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“If we want to become a blockchain island, we don’t have to ask permission”
Four years ago, a tech start-up co-founded by Maltese entrepreneur Max Thake had just attracted €750,000 in investment and was looking to reach €5 million.
At the time, Thake spoke passionately about the start-up’s blockchain-based technology called “peaq” and said he and his colleagues were “looking to the future.”
The future is now, and judging by recent developments, the platform has continued to grow.
Peaq recently raised $35 million in two rounds of public and private funding and is now valued at about a third of a billion dollars.
Commenting on the meteoric rise of the technology, Thake, who lives as a digital nomad, said it is “crazy to see it grow so much”, but also added that it is “still only a fraction of what we imagine”.
Peaq is a technology for creating networks that connect users to crowd-sourced information and services by connecting and monetizing Internet-connected devices.
Thake and his colleagues believe that peaq will not just be a successful initiative; they also believe it has the potential to change the world by ushering in a new era of democratized, user-owned industries.
And judging by the latest round of funding, they’re not the only ones. So, what is the secret to their continued success?
“Resilience; we had to go to hell and back to make this a success,” said Thake, adding that he hoped peaq’s success could serve as an inspiration for young tech enthusiasts in Malta.
Stressing the importance of “vision, passion and adaptability”, the young entrepreneur said that he and his colleagues have learned how to “take the hits and make the necessary changes”.
But because blockchain technology—a decentralized, sequential list of encrypted records called “blocks” that can be used to store information such as financial transactions—is complex and likely still viewed with skepticism, how have family and friends reacted to his feat?
“Sometimes I was almost like, ‘Oh, that’s cute,’ especially in my 20s,” she said, but noted that as the technology became more widely known and startups grew, attitudes changed.
Asked if he had always been attracted to technology, Thake said his co-founder Leonard Dorlöchter was “the technology guy”, with his role “more about the creative side and setting the long-term vision for the agency…”
So, what is peaq?
Describing the technology behind the platform as the “next evolutionary step of the Internet,” Thake explained how peaq connects users and devices across vast networks that offer crowdsourced alternatives to enterprise-led solutions.
Such alternatives could offer services such as chauffeur-driven transportation, community 3D printing and freight delivery, provide traffic and pollution information, and even create crowd-sourced infrastructure such as WiFi and 5G networks, he said.
Peaq-powered networks offer information and services to users, putting the power – and money – back into the hands of those providing the service.
The more a user contributes to the network, the more they are rewarded in peaq tokens, which give the user more say in the development of the network and which can also be exchanged for regular currency, he explained.
Think cooperatives, but high-tech.
“In the past, the internet put power in the hands of a few, and today there is huge inequality in the world… but peaq doesn’t rely on Google or other big companies,” Thake said.
This technology means giving up power, giving it back to the people
Using ride-hailing as an example, the entrepreneur argued that a network offering a service like Uber would be able to do so more competitively by avoiding the fees charged by such platforms.
“The network will be able to undermine companies like Uber at a rate they can’t compete with, essentially using their own business model against them,” he said, noting that unlike existing platforms, drivers would make money by owning a portion of the network.
The old versus the new
“The long-term vision is to fuel the ‘economy of things,'” Thake said, referring to an economic model in which devices connected to the Internet, the so-called “internet of things”, including e.g. health monitoring and charging stations, generate cryptocurrency while providing data to others.
Emphasizing that peaq focuses on providing “real-life solutions”, Thake pointed to an app called Silencio, which monitors background noise and combines it with readings from other users to help people make informed decisions about where to live or go on holiday.
As the app collects data, the user is rewarded with tokens that can then be traded or sold similar to shares of a traditional company.
So, what differentiates Peaq from a traditional company?
“This technology is about giving up power and giving it back to the people,” Thake said, in contrast to established models in which, as a company grows, a controlling minority continues to wield the majority of influence.
Controversies
Despite the promise of blockchain technology, and in particular cryptocurrencies, an offshoot of blockchain, the tech world has been rocked by a series of high-profile scandals involving the technology in recent years.
In March, disgraced former cryptocurrency genius Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $11 billion in damages after being found guilty of defrauding investors.
Are they worried, Thake?
“It’s annoying; every time this kind of thing happens, we think, ‘here we go again,'” he said, but stressed that he was confident that despite the short-term damage, such scandals “won’t sink the industry.” , while cautioning against blindly investing in new technologies.
And while Malta’s forays into blockchain haven’t always gone well – its infamous “blockchain island” marketing campaign was derided as a flop after failing to attract tech startups – Thake doesn’t think a government-led approach is the right one and instead advocates a crowd-led embrace of crowdsourced technology.
If we want to become a blockchain island, we don’t have to ask permission.”
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