The following transcript was created using artificial intelligence. There will be some grammatical errors below. 

00:00:03:04 – 00:00:16:23

Richard Carthon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Crypto Current, your host here, Richard Carthon, and today I got a special guest all the way out in Switzerland working on a very cool project. We got a Luc Jodet with Arianee. How are you doing today? 

00:00:17:20 – 00:00:19:21

Luc Jodet: Very good. Hope you’re doing well as well? 

00:00:20:09 – 00:00:28:05

Richard Carthon: Yes. Well, excited to learn more about your company and everything that you have going. But of course, before we get into that, I want to learn more about you. Can you give us some background on yourself? 

00:00:29:09 – 00:01:33:05

Luc Jodet: Of course. So, my background, I’m an economics major that actually worked a bit in corporate as a financial analyst and then branched out to become an entrepreneur quite quickly because the corporate world was not really for me. And, I started the first company that was in the renewable energy sector. It was a marketplace for renewable energy, so we worked with large corporates like banks in Switzerland. So, banks, insurance companies, construction companies, but also some local electricity providers to source electricity from small solar and hydro power producers. And ended up selling this company three years ago right at the moment where, I mean, a year after I really got in to Crypto and actually started working on Arianee. But I guess that’s, you know, I’ll explain how Arianee works. Yeah, we’ll get there.

00:01:33:07 – 00:01:53:12

Richard Carthon: For sure. And, you know, very interesting background. I definitely understand the corporate world struggles of being like Ah, I don’t know if this is necessarily my path and then pivoting into something that is more up your alley. So, you know, tell me about your first experience with Cryptocurrency and Blockchain. Like, how did you first learn about it, hear about it, and then what made you say, like, Wow, this is really cool, how do I find a way to get more involved? 

00:01:54:01 – 00:02:42:28

Luc Jodet: Yeah. So, I think really the first time I heard about Cryptocurrency was not when the white paper came out, it was really 2013 with the entire, I did Silk Road, part of, you know, story, Bitcoin kind of getting front and center there. Also had a friend of mine who was extremely into Crypto and buying Blockchain, particularly Bitcoin really at that moment who got me into the subject. This being said, Bitcoin really never resonated with me. It was really something that, I mean, that I understand, but doesn’t really get me excited. I definitely own some Bitcoin, but it’s not something that really made me decide to quit what I was doing currently at the time. That really changed when Ethereum was introduced. 

00:02:43:20 – 00:03:25:19

Luc Jodet: When Ethereum was introduced in 2015, I started becoming really interested. And as I mentioned right before, I had a renewable energy marketplace company. And, at that time around early 2016, I had calls like people would call me and ask, Oh you do energy traceability? Because energy traceability is a big aspect of actually being able to have a renewable energy marketplace. And, people were asking, Well, if you do this, are you using Blockchain? I was like, I’m not using Blockchain, but after a few times and people ask me that question over and over again, I end up kind of like going down, you know, starting to look into it. 

00:03:26:12 – 00:03:26:27

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:03:26:29 – 00:04:17:14

Luc Jodet: For some reason at the time, there was a narrative that energy traceability was a great application for Blockchain. After a few months, I realized that actually it’s not. This being said, I think that’s really where I fell into the rabbit hole and went extremely deep and really became enamored with the technology. Then I went on to look for a good application of Blockchain. That’s when I found some of my co-founders on Arianee, who are working on a first concept of using NFTs for digital identity for luxury products. And here for me, that made sense, it clicked. So, I really started working with them and then quickly actually had an opportunity to sell my company at the same time. So, sold the previous company and co-founded Arianee. 

00:04:17:16 – 00:04:59:19

Richard Carthon: Congrats. Man, that’s amazing. And talk about a timely product, right? So, NFTs are the buzzword right now. Everyone’s trying to get in, everyone’s trying to see what is going on. And I definitely understand the passion around Ethereum. So, when I first got into the Crypto space, I really resonated with Ethereum as well, because it made a lot of practical sense to me and the application of how you could build on top of it. And, you know, looking at Arianee, you know, as soon as you’re on the website, it says something, the leading digital passport platform for all valuables. And I was like, Man, that is such an attention grabber. And it sounds like the way that you’re doing that is turning these luxury items into NFTs. Can you just talk more about that and what the business model of Arianee is?

00:05:00:15 – 00:05:20:24

Luc Jodet: Of course. So, the first thing to know is that while NFT are all, you know, hot right now, we do get a lot of interest for what we’re doing because the NFT subject is super front and center. We’ve been here for over three years now, so, and we’ve gone through the latest bear market. 

00:05:20:26 – 00:05:21:11

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:05:21:13 – 00:06:24:27

Luc Jodet: So, let me tell you, three years ago, NFTs were not as hot as they are today. And we stuck with it and now, actually, you know, it’s nice to actually have some wind at our backs. But so, the idea here is really using NFT as a digital password for your product. What we’re trying to create is really to bring physical objects, viable objects into a digital world. And so, the way we do this is, as we said, with an NFT and here there’s the first we see by most of the brands that we work with it’s a digital companion, meaning it’s like the sidekick of your product. So, it enables to actually a bunch of different services, such as one click insurance, easy resell, it also enables like a global lost and found. But it also enables another aspect that’s extremely interesting for the brands we work with, which is the idea of reconnecting with the current owner of a product. 

00:06:25:22 – 00:07:42:02

Luc Jodet: A lot of the brands we work with actually do not have a direct connection with a large part of their customers or the people that own their products because they manufacture products. We don’t actually sell it directly via retailers. And here because that digital passport is a peer-to-peer, freely transferable passport for your product that proves that you own a real object, the current owner always has this passport. However, it’s a connection that’s completely anonymous because it’s, you know, it’s an NFT like any other NFT, meaning it’s in a Crypto wallet. The only thing that you have to connect is the public address. However, this is actually both an interesting thing because the, you know for sure that you are talking to the current owner of the product, but it’s also something interesting for people in the luxury industry, because the anonymous client is actually something that they’re becoming more and more interested in. Managing customer data is becoming more and more of a risk, both because there is, of course, a demand from customers that’s growing to not have all their data collected.

00:07:42:09 – 00:07:42:24

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:07:42:26 – 00:08:11:23

Luc Jodet: But also because hacks and regulations make it more and more complicated, more and more risky, both on just the communication aspect of things. And hear, you know, Ledger got a massive hack that while it didn’t actually impact their core product, it did have a big problem with their customer base and and their image. But so, a lot of brands are actually starting to not even want to collect data anymore. 

00:08:12:03 – 00:08:12:18

Richard Carthon: Yeah.

00:08:12:20 – 00:08:38:05

Luc Jodet: And that makes consequently a lot of sense because of that risk factor and also because it creates a delay. They still want to communicate with their customers and their product owners and so here, the idea is to create a new way to communicate that doesn’t actually relay or lie on personal data, but really on just the fact that you are an owner of a product. 

00:08:38:27 – 00:09:02:19

Richard Carthon: Right. So, that’s cool that you can go and basically follow where your product ultimately ends up. Kind of just walk me through the process, let’s say I own a physical product and I want to use Arianee to get this out to my potential end buyer, walk me through the process of how I would get set up and then of how everything else will work, even from when my products eventually bought on the platform and so forth. 

00:09:04:00 – 00:10:07:20

Luc Jodet: Yeah. So, for a brand to work with the Arianee protocol is completely open source. So, you can actually create tomorrow, go on, we actually have a JavaScript library that enables you to freely create your certificates on the on chain. We have a small fee, we actually subsidize the gas fees because we’re on the sight chain of Ethereum for a big part of the protocol and a bit on the mainnet as well to keep that connection with it. But we subsidize the gas fees and you have to pay about 10 cents, about 10 cents of a dollar. But in our token called DVRF20, you know, to create that certificate. What you need is a hosted Jason and all the images you want to link with. And then the minting process really literally takes 20 seconds.

00:10:07:22 – 00:10:08:07

Richard Carthon: Wow.

00:10:08:09 – 00:10:11:11

Luc Jodet: And there is, you know, 20 lines of code, so, it’s fairly easy. 

00:10:11:20 – 00:10:12:05

Richard Carthon: Yeah.

00:10:12:07 – 00:10:54:17

Luc Jodet: There’s one aspect that actually relies more on our governance with the nonprofit that manages the consortium of brands that we work with. And here, it’s what we call the formal verification or like the brand ID of the brand that creates the product. And, this actually is, you have a staking mechanism that will take you, well, you have to lock a bit of Crypto, but mainly it’s a KYB process. And here, the big thing that we’re solving with this, even though it can introduce a bit of centralization, today it is to be able to say this certificate actually was created by this brand. 

00:10:55:03 – 00:11:38:18

Luc Jodet: So, today, we work with you know, Breitling, for instance. We validated their brand as they’re, you know, doing their KYB to make sure that the people who we’re talking with and using the protocol we’re actually Breitling. And that’s where you know, that when you’re buying a Breitling with an RN certificate, that says Breitling on it, it has been verified by the Arianee association, the non-profit. Tomorrow, we’re actually really looking into how we can completely centralize this process. But to me, that’s still kind of like the aspect in governance that, you know, requires a bit of a manual process. And, if there’s a manual process, you need some humans to intervene.

00:11:38:20 – 00:11:59:29

Richard Carthon: For sure. And, you know, to validate the brand, the KYB, know your brand, I think that’s very important that way you know you’re not getting messed over because unfortunately, in some of these scenarios, you can’t have, you know, these NFTs that are being made by, you know, either these new brand or these brands that are claiming to be someone that they’re not.

00:12:00:26 – 00:12:01:11

Luc Jodet: Yeah.

00:12:01:13 – 00:12:16:27

Richard Carton: Which can cause plenty of problems as you get into some of these different marketplaces where you think you’re buying it from established artists and it just turns out someone else just got up there and spun up something quickly. So, I think that’s an important aspect of it as well. 

00:12:17:03 – 00:12:20:29

Luc Jodet: I’ve created a few NFTs, you know. 

00:12:21:01 – 00:12:21:16

Richard Carthon: Right. 

00:12:22:04 – 00:12:23:01

Luc Jodet: Unfortunately didn’t sell them quite as much. 

00:12:23:03 – 00:12:23:18

Richard Carthon: Right. 

00:12:25:21 – 00:12:27:17

Luc Jodet: I’m done joking.

00:12:27:19 – 00:12:54:27

Richard Carthon: Nah, for sure. And, you know, one of the things that’s I think really unique about Arianee as well is you are kind of positioned in a place to continue to be a leader in this NFT space as more established brands try to come into that space. So, kind of, can you walk me through a little bit of the roadmap of like, you know, where you presently are and a use case of a brand that’s come on and has seen success and where you think some future brands will be able to come on and what that will look like for them?

00:12:56:21 – 00:13:45:27

Luc Jodet: So, we have 25 members in the consortium today and we’re adding some more almost every week. And some of the most notable are Breitling and also Brand & Bash have already launched first collections. And that started last year. The protocol itself is live since the end of 2019 and the first brand started launching pilot projects last year and then since January 1st, I think Breitling is the first brand to have launched on their entire collection. So meaning, if you go to a store and want to buy a Breitling watch, you will get an Arianee ticket. Since January 1st. 

00:13:46:18 – 00:15:01:27

Luc Jodet: So, the process for them was, you know, they started with a pilot project on a small collection. Like Breitling did that on a top time, which was like a limited edition of a James Bond vintage watch. And when that worked well, they moved later on to the full collection. So, of course, the first thing we do with the certificate is we replace the certificate of authenticity, which is a little piece of paper that you get into your box when you buy your watch. Now, there’s a crew that you scan to claim the digital passport for the digital certificate of authenticity and you can discard the paper. It’s also a proof of ownership, so, again it can replace the receipt. And it’s also the place where you can record all the different information about your watch, when you serviced it, who owned it in the past. But also, you can imagine having stamps for an event, a special event that you’ve been to. You can see like, Oh this watch went to, I don’t know, to a little gallows in France.

00:15:01:29 – 00:15:02:22

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:15:02:24 – 00:15:06:18

Luc Jodet: And have like bring history, like, actually record history of the product.

00:15:06:20 – 00:15:07:06

Richard Carthon: Yeah.

00:15:07:08 – 00:16:05:17

Luc Jodet: It gives also a bunch of information on how the product was produced, of course. And then, when you talk about integrations with other services, one of the things that Breitling did actually was integrate their e-warranty system. So, now, when you claim a certificate, it launches automatically to e-warranty. It’s like, a five year I think, don’t quote me on that. I think it’s a five year warranty or three year warranty that is launched automatically. And then, when you need to actually contact the customer service, you can do it via the certificate. And the certificate today is in an app that we developed. But, the certificate of course, is a script, so it could be in any, you know, Crypto wallet that anybody would produce. And here in the app, you just click on your certificate and say, Contact Breitling and then you can start chatting once again, without having ever given any of your personal information. 

00:16:06:00 – 00:17:03:28

Richard Carthon: Yeah. Wow, that is super cool. I mean, I definitely, and I’m sure for a lot of people listening, you know, just seeing how. Impressive that is. I remember one of the first like watches I’ve ever bought was like back when I was in college or university and it was a Swiss Franc and I was very proud of this watch. And one day, I know that I had, like a three year warranty and I think I broke it in year two, but I didn’t go through the process of like, going to like get it fixed. And it would have been cool because again, I loved that watch, I used to wear it all the time to be able to like track it and be able to show like the full history, so, that you know, in the future, whether I gave it to a future kid or gave it to someone else or I wanted to sell it, I could show its true value because it was truly being marked that entire time. Like that is super cool. Or the fact that, like, if someone had a piece of jewelry or a piece of clothing or whatever it is and they want to go and sell it, they could really go and point to the history of like all the things that have happened. And like man, that is really unique and powerful man. That’s really cool. 

00:17:05:12 – 00:17:42:12

Luc Jodet: Yeah, no, we think so as well. And really, that’s one of the great value propositions here. The second one is really that aspect of also of being able to get an instant feedback from a brand without having to prove that you actually own, you know, the true object, because a lot of time, you know, to get access to the repair and to talk with the customer agent for those, you know,  high value products the brand is actually going to ask in like a proof that you actually own one of their products. 

00:17:43:01 – 00:18:43:26

Luc Jodet: Actually, one of the brands that we talked with told us they launched a couple of years ago, a VIP program, where the only thing you had to do was to register, which is to go on there and enter manually the model that you actually own. And then you would enter into the model of their product that you actually own and then you would enter into their VIP program, which you had like, special deals and special relationships. Except their issue was that they had more people signed up than watches that had been sold, meaning like people who did not have the product  had actually joined the VIP program, which I mean, can be a good marketing strategy. But for those really, you know, for those valuables or high end, kind of like exclusive products, the idea is that you really want to target the people that actually own your product because you’re VIP program is the loss leader. So, you’re trying to create a special experience for the people that actually are your true customers. 

00:18:44:10 – 00:19:33:04

Richard Carthon: Yeah. I mean, and having that validation, being able to sift through the people that always try to find a way in would be very unique. I mean, I even see this being a protocol that could be applied to like sneakerheads, right? These exclusive shoes that drop and you always want to know, like, Okay, well, are these actual, for example, Yeezys versus Feezys. And like even Jordans and everything else like that and even seeing, like, where things establish and like truly being able to look at, you know, where these original ones that dropped in like the 1980s and like who all owned them and X, Y, Z like. I mean, that is super cool that all of these like types of products are starting to be blocked, or put on Arianee and Blockchain. And there’s a lot of use cases for this.

00:19:33:06 – 00:19:33:21

Luc Jodet: Yeah, for sure.

00:19:33:23 – 00:19:51:12

Richard Carthon: So, great job for getting in this thing, staying through the bear market because I know how tough that was. But sticking with it and just seeing where this is going, I mean, I think there’s a fun decade in front of us and I think y’all are positioned to do really well because I mean, there’s so many use cases for what y’all are doing.

00:19:51:14 – 00:20:07:04

Luc Jodet: Indeed. And I’m an absolute, when you talk about sneakerhead, absolutely. I mean, of course. We started with watches because that’s kind of where there was a first product market fit. 

00:20:07:16 – 00:20:08:01

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:20:08:03 – 00:20:44:09

Luc Jodet: But the new luxury is streetwear. And sneakers is the role, like, you know, a pair of Yeezys are the Rolex watch of the new generation. And then Breitling started working with actually one sneaker company called Santoshi Studio, who was actually really in the Crypto environment. And, we’re actually preparing another launch with another kind of hype beast, sort of a sneakerhead, which I can’t talk about right now, but stay tuned. We have more things coming than the sneakers.

00:20:44:11 – 00:20:44:26

Richard Carthon: Yeah.

00:20:44:28 – 00:20:49:00

Luc Jodet: And definitely when you put your finger on it, it’s a promising market.

00:20:49:02 – 00:21:22:09

Richard Carthon: Man, that’s super exciting and definitely looking forward to watching this as this elevates and definitely see how valuable this is. But to shift gears just a little bit, you know, there’s a lot going on in the entire Crypto, Blockchain market right now. As we head into this next decade, I mean, from 2010 to 2020, there’s a lot of growth in the field. But I think we’re starting to see it turn a page and start to see like, even higher velocity of growth and innovation and opportunity in this landscape. What are some things that are happening right now that has your attention that you’re continuing to follow? 

00:21:23:19 – 00:22:54:07

Luc Jodet: Well, for us on the technical side, the big question is, is layer, two. It’s like how do you actually get to be able to do all the cool things that are being done right now on Ethereum? And I’m talking about the decentralization, the fact that it’s a decentralized protocol, but also, all the composability, meaning like the kind of Lego that exists on Ethereum, meaning I can, you know, take it or put some collateral on Aave and they take my tokens and put them in on Curve and then get the yield maximized by year end. Like all those are different projects that are composable together. What I’m really interested in is to see how we can actually do this, but today, because of the fees on Ethereum, it’s close to impossible to do it for things that are not, you know, pure financial assets. So, layer two is something that we’re looking into a lot. We’ve deployed on layer two, but now we’re really considering keeping on several layer two’s because there’s still not a clear winner for me. But so, I think the two that were most interested in today are Matic, I think that they are really, really ahead. And already a lot of the things that we want to do are doable on Matic. Now, Polygon. 

00:22:54:28 – 00:22:55:13

Richard Carthon: Polygon, yeah. 

00:22:55:15 – 00:23:45:16

Luc Jodet: Yeah. EXDI is something I’m really interested in, which was actually started by the same people who started the QA Network, the section that we’re using at the moment. So EXDI, really interested. And then there are plenty of others that we’re looking into as well. But still even compatible, we are a partner of Lukso Network. Fabian Vogelsteller is an advisor on the project and quite interesting what he’s doing. The protocols are still not live, so it’s still a bit difficult for me to say anything. But I mean, great team behind that. And then there are, you know, plenty of things that are being put forward. I’m interested in what Mir is promising. So, plenty of things you look at. But to me, it’s really the layer two is a big subject. 

00:23:45:18 – 00:23:46:03

Richard Carthon: Layer two.

00:23:46:05 – 00:24:08:07

Luc Jodet: And Matic for me is really interesting. I like what they did with the Quickswap team, you know, the fork of Uniswap, it’s interesting what they’re doing there. So, I think that the first one we’re exploring is probably going to be Matic, but the other ones are, you know, they all have a lot of arguments and so.

00:24:08:09 – 00:24:30:18

Richard Carthon: They do. And, you know, you bring up a really good point. And I like to tell people and especially our listeners, if you hear something enough times, repetitively, pay attention. So, you and probably the last like five or 10 interviews I’ve done, have brought up layer two. Layer two has been brought up almost every time, right? And so, it is very important to see how that’s going to shake out. 

00:24:31:03 – 00:25:19:04

Richard Carthon: And, I think it’s going to be, we’re in this crucial point I think a lot of people say, within like the next six to 12 months of how this is going to work out and whoever can really, I don’t want to say conquer, but solve this potential issue, but can really build something that’s going to last like can soar. And there’s just so much potential in this space and like you said, I think Polygon is a good mover in there and I think there’s some other ones to be looking out for as well. Recently had the launch of Enumio, be looking out for them as well. But yeah man, thank you so much for putting that on everyone’s horizon and sharing that with us. A fun question I like to start asking the speakers who come on the show is with all the knowledge that you have today, if you could pour all that knowledge and give yourself some first steps back when you first got started, what would you tell yourself? 

00:25:20:18 – 00:26:56:15

Luc Jodet: Oh, boy, there are a lot of things. I think the most important thing is it’s going to take time. Basically that’s really the thing that sometimes you cannot forget. I mean, we always had kind of a long term, you know, vision on it, but especially when we started in, you know, we started in late 2017. The entire ICo craze took off. We ended up doing an ICO as well, but at the beginning, the bear markets, like the second half of 2018, which we managed to actually raise enough funds to do this project. But there were so many times where, you know, it really felt like, Oh wow, this is going to be just like an overnight success and it’s going to be done. You know, in three months, we’ll be everywhere. And then, you know, you realize that things should take time to really become concrete and to build where we are at now three years later. And in a way, I think that’s it, you know, I have an advice to give myself and also people like myself three years ago and myself today and people today is that I feel like we’re kind of in the same moment right now, meaning there are a lot of really cool things are going on. It’s showing the future and it’s going to continue I think for a good deal of 2021. So, it’s exciting. Just everybody should realize it’s going to take time.

00:26:56:17 – 00:26:57:02

Richard Carthon:  To get it all done.

00:26:57:04 – 00:27:22:12

Luc Jodet: To actually build something, selling it, get all done and just, you know, don’t become desperate when at the end of the year, you know, the craziness has died down a little bit, let’s say, and that you have to put your head back down and go work at it. Again, it’s a long process, but it’s a rewarding and enjoyable process.

00:27:22:14 – 00:27:44:02

Richard Carthon: For sure. I mean, I think that is a great piece of advice. This thing takes time. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. And I think a lot of people think that, or take for granted, like, Oh, just like to said, it’s going to be an overnight success, like everything’s running high. But like you’ve got to be able to ride the waves of the highs and lows of entrepreneurship and success and building a company and what it takes. 

00:27:44:04 – 00:28:11:10

Richard Carthon: And it’s all I mean, ultimately, I believe it’s all going to be worth it. But like the ones who have are building to last, the ones that are building for the future will be the ones that make it and ultimately soar. So, I definitely agree with that sentiment and I definitely appreciate that and I think that’s a great reminder for all of our listeners here today. But, you know, Luc, you dropped a ton of great knowledge on us. You shared a lot of great things that’s going on with Arianee and where that’s headed, but what is a final thought that you want to leave with everyone listening here today? 

00:28:12:28 – 00:28:37:05

Luc Jodet: Well, I think, you know, get ready to weather the storm, but I mean, enjoy also the moment. And right now, there are so many cool things going on around the NFT space that it’s I mean, it’s the fun moments. I mean, enjoy it. Remember that, you know, it’s also a lot of hard work for the coming years, but definitely enjoy and have fun also with it. 

00:28:37:17 – 00:29:44:01

Luc Jodet: And this in general, when it comes to Arianee, we’ve worked really hard to get a bunch of top brands to join the project. And now, we’re trying to actually get more individual creators and really fans of, you know, fashion and luxury to get involved. So, we’re really looking for people to come and participate, give us ideas. We’re really open to any suggestions or things we should build. So, we’re on Discord, we’re on Telegram. If you just go on our website or Arianee.org, you’ll find all the links. And I’m really looking forward to have some of your listeners come and join us and, you know, help us build this thing, because there are a lot of things to be built by us and also by the community. Once again, it’s an open protocol, so, anybody can actually build on top of the certificates we’re building. And there are a lot of cool things to do. So, definitely get in touch, our door is wide open. 

00:29:44:19 – 00:29:54:06

Richard Carthon: Awesome. Definitely appreciate that. And everyone listening, make sure you definitely go check this out. For everyone that wants to do that, what are some ways that people can connect with you and also learn more about Arianee? 

00:29:55:06 – 00:30:40:17

Luc Jodet: Yeah. So, Telegram and Discord are really the places where you can have a conversation with us. Otherwise, I mean, Twitter, @ArianeeProject is the handle. My handle is Luc Jodet, happy to discuss there as well. And to learn more about the project itself, go on Arianee.org, you have all the technical documentation, all the details about the governance and the brands that are involved in the project and some use cases. So, I think if you start there, that should get you most of the information. Otherwise, once again, reach out. We’re really happy to talk to all of you guys. 

00:30:40:19 – 00:30:51:06

Richard Carthon: Awesome. Well, again, thank you so much for joining us, thank you for dropping all that great information. Everyone listening, make sure you go check that out. And of course, for everyone listening, Stay Crypto Current.