Crypto Interview Horizen Zencash Rob Viglione - 2018 Crypto News Market Analysis
talking with us today thank you for
joining us sir thanks for having me BK
happy to be here a good man I know we've
been putting off this conversation for a
while but I'm happy we're able to do it
it looks like we're both in the office
but out of the office at same huh yeah
I'm at my grandparents house just so you
guys know this
that's it I'm at my parents house oh
cool they're very nice we break them up
for Christmas Eastern's that's awesome
that's also there's like little kid
pictures back here so yeah same thing
cool man so um I got I got a little bit
of the information uh with regards to
you guys in the update with regards to
the expansion can you describe that from
kind of going from the zing cash vision
to the horizon what's what's new you
know amongst the horizon now yeah
absolutely I'll tell you what some the
horizon for horizon gray
hi this is Rob from Zen cash I have some
very exciting news for you today it's so
exciting that I'm gonna stop talking
about Zen cash and we're going to start
talking about something new what we're
doing is we're actually going to build
out our brand we're not doing a rebrand
entirely it's a brand expansion and what
this means is we're going back to our
core values our vision our mission and
what we want to do with this project and
wrapping this into our brand in a way
that makes sense and can be portrayed to
the world and it's extinct way so going
back to the basics we need to think
about what's important to us number one
privacy is a basic human right and
number two we want to empower
individuals to own their entire digital
footprint and decide for themselves what
they want to do with it and we're going
to do this by making blockchain
technology actually usable the mission
is the actionable element for how we're
going to achieve our goals
what we're doing now is building a
secure and private blockchain using the
best privacy technology and a way that's
going to enable an application rich
environment and we're laying the
infrastructure right now that will make
this possible another major part of our
mission is to empower individuals
through direct decision making Authority
our treasury voting system our Dow is a
major step in this direction that we
already have in prototype as the project
has evolved it's time to rethink our
brand and what we want to convey to the
world
now we're started off as a pure
cryptocurrency with strong privacy and
then we started to think about what else
we could do with this technology that's
useful to people so it's with great
pleasure that I announce our brand
expansion from Xen cash to horizon now
horizon represents our heritage with Xen
it's still gonna be our coin and our
ticker symbol but we're thinking beyond
the currency and we're thinking about
the technological frontier the horizon
so how are we doing this while we're
continuing work on our technology our
treasury dál voting system our Seiichi
solution which will eventually have
smart contracts and an innovative block
deck technology for massive scalability
we're doing all this with sound
economics in mind so that we can
maintain decentralization and think
about long-term sustainability for the
project and to make this possible we've
put together one of the best teams in
the Indus
with 50 amazing professionals organized
into seven divisions in a way that we
described as a full-stack business we
have some incredible partnerships on the
technology side with companies like io h
k and on the institutional investor side
with companies like digital currency
group we have dozens of exchange
listings and other important
integrations we're creating both
technological and social innovations
with horizon our goal is to constantly
tear down walls and bring people
together so please join us on this
amazing journey and let's make the world
a better place together
you know we launched a year and a half
ago or so as a privacy oriented
cryptocurrency and Sun cache and the
cache really signified what our our main
product was it still is you know -
realistically I mean we're working up
some great technologies for where we
want to go hi we're maturing them very
nicely but the cryptocurrency it's off
was our primary product and you know as
we hit this kind of turning point where
as we've been maturing different
technologies you know so kind of
building a liquid democracy voting
system building out a side chain model
that will be I think I think the first
truly decentralized side-chains
model on the market so it's very
exciting stuff there which will support
smart contracting you know other token
token standards so certainly more of a
platform feel and then also going down
like we're going down a graph Rd project
route which seems extremely promising
for massive scalability on chain and the
side chain stuff is massive scalability
kind of octane
right so we're tackling both of them and
we're just really building out these
partnerships now that are really looking
at the future of this platform and not
really looking at the past where we're
still doing a lot of BD on the the coin
side to make the coin more useful and
getting out there users making our
wallets better our products better
point-of-sale integrations exchange
listings and all that stuff really the
the future is what we're doing with the
side chains and building out into our
businesses on top of our system so
really the the big shift here was it's
tough making sense to call ourselves a
cache it didn't make sense you're white
why talk about a platform with smart
contracting all the stuff and keep
referring to ourselves as just a cache
right you know so those were the impetus
yeah yeah you know it's you talk about
all the cool like you know vision
mission on products and technology
directions we're gonna be going I think
that's a that's a huge play on you on
you guys part I remember doing a
walkthrough of the mind and warehouse
with with Ralph and at the end of it you
know he was talking to me about the
capabilities as in cash now granite is a
currency you know huge on security huge
on the Z network and and everything but
you know any started talking about the
other opportunities you know with
building out the platform and the
technology and the distribution and you
know kind of a b2b tusita connect the
users with the different interfaces and
I and I told them I said that's the play
right there like that's that's that's
huge when you can do that and and you
know also honor the privacy right that
people have
can you talk to a little bit about that
I'll be able to put in your video to
where you know they can see firsthand
you know the benefits but can you talk
to kind of like the vision and the
passion that you guys are integrating
and - into the build-out absolutely yeah
so I'm glad you had this opportunity to
meet with Ralph in person and be able to
view the mining facility I think it's
always best to be in person you just get
a feel for you know what human beings so
yeah I mean it's almost like two
different missions in a way I mean with
an overarching goal so the big goal that
I like to talk about is we're trying to
create a decentralized virtual nation of
source or economy peer-to-peer economy
and we don't care about borders we don't
care if you're from Uzbekistan or from
the u.s. from Mexico wherever
anyone in the world can participate we
want to be fully inclusive we want to be
huge value add so we're trying to create
just a better world real you know really
now of course that's that's the
idealistic side and there's some other
things we're doing on the idealistic
side like you know the way I frame it is
kind of the mission for our technology
is to help individuals own their digital
footprint so really it's kind of like
inverting the the media model that we
have right now the Facebook's the
googles and all them that you generate a
ton of content whether you're just
searching the web or whether you're
posting your your weekend pictures
partying and the company owns that
content and they're monetizing it so
really we're building out this app
ecosystem on a platform and the data
from the apps
here's here's the vision is the data
from the apps is gonna be flowing to an
individual's they can choose to one
retain zero data they want to be
completely private and we respect that I
think that's something that has to be
the standard we have to stop with the
standard the standard being
everything you do is collected and
really out of your way to try to stop
that and you'll never really be able to
do that we're trying to flip that upside
down the standard should be nothing's
collected now you can start choosing
what you want to personally collect we
cryptographically secure it and then you
can choose to just toggle a button this
is monetize all my app data
yeah then and we dumped that in an
anonymized fashion into a peer-to-peer
data market and now you can have
companies coming into the data market
and saying well hey I want to build I'm
looking to expand into this city
targeting this demographic right now
obviously we have you know a big
marketplace that has that kind of data
really the vision that I want here is
and this is the liberating thing is I
want to create a de facto universal
basic income is based on technology and
not politics
I don't want every human being in the
world to be able to just monetize their
digital footprint which I guarantee you
is worth at least hundreds of dollars
per month no matter where you are in the
world is greater maybe thousands of
dollars a month and in parts of the
world this is the difference between
starving and being able to you know feed
your family and put a roof over their
head so this is this is the idealistic
side and of course we're not just
idealists we're actually very pragmatic
businesspeople so we have a very long
path to get there but we're making some
very quick strides very important steps
forward right now and that's I know I
know I know we gotta get in we got to do
like double ditch I do a lot of
economics macroeconomic discussion on my
on my channel just to try to you know
inform people of how the world really
works what money really is you know how
value actually moves about this
geopolitical system known as economics
and one of the things you really just
described was converting the concept of
GDP gross domestic product and flipping
that upside down so instead of the macro
countries receiving the value of import
exports from their individual consumers
the individual consumers can receive
that value directly from macro business
with the rest of the world
that's exactly right you know and to me
the way I look at it is I'm I'm a
political right I mean I I lean towards
peace and freedom that's my kind of
philosophical beliefs but when it comes
to politics I mean
political what all I want to see is the
world becoming more efficient and more
egalitarian all right so if we can just
make people's lives better and that's
what we're trying to do with our
technology so I the way I described you
know horizon is we're not just a
technology experiment here we're a
social experiment where we're trying to
organize people in you know fairer ways
and we're an economics experiment we're
trying to do the economics better so
we're not we're not you know it's not
like I'm starting with some ideal ideal
it's a primitive like you know Karl Marx
ad you know saying like this is the way
the world should work what we're trying
to do is we're empiricist trying to
figure out how do we make products that
people really want to use and then
figure out how to make it more efficient
and just you know we start with privacy
and wanting people to own all their data
so that they can be the ones in charge
of it it's like uber rising the economy
not just you know transportation good
good good praise good praise cool and
can you can you talk about some of the
partnerships you guys have and bringing
this thing to life and really making it
real like you know leveraging their
business development and you know
resources to further the horizon for
Verizon I always love the plan words and
just so the the viewers know it's we can
ice our coin is just called then now we
drop the cash so the platform is horizon
the coin is just then ven so I think the
best yorkers in the world so yeah the
partnerships in one really important one
that we we have is with digital currency
group and these guys are just amazing
human beings but visionaries when it
comes to analyzing this ecosystem and
really being at the forefront of it and
really driving the ecosystem forward so
DCG owns I don't know 90 90 plus
blockchain companies some really big
ones right like gray scale investments
Genesis trading clean desk their major
investors in the three-room class legacy
cash and now horizon so we're really
fortunate where DCG went on or Barry
silver the you know CEO BCG went on CNBC
a few weeks back and he said our
portfolio
to consist of 5 crypto companies or you
know crypto you know protocols so they
have 90 plus companies they own equity
and but they own five coins and you know
it's it's Bitcoin obviously it's
variants
cash it's actually decentraland mana and
then and it what form is M cash now now
horizon so we're really fortunate to be
one of five portfolio companies for them
or portfolio protocols and the really
good news is that sometime in the very
near future I can't announce the exact
date but we're gonna have a Zen
investment trust launched by grayscale
so this is a an institutional product
we're now institutions and accredited
investors will be able to buy in at
scale into Zen so that's that's really
good news and this is kind of the
long-term synergies of the rollout of
being part of this you know very select
group from DCG is being plugged into
some very important and necessary
products like an institutional trust so
this is really really good news for us
on the R&D side we have a very or
multiple important partnerships one it's
you know sort of famous because they're
the tech team behind Cardno
is with IO HK so input/output Hong Kong
run by Charles Hoskinson and they just
have an incredible R&D shop they have 80
to 100 scientists and engineers on staff
that are doing just incredible research
across I would say the most important
dimensions of this industry of
everything from graph for dag research
to other scaling solutions to you on an
off chain solutions to you know we're
working one of one of our big R&D
projects with them is our Treasury
voting system building this voting
system on chain directly into our
software protocol so we're also you'll
notice some Iowa key researchers will be
co-authors on a side chain paper we're
about to release um you know before not
so we have a biweekly update tomorrow
it'll be in two weeks after that we're
gonna release officially I think this
groundbreaking paper on our side chain
model so we're really fortunate then
also we have some other very important
software partnerships because we have an
excellent in-house software team that
we're constantly growing but it's really
important also to have
expertise and the ability to scale
massively if you have a big project
becomes in the pipeline not to have to
hire in-house we also hire we have a
partnership with info pulse which is
like Ukraine's version of IBM so we have
a 10-man dev team at any given time out
of that company we have another great
dev team out of Los Angeles with a
company called crypto particle so we
have some really good and on the
marketing PR side which is very
important as well we have some great
partnerships with crypto media hub run
by tatiana moreau's and waxman PR which
i would say is the best PR company in
the industry so we're growing every day
there's some other really good
partnerships we'd like to announce but
you know it's always frustrating where
you want to just bring all this stuff
public but you know yeah yeah I'm cool
man that's really incredible I think
that's one of the best things we can do
is like you know kind of visionaries
this is really partner with the people
that's making it happen right now don't
try to do everything by yourself don't
try to reinvent the wheel somebody's
already done it you know so take their
furs and see what they do best and kind
of you know weave together kind of a you
know a patchwork of you know perfection
and specialized resources you know to
further your own development so that's
um I think that'll be great for you guys
especially with with the digital with it
with it with the Industrial Group you
know being 105 I remember hearing about
them with a etc' you know and and that's
that's big man when when you have that
type of backing and almost that vote of
confidence from the industry from from
hedge funds on Wall Street you know it
shows you're going in the right
direction for the future so you know
that's big news yeah it's you know it's
it's humbling you know when we struggle
so hard every day I think one thing our
team does really well is we're very
efficient you know we we have actually
most of our leadership or like former
military officers as well so like we're
run really well and we can get beat up
and get right back up and there's just
no concept of quitting
but you know we're in the trenches every
day and we're just busting our butts you
know sometimes it seems like
you know thankless work but then when
you have guys like Barry Silbert DCG and
you know Charles Hoskins and these other
you know powerhouses and titans of the
industry supporting us you know it's
nice and if our community members wanted
to follow up with you guys or learn more
about the project where can they go you
know online they'll do that so that the
obvious one is horizon Global's or
website so that's you know it signifies
our kind of global vision of being this
you know borderless ecosystem and and
now that's the central hub before you
can get all of our links so you can
follow us on Twitter we've got a discord
which is where most of the community
chat happens telegram channel so we've
got all the usual suspects read it your
reddit page we've got Bitcoin talk
thread so you know please do you know
come come join the conversation it's
you'll see it's very active passionate
community it's good good deal and and
closing was there anything else like you
wanted to add on I guess one of the
questions I like to end up is you know
five 10 years from now what's your
vision for horizon and where do you see
you know kind of your project and
cryptocurrency and blockchain impact in
the world as as whole yeah so I mean I
the way I look at us is we're sort of
made an interesting intersection between
your bitcoins in cash obviously for the
core protocols and privacy and now we're
intersecting with aetherium for instance
as we layer in smart contracting we're
intersecting with iota because we're
we're building out a block dag structure
which i think is if they were building
it from an academic research so it's
starting with scientific validation not
really just throwing out a initial
engineering solution of hooking of
skills but actually proving through
mathematics it is scalable and then
building it and you know we're also
intersecting with like - in terms of
voting system but ours again is based on
game theory and rigorous research and
built right into our protocol and more
democratic because it's not just wealthy
masternodes that get to vote but every
single person owns even a fraction of
zen gets the book so this is the
intersection of where we're going it's a
very fun exciting project a very
passionate community and I think we have
the ideals right where we know where we
want to go we know what kind of impact
we want to have in the world and we have
the right team to make it happen
awesome cool man well thank you so much
you
overtaking a time on this holiday
weekend to come up from the trenches you
know and then you don't tell us about
your visit your project I'm a long-term
enthusiast you know just from Ralph
taking me in and giving me the time and
really talking to me about the business
division and I saw right away you're
running it like a business and and that
like a you know hundred million dollar
ico hobby you know some freshman came up
with in college like this is a
legitimate a scalable execution
first-world scalable execution and so I
commend you guys on on that progress and
I just keep me in the loop with how
things develop and you know when you
launch and everything and I'm I'm sure
we'll have a lot of people excited to
get on board
I appreciate it be Kate thank you very
much awesome cool man I'm great weekend
