Welcome to a new episode of the Network Save podcast.
Today I'm here with Sender and a minister from the Marshall
Islands as well as an entrepreneur who's helped go and
get their new crypto law up and running.
It's a Dow law that allows you to essentially build an
interface between an on chain entity and you know the off
chain legal system. I made a small investment in
this company, My Dow, that's kind of a agent that'll help you
get set up, but they've been operating under their own power
for a while. They've set up more than 100
Dow's in the Marshall Islands. And with me today is Adam
Miller, Minister Joe Bejong and Senator David Paul, all of the
Marshall Islands. And they're going to talk to us
today about the the new Marshall Islands doubt law.
So, Minister, Senator Adam, let's go.
Yeah, sure. Yahweh.
My name is Joe Peja and I'm the newly appointed Minister of
Justice, Immigration and Labor here in the Marshall Islands.
My name is David Paul. I am the the current chairman
for the appropriation committee. We also have here Adam, Miller
and Adam. Can you introduce yourselves?
Yeah. Hey everyone, My name is Adam
Miller and I've been into Crypto and Web 3.
For a while, but. Daos are really my gem, you
know, I really believe that Daos are going to change the way we
organize everything on Earth, people.
Resources and. So my mission in life now is to
help bring Daos to the world. And the way I'm doing that today
is collaborating with the government of the Marshall
Islands to create Web 3 and Daos legal and.
Regulatory frameworks that are better.
Than what exists everywhere else in the world.
Yes, awesome. And that's why we're actually
here today because there's a number of crypto entrepreneurs,
founders, investors who are looking for good jurisdictions
to operate. And the Marshall Islands set up
a new law that may make it actually very competitive.
So, you know, just before we get there, maybe we can just put the
Marshall Islands on the map, kind of help people know where
it is. So it's located in the Pacific.
Maybe we could put up a map on screen.
Great And sender, you know, Minister, do you want to talk
about the Marshall Islands? Tell people who've never been
there what it's all about. The Marshall Islands is located
like 2400 miles southwest of Hawaii and is right in the
middle between the Hawaii and Australia.
The Marshall Islands is is close to about a million square
kilometers of ocean territory. But the land mass is only the
size of Washington DC So you you can imagine it's where we're we
we maybe call a small island nation where we're a big ocean
state. You know, it's tropical all year
round. And you know the Marshall
Islands has over 24 atolls within the Marshall Islands, the
jurisdiction of the Marshall Islands and the population is
around in, in countries maybe around 43,000, but total
Marshallese globally I would say over 80,000.
So it's a very small country and is in, you know, close and
freely associated states with the United States and
independent country, but in close and free associated with
the United States. Awesome.
And you know that million miles of ocean puts you near, you know
several other Pacific islands like Palau I think is nearby
Micronesia right? And some of the other Pacific
islands that are also independent states your
neighbors. That's good.
Also to locate it between Hawaii and Australia.
The thing is as a full sovereign state as AUN member you can set
your own policies. You have passed a new law.
That law is potentially quite interesting for crypto folks
around the world. The the new Marshall Islands,
Dow law and maybe Adam or or Sender.
Maybe you can kind of talk about this, tell us what it's about at
a high level. I'll, I'll just kick it off and
then I'll invite the minister to make a comments and then I'll
have Adam to you know expound on on it.
But basically back in 2022 we enacted what we call the
Decentralized Autonomous Organization Act of 2022, which
is the Dow law. We call it a dialogue.
I mean RMI is not no stranger to to the the Web 3 initiative back
in 2017 or 2018. Sorry.
We the the parliament actually passed the first ever soft the
soft legislation which is make soft as the the soft me
sovereign as the legal tender for the Marshall Islands as a
cryptocurrency and now the law is still in the books but we
have not yet implemented because of many regulatory got
implementation challenges. We thought that the the passage
of these the soft law taught us so much about crypto, the web
three and all of that. You can imagine during that time
when when we were passing it, people were actually Googling
what is cryptocurrency in real town while we were having a
national debate on the floor of the parliament and people were
basically Googling and trying to understand and trying to
understand what does cryptocurrency means.
And it was a very foul moment in the history of the country
because you know, everybody was just trying to understand what
does the the blockchain technology is all about.
And then here we were at that time passing the legislation and
my God, when we passed it, we got so much criticism from like
the the likes of the World Bank, the IMF, the Asian Development
Bank, even the United States Treasury.
They they thought that we were like, you know we went rogue
basically. They thought that we we were
we're losing our minds and we were losing on grip on reality.
But for us at that time we said no, we we knew that was the
future. Now Fast forward to today.
When we went, we went back to the United, the World Bank last
year in October. The only thing that they were
talking about was digital currency.
You know, is easy. You know, three years later,
four years later, people were now talking about you know,
staple coin, digital currency, not so much crypto, but I mean
is within the same ecosystem, right.
But the fact that we were ridiculed, we they thought that
we were crazy. But now everybody's talking
about it's now it's become part of the Main Street.
So that's why we have, we have I vote for the for the Autonomy,
the Decentralized Autonomist Organization Act of 2022 and
we're going to build on it. But the reason why the the
Minister of Justice is part of this is because he's the one
that is actually enforcing this thing.
Well, first of all, that's awesome.
And can you tell us, you know the SOLVE law was 2018, is that
right? Solve stands for store of value
or can you tell tell us what that was?
That was like a building block for the the Dow law that you've
just passed. The solve is is is is
unredeemable. It's not redeemable, but it's
also a legal tender in the Marshall Islands.
There's nothing backing it up. It's basically the the, the
perceived value of it and and actually the the what really
actually gave value to it is actually the technology behind
it that. So that's how the soft concept
came about. So we didn't want it to make it
as if there was a if it was redeemable because you know,
like the dollar is not renewable.
So we wanted to make sure that it is no different than any
other currencies of the world, you know, so.
So we were not far from, you know what other countries that
have their own own currency we're doing, but it was actually
in a digital format so to speak. Very interesting.
So basically you're very one of the very first to do that and
you know El Salvador and you know U.S. states like Wyoming
and Tennessee and so on have also passed, you know,
cryptocurrency and and Dow related laws.
So that's actually happened after that SOB law.
And so you're one of the first sovereigns in the world to do
that. That's really cool.
So that brings us to today. I think that's actually really
awesome history. And you know, one thing that I
was interested in is how did you have the energy to be be a
startup country? Because as a small country, the
good thing is you're nimble. And in theory, you can come to
consensus with a relatively small number of people.
You can make decisions, You can adopt new technologies.
However, you've also got big neighbors and you've got the
World Bank and all these folks who will yell if you do
something too interesting, right, as you mentioned.
So how did you kind of get the energy to be kind of a startup
country? What, what?
How did that happen? To like the Marshallese people,
we're navigating. That's cool.
Yeah, you got You are pioneers to get all the way out to the
middle of the islands there, huh?
Is it our DNA? That's cool.
So that's interesting. It may be interesting for other
kind of tech things in the future.
I don't know, self driving car cities or things like that.
That's actually really interesting.
I should visit actually. In fact, everybody watching this
video should probably go and should they visit the Marshall
Islands? Yeah, absolutely.
Awesome. Are there cruises there?
How? How do you get there?
Is it playing what? How do you, how do you travel
there if you wanted to go there? Well, we have only one airline
service here in the Marshall Islands and that's the United
Airlines. You can come via that that
airline and then visit the other other airlines with our domestic
flights. We have a domestic airline Air
Marshall Islands. You could visit all these
beautiful small islands around the the other smaller talls in
the Marshall Islands. Or by boat.
Go ahead. Yeah, Yes.
Elaji, let me let me tell you also something that we're also
working on that you'd be very interested to know and your
audience will be will know about this what we're trying to, we're
trying to do what we call an NFD of all these islands.
There's so many islands in the Marshalls over thousands of
islands. We're trying to do an NFD autumn
so we can digitize these assets. These are idle assets that are
there and we can actually, you know, put it out in the in the
Web 3. Wait, so so would you just be
buying like a digital, you know, art representation, art
representation of the island? Or would you actually be buying
the island itself? Not well, not buying it, but
actually leasing it. Oh, really?
That's interesting. Wow.
OK, so you have my attention. There's this, there's this great
site actually which we could put up called, I think it's like
Private Islands Online. Let's, you know, let's cover the
the Dow law just for a second and then come back to the
private islands because I'm actually interested in both.
So Dow law, you guys just passed that last year, 2022.
OK, Adam, you put that on screen.
So tell us, tell us about that. Yeah, absolutely.
So you know. First of all, why do?
Laws matter in Web Three, right? A lot of people might say, well,
we're building a censorship resistant, you know, subversive
revolutionary system. And that's fine that some people
are working on that. But the fact is that most Web
three products and most Dows are just trying to follow the law,
right? They need the same benefits that
other organizations get when they create legal entities, like
the protection from unlimited liability for their members and
the. Ability for the project to.
Own property, right to own its own name, own its own logo right
and be able. To assert those property rights.
So Dows and Web Three projects need those things to the problem
with legacy laws. Almost every law everywhere in
the world relating to legal entities require organizations
to do things that no DAO wants to do and no Web 3 project wants
to do. So that's things like requiring
all of the members. To disclose their.
Real names and physical addresses.
I mean, right there, you. Lost 95% of Daos, right, if not
more. They require traditional boards
and management teams, which usually Daos don't want, with
some exceptions. They require paper record.
Keeping. Even if it's like e-mail and PDF
record keeping Daos don't want to do that because.
All the records already. Exist on the blockchain, right?
Governments are trying to enforce dated securities laws
and apply concepts like traditional.
Securities to. Governance tokens and even just
generally, you know, not allowing you to perform critical
functions like voting and meetings on chain.
So what we've done in collaboration with the Marshall
Islands is passed this new law that you're talking about and it
starts with very basic things, and I have this up on the
screen, but just defining what is a blockchain, What is a
digital? Asset right.
What is a Dow right, so that you.
Can then include these things in the nature of how you govern and
regulate these organizations. Importantly, this clause I have
up on the screen simply. Says that.
Dow's can be limited liability companies and we call them Dow.
LLCS, but this is. The line that.
Gives Dow's all the. Protections that most companies
get very easily. By the law.
This clause in the law is about management, so just saying that
a an algorithm can manage an organization instead of having a
traditional management team. Right, that is so.
Powerful. That's what so many Daos are
trying to do with smart contracts.
Things like a membership interests.
Right, so. In it's in most Daos and web
three projects, there's some kind of tokenized membership
interest, whether it's an NFT, whether it's one person, one
vote or one token, one vote. But to acknowledge in the law
that you can have a governance token, right?
And the purpose of that governance token can be to
represent your voting rights or your economic interest.
If it's a for profit. In the organization, right in
the project and finally rights to information.
So traditional LLCS, a member or the government or anyone could
come to you and say I want a. Copy of all the.
Organization's records and you'd have to provide them with APDF
or a binder full of. Records.
And so our law in this clause and.
Others fixes that by. Saying As long as you're keeping
all of your records on an open and public blockchain, you don't
have to furnish your records in any other way.
So these are just. Examples of some of the clauses
that are in the law. But it's just these basic.
Things that say, look, here's how traditional organizations
did things. Here's how Web 3.
Organizations do things and therefore allowing those things
to happen in these new Web 3 organizations.
Well, I I love this because you know, I I often talk about you
know there's the Fiat currency the cryptocurrency interface at
that turned out to be more important and profitable than
anybody ever thought with the Fiat currency to cryptocurrency
exchange concept. I've often thought, and actually
we're in the middle of this now, that you're going to have the
Fiat identity to crypto identity exchange.
That's kind of what Palau is doing with its RNS dot ID or you
have the Fiat company to crypto company exchange or interface.
And that's kind of what you've set up and and some other
jurisdictions are exploring because there's no reason to
have piece of paper represent something if you can actually
have it in code. For example, if your votes can
be on chain, well they're cryptographically signed,
they're recordable, It's a data structure, you can program
against it and you don't have to have just reams and reams and
rooms of paper. And so this makes a ton of sense
logically and I'm really glad that there is place that's kind
of pioneered this and so now we can actually have an on chain
representation of a company that is fully legally compliant.
Yeah, and not only that. But I'll just add.
That Dow's are much more transparent and they have much
more guaranteed compliance than traditional companies.
So, you know, some people might react to this the same way they.
React to crypto. Currencies with Fear with oh you
know couldn't this be used for criminal activity, but the
Marshall Islands and and our company we share the compliance
obligation actually have way more visibility into all.
Of these Dow's. Than any government has into any
other company on earth. So it's it's really a win, win.
Right where people get to do. What they want to do on chain?
With these web three projects. And the government can make sure
that there's no illegal activity happening because every
transaction is recorded on chain.
That's great. Yeah.
And I mean the big thing about this is and simply that concept
of what that interface looks like and how on chain things
become. At first you mirror things on
chain and then the mirror becomes the primary.
It's kind of like, you know, the New York Times.
For a long time I was, he was just a piece of paper, right.
And then they had a New York Times website and those existed
for a while and now you could say the website is primary and
the paper is very secondary. And I think you're one of the
first to start making the on chain entity be a full companion
and peer to the to the paper entity and eventually in 10 or
20 years or or whoever knows and that becomes like primary.
So you know when you pass this, when did you pass this in 2022,
June or? Ish November.
November. OK, so it's just a few months
old, Less than a year old right now, Yeah.
Have you set up any entities under this structure so far?
Yeah, almost 100 entities. Oh, really?
OK, that's great. And what is the what's a
procedure if if somebody were to want to go and set one up, what
are the costs? Where do they go?
And and so. On and so forth and I'll throw a
slide up with some QR codes, even we have a guide to Dow
incorporation. That actually not only helps you
if you want to be in the Marshall Islands, but it helps
you think through. Should you incorporate your Dow,
should you incorporate your Web 3 project and where?
Right, because every situation really is different.
But if you want to. Register a Dow LLC.
In the Marshall Islands, you reach out to My Dow.
It's at my dow.org. It's MI.
Dao.org. And we can also connect you and
your project with our partner network of over 300 vetted.
Web Three lawyers. And that's actually a really
common challenge that we hear projects having is finding the
right web. Three lawyer with the right.
Jurisdictional expertise, whether it's Marshall Islands.
Whether it's Europe, whether it's.
United States or more than one and the right?
Expertise to help you solve. The particular challenges that
you have so we can also help get people connected at no charge
with. With good web three lawyers.
Awesome. That's cool.
And if you go back one slide, there was something on kind of
the advantages of the Marshall Islands if you go back one, so
you do you want to speak to this like so of course you know
crypto entrepreneurs are global, they can go all over the world.
You know, why should they go and use the Marshall Islands over,
you know, Cayman or or something like.
That, Yeah, absolutely so. There are clear advantages over
Cayman, BVI, Switzerland, USA and and other jurisdictions.
The USA is an easy one, and people who listen to your
podcasts will know that the USA is not a friendly jurisdiction
for web three, and in fact, it's not a friendly jurisdiction in a
in a number of ways, right? And so it's almost obvious why
you wouldn't want to base your. Dow or Web 3 project.
In the United States. And it's just about the fear of
what the federal. Government is going to do.
Even if you have a. Wyoming, Dow LLC.
Which is a is a. Very innovative thing that
they've done, very similar to what we've done.
The problem is you're in the United States, so that's the.
Issue with the US. When it comes to every other
jurisdiction in the world, so Cayman, BVI, Swiss, they offer
foundations and corporations and and trusts and all of these
corporate structures have boards and officers and when you have
boards and officers that creates it's not only just kind of
against the principle of decentralization to to many of
us in Web 3. But it creates a target.
For regulators and law enforcement to go.
After that board, right? It could be the Founders, It
could be some other. Group of people.
All of a sudden you're not really decentralized and so you
might get in more trouble with the SEC when they say, well, is
there a central? Group of people that you're.
Relying on to get a return on your investment.
So there's no doubt LLC anywhere else in the world other than the
Marshall Islands in the United States.
So if you want to be offshore and you want to Dow.
LLC You have. To come to the Marshall Islands.
And by the way, Dow LLCS are not just for Dow.
'S so. You know, not everyone loves the
term Dow, and a lot of crypto projects have multiple entities,
right? You might have an entity in the
US, in the BVI, in the Marshall Islands.
So any web three projects can usually take advantage of a Dow
LLC as some part of their ecosystem.
And that's something we can help people think through.
We're also working on a new. Laws.
So we've actually passed 2 laws, so.
Far in the Marshall. Islands.
The first was actually. In 2021 and the Dow Act built on
that, we have more that we're working on in the pipeline laws
and regulations to continue to help the Marshall Islands be the
best place in the world and the only sovereign nation that truly
recognizes the nature of Dows and Web 3.
So you are kind of crypto first is one way of thinking about it.
And you're not retrofitting an existing structure onto crypto.
You really have thought about it from scratch to to kind of merge
with with how Dows actually are the laws meeting where the
projects are. You know to your earlier .1 way
of thinking about. What we do is it's a legal
bridge. Between web two and web 3.
Right. It's for Web 3.
Projects that need. To bridge over to the tradfi
world, the web two world. And the way.
We do that actually is. By customizing the LLC.
So this these Dow LLCS. Are limited liability companies
that just have slightly different treatment under the
law in all the ways that really matter?
To web three right like. Again, not having a board, not
having to keep paper records, things like that.
So so it is. Piggybacking on the LLC, which
is the most common legal entity in the.
World by far. The most popular.
And that's because we want these Dow's to have all the same
benefits, to be able to open a bank account, open an exchange
account. Right.
A lot of our Dow's are. Doing things like opening bank
accounts because they might want to sponsor an event that doesn't
take crypto or get paid by a sponsor that only has Fiat
currency. Well, let's talk about that for
a second. So is Marshall Islands a good
spot for a crypto company to open a bank account?
So the Marshall Islands banks are not yet open for business
for Web 3 and crypto companies. And I mean the Minister could
could maybe speak to this in more detail, but Marshall
Islands entities. So actually, I mean, maybe the
Minister could talk about. This but.
For a long time, the Marshall Islands has been one of the most
popular jurisdictions for shipping companies to register.
So there are about 50. Publicly traded companies on
NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange that are Marshall
Islands companies and so unless you're in the shipping industry
or you may have seen the Marshall Islands flag which is
on boats. All over the world.
You may not know it. But this is a.
Tried and true destination and so banks.
All over the world Will. Accept Marshall Islands
companies, including Dow LLCS to open an account.
Well yeah, I mean the Adam you you touched on the the ship
registry and the corporate registry the banking sector in
the Marshall allies has always been opponent of anything that
has to do with crypto. No is no secret that you know
once crypto or digital currencies are going to be
becoming a dominant force then it will actually render these
banks redundant because then because in the the the idea of
digital currencies is is peer-to-peer so it will cut out
the middleman which is all the banks because they might make
money on the on the transaction cost and fees.
So they've always been an opponent of anything that has to
do with digital currency or cryptocurrency and so forth.
So at this point in time these established banks in the
Marshall allies there are anti crypto or digital.
So, so does that mean that we have half of the solution
working, which is the company solution but the banking piece
isn't yet there or how should we think about that?
No. You just have to use.
Other banks. So we have Dow LLC.
Clients that have bank accounts in Europe, in the United States,
in. Dubai so we we have service
providers that can help Dow set. Up bank accounts and some have
just done it on their own. They just apply for an account
at Mercury. Or.
Western Alliance Bank we had someone had an account at
signature. That obviously got.
Got shut down. So you just have to.
Use the Global Banking system, even if you're a Marshall
Islands entity. Let me also jump in on that
because if you look at the corporate registry program that
we have, we do have we're registering corporation that are
not that was Island the Marshall Islands but they are registered
under the corporate registry program that we established
under our laws. So if there's going to be
anything to adjudicate any dispute among the members of the
corporation that they raised in the Marshall Islands, Marshall
Islands jurisdiction and Marshall Island laws and
Marshall Island court system are going to be the one adjudicating
these disputes because they are registered in our jurisdiction
is no different than what we're trying to do with respect to
with the with the Dow when we when we have the Dow legislation
in here meaning that they are are domiciled in the Marshall
Islands under our laws. Do you you know, would you be
able to award licenses for example to to somebody like
banking licenses? Like you know if if banks, you
know if if you know you're a sovereign country, you passed a
law on this. If somebody wanted to become a
bank, could they potentially become a crypto friendly bank
and set up in the Marshall Islands?
Is that a possibility? So I.
I could speak to this. Because we've had this
conversation with the Banking Commissioner in the Marshall
Islands and they're open to it, but first they're looking to to
My Dow to help them draft the regulations under.
Which that type of activity would occur, so currently VASPS.
And banks are not supported. At least as Dow LLCS.
In the Marshall Islands. But I should clarify that there
is a. Distinction between the Dow and
a. Protocol, right?
So if a protocol does defy it. Doesn't make you a VASP in the
Marshall Islands. The Marshall Islands of VASP
would be someone who's actually setting up a bank or an exchange
or something like that. And to my knowledge, the Banking
Commissioner is open to it, but only once we help draft a new
regulation. Well, so let me let me jump in
on that. Let me just make it clear that
so no nobody's can choose about it.
Mars digital assets or digital currency or whatever you or the
assets are not. They're not that they're they're
not, they're not illegal in the Marshall Islands.
They're not outlawed. They are allowed but they're the
problem is we still have to develop the regulations, the
proper regulations for them to be regulated.
But as far as them registered, of course they can come, we're
open for business. They have to go through the
process of getting registered but then they'll be have to be
reviewed by the the authorities but no one is stopping them but
they're going to have to be but they will say well we need to
develop the regulations before the regulatory frameworks before
we can allow you to start operating in our jurisdiction.
So right now we're working on an amendment.
To the Dow act as well as a Dow. Regulation that makes it doesn't
add any new rules, but makes it. Really clear to Dow's exactly
how to follow all the laws. Of the Marshall Islands and
actually provides them with other benefits even in the other
in the jurisdictions where the founders or other members
reside. Just by categorizing things a
certain way, you don't have to fly to the Marshall Islands that
that's why we have an office. There it's the registered.
Agent So, my Dow. Is your registered?
Agent You don't have to fly there.
You might want to because it's beautiful, but basically we have
variable pricing for a dows of different sizes.
So usually there is a a. Conversation that someone from
our team has with the DAO or representatives.
Of the DAO to figure. Out.
What's the model that works best for them?
Often times they have questions. You know, most people starting
Daos are new to. Daos because Daos.
Are new and so we do offer not legal advice but business.
Advice for Daos that ask. Questions about everything from
what technology? To use to what are.
Common structures or common challenges that other Daos are
facing. And then again, we also get them
connected with lawyers in our partner network when they need
actual legal. Advice or Tax advisors?
And and things like that. So it's not just a form usually.
There's a bit of it. It's kind of a consultative.
Process where we help you. Through everything.
That's right. So our clients interface with My
Dow directly and then we interface with the government on
their behalf. They don't have to have a
management team. So we we refer to.
The initial members. Of the DAO as the group of.
People that is forming the DAO and that can be as few as one
person and it could be a founder, but it doesn't have to.
Be or it could. Be the entire DAO, forming it
together all at the same time. There are KYC requirements for
any beneficial members, we call them.
Because these are especially. With nonprofit Daos, these are
members, not owners, and so for a nonprofit Dow LLC, any or for
profit, anyone who has 25% or more governance rights and any
managers. Have to do KYC.
But often that's one or zero. People, right?
So it's it's whoever. Does want to be that person
who's interfacing with us and I think in one of our draft
regulations, we call that person a representative agent.
So there will be a. Form for someone to fill out to
say I'm the person you should talk to on behalf.
Of the Dow it. Doesn't give you any additional
legal liability. It doesn't give you any power
over the Dow. It's just a matter of process
that we need someone. To deal with.
We need a phone number, an address, an e-mail address, just
in case we need to reach out. Got it.
OK. And so LLCS are actually well
suited for this because they have lots of members
potentially. And so you could have lots of
symmetrical members and members of the Dow.
So it's sort of a scaling up of LLCS as you mentioned.
Yeah, and a lot of LLCS also have membership interests.
Already which is a way of. Dividing governance rights and
or economic ownership in a in a more nuanced way.
So for example. A lot of our Daos.
Are one token, one vote Daos and the way we construct.
That is that each. Token represents one membership
interest and then you. Do you have proposals where?
There's a quorum of, you know, 25% of the membership interests
and you need 51% of the people voting of the membership
interests voting. To carry a.
Proposal. And so we're really tying these
new Web 3 concepts to. Just like you said, LLC.
Concepts that have been around for a long time.
And can can you name some of the most interesting Daos that
you've seen, like any that have publicly call themselves
Marshall Island Daos? Yeah, sure.
And and the nice thing is. That a lot of these.
Daos have everything public on the Internet and on chain and so
you know anyone can go see this information.
But we have Moon Dao, which is the DAO that I think has already
sent people into space. Crypto Mondays is a global meet
up community in over 50 cities around the world.
That a lot of folks have probably heard of.
Admiralty Dow, so that's the. Dow for the Clipper.
Exchange which is a top 100. Defy platform.
Those are some good examples. So that was great hearing from
Adam on kind of on how my Dow has facilitated it and gotten
100 something Dow set up. I know you know both both you
and the sender have been working on this.
You mentioned you had some remarks that had been prepared.
Just a few few points I wanted to convey and some of them are
just reiteration of what Sadder Paul had mentioned earlier and
it's I just wanted to bring up how the government is in full
support of the the the law that was passed.
It went through the proper and thorough process as as as any
was to go through the parliament and when it reached the the
parliament it was unanimously decided that to to be tasked.
And as I if I remember correctly all that were in attendance.
All the members of parliament that were in attendance where we
did voted yes that the law should be passed except for one
if I remember correctly. I just wanted also to convey
that we see this as an opportunity and we've been
exploring means in ways that we could establish a stable economy
for the for the RMI. Given that we're other than the
financial assistance that we receiving from from the US under
the compact agreement we have to with the US.
We're mostly covered by water. So our resources is basically
mainly marine resources and given our current situation with
the sorry about climate change low lying islands and we're
currently the front front liners the to the changes of our
climate change and we see that it would be given the high
rising the rising level of water sea, sea level and the rising
temperatures would affect the marine life and surely in the
future might affect our our resources in and it marine
resources. So by saying that I'm just
trying to convey our governments, we're thinking of
trying to explore means and ways of trying to establish a stable
economy given we're a small island to one of these States.
And my thought is that we see it's it's a perfect opportunity
for us to to explore and look into the future to obtain a a a
steady stream of revenue for RMI.
So we're we're in full support of the Maita, the government of
the government of the Marshall Avids.
And like you thought it was mentioned that we have a ship
registry which is I if I remember probably you got
certainly ranking in second or third and ship registry rankings
and we definitely see my dollar which we also would wouldn't be
would benefit the economy of the RMI.
Well, that's actually a great precedent because you know, a
ship can be registered anywhere. If the Marshall Islands is a top
ship registry, this is like a cloud registry for all of these,
you know, on chain entities which could be in theory
registered anywhere and so you registered them there.
That's actually pretty interesting, the law of the sea,
things like that. That's cool.
And Sender, did you have anything that you were going to
say? You know just to compliment what
the Minister alluded to earlier and what Adam actually
emphasized on our quest to be the premier jurisdiction
globally for Taos and we see that the digitization of our our
our financial sector, our economic sector and even
technology is, is really the future.
So you know if you really look at where we are, we are such a
small, small island countries, a small island country in a fiscal
setting. But with the digitization of all
these sectors that I, I, I mentioned it is really an
equalizer so to speak because then it there's really no
excuses for us to be say they we we're at the end of the global
supply chain. We are at the mercy of the
global supply chain of goods and services.
But with the with with the technology of the web three and
all that stuff that actually is an equalizer that everybody's on
the same equal footing so to speak.
So we actually the advantage that we have we're very small
we're we're very agile and we can actually have a short time
turn around time to to be able to amend our laws and our
regulations so we can be got Gator for these these
organizations on the web. Three, I I say that that is
going to be our advantage and and and you know our size could
be used as an advantage for us in in the traditional settings
of economies and finance where our sizes really are
disadvantaged because we we lack the economy of scale.
But with with with technology, sizes are advantage.
Because you're nimble and and you can do things even if even
if folks don't, you can get to consensus much much sooner than
many other countries. I'd love in particular if there
was an island that was large enough that you might be able to
set up a self driving car zone or something like that just to
kind of show it can be done, You know, are they, are they just,
are they just a little like piece of rock in the middle of
the ocean? Oh yeah, they're they can be 10
acres land. They could be.
No, they're actually land. They're like private land to
where you can like like Richard Branson, who bought his own
island in the Caribbean. Actually, you can actually lease
your own island and develop and then have your own exclusive
island for yourself. Or a resort.
Wow. OK wait.
So you can get a 10 acre island in the in the Marshall Islands
and then of course you have to go and build the harbor and the
dock and you have to be able to get people back and forth and so
on and so forth or or just some of them come with that.
No, no, it's up to you. What we're trying to do is when
we digitize these islands because we're because you know
we're trying to put it in the smart contract and by doing that
we're digitizing the lease of that island.
And then you go have access to an island by to yourself, let's
say for 50 years, 400 years, whatever you.
And then how do you it's like a one stop shop so you don't have
to come to the Marshall Islands and actually go through the
legal process of acquiring the land.
We will do all of that and put him into an NFT.
And when you buy the NFT, you're actually buying the lease and
have rights exclusive right to that island to yourself for the
next 50 to 100 years. That's really awesome.
What is the biggest island like that you're selling or NFT ING
leasing I should say. Well, it's different.
I mean the island that the island that I always I was going
to use it as, as you know as you start with, it's like a
prototype is is like 3 acres, three to five acres, something
like that of land. And is it, is it, I mean the
Marshall Islands, it's a million square meters, I think you said
a million square miles of ocean. So is that near one of the main
islands or how? How should we think about that?
Is it all the way out there? Is it near one of the main ones
like a so so or how should we think about that?
Are they all nearby or they all kind of scattered around the the
ocean? Yeah.
It's one of the is in one of the is on Kwajale and Atoll that's
where the United States military base is at is one of the is one
of the urban centers. But by the way.
The Marshall Islands is one of the most popular tourist
destinations for the richest people in the world.
They take their yacht. And they park next to one of
these mostly uninhabited islands and have some of the best
snorkeling and scuba diving in the entire planet.
Basically with your own private island, just for that week.
Right. So, especially.
For anyone who has a yacht, then you don't even have to deal with
some of the challenges of flying in and.
Having to build your. Own cabin on your own private
island. Just stay on your yacht.
Well, maybe a Dow could lease a yacht or something like that.
That's really interesting. Yeah, there's.
Got to be a yacht Dow already. Yeah, that's probably true.
I think that that basically covers it.
So just to kind of recap, you passed new law in 2022.
It enables basically a Fiat company, crypto company
interface for LCS and LC like entities, AKA Dows.
It's crypto native. It has a full support of the
government. It sort of extends what you've
already done with your successful ship registry.
This is not your first crypto law.
You've actually been involved in this space for almost five years
now, which is eternity and in crypto years and about 100
entities have already been set up and people want to learn more
than go to ithinkmydao.org. So Senator, Minister, do you
have any closing words, anything you want to say?
Oh, we just wanted to thank you for the.
Time and. Really glad to be part of your
outcast and looking forward to the future encounter.
Wonderful. Great.
And we'll come and visit the Marshall Islands and may buy,
may buy an island or something. All right, wonderful.
Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Minister.
Thank you, Adam. Thank you, Balaji.
OK. Well, thanks guys.
This is great. Thanks for coming on.