ROADRUNR: How Atul Chatur's Drive-To-Earn Protocol Helps Driver's Reclaim their Privacy and Data Value.
The full transcript of this episode of "The IoTeX Ecosystem Podcast"
Today’s conversation features Atul Chatur, co-founder of Roadrunr. Atul shatters the myth of vehicular privacy, and how tamper-proof hardware and web-3 can reclaim some privacy, as well as the monetary value, for drivers who are being robbed of their data by car manufacturers. This is one of the best crypto conversations I’ve had in a long time and Atul, who has created the first drive-to-earn protocol, is building one of the most original, and potentially impactful, organizations in Web 3.0. Later on in the conversation, even Atul describes his vision for building a decentralized car, so lots to look forward to in this one.
Dean: [00:00:00] Atul, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. It's great to see you. And let me just hear about your background, your professional history, and what led you to web 3.0
Atul: Thank you so much, Dean, thanks for inviting me to this podcast. So I started working in 1994, I am 50 years old. So not your typical crypto investor or crypto enthusiast.
But luckily I had a very strong traditional finance technology background which made me really appreciate Bitcoin and what it was. Although having said that I got in a little late, so around the 2016 timeframe into crypto. I am a mechanical engineer by profession and I have worked with hedge fund and IT[00:01:00] and information technologies (infosys) technologies for about eight years.
And then in about 2016, I started looking at crypto seriously. Frankly,I could have done it a little earlier, but did not for whatever reason. And then in 2016 I ended up investing in crypto for about four years.
I made really good money. especially in that second cycle from about 2020 onwards. And then I said, there seems to be a lot more to crypto than just Bitcoin and Ethereum. Of course they are the foundation's foundational platforms of crypto. But I didn't saw beginning. I noticed, especially during the last cycle from around 2020 onwards, a few real world use cases.
So I was inspired by helium, by IoTeX, projects that had some real world connections. So let's call it the tokenization of real world assets. And I said, [00:02:00] let me really see if that makes sense, because a lot of what Bitcoin is a lot of what Ethereum is. Foundational platforms, right?
It's all foundational technology. So unless someone actually builds real world connections real world use cases, I think otherwise it's just going to say. Pretty much in that speculative realm. If you may, of course there is a cross border, a transfer of money use case. Let's just call it the cross border payments use case if you may, but that can be done by any cryptocurrency, right?
It's not just, you don't necessarily need to have a Bitcoin. You can have ripple, you can have the hundred other cryptocurrencies out there and still achieve a similar. Objective, if you may, of course, there are a few other nuances to that. It's not as simple as that, but as I said, tokenization of real world assets, what was, what really inspired me?
I looked at Helium, at IOTX. I also noticed that there weren't really that many real world use cases or applications of crypto out there, so [00:03:00] I said, why not really? So I, along with three engineers from I address so that's important because I needed the technology brain power, if you may, to really do the implementation coding programming, we said, let's go after industries that are really centralized.
And what I noticed is I, by the way, I had a logistics, transportation background as well. I used to head up their logistics, transportation division for about four years. And I said, the cars, the vehicles, industries really centralized, right? If you look at OEMs they make the cars and then pretty much everything is in their control.
If you may, especially the way cars are evolving, vehicles are evolving into computers on wheels as opposed to mechanical systems. If you go back like five, six years back, they were mostly mechanical systems. Now they're really computers on wheels. So which means a lot of car data is really important.
It's becoming very valuable as well. So we went after this entire the cars, the vehicles, the connected [00:04:00] cars space if you may, including two wheelers, three wheelers, anything that moves. So in that sense, we are really the future of mobility. We are also what we are building is the web three of vehicles.
It did, we said, let's go after a industry, which is centralized. We said, cars, vehicles makes sense. And as I said, inspired really by helium, IOTX. So that's the background really.
Dean: Interesting. That's fascinating. The way that you went past Bitcoin and Ethereum, it sounds to me like you're a very practical business person.
In some sense, you look at actually how you can use web three and blockchain to disrupt a centralized industry in a way that affects potentially millions of consumers. One of the major critiques of Bitcoin and Ethereum is that, it's a very interesting intellectual and technical exercise to create a decentralized protocol for a monetary system in Bitcoin's case or for generalized software applications in Ethereum's case.
But where is the real world use case? That's like the number [00:05:00] one critique of crypto is how does this affect the average consumer's life? How does it make it better? So you looked at a very physical, real world industry, which is part of this second wave of layer ones. IoTeX, Helium that are looking at actually tokenizing real world assets.
And you said, okay, let me look at the car industry. I have a professional background here. And what about it specifically makes it a ripe target for Web 3.0? Is it just how centralized the data is with the manufacturers or what else is it?
Atul: Yeah, so there's a couple of things that that, I had been thinking about for a while.
So what makes it really interesting is a lot of people. I guess everyone across the world, actually, thinks that you are safe in your car or vehicle. From a data perspective, right? Right now we are speak sitting in a room and I'm pretty sure no one can really observe us. They can't really see what we are doing and hear what we are saying.
A [00:06:00] lot of people actually think that's true of cars as well. I don't know if they realize that there are very few car data privacy laws across the world. I was actually blown away when I looked at the US and I saw there as zero, literally zero close to zero car data, privacy loss. So when you sit in your car and if you are actually doing a private act it could be a girlfriend, it could be anything else, or you are discussing money matters in your car because you think no one can hear you. They can hear you, right? So the OEMs can actually hear you. So in the past it was the advanced car makers.
And I'm so surprised, because I looked at this Pegasis spying scandal as well. So the Israeli software, and that was your mobile phones. And do people realize that the same sort of stuff is in your car and that I, I spoke with some fairly rich people as well. So people who've got the BMWs and the Audis and the Mercedes in India, And I said, guys, do you know that these guys can hear you?
And they were like, no, I don't think so. And I said, yeah, that is true. And [00:07:00] also not just that, what they do with that data is just not defined across the world. So maybe the European region, we found a couple of countries, France, Germany, the UK as well. The US has always been a bit more proactive from a data consumer data perspective.
And they are doing a few things with respect to car data. But very little has been done. Very little has been put in place. There is almost nothing with respect to car, data privacy, right? And we said, this is just wrong. There are so many drivers across the world. There are so many owners across the world who think they are safe in their cars from a data perspective.
Right. When I say safe, I specifically mean with respect to car data. And when I say car data, it is the driver data as well. When I say driver data, I'm not talking about how safely you drive your car. That's just one. But what do you do inside your car? Are they recording it? Can they see what you are doing inside your car?
I think that's not a good thing, so that's something, just, we'll just keep that in mind, but that was something that was pretty obvious to me. When I looked [00:08:00] at a lot of cars getting cars getting converted into computers on wheels as they call it. Because there's a lot of hardware, software, and Tesla is really the embodiment of this.
So a lot of people think Elon Musk is doing a great job for sure. But if you really look at the fact that Tesla is not just a car company, it's a lot about car data, and which is why they're vertically integrated, which is why Tesla and Elon Musk will give you all the upgrades for free.
But then he is taking over your car data. Now, is that good? And I don't know if people know, but the state of Wyoming had some car, data, privacy laws and go and look it up Tesla and some of these car companies that are putting in a lot of tech into their car cost the the regulations, the car, data, privacy regulations in the state of Wyoming.
So that's just one aspect, right? So the second was really the fact that vehicles, cars have always been depreciating assets, no one's really made any money out of it. You buy a car, the costlier the car, the more the depreciations. If you buy a Merc (mercedes)[00:09:00] I keep on saying a Merc because a Merck, at least in India, is a very high end vehicle.
And in two years it's like down 50%. In fact, if you have a cheaper car, it doesn't depreciate as much, but if you buy a high end merc in India, it's probably like $200,000. And in like in two years, it's like a hundred thousand dollars or even lower. No one wants to buy a Merc, a secondhand Merc, right?
And also cars don't really give you any income, right? So we said, why not really look at the fact that put drivers in the center of this, put people who are generating this data. So in the web two world, you had the Facebooks and the Instagrams and the WhatsApps and whatnot, and they stole your data, turned into trillion dollar organizations.
This is exactly what's happening in the car space as well. So you've got intermediaries like WEGO. So it's a, Palantir technologies backed company. It is listed in the us through a reverse merger. You've got Israeli company called AUTONOMO and they are actually taking away your data from these [00:10:00] OEMs who see the OEMs are really interested in making cars.
They are not interested in really they are interested in car data, but these are not tech companies. So they don't really know what to do with it. Tesla is very different, which is why Elon Musk had that tech background. And he he's a pioneer in that sense.
So don't get me wrong. I'm not disparaging him but, there are other aspects to car data that he's not disclosing, which is which I think is a problem. This space is a space where some of these intermediaries, if you may, the Facebooks and the Instagrams and the WhatsApps who took your data personal data and turned it into trillion dollar business opportunities, and who controlled that data as well, similar thing was starting to happen in the car space.
So we realized these two companies WEGO and Autonomo who are doing this. And we said, this is not right. So if they're taking away driver data, is there a way to really gain access to this data car data, if you make car data driver data, and yes, it can be done. If you look at a car, if you look at a [00:11:00] vehicle there's a standard interface called as the OBD port, you just fit in a device there and you get the car data.
If a driver downloads an app on your smartphone and a smartphone has a lot of sensors, so there are mobile. There are motion sensors. There is a gyroscope, there is GPS data. So a lot of that data can be accessed from your mobile phone as well. And these days, cars stream data directly through an internet connection.
So we looked at all these three sources of data. And we said, why not put the driver at the center of it? Why not allow a driver to really set his access controls and share his data, his or her data. And once we have that data, put it onto a public blockchain, allow a driver to really set access controls around that data and hence reward the driver as well.
Now, what that does is it turns a car or a vehicle into an income generating asset, which is just we thought it was like a fantastic thing, right? There are so many people in this world. Both drivers [00:12:00] of four wheelers. If you look at the Ubers and the Lyfts across the world, this entire gig economy of car drivers, and you look at these two wheelers in India, zooming around to try and deliver some grocery in 10 minutes.
So it's called so called quick commerce, but these guys are just zooming around on their two wheelers. And we said, why not at least give them some income? So even if it's like in India, it's dollar something like 10 cents a day. Why not? In a day you get like 10 cents, 50 cents a dollar, depending on where you are driving, what sort of data you are sharing that turns a car into an income generating aspects.
So at the core, we thought these two things around the car data, privacy angle that I mentioned, where we realized there is very little around that entire thing. There was some things that really stood out, right? So the OEMs really looking at what you are doing, what you are saying, that's not good. And is there a way to really at least make drivers aware of that issue?
Yes, for sure. Because extremely few people and I was so [00:13:00] surprised. No one really even had thought about this and I said, that's one. And second is so that, that brings us to that car data angle, right? Privacy. And how do you set controls, access control around it? Who do you share it with?
It should be in control of the drivers. And if they're actually doing that, why not allow them to monetize the data at whatever level. So we are starting out. I'm not saying you're gonna be making like thousands of dollars from that data, but it at least sets precedence, at least hopefully we are the first people in the
world who are thinking about this issue and turning these vehicles into some form of an income generating asset as well. And we feel that, once this, hopefully as if this takes off that stream of income, that stream of cash that you make could also be turned as some sort, a collateral to finance your vehicle as well.
Especially the cheaper ones. I think financing a Merc, or a BMW on the basis of car data is not going to happen, but why nota two Wheeler, if it's like in India, two wheelers are literally like about 300, $400 [00:14:00] right on, on road cost. And I'm saying if they can actually make some money and these two wheelers run for hundreds of thousands of kilometers, and people use them for 10 years, et cetera. So if you can actually look at that data and just finance, even half of it, why not? So turning a vehicle into an income generating asset and all these issues around car data, privacy that I mentioned, I think are at the core of what what we are trying to do what we have designed, what we have put together and the protocol as well.
Dean: Yeah. You said so much there that piqued my interest. First of all, I've studied data privacy issues when it comes to big tech platforms, mobile phone usage, wearables, I never thought about cars. It's fascinating that you bring that up. I think the average person has no idea, like you said, and it's it's almost like sugar, like in the US, you don't realize that everything you eat has sugar in it until you actually look at.
And it's the same thing with data collection. You don't realize that everything you do, including driving in your [00:15:00] car, which is considered one of the most private things you can do, like it's in a closed space. People can't hear you, that's a very private space, your data is being collected. So at what level, I'm just curious, are they recording voice?
It probably depends on the car. Of course, the degree to which the technology is capturing environmental data. But let's take the most extreme example, right? Like a Tesla, the most computerized vehicle. What exactly is that capturing? Can you share some of the specifics?
Atul: Yeah. So that takes us back to cars converting from mechanical systems into computers on wheels. So this is a very recent trend, if you actually look at most cars except for Tesla we'll leave Tesla aside for two minutes. And I'll tell you what I mean, the other OEMs, So if you look at a Volkswagen I don't know, you look at anyone to et cetera.
They were in the ones who really were putting in all these things into their cars. They were still focusing on making great cars, great performance, great mileage smooth drives, smooth rides, [00:16:00] whatever. And then Tesla came along and Elon Musk said, hang on. You guys are thinking about cars and how to make great cars.
I'll think about what to do with the data. And how to access that data as well. So what we realize is that see a lot of these cars, as they turn into computers on wheels have definitely got a way to access your data, whether it is driving data, driver data. What you do, they definitely have a way to access that data.
And what's more worrying is that there are very few car data privacy laws, which basically say, what do you do with their car data? So it's not so much to me, see, frankly, I can't get inside all these cars to really figure out what they're capturing. I'm pretty sure it's all private as well. But for sure they are capturing data.
And the worrying part is there is no car data privacy law saying, Hey guys, you can't do this with this data that you collected. And you look at a high end Merc, or even if you look at some of these low end vehicles as well, there's a set of a hundred features, 200 features.
And you probably, when you drive a car, you are like probably using about 20 of them. [00:17:00] For sure. My car has got like a hundred features, but what do I do with all the gadgets, all the stuff. And for these OEMs to fit in a camera in there on the basis of the fact that saying that they're actually collecting this data to make your ride or make your drive or make your experience a more convenient experience is pretty easy to say, but what do they do with that data? Since there are no data, privacy laws. We realized that there needed to be some sort of a way to at least make drivers aware of this issue because people are just not aware. Even the richest, the most the most knowledgeable people werent aware of this issue.
So what I'm saying is it's a twofold problem. One is these OEMs, for sure, as they convert their cars into computers on wheels are accessing this data. Second is since there are very few car data privacy laws, they can do anything with this data. I'm pretty sure at some point in time, over the next few years, it'll turn into a PEGASIS kind of a scandal, a spying scandal or something like that.
But people are because people are just so unaware. When you [00:18:00] sitting in your car, you do all kind of crazy things. You can discuss all kind of private matters in it as well. Marriage, money. Whatever else. And if that data is being accessed by these car companies, you don't even need a cell phone then, right?
Because cell phones are like accessing, putting up Pegasis kind of thing on your cell phone is now like maybe people are aware of that, but people are just not aware of this car data privacy thing.
Dean: We've seen this story before. we saw it with, big tech.
They would tell us we're gonna personalize your experience. We're gonna improve the platform by taking your data and we're gonna give it to you for free. An obvious exchange or at least it was. And then as you said, scandals started happening and people became very aware of their data privacy when it comes to using software based, computer based platforms, but in the car, it's totally different.
So what we're talking about is, as you said, it's not totally clear what's going on with this data. It's very private, it goes off into kind of a black box, but there are third party [00:19:00] companies like Palantir that they're selling that data to presumably they're selling it to potentially data brokers for advertising purposes, all this could be going on. Do you have insight into that?
Atul: Yeah, I think Dean on that, see to me, which is why I came to this thing around Tesla and all the other OEMs. If you look at all the other OEMs, data is a bit of a commodity, so they captured this data. They have very little clue what to do with it.
For sure pay as you drive insurance some of those use cases are very obvious. I'm sure some of these companies may do something with the car data in that sense, right? So let's say the insurance use case, but if you look at this data, if you collect this data, what do you do with it?
The best thing is sell it off to a data broker, get something in return. And that's the end of it, right? For a lot of these OEMs. So Tesla is a bit is quite different in that sense, because they are actually doing something with the data, trying to build their applications, which is why Tesla is valued at a trillion.
And all the other OEMs put together are like 80% of [00:20:00] that. So a lot of people don't actually realize that. And Elon Musk has never spoken too much about it as well, because there is a sensitivity angle there, right? If you start talking explicitly about car data, then I'm pretty sure the car data, privacy laws kick in which they will at some point in time.
And I don't think he is going to get away with this. I hope not at least but, so as I said so really the fact that this data I said is being accessed is being sold by these OEMs. Especially the non-Tesla OEMs is pretty obvious to me. I've seen some of these, I forget the name of this company…
Hopefully it'll come back to me later, but as I said, the likes of WEGO, Autonomo. There's one more. I, somehow I just forget it's a European company and it's suddenly grown in the last few years to be like a 25 30 billion company, which is just taking all this data from the OEMs and doing, God knows what, so once you hand it off to a data broker, Then it becomes very different because the OEM is not selling the data technically to whoever. But the data broker can.
Dean: OEM just means the [00:21:00] car manufacturer, right?
Atul: right? Yeah. The car manufacturer. So the car manufacturer can sell the data to a data broker and they're still safe because it, because they're just bundling t the data and it's like raw data and like we don't care, but the data broker can then break it down.I'm pretty sure they can think about what's sensitive. What's not who to sell this.
Dean: So you're saying there's a 30 billion company that arose purely based on car data, correct?
Atul: It is a European company. I'm so sorry. The name just escapes my mind. I look it up. I'll just share it with you later.
I put that in and by the way more companies definitely. Yeah. Andwhat I've seen is it's not just this, but there are a few other companies now coming around in the car data space based on this data broker sort of a model, so they are not actually generating the data themselves.
They're just buying this data from the OEMs, from the car manufacturers. And that to me is even more dangerous because the car manufacturers can be held responsible. But once you sell off that [00:22:00] data, they can say, we weren't aware, so if the data broker sold it for something or to someone, how are we really responsible for that?
Yeah. That's the problem really?
Dean: Okay. So we've articulated the problem, right? There's a major industry built around car data specifically. You're not private in your car. This data's getting harvested. There's no laws. How does web three fix that? So you talked about having an ODB eading device that can do what exactly can it intercept the data or it just creates an alternative version of it? Or how does that work?
Atul: just to be very clear, we are accessing car data. We are accessing driver data as well. So have you drive and we are accessing data that is streamed by the cars directly through an internet connection.
So what that allows us to do is I can access your car data through the ODB port. It's called an onboard diagnostics board, and this board is actually fitted inside. It's present inside every single car on earth, except for a [00:23:00] couple of EV models. not so surprisingly by Tesla.
So 2020 Tesla actually cost the OBD port requirement in California. So obviously he's been successful to do that, but he's taking away that standard interface from your car that will allow you to access car data. So he's actually taken that away, but every single car in the world there's no alternative.
So the entire data is not only controlled by Tesla, Elon Musk, but he's not even allowing anyone else to look at what that data. Whereas other cars, you, there's still a way to access this car data. There are OBD ports in every single IC car. So internal combustion engines. So patrol, diesel, gasoline, if you may, every single car needs to have that port it's mandated by law and we fit in a device there to collect car data.
So which brings in the IOT or the hardware angle to our protocols, we actually started out that way. And then we rolled into a few other aspects around web three, which I'll get to later, [00:24:00] but that allows us to access the car data. We have a driver app that sits on your cell phone that allows us to access driver data as well.
And when I say driver data, how do you drive? Or do you break too often? Do you turn rationally? Do you overtake people on the road? Are you an unsafe driver? If. That's what we are focusing on. And the third is really data that is streamed directly from a car, which is through an internet connection right now, while we've started looking at this data we need to be careful whether this is private data as well.
When I say private data are these like recordings of what you're seeing in the car are these even visuals of what you are doing in the car. And there are companies in the US, especially that I've seen in the European region, which are starting to access this data through Dashcams as well.
So dashboard cameras, both inward and outward facing so that they can actually see what you are doing under the guise of safety. So for example, if you leave your baby inside in the car and you've got a camera in there, they can tell you the baby's unsafe or whatever. [00:25:00] And then you can come back from your shopping and do whatever.
But, so a lot of these devices are inside the car and that really allows them to to, to access this data.
Dean: So let’s just be clear about what you've built. So you've actually built a proprietary ODB reader that is a secure hardware element that can capture data in a tamperproof way and then feed that directly into a blockchain. Is that right?
Atul: Correct. So the point is that the hardware device is a trustless device, right? So you've got the vehicle, which is a car or a two wheeler or whatever, which is a single source of truth. So if you actually stream data from there and no one is interfering, no one can really play around with that data.
So that's one the same way. If you do that from the driver app, that is a single source of truth as well. So you can't really tamper with your cell phone and change that data. And the same way data is being streamed from a car directly where the likes of hyundai, some of their software that they've built out, allow the streaming of [00:26:00] the car data directly from the car.
So those are the three ways we access car data. We put it onto a public blockchain, so no one can tamper with it. And that has use cases like car resell. You know what I mean? When you resell a car, for example, you've got the history of the repair and the mileage, the number of miles you've driven.
And most times people just tamper with that, which is what changes the value of the car. So if you've driven like 60,000 miles, you just do 40,000 miles. And if you had four accidents, you say I've had none and the car value goes up. So once you put this data on a blockchain, you can't do that.
So that's so that's like just one talking about the centralized car factor space.So Carfax. I was told about it quite a few times. I've lived for like about six years in the us. I'm aware of no, no one in the world knows it. And if you come to India, you go to Brazil. No one has any clue about the car, right? So when it goes up for resale, you don't know what the repair history is. You don't know what how many miles its driven, but if you've got this data put onto a public [00:27:00] blockchain through these three data sources that we have built, device the driver app, which is a, which is mobile telematics, if you may, and the direct streaming from of car data, through an internet connection, which is not present in India in most emerging countries, but you can not play around with the data once it's on a public blockchain.
And to that extent, yes, it is a decentralized Carfax as well. And even Carfax is totally centralized, for sure you trust it, but who knows if they're actually playing around with the data or not, and what they do with it.
Three sources of car data, the IOT, or the hardware device, specifically the OBD port is what we are starting out with.
We initially built our own device to do the testing and all, but we are now we've just ma partnered with third party manufacturers. That's very important because we are not a hardware company. So that's the first source of car data. The second is the mobile telematics. Yes. That app, we have built out ourselves.
We intend to build it ourselves as well, because there's a lot of data that can be [00:28:00] accessed through a driver smartphone once he is inside the car and driving the car. And third is this direct data streaming from the car, but there we are dependent on the OEM. So to that extent, yes, it is an important source of car data, but we are just thinking about building our own streaming connection from the car so that we are not really dependent on someone else, because that's I think is very important from a decentralization perspective. But these three sources of car data, put it on a public blockchain, no one can play around with it. No one can change that data.
And it also allows the driver to set his own access controls right around what he wants to share. He or she wants to share. And what they don't and hencce the monetization aspects as well. So to be very clear, we are not selling the data without the driver's permission.
So if he wants to sell, for example, his data to an insurance company will do that. However, over a period of time, the plan is to also develop decentralized protocols around all these other use [00:29:00] cases, so decentralized car insurance or vehicle insurance, vehicle finance, car resale, carpooling, ride sharing.
So the first use case we are building out is carpooling. So we looked at blahblah car, for example, and it's a very famous they've got a hundred million cars on the road now. And this is just a driver to passenger connection. So if you're driving between. In India, we drive between two cities.
So let's say like about a hundred miles apart, and you can just publish that information and I can get three people into my car. So it's quite nice, right? I get some social interactions. I get to make some money and they've grown very popular, but they need the car data. They need the driver behavior data as well.
And the carpooling app is the first decentralized app that we are building on top of this data. So we are selling very little data. Maybe for the insurance use case, we will sell that data because there is a lot of demand for that sort of data. But a lot of the other use cases, we are building out ourselves the apps as well on top of the car data that we are [00:30:00] accessing.
So in that sense, we are just not selling car data. We are not like a data broker where we say, here's the data. We are just gonna sell it to someone else. That's not our model.
Dean: So just to be clear, you're not stopping the data, obviously getting sent to the OEM, you're just creating a mirrored version of the data that is under the user's control.
So you can actually create a collectivized bargaining of users to actually monetize their data. Whether, on an opt in basis, you're not forcing them to do it, but it gives them some monetary control and some access to the returns from that data. And you're actually creating a whole platform around this data and the users where you're using a carpooling app, potentially.
You're gonna partner with insurance companies to give some money back to the users. So there's a whole host of applications that you can build with this data. So it's actually a platform model that you're talking about. And the key here is gonna be bootstrapping as many users as possible. So I'm sure you [00:31:00] have some crypto token wizardardy going on to amplify the adoption early on. So can you talk about some of the Cryptonomics tokenomics that you've thought of and are introducing into the system?
Atul: Yeah. So Dean, I'm just gonna take a minute or two to just clarify one more point. So our ultimate ambition and vision is while we are car data platform play, I believe a decentralized car can actually be built, right? Because I've been speaking with OEMs with car manufacturers as well. People within these organizations and most of these car companies re essentially assembly operations. They don't actually make anything themselves.
There is very little, especially in the commoditized car companies. I'm pretty sure mercies or I don't know what one of the high end cars Lamborghini or a Ferrari makes some of a lot of their stuff. The. But a lot of the other car companies are just assembly operations and there is a incredibly well established auto [00:32:00] ancillary industry that will also allow us to build a decentralized car. So that gets into a lot into the IOT hardware space where you're saying you don't even need to have a car that is actually made by an OEM where you're just accessing the car. Just take the OEM aside, right? I How difficult is it to build a car?
And again, it is an ultimate vision, right? I'm not saying we do it right away. We are just starting out. I would love to, we would love to do it ourselves, but I hope this inspires other people to think about this problem. And maybe there's someone out there who says I've got expertise in hardware in building a car, and it's not that difficult at all.
Because then we are saving is if you assemble something that is a car, but the car data elements are totally decentralized. And there's a dash cam. And there's these OBD port that allows you to access car data there. Sensors within the car as well that you can put up inside a car and access a lot of that sensor data as well.
I think a lot of that can be done through a decentralized car as well, decentralized [00:33:00] hardware collection of decentralized hardware that allows you to build out a decentralized car. But that really is just the ultimate vision. I don't want to really stress on it too much because it's like probably 10 years out, but I hope it gets there. As we build out the web three space and as the web three space encompasses some of these IOT and hardware elements as well.
The vision is to really build out a decentralized car because we don't want to be dependent on some other OEM blocking us, cuz I'm pretty sure at some point in time they will wake up if we are selling their data right?.
Although that's questionable, because if you are the driver, you own the data. It's not the OEM, which should be owning the data because he's actually sold you the car. Once he sold the car, they shouldn't even be accessing that data. So that's a very important distinction, right?
Because the same way, once they sell you a computer, they should not be accessing your data. No one thinks about this, but once you've, once they have sold you the car, why is the OEM even accessing that data? So there are a few nuances in there. We realize that it's not that easy.
We are obviously going against a very centralized [00:34:00] industry here and a very strong industry as well. I don't think the OEMs would particularly appreciate what we are trying to do. But again that's an ultimate vision. as far as the crypto economics thes go, yes.
What we have done is we have a dual token system, right? . So we looked at a lot of things apart from Helium IoTeX, we looked at StepN we looked at AXIE infinity, looked at play-to-earn, and we said what's the way to have an earn while you drive model.
So it's not if you drive, let's say a hundred miles a week and if you do 500 miles, just because I'm giving you some reward, that's the way we have structured . So we don't want to incentivize driving here, so even if it's EVs, even if it's EVs, it's not about the carbon emissions.
You know why? Fundamentally while we love cars, we are not really fans of just more driving, because it creates traffic. We don’t want more drivers where you can just walk to work, just run to work, but can you earn some money while you [00:35:00] drive? Because cars are not going away, vehicles are not going away.
They will stay around for sure. So can you earn value drive? So there is a dual token. So we've got a reward token, which is called SDT, which is Safe Driving Token. Which incentivizes safe driving as well. And there are various parameters around what we mean by safe driving, which also includes lesser driving by the way.
And a few other elements as to what safe driving is. And the other is the car token, which is our government token. So it's pretty similar in that sense to a step in model with GMT and GST. AXIE infinity with the AXI token access and the smooth low ocean, the SLP token. So that's the tokens.
It the in-app reward token SDT rewards, the drivers, that's the incentive for the drivers to be rewarded for their car data. And the governance token is more of a governance token. It is the token that we used to raise capital as well. So it's got some [00:36:00] other properties. SDT is really the reward token, right?
Dean: And this will be the token that for example, insurers would pay in to access data. That's how you create the two sided market is that's actually the token that's gonna be used to buy and access the data platform. Is that right?
Atul: So what we have done is for insurance companies specifically, right?
So wherever we sell the data, we are just going to do that in Fiat, right? I We are not involving some of these web two companies necessarily with SDT or car, maybe if they want to come in as partners, if they want to be involved with the governance mechanisms. Yes, but SDT is more for the drivers and we don't really want to incentivize anyone else.
It's purely what the drivers do, how they are rewarded, how they use the gamification elements as well. And very importantly, Dean here. We've also built a gameFi model where even if you're not a driver, right? Let's say, I don't know where you live, but let's say it's the US. And you've got a kid who's 15 years old and he buys one of our NFTs.
He can lease it out to [00:37:00] a driver in India. Who's doing like a hundred, 200, 300 miles a day because that's his bread and butter. There's no way he can do anything else. Drivers in Mumbai who drive around 18 hours a day, 1820 hours a day when at two o'clock in the night, because there's that's their earning.
And your son, daughter in the US can lease that NFT the car NFT to them. So they're not even a driver, right? It's just someone sitting somewhere who thinks who can buy our car NFT, lease it, that NFT to a driver across the world anywhere. Who's just driving for their bread and butter.
Allow them to make earnings out of that activity and then take away like a 20%, 30%, whatever it is. Some, something like that. So saw this model with exactly, for example. So AXI and I think stepN is going to bring that in as well. I think it's just such a powerful model if you're, if you are not doing an activity, but someone else is, and if you can actually incentivize him to make some money, why not? And you take away like a 20% of it. [00:38:00] Fair enough. It's not like a very high take rate. It allows them to own something from a physical activity that they are doing in our case, it's driving. And there are so many drivers across the world who really don't make a lot of money.
And even if they do, why not allow them to make some extra money and then you can take a cut off it through the NFT mechanism that we have, which brings me to the gamefi elements. Originally we did start out Dean being IOT plus blockchain project. We focused a lot on the car. We love the car.
Let's get inside, let's put the OBD device. But then over the last six months, we also introduced the gamefi element in there, which I think hopefully attracts a lot more players, drivers into the ecosystem and it can actually attract someone who's not even a driver. And who's just a 15 year old who thinks, yes, I love what these guys are doing and I can incentivize drivers across the world by the buying these NFTs, leasing it out to them. And the NFT mechanism works by you can sit anywhere in the world. You can be anywhere in the world, you can buy our NFT and you can lease it out to anywhere someone else in [00:39:00] the world. Who's in a Brazil, who's in India, who's in Africa. And they are just plain drivers, right?
So hopefully that attracts a lot more people into the ecosystem, which we felt was necessary because just the IOT aspect was probably not going to do that. Which is why we introduced the gamification elements in it as well.
Dean: That NFT lending model created a bridge between, you could say the developed and developing worlds where essentially you had, high capital investors buying them and then leasing them to, in Axie’s case, people in the Philippines who during the pandemic had lost their jobs and were actually making more than minimum wage playing AXIE infinity.
And so you could see a similar model playing out. Drive to earn model where there is, some cash flowing from developed countries into developing through this NFT mechanism. I definitely see that. And I think your position in India, makes you uniquely positioned for accessing that market.
Because hat's probably [00:40:00] the center of crazy driving as this like Mumbai or new New Delhi.
Atul: I see a lot of taxi drivers in Mumbai. I've spoken with them extensively because I use tech. I never drive around in my rate. If you're seen you don't do. We just get into a hula or a taxi and that's the best way to travel around.
And I've spoken with so many of them and they're so excited, right? Because it does allow them to make some extra money and while they don't understand NFTs and all, it's not that difficult, web three adoption will have a internet, like adoption curve. So we are at very early in the very early.
But it's not that difficult. There's like plenty of smartphones around in India. Everyone has got a smartphone. They may not have a house. They may not have anything else, but everyone's got a smartphone for sure. They're watching videos. Internet is like so cheap in India. And so I don't know if but we've got like a $2 plan for a month, which is fantastic.
It works all the time and it's just amazing. So the entire [00:41:00] of India is on internet, have got smartphones, which are like less than a hundred dollars and they work right. Literally. Yeah. And we've got financing plans for these smartphones as well. So mobile adoption has taken off in a big way.
So which is why the mobile first approach as well. So even if someone does not buy our hardware device for example, the hardware device is not easy enough to fit into a two Wheeler. It's quite tough actually. The two wheelers do have an ODB port, but they're very inconvenient. You can't place devices in there conveniently, but they don't need to do that.
Even the driver app allows them to earn through the gamification aspects as well as by simply driving around as well. So we've got three classifications, a player, a driver, and a driver and player, right? So someone who doesn't own a vehicle is just a player. Someone who owns a vehicle drives is a driver and someone who's a combination of both can be a driver and a player.
And we've got like offerings or settings in our app that allow all these three people who are involved with the driving ecosystem. So the entire idea is [00:42:00] anyone who's interested in driving, right? How do they earn, how can they be involved with the activity of driving is what we are focused on, because we realized that crypto was just attractive to a lot of crypto enthusiast, it's like, how do we attract the other people in. Is what we have, especially if we are doing something real world, then the entire idea is to appeal to real world people.
We can't just say, oh, it's like just for crypto. And if you understand crypto get in but we said, how do we really focus on all these people who are driving, who are doing a real world activity and get them involved with the driving ecosystem in whichever way, so that's at the core of what we are trying to build as well. And that's the core of the approach we are taking as well. So anyone who's interested in driving can be involved with this with our protocol.
Dean: And taxi, Uber, anybody who drives with the express intent of making money, whether they know crypto or not, if there's an opportunity to make money, they're already slapping ads on their car, they’re doing whatever it takes to increase their per mile earnings. So if there's a crypto element, I'm sure [00:43:00] that'll be a viral adoption market. so that makes perfect sense adoption market.
Atul: Yeah. And in fact Dean what we are doing is when we launch what we are hoping is some of the governments across the world, right?
Maybe it's a government in a poor country. I don't know. Maybe it's in Africa, Latin America, India, just realize that this is an earning mechanism for their drivers. At some point in time, we hope to be big in one or a few specific countries where the governments also realized this is an earning model for their drivers, maybe it's not the US, maybe it's not a rich country, but a poor country, for sure. So why not drivers in India making some extra money? So we've been having some conversations around this concept. Because this is real world because this allows a poor person or a driver who's actually driving to make money to make some extra money.
And I think to that extent hopefully six months down the line, once we've got past some of the tech challenges that we are currently facing and that we are currently building out as well, the entire product, [00:44:00] we have these discussions with some of these cities who are maybe a Rio, maybe a Mumbai, and say to these guys: Why don't you put like your million taxi drivers onto this platform? Because I think it is very powerful. And I think when we go real world, the engagement with the real world needs to happen as well. You can't just build an app out there and just leave it out there for, that, that approach can work as well.
But we are we are having to starting to have some of these conversations where we see to governments, politicians, that this is a way for your car drivers who are very important voting constituency as well. Why don't you allow them to make some extra money? And to that extent, can we expand in some cities, regions, or countries where driving is a major activity and where this allows their drivers to make some extra money?
So that's something that we are doing as well.
Dean: Fascinating. And I see this as a fairly bare market proof application of web three, where you're actually just targeting users who don't really care about the Bitcoin price. They're just looking for a way to make some money and. The bear [00:45:00] market, this is a perfect application.
Atul: Yeah. and the point I was trying to make that is that when we have these conversations, what we are trying to do is build a swap feature. Where crypto is accepted regulated.
Maybe we do it in El Salvador. Maybe we need to speak to their president where we say, why don't we have a swap feature? We just swaps these tokens into a stable coin or into even your Fiat currency. A lot of taxi drivers would want to see five rupees or even like 10 cents in their wallet against 10 SDT.
If they want to do that, if they don't want to do. Also we realized that this could result in dumping of our token because we convert and then, which is why the gamefi elements, right? So you don't need to sell SDT. You can use SDT as a token to level up. So we've got some leveling up NFTs as well, the same way you can level up a sneaker in stepN you can level up the car NFT as well.
So we've got engine NFT, a wheel NFT, a body NFT, a car body NFT that [00:46:00] allows you to level up the car and earn more. So the SDT token hopefully has both things. So we've already built out the first thing, which is using that SDT token within the ecosystem to level up your NFTs and earn more SDT tokens.
However, if a taxi driver wants to convert it into a U S D T or USDC, or even a fiat currency of course we had currency conversion comes in where crypto is accept. But I think at some point in time, we would love to see that convergence so that taxi driver just get rewarded on a daily basis.
So hopefully as we achieve scale, if let's say 20% of our drivers want to convert this into daily earnings we are thinking about that as well. It'll probably be in some specific cities, countries because I think it's not going to happen. I mean it probably be a country because the entire country needs to accept this, but some of the smaller countries maybe in, as I said, Latin America, Africa, et cetera.
Dean: Why does a country need you accept it? Why can't it just be a decentralized per person decision?
Atul: Yeah. So the decentralized decision, yes. It'll be there through that USDT or USDC swap if [00:47:00] you, that's like a swapping feature in the driver app that allows you to swap that into a stable coin.
What we've been thinking is how do you make it even more real world to attract more drivers into this? Because one of the thoughts we have is that unless we really convert this into a Fiat currency, is it really attractive to all the drivers in the world? Which is why maybe that's that's something that we will think about, but that can still be done in a decentralized way.
Even that Fiat conversion probably happens through a centralized exchange. We probably need a cryptocurrency license to do that, et cetera, but we've been thinking about it, our intention Dean here is to see how can we attract real world people who don't even understand crypto into this space?
And can we provide them some daily earnings as well? So that's probably a step ahead of what stepN or an AXIE is doing. But since our activity is a lot more real world it's also earn while you drive, it's not play to earn, not exactly playing to earn it's more like earn while you drive.
So the positioning, what we are [00:48:00] seeing is. It's a bit it's a bit different in that sense, because it's not an activity that you do specifically to earn, but you earn why you are doing an activity you anyway need to do, so that's a bit of a difference there.
Dean: it's not gonna be a rational decision to drive when you otherwise wouldn't to earn this token, it's gonna cost more in gas and maintenance, but if you're driving anyway, it's gonna be a cherry on top.
A nice addition to your income. If you're a taxi driver or to offet the expense of driving. So let's talk shop for the average crypto investor that's listening. How can they get involved? What's the timeline? Can they buy an NFT now? Can they buy one of your ODB readers now plug it in, start earning how can an average crypto investor listening get involved?
Atul: Yeah. So first thing is we've been building for a year. We started out last July. We were awarded a grant by the NEAR blockchain, by a harmony by IOTX as well. And we built on IOTX finally [00:49:00] for because of the simple reason that it matches our vision long term vision, very closely.
And so we've built all that out for a year. We've tested it, tested the device in about 35 models across India and the US on a hundred plus cars. We are conducting POCs right now in France, the UK and the UAE, the middle east. And most importantly, we are launching this Saturday, so we like literally two days away.
Today's Friday, actually. So in India. So it's like tomorrow evening from which point onwards you can start purchasing our specifically the devices will be launched about 15 days from now, just like fine tuning, a couple of things. So literally in the next one month, we you'll have both the NFTs as well as the devices available for sale.
And yeah. So we are launching globally, like tomorrow.
Dean: time this podcast gets published most likely that the NFT and the device will be available in the next couple of weeks. So by the time this show is out, those might be available. So if you're looking to buy it what's the website, where [00:50:00] can they goo
Atul: It's Roadrunner dot I Roadrunner is R O A D R U N R. Dot IO so the spelling is a little different. So we said Roadrunner, R U N R dot IO,
Dean: yeah. We'll link to it. Yeah. So people can just go directly to it from the show notes. So with that, let me just get, if there's any final calls to action for the audience, join telegram.
You can go ahead and say that now.
Atul: Yeah. So on the website, we've got our social media handles listed. We are very active on Twitter, telegram, LinkedIn as well. So just go ahead and please join us there. We have an AMA session, another AMA session coming up with one of my other co-founders on Monday.
And we'll probably do a few more of these over the next few days, because we just want to reach out to as many people with our message and with the protocol that we have built out. Yeah. So this is a very
Dean: dynamic time for your organization. You're launching live. You just finished your POC. So [00:51:00] if you're a crypto investor and looking to take advantage of some opportunities in the bear market, this sounds like a hot opportunity.
I know I'm gonna get involved. And this was fascinating. This was a fascinating conversation all the way from the data privacy issues with cars. To the play to earn application. So Atul thanks so much for your time. You're working on some crazy interesting stuff. So
Atul: congratulations on that. Thank you so much, Dean.
Thanks for your time as well. Thank you for having me on the podcast.
Dean: All right. To be continued.