The Future Is Now: Steven Wagner of Raedah Group On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
The best marketing for a product is often the quality of the product itself. I created the GoDCR project, which has been in development for a few years, and is nearly ready to be released as the next generation Decred desktop wallet application. The goal is to improve usability of and accessibility to this technology for people all over the planet.
As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs I had the pleasure of interviewing Steven Wagner, CEO of Raedah Group and Senior Contributor at Decred (www.decred.org).
Steven Wagner is the CEO of Raedah Group, a leading Decred contractor group, and is a Senior Contributor involved since 2016. He has contributed to the Decred consensus rules, the chain analytics tools, StakeShuffle privacy, and led the creation of the Decred mobile applications. His team is currently working to build the next generation Decred desktop application, GoDCR. He is a recovered Bitcoin maximalist, a technology researcher at heart, and an advocate for decentralizing legacy institutions in order to harness collective intelligence for a more efficient and equitable world.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I have been working on computers since I was a kid. With the advent of the internet, I was following all developments of peer to peer protocols and had studied cryptography applications. After a good amount of time with a career in the standard tech rat race, I took a sabbatical then shifted my energy into investing and economics. I’d studied economics as a personal interest and had dabbled in investing over the years with some success. As I began getting more wins in investing I decided to focus more of my energy there. When I learned about cryptocurrency, I quickly realized that it was the fusion of many of the tools that were becoming my life’s work. At the time cryptocurrency was a budding industry. The coming crypto wave had only begun to build. I wanted to be involved because I could see that this new technology had the potential to transform society and increase economic prosperity for the largest number of people on the planet. I could see the benefit on a broader scale. It meant access and empowerment for anyone who was willing to understand the value of this new tech that was a completely new paradigm compared to what the world’s financial systems had been running on. Because of my extensive experience both in tech and investing, my vision of what this meant for the future felt astutely clear. I knew that crypto was where I would have the greatest impact in making a contribution towards the betterment of the world. I still believe this today.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
My first investment was buying Nvidia stock at the IPO in 1999 while I was in college. I called my grandmother who had experience in investing and told her there was a company that I saw as having a lot of potential. I had seen the advent of GPU’s in high school, and observed that Nvidia was moving way faster than their competition even though they were the new guys in the graphics card scene. Nana talked to her broker and got us access to the IPO. I put $500 of my own money in. The market capitalization of that company has increased 1000x since that time.
Can you tell us about the cutting-edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?
In the Decred project we have worked to bring StakeShuffle Privacy to our users of all levels of expertise. Privacy technology in cryptocurrency is important for the same reason that privacy has always been important, namely, protecting our civil liberties. Today there are lots of threats of ransomware and hacking, so it is not a good idea to have details about your financial transactions exposed on a public blockchain. Of course, there is also the threat of big brother and needing to proactively prevent 1984 from occurring. Healthy industry regulation is a good thing, but it should not come at the cost of exposing ourselves to the greater danger of regulatory capture that stifles competition and progress. Countries that over regulate will slow the inevitable march of progress and will end up falling behind countries with progressive and crypto friendly regulation. Not all information should be private. With immutable accounting, blockchains can support transparency in government spending to help root out government corruption by making the information that should be exposed to the public available to the public. Having large amounts of private citizen and private business data available for stealing and data mining has been the cause of ongoing controversies. Offering privacy capability to the masses is one of my main focuses.
How do you think this might change the world?
The world’s economic activity is accelerating at internet speeds. Transactions will be done with less friction. There will be equal opportunity and better access to financial services. Governments will develop more financial discipline out of necessity to be solvent and sustainable for society. The people will have the tools to protect their wealth from confiscation through inflation. Society will become more educated about what money is, and will choose the systems that support their own best interests. Power will shift to city states and their connected economic activity zones. Nation state borders will fall away due to the irreversible erosion of fiat monopoly power in a world of currency choice. Economic power will become more distributed globally as the legacy institutions, that are central points of failure in our society, are made irrelevant. Decentralized currency systems will be available for use to all as the core of the world’s economic activity, operating without bias and ruled by math that doesn’t discriminate or give unfair advantage to any privileged ruling class.
Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?
It is certainly possible to paint a dark picture around cryptocurrency technology, just as it is for any new technology that is highly transformative for society. This is a more pivotal change for the world than the internet itself. The internet we had experienced previously was just text, images, video and sound, but now we are quickly moving into a world where the internet is also economic information, such as digital commodities, stocks and property titles, where assets of all kinds can be exchanged without centralized gatekeepers. We do not know how it is going to change our world in 10 or 20 years any more than we could have seen how the internet would change our lives, but the change is going to be dramatic and disruptive. Change itself is a scary thing to many, but it’s also where the most positive possibilities reside. I foresee the greatest shift in wealth that we will experience in our lifetime. The nouveau riche will be able to direct those financial resources toward improving our world for all. This will force everyone to examine their belief around what money, banks, and government are. The most disturbing part of the episode would likely be psychological, where people realize that many of their notions about how the world operates are no longer true. Everyone would be required out of necessity to develop a new understanding of the systems we are using for basic economic sustenance and survival. It’s possible that those who are the last to realize this will have a difficult experience. I have great faith in community and heart to lift us all through this.
Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?
The breakthrough was Satoshi Nakamoto’s paper on peer to peer cash. He solved the long standing and thought unsolvable Byzantine Generals Problem. A p2p cash system seemed like an April fool’s joke when people were first reading about it years ago, but because of this technological and mathematical breakthrough, it is now commonly accepted as a part of our world while ceaselessly growing in use. Digital scarcity was thought impossible and was counter intuitive to how we understood the internet. When you have a photo or a song, you can copy and recreate it as many times as you want. Money is a token used by society to represent scarce goods. We now have the ability to send it over the web in a censorship resistant way that is free from discrimination by corporations or other powerful groups that can benefit by coopting it for themselves. Bitcoin was the first decentralized ledger, creating the equivalent of the first global decentralized bank. Decred has extended on this to create a fully decentralized voting system that allows those holding equity in the system to vote with their money on decisions about how the system should evolve. It’s a decentralized consensus decision making system that gives blockchain tech a clear path forward to evolve.
What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?
I could quote JFK and say “I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.” It takes people of action and professional capability to build the systems, software, businesses, and policies that will become the new foundation for society. It is a time of great opportunity, but especially for those who are willing to show up and take direct action to invest themselves into this new world. The cat is already out of the bag for cryptocurrency. The idea can’t be uninvented. The spread and adoption of it is inevitable as more people grasp the consequences of the new technology. History will not be kind to the doubters. Events such as Brazil using the Decred blockchain for election accountability is an example of one local event that helped to spread awareness within that region.
What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?
I have for a long time witnessed it spreading rapidly using grass roots approaches. I teach people about it whenever they are open to it. Those with ambitious financial interests seem to be the most motivated to be involved. There is a natural pace to the already breakneck speeds of the growth of the cryptocurrency industry, and in the end it will be the most resilient, antifragile, and agile technologies that succeed. The best marketing for a product is often the quality of the product itself. I created the GoDCR project, which has been in development for a few years, and is nearly ready to be released as the next generation Decred desktop wallet application. The goal is to improve usability of and accessibility to this technology for people all over the planet.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
All of my mentors who demonstrated professionalism and ambition. The philosophers, teachers, and gurus who showed me that much of what we perceive to be external reality is a mental construct that is pliable. Steve Jobs has a great quote about this on a video called Steve Jobs Secrets of Life. He says “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you, and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.” Alan Watts gave talks on ‘the source of spiritual authority’, which is ultimately ourselves. We don’t have to take the world as it is given to us. We can use our creative potential to see the world in new ways and we can share that with others. Knowing this, it’s easy to see that even the most far-fetched possibilities could in fact end up true. The far-fetched dreams may actually be the most worthy adventures of all.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I do my best to share my knowledge and empower people wherever possible. I am passionate about the future of the industry. My company, Raedah Group, has grown software development teams in Africa and Vietnam in order to help spread the crypto economy to other parts of the world by creating work opportunities where software developers can get paid in DCR to work on Decred. Decred is the first DAO (Digital Autonomous Organization) which has a self-funded treasury which pays all of its workforce. The stakeholders who hold the equity in the project are fully able to protect the treasury from corruption through voting approval of all spending. The great thing about cryptocurrency is, as it succeeds, it’s a self-supporting system that enables the people who grow it to thrive, be supported by it, and continue creating more good technology for the world. Lots of people in the cryptocurrency space have quit their usual jobs and are now working on building cryptocurrency businesses. It is somewhat of a problem that people working on cryptocurrency who save and invest often end up making substantial returns and do not need monthly income anymore. For this reason, it is good to be around people who are passionate about tech and who would be working on it to change the world regardless of needing a paycheck. I have seen many people’s lives determined by their decision to invest or not invest in cryptocurrency. It has a big impact. These are the initial results of massive shift in wealth occurring, which over the long run will create the greatest amount of prosperity and economic freedom that the world has ever seen. My focus is on accelerating that change, and enabling and supporting others around the world to do the same.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Being an entrepreneur is the hardest job there is. Actually, I did hear this before, but it doesn’t really sink in until you experience it. Lots of 50–60h work weeks of endless obsession, so it’s important to know how to pace yourself and surround yourself with the right people.
- The best ideas are the craziest ones and no one else will believe you. A paradigm shifting technology is not something people will easily understand or believe, but they will get it when they experience it. It will test your faith and confidence in yourself to truly believe and stand on your own.
- Markets go up and down. Even the best ideas will take time to spread. The markets will go through redistribution phases.
- Time will go by fast, so don’t put off creating the future you want. Enjoy it today, and enjoy every moment of the journey.
- Maintain and utilize all the allies you encounter along the way. Strength in numbers
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Bitcoin is the grand-daddy of cryptocurrency, but there are newer technologies that should be considered. Bitcoin is not the be all and end all of blockchain technology. The difficult thing with Bitcoin is that, since it is decentralized and leaderless, there is also no one who can call the shots and make any upgrades to it. This is why it’s commonly accepted today that Bitcoin is “set in stone”. Technology needs to evolve, and this is a crucial feature that was left out of Bitcoin. The ability to upgrade itself. We have solved this at the Decred project by including in the protocol a way for the coin holders to express their will in a measurable and decentralized way, allowing a clear path for upgrading and evolution over time. Bitcoin was first, but over time Decred will be able to evolve faster. Competition creates the best results for consumers in other industries, and we shouldn’t expect it to be any different in the blockchain industry either.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Jiddu Krishnamurti said in some of his books, “You can’t drink the word water,” and “If the water is clean, drink it.” These were simple pointers about reality that the word or idea is not the same as the thing, and that we will need to be able to use our own judgement to determine if a thing is good instead of looking for some external authority to tell us what is true, good, or right. He gave discussions about us being our own source of authority in our lives instead of giving our power away to others or to social institutions. He was the best type of guru because he didn’t want to be anyone’s guru. He just wanted to send them away, and to hand their power back to them. The best business professionals I know also do this. Their goal is not to make the company depend on them in order to create job security, but rather to solve the problems and automate their job away so that their role is no longer needed. At that point they can move onto solving the next challenge.
Some very well-known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
A lot of VC’s today are too greedy and are only interested in participating in projects they can dominate through their traditional means. This is akin to NIH (not invented here) syndrome. Even the internet was overlooked in the beginning by many companies because it was an open web, and they wanted to see how they could try and control it. They tried to create their own closed networks or intranets instead of being part of the open internet. Getting a lion’s share of investment in an inferior technology that you can promote through your massive network is not a winning strategy. Be part of open community projects that are thriving. Decred is an example of a fairly distributed open blockchain. I also hear from some investment firms that they want to invest in the shovels and pickaxes but not in the actual gold. Cryptocurrencies are the financial vehicle to take part in the financial revolution that is occurring. It is like being able to buy stock directly in the internet when it was still young. I coach businesses on how to break past the perceived uncertainty and reap the speculative advantage.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
You can follow Decred on Twitter @decredproject
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
The Future Is Now: Steven Wagner of Raedah Group On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
