ETC Labs releases tools for Ethereum Classic developers

0:00I'm Ashlyn Addison from event chain for investmentpitch media and FinTech news network and today on blockchain interviews we have Terry Culver the CEO of Digital Finance Group and EGC labs Terry thank you so much for coming on the show it's great to see you here my pleasure thanks so much you're very welcome let's kick it off with a little bit of background on how

0:21the digital finance group and EDC Labs came to be and one of the goals right now in the digital finance and cryptocurrency industry sure so digital finance group started back in 2015 really as a way to learn about this emerging asset class and emerging technology we established a trading fund as well as a private equity fund where we've invested in a number of blockchain

0:50companies and since then we decided to make a significant commitment to public blockchain we really think that that is where the technology will create the most value for people and we decided to make that commitment to etherium classic which is one of the world's major public box chains and one where we felt like we could make a significant difference

1:17that's great and the theorem classic Labs is doing a lot for the etherium classic community the etherium communities is so huge and they're they're closely related but there's definitely a lot of room for growth in the theory and classic and your team has done a great job so far and I recently spoke with James whoa the Chairman about the investments and your team has made

1:39at least 20 investments if I'm not wrong last year in blockchain startups can you talk about those investments and what your team looks for to help grow that ecosystem sure and thank you for the kind words we've actually made over 40 investments as well as a new grants program and a new program funding very forward-looking innovative research in addressing some

2:06of the fundamental problems in blockchain what we look for with our investments is early state projects with talented developers and entrepreneurs who are really trying to increase the adoption of this technology to our mind a lot of the technology is already functional it has own way to go of course but the key factor at the moment is making it real for people

2:35seeing how it can improve people's lives and that will come from the apps projects use cases that fulfill a very specific economic or social need so when we look at the hundreds of applications that we get that's really the foremost question in my mind that's great and to elaborate a little bit are you focused on projects that are inside that helped the

3:02cryptocurrency ecosystem you know for example protocol layer or wallet infrastructure things like that and also use cases of different industries around the world or is it a mixture of two we focus on both you know because you need both the technology is still very nascent so you have a lot of infrastructure that still needs to be built and at the same time you need

3:29adoption so we look for both mm-hmm that's great and your team at etherium classic labs recently released the etherium virtual machine low level virtual machine which is a handful to say but this helps developers with different programming languages not just solidity which is what aetherium is primarily using is this a game-changer for developing applications on a theorem

3:56classic and how does this affect the development moving forward we think it's a game changer and it's a development we're actually particularly excited about it it takes the virtual machine which you know I have to say is a remarkable innovation and it lets developers write smart contracts in languages other than solidity solidity is a terrific language it's very secure

4:20but not a lot of developers use it so we're looking for a way to maintain that level of security but make the technology accessible to developers other than those who know solidity and the lower-level virtual machine allows us to do that mm-hmm and from what I understand aetherium developers all have to learn solidity has it been a huge burden for regular developers who know

4:44the common programming languages to bring in solidity as well and to just to develop on the blockchain I think it's a challenge for some but what you find is that the developers who are really committed about chain will learn solidity but it becomes self-selecting so you know you don't get the developers who might use blockchain but don't want to commit their careers to them and what

5:09we're trying to do with the lower-level virtual machine is extend the net so that we can include developers who are interested in blockchain but not necessarily fully committed to it mm-hmm that's great and does that also include libraries and SDK kits that sort of make it easier to not start from scratch or is it all from the ground up so with the libraries and SDKs that would really

5:32fall to our tooling team you know so we have a join team that's developed an open RPC specification that helps developers with developing blockchain code in a format that they would use for almost any other type of commonly used development so while we don't have an SDK yet for the lower level virtual machine we didn't expect to have one but we are creating other tools that make

5:59blockchain development accessible at several different layers mm-hmm that's great and your team is doing a great job helping the developer ecosystem can you give a scope on you know what the size of it is and if it's growing and is this going to increase the adoption from developers and what do you expect to the size of the community that you expect

6:21yeah I think one of our biggest challenges is increasing the number of developers working on a very impressive you know the developers really are the heart of the matter and so what we're doing is trying to reach out to those communities and encourage them to build on ethereum classic right now our developer team is about 14 developers and then we have a

6:45number of consultants and contractors we worked it but that's the the core team as we know it and we expect that to grow to about 20 over the course of the year mm-hmm that's great and are there incentives I guess you know the introduction of this lower-level machine is an incentive but are there many incentives for a theorem classic developers I think you know we're

7:12mission driven so if you're committed to developing a new technology that can have transformational impact on people's lives blockchain and aetherium and at their encaustic in particular are exactly that one of the advantages to etherium classic I think is that you know there's a lot to Bill you know it has I think historically been

7:39underdeveloped compared to aetherium and I think were very open-minded so you know were looking for developer creativity developer independence you know there's a lot of open space for developers in which to one mm-hmm that's great and now that you've released this lower-level machine you know what are some of the next road map targets for to on the development for a theory and

8:05classic one is we want to continue building on top of the LLVM so we want to target specific use cases for the LLVM and specific languages for those use cases so for example we're looking at specific languages that would help its tend the use of be fine we're looking at trying to increase adoption so the etherium get developers have agreed to take a look at the LLVM and

8:34possibly got that into aetherium which would be a really nice contribution on the protocol side we're looking at some innovations that include account versioning so it allows you to change the nature of smart contracts without breaking previously written contracts and of course we're always looking to extend the tooling that we're building so that our wallets

8:57more secure custody easier interfaces and interoperability between different chains mm-hmm that's awesome and you touched on defy their defy has been huge with the etherium community being able to stake coins and earn interest as well is that something that theorem classic Labs has focused on and DFG on the investment side or growing that ecosystem we're definitely

9:25interested in it in particular because you know a lot of the etherium classic community and adoption is occurring in emerging markets in areas where people are using the blockchain as a form of financial inclusion and I think if I at its original purpose is really meant as an instrument for financial inclusion so there's huge demand as a result were in

9:51the process of building a bridge to make or die we expect that to be completed in the coming weeks and we've had initial conversations with other large d-5 projects like compound about two weeks ago we announced a partnership with phantom which is a asia based deep fried product and finance where etc' is used as collateral for that d5 project so it's you know some people who could defy

10:17as a speculative financial instrument and I suppose it could be used that way we really see it as a tool for financial inclusion mm-hmm yes financial inclusion is helping adoption in a lot of the emerging economies but for the traditional in American financial markets aetherium has been a large use case especially introducing more investment vehicles like you know

10:45staking lending margining all these different kinds of trade in the crypto currency markets do you see traditional investors and venture capitalists and and the financial markets being attracted to the etherium classic blockchain as it continues to grow out and could it be used efficiently in that industry oh absolutely I think first off we've seen enormous interest from the

11:09to community and aetherium plastic as probably the single best value investment in crypto you have all the functionality of aetherium and a fraction of the price at the same time you have a theory and moving to a new condenses algorithm proof of stake whereas aetherium classic will remain proof of work and so from an investor point of view I think they see a lot of

11:33potential upside the other thing that we expect in 2020 is to see CFTC approved futures contracts for both the theory and etherion classic which will bring a lot of regulated liquidity into the market the secondary market for trading wow that's great and as you said you're expanding your team as you move towards that are you also looking for more

12:01startups potentially to join the theorem classic labs or more strategic partners of some sorts always we're interested in ideas you know as early as written on a napkin you know we're very opportunist and opportunistic and open-minded when it comes to what developers and entrepreneurs are trying to build mm-hmm that's great and how can those partners

12:29or startups find out more information about digital finance group and etc' labs you can check out our website et Cie labs org you can send me an email Terry see at etc' Labs org and we'd be happy to talk to you amazing I'll leave those links in the description box below as well Terry thank you so much for your time in the interview that's all the time that we do

12:54have today but I appreciate you coming on and speaking about these new updates for theory and classic labs and I'm excited to follow up in the near future to the growth of the project my pleasure thanks Houston you