00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Big businesses are starting to use blockchain.
00:05 And today we're going to be finding out
00:07 what Vodafone is doing with this innovative technology.
00:10 Now today in the studio, we are joined by
00:12 CPO of PowerPoint and Vodafone blockchain lead, David Palmer.
00:16 David, welcome to Yahoo Finance Future Focus.
00:19 - Nice to be here, Brian.
00:20 - Now David, how is Vodafone linking
00:22 mobile phones with blockchain?
00:24 - Good question.
00:25 I think if we look at trends,
00:27 by 2030 we're expecting over 8 billion mobile phones
00:31 to be in operation.
00:32 Many of those being smartphones.
00:36 And the mobile phone is the touchpoint between people
00:39 and accessing applications, doing business.
00:42 And essentially in those mobile phones are SIM cards.
00:46 So we focused on linking the SIM card to digital identity,
00:51 linking the SIM card to blockchains,
00:54 and using the cryptography we have in those SIM cards
00:57 for that integration.
00:58 - Are we going to be anticipating
01:00 like lots of digital wallets on mobile phones in the future?
01:04 - Yeah, so by 2030, we're expecting there to be
01:06 5.6 billion digital wallets.
01:10 The digital wallets will be the gateway between people
01:14 and financial services,
01:16 also holding identity and other credentials.
01:19 And we think linking that wallet to the SIM card,
01:22 which has the hardware needed.
01:25 So for example, hardware secure modules,
01:28 public private key encryption, symmetric key encryption,
01:31 and linking to identity is absolutely critical.
01:35 Because of course, the wallets, as they expand
01:38 and hold identity and financial credentials
01:41 will be a target for hackers and others.
01:46 - So is this, are we going to expect this
01:48 to be using public blockchains such as Ethereum
01:50 or Avalanche and things like that?
01:52 - Both.
01:53 So long term, the pathway I believe
01:58 is towards public blockchains.
02:00 And I think with the layer twos
02:03 and things like the Ethereum fork,
02:05 we're starting to see the public blockchains
02:08 are becoming faster, they're becoming more secure.
02:11 However, we do know that financial services,
02:14 there are some regulations which prevent them
02:16 from using public blockchains
02:18 or writing to public blockchains because of sanctions
02:20 and other things that gas fees could lead to them breaking.
02:25 So we at PeerPoint act as the middleware.
02:31 So for example, if a big enterprise wants to write
02:35 to a public blockchain, they can link to our chain.
02:39 We will then log it and then we can execute
02:42 a smart contract which will also utilize
02:44 the private blockchain using things like account abstraction
02:47 and cryptography to essentially remove that.
02:52 - Oh, so account abstraction, what is that?
02:54 That means it's just basically easier to use these things?
02:57 - Easier to use and interoperability.
02:59 So for example, where you use account abstraction,
03:04 it will allow you to move beyond an Ethereum address
03:07 to use other addresses, other types of locations
03:11 and accounts.
03:12 It also gives rise to the possibility of interoperability.
03:17 So we're using account abstraction, for example,
03:20 with tokenized deposits, for example,
03:24 of some banks and card companies.
03:26 So essentially you can bridge between a blockchain
03:29 and a bank deposit or you can bridge between a blockchain
03:32 and fintech APIs.
03:36 So I think there's a lot of power.
03:39 At the moment you've got blockchain and you've got DeFi
03:42 and you've got TradFi.
03:44 Power is in convergence, right?
03:46 How do you link fintech open banking APIs with blockchain?
03:50 How do you give a user access to all of these seamlessly
03:54 in a seamless user experience?
03:58 And the wallet and things like account abstraction
04:00 are key to bridging that.
04:02 - So if we're looking at all of these different things,
04:04 there's one thing that I suppose that we've sort of left out
04:06 and that's the metaverse.
04:07 Is there any way that this connects with that?
04:09 Or do you think the metaverse is dead and gone?
04:12 - No, I think the metaverse is very much alive,
04:14 but I also believe that the metaverse is AI on Earth.
04:17 So there's a lot of talk about 300 million jobs
04:22 being lost to AI.
04:24 There's also on the other hand a lot of discussion
04:26 about a lot of jobs being created by AI.
04:29 In fact, there's talk that AI is gonna do computers,
04:32 it's gonna do computer coding,
04:34 it's gonna do video making, et cetera.
04:36 But there's a lot of opportunities.
04:38 And the metaverse is how we will interact with AI.
04:41 - Are you guys looking into this at Vodafone
04:43 or at PowerPoint?
04:44 Are you personally looking into this?
04:45 - So I've written a book,
04:47 which is called "The Business of the Metaverse,
04:50 Opportunities for Web 3 and AI."
04:52 And that comes out in Europe on the 3rd of June
04:57 and the 25th of June in the US.
05:00 - Okay, well here, David, thanks very much
05:01 for coming on Yahoo Finance Future Focus.
05:04 - Thank you.
05:05 (upbeat music)
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