Gorden Einstein LIVE! At Agora Global Blockchain Congress! https://t.co/shdIeXAJc8
— Bruce Porter Jr. (@NetworksManager) November 8, 2021
00:02
and we are live here at the agora global
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blockchain conference uh congress as it
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is
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kind of winding up the day friend of
00:10
mine gordon einstein makes his way out
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hey man let’s do this again so gordon uh
00:15
you’ve really made good to see it good
00:17
to see you yes you’ve really made a huge
00:18
name for yourself uh in the space i mean
00:21
you’re kind of synonymous with uh the
00:24
dubai scene for sure but not only that
00:26
you were just in kiev uh you’re emceeing
00:28
events all over the place tell me a
00:30
little bit about the evolution of gordon
00:32
and what brought you here to the
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congress the evolution gordon well
00:36
i kind of want to joke about being like
00:37
i want to be joked about being a monkey
00:38
in the tree and then the 2001 space
00:41
obvious came down and showed me
00:43
in the crypt
00:44
and then i was reborn again as a lawyer
00:46
this is the this is the john mcafee
00:48
moment now john maxwell would sit there
00:49
and he’d be funny because he’s always
00:51
half half drunk or fully drunk or wasted
00:53
and he would just i’m sorry just to
00:55
clarify i’m not in anything he’s
00:58
so he would just tell you a story and go
01:00
on and on and on about the story until
01:02
you were just like man you’re you’re
01:04
full of you’re supposed you know
01:05
you that that’s just not true and then
01:06
you’d be like all right fine but he went
01:08
okay i’m sorry
01:09
assuming this was a live poll i assume
01:12
some people got the stanley kubrick 2001
01:14
reference i hope some people in the
01:15
audience did no but anyways i was living
01:18
life as a boring non-lawyer until
01:21
i’m making this i’m making the reference
01:23
like in 2001 the space odyssey the
01:25
obelisk of blockchain and crypto came
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down woke me up for my stupor
01:30
okay made me understand what was
01:31
possible with this technology in terms
01:33
of performing law making the world that
01:35
was
01:35
2014. oh wow yeah 2014. uh it’s actually
01:40
pablo kravchenko from distributed lab
01:42
who introduced me to blockchain and
01:43
bitcoin we had a completely random
01:45
meeting in new york uh when my company
01:47
was exhibiting at legal tech i got
01:49
exposed to blockchain and bitcoin i
01:50
didn’t understand it in the beginning
01:52
but when i had enough people get around
01:54
me get excited about it because this
01:55
ukrainian blockchain community i had to
01:57
figure it out and so i read all the
01:59
books
02:00
taught myself how to program in python
02:02
and everything else and
02:03
got into it and once once i saw the
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lights once once you know the 2001
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moment happened yeah i had to couldn’t
02:09
go back well i know you had something
02:10
similar you had an epiphany moment well
02:12
of course that’s how it all starts right
02:14
and then there’s no going back well
02:15
pavel was such a great guy for you to
02:17
kind of start out with because he’s
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first of all he’s such a brilliant
02:21
man yes and he’s built so many things
02:24
written books everything else very
02:25
accomplished uh
02:27
a phd i believe yeah saying cryptography
02:29
yeah i mean he’s no joke so that was his
02:32
event in kiev right
02:33
yes the one i just got back from so
02:35
pablo’s company’s distributed lab uh
02:38
they have two lines of events they have
02:40
blockchain ua which is the one that just
02:42
happened it’s a highly technical large
02:44
format conference that happens in kiev i
02:47
think every six months or so and i was
02:49
happy to emcee the main stage yes of
02:51
course that’s great and then they have a
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second event i heard from multiple
02:54
people
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there you you know what i won’t deny it
02:57
exactly yeah but yeah it’s been great
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and then they have a second event called
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blockchain incredible party which is
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always in odessa okay much smaller more
03:05
intimate but that’s fun as well odessa
03:07
is amazing it is amazing yeah so i know
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david spent uh some time there i haven’t
03:11
really i heard david never actually came
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back yeah pretty much he’s just there
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okay i’ll meet you in dubai but they
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don’t want to stay in there do that
03:20
this is his blade runner clone or
03:22
something you know
03:23
david’s right now having fun with death
03:24
as we speak so now you have your uh i
03:27
think i’m allowed to say it right you
03:28
have your show coming up
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or
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interesting okay there you go no the
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show is going to seem innovation in the
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mena region we’re going to middle
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eastern you know and africa and actually
03:44
say near asia i’m not even sure what
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mina stands for it i i think it includes
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asia yeah okay fine i probably should
03:50
know that
03:52
whatever i was just advising my client
03:53
to put mina in the name yeah
03:56
let’s google that later but the
03:58
idea is
03:59
so just real quick
04:01
background i guess so prior to 2014
04:03
prior to my discovery of blockchain and
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bitcoin
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not counting um baja california i hadn’t
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left the us for 25 years and i was in
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college a very international kind of
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person studying germany twice all that
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i’m dating myself but after college
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there’s a 25-year period where i didn’t
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travel and then because of blockchain
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and crypto i was able to travel the
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world but for the longest time my focus
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has been eastern europe ukraine um i
04:26
think you know i just got my german
04:27
citizenship back so central europe
04:29
eastern europe you know russia the sort
04:31
of community
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recently i got exposed to dubai um this
04:35
has been very new for me very very fast
04:37
developing but very new and to see the
04:40
progress that they’re making here in the
04:42
middle east in general but dubai
04:44
specifically and also with the
04:45
connection with israel it’s just there’s
04:47
so much going on i just have to
04:49
highlight it i need to talk about it
04:50
because people need to know it’s just a
04:52
brand new world i mean places places
04:54
when we grew up we would never even
04:56
think we’re cutting edges you know
04:57
kazakhstan i’ll count that in the media
04:58
region there’s so much is going on and
05:01
just
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it’s random to me that like also bahrain
05:05
is coming up as like a banking center
05:06
it’s just it’s just neat stuff yeah so i
05:08
i think that there’s something to be
05:10
said for bridging the european crypto
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and blockchain space with the mina area
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and building a sort of a fortuitous
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tunnel or channel or whatever you want
05:18
to call it so i want to have a show that
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promotes that yeah and it features
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awesome guests like you i love it let’s
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do the inaugural show
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you don’t have to put me on there well
05:27
the inaugural show’s kind of book but
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you’ll be in the first ten how’s that
05:30
awesome yeah yeah yeah i know i would
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love to uh you know uh bringing the
05:33
content bringing the uh
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the people and the projects and
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everything to everybody else who’s not
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traveling
05:40
has been you know is is one of the most
05:43
uh amazing things that we can do and if
05:44
you have that platform uh you should do
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it you know and you mentioned traveling
05:49
and how blockchain you know really you
05:51
got to travel and guys that’s you know
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that’s like the story i’ve been i’ve
05:54
been saying for a long time first time
05:56
around the world i was actually an ice
05:57
skater so i was ice skating around but
05:59
the second time around the world which
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has been more like three or four times
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around the world was with blockchain
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yeah and you know i started getting
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invited to speak five years ago or so
06:08
and but first i mean you know there’s
06:10
moscow and it was this was that how do
06:12
you how do you say no you know how do
06:14
you say no yeah my wife says well bruce
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you know what are you gonna do blah blah
06:19
and i’m like well honey i if if people
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were inviting you around the world to go
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speak i don’t know what i would say i
06:26
don’t know what i would do maybe i would
06:28
come with you or maybe but i wouldn’t
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say no
06:31
if the people want you to come speak
06:32
then you mean if people were inviting
06:35
your wife to do it you would not say no
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to your wife of course okay let me
06:38
explain something that i’ve learned
06:39
recently yeah no no no no no there’s no
06:42
parody okay just because she has a veto
06:44
over your travel does not mean you have
06:45
a veto over her travel right just
06:47
understand your entire disempowerment as
06:49
a man and i mean that with love everyone
06:52
is not married
06:53
[Laughter]
06:55
not anymore
06:58
kind of long story
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no she’s fine but uh no but i’m kidding
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aside though
07:02
the
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i got to tell you the travel has been
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amazing the meeting new people have been
07:06
amazing the learning of these
07:08
environments have been amazing part of
07:10
me also to be super honest and this
07:12
little personal thing would be
07:13
completely happy
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suffering in some dubai villa with a
07:17
stand-up desk my eighth screens enough
07:19
workspace and just zooming all day and
07:22
you know like an eight-armed shiva just
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working on deals and communications and
07:25
getting stuff done
07:26
part of me wants to do that yeah and the
07:29
the travel to be real honest and this
07:30
little bit personal you know is can be
07:32
disruptive i mean the time zones and
07:35
it’s hard to work you know depending on
07:36
whether you’re doing business or economy
07:37
or how you’re flying you know i kind of
07:39
go between them depending on the length
07:40
of the trip it’s hard to be productive
07:42
when you’re doing that and it’s hard to
07:44
stay physically fit so it’s a it’s a
07:46
challenge like i i kind of like being a
07:48
homebody and working and going to the
07:49
gym every day you know you’ve seen my
07:50
journey yeah improving in that area but
07:52
it’s awesome actually look great well
07:54
thank you you too yeah yeah but you know
07:56
but it’s but it’s not quite where i want
07:57
to be and part of where part of that is
07:59
it’s hard to maintain that discipline
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while you’re traveling you know just
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especially when because when you’re at
08:04
these conferences there’s a social
08:05
aspect to it you know neither one of us
08:07
is
08:08
you know a month
08:09
so it’s like you gotta
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and part of what you’re doing is part of
08:13
what makes crypto blockchain so great is
08:15
the social is the tribe is the community
08:17
we’re all here to make the world better
08:19
and part of building that tribe is
08:20
actually being together and doing stuff
08:22
socially which
08:24
doesn’t involve food right often you
08:26
brought up a really good point and that
08:27
is that we are trying to make the world
08:29
better and that is one of the most
08:30
amazing things about the community and
08:33
you and i have been in for a long time
08:35
and uh longer than most of you have been
08:37
born
08:38
than most of you guys have been alive
08:40
for sure yeah and uh but that community
08:43
has always been so uh amazing
08:46
like-minded and that doesn’t mean we all
08:48
vote one way or that we all agree with
08:50
everybody on on everything but we still
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have that that kind of like-minded
08:55
libertarian type of ownership things all
08:58
these types of things that you know push
09:00
us forward and that you know i mean you
09:02
can run an entire country on the
09:03
blockchain i mean look at what
09:04
lieberland’s doing and um i think a lot
09:08
of countries more than likely will or
09:10
more and more are going to end up doing
09:11
it
09:12
i wonder if there will be countries to
09:14
run
09:15
wow
09:16
will there be countries to run i know
09:18
the u.s is about to collapse i’ve been
09:19
saying that all day i just keep putting
09:22
up money i mean i know it probably won’t
09:23
happen but man it’s like i i say it
09:26
without joy and you know just to give
09:29
more background to the group the reason
09:30
i’m terming citizenship is look i’m
09:33
jewish my grandfather was in world war
09:35
one in germany on the german side as a
09:38
medical doctor he got the iron cross i
09:39
mean my family you know is from
09:42
a place that they loved and i’m kind of
09:44
happy to get my citizenship back but you
09:46
know they flew they fled to the united
09:48
states when my dad was very young and
09:49
you know this place he was it was a
09:50
great time he became a lieutenant
09:51
colonel in the air force you know it’s
09:53
been great to me i i say it without any
09:56
kind of joy or shot in front of anything
09:58
i i’m sad for the direction the us is
10:00
going but you can’t ignore the places
10:02
going you can’t hold on to nostalgia for
10:04
something that seems to be passing and
10:06
it’s going to take a huge amount of
10:08
effort to even slow the direction it’s
10:11
going and part of it is a self-inflicted
10:12
wound i mean when i look at what the sec
10:14
is doing and the regulators are doing in
10:16
terms of just being hostile to crypto
10:18
you know until until extremely recently
10:20
also new york state with their bid
10:21
license it makes me sad because i see a
10:24
great country that could still do well
10:26
still it’s not too late but it’s just
10:28
kind of lacking the awareness of what
10:29
needs to be done and the world that
10:31
we’re in and you know it’s we’re heading
10:32
into 2022 i mean we’re living in the
10:34
future now
10:35
okay this is the future i mean when we
10:37
were growing up this is like fantasy
10:38
numbers like no one would even know you
10:40
know no one party like it’s 1999
10:43
remember that yeah you know and here we
10:44
are 22 years later
10:46
it’s it’s it’s kind of
10:49
it’s frustrating to me to see the
10:50
direction the us is going i don’t know
10:52
if i don’t know if it’ll fall apart or
10:53
not but i’ll tell you when i look in
10:55
places when i’m in places like dubai and
10:57
even ukraine i see what’s possible i
10:59
mean dubai was a desert 20 years ago and
11:01
look what they built so don’t tell me
11:03
the us can’t build something also back
11:05
in 20 years it just takes the vision and
11:07
the will the vision yeah it’s the vision
11:09
it’s the leadership and it’s the vision
11:10
and uh you know we keep looking for it
11:13
and uh well i think we have it
11:16
you know
11:17
let me just share a thought there
11:19
there’s this meme going around instagram
11:21
right now like no one’s gonna save you
11:23
right okay you know it’s this woman’s
11:24
voice i don’t even know who it is but
11:26
it’s always you know no one’s coming no
11:27
one’s gonna save you no one’s gonna wake
11:29
you up no one’s gonna set your alarm we
11:31
all
11:32
in this time
11:33
you know in in it
11:34
i wouldn’t say the world is absent
11:35
heroes there’s lots of people there’s
11:37
lots of heroes but we kind of need to be
11:38
our own heroes we need to get ourselves
11:40
up so we need to be the leadership we
11:43
you know it really needs to be us
11:44
because no one else is coming believe me
11:46
no one else is going to say the
11:47
environment other than us right now it’s
11:50
absolutely correct and uh you know the
11:52
one of the situations we have there and
11:54
i was talking to brock pierce i
11:56
actually did an interview a little while
11:58
ago and i said you know to run for
12:01
office right now is so hard because
12:03
they there’s so many poisonous needles
12:06
that you know what i mean there’s people
12:08
that are just ruining you they’ll you
12:09
know they’ll do whatever they’ll and so
12:12
i thought i thought for a moment there
12:13
was like a russian polonium reference i
12:15
know i think i was like quoting somebody
12:17
that’s interesting but i stopped oh
12:18
bulgarian assassin with umbrella
12:21
it’s brutal
12:23
it’s brutal to do something like that i
12:25
think
12:26
i don’t know if it’s much
12:28
different i mean when you had the
12:29
hamilton aaron burr duel and one of them
12:31
died and the other one had to run away i
12:33
don’t know politics got better i mean
12:34
it’s better than 1930s germany i mean
12:37
it’s it’s you know of course we’re
12:38
talking about the united states but in
12:39
the us
12:40
don’t share political violence i mean
12:42
the civil war was political violence
12:44
yeah and i killed more war than any
12:45
other war in american history it’s just
12:48
i think you need to armor
12:49
you just
12:51
i don’t know if it got i don’t know if
12:52
the situation’s gone worse or if we’ve
12:53
gotten weaker i i i think i think we
12:56
just need to talk about
12:58
something well i don’t know if it
12:58
actually got worse
13:00
i mean certain things gotten worse but i
13:01
don’t know if politics was ever a gentle
13:03
sport
13:04
but we i think just need to armor up
13:06
ourselves whether it’s spiritually or
13:08
ethically or morally just armor yourself
13:10
up and just realize
13:12
again you got to be your own hero you
13:14
got to be your own moral compass and so
13:16
i
13:17
you know
13:18
at first you know you saw you mentioned
13:20
brock i mean when i first met him i was
13:21
like who is this guy what the heck is he
13:22
saying you know well he’s involved too
13:24
no he’s fair enough like when when
13:26
zombies in the cowboy hat and the you
13:28
know in the reading about you know
13:30
he’s like secret geometry
13:32
yeah what the heck is this business and
13:34
then you know to be honest i moved a
13:35
little bit towards his direction
13:37
um
13:38
i’ve had interesting conversations with
13:39
him i always felt like he kind of saw me
13:40
he’s like mr overly corporate guy like
13:43
you know i’m just playing with my i’m
13:44
just playing my part no he’s interesting
13:46
he’s very inspirational actually when
13:47
you talk to him yeah very smart
13:49
insightful guy and i i got to hear him
13:51
have some business conversations like
13:52
wow okay yep you know i think he gets a
13:55
i think he gets a bad rap in some of the
13:57
press but the more he talks to people
13:58
the more the message gets out he’s doing
14:02
he’s actually really doing it i mean
14:03
he’s
14:04
he’s someone who’s his own hero in the
14:06
sense he’s not waiting for anyone’s
14:07
permission he’s acting which is
14:08
something i think we can all take a
14:10
message from and you do world leaders
14:12
putting things together moving the the
14:14
world along and you know bitcoin has
14:16
been our
14:18
uh revolt it’s been our silent uh
14:21
you know fight our silent revolution
14:22
there’s been no shots fired there’s been
14:24
you know we haven’t been hostile as far
14:26
as any of that is concerned but we’ve
14:28
been able to take our assets and move
14:30
them into something that uh we had
14:32
control over and it’s a different
14:34
situation uh than than we’ve had in
14:36
history can i reframe that in a slightly
14:38
more aggressive way yeah so i just
14:39
posted this on instagram and i also
14:40
believe it i think bitcoin crypto and
14:43
blockchain are fourth generation warfare
14:46
against the existing financial system it
14:47
is a distributed networked
14:50
insurgency
14:52
without a center without a leader but
14:53
nonetheless highly effective against
14:55
these centralized
14:57
monolithic incumbent players yeah and i
14:59
think they need those challenges i mean
15:01
you know i don’t know if we’re gonna win
15:03
i don’t know if we need to need to win
15:05
but we need to force our reform and this
15:07
pressure is gonna make it do it yeah so
15:09
it’s a beautiful thing it is that
15:13
and actually i would even say
15:15
that yeah we’re on the forefront
15:17
that we’re pushing it we’re with the
15:19
players i’m sure in the whatever files
15:21
they have we’re there they have our
15:22
pictures i mean you know we’ve been
15:24
we’ve been in it a long time yeah except
15:26
the file is called meta these days yeah
15:28
the file is called these days yeah isn’t
15:30
that crazy what a move huh
15:33
yeah zuckerberg we’re talking about with
15:35
uh so i though i have two facebook
15:37
accounts one has been on single day
15:39
review for over a year now
15:41
so if you think i’m gonna trust facebook
15:44
with my currency and my wallet when
15:46
they’re reviewing my account for one day
15:48
and that has still been a year and no
15:49
one picks up the phone
15:51
facebook i mean i use you as utility but
15:54
you always give me facebook never be
15:56
meta in my mind and i don’t think i’m
15:57
going into your metaverse it is it is
15:59
totally cool those are fighting words
16:01
those are exciting words for zuckerberg
16:03
yeah well gordon it’s always a it’s
16:05
always a pleasure man pleasure yeah to
16:06
have you on do you have a website or
16:08
something you want to share
16:09
um
16:10
sure
16:11
cryptolawpartners.com but i also want to
16:13
do a quick shout out to
16:15
people should be aware that i’m involved
16:16
in something called the the dev x now
16:18
which is the developers dao
16:21
that is a true dow that makes grants in
16:24
support of software development and
16:25
decentralization activity they received
16:27
a large grant from casper the new level
16:30
layer one blockchain and we did an
16:32
innovative thing we we wrapped a swiss
16:34
non-profit association
16:36
around this dow so we have the melding
16:39
of a real legal form in the in
16:41
switzerland wrapped around a doubt and
16:43
this now it’s a non-profit i’m very
16:45
proud to be involved i don’t make you
16:47
know i’m not in this for profit for
16:48
money i just think it’s a fantastic way
16:51
uh supporting open source and
16:52
decentralization so just go to
16:55
devxdow.com if you want to learn more
16:57
about it i think that’s more important
16:58
than me individually i think this dow is
17:00
world changing and anyone including
17:02
yourself we need more lawyers to be
17:04
honest actually we will have this
17:05
conversation we need lawyers we need
17:07
software engineers you know we’re
17:08
developing new law we’re developing new
17:10
software if you have ideas for community
17:12
building please take a look at
17:14
devexnow.com uh it’s a great movement
17:17
and actually i’d love to have you
17:18
involved
17:19
devxdown.com gordon einstein pleasure
17:23
man
17:24
thank you guys