Richard Ells on Electroneum’s mobile payments for developing nations

0:00I am ashlynn Addison from event chain for investmentpitch media and FinTech news network and today on blockchain interviews we have Richard ELLs the CEO of electro neum Richard thank you so much for being on the show it's a pleasure to have you here today I actually thank you very much I'm sitting here with a pretty poor internet connection you can hear some noise in

0:21the background we're in the Intercontinental Hotel in Malta for the blockchain conference so not the best connection I'm afraid greatest pleasure to be on show yeah no worries thank you for taking your time out of the conference to come on the show and I'm really excited to hear a little bit about electro neom if you would kick it off for the viewers you know I know that

0:40electro neum is a mobile based payment system utilizing blockchain but could you give your thesis on why you started electro neum and what are the solutions that you were looking to provide yeah sure sure so i-i've got a couple of reasonable sized digital businesses and I had a development team and I was personally interested in crypto crypto is far too technical still largely is so

1:02we decided we went to make a smartphone based cryptocurrencies it was really really easy to use so we self actually you mining directly proof of work honor on smartphones melted a number down gave up with that I thought actually as long as we've got some emission to the to the users of the app so that we can get some distribution we can still make it work

1:25so we we had a slightly different system to most we had proof-of-work emissions not the reward for the miners and we had another emission system that emitted for app users so that's got us quite a lot of growth we've got three million-plus registered users but we then wanted to make sure we've got instant payments because in the real world you really need to have that so

1:46instant payment mechanism so we developed an instant payment system so actor app and API to app so till we've got till integrations for instance so what we built this entire platform of payments virtually zero cost for remittance and the entire thing was pretty much just built for mass adoption when we first made it but then where we saw that our communities were growing

2:12we're in areas that we mentioned one small part of our original white we said unbanked it could be good for the unbanked now we've learned so much about this area now in the last two years of running I would suggest that we are the world leader in this without a shadow of doubt so we are our entire premise now is about Financial Inclusion and enabling small micro payments of

2:35remittance effectively with value from the global north to the global south so if somebody in the United States and Canada wants to send three dollars four dollars to somebody who's just done some digital work in Indonesia they were going to do so a very very tiny cost so that's the sort of promised we've done quite a lot more because we've been grafting for two years writing software

3:00but in a nutshell that's that's what the electronic means for and what we're doing great well thank you Richard and I heard a lot about electro Neum growing really quickly and one of the fastest growing crypto projects so congratulations to that what would you say is the keys behind how you guys grew so quickly yeah it's that it's all a mission system

3:21that that rewards people so just the downloading the electron your map you can start get us more reward that reward is not universally the same so if you're sitting in Canada right now and you install our app you might earn 20 30 cents in a month or something of value Beach in but if you are in Uganda then you moralize earning somewhere closer to three dollars worth so we were

3:46distributing the ET n bar app to engage users and to bring users on but it's also a bit like a free sauna so you get your free washing power sample through the post and you think I never use that brand you shove it in the machine all why to them what so you then decide to change to this brand so people don't trust greater currency in the developing world that's something that

4:07we learned when we have boots on the ground so we thought okay let's make sure that we're giving them something that they can use so we hooked up with some mobile operators and there's a number of countries Brazil Tanzania Uganda Nigeria Turkey South and and that list is growing where you can buy airtime and data directly through our app directly in eating so

4:34you can earn a little bit then you can buy some airtime and once you've suddenly topped up your phone and you now have airtime administer you didn't have a moment ago suddenly a little light bulb goes Bing then you go this is real this is not a scam this is not this is not something that's taking from me it's giving to me so we're very much at that stage of the moment where we've

4:53been giving away and growing a network but then again we're boots on the ground we've realized that pure entrepreneurial spirit which is what we thought would make this thing tackle how you've seen every crypto project that just things let's build it and they will come and what we've done is we built it and they haven't come and then we well I mean your Lobby would say three million

5:13people is they've come I'm really about mass mass adoption you know tens of millions hundreds of millions people so we said okay what is it that we need to unlock this next stage and so we've got a piece of software coming out in two weeks that's all about allowing people to sell their services a bit like Fiverr or freelancer so Dera sell digital services and then the people in the

5:34global north can pay for those services on the credit card remittance takes place by our clever mechanism a BTN into their into their phone again right except virtually no cost we don't take any year percentage and and then they end up with with some value so this enables someone to sell that couple of dollars or three dollar service haven't had to use the banks and that value

5:56arrives with them so if we're giving people a new waiter and never been done very excited that's very exciting and I saw that you guys recently went into was Africa Brazil and Turkey you've been focused on are you seeing people mainly transferring value to each other within the country or are you actually seeing these remittances as you're talking about to the global north and actually

6:17international yeah we well first of all were just to say I mean the first country we launched with almost complete coverage so for networks in Brazil and we've seen massive growth we're getting tens of thousands of users every month coming on board the last doctor we had 12,000 users from Brazil last week so we're getting huge growth in Brazil done $28,000 worth of equivalent etn

6:43topper last month in Brazil so the growth strategy is working to get people on board we've got we actually have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of merchants but we the next stage this stage where countries can see this as a money inflow system is going to be different changeable so as soon as that goes I've got old we had we've got a great community so it once again

7:08always always always a massive thanks for meeting we put out an email and social to to ask people to come on as beta testers for our any tasks freelancer level and we had 25,000 people come on say you want to be a beta tester seven and a half thousand of them took the time to fill in a massively detailed questionnaire that's giving us a real insight into to what people want

7:33and what people need so you know which was just super excited as my is the thing I always seem to look back at myself saying yeah well it sounds like guys are well on your way I'm a little interested in the electroni employ in itself you mentioned that you had base it off of Mineiro and there was it's a privacy corner there's stealth properties as well what was the basis

7:54for that and how does it help with the mobile payment system okay so yeah regionally I mean right right at the very very very beginning when we were messing around with a lot chai we we went and I think I don't even I think there was a crypto note protocol that we said okay let's look into this we were we were using that particular protocol which manera was was was actually forked

8:16from themselves so then we realized that what Manero done was pretty close so then those guys are some of cleverest people that development team are meticulously Goody's it's probably the most complex blockchain that there is so it's not the easiest thing to use but it's easy to use for them for the users they're someone I mean I mean it's very easy to

8:38to develop but what what it did is it did two things that really excited me one was the stealth addresses which come back in two seconds the other one was it had a dynamic block sizing which at the time we talking about mass adoption and most blockchains have got static block sizes so you could only get a fixed number of transactions in the front which

9:00definitely gave you a huge limit so I love the fact that it already developed dynamic block sizing but but we didn't want to be a privacy quick a wipe caml we're all about embracing regulation so we've stripped out nearly everything of their privacy except stealth addresses now I'll explain why and I've had this argument with the JFS I who've had privacy coins

9:23and said look it's okay making this blanket and for premise inference but what you have to remember is that in some places in the world public information about how much value you have how much money you have or how much wealth you is it is a very dangerous thing to have because there are dangerous countries so we've got lots and lots of users in places where

9:43letting telling us if you walked into a shop with an open book chain and you bought something and that shopkeeper now has access to look other things you've her cheese and indeed what your wallet contains that would suddenly mean that the shopkeeper could say oh that guys we've got four hundred dollars worth of something and in in some places we even

10:05it was fifty dollars it's in some places it's worth going around and pumping someone on the head and forcing them to to hand over or do something even more hideous so I did not want to have the blockchain where where we could actually in danger before and I believe people have a right to privacy for some of their information it's not fair that governments would say all blocked chains

10:28must divulge your information unless they're going to say that when I use my Visa card my all of my other transactions get shown to the shopkeeper and my credit limit and my balance gets shown to the shopkeeper they're going to say that then it's fair enough but it's not fair to make one digital payment method completely and utterly open and the existing incumbents

10:48have the right to produce it might be yeah that's right and that's a major problem with Bitcoin and etherium because a lot of people you can use chain analysis to see you know within dozens and dozens of transactions if you're smart enough into people's balances so we'll see how that works out and now you mentioned that although you guys are using partial privacy coin and also our kyc

11:10enabled and you have that full protocol in place now how does that benefit the end users and why is it necessary well first of all the KYC IML was a was a we were the first people that did it with the first crypto they said we're going to give KY CML sure there are more out there now but pretty much as soon as we launched we knew that we would be under

11:33at some point the UK FCA scrutiny and so we built the entire thing as a FinTech as much as a as an open-source crypto so we said like what is it that what is it that we need to do to satisfy British regulatory requirements and the first thing was no your customer so we've teamed up with yo T who've been quite good but actually we've been building

11:59our own kyc system in the background I've had to do that because yo T are not in every single country that we read and so we have teams of people that literally do the KYC but the clever part of what we've done is we have the model I don't know if you know it much about the European fifth directive of IMO I'm guessing probably if you if you have a more interesting life for me you

12:23probably don't but we had to spend quite a lot of time on this and effectively what we've guys we've got the lowest here which is up to about 50 euros a month in transactions we have managed to keep as just being give your name there's enough information because of the way we've written the system to look do with your accounts and and our money-laundering system is is or anti my

12:48conscience is honey don't use our empty money laundry system is pretty cool so because of that we've got the ability to allow somebody who doesn't have an address some of these people don't know what year they were born is but okay Boise City with the world is grossly unfair and initially I sat down with my lawyers and they said no you're going to have to ask for a driving licence and if

13:08possible as you are you are part of the problem guys I know they were trying to protect me but I said I'm having to take a risk model on this these guys sitting there in their mud they are not money Lord rested just trying to get themselves out of poverty so I said I'm quite happy to take a risk model on this and that's pretty much what we've done so that

13:28lowers here you can get on to just by giving your name then the next tiers up you start getting into needing national ID and nearly all these countries have a national ID available but more often than not it has a cost associated so we can give those people the ability to earn enough value to be on a draw value at the global North to jump into the KYC

13:49system at a higher level then we've again achieved a goal and if if we are only ever managed to allow people to earn another $50 a month let me assure you that does something absolutely that's incredible pretty lips pretty funny little thing there if you saw me look up somebody just held a little piece of paper up above the above the video and one other thing of course is that the

14:09regulatory environment that we're working it is also good for us to do these deals so you can't work with corporates and and have partnerships with people unless they feel that you are within a regulatory environment so that's been really critical definitely now what are the goals moving forward for electro neum are you guys looking for more strategic partners more people

14:32to help build the networks more team members or investors what is it that you need specifically okay well at the moment what we've goes we've knuckle down for the last two years and just gone with writing software like I say yeah we learned so many things from being on the ground and actually working with small merchants and doing things yes yes yes yes is the answer to – more

14:52– more partnerships we need that and I think from Sonia we've only only just launching this any tasks platform I've brought joined now by the way is is not proof of work it's it's run by NGOs we've done that we've created a whole new protocol called proof of responsibility we've had it checked out by the chaplet virtually invented blockchain or was co-inventor about

15:16change dr. Scott's Tornetta he likes it so google him and what he said about it was it's been an interesting journey so now we've got this thing where we've got NGOs that are promoting us on the ground they're all vocational NGOs so we have built this platform to enable them to their digital services but we've also started a not-for-profit that goes live

15:39in q1 of 2020 and that's called task school task school comm is being promoted by the NGOs and they're helping us create eLearning it's free completely free to the end-user so that someone can come with no skill and learn very very basic skills that can just be done with this month so this may be location or videos talking about people's to companies so promotional

16:05stuff that's just video based but with a sort of CSR angle corporate social responsibility Tiger we've dozen great work with people with sandboxes where they can draw out logos and company names and then you stop frame animation apps they're free to enable them to make social media content for SMEs things that are literally so easy but if an SME can buy stock frame animation of their

16:30logo being buried in a sandbox or in a or with leaves or with just stuff that everybody can get access to then a $3 they will get we've already tested this I have a ready-made market for this in one of my other businesses anyway which is social media management company so we're going to be buying from from this thing ourselves but but they will also

16:51be loads and loads of other buyers and we'll be marketing out to digital agencies to pass it on to their client so if you can get that first you can get that first layout we can get people together earn enough value to be able to buy a laptop then you unlock you know absolutely everything in terms of digital learning they can they can learn any music so quite excited to take

17:10people on that Jenna definitely Richard and if people are looking to get involved and help with electroni 'im what's the best way for them to reach oh yeah well if you've got opportunities anywhere we've got we're talking to utility companies so it's mostly about the developing world so we've had quite a lot of people talk to us about integrating with with their Visa card in

17:30the north and things and there are there are there are things that are ongoing with that and certainly we're happy to do that for some of the higher-level people that are involved in lecturing but but ultimately on the ground grass root wise if people have utility companies all access to people that they know that are in any developing region and they're in any

17:53position of power that could introduce us to people then by all means do so we would be so grateful for that and frankly we think that the thing that unlocks that is this this movement of money into the country so when we've been engaging with governments we've often found that their fear of Bitcoin and some of the government's are see Bitcoin they're worried about anyway

18:14let's put it that way or some of them about my bandit what they worried about is capital outflow and so when you the freelancer platform is live which only a couple of weeks away from Beto or not even I think it's beater is on the 18th so when the when that task platform goes live and they can see so not not just me spouting on about it but genuinely

18:33actually see it that this is a way of driving money into the economy then I think that unlocks some of those partnerships that are currently stalled shusei I think I mean we put so many so many conversations in place that as soon as you get somebody who's been around for a little while and they have a brand cryptocurrency is still in its infancy and people are worried about lightly

18:58worried about their breath so tying their brand to cryptocurrency is quite a big decision force but when you're not just tying it to a protocol you're tying it to do a thing that is improving people's lives I'm very visibly improving people's lives I think it's going to be much easier to get over line certainly whenever I've talked about any chance and what we're doing the

19:19excitement level even here has been really really good I think I've been really pleased with when we've just been talking about building a smartphone based payment ecosystem people are interested but the excitement has come from us talking about how we've now made the software to enable people to genuinely earn and we're using our own system to remit the money for okay well

19:41thank you so much for the time Richard it's been a pleasure learning about electro neom and all the best at the Malta summit and the best moving forward with electro neum and let's follow up in the near future yeah fantastic thank you for your time ash you know I'm sorry we had a few technical issues at the year beginning it's it's much appreciated it's late

19:58where you are so I hope you good sleep and we will go off and spend the last day they've got chambers