Blockchain Beyond Crypto: Real-World Web3 Solutions for a Sustainable Future with Mariana de la Roche Wills

Mariana de la Roche Wills is the founder and CEO of de la Roche W Consulting and a leading voice in the blockchain and Web3 space. Mariana shared her journey from law and public policy to becoming a prominent advocate for using blockchain technology to address global challenges.

We discussed how blockchain empowers individuals by returning control of data to the people, creating opportunities for financial inclusion, and fostering transparency and accountability. Mariana highlighted the transformative potential of blockchain through projects like Ethic Hub, focused on agricultural financial inclusion, and the Demia, which leverages blockchain for carbon credits and sustainability.

Mariana also explained the role of stablecoins in driving financial inclusion in underserved regions and how startups can responsibly implement blockchain technology. We explored governance models, open-source tools, and the importance of aligning blockchain solutions with real-world problems.

We covered:

• Blockchain’s potential: Empowering individuals and fostering transparency in critical sectors
• Real-world applications: EthicHub’s decentralized finance solution for Global South farmers and Demia, focused on enhancing carbon credits. 
• Financial inclusion: How stablecoins are reshaping access to financial tools in underserved regions
• Best practices for startups: Leveraging blockchain thoughtfully to address real needs
• Governance and collaboration: The importance of open-source tools and community-driven decision-making
• Mariana’s insights: Lessons from her work with INATBA, BC100+, and global blockchain initiatives
• Practical advice: Balancing innovation and regulation while aligning blockchain solutions with long-term impact goals

If your a startup, innovator, or impact-driven leader looking to use blockchain and Web3 to create meaningful change, this episode is for you.

Where to find Mariana:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariana-de-la-roche-es/
- Website: De la Roche W. Consulting

Where to find Michel:
- Newsletter: Stun and Awe
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/micheljgagnon/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/michelgagnon

Chapters

• 2:07 Why Ethic Hub Is Changing the Game for Farmers
• 4:26 How Demia Brings Transparency to the Formerly Opaque Carbon Credit Market
• 9:55 The Secret to Smarter Supply Chains and Better Identity Systems
• 13:05 How Blockchain Is Helping Redefine Personal Identity
• 15:24 Why Data Ownership Matters in the Age of AI
• 22:35 Mariana’s Journey: How She Went from Law to Leading in Tech
• 29:30 What It Takes to Lead Global Blockchain Projects
• 29:56 What’s Going On with Apple’s Latest Legal Drama
• 30:43 How Europe Is Balancing Innovation with Regulation
• 31:38 The Truth About AI Regulation and What It Means for You
• 32:45 Why the Media Can Make or Break New Technologies
• 35:10 How MiCAR Is Shaping the Future for Startups
• 40:02 The Best Advice for Founders Starting in Web3
• 44:38 How NFTs Are Moving Beyond Digital Art
• 45:28 The Secret Behind Using Tech to Support Global Causes
• 49:10 What Tech Promises (and Delivers) for the Future
• 54:09 Wrapping Up: Mariana’s Vision for a Better Tomorrow

Transcript

[00:00:00] Mariana: Because with blockchain, we can give back the power of data to people. And

AI requires data, but that data normally come from us and we are not really getting anything for companies. to use our data to train the algorithms, right? So I think that there's a lot of like interesting applications when it comes to like how we can secure our data via blockchain and then allocate permissions for others to use it, but we need to grant the permission and we should get an incentive.

[00:00:27] Michel: Hi everyone and welcome to Growth Leap. I'm your host, Michel Gagnon. We talked to pretty awesome business builders who are designing disruptive and meaningful companies. 

[00:00:42] Michel: everybody. Today I'm excited to have Mariana de la Roche Wills with us. Mariana is the founder and CEO of de la Roche W Consulting, and she's been at the forefront of blockchain and regulation for over six years. She's known for connecting industry leaders with regulators to push for responsible and ethical tech practices.

As a board member and co chair of the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications, Mariana Mariana is a big advocate of, how blockchain can create social impact aligning with the UN sustainable development goals. She also leads the BC 100 plus initiative, which focuses on using blockchain to tackle global challenges.

Beyond INAPTA, Mariana is a board member at ThinkBlock Think, a legal think tank in Luxembourg. She is a member of the expert panel of the EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum, and a member of the Dynamic Coalition of the Internet Governance Forum of the UN. With her background in law and public policy, she has become a key figure in shaping the future of blockchain tech for the greater good. 

[00:01:46] Michel: Mariana, welcome to the show. How are you?

[00:01:53] Mariana: Hi, thank you. Thank you for inviting me. All good, all good.

[00:01:56] Michel G: I'd like to jump in right away because we talk about a pretty exciting field, blockchain, and also how you connect this to using the tech for the greater good. 

Blockchain for Social Impact: Ethics Hub

[00:02:07] Michel G: Could you share with me some examples of blockchain, of how blockchain is being used today to drive social impact and sustainability goals?

[00:02:16] Mariana: Yeah, I mean, there's like many different examples. Maybe I can give you two, that are like among my favorite projects. One of them is called Ethics Hub, is founded by a couple that are from Mexico, but they live in Spain currently. And what they are doing is trying to find ways to create financial inclusions for people working on the agriculture sector.

And this is one of my favorite projects because I think that people tend to forget how important agriculture is, but it comes to the point that if there's no agriculture, we don't have food and it's as simple as that, right? But when you live in a city, you tend to forget about. And the reality is that farmers struggle a lot to get funding, to make the land sustainable, right?

Whether it's because they don't have the collaterals to access loans, or because there is no financial infrastructure because they live in isolated areas, Or sometimes they even have the collaterals, but the banks think that the collateral is not worth enough. So they get the loan, but with like really high interest that they're not able to, to pay back or make profits out of it.

Right. So what ethics Hub is doing is using DeFi. So decentralized finance. to bring together investors that want to support farmers in different areas in the world, particularly the global south, with farmers. And they have a really interesting process because they actually go on site, get to know, like get to know the people, they build communities with the farmers, and then the farmers get on board, on board in the platform, which is also super because normally they are not like into tech. so they learn how to open a wallet, how to manage defy, how to exchange all of these, and then they connect them with investors that, invest in those projects via defy and, and that's it. Basically, it's a super simple solution, but they already distributed more than a million American dollars. And all the investment investors have been paid back. So this actually like shows that it really, really works. and he's one of the projects that I'm really excited to see how it will continue growing because it creates fundamental change for the people working on the sector. So that's already one.

the second one. 

Blockchain for Carbon Credits: Demian Project

[00:04:26] Mariana: Will be more, let's talk about carbon credits, right? Cause this is also like one of the big topics, carbon credits as they are, they have a lot of challenges in particular because they have, or like there has been a lot of greenwashing. so, and this happens because we create the credits, but we do not know really what is the information that is being used to create that credit.

And if actually was, supporting any environmental or like. Reduce pollution or actually like paying for the right to pollute that is like the different ways that that the carbon credits works and there is a project called Demian, which is in the US and they have been working. They already have like 2 pilots in Chile, where they basically are collecting data that is going to be used.

by the auditors to create the carbon credits. And in the way that they collect it is really interesting because this can be done via, directly from the sensors or, data that is collected manually. And they have an integration with a project called Albarium and also with Dell, where they give each of the data points a trust point.

So whether it was collected from a sensor or to someone actually like going there with like a pen and pencil, and paper and pencil to, to, to collect the data, each data has a trust point, which means how much trust we can put in that single point of data to generate the carbon credit. And this is really important because it's not the same having data coming from a sensor that is directly connected to the machine that having a human going there. To collect the data just because we have human mistakes, right? So on this platform, you can see how the data was collected, where it was collected. There's digital twins when there is like machines in the factories that you can see and check, all the process of the data. And because it's on the blockchain, it has. A double layer of transparency and trust, plus the points that are allocated according to methodologies are created by,gold standards, which is an organization that develops the methodologies, for these, monitoring reporting and verification,settings and then the auditors comes here and then they can generate the credits based on this data.

So this actually makes the production of like carbon credits much faster because normally all of this process is done, manually and takes tons of time. And two, we have the level of transparency and trust on the data. So these are like two different, projects. I can, I can keep going forever.

The kind of, you know, how much, what time you want me to talk about projects.

[00:06:57] Michel G: I think, I think it's a, yeah, I think it's a really good start and two very kind of different projects.I get the point when we talk about the second one, card and credits, verifiability and, and, and trust and transparency. When we go back to the first one, which is,financing for farmers, do what's the advantage of, of using the blockchain?

Because it's a bit like Mohammed Yunus, of Grameen bank, where, they provided funds to people who did not necessarily have the credit or the access, what's the purpose of using blockchain for that specific product.

[00:07:29] Mariana: For that specific project is because they do it with decentralized finance. So basically they invest in a token that they have that goes there and they have the collaterals as well in tokens. So for that one, does the advantage, but if you want to actually like going to financial inclusion, especially in the global South and thing, why blockchain? I will say that the fact that we also have a stable coins is really important because when you have devaluated. currencies, fiat currencies, like for example, Colombia or Argentina, even worse, there's no chance of those markets competing in their international market. So when I send money back home, one Euro is like, I think 4, 500 Colombian pesos.

so it's like the exchange is crazy, which. It works on my favor, right? Cause I'm sending money back, but if they want to come here and spending euros is absolutely impossible. but if you actually like are doing your business model with stable coins, then you have a different economical power there because you are competing in equal terms. So I think that like, when we look at financial inclusion, especially in global South with, in some of countries, of course, not all of them has the valuated currencies. This is game changing for them because, that means that they will be able to compete in the international market for the particular case of, of ethics hub.

I will need to go more into details because I don't remember exactly how the collaterals work, but I know that they are connecting to the DeFi protocol that they're using.

[00:08:51] Michel G: And do you know what type of investors are behind that?

[00:08:56] Mariana: No, I think that this is actually open. So they, they have actually, you can become an investor. I can become an investor. And again, because I have euros, and invest, then. The impact in the global south is completely different,

[00:09:10] Michel G: It's 

[00:09:11] Mariana: I think that everyone can become an investor, which I think that is also like really interesting because it opens the possibilities for like normal people that maybe want to put like a couple of hundreds into a project and not only to generate profit, but actually to support others.

[00:09:26] Michel G: Yeah. I did a podcast episode with Christian and, every Schwartz who are co founders of refi hub, and that's pretty much of a very similar model. So it's very, very exciting when, you look at, let's say the most promising application we've talked about, inclusive finance. We've talked about carbon, credits.

do you see other. Promising applications for startups and business businesses looking to leverage blockchain, both for profit and purpose.

Blockchain in Supply Chain and Identity

[00:09:55] Mariana: There's a lot of going on on supply chain. and here, I think this project is called TLIP, which is in Kenya. And basically what they are doing is digitalizing all the paper trade, that they have. That you need for crossing borders for merchandising to cross borders to accelerate the process and also to avoid corruption because, what they were trying to also tackle is that, like, sometimes at the border, they encounters, this kind of people of like, what do you have there? Fish? I see this needs to move fast. Well, like, how much do you want to give me to move it fast? But now, because they are digitalizing on the papers, like, you know, Everything is on the blockchain. So we can actually like track how much is taken. And if there was like,delay that cannot be explained and something was going on there, and this is like to accelerate the process also help them to compete on the international market, but also to protect the goods crossing border to border. and it also helps to have like complete trustability of products, during the supply chain. So on this one, I think that this is one of the biggest cases, that we have seen. That is a lot of startups doing different things in the supply chain. the UN use it as well, not only for supply chain, but also for distribution.

So when you have an emergency, there is a project called a building blocks, which, is between different agents of the UN. So when you have, A crisis is not one agency that comes, but multiple agencies and all of them has different tasks and they distribute different products and normally it's really messy because like the people arrive, you register on paper and then they go and they claim the goods and some people that always will try to take advantage, claim two or three times. And then we have people that actually has nothing because. Someone took advantage of the system. So with building blocks, what they're doing is that they create a digital identities, but they also have, like, a way of tracking how much is everyone receiving and if they already receive a product or not, without actually having to The full information of the identity of the person, right?

Because in refugee crisis, this is something that we would like to prevent. And this is how the different agencies are organizing themselves. And this is also like part of like supply,applications. so definitely in that one, then there is a lot of going on with identities. I already mentioned it.

but identities for me are kind of the cornerstone of many use cases that are going to. Be built on top where there is identity on the person of what we have seen in Europe. That is the digital product passport, which also like give us the full information of the product who was involved from the supply change.

And this is like, really important if we want to enhance later on for trade and avoid. Products coming from conflict areas, especially when you talk about minerals, there is actually a project in Berlin that is called mind spider that has been working on the mean with blockchain and minerals, which is really, really cool to take a look.

[00:12:42] Michel G: I have not like, I think that I lost track of what they're doing, but I check it out back in 2018. And there was really, really cool. just before we move to data, I want to go back to identity. You've talked about identity and when I hear identity, I'm, I'm thinking about personal identity, but what you've mentioned was I think more related to traceability and in a supply chain. Is that correct? Or I'm, I'm totally wrong. 

Great. 

Personal Identity and Blockchain

[00:13:05] Michel G: So when we talk about personal identity, what is the, the blockchain application?

[00:13:11] Mariana: the example that I always put to non technical people is, for example, if I go to a store and I want to buy a beer, They will ask my ID, and then once I give my ID, they will have information to absolutely everything. Like, in Germany, they will even see where I live because my address will be connected there.

And they don't need this information, right? They only need to know that I'm over 18. So, this part of like a selective disclosure of information is something that I found really, really interesting. But also, and what is more interesting for me, is the concept of credentials that can be attached to the identity, right? Because You have like different creations will accumulate like different creations over your lifetime. It just happened to me. I lost my degree I was moving houses and I lost my degree and now they're asking me for an application and I need to hand over my degree and I don't have it and this is ridiculous because now I need to do a whole process because I'm Technically like I have the piece of paper, but I didn't have like digital form like paper But if you have the credential and the credential is tied to your to your digital identity, I can have it anytime at any point.

And only I will access if I have the key, right? And if you're thinking like migration crisis, this is really important because having verifiable credentials that can prove who I am, what I did before, it will help much more. More my case, in the moment that I arrived to the receiving country. And this is something that has happened a lot with a refugee crisis where we have like people asking for a seal. And they said, like, I was a doctor show me you don't have the paper. The university is back then how you're going to prove it. So, I think that, like, in this regard, like, the verifiable, Credentials connected to identity are going to be key. and not only for like refugee crisis of migration, but like for the day to day, citizen is really important to have your credentials and be the owner of your credentials.

Like, I don't understand why, like it needs to be another, entity. The one that has my information, they, we need a issuers that we can trust, but one is issued by one of those issuers that we trust. Why? Why is not me the one that owns the data and use it as I want? So I think that here is game changer and identities at the end are going to be what opens the door to to access a lot of applications in the future, I believe.

Data Ownership and AI Convergence

[00:15:24] Mariana: Because with blockchain, we can. Give back the power of data to people. And this is something that I've been working a lot. I also lead the blockchain and AI convergence task force. And I think that this is where it becomes really interesting, right?

cause AI requires data, but that data normally come from us and we are not really getting anything for companies. to use our data to train the algorithms, right? So I think that there's a lot of like interesting applications when it comes to like how we can secure our data via blockchain and then allocate permissions for others to use it, but we need to grant the permission and we should get an incentive.

So there's going to be a lot of interesting new business models going on there in which, For example, the medical applications. I think that I saw one also here in Berlin, that they are using AI, collecting data from, from late individual. So I Mariana download an app and I put information about if I have, I don't know, a hypothyroid or if I cannot eat sugar or any all of my my different things about me and my health If you do exercise if you have allergies everything and then the app also Use this data for research purpose and you can share it with a research institutes But you also get, feedback on what are like the best treatments.

Where are the doctors that can treat these things? If there is maybe something that you should check, and this is really interesting because I'm getting something back, right? But also in order to share the data, I need to authorize. That I want to share my data for research purpose. And then you get like another like level of incentives. And this is really cool, to see how actually I started to get paid for my data. Because normally we don't and we do not know how much data from us is being taken. Whether it's from Meta or Google or whoever, to profit. But we don't get anything, right? Like we, what, what we get is like an advertising of something that we not even want. but if we can just like generate business models, based on our data, being owners of our data, I think that this is also like really interesting developments that we are seeing in the industry right now. I

[00:17:29] Michel G: agree, but, I. Just thinking about this, it feels a little bit like data today is the new oil in a way and and decentralized data is a bit like the electric car, although maybe it might be better, right? So there was a, you know, we've been talking about electric cars for decades. and it's just today that, we start saying.

Them on the road, let's say, with a bigger volume, do you see, and I know I'm, I'm kind of, diverging a little bit, but I think it's an interesting question to discuss. Do you see, big corporations who are making money off of that data, pushing back hard, to make sure that this decentralization does not happen.

[00:18:09] Mariana: mean, there's always slowly going on. like if I hear something directly, no.

but I, I have seen actually like this reminds me to a project in particular and just one comment on like the electric cars, like the reason that we didn't see. And then is because there is no infrastructure, right? if there was like more infrastructure, then like people will buy it more.

But like, if you buy now, like in Germany, probably that's not an issue, but if you are in Colombia and you buy and there is not enough chargers, then what are you going to do with the car, right? So it's a matter of infrastructure as well. And also they are like really expensive. So if you want to go into the sustainability part and want to get an electric car, well, basically you need money. Which is a barrier of access. basically when it comes to what you were mentioning about the data and corporations or companies using, I actually, I have seen governments, trying to create this business model. So there is a project in the Netherlands called IOT Netherlands, and they are working with different municipalities, in a really interesting concept.

So basically the municipality wanted to collect data from the people, but They were like trying different ways and they couldn't just convince the people to provide certain data or like they were laziness or they were not paying attention or whatever. and they were also like trying to allocate some funds that they have, like in incentive for citizenships, citizens. but no one was claiming them. so they were like trying to come with like a new model. And what they did was together with IOT Netherlands, they develop an app. And you receive a QR code in your house, that allows you to download the QR code per household. And they also distribute this randomly, but into the municipality.

So the government knows in which municipality the QR code were distributed, but they don't know who get them. And it was actually like incentivized that you exchange QR codes with your neighbors. So they really don't know who got what. Then you download the app. And then you have like simple questions about, your behavior for, in your house, regarding energy. So one of the questions was, do you close your curtains in. In the night, yes, no, and then you put yes, and then they explain, like, if you close the curtains, then the heat stays inside, and then you reduce cost on this, so each super simple questions, and then an explanation of why the question was done. Each question that you answer, it was going to do, like, it give you some points. And they created FOMO because you can see the amount of money that the municipality is going to distribute and every time that is claimed. So everyone was trying to just like actually answer faster to claim, claim the money, which was not real money.

It was tokens or vouchers. That you cannot simply go to an exchange and change them. So you needed to, you get the vouchers, like, let's say you go like 50 euros value on vouchers, and then you can only exchange those in some local stores that are working in partnership with the municipality. And these stores were providing hardware to turn your house into a more sustainable. Energy wise. So, special light bulbs, solar panels at the center. So this was a really interesting model because the municipality found a way to understand what was the behavior of like different people in the municipality when it comes to energy for them to understand. understand how to do better public policy. The people, got an incentive to provide data that they could use to make their houses more sustainable. And the local search into the municipality got more clients via the municipality. So it was a whole circular thing to collect data, give incentive, activate the economy at the local level. And they're already replicating it.

so this is a really, really cool thing. Project that shows once the interest of the government in using blockchain for this type of applications. And two, it shows that it works because they couldn't distribute the money and all the money was distributed, I think, in a matter of days, which was crazy. and then you also activate the local economy. And I think that this was also done when COVID was really strong and they wanted to use it to activate the local economies. So it was a really clever solution.

[00:22:30] Michel G: Amazing project. That's a pretty strong start, Mariana. I like that. 

Mariana's Journey: From Law to Blockchain

[00:22:35] Michel G: So let's go back to your story because I think you, as I was mentioning before we got started, I don't think you have necessarily a typical path, you know, from academic to professional. It's not like you've done a finance degree and started working as an investment banker.

Your background spans law, human rights, public administration. I'm curious to learn more about how your multidisciplinary experience shaped your ability, but also led you to that space that you're in, which is kind of an intersection of a blockchain regulation, public policy.

[00:23:10] Mariana: Yeah, I didn't do economics. I did law. I studied law back in Columbia and I, did my major on criminal law. Um, and my first job was. as a researcher of international law for the transitional court in Colombia. I don't know how familiar you are, with, the Colombian context, but we, we, have paramilitaries and I was part of the court that deal with the transitional process with the paramilitaries infrastructures that we had. My job was basically go and research precedent from the Nuremberg Court, Tokyo, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, etc, etc. And see how we could integrate those precedents via the constitutional bloc. into the cases that we have. I was particularly working on sexual violations and gender violence inside conflict and also the use of minors in the warfare by the paramilitary infrastructures.

then after that, I, Went into child protection.I was working for the second biggest NGO in child protection worldwide, which is called Terre des Hommes. I was working with the office of Lausanne in Switzerland. I, together with some colleagues, convinced the NGO to open a justice program in Colombia.

I think I was 23, about that. Back then, and I started that project in Colombia with them, and we were basically training prosecutors, judges, and lawyers on how to treat, underage people that committed a crime due to the context in which they grew up.because of that, I did a lot with the UN, also in human trafficking as well. and, yeah, I actually, like, got super frustrated with the development sector, and that's how I, I actually, like, went into tech. Cause I wanted to do a lot and I felt that I was working really hard. but I didn't see any impact. the impact that I was creating was minimum. we were also like doing a lot of fundraising to be able to implement the projects, whether it was like funding from the government or other entities or private sector, and then I had like these like big, Let's call it tax in the organizations, that we're working in partnership with us, because most of the money was, staying or at the UN or in the other organizations for, operations.

So it was a lot of frustration on what I could do and not also, I was in Columbia, but I was also like dealing with like people from Europe coming to tell me what to do, because most of them. The experts that they were bringing from, from where we're from. You go anyway. I was like super frustrated with like trying to just do something and not seeing any progress, for, I was trying to achieve. And that's when I moved to Germany and I started to work. I create my own company with two colleagues, on gender issues, especially on like female health and, women's center designed. so also like looking at like how technology could happen to stop peaks. And then we sold that company and I started to work on blockchain.

with the IOTA foundation back in 2018, they were looking for someone at that time that had experience in project management and understood,legal frameworks and understood the technology. And I was like reading by my own and just like, you know, like playing here and there with blockchain. I am not a technical paper, a person I will never claim I am one.

There's a lot of things I don't know about the technical part. I have the level of understanding. That I think I managed to get all of these years. and I started to work with them. And as more as I work in blockchain, more I like it. Because then I started to see how it was a bottom up approach. so we have a lot of like, we have the foundations and everything, but at the end, it's like, The power is in the communities. So release up to the communities, what they feel, how they build it, what they want to do, and they can actually like make pressure on the foundations to go in certain direction when it comes to the technical development, because of the needs they have on their projects or, all the new governance structures.

I love those, all the governance topic is one of my favorites. So it was just like, just like growing in me, all of these, I did with a Yota A lot of projects we have with the. Commission, a really big consortium for Horizon 2020 that they were working on sustainable mining. They were working in smart cities, mobility, supply chain.

So I got to know like different applications. At the same time, I was talking all the time with the communities. And then because of my involvement with INADPA, where I've been since the very beginning and leading all the sustainability and social impact. Efforts since 2019. Actually, like this is the last year that I'm going to be co chairing the group because I decided that it is time for someone else to take the ball.

cause I don't want to become the asset that if I'm not there, then nothing happens. So someone else need to need to take it. which already started to happen this year. And it's really cool to see how people got in power and took the ball. and because of all of those connections with the EU, I started to work more in regulation.

 You know, also had a team. So we were reviewing the market and crypto asset regulation and providing feedback. We did the same with the anti money laundry package. We did the same with the data act. And lately I've been more involved in everything that has been the conversation on AI. And try to see like how blockchain can mitigate some of the risk generated by AI and how AI can actually like help blockchain to solve some of the vulnerabilities we have in the space. and yeah, basically because of my interest in human rights and my impact focus, I've been involved with the United Nations. That's what I do with the Dynamic Coalition. We launched last year. I think the first DAO in the UN framework, that we are using to manage one of the working groups inside of the internet governance forum, which is the blockchain group.

And we want to use this as a use case to show other groups inside the dynamic coalition, how they can use DAOs for their own management and like enhanced transparency in resource allocation and decisions. I have like the BC 100 plus initiative that we have with the 7070 president of the United Nations General Assembly, which is exploring how to use blockchain for the development sector.

so all of this frustration that I saw in the development sector, how there are tools already in place by blockchain projects that can come and accelerate what they're doing. so yeah, it's like. 

Leading Blockchain Initiatives

[00:29:30] Mariana: Many different initiatives that I'm leading on that regards and a lot of education. I, I do that quite often with regulators with authorities. just to explain that blockchain is more than crypto, that we go beyond the financial applications and that there is much more that the technology can bring.

[00:29:50] Michel G: Great. Amazing. Amazing journey so far. Hope you've enjoyed the ride. 

Apple's Legal Battles and Tech Releases

[00:29:56] Michel G: Last week, I think, a couple of weeks ago, the top EU court ruled against Apple regarding I think tax issues. And then the Apple 16, the smartphone, the I love it. Yeah, the iPhone 16 came out and people said, well, Apple intelligence will, will not work in Europe and what we saw, you know, in the news, but also on social media, a lot of people saying, well, you know, this is why Europe is not competitive.

And, I'm from Canada and I remember back in the early 2000, everybody was saying that. Canadian banks were boring and, too conservative, until 2008, the financial crisis hit and Canadian banks became known as the best, governed or, or the best banks in the world.

Regulation and Innovation in Europe

[00:30:43] Michel G: I'm wondering what is happening since you work so much in policy and, and with regulators, In Europe and blockchain specifically, there's a lot of people who are afraid. What's your take on that? How do you see things? Because you've just mentioned that you were frustrated because the work you were doing, in the development world was, you didn't feel like you had an impact and now things seems to be a bit more dynamic.

What's your. View of, you know, how things are moving, let's say in Europe, especially on the blockchain front.

[00:31:13] Mariana: I think that every story has two sides, right? And you can look at that, that more regulation just like hinders innovation. Or you can also think that like, what we are trying to do is generate and trust in the day to day user. To get more in contact with the technology and actually increase adoption by giving a guarantee to the users that are outside of the bubble that is safe to use. 

Understanding AI and Regulation

[00:31:38] Mariana: and I think when it comes to the AI in particular, I am actually really happy with the outcome, because it is looking the A. I. I basically just like generate certain categories about, like where you are with your application in terms of the risk, and these at the end is just like looking at the protection of the individual and the rights of the individual. And I mean. We don't need to look like in Europe, but like we have seen like really bad applications of AI. If you look at what happened with Lavender in Israel, like, like using it AI against the Palestinians. These are like horrible uses of AI. And if we're going to have regulation that will prevent That this is the direction in which AI goes.

I'm all for it. Like, at the end, what I care is, is the protection of the individual and human rights, which is at the core of everything that I have done back in the days. And what I do now, what I care is like more equitable societies, more sustainable societies, more justice. so I don't think that regulation is bad per se.

And this is why it's so important to generate the spaces where we talk to the regulator and we explain them. What is it that the technology is doing? Right. 

The Role of Media in Blockchain Perception

[00:32:45] Mariana: Cause what the regulators see in the media is the same that like my mom sees in the media about like FTX, Terra Luna, people losing money. And then they come in and say like, what's going on?

Do you see how a job what's happening? Because they do not understand how the technology works. They just see what is in the media. And normally we like the news that like make big noise and like hundreds of millions of euros loss. And in that case, in some cases, it makes, it makes the first page, right? And this creates that there is a lot of misconceptions about the technology, but also like simplification, because the journalist doesn't take the time to actually explain what is it that happened with FTX, everyone will blame blockchain. For me that I'm in the industry, I say like, That was not the technology.

That was actually a corrupt individual, not the technology. Right. And that for me is clear, but for the rest, no, the rest is like, hmm, crypto is bad. So it's really important to have that dialogue. So when the regulator is looking at where are the risks and determine the risk. To create a regulation because at the end, this is what is regulation, right?

Like we identify a risk and we need to mitigate those risks and prevent that there's going to be a damage on the people or the users or the investors. And if they don't understand what the risks are, they will over regulate. And this actually like will. Will come will damage the industry. So it's really important to get in contact. And I think that this perception has been changing a lot from, like, back in the days of, like, worldwide wise, we don't want regulation. We don't want anything. Just like, let us in peace. What we want to let's see. Then actually, they discuss because it might be the case that if there is certain rules, People will be more willing to use it and this will increase adoption.

So I think that there has been a change there, with me car. I have my reservations of one when, well, in what, when, but there was a lot of focus on, on stable coins and assets, reference tokens, But actually like the conversation with Mika also started with like Libra. So that's like all of these little things also got into into the legislation. I don't think that Mika is bad per se. I think that it's actually a good regulation. And when you look what happened, like, I think Dubai just like published a regulation like a couple of weeks ago. And everyone was going there thinking that there was never going to be a regulation. And they're also starting to regulate because they see the need. so I don't think, I don't think it's bad.

I think that we're 

[00:35:10] Michel G: I'm sorry. 

Explaining MECAR Regulation

[00:35:10] Michel G: Can you just explain for audience who are not necessarily, experts in, in blockchain and regulations, what that, regulation is?

[00:35:18] Mariana: will take me more than one hour, but, yeah, we can, we can touch. So MECAR is marketing crypto assets assets regulation is, is a regulation, which is means it goes to all the countries, in the European union. And it has like a, a category of assets. So you have, e money tokens. There are those that have the value connected to, to the the euro or, or the dollar.

So one of them, like the

circle, for 

[00:35:46] Michel G: They're pegged to, yeah. They're pegged to a currency.

[00:35:48] Mariana: exactly. then you have the asset reference tokens, which are, tokens as well, that have unstable value based on a combination of different assets, whether it's gold or, is different tokens that come together or whatever. And then you have the utility tokens.

And depending on where you sit. You have like different requirements. Some are bigger than the others. E money tokens, as a reference tokens, utility tokens. and then this is mostly for CASP. So crypto asset service providers. And MECAR also will define what are the activities that are going to be considered as a crypto, as part of the crypto asset service providers, right? And then they will also need to get a license. Then you have like also like some, obligations for the issuer of tokens that are mostly connected to the white papers and the white papers at the end. What I want is like transparency on what the token is for the user. There are like some things there that I like in this particular thing, I don't agree, like, for example, the fact that the managing directors of the company that issued a token are personally person personable are liable at

a 

[00:36:54] Michel G: Yeah. Personally liable. Yeah.

[00:36:56] Mariana: Thank you. I like that word. Got this stuck in my brain in Spanish. They become liables at the personal level for what is in the white paper. And this is really, I don't think that this is actually like, like the way that it should have been done because this Kind of level of liability. We don't have it in the in the traditional financial sector with me fit. So this I found that that is a little bit disproportionate. Also, the fact that white papers, it is like it needs to it doesn't the white paper needs to don't create confusion and be completely clear. And all of these like. Keywords for a lawyer that are going to be problematic at the end, because if he's misleading, defining misleading, what is misleading, right? And the thing is that like, there's like some new tokens that they don't really know how the token will work. And they will start to just like, see once the token is implemented, right? So that will mean that they will need to change the white paper all the time, because if it was yesterday, it's not today, then it's misleading.

So all of these like different things that are the practical level are going to be a little bit complicated. Complicated. what things about me car is that before if you wanted to operate in a European country, you needed to ask permissions in every single country. Now you can passport and they, they cannot refuse your passport thing.

So if you come to Germany and you become a Caspian and then you ask that you want to be in France, Croatia, Italy, then the authority is there. Like need to passport like they cannot denied. so there's, there's good and bad, but I think that in every regulation we have like good and bad. I just think that like people sometimes like to complain a lot just because they need to do a little bit more of homework. but I, I do see that this is going to bring a lot of security for, for the users. and it will be, I mean, as I see it is that like crypto has been stuck into a bubble, right? And he was talking about like, also like crypto and blockchain. We are like in a bubble, so we can grow as big as our bubble. And if we don't break the bubble, we are never going to scale.

And this is actually something good because if people feel that they can. Approach blockchain or they can get some crypto and then there's going to be some securities in case that something goes out that they that the person that is selling on the company that is selling an offer in the crypto needed to do certain processes in order to be there that we have an established that basically is your license.

I say like we trust that you're going to do a good job. Then if I have never touched it before, I probably go and play a little bit. Cause there's like certain securities for me, right. And this actually will help with adoption. So you can see the good or the bad, I'm not saying it's perfect. I like to focus on the positive.so, so yeah, there's going to be a lot of things that we will need to define in the coming years, because right now, MICA was passed, but now it comes to the national authorities to applicate it at the, at the national level. And to Define what are going to be the nitty gritty rules and how it's going to be enforced. And this, we are just starting to see the direction in which it's going to go.

[00:39:53] Michel G: Great. So you did this in a lot less than an hour. Thank you so much. Super,

super interesting, super exciting, super useful. 

Advice for Blockchain Startups

[00:40:02] Michel G: I would like to go back to the business and startup side of, our initial discussion, let's say I'm a founder and I'm, you know, I really want to try to get into blockchain or leverage the technology for, for good.

Do you, based on everything that you've seen, do you have any advice, you know, for them to kind of get started or so maybe, maybe, maybe an advice or maybe just saying, well, look, you know, if you go web three, the web three path, it's, you know, like building a business, but you know, you have to look at these key elements because it's pretty much different.

[00:40:36] Mariana: Yeah, I mean, the first thing is actually see if blockchain is going to be bring value or not. I don't think that blockchain is the magic solution that it always needs to be deployed for every project. with BC100 we have like something called the best in class, where we look at different projects that have already been implemented. And we look at what is the actual role of blockchain in that project. Because I think that you cannot imagine how many times I have calls, with people asking me like how to go into blockchain and then they start telling me what they want to do and I'm just like You just need a database. You don't need blockchain.

Like, what, what do you want to do with blockchain? They're describing a database. Right. And I think that this also like comes with the fact that blockchain was a hype and everyone wants to go into it without not knowing actually like, when do you need blockchain and what is the value that is going to bring?

So my first advice is actually like looking into what is the value and if you really need blockchain, cause it's not going to be cheap to implement it. And it really needs to bring a value at it.and I think that does, does the most important thing. Once it is defined, I think that like selecting a protocol that actually like will work for what you need it.

does, does the second one, right. Like there's so many options and I don't, I'm not going to say that one is better than the other. Like I work with IOTA, but I, I, right now, like, Collaborate quite a lot with Cardano and Polkadot. I've been in conversations with Hedera about different things. I mean, like I just like talk to them because I really believe that like all of them are good for like different things. and, and this really depends on the use case and what you want to do, in the communities that you want to, Activate, right? So looking at the different options without married to one of them, I think that is really important. Interoperability is also key. And then defining if you need a token or not, because sometimes when people talk about blockchain, they just are thinking in crypto. And this is one of the biggest mistakes. I have seen amazing projects that are in the blockchain space that do not use crypto whatsoever. They don't use tokens and they're doing an amazing work. And this is actually like easy at the regulatory level. so yeah, I mean, it's just like doing critical assessments of what is it that you need and if that is going to be the right solution or not. And talking to people, I guess, if they're not in the web space, right? Like, each, Ledger one or two have communities. and the people normally is really happy to see new people trying to explore how to implement projects. And they're normally really open to collaborate and support and give advice. And there is a lot of documentation and, Oh, ah, here's the key one. Most of the things are open source, so there's no need to reinvent the wheel. Cause probably someone already did like. Something that you can use and integrate it and the composability, composability aspects of blockchain is really interesting because I can take things from different places that were already built by someone else and I can integrate in them. So that's like really like one of the best things of the industry, I think.

[00:43:34] Michel G: I'd like to talk about that, what you mentioned BC 100 plus initiative. my understanding is that you kind of helped bridge the traditional web two organization with web three. What are you seeing? Because, you were just mentioning that, you know, there's that hype around blockchain and people sometimes just want to use tech, even if there's not necessarily work, you know, for a due use case.

I think we've seen this a lot with AI when ChatGPT came a bit more public and everybody was building an AI startup, but it was just that.

[00:44:05] Mariana: hmm.

[00:44:06] Michel G: And then we saw the same thing I would say with NFTs, where, you know, there was that big hype, you know, some people got rich, it was that new thing on the block and then people said, okay, what am I, you know, if I'm H and M, like, how do I use this thing? So what's, what, what are you seeing at the moment, in, in those companies, you know, who are trying to kind of jump the fence and, and explore?

That's what we're looking for.

[00:44:29] Mariana: I have not worked so much with companies. Well, that's not true. I have a spot with like some football clubs about what they wanted to do with blockchain. 

NFTs Beyond Art and Collectibles

[00:44:38] Mariana: There's a lot of interest on NFTs, but not in the traditional NFT of like collectibles, but actually like how to use NFTs as a certificate or like a membership.

So there's like, this is going a little bit beyond of the NFT as art and collectionables, which I think that was really limited and it was sad. That the industry actually like just focus on that. It's the same with crypto. Like I hate that they focus on like the meme coins. It's just like, that's like, I don't, I don't care.

Like there's, there's no impact there. It's just like some, I don't want to use my words, but some people, that like to. Maybe do a bit and they don't know how to play poker. So they just go there. the same with the NFTs. We just like a stock in something when like NFTs can be absolutely anything for the use cases.

It can be certificates. It can be your ID. It can be everything. Right. And this is like, this is actually like really valuable. 

Blockchain in Nonprofits and the UN

[00:45:28] Mariana: but, Where I have been working most and when I like, and not, not working, maybe like talking to them and supporting the projects is at the nonprofit and the UN side. So if you look at what, UNICEF is doing with blockchain, it's really interesting because they have like projects already in Bangladesh, and India as well, looking more at the financial inclusion, or looking into supply chain or looking on, identities.

so they are like. experimenting with blockchain, like it's really early. These are like pilot, but it's really cool because the thing is that like once it gets implemented by the UN, you have like millions of users. And this actually scales the projects. the, the office of the UN that has like, that managed the pension funds, So like the employees for the UN is already working with identities. And this is super cool. I mean, they did it with hyperledger. We will see like how that evolves. but this is really cool. I mean, hyperledger is good for like certain things. I think that like for like. Creating trust in a more like control environments, like the UN, where they actually need to know how they are deploying funds, it's a really good start. and what they're doing is like, basically before, if you get the retirement money from the UN, they have like people all over the place. All over the world. And you need to prove that you're alive. So normally it's just like with a letter or something. And then, yeah, yeah, this is me. Like I'm alive.

Here's my picture. But now with the app, they actually like have it and they have like actually like verification and face recognition and some other things. And then you know that that person is alive. So they receive their money, but also the process between you actually like get the, you get entitled to claim, your fund, your, your, your pension fund until at the moment that is actually, Processed by the UN.

It takes really long time because people don't stay with one agency. They're going to different agencies most of the time. So they will need to like collect all of this information. Now it's a super fast process. Just like tomorrow you get it. You here's your money. So they're already using it. and here's what I see that there's going to be a really big potential when I see implementations at the government level and in. Big organizations like the UN, the EU is already working with like, digital passports. It was the whole EPSI project that now is also a scaling in going from the commission to the council and like to the member states. So all of these applications show that there is a legit interest from the public sector.

And once the public sector take it, this is really good because this is what going to start to scale. My only concern there is when the public sector Takes a project and is only with one set of technology. It might get the standard for the rest. And this might prevent others to play there. So I think that is really important to always be on the game and everyone talking to them.

So they play with different protocols and different sets of integrations and apps. So everyone be able to play at the end. Otherwise, we will tend to go into, monopoly, which is, is way in the future, but like, I'm concerned with that one since, since now, because most of the applications we have seen like going to hyperledger just because of the level of centralization that they can enhance, a hyperledger fabric, or BESU. so I would like to see more advocacy coming from, from, from projects, to, to be integrated there. I think Hedera does a really great job on that, but like, I have, I lately have seen them everywhere. Cardano is already working with UNHCR. Polkadot has been also like in discussions with like many different organizations.

so, so yeah, at least it goes in the right direction.

[00:49:02] Michel G: I agree. I don't want to take too much of your time, but I have kind of two last questions. One is a bit more philosophical, I guess. 

Philosophical Insights on Blockchain Promises

[00:49:10] Michel G: I was on a call with the refi Solano community a couple of weeks back, and one of the participant was, focused on trying to diversify a little bit, funding sources on, you know, specific project because, you know, you've seen the, the project the Bitcoin ETFs that, you know, came up, you could easily, destroy the promise of, of crypto and blockchain in a way, a bit like, you know, if you go back to Spotify, Spotify came up, everybody said, okay, it's going to give back power to the artists and, and, you know, destroy a bit the, the, the cartel, let's say of the, the music industry.

And it did not really happen. You could easily have black rock owning, you know, Bitcoin are, you know, these, these have the same concentration of power, but just, you know, kind of translate into the blockchain. what, what's your view of that? 

[00:50:02] Mariana: This is a tough one because I, I do see the banks getting more and more into, crypto. And here is the advantage, right? Like banks can trade both crypto and securities, while crypto exchange have been limited right now only to crypto. In the future, I see also the exchanges going into securities. Like that might be my premonition because we will start to see, tokens that are going to be securities and they will have interest to be there as well. And I think that that's a good thing. cause he will open the market when it comes to like broken promises. I mean, I think that we already broke them all. and I think that this is one of the big mistakes of blockchain. We promise so many things, but that was never the focus. I mean, like bringing back the power to the people who can access Bitcoin at the end. I mean, Can I even use Bitcoin to create financial inclusion? Maybe I can use like something built on top of Bitcoin, but like not Bitcoin itself, right? Like who can access it? so I think that there was like so many things that like the industry said at the beginning that just like played backwards because we say that we were going to revolutionize things, but, I mean, like we didn't do it.

And at the end, I really personally don't believe in revolutions because at the end of each revolution, historically speaking, they always come a horrible regime after that is even worse for the people that is there. Or it's normally someone with an idea and a bunch of chips following that idea without not even knowing what they're doing. So broken promises. I wouldn't focus on that. I will focus actually on like, what is it that we can do and how we can do it. And this is why I think that like this. They should be a different focus. I don't care about what the foundations are doing as long as they empower their communities. Cause this is what I think that is like, the power of the ecosystem is, and here there is like something really interesting is what I was saying, like the bottom up approach, because we have like different governance models and now. They're like even getting more mature. So we have seen OpenGov in Polkarot. Cardano is doing the constitutional workshops. I'm actually actively participating on those. And this is really cool because it's like talking with the communities and negotiating with the communities how we can set certain rules. And some of those rules

[00:52:14] Michel G: Yeah.

Yeah. 

Final Thoughts and Farewell

[00:54:09] Michel G: That's a good, and it was, A loaded question anyways, but I was curious to, to learn more about your view on this since you're so much into this, maybe as a last question, like do you have any, key message or I would say last advice to our listeners, especially founders and business leaders who would like to be more mission driven, or who are already, and they want to leverage blockchain.

Thank you so much, Mariana. It was extremely fun and enlightening and I think we would have needed a lot more hours to cover everything. I think it's an amazing start. I wish you all the best. I think we should meet since we live in the same city and, yeah, let's stay in touch. No problem. Cheers.

[00:57:26] Michel: ​Thanks again for listening, I hope you enjoyed the show. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast. And as usual you can find the show notes at stunandawecom.