Stefen Delevaux, Founder of Oasis Onchain at ETH Denver · Crypto in the Caribbean & Community

0:00all right what’s up everybody we’re here with uh with Stephan Deo uh the man the myth The Legend at e Denver uh I I first saw stepan when I was online on Twitter I feel like the year after I graduated college I was like who are the black men doing stuff and I saw this guy and I found like everything back in December we finally connected at at Art bosel and I went to his conference Oasis on chain last month uh it was his first time doing that it was super dope to hear people talk about consumer crypto applications out in the Bahamas it’s a

0:27huge Market out there building for people and and uh yeah I’m excited to finally get to get you on the podcast cuz I’ve been chirping at you trying to get your attention for a little bit and I’m glad we’re finally making it happen so uh how’s Denver been so far Denver’s been cool I there’s so much going on there’s so much going on in this place so many people to talk to so many people to catch up with so it’s been chaotic but that’s what it looks like every year um I didn’t spend much time in the main venue this is actually the first time

0:56I’ve been in oh week see could but had a lot of good opportunity to talk to you know potential partners and and just a lot of cool a lot of good people who are doing really cool stuff um and I’m really trying to keep up with like the pro like the the new projects started coming out people I want to keep up with in general so it’s been it’s been really good makes a lot of sense that makes a lot of sense and coming here what were some of your goals like what were things that you want to advance um so it was kind of twofolds I so first of all I did

1:28um the main reason I came actually was to help out uh Guild had a had an event called Guild day um so I helped out with that and what’s Guild Guild is a Community Focus uh I would say a DS company that’s how they started but they’re also they’ve expanded quite a bit um into just digital communities in general including like web 2 not strictly web 3 um but they’ve all they’ve been good friends for a long time so they they needed some help so I said yeah I’ll I’ll come put on the event and it was really good it was they did a really good job um really happy

2:03with how that went so yeah I’m happy to hear that and you have a background in doubt tooling as well work having worked at govern in the past um and like I’m curious to hear like what your what the journey has looked like that’s gotten you so close to dound to me even coming to your Oasis feels like Community is a super big thing for you and even talking to Carlos in our last interview I feel like web 3 and Community almost go hand in hand all the time and just the internet Community you know we find people to interact with we don’t just interact with AI chat Bots until now um

2:29so uh how did you end up in this space and like what does web 3 kind of mean to you being here today yeah I mean it goes way back um so I my like my background is in economics that’s why I study in school I graduated kind of ended up falling into finance a little bit um but I was never really a finance person but when I started just paying attention to Tech in general I found fintech and fch seemed really cool um mainly because of two reasons one you you know at least in terms of the narrative it was like it was more

3:03accessible um and it was different from like traditional banking traditional finance and I really started following that space for a while and I realized really quickly that the narrative wasn’t quite true in the sense of it was of course completely connected to the traditional Financial system and it wasn’t accessible especially not in the Caribbean and the global South in general like even if you think of like venmo and cash app right we have no access to it and mamas or in the Caribbean in general so around that time I just got kind of jaded with The Narrative of fintech and almost and pretty soon after maybe a year or two I

3:41really I’d heard of i’ heard like C before but I had never really do in uh or dived in um and then I started actually looking into how blockchains work as a technology and that’s when I that’s when the light bulb went off and that’s when I said oh this is actually what I’ve been looking for this whole time something that is a different system and it is globally accessible um by default so from there I realized okay I’m just going to spend time in blockchain that led into uh like the Caribbean blockchain liance which is been which is a nonprofit focus on like advocacy and

4:15education in the Caribbean um and then even a few years later I dove heavily into web 3 uh but really fell in love with dowas um and then to connect it back to school I my undergrad thesis was actually on on um work at co-ops like cooperatives in general oh that’s cool yeah and then when I started paying attention to Dallas I realized it’s pretty much the same thing um so it it it always comes back to community it always comes back to like worker ownership and Collective ownership and things like that um and just empowering people no matter what the the goal for me is just always empowerment so and did

4:54you come into this space knowing you wanted to work in this space like KN this is like the future of your career yeah I knew I was going to basically like dedicate the rest of my and when did you know that I like that’s a huge question I’d say that same point where I realized like how blockchains worked M and I say yeah this is this is it cuz this this has always been like the question of access and and empowerment and ownership and all these things have been important really important to me for a long time yeah um and I realized blockchains were the best way that we

5:22could actually make help people and like Empower people and put people in a better position so and what are like two ways that you really see that as like possible like I mean dowser a huge huge thing um but even outside of that um just access to crypto in general it’s access to payments it’s access to transactions it’s it’s access to a system that no one can shut you out of and for people in the global South in general that’s really important um so that’s why I’m so focused on things like education and like even showing people what crypto is um and how they could use it and how it

6:00can like change your lives that’s always something I’ve been interested in and involved in that makes a lot of sense and how do you see like like what do you want your impact to be from this space like uh inside that like if you had to quantify it like in any kind of way that’s a really good question um I would say to be honest like I’m from the Bahamas I live in the Bahamas if I can make life easier for the average bamian or or even the average person in the Caribbean in general I’m happy with that like uh what kind of difference like like what is that is

6:33that what do you think that looks like like uh yeah yeah I would say even going back to some of these problems I’m not going to dive into all of them but just access to Banking and Finance in general is something that is not that is you know taken for granted in many places um but it’s it’s a huge need even like being able to transact which is something that’s super basic but you know whether it’s like crossb payments whether it’s like sending wires whether it’s just being able to send something to you know a family member or like on a different Island for example it’s not

7:11easy so yeah and it’s like isue people come come up against regularly is what you’re saying all the time every day every day every day for sure so I mean just just being able to access a new interaction a new type of system where they can actually use things and do that much easier you feel that slows things down in the Bahamas slows yeah yeah tremendously it’s it’s one of the biggest problems for sure this financial inefficiency inefficiency but also just complete lack of access in a lot of ways cuz also you know if you’re whatever industry or whatever you do um being able to interact with more people

7:48throughout the world is really important and if you’re kind of if you’re at least partly blocked from that you’re you’re stagnated in a lot of ways where you can’t even do things to the best of your ability um um and you can’t get like maybe um rewarded or um paid for the stuff that you are good at doing um so it it’s very basic but it’s very fundamental I got that and I guess I’m curious what’s been one core memory in your web three Journey like to kind of round us out of the interview like yeah yeah that’s a really good question uh honestly I would say probably above

8:27anything else like I’ve I’ve been in this space maybe like 7 years but above any above anything else I have to say doing Oasis aasis on chain was like for me one it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done yeah um thankfully I had I I had a good team around me shout out to guava but it was incredibly difficult to just make happen like events are huge yeah a lot of work um but it went so well and so many different points during like points and instances during that conference was like yeah this is awesome and this is this was worth it and it had

9:06impact which is like that’s everything so to me that that that has to be the the best moment for sure I think that makes a lot of sense I would say like that felt like the start to my year I feel like last year my start to my year was ethen my crypto conference year I feel like I excited to come to O is also because it’s like a a conference in brownly Black space and like I don’t know when I’m going to any other conferences in promly Black spaces right and so it was cool to meet people who are familiar with the space not familiar

9:30with the space just learning there and really cool to see that you’re really opening the doors for that kind of stuff you know I’m really interested in how can we start to organize conference in Philadelphia that be oriented sort St like students of color um in Pennsylvania I’ve talking to s a little bit about that I was talking to Carl a little bit earlier about he wants to do one in Cape ver which I think is super dope um and so I think it’s like this education empowerment conversation I think it’s so important that people actually take steps you know to actually create the the space for the

9:53conversations to be had um because I feel like it is intimidating this like technology like just any technology you don’t not familiar with and so I think holding people’s hands a little bit so they can hold other people’s hands I think helps things move forward a lot more rapidly so I definitely commend you on the work that you’re doing and I’m excited to come back to Oasis next year and it’s going to be bigger and better you all should definitely be at Oasis next year a phenomenal Vibe for the winter where we at we’re out in the Bahamas these beaches beautiful beaches you can go s beautiful pigs you can go

10:19to Atlantis you can hang out with the Vibes Stephan’s there he said it I didn’t even have to say it so it’s a if you want to come and so yeah thank you so much for taking time to this interview with me I’m uh Keen for my audience to be able to continue to follow what you’re up to and excited that we get to give you a platform and that you’re here at e Denver doing what you’re doing and in the space f just doing what you’re doing doing my best We Them and you’re representing got you because if we don’t do it he’s going to do it exactly so

10:48yeah man thank you so much uh you want to shout out where people can find you sure um I’m always on Twitter uh at step deliv so SF d l v you should also definitely follow Oasis on chain one word on Twitter as well um that’s the best place for sure oh yeah uh so thank you everybody for tuning in uh hope that you look check out some more of our content hope you go follow this guy everywhere and hope to see you at Oasis next year maybe we’ll be on the podcast uh peace and love everybody booah got to say booah too booah