EP236: Blockchain, Crypto, and the Church

I believe, and I'm going to just add this, not as a technical answer, but go, John thinks that the blockchain emerging is part of the answer to our prayer, may your kingdom come. This is a tool that will be part of the fulfillment of the answer to that prayer. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church. But more than TED for Tech itself, we'll address deeper questions. Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does the metaverse fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church, or a startup church plant, the Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church, digitally and physically.

our heart, that churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on disciple making that will revolutionize your church. And now, here's your host, Jeff Reed. All right. Hey, welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. It's a pleasure to be here with you today. Jeff Reed, once again, founder of the Church Digital, co-founder of Digital Church Network. Man, I'll just be honest. I love seeing God do stuff digitally in virtual reality and in the metaverse. Like, it's funny. Romans talks about how, you know, God's unforeseen characteristics are in moving around nature. And I've often have felt in the past months that if you actually look back and see what God is doing in digital spaces, in metaverse spaces, that you can see the hand of God moving among them.

You know, I say that and some people think, Jeff, that's crazy. Yeah, maybe it is a little crazy. Yes. Yes. Digital is toxic. Yes. Digital is isolationist. Yes. Virtual reality does feel like a video game. You're not wrong. But that doesn't mean that God can't move in and amongst those spaces. And so anyway, yeah, and a lot of times, like, I'll just be honest. I know. I know I sound crazy. It's cool. I mean, in this conversation today, this podcast, this is going to sound a little crazy. It's interesting. Through Leadership Network, one of the jobs that I get to do, get the pleasure to do with, we get to talk about metaverse church and so do podcasts and live shows and create content, starting the conversation around metaverse.

Now, predominantly, we talk virtual reality. We talk some augmented reality. We talk some artificial intelligence. But you know what we've actually started focusing a lot on now is blockchain and crypto, cryptocurrencies, of course. And what's interesting to me is that the average American has no understanding of blockchain and crypto. The average church leader, probably less than the average American. Like, at least people understand the concept of virtual reality, put on the headset, see a virtual world. You may not have experienced it, but you've seen the trailers from Lawnmower Man back in the 90s or whatever. And so at least the understanding of virtual reality, what it is, is not a foreign concept.

Blockchain and crypto is a foreign concept to the church leader today. And what's interesting is actually, I think it has more power in blockchain and crypto to revolutionize the church than virtual reality does. I'm not sure if it has more than augmented reality, but time will tell with that one. But there is so much potential within blockchain and crypto, not within the technology in itself. But once you start to get into DAOs, decentralized autonomous organizations, which are which is this function that gives the power of institutions and corporations. It gives it to individuals and you start to get into NFTs or really smart contracts that that is this relationship where others can invest into a DAO organization and create a partnership, a bond towards a common goal.

It's really the well, if I were launching a micro church in 2023, I would build it on a DAO. As a matter of fact, we're actually wrestling with moving some of our organizations through Digital Church Network to a DAO. I just recently met with Joey Santos, who was on a podcast maybe a month ago, church at the VR bar. We're talking about turning that into a DAO, an organization that's funded on blockchain and crypto and is or funded on crypto, built upon the blockchain and empowering people to invest in it and be part of its ministry through an agreement of a smart contract. Now, the words that just came out of my mouth are probably exploding some heads because you don't understand anything that I just said.

That's cool. That's why we're having this podcast right here, because right now we are starting with a basic conversation centered around blockchain and crypto. What is this and what is the ministry implication that it can have? And so we're bringing into this a couple of people that are actually becoming very good friends as we're exploring this space together. We're bringing in John Dangler, who's an entrepreneur of sorts, well-built bikes, a business as mission model up in Tampa, Florida. He also works with Brave Cities. You may remember Taylor McCall. We did a podcast with Taylor talking about Brave Cities, I don't know, maybe back in April or May. And so John Dangler is part of that organization, Brave Cities.

We're also bringing in Jason Dukes, he runs a business as well called The Decent Co., works with secular organizations, corporations and churches, helping them understand blockchain, crypto and a lot of this metaverse technology. These two are incredible together. The balance of communication between them. We've done several of these conversations, roundtables, dialogues through Digital Church Network. And I wanted to share some of those conversations with y'all through the Church Digital Podcast because it really is that good. And so if you have no understanding of what blockchain and crypto is, listen to this, watch this, take this in and start to be part of that conversation right now. Because not only can it help your ministry, I believe it can revolutionize your ministry and actually bring it closer to maybe the biblical model of what church should be.

All right. So for the conversation, I'm bringing in John Dangler from Brave Cities, Well Built Dykes. Bringing in Jason Dukes from The Decent Co. And of course, myself, Jeff, with The Church Digital, with Digital Church Network. In a conversation, I'm calling Blockchain and Crypto One-on-One. One-on-one. One-on-one would be a completely different context. Blockchain and Crypto, 101. Okay, everybody. Here you go. So, hey, we're doing a roundtable. We're the only three people who showed up at the roundtable. That's also awkward. Nobody loves us. No, but, you know, so, hey, we're still going to do the conversation. And I'm the happiest person on the Zoom call right now because I get 100% of the attention.

And so I'm looking forward to digging in here, having this roundtable conversation, talking about blockchain and crypto, which is interesting because this may actually be like the telling factor where there's this potential wave coming in, blockchain and crypto. So, and it's really unknown in church concept. And, you know, even in my own life, like there's things that I get, but there's things that I'm like, man, I feel like there's more potential that even I'm not seeing. So I'm looking forward to this conversation. Hey, let me introduce a couple people that are growing in relationship with me. They're relatively new, but I, both of them are incredibly passionate about this subject. And I'm excited for this, this conversation.

We got John Dengler up above me in the Zoom call. Hey, John, how you doing? I'm good. Thanks for having me. Awesome. John, do you want to maybe 30 seconds, just tell a little bit about yourself, kind of what you do there in Tampa, loosely connected with Tampa Underground and other things here in Tampa. But, man, just tell a little bit about your story. Well, yeah, so I'm, I'm in Tampa. I, I, my, my journey in faith has a, I, not a unique, but a specific origin. One night in college, I took a ton of LSD and I met God and I've never been the same. And then I started. Don't try this at home, kids. I just want to put that this way. No, so, so, so, so I, I started digging into, I actually converted or switched my major to religious studies.

It was like, I want to know what everyone on the planet has to say about this experience and what matters and what's good. Um, didn't get plugged in with any kind of church community or anything for a good amount of time. Just started reading the New Testament, Old Testament, and taking Jesus very seriously. That was somehow central to this message I got on this experience. And, uh, and studying the world religions, want to know what everybody thinks. And then that would lead me to, um, eventually come into this work that is now the well, this nonprofit that we run, which is somehow I came to believe that God's heart and presence was wrapped up in the poor, the materially poor, uh, Tampa, Florida has a very high homeless population.

I started making up a bunch of excuses to hang out with these folks. And this is more than any, um, church service or anything like that. This is the place that I really felt like I, I had real encounter, uh, and presence with God and with neighbor. And so I, uh, built this nonprofit that we now have called the well, we do a lot of things you'd expect with poor folks. We do, we share food. We have some housing for folks that, um, we're living on the streets. We have, uh, some community gardens where folks work together to grow food, a bunch of other little projects. We also run, um, a social enterprise called well, but bikes, uh, we have a nonprofit bike shop. We sell refurbished bikes at affordable prices and then take all the services, sales revenue and invest it into an earn a bike program so that people that don't have funds can come in and earn their bike through community service hours.

We might have them work in one of our community gardens or something as a way to purchase their bike with time. Um, and my, uh, I will say along the way I formed a little intentional community. This is where this nonprofit grew out of. And, um, I'm foreshadowing a bit of what will come to be my interest in DAOs because when I heard of blockchain and decentralized autonomous organizations, I said, that is what we were always trying to do as a faith community. And now it is possible technically and scalable at a way that, uh, was never conceivable when we were doing it in our little family room with 12 sweaty dudes living in one house, trying to love our neighbors experiencing material poverty.

Um, and so the, well, our nonprofit really emerged out of that work and I'll leave it at that for now. Um, but yeah, we're just out here doing our best to, you know, embody, uh, the presence and work of Jesus and, and try to build that vision, that prayer that is your kingdom come here in Tampa as it is in heaven. Tampa as it is in heaven. It's funny. I, John, I met John through some mutual friends and I was talking with the mutual friends and I said, yeah, I'm really looking for people who think outside of the box. And our mutual friend said, oh, John's not an outside of the box. Thank her. He's a guy that's going to burn the box to the ground. He's going to jump up and down, stomp it into the ground.

And then he's going to do whatever he wants to do. And I was like, that's exactly, that's exactly who I'm looking for. And so excited to bring John into this conversation. And then we've got, yeah, get what you asked for. Uh, and then we're bringing in, uh, Jason Dukes as well. Uh, Jason, why don't you talk about, talk about your company, talk about yourself a little bit of your story. Yeah. So grew up in, uh, inner city, New Orleans. My dad pastored a mostly black church there. And, um, uh, that was an incredible heritage. Ended up in, uh, college where I went to college in West Tennessee, which was slightly different than inner city, New Orleans. And, uh, kind of woke up to the reality that the church didn't look as much as community focused as what I had grown up with.

And, um, ended up in Orlando. I was college pastor for first Orlando teaching, coaching, teaching high school and coaching basketball. Um, and ended up getting asked to do, um, a church start and winter garden. And, um, this was 2002 and, uh, did that, did the church start. And, um, it was a lot of fun, man. And, and just really was kind of one of those things where we began just to tell people, we're not going to add, uh, church to your activity. We're going to help you be the church in your activity. And we really, it was like 2003, 2004, we started coming up. We, I don't know if, if, if other people were saying it or not, but we were just focusing on the metaphor of living sin and what that meant.

And so, um, we paired up with a few other guys in Lakeland and Tampa that started a network called reproducingchurches.com. It ended up being in 24 cities and helping to do a lot of church starting and church repurposing. Uh, we didn't mean to do that. We kind of stumbled into it. Um, and then I did some writing for that network that got published and live sense, stuff like that. Um, fast forward a little bit and we like, I love John's story. We, we, we had had a vision to be the church in the marketplace. So we started an S core that, that started a cafe that has multiple locations. We started an aquaponics farm that now has two locations as well as, is two in Africa. Um, all this stuff still going, it's really neat and incredible how those leaders have continued to go with it.

But in 2013, we got a curve ball. We ended up, uh, helping with a church repurpose situation in Mississippi. And then I got recommended to a church family in the Nashville area. Um, and it was odd because I, I wasn't really wanting to go back into the mega church side of things, but this church family was wanting to create multiple neighborhood churches that weren't video venue, but really loved their neighborhood. And so I was just hired to help kind of expand, um, their reach mainly because there were dying churches who were handing them keys and saying, we don't know what to do with our building. And so, you know, the church is a who, not a what. And so we just helped take the what and try to re-engage with the who and, and some cool things happened out of that.

So fast forward to 2020 and, um, you know, my COVID hits, my son graduates from college and we take him out West for a trip once everybody's traveling again. And, and I just felt like this, you know, I mean, everybody says God's never going to tell you to leave something unless you have something, but, um, I felt like he did. And so we exited, there was also your ship shipped with that mega church. And so we just felt like it was a good time to exit and get out of the way of whatever that, those, that new leadership would, might want to do. And so we did, we weren't the only one, but we did and, and, um, uh, four or five months later, I think it was, I started a company and I had already been messing around with crypto and investments and, um, it gotten into NFTs.

And, uh, and so I started a company called the decent co it's, um, life giving NFT, DAO, crypto and metaverse strategy. Uh, we also highlight, um, champions and innovators in the web three space through a podcast called Decentra five. And then we're doing some DAO investment concepts with some very specific everyday use case, um, utility, uh, with tech and with those communities. And so those are the things we're working on, but I love the church and I love the nonprofit world that I've done a lot of consulting and strategic leadership in. And, and so I, I, I, I about, uh, I don't know, I did take a break just being honest. Uh, we, everybody took a break during COVID, but we took an extended break.

Um, we helped a micro church start in a neighborhood here in town. Cause there's a lot of people in Nashville that are kind of saying, screw the church. And, uh, if I can say that. And so the, um, we're finding that some of the micro church concepts are engaging to Jesus followers as well as not Jesus followers. And so we encouraged that and that started and handed that off. And then we just dove back into the company and I just kept looking around going, I gotta, I gotta re-engage somewhere, but I don't, I just, I want to help the nonprofits and the churches not miss the decentralized opportunity because Jesus was decentralized. And so, you know, so how do we, how do we engage that way? Um, and, uh, but you know how that goes and, uh, you know, people want your time and, and so, you know, I'm, I'm doing the best I can with that as well as trying to pay the bills.

And, and so it just, it's just been a blast and we've launched some people, some acclaimed photographers and artists and singers, songwriters into the NFT space. We've done some tech concepts and companies, um, Ryan Tutter, for instance, somebody that we launched into the space. And so like, it's a, it's been a cool journey and we're just trying now to figure out, um, how do we, how do we go from here, but how do we also help the church and the big C church and nonprofits pay attention to what is available, but also what the natives of crypto and web three are doing because it's a cultural shift. I, I'm calling it the second Renaissance and a decentralized revolution. I don't know what anybody else is calling it, but I really think genuinely think we've begun, um, a second Renaissance and a decentralized revolution like the industrial revolution.

Yeah. Oh, there's some, some great equations there. And so you've got two micro guys, uh, John and Jason who are having this conversation, by the way, Justin's a micro guy. Um, Jay, I don't, I don't, I mean, I don't remember talking micro with you a couple of times that we've talked, but, uh, no, not too much, but it's interesting. So out of the five on here, and, and I often, I view digital as a decentralized model. And actually I feel more comfortable touting that model as opposed to, you know, the more typical digital approach. And, and so it's, it'll be an interesting conversation. I, and I, I totally want to come back to the, uh, Jesus and live say, I forget the word you said, but it's equated Christ towards a decentralized, uh, view of ministry.

And so that's, that's interesting. Maybe we'll come back to that at the end. Um, but Hey, let's, um, let's start to, to put some, uh, some meat on this, by the way, Justin, Jay, you guys have, have come in. Awesome. Uh, glad you're here. You get to represent, uh, like the average person here. So feel free to throw some questions in the chat. Um, somewhere along the way, we'll, we'll mix them in and probably open up for questions closer to the end. But, um, you know, John, uh, why don't you, why don't we start off with, with you a little bit, just even putting, cause remember, this is the intro level conversation. There's a lot of people who don't understand anything on, on blockchain or crypto and, and DAOs and, and any of the things that, that you guys are, are touting and running with.

So John, just maybe, uh, intro level here, blockchain, what, what exactly are, are we talking about when we say this? Um, yeah, that's a good question. Um, well, at some level, um, is a, let's just say it's a, there's a ledger. It's a ledger that is contained on, uh, many that we all hold that many nodes hold the same ledger, right? So it's, it's in some level, not, um, like manipulatable because it's replicated across so many different machines, right? Um, this is the, the innovation and the genius of what was really Bitcoin. And then a lot of things that have like followed suit. I, I, I've been particularly interested in what's been made possible by the Ethereum network, um, because they've taken ledger to a, let's just say a computer.

So they've, they've added programmability to this ledger that now is a computer that is able to make commitments and keep commitments that we are able to make commitments on. Um, and I'll just tease out a little bit here. What I think is really, uh, and I'm sure we'll get to this, but just to tease out some things that excite me about this is, you know, there's a lot of things we can look to in history. Um, so you have, there's things that we call law. There's things that we call code. Um, and, and these words are often interchangeable. Like you have the code of, uh, Hammurabi or whatever, right? You have the, the, a code of ethic, a code of conduct. And then, and then, but we think of coders like writing, writing code as well.

But we also have rules that we live by rules, commandments, precepts, things like this. And so there's actually ways in which we can now, because of these ledgers and because of this, um, let's say virtual machine that is being built across many, many computational devices. We have the ability to, um, encode commitments and convictions with one another. And I think, and I'll just leave it at this as a teaser presents major, uh, possibilities for a decentralized movement of Jesus people going, there's a, there's commitments that we want to make. There's convictions that we have. There's ways that governance should be distributed. There's ways that this isn't, this doesn't need to be centralized on some pastoral leadership figure, but that we can, as a body of Christ, uh, remain faithful to the people.

And I, and I go, I think this is, I believe, and I'm going to just add this, not as a technical answer, but go, John thinks that the, the blockchain emerging is part of the answer to our prayer. May your kingdom come. This is part, this is a tool that will be part of the fulfillment of the answer to that prayer. So, so, so for you, like it's, it's, it's to the level of. Deeply, um, theologically insignificant. Interesting. So, so the decentralization that, that has happened as a result of, uh, blockchain removing the authority away from the professional Christians or the priests and instead giving it back to the people, the accountability lying with the people through blockchain. You're viewing it as like kingdom come level type of thing.

I, I, I, yeah, I do. And I'm, by the way, this is, uh, for the, for the church construct, but also just like for the rest of the world, what I think the Bible discusses is the principalities and powers. Like this is gonna, this is gonna matter for every centralized power, every government, every institution, everything that exists. It's like, there is a way in which we've, we've relied on a strong man to guide and lead and whatever. And that is no longer gonna be the case, um, that, that power will be distributed. And we actually now have a tool to do it technically. And people have been trying to do this for thousands of years. We've been trying to figure out mechanisms for this. And we now have a tool that can do it.

And there is an apocalypse happening to everything we've, I mean, things that we thought would never be able to change are going to transform so rapidly because of this. And, and it's a wave that I don't think enough, I mean, people do not, they do not realize the import of what's about to happen and what is currently happening with the district, the distribution of will, um, that is taking place and the buckle up, buckle up for what's about to happen. Now, Jason, I, you know, I, I feel like I say blockchain and crypto, the two words side by side a lot. Do they, does crypto, does it, I know it operates outside of that, but is there a, is there a congruence where they operate together very well?

Or when you look at crypto, maybe even define what it is and, and talk some about what that relationship could be between blockchain and crypto. Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, uh, you know, the blockchain makes crypto possible. It's a currency. And, and, and I think that's one of the hurdles for mainstream adoption and even people that I think John may, he may disagree or agree. I don't know, but, but I agree with him that I think this is fundamentally core to who we are culturally and who we are as people. Um, and I, I, I really do think that the decentralized nature of it. So I want to say that up front. I, I, I love that, how he phrased that, um, from a standpoint theologically and, and just even from a humanity and existence standpoint.

But, but we, I think for humanity as a whole to rep, to, to welcome the blockchain and what it, what it offers, um, one of the hurdles among many is going to have to be realizing that the, that crypto is money. It's not, uh, it's, it's not monopoly money, nor is it, um, nor is it fake money. Uh, in fact, it actually happens probably not, no, let me rephrase that. There are select, uh, versions of it that actually have probably more legitimate legitimacy than the fiat dollar, than the yen or the pound or the ruble or the American or Canadian dollar or the euro. Um, but all that to say, if you really get purist as an economist, it's always about bartering. Right. Value, value is in what gets traded and what someone's willing to give for that trade, if that makes sense.

And so crypto is a currency that has been given value by what you're able to trade it for. And so the various blockchains that exist, and like John said, Bitcoin was the first, and, uh, it was, it was invented in 09, 08, 09. Um, it really got out in the open between 12 and 14. And then in 2017 is when Ethereum got out in the open, but in 2015 is when the, like the head of consensus, for instance, um, it's one of the big, uh, defined finance concepts. They, well, they build tech tools, but, uh, he was at a conference in 2015 where Ethereum was talked about. And one of the guys stood up and told all the banking executives there that all of their grandchildren were not going to have bank accounts.

They were going to have digital wallets either on their phone or their glasses. And all the bank execs laughed, right? So, um, when you talk about the strong man, one of the strong men is, is, and, and one, one that will be disrupted significantly in the, in this decentralized revolution will be the banking system. But why? Because it's a currency. I mean, and so like tomorrow, uh, Jeff tomorrow, um, the Senator that's from Wyoming and I'm drawing a blank on her name, but she's a part of a bipartisan group presenting. A bill before Congress to introduce crypto as a legitimate asset in the American financial system. And, and so it could be significant. I mean, I, you know, we'll see how people react.

I can tell you that there'll be a whole lot of voters in November that won't vote for people that don't take crypto seriously. But, but again, I say that not to make a political statement. I say it to the answering question that it's just money, right? Like that's what crypto is. And so the blockchain is like the checkbook for it, right? It's just happens to be a public checkbook and it's a public checkbook that isn't held by one person, but is actually validated and reconciled by multiple people all over the world. It's almost like, remember when we used to get, remember when text messages, or even beepers, right? Remember if you had a beeper? Remember when beepers were around, or if you had, when text message first came out and people would start sending chain text, right?

And they would say, hey, I'm sending this to you, you send this to 10 people, and so on and so forth. That's kind of a simple way to understand the blockchain. It's not that, but it's that kind of thinking. I'm going to, I'm going to send out this, this, this transaction and multiple people are going to reconcile and validate this transaction in this ledger. And like John said, Ethereum was, was a layer one is, is the term people use. It's another blockchain like Bitcoin. And then now there are multiple blockchains, just like there'll be multiple metaverses, which is another conversation. But, but there are multiple blockchains. So you've got Bitcoin and Ethereum are the two main ones. And then each blockchain has a cryptocurrency that is native as the, as the money that exchanges on their, on their blockchain.

Does that make any sense? It does, and I don't want to overstate or understate, but like, you know, VR, you're looking at a very technologically savvy world, environments, the headsets, that stuff. Augmented reality, if it comes out, like, you know, I was kind of hoping Apple would roll it out today. Of course it doesn't work that way, but you know, the tech that's going to come into this is, is going to be, is going to be huge blockchain and crypto. What you're talking about is a, is a, a sharing of global databases and, and registrar registries. And like, this doesn't seem like it's, um, technologically advanced as much as very disruptive because of the decentralized nature. Is, is that a, an accurate view?

I don't want to speak for John. My answer to that would be that the two people that I have huge respect for in the blockchain and the DAO space, both. Um, when they first read the white paper on Bitcoin, what made one of them go to the executives of Citibank in 2014 and say, we need a crypto division. And they let this guy start it in 2014. And you don't know that. And no one knew it at the time because that's how ahead of his time he was. But, but when he did that, why did he do it? Because of, it was a financial tech stack. It was a financial con, it was a technological concept that radically changed how everything can be created and distributed and, um, and owned together. And that's the key.

I think, I think the, like an act, it's not just social distribution and acts when they shared all with all who had need. I don't want to speak for John, but I would imagine that's even part of that theological construct of what this decentralized opportunity allows. And so, um, because it allows for not just the central church institution to manage money, but for the body of believers to trust in each other because of the public ledger to be able to share resources together in a way that they've never been able to. So in that sense, it is a technological revolution, um, a very revolutionary advance, um, and as it becomes true, truly computerized, that's the next phase. And there's really only two blockchains even doing that, but, but as it truly becomes computerized on the chain, I'm not talking about on Amazon web services, but as it becomes truly, truly computerized on, on the blockchain, it'll even drastically all offer even more opportunity.

And so I'm not trying to get too technical when I say that, I just want to say it is, it is, it is very much technological advance, um, that offers opportunities that we've never had before. Interesting. John, do you have a take on that? Well, yeah. And, and, and, and this isn't as technologists, right? So like, okay. Like, I mean, when it comes down to it, like there may not be some, I mean, honestly, people that know Java could easily learn solidity. Like there's a, there's an easy move over. Right. So maybe there's, there's at some level, it is not wildly like complicated technology or something like that. However, it is revolutionary technology that has never existed. So like there's an extremely important element to this technology because it is now possible to have real immutable decentralized digital identity.

Identity. Which for those of you that are interested in metaverse with replaceable avatars, something like a passport, something like a verifiable identity is going to matter significantly. Yep. And then, and then this now it adds, so it adds to what is existing, what you're familiar with in like, let's say VR, all of the technological advancements. It adds a settlement layer of truth to the digital world that has never before been possible. Um, so, so like your kids buy digital skins on Fortnite and with those assets, they like, those exist on centralized servers, but they can't be taken into another game. They're not meta. They're not meta, which means to transcend, right? So I, I actually don't like the, the phrase is like, there's going to be multiple metaverses because meta transcends.

So like, I'm like, Oh, actually meta itself is some way of it's theologically speaking. It's like the thing that transcends all of these places. And so there, those are just features in a game, those skins in Fortnite, those features in a game. But with the rise of blockchain, like Ethereum, we have the ability to create a registry of non fungible items, items that it's now possible to take with you from one platform to another. And this is, this is actually why I would say it does not work to say a metaverse as if there's many metaverses. There are many games, there are many VR experiences, there are many centralized servers, but what web three and what blockchain is making possible is the metaverse.

A thing that can actually exist in, in, in a way that is verifiable and has a layer of truth, a settlement layer of truth, which, which, which changes everything you think that you're doing in your headset. Okay. So blockchain is the API, the software development kit, the thing that allows the connectivity among, um, platforms among worlds, um, where now I can buy a hat on Oculus. That's what I'm wearing in, in over here. That's what my avatar, it looks like over here. And so it's, it's this glue that is connecting the different individual worlds, metaverses, whatever the term is, but it's, it's gelling all of that together. And it's based off of, uh, money that's based off of crypto, um, you know, connecting.

And so like there's, uh, you know, Ethereum has been the one that you've said a couple of times. I don't know that they're, they've got their presence. Um, is, so does, is Ethereum's different than blockchain? I'm sorry. Then, then, then Bitcoins, like, are there different meta crossing level platforms or like, uh, blockchains or is there one blockchain? Like what's, what's the language? What's the consistency when you're looking at some of these? Is there competition in that space? So, yes, there is, um, substantial, I would say, but like, I, I'll say this and then I'm sure Jason probably has more knowledge of this, but I'll just say this. Bitcoin does one thing and it does one thing really well and it's never going away.

And if you want to equate it to your financial systems, it's like gold. It's like, it has it, it has the ability to hold value and it does that. And it's stupid in that way. Like, it's actually a brilliant, it's a brilliant mechanism to do something very stupid, which is like, it just holds value. The innovation of Ethereum, which, uh, Vitalik that came out of Bitcoin, like he was like a, he, he was one of the first writers for Bitcoin magazine. He like was a Bitcoin programmer who goes, wait, we could do a whole bunch of other shit here. Wait, I'm sorry. I don't know. This is a church network digital podcast. I don't know. That word, that word, that word is actually in Philippian. That word is actually in Philippians three.

So you're good. You're good. All right. Well, I got other words for you that might not be in your, in your text, but we, we, we got, so we can do a bunch of other stuff here and we can actually build a programmable, uh, computer that exists in this place. So Ethereum then presents an entirely new thing now with smart contracts, which is what makes things like DAOs possible, which is what gives honestly, which is what grabbed my attention. Because I go the money side of this money. It is money. There is money currency related here. That is the least interesting thing about this to me, but it is the primary driver of what's going to make it work. Like you have to have tokenization and monetary because it's a monetary construct.

It's actually like the, it's the super app that's going to make the, the, the protocol, um, survive and work. Um, but, but, but what it makes possible for community development, what it makes possible for organization and governance, what it makes possible is insane. And then basically everything else you ever heard of, honestly, this isn't 100% true, but almost everything you've heard of that's like blockchain or different tokens are built on Ethereum. So Ethereum is the EVM, the, the, the ethereal virtual machine and almost every other token with some, with their, there's exceptions that are built as ERC twenties, which is like tokens built on the back of Ethereum. So Ethereum, it, in my estimation is that like base layer one of all of these things that are existing.

Cause if you look at even the top five tokens, uh, like transaction stuff that's happening, they're all Ethereum, it's Ethereum. And then it's four other things built on top of Ethereum. So I think that's significant. Um, and I, and I pay a lot of attention to the Ethereum space. And so I don't spend a lot of time on like Solana or Bitcoin or these other things, but like, I'm also not that interested in like being a trader. I'm interested in being like a, uh, settler, a pioneer, uh, like I'm gonna, I'm, I want to move in. Like, I'm like, this is part of the world that I'm invited into. And I'm, I'm trying to like build my home here. So you're not looking at this as, um, you know, financial restitution.

You're not trying to make a buck. Every dollar this is. And by the way, this is advice. Like I would recommend for people because I don't have a lot of money. Every dollar that I've put in, I have considered tuition because we are quite comfortable paying for education. And I go, buy an education. So when something goes to zero, you bought a lesson. When something does really well, that's great. You got a cherry on top of your class. But like every dollar that I've invested in, even with my wife, like we do not have money for this, but I'm like, I am not going to not know how to swim when this tide comes in. And it's coming, it's coming. So I'm going to learn how to swim and I'm going to buy my lessons.

And that's how I look at this. And I do not care about finances. Like that's not what's interesting to me at all. Jason. All right. So let me ask this. Let's, let's, let's go into application mode here. What does this practically look like for, for a church? I'm a physical church. I'm a digital church. I'm a church in any given corner. You can probably convince me, hey, my church needs to take crypto to make a buck. But that almost seems like that's a very limited scope of really what we're talking about. How, how does the church utilize this stuff? That's a great question. I mean, I think, I think there's a lot more than three ways, but for the sake of time and conciseness, I'll throw out three suggestions.

You said one, which is not one of the three that I would throw out. Although, although I don't think it's a bad idea. You know, like, for example, if you want to move money around the world without paying astronomical banking fees to the central banking people, then put your money in Stellar or Ripple and send it somewhere else. Because there's now 70 countries that will settle it for you, right? So, now that's off of the Ethereum blockchain, but it's built in to the money. Like, Ripple right now, in November of this year, 24 countries will announce a shift from the SWIFT financial system, which has been in use for decades. And they'll announce a movement off of it for the movement of international money.

And Ripple won't be the only answer, but there'll be one of the answers. And they've been at the last, I think, six, now five or six global economic summits. And so, that's the not one of the three ways I would suggest, but just churches do need to understand and nonprofits need to understand that there are ways to leverage and make more money of their money for their constituents, for their donors, but also for the people that they're helping. And so, let's go there for a second. That's one of the three suggestions. If you truly have a heart to take the gospel of Jesus into any culture, and I'm talking about whether it's in the universe or the metaverse, right? If you truly have a heart to do that, but you never think about bankless societies, then you don't understand our world.

Because the majority of the people who are even a part of this network have never even been in a bankless society. And so, but a huge amount of our population on Earth lives in a bankless society. And what the blockchain is allowing and what this technology allows is for a bankless society to still engage in a global economy. So, what's currently known as the global financial system will soon, within the next five years, be known as the quantum financial system. And the quantum financial system will engage multiple cultures that have never been engaged in the banking systems of the world. And you might say, well, why does that matter? Well, because the church has a heart for multiple cultures, right?

Why? Because Jesus has a heart for multiple cultures. And so, like, I think if Jesus came today, I think you'd pay attention to the metaverse. Why? Because a whole lot of people who are really questioning their identity, security, and purpose are seeking community there in a way that they can't find it anywhere else. And if you don't believe me, then just pay attention for the next week. Just do this experiment. Go engage for the next week in a metaverse, in metaverse concepts and communities, in the metaverse. And we can give examples of that if we need to. But go engage there and listen for the word hope. Because it's used all the time. And so, I say, this is important. If the church cares about multiple cultures, whether they're in the universe or the metaverse, this technology is going to allow them to engage in a way that provides opportunities to break cycles of poverty, that provides opportunities to live in a native way, in a place where their fiat money will not work very well.

So, you've got all kinds of dynamic at play. But if you care, that's one of the three ways I would suggest. If you care about people of various cultures the way Jesus does, then this technology is going to allow you to engage with people who have a bankless society. Whether they've chosen, because they've entered a metaverse that has a different financial structure, or whether they were born into one that doesn't have it. And I can shut up there if you want, if John wants to rebuke or add to that. John's broken his head. You got anything you want to add to that, John? No, I think so. I think I'll, I'll, I'll, I go amen and continue to lead us on. John, yield the time to the, to the gentleman from New Orleans.

So, go ahead. So, the second thing I would suggest is, and this is the one where I think people, this is, this will stretch what's known as the clergy. We have to decide that the, the, the purpose and the vision and the mission of the individual people that make up our congregations matters more than our own ambitions. And this technology gives us an opportunity to establish multiple representations and expressions of what on earth as it is in heaven could look like. Through the engagement of a few people at a time who say, I care about this. And this technology gives us a chance to, in a trustless way, a way that doesn't need all of the, the crappy, you know, monster-like mechanical management systems that we thought mattered.

And in the institutional church, this technology allows us to distribute funds in such a way or even allows those people to put their money together in a DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization that allows them to then go after specific purposes. And there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's a lot of ways you can think of the DAO and we don't probably have time tonight to go into all of that, but, but one of those ways is a joint venture LLC. You can have a legal entity connected to your DAO. And, and so you, I mean, you could see multiple expressions of kingdom of God people, uh, with this technology in a way that you could never see before. And, um, you could see them do bank accounts on their own, but we, we know that happened, right?

Like we know that in the seventies when the, when the prayer church organizations began to really launch and really become significant, it was because the shepherd and the teacher wouldn't let the ape have a voice in the room, right? So the apostle, prophet, and evangelist left, gave all their money to these prayer church organizations, which they should have just been honest, the shepherds and teachers and said, you're really just starting more expressions of the church, but that's another ecclesiological conversation. And, and, and so, so in that process, though, now what we're about to see are marketplace leaders who are fed up of giving their money with the shepherds and teachers who don't know how in the world to invest it for kingdom purposes.

And they're going to start doing it themselves. And this technology is going to allow that. And then, and then the third thing that I would throw out there that I think is incredibly significant as though those other two aren't, but I, I, I, I, I really believe. And, and, and this may go back even into the theological construct that John mentioned earlier. I really believe that people who Jesus, like you don't, you, if I take Matthew 25 seriously, I'm not going to go be Jesus's hands and feet to the least of these. If I take seriously what he's saying, I might see him in the eyes of them instead of them seeing him in me. He says, when you did it to them, you did it to me. This technology is going to allow us to move resources in ways where we're going to literally be able to give it to the least of these to do things that they've never been able to do and never been able to engage in before.

And it doesn't, people don't need money to matter. But, but, but in, but in certain societies, I'll put it that way, helping someone deal with emotional stress and trauma, and at the same time, giving them a safe place to exist will radically alter the very way that they can engage in the world. And to give people the chance to do that, this technology and the cryptocurrency that comes with it, is going to allow us to empower people in a way that really takes Matthew 25 to another level. And we might actually, instead of giving it to the institutional church, give our money to Jesus, because he said, when we gave it to the least of these, we gave it to him. That's probably going to piss some people off, but there you go.

I mean, there, there's, there's a lot that's there. Um, and I thought the idea of virtual reality church was controversial, but you just, just, you just squatting a whole bunch of people right there. Uh, John, any kind of response or feedback off of that? No, I agree. I mean, I, I, listen, I'll tell you this when, so I had this acid trip and I came to Jesus. And then I, I, I, what I did was I started reading the new Testament and then I talked a bunch of dudes into moving into a house together in the inner city of Tampa between two housing projects out of a conviction that if, you know, I looked at like the Bible, like Matthew 25, like he's referencing, like, as like a where's Waldo puzzle. Like if I'm going to find Jesus, um, I'm going to look where the clues he gave me.

And he said, um, I was arrested. I was poor. I was without clothes. I was, you know, I, and so I was like, all right, I'm going to go to the hardest neighborhood in our city. And I talked at the time, I think it was like seven dudes into moving into a house together. We were in college and I was like, all right, what we'll do is we will buy this very cheap house or rent this very cheap house and we can pool our money. Um, so we were able to live on like a hundred bucks a month each because it, we, we lived a ton of us in one house. Cause we're like, well, poor people all over the world do this. Like we could do this too. We, um, pooled our money and we pooled way beyond rent. So we pooled rent, electricity, all the utilities.

We pooled groceries and then we pooled beyond that. So we didn't pool everything we had, but we pooled a lot. And we pooled a percentage of money that was just like common purse. Like we share this money. And what I witnessed was there was like, you know, just under a dozen of us. And we would meet every Sunday night and we would say, all right, we have a couple things we really care about. So we had a, we, we wrote, Oh, we called the declaration of interdependence. And we had this, uh, I actually have a copy of it hanging on my wall over here, but we wrote this like letter of convictions and we measured ourselves on it. And we said, you know, like we took seriously things like MLK saying like a budget is a moral document.

You say you care about these things. So print out your credit card statement and tell me what you actually value. And so we were like, well, if we say we value our neighbors, we should put some money into caring for our neighbors. And if we say we value like ecological stuff, we should put money into like investing in things that help us get off the grid. Or so we built like a solar water heater that we put on our roof or, you know, just this, that, and the other, like experiments, just like, let's just try these things. And I don't think any of them are wildly significant in the impact on the world, but they were wildly significant in their impact on us. And we met every Sunday and we're like, Oh, we invested more in projects around the property than we did in like neighbors, like Fred next door, whose roof is leaking.

Is that how we want this to read? And so then when I heard of DAOs, I was like, Oh, this is what we were trying to do forever. Yeah. We were a proto-DAO. We were, we, we, and by the way, it's what I think the early church was. It's like, okay, look, we're going to get together. We're going to pool some resources. We're going to say, what is God calling us to do? We're going to, we're going to, it's a priesthood of all believers. We're not leaning on any one individual to centralize trust and power. We're going to say, God, God wants us to love Fred. Fred's roof's leaking. We should fix Fred's roof. And then we should invite Fred over to dinner and we should throw a block party, invite everyone over to celebrate that Fred's roof isn't leaking, whatever.

And let's do that. And we'll spend some money. And so we would vote. We would say, all right, this is what we think we should do. We would vote. And, and incidentally, like we had a dude named Will that lived there. Will held all the money and Will did what we said. And he did. He was a good dude and he did what we said. But the vulnerability of that entire system is on trusting a human being to hold power and authority and the month, the funds and whatever. And we can remove with blockchain that third party necessity. This can be written into a contract now. And we can actually organize. And what I was able to do with 12 guys in a house, I can now do with people in 12 countries around the world.

I can now do, I can now do at scale what we did in this house. And I think there's never been, I mean, for good or for ill, we can do whatever we want with this technology. It's agnostic. But there's never been a greater gift to the people of God for unity and organization and the priesthood of all believers and the eradication of institutional centralized leadership, which I believe has been a problem since its inception. Like, Rome said, we're Christian and Christianity ceased to exist as far as I'm concerned. Like, that has been a problem since day one. And we can now realistically do something about that. Like, the three of us right now can decide to pool funds and vote and choose what we're going to do with that money.

And we can move mountains with the funds that we can pull available. And then you couple that with churches meeting in virtual space without boundaries of, like, we're in California or we're in North Carolina, but we can come together across all of these places and align around a common prayer and a vision for the kingdom of God. There has never been anything in human history that has been a more hopeful tool given to the people of God. And if we don't respond with responsibility and intentionality, I just think we're fools and full of blindness and sin. Yeah, that's the burden that compels me too, John. And I think that's, and I've said this before, but I think we pray a lot of prayers that Jesus never asked us to pray, but we don't pay attention to the prayer that he prayed.

And I agree with you that this tool may give us a chance to become an answer to it. That we may have been one? Yeah, toward the maturing of our oneness so that people might believe in the one who is sent. And I think, I think in that sense, it truly is. I mean, again, decentralized. Like our network, when we talked about living sent, for instance, in 2007, whatever, we were talking about decentralized. Like you were just how you had a DAO in your house, right? Like we were talking about decentralized, but, you know, Jeff, you were talking about this in 01 when you started doing what you were doing, even in the various ways you engaged already, way ahead of your time, way ahead of anyone else's time in that space.

And I think, I think, I think that's going to be, it's crazy how the technology conversation shifts to this, but this, this is the real dilemma to be candid is, are we really serious about equipping the everyday person, not the clergy, but the everyday person, truly equipping them to be able to be disciples who make disciples wherever they go, including the metaphors. And, and, and I don't mean, I don't mean just evangelists who go show up and sit, stand next to someone at a metaverse art gallery and strike up a conversation. I mean, you go be a native, you move into the neighborhood, like John one says with that Jesus did and, and the, and the way that you could exist there. Not everyone's going to be a feel called to that.

And that's okay. It's more than okay. But I agree, John, I think, I think we're irresponsible if, if we don't pay attention to it and don't equip some of our people to live in a very honorable way there. And when I say honorable, let me be clear. I don't mean even just honorable to each other. I mean, honorable to the people there who are not believers in Jesus. And, and so I think that's the, that'll be an interesting dilemma and how we engage with this technology, but it's here. The tipping point has already happened. Like the tipping point, if you don't believe me, let me just throw this stat out to you. Last year, Ethereum moved more money than Visa. Really? I was not aware of that. Last year, 2021, Ethereum moved more money than Visa.

So, so is it here? Yes. The answer is yes. It's in here. Like you, like you, it's not, this isn't a, we're going to get there. There is zero question. It's a wrap. It is written. And the number of developers on Polygon, on, which is a layer to Ethereum that John was talking about things that are built on the back of Ethereum. I mean, the number of developers in those layer two spaces are off the chart. They can't hire engineers quick enough. And so actual things are being built that are now affecting everyday lives. And, and, and so it's, you know, we're, we've got to, that's the, that's the burden is how do we help people get into that and engage with it? I'm going to wrap, but I could be here another day, another hour.

And so round two, three, four, five. I'm good to go. Yeah. This, you guys feed well off each other. You know, John's like the burn it down and Jason's kind of like the, you know, the, the explaining it. It's good chemistry. You guys should probably. I've enjoyed it, John. I have. Thank you, Jeff, for, for having us, letting us be a part and Jay and Justin too. Thank you guys for hanging. Totally. So, yeah, we'll do this again soon. And, you know, Jason's got his channel in, in fam talking about this stuff. And so I want to highlight that. John's got his podcast on Spotify. I put the link in there as well. But, yeah, we want to continue this conversation and work through it. I'm, I, I, a perennial student here, kind of, kind of learning myself in this.

And so love the opportunity, just John, Jason, thanks for taking the time. Thank you. Justin J. Man, there's a lot of J's in this room right now. It's kind of confusing. 100% J. 100% J in the room. And we even got a J representing the J. No, this is good. But, hey, for, for John, Jason, we're going to wrap. Thanks, everybody, for hanging out with this roundtable. We're going to do it again here really soon. Next week is World Building, I think, with Michael Ustavinis. So he'll be, he'll be in talking about some of that. But definitely looking forward to more in this, on this topic soon. So thanks, y'all. Y'all have a good day. Thank you. Appreciate y'all.