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- [00:07]
Andrew Berkowitz
We all want to believe in something. In Chinese, belief also means trust. We want to trust our systems and each other so we can build a future beyond what we know. Join us at Consensus Hong Kong, where belief becomes real.
- [00:22]
Jen Senassi
Hello and welcome to Markets Daily, hosted by me, Jen Senassi. Today is a very special show where my colleague Sam Ewan joins me to co host an episode based on Blockchain for Good. Sam. Hello, Jen.
- [00:35]
Sam Ewan
So good to see you. It's an exciting conversation that we're about to have. I really have a lot of respect for what both of these groups are doing. I'm excited to get into it, and I think more people should be focused on how blockchain can create good in the world.
- [00:50]
Jen Senassi
I completely agree with you. I think. I mean, even on this show, we focus so often on the financial aspects of. Of this industry, a little bit on, like, the casino vibe of this industry. But there's so much happening that makes this world we live in more sustainable. It opens up opportunities for folks. I think there's just so much happening behind the scenes that we don't often shine a spotlight on. And so that's what we're doing today. I want to introduce our guests. We have Values Co CEO Andrew Berkowitz joining us and Rainforest Foundation US Executive Director Suzanne Pelletier. Hello to you both.
- [01:27]
Suzanne Pelletier
Hi, Jen.
- [01:28]
Andrew Berkowitz
Hi, Jen.
- [01:29]
Suzanne Pelletier
Good to be here.
- [01:29]
Andrew Berkowitz
Great to be here.
- [01:30]
Jen Senassi
Yeah. Great to have you here. Like Sam and I just mentioned, really excited to dive deep into what you're both working on, put a little bit more of a human element to this thing we talk about so often. Suzanne, I want to kick it off to you first. Tell me about. Tell me about what you're doing. Tell me about how crypto kind of comes into the fold, just kind of lay a foundation for us.
- [01:55]
Suzanne Pelletier
Well, we've been trying to figure that out for. For about 10 years. As an organization, we, you know, as an organization, we work on forest protection with indigenous people, so not in this space at all. And about 10 years ago, we started working with a couple of volunteers thinking, hey, maybe there's a way that we can integrate Blockchain with trying to raise funds for forest protection. And our. And our work, we were really seeing there's, like, crazy urgency to what we do, but the money just wasn't there. It wasn't fast enough, and typical philanthropy wasn't doing it. So we created a coin, actually, 10 years ago to try to. And launched it. And the idea was we had been around for 25 years, like, maybe this coin could be a way that we could fund our work for the next 20, 25 years. And it didn't end up working for a lot of reasons. And I think it was just a bit too early in what we tried to do. And we didn't build a community. We didn't know how to build a community around it. But it really, it opened our eyes to the idea that, you know, blockchain could be used for some sort of social good and to support nonprofits. So we've been engaged with several NFT projects along the way. And most recently we decided that instead of launching our own coin, which didn't really make sense for us, why not develop? We were inspired by looking at companies like MicroStrategy that was building a treasury with Bitcoin and thought this is, this makes sense for us to use this asset that's appreciating to support our work for the future.
- [03:32]
Jen Senassi
A lot that I think both Sam and I wanted dig into there. But Andrew, I want to give you just a second to do the exact same for values co talk to us about what you're building and how that is enabling creators to connect to all sorts of different organizations and folks.
- [03:53]
Andrew Berkowitz
Yeah, 100%. So we started this company back in the kind of, I'm sure everyone has really fond memories of Defi summer back in 2020. This really kind good times now is kind of the first narrative shift around NFTs and social token really come into the mainstream. And so we really started back then with the vision of how can we leverage this new asset, specifically social tokens, as a way to yes, connect creators with their fans, but to kind of incentivize positive action from their audiences. And what we learned over the years is what's necessary in that type of dynamic is a much more collaborative approach. And so we actually expanded well beyond that into how do we bring brands, nonprofits, creators, publishers and audiences all together, each contributing different unique things to the mix in order to create rewards ecosystems for good. And a lot of times in blockchain, you know, when we talk about this conversation of blockchain for good, the conversation is almost entirely around, you know, make money and then donate to a nonprofit. And that's kind of the extent of the conversation. But I think the missing piece in that, and a really important one that doesn't get discussed about, is actually how can we incentivize positive action and kind of create new economic systems that aren't just decentralized, aren't just sovereign, but are really thinking of like, you know, this kind of X to earn concept. How can we reinvent value and mediums of exchange between individuals and organizations to be incentivizing positive kind of grassroots action towards a better world?
- [05:30]
Sam Ewan
Andrew, I want to ask you a question about that because we've seen recently with the rise of, of the Trump token that it really is kind of a share of attention more than anything else. You know, it's a, It's a top 30 coin at the moment. It is the kind of thing that people I think are buying because they want to be aligned with an ideology. And I actually look at those things as attention is the kind of currency of today. And I think what you're building with a social network that rewards that attention is very current in the kind of macro of how people are communicating. But on TikTok and on Instagram, they're just giving the value of that to the major platforms. So what is it that makes values code different in a world where attention is kind of the way that we exchange back and forth value?
- [06:20]
Andrew Berkowitz
Yeah, totally. So like the, the whole kind of meme coin meta is what you said, it's the financialization of Internet based attention. And that's a very loose concept that really is. We can, as a, as a, as a, as an industry, we can kind of take that in any direction that we want to. We can take it in the direction of creator tokens, we can take it into the direction of turning every famous Internet meme into a stock. But a more beautiful world would look like, hey, you know, whether it's like you're super passionate about helping LA in the wake of a fires, well, if there's a ton of attention there, why not create a coin based on that that people can earn by supporting and people can, you know, we still have the same kind of degen mechanisms built into it. But this, this idea of like having, having a financial mechanism to guide attention towards good things in the world, that's the kind of like foundational elements for how we can create currencies that are really new economic systems incentivizing more positive behavior. Because I think things like Trump coin, dgen culture is a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun to speculate on these things and group chats with your friends. Does it bring the best out of people? Probably not. I don't really think it does. And so it's kind of day one or ground zero for us to decide very intentionally as an industry, where do we want to take this and do we just want this to be a PvP at some point you're going to use other people as exit liquidity and move on, which is exactly what's happening in meme coins, even if some are, you know, quote unquote, more sustainable than or you know, more long lasting than others. So there's the kind of Web3 component and then as you mentioned, there's like the social media component, which is the reality of web 2. Social media was optimized for attention, but optimize in a way of bringing attention to the table through negativity and kind of manipulating human emotion that maybe is sometimes positive, but generally is something that's kind of, as plenty of people said, kind of tearing at the fabric of reality. And so how can we rethink that? Leverage, emotion, leverage love, leverage gratitude. These, these emotions that are more positive and create a different type of social feed that can connect people through the positive emotions. And that's really, I think that the context switch and there's a lot of aspects of web3 that enhances the gamification and enables us to do that in a really effective way.
- [09:09]
Jen Senassi
I want to talk a little bit more about incentives and Suzanne, I want to pull you into the conversation here. I think this all sounds great, right? But it's that user behavior that so many organizations like this are looking to change. We talk about the negative experience on social media, but I think the reality is is we're all addicted to it anyways. And Suzanne, you talked about launching a token that didn't really work for the organization. Now you're looking to grow a treasury of 100 bitcoin. Talk to me about how you are educating the people that you engage with to get that bitcoin to get into the treasury. What have you learned from that token not really taking off. And because of the shift that needs to happen, is it really a crypto native audience that you're focused on? Both of you as you're trying to get more eyeballs? Suzanne, I'll kick it off to you first.
- [10:00]
Suzanne Pelletier
Sure. With the Bitcoin treasury, we're definitely looking at the crypto community because I think that, you know, we have this new innovate, not innovation, but this new movement for looking at Bitcoin as an asset and as a hedge against inflation. And it's really relevant on the nonprofit side. You know, we try to keep six months of operating cash as an organization for our financial health, but that's doing nothing for us. You know, we're getting no return on it. With dollar debasement and inflation, we're losing money and people are donating to us. And then the money, the cash they're donating is losing value. So I think that, you know, it appeals to non crypto. I think that concept can appeal to a non. A non crypto audience. But the reality is it's the crypto audience that I think really is buying into this and hopefully and holds the bit bitcoin right now. And so we'll see this as just another use case for this, you know, the appreciating asset. I also wanted to talk about, we are getting involved in meme coins as well. There is a meme coin and the. But it's positive. It's. You know, before when I said the. The coin that we created didn't have a community. And I think that's really important. And so on a nonprofit side, yes, if there can be a coin or a token that incentivizes behavior like what Andrew was talking about, that's fantastic. Fantastic. One of the behaviors can be giving. And so we've been involved in this project that's actually an AI agent that has a community. The crypto community has come around. It's called San Sentient Advocate of Nature. And through that community wanted to do something good and wanted to support the type of things that this AI agent was espousing and trying to put forward. And so the, this know crypto meme coin community came together to create a forest coin that then is being used to donate to organizations like ours. So I think that's a good example of where these communities can come together, incentivizing action, supporting and supporting nonprofits.
- [12:16]
Jen Senassi
Are other nonprofits coming to you and wondering how you're doing this? It seems like very forward thinking for. For a nonprofit.
- [12:26]
Suzanne Pelletier
I don't think we're communicating very well what we're doing. So I'm glad I'm here being able to talk to you and hopefully other people will hear.
- [12:35]
Sam Ewan
Suzanne, I do want to ask you one question, though, and I think in some respects, this also applies very much to valuescope. But I think specifically with what you're doing with the Rainforest foundation is you're specifically asking for a bitcoin treasury. You want to raise 100 bitcoin. I understand very much the. The idea of appreciation, and I think you're 100% right. You could be making more money in USDC just with the return than you're making your bank today. But imagine what you could do with bitcoin considering the potential appreciation you have there. But I do think there's still a perception out there, even though I Think we all believe that most of the energy in bitcoin mining is going green. There's still a perception that it's a big energy suck and I think people look at it as anti environmental. So how do you talk to your potential donors when they say, hey, you're, you know, you're, you're, you're supporting a technology which is really heating the planet and yet you want to be here saving the environment. What's your, what's your line to them?
- [13:35]
Suzanne Pelletier
It's just educating people about the energy mix that is being used in, in bitcoin, showing progress over the past few years. So it's just an education. It's kind of interesting. No one is asking us about do you use AI in your work and know what's the energy use of that. So it's just, we're just trying to educate people of the realities.
- [14:00]
Sam Ewan
And Andrew I guess is similarly when you're trying to get people involved in action. I still hear from my child who's 23 years old, oh, aren't you guys, you know, destroying the planet through crypto? So a lot of young people that are probably coming out to your social network are probably wondering around, around the idea of is crypto really green?
- [14:20]
Andrew Berkowitz
Yeah, I mean we actually haven't had too much pushback on that. We did in the early days back when like, you know, I actually remember there was a vibe shift. There was like one headline that came out around like the energy usage of NFTs and then everyone's talking points came out and you know, it's, it's very difficult to have to do, spend enough time thinking to develop your own original thoughts. It's pretty easy to just look at a headline and just have talking points that you can go around with. And so, you know, look, the reality is everything we do on the Internet uses energy. And there's enough important things that blockchain is introducing compared to the old system that is totally worth it. And with things like moving from proof of work to proof of stake, the reality is these things evolve over time and they get better, they get more efficient.
- [15:16]
Jen Senassi
I want to go back to my question that I posed Andrew, to you and Suzanne, but only Suzanne got to answer it. How do you think about changing that user behavior? Right, because I open up my phone, I go on the regular social apps. How do you think about getting users away from that and into this new ecosystem that, I mean, I've gone through some of your documents. I did a lot of research before the show. It seems like such a more fulfilling ecosystem to be a part of. But that user behavior is something that is not an easy task to tackle.
- [15:49]
Andrew Berkowitz
Totally. I mean, the world is ruled by habit and we all kind of have our own kind of habitual momentum that we build it built into our own lives and very hard to change those things, which is okay because, you know, like there's, you know, it's like this concept of like you can wield power for good or for evil, but it will be wielded by somebody. And so you might as well try to step up for the good. And so for us and how we're thinking about our social network is, I mean, it's really kind of leveraging gamification and rewards and kind of first principles of some of the mechanisms that some of these older kind of web2era social media companies were using to kind of do the same things, but ensure that what is being prompted or the dopamine hit that a user is getting is prompting a good action. So we have things like, you know, doing a 15 minute meditation to earn some rewards. Right. So that's something that you still get the same exact kind of dopamine hit with the notification, the reward. But it's an action that is, you know, just ever so slightly building new habits towards good in your own life. And so that's kind of, you know, first principles of how we're thinking about things. And again, doing this on the blockchain enables us to introduce different dynamics of gamification that weren't really possible in the previous area or previous era of social.
- [17:15]
Sam Ewan
I guess, you know, how are people going to find you guys? You know, we got to wrap up now, but I want to make sure that people listening know where to read about both what Values Co is doing and, and Rainforest Foundation. So Suzanne, what's the best way for people to get involved with Rainforest Foundation?
- [17:32]
Suzanne Pelletier
Just go to our website, rainforestfoundation.org and you can find out information about both what we're doing and as well as the reserve and our other projects in crypto and Andrew.
- [17:43]
Andrew Berkowitz
Yeah, and for us, we actually just this past week announced kind of a reimagining of ourselves from Values Code to Values Network and did it in partnership with Aptos Labs and Project Liberty. So that release went out last Friday and our new website is live@values.network.
- [18:03]
Jen Senassi
Awesome. Well, thank you both for joining us. Sam, thanks for joining as my co host. Awesome. And thank you to our audience for watching Markets Daily, for listening to Markets Daily. If you enjoy the show, subscribe to the Coindesk podcast network that is on all podcast platforms. If you prefer to watch us, we are on YouTube. Hit subscribe, give us a thumbs up and we'll see you next time.