done through game theory to align everybody with the same interests so that everybody's shooting towards the same goal. Yeah, exactly.

That's a good point. So let's say that Andami becomes one of the biggest companies in the world. We replace the internet, problem solved. What's the next major problem that you think needs solving? Well, it's not about replacing the internet. It's about empowering individuals in a user-controlled internet. So it's supporting other technologies that are also emerging to create this next iteration of the internet, which doesn't have this deficiency of centralization around a few institutional companies and things. That's the focus. And then for me afterwards, again, is the foundational curriculums for students and kids to build problem solvers, build leaders. Because there's specific problems that people want to tackle. I don't want to tackle those specific problems.

People care about climate. And those are important things. But the idea is that if you don't have enough problem solving leaders to tackle the larger problems, you can't solve all those things. So for me, the mission really is to help bring forward a large group of problem solvers and leaders that think differently in ways that winning across the board is the goal and the outcome and not disclusion and not few win, many don't. That's just a deficient way that the world has been running and it needs to change. I agree. And you can obviously have a much greater effect by spending your energy teaching people to solve rather than focusing on one problem at a time. So, yeah, that makes perfect sense.

I want to pivot a bit. And you and I have obviously discussed this before. You were one of the founders of Ethereum, you know, now, what, seven, eight years ago. It's crazy that it's been so long. You left in 2015. But as you've explained to me before, the merge, the transition to proof of stake was something that was fundamentally a part of the creation of Ethereum, or at least, you know, something that you were looking to move towards from the very beginning. And that just successfully happened. So talk about why, even though it was founded in proof of work, proof of stake was always the goal.

And then I guess how it feels to see that goal come to fruition. Yeah. So very early on in the project, 2014, early 2014, that's when I believe from the beginning, Vitalik's view was always that proof of stake is something that's not quite ready yet, but that is the direction that this thing should be going. And we made it very clear initially that that move would happen sometime in the future. And in fact, there was a thing called a difficulty bomb that was put into the code that would explode and make it too difficult for proof of work to actually to continue on with proof of work. Now, that difficulty bomb has been delayed year after year, but it shows that since day one, miners were aware and understood that this move would happen somewhere down the future. So for those that have invested in the proof of work equipment,

there was a lot of warning right from the beginning that that change would be happening sometime in the future when it was ready. And that's what's happened. And that's what's happened today, actually, was the merges taking place. There's been a joining of two systems to create a proof of stake model now that Ethereum is using going forward. It's not going to, like a lot of people think, enable more efficiency really and cheaper transactions and things. Yet, this was about moving from one mechanism to another. It's going to lead to a lot less electricity use. I

think the foundation has claimed 99.5% reduction in electricity usage. And it's a model that's been prepared and planned for a while, and it looks like it's gone off without a hitch so far. So the new system is running. People were confused as to what it actually had to do if they owned Ether. But what things I've been saying to people are just kind of wait and see how things play out the next few days. Do nothing. Just wait and see how things play out. There was nothing you really had to do with the ether that people held. It's going to be some interesting times over the next few days. The proof of work chain is now, I think, launched. I believe there's now those that are

following through with the continuance of proof of work is on the smaller chain right now. And we'll see how much attention that chain gets, because if you had ether in private keys that you held yourself, you now also will have ETH proof of work. So you're going to have now two different tokens on two different chains. If you were holding it on exchanges, it might be a different story because they hold the keys. You have to see if those exchanges that you had your coins on will honor and give you the keys, the Ether proof of work after that. But so far, I think things have gone pretty smooth. And it's one of the first early steps to move towards greater efficiencies, greater scalability, all these things that will make Ethereum a larger player

in the global ecosystem, which it just really hasn't been able to, to this day, just because of the limitations. But this is the first step towards those great promised changes that will be coming down the road. Yeah, it's very early. I think a lot of people have the misconception that everything was happening at once. And it's really just the first step in many, right? I mean, I think Vitalik said it was, this is 40, 45% of the way or something like that initially with the plans, just the plans that already exist for the merge. That's right.

Yeah, it's been a slow but steady and I think appropriate action by the teams behind Ethereum to make sure everything is done properly, to not sacrifice things like decentralization. Now, some might argue, as we talked about, this thing might not be as good or might still have issues with centralization. But in terms of making sure the preparedness was done and instituted properly, I think they've done a really good job, even though it's been delayed. I just think that's just part and parcel for the course.

What metrics or qualifiers determined that proof of stake was actually ready for this? Because you kind of described that initially you said, listen, the goal is to get to proof of stake, but proof of stake isn't ready. At what point, and I know you were no longer on the project, but at what point did proof of stake become viable enough that it was time to actually start thinking about the merger preparing i think even be over the years since the beginning there's always been that gradual move towards proof of stake okay so i think uh i don't know the exact timing when when the team started working on over the last few years to towards the ETH 2.0 but ETH 2.0 which they don't like to term it now is is always been that that that move so since very early on there was a plan to do it and it just kind of was consistent over the years, it's going to happen, things are getting ready learning how other systems have been using proof of stake. There were a lot of examples and other technologies using it. And this was just a time that it was ready and there were a lot of tests, testing done and the tests were successful.

And then it was time to actually make the official upgrade. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Do you ever see yourself going back? I know that you have a grander vision, but now that it's made that transition, do you ever see yourself getting involved again in the Ethereum project or just sort of cheerleading from the outside? I mean, you sort of are involved in what you're doing. Yeah. In 2015, when I left, the idea was I saw a wider ecosystem than just Ethereum. And with Ethereum, it opened my eyes to anything beyond Bitcoin, because before Ethereum, everything was Bitcoin to me. Then Ethereum, it's like, wow, Ethereum is going to spawn so many other projects and technologies. There's other ones that have

come about over the years that are providing some real value, I think, in the ecosystem. I decided to pursue a more holistic approach to the entire ecosystem and build technologies that would support Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot, Cosmos. We run nodes for a wide variety of them. We support wallets for many of them. So we had to change our nodes out for Ethereum over the last few weeks to get ready for this merge. So I'm still intimately involved in running nodes for Ethereum. But we kind of focus on a more diverse, holistic ecosystem. So that's what we'll continue to be doing is supporting many of these technologies that are providing value. And because these are all experiments, whether or not they turn out good or bad,

there's learning lessons and everything. So there's a lot of good projects that are out now that whether they're successful or not down the road, they're bringing to light new ways of doing things, new ways to testing, new formulas, and those are all valuable and learning lessons. So that's part of my holistic approach to, and not being kind of a maximalist in any type of fashion to any one particular thing. You talk about having a diverse, holistic ecosystem, which obviously means that you believe that we will have multiple chains, that they will need to be interoperable, right? And I think at this point, we can still argue that that process is very much in its infancy, right? We see constant bridge hacks and problems. And so when do we get to the point

where you go into a simple wallet or interface and you don't have to think about bridging your assets or doing any of this? You just kind of are able to move between the ecosystems with everything happening in the background, much like the internet or your phone or any of those. And it is holistic as you talk about. i mean these are problems that that projects like cosmos and polka dot are working on and i think a lot of it depends as to what do people want to be using in the future who knows maybe ethereum becomes that default system that once it gets scalability uh and it's much cheaper to use that that the world is using you know is that a good or bad thing in terms of does that lead to a centralization?

And I like having more competition out there. I like to see more projects being able to flourish and grow. I don't know when there's going to be a time where there's going to be that interoperability that is easy for the average person to just do as you said there. But there are teams that are realizing that is a problem and that are focusing on it and are trying to create that system of interoperability because, yeah, it is challenging right now. And it's not as intuitive, but it's being worked on. And there's a lot of amazing minds doing that.

So I don't know the timing, but hopefully it's going to be going to be sometime where it does make it much easier for the average person. It feels like sometimes in crypto, we have major problems that we're looking to solve, which is obviously what you're focused on. But sometimes it seems like we come up with solutions that are in search of problems as well. And so are there any things in the crypto space that people are building or working on, not specific to any project, where you think maybe it's a bad idea? Maybe we're heading in the wrong direction. Maybe we don't even need to be going in that direction at all. Or maybe it's even dangerous to be heading in that direction.

Yeah, and I think it's a little bit what we talked about earlier, too, on a previous call. DAOs or decentralized autonomous organizations, they're entities that are based on a contract that executes with, that are code that executes and stakeholders are able to vote on decisions that the DAOs make to carry out actions. So you could have, think of it as a corporation or an entity that has shareholders that has tokens and the more tokens you have, you're able to vote on what that entity does. Decentralized autonomous organizations were first thought about years ago. In fact, with Ethereum, there was a lot of debate initially whether or not Ethereum would become a DAO from the beginning. And DAOs are kind of these autonomous agents or entities that run

in the cloud that don't have a local jurisdiction. And even though regulators may differ on that opinion. I was going to say they may disagree. Yeah, some may disagree about that. But that's the idea of you've got this thing that just lives in the cloud and it's not beholden to any type of jurisdictional boundaries. And it can do things anonymously and execute actions based on what its members decide. And I think it could open the door to a lot of great new governance systems where maybe helping some limitations with democracy down the road.

Democracy is kind of the best of the worst, worst in the way that I like to look at it. It's 51% of the population telling 49 potentially what to do. And it's not the best way. And you could have people there that are not equipped to make decisions because they don't understand the repercussions. And you may have, for instance, here in Canada, an example is you may have a prime minister who used to be a schoolteacher.

How does that qualify him to be elected in order to carry out things that are needed for our country? So there's definitely issues with democracy. And people have always thought about how do you create new systems that are going to empower people with the ability to have a say and remove a lot of the fraud and potential areas that could come to light due to human intervention and stuff. So DAOs are a more autonomous system that has come to light a lot more over the last few years. And I think for me, someone that sees the potential good in these

new ways of thinking about how do we create governance for a large amount of people in a way that's more equitable and fair, there's also the downsides of where these technologies could head. And that's something that I'm a bit concerned of. And recently I thought more and more that DAOs and this aggregation of strong entities with a number of people behind them could become very powerful. And anonymous entities that are very powerful, that have motives that might not align with the ethos of a decentralized movement and more might be aligned with the ethos of monetary gains could become very powerful. And then their decisions could be based more on how do we make more money?

And that could be at the expense of ethos or technologies that are more focused towards decentralization or how do we do good for more people? So it's just something that I've been putting a lot of thought into recently that DAOs could be a major problem to the ecosystem down the road that haven't been really thought about. And for caution of people that are getting votes to do things that might not have the experience or the knowledge to make that decision and understand the implications of what it is they're doing. And I'd like to use that example like I did last time, too, which is you have an electrician telling a plumber what to do for plumbing. The electrician can't do that, but he's got a boat and he might say it's a good idea. But what does he know? So if you give people the power to make these decisions and they're not equipped with the potential knowledge of what the ramifications could be, you could get some very dicey situations.

So it's just a caution in terms of DAOs have a lot of potential and people are really, there's a lot of hype around these entities, but there's also some downsides. And I'm not thinking that the downsides will outweigh the positives, but I do think there could be some impact on projects like Ethereum if DAOs can get too powerful. That's just all. I'll leave it at that.

Yeah. You just described the problems with voting as well, is that you have uneducated people trying to vote on things, but at least I think they get a sweeping idea of perhaps what they're voting for. And also what you described, how problematic that could be when it's monetary gain and that that could come at the expense of the ethos of the project or of the space as a whole. That also, in the case of a DAO, could come at the expense of the majority of the members of the DAO, right? Because as you described it, the problem

that I have with it is obviously holding more coins, which means you're the wealthier person in general, means you get a bigger vote, right? Isn't that kind of replicating the problems that we have with the 1% versus the 99% and control by the wealthy? You know, you could just, if you have more money, you can buy a bigger voting block. Yeah, that's one of the many potential risks. There's with the anonymity and anonymity can be a great thing. But also that comes with how do you know that 75% is not one person? How do you know who is actually, who has that, that, that control that it's, that it, that it's maybe not as decentralized as you might think going into a

Dow where it actually is being run by one or two people because they have the largest share, but because of the anonymity factor, you don't know that. So yeah, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's risks that definitely come out of that. And it's more about people aren't, I don't know if people understand those risks as much. And they might say DAOs are the way of the future and DAOs are going to be amazing, but also understand the potential that you might be in a DAO that it's not decentralized. Your vote is actually meaningless. Yeah, it might be highly, so that might be literally more

centralized than anything else that you're rally really against that you think is too centralized. It could be or it could not be. So it's just thinking of all the it's not a black and white situation. There's a lot of middle ground there. And DAOs, I think, can be very powerful and bring a lot of great technology to the world and good new ways of governance. But also there could be could be risks when these entities get very, very large. And if their incentives are not aligned properly with the way people want to do things, there could be some problems. You're obviously very serious about your goals and you were at the very forefront of building Ethereum very early. Do you ever just look at some of the things being built in this space that are such absolute embarrassing jokes

and just shake your head and say, why? I didn't build this thing to see joke cartoon characters and memes dominating the view of crypto from the mainstream. I don't pay attention to a lot of that. I don't really do much social media. I learned a long time ago that too much time can be spent on those things. So I think it's more focused on what I got to do rather than what other people are doing in that sense. And that's led me to what I put out there has to be substantial. It has to be kind of, I want to do my next big thing. It has to be collaborative.

It has to bring value to a large audience. It has to be technology focused. It has to solve collaborative. It has to bring value to a large audience. It has to be technology focused. It has to solve problems. It has to be leadership that I can help present things and views that are going to help people to understand what's coming up in the future. And I have kind of a duty to do that type of thing. So I mean, there is a lot of nonsense and garbage out there, but I don't give it much attention and energy there. And it helps me to know what I've got to do and the value and stuff that I need to bring forward. And hopefully it's the opposite of all that. How is the relationship now of all of the co-founders of Ethereum at this point? I mean,

you left seven years ago, but is everybody still friendly? Are there still disagreements as to how things should have proceeded? Are you guys not even in touch? Yeah, I haven't spoken to Vitalik for a few years. Charles and I communicate. We were in some groups together and we'll hit each other up on WhatsApp every once in a while. Amir Chetri, I still keep in touch with. I haven't spoken to Mihaly for quite a while. Joseph Lubin, it's been a couple of years. Gavin, we email back and forth every once in a while. And Jeffrey, haven't seen Jeffrey in years. I think I've kind of covered everybody there of the initial eight. But- Gone to do big things. No, no. I mean, it's an incredibly impressive group when you list them all out one by one. Yeah, and there's no, I've got no bad blood about anything.

I think things happen the way that things are supposed to happen. I think I've learned a lot of lessons from the whole experience, changed my view on certain things because of the project and saw things differently afterwards and learned a lot. It's been 10 years of being in the space. It's been eight years since the start of Ethereum. A lot of life lessons and changes over the years and just

happy and content where things are right now. I know you're like myself. I mean, you're still passionate about Bitcoin and about the space as a whole. Do you think that the move of Ethereum to proof of stake puts any pressure on Bitcoin as far as regulators and legislators and anyone who might be sort of pushing the ESG environmental narrative? Yeah, I think let's wait to see how things turn out over the coming weeks and months with Ethereum before we can give this whole thing a passing grade. So I think there might be pressures as a whole industry. And I don't think we have the data right now, even with Ethereum, to say that that's the way the thing should be.

So let's give it some time and see. But I'm guessing there's going to be a lot of pressure on the Bitcoin community to make some changes down the road and to be thinking along these lines. But let's see how Ethereum pulls through over the next weeks and months to see if the results of what have been expected. Who knows? There could be things that come out of this that are not what was expected. So I think- Or even problems that were never anticipated that, right. You really never know. I mean, I don't think I've ever even done a software update on

my phone that went well. Right. So- I bet it slowed it down though afterwards. Oh, it's the joke. I remember a long time ago, but my wife updated her phone and the phone, of course, then the battery was half. And so she plugged into her computer and the computer's operating system no longer was compatible with the phone. So she had to buy a new phone and a new computer. Yeah, that's the goal, isn't it? How do we get new phones every month? Apple, of course, found a way to sell her every device that she could possibly need simply because of a software update. And let's hope Ethereum isn't like that. Right. But you alluded to sort of a scenario where maybe Ethereum becomes sort of the base settlement layer of all these things.

Is that the best case for Ethereum? Let's say that the proof of stake transition is perfect. And then the other 65 percent of things that are being built to get it to scale all work out, what's the best case scenario for Ethereum? I think something that can radically provide improvements to people's lives in many different sectors by creating more efficiencies, by making things cheaper, making things faster, making things more user-friendly, and showcasing that people's resources can be redeployed in new ecosystems where maybe they before were not doing anything of real value. And when you're not doing something of real value,

new systems are going to come that's going to remove you from the equation. So how do we get those people moving into new sectors and industries where there will be value contributed into it? So I'm an optimist in terms of these technologies may create a lot of radical change and displace or at least remove non-value-added participants from the equation, but how do you then reposition those people into new sectors due to the technology and innovations that will help them to flourish and thrive. So I think creating radical change and creating more efficiencies that help people and help people in their lives would be

what I would see as the end game for these technologies. Preston Pyshko Which is the original ethos of Bitcoin in the first place. It all really comes back to empowerment access. David Sherman Yeah, empowerment, access, inclusivity, all the positive words. If you think about the positive words, that's what this is hoping to bring. It's hoping to empower people with everything they need to feel that they have more freedom and control so that their lives can be better. That's what these things are, I think, have been bringing forward and our goal is to bring those forward.

Well, I appreciate the effort that you're putting towards making a better world and bringing all of those positive words to reality for people in the future and everything that you're building. Where can everybody follow you and keep up with what you're building after this conversation? So my Twitter was really the only thing I use, and I don't even use that very much. You don't. Diorio Anthony. My name is not Delorio, as some people might think because of that. It's the double I.

The double I is confusing. Double I. Whoever thought of a sans serif font, their L and the capital I is exactly the same. So it's a deficiency in the typography that leads you to think it's an L. But it's Diorio. It's D-I-I-O-R-I-O. Anthony, A-N-T-H-O-N-Y. So that's my Twitter handle. And then Andiami.org, A-N-D-I-A-M-I.org is the new project. And that's where the whitelist is open and more information can be seen there. Well, they say that crypto can fix everything. Maybe it can fix the confusion with the typography between I's and L's. Can you work on that big problem or find somebody to do that for us? Sure. Use a serif font.

Yeah, there you go. Basically, we just need to ban that for us. Sure. Use a serif font. Yeah, there you go. Just we basically would need to ban sans serif. Evil. Thank you so much for doing this once again and for all of your time. It really is inspiring and I look forward to seeing Andiamo come to fruition. Thanks a lot, Scott. Thanks for having me on again. Bye now. Let's go.