Stefen Delevaux, Founder of Oasis Onchain at ETH Denver 2024

Transcript

0:00 All right. What's up, everybody? We're here with Stefan Deleveaux, the man, the myth, the legend at ETH Denver. I first saw Stefan 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 finally came back in December. We finally connected at Art Basel. And I went to his conference, Oasis On Chain, last month. 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 huge market out there building for people. And, yeah, I'm excited to finally get to get you on the podcast

0:33 Because I've been chirping at you, trying to get your attention for a little bit And I'm glad they're finally making it happen So, how's Denver been so far? Denver's been cool 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 I didn't spend much time in the main venue This is actually the first time I've been in Oh, us too this week. Had a lot of good opportunity to talk to potential partners and just a lot of good people who are doing really cool stuff. And I'm really trying to keep up with the

1:12 new projects that are coming out, people I want to keep up with in general. So it's been really good. That makes a lot of sense. And coming here, what were some of your goals? What were things that you wanted to advance? So it was kind of two-fold So first of all, I did The main reason I came up actually was to help out Guild Had an event called Guild Day So I helped out with that And what's Guild? Guild is a community-focused I would say a DAO tool company That's how they started But they've expanded quite a bit Into just digital communities in general Including Web 2, not strictly Web 3

1:50 But they've been good friends for a long time So they needed some help So I said, yeah, I'll come Put on the event And it was really good They did a really good job Really happy with how that went I'm happy to hear that, and you have a background in DAO tooling as well Having worked at Govern in the past And I'm curious to hear What your Web3 journey has looked like That's gotten you so close to DAO tooling To me, even coming to your Oasis, it feels like community It's a super big thing for you Even talking to Carlos in our last interview I feel like Web3 and community almost go hand in hand all the time

2:23 I mean, just the internet community, you know? We find people to interact with. We don't just interact with AI chatbots until now. So, how did you end up in this space? And, like, what does Web3 kind of mean to you being here today? Yeah, I mean, it goes way back. So, my background is in economics. That's why I studied in school. I graduated. Kind of ended up falling into finance a little bit. I was never really a finance person. But when I started just paying attention to tech in general, I found fintech. And FinTech seemed really cool Mainly because of two reasons One, you know, at least in terms of the narrative

3:01 It was like, it was more accessible 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, in the global south in general Even if you think of Venmo and Cash App, we have no access to it in the Bahamas or in the Caribbean in general So around that time I just got kind of jaded with the narrative of fintech And pretty soon after, maybe a year or two, I'd heard of crypto before, but I had never really dove in or dived in

3:46 and 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 something that is a different system and it is globally accessible by default so from there I realized okay I'm just gonna spend time in blockchain and that led into like the Caribbean blockchain alliance which is a non-profit focus on like advocacy and education in the Caribbean And then even a few years later, I go heavily into Web3, but really fell in love with DAOs And then to connect it back to school, my undergrad thesis was actually on worker co-ops, like cooperatives in general

4:33 Oh, that's cool Yeah, and then when I started paying attention to DAOs, I realized it's pretty much the same thing So it always comes back to community, it always comes back to worker ownership and collective ownership and things like that and just empowering people. No matter what, the goal for me is just always empowerment. And did you come into this space knowing you wanted to work in this space? Like the future of your career? Yeah. I knew I was going to basically dedicate the rest of my life. And when did you know that? That's a huge question. I'd say that same point where I realized how blockchain's worked. And I said, yeah, this is it. Because

5:10 this has always been the question of access and empowerment and ownership and all these And I realized blockchains were the best way that we could actually make, help people, and like empower people and put people in a better position. And what are like two ways that you really see that as like possible? I mean, DAOs are a huge, huge thing, but even outside of that, just access to crypto in general, it's access to payments, it's access to transactions, 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, so that's why I'm so focused on things like education and even showing people

5:56 what crypto is, and how they can use it, and how it can change their lives, that's always That makes a lot of sense, and how do you see, like, what do you want your impact to be from this space, like, 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 Bahamian, or even the average person in the Caribbean in general, I'm happy with that Like, what kind of difference? Like, what is that? What is that? What do you think that looks like?

6:35 Like, 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 But 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, cross-border 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 easy So, yeah And it's, like, issue people come up against regularly, is what you're saying

7:17 All the time, every day Every day For sure So, I mean, just being able to access a new interaction A new type of system where they can actually use things And do that much easier Do you feel like that slows things down in the Bahamas? It slows down, yeah Tremendously It's one of the biggest problems for sure Just financial inefficiency Inefficiency, but also just complete lack of access in a lot of ways Because also, you know, if you're whatever industry or whatever you do Being able to interact with more people throughout the world is really important If you're at least partly blocked from that, you're stagnated in a lot of ways

7:56 Where you can't even do things to the best of your ability And you can't get, like, maybe rewarded or paid for the stuff that you are good at doing So 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 Web3 journey? Like, to kind of round us out of the interview, like Yeah, that's a really good question Honestly, I would say probably above anything else Like, I've been in this space maybe like seven years But above anything else I have to say, doing Oasis. Oasis on Chain was like, for me, one, it was the hardest thing I've ever done. Thankfully, I had a good team around me, shout out to Guapo, but it was incredibly difficult to just make happen.

8:50 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 impact which is like that's everything yeah 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 the start to my year was eat Denver my crypto conference here I feel like I was excited to come to Oasis

9:20 It's also because it's like a conference in a predominantly black space and like I don't know when I'm going to any other conferences in a predominantly black spaces and so it was cool to meet people who are familiar with the space, not familiar with 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 conferences in Philadelphia that are maybe oriented towards like students of color in Pennsylvania I'm talking to Sirius a little bit about that I was talking to Koss a little bit earlier about he wants to do one in Cape Verde

9:45 which I think is super dope 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 space for the conversations to be had. Because I feel like it is intimidating, this, like, technology. Like, just any technology you're not familiar with. And so I think holding people's hands a little bit so they can hold people's hands, I think, helps things move forward a lot more rapidly. So I'd have to 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.

10:10 You all should definitely be at Oasis next year. A phenomenal vibe for the winter. Where are we at? We're out in the Bahamas. It's beaches. Beautiful beaches. You can go to some of the beautiful pigs. You can go to Atlantis You can hang out with the Vibes Steppen's there So, it's a vibe If you want to come So, yeah, thank you so much for taking time to interview with me I'm 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 Eat Denver Doing what you're doing

10:40 And especially just doing what you're doing Doing what we're best We them niggas and you're representing Because if we don't do it, we're going to do it Exactly so yeah man, thank you so much you want to shout out where people can find you sure, I'm always on Twitter, at Steph Delive so S-T-E-F-D-E-L-E-V you should also definitely follow Oasis on chain, one word, on Twitter as well that's the best place, for sure hoo ya, so thank you everybody for tuning in, hope that you look to check out some more of our content, hope you go follow this guy everywhere, and hope to see you at Oasis next year

11:13 maybe you'll be on the podcast peace and love everybody, hoo ya You gotta say booyah too