Future of Identity & Reputation with Evin, CEO of Disco.xyz

Summary
In this episode, BFG talks with Evin, CEO of Disco.xyz about why are digital identity and onchain credentials important to individuals and how it can be useful for companies and brands, especially in the crypto space. Evin shares her background, including her experiences working at ConsenSys and Berkshire Hathaway, and how she got into crypto.

We dive into the concept of the data backpack, why it is off-chain and how it allows individuals to carry and control their personal data. Evin explains the Disco dashboard and its role in helping ecosystem leaders understand the identities of their community. We also touch on partnerships, the future of identity, and exciting developments for Disco in 2024.

Overall this was an awesome chat and the first episode of Season 3 throuout which I will bring on more builders focused on the future of online/onchain identity and reputation. Enjoooy!

Takeaways
- Identity and on-chain credentials are important topics in the crypto space.
- The data backpack allows individuals to carry and control their personal data. It can show onchain data and allows you collect offchain data credentials as well.
- The Disco dashboard is for ecosystem leaders.
- Partnerships and collaboration are key in the blockchain ecosystem.
- The future of identity involves intelligent systems and personalized experiences.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background
01:00 Interest in Identity and On-Chain Credentials
06:11 The Concept of Multifaceted Identity
08:34 Educational Background and Transition to Crypto
11:07 Work Experience at Berkshire Hathaway
13:31 Spinning Out of ConsenSys and Starting Disco
19:43 Collecting and Managing Data in the Backpack
21:09 The Disco Dashboard and Ecosystem Leaders
23:26 The Role of Identity Data in the Blockchain Ecosystem
25:01 The Future of Identity and Intelligent Systems
28:37 Partnerships and Collaboration
32:56 Supporting Web2 Brands in Web3
38:13 Number of Disco Backpacks
40:12 Exciting Developments for Disco in 2024


Links To My Guest

- Evin on X: https://twitter.com/provenauthority
- Disco web: https://www.disco.xyz/
- Disco Data Backpack: https://app.disco.xyz/ 
- Disco on X: https://twitter.com/discoxyz

Transcript

BFG (Pete) (00:01.003)
Hello everyone, and we are back. It's Web3Magic podcast with BFG, I .K .A. Bright Future Guy. And today I have finally another lady on the podcast. You probably know Evin if you've been in crypto and if you haven't, you will just learn what she's up to. She's been big OG in crypto. So I am super excited to have her here. Welcome Evin.

Evin | Disco.xyz (00:24.462)
GMGM, it's wonderful to be here with you today. Thank you so much for inviting me to the party.

BFG (Pete) (00:30.891)
I actually wanted to have you on the podcast for a couple of months. Um, but it was good that some of my past guests, you know, connected us, uh, because it's always easier to go through the referral than a cold outreach. But, um, I was curious about, you know, um, identity and, uh, basically on -chain credentials, uh, for quite some time, cause it's a big topic. At least it seems to be. And, uh,

And Disco obviously and your name were one of the first which popped out when I started digging into the space. So I'm glad to have you here. So let's jump right in. The first question I ask all the guests is how did you get to crypto? When it all started?

Evin | Disco.xyz (01:15.47)
Well, I'm so appreciative for the human coordination that brought us here, both through our mutual colleagues, but also through the start of my journey. So I guess, actually, if we back all the way up, my first interactions with the internet and understanding what information was allowed to be seen by whom and where it could go was really based on how my parents allowed me to interact with the internet. And so I grew up in the...

the age of early file sharing. And so the popular interfaces you might have heard of include things like Napster. And so at the time, my father was an intellectual property attorney, certainly did not allow me to just wantonly download music. And so my parents challenged me to make a presentation to them for why I thought I should be allowed to do so. So I went to Black's Law Dictionary.

BFG (Pete) (01:47.339)
Hmm.

BFG (Pete) (01:51.435)
Right.

Evin | Disco.xyz (02:09.166)
And I referenced Rempersant the Public Record and Precedent to talk about fair use and why my non -commercial educational pursuit of learning about music constituted an appropriate use of these tools and this distribution of information. So, you know, being a rebellious little kid led to me going to university and having a few really incredible professors, life -changing teachers who...

BFG (Pete) (02:16.811)
Oh.

Evin | Disco.xyz (02:37.166)
inspired me around the net neutrality movement, which was happening at the time to date myself a little bit again here. And so, you know, this is a point in internet history before Alexis Ohanian had written without their permission. At the time he was working on a travel startup called Hipmunk with a very cute chipmunk that would allow you to sort through plane flights. And, you know, this was sort of the era when, you know, early web to social.

BFG (Pete) (02:55.851)
Oh, Hipmunk, yeah, I remember. To date myself.

Evin | Disco.xyz (03:05.326)
was taking hold. Snapchat was just on the horizon. Instagram had only barely made its way across different operating systems. And so we had not yet observed what it meant for humans to coordinate en masse in this multimedia interoperable fashion that we are familiar with today. And so it was through the course of the net neutrality debate whether internet service providers could.

um, you know, show preference to certain content over others when they serve it up to your devices at home, uh, through which I discovered Bitcoin. Um, and so that, you know, sort of led to a rabbit hole of interesting discoveries and exploration, but largely was my hobby for a long time in the same way that, you know, people follow sports teams. And so my career went through a variety of human centered design practices from content.

worked on variety of content, including everything from helping to launch IBM Watson, supporting CERN and the Large Hadron Collider to music videos in Hollywood. And then spent some time working on connected hardware, everything from home hardware to connected toothbrushes and autonomous vehicles. And then ended up working at Berkshire Hathaway in Omaha, Nebraska with one of my professors from school.

BFG (Pete) (04:21.963)
Ha ha!

Evin | Disco.xyz (04:24.622)
But at that time, I had learned that you could work in crypto full time, that this Ethereum protocol with its smart contracts promised a whole ecosystem beyond Bitcoin, where we could exchange not only value, but also all sorts of data with self -executing code. And so it was, you know, after about a 20 -minute phone call in the departure's lounge of the Omaha airport, when I...

hung up the phone, I decided to hang up my suits forever and went to work above a pizza shop in Bushwick in Brooklyn, an apartment for a company called Consensus that was building out the Ethereum ecosystem. And so that was the journey that led me to working on chain full time the end of 2017. And through my time there had an incredible opportunity to learn about.

not only what it means to introduce decentralized technologies to governments and enterprises and builders, but also what it means to express identity in a space where your financial assets largely have represented your identity on chain thus far. And so what led me to Disco, the reason that I was so excited to expand the multifaceted nature of your identity beyond just your token holdings is that

If the only thing I know about you is your public key, your wallet address, then all I know is how much money you have, how many assets you hold. I might not necessarily know whether you wanted or were gifted or stole those assets, but all I know is generally your net worth at first glance. And that's not enough information for us to coordinate this chat. We couldn't figure out what time to get on the phone, what language we speak, or what platform to use.

because we wouldn't have enough information about each other. But if I know what time zone you're in, you know what email I use, I know what platform you record on, and you know when my schedule is free, we're gonna have a much better time coordinating this very conversation. And so that's why at Disco, we believe that you are like this disco ball, the multifaceted center of the party, just as you are, and you should be able to reflect the many facets of your identity to the world however you decide.

BFG (Pete) (06:33.163)
You

Evin | Disco.xyz (06:41.518)
Now, let's get literal. Imagine you're this disco ball. You've got an Ethereum address, you've got an Optimism address, a Bitcoin address, an email address, the nickname your parents gave you, you know, your government name, your membership to clubs, things like that. And each of those facets reflects you differently. No single one can encompass the entirety that is you in the same way that no one mirror can look like the full impact of a disco ball at full party tilt with all the lasers.

Um, so, you know, fun examples aside, we at Disco believe that you should be able to show up in any digital or physical environment and enjoy a personalized experience based on the parts of yourself that you choose to share. So that's why our platform makes it easier for ecosystem leaders to understand the identity of the members of their community, to interact with them more effectively, and for individuals to be able to control and decide what to share.

beyond their token holdings, whether that's their t -shirt size, their favorite color, their preference for TV shows, or the fact that they've been part of one of these podcasts.

BFG (Pete) (07:49.707)
That was super comprehensive. I have to say, it's obvious you are not doing the intro for the first time. Very well done. Let me ask a few questions from the history and then, you know, popped out a lot of questions obviously about disco and consensus mafia as I started to call you guys because so it seems like everybody worked in consensus when they started so...

What have you studied? You mentioned your parents had something to do, like your father was a lawyer. Are you a lawyer by trade or you studied the design things which you mentioned early on?

Evin | Disco.xyz (08:34.446)
So I am not an attorney, although I have great respect for those who are, who study and practice the law. I definitely fall more on the builder and explorer side. And so appreciate this question. So I started off in university in sort of an engineering mindset. And so was sort of between electrical and environmental engineering.

because I had previously done a lot of research in watershed management, environmental science, and ichthyology. However, upon discovering the wonderful world of data flows and the ways in which actually watershed management is a lot like the management of data liquidity across protocols. And so a sort of a funny thing happened in between my trying to decide between engineering majors, is it computer science? Is it going to be electrical engineering?

And so one day I wandered into a random anthropology class with one of my roommates because I needed to fulfill a credit and the class worked with the time in my schedule. And so I learned about Margaret Mead, this explorer who went forth into the world and defined frameworks that she could use to describe different cultures. So of course, that was only the tip of the iceberg with quite a lot of substance there in the fields of anthropology and sociology as they learned they were called.

But my professors who were pretty liberal in the way that they allowed me to explore these disciplines jokingly nicknamed me Reddit for credit because I took the frameworks of anthropology and applied them to human coordination systems in digital space. So I did independent studies on World of Warcraft, chat roulette, read everything from the Cypherpunk Manifesto to

BFG (Pete) (10:21.385)
Okay.

Evin | Disco.xyz (10:29.454)
the declaration of independence of cyberspace to the World of Warcraft episode of South Park as my self -declared curriculum of research. But fortunately had a few really amazing professors who saw merit in studying the internet early on, even when many academics did not think that the internet was a place where serious research could occur.

BFG (Pete) (10:52.811)
Okay, I had a feeling there is going to be some interesting story there. Okay, so what did you do or what were you supposed to do in Berkshire Hathaway as an anthropology researcher?

Evin | Disco.xyz (11:07.438)
Um, so, yeah, so, well, so, um, at the, so at the time, uh, actually, well, and, and still one of my amazing computer science professors, um, worked, you know, within the, the Berkshire portfolio. Um, and so, uh, you know, called me up when they were starting to build within the insurance and reinsurance portfolio, um, creating new products, new sort of lines of products, brands, um, and, you know, needing to define.

the alignment of not only that product marketing, but the product sells all the way down to the core of the business. So in the same way that insurance products and reinsurance offer sort of stacks of risk management and protocols, similarly, so too does the ecosystem of blockchain protocols, you know, invoke many similar approaches and concepts. So although they may feel like very different universes,

BFG (Pete) (11:59.243)
true.

Evin | Disco.xyz (12:01.998)
The business fundamentals that I learned working for about a year with the Berkshire team were definitely very valuable to my experience and continue to be part of my mindset today.

BFG (Pete) (12:15.727)
Very cool, very cool. Yeah, that's true. Impressive. Okay, so let's... So tell me again, in a short version, how did you spun out of Consensus into Disco? Because I think Consensus used to work on...

I would say number of identity related projects, digital identity related projects. And for some reason, Disco seems to be the only one who survived ages, I could say. And yeah, I know there are some newcomers like Intuition is now, you know, starting up probably from a little bit different angle, going into like credentials and identity stuff.

Evin | Disco.xyz (12:56.846)
So I think, you know, yeah.

BFG (Pete) (13:09.675)
And I remember the project which you guys, well, I'm saying you guys, but mean ConsenSys did with, was one of the Swiss towns or counties, like full on -chain identity. So how did Disco start it from ConsenSys days?

Evin | Disco.xyz (13:31.502)
Great question. So actually, unlike a lot of the colleagues that we have who you might describe as spun out of consensus, we did not spin out of consensus. I just used to work there. So it's a company that I like to mention because it's one that a lot of people know. But when I left consensus, I took a deep breath and realized I could do anything in the world that I want. The world is my oyster. And I'm an independent party, autonomous unto myself. And so what am I going to go work on?

BFG (Pete) (13:44.521)
Okay.

Evin | Disco.xyz (14:01.358)
do I want to go solve? So, you know, having kind of walked away from the learning environment, but the large organization that is consensus, you know, I kind of took a very different tack calling upon the roots of my work in the connected devices world back in web two. So when I was working on things like connected toothbrushes and autonomous vehicles, it became very clear to me.

that the identity of the users of those devices, the person brushing their teeth, the driver conducting the navigation of the car, telling it where to go, is the identities of those parties that are core to defining these experiences. But back in those days, we used to just swap data about the users behind their backs via API instead of having them actively participate in or even be aware of what was going on around them.

that was causing them to receive more reward points or more discounts in their own experiences. What I learned at Consensus, certainly from the identity practice, and there was a team there you might know called YouPort that had some really amazing researchers and leaders whose early work led to things like meta -transactions, which we now know as paymasters.

BFG (Pete) (15:05.995)
Yeah, you pork.

Evin | Disco.xyz (15:14.734)
or things like smart contract wallets, which we now know as account abstraction. So a lot of really amazing work that went on on that early research team before I even had the opportunity to meet them. And so at Consensus, of course, there's a lot of incredible work and development focused on the protocol and amazing tools such as the Metamask wallet focused on tokens.

Um, and so in my work there, you know, we're very focused on the enterprise side, building out AWS marketplace applications is my sort of specialty, you know, on the identity side. Um, you know, when I was working there, um, but at Disco, we take a very different tack, kind of the opposite side of the, of the universe in terms of the, the, um, the compendium between enterprise marketplace, AWS apps and your data backpack that carries your multifaceted disco identity.

BFG (Pete) (16:06.955)
Here we go, disco ball.

Evin | Disco.xyz (16:07.598)
So I realized that every person in the world has an identity. It's informed every interaction they've ever had since the day they were born with every other person and every other service they've ever engaged. And so if we don't make the presentation of this experience fun, delightful, engaging, both for developers and for brands and individuals,

then we're not going to be able to overcome the challenging nature of this very complex conversation in a way that people are not gonna feel intimidated or feel as though that it's not actually as comprehensive as it really is. Because we often see identity kind of gets pigeonholed as a vertical like sports or DeFi but rather identity is a core concept for all of these different spaces.

And so, you know, making it easy to use the keys you already use on chain, no matter what wallet you're using to be able to do more than just push around tokens. That was sort of the initial objective that first, you know, first sort of led me to think about how we can make this process more human and kind of think about identity data from the opposite direction. So rather than as a function of tokens, how can you bring your whole self to the table first before we even talk about on chain value?

BFG (Pete) (17:24.651)
Okay, so maybe now is the right time to say a little bit about the backpack and then we can connect it to a disk or dashboard and what you are trying to do on the other side of the stack. So let's stick with the individuals for a moment. So what is data backpack? How can I get one and how much work it is to get one?

Evin | Disco.xyz (17:53.966)
So your data backpack is a great way to think about how you can hold and carry around data that's useful to you in the same way that your wallet carries around your tokens, your backpack carries around all the rest of the stuff that you need when you go from one app to another. So you can think of this like the digital version of your physical wallet with your credit cards and your money, and then your physical backpack that might carry a sweatshirt.

you know, membership cards to clubs, a water bottle, an umbrella, or other, you know, other things that might help you get through your day. So at Disco, your data backpack is really simple, takes a few seconds to set up. You can just go to app .disco .xyz, connect your wallet with one click as you would normally, and then you're able to view there a variety of data that might already exist about you on chain, as well as take

of or pick up pieces of information that others might say about you. So for example, you can pick up credentials or collect credentials from email newsletters. You can collect them by tapping your phone to my fingernail here with an NFC chip embedded in it that can prove we met in person. You can pick up or collect digital collectibles and put them in your data backpack by scanning QR codes at events, by making purchases and more.

BFG (Pete) (19:04.043)
Okay, go sit, there you go.

Evin | Disco.xyz (19:16.13)
So you can think of the data in your backpack, the digital collectibles that you collect and put there. Think of those like your own personal cookies, like kind of like client side cookies or consensual cookies. So rather than a website sticking data to you without your awareness or ability to participate, instead you are collecting these badges or these digital assets as you move through the world from one app to another.

BFG (Pete) (19:29.131)
Mm -hmm.

Evin | Disco.xyz (19:43.086)
But you can always bring them with you when you interact with the blockchain.

BFG (Pete) (19:48.043)
So doesn't mean that everything which I choose to carry in my backpack has to be already on chain.

Evin | Disco.xyz (19:54.798)
So none of the digital collectibles in your backpack are on chain, meaning that we have the ability to call and display data in your backpack so we can show you data that's already public about you, such as your ENS address. But for the sort of badges or digital collectibles that you pick up and put in your backpack based on meeting other people in person or interacting with brands, all of those are private to you.

in the same way that assets in your backpack, objects in your physical backpack, can't be seen by other people. Of course, you can choose to put them on the outside of your backpack to make them public, like a pin or a sticker on your real backpack can be seen by other people, but you can always choose to make your data private so that only you can decide to share it. So when you receive data in your backpack, it's kind of like when you receive mail to your home in an envelope so that only you can open it.

BFG (Pete) (20:47.295)
Mm -hmm.

Okay, so what would be for you know, so if somebody comes gets his backpack at the at the disco website, what is the first obvious thing they could do with it? It's like what's the typical usage?

Evin | Disco.xyz (21:09.07)
So actually, I think this is a really great opportunity for us to talk about the dashboard and our ecosystem leaders. What are the experiences that they're building for backpackers? And so we realized at Disco very quickly that of course, not only do we need to provide individuals with plenty of adventures to take their backpacks on, but also we need to make it useful for growth leaders and brand leaders to understand the identity of their community.

And so the Disco dashboard makes it easy to sort and filter addresses based on their on -chain data across multiple chains, as well as private data shared between your brand or ecosystem and those individuals in their backpacks. And so you can utilize credentials or utilize these sort of badges or digital assets in their backpacks for access control to build chat channels that are gated by only holders of those credentials.

to be able to build RSVP lists, e -commerce discounts, in -app personalization and customization, and even opportunities for free products and free early access to services based on your identity. And so what we're really excited to be building out in the backpack next is basically bringing equal access for individuals as we do for ecosystems to be able to see that data.

So for example, being able to see in your backpack a score of how much risk you've taken on so that you can do some quick security hygiene and make sure that your address is safe and sound. We also have what we call the legit level, red, yellow, green. How legitimate is this address? Making it really easy to sift out the ones that are maybe a little sus. Some might call those bot -like and to be able to focus on the users that matter.

BFG (Pete) (22:49.611)
Hmm.

Evin | Disco.xyz (22:58.478)
we find that the phrase civil resistance can get really precise in that it really just describes the, you know, the difference between these sort of civil parties and the desired parties. However, sifting that out with great precision to the last address can be expensive and complex, especially depending on your definition of what's acceptable, because what's acceptable for one protocol might be different than what's acceptable for another protocol.

So we find that this goes legit level, just give a really, you know, gives a really simple way to be able to sift through, you know, how valuable would it be to engage with this address, whether it's another user or whether it's a cohort of addresses that you're trying to reach with your brand. And so being able to sort of view and manage your own data in a way that is relevant to how you show up to others is the very first step. But what we're particularly excited about.

as I mentioned, is sort of bringing to parity all of those capabilities. So for example, making it easier to discover and understand rewards that are accessible to you because brands have found you based on the identity data you've chosen to share.

BFG (Pete) (24:05.739)
So just to clarify, I understand it in a way that I can choose all sorts of data which someone can see about me when I create a backpack. So when I carry it with me, I can be almost sure that, okay, everybody can find whatever on -chain data there are, but everything else is what I choose to share, nothing more.

Evin | Disco.xyz (24:32.43)
Yep. And you can also decide that you, you know, so actually one, one important thing for us to focus on here, which I think you've highlighted well is when you put data on chain, often it's ascribed to you forever. And so if we were to think about how human beings operate in the world, let's say you search on the internet and you purchase a sofa. Are you going to be interested in purchasing a sofa every day forever? Probably not.

BFG (Pete) (25:01.547)
You

Evin | Disco.xyz (25:01.678)
because you just purchased the sofa and I think you're probably good on the sofa front now. And so being able to update those preferences to change the intent that you are broadcasting over time because the outcomes that you've achieved make your desires different. That's the nature of being human. And so that's why it's really important to be able to constantly update or modify the state of your intents. What it is that you're broadcasting,

to the blockchain universe and beyond that your address is interested in, that you would like to do, right? Just because you did it on chain once doesn't mean it should inform your app experiences until you die. And so it's that level of curation that Disco enables, right? Disco is the first tool that allows you to send and receive verifiable data from the same keys you use on chain.

with the same security that the Ethereum protocol provides, but in a form that you can easily update in a gasless way.

BFG (Pete) (26:05.515)
Nice, nice. Just had a discussion with someone on Farcaster today about, let's say, approved advertising. Because some people hate that, but I think it's part of the experience that, as you just mentioned, sometimes you would enjoy broadcasting the interest and receiving something like information or offers based on the situation, rather than scouring the internet trying to find a sofa.

I'll be happy to receive offers for SoFi if I'm moving. So I'd like to see that on Fargaster in frames in some way.

Evin | Disco.xyz (26:44.462)
What I think that's inevitable, right? I think that what we are talking about here, when you are building your data backpack, you are capturing the outcomes of your past intents. You are capturing your data exhaust. And so you then start to build up enough data to train an agent so that it can learn what intents did you have, what desires for state changes did you describe?

BFG (Pete) (27:06.953)
Oh.

Evin | Disco.xyz (27:11.726)
And then how did those desired state changes settle? What outcomes arrived on chain, right? Life happens between the chains and the outcomes settle on chain. And if we can learn from that process and that outcome, we can have agents train on our backpacks and negotiate exactly what you just described. That we can invert the search process so that your data can perform the labor of negotiating with other agents for you.

and can serve you up opportunities, recommendations for your final go ahead. Or if you give them settlement capabilities and execution capabilities to transact, they can just do it for you. And so the nature of quibbling about file types for identity, I think, is a thing of the past. Because we will have intelligent systems to interpret our desires. And now we need to be more concerned about how we're

BFG (Pete) (27:39.099)
Nice.

Evin | Disco.xyz (28:07.34)
curating those models and making that verifiable data available so that we do not commit the sins of Web2 and make a bunch of non -reusable data.

BFG (Pete) (28:19.787)
Yeah, I guess we'll see about that. So I think all what you are describing kind of needs the other side to be using a disco as well, right? So...

Evin | Disco.xyz (28:37.038)
Ah, so great question. So what we're talking about is the multi -sided marketplace of verifiable data. What does it mean for people to run around with backpacks full of information about themselves? It implies that they got that data inside their backpacks from somewhere, from issuers writing down pieces of reputation about them. And it also implies that there are third parties who don't even know these issuers who are willing to accept what's in your backpack and to

modify your experience based on that information. So that's often called the sort of the three -sided marketplace or the three to end -sided marketplace of verifiable data. Now, fortunately for us, there are a few other multi -sided marketplaces in our ecosystem and incentive systems that make this a fun place to play. Specifically, I'm thinking about on -chain companies that have two sides to their story.

One is their on -chain dynamics and incentives, the protocol, the points, the tokens, and the other is the service for application that propels the use of those tokens. And of course, you need liquidity for both in order for the system to work well. And for a long time, we've only had, or we as an ecosystem have done very well at attracting liquidity to both sides, but really had a tough time keeping it there. Why? Because we had no accelerant between the two systems.

no way to entrench them or allow them to become more efficient over time. In fact, they become less efficient over time if the only incentive mechanism or the only value flow is capital. And so now, with the ability to include identity data, contextual data about how people are interacting with those services and those protocols, we introduce an accelerant between those two gears. Identity data in a chain

legible form is a moat for DAPs. It is a moat for protocols. It is a moat for roll -up ecosystems. What I mean by that is that identity data, data about users specifically, makes it easier to personalize their experiences. And so it lowers onboarding costs, lowers customer acquisition costs for targeting growth and marketing, lowers the cost of retention. So increases stickiness.

Evin | Disco.xyz (30:58.766)
On the app developer side, when there is ample identity data relevant in an ecosystem and available in an easily usable form, it's more attractive for application developers. And so increases app dev stickiness for protocols. And it also, on the protocol level, decreases friction with chain developers. If you understand what's happening in the stack above and you know what is driving the transactions of revenue generating smart contracts.

that are core to driving the sequencer of your protocol if you're an L2, or the core dynamics of your protocol if you're an L1. And so all the way down the stack, we are already seeing identity data utilized as this connective tissue, this sort of augmenting or accelerant between these systems to help drive alignment. However, for a long time, there hasn't been anywhere to look at it. And that's why we made a dashboard.

BFG (Pete) (31:36.747)
Mm -hmm.

Evin | Disco.xyz (31:53.358)
For a long time, there hasn't been a straightforward way to be able to call and understand it. And that is why we built a simple, straightforward APIs. And so we are very fortunate in that we actually got to join forces and emergently build this multi -sided marketplace together. Because of course, we know usage turns specs into standards. And so we memed a few of these different standards into being.

BFG (Pete) (32:18.155)
You

Evin | Disco.xyz (32:19.694)
working closely with partners that were ready to both send and receive this data so that we could help kind of nurture it because you can't just wait for these things to happen.

BFG (Pete) (32:30.219)
Very true. So I know it's a tough question because the question I wanted to ask was like, okay, what would be the partners you would like to highlight? But then, you know, other partners would feel like, oh, you should highlight me. So probably a better question is like, who are the most recent partners which joined Disco Ecosystem? So it's kind of, you know, it's neutral. It's based on time.

Evin | Disco.xyz (32:56.014)
Sure, yeah. So rather than, we're not talking about favorites, we're just talking about temporal timestamps here, of course, because we are blockchain people, we love a good timestamp. So actually maybe one set of folks I'll highlight who are sort of in the realm of the discoverse include the first addresses in the on -chain phone book. So the on -chain phone book.

BFG (Pete) (33:02.859)
Yeah, exactly.

Evin | Disco.xyz (33:23.104)
sort of like the yellow pages you might remember from when you were growing up, is the list of businesses on chain, their addresses, their contracts, what type of reputation they hand out, and where you can find it. And so just like the yellow pages of a phone book, that set of trusted businesses makes it easy to understand which reputation signals are going to be helpful and valuable. And then taking it a step further,

BFG (Pete) (33:30.217)
Mm -hmm.

BFG (Pete) (33:38.091)
Okay.

Evin | Disco.xyz (33:50.446)
We have the ability now internally with select partners to sort and filter addresses based on who has received trusted reputation across multiple chains from these issuers. These entities can include folks such as Coinbase with their base KYC attestations, folks such as Mochaverse from the Animoca ecosystem, the NFTs that allow access to their various game ecosystems.

of course, Disco ourselves and our partner ecosystem with the credentialing setup that we make possible, folks like Gitcoin Passport and others. And so allowing for that kind of canonical multi -chain list of businesses where you can find them on chain and how you can composably build on the reputation that they have made available. And so then this gives us kind of a public and discoverable way.

to define reputation across chains, kind of a little bit of a sort of plane on which we can build some composable Lego blocks to build on where we've got this public data to start and then teams can utilize private data on top of it in a way that they feel they can trust that's comfortable for their risk management because that data comes from contracts that are controlled by trusted brands like Coinbase.

BFG (Pete) (35:14.795)
Yeah, impressive. Which chains do you guys support?

Evin | Disco.xyz (35:19.32)
So we will be making an announcement about what that looks like in the coming days, but we can rest assured that we have started at home in the EVM, but our capabilities are reaching both beyond the chain and beyond the JavaScript universe. So excited to share more on that front soon.

BFG (Pete) (35:38.795)
Okay, okay. So most likely when the podcast comes out, this will be a public news already. So go and check it out guys. What are the big new chains supported by this code? So one thing which popped into my mind is is there anybody else doing the same thing like you guys are trying to do? Because you mentioned the gitcoin passport and honestly when I

Evin | Disco.xyz (35:48.206)
Awesome.

BFG (Pete) (36:07.903)
when I started the research, it kind of seemed like the same thing. After a little bit of research, it's not the same thing, but is there anybody who is trying to do the same thing like you are with Disco? Even if it will be maybe on other chain or relatively nascent, but are there any like...

Evin | Disco.xyz (36:31.15)
So at Disco, we're pretty unique in that we reach across or unite data from web two and web three cross chains to make it easy to understand identity in service of growth. Now there are some teams that take subsets of that data and make it available for display, but don't have the ability to create digital assets or contribute to that reputation or not using machine learning or AI to be able to compute.

BFG (Pete) (36:55.051)
Mm -hmm.

Evin | Disco.xyz (37:00.27)
more flexible types of scoring. So we've got a pretty unique practice in the diverse array of our teammates and our various different subject matter expertise. Although if these areas are interesting to you, if you are building in those spaces and I just don't know you yet, please say hello. I definitely don't think that we have competition in this ecosystem until we are dealing in multi -billion dollar markets. And so we all have an opportunity to collaborate.

Um, and I would also say, you know, one of the things I'm really grateful for in this space is the fact that we can work so closely with these teams. So for example, when I, you know, announced Disco, our colleagues from, uh, Gateway and from Gitcoin were in the room to support me as well as many of my former colleagues from Consensus and other teams that, you know, used to work with me, such as Uport. Um, and so it's been really wonderful to see the enthusiasm from folks who have similar expertise showing up to ask how they can help and how they can be of service to our work.

BFG (Pete) (37:58.699)
Nice. So probably last two questions. One is super operational. So how many disco backpacks exist now? It's not a secret.

Evin | Disco.xyz (38:13.23)
So in the discoverse, we currently support over a million unique addresses, and this includes both our issuers and our holders. So these are both the folks that are issuing on behalf of brands, so we wouldn't necessarily call those backpacks, but we still wanna count them too, as well as the folks who have decided to go and pick up those credentials, create backpacks, associate their social profiles, and then use them across the metaverse.

BFG (Pete) (38:19.755)
Nice. Sure.

BFG (Pete) (38:37.661)
Congratulations. I think, you know, given the number of active addresses, this is impressive number. It would probably...

Evin | Disco.xyz (38:44.64)
Thank you very much. We've been working very, very hard for a couple years. And so, you know, our focus, our quiet builder focus through the bear market on our infrastructure is definitely paying off as we can now scalably serve partners, you know, of all sizes, but specifically we're focused on the application ecosystem, you know, growth leadership who want to understand their sizable communities and better direct their growth spend.

BFG (Pete) (39:10.731)
Well, yeah, so just my personal opinion, I think from what you just described, the time has come for you guys, because it's gonna be a flood of L2s, L3s, everybody will try to create a meme coin and somehow would strip a community and sooner or later people will figure out that it's not only about people buying meme coins or...

claiming they are part of the community. Some of the communities probably will want to be a little bit exclusive and you will have a lot of people searching for something like credentials, how to sort it out. And I think we passed the days where, you know, if you have a born ape, you are in and if you don't, you are not because it's pretty limiting. So I think disco time is coming. So which leads me to the last question.

So what is the most exciting thing coming up for Disco in 2024? What can we look forward to?

Evin | Disco.xyz (40:12.206)
I love that phrase, disco time is coming. Well, friends, I completely agree. It is always disco time. So, you know, for this year, I am especially excited to, you know, to be supporting such a diverse array of applications, especially in the gaming and DeFi space. And so I'm just particularly excited about being able to receive feedback from our partners and make.

our ability to sort and filter addresses easier and friendlier, specifically making discos tools available to those who might not consider themselves super degen or very well versed in protocols or super familiar with the technical side of web three. So making the superpowers of blockchain security and cryptographic tools available to folks in all different types of roles.

not just those that are deeply enmeshed in the protocol ecosystem, so that we can democratize access to these capabilities. That's what I'm really excited about for this year. And I think we're in a great position all together as an industry to do the same.

BFG (Pete) (41:20.139)
Nice. Another question popped into my head, so this is going to be the last one. So are you guys trying to work actively with like Web2 brands which are trying to come into Web3 and do something, you know, because I think they are more worried about credentials than we are here. It's more like, yeah, you are here, you are good. But I can imagine anybody coming from Web2 is really worried about the brand perception and all these things.

Evin | Disco.xyz (41:50.862)
So I definitely think there are different brand perception needs from Web2. We're certainly fortunate that the Disco DMs are open and lots of folks feel comfortable reaching out to us and trusting us to guide them as they bring their brands on chain or grow the deeply degen protocols that have been natively born on chain. I think a difference there is that...

Often those who are coming from the Web2 space are asking for a little bit more guidance on how to reactivate audiences they may have previously been engaged with a couple years ago. And so sort of reactivating these so -called zombie audiences or latent audiences, hibernating audiences has been more of a unique need on that side. And from the protocol side, I actually find that a lot of growth leads are not familiar with the tools from Web2.

BFG (Pete) (42:24.671)
Mm -hmm.

Evin | Disco.xyz (42:43.982)
that would allow you to sort, filter, prioritize, retarget addresses based on their qualifications so that you can focus your growth spend on the users that matter and not spend on the bots. And so being able to support protocol teams and guide our app growth leads in their greater understanding of these capabilities has been a really cool thing too.

BFG (Pete) (42:44.779)
Sure.

BFG (Pete) (43:08.971)
Very nice, very nice. Well, you know, so that was my last question. We will obviously include all the links and the treats in the show notes. It was very nice to have you on, Evin. Thank you very much for making the time. And everybody, remember, go check the disco and create your backpack.

Evin | Disco.xyz (43:30.574)
Thank you guys so much. It was so wonderful to be here with you today. For a quick shill, if you want to follow us at Disco .xyz, our DMs are open. We're always ready to give you a tour. And if you are new to the Web3 space or still exploring and building your expertise, if you identify as a female or non -binary person, or you love someone who does, please check out chifi .org or boysclub .vip. And we can't wait to welcome you to all of the crypto fundamentals and culture.

that you can be a part of too. So thanks again so much for having me and I'll see you guys in the metaverse.

BFG (Pete) (44:04.009)
That was wonderful. Thank you guys. Thank you, Evan.