Episode 16: Genomes DAO | Decentralizing Your DNA (1)
Title: GenomesDAO | Decentralizing Your DNA
Description: We’re back with another episode of Crypto Sapiens. Today we’re talking to Aldo de Pape and GenomesDAO intern, Co-founder and contributor of GenomesDAO respectively. We learn about the DNA data bank that puts you in control of your genome. GenomesDAO seeks to address privacy, security and ownership concerns of DNA testing and sharing by building the world’s largest user-owned genome data bank and secure the future of personalized medicine. We discuss the privacy risks of using direct to consumer genetics companies like Ancestry.com and 23andme, and why we should be mindful of securing our genomic data. So, let’s get started.
About the event
- Project: GenomesDAO
- Guests: Aldo de Pape (co founder and CEO) and GenomesDAO Intern
- Topic: A new paradigm in genomic data management - putting you in control of your data.
- NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE
Twitter Bio
What is Genomes.io ?
Genomes.io is a genomic data security company co-founded by Dr Mark Hahnel and Aldo de Pape in 2018. We are a UK-registered company and operate from London, UK. The project strives to meet the increasing expectations of research organizations, institutions as well as customers for the security of genomic data and the quality of research workflow. In order to increase the democratization and decentralization of genomic studies, we focus on combining cutting-edge technologies such as AMD’s SEV, blockchain and decentralized finance.
TIMESTAMPS
Timestamps from GenomesDAO | Decentralizing Your DNA - Aldo de Pape and GenomesDAO Intern by salmanneedsajob
0:00 - Intro
0:46 - Episode introduction
2:14 - How Aldo got into Genomes
3:54 - Background of GenomesDAO Intern
6:26 - Inspiration behind GenomesDAO
9:08 - Business Model of D2C Genetics companies
12:52 - GenomesDAO vs 23andMe / Ancestry.com
18:20 - Self custody of Genomic data, Data harvesting and Profiling
29:09 - Getting started with GenomesDAO
33:42 - Benefits of Genome Sequencing
37:11 - GenomesDAO developments so far
40:00 - Tokenomics of GenomesDAO
44:03 - NFTs
45:51 - Cross DAO collaborations
47:00 - Be conscious of your Genomic data
48:28 - Outro
TRANSCRIPTION
[00:00:00] Humpty Calderon: Welcome to Crypto Sapiens, a show that hosts lively discussions with innovative web three builders to help you learn about decentralized money systems, including Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Defi. The podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only, and it is not financial advice. Crypto Sapiens is presented in partnership with BanklessDAO, A movement for pioneer seeking freedom from the limitations of the traditional financial system. BanklessDAO will help the world go bankless by creating user-friendly on-ramps for people to discover decentralized financial technologies through education, media and culture
[00:00:45] gm everyone. We are back with another episode of Crypto Sapiens. Today we are talking to a Aldo de Pape and GenomesDAO intern co-founder and contributor of genomes DAO respectively, to learn about the DNA data bank that puts you back in control of your genome. They seek to address privacy, security, and ownership, concerns of DNA testing and sharing by building the world's largest user own genetic data bank, and secure the future of personalized medicine.
[00:01:11] We discuss the privacy risks of using direct to consumer genetics companies like ancestry.com and 23andme, and why we should be mindful of securing our genomic data. So let's get started. So without further ado let's get started on some introductions. Today are talking to genomes Dow, and we are, we have here today with us Aldo who is the co-founder and CEO of the project.
[00:01:36] And Genomes, Genomes, Dow who is the intern of the project. Let's start with an introduction to you, Aldo, and, you know, as, as brief and as much as you wanna share without doxing yourself, right? I mean like your home address and all that fun stuff. And then we'll follow that with Genome's DAO and we'll, we'll go from there in terms of like how that, in, how that eventually got us to. Founding and working on genomes DAO .
[00:02:04] Aldo de Pape: My name's Aldo de Pape as I said before, co-founder and CEO of genomes.io. I got into genomes while working with Mark Hannah, who sadly couldn't be with us to. Today. Mark is a geneticist who has an a PhD in stem cell biology from Imperial College. And he started back in 2011, a company called Fix Share. There was a a big investor interested in fix share and, and basically it was a venture capital fund. I worked for that venture capital fund and was paired up with Mark to grow his company. I love doing that and I did it with lots of passion and excitement for three years, but Dun got a little something called Founders Envy, and I really wanted to start my own venture. So I did that in 2014 and started an ed tech company called Teach Pitch and what that company's trying to do is trying to close the digital skills gap, specifically in education. It's very focused on peer tope learning specifically for teachers, so completely different ballgame. Mark and I, however, stayed in touch with Kim, good friends and met very often. And we were talking a lot about the idea for genomes, Not, not of course, in the version that it is today. But already talking about the value of DNA data back in 2014. So I hope that gives you a little bit of an idea of, of how this this journey started and, and who I am.
[00:03:25] Humpty Calderon: Yeah. That's fantastic. That definitely gives us a good picture and concise enough, I think genomes DAO intern.
[00:03:31] Intern: Yeah. So hello everyone. Thanks for having us today. I guess so my, my position is basically be a position inspired by what you've seen on like crypto, Twitter, like sushi intern, and then there's like CMS intern, delphi intern. There's like Olympus intern there might be Binance Intern now. So it's kind of that meme, right? So that's kind of what my my position is. So yeah, I guess a little bit of background on me without doxing myself, cuz it's fun to be in on. Recently kind of graduated my background's in biomedical engineering. I've worked in a few different labs, but I've spent some time in pharmaco genomics and that's kind of why I got interested in this project when I found out about it. And then I, yeah, as soon as I found out about it, I dug deeper and then I hopped on board cuz I, I thought it had a lot of potential to kind of change the status quo.
[00:04:20] Humpty Calderon: Great. Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that intern meme. And I think I wanna recognize something that one of our community members said as we're preparing for this show is, you know, I think now. With the way DAOs work and allow people to contribute, you know, we all are kind of interns to some degree when we get started, right? We're learning we start contributing and then as we add value or bring value to these projects, there are incentives that are that, that we're able to From our contributions. So there's value you know, to everyone.
[00:04:55] Aldo de Pape: Absolutely. Absolutely. And one thing I'd like to add is that you know, I was thinking of maybe changing my name from intern cuz I've been doing this for maybe a month and a half now. But I think I'm gonna keep it for symbolism, right? It, it's symbolic because in a DAO you don't necessarily need a title to be a leader. And, and I think that's an important takeaway. So I, I think I'll keep the intern title as long as I can, cuz I think it's funny but no, the point still stands ab Absolutely.
[00:05:24] Humpty Calderon: Yeah. Yeah. Certainly. I think so in fact, I think currently as, as Dows exist there's still a lot of experimentation and a lot of learning that happens on a day to day. So I think that's all part of the experimentation as we move forward in web three. So in terms of genomesDAO can you give us a brief introduction to what it is what inspired it and how it works?
[00:05:49] Aldo de Pape: So yeah, going back to 2014 where, where Mark and I basically started a conversation about DNA data and, and the value of DNA data. So You know, through, through the work that we did with Fix Share, we were dealing a lot with data, specifically research data generated by lots of research institutions and academic organizations.
[00:06:10] So lots of researchers who were working with lots of data, so to say. And Among others. We also came across DNA data. So, people who were very keen on doing their research and really were, were, were going to the you know, other end of research, they were talking about the value of DNA data.
[00:06:28] And at some point there was also a professor who uploaded the genomic sequence of one of his children to one of the tools we were working with and that basically catalyzed in our thinking something that we were like, Okay, you know, we are all in favor of sharing data. And we're all looking at, you know, the, the value that data can have for the progression of science and for technology. But surely sharing someone else's genomic data might be one rich too far. And you know, one of the reasons of, you know, for that thinking which, you know now in, in 2 20 21 proved to be correct, was that there's an enormous value to your genome. So we all have a genome. We all have our DNA data. It's a unique sequence that we all have a genomic sequence, and basically that is the blueprint to who you are. And the beauty of it is that for each and every one of us, for every human being on this planet, We have a different sequence. So there's no such thing as two of the, of, of the same sequences and, and you that is something very profound and something we need to be very aware of because, because of its uniqueness, it also has tremendous value.
[00:07:47] Now there are so. A little bit of, you know, genomic history. In 2001, the first attempt was undertaken to sequence a genome in a very big laboratory. The cost for doing that was I believe over $5 billion just to sequence one genome. The cost of that today is a little over $500, and already the leaders in the market have announced that the cost will come down in the next few years from 500 to a hundred dollars, and maybe after that point it will be completely for free. So this is a clear indication that the sequencers, the laboratories, you do the sequencing, that's not really where the, you know, in a sustainable sense of the word, the money will be made but the value is in the data.
[00:08:34] And don't take our word for it. You can also look. Something that we would like to call direct to consumer genetic companies, and you might have heard of them their companies called like 23andme I think is the, is the most infamous example, but you also have ancestry.com. So what these companies do is they also sequence your genomic data and then in return for you paying them to do that around $150 approximately, you know, on a Christmas.
[00:09:03] You will get in return a, a nice little gadgety ancestry report. So it's something that tells you where, you know, your ancestors are from, that, you know they, you know, they might be from wherever. So in my case, from from Ireland, So, you know, my father did, had his 23andme done, and, and, and he said, Oh, did you know that, you know, five generations ago we were in Ireland. So it's something like that, but it's a gadget, right? It's something nice, nice to know is, you know, something that you're interested in. The real business model for these companies is not, you know, giving you your report and your $150. The real business model for these companies is that they cross sell your data to pharmaceutical companies. And so we have blogged about this, so and, and I happy we can, we can dig it up and share it here as well, whereby from 2012 to today, we've mapped out all the kind of big deals that were. Buy these companies, buy cross, selling your data to pharmaceutical companies and research organizations.
[00:10:03] Now, what we think is wrong in this formula is first and foremost, this wasn't really done with the full consent. Of the person who paid for the original Gadgety report. And by full consent, I mean, yes, you might have agreed to the terms and conditions, the thousand paragraphs and per terms and conditions that that stipulates, okay, we, you know, once this is done, you've waived the right of your genome and we can do whatever we want to do with it. But we basically mean that there's no real transparency as to what will happen with the data. So first of all, you know, we. I'd like to say you, you might have not proactively consented to that. Second of all, once the data has gone, you have absolutely no insight on what happens to the data. So, you know, it's all big question, do they cross-sell it? You know, what do I do with the database that holds your, you know, your most valuable data, the most valuable data you will ever have? And then third of all, They make money of selling your data. So to give you an example and, and a lot of money, right? So, so to give you an example, in 2018, 23andme closed the deal with GlaxoSmith Kline selling 5 million of your exomes, which is, you know, a genomic sequences, I'll get to the difference later for 300 million. So the value that these companies accumulate and the value that they gain by cross selling your data. You know, it is not, you know, it's not based on kind of the most sincerest form of consent. It's not, you know, it's not authentic and, you know, that's something we, you know, that, that's the frustration that we are built upon. And, and you know we put our money where our mouth is and built basically a decentralized version of 23andme you can still do all the things like the gadgety ancestry report or any type of other report that we could talk about later. So you can still get to know a lot about you and your health and whatever ties in with your genomic data, but also your data is safe in a vault that only you can access. So, and you are the only person who has full control over your genomic sequence, and nothing happens with that data unless you proactively approve it.
[00:12:17] Humpty Calderon: So you brought up a lot of I think, interesting points here that we should unpack but you know, really to, I do wanna touch on something here that you just mentioned now, which is the differences between, you know, genomesDAO, and some of these other maybe more recognizable names in the genetic genetic sequencing or like 23andme and ancestry.com. So what is a difference in terms of how this data is collected? How this data is you know, I guess held in vaults and secured.
[00:12:52] Intern: Yeah, so I guess I'll take a stab at that. I guess the first thing that's important to understand the differences between genomes DAO and like 23andme and ancestry is something that Aldo mentioned was For $150, right? They give you that, you know, cute little ancestry report. They're sequencing something called your exome, right? And your exome is about one to 2% of your genome. It's not the whole genome. What we're doing at genomes DAO is doing something called whole genome sequencing. So it's your entire genome, right? So that's the first kind of difference between kind of us and them. The second thing is that,
[00:13:28] Humpty Calderon: Sorry to clarify, Does that mean that that is more complete than the sequencing with genomes do than anyone else?
[00:13:34] Intern: Yes. Yes. So, we're doing with, with our partners, right? The partner we're currently working with is Nebula because they have a very, they have a very strong privacy focus, right? And that's kind of the point of this do but Nebula, through our partnership with Nebula, we're doing whole genome sequencing.
[00:13:51] So meaning you get your entire genome sequenced. So if you would've done a 23andme or Ancestry, you've only gotten your exome sequenced. If you have gotten those, Those, you know, direct to consumer genomic tests before. So that, that's kind of the first difference. The second difference is that, as Aldo mentioned, right, as soon as you, you know, you go online, you say Oh, I wanna get a 23andme test or an ancestry test, right? And then they'll send you the kits and then they'll either do a cheek swab or you'll put your saliva in a test tube. They'll send that back to their labs, and then at their labs they'll sequence that sequence, your exo right from that genetic sample, and then they'll give you some report. Now, the thing is, is that after they do that, what happens to the data then? Right? Well, and what they're doing, what, what Aldo very clearly mention was they're taking your genetic information and then they're selling it to other people and then sometimes, in some cases, in the case of Ancestry, they're selling it for a hell of a lot of money. So Blackstone, right, that the suits on law street, I don't think they give a damn, Like if your grandfather's polish Right, They don't care about that. They care about what that
[00:15:03] Humpty Calderon: Yeah. That's the gamification of their real product. Right?
[00:15:08] Intern: Exactly. A hundred percent. Like you're, if you've gotten one of these tests before, you quite literally rugged yourself you paid someone to like, you know, give your personal information to someone else for even more money.
[00:15:21] Humpty Calderon: One of the most personal informations. Cause I know we talk about like password management, even like, you know, key management for crypto. We even talk about biometric data, right? But like genomic data that that's, that's like the root of it all. Like you, you could change your passwords. Sure, you could start using a new wallet, but as you start getting into biometric and genetic data, like these are things that you cannot replace. So, Super important to be mindful of the value, both, you know, the value to yourself, right? Not just the value of what that means for some other, you know, market or company, but what that means in terms of like what that means to you, just generally in protecting that information, but also you know, what, how you can protect that, right? And the fact that you can't change that. Sorry to interrupt.
[00:16:09] Aldo de Pape: No, no, no worries. Absolutely. Absolutely. And the other thing too, right? I guess I'll touch on two things. The first thing is is that for genome style, what we're basically doing is allowing self custody of your genome. So as soon as you go through us, right, and you get your whole genome sequence that gets put in one of these AMD sev vaults, which like these are like the bleeding edge of like encryption, they're as close to like a ledger and meta mask wallet, a as you can get with the current technology. And then we genome doesn't have access to your vault like if for some reason like Blackstone or some private equity company and said, Oh, we need to buy all the governance tokens for genomeDAO and let's get all the information from, you know, the DAO we actually don't have access to your genome. Right? Only you do. And if you want someone to query it, you have to approve. And that's, you know, that's what's stored on the blockchain, the auditable record of the opening and closing of these vaults but we'll get into that later. And the other thing I just wanted to add is that, you know, right now people, they kind of give this information away, like freely. They're like, Oh, like, and, and I'm kind of guilty of this too, because when I worked in pharmacogenomics, I was like, Oh, mom, like here I got you an ancestry test. This was like long before, right, long before genomes DAO I even thought of this. I like in hindsight, I was like, Wow, like that was such a stupid decision. Like now Ancestry has my mom's, you know, exome and, and we're just very, very like, Ooh, that's like cute and colorful. It, it's gamified as you mentioned, right? It's gamified. Let me find something you know, let me find where my ancestors are from. We're but you, you'll probably already know that and, and the one other thing I wanted to add and like, I'm not a conspiracy theorist but as we move into, like, you know, as we transition into web three, I think people need to understand that your genome, as you mentioned, is super, super important. And one example I give is if like Mark Zuckerbergs, like, hey, we want, you know, let's combine your behavioral data, right? So if anyone watched a couple, couple weeks ago on 60 Minutes, the author of the book Sapiens came on and he mentioned that these web two companies, Instagram, Facebook, they know more about you than you know about yourself. Like just how you're interacting on their platform. They can like tell what your sexual orientation is even before maybe you can, which is scary. And if they can do that, imagine what else they know about you.
[00:18:45] And what gets even scarier is if you combine that genomic information with your be. Data and then they could easily say, Oh, let's Mark Zuckerberg could easily say Hey guys, like Q1 let's you know, let's do really, really well for q1. Let's increase revenue. Find every single person, you know, in our genomic data set that is predisposed to like anxiety, and then curate them, content that will make them super, super anxious. And then as soon as we've determine they become anxious based on how they're interacting on the platform, let's sell them an anti-anxiety drug. Like, they're like, this is what, like these dystopian, you know, movies are made of. And, and as we're moving to web three, the whole point of web three is, you know, you own your data, right? You own your data. So I'll, I'll stop there but
[00:19:32] Humpty Calderon: yeah, I actually wanted to touch on something you brought up. So one of the things you mentioned was you, When you were in pharmacogenetics, I think it was called sorry, if I mispronounced it, I probably am. You got a ancestry kit for your mom, right? You know, I think that there's, we should recognize too that there are social pressures that maybe sometimes will have us do something that maybe that's not what we really wanted to do, but other people are doing it, so then we end up deciding to do it too. And of course, game mechanics don't help that matter, right? Because they really just maybe force us to do something without fully considering the repercussions. So as an example I remember a lot of my friends were jumping onto like Facebook and Instagram and well, I was always very mindful of my digital footprint. Just fell into that rabbit hole because I was like, Oh, my family is there I wanna be able to communicate with them or I have friends who are there who I haven't been able to talk to in a long time. But, you know, while the front end is nice, and I did have access to friends and family that I didn't before on a regular basis the back end is a little bit, you know, a little darker than that, isn't it?
[00:20:37] Because there is that data harvesting and monetization and profiling even that happens that then ends up, you know, doing more harm than good for ourselves. So to your point, I think of, you know, these kits like Ancestry and 23andme is that while, and I do remember there was a craze for a long time where that is, that was the gift to give for the holidays. And so there were, you know, folks who were just signing up. Fortunately, I. But I definitely felt like I should've because I felt like I was missing out on something like my friends and maybe some of my family members were doing it, and I was like, Oh, like I really should try that because I wanna get more information about myself. But, you know, knowing now and maybe using other, you know, companies as an example, other institutions as an example of what they do with that data, I'm kind of glad that I didn't, because that, you know, was information that I would've freely been giving and then, you know, allowing, I guess for some of the scenarios to play out, like genomes intern just explained.
[00:21:41] Aldo de Pape: Yeah. I mean a hundred percent. Hum. And, and, know, you sound like a conscious user of, you know, of loads of platforms you were already kind of looking at your, you know, digital footprint maybe long before others were doing, I think there are two sides here, right there, there are two sides of the coin Basically. There's on and, and, and some people they make the trade off. Some people say, I'm actually happy for, you know, this platform to use my data in exchange for, you know, the communication and the happiness that it gives me and I, I don't mind if I get, you know, if, if I, when I accept the cookies, I get customized ads and whatever more. Kind of what, what, what we do see here, that every step of the way, it needs to be a conscious process so you can sign off on whether you want this or not right? And I think this is also very much what Facebook currently known as Meta is of course doing they're trying to showcase to you that they're being very transparent with the use of your data if and when they're using it. The problem that we see is that it's still based on a trust relationship. It's still based on the assumption that you as a user trust Mark Zuckerberg and team, that they will do the right thing with your data and that once you basically say, I don't want you to do that anymore, that they will obey and stop doing that. Now, This trust is all nice and lovely, but what indeed happens, like in the case of ancestry.com, when this company gets taken over for 4.7 billion, and the trust contract that you originally had with you know, ancestry.com or whichever tool is thrown out of the window because the new, you know, there's a new chief in town and that company says We're gonna do it all different and we're gonna monetize on your data. And there are and that is the scary part, right? So it's not necessarily, we don't mean to say that from the outset, these Web 2.0 social platforms are in it to get your data and kind of wanna make money and harass you where, where you don't wanna be or whatever. That's one bridge too far. But we are indeed saying, The relationship is based on, on a trust, and your data is in kind of a central database, which you have no control over and that central database, if the company's successful, will get sold or parts of it will get sold and will be used for other tools and the same goes for your genomic data. Right? The other, other comment I wanted to make in terms of Sequencing your genome and selling your genome is we're looking at kind of a market that very quickly evolved is very, very valuable. But as I said in the beginning, the first genome was sequence in 2001 right? That's 20 years ago and now, so, so a lot has happened in 20 years. Science and technology has evolved very, very, very quickly on this level. So the reason why lots of people waive their genomic data, Is because they didn't, there was no alternative. They just didn't know any better, this was the only option for them, and it was a, it was a fun option, right?
[00:24:45] These companies, 23 and me, they also are very successful in their marketing and advertising because they work with you know the like, Good Morning America kind of shows where. Someone finds their, you know, someone who was adopted, finds their real biological parents because of, because of a database, or they find their long lost twin sister through the database.
[00:25:07] So there are lots of these emotional stories that come out. Because you basically see, hey, this was because of a DNA match. So, you know, a lot of people went with it because there was nothing else there was just no other option. And, and also how research is done so it's not only in the commercial market, but also researchers, and we've spoken to researchers they previously were also used to getting the whole sequence and then just playing around with that sequence. Until they were bored of it. Right? So, they, in their, in the way, they did their research, in their laboratories, that also wasn't really kind of with, you know, having your privacy and, and your security in mind, it's just because that was the, the way they were used to doing it. Right. So this is all kind of, we would like to basically say that we are kind of the next step, and we would like to think ourselves as a web 3.0 solution. That has this decentralization and that has, you know, in mind and really has as a focus for you as the individual, for you, as the one who has that genome for you to, to stay in control and that nothing happens with the data, without you having a say in that.
[00:26:17] Humpty Calderon: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. So maybe that was a good time to talk about, I guess the method by which someone could get started using genomes you know, to contribute data to store and secure that and to access that and ways to actually leverage that data.
[00:26:34] Intern: So the way we're kind of doing it right now is if you wanted to, So we're having our NFT sale. And that's gonna be around mid-January. And then for each nft it, it's gonna be like one of the profile picture ones, but for each NFT you'll get one of these whole g you redeem that for a whole genome sequencing kit from our partner Nebula right? And then what happens is this kit, it, it'll be sent to Where you want it to be sent, because we're also conscious, right? A lot of people in crypto, they, they respect their privacy including like, you know, their home address and things like that. So we're very cognizant of if we need to get you a kit, we can do it in a very secure and anonymous way. So maybe sending it to your PO box or maybe sending it? We'll, we'll, you know, we'll be having like a landing page that kind of describes if you really wanna go down the super private route to get you the kit but basically we'll get you the kit and then that kit gets sent to Nebula, they'll sequence your whole genome, and then after that sequence, they'll upload it to this AMDSEV vault and this vault is something that only you have control over with the 12 word seed phrase, similar to your, you know, meta mask and then from there, once it's in the vault, if third parties want to query it, right? Say you fall into, you know, a certain -demographic or you have a very you know, say specifically of like a rare disease, right? And that, and researchers being able to query parts of your genome would, you know, benefit science. It would also be worth a lot, you know, worth a lot for them to sequence it. They have the ability to do it, but in a safe and private way where you have the ability, to consent to every query into your vault. So anytime wants, and anytime anyone wants to you know, o open the vaults or see a tiny part of your genome and see what it says they, you have the ability to control that. And then for that, you would make passive income. For that query. So like, it, it would be like, say Pfizer's like, Okay, we need, you know, individuals that are Caucasian males, age 50 to 60 in the, in the US that have, you know diabetes or something. We'd like to look at this small part of your genome and will be willing to give you a hundred dollars. Do you accept? And then you can either accept it and then you would get paid in our gene token, or you can reject it and say, You know what, no, I don't wanna and that's fine too but the point is that you retain full custody of your genome right? And I think this idea is very important because you know, as Aldo mentioned the cost of whole genome sequencing has gone down from like a billion dollars to now it's $500 and it's going down by magnitudes each year and there's gonna be a point where there's gonna be zero cost whole genome sequencing where it'll be. It'll actually cost more money for you to get treated without having your genome rather than having it right? Because the insights from your genome will help your doctor and, and then you have to think when everyone does have their genome in their pocket, what type of platform would you wanna use? Would you want it to be in the form of a DAO? Or would you want it to be in the form of, you know, a VC controlled entity or private equity entity where you don't have control over that, right? So we're hedging that as the world transitions to web three as people, you know, have NFTs in their wallets, they have a crypto wallet, they have Coinbase and you know, Gemini and all these you know, things on their phone, meta mask on their phone. You're also gonna have your genome on your. And if you want to monetize it in a safe and private way, you can, but if you don't and you just wanna discuss your genome with, you know, your genetic counselor or your doctor, that's perfectly fine too. And I'll give you like one last example and then I'll kinda stop there. So I worked in pharmacogenomics and The question you always get asked is like, Hey, like, why would I ever wanna sequence my genome? Right? Like and, and the, the reason is that you can actually learn so much about how your body works from your genome. So like one example was when I worked at this Pharmacogenomics company and if I tell you it's like an immediate docs, cuz they're like one of the biggest ones. They they were in the early stages at the time and what we would do on like a Fridays, like the junior members of the team, they'd head down to the lab and say, All right guys, like sequence or genome, let's see what it says. Right? And I remember when I got my genome sequenced for the gene, it's called sip one a2 so this gene codes for the proteins that metabolize things like coffee, right? Stimulants, right? So if you think of stimulants there's like a scale, right at the very like extreme end of the spectrum. There's like, like speed, and then to the left of that there's cocaine, and then to the left of that, there's like Adderall and then to the left of that, there's like Red Bull, and then to the left of that, there's like a Coca-Cola, right? But these are all stimulants, right? The caffeine is also a stimula. And my whole life I lived thinking that I was extremely, extremely sensitive to caffeine, to the point that I would never have a coffee.
[00:31:27] And if I did ever have a Coca-Cola, it would have to be before noon, right? And the funny thing is, is that when I got my genome sequence and I saw the results for the sip one a two gene, I'm actually an ultra rapid metabolizer. So that means my body like, it has the proteins where it just like burns through caffeine and these stimulants like nothing, right? It just, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So it's funny that in my head I was living my whole life thinking, Oh, I can't have coffee, but my gen, my genome said the exact opposite. Like, Hey, if you are gonna have coffee, you're just gonna burn through it. Like, it's gonna like, you know, you're gonna need more coffee to have the same effect as someone else. So that's just like one example, right? As we're gonna have our genomes on our phones, we're gonna wanna know more about our body. Like another example is there's like a gene I think for like long covid. And if you fall into a certain category you might want to know ahead of time, like, Hey, you know, if I catch Covid I'll get, you know, a really, really severe. No, not long covid like severity for covid. And, and if you catch covid you might wanna know like, Hey, if I catch this, it's gonna be like really, really bad for me. And, and what determines that is as Aldo mentioned, your genetics, everyone has you know, different genetics unless if you're a twin, right? That then, then things get a little bit interesting there. But you're gonna wanna know this stuff as, as we go forward. And I think what we're doing with genomes now is allowing you to have self custody of your genome. If you want to monetize it, you have that option. You are getting paid, right? It's not the executives at 23andme, right? At 23andme, who do they answer to? They answer to shareholders. Who does genomes DAO answer to? We answer to the DAO, right? And who owns the DAO? Hopefully the members of the community. So that's kind of how we've structured it. But yeah, so I'll stop there.
[00:33:15] Humpty Calderon: No, that's wonderful and thank you for the real world examples, cuz I think that that certainly helps to make this topic a little bit more accessible. Let's talk about the future of genomes DAO like where, where is genomesDAO now? I guess in its in its plan and its roadmap and what can we expect of it into the future? Are there any other possible integrations into the web three ecosystem? You know, that are being explored today?
[00:33:42] Aldo de Pape: Yeah, there are loads of things ongoing, so first of all, we we're, we're doing a weekly DAO meeting you know, to, to update all DAO holders of everything that is happening cuz we really would like to stay close to them and wanna make sure that everyone has their say. So. Our first has already taken place. And I think this is also when, you know, when we started talking, so I did. Well, before I talk about that, let me first talk about kind of what we did because we, we spent actually a good, the best part of three years only working on a tech stack. Right? We were proud that one of our very early stage investors is consensus, and so we were part of their Tackyon cohorts so that's kind of their early stage startup investor mechanism and we were, we worked closely with the consensus team to develop our technology. And also we were proud to partner with the, the giant hardware company micro devices company AM who, whose amd sev es technology we use for building the vaults. So, three years was basically spent on building this text stack cuz we really wanted to be sure that, you know, if, if we're going to take on this big direct to consumer genetic companies, then we need to be sure that we have the technology that works in scales and kinda all of the above. Then so we only did our first steps to the outside world late 2020. And what we, what we did in the, in the very first instance is we did a campaign on Indigogo which is a kind of a early stage sales platform whereby you could say, Hey, I have a great idea for a product. I'm launching it, but you can buy it off me now. Accepting that you will, you'll receive it, you know, not as kind of with a normal commercial platform. You will receive it in a few months, but you'll get it at a deeply discounted price and you support us by doing that. And the reason why we did that is we just wanted to see what the market had to say towards, you know, directly to consumers and we're happy to say that we were sold out in in an hour or so, kind of, of people who wanted to get into. And already during our consensus time we were talking about introducing a token and we, we, we always had that on our agenda, but we did not want that to go at the expense of kind of the rest of the technology. So in 2021, we focused on developing the token, which is the gene as our utility token, and the gnome as our governance token and intern can talk a little bit more about that. But I think end of November, we're proud to say that we opened with a token sale on sushi.com through which we managed to sell our gene, you know, the, the, the, the first batch of our genes at a value of around 424 eth giving us kind of also a good kickstart to grow to further grow our operations, you know and getting people in the DAO. Now many people who've bought Gene are staking their gene, getting gnome for it so, becoming part of the DAO you know, really joining us on the governance side of the, of the DAO with us and we're, we're talking a lot to them. So that's where we are today, what we wanna now do further, and we're already going to do something in mid January, is to make sure that we can grow our Infrastructure by getting more genomes vaulted and the way we wanted to do it, hopefully very befitting the thinking of the Web 3.0 world is an NFT project and I'm gonna let intern talk a little bit about that NFT project cause you were very proud and, and also very excited about that.
[00:37:11] Intern: Yes. So I guess one thing I'll just really quickly go back to, So yeah, we have two tokens from our Niso sale. The first one is the gene token, right? So that's like the native utility token of the platform. So think of this like to Ethereum if you want to buy, you know, an NFT you have, you have to convert your a hundred dollars into eth and then that Eth you can use to buy like an nft. And then the similar thing, like if you, you know, if you're on a flight from like US to Japan and then you kid off the flight, you wanna buy soda, you have to con and you go and try to buy soda, they'll say, No, you have to convert your dollars to yen because that's the native currency of the ecosystem. So the same thing applies here, the native currency at the genome style ecosystem. If pharma or you want to query your own, Is that gene token. So like, like, you know, if pharma says, Oh, we're gonna give you 50, you know, $50 to query this part of your genome, they'd convert that into gene so you get $50 worth of gene. And then that also relates to the defi aspect of things where we have our no governance token. And the governance token, as with most governance token that gives you like the voting power, the ability to write proposals and it also for in kind of infrastructure, this brokering platform of genomic data, you own a share of that platform with the governance token. And the way you get that is if you stake that gene to, to earn, right? So that's kind of like the defi aspect of things. And then the gene token has like a $1 billion there? No, there's 1 billion gene tokens and it has a deflationary aspect to it. So after like every kit we sell, we'll burn a certain amount of gene, and this would incentivize pharma researchers wanting to buy in early before you know it increases in value so they get more queries, more bang for their buck if they get in early versus. And then the gnome token, which is the governance token, has a 10 million fixed cap. So that's kind of Theos aspect of things. And then for our NFT sale as I mentioned before, it's gonna be 10,000 PFPs. There's gonna be a different different traits on some of them so some of them will have maybe like a gold tier. Some of them will have different tiers and then, For some of them you'll get, you know, a gene and gnome airdrop. But all kits you know, all the NFTs, they're redeemable for like a real world good which is, which is this whole genome sequencing kit. Right? And the reason why we picked like 10,000 is that, well, it just so happens that a lot NFT projects, they're 10,000, but also for genomes DAO what in our conversations with you know, pharma companies and researchers, they've told us that at the 10,000 genome threshold, that's when genomes DAO data set looks really interesting to us and that's when we'd wanna potentially start querying right? Yeah. So that's, so it's kind of yeah. And for the NFTs, right, we're not like, we're not like really making any money on the NFTs we're basically just selling you like the kit and the vault. But what brings the value to the Dow is getting those genomes and vaults, right? So the, the larger we can grow this data set of people who have self custody of their genome, the better it is for the DAO and that's kind of how this thing scales and, and you know, is capital efficient. And I think one on the other thing you mentioned was how, you know, how are you kind of incorporating with the Web three community?
[00:40:41] So we are a DAO right now. But we're also working with other DAOs right? This cross DAO collaboration. So like what we're doing now with BanklessDAO to help us kind of get the word out about the project we work with creator DAO and then we're trying to work with some other defi DAOs right? Or defi protocols, right? And one interesting thing we have in the pipeline is that kind of combining Crypto, Defi, genomics to create kind of a UBI type system. And we'll maybe touch on that a little bit later but what you're, when you're utilizing these money Legos, right, and you're utilizing kind of the products of different DAOs you can create some extremely novel capital flows and capital systems that just would not be possible in like you know, the meat space world. So, we'll maybe touch on that a little bit later, but that, that's one of the really exciting things I think we have planned.
[00:41:33] Humpty Calderon: Great. Well I would say as we're nearing the top of the hour here is there anything we missed that you feel like we should talk about before we close out?
[00:41:43] Aldo de Pape: I think, no. I mean, I always say like, even if you don't really get the idea or don't like the idea of genomes DAO I always wanna tell people, like, be aware that your DNA and your, you know, your genomic sequence has value. So whatever you do, don't be too easy with waving your data just like you Humpty said in the beginning, like, you know, be conscious of your dig digital footprint. Also be conscious. You know, you, you, you, where you leave your genomic data and what other people can do with your genomic data if you are not careful. And that is, that is always something that, that I would like, you know, people to understand that they're not so easy with going with direct to consumer genetic companies. And if they do that, they take the time to redefine print about, you know, what, what the degree of control is, and, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then of course, We hope that you like us, and if you do, then you can join our discord and, you know, join the conversation. And you know, we, we, we, we welcome you you know, every step of the way and are happy to answer any questions you might have and hope that, that, of course, you will become part of our DAO.
[00:42:54] And that's a wrap. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. If you'd like to learn more about genomesDAO go to genomes.io and on Twitter at genomes. Thanks for listening to Crypto Sapiens. Please give us a follow up, like in a five star review wherever you enjoy your podcast. And stay tuned for our next discussion.