Michael Luckhoo on monetizing personal data in web3

0:01I'm Ashton Addison from blockwest capital for investment pitch media and today on the crypto coin show we have back with us Michael luck who co-founder of Cirrus Foundation Michael welcome back to the show and it's a pleasure to see you again yeah pleasure to be here Ashley it's been quite some time since he spoke and it's great to be back definitely and a

0:21lot has happened in in the crypto industry and it's evolving in a way that I think is favorable for what Cirrus Foundation is working on I think right now is more important than ever for people to take care of their personal information to realize what information they're giving out online and also to be able to own their information and the content that they create and find other

0:43ways to generate revenue and stop becoming the product themselves and I feel like the whole industry's sort of moving in that direction I would love to get an update on you know what Sears Foundation has been working on since we last spoke but for the viewers who haven't seen our first interview let's just start from the top and you know what Cirrus is all about and the

1:05initiatives that you're driving into web3 and then we'll go into all the latest details yeah certainly uh you know it's it's a it's a challenging time obviously in the industry where we look at everything that's kind of folding the past few weeks especially a blast last week and you kind of take a step back and and really understand like why why are we

1:25here you know why are we here in this blockchain world of crypto world and we talk about you know um power to people and in financial inclusion and ownership and and the reality is we've we've fallen short drastically you know this industry to even do that we've talked about how people become participants in the ecosystem and network of effect and decentralization and again we fall short

1:49and this is the it's alarming you know it's really challenging for so much people who have faith in bringing emerging technology to the betterment of people and to see Bad actors come into the place on the same premise of centralization on uh you know the fact that you have this gatekeeper approach with a lot of these products that are out there and really

2:14stripping people from their value and this is exactly what just happened and to shed light on it this is something that we've seen in many Industries even just outside of crypto we've seen this in uh the traditional markets stock markets for decades it's happened and we've seen this in the web Two Worlds that we call it you know and people have been taken you know advantage of in a

2:38sense because they've got a free product but they've been built to the tune of trillions of dollars and monetization and now we're seeing the same mentality in the crypto industry where there's this gatekeeper approach and saying okay well let's leverage people's assets and not just their data but leveraging their assets and trying to make more interest

2:56off of that and that's crazy and um you know and the world really needs to strip away this idea of you know when we talk about you know so many times decentralization better than people and actually just do it just get it done you know and and you know it's like at the times it's enough to just keep talking and we've granted we've seen some really great improvements this

3:20year um ethereum two um you know Shifting the group stake and really kind of becoming more de facto in the network effect um we've started seeing you know unit swap with rise and decentralization and swaps uh we're a billion dollars in the past week so there's a Resurgence in decentralization we've seen some more countries really Embrace treasury control in Bitcoin which is a sound

3:42sound currency that's been in the past a decade um you know it's Cirrus we've traveled across overseas to Emerging Markets uh in India and then also in Nigerian Africa to really understand better how we're impacting uh people and how we're bringing technology for people and outside of government control outside of centralization outside of not having

4:02access to the bank and really building that and we did a really amazing conference in August which was a kickoff for that and we sponsored it we were there we were actually doing an educational workshops on how web3 plays a role in the idea of financial inclusion and why owning your assets owning your data is so important and it was a wild success so I think the world

4:24needs more of that we need more education but we need to lean into more product developments that powers that and that's the only way we're going to get away from that bad actors and such what happened so web3 is owner data owner assets like very simply what and that's exactly what we need to do here in in Cirrus in the world of serious and I hope more people wake up to that

4:42notion and don't just get caught into the world spin that people are putting out there in in the centralized land still and and taking advantage of people and that's that's across the board and and I and I love the fact that now there's a Shakedown in the industry it's going to grow greater efficiencies we're seeing a Shakedown in traditional Tech uh with you know Twitter going under

5:03reform and trying to create more transparency for users trying to create more ownership for people we're seeing meta and there's some you know some things that are happening on that side so what's across the board and I don't even just think it's just our industry specifically as a silo I think it's across the floor that we're now starting to see how Mis misused people are in

5:24these products and they're not participants and so we got to change that game so you know I think that's it it I drag on here because it's so important for us to really recognize that message and actually lean into it and really create these products great intro and great points Michael and you're completely right about web 2 and you know people sort of taking advantage

5:45of these companies taking advantage of people's personal information or their assets and uh to to better themselves and even in in web 3 as as we've seen you know people are trading cryptocurrencies but the a lot of these technologies that are in web 3 are are really using web 2 Technologies they're not really fully decentralized or using the proper web3 technology and they're

6:11using the parts of the web too that are you know have holes in them and vulnerabilities and that's what we're seeing with centralized cryptocurrency exchanges and search engines and marketing that you know people are still falling victim and becoming the products and losing out so I really like what you said there about and sort of fully embodying the web three principles in

6:33web3 and I I would love to you know dive deeper into how exactly Cirrus is looking at you know the web 3 approach in ensuring you know that people are able to own their own everything yeah it's it's a it's a duel of approach you know we say whether three because we think of the principle the web 3 is owning your data and owning your assets and what is it that really mean so the

7:00idea is that everything you do online you're in a digital world whether you like it or not you have a digital proxy of yourself um all of these accounts that you create all the platforms that you you enjoy they're gaining so much Insight from you and making a ton of monetization and you're getting really Zero from that we're starting to see creators I call this a

7:23Creator economy um is that they're pushing back and they're getting you know ad Revenue spent getting share of Equitable shares so we kind of advanced that a step further from shared economy to the ownership economy whereby everybody is a partnership that means even if you're a consumer on that uh platform whether it's Facebook or Twitter you're also

7:41getting paid so it's not just the creators it's not just the big Tech platforms it's also the participants which is you and I and um or from me for a later degree I guess and consuming the products and so that's number one that's a fundamental in web three number two is really the assets that you've developed when you get as monetization you're able

8:00to choose how you want to restore how you want to involve that into later Financial products and how you want to send that across the world and really be a part of financial conclusion and so what we're doing in Cirrus is targeting both of those points we've developed a web 3 wallet that's supporting monetization to people basically just being on the internet and restoring

8:18faith that yeah that's your data and you are able to actually control it and choose how you want to be um paid for it and then at the same time it's a dual Factor wallet so that means people are able to choose what they want to do next and that's the X Factor because we can now get people into the mindset of how they can involve their earnings into more future products with the finance

8:41into the really create a higher level of interest for themselves and why is that so important as well right now um look at what happened in the in the world of the past year with again centralization approach massive inflation across the world the alarming stat that we know is that for in the U.S for a household to come up with 550 from an emergency fund it's

9:04only around 47 to 50 percent of the the actual population base that's actually able to do that pull that off at this current state so we know that surge of modernity prices surge in the markets of inflation is put in the dampen people and we need to kind of at least give people back the two goals and say hey you know what I want to get involved with passive interest earnings I want to

9:22now enroll my stuff into finance and so what's serious I think it's a dual factor it's we want to make sure that we can we can restore faith in the principles of the data get you paid and involve you into the world of financial inclusion and um and that's what we built I got some screenshots up here obviously uh in the background we've gone through a ton of iterations and I

9:41can speak on that but yeah that's the principle uh exciting to see Michael and and it's crazy facts about you know that obviously the inflation is bad but you know to have half of the country not able to build an emergency fund I think it's more important than ever that now is the time that people look at you know the ways in which people are making money off of them and

10:04and flip that switch so that they're able to monetize off themselves and you know it's it's easy to say uh for example you know well people start YouTube channels and they start all of a sudden they start making money you know but it's a whole other step to take the action and actually start earning and I'd love to dive into that a little bit more uh with Cirrus you know there's

10:26different ways that you can monetize your personal information or your content and the Creator economy as you mentioned um what are some of those specific ways is it for example you know turning on advertisements that you know in the web 3 world it seems like if you you're able to accept certain ads you actually get paid for them or is it actually creating

10:48content and on certain platforms that allow you to monetize and get paid for that or what are the other ways that Cirrus is looking to help with this Creator economy that's a that's a great Point Ashton and um the the kind of simple answers you really do nothing um and because you're just online you are part of the date you're already part of the data economy whether you like it

11:12or not you know you're you're already there and and and you know we've worked we've worked towards this this sort of like area where we are in uh in the world of the internet right now everything is value everything through ad Revenue through the creation of these things value and people just simply not getting paid so we don't want to change people's behavior we just want them to

11:33be a part of that equation so what we're doing is we're not asking people to do anything different than what they're already doing um go on these you know websites uh you want to be part of that great at least be at least have some type of value creation for that and so that's our approach how we create further value and uh more like you said more direct

11:52engagement with Brands um zero party data and things like that that's something that we'll develop upon and which the user can choose to opt into and choose how they want to engage with but the quite simple answer is just do what you've already been doing and and there's enough value right now in the internet that we know um this is a well of of monetization

12:14value that people just haven't been able to receive and to that point that you talked about in in the fact that right now every dollar counts every dollar really does count you know and and it's it's kind of surprising through where we are right now in the economy that um people are put in this position so we want to really you know be a be a factor

12:34in the solution awesome well that sounds amazing you know if I could just do what I normally do um and but realizing the power gets put in into my hands um that's something that sounds that sounds great to me so um I I would love to start that Michael and so how exactly you know obviously things are work in progress and it's a huge shift to move into you know the full web

13:00three and utilize all the functionalities of it uh but how exactly does does Sears fit into that with people doing the same thing is it through through software through Hardware or a mixture yeah that we we are now focused you know almost purely on a software approach um you know we started uh the company early with a big data company that we have really bolted and behind the scenes and

13:26we had a hardware approach where we were going to deploy routers and people's homes and that collects all this granular type of data um across everything you do and uh where we are right now because we want to go Global and we want to make sure this is a hands of money we're a software first approach it's going to be a web extension so it's a it's a web wallet that's just like

13:44your metamask um or just like the other web all that you might have but except you get paid so it's the wallet that pays you um simply download and install it on Google Chrome Safari and so forth and do go along your business we hope in our intent is that this would be the wallet of choice for people because they can really Park everything with within CRS

14:04once they see that the value is coming in and they can see that they're earning a greater upside from a wallet that's actually valuing them across the internet and they can choose to integrate with more of our products excellent and I think the biggest thing that we've worked on this year is really ensuring that when somebody comes into our ecosystem that it's highly engaging

14:22and it's highly engaging the fact that they can choose to do more things so it's great I got value for my data I'm earning awesome like what do I do next that we can really really build them into the world of what web free powered finance and that's that's a whole different ball game and people haven't even been able to even access that in the first place because it's been you

14:41know jumping through hoops to even start a wallet into starting to count on an exchange and and you don't even know if that exchange is now even holding your value or not so it's it's it's even more so that we have to build these rich products inside the wallet um and and let people just explore and be more comfortable in getting involved into crypto without having to put

15:02their dollars for without having to take out a debit card or credit card you know risking that it's like and just earn income from the internet and choose how you want to invest in that and learn a little bit more about what web3 and D5 really offers sounds incredible and obviously the the wallet is you know uh a major Catalyst to to getting into this but it's also a

15:24barrier to entry as we've seen there's a lot of different wallets and some of them are very technical and they can be meant for for crypto natives um and something like this I feel like it needs to be approachable to to the masses how has your team approached building a wallet that has that usability that everybody can get started without having to know about Finance

15:50that's a that's a really good coin we've we've really put our heads to the table to kind of figure that out with crunching all the ideas here and you know in in one case you could say you know the idea own your own your keys on your assets right that's a fundamental of three absolutely we also recognize the fact that people who are coming off the streets are really getting involved

16:09that's a that's a scary that's a daunting thing for people to do at the same time because they might lose their private keys and so forth so our initial version is going to be a custody solution however that's not custody that we're building we're building on Firebox and we're making sure that that's bulletproof it's multi-party computation there's multi signature sign-offs like

16:25everything is stored there so we're ensuring that people could come in with the highest level of security we are going to look at how we integrate um decentralized wallet capabilities into our product as well so they can they can use that however they wish and that they're ensuring they have uh you know obviously the assets themselves and that's something that we're taking

16:44extremely um careful here the the biggest aspect on how people just get involved is doing something that is easy to understand it doesn't change learn Behavior you know like signing up just for a regular account um we want to make sure that as seamless as possible we want to scare people away people have to jump through enough hoops and there's a lot of

17:03um I guess fear to some degree in the industry right now um so we want to ensure that the biggest thing for us is legitimacy um the products we're building are reveal we're working with the best in the league to ensure safety and sovereignty to your assets on top of that we're coming out with what we'll demonstrate is called a full layer of a solution for web 3 and for Cirrus and

17:27what that means is that we create full sovereignty to the people's assets and their data and that means we're not just using AWS and these Google Cloud Storage just we're working with Sovereign Solutions and data storing across the world that ensures that people and their information restored to the degree that they can choose how they access it and

17:46where they want to move it next and it's not simple for a centralized authority to just come and say hey we don't like this app or we don't like this information we're just going to de-platform you that's just that's just not that doesn't exist in our world in the future where we want that to even remotely as a possibility so that's something that we're building and that's

18:03why this past year I've been um it's been a full product list for us because we're not just building up front end like a web extension every layer down right down to the protocol has been interrogated everything from data storage to how we service clients from a back-end perspective and storing of these assets has been really um the focus and we do have right now

18:24um a really strong approach I think in the fact that we're making sure that every every layer is tied in neatly and there is full transparency and there's full accountability to users assets and um yeah it's a long long story short we want to make sure that it's easy for people we also want to make sure there's high levels of safety definitely have to balance the two and

18:46through all of these iterations I feel like this is going to be continually evolving as you know web3 continues to grow and there's more different opportunities and ways to protect your data as well as monetize from it um working on the wallet throughout this year where exactly is your team at with their releases right now yeah that's that's a big question when

19:09you put out a medium article I'll probably share with my link um I think about a week ago to really show some updates about what we were doing to be as transparent as possible at one of the first products that we're wrapping up right now is a staking platform for the early Cirrus backers and people of the token to get involved to um it's a token Hub and the lead product

19:30which is what we're talking about right now the web extension wallet uh we're looking at wrapping that up our functional build is complete we've right now tested it we're we're doing pen testing on it we have done like I said probably 30 iterations on the uui and this is one of the final ones that we're working through um and all of that was on the principle

19:50of making sure the user experience was number one when we think about an Emerging Market user experience is the is your key component and how you can drive a job adoption and now that we're at this kind of final stage we're looking at having a private beta launch of the actual product in hand before end of year uh going into next so we can have people really review it really

20:12tests that really give us feedback and I enjoy the product um the date for a public lunch is to be determined I don't want to just say it on this call because I might uh you know help me out a minute but that's really where we are right now we're in the final stages and we're pretty excited about it that's very exciting and I'm looking forward to checking out the private

20:32launch hopefully I can get access to that because I am excited and I've been following circus updates for the last couple years here so uh looking forward to that and uh in terms of moving into 2023 and the overall industry um do you see you know people more people waking up and realizing that you know they're becoming the product and and do you think there'll be some

21:00major events or any other Catalyst that will drive adoption into this technology that people realize that they can you know monetize off of themselves or at least own their own data where do you think the industry is going with you know the the big Tech players and how will that affect people joining into web 3. yeah I mean I think people are already waking

21:24up I think that the fact of what we've seen across the board right now in all big Taco's you know um Twitter and you know censorship and de-platforming of people and centralization on printing more money and then you work your way into this crypto world and you think maybe that's the safe haven and then somebody's assets are being leveraged at like a ten

21:47to one I think everybody right now is starting to wake up that across the board when you're in crypto or you're introduction or any Market you're being taken advantage of and the idea is that you are being a product whether you like it or not and I think finally people are starting to recognize that and they're saying how do I start to take control of

22:06my future my assets how do I carry how do I become a valuable player in all of this and I I really embrace the fact that there's some big tech companies at least talking about it even outside of crypto I like big the media is starting to wake up I'm starting to see this I think people are saying you know what first part too long I'm being short since I didn't I have no I have no

22:27control um so I think 23 is going to be a really Awakening um and the brand of web 3 is going to stand to the highest degree because web3 really means power for people and making sure that people have the right choices and making sure that people have the right ownership and so that I think it's already happening I think it's a turn of a tide and you know we can look at these

22:47industries blowouts that we've had these past few weeks I think it's going to create more awareness I think it's going to be more efficiencies I need to exchanges and these big players are going to help be held more accountable and that's a huge um benefactor to the industry across the board so that's what we need um and as much as serious we can promote

23:06this as a media we can be a voice for change along with other major industry players and we just got to keep doing that hopefully people keep tuning in so yeah great insights Michael and we'll see if 2023 is the year for web 3 to you know 10x and I hope it is because it it's definitely time um you mentioned there about the blog posts I'll definitely leave that in the

23:31description below as well the links to that is there any other places where people can learn more about you know their personal information how to protect it how to monetize from it and the updates for Sirius moving forward yeah we have a lot of educational resources that we place on some of our hubs we've done a web Roundtable to really focus on how end Industries are

23:54playing in part of the web 3 world and creating ownership for people and and really creating more robust Solutions we had someone that was you know fantastic in Industry we'll share that link uh we have the scoop which is our subset media company to help support education and learning um so I'll drop that link as well and then hit us up on Twitter because that's

24:14our platform to making sure that we can drive as much value back to people we're going to look to engage with more Twitter spaces and you know and really understand like really listen to people and be a voice for change so uh those are there's a few different hubs I think we can consolidate a few of them Let's uh yeah that's our that's right awesome thank you so much

24:33Michael I will leave uh those links all in the description as well um I'm really looking forward to you know this part of the space growing because I feel like it's super important and I've been an advocate of you know protecting your personal information especially if you're in uh Finance you know to take control of your finances and your information both very

24:55important so thank you for driving this initiative through Cirrus I'm looking forward to the release of the wallet and let's definitely follow up again in the near future thank you Ashley it's a pleasure and I think we need more voices just like you in the history so it's it's great this is a this is the most relevant and most important time I've ever been that we

25:13can do this so appreciate your time thank you