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all right well thank you
uh everybody is still awake after the
lunch good good good all right stretch
so just by way of background uh I'm on
The Advisory board for ethereum I'm also
an investor an entrepreneur a blogger
and I spent a lot of my operational
experience in marketing which is why
they asked me to talk about the ethereum
narrative and to do that I thought I
would start with a bit of history since
you've heard the history of the
blockchain this morning let's just
review a little bit the history of
ethereum and uh it started with vitalic
in November
of 2013 almost almost a
week less than two years ago I think it
was around the 20th of November uh that
balic published a paper very shortly
after he met up with Gavin who uh
published the blue paper and uh there
was lots of synergy in between both of
them then in January of 2014 vitalic
announced to the world ethereum in
Miami uh shortly thereafter they started
the uh test uh bed and the proof of
concept for ethereum and then following
that the well-known sale that happened
in July and August of last year and then
following that they formed sdev which is
the group that started to develop the
core technology pieces and almost to the
day a year ago they had the dev zero in
in Berlin and this is the group of
people that were at the dev zero
and this is the core really and the
extension of the core group that has
been very instrumental in developing the
early technologies that we know about
today and how many of you can see
themselves in this picture here's a big
blowup can you raise George we really
owe them a big round of applause because
they are the ones that started ethereum
really
this brings me to where ethereum is
today and that is part of the narrative
what makes it really interesting is that
ethereum is more than one thing today
and that is this is the most important
slide if there's one thing you want to
remember is what's on on this
slide we all know about the
foundation that's kind of how it started
and a few months ago a year ago for sure
everything was part of the foundation
the foundation was doing everything and
then suddenly a lot of things started to
come out uh into the ecosystem so the
second thing that ethereum is when you
think of ethereum the number one being
the foundation yes number two is the
network in July the blockchain became
live so the second thing that ethereum
is is this live Network hundreds of
nodes eventually thousands of nodes it's
out in the wild the third thing that
ethereum is is a set of Technologies all
of the core extended and third party
technologies that are being developed
are also part of ethereum but they are
distinct from the network per se and
some of them are distinct from the
foundation and all of these pieces are
growing fourthly what is very
interesting is that the ecosystem a very
vibrant ecosystem is forming around
the first three parts and if you look at
the list of sponsors it is a microcosm
of the types
of companies and organizations that are
part of this ecosystem including
companies like consensus that are
building applications and uh offering
services to to companies including
companies like Microsoft that are
partnering with ethereum Technologies
startups like ogre and uh VCS that are
supporting the ecosystem and that is a
very important aspect very important
part of the ethereum story and finally
it's the users it's really about users
it's about customers so I'm lumping
users and customers together here yes
the developers are users but we want
more end users and we want more
customers as well so these five pieces
really are what ethereum is today and
each one of them is vibrant each one of
them is growing and each one of them is
contributing to the
whole so that is what you have to
remember the ethereum is no longer just
ethereum it's it's a lot more to it and
a good Testament to this is what's
happening in the
marketplace so we can talk about yeah
what's we're doing but then really the
test is what happens in the marketplace
some of you have seen this landscape
that I've done about three weeks ago and
I what I did there I mapped all of the
companies that I knew that were involved
in the blockchain space in the financial
services and there's there's close to
200 companies on this space and yes you
see ethereum at the bottom but really do
you know where ethereum is on this chart
it is almost
everywhere directly and indirectly in in
most of these segments you talk about
Capital markets there is clear matter
there you talk about the banks we heard
about the banks implementing ethereum
you talk about trading you talk about uh
middleware software development uh
consensus others have uh forked ethereum
or using parts of ethereum everybody is
developing on solidity solidity is going
to become the standard for doing smart
contracts it's easier than anything else
out there so why not use it so that is a
good Testament to really to ethereum's
footprint increasing into the
marketplace part of my job when I blog
is I try to explain the blockchain to
non-technical people and I came up with
this infographic earlier this week where
I explain it in terms of what it is what
it enables its impact and where it's
targeting this impact I don't have to
talk to you about what it is and what it
enables because you're you are the ones
that are building these things but I
would say to you if you are mostly a
technical and developer kind of oriented
audience I would say start from the
bottom up when I talk to the business
people I try to make them understand the
top and then let them go down to the
impact but if you are offering solutions
to the marketplace think about the
bottom and then turn counterclockwise up
meaning decide about what Ser what
industry indes you're going to go after
and the most important thing here is
that the the promise of the blockchain
it's about re-engineering really the
reason why it's hard it's okay to try a
few proofs of Concepts but the harder
projects are going to take a little bit
longer and it is really about changing
the process inside big companies
especially if the blockchain is going
into bigger
companies and that could be one way or
sometimes they want to do something
different so that they don't disturb the
old processes it's really about new
value it's a value
exchange system that is what the
blockchain is in other terms it is about
putting any digital asset on the
blockchain once you put it there boom it
can move freely it can be owned reowned
traded sold settled in seconds not in
three days which is a very vexing
problem that the banks have today
how many of you have heard of the
Carlotta Perez technological search
cycle which is used to illustrate what
happens usually when new technology
comes into play and how it gets adopted
and basically what she did is she she
linked the fin the Capital financial
markets to the technology markets and
what she found out she analyzed the last
100 years of these technology
revolutions and and she found there were
two
major sides of this Evolution one was
the installation phase and then the
deployment phase the prosperity phase
and in between there is this little Gap
where there's a bit of a crash sometimes
and where there's a
reset things go down a little bit and
then it moves up again so a recent
analogy is what happened with the
internet in the year 2000 there was a
bit of euphoria 95 to 2000 crash and
then everything started to happen again
and then we are still living in in Good
Times in terms of the
internet uh I'm not predicting a crash
in the blockchain space I think
ethereum's evolution is going to be
quite different and this is my own
rendition this is me predicting what's
going to happen with ethereum in terms
of adoption and if you think about it
today in the last two years it has been
more or less about selling the
vision and we are now starting the build
out
stage we are building out tools
companies Frameworks and so
on as we go forward there's going to be
more installations there's going to be
more
deployment it's going to accelerate
suddenly when there's Network effects
when we have 10,000 developers when we
have hundreds of daps when we have have
hundreds of customers all of this is
going to be a rolling ball
effect and then the vision realization
the vision of decentralized governance
of decentralized marketplaces of
decentralized applications disrupting
not just
replacing it's easier to replace it's
more difficult to to disrupt and totally
change the old systems and we're going
to see the whole variety of
implementations
so this is what I see in the evolution
of
ethereum but to do
that there's five things I think that
the ecosystem has to do which is part of
the narrative we have to continue to
build daps apps smart contracts Services
applications uh languages Frameworks all
of that we're still at the beginning we
need to make it more Rich so that the
ethereum ecosystem stays very strong we
need to continue winning customers and
users and you all have a uh a part to
play with it we need more startups not
just in the businesses to business space
but also in the businesses to Consumer
space so that we can hit and affect more
consumers and we have to think
continuously not just about being
different because we are different
ethereum is different what's also
important is to understand how we are
differentiated not just being different
we win by being different in the way
that we understand understand how we are
differentiated from the other potential
Solutions out there and not about saying
anything bad about them but more about
emphasizing the differentiation factors
that ethereum brings to the four and
finally it's a bit of a weakness right
now do more
marketing I know a bit of that because I
spent a lot of my life in marketing but
also the first 14 years I worked for H
Packard at the time where HP had very
strong technology and they were known
for having quality products this is like
the in the mid 80s to the early 9s but
they did not do very good marketing the
joke was that if HP were to sell Sushi
they would call it dead cold
fish and some of the same thing is
happening it's okay because it is driven
what in the ethereum the whole thing is
being driven by Developers technologists
and they like to describe things by what
they are but let's put a bit of
marketing Pizzaz into the not to just
hype it but just to explain it better
what marketing
does is it brings Clarity into the
market it brings a Clarity of messaging
and if somebody understands something
then they will do something about it but
if somebody does not understand it they
will not do anything about it so I would
urge everybody involved in the ethereum
ecosystem to rethink how they are
talking about what they are doing not
just in the technology terms but also in
the messaging terms of the benefits and
what it does to the
marketplace so the point of my talk was
about the narrative and what is the
difference between a narrative and a
story a story has a beginning and an end
typically when uh we hear about it and
but once in a while there's a technology
that comes
along and the story is so powerful that
it captures the imagination it captures
our imagination and what happens when a
story captures the imagination of
everybody who listens to the story then
they start to take that story and make
it their own and that is really the
power of the narrative the internet has
a very strong narrative because if I
asked each and every one of you what do
you what do you do with the internet and
what is the internet for you I will get
a different answer because each one of
us has their own way of using the
internet I think the same thing is going
to happen with ethereum it has such a
strong narrative and each one of us each
one of us that is involved in the
ethereum ecosystem has their own
story so my hope and my challenge to you
is take ethereum and make it your own
story because the best is yet to
come thank you very much
question yeah okay so we we have uh one
or two questions if yep anyone wants to
ask a question maybe about how you could
help communicate the
narrative you believe everything I said
then
right yes there's
one okay just to provoke you um so maybe
it's just irrelevant to uh Market
ethereum to General audience because the
only people who are concerned are
developers and it's the developers who
need to develop the killer apps that
will uh appeal to wider audience so why
would we care about marketing of
ethereum it's a good question I think
both things have to happen as we said a
little bit in the panel previously there
is a Bottoms Up the developers have to
develop the applications and propagate
them and deploy them them and have users
use them and that creates a community of
users of stakeholders of applications
and so on but at the same time there has
to be some top down Clarity of messaging
as well so don't take Marketing in the
bad sense of the word marketing is
Clarity all you could remember about
marketing that is important here is
Clarity of messaging so just be clear
about what you're doing and it becomes a
pull if something is clear and you
believe in it then it pulls you towards
doing something about it so there's so
much that the developers can do pushing
it up from the bottom up but you also
want to do from the top down so they can
be pulled by it so it's a push pull
situation I think this is how most
brands and most Technologies work I mean
take the Apple case uh of course there's
lots of support from the bottoms up but
Apple keeps reinforcing to us in their
in their marketing how great of a brand
they are and I think it has to happen
from both sides we have another question
yes hello yes how's it going um so
recently JP Morgan Morgan's CEO Jamie
Diamond said that uh Bitcoin is cute now
but uh you know when the doj comes and
says that it's illegal um you know
that's the end of the story um ble
Masters just uh I think yesterday uh
said the same thing that she fully
agrees at the banking conference across
the street here at the Central Bank of
England uh with this sort of rhetoric
coming out of you know people leading
major banks that cryptographic tokens
that uh may have value they think will
be banned by the government eventually
um how do you counter that message um uh
in those spaces what what would your
what would your marketing suggestion be
there what would your uh reaction be to
that sort of rhetoric so I I couldn't
hear very well the first part of what
you were saying because the sound oh
sure maybe talk a little bit closer to
the mic sure what is your question prely
messaging me messaging to people like
Jamie Diamond who recently said that he
thinks uh you know Bitcoin will just got
it it's good that he said that it means
that he is
scared and I'm very
encouraged that uh somebody as uh highly
respected as Jamie Diamond is saying uh
no it's not going to happen or
whatever um that means it's going to
happen unfortunately
uh I listen to the market uh the
incumbents
unfortunately will be defensive I mean
I've seen this movie as well before 20
years ago for three years the banks did
not want to touch internet payments
between 95 96
97 anything to do with electronic
payments and credit cards on the
internet had to happen via what is was
called an internet gateway it was this
other thing outside
of the banks didn't want to touch it and
then suddenly in 98 boom it started to
happen unfortunately the banks some of
them
are facing the situation right now all
of this Innovation we see in fintech
like forget the blockchain before the
blockchain all of this all of the
fintech um Innovation that has happened
outside of the banks is because the
banks did not innovate enough in the
first 10 years of the internet so we
waited 10 years All We Got Is online
banking and online brokerage can you
tell me any other Innovation that your
bank gave you up until 2004 maybe that's
all we had so then all the fch started
to happen in the last 10 years and I
predict if the banks don't take the
blockchain seriously the same thing will
happen with the blockchain yes there
will be some solutions that will help
the banks in terms of middle mid office
and back office they will save some
money that's a big opportunity but some
the blockchain
based uh applications will also
challenge the banks as well but that
said I'm seeing I'm a bit more
encouraged I'm seeing the banks uh
taking the blockchain more seriously
than they did back in 95 so they are
very open uh and they are doing uh
better than what they did in 95 with the
internet yes
fantastic presentation um how would you
recommend um startups who are
targeting uh traditional financial
institutions and doing work with
financial institutions do you think they
should be selling their products and
services under the banner of you could
become extinct in 5 10 years or focus on
the efficiencies and the cost savings or
perhaps
both I think uh the question is if I
recommend going after efficiencies
versus other things versus beyond the
efficiencies is that the
question what narrative as a startup I
mean it depends on your capabilities uh
the truth is that
banks will big companies just not Bank
let not big companies are becoming more
open to working with small companies and
startups uh for small projects but when
it comes to bigger projects and
deployments and Mission critical then
they will tend to want to work with more
established players more or less or
bigger companies like not a startup with
five people uh so they'll want to see a
little bit
more uh assurity like Assurance that
that the the company is is is uh is
going to be
around um so I think working with with
if you if you have a banking partner uh
and a lot of the banks have what is
called Innovation departments now and
they are very open-minded find your
partner find your Champion within that
bank or within that big company and and
let them be your Champion internally and
and experiment and and then go from
there uh but
uh that that's what I would suggest you
do and I think we're out of time so
thanks again thank you
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