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WiFi & 5G on Avalanche DePIN🛜Uplink CEO INTERVIEW🔺 · The Paul Barron Crypto Show

0:05
Speaker 1: Today we'll be talking about decentralized Internet and what that
0:09
Speaker 1: means for you guys, especially if you're looking at projects
0:12
Speaker 1: out there on the blockchain space. You're gonna love it.
0:14
Speaker 1: Moneame is Paul Barren. Welcome back in the tech path.
0:16
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Speaker 1: it out. I think you guys will like it. We're
0:46
Speaker 1: gonna get into a topic today. I think you guys
0:48
Speaker 1: will like. It's really you know, you've probably heard us
0:50
Speaker 1: talk about Helium before the component of Salona Mobile. What's
0:55
Speaker 1: been going on in that space, Well, there is a
0:57
Speaker 1: big movement right now that is coming. And I've got
1:00
Speaker 1: Carlos Lay who is the co founder and CEO of uplink.
1:04
Speaker 1: How are you, Carlos.
1:06
Speaker 2: Hey, Paul great, Hilario, great to be talking with you.
1:10
Speaker 1: Good. Good. So we're going to dive into what uplink
1:12
Speaker 1: is doing, and first of all, just kind of give
1:14
Speaker 1: us a rundown quickly for our audience, both our audio
1:17
Speaker 1: and our video audience. What uplink is trying to do.
1:21
Speaker 2: So at uplink, very simply, we're creating a marketplace. In
1:25
Speaker 2: one side, we incentivize people to share connect connectivity using
1:29
Speaker 2: existing infrastructure like the router you have at home, for example.
1:33
Speaker 2: But on the other side, we work with enterprises and
1:35
Speaker 2: we provide them with one of two things. So we
1:38
Speaker 2: either work with enterprises to do what we called network
1:41
Speaker 2: as a service. So these are Fortune five hundred companies.
1:44
Speaker 2: They're building smart systems all over the world, but the
1:47
Speaker 2: system is only smart if it's connected to the Internet.
1:50
Speaker 2: And today the options they have to connect them to
1:52
Speaker 2: the Internet are either to work with telcodes, which is expensive,
1:55
Speaker 2: it's a headache, you've got to work with different ones
1:57
Speaker 2: all over the world, or you build your own infrast
2:00
Speaker 2: so one of the things we do is we create
2:04
Speaker 2: this infrastructure for them. The other thing we do is
2:06
Speaker 2: as we build that infrastructure, as we get more coverage,
2:09
Speaker 2: we then allow telcos to do what's called network offloading.
2:14
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so I'm gonna I want to get
2:16
Speaker 1: to offloading in a minute, because there is there is
2:18
Speaker 1: some movement in projects like Helium that are going that direction.
2:22
Speaker 1: You guys have reached one hundred and fifty thousand users.
2:25
Speaker 1: How did you do it so quickly? What was the
2:27
Speaker 1: magic sauce here to get to that mini so fast?
2:30
Speaker 2: It was all about the community. It was all about
2:32
Speaker 2: the investors, and it was also about the partners that
2:35
Speaker 2: we have. So most people don't know about us, and
2:38
Speaker 2: that's okay, that's normal. We've been doing this for years now,
2:41
Speaker 2: but we only start talking to the world back in
2:44
Speaker 2: October almost that was that's when we start putting the
2:49
Speaker 2: word out and we created We reached out to some people,
2:53
Speaker 2: some people reached out to us. We started building a
2:55
Speaker 2: community very organically. We start educating the people and we
2:59
Speaker 2: basically just started seeing the network effects on this. On
3:02
Speaker 2: the other side, we've been working collaborating with Fortune five
3:06
Speaker 2: hundred companies on the demand side, we've been partnering with
3:09
Speaker 2: web trip companies like Avalanche for example, and starting to
3:12
Speaker 2: bring the communities from these projects as well really helped us.
3:15
Speaker 1: Okay, so all right, so Avalanche was the selection here.
3:19
Speaker 1: Obviously we've seen this kind of go before on some
3:22
Speaker 1: other platforms. You know, Helium is the one that I
3:24
Speaker 1: would compare you guys to the closest. What's the difference
3:27
Speaker 1: between you and Helium? What they're trying to do?
3:30
Speaker 2: Great question. So one thing I have to say about
3:33
Speaker 2: about Helium is we actually wouldn't be here if it
3:35
Speaker 2: wasn't for Healum. We really liked that project. And when
3:39
Speaker 2: we first had the idea of creating us back in
3:42
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, we know a lot about connectivity. We didn't
3:45
Speaker 2: know a lot about crypto. We were looking to token models.
3:48
Speaker 2: Nothing makes sense until we saw what Helium was doing.
3:54
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, if I have to
3:56
Speaker 2: compare what they're doing and what we're doing, I'd say
3:58
Speaker 2: we're basically targeting different completely different entities. Like Kelam is
4:02
Speaker 2: doing a really good job in building supply and getting
4:05
Speaker 2: people to buy the hardware deploy the hardware. They're also
4:08
Speaker 2: doing a great job in bringing that demand into the network.
4:12
Speaker 2: By creating the Helium Mobile, we do something a bit
4:16
Speaker 2: different and we'd actually we would love to collaborate with Helium.
4:19
Speaker 2: So for us, it's all about the demand for these
4:22
Speaker 2: enterprises that we've been working with, the ones we have
4:25
Speaker 2: on pipeline and for the telp with themselves. But for
4:28
Speaker 2: that we don't want to be creating our own hardware.
4:31
Speaker 2: We don't want to be deploying our own hardware. We
4:32
Speaker 2: want to tap into what exists out already and a
4:37
Speaker 2: very simple step for us, and where to start is
4:40
Speaker 2: with Wi Fi and WiFi hours that are already there.
4:44
Speaker 2: By the end of the day, we would love to,
4:46
Speaker 2: for example, collaborate with Helium and tap into the network
4:50
Speaker 2: that they already have, for example in Miami. So the
4:53
Speaker 2: main difference for us, we see ourselves more of a
4:55
Speaker 2: marketplace where at the end of the day, we really
4:58
Speaker 2: just want to incenter the creation of the supply, regardless
5:02
Speaker 2: if that supply comes directly from us or others like Helium,
5:05
Speaker 2: and we bring the demand side. We've been in this
5:08
Speaker 2: industry for a long time, we have the relationships, we're
5:11
Speaker 2: up to the standards, we have an idea where the
5:14
Speaker 2: industry is going. But someone needs to put all of
5:17
Speaker 2: these different pieces of infrastructure together, the heliums, the x nets,
5:21
Speaker 2: the traditional players, and we see that space, we want
5:24
Speaker 2: to we want to fill that gap.
5:26
Speaker 1: So why Avalanche? I mean, you could have gone the
5:28
Speaker 1: route of Ethereum Solana. There's a lot of different you know,
5:31
Speaker 1: functions out there. Why go the direction of Avalanche as
5:33
Speaker 1: the blockchain.
5:34
Speaker 2: When we started, we were looking to different protocols we
5:38
Speaker 2: saw and we talked with a lot of teams. We
5:40
Speaker 2: we actually really liked a lot of different teams and
5:42
Speaker 2: a lot of different technologies, but there were a few
5:45
Speaker 2: things that we needed. So we've been deploying us with
5:48
Speaker 2: real customers and we had a few bullet points, a
5:52
Speaker 2: few check marks that we had to we had to check.
5:55
Speaker 2: So one of them was uptime of the network. We
5:59
Speaker 2: have cut sstomers, We have the mend that they're telling
6:02
Speaker 2: us like, hey, we can only work with you if
6:04
Speaker 2: you can promise us for example ninety nine up time.
6:08
Speaker 2: So uptime major issue. Other one obviously TPS, and then
6:12
Speaker 2: the third point is about community. We wanted to be
6:16
Speaker 2: on a protocol and partner with an l one that
6:19
Speaker 2: also had a really strong community. It got us to Avalanche,
6:23
Speaker 2: so we met their team. We love their team. We
6:26
Speaker 2: also love the enterprise relationships they have. We felt their
6:29
Speaker 2: DNA is very similar to our DNA, their background is
6:31
Speaker 2: very similar to our background. And then we start looking
6:35
Speaker 2: to the technology and we just love it. And when
6:37
Speaker 2: we started looking, especially to Avalanche nine thousand, to this
6:41
Speaker 2: huge job that they just had and the possibilities of it,
6:44
Speaker 2: we were more than sold. Like for us being able
6:47
Speaker 2: to launch our on L one that's completely permissionless, where
6:51
Speaker 2: we can tap into other distant validators, where our validators
6:54
Speaker 2: can also be used on other l ones inside the
6:57
Speaker 2: avalanchee ecosystem, and all of this cross organization that can happen.
7:02
Speaker 2: That is literally what we're trying to do on Deepen,
7:05
Speaker 2: So why not partner with a company that's also doing
7:08
Speaker 2: it on the on the l one. On the blockchain
7:10
Speaker 2: side of things.
7:12
Speaker 1: Well, I think with the Avalanche they've been able to
7:14
Speaker 1: really kind of make it much more approachable for projects
7:17
Speaker 1: like you guys to get started with this new upgrade.
7:19
Speaker 1: So that's making that's that was one of the primary
7:22
Speaker 1: differences obviously within the community itself. I see that the
7:26
Speaker 1: transaction side of it. Definitely one of those things that
7:28
Speaker 1: I think would make a difference for a startup, like
7:30
Speaker 1: what you guys are doing. When you look at people,
7:32
Speaker 1: how can they participate? I know with Helium you've got
7:35
Speaker 1: a device, especially on the on the wireless internet side
7:39
Speaker 1: of things, it's not necessarily tying into an existing router
7:42
Speaker 1: that I have. How does it work with you guys?
7:44
Speaker 2: So one thing I have to say is we're still
7:47
Speaker 2: not live. We still don't have a token life. I
7:50
Speaker 2: have some updates on that, but right now, what we're
7:52
Speaker 2: allowing people to do is very simple. So we want
7:55
Speaker 2: the community to grow and we want to know who
7:57
Speaker 2: we can count with, so we allow people to pre
8:00
Speaker 2: register the routers already. So if you want to be
8:02
Speaker 2: a connectivity provider, you have your own router or office
8:06
Speaker 2: router or whatever, you can come and you can pre
8:08
Speaker 2: register it. That's the step one. Later this month, we're
8:13
Speaker 2: actually going to launch an up where people can use
8:15
Speaker 2: to participate in the network as well. And that up
8:18
Speaker 2: is very simple. You downloaded, you walk around your city,
8:22
Speaker 2: it's going to start mapping every single router you basically
8:26
Speaker 2: connect to or your phone identifies, and that does this
8:30
Speaker 2: whole infrastructure mapping for us, that's a different way. We
8:33
Speaker 2: also want people to be part of it. So it's like, okay,
8:37
Speaker 2: you already preregister your router, Help us know what else
8:39
Speaker 2: is out there, help us see what are the ones
8:42
Speaker 2: that actually are quite interesting, that have a lot of
8:44
Speaker 2: traffic that we can tap into for the network offloading
8:48
Speaker 2: or the connectivity as a service.
8:50
Speaker 1: All right, So there's going to be a lot of
8:51
Speaker 1: opportunity I think there because we've seen, you know, mesh
8:54
Speaker 1: networks before that have cried to kind of go into
8:56
Speaker 1: the space. So I'm looking at your preregistration app and
9:00
Speaker 1: you've got the verified routers as well as pre registered.
9:03
Speaker 1: Explain the difference between the two. You're talking about pre
9:06
Speaker 1: registered now, but what are the verified?
9:08
Speaker 2: Great question. So we partner a lot with enterprises and
9:12
Speaker 2: with different alliances, and there's this one alliance that they
9:16
Speaker 2: already have more than three million routers deployed all over
9:19
Speaker 2: the world. The problem is they're not fully sure where
9:22
Speaker 2: they are. The ones that show verified are the ones
9:25
Speaker 2: that we know that already exists. They're part of this alliance.
9:29
Speaker 2: We know the exact location because we still don't have
9:32
Speaker 2: this app where people are walking around and basically then
9:34
Speaker 2: define the routers. That's the total number that we've identified.
9:39
Speaker 2: But after the app, that number will just increase because
9:43
Speaker 2: the app allows you to do two things. One it
9:45
Speaker 2: will actually verify and validate that the router you preregistered
9:49
Speaker 2: that it's real that exists. And two it will also
9:52
Speaker 2: connect to all these other routers that we know they exist.
9:55
Speaker 2: We know we can tap into to it. We're just
9:57
Speaker 2: not fully sure what they are. So that's that's what's
10:01
Speaker 2: going to happen as well. But right now, those in
10:03
Speaker 2: blue are the ones that we know they exist, we
10:05
Speaker 2: know where they are, we can tap into them right now.
10:08
Speaker 1: All right, So I clicked on the surge portion of
10:10
Speaker 1: there on your website and it took me to Buenos
10:13
Speaker 1: Aires and it's more purple. What do those meet? What
10:17
Speaker 1: are those areas?
10:19
Speaker 2: So we're very focused on demand, that's what matters for us,
10:22
Speaker 2: and we have companies, we have telcods. They tell it like, hey,
10:26
Speaker 2: we want to use connectivity in these places, and we've
10:29
Speaker 2: been playing around with us. We create sarge areas from
10:32
Speaker 2: time to time in areas where we already have some demands,
10:35
Speaker 2: and one of them was was Buenos Eils. So we
10:38
Speaker 2: wanted to prove that. Okay, let's create the search where
10:40
Speaker 2: the incentives are a little bit higher, and let's see
10:43
Speaker 2: if we can actually create some coverage over there. And
10:45
Speaker 2: it was very successful. There was the avalanche summits there
10:49
Speaker 2: back in October, I believe, and we wanted to be
10:52
Speaker 2: we wanted to be the connectivity providers. Okay, that's what
10:55
Speaker 2: we did. So we provided connectivity during the event, and
10:58
Speaker 2: also we wanted to provide connective around the event, around
11:01
Speaker 2: the entire city. So that's why we created a search
11:03
Speaker 2: mechanism there. And then we have real companies, real enterprises
11:07
Speaker 2: telling us, hey, by the way, we have our systems
11:09
Speaker 2: also in Argentina and Buenos Aires. We want to tap
11:11
Speaker 2: into that connectivity now, so we allow that search map
11:15
Speaker 2: to stay a bit longer in our tinctas already seeing
11:18
Speaker 2: some traction there, all right.
11:19
Speaker 1: I see, I see where you're going with it. You
11:21
Speaker 1: mentioned the idea of offloading, and if you look at
11:26
Speaker 1: what appears to be kind of the model that Helium
11:30
Speaker 1: is doing right now, you look at just the offloading
11:32
Speaker 1: data that they've started to do. When you look at
11:35
Speaker 1: offload data as it is today, first of all, explain
11:39
Speaker 1: to our users, what it is, why it's so important,
11:41
Speaker 1: how it works with other carriers.
11:43
Speaker 2: Offloading is beautiful, and even more beautiful is actually the
11:46
Speaker 2: period in time where we are because every time there's
11:48
Speaker 2: an evolution in technology, especially on telcos, things have to change.
11:52
Speaker 2: The infrastructure needs to change. What is happening now, If
11:56
Speaker 2: I have to simplify, it's a combination of multiple factors,
11:59
Speaker 2: which is but we all know there's like billions of
12:01
Speaker 2: new devices being connected. All of these devices are consuming
12:05
Speaker 2: more data, but the press port data is going down.
12:07
Speaker 2: So if you are a telco, if you follow let's
12:10
Speaker 2: say the traditional model of basically just deploy more infrastructure,
12:15
Speaker 2: the financials are just not there. So that's where network
12:18
Speaker 2: off floating comes in. Today. There's like smaller pieces of
12:22
Speaker 2: infrastructure like home routers, small cell that can give you
12:26
Speaker 2: the same quality of service that that cell towers can
12:29
Speaker 2: give you. You just need more distribution, more density, more concentration,
12:34
Speaker 2: and that's what networking offloading is. It's basically your phone
12:37
Speaker 2: instead of being connected to a cell tower, that cellar
12:42
Speaker 2: coverage gets offloaded by a smaller piece of infrastructure like
12:45
Speaker 2: a small cell or Wi Fi router, et cetera.
12:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, so a lot happening with what you
12:50
Speaker 1: guys are doing. You look at the test net itself.
12:54
Speaker 1: I was looking at your Phase two right here, and
12:56
Speaker 1: you've got test net beta launch. When would that be applicable?
13:00
Speaker 1: What are you guys going to go live with that?
13:02
Speaker 2: So we're aiming to go live with that this quarter.
13:05
Speaker 2: We're also aiming to TG end of Q two beginning
13:09
Speaker 2: of Q three. The thing is the position we are,
13:12
Speaker 2: and now it's actually a really fortunate position, but we
13:15
Speaker 2: almost we took a bite, almost bigger than we can
13:18
Speaker 2: chew because we've been working already with companies, were getting demand,
13:21
Speaker 2: We're having the community site starting to grow a lot,
13:24
Speaker 2: we have the telecos that we're starting to do some
13:26
Speaker 2: offloading with, we have mobile apps coming. So we've been
13:30
Speaker 2: executing actually perfectly so far. I'm extremely proud of my team.
13:34
Speaker 2: They've been doing a great job. But with this being said,
13:37
Speaker 2: this quarter we aim to go to test net and
13:41
Speaker 2: then obviously followed by TG.
13:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, all right, well good I'm looking at your
13:45
Speaker 1: backers here. Looks like you guys are tied in with
13:47
Speaker 1: all the right people, including someone like a T Mobile,
13:50
Speaker 1: So this will be good to watch going forward looking
13:53
Speaker 1: at the token launch because you were mentioning the TG
13:57
Speaker 1: within it between the I was looking at what you
14:02
Speaker 1: guys were referencing there and you had it looked like,
14:04
Speaker 1: what was is it two tokens or just one token?
14:07
Speaker 2: It's a dual Toalken system, but very very similar to
14:10
Speaker 2: to Helium burning and techlebrim. But that basically means we
14:13
Speaker 2: have one token on on the markets.
14:17
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so one token on the market, but
14:20
Speaker 1: two tokens. One is a burning okay, all right, all right.
14:23
Speaker 1: Last question I have for you is more about the roadmap.
14:26
Speaker 1: What does it look like because I'm looking at what
14:28
Speaker 1: is it Phase five? The utility and expansion Wi Fi
14:32
Speaker 1: five G a little bit there on the uplink and
14:35
Speaker 1: the community platform. Anything else you can kind of give
14:37
Speaker 1: us in terms of the roadmap.
14:39
Speaker 2: If I have to simplify the roadmap, especially for this year,
14:42
Speaker 2: as first moving things to test nets, then TG going live.
14:47
Speaker 2: We're starting with Wi Fi. There's other connectivity protocols that
14:50
Speaker 2: we can basically tap into as well. We're planning on
14:52
Speaker 2: tapping into those by the end of the year. Because
14:54
Speaker 2: as I was mentioning, at the end of the day,
14:56
Speaker 2: we want to beat this marketplace, and we see the
14:59
Speaker 2: men come. Not all of them only required Wi Fi,
15:02
Speaker 2: not all of them are five G, some of them
15:04
Speaker 2: are lower for example, some of them are anything basically,
15:09
Speaker 2: So we are opening the marketplace for those other protocols
15:13
Speaker 2: as well. But a very simplification of our roadmap is first,
15:17
Speaker 2: and I want to mention again the mobile upset is coming.
15:20
Speaker 2: I think it's actually very fun. It's going to be
15:22
Speaker 2: super cool. I cannot wait for people to get their
15:24
Speaker 2: hands on it. Then moving things to test net, gg
15:28
Speaker 2: going live, and the thing that I want the most
15:31
Speaker 2: is having everything on chain so people can actually see
15:35
Speaker 2: the work we've been doing, the traction, we've been getting
15:38
Speaker 2: the data that is being provided and offloaded.
15:41
Speaker 1: Okay, so we understand the model that Helium is using
15:44
Speaker 1: around rewards, and if you look at Helium Mobile also
15:47
Speaker 1: saying kind of scenario is use case mapping the system
15:51
Speaker 1: those you get rewards for it paid in the h
15:54
Speaker 1: and token. How will your model work? Similar?
15:57
Speaker 2: Very similar, very similar, every similar to other deepen projects
16:01
Speaker 2: as well. We feel that most of the things that
16:03
Speaker 2: have been proven, we have a fem nuances of course,
16:05
Speaker 2: but very similar.
16:07
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, Well, This is one that we're gonna watch, Carlos,
16:10
Speaker 1: so we'll keep a close eye on how this progresses.
16:12
Speaker 1: It's on one of the chains that we like here
16:14
Speaker 1: in the studio because we were constantly researching it of
16:17
Speaker 1: what Avalanche is doing. So good luck to you and
16:20
Speaker 1: the guys there at uplink. Thanks again for coming in today.
16:22
Speaker 1: We appreciate it.
16:24
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Paul, it was a pleasure.
16:26
Speaker 1: Okay, so you guys are tuned in maybe on the
16:28
Speaker 1: audio side of things, make sure and jump into the
16:30
Speaker 1: Diamond Circle. It's our own private group. Very easy to do.
16:33
Speaker 1: Click the link down below, and of course catch me
16:35
Speaker 1: out there on x at Paul Baron. We'll catch you
16:37
Speaker 1: next time right here on tech Path.