Encrypted

In this episode, Ahmed speaks to Phil Chen, the Decentralised Chief Officer at HTC.

Ahmed first questions Phil about what his title actually means and Phil drills down into the idea of leaderless leaders, and how every person becomes their own leader.

Before talking about the Exodus phone, Phil delves into his entrepreneurial career, how he helped HTC become a global brand and how he got into the crypto space.

The pair go on to discuss the Exodus phone, key management systems, how HTC's Blockchain phone is different to its competitors and the importance of shipping products first!

We hope you enjoy!!!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Special Guest: Phil Chen.

In this episode, we cover the SDO Global Blockchain Challenge which was showcased in the Future Blockchain Summit in Dubai.

Out of the 700+ applications, only 20 finalists were flown to Dubai with a chance to pitch their ideas and where only three can be crowned winners do receive cash prizes.

We first speak with Karin Gabriel, a Project Lead at the Dubai Future Accelerators (DFA), who explains to us what the DFA is and its role within the Dubai Government, and also what the Global Blockchain Challenege is all about.

We then spoke with 6 of the finalists to learn more about what they’re doing and what their projects are! These include:

We wish we could have sat down with all 20 start-ups, but the above 6 just showcases how diverse the finals were.

The competition took place on Wednesday 3rd April and the winners were announced during the Future Blockchain Summit -

We hope you enjoy!!!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Special Guest: Karin Gabriel.

So our stats shows that 42% of our listeners are from the UAE. Well we have never met nor interacted with the majority of them, and so we decided to host our first meet-up.

We did a live podcast to interact and engage with our community and the wider blockchain community in Dubai. We allowed the audience to pitch in their thoughts and questions at any point during the panel to allow for an interactive discussion.

The topics were also chosen by the community too! On the registration form, we allowed the attendees to pick three topics out of 5 we picked and the three that were chosen were:

This is our longest episode where we, as a community, discussed many different factors of our ecosystem and we hope you will enjoy this.

As always, please do not subscribe to our podcast. If you have, do not forget to rate and review the podcast!!

Special Guests: Dr. Marwan Alzarouni and Talal Tabbaa.

In this episode Ahmed and Aniket speak to Sandeep Nailwal, COO of Matic Network.

Matic Network is a Layer 2 scaling solution for decentralised blockchain networks. The hosts explore why Matic exists, how they’re implementing Layer 2 solutions and what the platform is all about.

Sandeep in a nutshell explains how important it is to solve the biggest problems in the space; scalability and UX.

The Challenges

Layer 1 and Layer 2

Sandeep explains that Layer 1 is all about economic considerations where there is a trade-off between security and scalability which is commonly seen in networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum. The higher the security the lower the scalability and thus inherently slow. Ahmed quotes Vitalik’s Scalability trilemma where if you had scalabilty, decentralisation and security, you can only choose two of these three. Most, if not all Layer 1 blockchain networks, they choose decentralisation and security.

In Layer 2, since you have Layer 1 to rely on which is security and decentralisation, then through cryptographic mechanisms you can get the same features on layer 2 as well as adding the scalability in layer 2 which is not included in layer 1.

Difference between Matic and others

Here Sandeep explains how they are implementing layer 2 differently from Plasma, briefly explaining how they are implementing an account-based system rather than the UTXO system which is used by Plasma. Make sure to tune in to find out more!

Sandeep explains how Matic is different from competitors such as Loom Network and Skale.

Crypto in India

The Matic token and tokenomics

Is Matic doing an ICO?

We hope you enjoy!!!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Special Guest: Sandeep nailwal.

This episode was a real heart to heart.

Ahmed and Faisal reflect over their experience of running the Encrypted podcast covering what they learned when creating a podcast, their favourite episodes, the challenges they faced, revisiting why they are doing a podcast and sharing future plans of Encrypted.

Not your typical episode this time, but a good break and pause from the usual. Reflecting out loud has definitely renewed our purpose for delivering valuable content and making Encrypted what it Is today.

We hope you enjoy!!!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Episode 29 is here! Ahmed sits down with Walid Daniel Dib from Addenda and Vivek Bhalla from Takaful Emarat.

What is insurance and what challenges does the industry face?

Collaboration is also a key challenge that Walid pointed citing that insurance companies find It harder to come together and would rather sit on their heaps of data and not doing anything with it.

Can blockchain help? And if so, how?

Going corporate!

Ok, but why does this all matter? How will I, as an end user, see any change?

Walid and Vivek cite further examples, both within a typical insurance transaction (that is usually coordinated between many parties), and also enterprises currently developing proof of concepts in industries like trade finance.

With authenticated data processed seamlessly and less reliance on manual processes, the biggest implication for end users are the cost of premiums should significantly drop.

B3I

Lets talk convergence

The relationship between a start-up and a traditional player

Walid first starts off talking about his experience in the Fintech Hive, a leading fintech accelerator in Dubai, and how their talks with traditional insurance players surprised them as they saw local players being a bit more open compared to the international insurance firms with regional offices. Vivek and Walid both talk about their experiences working with and engaging the regulators and ultimately describing how their partnership formed and how their work is evolving!

Well what an episode that was, do make sure to tune in as we talked about the above and much more!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Special Guests: Vivek Bhalla and Walid Daniel Dib.

In our next instalment of Encrypted, episode 28 brings you an inspiring discussion with Maja Vujinovic, the CEO of OGroup and the former CIO of Emerging Technology at GE.

Maja first talks about the spark that caused her to go full time in blockchain after GE. The topics around deciphering data, what incentivizes behaviours, token economies, to name a few, were the topics that stimulated her interest and has ultimately led her to speak to global corporates about different ways you can incentivize behaviour for better business models.

Data, behavioural science and hype

Ahmed and Faisal start off the discussion with Maja about data to see what role it plays with blockchain networks and how that interacts with behavioural economics and science that is typically embedded in these networks.

Maja explains her story at GE in how she managed to convince upper management about the opportunities that well-built incentive models backed by the right data will help drive business growth and newer business models for the firm.

Transparency in large organisations – Yay or nay?

As Maja explains her experiences, this leads Ahmed to ask why do large corporates not like transparency? Maja spills the beans on what are in the minds of corporates and argues that in the real-world open source, for all its transparency, may actually not work.

What is the most important function of the government?

Maja proposes this above question stimulating a discussion on the responsibility that governments have with regards to their functions. There are clear use cases for the government to use blockchain to make their processes more efficient. Great! But now they have more coordinated data – uh oh, can we trust the governments to not abuse this data? Has blockchain brought power to those that it seeks to destroy? Tune in to this episode to hear what is being discussed!

Maja also touches on the topic of surveillance capitalism and explains that we have to think twice before building these tools otherwise we may see the wrong side of technology impacting humanity for the worse.

Touching upon centralisation, Ahmed talks about how decentralisation can only be realised in a slow fashion as we cannot have a full shift from centralisation to decentralisation overnight. Maja did not only agree but also explained her experiences at GE attested to this, explaining how their customers reacted to initial pilot projects that were launched.

Oh – and are the institutions really coming?

The trio deep dive into the aspect of what institutional money coming into crypto really means. Many people talk about it, but it’s never really explained properly. Is it heaps of money buying up bitcoin? Or is money going into specific blockchain funds? Or is it something else?

After Maja gives her thoughts on this, Faisal goes back to ask the question of whether or not we actually need humans to be their own banks, have specific applications, or have multi sig wallets because they are complicated, and humans are not used to it. Make sure to tune in this episode to hear Maja’s thoughts on this!

There is no killer app?!

As Maja toys with the idea that the killer app would be in gaming, she backtracks and says there is no killer app in the market. Faisal then poses the question of what do we need to see before a killer app comes along? Maja argues that Volume, true utility, deep purpose and underlying value are the 4 main traits before we see a real killer app.

Well what an episode that was, do make sure to tune in as we talked about the above and much more!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Special Guest: Maja Vujinovic.

Ahmed is at the World Government Summit recording from a beautiful room that overlooks the beautiful Jumeirah Beach and the Madinah Jumeirah in all its glory.

And what an amazing line-up he have for this episode with two amazing guests, Lawrence Wintermeyer from Global Digital Finance and Martin Bartlam from DLA Piper.

Adult supervision

After initial introductions, Ahmed recalls with Lawrence the crypto panel that took place at the World Government Summit this time last year which comprised mostly of bitcoin maximalists. This is in complete contrast to this year’s crypto panel at the World Government Summit where panel members all comprised of regulators and lawyers. Interesting how much changes in one year!

Lawrence and Martin emphasise the aspect that the crypto market is reforming and it is a time of consolidation and building before another round of excitement will come to the market again.

Why reinvent the wheel?

Most commentators would ascertain that new regulation would need to be implemented before the industry would see mass adoption. Martin, however, disagrees putting forth the viewpoint that we already have an effective regulatory framework in place and instead the market would need new infrastructures such as regulated exchanges, effective KYC procedures and custody solutions to exist before we see real traction.

In an environment of seeing the next wave of infrastructure the two guests believe that regulators and lawyers are already up to speed with recent developments in the space and are preparing for the new wave of innovations coming in the next couple years.

Let’s have a new term for STOs

Ahmed takes a crack at killing the term security tokens and STOs and the guests have slightly mixed views about this. Check out the episode to hear more!

Conquer or Partner?

Ahmed moves the conversation to see whether or not the current incumbents are able to or will bypass the current innovators and use their mass resources to move to a truly digital platform.

All the above and more was discussed in this week’s episode of Encrypted. But before the ending, the two guests talk about their biggest takeaways from the World Government Summit. So do make sure to check out this episode to hear their takeaways and what they have to say.

We really hope you enjoy this episode as we worked really hard to get this specific episode recorded and yes sorry about the echoes in this episode.

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Special Guests: Lawrence Wintermeyer and Martin Bartlam.

Ahmed and Faisal host Khalifa Alsuwaidi, CEO of Emirates Real Estate Solutions (ERES).

The episode starts with Khalifa introducing himself and his experiecne in the real estate sector and how ERES was founded and how it relates to the Dubai Land Department (DLD). He touches upon the strategic objectives of ERES and the engagement model with DLD.

History of blockchain in real estate

Khalifa then elaborates on how DLD and ERES began their exploration in blockchain and understanding how it could potnetially transform the real estate sector in Dubai. How they began their benchmarking process and worked closely with Smart Dubai and other government entities to put a clear roadmap for blockchain implementations.

The ecosystem & current implementations

Ahmed asks the guest to explain in more details the ecosystem of real estate. Khalifa explains all stakeholders involved in the ecosystem and how transactions are flowing; from developers to buyers to brokers to sellers and so on. He then explains how ERES developed the roadmap to design and implement solutions and products to cater for the needs of the market and different stakeholders and faciliate easier experiences. The guest also explains the main pillars and modules that are in the roadmap for ERES reaching 2020.

Moving forward

The hosts then touch upon 2019 and beyond plans of ERES and the main challeneges that are expected to be tackled moving forward. Khalifa explains challenges related to collaboration, capabilities and technical aspects.

As you can see, we talked about a lot of things and so all of the above and more will be on this week’s episode of Encrypted!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on iTunes and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Ahmed and Faisal are joined by Aly Madhavji, a Managing Partner at the Blockchain Founders Fund.

The episode starts off with Ahmed describing his experience at the Binance Fair in Singapore where he gives a few highlights and takeaways as well as a general landscape of the region.

Use cases and investments

The show then dives deep into Aly’s background and what the Blockchain Founders Fund actually is and what it does in the industry. Having an investment arm, incubation arm as well as a consulting arm, Aly reminds us all as to why blockchain is beneficial and cites many cross-border use cases.

Ahmed asks what type of companies the fund has already invested in and what are they looking to invest in going forward. With an interesting and diverse portfolio, this episode brings to light the unsung no-hype projects that are solving real problems and making real use cases.

2019 focus: Finding transformative solutions and UN Impact report

Aly also delves into their different focus points for 2019; one of which is contributing to the written publication of an Impact report for the United Nations. Having different stakeholders, in particular funds, contribute to social enterprise and social impact causes are crucial in moving the industry forward. Do make sure to listen in on what exactly this report is all about!

Investment criteria and the Lemonade video!

Faisal questions Aly on the Blockchain Founders Fund’s investment criteria and philosophy where he describes how their fund operates, their thoughts on tokens and the different brackets within their investment strategy. Listen in to how their fund tries to find the right balance between obtaining the highest ROI and making sure to have a social lens too.

Let’s ban the term STO

As Aly is an advisor to Polymath, he talks about his thoughts and concerns in regards with security tokens and security token offerings.

They also talk about the benefits of STOs as well as the challenges of implementing an STO now, where they cite that implementing a security token could in fact add extra layers in the process rather than making it more efficient.

As you can see, we talked about a lot of things and so all of the above and more will be on this week’s episode of Encrypted!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on iTunes and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Source:

Special Guest: Aly Madhavji 穆亚霖 .