Pioneering the Ownership Economy with Bill Lee of Dual Mint

[Music] welcome back to another episode of the real world assets show today we have Bill Lee from doul Min he's the CTO and co-founder and Dolan's driving the

ownership economy they're redefining how Brands connect with their loyal fans and quite a few incentives and appreciations how they can earn tangible Rewards and Bill welcome to the show I know we

have a lot of things to talk about you're working with several exciting Brands but uh wanted to First just say hey welcome and and we'll get into it

thanks tra it is really great uh to be here on your show we met each other and in Austin and it was uh pretty exciting to actually find people with the same

type of passion you know real real assets even though it's such a narrative during this cycle it's actually not very easy to find people echoing your your

your your your thoughts and your beliefs thank you and the feeling is mutual and I you know I hear that a lot and I I say that a lot it's it's surprising like you said it's you know

you you see these these uh charts and stats or things on Twitter like hey you know RW are second to meme coins in the sense of narratives and interest and

demand but in this in the real like you know again just the pun intended the real world aspect of it and the real world adop of it is still a lot of us in the trenches and and really sorting

through a lot of the noise so I you know I agree it was great to great to meet you at consensus in Austin and uh one of your partners as well and you know I I I know we spent like about a day trying to

kind of connect and I was really thankful that we were able to to have a sit down meeting and and chat more so yeah um yeah yeah yeah yeah so so thanks for coming I I know you've shared quite

a bit of things over some discussions we've had offline but let's talk a little bit about how how you got into this you know uh even before dual Min like what I know that you're the CTO you're coming at this from a from a

technical aspect and also like an entrepreneur but I'd love to know more yeah um you know as you can tell you know with all my gray hair I'm uh you know a Gen X so I'm quite a bit you

know older than the people who are doing this stuff right now I do have a technology background I study computer science and then I have a pretty much a

full career in different you know tech companies large and small startups uh I used to live in the US so I've worked in many companies in Silicon Valley or

actually back in east coast in the field offices so I H I have a tech background and then for a couple of years I I moved back to Hong Kong I was transferred back by one of the tech company uh at the time it was an Enterprise search company

that eventually got bought out by Microsoft and then I took a few years off from Tech because and actually helped my family because my dad's Health

wasn't doing too well so so I was I was doing um the the bra business our family is in the bra business so um I went from one type of software to the other kind

of software and now I'm back into uh you know the the the you know the the original type of software that uh that

that I'm doing so I mean to to kind of this you know so at the time I had I had a I was doing a startup in data privacy data privacy and I had a customer at the

time which was a legal document framework solution company similar to what DocuSign is at the time so one day were kind of like having a beer you know

uh and CH chitchatting and that was really during the first craze of the whole nft boom right so people were paying like you know I don't know $2

million for a JPEG so you know we were looking at each other we're you know I'm I'm a bit older he's he's not young either um like do you understand this you know nft thing you know I mean why

why are people like paying so much for these like you know pixelated you know pictures I have no idea right we look at each other it's like no we don't don't understand but you know maybe we can use

it for something else because I mean when we looked at the technology is actually kind of interesting it's great for obviously it's blockchain you know the whole distributed architecture and all that stuff but it's really great for

proving ownership and proving scarcity for example so we thought hey you know you have a tech uh you have a legal legal document management framework why don't we see if we can leverage the

legal side of things and and sort of do something together so that's kind of how it all got started like at you know obviously many many business start started a bar with with a few drinks

right um and and the back of a napkin so that was about two two uh you know two and a half year two years ago two and a half years ago and then we sat down and said you know hey you know if we if we

look at the legal side of things maybe we can sort of apply this thing marry it together and work with like real world assets that was actually what we're actually talking about like how do we

you know tie that into actual real world assets so originally we saw very early on that the problem with nft well it's great for digital assets right but if

you want to translate that into the real world the first thing that is a is is a limitation is that there's no fall back into the real world um you know like uh

if something hits a fan you know you have nothing to protect you in the in the real world like all that stuff is great you know it's on the blockchain but what are you going to do if you know somebody scams you or run away with your

money which actually it did happen from from the crash right so we we decided to sort of frame this thing you know how to how to how to how to uh leverage the the the legal framework document management

framework to do this that's why we sort of named the project dual mint we kind of you know sat down and decided if we wanted to apply both Providence on the onchain with the Providence offchain

what is a good name you know Doom Min you know you you mint but it's you know applying to both a real world as well as onchain right so we came up with doom Min and then we came up with this whole

idea of the Dual provenance which is essentially the the core of what we're trying to trying to build right so dual profen on is an idea where we can have

two-way linkage between an online profit ons with a real world profit ons and the real world profit on can be you know it could be simple like a j certificate you

know for for diamond or it could be as complex as you know any legal um you know contracts that you

work with with with the underlying parties right so with the what we call ecosystem partner in place you know we

have a way to basically import you know legal documents or what have you and have a workflow to include all the stakeholders that might be interested in

shaping this real world Providence what it should look like and at the end we can basically digital sign it and then you know using it as a metadata on chain taking the metad data uh taking the

actual hash and putting it back into the actual Prof knots right so now you have have a two-way linkage so that was like sort of the first step so but we thought hey you know but then but then the

problem is if we're looking at real world asset it's not just about taking a picture of it and putting it on some glorified what we call distributed

marketplace right because that's not really to me at least it's not really supporting real assets because there are a lot of different things that real world assets needs needs needs touch

points to be supported on right like for example like it might need Logistics it might need authentication anti anti-counterfeiting you know maybe even

Insurance uh appraisers what have you any anything right so so the second thing we we looked at is how do we how

do we address this being a startup right obviously we have limited resources like you know don't want to spend too much of our own nest egg into this thing right

so so we thought of hey instead of building it ourselves you know since we already have using this ecosystem framework might as well recruit other

ecosystem Partners so we went out and looked for a few more Partners right so we found we found a logistics partner we found a uh lifesty enter lifestyle and

entertainment uh investment partner and we found a anti-c condra fitting solution partner that is actually a very interesting story in itself because it's a passport grade anti- counterfeiting

solution that is being used in many passports around the world it's it's based on hologram holographic well I can't really do it justice because I mean I you know the the it's it's it's a

it's a passport grade holographic and a counterfeiting solution so with that we we we basically have the first ecosystem

partnership that we can sort of you know really put in place and support a a very amount of real world asset out there because we have Logistics we have counterfeiting we have legal right

obviously we we're continuing to want to to to um to uh you know recruit other ecosystem Partners so if any listeners out there who are you know have

Solutions and want to join our ecosystem feel free to contact us and we're we're very happy to to speak to you guys so that's essentially very quick you know

few minutes overview of how we sort of got started here in the in the rwa space I love that I mean I think well first off I just to to the end of what you

mentioned I mean Partnerships in rwa is is critical I mean and and I believe that in any business I mean it just it's not my first rodo either so businesses I've been involved with it's been very

clear that Partnerships uh typ relationships uh are key but also in rwa as you know this is one of this is a very unique time and a very unique place and I think to to our point at the

beginning about how it's nice to find people that are passionate about this and are are building it's also one of the most giving and most you know just non-competitive type of spaces because even if people are building similar

things or they're involved in some similar things or there's some overlap everyone seems to have a very giving first type mentality which is great so I love that and and I will say you know and I think that that was a perfect

origin story of of understanding where you are you know where you're going how you you know uh we'll get into what what accomplishments you've had and even some of the pivots and and that's what one of the nice things as you're building is

you kind of learn these things because we're early in this this adoption phase and you know there's there's pivots that will happen um but I will say just one funny as side you went from the bra

business to the back of a napkin to to block yeah I love that and also like I have to at least call out that you know there's two holes in a bra so

dual like it's a dual mint so you know I guess I don't know like you might still be at bring that into rwa ownership profile rewards at some point so who knows but you know you never know how

these these backgrounds we have turn into other things but anyway I I'm digressing but I you know I like to to to call that out but let's talk a little bit about like some of the projects I we've talked quite a bit about some of

the brands that you working with some of the projects I know some you're not able to kind of get into full details about but let's really talk about some of the specific things you're doing at duelm

now I know you know with the technology you're calling these real asset tokens and you have several Brands and and stages you're working with them but I'll kind of give the floor to you to to which direction you want to go first

with that but I I know that I'm super excited about all the brands that you you've talked to me about yeah I I think you know I I maybe touch base on a little bit of the on the pivot side that

you mentioned you know originally we started and we we wanted to focus on just Collectibles right um so you know like art like you know like maybe a bottle of whiskey um you know rare

whiskey maybe rare watches you know things like that Antiques and something that is very easy to understand now we we we started doing that and that's kind

of interesting but then we also started brainstorming obviously you know we wanted to expand the Horizon like because with the framework we can basically apply with a lot of stuff so

we see ourselves not like a product specific U platform we want our we aspire to be sort of the the blueprint

for people to actually bring on board we you know real world assets onto onto web 3 right so so we want to not only work

with the physical Collectibles so what we what now we're seeing ourselves as as a real world asset tokenization platform that supports both tangible and

intangible product so tangible product is easy to understand it's kind of like you know the stuff I just kind of mentioned intangible could be like things like IP wrs it could be like future earnings it could be you know

project financing and then it becomes very it becomes a lot more interesting because you can actually structure many different things very differently because it's not just a

piece of product that you you put on top right it could be like a membership it could be you know a lot of a lot of different things so we find that it's

becoming you know more of what we are as as as a project focusing on and you mentioned actually a bunch so so we have like actually now dabbling into like

many different areas we are are doing a lot of projects in the ESG related areas so you know we're working with different local governments around the world

obviously smaller countries um with which we have you know connections to to do things like so you know tokenizing solar panels tokenizing one interesting project is actually on our site is

called E wash where a company is trying to is not not trying to they're actually doing it they're replacing all the energy inefficient washing machines around universities you know when you know when you go to school you have to

wash your you have to wash your clothes and then you know usually you know you have to put in quarters or in the US um and then you you do a 45 minute wash and

and 45 minute drying but a lot of these machines are outdated they're not energy efficient so this company is going around and and replacing these and then

they want to tokenize them so that you know they can the token holders actually earn a good portion of the return that is generated by these washing machines so

it has so the washing machine is obviously energy Vision it actually has a self dispenser for the detergent so you don't you know the students don't need to carry around these plastic

bottles and throw it away so it's it's very like eco-friendly so we have a a bunch we're working with like so this is a very interesting project you know it's

it's it's TW guaranteed 25% yield um a year um and you know you're doing something good we want to kind of work on project that has a lot of like

interesting stories behind it you know you generating So you you're kind of like buying into this or or into this community not buying but you're you're you're part of a community where you

want to you know contribute to you know Green energy or whatever it is like something meaningful but you also get some return on the things that you're working on there are actually a bunch of

other projects that are you know very different and interesting so the this is kind of like I gave you some examples on ESG related projects we also working with an immersive opportunity in

southeast one of the where we will be bringing in a immersive experience for the whole country with this artist called Gustaf climp and we are putting

out a product product called advertise and earn where you know we can the advertisers essentially uh earn a a return for

advertising plus free tickets for for the duration of the uh of the show so it's kind of like project financing uh type structure um that we're doing another one that is really interesting

uh you know us bound is we're working with a NEPA Valley um uh cult wine that is that has already like you know it

just it's a very young brand that I think just formed I think the 10 15 years ago 10 years ago and it's now has already won a lot of awards they are

selected to be one of the eight pores in in Davos next January so you know it it's very high-profile Elon Musk is doing something with them uh as well so

we're using our they're using our technology the Anon fitting technology plus our blockchain to solve a whole bunch of you know address a whole bunch

of things in in in in I can't really be going into too much details because it's hasn't hasn't been released but it's going to be very exciting once it does and this solution is going to he I think

the they will be presenting this in novels um to you know a lot of the the the the leaders over there so you know that's just just a you know just a very high level overview of some of the

projects that we're involved with because with frame framework we're actually attracting a lot of these interesting projects um around plus you know you know the the the the founders

actually have pretty pretty good like network of uh of businesses so that's how we can also Source some of these interesting projects as well yeah I think to your point the type of people

that you're going to attract to typically are a Forward Thinking open to do you know like you're not gonna always attract a winery although I've seen really really strong blockchain use with

just more the transparency of wine production for example like the QR code type of idea on blockchains y but you'll find you know you won't find you know maybe wineries have been around for a

hundred years as interested always in immediately going to blockchain you might but I mean it's nice these you know cult-like newer brands that um are open to this and adopting early is is

great I mean because it it aligns really well with your ethos as well and you know I think to your point it's the where this is going is just the ownership economy as as you guys label

so well on on the beginning of the say on the this really is the future it's you know in web 2 we had points and reward systems and apps you know like you get a few points here and there and

you know it's argued that 90% of people don't take advantage of their rewards but yeah I'm completely on board with web 3 is a complete Game Changer when it

comes to incentives aligned incentives whether it's tokens whether it's you know ownership uh whether it's specific rewards they're significantly more uh aligned because as

you mentioned not only the way you're aligning with projects based on your ethos and based on you know exciting opportunities and and kind of like the public good aspect of some of these is

that that's how investors you know the average investor in the future not you know not uh a credit investor type of idea necessarily but regular investors that are looking to align with their

you know with what they want they they want to see in the world you know do they want an energy efficient World they want a more green you know sustainability might be their biggest area that they want to focus on so yeah I like how you're tying these together

and the fact that they're being asset agnostic and I I've talked to a lot of projects this way and I think you're building the tech you're figuring out how the tech you're making the tech work you're meeting projects where they are

in in their web to world and you're you're providing that bridge you know you're providing that you know API so to speak I actually I think this is very

important I think you know the first wave of rwa is obviously being led by all the financial assets right you know which is pretty natural because the the dollar value is a lot higher the

transactions are a lot more but collectively speaking actual real asset obviously is a much bigger Market but you know it's great that you know people like black companies like black rock is

actually leading the charts and putting this whole concept of rwa into markets right but then like you know I I I I really strongly

believe in order to sort of in order for web 3 to become like mainstream you know actual real asset like the stuff that we're working on has to eventually participate because a lot

of times right now it's still you know the the I guess the complaint is still a zero some game right because basically it's all you know crypto money going from left pocket to the right pocket

maret right we in order to sort of attract New Capital into the ecosystem you really need to start you know having

business use case that applies to the rest of you know the rest of the you know the the the industry like all the other things and and we're trying to do

our part in bringing on like interesting projects with interesting you know uh yeah it's all it's all it's all about the story line you know I mean

uh just like this conversation we have on the podcast I mean it's it's really about having these stories what you know and um presenting that you know getting the word out and a lot of it it's way

more interesting if there's a great backstory and a and a great application and to your point I think the unlock you know there's a lot of we're in the education phase we're

early and projects are figuring it out you know uh retail so to speak uh you know use that term with air quotes but you know they're learning and and they're getting educated but I think

where the unlock still lies I mean we see stable coins are the are the original rwa token yeah as more and more people realize that stable coins are a

significantly better place to put their money you know obviously there's people that are already putting most of their money into treasury bills and things as you mentioned you know just very stable returns getting that 5% from from

something that's guaranteed but if you're looking at just kind of beating inflation so to speak settling in staes getting a certain percentage of the population into

Stables I think is the you know there's there's multiple things that are going to unlock this but I think that's one of the biggest unlocks because it becomes less of a zero some game because you don't feel like you're trading from the

left to right pocket and you don't feel like it's uh speculative crypto because you're in Stables you might be you know in the US it's arguable right now like a

the dollar might be worth you know 89 cents not a dollar so you know if you're settling in Stables or getting paid paid in Stables to begin with you know you're you're theoretically starting off in a

much better spot I think that's where you can apply that you know to projects like dual Min where you want to take those stables and you want them working for you and getting yield exactly like instead of instead of doing like you

know yield farming and you know with impermanent loss and all that stuff you know with you know defi 1.0 brought a lot of interesting ideas but I think you

know with with real world asset backed type projects um and with the actual real world Providence associated with it which you know the the very important

thing you have a lot I I believe you know there's a a higher level of trust in these type of projects than just something that is kind of like completely it is yeah you're right I

mean it's it's very important to emphasize your focus on the Dual provenance you know and I think that's yeah that because you know having a

token to say that this is wine as you know um we've seen it not work plenty of times before you know so if you don't have that dual provenance and you don't have the technology figured out and that

you know uh that tie to the real world asset uh which requires work which is why you guys have been you know busy doing that and and figuring it out and I I do like that you've because as you

mentioned you're that agnostic but I think you've you've found a little bit of your stride in this in these unique projects that also align with typically a very passionate audience you know

whether that be sustainable whether that be the the wine side of things I mean very specific things where there's a cult-like following that sustainability

is massive you know um wine following is also massive so it there's really quite a few things that as you mentioned have just immediate attraction to to the real

world already which I think gets lost sometimes because some people just get too excited about the technology and the opportunity and the revolution of the new financial markets and they forget like just Psychology 101 that you know

like people are going to be attracted to things that they actually already do and already love yeah I mean I was looking at some posts you know in Twitter and this this guys listed like you know the

10 you know the the most B boring business is what brings you the most C you know the cash flow and some of the these things like you know washing machines some of these you know like like really boring things right

basically you know it's cash business you know you just get the cash flow in this is kind of like you know what we're kind of trying to do but with a ESG related angro or what have you finding these type of you know boring assets

that bring you like yield right like so and make it available like you know across different jurisdictions I you know I'm you need to package that because I I totally agree

with that I I follow a lot of those same things I'm a a huge fan of I mean that's just in my DNA like I T I typically take very complex things and that's why I like having these podcasts and like kind

of try to distill them down a simple form I I think I have a pretty good knack for that yeah and yeah generally speaking like that's why I've been in sales and different things because it's just it's easy to you know when you're

talking to people you don't want to be talking at you know at a technical level or at a level where it doesn't make sense so I think that's where even with this I mean boring businesses and

revolutionizing that with tech is it's such a great model it really is yep yep yeah so Kudos I like that I've I've always loved you know even like going back to what you're were talking about

just reframing the idea of nft technology is amazing and it keeps advancing but yes that's a peeve of mine right like yeah it's such a bad

connotation like I decided so I send you the blog that i i b post that I write so I'm deciding basically we're just going to drop the whole nft thing first of all it's it's not really any nft anymore

right because nft really is designed for digital only assets only right right so when you start look marrying it to like real assets like the stuff that we're

talking about like you know like the real world profit LS like you know and that kind of fitting solution like you know Logistics whatever like you know you're building into this whole protocol

it's no longer NF so we have decided to call it real world asset token right I mean it's so like obvious I don't know why you know not more people are you know using this for real world asset

right just you know just get rid of the whole nft stigma and you know just move on I brought this up on a Twitter space i i retweeted and and I think I shared it on LinkedIn too about uh the same

thing and I I'm I'm screaming it from the mountain tops as well because I think it's a brilliant positioning and as you mentioned it's it's it is really the just the evolution of technology I

mean you're not just rebranding something because it's cute you're rebranding because it it obviously makes sense and the technology has moved and we you know you don't want to be stuck

with this stigma and again this is early so these are the kind of things I mean four years ago they were calling rw's security tokens as you know and that's right move to rwa it seems like that's

going to stick I mean we we never know but I think overall I mean I I certainly commend you and the team for you know continually being Innovative being out there uh you know you're at conferences

you're in the trend you're you're constantly pivoting and and finding what's working and you know you're you're finding unique Brands as you describ some of them I mean I know

you have uh a bit more coming up and you know I'm excited to kind of continue sharing that and continue talking with you about it but dolman is you know definitely moving in the right direction

for web 3 I think and it's aligning incentives I mean and I love how you guys are doing that with aligning the incentives aligning yield you know it's it's uh it's a perfect marriage and um

anything else you know you want to chat about as we're wrapping up I know we're riffing here on different topics but I think you know we covered quite a bit and really exciting no I think I think that's a good start I would love to come back on

a show you know maybe later and discuss more in detail on some of these project when I can share more you know um and or just yeah we we definitely need to report back because uh you know deal

your deal flow and your your new brands are coming through regularly and uh as as we can continue to do that I know that that's this a a popular segment because again this this really ties into

what you know whether it's boring businesses or it's where there's a cult-like following these are the kind of brands that people want to hear about and they want to get involved with I mean uh this is the way that drives you

know growth for them and and and investing and also for dual mint so it's been a great conversation bill I appreciate it and uh yeah we'll definitely have you back and I will put

everything in the show notes but dual mint.com is a website and uh Bill uh CTO and co-founder amazing team love what

you're doing and uh we'll talk again soon hey thanks trais uh we're having [Music]