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Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Lessons - The Ethereum Co-Founder Who Quit Crypto | Anthony Di Iorio - Built $1B Platform, Walked Away
00:15:35
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- [00:00]
A
In this lessons episode, examine how speculation and utility shape the evolution of crypto and influence its long term value. Discover why early risk taking sparked key innovation, understand how decentralization and multi currency tools are redefining financial control and explore how inclusive frameworks can support more sustainable technology ecosystems. And I guess like the point that I'm trying to, to get to is the crypto as a market, it's really driven with a lot of speculation as well. So I'm wondering if it's more like the underlying tech and practical applications use cases that are driving the technology forward or is it more speculation and potential financial gain that's driving this industry forward.
- [00:51]
B
So it's a combination of both and over time I think you're going to see more and more of the utility aspect that's going to lead to more and more of the value increases. And that's, that's where the value comes from in my opinion. It's, you know, when we started off we had 9,000 people that entrusted us with their Bitcoin to then turn that into the technology that we were creating. And they took a gamble and a risk by giving us that money up front in a pre sale of a product that we didn't deliver until a year later, which was, which was the plan. But you know, they were, they were speculating that or you know, it's speculation, just another term for, you know, taking a risk or it's a term for investing. There's, it's a lot of, it's just terminology but early on there was a lot of speculation. There's still a lot of speculation, but more and more every month you're seeing utility come out of it. You're seeing how the, the different sectors and different industries are going to be radically changed from the technologies. So it's, it is still speculation, but it's, it's people also that realize where it's going to go. And it's always about thinking ahead of the curve. And that's something that I think I pride myself on, on being able to see where things are heading in the future, whether it be business models that are deficient or whether it be where the crypto space was going to come in and be able to start offering potentially alternatives for government currencies. It's all about staying ahead of the curve and understanding where things are going based on where things have gone in the past and making sure you have the tools and assets that you can put it together in order to utilize what your knowledge is. So there is a lot of speculation I'd say most of it is still on speculation, but there's a lot of good utility coming out. There's a lot of good people. People realizing that their, their jobs and their areas of where they, they're in are going to be radically changed and it's important for them to stay on it. And a lot of people are betting on Ethereum and other similar technologies. And it's, that's why it's growing. It's growing because there is a realization that these things are very powerful, they're very empowering. They, they could be really efficient. And once they scale and grow beyond some of the barriers they may have now, watch out. It's, it's going to be really radically changing the world.
- [02:45]
A
Yeah. And like now you see, like, obviously El Salvador has adopted Bitcoin is legal tender. And these are like actual fixing addition like, like existing currency problems that countries have. I know that Zimbabwe is looking at adopting Bitcoin as legal tender. So you're starting to see some like, like practical application that are, like, that are really changing how a country can function.
- [03:12]
B
Definitely.
- [03:12]
A
But. Okay, so let's, let's walk through, you know, your, your story. So after Ethereum, I know that you worked on Dec bit, but then you left those. Or walk me through how you, how you left, what you're working on with Ethereum and Decentral and then what you wanted to focus on going forward. Because I know that you're working on a new project now, and I think it's actually very interesting and it totally syncs up with like what your vision and your mission is. So walk me through that process and what we're doing, like right now? Gusto is a success story, partner. Now look, I talk to business owners every single day, and you know what I hear constantly, Scott, I love running my business, but. But I hate dealing with payroll. And I get it. Nobody starts a company because they're excited about calculating tax withholdings and benefits administration. That's exactly why I use Gusto myself. And the smartest business owners use it as well. Gusto is online payroll and benefit software built for small business. It's all in one remote, friendly, and incredibly easy to use. So you can pay, hire, onboard and support your team from anywhere. Now, here's what sold me. Unlimited payroll runs for one monthly price. No surprises, no hidden fees. When you need to run that extra payroll, and when you hit a tough HR situation, and trust me, you will, you get direct access to actual certified HR experts, not a chatbot. Real people who know what they're talking about. Plus, they're the number one payroll software according to G2 for fall of 2025, and over 400,000 small businesses already trust them. Write Gusto today at gusto.com success story and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months free payroll@gusto.com success story. Everyday Dose is a success story partner now running multiple businesses or hosting a podcast, writing newsletters. I need to be sharp all day, every day. And for years, I thought more coffee was the answer. Bigger cups, stronger brews. But here's what I learned. More coffee just means more jitters, more crashes, and honestly, diminishing returns. By about 2pm, I needed an upgrade. If normal coffee is a flip phone, I needed the smartphone version. And that's Everyday Dose Coffee with benefits. They combine high quality coffee with lion's mane and chaga mushrooms, collagen, protein and nootropics to fuel your brain, boost your focus, and give you clean, sustained energy all day long. It tastes just like coffee, but without the downside, there's no crash and there's no jitters. Right now for Black Friday, you get 61% off your first coffee plus starter kit. You get a free A2 probiotic creamer and over $100 in free gifts plus enter for a chance to win $100 cash or get your entire order refunded. Visit everydaydose.com success story or use code success story at checkout.
- [05:51]
B
So I left Ethereum in 2015. I was one of the initial funders. We had also Joseph Lubin, who runs a company called Consensus, an organization. We funded the operations of it until the crowd sale. And then the money came in for the crowd sale and it kind of came down to the developers carrying out the mission. And there's a little bit of the restriction. Back in the day, there was eight founders. At that time, it was difficult to get decisions made. And what happened is kind of the developer team, you know, it was about them carrying things out and they, they kind of took things by the reins and worked towards getting the product out. And Charles ended up leaving the project and Amir one of the other founders. And then over time, Joseph and myself also knew that the writing was on the wall there. And with Ethereum, it kind of opened my doors to things or my mind to things other than Bitcoin, which at the time before Ethereum, everything was Bitcoin and then there was Ethereum. And then it's like, well, Ethereum's gonna spawn so many other organizations and projects that are gonna be run on Ethereum and other technologies. So it's not just about one technology. And I like to be very inclusive in my mindset with things. And so the idea was there's gonna be thousands of these things out there and they all need interfaces, they all need ways to send and receive and connect to the network. So I continued building the wallets that and creating the first multi currency, multi platform wallets in the space that wouldn't just support Bitcoin or Ethereum, but also would support Litecoin and Dogecoin and eventually thousands of these technologies. So in 2015 I continued building wallets and technology and infrastructure to connect it all together. And I launched a product called Jaxx Jax, I think launched in 2016. We launched a successor called Jax Liberty. And really again building the tools to empower people to be in control of their digital lives, their money, their communication, their identities. It's three pillars that I've always built things on. I think it's really important to own your identity, it's really important to own your money and it's really important to own your communications. And those three together are done in a decentralized fashion where the user is in full control, is a very powerful product. And that's what we built, is we built wallets that put the keys and allow the individual user to actually fully own his assets. We don't ever take custodianship of it, of any of the, the, the digital assets. It's actually fully owned by the users and they only, they hold the keys. But what we do is connect them to all the different protocols and the platforms like Bitcoin and Ethereum. So that's where that's kind of been my main focus as CEO of Decentral over the years. And just, just, you know, since 2018, when the markets really started hitting down in 2018, after the big ICO craze that happened in 2017, I started reevaluating what it is I want to do with my life. And I've gotten to the point where, you know, I, I didn't need to be, you know, thinking about setting myself up for the rest of my life. Things were pretty good at the time, but I realized that more and more of the more freedom that I was seeking actually, the less freedom I actually had. And what I mean by that is, you know, when you become your own bank, you got certain responsibilities and you no longer have your money sitting in a bank somewhere that's being secured by a bank. And it's not black and white. One of the biggest lessons I've ever learned in my life is that nothing's black and white and there's kind of gray areas of everything and there's always dials that you have to turn up and down. And yes, it's important to be in control of your, of your life, but also sometimes it can be good to have others that are, that are offering services to help you along the way. And it was, it was an eye opening experience when you know, Ethereum started getting really, really, really big and just the attention that we were getting got really massive and it just, you know, it was, I was at a point in my life, I'm like, I don't want something to happen here that could really make a game changing life on my family and things, you know, I, I make wallets, we don't hold the keys. But something could still happen there that could, that could, could cause some issue and there's other risk factors to be considerate of. And I ended up rethinking what my mission was and spent a lot of time thinking about three things. My what, my why and my how. And those three things I ended up figuring out were my, my what, you know, what is it I want to do with my life. And now that I've done what I've done and I have the resources to continue to do what I'm doing, what is it that I really want to do and what. And then it's like, well, why do I want to do the thing that I want to do and then how am I going to do it? And over time of really thinking about this and I decided to, you know, what makes me happy is being in service. It's, it's, it's the idea that, you know, what am I good at and what can I do to offer to the world that I, that I, with what I'm good at? And, and it's to be, to serve as many people as possible and to help people. And that's, I figured out why do I like to be in service. I love hosting events and doing things like that, but it's generally because I, it makes me happy to see other people happy. So the idea what is it I want to do is to serve. Why I want to do it is because it makes me happy. And then how do I do it? Is something I call perfect formula. It's a general framework that I came up to solve problems. It's a general problem solving formula that runs around the basis of creating winning situations for as many stakeholders as you can possibly Imagine in what it is you're doing. It's a framework that I've developed based on principles, processes and tools I developed over my lifetime. And it just kind of revolves around, you have a problem or there's something you want to achieve and it takes it. I take a framework through it where I say, okay, what is the problem you're trying to do? Who are your stakeholders? And by stakeholders I mean anybody that you could potentially have in the mix that could provide value to you in what you're trying to do. Something where you're trying to create movements of people all aligned towards common interests and common goals so that people realize by joining you on what you're doing, their life gets better. So I spent time putting together this framework that kind of is how I've run my businesses in the past and ended up coming up with something that I think is pretty powerful and something that I think I can utilize as a problem solver and as a leader to take my framework to the world and no matter what sector it's in and be able to utilize the framework to create better results that create, create more situations of winning for more people and doesn't exclude people from the equation because a lot of times business formulas and business models, they're not efficient enough for and they have deficiencies which disclude people and those disclusions of people leads to people that aren't happy with what you're doing or leads to people that you're not creating a win for. And if you're not thinking ahead of how you can actually provide value to as many stakeholders as possible over time, you're either going to get disrupted with change that comes about because you haven't thought as good as someone else does and comes down the road and or you're going to get people that are feeling that your mission, whether it be to return maximum returns to shareholders, which is what a lot of companies are forced to do, that's what their mandate is. It usually comes at an expense of something else, whether it's other people or comes an expense to the planet. And I think if we can move the dial from deficient models which are maybe let's say 50% efficient and they're still not serving 50% of the population, how do we move it to 60% are being served? How do we move to 70%? How do we create models of aligned people that come together to create 90% models where people are realizing that by joining your product or joining your company or joining your mission, their day to day life is Getting better. And that's kind of what I'm trying to do with my framework is bring to the table that there are better ways to have business models. There's better ways to do things that don't necessarily rely on advertising models, which create, in my opinion, a lot of misinformation and people that are taken down these paths because advertisers are paying money to get eyeballs on something which leads to, you know, this, this attention economy that we have and the amount of screen time that's out there. And even models that, that collect user information and then are allowing that information somehow to get. To get exposed and people aren't in control of their. Of their stuff. So I think there's a big deficiency in business models, which usually stem from having to return money to investors and people having to squeeze things that eventually lead to problems and lead to a situation where, like we've had with Facebook, governments questioning, hey, your business models are leading to these problems here, and it's not good. And why are you doing it this well? It's like, well, that's all we really want.
- [13:58]
A
That's what everyone does.
- [13:59]
B
That's the status quo. And we haven't thought differently and we need to think different. I created models for my wallet that don't hold customer funds because I realized when you're holding stuff of other people's, you're now responsible for it, and I don't want to be responsible for it. So how do you think differently to create wallets where the user is holding the key and I'm not holding the key? We've never used advertising in our models. I think generally people don't like advertising. There's better ways to do things. So our models for our wallets are we create partnerships and provide services that connect individuals with companies that provide good services. And we provide the interface and kind of the thing that connects it all together. So I believe there's better ways to do things than the business models that exist. I think the business models that exist lead to a lot of problems the world has, and it leads to exclusion of people and it leads to the situation where a few are maybe being served, but a lot aren't. And when you have that type of situation, you don't get aligned people coming together to create movements when everybody feels that they're in this together. So I kind of want to be a leader and a problem solver because I think that's two things that the world is sorely lacking these days. And using my frameworks that I've developed. I want to serve as many people as possible with what I'm bringing out as perfect formula, which is really a framework I want to get out to the world that has no other intention rather than to just be in service. It's not something I'm doing that I plan on doing for profit. In fact, if I was to enter that into the game, I think I would lose credibility from a lot of people that believe that it's the same type of motive that I'm trying to fix or trying to work with. So it's really important to have trust. It's really important to have social capital, trust capital. You need wealth, capital. You know, these things that come together to create a perfect formula to be able to do what it is you want to do and check all the boxes in your business and create a situation where no one can say you didn't think of that in what you're doing. And your. Your solutions are creating more inclusivity. They're creating more people coming together to on common goals and interests. And you're creating new solutions for incumbents to even come along because you can't exclude them in the mix either. You have to bring everybody along in what you do. And I want to help be a catalyst for that.
- [15:51]
A
Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.