Giving Bikes a Digital Identity on Cardano

Join us as we speak with Bartek Czerwinski, COO of Bike ID, about how his company is assigning blockchain-based digital identities to bicycles worldwide. This episode explores how NFC tagging and on-chain registration support proof of ownership, theft deterrence, and service history. We also discuss how these tools are helping manufacturers and retailers move toward new business models and recurring revenues across the cycling industry.

Disclaimer: These podcasts are produced by the Cardano Foundation. The views expressed in these podcasts are solely those of the participants and do not represent the opinions of the Cardano Foundation. These podcasts are for informational purposes only, and are not intended to provide legal, tax, financial, or investment advice. Listeners should consult their own advisors before making these types of decisions. The Cardano Foundation does not guarantee or make any warranties as to the accuracy, timeliness, or suitability of the information in these podcasts. The Cardano Foundation has no responsibility or liability for: any claim attributable to errors, omissions, or other inaccuracies in these podcasts; or for any decision, other acts or omissions made in connection with your use of the information presented in these podcasts. Unless stated otherwise, reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by the Cardano Foundation or by the participants in these podcasts.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Let's Talk Cardano, presented by the Cardano Foundation. In each episode, we delve deep into the transformative world of blockchain technology. Join us as we explore how blockchain is reshaping industries from finance to supply chain and talk with some of the key pioneers at the forefront of this revolution. All right here on Let's Talk Cardano.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

In this episode of Let's Talk Cardano, we speak with Fartec Szerinski about how Bike ID is giving bicycles a blockchain-based digital identity to transform the cycling industry.

SPEAKER_04 0:37

So welcome to Let's Talk Cardano. Yeah, nice to be here. Yeah, it's great to have you here in Zurich in the Cardano Foundation office with us.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

Finally, yeah, it's so cool here. Such a great office, and uh you feel the energy here.

SPEAKER_04 0:48

So great to be here. Yeah. So I guess we can start with a brief introduction. You can introduce yourself, Bartek, and Bike ID.

SPEAKER_03 0:56

So my name is Bartek Czervinsky, I'm the COO of uh of Bike ID, and uh what we're doing is basically providing the identity, a digital identity to bicycles worldwide. So we're working with all sides of the cycling industry or for that matter, micromobility industry. Uh but by providing the the identity to consumers, to um uh manufacturers, uh as well as the retailers. Um so so we're kind of trying to encompass the entire value chain in the micromobility industry.

SPEAKER_04 1:31

That's great. And are you a cyclist yourself? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody is.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

I mean not that's as good the cyclist as our CEO, that's probably his why he is a CEO, Daniel. But yeah, everybody loves cycling.

SPEAKER_04 1:43

Right on. And so where exactly did this idea come from? Was there a specific moment when you realized that this should exist? Or I'm just curious about the origins.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

That's a great, good, great question. See, with any idea, that idea kind of evolves. You see one problem in the market, and then the more you get into this into this problem, you start finding bigger and more important problems, right? So to us, the first kind of thought was uh how we can actually prevent theft of the bicycles. Um because it's it's a huge problem. I mean, everybody had their bikes stolen. So that's how it all started. But then when we started talking to manufacturers, when we started talking to retailers, it became very uh obvious that the real value that we're bringing is to them because the cycling industry is struggling at the moment. There's very little margins, the cash flow is not great, uh, the companies are falling left, right, and center. You know, some big brands are disappearing from the market right now. So we believe that we by providing bike ID, which is uh a globally unique identification to an asset called bicycle, we can actually give them the opportunity to change their business models and for them to stop only selling bicycles, just pushing metal, sell it and forget it, and to move towards more of a service kind of business, uh recovering revenues. So if you know the asset, if you know the asset identity, you can sell with the bicycle, you can sell insurance, you can sell uh service plans, and more importantly, you put you're putting the customer on a kind of a lifeline. Uh so it's because it's retention on steroids.

SPEAKER_04 3:32

So you mentioned you've been interacting and engaging with manufacturers, retailers, also providing value for consumers. Um and so the bicycle industry is obviously massive globally, but maybe not the most tech forward. Um so I'm curious about what some of the reactions have been from those manufacturers and retailers that you've engaged with when you suggest, hey, we could actually put this on the blockchain, what what how do they react?

SPEAKER_03 3:59

Mixed reactions, for sure. You're talking to an industry that's struggling. There isn't much money around. And they need to figure out where to put their investments. They need to consider every every euro, every dollar, every Swiss franc that they are spending. So when we we come to them with this idea, uh obviously there is a bit of a okay, but why? Right? And then we're showing them numbers and the mind shift changes completely. Okay. Uh we found that our soft spot or the golden kind of customer would be retailers. Okay, because the retailers are now ruling the market because they're dictating the prices, they are they they they have the eyeballs of the customer. So the big retailers they like our product a lot because one, it provides them an opportunity to upsell it the counter. So, you know, they can by registering the bike, they they charge the customer for their for it. They're also selling at the same time their first kind of uh service visit or pre-selling their service plan or bundling insurance, bundling leasing, and so on and so forth. So that's an opportunity for them to make money. On the other hand, like I mentioned, retention is extremely potent. So if I'm a big retailer and I also have service facilities, I want the customers to come back and service their bikes with me. Because it's proven that if it's proven in the car industry, but it's also gonna work in uh in cycling that if you are servicing your car at a certain dealership, the likelihood of you buying your next car from that dealership is 60% higher than if you're not. And there is a there's a very clear parallel. You know, I spent 20 years in in car industry, in automotive. And I've seen what works, I've seen the mechanisms and processes that work in the in the car industry, and uh together with Daniel, we're trying to apply this now, uh, these learnings to the cycling industry. Obviously, it's not one-to-one, but some key points can be brought up brought across. But for that, you need a unique identity. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:17

And so is it the retailer specifically who's putting the identity on chain, or is it the consumer's responsibility to do that? Just kind of walk me through the actual process here. Let's say I go and buy a bike.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

Okay. There are three scenarios. Okay. Scenario one is you're a manufacturer. We give you, we give you the tags, and when the when you create the bicycle frame, you put a tag onto the frame, it's covered by the the last kind of uh uh paint uh on the bicycle, and then as the bike goes through the production line, warehousing, um distribution, retail, and so on, it already has an identity. So that's the simplest kind of situation. Uh the second one would be when the retailer does it. So it can be done in two places. One place is when it comes to the warehouse, they can apply uh the tax to every single bicycle, but also uh they can sell the bike ID at the counter, which works pretty well because they can have a markup on this, uh, and they can it's a talking point to the customer. Let me register your bike, let's but let's just pick services that you want, and so on and so forth. It's a very good scenario for the retailer. And there's the third option, third option when the customer already has a bike and just goes online and purchases the uh the bike ID kit from us and uh and just registers it uh themselves. And at any point when the bicycle is registered, uh we create like the bike bike ID, but proof of proof of bike. Yeah, as we call it. Proof of bike and proof of ownership, right? Proof of bike is the is a separate thing from proof of ownership. Proof of ownership is always created by the customer. Okay. Uh that's when they are creating an account and kind of saying, okay, this bike is mine. Yeah. Yeah. So then they upload their proof of purchase, invoice or whatnot, receipt. And that's when the whole magic happens, making my bike mine.

SPEAKER_05 8:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

And then when when let's say I want to sell it in three years to you, okay, all you all we have to do is exchange text messages. So I initiate, I initiate this the sale of a bike inside of an app, of our app, then you get a text message, and then you start your process, I approve it, bike gone, sold. Interesting. That's how it should be, you know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:51

So so the bike's identity is almost independent and separate from the ownership, which can of course change lands. But the identity lives on its own.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

Absolutely. And then you have uh fleets, um, like you know, corporate fleets uh bicycles, or you have uh rentals, or I mean, then the ownership is is separate from the actual user. So that's also the case that's possible.

SPEAKER_04 9:15

Yeah. Yeah. So I actually just recently had a bike stolen a few weeks ago. It was like a beautiful 1950s Swiss-made bike, and my heart's still kind of broken. But I'm curious, so if my bike was registered on bike ID, how would it change my situation or the post-theft um circumstances?

SPEAKER_03 9:35

You know, bike theft uh in Europe is a massive problem. And the problem is that bike bicycles are stolen and God knows where they're going. They can be disassembled, they can be shipped across the border, very obvious, which is very often the case. So truckloads of bicycles are then shipped to other countries. Having a bike ID tag on your bike is a bit of a theft deterrent. They see that it's not as easy to sell uh a tagged bike than to sell a bike with no tag. And when you say tagged, is it like a physical sticker? Is it on there? It's a physical uh NFC or NFC and RFID tag on the uh on the bicycle. Yeah. Uh so it's and we we make it visible. We ask the customers to put put the tag uh very close to the to the frame head uh to to make sure that it's visible.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

Yeah. So that's a deterrent. But then also we have some mechanisms built in. So, first of all, once your bicycle gets stolen, all you have to do is to, in the app, is to press a little red button, a big red button, say my bike was stolen. What happens then is that we send an email to the nearest police station. And uh it's a fun fact because you know, in in Europe, the police is so behind in technology. Normally we would have to ping their API or whatnot. I mean, in an ideal world, right now, all we have is email. But an email that that they have to act upon by law. So we're sending an email with okay, this bike was stolen, this is how it looked like, this is a picture of the bike, uh, these are this is the proof of ownership for this person, and so on and so forth. So they get the get the email immediately. Now, this is not a legal theft report in kind of European law standards. Um, in Europe, you have to then after that go to the police station and confirm it, but it starts the process, so it's easier to recover the bike. Also, when this first thing happens, you know, when you know they have a truckload of bikes and they stop the truck and they see that the bikes were probably stolen, they can easily track your bike to you. Because you know, they have that in their database, they have that in bike ID, so it's easier to find the the the owner, the rightful owner. Now, mind you, in Netherlands last year uh there was a research done, 700,000 bicycles were stolen, but only around 8% of them were recovered. 8%. Eight. It's nothing. Nothing. That's absolutely nothing. And we we are sure that if the police were able to identify the rightful owner of the bicycle they found, that would have risen to 20, 30% easy. So there is a it's I'm I'm saying it's a bit of an effect of bike ID effect of on on not stopping, it's not a miracle that would stop the thieves because you know it's a very creative uh job by nature, but it would slow it down and deter some of the casual thefts for sure.

SPEAKER_04 12:49

Yeah, absolutely. And also provide ways for the police or whoever to see who the actual owners of the bike are. That's right. Now, mind you, the little sticker is not the identity. Okay? It's uh it just connects it to the on-chain identity or to the bike cloud, which is then registering on-chain. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

Uh, but uh yeah, it's just an interface. The little sticker is just an interface. That's why NFC, the same technology that you're using to pay in the store. Yeah. Uh you just tap the you just tap the tag, and uh that's how you can access all the services linked to it. Yeah. Yeah. So let's say a thief removes the sticker, what happens? It's just like as if I stole your ID, your your passport. You are still you. You're still Jake, right? Because you have your your fingerprints, you have your retina, and so on and so forth. Similarly, we have the component numbers. So we have the frame number, we have the fork number, we have the engine, the battery, and so on and so forth. So that constitutes the bike. Yeah. Not only the sticker itself.

SPEAKER_04 13:56

And so when someone goes and scans, so I assume that anyone can scan one of these bike tags. So let's say I see a bike on the street and I see it has a bike ID sticker on it. So I can go up with my phone, MFC, scan it, and then what data is shown to me? Is it shown like who the owner is, the maybe this some supply chain data, who the previous owners were? No.

SPEAKER_03 14:17

Uh we are very focused on privacy. So that would be a big no-no.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:24

Uh what we're showing, if you're scanning a bike that's just standing there, it would just tell you that this is a specialized uh with this type of uh frame and so on. That's the basic information of a bicycle. Uh, but it's also showing the theft status. If it was stolen, it would it the red button would also pop up there.

SPEAKER_04 14:49

Okay. Yeah. And so then how would the police be able to actually see the important information about who owns it?

SPEAKER_03 14:55

The police have a different access. Yeah. The police have different access. Uh, same with the with the retailers, for instance, and and mechanics, they have different types of type of access. They can see, for example, the bicycle history. Yeah. Because one of the things that's very important to us is not that the bicycle or an asset that you have, like a car or whatever. Like if I was was wanted to sell you a Volkswagen Passat 2019, okay, 2.0 diesel, okay, but I didn't have service history. Would you buy it from me? No, I need to see all the service history and all the details of previous owners and everything. Exactly. So same story with the bicycles. We're building that history. So every time you go to the shop, you get you get the your service done. Yeah. That's recorded. Exactly. That's recorded. And then when you're selling the bike, obviously the bicycle value is higher. And yeah. So that's in a nutshell, is what we're doing. Yeah, what we try to what we're trying to build.

SPEAKER_04 15:53

So it sounds like even beyond theft, there's many use cases for bike ID.

SPEAKER_03 15:58

Of course, yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah. And we we are mostly focused on those on those aspects of bike ID where we can actually bring money to the to the to the customer, to client, being it a retailer, a manufacturer, or just a brand.

SPEAKER_04 16:12

Yeah. And so tell me about some of the um partnerships that you have live right now.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

Oh, we that's again, same spectrum. So we have uh quite a bunch of manufacturers already on board. Uh we have some big ones. Like for instance, you know, the Polish Romat is one of the biggest ones. Uh with uh half a billion bicycles produced every year. Half a million, a billion would be great. Half a million bicycles produced every yeah. Uh we have the the largest Czech manufacturer, uh superior, uh and a whole lot of different smaller manufacturers on board already. And right now we we're signing one or two every month at the moment. So that's going pretty well. But like I said, we our biggest focus right now is to work with the retailers, especially those big chain retailers. So, case in Poland, because that's the closest to our heart. We have three largest retail chains already on board.

SPEAKER_04 17:15

And is it expensive for them to tag them?

SPEAKER_03 17:18

No. A few euros.

SPEAKER_04 17:20

A few euros. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

Nice, and I guess the benefit from that is huge. Benefit is huge. The upside to them, I mean, their ROI is in hundreds of percent. Yeah. So to them it's a no-brainer. Uh to us it's also a no-brainer. Obviously, we we are making also on the on the mathematics of uh of margins. Yeah. So yeah. Because we're coupling, actually, we we're coupling something very simple, which is a tag. We made the tag actually quite sophisticated by you know thinning out the edges, but making it very durable so that it works on the metal. Hard to peel. Exactly, exactly. But it's still a simple thing, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So we took this, we made it an interface, and we built the ecosystem behind it. So the value really is in bike ID, not in the tag. You get the point? So that's how we how we scale in the business, and it's good to us.

SPEAKER_04 18:18

Great. And so you're obviously building on Cardano, and so I'm a bit curious about what led you to choose Cardano as as the blockchain to build on. I mean, there's plenty of options out there, you could have chosen anyone, but you decided on Cardano. Why? Us with anything.

SPEAKER_03 18:36

This story has layers. So layer one was okay. We don't want anybody to point a finger at us and say, okay, uh how are you sure that the the data that you are holding is legit? Who are you? You know? So we're like, okay, we need a trustless environment. We need the system to actually provide the trust layer. Okay? So if you want that, then probably we need blockchain. Okay? And then we looked at different blockchains and accidentally this there's there's no accidents in life. Uh we we found out about Cardano and we were like, dude, this is exactly what we need. This is the type of network that will allow us to scale, especially if we play around L2, L1, then the cost is not high at all, it's reliability. But with all the talk around DPP and the regulations, actually, DPP is a very interesting case because everybody, when they talk about DPP, they talk about imposed standards by the government and all this kind of a big butt government imposing stuff on you. But I'm more a proponent of a bottom-up approach where actually the DPP, if you think about it, is good for the business. So you decide what your DPP is. So if you are a cycling manufacturer, your DPP would be different than if you were a clothing manufacturer, and what matters to you as the business is different. Yeah, so that's how we are approaching. So our DPP is not your government-imposed DPP, it's whatever works for the cycling industry. All the events, all the service, all the components, the value chain, and so on kind of floods into that.

SPEAKER_04 20:30

Yeah, in terms of what's included in the DPP, in the in the passport.

SPEAKER_03 20:34

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. And then you have regulations like you know, battery passport, you have to report on the on the on the batteries that are that are in circulation when they when they go into recycling. You need to be able to report which bike it was attached to. Okay? If you don't have the bus, the the basic asset ID, the bicycle, you do not, you cannot really link the battery to the basic asset ID. So it's a bit of a mess, and we try to bring all of it to the mess, which is great. Amazing.

SPEAKER_04 21:07

Um, but back to Cardano. I'm curious, what was it specifically about the chain that that could provide you that other chains couldn't? Was it the decentralization, the scalability, the security?

SPEAKER_03 21:19

What what specifically attracted you to reliability, seriousness, serious people working around it, uh, great community with ideas, sometimes sometimes too many ideas, which made us completely confused in the first place. But great community, um, security and reliability, yeah, for sure, 100%. Because if we are the trust providers, we need to make sure that it has very solid legs. And Cardano is actually providing us with these solid legs. That's why we're working hand in hand with the Cardano Foundation to ensure that what we are building. Brings that level of trust that is required for this. Once something is there, it's there.

SPEAKER_04 22:08

And it will always be there. With an incredible community and ecosystem to back it up. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

Very good people. A lot of good people. A lot of good people. A lot of super smart people. Actually, when I was at the uh at the Berlin summit, Cardano Summit, I spoke to so many people who were so energized and with so many great ideas, great kind of ways of looking at things. I call it kind of a meta view. So you look at look at the problems from like a you know a higher vantage point. It's fantastic, absolutely fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 22:46

Yeah, I had the same feeling at the summit. It's actually where you and I met. Exactly. Yes, we did. Yes, we did. Yeah, we did at the at the Masumi party. That's right. That was good. That was a good time. And yeah, the community always blows me away.

SPEAKER_03 22:58

Thank you, Patrick, for the party.

SPEAKER_04 22:59

It was good. Thanks, Patrick. Let's talk a bit about real world assets. So I think Mike ID is a pretty good use case and example of real-world assets being brought on-chain. So what do you have to say about that and for your vision?

SPEAKER_03 23:15

Well, I think I think blockchain is basically the uh the ideal ecosystem, the other world where these types of real-world assets should be sitting. Bikes are one thing, but if you think about you know any kind of kitchen appliances, TVs, electronics, whatnot, uh, if you want warranty, if you want insurance, if you want, I mean, there's so many implications from the level of trust that the uh blockchain provides, you know. Uh to me is a no-brainer. To me, it's a no-brainer. And I believe that sooner or later we as the businesses are gonna get there for sure because it just makes sense. Like like think about in think about warranty. In order to process warranty, so many people need to touch the subject. Yeah. You go to shop, you're talking to a clerk, you're talking to another clerk, then they have to send it to the manufacturer, somebody has to approve it, and so on and so forth. It should be automated. Like seriously, it why it's not on-chain? Yeah, it should be a smart contract, right? Exactly. Exactly. And then you have recalls, another problem, you know, product recalls. The way they are managed right now, there's so much bureaucracy, so much paperology, and speaking plainly bullshit around it, that uh I believe this should be simplified. Should be simplified, and it will be for sure.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

Yeah, I think the blockchain is a pretty good way to simplify that process. But I hate the word uh real-world assets.

SPEAKER_03 25:03

Why is that? Because it's just assets. It's just assets. Simple. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:08

I guess it's just describing physical assets. Physical things. Yeah. Yeah. Blockchain of things.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 25:14

Exactly. Internet of things.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

Yeah, which is uh so if you have internet of things, you have internet of people. Yeah. And you have internet of things. Simple as that. And you have ID of people and you have ID of things. So that's how it works. Yeah. Digitalist. So the digital representation of the product.

SPEAKER_04 25:32

Exactly. And I think Bike ID's ID is doing a pretty cool job of representing that physical asset on chain. Exactly. And giving it a digital blockchain-based identity.

SPEAKER_03 25:43

Yeah, if you think about it, you what you have is first of all the digital representation of the thing itself. But then what happens is that, and that's it, that's the case, for example, in the cars where Vin is uh is analog. You can't write against Vin. You can't save any information against Vin. It just exists, right? It's etched into the frame. It's etched into the frame, it's just a number. Now with bike ID, you have that bin number, bike ID, right? Number, but then you can write against it. So let's say you create a leasing, so you can record that. You create insurance, you record that. You have any events or service, whatnot, you can record that against the platform, against the the the actual bike ID. Yeah. That's why we believe that's a huge game changer for the industry. Because we centralized the decentralization of services. Yeah. So it's quite simple.

SPEAKER_04 26:46

So if if something happens to the bike, for example, okay, I fell down and the bike is scratched, then I could go into the bicycle's identity and and write a little message on chain and just basically add to the identity. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_03 26:59

You just you can record, for example, you can take a picture of the scratch and you can upload it to your bike ID, and you have it. You you change your tires to different ones, you change the wheels, you change your I don't know, seats or uh brake pads, whatever. You can you record it, and you you can also upload your uh repair orders, the document itself. You take a picture of that and you upload it, and we scan it and uh we store this information on on the on the bike ID in in the bin cloud, yeah, which is then recorded in chain, the disadvantage.

SPEAKER_04 27:32

Yeah. And so back to that privacy discussion. So would it then be up to me to allow to decide who gets to see the bicycle information? If I say, okay, I want this bicycle's information to be public, and whoever I shared the bike identity with can see that whole history.

SPEAKER_03 27:50

We had this conversation before many times. Um, for example, you know, if you if you were if you're a world champion and you had your famous bike that you won the world championship on, maybe maybe it has a collector's value to show what happened to this bike. We're not there yet, but I believe that at some stage, yes. But for now, we are very strong on privacy, and that's what we focus on. So no sharing unless needed. So, for instance, if you were bringing the bicycle to a shop for service, that's when you release the access. Exactly. Obviously, the police has access to it, but uh but only when the bicycle gets stolen. Only when it's that red button is clicked. Exactly. Yeah. Before that, nah. Gotcha. Why?

SPEAKER_04 28:42

So it's basically on as needed basis. As needed basis. Yeah. But maybe in the future you open it, open it up to maybe a bit more control.

SPEAKER_03 28:51

Maybe that comes with an NFT.

SPEAKER_04 28:53

Yeah?

unknown 28:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:54

Like if you hold the NFT, you can see the bike's history.

SPEAKER_03 28:57

Exactly. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:58

That could be pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 29:00

Yeah, same story. I mean, we have so many ideas. Uh, so many great ideas. Uh we focused right now on delivering the value, delivering the basic platform. But the ideas are around. There's a lot of talk about DeFi, how you can actually decentralize financing, how you can decentralize leasing, how you can provide uh on-chain insurance that will have instant payouts when you when you destroy or get your bike stolen. Um or borrow against it. Exactly. But the enabler is the proof of bike, the bike ID. Yeah. So for anything like that to happen, you have to have this core identity. And that's that that's a that's uh be all end all to us. Yeah. So that's what we focus on right now.

SPEAKER_04 29:50

And I guess that was one of the key components that helped bike ID win the Battle of the Builders at the Cardano Summit last year. It was fun. I'm sure it was. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:59

We were so not expecting this. We stood with so many great companies in the lineup. I was just looking at Daniel and he was like, eh, no. So yeah. Us. So winning it was was huge to us, especially being in competition with all these great companies, you know, all these established companies who are already doing things that are very much in the Cardano world. We are outside of the Cardano world. We're coming into blockchain, we are coming into Cardano, we're bringing a traditional business really, you know, to Cardano. And uh this uh winning of this award was amazing to us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:45

Yeah, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_03 30:46

Completely unreal.

SPEAKER_04 30:47

And how has the how has bike ID evolved since then? I know it was only about what eight months ago. Um, but did did this moments uh change anything for bike ID? Nothing has changed.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. It's still 14-hour shifts. Yeah. No, it's you know, we have momentum. Uh we have we really have momentum right now. Uh this is obviously something that we like bringing up, you know, we're winners of the of the Cardano, uh, Cardano Summit uh Battle of Builders. It's amazing. It it allowed us to be seen by serious people for sure. Yeah. Yeah. But speaking of the 14-hour shifts, we're still on it. We're still on it. And we're still on the ball. Keep building. Keep building. We're not stopping. We we have we we have a plan for the next five years to cover entire Europe, and we will do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:45

And so I'm curious, you mentioned a bit earlier that you have this partnership where they're manufacturing 500,000 bikes a year, half a million bikes a year. Yeah. Um, and so are all those bikes being registered on onto Bike ID?

unknown 31:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 31:58

It's a partnership with Romance, right? Well, Romance is one of the manufacturers, yes. Yeah. Um, I believe that at the end of this year we should be closer to a million bikes registered on the on the platform.

SPEAKER_04 32:10

How many are registered right now?

SPEAKER_03 32:12

Something like 400,000. Wow. A little bit more. It's really hard to count because you know it's tax delivered, bicycle registered, so yeah, a little bit more than 400,000. But the dynamics are quite interesting because you start very small. When let's say, let's say Romet, right? Yeah. It took us I can't remember, but a long, long time to convince them to ensure that they are ready to change their business model, to be to ensure that they are ready to change the way they are manufacturing bicycles because it affects a lot. And it affects the if you if you think about value chain and how these big companies are actually doing things, if you come in with even the best product with that's disrupting to their current model, it is a cost. Yeah. Financial cost on one hand, but then even worse, behavioral cost. Yeah, the behavioral cost is huge. You have to teach your team that this is how we're doing things now, you know. So we always start with a pilot. We we take it take things easy for in the first place, yeah, and ensure that they are comfortable. So let's say we we take one line first, one production line. And uh or we we focus on one model production, or we start at the warehouse, not at the production facility, and so on and so forth. You know, with Romat, it was actually that we started in the retail shops because they have their own kind of retail chain. So they manufacture and sell. But uh but then we kind of went back and and and uh focused on production as well. So I believe that depending on you know, I keep saying that the only person that likes a change is a wet baby. Depending on the manufacturer's kind of readiness to put wheels in motion and and and make it happen, yeah, that's how it works. That's how it works. Sometimes it's easier, sometimes it's harder. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_04 34:23

So so far we've talked about the manufacturers, retailers, consumers. I'm curious on if there's any other entities or types of organizations that you'd like to bring in to the to the bike IDs mission that would maybe help insurers, for example.

SPEAKER_03 34:42

Of course, we we talk in fun fact is that this this weekend uh we are uh at an event called National Bike in Poland. This is on the National Stadium, huge event, and we actually placed between a bank and an insurance company. And uh fun fact is that we're talking to both of them to actually ensure that bike ID is is in in their products. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:07

So you want to involve the insurers as well in the process. What does success look like for bike ID? What's the big vision here?

SPEAKER_03 35:13

Well, the big vision is that we we want to be that the pivotal kind of point. We want to ensure that that bike it's a bit like a like a snowball effect. If you take a retailer, okay, your retailer says, okay, I'm gonna be selling uh bike ID kits at the at the counter. This has a knock-on effect because then what it what happens is okay, why don't we start at the distribution? And then okay, we have X amount of suppliers. We want a unified bike ID because we integrated that into our CRM and so on and so forth. So we so one retailer means that all of their suppliers are very likely to jump on on bike ID. So this is very important to us building that snowball effect, those those waves, ripples, if you may. And uh I think uh if we land, say, 20% of European market within the next five years, it would be huge to us. So we're already talking to various organizations how this how we could scale internally as well, how we could raise another round to scale it. Yeah uh we'll see how this house goes, but uh we are very very hopeful and uh super excited. And you know, working with you guys, working with Cardano Foundation so far has opened so many doors to us, has been a fantastic experience because we are not the only ones who are working on DPP. We have our take, obviously, and we have our problems, we have our different specificity of our market, but you know, Cardano is made for DPP, and we are a kind of DPP that actually makes sense for our industry. So working alongside other other companies who are in the DPP space is huge. So yeah, we'll see. I think uh it's gonna be a huge growth.

SPEAKER_04 37:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:14

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 37:15

And I'm sure it's um, I mean, it seems to me like you guys are on a great path, especially with the decathlon uh partnership recently. Surely you imagine a world where every bicycle is on bike ID, right?

SPEAKER_03 37:28

I don't imagine such world. I wish I could, but I know it's not not possible. However, I think the European market is great between the regulations, the struggles, the financial struggles for the manufacturers, the theft, insecurities in the market, the cost of ownership, and so on. I believe that we are at the right time, in the right place. And European market is great for us. And what we found out recently also is that the American market is very similar. Um super large retailers there. We'll see. We'll see how this goes. I'm gonna be in Miami uh in three weeks' time. Uh so I'll be talking from the stage about this probably.

SPEAKER_04 38:19

For consensus. Exactly. Nice. Yeah. And so for anyone listening out there, what do you if there's one thing that you want them to take away from this conversation or about bike ID, what would it be?

SPEAKER_03 38:32

We are bringing a very traditional industry on chain. We're trying to bridge the gap between the physical assets, very physical assets, and the digital world then can actually make these assets much more valuable, both as a as a product, so from that sell it and forget it to recurring revenues, but also to the consumer, where they can actually see the the history of the bicycle, the the resale value is much higher, and so on and so forth. So I believe uh that's that's very important to us, you know, making sure that we are bridging that gap between physical and digital.

SPEAKER_04 39:17

Yeah. And so for myself, let's say I want to register my bike on chain. How would I do that?

SPEAKER_03 39:23

You can go on our website, you can purchase a bike ID kit, and uh we'll ship it to you. Right on. And so what's what's in the kit? In the kit you have you have the sticker, the the uh NFC tag, and you have your proof of ownership card, which looks a bit like a credit card. So this is this one goes to your wallet or your drawer, and the the tag goes on to your frame frame of your bicycle, and then you register your bicycle just by tip tapping the tapping the tag and off you go.

SPEAKER_04 39:54

And and I assume when I sell the bike, which I never will because I love the bike, but if one day I sell it, I would also exchange that proof of ownership card. That means that would be just passed on physically. Very easily, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:08

Right on. Maybe I'll do that after this conversation. You should. Bikeid.org.

SPEAKER_03 40:14

Bikeid.org. Yeah, and uh where can people follow bike id? Well, the best way to follow us is on X. Uh bike ID number on X. Uh you can go to bikeid.org. Uh say hi. Uh yeah, we are we're very nice people to work with. Yeah. So and we're looking for at the moment, we're looking for developers, we're looking for partners.

SPEAKER_04 40:39

Well, I wish you guys all the best. It's been a real pleasure talking to you. Brilliant. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

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