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Gizmodo
3 days ago
- Business
- Gizmodo
Crypto Founder Ken DiCross on How He Uses AI: ‘I Don't Trust AI,' but ‘I Use It for Everything'
Ken DiCross is building the infrastructure to connect blockchains, and he's doing it with AI. The founder of Wire Network, a blockchain interoperability company, DiCross says he uses AI for everything from pitching investors to stress-testing white papers. In this week's edition of How Do You Use AI?, he explains how it saves him hours every day, why he doesn't trust it blindly, and why decentralized AI could be the next big revolution. No TED Talk nonsense, just real life. Episode 2: Ken DiCross—Crypto Believer. Gizmodo: How do you use AI right now? DiCross: I use AI for everything I possibly can; from helping with my schedule to categorizing and helping with email responses. I definitely use it for search. I can't tell you the last time I went to Google. I think that is just atrocious. I use it for business plans, for pitch decks. I use it to compare other interoperability or blockchain or AI companies. Gizmodo: How does that work? DiCross: I go to their website, grab their white paper, and download it into the LLM. Then I start asking a series of questions until I can find the issue. It's always centralization. Rather than solving it properly in a decentralized way, they just add a fix that creates some kind of risk—security, cost, or time. I create my list and send it off to my team or investors to show we still have a moat. That would take an enormous amount of time if I did it manually. AI helps me get it done in five minutes. Gizmodo: What was the last thing AI helped you do? DiCross: I created a contract. We're starting to bring on advisors, ambassadors, and consultants. I took all the requirements for what we want these people to do and asked the AI to categorize them—what belongs in each role—and generate a base contract. I still send it to legal, but it saves me an hour-long call or a lengthy email. I just feed it in real time and it gets me 80% there. Gizmodo: Are there tasks you've completely handed over to AI? DiCross: Yes, especially presentations. I don't create slides from scratch anymore. I just prompt it with the bullet points, and it fills out the rest. The LLM already knows Wire; we feed it everything. The output is fast and on point. It's the same for my devs. My top-tier engineers use it so efficiently that they're basically two or three people in one. We don't need junior-level devs anymore. Gizmodo: Do you trust AI completely? DiCross: No. It still hallucinates. I gave it a math problem the other day, and it botched it; something a six-year-old could do. I had to walk it through the right answer. So when people do 'vibe coding' with AI, it can be dangerous. If you don't understand the code, you won't know if the AI's output is secure. You still need experts in the loop. Gizmodo: Do you use it in your personal life? DiCross: Definitely. I use it for search all the time. I don't use Yelp or Google anymore. If I'm traveling, I ask for the best restaurants nearby, their hours, anything. I pick up 5 or 10 minutes here and there and end up with a few extra hours in my day. Gizmodo: Has AI ever surprised you? DiCross: It's not the answers that surprise me. It's when it won't answer something. You hit a wall and don't always know why. It's frustrating. That's why we need decentralized AI: so people can get the information they need without worrying that it's being filtered or censored. Gizmodo: What do you say to people who are scared AI knows too much? DiCross: That's exactly why it has to be decentralized. I agree with them. Every time I use ChatGPT, I sigh. I know it's building a profile on me. You want your data encrypted and private. Right now, if you type in something like a medical concern, that data can be sold. Your insurance could go up in minutes. That's dystopian. We need decentralized, encrypted AI that works for us, not for Microsoft. Gizmodo: Do you feel uneasy using it? DiCross: Yes, because I know my data is getting hoovered up. But I also feel optimistic. Decentralized AI is coming. Just like Linux became the backbone of every server, we'll have open-source AI that anyone can use without fear. That's where the future is heading. Andy Cohen on How He Uses AI: 'It's an Incredible Tool. But It's Going to Make Idiots'
Gizmodo
07-07-2025
- Business
- Gizmodo
The End of the Stock Market As We Know It
A revolution is brewing in finance, promising to shatter the old walls of Wall Street and bring assets like stocks, bonds, and even skyscrapers onto the blockchain. It's called tokenization, and it could fundamentally change how we own, trade, and think about value. To understand what this means for the average person, we broke down the concept and spoke with Ken DiCross, co-founder of the blockchain interoperability platform Wire Network, about the future of a tokenized world. Tokenization is taking a real world asset, like a share of Tesla stock, and turning it into a digital token that lives on a blockchain. What's a blockchain? Think of it as a super secure, shared digital ledger that can't be easily tampered with. It's the same technology that powers cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. By putting a stock into this secure digital wrapper, it can move faster, more freely, and with fewer middlemen across the internet. As Ken DiCross puts it, the goal is simple: 'It's really bringing all assets in this world on chain, which is exactly where they should be.' Is this like buying Tesla stock as a crypto coin? Or something else entirely? It's not a meme coin. You're not buying a lookalike or fan-made token. You're buying a digital representation of an actual share, backed 1:1 by the real thing. It should legally entitle you to the same benefits, like dividends, though this depends on how it's issued and regulated. What's the difference between owning a tokenized stock and a regular share through, say, Robinhood? On Robinhood, your stocks are locked into their system. A tokenized stock, however, is portable. You could hold it in a personal digital wallet, trade it globally 24/7, or even use it in new types of apps, like DeFi (Decentralized Finance) lending platforms. It's like owning digital cash instead of store credit locked to one specific store. What problem is tokenization solving that the current stock market doesn't? The current system is slow, fragmented, and limited by gatekeepers. Stock trades can take days to settle, and you're restricted by geography and banking hours. Tokenization breaks those limits, creating what DiCross describes as a seismic shift in possibilities. 'It's like playing Super Mario back in the 90s, where you could only go one direction,' DiCross explains. 'And then they come out, and they go, like, Mario's now open world. Like, do whatever you want. It's literally, like, that big of a shift.' Is this about access, speed, cost, or control? All of the above. The ultimate goal is to unlock assets for everyone. For DiCross, tokenization can reveal the true market value of an asset by massively expanding who can own it. 'I'll pose that we may not know the actual true value of a skyscraper in Manhattan right now, just because there are still limitations,' he says. 'If the more that you can give access and fractionalize… to where a farmer in Iowa can own a portion of it, I guarantee that's going to drive value and prices higher.' Robinhood Wants to Redo Wall Street on the Blockchain Where is tokenization actually being used today? Can someone go buy Apple stock on-chain right now? Yes, but it's complicated. Some offshore platforms already offer tokenized versions of major stocks, but these are largely unavailable to U.S. investors due to strict regulations. The real action is happening behind the scenes, where financial giants like JPMorgan and Franklin Templeton are already using their own private blockchains to tokenize assets like money market funds and bonds, proving the technology works at scale. How close are we to people trading tokenized stocks in the same way they buy Bitcoin or NFTs? Closer than most people realize. The technology is ready, but regulation is the bottleneck. If regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) create clear rules for tokenized securities, adoption could be rapid. Think 1–3 years for early use at scale, and 5+ years for it to become mainstream. What are the biggest risks with tokenized stocks? Regulatory uncertainty is the biggest hurdle. If regulators deem a platform illegal, investors could lose access to their assets. There are also technology risks. As DiCross notes, 'This is code that is being used instead of, you know, writing down, like the deed of who owns what.' While he believes this digital risk is preferable to the analog world's risk of losing a physical document, it's still a risk. How do you prevent fraud or manipulation on a blockchain? A blockchain's transparency helps by showing every transaction publicly. But you still need human and legal layers: verified custodians who actually hold the underlying stock, proper audits, and regulatory oversight. Blockchain doesn't eliminate the need for trust; it just shifts the architecture. Some people say tokenization will 'eat Wall Street.' Is that real, or just marketing? It's a little of both. Tokenization won't replace Wall Street, but it will force it to modernize. DiCross believes the big firms will adapt by launching their own blockchains and tokenized products. 'You may not have the same slice of the pie. It may be smaller… It means that you have a smaller slice of something that's even bigger now,' he predicts. What does the stock market look like in five years if tokenization goes mainstream? Imagine buying a stock 24/7 from your phone, anywhere in the world. Settlement is instant. Fees are near zero. You can use your assets across different apps to trade, lend, or borrow without waiting days or dealing with paperwork. That's the vision. For DiCross, it will be a world of countless blockchains, all needing to speak the same language, a problem his company aims to solve. 'I hope there's, I'm like, a billion chains,' he says. 'We just know that it needs to be standardized, that whatever chain you're on is able to seamlessly talk to the chain that everyone else is on.' The future isn't one chain to rule them all. It's a fragmented world of digital assets, stitched together by infrastructure most people never see. Tokenization may not eat Wall Street. But it's definitely sitting down at the same table.
Gizmodo
30-06-2025
- Business
- Gizmodo
Is Crypto in a Bubble (Again)?
The crypto world is buzzing. If you ask a true believer, they'll say this is just the beginning. Ask a skeptic, and they'll swear we're watching a bubble inflate in real time. One that could pop any second. I saw the excitement firsthand at a crypto event in Brooklyn last week. The bar was packed. People were animated. It felt like a flashback to 2020 and 2021, when crypto fever gripped everyone from twenty-something retail traders to grandparents. Back then, it was all about Bitcoin, flashy NFTs like the Bored Ape Yacht Club, and anything promising wild returns. It was a digital casino where everyone hoped to strike it rich. Fast. But then came the crash. The 'crypto winter' arrived, marked by the spectacular downfall of crypto exchange FTX and its poster boy Sam Bankman-Fried. Billions vanished. Trust collapsed. Regulators circled. Now? The energy is back. And it's confusing. At the Brooklyn event, hosted by Wire Network (a startup trying to connect different crypto systems, or 'blockchains'), the optimism was palpable. 'There's never been a better time to be a crypto developer,' co-founder Ken DiCross told me. On paper, crypto's comeback looks unstoppable. The industry's total market value has ballooned by over $3 trillion since the start of 2023. Companies like Robinhood, Coinbase, and MicroStrategy are riding the wave. Circle Internet Group, the firm behind one of the biggest 'stablecoins,' went public in June at a $6 billion valuation. It shot up to nearly $50 billion in just weeks. Wait, what's a stablecoin? A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency designed to hold a steady value, usually pegged to something like the U.S. dollar. The idea is to give people the speed and flexibility of crypto without the wild price swings of Bitcoin or Ethereum. In theory, you could use stablecoins instead of cash to buy your coffee or pay your rent. In reality, we're not there yet. But the bet from crypto firms is clear: one day, we'll all use digital dollars instead of paper ones. That's what's driving today's gold rush. The question is: Are people getting ahead of themselves? Much of the current hype centers on DeFi, short for decentralized finance. Think of it as an attempt to rebuild Wall Street without the banks. Instead of a bank approving your loan or handling your trades, code does it. No middlemen, no gatekeepers. Sounds revolutionary, but so far, it's mostly been a playground for speculators and tech geeks. Then there are the Bitcoin treasury companies. These are regular businesses that are loading up their balance sheets with Bitcoin instead of dollars, euros, or gold. MicroStrategy is the poster child, spending billions to buy Bitcoin and turning itself from a sleepy software company into a kind of crypto hedge fund. The idea is that Bitcoin will outpace inflation and fiat currencies over the long run. There's no clear answer. The numbers are dizzying. The hype is real. And yet, there's still so much uncertainty about whether crypto's grand promises will ever match reality. Even with a crypto-friendly president in the White House, the road to replacing cash or Wall Street is long. So, is this a bubble? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on who you ask.
