We’re just waiting for Medora to join and have a cat for company at the moment. Thank you all for tuning in to our first ChainChat via Twitter Spaces! Hope you’re all doing well! Here’s Medora now. While we’re waiting for her to connect I’ll give you a bit of background on DiB for those of you listening for the first time. We’re a New York-registered 501c3 nonprofit set up in 2018. I’m Natassja, based in Valencia, Spain. And you may be able to tell from my accent that I’m originally from the UK. We’re in the process of opening up a Singapore chapter, too, so we’re quite a worldly group!

Here now!

Twitter Spaces has to be from a phone! It feels too chill, right? How are you doing Medora?

I’m doing well, aside from that slight moment of stress. How are you?

I was just explaining a couple of weeks ago on a Twitter Spaces we had some issues! You can listen from the computer, but you can’t participate. Take a second to chill. Where are you dialing in from?

Washington DC. 

I was just saying it’s nice to connect with people from all over the world. If you are ready Medora, I have some questions for you!

Fire away!

So the first question actually comes from our last guest. We ask each guest to leave a question for the next one, thus creating a chain, it’s genius XD. The question from ScoopsParade for you is:

What are you doing to help onboard marginalized or underrepresented communities into Web3?

So we are doing quite a bit. I get into this in some of my answers to subsequent questions, but we are building a blockchain protocol 100% from scratch, which is very exciting. It is a proof-of-stake chain, so it’s much lighter than other chains. However, we use Nakamoto-level security protocols, so it’s simultaneously very lightweight and secure. It’s the only POS Blockchain that has achieved POW security levels. The fact that it’s lightweight means that it can be accessed from all over the world. As one example, one of our colleagues, who lives in an RV and roams around the US, runs a node out of his RV off a Raspberry Pi computer powered by the battery of a Ryobi power drill. When he has Starlink access, he uses that. That’s almost as close as we can get to testing out a low-connectivity environment for running a node. Also, our interfaces are being designed with low connectivity and low electronics use in mind, including access via USSD for people who only have feature phones and things like that. 

I’m already lost, I’m going to be honest. Our founders have a massive pool of tech knowledge, and I’m here learning as I go, so will have to check out Raspberry Pi and the likes. So I’m wondering if there are people listening for the first time and just getting into the tech, would you, and if you can’t, don’t worry, would you know how to explain the difference between Proof-of-Stake and Proof-of-Work?

Tereza can help! The main difference between proof of work and proof of stake is that proof of stake relies on staking, while proof of work relies on mining. These methods add new "blocks" of transactions to the chain. Mining is often considered energy-intensive and thus less sustainable.

I’m just curious, and because ChainChat is used as an educational resource, I like to ask questions that I didn’t dare ask at first because I wanted to look like I understood it all clearly, but perhaps other people are curious, too. To you then, Medora, how did you first get into this whole Web3 space?

So I’m relatively new to the blockchain space hence my ability to explain what Topl does. Working at Topl is my first foray into Blockchain. Topl works every day to enable the development of a new, more inclusive, and sustainable economy through purpose-built blockchain technology. We are relentless in our drive to develop world-class decentralized and open systems that empower and uplift the next billion and unlock the potential for positive impact. We believe that Distributed Ledger Technology makes it economically feasible to, quote-on-quote, build good. In case it’s difficult to imagine what that means in real life, some of the things that Topl’s technology has been used for include tracking and verifying conflict-free diamonds and fair wage coffee and chocolate, issuing nature-based carbon credits, and providing verifiable reporting for corporate ESG initiatives. Before joining Topl, most of my career was spent in the Social Impact and International Development spaces, and I’ve always believed that the commonly accepted dichotomy between profit and impact is false. I spent a lot of time working with social enterprises, successfully pursuing both. Blockchain has the potential to revolutionize impact financing in a meaningful way, allowing organizations to track, trace, and monetize impact itself. In this way, we can go from being seen as a cost center to a revenue driver. In International Development, where financing is a key pain point, blockchain offers a solution that I personally am extraordinarily passionate about promoting and look forward to being a part of driving adoption across the globe. 

Amazing. Tell us a bit more about the origin of Topl then.

Topl was founded about six years ago by a team out of Rice University with this very mission in mind — that blockchain as a technology has a wide variety of use cases beyond just cryptocurrency and NFTs, and the applicability in social impact use cases was incredible. We cut our teeth in supply chain tracking and traceability to help organizations understand the impact they were having and help end consumers see that impact. So our tracking and traceability App allows you, if you are looking to buy a necklace for your mother, to be able to see where the jewels were mined, and that no children were employed in the mining of those jewels, where the piece itself was made and what their waste disposal processes are, the living and working conditions of the workers therein, and then what their quality control and shipping practices are to understand the carbon footprint for example across the entire value chain. We believe that end consumers want to see that transparency and the blockchain provides that verifiability of the claims being made. We believe that consumers so want to see that and see the value prop in that and are willing to pay a little bit of a premium to buy a necklace for example, that you know to have been made in an ethical and environmentally-sustainable way.

I completely agree, with sustainability in general people don’t mind paying a little bit extra if they know that they’re doing good. From what I’ve read on your website, I know sustainability is a big driver for Topl, but how would you say Topl is tackling or contributing in a positive way toward the issue of diversity on the whole? Would you say there are any practical steps that Topl is taking toward a more inclusive future?

Topl promotes diversity in two key ways. First, is one I alluded to earlier, we are building a blockchain ecosystem that is simultaneously extraordinarily secure and extraordinarily lightweight. Focused as we are on helping projects track, trace, and monetize their impact, we need the blockchain to be accessible to those unable to use traditional blockchain ecosystems because of limited internet, electricity, or other infrastructural limitations. We’re building an ecosystem that can be accessed by a farmer in rural Uganda, where she can upload data from a feature phone, we’re working to build a blockchain technology that can be used and used easily by a billion people who can’t access current offerings. Second, we promote diversity in hiring. We have employees across the world, and we work to ensure that our workforce is as diverse as possible. Currently, about 30% of employees are women, and we’re working on improving that, but it’s higher than the average in the tech space and in the startup space. And our leadership is over 40% women. About a quarter of our staff identify as members of a minority group, and we are very supportive of our LGBTQIA+ colleagues. In addition, while we’re predominantly US-based, about a quarter of our staff are based around the world, and our team spans five continents. We seek out folks who bring new and different perspectives to our team, who challenge our ways of thinking, and who help us strengthen our offerings.

That’s great. I was going to ask you what you mean by lightweight.

So because we are a POS chain as opposed to a POW chain, there is no information stored on-chain. There are hashes to the information stored elsewhere and the smart contracts stored elsewhere that are accessible on-chain. This is why nodes can be run, and the blockchain can be accessed with limited connectivity.

I’m just curious about this concept and what I understand when you say lightweight. I was chatting the other week with our good friends from Crypto Altruism and Fourth Wave DAO, and Aly is amazing, super good on the whole coding and tech side of things, and she was saying that, for example, all of the photos that we have on our Instagram, when we move cities there’s another server and all of that data goes to that server with all the energy expense of that server then ‘downloading’ all of those photos. So I’m interested in the whole energy and sustainability side of what happens to all of our data. A bit of a tangent, sorry, but it sparks curiosity. I would like to know, with Topl, what kind of projects would you like to see them take on that they haven’t already?

Part of my background is in the sanitation and waste management sector, and I am what one would call a ‘water and sanitation nerd.’ One of the things I’m very excited about is that two of my former employers are working with Topl to understand what it would mean to develop tokens for non-carbon and impact projects. So these employers work together to improve access to sanitation in slums across Sub-Saharan Africa and then convert human waste into usable end products. So we’re helping Fresh Life develop tokens that represent the number of people served with hygienic sanitation on a daily or monthly basis. That’s now a metric that they’ve been tracking for over a decade and that now they may be able to monetize, which is something I’m very excited about. It’s a project in its nascent stages, but that’s already happening and one that is very close to my heart.

Of all these chats that I do I really enjoy the ones that make a difference at that kind of level. Going back to the Good Dollar ChainChat, it comes back to me all the time, the whole concept of Universal Basic Income which is a tokenized ecosystem that aims to provide basic human rights like education, healthcare, and clean water. They’re basic things. Look up the Good Dollar is what I’m saying because they’re doing some really good work on this stuff, and I really appreciate that some protocols and organizations are impulsing that. Anyway, how can people get involved in what you’re doing at Topl and why should they? I know why, but…

Anyone who has a cool idea can get involved with Topl, we are always looking for impact-driven projects to be building on-chain. We have recently partnered with a no-code-low-code platform that is trying to figure out how we can develop an add-on so that people with limited coding skills can use a very simple interface to build out what they want to see on the Topl platform. The reasons to get involved are myriad, but essentially we are trying to change the world! And trying to ensure that there isn’t a trade-off between impact and profit. And that, in fact, the impact becomes a key revenue driver, and that revolutionizes the way that people and organizations perceive how they can have an impact in the world, whether that be social, environmental, about governance. We welcome any and all ideas and would love to help you build on the Topl blockchain.

Amazing, I’d love to learn more about the tech side of stuff. Is Topl all about the tokenomics? Is the incentive for people who are not involved yet is it kind of extrinsically motivated? 

I would ask which people you are talking about, but I think I can answer in various ways. The people building on-chain are excited to see different ways they can track and trace their impact and use this decentralized ledger technology to replace often rudimentary Web2 or analog accounting mechanisms. Part of it is having that on-chain, and so it does help to vertically integrate information across supply chains and thus reduce the possibility of graft, malfeasance, and the need to trust partners. Because you don’t necessarily need to wonder if you’re logistics company will overcharge you because you know exactly how much the driver makes, and how much petrol was used, etcetera. That’s one reason to build on-chain, aside from the possibility of monetizing this impact. For this monetization aspect. Fresh Life, for example, is financed by large foundations, development aid organizations, and other major funders in the International Development space. And they’re competing for a fairly large but fairly finite amount of funds. But if they were to say Hey, this NFT can now be sold on OpenSea with a wide variety of other NFTs, but the cool thing about this NFT, which features, let’s say, art by a resident of one of the informal settlements where they work, also represents that 100 people also had access to hygienic sanitation this week. As a purchaser, you have a cool piece of art and a meaningful piece of art.

Love this. Today we’re on ChainChat #017, and previous chats gave me similar insight. AfroPunk NFT was like, you buy this piece of art, you get this, and you’re also contributing. It’s so multifaceted, and the whole utility side of things is what I love. Rather than buying some crypto and seeing if I can make any money on it, I’m not that kind of person. If I’m going to invest money in something, I want it to do something either for me or at least for somebody else. So more generally, in Web3, how would you recommend people get involved?

There are so many free resources that help people get educated and develop baseline knowledge. I know that there is a lot of noise in the blockchain space and a lot of weird acronyms, which can feel like an exclusive club of rocketships. I think that some of the easiest ways to learn about blockchain are through podcasts, webinars, and things like that. You mentioned Crypto Altruism earlier in the conversation, and I think their podcast is absolutely incredible. I believe they put out over 70 episodes last year, and I’m going to do a Topl plug here; their most-streamed episode on their platform last year featured my colleague Erin Murphy, so I highly recommend going to check that out. There are also so many free and low-cost resources to learn how to code and program. So if you’re interested in getting under the hood, elementary STEM education and even higher-level STEM education are more accessible than ever before. So that’s one thing that is also exciting.

Definitely. I personally wonder if it was my sister, for example, who wouldn’t know the first thing there is to know about blockchain, I would want to know where I would send her. I don't see a systematic way through the system to bridge the gap from a muggle (Harry Potter reference) to in-depth knowledge.

There isn’t, but one of the cool things is that there are so many different onramps. When I first started, I was talking to an Uber driver who said he had really gotten into crypto recently. He said he started listening to podcasts and YouTube videos about real estate investing. Through that, he got interested in traditional assets, hooked on economics podcasts, and more and more into the crypto stuff. So he was telling me his entire journey, which was through a YouTube rabbit hole. 

You’re so right. I’d also like more people to admit they don’t know as much as they’d like to. You see people talking as if they know everything then I look at the whole FTX crash, and people who had said they knew what they were doing and had invested this much in this project or platform, but not everybody knows as much as they let on and if we were a bit more open about what we do and don’t know, that way we can all help each other separate the fluff. 

The cool thing about blockchain technology, in general, is that there are so many different use cases and ways for people to get involved. When I first took this job, my father was worried and was like, I just don’t understand what blockchain is, and me taking a job in an industry that he didn’t understand was of great concern to him. I said Blockchain is a new accounting mechanism. If this goes well, it will be like joining Quickbooks in the 80s. That’s the way I explained it to him. I sent him a bunch of articles and podcasts, but my way of explaining it to him was this is actually deeply unsexy. And something that will be as normal as apple pie in the coming years.

And going back to what you said about the Uber driver, I hate the word resonate, but it does resonate because when I first went into the rabbit hole, videos on YouTube, the first few were on how blockchain works, the depth of the technology is outside my realm, but I really love the whole Internet of Value concept. I was interpreting it in my way, thinking Ok, so I give the Uber driver a 5-star rating, translated into points, that can then go cross-chain or metaverses and for basically being an upstanding citizen, you can get points, or tokens, and use or spend them in other ways. That, and the whole social impact concept, that’s where this comes in. So by doing good, you’re rewarded in some way or another, and I love this concept and can’t wait to see it really come into play. I’ve seen it in ways already. I think it was in Episode #007, an app called Zeer Safe, I won’t entertain you all too much on it today as I’ve rambled enough, but the social utility of that was fantastic. It’s an App that uses blockchain in criminal prosecution, and it’s amazing. OK, Medora, any other wisdom or insights you’d like to share?

It’s been a pleasure chatting with you, and I hope people are left with the idea that blockchain has myriad use cases beyond crypto and NFTs and the money laundering it’s known for. There’s a growing world of regenerative and social finance that can be made possible by this technology. I encourage people, especially newbies in the space, to find the use case they’re interested in and figure out how blockchain can help advance that because there really is an entree for almost everyone in this space. I would love to see a much bigger tent approach to Web3 than we’ve traditionally seen.

Agree. Love this, chatting openly with people and learning in this way. It’s a welcoming community, and it’s great to see the goodness in people. And with that, I’m going to ask you to leave a question for our next guest!

I’m going to go with a fun and completely irrelevant question. What is the next guest’s go-to karaoke song?

Love it, what would be yours?

I love the challenge of singing Johnny Cash songs off-key, so Ring of Fire. I can’t actually do Johnny Cash’s graveling basso profundo, but I have a lot of fun attempting it.

So happy you’ve done this question! The idea at the beginning is that maybe these questions actually shouldn’t be blockchain-related and more of an ice-breaker. I want to answer this question, I think Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares 2 U. Might go and put it on after. Thank you so much for coming on. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I’ve really enjoyed learning about Topl, which gets me excited about what we can all do together in blockchain and Web3.

Thanks for inviting me! 

Thank you all for listening, catch us on our socials. DMs open! Have a great weekend, everybody!