December 4, 2025 • 27 mins
In this episode of Builders Bench, Tim Brookman discusses various projects within the Cardano ecosystem, focusing on the practical applications of blockchain technology. He emphasizes the importance of starting with use cases rather than technology, particularly in identity solutions and asset tokenization. The conversation delves into the regulatory challenges faced in Germany, the significance of compliance, and the future of identity management in the blockchain space. Tim also highlights the potential of tokenizing gold and other assets, aiming to create a sustainable ecosystem on Cardano that attracts institutional investors.
Takeaways
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Blockchain Use Cases
03:01 Identity Solutions and Regulatory Challenges
06:12 Tokenization of Assets and Gold
08:53 Finest and Institutional Partnerships
11:57 Navigating Compliance and Regulations
15:07 The Future of Identity and Trust in Blockchain
17:48 Building a Sustainable Ecosystem on Cardano
21:02 Conclusion and Future Prospects
DISCLAIMER: This content is for informational and educational purposes only and is not financial, investment, or legal advice. I am not affiliated with, nor compensated by, the project discussed—no tokens, payments, or incentives received. I do not hold a stake in the project, including private or future allocations. All views are my own, based on public information. Always do your own research and consult a licensed advisor before investing. Crypto investments carry high risk, and past performance is no guarantee of future results. I am not responsible for any decisions you make based on this content.
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Takeaways
- Blockchain should start with use cases, not technology.
- Identity solutions are crucial for user adoption.
- Tokenization of assets can revolutionize investment.
- Compliance is essential for building trust.
- Gold can serve as a stable asset in crypto.
- Regulatory challenges are significant but necessary.
- Building a sustainable ecosystem requires collaboration.
- Institutional investors are key to market growth.
- Transparency and trust are vital in blockchain projects.
- The future of identity management is evolving with technology.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Blockchain Use Cases
03:01 Identity Solutions and Regulatory Challenges
06:12 Tokenization of Assets and Gold
08:53 Finest and Institutional Partnerships
11:57 Navigating Compliance and Regulations
15:07 The Future of Identity and Trust in Blockchain
17:48 Building a Sustainable Ecosystem on Cardano
21:02 Conclusion and Future Prospects
DISCLAIMER: This content is for informational and educational purposes only and is not financial, investment, or legal advice. I am not affiliated with, nor compensated by, the project discussed—no tokens, payments, or incentives received. I do not hold a stake in the project, including private or future allocations. All views are my own, based on public information. Always do your own research and consult a licensed advisor before investing. Crypto investments carry high risk, and past performance is no guarantee of future results. I am not responsible for any decisions you make based on this content.
🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq8FhvxET2k
Subscribe to the audio podcast:
🔗 https://bit.ly/learncardano-spotify
🔗 https://apple.co/3jEPM8C
🔗 https://learncardano.io/
Follow on Social:
🔗 https://x.com/learncardano
🔗 https://facebook.com/learncardano
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Everyone, and welcome back to another episode of builders Bench,
where I talk to all these different projects in the
Condona ecosystem that are building some really interesting things. And
in this episode, I'm talking to Tim Brookman from Finance,
begin Wallet and block sign and we're actually looking at
a particular use case or particular use cases where blockchain
(00:21):
is really needed. So they always say, don't start with
technology first, start with the use case where blockchain can
fit in quite well and optimize various processes, and this
is definitely one of them that can bring in thousands,
if not hundreds of thousands of users even on a
daily basis. I'm not kidding here, Listen up. This is
(00:42):
really interesting. Let's get into the interview. So Tim, welcome
back to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Hi Pete, really really nice to see you. I was
just following always, you know, your channel. I following also
your boxing experience as I like martial arts. So yeah,
I'm very happy to be with you. Thank you for
the invitation.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Now it's been a while since we caught up, and
I know you have got your fingers in so many
pieces of the puzzle, so so many what's the saying,
pieces of pie at the moment, and I'd like to
cover some of this stuff that you're playing around with
that like you're behind a part of begin wallet finess
and docufy or now being rebranded as well to block sign.
(01:24):
So I want to talk about all these things because
they bring in user adoption on so many different levels.
Where do we start here? Give me a little bit
of background and history of what you've been up to.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yes, the easiest, you know, it's the puzzle is the
better picture, perhaps because I was building up the different
pieces together with a really nice teams, really great people,
and we started with coming to the blockchain as we
thought the blockchain could solve an identity solution. As I
(01:56):
have been selling mobile phone plans in Germany, Housetrands, Switzerland,
so German speaking countries and we have a lot of frauds.
We came up to have a company who is dealing
with identities and so we dived in the SSI, the
self Cerroun identity space. And today we see that this
space is really covered well. It's a very more like
(02:23):
an academic way because in Germany on Europe we see
that there will be a movement called eiders a government
identity and in a commercial way, no one, and we
heard this from banks were all our partners we're talking with.
We don't accept SSI. We accept identities which are issued
from the government, from the state, and that will be eaders.
(02:45):
It's called eaders the standard. And then you can develop
wallets which have an ee eider standard and there will
be hundreds, you know. So we wait just till the
standard out and then we reshape the way of imix
that SSI is dead in our minds, so for us,
for for our use as we are strongly commercial, we
need to have revenue and SSI something brilliant, something beautiful.
(03:08):
But it takes a lot long long time till there
will be a change from the government side. And if
you look at regulations and how to onboard people for KYBKYC,
usually the platforms tell you we work with the Big five.
We don't like your solution. We don't like it cheaper.
We are very anxious with regulations. It's you know, regulations. No, no,
(03:30):
we stick where we are. This is running now and
we never change a running team. Also, if you're better cheaper,
we can't change. We're very anxious. So we see that
there is something happening and we can't change that. But
everything we developed, like the onboarding solution, we use it
for another company where I'm the CEO and founder. It's
(03:50):
called Finest Investments, where we tokenize ree world assets and
the onboarding solution and the KYC if you buy gold, No,
we sell gold since a year tokenized gold with sspect
by physical Gold. The gold is stored in Munich with
a big gold dealer called pro Ourrom GmbH GmbH. It's
like the equity form form of company and there we
(04:13):
use already what we developed with with iOmx for the
other platform block sign now docufied, but we will rebranded soon.
Bought already the name and everything. It's kind of we
need signatures to sell shares later on Finest. So we
were saying, okay, we have identity, we can onboard, we
can sell gold. How to tokenize shares? What we need
(04:34):
and we are limited in the beginning to institution or
professional investors and web two need signatures. So we need
to have a signature like easy to understand, you make
a signature on a PDF. You and me. We are
in one company, Pete, and we have our boss our
bosses screaming PT makes the transaction. Now I'm waiting the
whole day already and you have to sign a PDF,
(04:57):
because yes you are and me we have to do together.
For I it's always webbed the big companies. It's it's
the going way to work. Then you sign me sign
a PDF. But this digital BDF will trigger the transaction
of kadano. So we developed with block sign web two
tools for web three use cases. You know, it's like
(05:18):
if you go to fire blocks or the don't know if
you know these projects, these are onboarding for institutional It's
like an institutional wallet, like it is a platform where
you work one hundred percent compliant for institutional investors and
professional investors. And this we develop and now we are
already talked about wallet. I'm also in the team of
(05:40):
begin Wallet, as I always needed a wallet where identity
is placed in where it can sell my gold. Of
so like a perfect front end, but not for you
and me as dejons, you know, but more for people
who like to use crypto on the way to the work,
sitting waiting for the You know, you can make your
(06:01):
small swaps, you can buy gold, but I think if
you read trade, you have your big screen in front
of you or two sometimes have three or four screens.
Then you really do your trading work. But I like
to have a way you can use everything. So from
begin wallet you can use liquid directly, liquid finance, you
can directly use fluid. You can buy gold from Finest.
(06:23):
So you see, all these pieces are puzzles of a
small ecosystem which I can feed myself and I'm not
depend on to ask another wallet, can you sell my
gold person? No, I don't like or commissions. Try, but
I invite all wallets to sell these gold from Finest
because that will bring TVL to Cardano. As simple as
(06:45):
this is, you know, it's the more gold we sell,
the more tokens with a value we have from Cardano.
And for me gold I'm a little bit older. I'm
fifty already. So gold was always something very important if
you are investor, because your hatch always with gold. And
if we see the gold price now, it is a
mirror of what is happening in the world. War is
(07:06):
something very bad. Nations who struggle dying, have people dying off.
Hunger is the problem. So we see a lot of
problems in the world. So gold is rising uncertainty, so
I think gold is a better stable coin. So now
you have a little bit of picture. It's begin Wallet,
finest tokenize where we sell the gold and then we
have to go find to make signature as that I
(07:28):
AMM was the onboarding solution when it comes to regulatory
onboarding to be compliant with MEECA laws in Europe and
other laws in the world.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
All right, there's a lot to unpack there, but I
love how you got all those pieces of the puzzle
together to make it really easy for essentially users and
in the end to buy gold. So we've got a
really good wallet. If you haven't checked out begin Wallet,
I'll put links down below for everyone in the show
notes check it out. I've got installed on my phone
as well, and just playing around that. It is a
(08:00):
really simple wallet to be able to just get into
an ecosystem and play around with DeFi within a couple
of clicks, so you're immediately providing liquidity onto liquid finance
and you don't need to know the technicals about it.
You're earning a nice APR, so it's a really good
wallet to play with. Then be ald by gold. I
haven't tried that yet myself. And then having the ability
(08:21):
to sign the legal documents through the platform as well.
It just all makes sense. And a lot of this
stuff has been happening over the last year, I think,
and Finest what was it last year or the year
before now I can't remember the lawd.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
We've founded twenty twenty four Finest, Yeah, and then we
started with Granite from India together with three Volve Tech
and our friends from Newcast. Big up to Sharon, great guy,
Great he's Katano India for me and we're working very
cross together with begin Wallet and with Finest toalkn Ie.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
So how is Finest going at the moment? What's what's
it look like? You've got the Granite, You've got the gold,
our people buying in. Are you getting more users on there?
Are you getting more gold liquidity onto the platform? Yes?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I can tell your Finest this situation a very big
step now and that you get some alpha from me.
Now for Finest, we have two new shareholders which are
both lawyers. One is Professor Rio Roche from the University
of Lyon. He has a company together with his former
partner from He was also working for Storm Partners, which
(09:27):
is a very Cardino Foundation related lawyer agency. And Matias
Trausnik come from this company and they are now shareholder
of Finest because we have to tackle some really difficult
regulatory obstacles and these guys, you know, if you look
at the track road record from Arion amazing, you know
(09:49):
he was working for Deloitte, so one of the big
five top fives and always is the digital expert there.
And with him we like to token nice shares. We
have a cutalyst proposal for that and with our old
team set up, it was very difficult because we like
to make it compliant. So if we don't make it compliant,
(10:09):
the next interview will be like this, you know, so
I will be in prison. So I have to be
very as I'm the CEO, it has to be compliant.
And in Germany, you know, it's very rough to work
with securities is you have to be very careful. You
have to be very cooperative with the government in the
Baffin or as he seen. So we are very happy
(10:30):
to onboard these two guys and they're also shared us
already off block sign where we also like to disrupt
something and make Kardano the go to blockchain if you
need signatures, usually you buy a very expensive route certificate.
To disrupt this route certificate from Adobe with the Kardana blockchain,
(10:50):
and therefore we need someone who addresses this wish to
the government in Switzerland and Germany, and this will be
Aurleon in his team. So he is essential for us,
and people don't see it, but I think he is
essentially for krdano because if every signature will be much
cheaper on Kardano, people will change. And we have billions
of signatures every day digitally and we make a transaction
(11:13):
like a second layer for security of signatures. So back
to Finest. I'm always, you know, have to separate my
companies a little bit. Finest is doing that. Yeah, we
have new partners. We have also another new shareholder which
is Florian from Liquid. We have Raoul and Mateo, the
founders and CEOs from Fluid. They're shareholders are Finest. So
(11:37):
we have quite a strong team with legal people, with
DeFi experts and marketing and me, I'm a partner manager
and someone has to do the boring work with bookkeeping
and stuff like this, so the management work that's on
my side most of all. And so this Finest now
it will be very strong and we have is out
(11:57):
in the I can't tell too much. But there's a
is a gold mine out in the world, and why
not tokenize gold with which still is in the earth
and we leave it there. Isn't it the safest spot
on earth to leave gold in the ground, but tokenize
that and that means that means experts from a legal perspectives.
But this is our The big hunt we're doing now
(12:21):
is tokenizing gold which is still in the earth. It
will be ready, I think in eighteen months, so it's
a long way. And before we are focused on our
catalyst proposal tokenizing shares together with a very big partner
called Chartered Investment. It's internationally renewed and operates worldwide. Oh yep,
Finest is very It's really nice to be on this
(12:44):
and this journey because I think blockchain is made for
transferring digital assets, it's made for tokenizing, so I think
this is a perfect blockchain use case and your own
we use Kadano more and more so with Final Now
we will connect Kardana wallet that was missing because we
had to make some moves around regulatory and now we
(13:09):
know better. We know, we learned a little bit and
now we can also integrate the normal way connect your
Kardana wallet, but then you have to go through a
KYC to buy gold. That's the German government. But MINSWAP
we have a pool there so you can also buy
gold on MINSWAP without KYC, in the same with begin
wallet just from the source, you need to make a KYC.
(13:30):
And when you like to have the physical gold home,
then you also have to make a KYC. It's a
minimum of KYC. Done has to be done, and I
think we did it quite well. Also looking at we
also like to have a clean space. Do we all
like to have black money in the space? SYNC on
the way to Yeah? For you and me for sure
(13:51):
tis the pain. We don't like to pay taxes. Everyone
is the same, but at least we also don't like
to have white west and someone has to take care.
So this is where I pay taxes. So yes, we
have to make kycs. We can't. But if you if
you sell or buy over MINSWAP on a secondary market,
you can be decentralized to the max. And that is
(14:12):
for sure always my priority to get maximum decentralization. But
I think the way it takes twenty years to be
one hundred percent decentralized in all the ways, and then
my my favorite topic, SSILL. Hopefully we'll hopefully back and commercialized.
Let's see, let's see, it's a long waisted Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I see a lot of governments, like you said, moving
away from the SSI environment and going for the full sentialized.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
In India, you have gov tools, you know, you connect
as a platform or on a wallet, you connect to
the Indian government identity solution and then you transfer the
identity what you So it's SSI. You can choose your
yourself what you show, which data. So the selective disclosure
is in fact, it's good. You know, it's just who
(15:03):
issues the data, the person data, Who is the one
who is the top the master of your identity and
still not you, it's still the government. So is this
bad or not? Let's see how the government develops, you know,
if you look at some countries worldwide, how they develop.
I would love to have you issue my identity, but
not the government anymore. So I think that's the way
(15:25):
we have to wait, look and form the space and
build our wish into everything.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah, identity is a big thing that's needed here in
Australia with so many corporations being hacked. My identity is
everywhere on the Internet. It's treasured on the black web,
dark web. I know it is because I get continuous
spam calls. So you know, whenever that gets solved, that'll
be fantastic. I need to create a new identity, but
(15:52):
you know that'd be fantastic.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
But in the future we have this, you know, we
help each other to give or support the identity. So
today I speak as Tim Brookman, you know, the founder
of companies, and with you as Peter. But perhaps you
know when we play video games or we move to Twitter,
we move Instagram, perps. We like to have a not
(16:14):
our private personal part. We like to play with the Internet,
and yeah, this is where we are now, you know,
and we see the problems, like we have these scams
everywhere around, you know, I have I think how many
learned cardanos are on Twitter. It's probably a lot and
wrong Peters, you know. But yeah, look what the Internet
(16:35):
is becoming, you know, with all this slob you know
where the AIS learned from the wrong sources and now
everybody has the wrong knowledge. So I think blockchain is
still the savior also for AI, because we need something
to write on which cannot be changed, where the really
truth lies and this is what every of my projects
(16:57):
have in common. That we are trust provide and we
like that people trust that, and we are very transparent.
You see all the people we always have in our impressroom,
on the website in terms, you always see where we
located and think we are one of the only projects
where you always find the address where the company is located.
So we're hiding need nothing at all, and this is
(17:18):
something which is very important to deliver trust that people
use Kardano and or use the applications on Cardana. They
should not use Kardano. They should use the applications the
tools they need, and by co accidents, the best ones
are running on Cardana. I think this is how we
should market Cardano more from the use case, from the
(17:40):
possibilities we build on Cardano, because we're all sitting in
one boat, you know, so everybody building on Cardano has
to support the other one and around. So I think
we are in a good way. We see the beer market,
We see that a lot of people running away, but
it will come back as we see that institutions are
coming more and more. You know, we have less transactions
but with a much much bigger amount of value. It's
(18:01):
not these black days around. It's just like we have
to wait a little bit till and work that into
the institutions and professional investors have the tools to onboard
themselves to cutwa that is missing. So they need signature tools,
they need wallets for their use case. Yeah, and this
is what we all have to build and help now.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I just want to go back to one of your
earlier points about finess and the regulations that you guys
have to go through and comply with the compliancy side
of things. The fact that you guys are a German
incorporated company, I know the regulations in Germany are so hard.
It kind of gives what you guys are building that
(18:42):
X level of trust because you're going through the immense
amounts of headache to get the compliancy side of things
correct so that you can issue shares, which is going
to be absolutely amazing because if you go through all
that red tape to get shares through your platform, and Kadane,
I think it's just a no brainer for anyone else
(19:03):
to come in afterwards and use the platform because you're
guaranteed not guaranteed, but you have a high level of
reassurance that the platform is good and everything is secure
in the way that you can use the platform. I
think that's one of the really big selling points and
winning points like you kind of talked about for the
platform in general.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yes, the compliance and the trust is the most important.
Which investor would buy a gold if he does know
what happened? So what happens if finance is gone? You
find any the domain has gone nothing, then you have
the inverords kuld say hey, dear, I like to have
the physical god now, so your damage is I don't
have digital good anymore. Now I have the physical gold.
(19:43):
So this is what we can inform people about that.
Compliance in Germany has to be like this, and I
can't go to my own supplier and say, hey, give
me all the gold. I would like to run away.
He said, hey, we have a contract. It's not possible
because he will lose his license as well, so because
he's a world So the regulations are pain in the
ass for sure, But at the other side, it gives
(20:05):
us the rules we have to follow. So you have
to die one dad, which dad you like to die?
You know? Is it like being in a country where
nothing is really regulated and people don't trust and it's
very difficult to establish a product. Also better to have
very strict rules and we as companies have to follow
them day by day and have to improve and we
get letters, hey, you do this wrong. You have to
(20:26):
change this. Okay, we do. Sorry. This is the reason
we need more lawyers in the company. And marketing is
not the biggest problem because we go to institutions and
we already have if we deliver the product we are
building now, if they're ready, they're already institutions waiting for it,
especially for the goal what we do there. And it's
an international business, so we go to not to Australia,
(20:48):
but on the other side of the world from US,
it's Canada. And yes, this is something I'm really keen on.
If we manage this, you know, this is a heavy weight.
But if we live this, we can be a very
very famous project.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
All Right, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
You gotta keep me. That's the time, way, don't It
will be ready fifteen to eighteen months at what we
had discussed with the lawyer, because we have to make
we have to follow the Canadian laws and we have
to follow the MECA laws. Bring them together for a
project that had never been done worldwide. You know there's
(21:24):
still you know, the normal business is we can we
need millions spending money. So if you have millions, you
can go to a mine and tell them I like
to pre finance the How you say, to get the
gold out of the earth, clean it and make bars
of it? You know, all the this you can finance already. Yeah.
(21:45):
So the gold inside the earth is two thousand dollars
today and if you have it at the bar, it's
four thousand. You so that's quite a big of march.
But to do this digitally and you come with blockchain,
the regulator said, oh no, this is already complicated. Now
they're coming with block Shane and in Canada and Europe
and worldwide should buy. It's a lot of things we
have to really check technically is possible today? We can
(22:08):
lift it in a week. We just we have all
from the geographic institutes. Is the certification there's this amount
of gold in the in the in the in the earth.
Have this is all done? But to put this together
in a regulated form with regulated smart contracts which are
regulated not only in Meca, no also the Canadian Galath
(22:31):
say yes, go for it. This is a long way
and we're happy that Aureleon, our good professor, is working
in Canada and in Meca countries. So it's a perfect
set up by co accidents now that we didn't know
because the contact to the mine in Canada was just
coming up two weeks ago and he came to us
because hey, guys, I saw your tokenized gold. That's interesting,
(22:54):
let's jump on a call. So we have been you know,
we've been out in the world. And we also token
nice wheat pick up to Rafael Fraga from Karano Foundation.
Raffa made it together with Patrick Toplin that we token
nice wet for institution investors and that could help, you know,
to solve a lot of problems of nutritions and stuff,
(23:16):
you know. So that was a nice test for the
government of Argentina. And also there we will grow with
finest So focus is there and the rest are satellites.
The other companies are satellites. To enable these concepts without
relying on anybody else who doesn't like us perhaps or
who likes to blockade us or whatever. We now have
(23:38):
everything in our own hands with the best contacts like
fluid and liquid. It's for me, one of the most
established at least lending and boring protocols, and both teams
are DeFi degons through the bone. We have the legal
we have a professor and the team. So I think
(24:00):
we will lift it. With some suppart from the community
and that people look what we're doing and pushing us
and keeping asking, I think we will be We have
a good it is a good chance. Let's say it
like this. You know, I'm very exciting. I have to
come down a little bit, you know, because very good
business and let's see if we can realize it. I
would love it because it brings more than a billion
(24:21):
to a TV to grabin blockchain.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I definitely think you're going to kick out. So you
definitely have that perfect team there with the technical all
the way to the legal skills and operational et cetera,
et cetera. And I think the final hurdle here is
just getting through that regulation, building that level of trust
so that institutional investors can just come in throw their
money onto the platform. Again, they probably wouldn't even know
(24:43):
that they're using blockchain. They're just seeing this really good
opportunity to be able to digitalize ownership of that pre
mind gold in Canada and then be able to flip
it when it's actually pulled out the ground, so.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, or you lift it, you know, because if you
fit in the floor, you have to don't pay a walt,
you don't have to pay mechanics to get it out
of the ground. Yeah, so perhaps this is quite interesting
if because the guy it's seeing a little bit, he's
a little bit older than me, and he's he's he said, guys,
this is what you're doing. I'm dreaming since twenty years
(25:18):
of how do you do that? And then explained blockchain
and stuff. You know, he had this idea. His family
is doing his running gold mines its the eighteenth century.
So it's a very it's a heavyweight guy, but really
down to earth and very very sympathic.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Okay, all right, let's keep in contact so we can
get more updates about all this stuff that you're doing.
But you know, if anyone's watching this, you can already
use the finest platform you can already download begin Wallet.
You can get out there and start using all this
on the Cadina ecosystem. And you might as well just
check out my videos that I'm doing on begin wallet
(25:53):
as well, so you can get an idea of how
to use it and start to playing around with some
of these really cool features. But Tim, thank you so
much to join me on the podcast and talking through
everything that you're doing at the moment. And I think
we need more regular catch ups.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
It would be a pleasure for me, you know. And
also the other teammates are keen on getting in touch
with you. You know, perhaps you'd like to have more
regulatory which is a little bit boring, I know, but
it's very interesting for people who are struggling or have
these opticals, you know. Also we have been in touch
with p from Sunday. He's also very keen on making
(26:26):
it very privacy, very decentralized trading. So brilliant mind for sure.
And yeah, we aren't touch with these all these masterminds
to deliver us something to Kadan and make our way
into for the community and with the community.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
All right, awesome, We will catch up again soon. We'll
talk to other team members. But like I said, thank
you so much for joining me, and yeah, we'll speak soon.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Thank you so much, Pete and all the best.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
All the links down below for you guys in the
show notes. If you found a video useful and interesting,
make sure you hit that thumb up that light button,
hit the subscribe button and that notation bell, and I'll
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If you enjoy my content, check out the Patreon buy
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(27:14):
of course YouTube memberships as multiple different ways you can
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Cadano stakpool that can delegate you aided two which will
also be a midnight node operating. Absolutely appreciate all you
guys that have subscribed do this without you. I'll see
you guys in the next video.
Everyone, and welcome back to another episode of builders Bench,
where I talk to all these different projects in the
Condona ecosystem that are building some really interesting things. And
in this episode, I'm talking to Tim Brookman from Finance,
begin Wallet and block sign and we're actually looking at
a particular use case or particular use cases where blockchain
(00:21):
is really needed. So they always say, don't start with
technology first, start with the use case where blockchain can
fit in quite well and optimize various processes, and this
is definitely one of them that can bring in thousands,
if not hundreds of thousands of users even on a
daily basis. I'm not kidding here, Listen up. This is
(00:42):
really interesting. Let's get into the interview. So Tim, welcome
back to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Hi Pete, really really nice to see you. I was
just following always, you know, your channel. I following also
your boxing experience as I like martial arts. So yeah,
I'm very happy to be with you. Thank you for
the invitation.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Now it's been a while since we caught up, and
I know you have got your fingers in so many
pieces of the puzzle, so so many what's the saying,
pieces of pie at the moment, and I'd like to
cover some of this stuff that you're playing around with
that like you're behind a part of begin wallet finess
and docufy or now being rebranded as well to block sign.
(01:24):
So I want to talk about all these things because
they bring in user adoption on so many different levels.
Where do we start here? Give me a little bit
of background and history of what you've been up to.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yes, the easiest, you know, it's the puzzle is the
better picture, perhaps because I was building up the different
pieces together with a really nice teams, really great people,
and we started with coming to the blockchain as we
thought the blockchain could solve an identity solution. As I
(01:56):
have been selling mobile phone plans in Germany, Housetrands, Switzerland,
so German speaking countries and we have a lot of frauds.
We came up to have a company who is dealing
with identities and so we dived in the SSI, the
self Cerroun identity space. And today we see that this
space is really covered well. It's a very more like
(02:23):
an academic way because in Germany on Europe we see
that there will be a movement called eiders a government
identity and in a commercial way, no one, and we
heard this from banks were all our partners we're talking with.
We don't accept SSI. We accept identities which are issued
from the government, from the state, and that will be eaders.
(02:45):
It's called eaders the standard. And then you can develop
wallets which have an ee eider standard and there will
be hundreds, you know. So we wait just till the
standard out and then we reshape the way of imix
that SSI is dead in our minds, so for us,
for for our use as we are strongly commercial, we
need to have revenue and SSI something brilliant, something beautiful.
(03:08):
But it takes a lot long long time till there
will be a change from the government side. And if
you look at regulations and how to onboard people for KYBKYC,
usually the platforms tell you we work with the Big five.
We don't like your solution. We don't like it cheaper.
We are very anxious with regulations. It's you know, regulations. No, no,
(03:30):
we stick where we are. This is running now and
we never change a running team. Also, if you're better cheaper,
we can't change. We're very anxious. So we see that
there is something happening and we can't change that. But
everything we developed, like the onboarding solution, we use it
for another company where I'm the CEO and founder. It's
(03:50):
called Finest Investments, where we tokenize ree world assets and
the onboarding solution and the KYC if you buy gold, No,
we sell gold since a year tokenized gold with sspect
by physical Gold. The gold is stored in Munich with
a big gold dealer called pro Ourrom GmbH GmbH. It's
like the equity form form of company and there we
(04:13):
use already what we developed with with iOmx for the
other platform block sign now docufied, but we will rebranded soon.
Bought already the name and everything. It's kind of we
need signatures to sell shares later on Finest. So we
were saying, okay, we have identity, we can onboard, we
can sell gold. How to tokenize shares? What we need
(04:34):
and we are limited in the beginning to institution or
professional investors and web two need signatures. So we need
to have a signature like easy to understand, you make
a signature on a PDF. You and me. We are
in one company, Pete, and we have our boss our
bosses screaming PT makes the transaction. Now I'm waiting the
whole day already and you have to sign a PDF,
(04:57):
because yes you are and me we have to do together.
For I it's always webbed the big companies. It's it's
the going way to work. Then you sign me sign
a PDF. But this digital BDF will trigger the transaction
of kadano. So we developed with block sign web two
tools for web three use cases. You know, it's like
(05:18):
if you go to fire blocks or the don't know if
you know these projects, these are onboarding for institutional It's
like an institutional wallet, like it is a platform where
you work one hundred percent compliant for institutional investors and
professional investors. And this we develop and now we are
already talked about wallet. I'm also in the team of
(05:40):
begin Wallet, as I always needed a wallet where identity
is placed in where it can sell my gold. Of
so like a perfect front end, but not for you
and me as dejons, you know, but more for people
who like to use crypto on the way to the work,
sitting waiting for the You know, you can make your
(06:01):
small swaps, you can buy gold, but I think if
you read trade, you have your big screen in front
of you or two sometimes have three or four screens.
Then you really do your trading work. But I like
to have a way you can use everything. So from
begin wallet you can use liquid directly, liquid finance, you
can directly use fluid. You can buy gold from Finest.
(06:23):
So you see, all these pieces are puzzles of a
small ecosystem which I can feed myself and I'm not
depend on to ask another wallet, can you sell my
gold person? No, I don't like or commissions. Try, but
I invite all wallets to sell these gold from Finest
because that will bring TVL to Cardano. As simple as
(06:45):
this is, you know, it's the more gold we sell,
the more tokens with a value we have from Cardano.
And for me gold I'm a little bit older. I'm
fifty already. So gold was always something very important if
you are investor, because your hatch always with gold. And
if we see the gold price now, it is a
mirror of what is happening in the world. War is
(07:06):
something very bad. Nations who struggle dying, have people dying off.
Hunger is the problem. So we see a lot of
problems in the world. So gold is rising uncertainty, so
I think gold is a better stable coin. So now
you have a little bit of picture. It's begin Wallet,
finest tokenize where we sell the gold and then we
have to go find to make signature as that I
(07:28):
AMM was the onboarding solution when it comes to regulatory
onboarding to be compliant with MEECA laws in Europe and
other laws in the world.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
All right, there's a lot to unpack there, but I
love how you got all those pieces of the puzzle
together to make it really easy for essentially users and
in the end to buy gold. So we've got a
really good wallet. If you haven't checked out begin Wallet,
I'll put links down below for everyone in the show
notes check it out. I've got installed on my phone
as well, and just playing around that. It is a
(08:00):
really simple wallet to be able to just get into
an ecosystem and play around with DeFi within a couple
of clicks, so you're immediately providing liquidity onto liquid finance
and you don't need to know the technicals about it.
You're earning a nice APR, so it's a really good
wallet to play with. Then be ald by gold. I
haven't tried that yet myself. And then having the ability
(08:21):
to sign the legal documents through the platform as well.
It just all makes sense. And a lot of this
stuff has been happening over the last year, I think,
and Finest what was it last year or the year
before now I can't remember the lawd.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
We've founded twenty twenty four Finest, Yeah, and then we
started with Granite from India together with three Volve Tech
and our friends from Newcast. Big up to Sharon, great guy,
Great he's Katano India for me and we're working very
cross together with begin Wallet and with Finest toalkn Ie.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
So how is Finest going at the moment? What's what's
it look like? You've got the Granite, You've got the gold,
our people buying in. Are you getting more users on there?
Are you getting more gold liquidity onto the platform? Yes?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I can tell your Finest this situation a very big
step now and that you get some alpha from me.
Now for Finest, we have two new shareholders which are
both lawyers. One is Professor Rio Roche from the University
of Lyon. He has a company together with his former
partner from He was also working for Storm Partners, which
(09:27):
is a very Cardino Foundation related lawyer agency. And Matias
Trausnik come from this company and they are now shareholder
of Finest because we have to tackle some really difficult
regulatory obstacles and these guys, you know, if you look
at the track road record from Arion amazing, you know
(09:49):
he was working for Deloitte, so one of the big
five top fives and always is the digital expert there.
And with him we like to token nice shares. We
have a cutalyst proposal for that and with our old
team set up, it was very difficult because we like
to make it compliant. So if we don't make it compliant,
(10:09):
the next interview will be like this, you know, so
I will be in prison. So I have to be
very as I'm the CEO, it has to be compliant.
And in Germany, you know, it's very rough to work
with securities is you have to be very careful. You
have to be very cooperative with the government in the
Baffin or as he seen. So we are very happy
(10:30):
to onboard these two guys and they're also shared us
already off block sign where we also like to disrupt
something and make Kardano the go to blockchain if you
need signatures, usually you buy a very expensive route certificate.
To disrupt this route certificate from Adobe with the Kardana blockchain,
(10:50):
and therefore we need someone who addresses this wish to
the government in Switzerland and Germany, and this will be
Aurleon in his team. So he is essential for us,
and people don't see it, but I think he is
essentially for krdano because if every signature will be much
cheaper on Kardano, people will change. And we have billions
of signatures every day digitally and we make a transaction
(11:13):
like a second layer for security of signatures. So back
to Finest. I'm always, you know, have to separate my
companies a little bit. Finest is doing that. Yeah, we
have new partners. We have also another new shareholder which
is Florian from Liquid. We have Raoul and Mateo, the
founders and CEOs from Fluid. They're shareholders are Finest. So
(11:37):
we have quite a strong team with legal people, with
DeFi experts and marketing and me, I'm a partner manager
and someone has to do the boring work with bookkeeping
and stuff like this, so the management work that's on
my side most of all. And so this Finest now
it will be very strong and we have is out
(11:57):
in the I can't tell too much. But there's a
is a gold mine out in the world, and why
not tokenize gold with which still is in the earth
and we leave it there. Isn't it the safest spot
on earth to leave gold in the ground, but tokenize
that and that means that means experts from a legal perspectives.
But this is our The big hunt we're doing now
(12:21):
is tokenizing gold which is still in the earth. It
will be ready, I think in eighteen months, so it's
a long way. And before we are focused on our
catalyst proposal tokenizing shares together with a very big partner
called Chartered Investment. It's internationally renewed and operates worldwide. Oh yep,
Finest is very It's really nice to be on this
(12:44):
and this journey because I think blockchain is made for
transferring digital assets, it's made for tokenizing, so I think
this is a perfect blockchain use case and your own
we use Kadano more and more so with Final Now
we will connect Kardana wallet that was missing because we
had to make some moves around regulatory and now we
(13:09):
know better. We know, we learned a little bit and
now we can also integrate the normal way connect your
Kardana wallet, but then you have to go through a
KYC to buy gold. That's the German government. But MINSWAP
we have a pool there so you can also buy
gold on MINSWAP without KYC, in the same with begin
wallet just from the source, you need to make a KYC.
(13:30):
And when you like to have the physical gold home,
then you also have to make a KYC. It's a
minimum of KYC. Done has to be done, and I
think we did it quite well. Also looking at we
also like to have a clean space. Do we all
like to have black money in the space? SYNC on
the way to Yeah? For you and me for sure
(13:51):
tis the pain. We don't like to pay taxes. Everyone
is the same, but at least we also don't like
to have white west and someone has to take care.
So this is where I pay taxes. So yes, we
have to make kycs. We can't. But if you if
you sell or buy over MINSWAP on a secondary market,
you can be decentralized to the max. And that is
(14:12):
for sure always my priority to get maximum decentralization. But
I think the way it takes twenty years to be
one hundred percent decentralized in all the ways, and then
my my favorite topic, SSILL. Hopefully we'll hopefully back and commercialized.
Let's see, let's see, it's a long waisted Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I see a lot of governments, like you said, moving
away from the SSI environment and going for the full sentialized.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
In India, you have gov tools, you know, you connect
as a platform or on a wallet, you connect to
the Indian government identity solution and then you transfer the
identity what you So it's SSI. You can choose your
yourself what you show, which data. So the selective disclosure
is in fact, it's good. You know, it's just who
(15:03):
issues the data, the person data, Who is the one
who is the top the master of your identity and
still not you, it's still the government. So is this
bad or not? Let's see how the government develops, you know,
if you look at some countries worldwide, how they develop.
I would love to have you issue my identity, but
not the government anymore. So I think that's the way
(15:25):
we have to wait, look and form the space and
build our wish into everything.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah, identity is a big thing that's needed here in
Australia with so many corporations being hacked. My identity is
everywhere on the Internet. It's treasured on the black web,
dark web. I know it is because I get continuous
spam calls. So you know, whenever that gets solved, that'll
be fantastic. I need to create a new identity, but
(15:52):
you know that'd be fantastic.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
But in the future we have this, you know, we
help each other to give or support the identity. So
today I speak as Tim Brookman, you know, the founder
of companies, and with you as Peter. But perhaps you
know when we play video games or we move to Twitter,
we move Instagram, perps. We like to have a not
(16:14):
our private personal part. We like to play with the Internet,
and yeah, this is where we are now, you know,
and we see the problems, like we have these scams
everywhere around, you know, I have I think how many
learned cardanos are on Twitter. It's probably a lot and
wrong Peters, you know. But yeah, look what the Internet
(16:35):
is becoming, you know, with all this slob you know
where the AIS learned from the wrong sources and now
everybody has the wrong knowledge. So I think blockchain is
still the savior also for AI, because we need something
to write on which cannot be changed, where the really
truth lies and this is what every of my projects
(16:57):
have in common. That we are trust provide and we
like that people trust that, and we are very transparent.
You see all the people we always have in our impressroom,
on the website in terms, you always see where we
located and think we are one of the only projects
where you always find the address where the company is located.
So we're hiding need nothing at all, and this is
(17:18):
something which is very important to deliver trust that people
use Kardano and or use the applications on Cardana. They
should not use Kardano. They should use the applications the
tools they need, and by co accidents, the best ones
are running on Cardana. I think this is how we
should market Cardano more from the use case, from the
(17:40):
possibilities we build on Cardano, because we're all sitting in
one boat, you know, so everybody building on Cardano has
to support the other one and around. So I think
we are in a good way. We see the beer market,
We see that a lot of people running away, but
it will come back as we see that institutions are
coming more and more. You know, we have less transactions
but with a much much bigger amount of value. It's
(18:01):
not these black days around. It's just like we have
to wait a little bit till and work that into
the institutions and professional investors have the tools to onboard
themselves to cutwa that is missing. So they need signature tools,
they need wallets for their use case. Yeah, and this
is what we all have to build and help now.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I just want to go back to one of your
earlier points about finess and the regulations that you guys
have to go through and comply with the compliancy side
of things. The fact that you guys are a German
incorporated company, I know the regulations in Germany are so hard.
It kind of gives what you guys are building that
(18:42):
X level of trust because you're going through the immense
amounts of headache to get the compliancy side of things
correct so that you can issue shares, which is going
to be absolutely amazing because if you go through all
that red tape to get shares through your platform, and Kadane,
I think it's just a no brainer for anyone else
(19:03):
to come in afterwards and use the platform because you're
guaranteed not guaranteed, but you have a high level of
reassurance that the platform is good and everything is secure
in the way that you can use the platform. I
think that's one of the really big selling points and
winning points like you kind of talked about for the
platform in general.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yes, the compliance and the trust is the most important.
Which investor would buy a gold if he does know
what happened? So what happens if finance is gone? You
find any the domain has gone nothing, then you have
the inverords kuld say hey, dear, I like to have
the physical god now, so your damage is I don't
have digital good anymore. Now I have the physical gold.
(19:43):
So this is what we can inform people about that.
Compliance in Germany has to be like this, and I
can't go to my own supplier and say, hey, give
me all the gold. I would like to run away.
He said, hey, we have a contract. It's not possible
because he will lose his license as well, so because
he's a world So the regulations are pain in the
ass for sure, But at the other side, it gives
(20:05):
us the rules we have to follow. So you have
to die one dad, which dad you like to die?
You know? Is it like being in a country where
nothing is really regulated and people don't trust and it's
very difficult to establish a product. Also better to have
very strict rules and we as companies have to follow
them day by day and have to improve and we
get letters, hey, you do this wrong. You have to
(20:26):
change this. Okay, we do. Sorry. This is the reason
we need more lawyers in the company. And marketing is
not the biggest problem because we go to institutions and
we already have if we deliver the product we are
building now, if they're ready, they're already institutions waiting for it,
especially for the goal what we do there. And it's
an international business, so we go to not to Australia,
(20:48):
but on the other side of the world from US,
it's Canada. And yes, this is something I'm really keen on.
If we manage this, you know, this is a heavy weight.
But if we live this, we can be a very
very famous project.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
All Right, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
You gotta keep me. That's the time, way, don't It
will be ready fifteen to eighteen months at what we
had discussed with the lawyer, because we have to make
we have to follow the Canadian laws and we have
to follow the MECA laws. Bring them together for a
project that had never been done worldwide. You know there's
(21:24):
still you know, the normal business is we can we
need millions spending money. So if you have millions, you
can go to a mine and tell them I like
to pre finance the How you say, to get the
gold out of the earth, clean it and make bars
of it? You know, all the this you can finance already. Yeah.
(21:45):
So the gold inside the earth is two thousand dollars
today and if you have it at the bar, it's
four thousand. You so that's quite a big of march.
But to do this digitally and you come with blockchain,
the regulator said, oh no, this is already complicated. Now
they're coming with block Shane and in Canada and Europe
and worldwide should buy. It's a lot of things we
have to really check technically is possible today? We can
(22:08):
lift it in a week. We just we have all
from the geographic institutes. Is the certification there's this amount
of gold in the in the in the in the earth.
Have this is all done? But to put this together
in a regulated form with regulated smart contracts which are
regulated not only in Meca, no also the Canadian Galath
(22:31):
say yes, go for it. This is a long way
and we're happy that Aureleon, our good professor, is working
in Canada and in Meca countries. So it's a perfect
set up by co accidents now that we didn't know
because the contact to the mine in Canada was just
coming up two weeks ago and he came to us
because hey, guys, I saw your tokenized gold. That's interesting,
(22:54):
let's jump on a call. So we have been you know,
we've been out in the world. And we also token
nice wheat pick up to Rafael Fraga from Karano Foundation.
Raffa made it together with Patrick Toplin that we token
nice wet for institution investors and that could help, you know,
to solve a lot of problems of nutritions and stuff,
(23:16):
you know. So that was a nice test for the
government of Argentina. And also there we will grow with
finest So focus is there and the rest are satellites.
The other companies are satellites. To enable these concepts without
relying on anybody else who doesn't like us perhaps or
who likes to blockade us or whatever. We now have
(23:38):
everything in our own hands with the best contacts like
fluid and liquid. It's for me, one of the most
established at least lending and boring protocols, and both teams
are DeFi degons through the bone. We have the legal
we have a professor and the team. So I think
(24:00):
we will lift it. With some suppart from the community
and that people look what we're doing and pushing us
and keeping asking, I think we will be We have
a good it is a good chance. Let's say it
like this. You know, I'm very exciting. I have to
come down a little bit, you know, because very good
business and let's see if we can realize it. I
would love it because it brings more than a billion
(24:21):
to a TV to grabin blockchain.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I definitely think you're going to kick out. So you
definitely have that perfect team there with the technical all
the way to the legal skills and operational et cetera,
et cetera. And I think the final hurdle here is
just getting through that regulation, building that level of trust
so that institutional investors can just come in throw their
money onto the platform. Again, they probably wouldn't even know
(24:43):
that they're using blockchain. They're just seeing this really good
opportunity to be able to digitalize ownership of that pre
mind gold in Canada and then be able to flip
it when it's actually pulled out the ground, so.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, or you lift it, you know, because if you
fit in the floor, you have to don't pay a walt,
you don't have to pay mechanics to get it out
of the ground. Yeah, so perhaps this is quite interesting
if because the guy it's seeing a little bit, he's
a little bit older than me, and he's he's he said, guys,
this is what you're doing. I'm dreaming since twenty years
(25:18):
of how do you do that? And then explained blockchain
and stuff. You know, he had this idea. His family
is doing his running gold mines its the eighteenth century.
So it's a very it's a heavyweight guy, but really
down to earth and very very sympathic.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Okay, all right, let's keep in contact so we can
get more updates about all this stuff that you're doing.
But you know, if anyone's watching this, you can already
use the finest platform you can already download begin Wallet.
You can get out there and start using all this
on the Cadina ecosystem. And you might as well just
check out my videos that I'm doing on begin wallet
(25:53):
as well, so you can get an idea of how
to use it and start to playing around with some
of these really cool features. But Tim, thank you so
much to join me on the podcast and talking through
everything that you're doing at the moment. And I think
we need more regular catch ups.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
It would be a pleasure for me, you know. And
also the other teammates are keen on getting in touch
with you. You know, perhaps you'd like to have more
regulatory which is a little bit boring, I know, but
it's very interesting for people who are struggling or have
these opticals, you know. Also we have been in touch
with p from Sunday. He's also very keen on making
(26:26):
it very privacy, very decentralized trading. So brilliant mind for sure.
And yeah, we aren't touch with these all these masterminds
to deliver us something to Kadan and make our way
into for the community and with the community.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
All right, awesome, We will catch up again soon. We'll
talk to other team members. But like I said, thank
you so much for joining me, and yeah, we'll speak soon.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Thank you so much, Pete and all the best.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
All the links down below for you guys in the
show notes. If you found a video useful and interesting,
make sure you hit that thumb up that light button,
hit the subscribe button and that notation bell, and I'll
keep you guys update with everything that's happening in space.
If you enjoy my content, check out the Patreon buy
me your coffee links the Patreon link down there, and
(27:14):
of course YouTube memberships as multiple different ways you can
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also be a midnight node operating. Absolutely appreciate all you
guys that have subscribed do this without you. I'll see
you guys in the next video.
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