On December 4th, we hosted a live chat with Rodolfo to answer questions from the community about what he sees as the vision for Stacks in the future, the role of the board, and his take on what’s next in crypto. We’ve pulled out the highlights here but recommend the best place to hear it all is in the video recording.

Rodolfo’s Background
Brittany Laughlin, Stacks Foundation Executive Director and Board member, kicked off the chat asking Rodolfo more about his role at famed Silicon Valley VC firm Foundation Capital. Foundation Capital has been investing in early stage, tech-oriented startups for over 25 years. With 27 IPOs behind them and multiple big name acquisitions, they are most famously known for backing Netflix.

Rodolfo himself has a personal interest in financial services and decentralized financial tools after working on insurance, loans, and payments. One of his favorite projects was an ‘electronic payment network providing financial access to rural Mexico by helping people receive government payments digitally rather than in cash. This saved customers long trips to the city to access the funds, which was life transforming for Rodolfo and other families who used it.

The project also helped people with savings - which was not something they could easily do before that point. For Rodolfo, this was a light bulb moment for the importance of making financial tools accessible, a value that the Stacks Ecosystem shares. He went so far as to claim, “if you care about poverty, if you care about freedom then I believe financial inclusion is the most powerful tool we have at hand.’’ From there, Rodolfo continued his career with inclusion at the front of his mind and later learned about BTC where he dove into crypto further.

Rodolfo’s Timeline
He discovered crypto in 2012 and then he became active in 2013 first seed investments at Financial Capital and invested in peer-to-peer BTC networks, bringing financial inclusion to people.

Rodolfo became involved with Blockstack, working with Muneeb directly after the first seed round. Upon understanding that Blockstack was intending to build a new internet, he was hooked, describing it as ‘‘incredible’’.

In 2017, Foundation Capital invested in the Blockstack token sale and have been active and supportive investors since.

Vision for Web 2.0

Issues with Web 2.0 and ways to solve them
Both Brittany and Rodolfo noted that it’s very hard to determine what to trust on Web 2.0 as something is always being sold to you, or if you display a controversial opinion you can get cancelled by political groups. It is also difficult to know the extent of access that businesses and governments have to your online data. For this reason, Rodolfo is eager to see a continued focus on the Can’t Be Evil movement. Without decentralized solutions like those offered by the Stacks ecosystem, he believes we would fall under full surveillance for our digital activities.

Rodolfo argues that the decentralized web offers independent developers an exciting and competitive opportunity to build Web 3.0. He’s hopeful that the technology offered by Stacks will make it possible to create better experiences for developers and users alike. For Rodolfo, crypto has done a wonderful job of imagining what the future could look like but has not yet executed on that vision for mainstream users/consumers. Outside of products like Brave, it is ‘‘hard to find products that have mass usage’’ due to friction from rough user experiences.

On portable identity, Rodolfo emphasized the importance of having one login across multiple apps (much like the Blockstack Connect feature). From his perspective it should incorporate something that people are already using (like LastPass). He thinks we should build bridges between existing, Web 2.0 apps and decentralized apps (as opposed to moving to decentralized apps all at once).

This will happen if it is an easy, accessible, and convenient process (in the same way that Facebook login is convenient). For Stacks, specifically, he argues that we need to build closer relationships with users and developers as they get accustomed to our tech stack. Bringing smart contracts to the Bitcoin Blockchain, for example, is a great addition as it builds on top of a well-known network and paradigm. This is the kind of strategy that has attracted developers to other layer 1 blockchains.

Supporting the Ecosystem Players
When questioned about his views on stakeholders, he expressed that the whole ecosystem can be vibrant with checks and balances as required, and he wants to ensure that one group cannot hold the rest of the Ecosystem hostage to change. Incentives for miners and developers are important bridges to Web 2.0. He is enthusiastic about Blockstack because it is so above board with regulations in the US and this will be a real strength post Stacks 2.0.
Rodolfo suggested that currently projects that push governance to the community often have low participation in the creation of protocols, while he expected they would be ‘‘more active in opinions and votes’’. Throughout the conversation, he questioned how to combine community governance with passive token holding for people who desire that kind of role.

Long-Term Thinking
Blockstack is unlike other projects in the crypto space, as it is not the typical pump and dump crypto project, but a long-term initiative. Brittany argued that Stacks Foundation aims to create sustainable plans for funding, which Rodolfo agrees is evident in every step they take.

Rodolfo is most interested in the role Blockstack will play in 10 or more years from now than within the next few months. He wants to create conditions to produce a ‘‘really vibrant ecosystem that can empower 100 million or even a billion people’’ in the long-term. He hopes that this makes a real difference in their lives with a product they use daily, where they store their personal information via identity or where they hold their money and savings.

Rodolfo thinks that Blockstack needs to incentivize the right places. Specific apps, mechanisms or integrations are in the works, but it’s an open field right now. He wondered what will be the ‘‘GoDaddy of this ecosystem’’ and really get people into the space. Once teams are set up, developers can get more funding from outside the ecosystem. He is looking at pockets of activity across the ecosystem and as they come up looking at possible VC opportunities within the Stacks Ecosystem, and is very excited to see what comes next.

Contacting Rodolfo: he can be reached on his Stacks ID fifaifofo.id.blockstack and on twitter @fifaifofo