Sep 17, 2018 · 38m · mad
A Fireside Chat with Ethereum Co-Founder & ConsenSys CEO Joe Lubin (FirstMark's Data Driven NYC)
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this fireside chat hosted by Matt Turck at FirstMark's Data Driven NYC, Ethereum Co-Founder and ConsenSys CEO Joe Lubin discusses the evolution of Web3, automated trust architecture, enterprise blockchain adoption, self-sovereign identity, and the venture production model of ConsenSys.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Matt holds 13.9% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Matt as informed peer 2.8 Guest teaching 2.5 Guest disagreement 0.9 Matt pushing back 0.9
speaking balance: gold is Matt, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 0:11 Immediate correction of co-founder title
Joe immediately steps in as Matt introduces him to correct 'the co-founder' to 'a co-founder of it', clarifying Ethereum's shared origins.
Hardest push from Matt ▶ 17:07 Confronting the 'bad database' skepticismMatt directly challenges Joe with the widespread industry critique that enterprise blockchains are merely inefficient, slow databases.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 0:11 Factual framing correction on Ethereum historyJoe politely corrects the host on Ethereum's founding story before the interview gets underway.
Matt holds his own ▶ 24:53 Citing SEC Chairman Jay Clayton's statementMatt demonstrates informed regulatory knowledge by interjecting Jay Clayton's explicit refusal to grandfather non-compliant token projects.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Matt as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Matt pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data Driven NYC Event Title and Introductions | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Matt introduces Joe Lubin and ConsenSys, but is immediately gently corrected on Joe's title as 'a co-founder' rather than 'the co-founder' of Ethereum. Joe then provides foundational background on Bitcoin, Ethereum's protocol architecture, and the founding of ConsenSys. | |
| Evolution of Trust Architecture and Web3 Infrastructure | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Matt asks a macro question contrasting the market crash with underlying technological value. Joe explains the evolution from centralized trust architectures to automated trust and Web3 infrastructure. | |
| Decentralized Network Business Models and Disintermediation | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Matt directs the broad thesis toward concrete business models, asking what a Web3 version of Facebook looks like. Joe elaborates on network business models and incentive alignment, using projects like Ujo Music and Open Law as examples. | |
| Decentralized Applications and Layer 1 versus Layer 2 Scaling | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Matt cites Joe's public bet with Bitcoin maximalist Jimmy Song to question where real dApp adoption stands. Joe responds with analogies to the early Web and explains the difference between Layer 1 trust layers and Layer 2 scaling solutions. | |
| Enterprise Blockchain Adoption versus Centralized Databases | 5 | 3 | 2 | 4 | Matt pushes back with a common skeptic critique, stating that many view blockchain as 'just a very bad database.' Joe explains how blockchain enables cross-organizational collaboration and tamper-proof trust even within enterprises. | |
| Intersection of Web3, AI, Internet of Things, and Identity | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Matt connects Joe's background in neural networks to the intersection of Web3, AI, and IoT. Joe outlines how self-sovereign identity and encrypted data lockers shift power away from big tech monopolies. | |
| Regulatory Landscape and SEC Token Guidelines | 5 | 2 | 1 | 3 | Matt asks about regulatory actions by the SEC and interjects with SEC Chairman Jay Clayton's stance that past token sales will not be grandfathered in. Joe explains the distinction between utility tokens and securities based on SEC official guidance. | |
| Audience Q&A: Smart Contract Litigation and Open Law | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | An audience member asks about smart contract litigation and discovery in courts. Joe discusses how Open Law creates hybrid programmatic and prose agreements that satisfy legal standards. | |
| Audience Q&A: Protocol Ecosystem Comparison and Dominance | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | An audience member asks how to identify dominant layer-1 protocols amidst hype. Joe argues that Ethereum leads competitors like Cardano, DFINITY, and Zilliqa by orders of magnitude in developer traction. | |
| Audience Q&A: National versus Self-Sovereign Identity Models | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | An audience member asks about national identity models like Estonia versus self-sovereign identity. Joe contrasts state-owned digital identity with user-owned root identity on decentralized blockchains. |
Statements from this episode (15)
Joe Lubin: Hundreds of thousands of people earn a living working on Ethereum
“Ethereum does have hundreds of thousands of people who are during the day paying all of their attention to Ethereum, making a living doing that sort of work.”
Joe Lubin: ConsenSys processes about 10 billion queries per day for Ethereum
“We process about ten billion queries per day from the public Ethereum ecosystem.”
Lubin: Traditional music intermediaries capture 70% of value in the ecosystem
“The one thing that's missing is that, that big intermediary in the middle, ah, that is sucking up 70% of the value in the ecosystem.”
Lubin: Layer one blockchain scalability will happen within two years
“We have the trust layer working pretty well, and we need at layer one, that trust layer, we need greater scalability, and that's going to happen over the next year or two.”
Lubin: Decentralized layer one blockchains process only 20 TPS
“We've kind of thrown away all that scalability and replaced it with this system that can only do 20 transactions per second but you can trust that that system can't be cheated because it's radically decentralized.”
Lubin: AI competition will expand to far more actors using decentralized data
“Much better information is available to a much broader audience, so there's still gonna be a crazy arms race, but it's gonna be far more actors in that race.”
Joe Lubin predicts a reckoning for crypto projects that sold illegal securities
“There's also, I think, gonna be even more of a reckoning coming where certain projects obviously sold securities and sold them contrary to securities law.”
Joe Lubin: SEC declared Bitcoin and Ether as non-securities
“Bill Hinman, director of corporate finance at the SEC after he, after they declared Bitcoin sufficiently decentralized so that it's not a security and put Ether in that category as well the token on Ethereum.”
Joe Lubin: Aggressive marketing and discounts turn tokens into securities
“If you market it in enormous quantities to speculator types, and you give them big discounts, you put billboards in Times Square, leading people to believe that there is a group that they're relying on for a return of investment, that's going to be considered …”
Joe Lubin says Ethereum is orders of magnitude ahead of Cardano
“There, there's just I think several orders of magnitude at this point between Ethereum and let's say a project like Cardano, or R-Chain, or DFINITY, or Zilliqa, or others.”
Lubin: DApps will eventually run across multiple blockchains and protocols
“It is likely that many of those things will sit on multiple blockchains over time, and certainly multiple decentralized protocols, because we'll need protocols for decentralized storage and bandwidth and many other elements.”
Lubin: Acquiring users and UI/UX is 90% of building crypto apps
“When you build an application, 90% of the work is working with customers, et cetera so if you need to move it to multiple blockchain systems that's not a big lift. I mean, it's a significant lift, but just acquiring customers and figuring out user experience, …”
Lubin: Self-sovereign identity on blockchains cannot be confiscated by states
“And in that context, we own our route. Nobody can take that away from us. We can be forced out of our country with no possessions, and we can reestablish that in another country when we get back on our feet.”