Blockchain, AI, and the World We're Building

Join us as we speak with Dr. Christina Yan Zhang, CEO of the Metaverse Institute and co-chair of the UN International Telecommunication Union's metaverse task group, about the real-world challenges and opportunities at the intersection of blockchain, AI, and global development. From AI-generated deepfakes threatening heads of state to the tokenization of national government debt, Christina paints a compelling and grounded picture of where blockchain technology can deliver genuine impact, and what's at stake if we get it wrong.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 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_02 0:26

In this episode of Let's Talk Cardano, we speak with Dr. Christina Yang Jung from the Metaverse Institute about how blockchain can help build a safer, more equitable digital future.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

Hi Christina.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Yeah?

SPEAKER_03 0:39

Really glad to have you here. I've just overheard a little bit of your stage appearance of your panel.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Really?

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Did it go good?

SPEAKER_01 0:47

I hope it's not too controversial. At least you guys are not falling asleep. That's the most important thing, right?

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Definitely not. With all your input and knowledge, how could one? Maybe to those who don't know you, who is Christina? Where are you here? What is your what are your current endeavors?

SPEAKER_01 1:08

So my name is Dr. Christina Yanjiang. I'm the CEO of the Metaverse Institute, based in the UK, and I also co-chaired the United Nations International Telecommunication Union task group, pre-standardization for the Cityverse. What that means is we're looking at the global landscape of innovation, all kinds of different frontier technology, whether it's AI, digital twin, web 3, Quantum, 5G, 6G, etc. How can we create people-centered, planet-friendly digital future to ensure we accelerate the attainment of the United Nations sustainable development goals?

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Quite a task. Incredible. And you are at the summit, at the Cardano Summit, under which of your many capacities?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

As the CEO of the Metaverse Institute, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:01

I mean, what uh do you do you have a project on Cardano?

SPEAKER_01 2:04

We don't yet because it's our first time to join the Cardano event. But uh we are very much looking forward to working with you guys. And I understand because I'm from a very academic background, and uh so I understand that you guys use very rigorous academic peer review structure to really ensure quality of the whole technology stack, which is very much in line with our rigorous approach, advising the United Nations, governments, investors, big corporates, non-for-profit organizations to identify the effective use case of different frontier technologies across industries and regions. So I feel there is a very strong alignment on the mission part, because we are really here to try to maximize the positive impact for all humanities.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

In what specific ways are you trying to use blockchain?

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Well, I think there are many different opportunities we can utilize. And if we you know link that back to the latest hot topic everyone's talking about, that's probably going to be artificial general intelligence. For that specific issue, I think the major challenge and opportunities for blockchain is really digital identity, which again I know the Cardano Foundation and associated organization has been really doing some amazing work, taking a global lead in the space. What I find particularly interesting is how we can use blockchain-related technology to address the massive issues about AI-generated deepfake. If I can give you some figures, that um since 2022, there are about half million AI-generated deepfake. But only three years after, in 2025, it's projected to reach more than 8 million deepfake generated by AI. So we're talking about more than 30 times increase in a very short time. And there is a very prominent case, unexpectedly experienced by Arab, which is a UK-based global engineering firm. And you probably heard that one of their Hong Kong-based employees had a video conference call with a group CFO and a group of other senior leaders based in the London office. And he followed the same kind of protocols, but the CFO instructed him to transfer 25 million US dollars funds to another bank account, which he did. But the issue is he was not talking to the real group CFO and other senior leaders in the London office. He was talking to the gangster using Deep Fake, generated a video conference call to really, you know, get him into sending money to a fake bank account, and he did. So I think we're going to have more issues like that worldwide. And how can we really ensure in an increasingly digitalized world, not only big corporations, government entities, but also every single one of us, 8 billion people in the world, will have their digital identity verified and protected in a way that will allow public trust on the whole massive AI revolutions moving forward. I think blockchain will be able to play a really crucial role moving forward. And I understand there are already lots of different applications developed in the space to make it work. And one of the areas I'm quite familiar with at the United Nations is actually through a colleague called Dino Dalacio, who is currently the deputy chief executive of the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund. So they manage about 95 billion US dollars pension across all the UN agencies, which is a lot of money. But the challenge they have experienced traditionally is they have more than 80,000 beneficiaries in 190 plus countries. It's very difficult to tell if they are still alive when they try to ask you for paying their pension on a regular basis. So what he was able to do very effectively is using a combination of blockchain technology combined with biometrics, combined with AI, as well as geophysical location information to allow really scalable solutions to verify all the people located in 190 plus country to see if they are still alive when they are playing for the pension. And he did that actually before, before the whole like generative AI deep fakes started to flourish. So he did that in 2021. And this system has now been implemented very effectively for all their beneficiaries. But what was even more remarkable is now this kind of technology is starting to be utilized to looking at how to address deepfake. So I think there is a lot of very clever and effective solutions utilizing blockchain technology to make our life a lot easier and better.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

I haven't heard about that cybersecurity incidents where deepfakes were used to do that. Fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Basically, said all the other ASEAN member states had made a donation to a major project. And here is a bank details and amount of contribution Thailand needs to make by XYZ deadline. She was very careful. She's looking at the bank account and the address, it was not from the country where the so-called head of state is located. So what she did, she actually asked her minister for ICT to look into this text message. Because, you know, for a lot of head of state, their communication, especially mobile phone, is specially protected by the Secret Service.

SPEAKER_03 9:01

Yeah, and recorded and everything.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Yeah, etc. And she got, you know, that message, which she doesn't believe is authentic. And then after verification by the relevant authority, it turned out to be that it's a deep fake voicemail. And then she talked about it in the public to raise awareness of how serious this could be. Because if you have the phone of a head of state being subject to deep fake related span, it can happen to every single one of us, which is terrifying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:38

I like that we're talking about the risks and downsides of all these new tech advancements right now. Because so far, and at the summit, everybody is super excited about AI and blockchain together. And we are too, but you are taking it from a different angle and trying to solve real cybersecurity issues that come up because of deepfakes, because of AI using blockchain. I suppose one of the solutions would be digital identity.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:10

Giving an agent or giving these agentic gen AIs some form of legal legal, it's maybe too much. Identity. Let's leave it at that. Are there other ways where blockchain can assist the process?

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Personally, what I see as the biggest opportunities blockchain as a technology offer to the world is goes beyond traditional traceabilities, verification, accountability, but more looking at how we can play a part to provide more liquidity to the world. So if I may give you some figures, according to the latest statistics from IMF, the global economy is currently valued at 105 trillion US dollars. But the national government debt is at 97 trillion US dollars as a result of all the government spending huge amounts of budget during the pandemic years to save people's lives as a result of emergency. So we are heavily in debt, about 92%. And at the same time, we are looking at all kinds of different infrastructure developments as a result of the global race towards artificial general intelligence. While in the United States, I think at this moment they're talking about the private sector trying to provide 400 billion US dollars in 2025. And of course, in other parts of the world, there is mega, mega number of investment goes into the whole race. But that's all under the same kind of context. The whole world is 92% in debt. You know, the current global GDP is about 3% on average. So how can we really have more liquidity provided to the world to address the national government debt, but also provide more investment into critically important infrastructure such as AI, quantum, digital twins, you know, telecommunication, 5G, 6G, et cetera, we need to figure out a way. What I find really exciting at this moment is the potential of tokenization of real world assets as well as tokenization of traditional financial assets coming together to provide that kind of liquidity for the world. So according to Standard Chartered Bank, they predicted that the tokenization-related economy will bring the world 30 trillion US dollars by 2034. So that's roughly about 30% of the global GDP, which is quite exciting. If we put that from a central bank's perspective, the world's largest central bank for central bank is called Bank for International Settlements. They're based in Switzerland. The beauty of this organization is the membership they represent covers 95% of the global GDP. What they have been doing since April 2024 is they have initiated a major project called Agora, where they have working with seven central banks, including Bank of England, South Korea, Japan, Mexico, and Bank for New York, etc., plus 41 private entities, for example, like MasterCard, Visa, Swift, HSBC, Centon Day, all the major financial institutions in the world. They are looking at the effectiveness of tokenization of central bank deposits such as CBDC together with commercial bank deposits, and they put them into a unified like a platform to create a public private partnership for instance cross-border settlements and payments. So we're talking about 95% of the global GDP looking at how to use tokenization to effectively support the efficiency of cross-border transactions and payments, which is quite significant. But then going back to what we had talked about before on national government debts, perhaps the most effective case study has been taking place in Africa in the past two years, especially in Ghana, in Nigeria, etc. What they have been doing is the national governments are partner with some leading blockchain company to look at tokenize national government debt. And then link that with the most crypto-friendly investor pool around the world to help them to attract new liquidity where they can use the money to address climate change in Africa or development needs of a specific, you know, sector? And so far, there has been some successful case study in that regard. And then my question is: since the whole world is 92% in debt, and we need to spend more on major physical and digital infrastructure around the whole artificial general intelligence, could we perhaps look at a similar opportunity to maybe encourage different national governments to look at tokenization of their debts and into more liquidities, attracting global investors who are very much crypto forward thinking to support their economic restructuring, development, job creation, I think there is a huge amount of opportunities for the Web3 global community to play. And also, of course, the latest development in the United States through the Genius Bill make the whole thing even more exciting to another layer. If you're looking at the latest announcements from the president of Nasdaq in the United States, in September, the president of Nasdaq made a major announcement that they are filing for approval from the US government to allow them to trade tokenized shares in addition to their existing share trading. And bear in mind, Nasdaq they have roughly about 11 billion shares trade per day, valued at more than 500 billion US dollars. If the world's most dynamic exchange is looking at formalized the tokenization of shares. They're moving towards Web3, moving towards tokenization. And hyperliquid and other, you know, like decentralized and the Web3 platform, they are working with traditional financial institutions and investors to go together. So we see a very strong convergence. And I can predict that in the next two to five years, this space is going to be more and more compliant for institutional investors to get involved at a scale and speed which we haven't seen previously, which is going to be tremendously exciting because we've been talking about mass adoption of Web3 for many, many years. And perhaps so far, the results is very encouraging, but maybe not at the same kind of scale we all have expected. But now we really have an opportunity to really use blockchain technology tokenization to address national government debt if we can produce more tangible outcomes and results in different parts of the world. I think we are really in a critical moment of time or history as a community to really demonstrate real-world utilities and impact at scale to really bring this technology for the benefits of all people and countries, which I think will be very encouraging.

SPEAKER_03 19:39

Wow. Thanks for painting the picture correctly. I've I feel as if in the past two, three, four years, maybe, maybe two years, that whole initial energy of blockchain is gonna change the world faded a little bit. And this year and also now with um with your perspectives, which are all true, I think that that initial excitement is reinstated again. And I and I really like that because I joined blockchain because of its potential to really make our lives better. And uh now we see that because it's getting legitimized everywhere. It's helping the death situation, it's helping to make processes more efficient. I love that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

I think we we need to have a very balanced like argument here because no technology can achieve mass adoption in a very short time. If you're looking at the latest development around AI, it's nothing new. AI as a technology, it started in 1956. So technically, we're already talking about technology which has been there for nearly 70 years. And because it always takes time for different industries to identify the effective use case and utilities that will incorporate seamlessly into their existing workflow. I mean, the whole AI revolution, it already died twice over the past 70 years. Each time we call it an AI bubble. You might remember during the 1980s and 1990s, each time it dies like seven years, we're founded into AI completely freeze by government because the expectation is too high.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

And everyone's thinking it's going to be like a panacea solving all of our problems, but it never worked like that. And that's why there is also, again, lots of people started talking about are we having another AI bubble and potentially a third AI winter, especially when the MIT report comes out in July this year and highlighting that 95% of genitive AI adoption at enterprise level hasn't achieved the kind of return for investment.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

Goutner hype cycle at the peak right now, or inflated expectations phase. And there is a time for every technology to shine. And the same has been observable in the electric car space, or even blockchains, or or digital currencies were a topic, a big topic in the 80s as well. But the pieces that needed to surround those new technologies to really make it shine hasn't been in place. There was no internet in the 80s to make digital assets really a thing. There was no decentralization, no solution to the double spam problem in the 90s either. And all those companies that popped up trying to digitize cash and make internet money a reality just went bust. So I fully agree that there could easily be yet another AI winter. But in my mind, the surrounding environment that we have in the current AI summer is a detrimental difference to what we have seen in the 80s and then and before that when the when the winters came. I believe AI is here at a perfect time to stick.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Well, I agree, but at the same time, we need to realize that another thing we shouldn't forget about is how we address the global digital divide, right? Whether it's AI or blockchain or other kind of frontier technology, they are all based on electricity. But currently, the world is suffering from major energy poverty. Well that means, according to the World Bank, about 1.2 billion people, they don't have access to electricity or less than four hours of electricity per day. A large number of them are in the global south, especially in Africa, where we see a massive electricity demand by AI and other technologies, right? You probably see the latest report from the United Nations highlighting that the electricity consumption by the world in 2025 is going to doubling by 2030. And that will be the same kind of equivalent to Japan's annual electricity consumption now, which is already number five in the world. So we're talking about the AI electricity and other kinds of technologies, electricity consumption will be more than 190 plus countries in the world, which is quite significant. So we don't want to have a situation where our people are struggling to have access to the electricity. But at the same time, you know, some countries are raising ahead to adopting AI blockchain. We need to ensure no one is left behind. That's very important.

SPEAKER_03 24:49

That's one of the big reasons why China is building 30 nuclear reactors right now, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:54

I think everyone is trying to build the nuclear reactors. I mean, if you're looking at the COP28, there is, you know, public core, basically 20 plus countries in the world. They're planning to triple their nuclear power capacity by 2050. And that's mainly as a result of the AI demands. We have to get it done. But the issue traditionally is no one wants to have a nuclear power station in their backyard because they're worried in case there is an earthquake or tsunami. What if, you know, there is a melting down of the nuclear reactor? And now we are all going to be suffering from radiation, which is not terribly good. But that's why I think the latest development in China, where they have the first commercial version of the nuclear source power plants, is quite powerful because they use melted sorts to basically ensure the coal have zero chance of melting down. So I think that provides a very effective solution, not only for China, but for pretty much the rest of the world. We can build all kinds of effective and carbon emission-free, you know, electricity to support AI, blockchain, and all the other technologies at scale to ensure we are not going to be barbecued as a result of climate change and bear in mind in your habitat. Now they even have a dedicated position called chief heat officer.

SPEAKER_03 26:29

That's a good position to have.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Yeah, it's called a chief heat officer. And I know you're from Austria. And my impression about people in Austria, you guys like barbecue in the summertime because it's so pleasant, right? You can have a variety of different delicious meats being properly, you know, cooked. But imagine in the future, as a result, we are chasing the technology in a way we forgot about, we need to have a sustainable environment around us. Or else, when we become the delicious meat, only, you know, like uh fire. It's not really good for any of us. That's not the kind of future we want to go into, right?

SPEAKER_03 27:10

Christina, can we please meet again and talk for three hours? I think 30 minutes is not enough to pick your brain and share all your thoughts and go all the all down all the rabbit holes so we could go to. I have to cut it short, unfortunately, today.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

That's fine. I think there are lots of effective solutions we can make things work because we are very clever species, and you know, we can work together and identify the most effective solution to ensure in the end everyone's happy, healthy, and uh drop down. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:45

Beautiful closing words. Thank you so much for opening up your brain.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

You're welcome. Looking forward to see you again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Likewise.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Thank you so much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Thank you for joining us on Let's Talk Cardano. For more insights and deep dives into the world of blockchain. Don't forget to subscribe and reach us at CardanoFoundation.org, where you'll find extra resources and content on all things blockchain. Leave us a review wherever you enjoy podcasts. Follow us on social media, and stay tuned for more coming soon.