#2: How the Metaverse Can Impact the Future of Local Communities | with Brock Pierce

Show Notes

Brock Pierce, CEO of Helios, was a first mover in digital markets, metaverses, and cryptocurrencies. Brock joins the podcast to share the evolution of his involvement in the metaverse and how the metaverse can bring people together and impact local communities.

Find out more about the NYU Metaverse Collaborative here: https://www.sps.nyu.edu/homepage/metaverse.html

What is The Whole Metaverse?

In-depth discussions and explorations into the whole new world of web3 and the metaverse with leading thinkers and industry experts. Presented by the NYU Metaverse Collaborative.

The Whole Metaverse - #2: How the Metaverse Can Impact the Future of Local Communities | with Brock Pierce

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Pierre: [00:00:00] welcome to the NYU Metaverse podcast. Dr. Elizabeth Haas and myself, pieja Aldi co-host. We're very happy to welcome Mr. Brock Pierce, an entrepreneur [00:01:00] philanthropist. Politician and we would love to talk with you about the Metaverse blockchain, cryptocurrency. A lot of people in the mainstream media are talking about this topic specifically this week, and I would like to start by asking you, about your life.

At what point did you heard about the Metaverse and blockchain, and so that would be something you wanted to do and invest.

Brock: Well, you have to go back quite a while. I'm a byproduct of the first generation of kids with. Computers and internet connections and video games. And so I was an avid user of all of these things in my youth. And when the first video games became networked, what emerged were persistent worlds or what were known as massively multi-player games.

You may have heard of World of Warcraft or Second Life, or many of the others, and those really would've been the first metaverses. We didn't call them [00:02:00] that. At the time, and I was one of the first people to begin making markets in these sort of persistent worlds. It began with a, a game called Sanctum. It was an online game made by a company called digital Addiction.

And it was kind of like chess meets magic, the gathering. You bought virtual packets of cards, you assembled with those collectible cards, a deck, and then you would play a game on a board.. and because the game was persistent and the objects were alienable, you could transfer them from one player to another or trade with another player, and therefore there was a secondary market that emerged having been a player of magic, the gathering I recognized just like in the analog world, digital world wouldn't behave any differently.

I contacted the game company and said, I'd like to buy your virtual packets of cards in bulk and I'd like to run the secondary market much in the way a comic bookstore or a baseball card shop would. And this was back in 19 98, 19 99. [00:03:00] And so I identified that just because something was intangible didn't make it less valuable.

And then when the first Games, Meridian 59 Altima online and EverQuest emerged, I went into the first metaverses and I became the largest market maker in the world of the digital currencies or virtual currencies in these games. . I eventually had hundreds of thousands of people around the world, but mostly in China that would work in these metaverses or massively multiplayer games to earn digital currency that I would then make a market in.

I was PayPal's largest merchant for years. I was instrumental in the launching of Alipay and became very familiar with cross-border payments and the value of digital objects. We were doing, uh, over a billion dollars a year in 2000, January, 2006, I closed the financing with Goldman Sachs, principal Strategies, which was the proprietary trading desk of Goldman.

They took a look at what I was doing and said, you're basically managing, currencies for thousands of virtual [00:04:00] nations and effectively the market maker between all of these virtual countries. We've never seen anything like this, and. in some ways more complex than the, the economic system of the analog world.

We, we need to invest. I was the first private investment they had ever made, because it looked like something important may emerge from this. So for me, this all predates, the birth of Bitcoin. And so naturally considering my background, cryptocurrency or Bitcoin in the beginning was immediately on my radar.

it was, I'd say, inevitable that I would end up in that business. And then as the technology evolved from just being Bitcoin to cryptocurrencies to call it blockchain, and looking at the alternative uses of this immutable ledger and this distributed architecture, we started layering on larger and larger things, and that's where it's connected to, to games and metaverses or virtual worlds.

The big difference is in the, call it pre-Web3 world or preexisting metaverse world. These virtual nations were really independent silos. [00:05:00] Uh, there wasn't interoperability between worlds. And by utilizing this type of technology, there's gonna be a lot more fluidity and efficient markets where I can move my value from one world or one metaverse to another, much in the same way that we travel between countries and exchange currency.

And so I'd say this is just the next evolution. Of what was already there with greater interoperability and obviously much better technology, to create a more immersive experience. One that can involve, you know, your sort of virtual reality. Though most of it is still gonna be, you know, on a, 2D or spacial web, monitor in terms of market adoption.

Not everybody has the, the headsets, but as Oculus. Other things, become more affordable to the masses where you don't need an expensive computer now to connect to it. You know, I think we're gonna get closer and closer to the, call it Ready Player, one type of worlds that we've seen in, in our books and now movies.

Although I still think it's a, a ways away. but it's not a new concept [00:06:00] and uh, it's just continuing to evolve and we're in this next sort of evolution. I'm a huge believer in, in its future, in terms of the metaverse, but I think it's further. in terms of mass market adoption than, than some might think that are, newer to this whole thing.

This is not really a new invention, it's just, the next generation of, uh, an idea that's been around for, for decades.

Pierre: Thank you very much. Now I have, uh, a provocative questions. Do you think there are too many Blockchains; with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon from the consumer perspective, are there too many blockchain, not enough Blockchain? What do you think?

Brock: Well, from the consumer's perspective, sure. It's gonna be confusing. , there's too much information out there to research everything. And so you're trying to find a needle in a haystack, unless you're looking at the large caps, it's trying to sift through, call it like all the small cap, you know, stocks in the world.

you have to kind of take an area of focus and focus your research, you know, into a particular [00:07:00] area. the innovation and the technology being developed here is happening so rapidly that even for those of us, that it's our core business, we can't keep up.

There's so much activity, which is exciting in in many ways as well, certainly from an intellectual perspective.

It may be confusing, but it is exciting and intellectually stimulating. Now, are there too many? uh, I don't think so. I mean, we're looking at the next evolution of technology, a system that at least many would argue is going to transform the world as much as the internet did itself. And so now that we better understand the opportunity.

Of course in this new gold rush, you're going to have a tremendous amount of innovation and innovators, you know, trying to, you know, make their play at building this new system, one of these new systems that will be instrumental in changing the world. And, and as one would expect, it's gonna be highly competitive.

And due to that, it's built on an open source architecture. the barrier to entry, to copy paste, you know, modify, make mi minor upgrades. I mean, look at light coin, one of the [00:08:00] first. uh, cryptocurrencies to follow Bitcoin. Uh, Charlie Lee developed the thing in four hours. You know, he made very minor changes to the underlying code.

And I think of those four hours, a lot of that was spent on the logo and the name. when the ability to innovate and the barrier to entry is so low, of course you're gonna have a lot more things invented than you would in a proprietary sort of system and I think innovation in general is a good thing.

If anyone succeeds in making the world a better place, we all win. So I'm glad to see many people innovating as long as they're doing it from a place of good intentions. Right now, part of the problem, much like the internet and the, the, you know, call it 1.0 phase as well, is anytime you have a new emerging.

Industry, where there's an asymmetry of information, you know, the few that know and the many that don't. it's also gonna attract a lot of bad actors and a lot of bad behavior is going to occur as a result of that, as we see with every new, innovation. This isn't new to crypto, it's, you know, this is a, a story that is continually repeated itself.

The fact that it's [00:09:00] getting adoption so quickly, just. Makes the problem, larger cuz things are moving so quickly that it's hard for even the best of us to keep up. Meaning the, the risks of being taken advantage of are, are probably greater than in previous cycles. But it's the same thing that we're seeing time and time again.

And the best thing that anyone can do is take the time to be informed, and make decisions for yourself and, and don't just. Follow blindly. I mean, as we've seen with F T X just recently, the, the traditional guard, right? The gatekeepers that normally enable entrepreneurs, right, with their, with their blessing, right?

They, they anoint them by saying, okay, I'm Sequoia. I'm gonna fund this entrepreneur. And as anyone in the public, you're like, oh, one of the most prestigious, most successful venture capital firms of all time has vetted this company, done their due diligence. That gives me more reason to trust, but this company in particular was buying trust from everyone.

and, and that's, uh, should have been obviously the red flag when someone is buying credibility from as many celebrities, as many [00:10:00] financial institutions, as many politicians, as many, you know, call it, uh, philanthropists as possible. That should have been a, a warning sign when someone is throwing this much money around.

And sadly, what we've seen is that it looks like no one did any due diligence, very much like a, a sort of Bernie Madoff situation. Everyone just relied upon the work of those that came before them. And it turns out no one did any.

Pierre: Thank you so much. Last question before I pass the microphone to Dr. Hass. Do you believe that in the United States there is space for an independent political party?

Brock: I believe so, and I certainly hope so. one of the problems you have in a binary system like this is, it's very polarizing. , either this or that, it's left or right. And I think most of us prefer to have more than two choices, and the problem with two choices as we're seeing is it's.

Pulling us further and further apart to a point that, you know, even healthy, communications between two different groups of people are breaking down. And I think most of us know in our own life experience that when the communication [00:11:00] stops, that's usually the, the event that occurs right before something very bad happens. a and whatever relationship. And this is at a, at a national sort of level. And I find it very concerning that our country feels very divided. And I think the path. Reuniting our nation and finding a, a path forward is in the recognition that, you know, we're all in this together and we're gonna win together and we have to find some path forward where we can work together.

And I don't think that's gonna come from either the left or the right. It's going to have to come from something I think that emerges in the middle. That can, you know, bring us back to working together. And I think that might come from a third party, it might come from just an independent movement. My preference is that it doesn't come from a party at all.

I think part of the fundamental problem is the parties and the authority that they exert over their, party members. You know, when you become an elected official, one of the problems you have is that you're really beholden to the orders of your party as well as the special interests that help finance your getting into office, and too many of our elected officials are not empowered [00:12:00] to act according to their conscience. You know, they're not able to do what they think is right. And I think fundamentally that's part of our problem and why I'm hopeful that we can find a more independent future with a lot of diverse perspective.

Diversity of thought, diversity of skillsets. You know, if I was going to design a system, those are the sort of attributes that I would want in it. And so I don't blame anyone for the current circumstances as I like to say... don't hate the player, hate the game. I think it's a, it's a systems problem and an incentives problem, and we kind of need to rethink how do we upgrade our system as a nation, in a way that it produces a better set of incentives that leads to the outcome that we all collectively want, which is a world that can work for everyone.

Liz: How do you think the Metaverse can help in that?

Brock: think one of the things that Metaverses, are great for is new ways of allowing people to interact, new ways of allowing people to connect. You know, often historically we're in our silos of our neighborhood, our, our village, our town, our city, [00:13:00] our state. obviously transportation and things have improved.

We have some sense of other cultures and communities and how they think and operate. And obviously as we have a better understanding of where other people are coming from and their perspectives, you know, more likely it is that we can find a way to work together. creating these new environments, which by the way, social media did as well.

Unfortunately, some of the algorithmic systems have driven us more apart than, shown us our commonality, our common ground. Cuz in general we have more in common than we have , things that, that differentiate us. I actually think of like our political parties as a Venn diagram and it mostly overlaps.

That we spend most of our time looking at the parts that don't. we may differ as to the approach to solving problems, but we generally want the same things generally. And so I think anything that allows to, brings us together as people and allows us to interact and ideally, and again, in a place like a, a metaverse without all the labels, right?

it, you have the ability to authentically in a, kind of pseudo anonymous [00:14:00] environment, connect with people. and often you'd be surprised how well you get along with people that are very, very different from you. And I think at a, at a fundamental level, these are, you know, things that might be instrumental in helping us in the future.

from an education perspective as well, a lot of it is how informed are we as individuals, you know, the ability to go into a, a digital space and learn with people that might not be in your local area. I think there's, I mean, there's so many uses. an environment that allows people from different places, different communities, different demographics to be able to interact in whatever form it might be, whether it's social around the watering hole, or whether it be in an educational sort of environment.

I think there's a lot of potential, uh, in it, but at the same time, kind of like the end of, of Ready Player one, I think it's important not to be so immersed in these environments that we forget about, you know, the authentic human connections, that do exist within our local communities.

Liz: Pierre, did you wanna ask something else or should I jump to my New York City questions?

Pierre: ahead.

Liz: I'm, [00:15:00] uh, totally into this from a city perspective. Um, I got drawn into the metaverse at the Conference of Mayors where I was doing work in the sports side, and eight different mayors in January came up to me and said different, asked different metaverse questions.

and I said, oh, I now believe that there's nothing more important for a city to do than support and embrace the moving forward of the metaverses in their communities. and I don't believe there's a better support system for it to become a healthy environment through cities.

One of the cities of course I'm interested in is New York.

um, I noticed that you were doing some things in New York City. Can, maybe you can tell us about those and then I can, throw out a couple particular questions

Brock: yeah, of course, of course. well, I think that the point that you're talking about in terms of cities. You can have metaverses or these environments that transport you to another dimension, an alternative reality. Or they can be places where we get to experiment with existing reality and build a future [00:16:00] potentially together.

Virtually to see what that looks like before we do it, you know, call it in this reality. There's a lot of interesting use cases for technology, right? And it's back to healthy technology is neither good or bad. How we use it determines the impact it has. And so, uh, I think there's a lot of interesting use cases as you think about the future development of a city and how you can experiment in these environments.

and experience the future before you've actually, decided to build it. Um, and, and so for New York City, I didn't grow up in New York City. I'm originally from Minnesota, ended up in California, but I've, lived in New York City at least part-time for a couple of years, you know, quite a while ago.

And I've been a, a regular visitor of New York for, you know, really all of my adult life.. I spend a lot of time in New York City focused on New York City politics as of late, not because I have any vested interest in New York, on a personal level, but because I'm very concerned about what happens to New York City, What happens in New York City doesn't just affect New York City. It doesn't just affect [00:17:00] the, the northeast of America. It doesn't just affect the entire country. It affects the entire world. As someone that cares about our collective wellbeing, I decided to make that an area of focus. And I also remember the song and the, the saying, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

So if you want to try your hand at politics, it does seem like, an ideal place in which to learn. It's not, I, I'd say very forgiving. Um, and therefore it's, uh, an effective place To learn and it's, and it's so concentrated. I've gotten involved in, in spending time with, government officials at a city level, but also at a state level, legislators and, and everyone else just trying to understand how it all works and what the challenges are.

and not to overly focus on the problems, but to really devote the time to solutions and seeing how I can be of service. So I'm, Actively engaged, in, uh, New York City and New York State's sort of politics, even though I don't even own a piece of real estate there. I don't have anything there.

but, it's the place that I chose to, uh, invest my time to learn.

Elizabeth: There's something I think called marine toys or [00:18:00] something for Tots in New York that you like or an arm or a a brain behind. Is that right?

Brock: Well, I'm the, the vice chairman. Of the US Marines, toys for Tots program for New York City, long Island, as well as Puerto Rico. It's an incredible program, especially as we, we near the holidays, uh, this program gives more toys to kids in the United States than any other program by far. And from a personal, experiential perspective, There's almost no greater feeling than handing out toys to thousands and thousands of kids that may not otherwise be receiving them. Certainly with all the economic challenges that did exist in exist, even in many ways, more so as we enter this, holiday season. So that's just a, a kind of a volunteer position that I have, help advocate for the program, to bring awareness to the program, to some extent.

Raise donations for the. And what I get out of it is I donate my time to actually hand out toys by the, by the thousand.

Elizabeth: That's pretty. So I'm trying to work with the city of New York and find, a [00:19:00] test bed to bring the metaverse in, to do exactly what you're saying. Imagine with the community ahead of building. Um, and there's two, um, particular projects that are on the table to discuss, and I'd love to test with you what we might do.

Brock: Would be happy to do that and This is right up my alley, so, uh, yes, please.

Elizabeth: So, so the first is, you know, they're, they're now gonna build a soccer stadium in Queens, right next to Met Stadium. And I don't know if you know the history of that area or not, but, um, since, Robert Moses was in office, it was really. Condemned, never to be supported by anything the city did.

the soccer club, the mats wanna create something that really builds the neighborhood and brings the neighborhood into it. And they would love to figure out how to use the metaverse in that creation.

Brock: A great way if you want to, I guess. Environment of community participation, right? Community buy-in. it's one thing to conceptualize something and, get people excited by the prospects of this new development. It's, it's another to, to let them experience it much the way that [00:20:00] with older mediums.

You, you might create a, video, a trailer with a, with a model of what it might look like. You know, this is, potentially a way to create an experie. Model where the community can actually set foot, into these environments and vote on things and see what the community ultimately wants. I think it's an incredible tool for community engagement to create a, two-way, uh, mechanism of, you know, information flow. And ultimately I think that that is something that should be experimented with. And if they wanted to do that, I'd be more than happy to, uh, try and help you think through what are the right platforms that you could use to that understanding the scope of what you're looking to build .

Elizabeth: That would be fantastic. The second place that they want to talk about doing it, uh, is, uh, in the Bronx Kingsbridge, which is a, um, I send you some information about it, but it's a old historic building, it's Kingsbridge Junos Parra, which has been vacated for, it's an old armory that's been [00:21:00] vacated for over 20 years, it's a landmark and they're trying to figure out what to do with it.

And again, that's an opportunity if we wanna work with the community and the metaverse.

Brock: I love the idea. I personally, you know, am a very future focused person, but I also, spent a lot of time looking, you know, at the past and where we came from and how we got here. I buy, uh, quite a few old historic buildings, really as, as a preservation sort of job. I try to protect, interesting landmarks to ensure that they're not destroyed, to build up new condos, and through that process, forget where we came from and who we are both sound, uh, uh, fascinating to me. I'd be more than happy to explore, both of those, those initiatives to see how I can be of service.

Elizabeth: That would really be fantastic. because I do think we can make a difference using the metaverse. and really creating a conversation that never could have happened before.

Brock: I, I agree. And, and there's also an educational process that comes from it. The process of, creating new mechanisms to engage with community, but also in a way that they [00:22:00] learn. There's an educational component to this. I don't know if you're familiar, but, uh, I worked with the New York Police Department, uh, as well as the New York Police Foundation to create two video game trucks, mobile arcades, that are, used by the community affairs department to go drive into neighborhoods to repair the relationships.

Post the George Floyd sort of incidents, basically rebuild, that relationship. And they're, they're absolutely incredible. They drive around New York, they're, they're like high quality mobile arcades, and they go into neighborhoods and you come in and you get to play games. And, a, I'm a, a fan of these technologies again, if they're used, correctly.

Elizabeth: Has anything been written up?

Brock: I don't think anything got written up, but, uh, most of the New York media, did report, on it. It was on most of the New York news channels, but I don't think there's really been, yeah. Any follow up, uh uh, since we

Elizabeth: the aftermath, the impact, what it's done. that would be.

Brock: that would I, would love to know more. I, I, I, I think I put up all the capital for that project and helped in its ideation. I worked with, uh, [00:23:00] with Chief Madre at the time, was no longer the chief of police for community affairs, but patrol and, uh, it was a really pleasurable experience.

Elizabeth: we could create like a measure of trust of police in the communities where those trucks went versus communities they didn't go. It would be an interesting contrast, I think.

Brock: I would love to know. I, I'm a data person. You know, I, have an intuition that causes me to pursue ideas with an intention. Uh, but ultimately I want, I wanna see the results and I wanna know what the impact of, of my actions are. And so to the extent, uh, you know, we can. Determine and measure efficacy, that would make me very happy.

Elizabeth: If we step back from all of this, and take your futuristic view of the world, what's important for cities to get right as they move forward here when they think about the metaverse?

Brock: The Metaverse is a tool for sort of experimentation, And so I, I think that's really the main thing is understand what the objective is what you're gonna do to, to sort of measure? What are the key results, you [00:24:00] know, that you're trying to, to achieve.

I'd say that's really just understanding the basics of the objective. What do you want to do? And how do you measure that success, right? You want to create future potential realities. And then you want community engagement. So you need to make sure that the community was actually engaged, that the community actually participated, and that you have the right feedback loops that are bidirectional, you know, where the community is, communicating its wishes and, those that are, collecting that information are, you know, bi directionally making sure that the feedback groups are correct. I think if it's done correctly and done well I think there's tremendous potential in it, and if someone gets that right, I think it can have a big impact on the future. One of the people I'd love to also engage a dear friend of mine, Peter Hirschberg, that's been very involved in the, uh, uh, the concept of, you know, futures, the future of cities.

I also have a number of other, friends like, uh, with Tony Cho. a lot of my friends are involved in, call it the, the future of city design. I, I do a bunch of this sort of stuff, which we don't need to dive too deeply into, you know, New York [00:25:00] is it's the place where I'm most focused outside of my home here in Puerto Rico.

Elizabeth: We're having a conference in April, co-sponsored by the Conference of Mayors on Cities in the Metaverse in New York. And I'd love to kind of. Coordinate, with you on some things we might do together.

Brock: I'd love to do that and I can, I think, recruit some other really interesting people that would, would be of great help. I mean, Peter Hirschberg was the CMO of Apple. If you, you don't know who he is and he's gone on to do. So many extraordinary things, uh, uh, very big thinker and just a wonderful human being.

Elizabeth: What role can a university play in facilitating getting us to a healthier place with these tools?

Brock: I mean, I think that it's all about the youth, and the universities are, are, are clearly really well positioned to impact our collective future. I mean, this is where the next generation of. people that are going to build and ultimately lead , the, the world after us, you know, are coming from.

And I think that's the most important thing we can do is empower the next [00:26:00] generation and, empower them with the tools and the information and the data sets to make better decisions than we did. And those tools are emerging.

I'm always happy to spend time, sharing whatever wisdom or experiences I have that might empower the, the, the generations that follow..

Elizabeth: That's fantastic.

Pierre: Thank you very much. Mr. Pierce, Dr. Haas and I really enjoy having you on the show with your, uh, incredible, practical experience of blockchain and Metaverse. Thank you for having been on the, uh, NYU Metaverse podcast and we wish you a lot of success in your project and a lot of happiness for you and your loved ones.

So thank you very much for being.

Elizabeth: and we look forward to, you know, the next chapter.

Brock: As do I. Happy Thanksgiving and I look forward to, uh, seeing you on campus.

Thank you. Take

care.