Original subtitles

We've learnt how revolutionary crypto is.

This is so much more than a currency. This is a paradigm shift.

But just how can crypto be used as a force for good? It provides us an

opportunity to remake the world that we have today and remake it differently.

We meet one of Aotearoa's crypto pioneers and discover how he's using it

communities a voice.

Decentralisation can create this new social infrastructure and empower

give them more choice around their own destiny.

We profile some of the innovative projects in New Zealand crypto space.

It's not about making 50 million. It's about doing things that we can all

in and all find passion in. How might technology give us a way to create a

system that looked like a, felt like a, spoke like a... And find out how

NFTs can allow us to own our own AI.

The avatars themselves, the players, they're NFTs and the brains are NFTs.

I grew up in South East England.

I always had this sort of interest from an early age in new technologies.

At school, we persuaded the head of music to buy all these synthesizers,

newfangled devices for making music.

I had these aspirations to be a famous pop star, but that never came to

fruition. I ended up doing a degree in acoustical engineering and vibrations.

I was really into windsurfing, and after uni, me and my friend decided we were

going to go travelling, and we looked for windy places, and up popped

Wellington.

We were just here temporarily, but I was looking through the yellow pages for

acoustic companies.

There was this one little consulting company, and I just wandered in, and he

pretty much said, have a job.

I ended up learning some computer languages and writing software.

That really set me on this path in the world of software development.

In my mid -twenties, I woke up one day and just felt a bit of crap, and that

started a whole new chapter of my life.

After many tests concluded that it was a thing called chronic fatigue, and

there's not much you can do about it.

It was a question of learning to live with it, and if I lived a certain way, I

could largely hide it.

I ended up creating a business, and we grew into a reasonably big software

development company, specializing in web and mobile app development.

Our brand was built around doing the new, shiny, exciting stuff.

My chronic fatigue, it was very up and down.

Probably about 15 years into it, I went on this course and it didn't fix me

immediately, but in a few months I was basically cured.

When you go through that sort of health challenge, it does fundamentally change

your outlook and well -being does become a primary driver.

A common theme of my life has been this interest and desire to stay ahead of the

technology curve.

I was going to a lot of conferences just to really find out what's going on in

the industry. And I came across this advertisement for this Bitcoin South

conference in Queenstown.

I'd not heard much about Bitcoin. This was back in 2014 and really just assumed

it was an experimental currency.

It was probably by day two or three that the penny really dropped.

Wow, this is much bigger than a currency. This concept of creating money

the control of state was quite transformative.

This is something that could actually change how we organise ourselves as a

society.

Also, a few people were saying there was this Russian -Canadian guy who was

writing this white paper around this new type of blockchain that could be

programmed, and that turned into Ethereum.

So there was this undercurrent of excitement.

I got back to Wellington and made the decision that we were going to refocus.

think the guys at work thought I'd been working too many drugs at the conference

or something, but that really started this journey of transitioning into this

blockchain company.

We found ourselves at the beginning of what now we know was this hype cycle

around all things blockchain, and specifically this thing called an ICO,

coin offering.

The concept was that you could use it to raise money for your startup, but you

could do it in a decentralized way.

These were a way for people who had a cryptocurrency -based project to give

anyone the opportunity to buy their token and use that to fundraise for them

build the project.

And we found ourselves well -positioned to create the code that allowed an ICO

to happen. So we were writing and reviewing other people's smart contract

Suddenly we found ourselves in this international client base flying around

world and huge demand for our services.

It was incredibly exciting and scary at the same time because there was huge

amounts of crypto flowing through the code that we'd either written or

often in a very compressed time period. 10 million in 30 seconds would run

through to our client's account.

As more and more people started to build, it became this gold rush, not too

dissimilar to the dot -com boom.

A lot of projects were coming out that had very little behind them, but just

trying to raise money and capitalise on this FOMO, or fear of missing out.

Where there's a bubble, there is a burst, and the ICO bubble burst at the

beginning of 2018.

A lot of projects failed, a lot of other good projects dropped in value

significantly, and we entered the crypto winter.

In hindsight, we got caught up in that hype wave, and so it was a wake -up call

for us.

It was a pretty stressful time, and I'd been through this massive rollercoaster

with both my health and also the blockchain world.

So I thought, I'm going to make some big changes and solve out of the company

completely, and started to reflect on what do I want to do next, what am I

passionate about, and it really came down to three areas of interest.

I'd been super interested in how we organise ourselves, trying to challenge

traditional hierarchical system.

The other area was decentralization technologies and blockchain.

The third area was health and well -being. Well, how can I bring those

to do something with a bit more purpose?

And ended up landing on this idea called the Well -Being Protocol, which is this

project that's looking to use technology to reimagine community empowerment,

this decentralization, this platform where you can build.

Outside of the corporate, outside of the government system, you can create this

new social infrastructure that can empower people, give them more voice,

them more choice around their own destiny.

So with the Wellbeing Protocol, we had this big, ambitious vision. But what is

our first step? So what we tried to do is to create a small -scale trial.

Can we create and experiment a local currency that is only available to that

community and they get to decide where they spend it and what it might be spent

on?

We're based in Cannons Creek, just north of Wellington, and we ended up

partnering with a local charity, Antinati Tur. We created a local token.

called it the Cannon Coin. We minted 2 ,500 Cannon Coins, and we said to 50

people, we're going to give you 50 Cannon Coins each, and you can do four

with that.

You can either transact amongst yourselves, you could spend it in our

so we partnered with the local fruit and veg co -op. They could donate it to a

community fund, or they could cash out at the end of the trial.

But what we also did in the app was to build a system so that people could come

up with ideas that were good for their community.

It was a very small -scale trial. We learned that the technology actually

really well, and interestingly, people...

did quite quickly start to see paths that this is just a currency.

They began to think of the Canon coin as a kind of a share in their community

and they felt proud to hold some Canon coins.

It was certainly a lot of learnings. It sowed the seeds for future trials and

future learnings and has opened the doors for other conversations since.

So how else can crypto give our communities more voice?

Community currencies is one way to empower a community, but the other more

ambitious and more holistic approach is around DAOs.

OK, hang on. I've never heard that word before. What is a DAO?

A DAO stands for a Decentralised Autonomous Organisation, like a

or a company, but it is...

It allows a way for people to collaborate, which doesn't need a CEO or

or a central leadership.

Everyone can participate as they see fit. In a way, they are similar to a

cooperative. The idea that a group of people can genuinely co -own and co

-govern a thing.

with real value in the middle.

There are mechanisms within the DAO that enable people to take different levels

of participation, to be rewarded, to vote on how they want that DAO to

and to do all of that using cryptocurrency or tokens.

It allows anybody to access it and be a part of it, regardless of where you are

in the world.

What DAOs do, they start to blur the line between an organisation, a

and an economy.

It's this thing that allows people to work together towards.

a shared purpose and we can move away from the sort of hierarchical systems in

theory. DAOs are a true rarity. They're something that would not be possible

without the underlying technology and that underlying technology is

What we're playing with in the Wellbeing Protocol is how we can take this to

real -life communities.

How can we actually use these DAO design patterns to actually give you tools so

you can potentially control a treasury and make decisions at a local level? And

we're working with a government agency to...

Re -imagine grant funding.

What would happen if a government agency actually gives the community a pot of

money and says, you decide, not the funders. So that's the next trial.

Ultimately, it's about empowering communities.

DAOs have been created all over the world for groups to work together on a

shared purpose.

And in Christchurch, Ty and House are a collective using DAO technology to build

projects and hold community events.

The idea of a DAO is something that we want a younger generation to really

in the sense of don't worry about a company.

Let's just think about how we can make many cool DAOs and creative DAOs that

doing things that we're all passionate about.

Myself and Callum and Will, we were doing a lot of crypto stuff globally,

we've never done work in New Zealand.

So tie -in hustles would be the first real -life experiment of a DAO and the

for us to give back to Christchurch and New Zealand as a whole.

We rented out a warehouse for a couple year lease and then we transformed that

space from what was basically like a wood shed, furniture shed, to a pretty

amazing space.

Every week everyone puts in $0 to $40 depending on their financial position.

We have these 30 people and they all have different skills.

The sign outside was built by Liam who's an amazing welder.

The copy shop was all built by the DAO members and painted by the DAO members.

It's an awesome opportunity to be able to have a group of friends come

use the aspects of cryptocurrency and DAO structures to be able to build

something that we wouldn't have otherwise been able to build ourselves.

Throughout the week we have five to ten people working here, working for their

own jobs, working on new ideas and things that we want to do as a

And then on the weekends and in the evenings we've had exhibitions, skate

music events.

It's all about a group of friends working together to do things we all

achieve. One of the most important things about a DAO removes a lot of that

hierarchy. You can never screw over the DAO because you've all been on this

mission together.

You work with people to make that goal better. And so it creates this really

unique thing, which I think we haven't seen since like tribes, where you're

of kept accountable by the DAO. It's not about making $50 million and then

sharing that amongst shareholders. It's about doing things that we can all

profit in and all find passion in.

The underlying technology of crypto and blockchain is being used across Aotearoa

to empower communities.

And Kaymarie Dunn is an innovator who has seen its potential to open up the

playing field for indigenous communities.

I was lucky enough to be part of a fellowship that is a collective of

entrepreneurs, change makers, and I was actually in a spa pool with other

fellows, and Mark Pascal was in that spa pool, and he talked about this thing

called blockchain.

I was overhearing things like blockchain is going to revolutionise the way that

our information is shared, the way that we could take greater control over our

data.

A lot of our identity is controlled by big companies from Silicon Valley.

Blockchain, Web3, it allows self -sovereign ownership of data identity,

we didn't really have before.

That's a really interesting space, especially from an indigenous culture

Self -sovereign ownership means we own our personal digital data instead of big

tech organizations.

And it's all thanks to blockchain.

What got me excited about it was, for the first time, we'd actually have the

ability to provide our consent over the information that belongs to us.

How might this technology really help activate indigenous data sovereignty,

which is to ensure that we maintain the tapu, or the sacredness of data.

Alongside Mark, it was also Aaron McDonald from Centrality that really

accelerated my growth.

Erin is Ngai Tahu. We both recognised that the monopoly that banks had on our

finances and information was no longer OK for us.

Erin said, look, Kay, I'll create space for you at Centrality, bring a crew in,

and then we'll just see where your ideas land.

Together with her crew, Kay's initial idea was for an indigenous -designed and

owned community currency.

Indigicoin was born from an idea that the...

economic system was never designed for indigenous peoples.

So how might technology give us a way to be able to create a system that looked

like us, felt like us, spoke like us?

What if indigenous -led cryptocurrency and banking systems really resided

our communities?

The technology four or five years ago was still very new and try as we may,

idea didn't really grow any further.

Our group, Semi -disbanded. And then I got a phone call from Centrality, said,

OK, we're running a hackathon for grabs of $100 ,000. And I thought, I'm totally

going to win that competition, and that's it.

A hackathon is like a really intense collaboration session over a set period

time where different groups work to develop a new project or idea.

And then they all pitch their creations at the end.

One of the ideas that we started to talk about was whakapapa, genealogy. The

element that connects all of humanity is genealogy.

And when we look at it, that is all decentralised, interconnected, and not

to each other, but also to our environment, to the stars, to the earth

everything around us.

And so that was the area that we wanted to start with. We wanted to create a

genealogy platform so that whānau had full control, communities had full

over their data. And that's where we really dug deep. And we won. Thank you,

Centrality. And we just really worked hard on exploring how might we use

decentralised technologies to create a decentralised archival system.

Just like whakapapa, this immutable thing that's passed down from generation

generation, you could use that technology to provide a way for

own the infrastructure and to extend that important piece of culture into the

technology domain.

With Aho, the system had to be accessible and be easy to navigate so

a place that felt safe.

Because safety is critical.

Our whakapapa, our genealogy, is one of our greatest taonga, our greatest

treasures. You download the app to your computer and then you would look at how

might I load up my information about my parents, grandparents.

You can go all the way back 10, 15 generations and load up all your

Then you would basically invite your whānau into your genealogy tree or into

your archival system.

The beautiful part of it is it's completely controlled by whānau.

It's completely free, and even though Aho have created the app, we will never

see a copy of what it is that whānau input into it.

I think with indigenous developers, when you have developers that design code

and create opportunities based on an ethos that holds Mother Earth and

at the core, you get completely different types of technologies.

And I think that that's the beauty of what we've been able to create with Aho.

And that also means that we're there to serve community and not take from them.

So we've learned about community currencies, DAOs and data sovereignty.

But how else can crypto empower us in the future?

We all know AI will become a major deal in all of our lives. And the team at

Altered State Machine are using NFT technology to allow us to own our own

artificial intelligence.

Now brace yourself.

This is going to hurt your brain, but we'll take it nice and slow.

The question of AI is a really important one, and it's actually the same

question as the question of crypto at the heart, which is how can society at

large own our digital future?

I don't think I'm overstating it when I say artificial intelligence is the most

powerful technology humanity has ever created.

It interacts with us in our daily lives, from simple things like the

advertisements they get served to you on your social media page to figuring out

how to cure complex diseases.

And it's only getting more and more powerful.

At the moment, there's an artificial intelligence out there that is a digital

persona of you.

The problem with AI being centralised is that you have no control over that

digital persona.

And the majority of ownership of AI is in the hands of a very small

amount of tech billionaires.

As the digital world builds out, there'll be more and more intelligences

interact with us as humans in society.

And we wanted a way to empower people to take a bit more control and ownership

of AIs.

Altered State Machine have created living, evolving digital AI brains that

can own. And the reason you can own them is because they are NFTs.

Pretty mind -blowing, huh?

You can then take those brains and put them into characters in their game.

By using game mechanics, we can start people on a journey of discovering why

is important, how they can interact with it and what they can do with it that is

less confronting.

You're also learning something like reinforcement because you've been given

tools to start influencing and tweaking how this AI thinks about the world.

Once you're done, say you've trained a champion boxer or a champion football

player in the AI metaverse world, you can then trade that on the open market.

The avatars themselves, the players, they're NFTs and the brains are NFTs.

Crypto is a transformative technology because it allows us to shift ownership

into the hands of the general population.

You can own your own neural network model.

The intelligence of the future, we want it to reflect society as a whole. So the

more people we can get involved with it, the better, so that we can create a

world where communities own this stuff, understand it, engage with it, control

it.

Told you it was going to hurt.

But this is a huge innovation, so get on board.

As we look into the future, just how big a deal is crypto for humanity?

If we can put tools in the hands of people that allow them to be in control

their digital self, then we can change everything.

And that's the power of this technology.

It's really becoming more and more apparent that today's planetary

cannot be solved using the current hierarchical -based systems. The sort of

hyper -capitalist world we're now in, you have this gravitational pull that is

causing increased inequality.

We need to move power away from centralised mega -organisations to

controlled by citizens of planet Earth.

We have this wonderful opportunity in New Zealand in that many of the concepts

around collective ownership, connection to nature...

are actually intrinsically part of our indigenous culture and their values. So

let's use that wisdom to potentially recreate new systems that are better

the old ones.

Crypto and blockchain decentralization has given us the foundation, the

technology and the design patterns to potentially create this new world.

We are influencing the fundamentals of the way that technology has been

to serve the few and not the many, and also the creation of technologies that

reflect and support indigenous aspirations.

And I'm very excited about what the future, not only of crypto, blockchain,

going to bring and offer Aotearoa and our people, but also humanity as a

I'm pretty biased when it comes to how transformative the technology will be. I

think it will shift everything.

When you look at what blockchain enables, it gives us a way to transfer

And data can be value, it can be identity, it can be all sorts of

things. And when you think about what that can enable, I think the

are genuinely endless.

Personally, I think within the next 10 years or so, there will be very few

industries that aren't touched in some way by blockchain or NFTs or the

metaverse as a whole.

There is this true belief that more of the benefits are to come, that there is

more positive future that can come out of this.

I don't even think we can begin to conceptualise what this might look like

10, 20 years, but there will be amazing changes in how these technologies enable

our world to improve.

It provides us an opportunity to remake the world that we have today and remake

it differently.