Unchained - Aya Miyaguchi, of the Ethereum Foundation, on Who Makes the Final Call - Ep.59

Episode Date: May 15, 2018

The newly appointed head of the Ethereum Foundation, Aya Miyaguchi, talks about her background as a teacher, at Kraken, helping the Mt. Gox trustee unwind that mess, and the closed process by which she was plucked for her current role. She also describes her goals with the Ethereum Foundation, how the EF believes the Ethereum community should make decisions, how it defines community and more. She also talks about how she hopes to push more financial inclusion with Ethereum, and what she thinks needs to be done to get more women involved in crypto. Aya Miyaguchi: https://twitter.com/mi_ayako Ethereum Foundation: https://www.ethereum.org/foundation Thank you to our sponsors! Keepkey: https://www.keepkey.com/ Preciate: https://preciate.org/recognize/ Token Agency: http://tokenagency.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained, the podcast where we hear from innovators, pioneers, and thought leaders in the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency. I'm your host, Laura Shin. If you've been enjoying Unchained, pop into iTunes to give us a top rating or review. That helps other listeners find this show. Also be sure to follow me on Twitter at Laura Shin. This episode is brought to you by Bitwise. Last year, Bitwise created the world's first cryptocurrency index fund. The Bitwise hold 10. which holds the top 10 cryptocurrencies and rebalances monthly. The fund has several hundred LPs and is currently accepting accredited investors. To learn more and invest in the Bitwise Cryptocurrency Index Fund, visit www. www.bitwiseinvestments.com slash unchained. Today's episode is brought to you by Keep Key, the easy, safe, and simple way to protect your Bitcoin, ether, light coin, and many other digital assets. There's no time like the present to protect yourself from half.

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Today's guest is Aya Miyaguchi, executive director of the Ethereum Foundation. Welcome, Aya. Hi. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Tell me about your background and how you got into crypto. Sure. My background actually my first professional career started as a high school teacher in Japan. And my mission was to tell my students the importance of going outside of the country once in their life. And also, I myself as a teacher, I thought it was very wrong that teachers did not go out there.

to see the world or did not try other professional experiences. I just quit my job and then came to the U.S. And then I was pursuing actually, I wanted to, first I wanted to get a job and then for that I needed to go to graduate school. And then while I was studying, I heard about Bitcoin first around in 2011. And that was my first encounter with anything about blockchain. And it took me a while to understand is what Bitcoin was, as there were no any good materials to learn for non-technical people like me. And however, after I learned about the major benefits of Bitcoin,

I thought it would be very helpful for financial inclusion. on social impact. And then, yeah, my focus when I was working on my MBA was sustainable business, and I personally was specifically interested in microfinance to make women financially independent in developing countries. And I thought Bitcoin would be very helpful for that. Although now Ethereum can do a lot more,

but back then it was Bitcoin that I first originally interested in. And then in early 2013, I got an opportunity to join Clacken Exchange when Clacken just started hiring. And there were only a few people in the team back then, and we did not even have an office. And yeah, so, but the team was based in San Francisco, and I was fortunate to have amazing experiences surrounded by the people who started the crypto industry. That's how I got into the space first. And what did you do at Cracken exactly? So I was managing Crockins Japan operations originally and then I became a managing director for Crockin Japan after I started an entity and then built the team there. But before even doing that, right after I started doing things in Japan, Mungox collapse.

They just happened to be in Japan. And then there wasn't any market there back in 2014, early 2014 it was. And then more than 90% of people, users of Mankajs were outside of Japan. And so the whole country was kind of shocked by hearing first, like hearing the name Bitcoin originally because people did not know anything about it. And then also how it affected a lot of people and then lost a lot of money. And so it all started with very negative image there in Japan. And so I thought I needed to do something before even starting. business there. I reached out to the government group who was in charge of doing some research

on Bitcoin and also potentially regulate the space. But since they had no noise about the technology, I reached out to them and asked, well, first explained who I was and that that I had experience in the space, but also I also had experience like work. with the self-regulatory organization. Back then, like in the U.S., there was a group called Data, digital asset transfer authority, which was founded by early industry people or CEO of CEOs of, like from startup, Bitcoin startup.

Yeah, so I reached out to them, and then I asked if they needed help, I can help, and then they said, Can you just meet with us right away? And so that was the beginning of the conversation where the government actually decided not to regulate the space back then, which I thought was a smart idea because the market was too small. But also they instead, they ask us to fund, create a self regulatory organization in Japan. So I founded that with some other members, but Krakham was the only experienced company there. So I ended up heavily being involved in a lot of regulatory conversations, which led to the existing regulations now that started in 2017. And is that digital currency trade organization, the

Japan Authority of Digital Asset? Yes. Okay. And so what were those conversations like? I mean, they happened over a number of years, it looks like. And if in the beginning you were advocating not to issue regulations in the beginning, how did the regulations last year come about? And why did you think that that, if you thought that was the right time, why did you think that was the right time? Yeah. So originally, like I said, there was no market. people did not know anything about technology, and then it just started with the Monkog's unfortunate case. And the media was talking only negative about negative stories.

And before regulating, it's just like including the regulators, including the people of the government, including people who were writing about the story, they need to learn about the technology and what that can do. in the beginning it was it was a smart idea not to regulate the space but then like we kind of formed this group and then created this serve regulatory Clytailors for mainly exchanges like like clacking and what they need to do for KIC or security and then all the list of things that was mostly based on what we were doing in the US but tried to make a little bit more flexible.

And that was in 2014. And then after that, gradually, the country recovered, was recovering from the shock from Monkogh. And then market started to grow with other players. And then the industry, as industry were growing, I think there were other issues such as, financial institutions were not comfortable enough to work with crypto companies because it wasn't regulated. But there were a lot of opportunities or a lot of interest there that big companies

wanted to work with the technology in some way. And then around that time, the regulators decided to regulate the space. But they were. still talking to the industry group or what would be the best way. Not that they listened to all the requests that we made, but at least we provided information, they listened, and then it was around the time that if without the regulations, the space would miss a lot of opportunities. And then so that the original draft was,

created the end of 2016, and then it went in 2017 in April. So I only really know those regulations in broad strokes. Like I know that Bitcoin was named a legal currency. I know that later some of the crypto exchanges were licensed. Can you just draw out for me what those regulations were and what the significance was and what you thought were the pros and cons of the different regulations? Sure. So that regulation specifically that was created and outstudied last year in 2017 was for exchanges and the payment processors. And then mainly that was for to provide again the list of things that required.

that required to exchanges so that there won't be any money laundering or security hacking or the similar thing that the U.S. was doing. And then mainly the list of things that is required to get the license. Well, what we call it in English, it's license. It wasn't supposed to be a license. They called it as a registration, but it turned out to be a little more difficult. than anyone thought would be to finish the registration because most of the criteria or most of the requirements

were still created based on the conventional financial regulations that existed before. Okay. And to go back to what you were saying earlier about Mount Cox, I know that Cracken was appointed to help Mount Cox investigate what happened to the Loster still in Bitcoins and also to help them pay back the creditors. What was Cracken able to accomplish with that role? So, yes, first of all, it was kind of like requested by the founder of Clacken, especially because he cared about. the community, right, more than even just the business out of this.

But so, and then I, since it happened in Japan, I reached out to the trustee of Magog's bankruptcy proceeding case and then explained who we are and then what's the technology can do for to make that, I mean, it happened because of this, because of Bitcoin, but at the same time, it didn't really happen because of the technology of Bitcoin. It could happen with anything. And so I explained that, but also explained what we could do, how we could help them, because they had no idea what to do with this case, especially because a huge amount of asset, a huge amount of lost asset were with Bitcoin.

And then so Clarkin was able to sign on the agreement to be a supporting company of this Moncog's bankruptcy proceeding case. And then they requested us to support them help any technical questions they might have. But also especially investigating the last Bitcoin where it went. And then it was impossible for them to do everything on their own, even if they hire some consulting technology company. And so they knew that they needed some expert from the industry. So we were there to kind of support their work, not just us doing everything. It's more like we are a supporter to instruct them, like how to do the investigation. and also it was decided for the first time in the industry to do the payout with Bitcoin.

And originally it was supposed to be also beneficial for Quackam, but because of a lot of complexity and then some existing lawsuits, which hasn't happened yet, unfortunately, and it's still ongoing. And then during that time, things have changed and a lot of things have happened. So it, the Clarkin didn't do it for the business benefit only, although it did have a lot of, like, you know, reputation, positive reputation impact. You mean helping Cracken or hurting the Bitcoin community or what do you mean by that? Both of them. I mean, like, a Clarkin tried to help the community, tried to save the creators who were the victim of the Mongachs. which was also part of the industry.

It was sort of like a community effort that Clarkin tried to do. Okay. I wanted to go back to something you said, which was you said something about how the payout was supposed to be in Bitcoin, but I think I don't know what you're referring to, because I think the big controversy is that they're actually paying back their creditors in dollars and not refunding them the amount that they had lost in Bitcoin's, So what do you mean by that?

Oh, no. So originally it was decided that way that Bitcoin was, if you think about the cost of wiring money to all over the world, because more than 90% of users were outside Japan, but the bankruptcy case was in Japan. So the asset was in Japan. And then if you were to do the payout using fiat currency by using regular, bank wires. And then back then, the cost of doing that was too much considering the whole amount of asset that was there. And then after that, that Bitcoin plus went really high. And the trustee started to worry if they didn't sell Bitcoin, they might get blamed. And yeah, or something

like that. And... Wait, blamed for what? blamed for not making more asset, but there are a lot of like other little things that are, they were, yeah, that is very controversial. I wasn't really involved in that this part of discussion. Okay. So at some point, he, he, the, we're talking about the trustee, no, nobuyaki, um, Kawayashi is his name? He changed his mind and decided to reimburse them in dollars.

Is that what happened? It's more like if they sell Bitcoin, they can make huge amount of money. And then that was, yeah, that was what they thought. Yeah, I think the price of Bitcoin affected there. Again, like I wasn't really involved in this discussion. Okay. Yeah. To me, it doesn't make any sense.

I mean, I know that's not, that wasn't your decision, but it's a little bit like if you had Bitcoins, you would want the Bitcoins back, like, especially because the price is so volatile. But anyway, let's move on to discuss the Ethereum Foundation. What is the Ethereum Foundation and what is its mission and what does the foundation do? Yes. So the Ethereum Foundation is a foundation and then undergone organizations to support the development and research of the Ethereum technology team. That also support the community activities. and effort, which also support the development of Ethereum. And the mission is to basically make Ethereum as best as possible

by supporting community, by facilitating research and development effort. And what do you do in your role as executive director? So that's, I just joined. the foundation of the beneficiaries since February this year. And I, yes, so I basically coordinate and organize that the foundation's activities within, like, internally, but also the foundation has even bigger, all working with the community members. And so doing education, doing grants. and then those are the thing that are main focuses of our activities and then making communication better.

So there are a couple of things that we want to do better by hearing what people thought about the foundation's activities before, but also I personally did not know what the ETHRAM Foundation was in detail before joining the foundation. So I want to make it more transparent and clear to the world, what the foundation is, what we're doing, but also how we can work together with the community members, because the Ethereum has really amazing community, which is really a great thing about Ethereum. And what were those things that you said that the community has asked from the foundation? I think what it wasn't really clear, which we're... The Scorebet app here with trusted stats and real-time sports news.

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working on some solutions that the foundation is working on to. So why, why we are here, what is the, what is, you know, what, what are the main focuses of the foundation? So that is, uh, one of the request is to make it more transparent and then communicate that better. Yeah. And how do you plan to do that? Because I do know, and this might be something that you're only obliquely referring to, but I know that the former executive director, Ming Chan, was widely criticized and complained about in the Ethereum community for being controlling, for not being communicative, for not building out an infrastructure for the organization. So how do you plan to manage the foundation and prevent these issues from coming up again? Yeah. So, well, I do think she did a lot

of important things too, just to make it clear, because there are a lot of difficulties and then challenges the Ethereum had before I joined. But it's a lot of, but it's a lot of difficulties. And then challenges the Ethereum had before I joined. But it is too, since the industry is growing and the Ethereum community is growing, the demand is higher. The foundation has to grow in the way that I don't think that necessarily means the foundation has to become bigger in terms of the number of people we have in the team. It's more about this is very, what I think is great about the community and also it's a challenge.

is very decentralized. And in order to solve one problem or one challenge, we work together with the community. Like, it's not the foundation to control everything or solve everything in-house. And then it has to stay that way because the technology itself is also decentralized. And in order to do that, instead of us trying to do everything in the house, we are already, we have been working with the community members. And then it is make everything as a community effort.

We don't really care who does what job, but we do care at the end how much easier can improve as a whole. So we want to make everything as a community effort, and then the foundation is a facilitator, but also a coordinator. We're not the manager or we're not controlling anything. So that kind of message we have to send. And then in order to do that, we're trying to give more grants and then work on more educational effort.

And then also, again, like making the communication better. And when you talk about the community, who exactly are you talking about? Like, who were the people that you end up talking to or the other foundation members end up talking to? It's basically anyone who is doing anything with Ethereum. That's kind of a simple way to say. Either it's individuals or an organization, and an organization like EEA or other community members that can be individual who is just contributing to the Ethereum technology

because it's open source. And then some of them just voluntarily started contributing to the technology. But we can see that because it's open. And if they are contributing a lot, like we try to, we should acknowledge them more or better. And then that's what we want to do by giving grants, whether it's an individual or it's an organization or its team or company. And then, yeah. So whoever that is that is part of the community and also any decision maker making, like, ideally we want to talk to as many groups as possible.

Okay. And earlier when you reference EEA, just for people who don't know, that's the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, which is a whole bunch of big multinationals around the world that are building things on the Ethereum source code. I think, though, that a lot of them are using it for private blockchain projects. Am I right? Yes. Okay.

So something that I wanted to ask you was about some big questions that the Ethereum community has been mulling recently. One is whether or not to unfreeze some funds that were accidentally locked up. This has generated some really passionate debate. There was, I should have looked up the dollar amount, but a huge amount of ether, I think, got locked up by some bug in a smart contract where somebody accidentally hit what is sort of like a kill button in a way that locked up these funds. Another one that came about sort of with an April Fools joke that Vitolik posted online was a blog post where he raised the question of whether or not

to cap the supply of ether or to inflate the money supply and perpetuity. Although it's generated get some serious discussion. So how do these kinds of questions get decided and what role does the Ethereum Foundation play in making those decisions? So again, like I think I'm not supposed to make a really public comment for something like this because unlike other developers, like if I do it, it makes it look like I'm representing the foundation. But as the foundation, I think like I said, it's the community who should decide on important decisions. And then, yes, Vitalik sometimes kind of proposes some idea, but he's not really forcing that to be picked by the community.

But he's suggesting the idea with his, is like as an individual. And then he doesn't mean to control, although he does have influence so people try to know what his intention is. but his intention is never to control the decision making. And then, yeah, like all the governance discussions that, which I think it's still very, like it's very, it's discussed in an open way. And then we also had this discussion at a big event in Paris, ECC,

in a month ago. And then that was for the community, and an opportunity for the community discussed to discuss what are the challenges that we have with the current governance structure and what can be, what should we discuss and then also what can be improved. It wasn't really, like, there wasn't really a good conclusion to that because it's not an easy answer to. there is not an easy answer for that, but the foundation can facilitate these discussions,

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The fund has several hundred LPs and is currently accepting accredited investors. To learn more about the Bitwise Cryptocurrency Index Fund or download research, visit www.bidw.bitwitvestments.com slash unchained. Now it's time to recognize someone in crypto, sponsored by Appreciate. Today, Precate is recognizing Connie Gallipi, founder and executive director of BitGiv for her recent work launching GiveTrack. GIFRack is an innovative blockchain program providing real-time transparency on charitable project outcomes. Connie deserves kudos for leading the way. Thanks, Connie. Appreciate Welcome's Unchained listeners to nominate a friend to get props on a future episode of Unchained. Just go to appreciate.org slash recognize.

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within the Ethereum community, how do you account for those things? Again, the foundation doesn't have to decide. I don't think the foundation has to decide which opinion that the Ethereum should pick or to select as the answer because it's supposed to be the community. And I think we need to provide more opportunity for the community to be able to have better communication or better discussions. And that it's, it is, it is a technology, Ethereum is a technology. And then also it involves discussion about the technology. But most of the time it's, it's, it's very human.

And then it involves some ethic questions and like legal questions. and then for that, it requires a lot of different experts to, for the discussion itself, but also the foundation is only the facilitator of discussions, and we don't need to pick which decision should be used. So then does the final call come down to Vitalik himself and nobody else? Because some entity, whether it's a person or a group, needs to make the final decision, right? and to say, okay, discussion's over. We're going to move forward with this action.

The final decision for the decision for how the organization work for what the foundation is supposed to do, or that should be, of course, discussed internally, but how the technology is used or how the governance should be is not by the foundation or not by the Vitaliki. I mean, he also has his own opinion as an individual, who contributes a lot to the term. But again, like, it shouldn't be anyone from the foundation.

So it could be, like, anyone from the foundation also can possess the idea or be an individual who wants to, who prefers one way or another. But it doesn't, like, the decisions, when you say decisions, anything related to the governance or anything. anything, the decision that you just pointed or not, it should not be done by the foundation is what I meant. So then who, but who does make that final call? For final call for what? Any kind of decision like about, you know, whether or not to unfreeze those frozen funds

or whether or not to cap the supply, things like that? Oh, well, it is the community. And then it has to be there. That makes the final call, though? Yeah, the final call meaning, like, if the, of course, there should be a way to find a way to what is the final call of the fund, of the community, which we can do better about, like, providing an opportunity to discuss, have a discussion between the community. But again, like the final call for that, it can be suggested by anyone in the community. And then the community has to come to the consensus. Okay.

And do you have a process for that at the moment? We, I mean, like not we, only the foundation, but we are working with the community members. Again, like we had this discussion last month. And then other more discussions are kind of being planned to being planned. to happen at the next big event. And so that's like we're we're trying to view out what are the best way to get there. And I think something that I've been wondering, and I think a lot of people are wondering, is what was the application process and screening process you underwent to be chosen as the executive director? That's her good question.

I think I was, so after, especially since last year, a couple of years ago, I started exploring different products in social impact blockchain space. And then I was actually planning to start my own social impact studio. And then, so basically I was, I, unfortunately, I received a lot. lot of offers. And then when I decided to pursue the next thing, especially towards social impact area, yes, and when I decided to leave Clark and then I started exploring that area, and then I said no to all different offers, but this one was kind of like too important for me, because all the ideas that I had or the product that I was supporting would not, at the end of the day, they would not succeed without with him.

So it was just offered to you? It was offered to me, yes. And, um, like you didn't even apply for it. They just came to you? I didn't apply for it, but I'm pretty sure they were, um, talking to other people. people too. I didn't really ask other, I mean, the process itself because I was the one who joined. But yes, I didn't, I didn't apply for it, but I was asked by, yes, people in the community. Was there even an open application process? I don't, well, I don't know. Well, I don't

think it was open because I didn't see it and then you probably didn't see it. Yeah, no, I didn't see it. Yeah. So for a decentralized project, do you think the process should be done in this fashion? That's a very question. I do I think it should. Well, it may be, well, that's maybe a maybe a question to ask. Yeah. But well, I think it's a good question. Or I think it's a good question. it could have been, of course, open, and then the community could have decided if any community members think that's the best way, and then when that is proposed at some point,

and I think it's totally okay to be that way, but at the same time, I think it was, it involved a lot of things that are, it's not just community, and then it's about the foundations, organization. And then so they needed someone who had experienced working globally and long experience in the crypto space, which I was told. But there wasn't an open process. Yes. And then I think that's a good idea. Right. Yeah. And who interviewed you? Who decided who should be the next

executive director. I talked to a lot of members in the team. Which team? Like the existing foundation members? Existing foundation members, yes. Like Ming and Vatelic? Those were the only two I was aware of. Yes, that's also other good questions. No, it was Vatelic, but also other people like researchers and developers in the team. So you mentioned earlier that you are working on the foundation's top priorities. What are those right now? So mainly three focuses, and then one is grants, which we already talked and given grants to the community project

or individual who are contributing to these. solutions and together with the foundation or individually. And the second is community development and supporting new regional community to launch, which the communities are growing and then a lot of new meetups are happening in the world. And then if they need support, we are happy to support us and speakers or if they need financial support like we can discuss and also working with universities or creating educational materials and also facilitate the initiative of education. And also that includes some like regulatory discussions.

Sometimes we are asked to give advice to regulators. And the last one is, yes, the research and development that obviously that you you can see that the core development and research work that the foundation is taking the initiative, but some of them are actually not just done by the foundation members and then through the community grants and also educational or community development effort, we can facilitate R&D effort in a better way, not just doing that in-house. And, you know, as you can tell from what you have said, but also from some of my questions, I think there is a big question around how best to govern an open source project. Are there any models of open source governance that you look to for guidance? Not many specifically, but by talking to a lot of people, it's, well, any, any open source project, but also like something like Linux Foundation.

But I think what we are trying to accomplish is something very new because this is very decentralized. It's not just the technology is open source. So we've been discussing the new way of organizing everything, which we just started doing this, like having a lot of discussions internally, but also high. more people on the operations side because that was something the foundation didn't have before me joining. And what were, I can't speak, what would those roles be? Well, we don't really set, like, very specific titles, but something like grant, more operations members for the grant team and then.

more operation members for the education team. And then because those are very important to work with the community. Yeah. Well, how many foundation members are there currently? So it is roughly about 50 developers and then also 15 researchers, if we call it, like researchers and developers. And then there are really only like a few less than the first of the first. few operations, people, including myself.

Okay. And so is that what the Ethereum Foundation budget is largely going toward right now? It's like their salaries, but then also these grants that you guys are giving out? Yes. Okay. So to go to some of the priorities that you mentioned and also your background, because you studied microfinance and we're talking about how you were drawn to blockchain because of its potential for fostering financial inclusion. Do you have plans now for the Ethereum Foundation to help promote financial inclusion in some fashion?

If so, what are those plans? Most of their, of course, I will personally support those products. Sorry, projects or, yeah, it could be product for sure, keep doing that. But as a foundation, we will focus on the core. infrastructure development first so that all the applications that are built on top of Ethereum can perform better, such as like the scaling issues need to be solved. And then that's the focus now in directory that I believe is going to support those financial inclusion products or project.

And what are some examples of financial inclusion projects that you think are promising? Well, it's something like microfinance can be just to solve the payment part that's useful, but at the same time with Ethereum, you can use smart contract to use the technology for like identifications or loan takers background or like how you actually manage the loan process, you can use smart contract for that. That can actually be very useful. And then other financial inclusion effort is simply just give financial independence by using cryptocurrencies is also another thing. And because crypto currencies can do a lot of things more

than like a lot more than Fiat currencies. And but also it is not really controlled. by one single country and which sometimes is a problem when you can trust the country or you cannot trust the government or the bank or if they don't have the access, when they don't have the access to banks, that even more so. And to go back to regulation, which you mentioned is one of the priorities, I noticed in December you had tweeted, the most important role of a self-regulatory body is not just to regulate the space, but also to educate regulators to find the best solution for the long-term success of both the industry and the country. No point of having an industry org if they cannot

argue with regulators. What regulations right now in which countries do you think are reasonable and work well for the crypto ecosystem and which regulations do you think are not productive? I personally think that the ones that are not too aggressive making quick decision yet, or so far the best one or the smarter ones. If they move too quick or make decisions too quick without really deeply discussing the potential outcomes because the industry moves very quick. This happens in Japan.

This happened in Japan too, like when the regulation was first drafted and it went effective a few months later. and then it's just a it takes a long time for them to even like before after they decided to regulate and then coming up with the draft and then making it effective it almost took an year which is very long time for this space and then a lot of things have changed and then so they have to I could see that regulator's side were kind of getting pressured with the new things that keep happening in the industry. And then something like a CEO and was not really part of the discussion when they first

drafted the regulation. So for that, I think it's important not to take too aggressive decision on, like, they can come up as the regulation, but not make, not to make it too unfretted. so that they cannot really act flexibly later. And when you said that Ethereum wants to have this role in education as well when it comes to regulators, how do you do that when there's somewhere in the ballpark of 200 countries around the world? How would you have that many conversations going on? So we're not the lobbying organization, so that's not our intention.

But sometimes we are asked to give advice from different jurisdictions, just because I think it's because we are a nonprofit that doesn't have business incentive. And then also the foundation does have history and technical background. so that if they are missing any knowledge about the technology or if they don't, a lot of time that the regulators do not have enough time to actually catch up with everything that's happening in the industry. But also, yeah, they often look for advice from an expert, but they don't know who to ask when any expert can have business intensives or money incentive. And as a foundation, since we are a nonprofit, but also our goal is to maintain the space as healthy as possible.

So we can just provide some advice and then they can use it or not. But we're happy to give advice. It's our approach. But yeah, like you said, we can really travel to each country to kind of like convince them. Like this is the way you should do. It's more like a girl when we are asked to give advice. We try to do our best. Interesting. I mean, I totally get your point about how they might have a little bit more comfort with a nonprofit, but given how closely the foundation is tied to Vatelic and the fact that obviously he has a lot of ether himself. I don't know if the analogy is like exactly perfect. But to keep talking about regulation, I wanted to ask also about. if there are any new regulatory developments we'll see coming out of Japan. Because I think some

people thought that it was pretty forward-looking that Japan, you know, made Bitcoin a legal currency and that it had these licensed exchanges. But are there any other new regulations in the works? The only thing I'm aware, although I talk to them very often, but they don't maybe, I don't think they told me everything that they're having their mind. But they have been talking or, yeah, we have been talking about some ICA best practices. But I don't know whether they're planning to provide any regulations very soon or not. And something else I want to ask you about, which you may not know entirely because you don't work there anymore, is I did see that Cracken recently pulled out of Japan.

Do you have any insight into how conditions there have changed for exchanges and why Cracken might have decided to close its operations in Japan? Yeah. So I don't think I should speak for them because I, no, no, I'm not representing them anymore. But I think things in Japan have become a little tighter and intense after the hack, hacking at a coin check, which was one of the biggest exchanges. and a huge amount of NAM coin was hacked at the exchange. And then since then things have become very more like tense and tighter is that I know. Okay. And something else I want to ask about

was that you tweeted about how when you started working in crypto in 2013, there were very few women. I was wondering if you have had any experiences in crypto that you think you wouldn't have had if you were a man. Let's start there. Interesting. I actually did not really feel any huge disadvantage or advantage as a woman. It seems like other people did, but it is true. I just stated the fact that there, since it was, I think someone was mentioning about. women in blockchain and then trying to encourage more women in the space. And I do agree it's always better to have diversity, whether it's gender or a race or I think it's better to have diversity, to have different opinions, to have more balanced ideas. I don't think it's necessarily that

means that we need to definitely have more women. But when I joined it was, it is true that when I went to first Bitcoin conference back in 2013, May in 2013 in San Jose, that was there, we clagin had a couple of women, but we didn't see any women in other companies or at the event. So I felt awkward that way, for sure, not that I had any like disadvanted advantage or anything. So it is, it is great that we have more women because just, just because I believe in diversity. Yeah. And in your role as executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, you probably deal with a lot of men and probably men who don't often work with other women. Does that present any challenge or not?

I personally do not feel any challenges because of that. I do believe that we love to have more diversity in terms of the gender difference, gender balance. But no, I don't really have any difficulties. But also maybe because I was a teacher before my mom, I think I'm, used to, yeah, being with young gentlemen. I think it's, yeah, I don't, you know, they're very gentle and then very pure and also very passion-oriented, which is not just because they're men, but yeah, I just feel

fortunate to be with very smart, gentlemen people. And do you have any ideas on how to get more women involved in crypto? I guess we just have to inspire more women. Like we do have a couple of women in researchers and developers. So I think it's just to show that they are working with us is inspiring. And then actually I was asking Choway in the research group, like she's a researcher, she's a developer in Taiwan. I was telling her to speak at more events in Asian countries where gender,

there is more gender gap. And then I thought that would be inspiring for women there to feel that, oh, they can also learn and then join the group on an organization like the Lutheran Foundation. Well, it's been fantastic having you in the show. Where can people learn more about you and get in touch with you? Thank you very much. This was very, this was my pleasure. Thank you.

And where, do you have a Twitter handle or anything? Oh, I do have my Twitter handle, which is a little complicated, but it's me, I. Am I underbar, I call AY, A-Y-A-K-O. Okay, great. Well, thanks for coming on Unchained. Thank you very much. Thanks so much for joining us today.

To learn more about Aya, check out the show notes inside your podcast episode. New episodes of Unchained come out every Tuesday. If you haven't already, rate review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts. If you like this episode, share it with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Unchained is produced by me, Laura Shin, with help from Elaine Zelby, Frashe recording, Jenny Josephson, and Daniel Ness. Thanks for listening.