In October of 2018, I was asked to speak at the Conexus Conference in Denver. I also participated in a two-day EOSIO workershop put on by OCI which included Phil Mesnier and Eugene Luzgin (you may remember I wrote a while back about the possibility of the Steem community working with OCI). At the workshop, I met Pawel Mastalerz of Dapix who later invited me out to lunch with his business partner David Gold. They told me about the FIO protocol, and I got really excited!
You can learn more about FIO (pronounced "Fee-Oh") here: https://fio.foundation/
Check out this video to see an alpha version demo:
In a nutshell, the Foundation for Interwallet Operability is about reducing the risk, complexity, and inconvenience of sending and receiving cryptoassets. If you've used cryptocurrency at all, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. You finally figure out MetaMask or how to connect your Ledger Nano S with MyEthereumWallet, and you send some value only to see it not show up on the block explorer at all! You refresh the page... your heart is in your throat... then finally it shows up, but you don't have any confirmations yet. Or you get the confirmations, but the wallet or exchange you're sending to still doesn't seem to have them. Or worse, you're trying to use Bitcoin when the fees are high and you have no idea if your unconfirmed transaction will stay in the mem pool for days only to be rejected or if you'll have to use the complicated "child pays for parent" method like I did last year.
Cryptocurrency is too stressful to use.
It may be the future path towards a voluntary society with global, non-violent conensus and value owned and protected by physics, math, and cryptography instead of threats of violence backed by guns, drones, and aircraft carriers, but we're just not there yet.
I got really excited when Pawel and David described how FIO will allow for addresses which are easy to remember and use which map to any wallet, blockchain, or specific address. As you may know, I spent ten years building a shopping cart business before selling it to my business partner to focus full-time on the cryptocurrency space. During that time, I tried to get people to use cryptocurrency for their online stores and even with thousands of stores, almost no one signed up to accept bitcoin as a method of payment. I think FIO's payment request functionality is really going to help with that.
So I started advising with Dapix in October with weekly meetings to discuss the white paper and the protocol. As things progressed, my experience in DPoS systems, Steem, eosDAC, EOS, ecommerce, and cryptocurrency in general made for a great fit for the team, and they offered me a part-time, remote CTO position pending the success of their fund-raising activities. I flew out to Denver last week to spend a couple days with the team and get to know them better. I really enjoyed my time with them and loved the project enough to accept their offer. I'll still be working as a Steem witness and with the eosDAC team to build tools for decentralized autonomous communities, but I'll also be helping promote the FIO protocol and own their overall technology strategy and roadmap execution.
I think David and Pawel have the experience and leadership skills to make something this big a success. I think this list of members will be growing quite a bit in the months and years to come:
I've been working for myself for so long that getting a "job" certainly feels a little strange, especially after 2018 when I was free to dynamically adjust in real-time to any area presenting itself for me to add value. I wouldn't consider this position unless I was confident this project has a good chance to make a major difference in how wallets and exchanges make cryptocurrency available to everyday people. I want mass adoption of cryptocurrency which is one of the core reasons I've been so excited about Steem for two and a half years. It makes using cryptocurrency easier for everyday people. Cryptocurrency can truly change the world, but it's like the early days of the Internet. We have to make it easier and more accessible to everyone. I think the FIO protocol can do that, and I'm excited to help however I can. I want to see this protocol owned and operated by wallets and exchanges with the most to gain through wide-adoption of cryptocurrency.
If you wouldn't mind, you can help too. I tweeted about this survey recently, and I'd love for you to add your experience to it:
It's really well done and captures the emotions many of us have felt trying to use cryptocurrency without freaking out. I'd really appreciate it if you could share that survey with your friends who have used cryptocurrency before to help us gather more data.
So yeah, that's the latest in the Stokes' adventure! I'm taking on some new responsibilities that align with my passion to help create the world we all want to live in.
Thanks for your continued support and stay tuned to FIO news by following us on Twitter at joinFIO. Maybe I can get them posting news on Steem as well. :)
If you're wondering how I'll find the time to do more things, my only answer is we all get 24 hours a day. We all get to choose how much of that time is spent doing meaningful things with our families and communities that matter and how much time will be spent in wasted effort. For now, I'm still working hourly with them and as things ramp up in the months to come, I'm sure I'll find a new normal and continue to expand my capabilities and efficiency. Some of the most amazing people in the world get more done each day than most of us in a week. I want to grow myself to that level of significance.
If you take the survey, please leave a comment below as I'm curious how many people will take it based on this post. Thanks!
