Andrew Yang and David Hoffman talk Web3 live at ETHDenver

Andrew it's a it's pretty surreal to see you at eth Denver at an ethereum web 3 conference um why are you here first I have to say when I was running for president one of the first communities that embraced me was the crypto [Music] Community folks who had a sense of the future had a vision and also a spirit of optimism and possibility and abundance and so when I spoke at consensus a couple of years ago when I spoke at a blockchain for good conference I felt that the folks in this community were super aligned with what I was trying to do on the presidential and it's a thrill to be now here in Earnest trying to contribute and help because I I firmly believe that the work that so many people here are doing can help contribute to the end of poverty in our time which has been my mission for the last number of years and I know a lot of people here want to take that mission forward as quickly as we can Andrew I think a lot of uh one of the differences between you and the average politician is you think in longer terms than the average politician a lot of the average politician trying to get reelected in two to four years but you're thinking about things like Automation and how do we support every single individual on this planet in an economic way and I think that's why you find alignment with uh the crypto Community with the web 3 Community uh can you talk about just the importance of thinking in the longterm term and how that sets you apart as a politician yeah I I think a lot of you know that I'm something of an accidental political figure uh certainly there wasn't a lot of you're going to be president in the Yang household when I was growing up like that wasn't the conversation it was more like you know keep your head down get good grades clean your room that sort of thing uh so I I ran in part because I didn't feel like our current political system was thinking longterm was going to actually uh Champion bigger Solutions like Universal basic income or some of the things that you all are working on like the Next Generation Financial system and I think that there are real parallels to web 3 and someone who's trying to make a difference in our political system right now because there's an entrenched system that is doing its thing and is highly resistant to someone who comes along and says hey maybe we should do things differently maybe we can do something that's more bottom up than top down uh so the goal is in my mind to take the Innovation uh that's improving people's lives and help people help the folks in DC understand that this is not something that only will benefit a narrow few if we do it right it can benefit Millions tens of millions hundreds of millions even billions over time Andrew there's a a decent amount of incumbency in the world not just in politicians but in our social structures the corporations things just seem entrenched and that has caused a lot of uh social strife and one of the things that I think the the web 3 world is really trying to do is how do we build out new social systems but how do we actually convince Washington that we need to turn over new institutions how do we convince the people of the the the leaders of countries all over the world that it's time for change I I'm so proud to have announced this week the launch of Lobby 3 uh it's Lobby 3.o and the goal is that we can make make a case to the folks in DC who are frankly right now in the process of writing these rules to have a Fuller and broader understanding of not just the risks but also the opportunities and rewards and the fact is right now if you in DC you tend to think more in terms of one side than the other so we can translate the work you all are doing but we it it's not going to happen on its own if you imagine someone sitting in an office building in DC and their approach to these Technologies it's it's not just you know time zones away from this Gathering it's like a completely different frame of reference a different mindset so we have to invest resources in trying to bring the stories and the opportunities to the folks in DC as quickly as we can in my view the biggest risk to web 3 is that onerous regulations come out of DC over this next number of years and push a lot of the development energy frankly outside of the United States and that's something I would love to prevent and I would love your help in helping me prevent that because I think that Innovation and development should take place right here in the US OFA I want to learn a little bit more about Lobby 3 because I think a lot of the the people in the crowd here who might be part of a Dao or might be part of some social Community might find uh a lot of familiarity with what's going on with Lobby 3 uh what what is Lobby 3 and what's a day in the life of being a part of Lobby 3 like I I'm going to do my best to summarize the way you try and approach politics here in this room today which is you try and ignore it honestly right like you're building things you're making these go faster and then politics seems irrational and tribal and inefficient uh and you're like oh please let me not have to deal with that stuff is that about right yeah that's very reasonable uh I was right there with you before I made the the decision to run for president of the United States Circa 2017 so that's the world that you'd like to operate in but you also Sense on some level that there are now forces that are are pushing towards much more direct regulation and oversight of web 3 Technologies and digital currencies that are going to be written not you know 3 years from now but in my opinion it's going to be measured in weeks and months uh the Biden Administration is likely going to have an executive order that gets issued in the next one to two weeks charging the different agencies with a coordinated regulatory approach to web 3 Technologies so even if You' love to ignore this stuff and you know you want just like let it some someone else deal with this it's going to end up impacting your work at some point in this next little while probably so the goal has to be to try and make it so that to the extent these regulations are formulated they're reasonable they're transparent they're done in coordination with industry leaders and people who are just trying to to build from the from the bottom up here in the industry and that's what we're going to do with Lobby 3 we're going to build a coordinated effort we're going to have professional lobbyists uh in DC yes but we're also going to be doing Grassroots efforts in congressional districts where they just need to see this technology in action there are so many misconceptions about the people that benefit from these technologies that if we can show people in real life folks are benefiting from digital wallets from next generational Financial Services it can help to shift the perception that right now is in danger of congealing into rules and regulations one of the lines that always resonated with me and I think this is rampant throughout Washington is that if you're not at the table you're on the menu and so we all have a responsibility in this industry to be at the table and I think that's what Lobby 3 is doing it's a giving everyone else everyone here in this room of voice to speak about what are our values and how can we get Washington to align with them rather than just stamp out what the innovations that we have here are today um for everyone listening everyone in this room and everyone listening on YouTube what's like the easiest thing that they can do to help move that needle forward either with Lobby 3 or just helping having uh Crypt B represented in Washington well within LOB 3 join our Discord you can go to Lobby 3.o uh we we've made it so it's very very accessible to be able to join Lobby 3 Dow like it's going to be something that if you want to participate you should be able to do so uh and bigger picture let people know that look there's a caricature going on around uh the communities that benefit from web 3 that isn't accurate the use cases are go well beyond what do you all think that the DC conception of use cases for dig currencies are money laundering drug deals human trafficking you know that that if you were to ask someone in DC like what are the top uses like those three things would probably pop into their list top five and you all know that there are millions of other per purposes and transactions uh that the technology is used for every single day so in addition to getting involved with Lobby 3 directly the single biggest thing you can do is spread the word about the fact that look there are creators that are being empowered in totally different ways there are organizations that are are able to govern themselves in whole new ways there's a technology that can Al allow us to get away from frankly having these Mega Corps uh have control over our lives uh in part because we're not able to interact with each other uh with trust and transparency and so if you introduce that and you can see why in some ways that there are folks that have a kind of resistant attitude very early on I mean a lot of political figures might talk about a particular version of the world or values but when they're presented with the actual possibility that that world could exist uh that they don't embrace it they actually sort of you know like shy away from it uh so it's a fascinating Challenge and it's something that I would love your help with undertaking because I'm going to go on a Lim and say the future of web 3 depends upon what we do collectively in the next 12 months is Lobby 3 a DA yeah Lobby 3 da it's in the name so you know it itself will be a decentralized autonomous organization when someone asked me what the priorities of the Dow will be I respond to ask the Dow who are the other leaders of the lobby 3 Dow so I I have a team that I worked with for quite some time that are part of Lobby 3 itself uh you're all not going to believe this well maybe you will you probably believe it but um so I actually hired a bunch of DC lobbyists back in 2020 to advocate for cash relief and the child tax credit and anti-poverty measures and and I did it in part because it was based on an onion article I'd read in 2011 that said the American people hire lobbyist to fight for interest on Capitol Hill think about that for a second and I I thought it was the funniest thing I was like uh you know that the fact that we'd have to hire a lobbyist but I was like oh we probably should hire a lobbyist and so in 2020 I hired a bunch of lobbyists to advocate for anti-poverty measures and now that team is going to be spearheading are conveying the realities of the opportunities around web 3 to folks in DC in DC right now there's the message and the messenger and I want you to imagine if you were uh let's say a democratic member of Congress in that office and then someone comes to you and says hey these Technologies can really help people uh if if the messenger that's bringing it to them is a bipartisan think tank or an anti-poverty organization that's like a different conversation than if they uh have something like professional like industry Association in their names you know what I mean like like that that's the reality of what's happening in DC right now so I'm hap I'm proud to say I've been working on anti-poverty initiatives in DC for the last two years and in my mind web 3 could be the biggest anti-p initiative in the history of the [Applause] world Andrew you when you ran for president you moved the Overton window on a lot of things and you were the figure head that spoke a lot uh of Reason about new issues in new ways and it really changed the whole entire Democratic platform regardless of whether you won or lost but you are just one man and you have actually spun off and inspired many other people who are also running for uh elected official offices in in different states uh Erica Rose comes to mind um and if this movement of what you inspired whatever this movement is uh it needs to have other leaders it needs to decentralize because decentralized networks are impossible to stamp out and all that's needed for a decentralized network to exist is for people to believe in it and I think the Dow model is allowing people to rise up and allow this uh movement to be spearheaded by more and more more people is that the goal uh that that's 100% the goal David and Erica rhs raise your hand if you know who Erica rhs is all right so I want you to imagine a member of Congress let's call him Brad Sherman uh who really hates crypto boo he's an incumbent that really no one likes honestly he's like one of those unliked uh members of Congress who just been hanging out for a while um he is unabashedly anti- cryptocurrency anti- web3 he has a lot of backers in the frankly like the banking system uh now his opponent is Erica rhods who's completely pro web 3 and she also has a compelling personal story she's an elementary school teacher uh she's uh half black half asian she was a volunteer in my campaign who's now running for Congress has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars had a Twitter spaces with Jack dorsy the other day uh so if you want someone like Brad Sherman to know that being against this industry is a political loser then you should back his opponent Erica rhods uh you can look it up it's Erica for congress it's spelled a a r i Ka so there there are different candidates like this around the country that in my mind the community should be getting behind now this is not Lobby 3's work Lobby 3's work is going to be go to DC and talk sents to The Regulators uh but there are other people who are putting political energy behind folks who are fighting for this industry and I think that we owe them our support honestly for those of you that happen to live in California 30th District that's your race so I'm sure there's some of you in there um Andrew a lot of dows in the web 3 world have road maps does the lobby 3 Dow have a road map yeah if you go to Lobby 3.o there there is a road map uh one of the things I would suggest though is that the priorities of the Dow will probably shift in real time as the agencies actually put forward Draft rules and a bunch of other things so you're going to want to be adaptable uh and responsive in real time for those of you who want nothing to do with DC um maybe some of you actually could find some enjoyment and learning about this process maybe I don't know if that's too far a bridge um one of the things I described it to people as you can actually gamify lobbying maybe you could say like hey like that you know here's a member of Congress here's an agency here's a this um so the road map of the Dow I'm sure will end up shifting as different priorities emerge because this is very much a right now concern uh the Biden Administration has announced that an executive order is going to come out probably again in the next one to two weeks do you know more details about that executive order what do you know about that that seems actually a really big deal uh so what I've heard is that the executive order uh will say to the agencies let's come up with a coordinated regulatory response but it will not put forward the response itself just yet um so what it is to me is the starting gone it's like okay these agencies are then going to draft these rules and we need to have a direct line with them so that they don't write rules that are frankly very very honorous very heavy-handed um prioritize managing the risk well over Innovation and development and growth um so I'm I'm happy to say that we're relatively optimistic about the executive order announcement itself um but it should be a massive call to action for the web 3 Community this is an all hands on deck moment uh it it really is I want you to imagine a world where eight months from now a bunch of rules come out of DC that end up pushing a lot of energy overseas uh reducing the Enterprise value of folks who've been working on projects for years and years this is all very much a realistic possibility uh I also want you to imagine a world where rules come out that you might not love but actually allow you to operate and build for the long term uh and I I dare say that if you were to have this latter scenario you might see the energy in the industry shoot up because right now there is an overhang of this regulatory risk like no one knows exactly what the approaches are going to be what the regime's going to be what the rules are going to be even who the regulator is necessarily going to be so if you get clarity on those things then you can imagine as glorious as this Gathering is here today in Denver you can imagine the future of this just multiplying over and over again because everyone will know what the rules of the road are that's a vision I'm willing to fight for and I hope you'll join me in [Applause] it so can you model out what we need to do as an industry to turn this opportunity into a w and what would we what would also happen if this would actually turn into an L like how could we drop the ball here what would we fail at and also what do we need to do to make sure it's a dub well I I think the the single biggest thing we we have to do is know that as much as you might dislike politics a lot of you might even think like hey I I hate the idea of any regulation um in my mind some form of Regulation is going to have to be accepted and somewhat inevitable for the industry to mature um but the path of least resistance and there are people in the industry that are in direct touch with the folks in DC like the blockchain associ blockchain association and others so there are folks who are advocating but the the single biggest misstep would be ah someone else will take care of it like I'm doing my thing like you know like let me just focus on on this for the the time being because someone in this community has to make the proper Investments and resources and energy and time and commitment to try and keep these regulations on the the right side are reasonable uh and I I I am I'm not sure if you can tell from my tone of voice like I am kind of concerned I'm actually going to pose this thought question to you all how much do you trust Washington DC to just get things right Z so I if that's a relatively low level of confidence then I want you to think about what would need to happen for you to have a higher confidence level and generally speaking the the gap between where you are now that higher confidence level involves resources investment Ingenuity time energy passion narratives storytelling broadening people's conception of what is possible it's one reason why I love web 3 so much is like this is a group of people that's legitimately building a better version of the future and unfortunately there are so many Americans who right now are struggling with like this boot of scarcity on their throat uh and then when you say to them it's like hey these great things are possible they're unable to Envision them you know what I mean like like that has to be the biggest thing that we change together is if we help them see what's possible and maybe even get that boot off their throats then we can live in a version of the future that we'll be proud of Andrew you talked about time energy attention resources these are all things that Dows need uh so when you are growing the the lobby 3 Dow you and the other other Dow leaders in there the organ organizers what talent or what resources does Lobby 3 Dow need the most does it need Capital does it need foot soldiers does it need developers uh what what could it use the most everything you just listed there David for sure uh I I'm not going to you know to pretend like we are going to need uh probably some significant institutional resources who will come in and I'm happy to say that many of them seem very excited about this effort uh but then we're also going to need people who are helping us identify the stories to amplify uh who are reaching out directly to folks in a particular Community saying look like members of Congress will respond to their constituents so there are folks that you know that are in particular parts of the country that could end up being being very very crucial uh it it's going to be an all Hands-On deck effort and this is the the single thing I would say is like if you think this is a problem that just some like industry heavyweight with a lot of money can solve like that's probably not quite what we're facing right now you know what I mean like you have to think about again that Democratic member of Congress in Ohio or Michigan or other part of the country like what do they care about what is going to make them go from being very skeptical or dubious about cryptocurrencies and web 3 to being neutral and maybe even positive uh and sometimes it's the kind of thing where if you just like threw your weight around DC like maybe that moves some people but what would be most effective and this is actually in some ways a cause for optimism it would be people in their Community benefiting from web 3 and then if if they are actually shown that if like a local community leader or an activist or a nonprofit says hey look what it's doing for this neighborhood that you represent that's the single most powerful way we can help turn this negativity around uh among Congress members I think the the web 3 Community traditionally crypto has been very like anti-government we can do it ourselves no government but the web fre Community I think is a little bit more reasonable at least in my opinion that we want to be able to be better than the government but we'll accept government regulations at the end of the day and we've seen different leaders show up and actually lean into politics Ryan cus I saw him over there not too long ago taking a leadership position what advice do you have for people that might actually want to lean in and be representatives of web 3 in in Washington or in their local communities or in other regulat regulatory bodies oh there are a number of organizations that are now advocating uh for sensible regulations blockchain Association I just mentioned is is one uh Lobby 3 will be a new member of this system but certainly if there is someone who wants to leave on this charge uh just get in touch with me or Kristen Smith or one of the other people that's actually talking to the folks in in DC uh because we need you we need you to lean in and and help lead and I will suggest that this is something that's going to help everyone here it's going to help everyone who could potentially benefit from these Technologies uh I pride myself on just trying to be you know frankly like you know like intelligent about like how you invest time and energy like right now this is maybe arguably the most important area of investment for web 3 in my opinion because you're looking at a legislative window and a regulatory window that that's like very much open right now um and if you rewind a couple years ago this was not on anyone's radar you know what I mean like if you were to say hey we need to like add shape this it's like yeah you know it's not really there it's there now like this is very much like on the front burner for a number of people in DC uh so we have to get after it right now all right Andrew I got one last question for you and then we're going to open up to questions so if you have a good question you can line up at the microphone and we're going to get there in a second right after I asked my last one Andrew one of the things I think uh we align most with between you and the web three Community is we're all optimistic about the future because we think we can build it better why are you optimistic about the future what makes you optimistic why am why am I optimistic about the future I'm optimistic about the future because of entrepreneurs who are solving problems in front of them every day uh that that's what's made me tick that's what led me to run for president believe it or not I just saw a giant problem I thought I could help solve it uh and we need that approach and orientation and energy more than ever because like I said before there are so many Americans who are struggling right now not just Americans but around the world I don't know if you've noticed but like the world is kind of going to I mean I don't know if you all like sense that I mean like so you as my causes for optimism it's that things can change really quickly both positively and negatively so we have to take advantage of the positive as well as the negative we can't just let say like oh things are going to get worse I'm going to do my over thing over here that's actually my challenge to the folks here together in Denver today and if you're watching Youtube fine whatever that let's make it so that people can see the benefits of these Technologies in the real world as quickly as possible all right we just got about two minutes left so we're going to take a few quick questions ideally simple ones uh can you take it away for us right um hi I'm Dr Kelly pig from digital promise uh the national Center for research in emerging Tech in education and learning I'm curious your thoughts on the decentralization of learner and employee data uh that we have in our institutions uh both across the country uh as well as our organizations and the emerging Trend towards L learning and employment records being decentralized do you have any thoughts on that thank you for the work you're doing uh I I'm a huge believer in anything that helps uh create alternate paths to employment that don't involve fouryear degrees or traditional credentialing uh you know right now there like so much of it operates in an Antiquated system it's not serving people well like PE people are doing what they think they're supposed to do incurring massive debt loads they not finding the opportunities that they need uh so if there is a way that you can actually translate your value and data to potential employers that's independent of our current uh educational system and even to some extent like the professional advancement system that exists I would be 100 100% supportive and we need to do more in that area all right thank you Andrew uh my question is about the forward party and if you plan on leveraging web 3 within your campaign or once you have members get into office what the stance uh for legislation might be thank you so the questions about the forward party I don't know how many of you know but I started a third party in the United States of America uh and I did that in part because the Dapo is not working it's actually turning people against each other more than anything else and the forward party wants to be the party of technological advancement and progress so we're going to use web3 Technologies at at every every stage hopefully um my goal is that there's a dow and again the joys of it is that we may have nothing to do with a dow that looks up and and tries to find the best opportunities for independent political candidates for people who are running as Democrats or Republicans who are aligned uh and we put our energy and Ingenuity behind this because you have a failing political system uh you have failing systems of different kinds in America but the failing political system is one that is right in front of everyone 62% of Americans want to move on from the duopoly they just don't know how to do it and I'm going to suggest that the people here in this room can show them how we can move on say look it doesn't need to be that you have no choice but to slump and accept the lesser of two evils you can actually invest in a positive alternative aesome thank you I believe we just have time for one last question uh so take it away cool hi Mr Yang um I'm wondering if you can lay out kind of what are the gap apps in Washington that the community can help with so is it knowledge is it um yeah analysis like what do they sort of not understand about tokens or innovation that might happen that we can all kind of help with yeah what are the gaps oh man thank you for the question the reason I'm laughing is because um like the the the gaps are not gaps the gaps are essentially a gulf or a Chasm um so the average member of the House of repres Representatives is approximately 59 years old the average US senator is approximately 64 years old the average member of Congress who's been in Congress has been in Congress for 10 to 12 years so I want you to imagine that human and then if you ask them hey cryptocurrencies tokens like digital assets what do you think like they have no idea what you're talking about uh and and and so right now they're looking around saying what do I think about this they ask their policy team what is our stance on this the policy team then looks up and says what is our stance on this and then they will ask a few people hey like what's a reasonable place to land on this the people they may ask include people in their constituencies it may include bipartisan policy councils who are known for having like an even-handed approach one group that they may or may not want to take guidance from would be like the industry itself um because the industry self they'll be like okay like I kind of know what you're going to tell me you're going to tell me that you know like we should do next to nothing um and so that's the State of Affairs right now but if you were to try and put yourself into the head of the average member of Congress just imagine total confusion and you are there like that that that's where it is among the vast vast majority of them um now that confusion can then be tilted negatively very easily by for example a press story about scams you know if that's the only thing they see then they can head in that direction pretty quick so we have to balance some of the things that are out there in the media ecosystem with some accounts of again creators having their lives transformed for the better people having new access to digital service like Financial Services they wouldn't have at otherwise I'm going to pose this to you all how many of you think that the negative stories about web 3 outnumber the positive stories let's call it five or 10 to one right so so that is the landscape that these lawmakers are forming their opinions in uh and it's up to us to try and lead them to a more realistic picture don't blame them just imagine that there's you know 50 to 60 year olds who might only know about this stuff because one of their uh children or like a nephew or niece has been trying to explain it to them unsuccessfully Andrew Yang everyone thank you Denver let's go let's build the future it's not going to build it myself am I right thank you all