0:53Tavonia Evans: Well, um, well, my name is Tavonia Evans. Yes, I’m the founder of GuapCoin. I have other companies now I’m the founder of. I’m the founder of Cowrie Bank. I’m the co-founder of UGen, and I’m the founder of Melanated AI. Um, and I am the author of Crypto for My People and, um, AI -- geez, I don’t even remember my -- I put my AI book and totally forgot about it. AI Explained: The Humanities Guide to Artificial Intelligence. I am an engineer geek. I just like to say geek because I’m a tech everything and I really love technology and I really love the -- what the problems that technology can solve, especially in our community. And that’s what I am, a problem solver.
1:43Kamal Hubbard: Amazing. Amazing. So what made you want to tackle this immense problem or issue in our community when it comes to money, digital money, and cryptocurrency?
1:59Tavonia Evans: Well, it seems like fate because on one half, um, I did -- before cryptocurrency, I was looking into alternative community currencies because I was like, we keep talking about the Black dollar, but we need our own Black dollar for real. We don’t really have a Black dollar. So, um, I knew about all of these other alternative currencies they had out there, like Liberty Dollar and all this other stuff. So I was like, why don’t we have our own currency? So So I was going down that trajectory, and then I started my own, my first startup, um, back in 2014. And it was during that raise for that startup that I came into the knowledge that we don’t get funding for our startups.
1:59Tavonia Evans: Um, I thought I could skate through technology without needing anybody’s money, but I needed people’s money, right? So I was like, if other people are going through this problem, this is a problem that we’re gonna have to solve. Um, I was introduced to crypto back, you know, Bitcoin, back in 2009, 2010 by a really good friend of mine who’s also kind of like a geek. But I didn’t pay any attention to it because he didn’t tell me it was money. If you just told me it was money, I’d have paid attention to it. He just was like, oh, here’s this wallet, install this on your computer.
1:59Tavonia Evans: And I’m like, what the hell is this? I’m downloading this wallet, it’s taking forever to sync, you know, all this stuff like that. I could have been probably rich back then or whatever. I was supposed to be rich twice off of that and off of Binance Coin. But that’s another story. But anyway, um, he was like, I -- he said, this is you. And he didn’t tell me anything else, but he was like, this is you. This is all you. And I was like, I don’t understand what it -- this is me. But I did get it later on when what he meant by this is me.
1:59Tavonia Evans: When it clicked, I was like, oh my God, we need our own crypto. We need our own blockchain. This solves so many problems for us.
3:45Kamal Hubbard: Right.
3:45Tavonia Evans: So, um, I first started our first, like everybody else did back in 2017 on Ethereum, just a little token. But I always wanted us to have our own chain. I was like, we need our own chain.
3:56Kamal Hubbard: Right.
3:56Tavonia Evans: Um, and it was later that year, um, that I started building our first official on our own chain. And it was a fail like 2 or 3 times. The, you know, chain got stuck, you know, all these other stuff. Um, my mentors were, were dark webbies. Yes, they were. And they taught me how, they was like, you know, you’re gonna do this. Well, we’re gonna walk you through this, but you’re gonna do it. And I did it and launched it. And then I was like, wow, you know, it was hard because pulling the trigger on something, I don’t know what it was, but it definitely had me on a heart attack level when I pulled the trigger to, you know, get the first block going.
4:39Kamal Hubbard: Mm-hmm.
4:40Tavonia Evans: And then after that, You know, went on my run, and then I realized that it was going to have to be more than the tech because I’m used to the tech being behind the computer. But it was going to have to be me actually evangelizing for the tech.
4:53Kamal Hubbard: Right.
4:54Tavonia Evans: Which was hard for me because I was a geek, and I’m like, uh, I’m neurodivergent. I don’t like being in front of cameras and all this other stuff, you know. So, but people think I just do this and I’m getting that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don’t. But I had to, you know, take it a step further. And I knew I was going to have to teach the people and walk them through the process, right? And be a teacher, you know, really. And I was like, okay, well, that’s not too scary for me, the teacher part. So going out, um, and I also realized when it comes to our people, I was gonna have to build trust, right? I was gonna have to earn their trust.
5:30Kamal Hubbard: So you had to build trust on a trustless network?
5:33Tavonia Evans: Yes, right. It’s, it’s interesting because the dynamics between our people and blockchain, I believe, is different than other people in blockchain. Oh, they’re going for the trustless anonymity side. We’re going for the transparency trust side, right? See, that’s what we didn’t have, right?
5:48Kamal Hubbard: Right.
5:49Tavonia Evans: So I knew that I was gonna have to be really transparent, really open. He was gonna have to be all in my life, and I was gonna have to travel the world and go other places to build myself up and my relationships up, um, because our community has gatekeepers, you know, and stuff like that. So That was my path and it kind of led me to here. That was back in 2016, 2017, and now it’s 2023 and still doing the same thing.
6:16Kamal Hubbard: You know what? Something that you mentioned that is very troubling to me. Here you are, you’re an engineer. You’re -- you’ve shown that, demonstrated that you can build. You’re a builder, you’re a creator. You have the technical knowledge, the expertise, but then when it’s time for you to get funding, you run into issues and problems. And I mean, I hate to be, uh, or suspect that it has something to do with you being a Black woman, but I hear it from so many Black women founders that it’s just a pattern now. And like I said, it’s bothering me more and more. Because I know so many well-accomplished, well-educated Black women who are innovators like yourself who are coming up with great ideas, but they just can’t get access to capital for one reason or another. So can you tell me about your journey through that? And I’m sorry to bring things on a negative or a down note, but it needs to be told.
7:20Tavonia Evans: I actually think it’s kind of like it’s a little bit divine, and I’ll explain why. Okay. Not having capital, when we’re talking about something that’s supposed to be organic, you know, I’ve learned the benefits of not having money in this industry. Because having money in this industry, you have people that they have raised millions of dollars and they bought the market. They did illegal things, right? And they got into trouble.
7:46Kamal Hubbard: Yeah.
7:47Tavonia Evans: Right? Because literally they were manipulating the market with the money that they raised.
7:51Kamal Hubbard: Right.
7:52Tavonia Evans: I couldn’t do that. You know what I mean?
7:54Kamal Hubbard: Yeah.
7:55Tavonia Evans: So, and people approached me left and right. They’re like, oh, do you wanna, get on our exchange and you could put $100,000 in here and this and there. And I didn’t have the money to do it anyway, you know, but it didn’t make sense to me as well because I’m like, isn’t that kind of shady? You know what I mean? Like, the paying to get the volume and all this stuff, that’s not right, right? You know, so I think it kept me honest. You know, I’m an honest pauper, I guess. So to speak. And, and what I did do also is I invested a lot of my own money.
8:31Kamal Hubbard: Yeah.
8:31Tavonia Evans: A lot of grassroots things. I had to come up with creative ways to raise money, even if it was just a little bit of money. I’d have to come up with a creative way here, here, and there. And sometimes people would give me little nuggets. They’re like, well, why don’t you do this? And then first it didn’t click, but later on it was like, oh, that’s genius, that’s what I need to do. You know, like, we, we, we were a masternode coin. Masternodes were a way we were able to raise money earlier on and keep this going, you know. And, and it’s totally on the up and up and not raising a lot of money, but at least raising enough money that we can do some growth hacking and stuff like that, right?
9:11Kamal Hubbard: Right.
9:12Tavonia Evans: And, um, now, um, we just launched our layer 2 in January. And, um, which gives us smart contracts, DeFi capabilities, all the things that we really, really wanted, you know, like all the bells and whistles, interoperability, all that, right?
9:26Kamal Hubbard: Right.
9:26Tavonia Evans: Which I thought initially was going to be expensive, but then again, went through the process of learning what it took to build it and working with a team and built it, and we got it out. But even this, even this way, there are different ways where we can creatively make enough money to sustain us, to keep us going until the people show up. Because at the end of the day, it’s going to be all about the community and the numbers. And when they show up, then this thing could run like a well-oiled machine without millions of dollars.
9:56Kamal Hubbard: Right, right. And I think that’s part of what I talk about in my book, DeFi for the Diaspora, is, you know, as long as we are in pursuit of moral markets, right, that’s going to bring more adoption. Because it’s the fraud.
10:13Tavonia Evans: And, you know, you know, it’s like, I’m like, we’re probably the most legit chain out there, you know? And if that accounts for something, right, that’s huge. If the honesty just accounts for something, that’s huge. So I’m like, you know, slow and steady wins the race. Keep it clean, keep it open, build the trust.
10:32Kamal Hubbard: Exactly.
10:33Tavonia Evans: I think about it like, you know, coming from the hip-hop side, people, you know, the underground, everything started in the underground. It had to permeate the culture before it became big, right? And I’m like, well, this is another thing. It starts on the underground. It has to permeate the culture before they catch on to it.
10:50Kamal Hubbard: Well, now I want to ask you, so I’m here with ICP Hub North America. They’re part of the Internet Computer. Okay, do you know anything about the Internet Computer?
11:01Tavonia Evans: Not enough.
11:02Kamal Hubbard: What do you know about it?
11:03Tavonia Evans: Can you tell me?
11:04Kamal Hubbard: I could tell you about the Internet Computer. So the Internet Computer is a blockchain network that’s looking to eliminate traditional IT services like IT hosting and put all those services on-chain.
11:19Tavonia Evans: So yeah, that’s smart.
11:21Kamal Hubbard: Yeah, cloud storage. Yeah, all the things that are needed to run Web3 decentralized.
11:28Tavonia Evans: That’s a good problem to solve.
11:29Kamal Hubbard: Applications, smart contracts, all those things. And they’re actually building in a way to become a not so much interoperable with other blockchains, but to become an orchestrator. So they’ve integrated the Bitcoin blockchain onto their blockchain. So it allows people to interact with the Internet Computer where they can create wallets on Bitcoin and send and receive Bitcoin using ICP.
11:56Tavonia Evans: Okay.
11:57Kamal Hubbard: So it’s a protocol.
11:58Tavonia Evans: Yeah, yeah, protocol.
11:59Kamal Hubbard: Exactly, exactly. But they want to make Web3 accessible.
12:04Tavonia Evans: And so what’s the money behind it?
12:07Kamal Hubbard: Well, so they are based in Switzerland and they have the longest research and development team in blockchain going. And they had an endowment of $200 million for people to build on.
12:22Tavonia Evans: Maybe the Swiss banks of blockchain.
12:27Kamal Hubbard: Yeah, it could be. I don’t know. I’m learning more and more about this.
12:32Tavonia Evans: The Swiss bank of storage.
12:33Kamal Hubbard: I’m learning more and more about this protocol every day, and it’s very fascinating. And what they do want to do is be as inclusive as possible. And that’s why they brought me here to the Black Blockchain Summit so I could raise awareness.
12:47Tavonia Evans: That’s awesome.
12:47Kamal Hubbard: And who knows, maybe one day GuapCoin could get integrated into ICP.
12:52Tavonia Evans: Yeah, I mean, we’re at that phase of partnerships right now because I just recently reached out to Chainalysis because, you know, Chainalysis, they have their new interoperable Right, a protocol that they’re launching. I reached out to them, I reached out to other people. So I do a lot of that stuff to kind of build the relationships. And I, I guess that’s the real stymie when you don’t have capital, right? You know, because they’re, you know -- but what we have is potential. Like, we have the potential biggest, most influential market there is, right?
13:23Kamal Hubbard: Right.
13:23Tavonia Evans: They don’t know that yet, I guess, but we know that, right? But we have potential. So That’s what we kind of bring along. So, you know, we, we go to, you know, we approach people and say, hey, this is -- you’re talking about mass adoption, this is the way to get it, get it kicking, right? Right. You know what I mean?
13:40Kamal Hubbard: Well, I want to thank you so much for taking time out. You’ve been so patient with me today. Yeah, you’ve been patient with me too, because I’ve been running around.
13:48Tavonia Evans: I was supposed to be here a couple of times to talk to you. I just got here like 12 o’clock.
13:53Kamal Hubbard: I’m honored to be graced by your presence. Thank you. I appreciate everything that you’ve done in this space and just want to give you your respect. And I’ll let you have the last word. What are you working on? Where can people find you?
14:03Tavonia Evans: And well, one of the exciting things that we’re working on is on-chain identity management. Okay, that’s what everybody’s excited about. Um, I’m even more excited about it because I think that, um, having this particular sovereignty and ownership of your identity is something that our culture wanted to do for a very long time but didn’t have the tools to do it, right? So that’s what -- that’s my pet project that I want to have with, um, GuapCoin. And we’ll be releasing, um, uh, NFT domain names and etc. So we’re gonna have .guap coming for the new year.
14:37Kamal Hubbard: Yeah.
14:38Tavonia Evans: Um, and also, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I’m so excited about being able to have a, you know, a layer 2 that we can build and understand in that way. So that’s all right.
14:53Kamal Hubbard: Awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much again for taking time out. Thank you too to ICP Hub North America for helping make this thing happen. And don’t just make it a good day, make it a great day. A great day with crypto. Crypto with Kamal, and we’ll catch you on the next one.
15:10Tavonia Evans: Bye-bye.
