Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Hello, and welcome to another episode of  CNBC Beyond the Valley. I'm Arjun Kharpal,  

  • here in Guangzhou, China. And today we're going  to be dealing with the topic of Bitcoin versus  

  • Ethereum. And what's the differences between the  two. And what really sparked this idea for me was  

  • I remember covering the crypto space two or three  years back, and one of the things you saw was  

  • in terms of prices, if bitcoin went upeverything else went up, if bitcoin went down,  

  • everything else went down. But nowadays, you're  starting to see a divergence between some of these  

  • different coins, especially with Ethereum at this  point, as investors begin to look at this space  

  • more closely and study the differences between  these different cryptocurrencies. And to help me  

  • out with the conversation today, we'll be hearing  from two brilliant guests the first, the head of  

  • research blockchain.com, also a visiting fellow  at the London School of Economics, the second  

  • a top executive at Consensys, which is an entity  that is building a theory and base apps. Now,  

  • on the basic level, a theorem is a blockchain  on which developers can build different apps.  

  • Ether is the token or cryptocurrency that powers  that. And I just want to spend a quick second  

  • on blockchain. It's a topic we've dealt with  on other episodes of Beyond the Valley. So I  

  • urge you, listeners and viewers to go back  and listen to that. But just very quickly,  

  • it's effectively a distributed ledger of activityin bitcoins case is a public ledger designed to  

  • verify and record different transactions, and  it's immutable, it can't be tampered with,  

  • and depending if it is public, or private, depends  on who has access to it. But that's the basic idea  

  • of shared distributed ledger of activity. Now  back to Ethereum. You can think of it almost as  

  • an operating system of sorts. If you think about  Apple's iOS for iPhones, or even Google's Android.  

  • Those platforms, developers can come in  and build apps on top of it's very similar  

  • to the concept in any way of Ethereum. And this  is very different from Bitcoin, because Bitcoin  

  • is very much designed to be a means of  transaction, a currency, some call it  

  • digital gold, depending on your point of view. But  that's very different to Ethereum. And it's worth  

  • just spending a second talking about the original  white paper for Ethereum, which was published  

  • in 2013, by the founder, Vitalik Buterin, and  eventually the project launched in 2015, six years  

  • after Bitcoin and Vitalik did praise a Bitcoinbut said he wanted to Ethereum to be something  

  • different. And in that white paper, he describes  Ethereum as a next generation, smart contract,  

  • and decentralized application platform. Two very  key terms here, smart contract, decentralized  

  • applications, and I'll add one more decentralizedfinance or DeFi, and we're about to delve into all  

  • these topics, so stick with us. And to help us  out with the conversation. I want to introduce  

  • my first guest Garrick Hileman, the head of  research at blockchain.com, also a visiting fellow  

  • at the London School of Economics. Now Garrick  was on one of the very first episodes of Beyond  

  • the Valley in which we spoke about BitcoinGarrett is great to have you back on the podcast.

  • Garrick. So good to have you back  on beyond the valley podcast.

  • Thank you Arjun, it's a  pleasure to be back on again.

  • So I just want to kick off really  with it with a broad overview,  

  • what are some of the big differences  between Bitcoin and Ethereum?

  • Right. So it's always tricky to try to simplify  this in just a few words. But Ethereum was  

  • developed to allow for smart contracts in a way  that are not as fully available on the Bitcoin  

  • network. So oftentimes, you'll hear Ethereum  described as having more room for expressive  

  • and more capable, decentralized applications. And  we'll get into maybe more what that means. But a  

  • more advanced programming, more automation  would be a way to maybe characterize it,  

  • and also more capacity. So scalability is another  big feature that Aetherium is very focused on. And  

  • a lot of what people are excited  about in terms of what's in the  

  • pipeline for Aetherium have to do with  that scalability, additional capacity.

  • So Ethereum, as you mentioned, there sort of  talks about itself as as a blockchain platform  

  • for smart contracts and decentralized  applications. And I want to dig into  

  • these terms, specifically for our  listeners and our viewers as well. So  

  • let's just start off with this term  smart contract, what does it mean?

  • Right. So I always like to try to explain smart  contracts with an example. You know, something  

  • that is automated, that can verify this is took  took place, and then say automate a payment. And  

  • so imagine you were traveling, and you have flight  insurance, your flights delayed or canceled.  

  • If that that insurance policy was on a smart  contract, the smart contract could in essence,  

  • check automatically to see whether the flight was  delayed or canceled and make a payment to you,  

  • without you having to file a claim. And also, you  wouldn't even have to trust that the insurance  

  • company had the money, the money is held in  escrow in the smart contract on the blockchain  

  • network. So that's kind of the value proposition  of a kind of a smart travel insurance contract.

  • So if you sort of extend that beyond sort of  that application, which of course very useful,  

  • and what are some of the sort of big things  you see, in the world of smart contracts,  

  • let's take it to say, sort of large financial  institutions, for example, even governments?

  • Right. Yeah, this is where it gets really  exciting. So, you know, things like,  

  • you know, imagine the New  York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ  

  • can be, in essence, a smart contract. Meaning  that basically an entire exchange can operate  

  • in an automated way without people on top ofblockchain like, the Ethereum network. And we've  

  • already seen some some very significant traction  for these what are called decentralized exchanges,  

  • which are basically just kind of a version  of a smart contract, a money market protocol,  

  • where borrowing and lending is fully automatedagain, no people matchmaking or intermediating.  

  • That's another advanced smart contract  that's gained a lot of traction today.

  • And the reason we couldn't get  a smart contract is effectively  

  • we have a contract, but the rules of that  contract are, are in code. Right? That's,  

  • that's how this kind of works. And effectivelyif one thing happens, you know, that code  

  • is executed, right, and carries out the  terms of the contract in a simple way.

  • I think that's correct. And I think the word smart  can be a little misleading and might imply like an  

  • artificial intelligence. But I think the the truth  is closer to what you described, where the rules  

  • are embedded in software code, andand are executed automatically.  

  • Now, some people may question whether that term  smart is appropriate, given that sometimes people  

  • intend one thing to happen with smart contractsand something else happens. These are bugs. And  

  • unfortunately, we've seen a lot of exploits of  smart contracts. This year, hundreds of millions,  

  • in fact, have been siphoned off due to various  programming issues of these smart contracts.

  • Yeah, and that we'll certainly get into  some of the challenges in a moment.  

  • Just want to get into another term, and that is  sort of decentralized applications. And we hear  

  • the word decentralized a lot when it comes to  Bitcoin, for example, decentralized currency,  

  • you know, the idea that there's no sort  of intermediaries, no middle people at  

  • this point. But when we talk about decentralized  applications, how, how would you describe that?

  • Yes, I think the most important thing to  remember when you hear the word decentralization  

  • is this is not an either or this is not binarywhere you're either decentralized or you're  

  • not you centralized, this is a spectrumAnd you can exist at various points along  

  • that decentralization spectrum. And so that's  really important to keep in mind. So there's no  

  • such thing as something that's completely  decentralized. There's different degrees  

  • of decentralization. And what we mean by that  really, is, we are not having to trust a person  

  • or an institution to keep their word. I often  will, when I'm teaching this in classes put  

  • up a picture of a handshake, you know, a very  traditional way of achieving cooperation and  

  • trust. But also some of that can be very easily  broken. Rules that are automated in software,  

  • are more trust minimized, arguably, then that  handshake, and therefore harder to break.

  • So when we talk about that idea  of, of permissionless, as well,  

  • that's where this comes in. Somean, it just described that term,  

  • because again, it's something that  we're going to come up against a lot.

  • Yeah, permissionlessness is a way of saying that  this is open access to anyone with a computer  

  • and an internet connection, you don't need to  go apply to use the Ethereum blockchain or the  

  • Bitcoin Blockchain, you just have to havecomputing device and an internet connection.  

  • And you can start using these blockchain  networks. You know, that's not how traditional  

  • finance is often worked, where you have to  go into a bank, provide some identification,  

  • and get approved. And there's a billion  plus people who don't have bank accounts,  

  • some of which, you know, hundreds of millions  don't have ID, and, and blockchains, kind of  

  • do away with all that and saying, hey, just get  on the internet. And you can start transacting,  

  • coding, building an application launching  the next Alibaba on a decentralized network.

  • And yeah, you take that idea of decentralized now  you take it to decentralized finance - DeFi - huge  

  • buzzword again, you know, again, just  just lay out what that means for us.

  • Yeah, so defy is is a is a buzzword that is  typically associated with these daps decentralized  

  • applications that are built on top of EthereumBut really, we're talking about financial  

  • blockchain, you know, networks. And even Bitcoinfor example, could arguably be classified as DeFi,  

  • but most people wouldn't refer to Bitcoin as DeFithey're talking about things like money market  

  • protocols, that facilitate borrowing and lending  in an automated fashion or decentralized exchanges  

  • or, or things like even, you know, emerging  forms of blockchain based insurance, you know,  

  • kind of proto-deposit insurance, if you will, all  this kind of falls under the heading of DeFi. And  

  • many people are looking at this and saying, This  is the new financial system that's being built,  

  • and can replace our existing traditional financial  plumbing with decentralized financial plumbing.

  • Now, I think one of the interesting parts  of because this, you know, we're talking a  

  • lot about Ethereum in here is the relationship  between ether, the token, the digital currency,  

  • and Ethereum, the blockchain network, you knowhow do those two work together? And then I guess  

  • the other question is, is ether necessary for the  Ethereum blockchain to sort of work long term?

  • You ask all the easy questions  Arjun. So yeah, this so  

  • so it's important to think about these two things  is kind of distinct, but also very integrated.  

  • And, and you can think of Ethereum as  kind of like the database or the ledger,  

  • or the network. You know, sometimes you'll use  the analogy of like, a train car, you know,  

  • it's kind of like the currency or the asset that's  traveling on top of the train tracks, those rails  

  • you can think of as a theory of the networkAnd in in the case of ether, the train car  

  • and Ethereum, the train tracks, these things are  locked together, they can't be kind of separated.  

  • Ether lives on those rails and cannot be taken  off those rails. In the same way you can think  

  • of like, well, I can take my US dollars and  move them across Visa's rails and then I can  

  • move them across PayPal's rails and kind of lift  that train part up and off of different rails.  

  • Ether is locked in fully integrated to Ethereumthe network, and that, that integration is partly  

  • what allows for, the ease of programming smart  contracts and decentralized applications and DeFi.

  • And, and then I just want to get on to get  some of the challenges as well with Ethereum  

  • and you mentioned one earlier, some of the bugs  perhaps with the smart contracts and some of  

  • the issues, in terms of people losing money that  result from that as well. I mean, how are those  

  • things solved? You know, and how big a problem  is that as we look to the future of Ethereum?

  • Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I think the  latest assessments are over a half a billion US  

  • dollars has been lost through various exploits  or bugs, flash loans, attacks, vampire texts,  

  • there's all sorts of different names. It isreal issue. And it's important for people playing  

  • in the DeFi space to understand this is still semi  experimental, and even some of the oldest and most  

  • battle-tested money market protocols. Compoundfor example, recently had a bug that allowed for,  

  • you know, kind of the treasury to be to be  drained in the tens of millions of dollars. So,  

  • you do need to be aware that this is  new. But you know, at the same time,  

  • the teams are iterating and learning. And, you  know, we haven't seen anything, what I you know,  

  • what I characterize is catastrophic happen. And  the most important thing is that the underlying  

  • blockchain networks, Ethereum, Bitcoinothers, those have continued to be secure.

  • And the other issue as well is, is one  of this idea of scalability. And when we,  

  • when we mentioned that wordwe're really talking about  

  • the network's ability to maintain sort of all  these applications, but also do it in an efficient  

  • and a low-cost manner as well. So, at the momentEthereum does have some scalability issues,  

  • and there are concerns, you know, whether  these are going to get resolved or not.

  • That's right. And, and there's already  some serious competition. You know,  

  • Selena, for example, is attracted  a lot of interest this summer,  

  • can process tens of thousands of transactions  on their layer one, their base blockchain,  

  • compared to the, you know, dozen or so you  know, roughly that that Ethereum can do  

  • on its base layer. So, what's interesting about  the blockchain space is different blockchains are  

  • experimenting in different ways with different  approaches to scalability. Ethereum is kind of  

  • throwing the kitchen sink out the problem  with the hope that one of these things will  

  • kind of stick in and I think there's a there's  a, there's a general confidence that that it's  

  • going to get sorted out positively. But the  competition is breathing down Ethereum's neck.

  • Yeah, and certainly I want to dig into those  things in a moment in terms of sort of upgrades  

  • to the network and things that are happening in  that space. But just one of the other issues,  

  • because you mentioned sort of Solana there, and  all these other challenges. You know, if we look  

  • to the future, and you've got various different  blockchain platforms operating, the other issue  

  • is one of, of these being able to work together  or interoperability. Do you see a world in which  

  • these different platforms can work together? Do  we get a world of sort of, frankly, fragmented  

  • applications on various different blockchains?  I mean, how do you see that playing out?

  • Yeah, no, that is, you know, the multi  trillion-dollar question, actually. And  

  • I think what we're seeing already, I  think, is a clue as to what to expect. So,  

  • we have, for example, coming back to Bitcoinsomebody called raft Bitcoin, which is a, a way  

  • of tokenizing Bitcoin on top of Ethereum. And so  you actually see a significant amount of bitcoin  

  • moving on Ethereum, so to speak, and serving  as collateral in these DeFi, borrowing and  

  • lending protocols on exchanges. And so there  are already bridges in various ways that we're  

  • finding to make collateral assets and protocols  more interoperable. But how that all plays out,  

  • is a very hotly debated topic and worthy of  its own hour plus long top podcast, frankly.

  • And one of the things we've seen with  you know, the Bitcoin Blockchain,  

  • but also Ethereum and other blockchains is, you  know, upgrades to the network. It's almost as  

  • if you know, you've got a you've got a an Android  or an iOS system on your phone, and you download  

  • the new update for that, obviously, not as  simple as that. There's a lot more in it. But  

  • effectively, that's the idea  here. So when you think about  

  • the Ethereum network at this point, what are  some of the upgrades coming into the coming  

  • through the pipeline? And what does that mean  for the Ethereum blockchain going forward?

  • Right. Well, we've seen already some big changes  around Ethereum's monetary policy and the supply  

  • of Eth, the currency and, you know, we've seen  your transaction fees rather than going to  

  • miners getting burnt. And so that's reducing the  supply putting any kind of a, you know, a kind  

  • of tightening of supplies, I guess, the  way to think about it simply. You know,  

  • that's one thing that's making Eth arguably  scarce store and maybe a stronger store value,  

  • putting it more directly in competition with  Bitcoin, specifically as a scarce store value.  

  • So that's, that's one thing certainly capacityYou know, we're looking at things like gaming  

  • non fungible tokens. You know, collectiblessomething you buy once maybe like a piece of art,  

  • you may not be transacting regularly, but if  you're gonna run something like a fortnight  

  • or some kind of multiplayer game on top of  the blockchain, there's gonna be a lot of  

  • need for throughput and high transaction  capacity. So I think scalability enables  

  • some pretty incredible you know, kind  of opportunities in gaming specifically.  

  • So those are a couple couple things that  highlight that I think are on the horizon.

  • You mentioned this scarcity one that's always  an interesting one with Bitcoin in particular,  

  • because, you know, we know they can  only ever been 21 million Bitcoin  

  • mined. How does that compare with ether?

  • Yeah, so there's a overall greater supply of  Ethereum. I think that the important thing to  

  • understand about Ethereum's monetary policy and  its supply, is it very much is kind of an open  

  • question kind of what the, what the end monetary  policy looks like, it's very less etched in stone  

  • than Bitcoin's. I think the idea of ever changing  the 21 million limit for Bitcoin is kind of just  

  • out of the question, barring some kind of like  existential crisis, like you'd have to change that  

  • for Bitcoin to survive. Whereas Ethereum it's more  about, well, how do we make this into the global  

  • world computer? What kind of monetary policy  supports that. If the supply needs to continue  

  • increasing into perpetuity as it currently is  scheduled to do, so there is no hard cap on  

  • that. And that's probably what the monetary policy  is going to be. However, I think there's always  

  • the possibility that Ethereum does go with a hard  cap like Bitcoin, if it needs to do that, to again  

  • achieve this objective of becoming the world's  largest, most decentralized computing platform.

  • And just on that point, when you find  the one Garrick when you look at the  

  • sort of cryptocurrency complex in the  future, you know, people describe Bitcoin  

  • as a currency as digital gold, you knowand many other things as well. What role  

  • do you think Bitcoin has? And what role  do you think Ethereum has in that future?

  • Yeah, this is another huge question. I meanmany people, you know, take the view, and maybe a  

  • minority view right now that actually, all of this  DeFi and decentralized applications are going to  

  • collapse back on top of Bitcoin. And so you seelayer two networks, like stacks, for example,  

  • enabling NFTs and what DeFi, on top of  Bitcoin, and many people think that that's  

  • kind of where this will go, because Bitcoin is the  most decentralized network. That's an essence why  

  • you would ever use a blockchain. And something  that's more centralized, is going to always have  

  • a hard time competing with the most decentralized  network. Having said that, Ethereum is moving more  

  • quickly in terms of innovation than Bitcoin has, I  think, a pretty good competitive motive developers  

  • and applications on it already. And it's going to  be interesting. I mean, this is what keeps people  

  • like you've been in this space for 10 yearsExcited. How is this battle going to play out?

  • Certainly, I mean, it's one we're going to  be watching very closely as well, Garrick,  

  • but look, it was so good to have you back on  the podcast. Thanks for that fantastic insight.

  • Thank you, Arjun, always a pleasure.

  • That's great insight. And that sets us up  nicely for the next part of our conversation.  

  • What is the future of EthereumAnd what are some of the apps  

  • we can expect to see going forward to discuss  that I'm joined now by Liz Mathew, the head of  

  • strategic sales for the Americas at ConsenSysNow, ConsenSys is building a some Ethereum based  

  • application. So I'm very interested to hear her  insight. Liz, great to have you on the podcast.

  • Now, we just heard from Garrick Hileman  of LSE and blockchain.com. About,  

  • you know, smart contracts the term  decentralized finance or DeFi. Now,  

  • you come from a traditional financial  background, you're looking now into  

  • DeFi based on Ethereum. And so what are  some of the most promising applications?

  • Yeah, absolutely. So as someone who's been  looking at capital markets for over 15 years now,  

  • this is particularly interesting, because  it really changes the dynamic of how you  

  • think about the manufacture and distribution of  financial risk profiles. So now, I mean, if you  

  • look at what's happened over the last 12 monthsyou've gone from something as small as $2 billion  

  • in assets under management, maybe 12 months back  to now something like $100 billion in the last  

  • 12 months with almost a trillion dollars of volume  turnover. And so we're seeing an explosive growth.  

  • But even besides that price action, what's  really cool is that you have now the ability  

  • to use open source composable, permissionlesscensor resistant software to essentially  

  • create the ability to lend borrow, stake, swaphedge. These are activities that were otherwise  

  • extremely concentrated and accessible just to  a very small number of institutional investors.  

  • And then from a cost perspective, this improves  access to financial engineering overall,  

  • not only to the long tail of institutions, but  also to the retail in a very disintermediated way.

  • And I used to sort of work in London, obviously,  a massive financial center and talking to  

  • a lot of the financial institutions  there. It seemed like even years ago,  

  • they were discussing blockchain technologyit felt like just a bit of a buzzword, really,  

  • there wasn't really much happening in this space  at that point. So where are we now? I mean,  

  • how are large institutions such as banks or  insurance companies approaching this technology?

  • Yeah, it's a really good pointSo yes, a couple of years back,  

  • I think we were still in the experimental stageBanks and regulated capital, we're looking at  

  • this purely from a from an experimentation point  of view. Many of the experiments were really not  

  • on the public main net, they were on a private  permission network. And people were just trying  

  • to understand the applicability of this protocolif you will. Today, I think there's a far greater  

  • understanding of the power of decentralizationsome of the problems that have plagued  

  • TradFi (Traditional Finance), as we call it, still  exist, it's still very inaccessible. Players still  

  • suffer from really bad cost structures. And the  industry has collectively not solved for things  

  • like identity and shared compliance. And I, you  know, I'm sure your viewers will appreciate stock  

  • markets and bond markets at a retail level. And  I don't know if they fully appreciate how manual,  

  • the issuance and lifecycle of these instruments  are at the wholesale level. So how does a bond get  

  • issued? How does it get sold. All of this is very  manual today in TradFi. And so today, what we're  

  • seeing happen is, you know, you have the most  forward-thinking banks and custodians lean into  

  • understanding the revolutionary nature of  decentralized finance. They are looking at this,  

  • obviously, because their clients are looking  at this as an asset class that has given  

  • uncorrelated outsized returns in the last few  years. But what I would also like to highlight  

  • is you are seeing an emergence of regulated  institutions, so exchanges, regulated custodians,  

  • and funds that are looking into this  space from a real first principles  

  • basis and are actually deploying real  capital and at institutional levels.

  • One of the things I've seen over the years is  proponents of this kind of technology will say,  

  • well, you know, blockchain can solve  this blockchain can solve that. And  

  • oftentimes, there's absolutely  no need for that technology.  

  • Why, at this point, are some of  these examples you're bringing up  

  • requiring blockchain technology why? You know, for  example, more efficient FX not be done without it?

  • Yeah, I mean, when you ask why blockchain? It's  almost like asking me why internet 20 years back,  

  • and sort of when web 2.0 Or even web point  1.0 was sort of emerging. I don't think people  

  • fully understood the far-reaching consequences and  applications that could have been built off of it.  

  • Today, I mean, we've gone through a few cycles  of things that have taken popular interest. The  

  • summer of 2020, we sort of referred to as the DeFi  summer, where you saw automated market makers, you  

  • saw liquidity pools that you could lend and borrow  to. These financial primitives just did not exist  

  • and still do not exist in TradFi. Think of, you  know, if you have the ability to programmatically  

  • engineer, digital scarcity, non-fungibility and  business logic, all on top of open-source software  

  • that is composable, that can then create certain  properties that that lend itself to a digital,  

  • better quality. And that's just not something  that we've seen using web 2.0 tools.

  • Now, you've been talking about sort of regulated  institutions looking at this technology, and  

  • regulation is going to be very key for the future  of this technology, really. At the moment, the  

  • regulators, particularly in the US, aren't wholly  convinced by DeFi. I was reading a speech earlier  

  • this year, from the commissioner of the Commodity  Futures Trading Commission, he was talking about  

  • DeFi. And his argument was that intermediaries  that currently exist in the financial system  

  • play a key role. Stability is one of those roles  that they play, and that that was his point. And  

  • he ultimately said that at this point DeFi isbad idea. For the system. Of course, decentralized  

  • finance looks to get rid of those intermediariesSo when you think about the regulatory environment  

  • right now, it doesn't seem as open at this point  to DeFi. Do you think that's going to change?

  • Oh, absolutely. I think you know, we at ConsenSysabsolutely welcome further clarity around  

  • regulations, we think that there should be rules  in place that, first and foremost, improve access  

  • to financial markets, especially among those  groups that have traditionally been excluded.  

  • We also welcome regulations that provide regulator  regularity of sorry, clarity, regulatory clarity,  

  • and, and really seek to protect consumers, as well  as seek to establish a marketplace integrity. And  

  • so, what we found is that, you know, if you look  at episodes like post 2008, no one had a clear  

  • visibility on where the systemic risks were, we  didn't have a view of who were the beneficiaries  

  • of certain derivative contracts. And so, I  would argue that using Blockchain, having an  

  • immutable record of transactions, real time should  address some of the operational inefficiencies  

  • that TradFi have, have suffered, you know, for  over the years. That being said, I'd also say that  

  • much of the regulation today has been designed  for an intermediated ecosystem. And I think it's  

  • worth looking at a framework that thinks  about a disintermediated ecosystem.

  • So in your view, that would require  some form of new regulation, the  

  • existing framework doesn't work in your opinion.

  • Yeah, I mean, so you know, so. So? Yeah, without  getting into specifics, I mean, the rules,  

  • you know, some of the rules specifically  in the US were designed in the 1930s,  

  • at a time when really, we didn't have the benefit  to a lot of the technology that we have today.  

  • And so it's definitely worth, you know, taking  a look of really what you could achieve with the  

  • technology available today. I think it needs to  be nuanced. Obviously, the principles of consumer  

  • protection and marketplace integrity still holdAnd we hope that this technology is used for  

  • wider adoption and greater financial accessboth at the retail and institutional level.

  • Now beyond sort of financial institutions  beyond the financial system, one of the  

  • big things we've seen recently is  non fungible tokens or NFTs often  

  • built on the Ethereum blockchain. You  know, they've become very popular,  

  • particularly for, you know, pieces of digital  art, for example. But I guess one of the biggest  

  • themes here is is the tokenization of thingsYou know, putting some of these what were  

  • things you'd usually buy physically ontodigital ledger. So as you look at NFTs, what  

  • kind of insight does that give us into the future  of Ethereum and the broader blockchain technology.

  • Yeah, no, I think that's a great question. Andthink the popularity of NFTS has really taken off  

  • this year. It begun by, you know, cyber punks and  board apes, which are really very rudimentary, but  

  • as the technology improves, and as you think about  really what are the attributes, the non-fungible  

  • attributes that would benefit a particular asset  class, really, you can think of applications that  

  • go beyond collectibles or digital art, absolutely  will power the Digital Goods economy. It is very  

  • intuitive for the gaming economy to embrace this  technology. I mean, if you look at something like  

  • Axie Infinity, that's taken, popularity in  the Philippines and other countries. I mean,  

  • that in itself, is an economy, in itself of buyers  and sellers of, of time and money. And so it's  

  • really great to be able to see that non fungible  token software being used to be able to replicate  

  • what should actually be the functional economy in  the first place. So you know, I'm super excited  

  • to see, obviously, the popularity of digital  collectibles than art. But I also think that  

  • there's going to be an overall financialization  of NFTs. There are certain assets in the world  

  • like real estate that are non-fungible by  nature. There's absolutely no reason why  

  • that should be represented by a fungible token. Or  something that was represented in legacy systems.

  • The other the other thing that always  fascinates me about these different  

  • platforms is the relationship between  the underlying blockchain technology  

  • and the token that the cryptocurrency  that sort of powers it and in this case.  

  • When it comes to Ethereum, that that token is  Ether. Now, there's been a lot of criticism,  

  • say of other platforms that actually, you knowthe blockchain underlying blockchain is great,  

  • but the token is unnecessary. Why do we have  this? I mean, what's the relationship here between  

  • Ether and Ethereum. Is Ether absolutely  necessary for all of these applications to run?

  • It's a really interesting question and  really tests my, my awareness levels of  

  • blockchain as a science. But, I mean, I would  like to separate out the price action of Ether  

  • to the utility of how the blockchain works. You're  absolutely right, that the validation of blocks at  

  • the protocol layer doesn't need to be powered by  a currency that is so volatile. We seek to have  

  • this software eventually be used to be maximally  decentralized and be maximally relevant globally,  

  • and eventually be a public utilitySo the price action of Eth, per se,  

  • and the volatility around it really is immaterial.  I would say that, you know, I think there's a lot  

  • that can be done in improving sort of the  variability of transaction fees in general.  

  • And I think that the software is only going to  get better. You know, the solutions around the  

  • usability are only going to get better. I expect  in the future you are going to see a world where,  

  • really, all the complexity around gas fees and  the volatility, and the fact that your transaction  

  • might not get committed because of congestion in  the network, all these issues are being looked  

  • at very deeply, and trying to be solved. And  the usability of any technology at the very  

  • early stage isn't really the driving factor for  adoption. But it will get better going forward.

  • And beyond the Ethereum platformyou know, there are a number of the  

  • challenges around coming upAs you look to the future,  

  • and you see applications being built on sayEthereum, and you see applications being built  

  • on another platform, for example, what  does that mean for interoperability  

  • systems being able to work together? And  does that get us to a place where actually,  

  • in looking to decentralize finance, we actually  get into a sense of fragmentation of finance.

  • Yeah, that's a really good pointSo, today, you know, Metamask, and  

  • our suite of products are compatible  with Ethereum and EVM compatible chains.  

  • So there are many other chains that you  will still have access to through Metamask,  

  • the digital wallet, and our host of productsFor the other chains, I think, absolutely,  

  • you're right, like you do see arbitrage  opportunities in other chains, vis-a-vis Ethereum  

  • or EVM compatible. And some of that arbitrage  opportunities, because access to those chains,  

  • is difficult. And so it's something that we get  asked a lot, especially, especially from our Smart  

  • Money, clients, if you will, in solving  for that. We are constantly working to  

  • improve the interoperability of our platform with  others, we absolutely think that we want to make  

  • this software, you know, absolutely, you knowreach everyone globally. And so that would mean  

  • an interoperability with other chains. And  providing the software in order to do that.

  • Greatly is a fascinating conversationThanks for for that insight into the  

  • world of DeFi at the moment. You knowwe've got so much more to talk about,  

  • and hopefully we can do it  again on another occasion.

  • Absolutely, though, this has  been great. Thanks for having me.

  • Hopefully that's given you viewers and listeners  a sense of Ethereum versus Bitcoin there's so  

  • much more in depth of course, we can go  but we just wanted to lay a foundation  

  • with this episode and we can certainly talk more  about it in the future. Let us know your thoughts.  

  • Are you invested in either Ethereum or BitcoinIf so, why you can leave a comment below. Or you  

  • can also hit me up directly on Twitter at Arjun  Kharpal. Well, that's it for another episode of  

  • CNBC beyond the valley. Thanks for watching  and listening and I'll catch you next time.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of  CNBC Beyond the Valley. I'm Arjun Kharpal,  

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it