BBW25 - Day 1 - Global & Regional Blockchain Ecosystems

Blockchain Council. Corey Jones, a member of the Rhode Island Blockchain Council. And this conversation is going to be led by Sean Sweeney, who is a member of Chain Reaction Boston. Please join me in welcoming them to the stage. All right, we got the talk going.

Hi everybody. Uh my name is Sean Sweeney. I'm uh part of Chain Reaction. Not sure who that's coming from. Uh we are an angel investor group that specializes in blockchain.

So I'm really happy to be here and I've got some uh some great people who I hopefully can introduce themselves. Um so please I guess we'll just go down the line. Introduce yourself. um specifically your name, your role um and your region of course and then what excites you the most about blockchain in your region right now. So we'll go ahead with you.

Yeah. So I'll go ahead and start. So my name is Calvin Bolier or Bolier, however you want to pronounce it. Um I am secretary of the New Hampshire Blockchain Council. Um I also serve in the New Hampshire Legislature um along with our chairman Keith Ammon.

Um, so something that I we're really excited about in New Hampshire is we're really working on making New Hampshire one of the best jurisdictions for blockchain technology and this kind of financial innovation. So, um, recently we just passed a strategic reserve bill, making New Hampshire uh, we like to be first in the nation. Uh, so first in the nation for a Bitcoin strategic reserve.

That's pretty cool. Okay,

congratulations.

Yeah. And you look like you could be Keith's brother, by the way.

Hi everyone. I'm Doug Manny. I am the chair of the Boston Blockchain Association. Um I am also a strategic advisor to Ava Labs. Um why I love this uh space is I just fell in love with this ecosystem in early 2019.

Having left a 250 year old bank, I felt like the handcuffs were taken off. I love being at the intersection of emerging technologies and growth and these technologies are coming uh in an accelerated way and it's just super fun to be part of it with the people and firms that are trying to do this in the right way.

Hey everyone, my name is Corey Jones. I'm a member of the Rhode Island Blockchain Council. I'm also an elected schoolboard member in Providence, Rhode Island, um and a policy expert by profession. One thing I'm excited about is going into the next legislative session. Uh we have unanimously passed our blockchain study commission through the Senate.

Uh so we'll be working really hard to get the house to also support that hopefully unanimously. And you know I think we have a a huge opportunity with some of the different uh programs at our state to try to attract blockchain talent and bring companies here to Rhode Island and New England. So thank you for the opportunity. Shout out to Cubic Labs for putting this together.

Thank you. My name is Ryan Mun. I'm with Vermont and I'm the chapter lead of Vermont uh Vermont's chapter of the government blockchain association. I've been a citizen advocate for crypto and blockchain in Vermont. Have testified to support bills and legislation and against some actions and movement.

Um, one of the things, a couple things I'm really excited about in Vermont is some of the leadership in data privacy and in captive insurance, which I think is a globally impactful place to apply blockchain and look at the ways to assess not only regulation by industry, self-regulation by industry, but also exploring uh ways to manage the impacts and negative consequences that can occur when things are mismanaged. Uh, so thank you for having me.

Awesome. This is that's great. So I have a the first question is really about your regions and and Doug since you're not really you're sort of a in a group that spans all of New England. maybe you can kind of be supportive on each of these states, but specifically I'm wondering and and we could maybe just, you know, go down the line, what exactly is your region doing? Um, and what are the biggest opportunities that you see to support blockchain?

Um, especially in the in the entrepreneur side, the funding side, the regulation side. Um, you know, whether that's, you know, are you are you working with universities, what exactly are you doing in your particular region? Yeah. So, um, one of the things that I kind of hinted at earlier is one of the things we're really focusing on is the regulatory environment. Um, if you look at, you know, New Hampshire and New England as a whole, we don't obviously have the cheapest electricity in the world.

So, you know, maybe mining is not going to be that strong. But the fact is is that if you look at, you know, for instance, Switzerland, they're hugely involved in the gold industry, that's not where they mine the gold. They don't mine the gold in Switzerland, but all of the finance, all of the, you know, things that are happening behind the scenes that actually put those mines out there into the world, those things, the gold is being assay in Switzerland. So really in New Hampshire, we really want New Hampshire to be like the Switzerland of crypto and blockchain technology. So creating that regulatory environment, making sure that there's a space for the market to work properly, making sure that we're not going to have regulatory capture where we come in and have a financial system that is imposed on us from above, but really have it to where you know the motto you all know live free or die where people are free to innovate and create these kinds of um new technologies.

So in addition to the strategic reserve, one of the things I wanted to talk about is uh uh our New Hampshire secretary of state's office is actually we passed a bill in the previous session to have a framework for Dows to be registered just like you would register an LLC or something like that. And there's actually a currently a request for proposal out. So if anybody is looking to maybe um let's say your developer that wants to create this New Hampshire DAO registry, the New Hampshire Secretary of State is currently looking for uh requests for proposals for that. So things like that to create the regulatory infrastructure to where you can come to New Hampshire and you can build whatever it is you envision. Are you um specifically like how are you promoting that out to the entrepreneurs and out to capital to make them aware that you're sort of open for business?

Yeah. So that's really one of the reasons why the New Hampshire blockchain council was established. There's a lot of people I think in New Hampshire because we have that citizen legislature where they're really focused on the policy edge, but um you know there's not a whole lot lot of direct flights into Manchester. Um so really it is getting the word out there. So that's really why we established New Hampshire Blockchain Council is let's go out there and let's tell the world, hey, we're doing these exciting things in New Hampshire.

Have you heard about them? Maybe come and check it out. So we're relatively new. Um, but I mean we're kind of in a new industry already, so we really want to get that word out. So, we're working on um, you know, partnering with other organizations, going out there into the world and telling our story.

So,

awesome. About you

in Rhode Island.

Yeah. So, in Rhode Island, we introduced five bills in the last legislative session and we were able to get some significant progress on that study commission. Um we're hoping that going into the next leg session we can push the um privacy uh bill regarding holding your your privacy keys and having that you know not being able to have an unlawful uh seizure of your privacy key um as well as you know the treasury um giving the treasur the discretion to be able to keep uh crypto or bitcoin that's been seized and hold it kind of to you know start our strategic reserve. I think you know another thing that we're doing is lunch and learns with our legislators. You know we have an issue and that's that we have to create that basic foundation of education for what this technology is and how it operates because there's a lot of FUD.

There's a lot of misinformation. Um and you know that's a kind of first step that we've been taking and we found to be successful. So next week we'll be kicking off our first lunch and learn for this year. Um, and then internally we have, you know, Rhode Island startups, uh, like myself that are looking to take advantage of what the state already has to offer. And so, um, a few of us have either worked in government or like myself currently work in state government.

And so, we're mapping out what the different grant programs are and the different, um, you know, tax benefits that the state offers in the same sort of way that, you know, we would go and pitch a bioscience company to come to Rhode Island. um using those same chips to try to um first start internally and then hopefully in the future we can bring in other companies by showing them what we have to offer.

So what has been the feedback from the lawmakers about your you know your efforts? Is are they receptive to it or are they sort of kind of going along because they sort of feel like they have to?

So I think the elephant in the room is that you know Rhode Island is going on 20 years of a Democratic trifecta. Um, and so right now, you know, the Republican party has been the one that's spearheading, um, at the federal level crypto regulation. And so, um, I think I have a lot of, uh, sway, you know, because I'm a Democrat myself, an elected serving Democrat. Um, but I think, you know, really, you know, there's skepticism and then there's, um, just that misinformation, right? You know, the first question I get asked is, you know, doesn't crypto hurt our power grids, right?

Um, and then I have to, you know, try to explain proof of stake versus proof of work. And, um, it's it's very challenging, right? Uh, you know, a fundraiser maybe I'm trying to explain, you know, this deep technology difference. Um, so I think that's the the the big issue is that there's this misinformation and then there's also this skepticism because they are seeing it as a partisan issue when really it's a bipartisan issue. We should all be supporting uh technology and innovation and we should be having a conversation about how we protect consumers and stay to our values.

I try to, you know, go from the point of the individual legislator I'm talking to. So, if your issue is equity um and evening the playing field, you know, bringing in new industry is the perfect way to do that. Let's create some job training programs. let's, you know, support people who have been historically left out and ensure that they're the ones that are lined up to this new industry. So, I think it depends on who you're talking to.

Um, and making sure that you tailor uh your talking points for that individual legislator.

Excellent.

Thank you. And of course, Vermont is uh home of Bernie Sanders. So

yeah, home of Bernie Sanders who started as an independent. Um Vermont's interesting also because it's a uh Democratic legislature with a Republican governor. Um so there is a diversity in the discourse there. Um there's a lot of passion for things like environmental protection, environmental law. And Vermont's also the global leader for captive insurance, which is very large corporations self-insuring.

And so within that framework, I've found similarly education is key. finding people where they're at and helping them understand how these technologies apply to what they know and looking at things like this large economic engine in the state which is captive insurance and how does blockchain apply to that? How does crypto apply to that? And one of the initial conversations that's come up is about finding the opportunity to make the push for um crypto assets starting with stable coins and then expanding to other assets to be recognized within an insurance treasury. So similar to talking about that within companies except these insurance companies, these privately held captive insurance companies are already quite wealthy, have a lot of revenue and they bring a lot of revenue to the state and they act as a leader for not just the nation but globally in the regulation of these processes.

And so that's been an area that I've been able to find traction. And then parallel to that, we have venture capital and startups and incubators popping up around the state that are focused on integrating this incubator model with rural communities and lifestyles and bridging that gap between the land and the community and technology and the startup ecosystem. And it's not about trying to say, oh, we need to bring crypto companies here. Yes, we want to bring some crypto companies here, but it's also about recognizing the valid application of blockchain or cryptocurrency to various business models and helping them bridge that gap of understanding and then they can go out and run with it.

Yeah, I'm I'm very familiar with Fresh Tracks Capital out of Burlington and a fascinating VC firm. They don't do anything in blockchain or cryptocurrency, but they've managed to bring a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of capital into the state. So, they're doing some really good stuff. So hopefully you've got other ones.

Well, funny enough, there's a another I won't drop names, but there's another group that spun off of one of their younger partners that is directly invested in some blockchain crypto companies in the state. So they are loosely connected and it's it's a small world.

They don't talk about that. So I guess uh you might have left on uh

So Doug, you're at the BBA. So you know, you're not in a state per se, but you're in a you know, the city sort of in the central of the region. So tell us about what you're doing that sort of spans the whole region.

Yeah, happy to. So just for background, the Boston Blockchain Association is a 501c3 education advocacy and as Sean mentioned a couple minutes ago, really building out that ecosystem, taking what's unique about Boston and has always been a unique mix of traditional new academic investment uh venture capital, private equity, etc. So really building out that ecosystem over time. Um I'll give you a quick you know the headlines here. We run an institutional series.

Many of you here have participated. Um we cover the entire ecosystem. We've had a number of federal regulators, federal lawmakers come to our events. We're trying to show the inside scoop of what the leaders and and people and firms are doing to navigate the unknowns. what they're doing from an innovation perspective, how they're aligning with regulators and lawmakers to try to push this forward.

Um, our focus very much is on, as I mentioned in my in my opening, is on the people and firms that are trying to do this the right way. And we've been very fortunate. I'm jealous of my New Hampshire colleagues here uh in terms of being able to get some of their legislation through, which I'm super impressed with. You know, we have nine Democrats here in Massachusetts. We have met with most of them uh and we continue to try to go down that education and advocacy path as a nonprofit to pull them in.

And my line to all of them is please see this amazing ecosystem of people in firms that don't want to cut corners. They want the same rules of the road and frameworks that you do and investor protection. So that we we keep chipping away at this on our website bostonblockchain.org. org.

Uh you'll see a um evaluation of all of the lawmakers that we've done from a federal and state perspective as well. We have a university series uh I call it the intersection of university blockchain clubs of university faculty and firms hiring in this space. We have a new virtual series on the adoption of blockchain AI uh data and digital assets in healthcare and life sciences. Uh, and we run a number of what I would call product 101's and product 2011's virtually, which we call the BBA biges and small bites.

And do you see an opportunity to expand the BBA out of Boston itself and have regional chapters?

You know, it it's it's a conversation we we talk about. What we're trying to do is I mentioned a couple minutes ago is just by expanding that ecosystem. We have people fly in from all over the country. We've done virtual events with some of our European colleagues. Anya right here ra waving at everyone is a is a professor at Boston University who has amazing depth of European regulatory expertise.

So, we're not trying to make a big statement that we're trying to become a national organization, but we are trying to do it through the programs, the relationships, and the unique insights that we're we're bringing into some of our events. The institutional series are all in person. Um, we have one on November 12th, which will be focused on tokenizing securities at at Deoid's office in Boston. That's a institutional workshop. kind of roll up your sleeves, break out into tables, talk about real life adoption, use cases, etc.

December 2nd at uh the Boston Fed again, we do our uh co- co-hosted event with the TAB group. Um we'll have three panels and two keynotes. Super excited about who uh will hopefully accept our invitation. So, we invite you all to come. Many of you here in this room have been on our panels.

So rather than making a big statement, we're just trying to show unique insights. So when people come, they learn something new and hopefully they're getting some unique perspectives that they wouldn't get on their own.

Excellent. Thank you. That's great. So shifting gears a little bit and maybe into more of a a conversation. Um and I noticed that Connecticut's not here.

Where's Ian? Where's Connecticut? Right. Um, but how can the New England states work together um to strengthen the sector, the blockchain sector across the entire region? Have you all begun a process of, you know, interstate discussions and things of that nature?

Well, I'll jump in and first off, as the chapter lead in Vermont for Government Blockchain Association, that's a global organization. So, I took that leadership role in Vermont. Um, they're always looking for collaboration. I also am a member of Boston Blockchain Association. And so through those resources, I gain the assets of connections with people that I can then refer to.

So if I'm talking with a legislature or a company that wants to do something, I can make a connection in my network or find a piece of educational material or, you know, colleges need educational content and connecting them and finding those ways to interweave. And so those resources I think are uh invaluable to really seeing what's outside my region and seeing how in some cases I can use Vermont as a platform and in other cases I can use these partnerships as a platform for Vermont.

I I think there's a huge opportunity. I mean we are collaborating a bit. We could be doing more. But even from a Boston perspective, New Hampshire's been amazing with their legislation. In Rhode Island, you've been amazing at penetrating your lawmakers to get them drawn into the programs that you want to be a part of.

And from an education perspective, those are things that we in Massachusetts can absolutely learn from. I think we just have to continue to make an effort to collaborate and understand what are the unique propositions that we can leverage. I also think that you know we have some great um collegial institutions and you know when you go to a university you go and you graduate you go where the jobs are. Um so I think that we can all be building in cohesion around attracting talent and creating good pipelines to the great institutions uh that we call universities. So, you know, for instance, um MIT is a great pipeline for uh software developers.

Rhode Island uh just created a cyber security center at the Rhode Island College um that will be a great pipeline for cyber security experts. And so, I think finding out how the different ingredients that we all have come together to create a great recipe um is going to be key. Um and that, you know, right now is the best time for us to to do that work. So I look forward to, you know, working offline with all of you to make that happen.

Yeah. And just jumping off that, I mean that point about education, I mean, if you think about New England as a region, that's really something within the United States and even the world, New England really distinguishes itself all together as a region, as a center for higher education. So that's a that's a great point. I think if there's something we could all work on regionally, um, being tied into New England, ISO, guys, don't want to work together to maybe bring down the cost of electricity maybe something we need to do here. Energy is a big problem in New England.

I think that's something where we can collaborate regionally. I know there's some people in New Hampshire that are grumbling about maybe we should just go and build our own grid. Um but I think that's something that regionally would help all industries especially um blockchain technology. Um one of the things I would say kind of the way we look at it as maybe friendly competition. Um I think within the region, New Hampshire has its own reputation.

Um, sometimes we kind of like it when the other states don't do things that we're doing because it provides a strategic advantage for us. And you can, um, drive up 93 and visit one of our fabulous liquor stores to find out firsthand how that economic model works. That reminds me, I have to take a trip up to New Hampshire. So, uh, you know, a couple of you mentioned universities, and I'd like to kind of pivot over to that, and then, you know, if anybody wants to ask some questions, we'll leave some time at the end for that. Um but specifically as as you stated you know we have a huge number of universities and so from a from a state perspective are you doing anything to push blockchain down into the universities um you know further education um pushing for you know professors to be hired or classes to be added or anything to that nature that might you know eventually pay off in the long run to the state to the state economy.

So um in my profession um as chief of policy and planning for our state workforce board I work very closely with our universities um and one suggestion sug suggestion that I've made to the assoc to the council is that we could be scouting potential faculty members that could be serving on the council and could be playing a role in the work that we're doing. I think you know when you um recruit those people into the fold um it gives a lot more leverage to be able to make things happen within those um institutions.

Yeah. And I've specifically partnered with some curriculum providers to make that available to other partners within the state primarily focused on economic development orgs that are talking about employment and you know job growth and diversification of the job market uh because I feel like that's a smaller window to get into and then through those connections there have been some universities offering blockchain courses but the comprehensiveness of that course is where I think there's opportunity to grow and as the job market starts to demonstrate these skills skills and employers start to recognize some of the value in these skills. That's where it creates the demand for universities to provide that education.

Yeah, I I mentioned the university series that we're running. I think we've done six or seven events in the last two years. The whole point of the series is to provide feedback from the three legs of the stool if you will. So for university blockchain clubs to be able to provide feedback to the faculties of these universities for these students to provide feedback to the firms hiring in this space for the firms to give feedback to the faculty on what are the skill sets they're looking for to give feedback to the students on how do you prepare how do you build your network what are the skills what are internships look like and the students give feedback to the companies as well I can't navigate your website. I don't know where to look for a new opportunity.

Um, and we ran a we ran a hackathon and business case competition six months ago. We had 13 universities participate. URI participated, by the way. Um, so we had great prizes coming from the companies that participate in this series. So, we're trying to do that to bring these communities and networks together and through that share these perspectives to each.

Awesome.

Yeah. I was just going to add our membership director Carter Snay I mean he works with UNH uh regarding blockchain technology. So really you know higher education academia is definitely an area we see for growth or partnership. We definitely want to get these ideas out there. Um one of the things our membership structure so we offer a radically discounted uh membership rate if somebody is a student to encourage you know people to check it out check us out see what we're doing.

So, um, education is absolutely critical. And I mean, not just in academia, but we alluded to it earlier is, you know, educating other people, not just legislators, but educating the public at large because even in New Hampshire, there's a lot of misinformation out there and a lot of misunderstandings and misconceptions about what this technology is and who's advocating for it and what it does.

Yeah. And that'll take us to the last question. And just very quickly, you know, uh I think sometimes blockchain and crypto and we've we've seen some of the other uh speakers here this uh this event, you know, is is maybe lost on the sort of the common person. They don't necessarily understand what it is. They're a little lost there.

So, are you doing anything in particular to try to push the messaging in a simplistic way down that this is good for the state, good for the region, good for the economy, good for jobs, you know, good for your students, for your children. Is that happening now? Um and and if it's not, is that in in the road map to to be done in each of your states? I mean, let's start with Rhode Island.

Oh, yeah. I'm sorry.

Yeah. So, I think um there's still a lot of work to do in that uh sphere. Uh specifically just because, you know, great ad campaign and uh comm's campaign cost money. Uh but as individuals, we certainly have been. Um I often get phone calls from my colleagues that are like, I didn't know you were into AI and and blockchain.

Tell me about it. right? Is this going to, you know, be heavier on our grid, right? Can you explain to me, you know, um, you know, why I read read that these things are bad for the environment and and how, you know, what is your rebuttal to that? So, um, we're also putting together a plan to go to small businesses and work with them on setting up payment rails as well.

So there's a a little bit of work that we're planning and a little bit of, you know, work that we're doing as individuals, but um I think, you know, once we're able to kind of secure the, you know, the funding that's necessary, um, you know, pushing a good comps campaign will be important.

Excellent.

Yeah. I mean, it's, uh, something I'm passionate about, but at the same time, there's a lot of really important things out there. So I find that sometimes it's more valuable to push on the important things that we can impact today and then sprinkle in how blockchain relates to that, how AI relates to that, how the path to the future looks relative to housing, employment, other infrastructure needs. And those are some of the big challenges. You know, investment in our education, investment in our healthcare, how does that relate to blockchain?

How does that relate to AI? But first, we still need to invest in the fundamentals today and supporting that infrastructure. So, I think that's been what's worked for me personally and also what I think is important to keep in mind when talking to any population, any common consumer or citizen to help them understand they don't have to understand the technology to understand it's important to what's important to them.

Want to just New Hampshire and Doug you can finish off.

Yeah, sure. So just real quickly, they always say politics is downstream um from culture. And if you look at, you know, for instance, the you know, Satoshi Nakamoto and the political philosophy that originally inspired Bitcoin, it had this sort of libertarian philosophy. So it only makes sense that in a place like New Hampshire has sort of a libertarian bent to it, you would have a little more early adoption. But the fact is, and what we emphasize is that this really is not a partisan issue.

This is an emerging technology that's going to benefit all of humanity, regardless of your political affiliation. So now it's filtering it out into the broader culture and we're starting with, you know, educating particularly stakeholders, um, people in the industry, regulators, maybe people in traditional finance, but really trying to get more a broader understanding of this is just a new technology, not necessarily something that is going to be a threat, but actually an opportunity.

That's almost said, born and raised. From a from a BBA perspective, we're trying to appeal to both ends of the of the pendulum. As I mentioned, the virtual 101's that we do are all about product education, some market education, some specific use cases. On the other end, the institutional events are much more targeted at professionals in this space. Um, from a lawmaker perspective, we continue to try um to get our lawmakers to want to engage.

we've offered to bring on some events that they can participate in. So, we will continue to do that. Just last plug if I may, just would encourage everyone whether it's Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, we're all volunteer armies here. So, please, please sign up, join us, get on a committee, pick the subject that that's most interesting to you. We would all welcome the help.

And as our old colleague Mike Weise used to say, all boats rise with the tide.

Well, thank you everybody. I wish we had more time, but I think they robbed us 20 seconds at the end. So, thank you so much.