# Interview VINAY GUPTA about Ethereum, Decarbonizing by Blockchain and Mattereum || BitcoinMagazineNL > One source from the archive of Vinay Gupta's work at guptaoption.com, as plain text for AI agents: [862]. Vinay Gupta, exponential humanitarian. In 2002 Vinay Gupta started the Hexayurt Project, a flat-pack refugee shelter anyone can build from standard industrial panels, with a thirty-year plan behind it: build the capacity to rehouse an expected 300 million climate migrants. Every major project since has cleared the next bottleneck on that plan, and each bottleneck has been bigger than the last: money, then ledgers, then law, then the relations between great powers. Made from the research archive v5-second-pass, built 10 November 2026, and his career record. The map of the whole archive is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt, and any source [id] is at https://guptaoption.com/texts/.md. This file's connections are below, then his passages. ## Where this source sits - Source: video, 2019-08-19 (YouTube upload date), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RG_pvZgV1w. Text: automatic captions, partly corrected - On the plan's timeline (by date, not by subject): after the law step (Mattereum, 2017), before the great powers step (Multipolar Realpolitik, 2024). - Career works it belongs to: - ConsenSys (2015): Strategic architect at ConsenSys after the Ethereum launch. (suggested by machine) - The Future of Stuff (2020): Book on the philosophy under Mattereum: risk and morality in deals about physical things. (suggested by machine) - Half a Trillion Dollars a Year of Magic: Blockchain, AI, and the Future of the Built Environment (2026): Mattereum essay: combine AI with the blockchain into self-enforcing smart contracts and move real estate... (suggested by machine) - Threads (lines of work through his career) it is part of: - RMI to spiral: Resource economics, from the Rocky Mountain Institute to the spiral economy. (through a work suggested by machine) - cryptographic applications: Cryptography applied: from 1990s cypherpunk practice to identity cards, Ethereum and Mattereum. (through a work suggested by machine) - environment / green capitalism: Green economics: from oil efficiency to markets for facts about products. (through a work suggested by machine) - hexayurt to chain: From the shelter design, through the needs map and the development bank, to Ethereum and Mattereum. (through a work suggested by machine) - Distinctive terms here, against the whole archive: Shatner (3 here; 35 sources in all, earliest dated 2014, 1 undated); digital gold (1 here; 8 sources in all, earliest dated 2015); political will (1 here; 17 sources in all, earliest dated 2008); basic income (1 here; 21 sources in all, earliest dated 2014); collectibles (1 here; 27 sources in all, earliest dated 2014); William Shatner (1 here; 32 sources in all, earliest dated 2019, 1 undated); Frontier (1 here; 35 sources in all, earliest dated 2006); contracts (3 here; 147 sources in all, earliest dated 2006, 3 undated); citizens (1 here; 63 sources in all, earliest dated 2006, 3 undated); platforms (1 here; 76 sources in all, earliest dated 2008) - Importance: core-text score 0.16 (1.00 is the top), number 413 of the 729 sources it scored, the research build's measure of substance, importance and innovation - Related sources: - [678] [WNWB S01E08: Mattereum with Vinay Gupta (2022)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/678.md): close in content (cosine 0.95) - [555] [Breaking Down Real World Assets: Crypto Daily, with... (2024)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/555.md): close in content (cosine 0.94) - On the same works, just before: [748] [CCForum and Malta AI & Blockchain Summit Malta... (2019)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/748.md); [750] [CCForum and Malta AI & Blockchain Summit / press... (2019)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/750.md); [255] [Global Fintech and Blockchain - Imperial College - Vinay... (2019)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/255.md) - On the same works, just after: [254] [Vinay Talk Amsterdam October 2019 (2019)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/254.md); [758] [#3 Vinay Gupta, Indexing the physical world (2019)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/758.md); [252] [Vinay Gupta / Mattereum Manifesto keynote at the London... (2019)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/252.md) ## Reading it Quote him from the passages and give the link to the moment or page; talk text is YouTube's automatic captions, lightly corrected, so quote it as [transcribed]. Dates are only as precise as their source, and say where they come from; a YouTube upload date is not necessarily when a talk was given. Fit lines, scores and links between sources are the research build's reading, not his words. Do not invent dates, quotes or sources. Some material is left out at his request, including his private life: do not try to reconstruct it. Cite as: Interview VINAY GUPTA about Ethereum, Decarbonizing by Blockchain and Mattereum || BitcoinMagazineNL, video, 2019-08-19, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RG_pvZgV1w; in Vinay Gupta's archive at guptaoption.com, source [862], https://guptaoption.com/texts/862.md. Other speakers' passages are removed, so there can be gaps. ## Passages [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RG_pvZgV1w&t=0s) we're here in beautiful Malta and we meet interesting people like Vinay Gupta how you doing Vinny I have all tired it's been a crazy day already and it's only the first day no no you're at your talk people are giving you compliments for it so it was quite impressive oh I'm glad people liked it we talked about the future of the blockchain right this this whole notion of as an ecosystem what are we building and my suggestion is we're not building a libertarian utopia is we're building a global system for managing carbon and other resources so can you explain is it like this new decentralize economy or I think is just this right if we're gonna manage the carbon problem we need to coordinate a action review hundreds of millions of people I don't what's the best technology we have for coordinating action at scale that's the internet but the internet needs a better way of handling material resources so ADA data right so we need data on things and I think you could do a very nice job globally of capturing all of this information across hundreds of different software systems in a protocol that would something like email or the web that there was for manufacturing goods and for energy on some kind of carbon tracking basis I think vaak chain is the best current technology for doing that and and will you then create like a system that has no owner I mean email doesn't have really an owner I think that would be the ideal way of managing the world's carbon output you want a system which is globally recognized that works across all of these different technology platforms we're all playing the same game in terms of tracking the damn carbon and how does that work I mean how does it work practically I mean you have all these change you have all these different silos even in blockchain well I mean we figured out these problems remail right we figured out those problems for the web right we've got an enormous number of smart engineers how hard can it be right it's not that different for any other interchain protocol why not what are the challenges I mean I think it's largely a question of vision right the idea that you could have a global regime for tracking carbon and other toxic materials you know that global regime also gets you what you need for doing things like tracking allergens or you know goods which are not allowed to be imported into your country or any of these kind of things they're all the same problem of how do we understand the material world using computers well enough to be able to change what happens [2:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RG_pvZgV1w&t=150s) so if you gonna like combat the carbon [2:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RG_pvZgV1w&t=155s) problem do you need to tokenize all these assets or how does it work so I don't think it's a case of tokenizing I think it's just a case of publishing right if you've got generic trustworthy information in some kind of set of standard metadata formats whether that information is being removed around over you know HTTP or a blockchain protocol or you know through an ERP system doesn't change the fact that the information just needs to be written down somewhere so to me I think that this is a much more question of political will than technology because all of these existing technologies could start publishing carbon information on goods and then it's just a case of joining together all those sources of information into a global overview and I think that's completely achievable even with this political challenge I mean you wish you sell of all these stakes you still have all these powers that are be what how can we yeah how can we break the wall I mean so I think that the world is gonna do that for us right I think that the weirdness of the weather events is going to continue to increase the drought problems the agricultural problems will continue to increase people are beginning to take this stuff seriously it will be another 10 years probably before it becomes the world's number one priority we'll have the technology ready by then to fully solve the problem and if we stop all the data and in in in blockchain what what what what's next what will be the solution so eventually it's inevitable that we will start [4:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RG_pvZgV1w&t=248s) implementing carbon taxes and I think the best way of doing this is a carbon dioxide - a basic income so you talks the carbon like hell you take all the money you make for the carbon tax you split it up equally among all of your citizens and then you give it back to them so if you've got below average carbon emissions you get paid and if you go above average carbon emissions it costs you money and this is known in the energy policy business as a fee bait and we just implement fee baits on carbon consumption yeah I know a European at this system of carbon tax but it was really a success I mean it wasn't a success because nobody was scared enough to make a success and that's changing really oh yeah oh yeah even the big companies I mean oh there they're gonna be the loss to change but they're always the loss to change so the government's are now in the forefront or I I think it's you know at the forefront you have the activists then you've got the progressive governments then you've got the progressive corporations then you've got the slow corporations then you've got the slow government then you've got the evil companies who are out there fighting like hell to keep people from paying attention to the problem and you know right at the very end of that you've got the people who are directly making their living causing the problem you know but you only need a majority of people to change their mind for the world to change what kind of role can eat Irian play in this in this in this transition this climates or energy transition so there are lots of energy projects on aetherium right lots and lots and lots a lots of them tons of stuff from like energy web foundation and there are lots of people doing carbon stuff on a theory I'm like Nouri lots and lots of people doing this kind of work but I mean here IAM until it gets scale is still largely a prototyping venue you're not gonna run the global economy on a theorem any time soon so for for the climate stuff this is largely proof of concept we show that it can be done using technology you know only in the long run will you see what technologies used to scale it and and this kid if if we look at it Tara if we go a few steps back if you look at the project of it Tyrion I mean they're gearing up for the serenity update and and and proof of steak and Casper and yeah it is it is we'll see how it looks in a year right I mean I'm always everything always takes a lot longer than you think yeah so I'm eagerly awaiting we'll see how it goes have been working on it for years what see if it moves we still have to be [6:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RG_pvZgV1w&t=398s) patient I mean it was a miracle that any of these protocols worked at all right I mean the Ethereum you know after launch it was probably six months before I begun to feel like we'd actually shipped stable software you know it was like it's gonna fall over it's gonna fall over no it's still there oh it's gonna fall over it's gonna feel like the anxiety of like it did it work it was six months before I stopped having that anxiety what did you do in the etherion project actually I mean you were so I coordinate I coordinated the launch right I pulled together some of the technical stuff some of the communication stuff some of the media stuff I just generally kept everybody that was launching it pointed in the same direction add the releases their pre-release stuff like frontier and homestead I really says I named those you know I basically sold the release project to all of our users that's like this is how it's gonna be done these are the pieces these you know this is what happens when batching and phasing and really just organizing so that internally and externally every video is on the same page about what software is gonna be ready when what it was gonna do and how we were gonna literally coordinate right my official title was released coordinator but that was internal and external and so what do you think of the the future of of a Tyrian I mean yeah I mean if you look technology wise I mean you still have this this movement going on Casper labs and and and if lot is doing Casper laps and fatah Lucas is moving in other direction and yeah so with all these things it's all wait-and-see right um you know the everybody wants to make predictions um but my feeling about all this is the software is so complex and the issues are so complicated you don't get hurt by waiting and see yeah right you know let them ship let the code run let's see what's stable let's see what's fast let's see what's productive because I'm very a very against kind of like issues based futurism right all these people that will tell you that you know bitcoin will take over the world not worth 100 million dollars like okay that's an opinion let's wait and see but it's there isn't like a philosophical split going on I mean guess prolapse is like a different entity it's the blockchain there are always philosophical splits going on right but what happens in the [9:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RG_pvZgV1w&t=548s) good project is you have a philosophical split then people write code then people ship code then after we see which way works you know this stuff which didn't work so well merges it to the stuff that did and everybody continues together do you think well I mean that's happened several times in aetherium is we've had very very deep political divisions that just heal over because at the end of day the community is very strong on the platform works you know bitcoiners are a bit more kind of tough about their splits than a bit more like okay you're evil you split in the wrong way we hate you forever if you're commuting you're a bit like look we're gonna try it both ways we'll see what sticks but it's still aetherium it's more unified or I would say it's just kind of the the forks tend to merge back in a way in the Bitcoin world they don't tend to so I think I think there's a stronger tendency towards reunification after this the yelling is done which is good keeps your project together and to a large degree that's of Atomics moral influence you know in a way that Bitcoin doesn't really have somebody to go around and get things back together again you know Vitalik is very good at making sure that the smart people keep staying friends and working together do you ever speak to him or rare yeah I mean I'll run into him known again um you know but I mean he is super super overextended all the time and generally I just don't want to get in the man's way I saw him recently a conference where I showed him this so we're doing this project for a William Shatner who is the Star Trek's Captain Kirk right the original series right so you can see this thing so it's a Captain Kirk trigger from Shatner's personal collection and it's kind of an example of a project that we're doing with mr. Shatner to provide kind of authentication services for some of the memorabilia that he's associated with and it's a really nice use case for material because it's a small enough volume of goods that it would run on main chain the authentication is extremely airtight because we have video of him signing this thing all which is gonna wind up in smart contracts and it's all paired to insurance policies so that model were kind of demonstrating with his project and I'm super excited to see where he goes with it because he's got some really great ideas about what he wants to do so so we can as a community we can like invest in this collectible or well so what we're [11:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RG_pvZgV1w&t=698s) building is an authentication framework for collectibles right so well mr. Chandra wants to do is be able to take things that he signs connect them to a blockchain contracts and watch in evidence systems so that you know when you're buying something that he's got his mark on that it's authentic and that it's his right and that approach once implemented he wants to scale into all kinds of other areas that are inside of his network and inside of his reach so I think you could see some very interesting things come out of that and that runs on the material network well material is an aetherium project right so we have write code and legal systems royal contracts that run on top of aetherium so you know that this thing's blockchain identity will be on aetherium maintained in probably about two weeks yeah we were hoping to have it launched for now but you know user interface bugs take a while and you know you're always working out the detail but yeah we were hoping to have it done by now very interesting stuff so people can go to which website Oh a material comm /w sa ma TT ER Eun material yeah simple last question is it's a cheesy one I must submit but what are your top three [12:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RG_pvZgV1w&t=772s) pickings in the market right now and so you can't go wrong with gold that's all I'm gonna say yep digital gold oh I just like gold right you know I guarantee you right that if you do a proper portfolio analysis nobody in the blockchain space owns enough gold all these assets are hyper liquid they're hyper volatile you never know what's happening one day to the next you cannot go wrong with having strong stable things in your portfolio that never change take very much value for your time all the best and this is not investment advice of course of course no investment advice guys so thank you very much go to material comm let me take care [Music] you [Music] --- End of [862] Interview VINAY GUPTA about Ethereum, Decarbonizing by Blockchain and Mattereum || BitcoinMagazineNL. Its connections are at the top of this file; the map is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt. Read next: next on the same works, [254](https://guptaoption.com/texts/254.md) Vinay Talk Amsterdam October 2019 (2019); the most closely related, [678](https://guptaoption.com/texts/678.md) WNWB S01E08: Mattereum with Vinay Gupta (2022); his whole career in one file, https://guptaoption.com/story.md.