Revolutionizing Digital Trust for The First Time in 30 Years with Jason Eisen

Jason Eisen joins the yWhales team to discuss how he is bridging the gap between how we trust in real life and how we are asked to trust on the internet through his company UTU. UTU is an infrastructure, built on multiple chains,  that tries to learn how you trust. The trust mechanisms of the internet haven’t evolved from the eBay days decades ago. Meanwhile, the internet has evolved. 

 

Jason explains the economics and financial incentives buried in the dated way we currently broker trust online today. “Trust is not a commodity,” he says. Rather, trust builds economic value. According to him, this is what companies like Trustpilot completely misunderstand. UTU attempts to revolutionize digital trust for the first time in 30 years. Tune in to learn how UTU decentralizes reviews and acts as an honest broker, how it provides people with curated and personalized review experiences online, and how it is doing so for web 2.0 companies as well as web 3.0 companies.

 

About Guest

 

Jason Eisen is the founder of UTU. He is on a mission to build trust infrastructure for the internet that is perpetually benevolent. He is also the founder of Maramoja a pan-African alternative to Uber - but, unlike Uber, it is centered on trust-focused ride experiences. It is from his experience conceptualizing Maramoja that he began to develop his obsession with digital trust. Currently, he is based in Nairobi. 

 

You’ll learn about:  

 

• How the way you trust online is drastically different from the way you trust in real life. 
• The three things wrong with digital trust (theory of trust, delivery mechanism, incentives). 
• The reason why the way we trust online has not evolved in 30 years. 
• The black market of fake online reviews. 
• Why web 2.0 platforms are not incentivized to be honest brokers (the economics of trust).
• How better trust infrastructure online can improve customer lifetime value and other important business growth metrics.

 

 

Resources: 

 

Connect with Jason Eisen: LinkedIn | Twitter 

Connect with YWhales: Website | BitClout | Twitter

 

UTU: Website | Telegram | Twitter 

 

Ocean Protocol

Grassroots Economics Foundation

Solar Punk on OpenSea

 

Timestamps 

 

[00:37] Jason Eisen’s (Utu) first exposure to blockchain.  

[02:34] Realizing he’s building the wrong thing (and Nairobi’s taxi horror stories). 

[08:06] Trust and mistrust on Nairobi’s streets (trust-based benefits in the taxi space) OR Accidentally getting obsessed with building for digital trust.  

[11:43] Who do you trust (how we trust online vs. how we trust in real life)? 

[13:47] 3 core problems of digital trust.  

[18:42] The multi-chain architecture of Utu and its backward compatibility.

[21:44] How Utu works (and how it doesn’t sell trust as a commodity). 

[24:20] What is the b2b incentive to adopt decentralized trust infrastructures like Utu?

[28:02] How to find companies that use Utu. 

[29:27] A use case for Utu in DeFi OR How Utu can be used in DeFi (and use cases in other industries).

[30:45] Are Utu users KYC-ed? (and how that affects the quality of the Utu experience)

[32:57] The economic value that reviews create (and why people should be paid to leave reviews) 

[33:43] How do reviews and review curation work on Utu? 

[38:17] Token endorsements: Utu trust tokens and Utu coin

[39:48] The role of blockchain for Utu reviews. 

[40:34] Tokenomics of the Utu trust token and $UTU

[42:39] Online trust without scores.  

[45:07] Early success on Utu. 

[47:54] Trusting addresses using Utu. 

[49:10] Why Utu is targeting the web 2.0 market and the web 3.0 market. 

[51:19] Building trust and managing privacy in the healthcare industry. 

[52:45] Blockchain opportunities in Kenya and the rest of the African continent. 

[59:33] Interesting NFTs: Solar Punk 

 

DISCLAIMER: yWhales is not affiliated with YPO but at this time only allow for YPO, YPO Gold, and YNG members due to privacy & confidentiality. Support and production for today’s episode was done by Truth Work Media. Nothing in the podcast constitutes professional and/or financial advice, nor does any information on the podcast constitute a comprehensive or complete statement of the matters discussed or the law relating thereto.