Expanding Ethereum into Physical Spaces

Transcript

[Music] Okay, let's start. Um, thank you all for coming. Uh I'm the co-founder of Frontier Tower and I'm incredibly excited to actually share uh some big news with you today. And uh you might have already seen in Tomas keynote uh which was happening on Monday that he already teased it a little bit. So uh

thank you all for uh for coming and actually uh yeah celebrating with me uh the announcement and um uh but what it what it is actually a project which we've done together with the Ethereum Foundation is uh we had like one question which we were asking ourselves and this is uh where do we go where we want to build when we want to build on Ethereum. So currently there's not a single place where you can go. There's no embassy. There's no um you know single place where you can go. There's not even a city which is uh you know recognized for for having a lot of Ethereums there. Maybe it is in Berlin uh but you know I've been in Berlin for

a very long time and it is hard as a as a new time builder to actually get plugged in. So even here when you are here at the conference at ETCC um and you really want to you know build on Ethereum there are a lot of people uh which you need to ask to actually get to the right ones and so um what we have thought about is to actually give Ethereum a new home. So this is an announcement which we have done together with the Ethereum Foundation uh which basically is a local hub for Ethereum builders, researchers, founders and investors in San Francisco uh in the in Silicon Valley where like

all of the AI breakthroughs are happening h and it's actually happening at at Frontier Tower uh my project uh which I just uh recently uh launched. So to give you a little bit of a sense of like how in my opinion groundbreaking this is, I want to actually tell you a little bit more about what Frontier Tower is. So Frontier Tower is a tower and it's in San Francisco. It's already standing. It's not something which is a dream. It's not something which we are planning to do an announcement of an announcement. It is happening. And uh the uh we started uh with the idea in around September 2024 where we thought to ourselves like hey this would be cool to build something like that. I was at a

pop-up village um at Zuvage, Georgia actually and um and really loved the spirit where AI people, Ethereum people, u biotech people came together and uh and lived together for one um month. And so I thought to myself, why don't we do something like that in the cities uh where we actually live in and not only do it temporarily but do it in a in a permanent way. So, we went out and we just bought a tower. So, we finished the transaction uh on April the 1st. Um it was not an April Fool's joke. And um and we actually didn't really try to, you

know, build everything out and like uh make everything perfect to let people in. No, we said like, hey, like let's take the Ethereum spirit and let's build in public. So, we opened our gates in on on April 6 to let people in. So, the tower is in the heart of San Francisco. It has around a 100,000 square feet. Uh for those who don't know square feet, um uh it's 10,000 square meters more or less. Uh we have around 300 citizens which you know said like, hey, we want to be part of this uh this amazing journey. We have nine themes which I will tell you a little bit more about and on around 16 floors.

So we have 16 floors and the 12th floor is entirely dedicated to Ethereum. This is what what the whole post uh uh was about about Ethereum Foundation and uh and we have even created a new brand. We called it Ethereum House for a place for builders and researchers to come and uh and and and work together. And the coolest thing what I think about that it's not an isolation. It's not somewhere in a place in an ivory tower where only people can come who are like uh you know have been in the ecosystem for like seven years.

Uh like no like this is embedded. This is for everyday builders who want to come and build and uh and Ethereum is not the only floor. There are other frontier technologies like AI uh longevity biotech neuroch. We have a maker space. Uh we have um we have robotics. So every floor has a different theme and and I think what what makes it all um really special is the cross-pollination part of it. So every technology works with the other technology to actually come up with novel ideas. This is what we need and this is something uh which uh which not only San Francisco needs uh but uh but uh but a lot of other cities. And so

people are always ask me is like so is it an accelerator? I'm like no. Is it is it a coffee shop because like you know like you have a lot of coffee in in your in your tower. I'm like no it's not a coffee shop. Is it a co-working or a restaurant third space? Is it co-l livingiving? I'm like no it's also not a co- livingiving and it's also not the library. So what is it? What is what we've built? And uh and we call it a self-governed vertical village for frontier technologies. So uh you know it's it's a lot to unpack but basically you have to imagine yourself like a village. Imagine a village a small village of around 10,000 people.

What is there out there? Uh and what is in a village? Of course there's a restaurant there. Of course there's a coffee shop there. Of course there's a library there and some some places where you can live and uh and also work because work is you know still at least until until AI takes our jobs away. uh it is a part of of our human nature and so this is this is a vertical village what we are creating but with a theme and the theme is frontier technologies and we want to make it self-governed so it's not something which you know is the is the new wei work where you know Adam Newman at the top is is coming and like deciding every single thing we want to build on the values which which we've learned and appreciated with the within the Ethereum ecosystem

and so you might think like this is great, you know, and now we have a place in San Francisco, but what about New York? What about Austin? What about uh, you know, KHN or Paris or, you know, Tokyo, Hong Kong? What what about this? And and this is something which I'm, you know, incredibly excited about because what we are building is not a single place, it's a protocol. And so what we are creating is or using the San Francisco tower you're using as a blueprint to build an intercity network society.

So you know now now it's something where it's like okay wait a second. So it's not only a tower. So you're like you're trying to expand this thing. And um and I'm like, "Yeah." And we tried to expand it really aggressively. Uh and we tried to expand it to 10 towers next uh next year uh to about a 100 towers uh the year after and to around 13 million citizens uh by uh the end of 2028. Am I crazy? Maybe, maybe not. But this is this is something which uh which we are really um you know trying to we to take really extreme goals to force ourselves to make

this whole thing in a way to scale physical spaces as fast as you can scale technology. So um how do we get there and this is again a parallel which we are taking from the Ethereum ecosystem. uh we are taking uh inspiration from the rollup ccentric road map uh to actually scale uh the blueprint which we've building in San Francisco right now which is open which is accessible where you can come and visit um to to get this around the world and you know the the Ethereum rollup ccentric road map has a lot of critiques uh but I I think that it actually has been incredibly successful as we've seen also with the last um

announcement uh from Robin Hood and uh and arbitral. So how do we do this? How do we get uh to around so many places around the world? So we share the value. So we share the value with uh real estate owners uh who want to participate who have a tower. There's currently lots of vacant uh place. So this is something which uh which a lot of people can come and say like hey you know I have a vacant tower. uh can't we just you know collaborate uh we share it with uh with community leads community leads which um uh yeah which actually get 20 uh 20% I think the numbers are wrong here 20% and

the tower leads get around 10% and uh the frontier DAO uh which is hopefully taking place but you know no commitment on this part uh yet uh we are still in uh in in the research phase is something where uh we uh which will get around 20%. So we will be able to get uh through a modular approach where we share the value to a much quicker growth. And the coolest thing is that already now like only after two months people are reaching out from Tokyo, from Hong Kong, from um Buenos Iris and saying like hey I have a community, I have real estate I want to be part of this thing. So we have a credible chance

of actually making this thing work. I can tell you more about Frontier Tower and how how we are uh doing that. But basically this is something um which is a talk about Ethereum and and the first physical space in Ethereum and and the potential thereafter. So I want to leave you with uh with one thought uh here is imagine a world where Ethereum is deeply interconnected uh with other frontier technologies and it's happening not only in one city but around the globe.

Imagine a thousand cities. How fast could we actually scale Ethereum this way when we get builders, researchers in one physical room? If you want to support what we are building, you know, apply for a founding citizenship on frontier tower.io, become a founding sponsor of Ethereum House SF, the new brand which we created and is now also being sponsored uh by um Starknet also allayer and I think consensus also confirmed right now. So uh get in uh get in as a founding sponsor. Share Ethereum's uh post on Axe. Make builders aware that we are

here. Uh this is something important because we need to involve all of the community. Without the community um there is no place for the community. And um and yeah, if you're going to get involved on your own uh just message me on Telegram, uh Jacob with a K and threebs. Uh or just message me or just send me an email. Thank you so much. [Applause] [Music]