Ishan Pandey: Hi Humayun, welcome to our series “Behind the Startup.” Please tell us about yourself and the story behind Fetch.ai?
Humayun Sheikh: I am the CEO and Founder of Fetch.ai, which is my fourth major venture. Prior to starting Fetch, I worked to bring an entirely new way of thinking to the steel recycling sector, building my company Metallis from startup to £40m in six years. I was also one of the first investors in DeepMind, which Google eventually acquired, and an early investor in PLUMgrid, the cloud solution provider, acquired by VMWare. I am currently focused on bridging the gap between the blockchain and AI sector with Fetch.ai, an AI-powered blockchain that allows businesses and individuals to use multi-agent system-based solutions to solve complex problems or coordination tasks.
Ishan Pandey: New technology, financial breakthroughs, and the rapid evolution of digital currencies are all changing the way we use money. According to you, how do you think money will be revolutionized in the future?
Humayun Sheikh: With crypto and Web3 going mainstream, it is imaginable that the current financial structures in place over the next 10-20 years will go from centralized to decentralized. P2P credit, CBDCs, and DeFi are all leading the way to establishing a decentralized financial ecosystem. Solving money’s supply chain problem and ensuring excess liquidity in one place can be a source of liquidity elsewhere, in real-time.
Ishan Pandey: Web3 is an attempt to integrate blockchain, smart contracts, and decentralized applications together, although its exact utility is difficult to determine. Please elaborate a little on your thoughts about Web 3.0?
Humayun Sheikh: Web 2.0 was all about user-driven interaction such as creating, interacting and sharing content with other users. But users needed platforms that would allow them to share that content and that is where current social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube play an important role. But as it is with centralized structures, you are not the owner of the data you put out there. So rather than users being in charge instead, big social media corporations are monetizing our data and making billions by selling ads.
Web3 aims to reverse that and enable users to create and own the web experience they want. Using decentralized technologies, users can come together to develop anything from apps to knowledge bases. Thousands of users support the ownership and functionality, thereby removing the need for centralized entities. Fetch.ai wants to empower the core message of web3.0 and we will continue to develop applications that empower users and own the data they provide.
Ishan Pandey: Although DeFi has a lot of potential, it also brings up a lot of new legislative and regulatory issues. How would you define the current DeFi ecosystem and some of the high-level implications of DeFi for present financial regulatory approaches?
Humayun Sheikh: The fast-evolving space of DeFi has helped push the conversation whether we need any middlemen or other centralized financial entities (such as banks, money lenders, CeFi institutions, etc) for everyday transactions – ranging from daily remittances to cross-border payments and everything else in between. Of course, there are regulatory concerns around establishing identities for users interested in lending and borrowing, but once those are dealt with, DeFi will be a high impact ecosystem.
Ishan Pandey: In 2022, big data and blockchain technologies are predicted to change the game. How do you think this will transform the industry as a whole?
Humayun Sheikh: You have to understand that right now, we live and breathe in a vastly centralized world where there is no tangible way for users to own and monetize their data without some intermediary taking majority control of their data. Any service you sign up for requires a middleman.
Blockchain technologies democratize big data and enable decentralization in its truest aspect. Transformation of the industry begins first by educating users and showing them there is a smarter way of doing things. Instead of giving away your data to aggregators, you can choose how to use your data the smart way and provide you suggestions instead of the other way around. This is where AI, Machine Learning, and Blockchain play a critical role.
Ishan Pandey: Future tech aficionados can participate in the next digital frontier in a variety of ways, including metaverse real estate and stocks. What are your views on Metaverse?
Humayun Sheikh: Metaverse is interesting in the sense that right now, it is a means of shaping your digital world in many creative ways. But that in itself is not the end. It is about how it develops further and whether it adds economic benefits that remain to be seen. You will find decentralized applications interacting on the metaverse as well and that is one way you can envision businesses/crypto projects that can bring value to the metaverse space.
Ishan Pandey: To protect consumers from being misled into purchasing crypto products, the UK government has announced its intentions to clamp down on advertising. How will this globally impact the industry?
Humayun Sheikh: Crypto advertising needs to be fair, transparent and utility-focused. The impact of advertising is measured by how engaged consumers are and if they invest in your solution and change their lives for the better, that level of advertising is needed. But if they are being influenced by advertising to invest in a token to make quick returns and given the volatility of the crypto market, such messaging needs to be examined closely and ensure crypto projects are not equated to Ponzi schemes.
Ishan Pandey: Please tell us a little bit about Fetch.ai and artificial intelligence and machine learning-based blockchain platforms and how they are faring in the pandemic-hit market?
Humayun Sheikh: Fetch.ai seeks to completely revolutionize the way in which information is gathered, aggregated and used. Right now, many users interacting with AI or Machine Learning consciously or unconsciously are not aware of the way aggregators are using their data to deliver the technologies we use daily.
There is no need for aggregators to sit in the middle as the agent-based system from Fetch.ai has the technology to deliver the same but without the cost of the aggregator. Simply put, we want to put the ownership of your data, your privacy, and the way you seek information in your hands. You can have agents or digital twins do the searching for you and that way, you bypass the centralized aggregators.
Ishan Pandey: What does the roadmap ahead look like for Fetch.ai and the crypto industry as a whole?
Humayun Sheikh: Apps, apps and apps. The past few years at Fetch were focused on laying the foundation for agent-based applications. 2022 is bringing that vision to reality and we will be releasing a lot of consumer-facing decentralized applications: decentralized delivery models, Decentralized Social Media, Decentralized Travel and much more. We want Fetch.ai to be synonymous with smart utility in the crypto ecosystem.
Disclaimer: The purpose of this article is to remove informational asymmetry existing today in our digital markets by performing due diligence, asking the right questions, and equipping readers with better opinions to make informed decisions.