Sign builds sovereign blockchain infrastructure for nations

0:00I'm Ashen Addison from the Cryptocoin Show and today on blockchain interviews we have Shin Yan, co-founder of S. Shin, welcome to the show and thanks for taking the time. >> Thank you Ashton. Yeah, I know you and your team have been working on sign and it has evolved over the years for for many years now and it there there's now becoming a a warm up to digital assets

0:23and blockchain technology by governments, nation states and it might be time that they start integrating this into their governments and for the citizens and I know that's part of what you and the team at S have been working on and that's super exciting to see blockchain actually getting integrated into society at the highest levels of government as well. Um, I just wanted to

0:45to lay that out to set the stage, but I would love to start out with a little bit on what you and the team have been building at SC, how it relates to that, then we can dive into all the latest details. >> Thank you, Ashton. Um I'll do a brief intro like u um so me and my co-founders we uh um we founded sign like um almost five years ago like we've been through

1:08many like different waves in the crypto world in the very beginning we built um we started this company at the web 3 wave at the web 3 hype actually so like we're thinking about okay we're going to build a lot of uh interesting application with web3 technology to replace web two but later there's there's some bottleneck obvious bottleneck but the product is

1:30good. So we in the very beginning our first product is e- sign is actually contract signing application and with uh pure like cryptography backing it and uh so we'll ship it within the year and uh in the bare market like 2022 2023 we want to build more like u uh cryptonative scenarios like uh more centering assets. So we built token table which becomes the largest token

1:59distribution platform. Right now we're providing services to like 60% of um like uh uh like token gal on centralized exchanges and uh we have been distributing two billion dollar worth of assets um to users across I think more than like 40 million unique addresses. So um that that's uh that's the the product who's start to generate revenue

2:27for us and uh start from uh early this year we have so basically we think okay technology is good enough like we already built enough we have the uh attestation part which is verify contracts verify whatever and we also have the token distribution part we want to uh basically tap into more uh traditional world want to see where the user can come from so right now we're

2:51focusing on um pushing or leading the blockchain adoption at a government level. >> Mhm. Yeah, it's really exciting and I like that first product, the this signature. You know, I feel like there's a lot of web two products that make a lot of money like huge revenue docuign in these companies and we need blockchain alternatives that you can actually just prove it on the blockchain

3:17because the way that it proves it in web two apps right now is not very good. You're sort of relying on some centralized party. So, but more importantly, getting the revenue to then work on something as huge as getting blockchain integrated at the highest levels of government. Uh, that is huge for countries that are looking to innovate and stay on top of the digital world.

3:42Can you talk about how sign actually helps governments integrate blockchain and what does that mean in the real world? >> Yeah, true. Um so um this is uh something very new like I want to explain from the very beginning like uh so recently by the way recently we launched a uh white paper basically talk about um all of these like why and how and our product offerings basically uh

4:07we b we'll give it a new name it's called sovereign infra for global nations which is ISIN so um this is also a sign and um the white part is very uh interesting because um for me like I've been I've been working in crypto for um seven eight years like uh I've been through so like so so if you I go through those long I I realize okay the audience of the stage of this industry

4:33is keep changing right in the very beginning a lot of crypto guys are like bas basic crypto geeks they basically were uh fantasizing u a pure decentralized world a u a pure P2P uh cash system we're thinking about uh we're going to massively were like fast like move everything on chain but it didn't happen right so we have to understand why right like say um in the

4:58web three hive is also same like why it didn't happen because of firstly not everybody can be responsible for their private keys >> it's obvious right so a lot of people like maybe your friends your parents they're just scared right so like they they think okay living in the traditional world is is also Good. I don't want to like enter the scary like

5:22dark forest, right? So also like secondly, crypto right now have very limited use cases, right? So it's hard to tell people, okay, what crypto can do, right? Like u other than like buy meme coins or do per trading like what what can crypto do? It's hard hard to explain to people. And the reason for now we have this bottleneck of blockchain adoption I

5:50would say um is the the largest hurdle is so so firstly where's user come from right user come from traditional world right so like everybody basically live in a sovereign nation which is hierarchical structure system but in on blockchain it's a flat system it's a decentralized system it's a permissionless system so there's two system inherently are different. So basically

6:18there's two ideological um things and it's hard for them to work together. That's why all the governments are scared of blockchain right. So government uh so so they they they basically have very negative attitude to blockchain for the past years and gradually this year they started to like start from US I would say I started to embrace um blockchain and u the the problem for me

6:44like the the the the attitude shift for me is I realized okay so sovereign nation going to exist right so it's a it's a bunch of people living together So they need to think of a hierarchical structure to make decisions to provide public services, right? There's there's not people just like you and me. There's elder people. There's disabled people that we need a system to take care for

7:09them. >> So we need a hierarchical system. We can't just decentralize everything and tell everybody to be responsible for a thing and because we're not like like there there's somebody need help. So from that from from this this understanding I start to think about okay how can we turn blockchain we we're making sure we when we talk to the governments would we show the

7:38benefits okay what can blockchain help you like uh it's like a cost efficiency is providing like the robust system to provide like public services to a country and help you like do fundraising uh you can like you cannot you can now like fundraising on the other stuff where you you don't sell all your natural resources where you tokenize them and sell tokens right to

8:02fundraising so I start to think about okay how we can we demonstrate the benefit of crypto adoption while addressing the concerns of governments right the government have a lot of concerns they worry about money laundry they worry about like u say people losing money and they want to protect their their their people. So right now we focusing on building a system that uh

8:27like compatible with both parts >> and uh so that's the that's the idea why we are think about this and I think you know by the way we me you me were in crypto but 99% of people still don't have a cryptocurrency >> so like uh so there's there's a huge I would say there's a huge market right in a sense there's a huge blue ocean and u So right now we're start to work with

8:52different governments and we start to offering them like a blockchain um stuff and we basically build a a stack of protocol a start of product stack of product we start to we in the very beginning we start to talk about identity but later I realized asset is always the core thing core offering right so like in a sense like in crypto you me we all can launch a coin but in

9:18traditional world like I mean sovereign nations are the the largest coin launcher. >> Yeah. >> I mean they they sure most coins >> and um and uh so like so our first offering is how can we how can we use blockchain technology to make your coin better right to make make coin circulating faster settlement make settlement fast settle faster and have more like international transactions. So

9:45right now we we talked to many countries we build a dec like solution like u so we have by the way most where you from most of country they have something called capital control so money have certain level control to move in and out right so there's naturally a lot of currency will fiat currency will have two parts onshore and offshore >> so onshore part so the the it's

10:10completely governed by uh banks so we start to build central bank digital currencies CBDC for them and uh so especially for a lot of small countries there it's there's no problem for them to push a CBDC because most of country haven't digitized their currency >> and helping them digitize their currency by a comprehensive CBDC system have three layers central bank commercial

10:33banks and end users right so in Singapore they have something called pay now in Korea they have Samsung pay in China Alip pay but right now we're basically building the similar user experience system that integrates with central bank commercial bank in central bank will build them a client. So in the client say central bank basically control tokconomics right and you're now

10:56able to okay I I let me just turn up turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn

11:01turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn uh turn on the the the yield interest a little bit higher >> or like let me or they can do they can control tokconomics that's their job and uh for commercial banks they they they

11:13basically give them give them a set of APIs they can plug into this they can do cross banking uh cross bank internationally Okay. And retail they scan the cure code and main payment which is like VHMO or zel or like all the other stuff. So we want to offer this as a completed system and it's also very simple and uh to like a country and after one or two countries start to

11:39deploying also helping them >> do stable coin version of uh this basically the offshore part of the money and if there's two stable coin >> like uh onchain on public blockchain we can easily build a forex right but that's the later stuff we'll start from the early stuff so the future we're seeing is that there will be a lot of stable coins. there will all be a

12:00blockchain currencies and uh not all of them going to be US dollar right so this is the future we think it's going to happen and we're helping them and the good news is all is be we're we're going to sign contract with the first country >> um they have like um almost 10 million people um within two weeks so so what I'm saying is we're not like we're not

12:29just thinking we actually talked to central banks and we're get getting our first contract. So we're very excited about this and uh let me just finish it's a little bit too long but I think this is a continuous conversation. So the first system is money system and based on money system like they might need to they want they they will need their own blockchain right so they

12:51because they don't want people to pay gas fee on ease or swana >> and we built them a blockchain as they need and they need to understand who's using their system who's using their assets so they naturally need a crypto compatible version digital ID we also build for them as part of module in this money system so this is all offering at the moment and uh we're we're just talking too many

13:14and uh um like really looking for opportunities for this like nationwide adoption and I think Ripple haven't done this, Salana haven't done this >> and we're going to be the first crypto company doing doing this and have this experience and we can go to more countries. >> Yeah. No, it's very exciting, Shin. And that makes complete sense with the asset

13:38being the most important way to have financial prosperity for the country. Uh moving into a CBDC or a more utopian version uh using blockchain of uh the digital currency. I'm curious what where do you see North America versus Asia and then the size of the countries as well in how ready they are for this kind of technology to bring in

14:06a a digital asset on a sovereign blockchain. Um yeah I would say the world is very different and so like say um especially for like central bank digital currency have a lot of like it's it's going to be controversial like say in the US the most concern is about firstly about privacy right so like we but but actually don't worry about it like in like the central bank digital currency

14:34like design it's easy to add a privacy layer to it so the government can't cannot see everything as it's actually easy like government don't really want to see everything so and secondly there's a problem more about economical uh plan right so basically central bank is printing money and or like to to make it sounds better is they're controlling market money supply and uh they're

15:01they're not they they basically they give money to they loan lend money to commercial banks and commercial banks distribute this money to whoever really need money to to to to stimulate to incentivate to in incubate this economy and u there's a cons there there's a academical uh problem like says if a government is very big like central central if central bank is too powerful

15:31a central bank can directly reach to the retails and the commercial bank will feel very sad. But it's actually commercial banks role to because they are incentivized to to to to find which project have the best interest. So they they they they get um like like uh money from the the retails and the loan to whoever can do real business and generate real like uh yield right so

15:58they will they will feel bad. So basically their uh space get squeezed. So uh that's a that's a major problem debate from the the the papers I read but u um so if a country too big is always very hard the all the commercial bank wouldn't want to uh push CBDC um like say China tried to push CBDC a couple time but uh because there's already have many different banks and

16:25many they also have Alip Pay and WeChat pay is very strong so they can't really push us through and same similar I think in in the US right so we have z we have vmo like if you build a new one and uh why why we're using you like there's the central bank don't really have the ability to push one product to everybody right >> so for small banks small countries

16:48>> firstly don't they don't really have that much um commercial bank and uh secondly um like small country usually they rely they don't really have the capability to build um like they even they the the money the mint whoever they print money they don't really have a a a a place to print money in I mean the the the cash system >> they they they basically they they they

17:15give this job have foreign contractor print money for them right so >> their system is highly dependent on the other stuff so right now if we give them okay you can just use this digitized system to digitize your cash be very easy and um uh they don't really have that much conflict and uh they it's it's very simple and easy for them. So um uh that's uh that's opportunity where

17:43better for these like uh countries a lot of time there central banks in these countries also don't have ability to build a digital cash system. >> So there we're become a like technical provider we're integrated with all the international standards. So all the central commercial bank caning just using our API and Visa, Mastercard, Union Pay, Mets can also just using our

18:07st like integrated into our standard. So we're bringing in a lot of these like international standard in the crypto side and the traditional banking side into the country. And uh by the way there's also many country so right now recently UN talk a lot about like financial inclusion >> right so a lot of countries they have a good economy but uh the world cannot

18:31funding do financial stuff services to the country because we don't know the country we don't have the the a lot of country don't have credit system a lot of country don't have the transaction histories and stuff so we don't know them but one once is digitized ized everything going to be solved >> and uh a lot of countries will be merged into this global financial market and

18:55there there will be a lot of new opportunities on this. >> Yeah, it's really exciting and looking forward to seeing that news on on the first country and to see how it all plays out as other smaller countries or innovative countries look to integrate the digital assets on chain. And now with this sovereign blockchain that works with the digital asset, the ID, is

19:18that still able to tie in to the public blockchains that we have more easily than like fiat on-ramp, off-ramp, like going into the liquidity of Ethereum and Salana or is it sort of still stuck in in the fiat to to crypto on-ramps? um that honestly that part we haven't tapped into it but I would say um um our by our system design so we just we will

19:47just build a bridge so by our default we offer CBC with a stable coin so CBDC will like based on the the government's regulation so like say every year convert this much of CBC into a stable coin and stable coin will be onchain and you can use stable coin on the D5 protocols you can use stable coin in whatever like application is on the international world offshore like

20:11>> market. So um that's uh but by the way I think that trend are going to be very fast like soon like within a year we're going to see multiple currency multiple fiat will be like stable become stable coins and there will be onchain forex there will be onchain multicurrency lending protocol and stuff coming up. That's very cool. And with the digital

20:36identity that that is needed to attach to acquire the CBDC's. I know you mentioned and you emphasize that we don't you know 99% of people they don't want to learn crypto stuff. So I'm assuming that's going to be on the back end. But what are the major barriers to entry and the key points of getting people onboarded? you know once once the government's on board with building the

21:01currency how can we ensure a seamless transition into the identity system. Um so so firstly like to use CBC you have to have to KYC people right so basically you open a CBC account you have to have to know who you are and the seem the the the best like UX is like you have you already have a digital ID and you just log in with your digital ID and say in

21:27Singapore in u UAE like there's a lot of country already have this kind of services >> and uh so our job is mostly helping them turn this so right now mo mostly that they're just Building OS system basically means there there's a server that controls everybody's data into this one server. So every time when when user say okay tell the server you give my

21:49info to this website and the server do it. It's called OAS and basically we're turning this OAS model into a a decentralized way like it's called verifiable credentials and we basically will turn we change how this ID system work and make sure it's cryptocompatible and making sure openly verifiable like say in the future with our system and your ID is not just like say you're your

22:13citizen from the certain country you also has say the tax record right so you could pay your tax and the the the the tax administry will give you a verifiable credential which means like uh when they you you show people this credential and they can verify the signature by the the tax administration also going to um publicize charge their public public keys and so people can

22:39verify okay this credential is actually issued by them just like when you open a website right now it's https >> so is also have a verifi uh certificate system so we're building this system to country like making sure like in the future if you want to prove whatever is it will be super easy and super easy to verify. >> Mhm. It's very cool. And I was reading

23:02that there's already over $80 million of projected revenue from S and different global partners that you're working with whether it's this nation country that you're talking about or other partners. Can you elaborate on that a little bit more? Um yeah so um so this year we we're winning like um seven to eight contracts and uh so our business model is simple

23:25like by the way all our previous product also making money like token table make 8 to 10 million every year last year made 15 but this year is worse than last year and the eign is contributing some some some some some revenue and RWA projects integrating e-ign central exchanges integrating eign because they don't want their contract to be seen do. So um

23:47>> like um and for the for the for the for the like sovereign nation um like projects. So mostly our revenue will firstly come from the bid like with bid orders bid contracts from the governments and the governments will pay us um some money and secondly for some countries will have a we'll have a revenue share from the future revenue sources. It's more very much like okay

24:09we go to a country build build them a real way and we take revenue from the f future years like say when people let's say when people use the verifiable credentials they they pay the credential issuers and we take a cut from the fee and uh so let's we build a like so this year we have we have like I say we have we're going to have more than 20 million

24:32and we also have basic by this revenue model is a licensed service provider to the country like long term. So, we're going to have sustainable revenue. So, >> yeah. Well, that's always nice especially when there's a lot of setup involved in getting uh nation states into crypto. It's a long process as well. It's not something we can just you know start the discussion and close it

24:56by next close it by next week. Um so, you know, I know there's a lot of time involved especially for larger countries. Could take years even. Um but for us like we're a startup we don't really have time to like uh waiting for years. So we're only talking to we're identifying which countries are see they're ambitious they want to become a leader in the neighbor

25:20countries they also work love to work with foreigners. Some country their mentality is okay you guys are good but I'm going to have my guys to learn from you guys and build by ourselves >> like they don't trust like foreign foreign companies. But some countries like say Abu Dhabi like UAE they're very like open right so like they love to work with foreigners if you bring the

25:40best technology come here and love to work with you guys and say um some other countries so basically for talking two level of country one is >> the regional leaders say Thailand also for like some some work some some negotiation for here like Thailand is also become the leading country in Southeast Asian uh nations uh the Um and also like uh Korea leading East Asia and

26:08um uh like uh Barbados leading the Caribbean islands. Mh. >> Um so there's there's many leading countries uh in different areas and the second part is also talking to some countries some country the least developed countries for these country were basically designing the whole uh the the important digital infrastructure for that country because there's a lot

26:32still a lot of country >> they don't have a data center >> if they want to have like digitized uh cash if they if they want to catch up provide the best services to their people. They cannot like they would just uh like leaprogging, right? They they wouldn't go through the the credit card ATM system and uh they would just go to the the latest the the most cost efficiency,

26:57the most trustworthy, the most robust system >> like it cost. So, so they we offer them this uh block basically blockchain backed enabled system and we're able to like providing services to the country a lot easier and everybody just need a smartphone. >> Yeah. No, it's awesome to be able to leaprog uh you know 75 years of of the brickandmortar uh cash system if you're

27:26a developed country or you're innovative move straight into uh the future. So um it's exciting to hear. I want to ask also about the the sign token in cryptocurrency and I know it's already live. It's probably working within the existing products that are generating revenue. Can you touch on uh the token and and the functionality within the ecosystem?

27:49>> So um the token is basically token have two part of revenue source. One is the economic um revenue source like the economic value like um we have we're revenue generating company and uh we basically um every half year we use our revenue like um like about half of our revenue to buy back tokens and uh in first half of this year we bought

28:17brought back like 12 million 8 million from the market 4 million from private investors and uh um the Second half will also do something like this. And uh secondly uh it's about community right so we also have spent a lot of time building our own community we called orange dynasty like we love orange like um we have a global community like in a lot of

28:43different countries and say for every uh probably alpha but I'm not sure how many people going to watch this but for every country we're partnering with we will do our job to everybody >> nice So our goal is making sure a lot of people the their first currency is signed >> and we we don't want to like keep just just fight mind share with all the other

29:08coins in crypto right now is too few people but too many coins >> and uh I think cryptocurrency will have more value when there's more people having it using it understand it and love it. So, we're going to do our job to like our users and the the the areas we're providing services to and uh uh building this global community like eventually like what we're thinking like

29:31what's the future financial system money uh like capital market or money system really works and um um yeah I'm I have this mindset to be a very uh old-fashioned cryptocurrency guy. I don't love too complicated tokconomics. I don't I'm not a fan of over financializing things, but I believe like uh many more there's more people holding there's more people like um uh

29:59using it like a stronger online community will will make everything happen. >> Yeah, that's very exciting. What's the best way to follow along with that update on the upcoming country that you're announcing in the coming weeks? check out the Orange Dynasty community and just follow along for all these updates as more countries get involved. >> Uh mostly Twitter. So we we spend most

30:23time on Twitter like there's two accounts. One is the the legit account the serious account is at East Sign. So, so because we our name was East Sign and uh and ETH sit and also we have a community account orange dynasty is at sign and um also better also launch the application just as our community town hall like um uh you can get everything in the the the community account is

30:52providing good vibes not too much serious products but you see the there's full of good vibes from every corner of this world It's uh it's a it's that's pretty amazing thing. I when I'm tired I I I I I just scrolling the community Twitters. >> Yeah, that's that's great. I can leave a link to both of the X accounts Twitters in the show notes below. I'm wishing you

31:16and the team all the best on onboarding some of these countries, getting them involved with blockchain digital asset for the nation and getting people on chain and free air drops are always nice as well. So, I I'll be following along with those updates. Um, I I can leave any other links to new news releases and updates in the show notes below. Wishing

31:37you and the team all the best, Shin, on getting more people on chain and would love to follow up again in the near future. >> Thank you.