Blockchain can Impact Human Behaviour in a Positive way #Noonies2021

Hey Hackers! I’m Joe Roets and I’m the Founder of Dragonchain and Den.social.

First of all, a huge thank you to the HackerNoon community and staff for nominating me for a 2021 Noonies award! I’ve been nominated in the following category, please do check out this award page and vote:

• Founder of the Year

As someone in the blockchain industry, I believe that the most exciting technology of the present is blockchain-based Behavior Systems because it’s the most powerful use of blockchain technology in the real world.

Learn more about my thoughts and opinions on blockchain and Behavior Systems and my journey in the tech industry via the interview below.

1. What do you do and why do you do it? (tell us your story)

I’m the Founder and Architect of Dragonchain and Den.social.

I have over 20 years of experience in software architecture focusing on security and scalability. I’ve created and led multiple technology startups since the mid-1990s working with organizations such as Lockheed Martin, FBI, DoD, Overstock, Coinbase, Symbiont, & the Walt Disney Company.

As blockchain was starting to make itself known, I immediately recognized we had to find a way that businesses could leverage the technology.

Most projects were trying to get businesses to fit into a blockchain box. As a software architect, I knew the best way to foster adoption was to find a way to scale blockchain technology to real businesses' requirements and to allow interoperability with their systems already in place. To do that we built a platform of capabilities where a business can build any solution to their real-world problems.

We built Den.social to demonstrate the power of blockchain technology in affecting human behavior toward a set of clear goals.

The platform runs completely on blockchain yet a user does not have to have any special technical knowledge to use it.

The platform is already managed and governed as a decentralized entity, and we are quickly expanding those capabilities to all communities on the platform.

2. Tell us more about the things you create / write / manage / build!

All of the projects that I work on are focused on creative and unique solutions to real-world problems. Since Dragonchain was released, we’ve built solutions for identity, voting, archiving, and of course, social forums.

Most of the projects that I create use a structural approach to solve a problem. This allows for more certainty, scalability, and security while also keeping the solution and its implementation simpler than other approaches.

For example, instead of using untested and unproven methods, our hybrid architecture allows businesses to use provable and time-tested methods to separate data for intended roles.

3. How did you end up on your current career path? Do you like it?

I had been a software developer since the early Internet, and transitioned into a software architect in the early 2000s where I focused on the scalability and security of large systems in the interest of making them future-proof.

In 2010, one of my engineering R&D team members brought to my attention the Satoshi Bitcoin white paper. That paper caught my attention as a very novel way to address many issues in the software industry.

We quickly began to build a variety of things to learn everything we could about Bitcoin and other blockchain technologies, and how they could be applied in business.

4. What tech are you most excited or passionate about right now and why?

I’m most excited about Behavior Systems and the very unique and interesting ways that they can solve real-world problems.

I believe that every human situation is effectively a marketplace, yet in these unrecognized marketplaces, there is no objective transparency or measure of value.

Behavior Systems are effective systems that use blockchain and/or cryptocurrency to create transparent marketplaces and meritocracies to replace and improve existing organizational processes.

At Dragonchain, we’re continuing to build on what we learned in our early days at Disney with what we now call Behavior Systems, and we’re building several systems (e.g. Den.social) that employ this technology to great effect.

With Den.social as an example, although it is early, we have already demonstrated that human behavior can be affected in a positive way toward the declared goals of producing and evaluating quality content.

Any behavior system needs to have a good level of transparency, especially in the rewards system itself to let the users know directly how specific behaviors are rewarded or penalized in order to be effective.

5. What tech are you most worried about right now and why?

Genetics and bioengineering. Although I’m a long-time fan of genetics research itself and considered pursuing a career in that field, I am not a fan of untested applications, especially on human subjects and agriculture.

There are simply too many risks associated with unmanaged experiments in that field.

6. If we gave you 10 million dollars to invest in something today, what would you invest in and why?

I would invest in building projects on Dragonchain.

Simply put, there are so many applications and use cases that would improve the lives of people and businesses around the world right now that are not yet being built. We are already doing this with our existing resources.

7. What are you currently learning?

I’m actively learning ways to improve behavior and proof systems in the real world.

8. What’s the best advice you’ve ever given someone?

Observe.

9. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Listen.

About HackerNoon’s 2021 Noonie Awards

The annual Noonie Awards celebrate the best and brightest of the tech industry, bringing together all who are making the Internet and the world of tech what it is today. Please be sure to check out our award categories, nominate, and vote for the people and companies who you think are making the biggest impact on the tech industry today.

The 2021 Noonies are sponsored by: bybit, Dottech Domains, and Avast. Thank you so much to these sponsors who are helping us celebrate the accomplishments of all our nominees.