Hacking Public Goods in Brazil | Camila Rioja, Celo Foundation

[00:01] Welcome to Boys Club Interviews. This is a show where we bring on people much smarter than us to talk about the new internet. I'm Natasha Hoskins. I'm Dina Burke. And this is Boys Club. Wait, is it just Boys Club? It's just Boys Club. The Boys Club podcast? No. No. Just Boys Club. [00:20] How's it going? [00:21] It's going good. [00:23] Monday morning day Monday day it's six so how has your day been so far it's been okay you put out a really funny tweet with a funny photo oh thank you go check it out [00:38] At Natasha G. Hoskins. No, no, no, not that one. Twitter.com. Oh. That one's Fly Race too. No, the one that's on the Boy Scout one with the photo of the transpotting one. [00:46] Thank you. Because I looked for a really long time for the transpotting thing. Cause I was like, man, everything's not hitting right. There's like a funny meme of a woman like squinting and looking for something. [00:58] And I couldn't find it anywhere. [01:00] So I spent a long time on Pinterest and I'm glad it was funny. I also realized that there's a typo in that tweet. [01:08] I saw it too, but I didn't want to tell you. Why didn't you tell me? Because I didn't see it until after it went up, and I didn't want you to feel bad. Three L's. There's three L's. Oh. Oh. [01:17] I saw another typo. There's two? Don't tell me the other one. Don't tell me the other one. It's not big. It's really not big. I can't live with it. [01:29] Okay, so on today's show we had Camila Rioja. She works with me at Cello, which is a layer one. She does

[01:37] work in LATAM [01:40] And in Brazil where she lived. Nice. [01:43] And... [01:43] She's just a delight. The reason we brought her on. Okay. So last week was brutal. [01:48] Very bad. [01:49] It was really bad. Just nothing but bad news. [01:52] crypto.com shutting down its institutional US stuff, even the UkiDAO lawsuit, obviously everything with SEC and Coinbase and Binance, Robinhood delisted a bunch of stuff. It was just like carnage left, right, and center. And... [02:06] just present to how that is [02:10] a very US centric framing of what's happening in this industry. There are plenty of, [02:15] places in the world that have a totally different experience of what's happening in the industry right now. Of course, prices are the same wherever you go, but there's [02:24] There are some governments and some places where crypto is being... [02:29] embraced and celebrated and a lot of experimentation and cool stuff happening and so wanted to get Milan to kind of give us a different lens on what's happening and she definitely has that there's a [02:39] a lot that Brazil is doing that feels like it's in really stark contrast to what's happening in the US. Yeah. And a lot of experimentation, a lot of like government interaction with the crypto community there. And, you know, I'm sure that's not without its controversy, but I think Mila gave a really fantastic overview of the spirit of the [03:01] the Koto community in Brazil and some things that she's excited about. And honestly, it's a really refreshing listen. [03:07] Yeah, I feel I feel similarly. I think that she had a

[03:12] such a positive and hopeful and just a joyous person. So really nice to hear from her. And I feel like I learned a lot about and was exposed to a lot of projects that I am unfamiliar with. And it was great. [03:26] I will say, just on a personal level, [03:28] that there's kind of an open and ongoing conversation between my husband and [03:33] Dave and I, about... [03:35] where we should live as a family. [03:37] and... [03:38] I will say this past week, the conversation has shifted. [03:42] Pretty dramatically. Well, I mean, I have family in Brazil, so it wasn't actually in Brazil. We were talking more about the UK, which is where he's from. [03:49] And honestly, the A16Z news. [03:52] Big. [03:53] Big if true. Big if true. Well, you know, my sister is there for the past, she's there for a month and they're loving it and like deeply considering moving there. [04:02] If you guys go... [04:03] That's going to be tough not to you and Deandra. And then I might just be like, let's LFG, baby. [04:09] UK. I lived there before once. Um, [04:13] and [04:14] I feel like you lived like in a weird area though. We didn't. We lived in Ballin, which is South London. When we lived in London, we didn't live in a weird area. When we lived in, [04:22] Scotland. [04:24] We lived in a super weird area, but yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I was thinking. Anyway, I don't know. It's like, I guess just to say that the past week has been tough in the U S in this industry and just thinking like expensive globally, [04:36] Think locally, act locally. Okay. On today's show, I'm very excited to introduce Mila Rioja. She is the LATAM lead at the SELF Foundation. We are actually colleagues and I love Mila. So I'm really excited that she's joining us here today. Welcome to the show. Super excited to be here.

[05:06] prior to us getting in, what did I do to deserve Boys Club Premium Interviews? So I'm super humbled and I'm ready to have fun today. We're so, so excited to have you. We had the divine inspiration to invite you on the show last week because... [05:22] Man, it's been rough out there. And it was a real tough week for us, especially in the US with everything that happened with SEC and Binance and Coinbase. And I think that the conversation, especially with the mainstream media, I don't know if you saw, but there was this like just atrocious profile of the three-hourless capital founders in New York City. It was just like next level dumb. And... [05:46] I think that there's something that's missing in the conversation right now that's around [05:51] actual use cases of crypto. And I think that your work in Brazil [05:57] is a really unique lens and really unique perspective to what's happening. So I think just to help paint kind of an alternative picture to what people have in their mind about what crypto is. So tell us a little bit about yourself. What are you sort of working on and seeing? Awesome. Yeah. Not enough guashas in the world to make me not look like with sore eyes and stuff like that after last week. So actually, I am a lawyer gone rogue. I'm a lawyer by background. I've done this for 10 years. And at a certain point in my career, I was really like, do I have [06:27] used to compliance investigations. So at a certain point, I was like, OK, there are two terabytes of documents. I can be the person to materialize this into evidence. How do we hack?

[06:38] this process. So I started to study like the intersection of law and technology. How can we, not the legislation itself that approaches technology, but like, how can we use technology or artificial intelligence, geometric, and why not like blockchain technologies to like, [06:54] hack the way we do the law. And then I started hacking the law. I had my own startup, a legal type startup. And at a certain point, I was like, man, why am I hacking the law and all the whole society? So that's the angle I came into blockchain. And it's a very specific angle because it has nothing to do [07:13] with [07:14] Speculation. It has nothing to do with investing. So I was lawyer trying to hack the law, but then I was like, okay, can I hack some more stuff? And what are the technologies that are available for all of that? [07:24] How do we use [07:25] technology as an infrastructure to enhance what [07:29] good services, well-being. So I have more free time to do my nails and have more equilibrium in my life. So it's actually a very interesting place for you to get into blockchain. [07:41] I don't understand about investments. That's not why I entered into crypto. It was like, can I use this blockchain for something that is a service and it's good and has real world use cases? So that's how I end up to be in crypto. [07:53] Beautiful. Rare. Yeah, for real. [07:57] - I'd love to hear what you're seeing [08:00] on the ground in Brazil? What are some of the use cases that you're seeing? So I can't reply to you without telling a bit of what Brazilians look like, right? So we are super creative people and we have this way of referring to ourselves with having like the Brazilian way.

[08:15] At certain times, having the Brazilian way is not even like a positive thing, because it means you can get away with almost anything. [08:21] with a good smile, a good caipirinha, some, you know, like, [08:25] I don't know what, but that's actually a very outdated way to look into Brazil. When we talk about Brazilian way, nowadays, we think about like, okay, [08:35] What are these people doing and how can the financial system of Brazil be elected by the World Bank as the second most digital nation in the world, only losing to Singapore? [08:45] Okay, there's a lot of party, there's a lot of fun, but [08:48] Why has the investments and the capital from VCs and LPs raised so much in the last decade? Why don't we talk about banking the unbanked in Brazil? How come they eradicated over 70% of the unbanked people during [09:03] the COVID time. What are these people doing? I can tell that there is a very strong community that is grounded and rooted [09:10] there are experimenting with real world use cases. And what are this real world use cases? After that, I sold my country so well, right? I'm sure you both are buying tickets. And all your audience, but the main thing is, [09:24] Okay, given we have access to the financial system, right? [09:28] and we do it on our phones. [09:30] how can we come up with strategies for [09:34] landing or on and off ramps [09:36] in a way that it's compliant with the legislation. So you can see a lot of on and off ramp [09:42] opportunities here in Brazil. You can see a lot of KYC happening, you know, because you need to on and off ramp and you're doing this probably with X, Y, and Z partners. So there are technologies that are evolved

[09:53] to this point. You can also see a lot of people experimenting with social applications. Brazil is the third largest country for online gaming. [10:01] So how can you not talk about crypto and blockchain if the country is like that? So anything that has to do with culture, [10:09] with fun, with experimenting. It's something that is covered by one card, [10:14] of our community. The other part is doing more regulated things. And what do I mean by regulated? [10:19] Our central bank just launched their CBDC project. [10:23] So more than a dozen of companies, they were chosen to host nodes into a private-owned blockchain network and to explore whether the system is going to bring [10:33] better use cases or [10:36] more speed or more accountability for the whole banking system. So this is a reality. It's not something that has been promised or so on and so forth. I understand that a similar project took [10:47] more than a decade to be somewhat discussed and implemented in the United States. Here, the Brazilian Central Bank has done in less than two years. [10:56] So this is the kind of flexibility that we see, right? The government seems open to explore. The individuals seem open to explore new business models. And there are some capital flowing. So this, I think, are the four elements, like who we are, right? Our way. [11:13] somewhat of the legislative scenario, and then the other two things I just mentioned. [11:17] Why do you think the Brazilian government has been so open to exploring sort of friendly regulation and establishing a CBDC? What do you think has been the difference? I'll give you the answer I would like to hear from them, which is the following. I think that like the motto that

[11:38] Brazil and Latin America are underdeveloped countries is absurd. [11:43] I think it's absurd. The amount of good universities, access to different tools and technologies here, [11:50] Breath. [11:50] taking. [11:51] There's an economic concept of a player called Maverick, right? A Maverick is the player that is lean, it's small, it's intense in technology and then can disrupt [12:00] oligopolized or stronger markets. That's how I like to see Brazil and Latin America. Okay, [12:05] Yeah, it's fine. Up until recently, because of things that happened maybe 500 years ago, that's where we sit in the table, like the dining table of the world, but maybe we can hack. [12:16] a better way, a better future to our population. Like Brazil, it's gigantic. [12:22] 205 times the size of Switzerland. [12:25] Just talking about Brazil only, how do we come up with solutions for such a big country with restrained capital? [12:31] Things are complex here, so we need to get creative. We need to get hacky, and this is part of our culture. [12:38] So I think that the main thing with the government is maybe trying to understand how to position ourselves in the forefront of technology and innovation and listening. [12:49] right two weeks ago i was in an event that was [12:52] promoted by Veller. Veller is a VC that is super big in the Americas, and they brought the president of the Central Bank. I'm giving you guys this information here because [13:04] everything that the president of a central bank does needs to be recorded. So while this was like a

[13:11] a full day activity with different people. Everything that involved the president of the central bank is recorded, and you can have access to that, and we were speaking in English. [13:19] So you can listen to him. And in the end of his talk, I made a question. And I said, OK. [13:25] So how do we collaborate with you? [13:27] There are so many challenges from interoperability to other things that we like to discuss and [13:32] LIVED Challenge, which is an initiative done by the Central Bank, is where we want to keep hearing from different partners and so on and so forth. There are people who apply projects to the Brazilian CBDC in English. [13:43] In Spanish, [13:44] So they want to learn, right? Because I think they see this as a way to position better [13:49] world competition scenario. But you can check his words. I love that. I'd love to dig into a few of the projects that you're seeing that you're most excited by. Who are some of the founders and [14:02] are an encapsulation of these different movements that you're talking about sure and like non-shilling space and this is me speaking personally about things that get me camila excited in my personal capacity i do like projects that bring real world use cases and solve like pressing issues for the communities that they are on one project that i was very inspired by it's a project that happens in colombia they're expanding now to brazil and what did they do they have a company that installs [14:32] solar panels and houses and commercial buildings. [14:36] So they have a company that provides the service. But then they do a different type of financial loans for the people and the businesses to adopt the solar technology. So they're saying, hey, okay, we understand transitioning from one type of electricity to another can be costly, can be expensive, but...

[14:57] First, we know how to do it. [14:59] We have over [redacted address]. [15:03] Here are the projects you can check for itself. [15:06] Secondly, when it comes to the financing or how you can in a later stage, maybe commercialize the solar energy, if that's possible, [15:15] we have this model here that we register on a blockchain and so on and so forth. So I am super excited to see that people are hacking the society by using different technologies and knowledges, right, to come forward and suggest something different. So, [15:30] This is one case that I absolutely adore. The founder was elected at Forbes of their 30th. I look at him, I wish I had no ringfuls and your energy and this idea. It could be me. No, but and again, super young, right? Something interesting, and now I'm going to talk about something that I did that is [15:51] dear to my heart. I said no shilling, but maybe I'll be shilling myself. A tiny shill. I'm a fan of something that is called computational law. [15:59] The idea is like, how do you build technological infrastructure to either make sure that the law is being observed or that things are compliant or you are providing like a service that is needed for that society using like a technology or whatever framework. And that's something that I studied. That's what got me into like hacking. That's how I got to know amazing people like the legal hackers. [16:22] which is the distributed movement without the blockchain. They were at DAO before the DAOs were cool. It's over 200 cities with 20,000 volunteers organizing themselves to do cool things in the intersection of law and technology. And I was like, OK, Brazil is doing a lot, and a lot of people are focusing on the innovations that are related to central bank.

[16:43] or CBDCs and so on and so forth. But can we tokenize assets, real world assets, put them in a blockchain, and then explore different use cases? Does that bring any type of validity to, I don't know, [16:59] the commons. So I went to talk with the Ministry of Economics and I said, okay, you guys are the owners of like all the public land and the public buildings. It's almost $350 billion worth of public goods. And we always talk about public goods on Web3. Let's build for public goods. And I was like, okay, this is public goods. [17:18] This is federal public goods. This is my public goods. [17:21] I want to know how they're managed. Should we put them on chain and try to explore use cases in there and reap the benefits of a collaborative way [17:31] of hacking [17:32] the goods that my country have. [17:34] Theoretically and hypothetically, if that were to take place, how would we do it? And then the first thing that we said is we want this to be collaborative. We want this to be open source. So why don't we do a hackathon? We think about the challenges that the public administration has. [17:52] And we invite the population to propose solutions. Let's talk together. And like for my awe and happiness, over 500 people enrolled [18:04] And come on, this is not an easy hackathon theme, right? And in Latter-day, too, we... Let's hack the law with public assets from the Brazilian government, with the Minister of Economic...

[18:14] Yay! [18:15] And then I was like, please somebody enroll. Please somebody enroll. And then 500 people showed up and then I said, let's do this. And then the beautiful thing was that [18:26] This educational challenge started with the Ministry of Economics teaching people what these assets were. Those assets are buildings, the forest. [18:34] our oceans. [18:36] Can you imagine that? It's like everything that people figure out when they think about Brazil. And then they taught the individuals what the legislation was and what they could do. Everything is recorded online and available on Hacker Earth. So if you speak Portuguese or if you have a good translator, you can go there and watch for free this class [18:55] taught by the Ministry of Economics themselves. And then in less than maybe 10 days, over 20 projects were submitted on chain. [19:03] on Solid Blockchain. [19:04] Huge. [19:05] Mila, I want to bottle your energy. You said you wanted to bottle the pounder's energy. I'm like, I need some of what Mila's taking because it's incredible. And you have so much optimism and clearly so much love for your country and for Latin more generally. And so it's really just like infectious to be around. One thing as I was doing some prep for this conversation was, [19:29] that struck me was this idea of [19:33] and I'm using air quotes here, banking the unbanked, [19:37] comes up a lot in the sort of more... [19:40] altruistic visions of what blockchain and crypto can represent. And I wonder,

[19:47] from your perspective, if you feel like [19:50] progress is being made to that goal from your vantage point in [19:55] one region. Do you feel like that's happening? Do you feel like it's possible to happen? [20:01] What's your sense? [20:02] So like a very quick overlook on Latin America. So depending on the country, the readiness to convert people into Web3 is different and also the use cases. [20:11] banking, they unbanked [20:13] may be true in some regions, while another is probably unbanking the bank. [20:18] So it's going to depend on where you are and how things are [20:23] observed. So I went three times to El Salvador. I was there when it all happened. And the thing that I was hearing from the population and some people in the government was like, we want to understand better what's going on and what are the opportunities. [20:36] on the blockchain, like beyond Bitcoin. One year after one year and a half, maybe two after the first law, the Bitcoin law was enacted. Now they have another law that talks about stablecoins and other tokenized assets. [20:51] So this is the reality there. But I don't think that in Brazil specifically, like banking the unbanked is the most relevant flag. I would say that our thing here in Brazil specifically will possibly be like, [21:03] How do we get cheaper loans? [21:06] to accelerate well-being or like building homes or giving access to education. So it would be more the use case of collateralized or uncollateralized loan to a very specific extent.

[21:18] Then [21:19] like banking the people. [21:21] What about the loan making that you think is particularly well suited for [21:26] crypto as a currency. Let's imagine, okay, that the federal government is using some of these assets I mentioned as the collateral for some loans to like increase [21:39] whatever in X part of Brazil. Or let's imagine that the federal government says, [21:45] Mila, we love this thing. Let's get 1%. [21:48] of the public goods put in the hands of entrepreneurs, [21:51] with partnerships with universities, you're going to put these assets to work, and the profits are going to go to these people and then to these lowlands. Why not? [22:00] 1% [22:01] of $400 million. [22:04] That would be the playground for us. And why shouldn't like the whole Latin America or the whole world like experiment with that? If you have a social cause that you care about, if the traditional mechanisms are failing to support the growth, I think the technology can be used for a greater good. So this I would love to see. [22:21] And what's the feeling with your friends and family that aren't in this industry or even in tech? You meet someone new and you're like, my name is Mila. I work in crypto. Is the... [22:33] reaction to [22:35] positive, neutral or negative, generally speaking. Imagine I'm on a first date, right? Yes. With like a cocktail. Am I mentioning crypto or not? I think that's the thing. Or a second date or the 10th anniversary date with my boyfriend. Is this a go or no go topic? I think it's something like here you get into a cab.

[22:54] And I mean the traditional taxi, I don't mean a Uber. People are going to be talking about crypto. I talk about crypto when I do my nails. [23:02] One night, we'll bye. [23:03] with women, with men, with whatever. It's something that it's just there. Brazilians, they are curious by nature, and we are a very digital nation. [23:13] We have been banned by a World Cup celebration because Brazilians were voting for a goal that was a meme [23:20] to win a category of best goal online. And they just said, "Block Brazilian IPs. Enough for these guys." Same has happened on VMA. [23:30] We are, like, internet is a place for us where things, like, happen, you know? [23:36] We cannot unplug. There's no way to take the idea of blockchain, of crypto, of NFTs out of the imaginary of Brazil. [23:46] of course there is way more space for us to grow, and of course there is a lot of space for good education, [23:53] on what the initiatives would be. But one thing that I can assure to both of you, Brazilians like to experiment, [24:00] So if there's an app we can download and understand whether we like or not, we're probably going to do it. [24:06] So you would say it. So you're talking that after the second drink. Yes. The first one I talk about my dog. The second one I talk about crypto. Have you heard the gospel of blockchain? [24:19] Nice. Mila, well, it's so nice to have you on. Is there anything else that we didn't cover that you just want to make sure definitely gets into the conversation?

[24:27] How do we get crypto people, you know, thinking and hacking together where things are a possibility? So I'm super excited. We're going to be in Paris very shortly. [24:37] It's my second year speaking on ECC, so last year I went there. I was just saying, hey... [24:43] "This is where things are in Latin America. These are the groups. These are the initiatives. These are the festivals. We can do things here." And so on and so forth. And I was super happy to relay this message. I'm inviting you guys to come hack with us. [24:56] Not hack for us. We don't need international savers to take care of. That's not the narrative. So I made this invitation. And I'm super happy. [25:05] because I am now going back one year after and say, "Didn't I tell you that there were possibilities?" [25:11] So we did an open source hackathon with the government. Some people are going to go, "Boo! We don't want to talk about the government." Some other people are going to talk, "Yeah, that seems to be like a path towards conversation and innovation." [25:24] I'm just there relaying the message. And I will say again, I invite you guys to hack with me. I know very good places like for cocktail salad and also entrepreneurial hub. [25:36] You've nailed us. Like you get it. Spot on. Spot on. Amazing. Well, we're booking our tickets to Brazil. I have family in Rio. So honestly, any excuse for me to come down. Thank you so much for coming on. And talk to you soon. I'm super happy. Thank you. I'll be famous after this. [25:54] you [25:56] you

[25:59] This is draft tweets, draft tweets for new listeners. [26:03] is [26:05] we read... [26:07] that [26:08] drafts of our tweets that never made it well the concept originally was [26:14] tweets that we were too scared to send that we don't have the courage to send that's still what it is for me most of the time it is except i have one that i wanted that i did send that i want to talk about oh great let's hear it [26:25] So I sent a tweet today that I honestly workshopped for 12 hours. Oh my God. Not continually. Can you imagine just 12 hours on the same tweet? No, but I started thinking about it last night and then... [26:40] I didn't end up sending it until like... Okay. I'm dying to know what it is. Okay. So the backstory... I mean, it's on Twitter.com. You can see it for yourself. It's the latest tweet that I put up. Here's the backstory. I was... [26:53] looking for an outfit to wear to a nonball. [26:56] Okay. [26:57] I was on Rita Rowe, which is the maker of my, I have a white. [27:02] bag that I [27:03] have worn for the past two years straight. And it's a great anyone who's seen me IRL has probably seen this bag. It's just, it's honestly great, but I have totally over [27:13] used it. Uh-huh. [27:14] That just to say, it's a great company and brand and... [27:20] So anyway, I was on their website and the first image that came up is this image that I tweeted that's like a hat. [27:27] next to [27:29] images of women who are standing in full length. And when I first saw this photo, I

[27:35] When I first saw this photo, I was seriously looking at it for a long time being like, what is going on here? Because the hat looks like it's the same size as the woman. Yes, because it also has two little. [27:46] tassels that are coming out of the bottom of it that look like legs. [27:50] If you're not thinking straight, you could see this hat and think it's a five. Too much on the internet. [27:57] What it read to me was a hat that was five feet wide and had two legs. And so it was like this new hat trend that I had missed. And so last night and this morning was trying to figure out how to send this tweet in a way because it's kind of a confusing concept to relay. [28:14] Yes. [28:15] Anyway, I thought this was going to do better. [28:18] Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I will say I, I think the problem is that people are having the same experience as you. And then [28:28] they leave it, which was my experience, where I was like, whoa. [28:33] What's going on? Did you look at it and think the same thing? [28:36] I looked at it and I was like, what's happening here? And then I realized what it was. [28:41] And... [28:43] that's what happened. I should have done some AB testing on copy. Cause this tweet definitely could have done numbers if I, if I had done it right. If I had done it right. What's your draft day? Um, um, [28:56] It's so dumb. [28:58] It's-- [29:00] It says, [29:01] So Riverside now has transcripts and it's basically just a live roast of me. And I had several screenshots of me being like, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, or ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. And I'm just like, man, I'm a fucking idiot. Great. To see it in writing. Okay, great. I think I'm just going to fire it off right now. Riverside now has transcripts and it's basically just a live roast of me. Tweet. Tweet it out. It's out there. There it is. There it is.

[29:27] Okay. Okay. Bye. [29:29] Bye. [29:35] Dina, where are we going to be in September? We are going to be at Permissionless in Austin, Texas. Permissionless too. It's happening. And we're curating the culture track for the conference. So if you're into the stuff we talk about here, you should come and have a good time with us. So email your boss. Tell them that you need to go and buy your ticket now. They will never be as cheap as they are today. And we also have a promo code in our Discord for Boy Scout members. Oh, come hang in Austin. [30:03] Friends. [30:05] This is where we make an ask. We're in our call to action era. It's CTA times. Rate and review this podcast. Subscribe to our newsletter. And if you're feeling extra generous, [30:17] Send it to one friend. [30:20] Thank you for listening. We love you. Bye.