020. Blockchain Technology and Solar Punks w/Leon-Gerard Vandenberg

“What we think Solar Punk is, is this mash up of what Solara is, solar and then this cypher punk cyber punk initiative and so it’s a mash up between this social theme with a technology positivity to it.”

Leon-Gerard Vandenberg Solara

One of the reasons why the ideology behind bitcoin made so much sense to Leon-Gerard

Vandenberg early on is because he had been creating a payment system that had similar goals behind it, called US Navy Cash. As he put it, “Imagine having the United States Treasury Department as a customer!” Well.. the US Treasury Department wanted thier Navy to have its own currency and to create a payment system that was transparent and resistant to fraud. Sound familiar? That was years before Bitcoin was ever mined. So it makes sense that Leon-Gerard, with that background, would go on to mine Bitcoin himself, and be working with related technology many years later.

Now Leon-Gerard Vandenberg is Chief Technology Officer for Solara, and developing an incredible clean energy blockchain network. He’s developing blockchain technology around solar energy generation and distribution and tokenizing the energy, through SOL tokens, as an asset. go.solara.io/webinar

We also talk about the goal of financial inclusion and bringing opportunities that go along with creating infrastructure around solar energy to developing areas. By bringing energy as an asset to these areas, the advantage of blockchain tech and its inherent transparency and immutability, will come with it, so that political and financial fraud can be eliminated along the way.

Solar is the cheapest way to make energy, so is it possible to democratize wealth through creating digital villages? go.solara.io/SolaraDigitalVillage

He mentions that there are trillions of dollars of bonds allocated by the World Bank and the United Nations in a green climate fund to assist in aid for infrastructure in developing countries. GreenClimate.Fund

Leon-Gerard mentions his work with Fuzo building a working system on feature phones and smart phones, but that the company just didn’t get the traction to be able to scale.

He talks about ESIMS which can act like solar sensors with a stack of features inside and how that technology can be applied in the cases that he’s referring to.

He mentions Rob Allen, one of the advisors for Solara, who was on the Speaking of Crypto Podcast #011

https://speakingofcrypto.com/2018/06/19/011-financial-inclusion-through-blockchain-tech-with-robert-allen/

Recommendations:

Book: Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor’s Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond

By Chris Burniske and Jack Tatar

Naval podcast with Nick Szabo @Naval (Naval Ravikant) interviewing Nick Szabo for Tim Ferriss

The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Nick Szabo