Where's the BeefChain?

In this episode, I'm speaking with Stevin Lupien who is both the CEO of BeefChain along with being an adjunct professor at University of Wyoming College of Business where he teaches how to apply Blockchain technologies to complex business problems. Listen in as we are diving into the agriculture industry (specifically the business of beef) and how blockchain can enable, empower, and ultimately save US cattle ranches. It's a fascinating conversation that shows that even technology innovation can have a material impact on a thousands of year old tradition. 

Chapters

• 1:54 Who is Steven?
• 3:27 Inserting cheesy 80s pop culture references...
• 5:05 The struggle of US ranchers. "Ranchers have had enough"
• 5:52 What is BeefChain?
• 8:25 Mike summarizes the benefits
• 11:55 The importance of traceability in the agriculture supply chain
• 15:16 The Campstool Ranch
• 25:02 How technology accelerate business
• 28:20 Business dynamics of the beef industry
• 30:32 Where blockchain helps
• 37:53 Why Wyoming is an innovation powerhouse
• 40:57 Politicians can all agree on blockchain
• 41:53 Wyoming Blockchain Task Force
• 55:06 Building in "business" backward compatibility for solutions
• 58:52 Advantages of establishing your business in Wyoming
• 1:00:25 Romanticizing blockchain

Transcript

hello everybody and welcome back to

another episode

of the next i am your host mike walker

and today we're going to dive into

innovations in the state of wyoming

you might be asking yourself mike why

wyoming what's up with that

well we're going to be talking with

steven lupion and

he is the ceo of beefchain

a blockchain enabled solution that helps

farmers essentially track and trace

goods to the end supplier and it's going

to provide all sorts of rich benefits

for

uh small businesses to help make them

much more successful keep these

farmers in business which is a very very

critical issue right now

so as you can see we're going to be

talking a lot about uh the business

innovation

that's going to be required to leverage

this technology and with that we're

going to talk about some of the hard

dependencies and this is where wyoming

comes in

where the folks in wyoming are uniquely

positioned

uh with over 20 blockchain laws that

have been passed by the

state legislation to help enable

these types of businesses to build these

types of solutions so we're going to get

into topics

like that we're going to we're going to

talk about all sorts of different stuff

i think it's going to be a good episode

i think you're going to enjoy it

but i don't want to spoil too much now

like always

we're going to provide all the show

notes and links

on our website vnexpod.com

and that link should be right up here

right there um so go there check it out

provide some feedback you can ask to be

a guest

on the show uh there you can say what

you like about the show what you don't

like about the show all that good stuff

go check it out

and also make sure that you know you

like and subscribe

and all that good stuff as well so with

that

um let's just get into it

how are you mike good to see you yeah

likewise i'm so happy that you decided

to uh to join us here and share some of

your insights

um now you're a busy busy guy uh you're

involved in

lots of different activities uh both

from

you know uh running a business being uh

integrated into the university structure

helping to create standards for things

like blockchain

but you know i don't want to steal too

much of your thunder uh you know

steven maybe if you could help uh walk

us through you know tell us a little bit

more about you

what your current role is or or should i

say roles are

uh and uh yeah kind of walk us through

it well i'm i'm i'm currently the

president and ceo

of an agriculture company called bloc

called the beef chain and what we do is

we provide um a usda certification

for ranchers and

we use blockchain as our our

our our method of validating the

information

you know i don't like to say it's a

blockchain company because i think

blockchain we're using blockchain to

solve a very real problem that

ranchers have and but i consider us an

agriculture business

and um and i'm also

presently an adjunct professor at the

university of wyoming

where i'm uh teaching uh blockchain

as part of the college of business and

i am also working with the university

we'll we'll probably have a

big announcement in the next week or two

so i'll i'll i'll certainly

might let you know when that

announcement is ready um but um

we are in the process of standing up a

center of excellence

at the university of wyoming and because

wyoming has done so many unique things

in this space

uh the university absolutely sees that

there's an opportunity

for the university to further uh what

the state legislature has been

has been doing so it's it's um it's been

a busy time

in in wyoming in this space and it's

it's just been

such an honor and been so exciting to to

be a part of it

wow yeah that sounds like a lot and um

you know but the first obvious question

that i have for you

um though is you know with with your

company beef chain

uh is the overall mission statement to

really help people find uh where's the

beef

in a way um and keep in mind that was a

cheesy

80s commercial reference for those that

don't know

so you'll find that uh yeah i'm going to

go back in the memory banks a little bit

here

calling calling calling you know calling

where's the beef and then referring it

to this cheesy i think is kind of a pun

within a pond

right and um we just broke down some

walls here

[Laughter]

you know what the mission the mission of

beefchain

um is really we want to connect

the rancher um to the consumer as much

as we possibly can

and and in doing so

you know and with working with ranchers

on this on this project

the one thing we've really learned is

that intermediaries

have really taken um a lot of the power

and quite honestly the profit uh um out

of the ranching business

um you know the cost of beef has

steadily gone up for us as consumers

over the last

20 years but the price per pound that

ranchers have

are being paid is essentially unchanged

there are a number of articles um that i

encourage people to go out and google

you know google beef prices and and

and you know you'll you'll see there's a

lot going on right now in particular and

that's purely coincidental

that you know ranchers are kind of

reaching a point where they're saying

enough we can't we can't keep being the

one that

that bear the brunt of this so so what

beefchain does

is really two things one is

we are the first company

uh certified under the usda's pvp

program which is a process verified

program

um that is using blockchain as the

uh as the the the the proof vehicle

um most of the other or essentially all

the other um

pvp providers are using either simple

databases which we all know the

challenges with that

or quite frankly some of them are just

using ledgers you know handwritten

handwritten ledgers right so we saw an

opportunity

um to um to to use blockchain

for a very particular purpose and that

is to

to verify that you know that the

ranchers are actually being paid

for what they're claiming um that

they're that their product is

and you know under the usda pvp program

there are

you know hormone-free programs there's

grass-fed programs there's a program

called

you know wyoming plus which is specific

to ranchers in in wyoming

and ranchers who can can prove

that they're um raising their product

under these

standards do and should

uh get a a better price at the sale barn

and and that's really what it's about

how do how do ranchers who put more time

and effort

into creating a safer and a more quality

product

how do they get the benefit of that and

one of the challenges we

we saw was that um in

virtually all cases no matter how the

product is raised

when it goes to the sale barn it's

almost sold like a commodity

and you know all the all the effort that

you know ranchers put in

kind of gets lost in the in the sale

barn process

so that was one thing we did the other

thing that

um that we're working on and we're doing

that in in cooperation

with a company called iohk and um

io hk um you know has a has a chain

that that we're using and and they've

been absolutely wonderful in working

with us

we want to also connect consumers

directly to ranchers we believe that in

this day and age in particular

people want to know where their food

comes from

people want to know you know that

they're that their food is

safe you know they want to know how

their how their food is raised

and and and i think wyoming ranchers

in particular um have a story to tell

you know these are many cases are

multi-generational ranches

and you know these are people that have

that that you know i

i think when consumers see you know

who raised their product where their

product was raised

you know that awareness is only going to

help both the rancher and the consumer

so those are the two things that we're

doing um at beefchain right now

wow and so oftentimes whenever we talk

about these types of solutions

you know we oftentimes focus just on the

technology

and how great you know blockchain is or

some

other type of technology that's enabling

it and what i really really like about

your response is that you said look

there's some very real business problems

here

you know we've got uh you know ranchers

that are

being disenfranchised um you know

there's you know the supply chain

doesn't uh have

uh spread the wealth uh uh more

democratically

and you know what what you're helping to

solve is you know helping

frankly keep these folks in business um

and so it's

it's actually solving a very very real

problem but also

another thing that i think is really

cool that you highlighted on

is the fact that consumer privacy or not

privacy consumer trust

has dwindled away over the years

in kind of how food is labeled because

it is a bit of a mystery to the average

consumer at the average grocery store

and looking at a label and going

what the heck does this mean and can i

even trust this label

because there's so many different

permutations and exceptions etc

and what you're doing is you're saying

look why do we need

uh to have this kind of barrier between

the consumer

and where their food comes from let's

break that down and let's

allow the consumer to actually directly

tap in and

and i don't know what technology used

but let's just say a qr code or a

barcode

scan it on their phone and then be able

to see oh yeah this came from

joe's ranch in cheyenne wyoming

um you know he's got a five-star rating

and you know here's his history uh click

on this you can go to the website

you can see their process on how they

handle meat uh

why they're certified how they become

certified

maybe visit the ranch if you really want

to

you know that part's really really

fascinating and cool to me because

it's material it means something to the

person that's actually using this

technology

am i getting that right or am i way off

no you you you you've really described

our

our business plan almost perfectly you

know we are using qr code

and um in a restaurant setting you know

you can have a

you know a table tent or a qr code on a

on a menu

and you can scan it and you can see

exactly

you know you know where that restaurant

is is getting their product

we can actually show the entire supply

chain you know here is where the

here's where the product began you know

here's when it you know when it was

initially tagged because you know in in

the cattle business you you tag them all

on the

kind of the same day after your you know

all your calves have dropped

and um so there's you know that's when

the tagging begins you can see

you know where the where the you know

the cow has traveled throughout its

its lifespan you know when it was

processed

how it's traveled through uh the supply

chain and when it got to your restaurant

and the same thing obviously with

consumers on a packages

as well too and um because

interestingly there are some products

that i think

consumers have a lot of trust in because

they know a lot about the product

oddly enough most people when they buy

their beef

they go to their grocery store and the

only the only thing they really

choose based on is what it's usda graded

is it prime is it choice or is it select

other than that you virtually know

nothing about the beef product that

you're

you're buying especially if it's a

grocery store brand

um because they put their own you know

publix or red lion or something like

that

you know stick around it and you have

absolutely no idea

you know where where that where that

steak came from

you know um how it was raised um

in many in many food categories organic

means very different things

right and you know and there's really

not a national standard so you may see

you know something on a package that

says organic well what does that mean

you know so i think there's a there's a

real opportunity for

us in the in in in beef in particular

although we have worked with you know um

you know sheep producers

and we can work with you know any any

number of other producers

however we want to concentrate on right

now what we know best

and um but there's a there's a real void

in the in in in our beef supply right

now of really knowing

you know where it came from and how it

was raised and

you know we live in a world where you

know this device should be able to tell

us

you know a lot and and quite honestly

you know

um we're becoming you know um

uh consumers that you know understand

the value of using a cell phone to get

information

and why that hasn't happened yet in the

beef business astonished us

and that was the void that we saw and um

you know that and i i do want to stress

you know we're doing this because you

know we really want to help the ranching

community

most of the owners of my company are

ranchers and

um that's why we started the company and

um you know if if if ranching in the u.s

goes away

you know we've got a we've got a real

challenge with our with our food supply

because

now we'll be bringing bringing in

products from abroad where quite frankly

we'll even have less information

right so um so we we we really want to

make this about the ranching community

and

and that linkage between the ranching

community and the consumer

yeah and isn't you know as far as

uh livestock is concerned you know uh

and again i'm not an expert in this

space uh

isn't you know a lot of the other

animals you know like pigs and such

a lot of that comes from overseas like

you know as

i think pigs especially is china there's

a lot of south american

poultry etc but beef is still largely

you know

insourced for the u.s is that accurate

it it is yeah you're absolutely right

and

um and and interestingly um

you know if the u.s also does a pretty

good job of exporting

um our beef products so you know there's

a real opportunity there for the rest of

the world

um you know there are there are a number

of countries that we've worked with

um uh south korea taiwan

uh and japan where quite frankly the

american story

um helps sell the beef um

you know they you know they they really

do

view wyoming as kind of this mystical

old west place

and you know and and by the way it is i

want to

you know having moved here from new york

city i have to tell you wyoming is an

absolutely magical place but you know

they

they really value that story and um

so the more that we can for for our

ranchers who are exporting products

the more that we can tell that story um

you know

a great example is a relatively famous

ranch that we work with here in wyoming

called the camp stool ranch

it's owned by a gentleman named ogden

driscoll

ogden driscoll is the sixth generation

rancher and there's two more generations

on that ranch right now behind them so

there's eight generations on the camp

stool ranch

the interesting thing about the camp

stool ranch also is

it surrounds the base of devil's tower

so

you know if you can imagine you know you

know there's you know and if you

look on our our beefchain dot

io website you'll see a lot of pictures

um

around camp stool ranch and i get people

all the time

saying to me well you photoshop that

you're clearly took

a wyoming landmark and you're putting

cows in front of it and you you just

photoshopped that and i'm like

no no we didn't that is

that is the driscoll ranch this is when

i go to work every day

right can you imagine that you know

well i tell you you're making me really

jealous but you know what

you know we're all remote now and you

know we don't have to go into any office

i was a remote worker anyways

heck maybe i should be looking at a

relocation to wyoming at this point

sounds like the best place to be

isolated

okay that's all i've got the only advice

i'll give you of being a new transplant

is

bring a very heavy coat when you visit

wyoming

um no it's um uh that that part of the

state in particular which is the

the northeastern um part of the state

is truly a beautiful place and

it is um it is um you know

sparsely populated and you know

relatively untouched and

if you have an opportunity to visit that

part of the state uh certainly you know

visit the

camp stool ranch but um it is uh it is

truly a beautiful uh beautiful part of

the state

and other than the uh other than the um

50 weeks of winter uh it is a i'm

kidding guys up there i'm kidding

uh it is oh the the the wyoming tourist

department is going to be all over you

for that one

[Laughter]

no it's uh it truly it it truly is and

and i am saying this sincerely uh

you know it is it is a magical place i i

could not be happier with

with my my my move out here to uh to

cheyenne

uh prior to that i was you know you know

living in

you know southern connecticut and

commuting into new york city

and coming out here uh you know you

would think it was a culture shock

but quite frankly um wyoming is its

people

and you know this is a you know this is

just a

a wonderful place with wonderful people

and um so uh i do encourage um

you know anyone who's out in this you

know you know part of the country to

come

to come visit it it's it's truly a

beautiful place

and hopefully we'll have university of

wyoming football games that they can

they can visit but that that's yet to be

seen

yeah yeah well i will definitely see

about that

uh uh frankly i'm not holding my my my

breath too too much

but uh uh you know i guess you know it's

uh uh

what's the phrase uh uh hope for the

best expect the worst or something along

those lines

uh but um so i you know i'm totally

uh groking and really loving what you're

saying about this whole beef chain thing

because

you know i spent some time in texas and

you know

probably like wyoming you know uh the

the texans they they love their beef and

um you know i think that's the thing

about cows yeah right

and i i tell you you know i definitely

picked up

uh the a lot of uh beef habits

uh living in austin texas um you know

i've got

a nice smoker where you know i'm smoking

brisket all the time and

you know all sorts of stuff you know

ribs and all that great stuff but i can

tell you

you know would be interesting to to hear

from you about

in that context is you know there's a

lot more

when it comes to you know these kind of

box

delivery uh you know direct from farm to

consumer type of thing

and would be interesting because you

know i know that i would be all over

because i'm

you know even here locally uh where i'm

at there's a

a few local uh butchers that i'll go to

support the community etc

but also to supplement that uh and throw

in the freezer and what have you

is you know like i think uh butcher box

is what i use

but you know i'll have meat come in and

you know

pop in the freezer and then when i'm

ready to you know have some people over

and

and cook some brisket all day long we

can do that or what have you

but with beef it seems to me

at least at a high level and understand

we didn't you know uh have a

conversation before this about this but

um

it almost would make it easier i think

to be able to enable

more of that to have you know uh

local wyoming ranchers to be able to

take their product and go direct to

consumer and be able to create

like their own type of butcher box or

even have a

network uh like a marketplace that

is all about connecting uh the ranchers

to the consumers what are your thoughts

there

well first of all you know that's the

ultimate goal

the challenge is um there is some

regulatory hurdles

um that uh ranchers uh

face when wanting to do a direct to

consumer

um uh type of program you know there are

usda regulations

about you know where beef can get

processed

and where it gets processed you know has

to be inspected by

the usda and there are certain certainly

costs associated with that

that makes it very very difficult for

small ranchers and individual butchers

to do

large-scale operations because

once they grow beyond a certain point

the usda regulations kick

in and the costs become so prohibitive

that they they simply get they they hit

up they hit a ceiling and they can't

they can't grow past that

um wyoming has taken a little bit of a

step in

and this has nothing to do with the the

blockchain legislation but

wyoming also has something called the

food freedom act

and many states actually regulate

and you have to get a license in order

to produce

certain food products and sell them to

consumers you know and

in many states the amount that you can

sell in value

is relatively low sometimes less than a

thousand dollars so if you have

grandma's great jam recipe and

you want to start grandma's jam recipe

grandma's jam company in your kitchen

in many cases you can't because once you

produce above a certain level then

you fall under a whole different set of

regulations

where where quite frankly you it'll be

cost prohibitive for you to

to to produce it yourself and um wyoming

has actually taken some steps with the

food freedom act

and i would certainly encourage um you

know people to

you know reach out to their legislators

about you know

you know how how food is uh manufactured

and processed in their states because

that is

that is a hurdle and it's a hurdle in

the beef business

and it's it's quite frankly a hurdle in

a lot of businesses

and you know i think um and and quite

frankly what that's caused

is it's caused consolidation among

um the food manufacturing and the

processing

world and not to go back to beef but

it's what i know best

there's really four companies in the us

right now that do all of the beef

processing

and one of them you know a lot of

press has gone out recently because

they've had to shut down because of

coveting infections inside their plants

and it was smithfield

and you know when smithfield's plant

came went down

about 20 percent of the of the meat

processing in the

in the country shut down it's it's that

significant

and so without those smaller producers

or with the and without that that

mid-level

of of processing plants you know you

the incumbents just you know can if

something

happens like what happened with

smithfield you know we could have real

supply chain problems and i still think

we might

down the road and it doesn't look like

covid's burning out as quickly as we

thought it was going to

so what is the impact of that in the

next you know two months

you know six months and a one year is

is still i think um something that we

don't we don't really understand yet so

um so um these these restrictions

on small producers i think um you know

have to be addressed

and you know perhaps covid will help

um you know some of these states look at

some of these

challenges that exist within their

states and allow their producers

um to do what wyoming's done and open up

um you know um for processors to sell

more directly

so i was actually going to ask you that

because you

you know we find that in many different

industries a lot of these

barriers um and and hurdles

to progress and you know frankly very

manual type of processes

a lot of those digital transformations

to automate that have been

accelerated as a result and i wonder you

know kind of what you're talking about

with the processing

if there's technology whether it be

visual technology

iot technology ai technology if there

are things that can be done

to help either offset the amount of

processing that needs to be done

or maybe even eliminate it altogether

what do you think

well you know i think there's not an

industry in the world um that is

is not getting touched by by technology

um you know when i visit ranchers you

know

they're they're sitting on their horses

and they've got their cell phones

you know right and so they're carrying a

computer with them

and you know the way we're building um

um the beef chain um user interface

recognizes that you know you've got

you've got a

a computer and a chip reader you know in

your pocket everywhere you go

so you know rfid and qr codes and things

like that that are very easily

um you know recognized and used by

mobile

devices is right now the way to go and

um you know and we're and we're finding

now that there's

um development on you know ear tags that

are predominantly rfid right now

which has limitations in range and

things like that

we're starting to see um tag

manufacturers out there working with 5g

and that's going to create you know all

you know

whole new um benefits for ranchers

you know it's it's it's kind of funny

and these big ranches

out here in wyoming you know you'll hear

ranchers go yeah i spent two days

looking for a

you know for a for a cow and a calf that

wandered off somewhere and i

i i don't know where they are you know

when you start

when you i mean when you start you know

adding

you know 5g and quite honestly there's

companies out there right now that have

drones that will fly over your ranch and

and you know i identify where your you

know where your animals are

and you know you know boy

what what time savers you know and so

in in our system you know when uh

whenever when a vet comes and and looks

at a looks at an animal

you know they can tap their their their

uh don't have the tap but they just have

to

use their cell phone within proximity of

that animal and it pops up the record on

that animal and they can record exactly

what

you know what they have well you know

that was either not done you know in the

past because

recording that what value would that

bring but more importantly it was so

laborious that

ranchers just wouldn't do it and even if

they did do it you know it was a it was

a paper process and

you know would never get to that

information would never get to where it

needed to be

when now you know you can scan a package

of beef

you know theoretically in your pack in

your grocery store

and see all that data you know you don't

want to give too much data because

too much data is i think is also

distracting but um

but that can now be used or borderline

creepy uh you know we don't want to know

the name of the cow

uh as an example we actually joke about

that quite you know quite a bit once you

once you name something it's a pet it's

no longer

[Laughter]

it's no longer grocery store aisle

eligible

[Laughter]

but but you know it's it's you know

data it's surprising how data can be

used beneficially it's also surprising

how data can be used inappropriately

right but but um you know you know

ranchers can now make

um you know real decisions um

you know about um about how they operate

their ranches

um and that could you know bring them

greater um

greater value i'll give you a perfect

case in point

this doesn't exist yet but it's very

close

is right now um the way grading

you know choice you know um select and

prime is done

is actually after the the beef is

processed

so the the um the processor gets the

benefit of that

not the rancher and so you're not you're

when you sell a cow

you theoretically don't know how it's

going to going to grade

and however if you start collecting data

and you start seeing that you know this

ranch

produces more prime than another ranch

does

okay well that's information that could

help that rancher and more importantly

that rancher could almost go down to

well

this bull in this cow in combination

creates more prime and you can start

dealing with

you can do ranch management decisions

that before

simply didn't exist because of this data

and

as a result you can produce better

product

you know theoretically more prime might

would be better product and

you know if if the rancher can prove

that

their supply produces

you know a higher percentage of prime

why shouldn't they benefit in that too

and that's kind of what we're trying to

that's where we want to get the power

back to the rancher

and um and i and and and that's the

value that

information can really provide that

historically

was simply just lost you know you

soldier you sold your your animal at the

sale barn

from that point on you had no idea what

you know you know what

where your product went in the

marketplace how it was graded you you

you

and and frankly you didn't care because

you didn't benefit from it

but it but if you know you're going to

get 10 15 20 cents more per pound

you're going to make different decisions

yeah that's a big deal um and

and i think that's valuable yeah yeah

totally and

uh you know like you said i mean a lot

of these

are kind of small mom and pop type of

operations

and while the big corporation might not

think that that's a big deal but for

these folks

it is very much a big deal and you know

having this technology at their disposal

further offloads things that they would

have to do manually

which means they got more time to either

make better quality products

or be able to have more volume or

inventory

so i mean it definitely has a material

impact

and so with with beef chain i get the

kind of the track and trace aspect of it

of okay

we're collecting the data it's enough

it's it's uh

written to a data storage technology

that makes it tamper resistant uh

it's transparent and visible to uh most

if not everybody

uh there's probably kind of a built-in

kind of firewalling of permissioning

that happens

to be part of this network type of thing

um

so outside of kind of a track and trace

type of perspective

uh what other capabilities are you uh

directly creating

as part of uh beef chain

well um another challenge

that we believe um our system can help

is the way the ranching community works

right now

is it they essentially get paid at one

point in time during the year and they

have to survive on that money

until that point in time the next year

uh it's it's a very real problem

in both ranching and farming you know

you sell your crop you've sold your crop

and um and so what ends up happening is

ranchers and farmers typically take some

sort of a bridge loan

or you know or some sort of loan that

carries them through

until the the next time that they you

know get revenue and they can pay off

the loan and

and the challenge exists is

they don't control what they can sell

their product for that you know at that

end point

and many times their revenue

is less than you know what their loan

amounts are

so they end up you know carrying loans

year after year after year

and find themselves you know

significantly in debt right

um you know one of the real challenges

with with both ranching and farming

is these people tend to be you know very

land rich

but you know but but cash poor because

the way that it operates and you know

you don't want to start selling off

acreage of your

uh of your ranch so so um a pro

a problem that we think we can also

solve

through this new technology is if we can

tokenize

herds and allow ranchers

to be able to sell the tokens um

you know in advance you know and and

deliver their product in the fall um

against that token

then we may be able to cut out that

aspect

of of of the business as well too and

and they may you know they they may not

have to take out a loan or

as significant amount of a loan and

leave themselves considerably less

exposed so i think

you know blockchain technology in

particular

um has so many benefits because of you

know what you've list before the

immutability the transparency the

distributed nature of it the encryption

everything that makes blockchain

valuable um you can now use that

technology

to solve other problems besides the the

track and trace

and you mentioned uh earlier um in a

question about ai

you know once you apply ai to all of

this information

as well too you know you you are you

know

you're you're going to be able to um

vastly improve a really outdated system

you know the system of ranching and

selling it to a back ender or a feedlot

and then going to a

a processor and then a processor to a

distributor etc

you know that that system has been in

place for over 100 years

you know um you know how can that system

be improved

so that one our constituents the

ranchers

um you know um you know benefit more

um certainly um our our next most

important

stakeholder would be the consumers you

know and

so how can we use now that we're

collecting all this data

you know what other problems can this

this data

be used to solve and that's kind of our

mission at beefchain

is is to keep looking at the

various problems that ranchers have and

see how technology doesn't have to be

you know blockchain although you know

i'm a you know a huge proponent of it

um but how can how can we

solve those problems for for our

ranchers because

we believe happy ranchers create happy

consumers because

it's you know it is a you know it's a

better

safer better tasting product and that's

our goal so we're

we're constantly looking exactly at you

know what you're

what you just asked which is what's next

you know

track and trace we got it you know our

usda certification

we're there we got it you know what's

next

and um and i think you know every

technology company should be looking at

that

you know what what how what what what do

you do next with the technology that

you've built

um if you don't innovate you stagnate

and you die

i'll totally and so so you know we've

been talking

a lot about wyoming and so what i

want to understand uh also is so when we

talk about beef chain

is beef chain uh just for

wyoming ranchers and customers or is

this national

international um kind of what's the

scope of beefchain

uh now and potentially in the future

it is intern it is both national and

international

um we started out and um

and you know because our our owners are

wyoming ranchers

you know we we started out there and and

and they're kind of our

you know our home base but you know we

we have worked with um you know the

nebraska association you know we have

worked them with associations in texas

um um a sheep product that we worked on

it was was part of the canadian cheap

federation they're great people up there

and as i mentioned you know we we've

exported

um on product to you know several

countries

and our technology we are working with

um companies and governments in other

parts of the world

that want to use our technology

to help them in in their countries or

among their associations

so so really no we are not limited to uh

to wyoming

we started in wyoming really because

wyoming

is fairly unique place in the in the

blockchain world

and it might be um it it it

might help the um the viewers to

understand some unique things that

wyoming has done

um in the past three years wyoming has

passed

about 20 bills around

blockchain um distributed finance

uh and cryptocurrency in particular

and wyoming has really set itself um

apart um from really any other

jurisdiction

arguably in the world with what wyoming

has done

and and and this isn't unique you know i

know

a a lot of your viewers may go wyoming

why why why why wyoming wyoming is a

pretty unique place

you know wyoming gave women the right to

vote

50 years before anywhere else in the u.s

could vote

um wyoming created the

a whole concept of the llc in 1974. we

are the first state to do that

you know we are the first date with a

woman governor we are the

first state with uh um with um a female

supreme court justice i mean wyoming is

known

for firsts and

um this is a a state whose ethos is

rugged individualism

and and so it should be no surprise

that um when a problem was presented to

the wyoming legislature and essentially

what that problem was

was it all started when um someone

relatively

um well known in the cryptocurrency

space a woman by the name of caitlyn

long

um tried to donate bitcoin

um to endow us a scholarship for female

engineers at her alma mater

university of wyoming and at the time

wyoming had a money transmitter law that

was very poorly written

money transmitter laws are designed for

like the western union type

companies and the law was written around

if you deposit money

at western union then you the western

union has to hold your money in reserve

until they deliver it somewhere else

well the way the law was written it

captured cryptocurrency companies

in a very negative way and all of the

cryptocurrency companies pulled out of

wyoming

a number of years ago and that wasn't

the intention of wyoming's law

but it just it just captured it and um

caitlyn um basically um

said you know what i'm gonna see if

there's a way we can fix this

and she ended up um getting in contact

with

a very innovative legislator uh at the

university

excuse me in wyoming named tyler

lindholm uh tyler is the um

uh majority whip uh young guy um navy

vet

you know um you know kind of a

libertarian so he kind of

was a cryptocurrency guy and and he went

ah

great we're gonna we're gonna run with

this bill and we're gonna fix

the we're gonna fix this limitation so

that it would bring the cryptocurrency

um companies back in and that was the

very first

bill um that they ran and if i recall

that passed unanimously

in both houses so it was pretty amazing

but to the credit of tyler lindholm

in the wyoming legislature they said

you know what what more could we do with

this you know

i mean okay we fixed that problem but

you know

what more can we do and over time

um a number of us got involved and

something was created called the wyoming

blockchain coalition

which is a you know a group of

like-minded people that just volunteered

their time to

to work with the legislature to help you

know

identify things that that that that um

the state could do

and um to the credit of the state

and to the credit of at the time

governor meade

um the governor actually created

a standing task force around blockchain

and one of the first states to do that

and this state

this task force which was made up of

both legislators

and experts um now caitlin was actually

named to that

to that to that committee

they they they just said okay what can

we do around this space

where can we do economic development

where can we you know um

where can we remove hurdles for

businesses you know like um you know

blockchain businesses

um where can we solve problems like um

and i experienced this at beefchain and

i also experienced it in a trade

association that i i ran

in this space as well too where it was

very difficult for me to get a bank

account

and i couldn't get the bank account

because you know

the uh the fdic considered

cryptocurrency and digital assets to be

in kind of an

at-risk industry although it's

completely legal right they

they they essentially told member banks

of the fdic um you know if you bank this

industry we're going to put you under

enhanced scrutiny

um by the way if a regulator ever says

you're

going to be under enhanced scrutiny it's

a bad thing

so so you know that's like the iars

saying yeah we're just going to do a

little enhanced scrutiny of your tax

return yeah um

but but um so so that was another area

where the wyoming legislature went wait

a minute

how do we how do we fix this and

probably

the the most important thing in my

opinion that the wyoming legislation

legislators did was created something

called special purpose depository

institutions

speedy banks and um

what's unique about speedy banks is

they're designed to bank the crypto

industry um both in fiat

but um because of the way um

um federal regulation is written banks

are the the qualified custodians

for um holding digital assets and trust

and which has been one of the real

hurdles to big institutional investors

getting involved in this asset class

because they're required by law to have

a third-party custodian

um third-parties third-party custodians

should be banks what the legislation

says but the fdic prevented banks from

banking this industry so there was a

circular problem that

that really stopped this industry and

wyoming did something really really

interesting and

a credit goes to three people uh caitlin

uh tyler lynch mentioned and a really

smart young lawyer named chris land

who was working in the legislative

services office at the state of wyoming

who said you know let's really let's

really look at this

and let's find out how we could fix this

problem and what they came up with is

something really kind of brilliant

which is these spdi banks are

um chartered banks by the wyoming

division of banking so they are

chartered banks and but

they put in a requirement where these

banks have to hold 100 reserve

and can't lend well if you

lend and you don't have 100 reserve

that would be fractional reserve banking

as you know then whenever you do

fractional reserve banking you put your

depositors

at some risk and you need fdic insurance

so what wyoming came up with is

hey we found a way where we can create a

bank

okay and that bank doesn't

have to have fdic insurance it can but

you know there's challenges there

um and so they threaded the needle

of of regulation and created these new

institutions

now wyoming was out there for the last

two years doing this

and every other state in particular new

york's

nydfs said you guys are crazy you know

you can't do this

no um and then

about two weeks ago a very interesting

announcement came out from the occ

um that's the office of the controller

who

and they're the they're the regulatory

body for national banks

and they came out and they said national

banks can now

custody cryptocurrency now it's not

going to play out exactly the way people

think it is because

saying it and getting all the regulatory

stuff in place and the rules and all

that

will take time but essentially what the

u.s

government or or a branch of the us

government just did

is said you know what wyoming you're

right

[Laughter]

and you're you're right again right

yeah well yes it's good news bad news

for wyoming

um it's certainly you know validated

everything that you know we've been

doing for the last couple of years

um but it also opened the door

for national banks and we were kind of

hoping that wyoming would have this

that its own little industry um a great

example

would be uh what south dakota did in the

early 80s when they changed their usery

law

uh specifically to attract credit card

processing

right now most credit card processing

happens in south dakota

and last i heard i think there's about

16 000

jobs in in south dakota particularly

around

around that industry we were hoping to

do that in wyoming and i still think

that's going to be the case

because you know just saying you can do

this

you know is one thing having all the

the laws and you know ucc

mapping and the regulatory structure

all of that wyoming did all that and

you know the the federal government's

now or the occ is going to have to do

all that too

and that's a heavy lift and so i i

i do think that it's a threat to wyoming

but we've also got a two-year head start

and you know i think if these wyoming

banks

um um you know get up and running

quickly there's two of them right now

that are going through the regulatory

process

um once they get up and running um you

know i

i i think wyoming is still going to have

a huge advantage

over you know any other bank and um but

that that that needs to be seen but

again you know

wyoming was right you know

yeah you know it's good that women vote

okay we were right

you know they're only over half of the

populations you know

it just makes sense um but i gotta tell

you it's

it's actually a fascinating story if you

allow me to take a little

digression a little bit um wyoming

wyoming wanted to become a state but it

didn't have enough people

at that point in time you needed to have

don't hold me to this number

you had to have like you know 50 000

residents to be a state or something

like that

so wyoming being creative said well

let's give women the right to vote and

and we'll hit that number and so

congress obviously sent out a delegation

to negotiate with

the the then territory to become a state

and

um and i'm cutting out a lot of the

details but to make the long story short

the delegation said and this was in the

1860s said

well listen we'll make you a state but

when you do that you're going to have to

take away the right of women to vote and

wyoming said

you know what on second thought we don't

want to be a state

and didn't become a state until 1896.

so they stuck to their guns you know and

you know some i can't remember the time

period it certainly was over 25 or 30

years

went by where they said no we're not

gonna we're not gonna give that up and

ultimately wyoming was admitted as a

state and

it maintained the right to vote for

women 20 years before the rest of the

country did

and um and so you know again

it's that rugged individualism it's you

know that wyoming ethos of saying you

know what

no we're not going to change the way we

do it just to become a state we'll

you know thanks but no thanks and so

that that that's exactly the spirit that

allows

the innovation like what happened around

blockchain

to happen um i cannot give enough credit

to

um the wyoming legislature i you know

quite honestly two governors have now

supported this

um and um and you know the

uh university which i'd like to take a

minute and talk about

the university is jumping on board with

both feet into this industry as well too

and um you know that's that's what makes

wyoming unique is they they just

get things done and um and um and it's

the way the legislature is set up you

know wyoming legislators are not

professional politicians

they are limited by the constitution how

many times they can meet

um you know they're paid a per diem for

when they're in

session and and believe me in many cases

it doesn't cover the cost of a hotel

room

to come down to the capitol and so these

people

all after the session is done go back to

their full-time jobs and i think

that's another thing that makes wyoming

unique is we don't have a

a ruling class of of legislators

who their only job is to get reelected

you know these people

serve because they want to give back to

their communities and

you see that in the way they create

their legislation

and it's you know being from the east

coast it's

fascinating to watch how different

wyoming does it than

so many other places and to some extent

people

ask me you know could could you know

would i help another state do this

i don't know if another state could do

this um you know it's a perfect storm of

situations that i don't think exists

anywhere else

and um so that's where we are

i love that you said that because you

know i was kind of segwaying

into that a little bit that you know in

a lot of ways

uh wyoming has preserved

that original uh american dream and

you know has been protected and isolated

uh to a certain extent uh and

is able to carry forward those ideals

that are just so innovative

and uh it's refreshing to hear that

especially

from a political perspective and

definitely don't want to get into

politics uh

at all um uh because i'm sure it'll

offend a lot of people

but um let me let me just interject and

say this

the the blockchain bills in wyoming were

entirely bipartisan that was something

else that was really unique

is both sides agreed

wow you know and the funny thing is is

like you know i've

had the opportunity to work with both

democrats and republicans

on reviewing bills um you know in

washington dc

and it is funny that you know

on that particular topic um you know

folks tend to get along

and agree uh where you're thinking well

this is a fairly complex topic

and you don't really fully understand

the tech but you guys are all on board

you guys

get it so i'm not going to argue with

that um but

you know there's a lot to unpack on what

you talked about

uh steven and you know one thing that i

definitely want to highlight that i

think is

often overlooked as people start to

embark

on these blockchain initiatives is they

often overlook

the the legal structure the formation

period

around uh these essentially ecosystems

that you're creating

and where you form this entity

is so vital to its success and what you

can

and can't do and so oftentimes people

want to jump straight to the technology

they want to say okay this is what the

technology can and can't do

right but they forget what can you

actually do

by law um and you know

if if i was thinking about a traditional

business

you know delaware of all places is a

very popular place to establish or

or nevada uh and then likewise for

blockchain there's

hot spots you know like wyoming that

provide

more flexibility to be able to do things

and so

you know i just want to just emphasize

that again

that when you're thinking about going

down this blockchain path

you know make sure you engage with your

legal folks your business folks

to really really concentrate on the

regulatory aspects

uh the formation aspects because that

can be

a make or break moment for you depending

on what you're trying to do

am i quote unquote off the reservation

here or uh

am i uh in lockstep with how you think

not at all

no listen i you know before i got in

this space you know i've spent my career

working in

you know in large companies and and

you know starting businesses and running

businesses and

you're absolutely right you know um you

know i know the

you know the a lot of my you know my

bitcoin and my cryptocurrency brethren

out there

are going oh regulation is bad you know

um you know you know you know in a

perfect world there'd be no regulation

there'd be no banks there's

you know we would all have this

peer-to-peer system the reality of the

situation is that's not going to happen

anytime in the near future

and um uh an individual who i really

respect in the crypto

currency world uh named trace mayor uh

many of your

your your um your um your viewers may

know him

you know once said to me a great uh

something

a great phrase which was you know you

know technology needs to be backwardly

compatible to the law

too you know you need to you

you ca it's great if you build something

but if it's illegal i'm sorry it's you

know

that's a problem and um now i'm gonna do

another little plug for

for wyoming um the way the wyoming laws

are

are are built and and by the way one of

the one of the bills that was passed

was a fintech sandbox that will allow

uh companies to experiment um

with some new concepts and i'm

oversimplifying it but as long as you're

not trying to rip somebody off

and you continue to keep the wyoming

secretary of state's office informed of

what you're doing

they're going to give you a little bit

of regulatory leeway to experiment

and allow your business to to

to grow and develop and you know there's

you know the the wyoming secretary of

state's office i've worked extensively

with them and they're

terrific people you know you can pick up

the phone and call them

and they'll actually talk with you

that's another nice thing about wyoming

you know i i the governor will probably

be upset with me for saying this

but you can kind of walk into the

capitol you don't have to go through

metal detectors and

you know and you can you know you can

you know

walk around the capitol and you can you

know visit some of these offices

you know a lot easier than when i lived

in new york city and

um so the these you know

these agencies here in wyoming recognize

that they're here to help you and

so um if you do have an interesting

concept

um i would you know absolutely follow

your advice mike talk to your legal

counsel

uh always talk to your legal counsel and

despite popular belief they are your

friend

despite popular beliefs

yup the ones that you pay are your

friends absolutely

and um um but um um you know

but the way the wyoming laws are written

you know if you have a nexus

to wyoming then you benefit from this

legislation so

in this distributed world we live in if

you if

if you domicile your company in wyoming

you may be living in austin you may be

living in

in you know cincinnati you may be living

anywhere you can domicile your company

in wyoming

and take advantage of all of these bills

that we passed

and and because you've got that nexus

and um in the in so so i would encourage

people who are starting businesses or

or are concerned that their current

regulatory environment may not allow

them to be able to

expand their concept or grow their

concepts you know i would encourage you

through your legal counsel to reach out

to the state of wyoming

by the way there's a there's a number of

very talented

um attorneys in wyoming as well too

who because of this have really learned

this space

and um and quite honestly there's

accounting firms now

that know this space because of what

we've done and

they are certainly willing to you know

offer advice and guidance on

whether it makes sense for you to have

an access to to um to wyoming and

whether that would benefit you or not

but um but i absolutely encourage you to

you know certainly do that

um you know look uh you know i in the

course i teach

um you know as much as

as i'm a you know huge blockchain

proponent

you know you don't go out and you build

a blockchain company

what you do is you go out and you solve

a problem and

if that problem involves blockchain in

the solution

terrific um you know you but but you

can't do it the other way around

i think that's the same way with with

regulation

you know what you know you know you need

to you need to make sure what you're

doing

is legal and compliant and you cross

your t's and your dot your eyes

yes i know that in a perfect libertarian

world that wouldn't exist but

you know that's not that's not the world

we live in yeah you know people have

imaginations and they like to kind of

think through that and you know it

it's very similar you know i had this

conversation uh

with with with another cryptocurrency

person that you know i

you know really respect uh she's you

know

just insanely smart um but you know we

kind of got down this rabbit hole

of kind of this ideal world and how it

should be and you know i i

just you know had to say you know i'm

gonna i'm gonna stop you there

you know the word should um

you know whenever we have these types of

conversations

should really shouldn't be in the

conversation because

at the end of the day there are very

hard restrictions there is

physics for government there's physics

for the the business world that

there are these immovable objects and

outside of a

catastrophic event um you know the

government

completely dissolves uh you know you

know whatever it may be

it's you know the walking dead becomes

true uh

outside of those very very unlikely

events

uh capitalism isn't going anywhere and

so we can talk

all darn day long about

disintermediation and

crypto and you know all the great things

that it will open up

you know maybe 50 maybe a hundred years

from now but today in the

in the short term you know these are

institutions that have been put in place

for i would say very good reasons

even though they may be archaic now and

we may have

outgrown some of those controls but

those laws and regulations were put in

place for a reason they weren't just you

know someone just didn't

say tomorrow i got i got a punch list i

gotta make sure i get these in

but they were built um for a reason now

the challenge with our system is we're

great at

creating laws but we're not so great at

retiring laws

um and actually actively going through

and saying

okay here's the list what do i scratch

off you know wouldn't it be great if we

had

a process in our in our legislative

system where

every year you had to do a law audit

and you go down the list and you see

silly laws like

if you spit in public you go to jail uh

or you know all these kind of crazy laws

that you hear about

um and so you know kind of you know i'm

digressing a little bit but i think it's

an important point

which is it's it's all coming back to

ground yourself in the current reality

you know

yes you know think about future vision

where things could go do scenario

planning you know say okay if scenario a

comes

true in the next five years here's how

we'll handle that scenario b scenario c

scenario d

however the problem is is that one we

don't know what the future is going to

be

but two we work within a current system

and you can there is some level of

predictability of that system

you know laws don't don't happen

overnight

so don't think that you can move to this

utopia you know very quickly so

uh you know i guess i'm building on your

point there around your conversation

that you know ground yourself in reality

these

technologies especially things like

blockchain uh they open up the

imagination

uh and they really challenge

fundamentally challenge some key

constructs that we we have built to

protect us

you know we you know we've created

brokers and intermediaries for a reason

they were to protect us and to help you

know it's just like the processors for

you know the you know food industry they

were there for a reason

now we may have outgrown them because of

technology or what have you

but they're there for a reason so um

you know i think that having that kind

of practical reality is really important

to ground us

and to your other point that i think is

critically important

is yes blockchain's cool blockchain sexy

there's a lot of hype

people want to hear about it but you

know kind of how i think about it

whenever

i'm having these conversations with with

customers is

use blockchain is kind of the opening

hey yes blockchain's cool

it's it allows you to do these sorts of

things

okay now let's quickly pivot what

problems are we trying to solve

and we can map all those great

capabilities that blockchain can provide

but then let's make sure we do it in the

context of

real things that are real problems and

it's a really great way to

look at your existing strategy and say

okay let's do a heat map on

where having something tamper resistant

is really helpful within our current

capabilities

uh let's do a mapping of where mastering

data because

one of the benefits of blockchain that

people don't talk a whole lot about

is master data management i look at

blockchain as a great master data

management system

with a fraction of the cost of an mdm

type of solution

but where does that help um you know

where do we need to build more trust

where do we need to build peer-to-peer

data exchange and you look at your

current strategy you go oh okay

now i can kind of see how this applies

and

that will resonate with your business

partners go okay yeah so

now i know what business area now i can

start doing

roi calculations i can start okay if i

did this

what would that mean to my transactions

oh you're telling me that this

reconciliation process

that required five people and two months

of man effort to do every year

that is around 50 million dollars that

it's

costing me to operate this you can cut

that to 100k a year

sold then you know it's a

straightforward conversation

but also it's a great way to as a

template

to look at both challenging current

strategies and saying

why the hell are we doing this anymore

uh this is silly

uh to also hey this opens up

a whole new business model a whole new

set of capabilities that uh

we can embark upon as a business and so

you had mentioned

you know you do uh some work at the

university of wyoming

maybe tell us a little bit about that

work and how some of these concepts

kind of interweave in the work that

you're doing there

sure well another area again i'm gonna

i'm gonna sound like a broken record

where

wyoming is unique is we only have one

state university

that's it the university of wyoming is

the state university and we have a

wonderful

um group of seven community colleges

that feed into the university of wyoming

so university of wyoming is in a unique

place it's a land-grant

school so you know there's certain

things around land-grant schools

everywhere that's that that's unique

land grant but when you're the only one

it creates unique opportunities and one

of the unique opportunities

is the unit the university takes a a

you know a much larger role than many

in the economic development of the state

and

so the university has seen

what's going on with these blockchain

bills

and and said you know what you know we

have created something unique and

different

um we don't want to have the same thing

happen with the llc law

where we created a great idea and then

delaware

to their credit jumped on it and now

most llcs are created in

in uh in delaware i think wyoming is

number three still which is great for a

small state but still

we we we were the leader of something

and we kind of let it get away from us

um

so so you know we've got this we we've

got this

unique new pardon of expression we've

got this unique new unique new toy what

do we do with it

and so so the the university recognizes

that

um almost every college within our

university

can get touched by by blockchain you

know we've got a very strong ag school

well i mean i'm president of beefchain i

can certainly give you the

the you know the aggregate the

agriculture strong points of it

um certainly our business school and

finance

i mean distributed finance and fintech

is changing

you know almost by the day um so you

know

um the you know university of wyoming

has a uh of

an excellent law school so you know

there's

there's a real need for lawyers that

understand this

this um this asset class and so the law

school sees a real unique

opportunity there we've got a power and

energy school

well you know tokenization of of um of

environmental credits

and you know co2 sequestration

and so you know as you look through

a university like wyoming's um

almost every college has a an

application

a very real application that that

blockchain could

benefit into the credit of the

university

they've said you know what we need to do

is

you know most colleges this in most

universities even

university of wyoming you know each

college is kind of its own little entity

that

yes kind of you know reports up to their

version of old main but they kind of

work independently

what can wyoming do differently and the

thought there is

why don't we pool all of our resources

and

create an interdisciplinary center that

works with

all of the different colleges within the

university

and helps them create programs

um where we could share resources and

the first thing we're going to be doing

is we're going to be creating a minor

program

and that minor program initially will

involve three of the colleges

um the college of business the college

of ag and the engineering and

in information systems you know college

and we're gonna share

we're gonna share resources i mean when

you think about it a fundamental

fundamentals one in the fundamentals two

class

why do three why do three different

colleges have to

have those same classes why don't we why

don't we just pool our resources

and do that and you know in our law

school

is look at looking at uh doing a jd

mba with a concentration in in uh

in blockchain and and so that's we're

going to go first

is um you know helping the colleges you

know um

create those those those programs

because you know i say this quite a bit

um and you know

uh wyoming's biggest export is its

college

educated youth you know you you graduate

from the university of wyoming

if you're not going into ranching you're

not going into power

power and energy you know you're

probably going to leave the state

and get a job somewhere else how do we

stop that right you know

you know we're you know so so we look at

this

as one you know this is an industry that

can bring economic development to the

state and the university wants to be a

part of that

um we we see that there

is um you know a shortage of people that

understand

you know you work in this industry it's

hard to find people that

already know especially you know young

people who already know

a lot about this industry the first

thing you really have to generally do is

teach them about this industry unless

they're programmers

so how do we fix that you know how do we

how do we train lawyers that can really

go out there and

and you know advise properly in this in

this asset class and accountants that

can advise properly in this asset

class so so that's part of the mandate

we also believe that universities um

are are um are where the research

for industry should be done and um

you know there's there's a there's a

number of universities

that um have truly uniquely set

themselves apart one of them is

university of arkansas

um who's really gone after the supply

chain

aspect of this and it makes sense in

arkansas because of the big supply chain

people that are there i mean it's

walmart it's jb hunt it's

you know all these amazing companies

that that this technology is going to

revolutionize

so the university of arkansas has really

done something special with an applied

program

that quite frankly um i wanna you know

as much as i can shamelessly steal with

their permission

and because they've done something truly

unique and different

and um so i think research is a great

opportunity for us as well too

and um yeah you and i both can selfishly

plug uh the university of arkansas

blockchain coaby

and uh full disclosure being on the

board of that one

uh but you're right i mean you know uh

the best um

uh invention uh of humanity in my

opinion has been copy paste

um you know uh you know if it works

replicate it i mean it just makes sense

and

you know given the outcome yeah

yeah to the credit of the university of

arkansas they've

they've said how can i help you what do

you need

you know our we want to work with you

you know

we want to share faculty we want to

share white papers we want to share

because you know the whole the whole

ethos of the distributed

technology exists in in everything

you know you know both arkansas and

wyoming can benefit from us sharing this

information

you know we are in entering an open

source world

where everyone participates to make the

product better

and you know that should you know that

that should apply to

things like setting up centers of

excellence so to the credit of

of um a university arkansas and a

wonderful director you have there

mary lassite she has she has basically

said to the university of wyoming

we want to help you we want you to be

successful because i think we'll all

benefit from that

and you know that is you know that i

think is

uh that's the way the world is going and

you know you talk to bitcoin you know

core developer it's all about building

on

the existing code how do we how do we

through you know

how do we all work together to make the

base product better and

if if there's anything that's really

truly important

in in this you know open source ethos

it's really that everyone working to

make things better not necessarily

you know individual competition trying

to you know

uh you know keep trade secrets and

things like that i think this industry

um is fairly unique in in that way oh

make no mistakes you need to patent

things

you know when i teach marketing courses

you know i'm a firm believer in

you know don't attack somebody else's

fortified hill

you know build your own hill and fortify

your hill

and in business how do you fortify your

hill well that's patents that's uh

protect your ip you know to your point

earlier we still live in a world where

that stuff matters

um but um but you know this this open

source ethos i think is

is is truly an important um

development along with blockchain and

cryptocurrency

and um so um but um so the university of

wyoming is um

we'll hopefully soon be making a very

large announcement that we're going to

be

standing up a center uh and um you know

setting things up in universities is

you know not like business you got to

cross a lot of t's and not a lot of eyes

and

and um but um we're pretty much

pretty pretty much there and um

we we want um uh we want businesses to

come to us

and say you know how can we work

together you know what can

you know what what can what can wyoming

and the university

do to help me be successful and

that's exactly the role we want to take

you know

we want to get you in touch with the

right people we want you to work with

lawyers that can help you and

accountants that can help you and we can

facilitate you meeting with the

secretary of state's office or the

division of banking or

you know quite honestly you know we've

got a pretty unique way that we deal

deal with our state educational system

as well too through a

statewide superintendent so there's

there's you know the

you know the university can help

businesses navigate

you know that you know not knowing who

to go to in

in and we believe it's our role to to

to help short-circuit that so that you

know you can get up and running

you know more quickly um you know it's a

state that values privacy

um i think that's important for um

businesses especially startups that want

to kind of keep what they're doing

you know kind of quiet while they're

developing it um and our llc

laws are written around that in fact if

you use a registered agent you don't

even have to disclose who the

executives of company are when you set

up an llc so you can

you can you know you can work on these

these new businesses

and not necessarily tip off your

competitors that you're doing something

unique and different

um and we we want you know we want

innovation to come to wyoming and i

think

when you combine regulatory agencies

um you know the state legislature in the

university

all together into you know one goal

that's a pretty powerful force and um

and that's what we hope to accomplish in

the in

in the state and um and you know so

we encourage um you know businesses to

reach out um

um you know you can reach out directly

to me at the at the university

and i'll point you in the right

direction of of

you know who you can who you can deal

with um whether it's within the

university or

or outside and um you know we welcome

you know opportunities to work directly

with you um we have a

a blockchain lab and um uh the

blockchain lab

is developed to be kind of an um an

incubator

of concept and you know we want

companies to come to us with a white

paper and say we've got a great idea

help us build this

and you know our you know we can do that

through our blockchain lab

so i think we've got some unique um

unique attributes um that we hope

attract um you know like-minded people

who who want to innovate who who

you know who understand what a light

touch in regulation

means uh because that's kind of what

wyoming is about

and um so and and that's why you know i

i think that's why um you know the

university to to its credit

you know is is saying we need to we need

to be

a a central point for

um for this uh for this new asset and

this new asset class and this new

you know uh philosophy and um so we

encourage you you know give us a call

we we you know all right we're we're you

know so

we're putting always be cautious when

somebody from the government says we're

here to help

but yeah so we're going to put the 1-800

number down here below

call today uh no but you know

we we covered a lot of ground today

and you know it's it's pretty clear that

you know we could talk for the next

uh two or three hours about all this uh

but you know i think you know covering

you know and what's unique and special

about this episode i think

is we really dug deep into a lot of the

business application and a lot of the

essentially why why are we using

blockchain

for this very specific set of problems

and how is it going to materially

help people and you know i think you

know that's something that

oftentimes we don't talk enough about

and so

you know going deeper on that uh i think

is is really unique and

you know uh thank you steven for for for

sharing a lot of

these really you know frankly meaty

applicable real world stories that

kind of illustrate why this is so uh

important

and timely that we do this uh but also

you know highlighting some very real

realistic

uh uh guard rails that all of us have

whenever we're establishing

a business or creating a new product or

service

is that we have to think about the

regulatory side we have to think about

the the legal formation side of the

house it's just

it it's a hard uh uh barrier to entry

and so making sure that we are aware of

that and we're constantly thinking that

if we're going down that path

uh when we're building our strategies

that that's just so critical

but also how wyoming is just so

inclusive

and a lot of the history um you know i

didn't know i knew

uh about the uh the voting thing but i

didn't realize that there was that order

and you know didn't decide to join the

u.s and all that great stuff

uh that was super fascinating but if you

would allow me

you know i would love to take a cut at

your mission statement and you know i

think really your mission statement for

beefchain

should be you know our goal is to put

the mystery meat on the endangered

species list

i think that should be your tagline

but um i'll if you allow me to end with

with one joke as you know there's you

know there's a real big push right now

for plant-based

you know hamburger and and patties and

things like that

and i remember having a meeting with one

of our ranchers

and you know talking about whether this

is a threat

and he looked at me and says you know

what steve you know my my cows have been

turning vegetables into

into beef for eight generations so

[Laughter]

i don't i don't think beef is going away

anytime soon so

um listen it was a real delight um and

um

and you know thank you for giving me

this opportunity to talk about beef

chain

and the state of wyoming it's my

adoptive home

but i've just absolutely fallen in love

with it and um

and quite frankly uh the university

which has not only embraced me but

embraced this whole

whole technology um you know this is

this is a truly unique

and special place and and you know if

you're setting up a new business

uh or looking to set up a division

that's going to be experimenting in this

space

i think it behooves you to you know at

least kick the tires in wyoming so

that's my lap my final commercial for

the state of wyoming

your final plug that no but i think it's

a legitimate one i think everyone

uh uh needs needs to hear it and so uh

you know like always we're going to

provide

a ton of links and i'm going to ask you

stephen for a ton of material

on some of this new coe stuff we'll put

it uh with this

episode so people can see it but uh last

and final question for you

steven um if people want to get a hold

of you how do they get ahold of you

um look you could reach me at my um

probably the best way is connect with me

on linkedin

it's you know steve lupian you'll see me

at the university of wyoming

and beefchain so connect with me on on

on linkedin um you can you know you can

reach me at um

at s looping at uwyo

university of wyoming dot edu or you can

reach me at

steve at beefchain dot io

and reach out to me i you know if i if i

can help i'm happy to

if i can point you in the right

direction i'll be happy to do that

and um you know i'll uh and if if i

could help anybody

navigate make their lives a little bit

easier in this space

i'm i'm delighted to do that awesome so

and i want to thank you for giving me

this platform

and uh and um you know it was a truly

delightful um doing this interview and

and

i and i appreciate what you're doing and

and and

and do want to thank you for what you do

with the university arkansas as well too

and um so um uh the you know the the

space needs people to

to step up and take leadership roles so

i appreciate what you've done

and listen stephen anytime you want to

come back you're more than welcome so

i'm looking forward to having more of

these with you

be careful what you ask for

[Laughter]

all right so with that real pleasure

thank you so much

you