Autor Cointelegraph By Editorial Staff

We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes!This week, our 6 Questions go to Pat Duffy, co-founder of The Giving Block — a crypto donation solution that provides an ecosystem for nonprofits and charities to fundraise Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.Pat is co-founder of The Giving Block, and has raised over $100,000,000 in crypto for nonprofits in the last year. From 2020 to 2022, Pat and his co-founder Alex Wilson grew The Giving Block from a four-person team into one of the fastest growing companies in the nonprofit sector, with thousands of nonprofit clients and the world’s largest crypto donor community.1 — What is the main hurdle to mass adoption of blockchain technology?People say education, and I think that’s wrong. When people say “education,” I think that leads to people getting up on stages and explaining blockchain to people who don’t even understand how their microwaves work. It feels very puritanical to me and it’s been stunting progress on adoption. I think people are too addicted to decentralizing everything, including crypto adoption, which leads to a lot of people creating “educational” content instead of building intermediary companies and encouraging beginner-level crypto ownership that doesn’t require staking yams. I’d love to see people stop trying to explain how the pistons fire in the engine block so we can focus more energy on creating a level of crypto access that requires zero technical understanding.2 — What has been the toughest challenge you’ve faced in our industry so far?Teaching young crypto owners about the tax incentive to donate crypto. It’s so hard to explain to a group of people who hodl at all costs that they actually end up with larger crypto positions when they donate crypto versus donating cash (they donate the crypto, then use the dollars they would have donated to buy crypto at today’s cost-basis. Voila — they owe no tax on the appreciated crypto they gave to a charity, and the new crypto they bought today resets their tax liability). That’s been a real uphill battle, since these folks haven’t been educated on this like older folks who donate stocks every year for the same reason.3 — Does it matter if we ever figure out who Satoshi really is or was? Why, or why not?I couldn’t care less, but a lot of people seem hell-bent on figuring it out. I don’t see the utility of it, and think it just opens folks up to getting tricked into investing or not investing based on the moral pros and cons of the individual. The ideas aren’t any more true or false regardless of who developed them. I would fear the same thing will happen that we see in politics, where people support ideas based on the person who’s saying it rather than the merit of the idea itself.4 — What do the people closest to you tell you off for? Feel free to offer more than one answer.This is a wild question, but I dig it. I’d say the main thing I hear is “That’s not funny” when I take a risk with a crazy joke. Which of course makes it more funny. I’ve never done heroin, but I imagine that the closest I’ve come to experiencing an opiate high would be telling jokes that make my mom a little mad while everyone else laughs.5 — What makes you angry, and what happens when you get mad?I’d say the main driver of seething rage these days would be seeing people I care about having heated discussions about things they aren’t actively working on (and never will actively work on). Seeing friends and family get upset about political situations or cultural changes that they’re not trying to impact personally is a bizarre self-harming obsession that every now and then gets me to blow up at the dinner table. Anytime someone is complaining about something, I like to ask them “What are you going to do about it?” If the answer is that there’s nothing they can or will do about it, I think we all have an obligation to beg them to stop reading about it. There is much less time in the day than people think there is. All the time people spend “staying informed” directly takes away from time they’re spending bettering their life or the lives of the people they care about. Would love to see more people obsessively learning about subjects that they actually leverage to make things work better.6 — What’s the silliest conspiracy theory out there, and which one makes you pause for a moment?The Flat Earth theory is the funniest one right now. Right at that perfect intersection where just enough people are bought in to make you think the end of the world is near. “Birds Aren’t Real” would be my favorite if there were some NBA players who were pumped on that. Ones that make me pause aren’t all that outside the box — generally it’s suicides or assassinations where there’s a great deal at stake. When there are obvious reasons certain folks might want you dead, then it doesn’t take a leap of faith for you to start thinking there might be more to the story.A wish for the young, ambitious blockchain community:I hope you all leverage what you’re learning to improve the lives of the people you care about. That can be by making transformative money, by solving important problems, building important companies or making important connections. Whatever it might be, you’re in a position to do something important, so make the opportunity count.

We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes!This week, our 6 Questions go to Lisa Fridman, the president and co-founder of Quadrata, a network that brings an identity and compliance layer to DeFi across existing public blockchains.Lisa Fridman was previously the head of blockchain strategy at Springcoin (Spring Labs). Prior to joining Spring Labs, Lisa served as a co-head of strategy at Martlet Asset Management, CEO of PAAMCO Europe and the global head of research at PAAMCO. Lisa is an experienced investor and a business builder. Throughout her career, she has worked closely with institutions, delivering bespoke solutions. She received her Master of Business Administration and graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles.1 — What does decentralization mean to you, and why is it important?Decentralization, to me, means not having to depend on a single entity to continue operations. For example, creating a network where different parties can validate the data necessary for various use cases mitigates the potential risk of a single point of failure. We embrace this philosophy at Quadrata in the context of our passport ecosystem. 2 — What is the main hurdle to gaining mass adoption of blockchain technology?The main hurdle to mass adoption of blockchain technology is limited data availability on-chain and a lack of compliance-aware solutions. By understanding the need for identity, reputation and compliance on- and off-chain and creating products to address this gap in the market, we can help onboard more individuals and institutions to DeFi and Web3 overall. It’s still technologically challenging, so for further retail adoption, more streamlined, easy-to-access solutions need to exist.3 — What do you think will be the biggest trend in blockchain for the next 12 months?I think the biggest trend in blockchain for the next 12 months will be a reassessment of which products are solving a need that exists in the market today vs. the solutions which were lifted by the rising tide of the bull markets in crypto and cannot stand on their own during a downturn. At Quadrata, we believe that identity needs have not yet been addressed on-chain, and we expect to see more peers competing in this space. 4 — What’s a problem you think blockchain has a chance to solve but hasn’t been attempted yet?Blockchain has the potential to improve a number of areas of day-to-day life. It’s not that it hasn’t been attempted yet, but there’s a lot to cover. Being at the beginning of this journey is really exciting, and I look forward to contributing to future innovation.5 — Do you think governments will try and kill crypto?No, I don’t think governments will try to kill crypto. I do believe that for the digital asset markets to attract broader participation of institutions and individuals, a constructive regulatory framework would be necessary. For example, if a larger percentage of the population relies on DeFi for their financial needs, the governments would want to put protections in place to make sure people understand risks associated with these opportunities. The challenge is to put such a framework in place which creates the safeguards while still promoting innovation.6 — When you tell people you’re in the blockchain industry, how do they react?Anyone I tell that I am in the blockchain industry usually has a strong reaction. My friends who paved the way in transitioning to crypto years ago are welcoming me to the club of believers in the power of blockchain technology to transform our world. Many others are curious about what blockchain means in practice and what could be different ways to participate in the opportunities it creates. Almost uniformly, people are excited to talk about blockchain across settings, sharing perspectives on the value it brings and the hurdles to its adoption. 

We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes!This week, our 6 Questions go to  Rene Reinsberg, a co-founder of Celo, an open platform that makes financial tools accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. Rene Reinsberg is a co-founder of Celo and president of The Celo Foundation, a grant-giving organization supporting the carbon-negative Celo blockchain. He has been working at the intersection of finance, technology and development for the past 15 years, including at Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, General Catalyst Partners, the World Bank and TechnoServe. His previous company, Locu, was acquired by GoDaddy where he served as vice president of Emerging Products post-acquisition.1 — What is the main hurdle to mass adoption of blockchain technology?For blockchain to achieve mainstream adoption, there must be a broader understanding of the technology, which requires better awareness and education for everyone from crypto novices to crypto natives and beyond. This responsibility falls largely on crypto to do the work when thinking about last-mile solutions and go-to market approaches. We can build a protocol, but we’re also responsible for explaining our infrastructure and championing inclusivity. By presenting onboarding as a solution, dedicating resources to developing a simple or fun gamified user experience, and building quality ramps between crypto and fiat currencies, we make the industry more approachable and easier to navigate. Accessibility, which has always informed Celo’s mobile-first approach, is also key. With 6 billion smartphone users globally, easily accessible, decentralized financial building blocks are necessary for building long-term, real-world adoption. Lastly, we should shift mainstream conversations around Web3 toward real-world applications and use cases that serve everyday people around the world. As Web3 can be used as a transformative tool to help uplift historically disenfranchised communities, such as the un- and under-banked, sharing how blockchain has benefited farmers in Kenya to at-risk environments like the Amazon rainforest will further illustrate its impact.2 — What do you think will be the biggest trend in blockchain for the next 12 months?As early DeFi protocols mature, we are seeing a big push toward ReFi (regenerative finance) models, which align with the Celo Foundation’s values of recognizing individuals as unique and connected. Whereas classical economic models defined success by unfettered, exponential growth, they didn’t consider the extractive nature of the industry, viewing our environment as an empty world with unlimited resources. ReFi, however, acknowledges that we live in a “full world,” to quote economist Herman Daly, with planetary boundaries, carrying capacities and tipping points. ReFi aims to course-correct this exploitation, better intertwining our economic and ecological systems. By using money as a tool to ascribe value to natural capital-backed assets, ReFi places a price on externalities, charging those who create negative externalities and rewarding those who create positive externalities.Projects such as ReSource, a bankless infrastructure for circular trade and mutual credit networks that benefit small businesses, and Flow Carbon or Toucan Protocol, which are tokenizing carbon offsets, are indicative of these efforts, among other ReFi leaders within the Celo ecosystem.3 — What’s a problem you think blockchain has a chance to solve, but a solution hasn’t been attempted yet? Blockchain has the potential to help solve the world’s wicked problems, from environmental degradation to deep poverty. Combining blockchain technology with Web3’s ability to accelerate action is what inspired the creation of both Celo’s Climate Collective and the Alliance for Prosperity, designed to raise awareness for issues impacting individuals and communities throughout the world. We invite founders and builders to align with our shared purpose, leveraging Web3’s mass-coordination tools to tackle these mass-coordination problems.4 — What would you like to see tokenized? When, if ever would you expect this to happen?Bringing land and property on-chain would open up many interesting opportunities in creating use cases for DeFi beyond payments. Moss is a great example of restorative land-tokenization NFTs of the Amazon rainforest happening now, where one NFT represents one hectare of forest. Not only are owners bestowed with real estate rights, they are compelled to participate in the conservation process by digitally monitoring their biodiverse land via satellite.5 — What has been the toughest challenge you’ve faced in our industry so far?While market downturns, like the one we’re currently experiencing, come with significant challenges, they also present significant opportunities. Celo was built during a bear market, launching its mainnet on Earth Day 2020. Despite this, our community has continuously demonstrated its resilience and commitment to innovation. Navigating today’s market conditions is no exception for Celo’s ecosystem partners. There’s a palpable, new energy and optimism that has surfaced around Buidling our way out and returning back to the core mission: creating prosperity for all. 6 — What is the single most innovative use-case for blockchain you’ve ever seen? It doesn’t have to be the one likeliest to succeed!Jonathan Ledgard’s “Interspecies Money” proposes the establishment of the “Bank of Other Species” to issue a CBDC that disburses billions of dollars annually to “nonhuman life-forms (or their digital twins)” and correctly pricing natural capital, called L-Marks. This would help finance ecological conservation by paying local communities for services that improve species’ life outcomes. Since many of the poorest countries have the richest biodiversity, financial incentives for these countries to benefit their surrounding ecosystems can reduce extreme poverty while protecting the environment and its inhabitants. Ledgard’s proposal aligns with the primary principles of ReFi, highlighting the potential to solve the world’s cascading crises.