035. Thinking Differently + Tokenizing a Digital Encyclopedia with Everipedia Co-Founder Sam Kazemian

Speaking of Crypto podcast

English - October 31, 2018 00:54 - 47 minutes - 43.6 MB - ★★★★★ - 21 ratings
Technology Business Investing bitcoin blockchain crypto Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed

Previous Episode: 034. Adaptability and Helping to Build the Decentralized Internet w/ Matthew Spoke

Next Episode: 036. Smart Contracts and Wise Women with Alexandra Levin Kramer

“I think that this space, particularly Blockchain generates a lot of actual prosperity by bringing markets to things that weren’t possible before. We’re building an encyclopedia that’s not owned by anyone… other people have a stake in collectively owning the governance and the profit and the value that’s generated out of this and before blockchain that literally wasn’t possible.”

Sam Kazemian is one of the co-founders of Everipedia, which is basically like Wikipedia, decentralized. Wikipedia, like most things on the internet, is becoming outdated because people like Sam are recognizing that there’s way more value to the internet than what we’ve been accessing up till now. So Everipedia is tokenizing the value of their encyclopedia of information. IQ tokens are earned by anyone who wants to generate or curate the information on this new monetized digital encyclopedia.

Why not be paid for creating content, approving edits or for selling services on the network?

It’s the Proof of Stake model. When someone wants to use the site, they stake tokens. If they do good work then they earn IQ tokens that are printed, (in the same way that Bitcoin miners earn Bitcoin). The idea behind the staking tokens is that if more and more people are joining the network, more invest in the system and remove the tokens from use, which means there’s less liquidity, so the price should increase.

Everipedia did an airdrop of about $50 million worth of IQ tokens to EOS holders. They chose to give away tokens to help incentivize more users and build the community. They chose not to do an ICO because they received $30 million of funding from Block.one.

One of the most interesting things that I learned from talking to Sam was how he got his start in Bitcoin. From mining in college housing to trading and looking at all sides of blockchain technology. Sam didn’t come from a developer background. He studied philosophy and neuroscience at UCLA and it was those philosophy courses that really helped him to think differently.

So how important is thinking differently? Isn’t it the only way to do something that’s never been done before?

We get into the ideas of reasoning in philosophy and the philosophy of blockchain technology and how he’s created something that’s never been done before.