Talking Crypto #71 - Andras Kristof & Mark Hahnel
Primer: Gabriel Haines from the Talking Crypto podcast interviewed Andras Kristof and Mark Hahnel. Andras is the CEO and founder of Ether Cards and Mark is the Chief Scientist at Genomes.io. In this episode, we'll find out more about Ether Cards and how the two are collaborating in an interesting way that merges NFT with a use case in the scientific and pharmaceutical industry.
Introduction
Andras Kristof
CEO and founder of Ether Cards
Been in tech for a long time
Started with blockchains around 2013 when Ethereum did not exist and Bitcoin was $10
Built a Bitcoin ATM in Asia - the first one - and released in 2014
Wanted to build a system where anyone can build and issue their own token, but since Ethereum did not exist, they forked Ripple
Worked but Ethereum beta came out in 2014 and realised it was fundamentally better than what they had built, so they started to work on Ethereum since then
Mark Hahnel
Chief Scientist at Genomes.io
Academic background - PhD in stem cell biology and genomics
Pulled into the tech and data world after that
Knew each other when they were going through the same process with ConsenSys
Collaborated with Ether Cards and using their platform
How did Andras get started on Bitcoin?
Worked in a startup in 2011 and the sysadmin told him to use the server to mine Bitcoin at night
Andras told him not to bother. Bitcoin was at 10 cents back then
The last he heard of that sysadmin was that he retired 5 years ago
Rediscovered Bitcoin in the year when it went from $10 to $1000
Attracted because one can make a direct transfer to another person in a permissionless manner. The rest is just fluff and hype
Pre-Ethereum
Why did Andras do a fork on Ripple?
When Bitcoin proved that it worked, there were lots of efforts to make the underlying value of Bitcoin more accessible
He wanted to build something that will make it easy for someone to issue a new coin and not worry about the technology, something like a prequel to Ethereum
"So it's kind of like an ultra-proto Ethereum in some ways and Ripple did have the right idea by creating this system where you could issue tokens."
Andras Kristof
Ripple had the right idea so he forked it but modified it:
Remove XRP to prevent pump and dump
Included ring signatures from Monero to make it more private
Ended up with a simple platform, compared to Ethereum, that could issue ERC-20 tokens but no smart contracts, only simple rules
Use cases: payment systems, loyalty points
When Ethereum came out, they switched over to it because it was fundamentally better than what they had built
Ether Cards
The Beginning of Ether Cards
Andras wanted to build a system where he could connect physical objects with NFTs in a meaningful way
But at that time (3 years ago), nobody cared about NFTs
As the technology develops, there are more use cases for NFTs but it was missing a business model
Not easy to get funded if they are building an open-sourced project on the blockchain that is not financially based.
Financial projects can be easily funded by VC or by the communities but most of the time, the VC are just interested in the customer data, not the project itself
They wanted to build a system using NFTs to provide funding and monetization mechanism for use cases that were difficult to fund
Can be used for any project that has a community - putting it bluntly, able to grow, engage and monetise the community e.g. athletes, artists, galleries
Plans for Ether Cards
Launched back in March and did very well, onboarded LaMelo Ball, Steve Aoki, Mike Tyson, plus 70+ artists including Dirty robot, Mark McKenna
Put in a lot of effort for these people to showcase how the system works
Focusing on deploying their own self-service platform for people to come and create, monetize and engage their own communities without the team being involved
They can issue 10 times more out of the system if they can roll this out successfully
Eventually will have integration with the Metaverse - going to build the Lego blocks for the NFTs and community building, similar to what Defi is doing
Ether Cards is building a Platform-as-a-Service, not trying to build a marketplace or centralised system
Even if Ether Cards are down, the NFT cards made using the platform will still function
LaMelo Ball NFT collaboration
LaMelo Ball, the professional basketball, wanted to see if he can put his career on the blockchain and create a supportive and engaging community
Wanted to use NFTs as tools to react and change with real-life events by using all the different facets of the Ether Cards platform
E.g. Traits - similar to buttons on a card that you can engage with to get a discount, a meeting with him, upgrade your seats if you have a ticket, or burning the trait on the NFT to redeem a jersey from his merch store. The traits are not necessarily monetary in value
E.g. Forge - combine cards together to create another new NFT
E.g. Layers - there is a layered art on the back of the Ether Cards, created by 15 different artists providing 5 layers that are randomly added to the cards
All these are high maintenance collaborations. Eventually, any user can come in to do most of these things without even talking to the team
A self-service platform will have at least 3 things: traits, forges and layers
Mark mentioned that simple ideas can expand in ways that one cannot imagine at the beginning
Ether Cards have the Forge concept where different NFTs can be combined to form a super NFT
Genomes io can use this concept of forging to combine personal medical data of an individual with his family to create a family medical record - an example of the application of simple concepts in a creative way
What is Dust from Ether cards?
If you have a physical collectable figurine and you put it onto the shelf for 3 months, it'll collect dust. Similarly, Ether Cards also collect dust, which is an ERC 20 tokens
Once you collect enough Dust, you can exchange it for the NFT in the dust pools, e.g. CryptoPunks or the NFT coming from other drops
"Dust... basically the naming is kind of silly. If you have a physical collectible like this figurine that you put on the shelf behind you for three months, what does it do? It collects dust."
Andras Kristof
Can be used to reserve upcoming NFT drops by prepaying them
Or used to update cards, upgrade discount on the cards
About NFT
When the internet happens, creative people realised that they have an audience of 3.5 billion people
However, they cannot monetize their creativity
NFT is going to be the tool that will allow this to happen - the missing piece of the puzzle
And Ether Cards is building the toolset for that to happen
Two ways to connect physical objects to NFT
Easy way: NFT is redeemable for physical objects, but this is not a permanent connection
Difficult way: To have a permanent connection, have an NFC chip on an object that can generate its own Ethereum wallet and public address, then send an NFT to the wallet.
The object owns the NFT, but since you own the object, you also own the NFT by proxy.
You can interact with the NFT because you can interact with the object
This will make the connection between object and NFT permanent
But Andras will not put a chip on his body
ConsenSys
Mark's experience with ConsenSys
Genomes went through their accelerator and it comes with a bit of funding
Most importantly, the team was exposed to a lot of experienced people in the space with great advice
E.g. Dan Finley from Metamask, guys from Dharma (who coined the term DeFi)
Genomes needed a lot of privacy and a lot of accountability because they are dealing with other people's medical data - need to get their tech stack sorted out
"ConsenSys were always for us. Whereas you in traditional VCs, if you said we're gonna start a DAO, they will go like what the hell's a DAO and you need to have 400 meetings about what a DAO is with the lawyers before you do anything further. So yeah, only positive from our side."
Mark Hahnel
Was advised to get all the tech stack sorted out first and not to worry about tokenisation yet. Don't chase the hot money without a viable product
ConsenSys is very open because they are a crypto native VC
If they have traditional VCs and Genomes.io wanted to start a DAO, it'll be countless meetings with the legal team before anything can be done
Genomes.io collaboration with Ether Cards
Ideas on how Genomes.io can collaborate with Ether Cards
Mark wanted to get 10,000 genomes so that they have a database for the big pharma companies to do research. They can generate and sell an NFT for 0.1 ETH and people can get their genome sequenced. This can entice people to do their genomes so that genomes io can reach their critical mass of 10,000 genomes
Ether Cards have Dust on cards their holders can collect. Similarly, Genomes.io can also have GENE or GNOME airdropped to holders of their NFT
Provability of vaccine status using NFT to prevent people from faking
Important not to create perverse incentives within the system e.g. people selling NFT of vaccination status
In terms of generative art, each genome is unique so it can be turned into a hash and can have prints from it or sweaters with NFT generated based on their genome on it
Regulatory worries
Are both of them worried about regulations?
Andras mentioned that there could be use cases where NFT can be used to give a 50% discount to services if you buy the NFT and fund the protocol now
Gabriel asked if Andras is worried about regulatory issues because it seems like this is like an ICO type of thing
"If you are in the blockchain space and you are not concerned about regulations then you are doing something wrong."
Andras Kristof
Mark said it is the same for the ethics side of his work too - it's better for them to employ lots of lawyers to deal with issues on this front
What to put on a billboard?
Gabriel asked both of them what they would put on a billboard?
Andras's reply is: Be Kind
Mark was thinking more from a business point of view - will be something to the effect that everyone is going to get their genome sequenced in their lifetime
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