Making Crypto Practical From Real Estate to Web3 with Rosario Parlanti and Donna Mitchell

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Pivoting the Web three and we have Rosario Parlante and he is in this space that I haven't had much to talk about, Blockchain, Phelan Network. And he's probably going to dabble a little bit into the crypto space, maybe talk about a little AI, but at the end of the day he's got a lot of experience. I was intrigued with his bio. And Rosario, say hello to your audience in ours and tell us who you are and how you got where you are.

Rosario Parlante [00:00:31]:
Hello. Hello, hello. Thank you, Donna, for inviting me to your podcast. I'm actually a real estate attorney. I've been practicing for 10 years and got involved with both Crypto Web 3 and now AI agents in the past five, six years. I'm in the process of doing a pivot to a full time with my role with my company called Fila Network and I'll discuss it in a bit as well. So my experience is quite broad from real estate law to real estate development as well. I also did run a small startup called Third Earth that was in the web3space as well.

Rosario Parlante [00:01:12]:
And now I'm glad to discuss what's going on with Blockchain and crypto.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:01:19]:
So with that said, with the blockchain influences, they're not really fully adapted in the marketplace right now. They're kind of still in the future, but it's coming into the mainstream. How does that impact society with where we are today with Phala Network? I'm really curious about that.

Rosario Parlante [00:01:41]:
Sure, it's a good question. And just so you users, your listeners understand, anytime you interact with the Internet right now there's these things and I'm sure you've users heard them, they're data centers, they're humongous buildings built by Amazon, Microsoft and whatnot. And that's pretty much how the Internet is run in these huge data centers. And they're actually becoming more and more in the news as you see these AI companies build or partner up with these companies and build like billion dollar data centers. So that poses a problem, right? They take billions of dollars of money and infrastructure and also control the companies that run the data center, run the Internet and thus control, control what you can see, what websites you could log on, who you could communicate with or whatnot. So File Network is based on decentralizing that infrastructure and really taking that control away from mega corporations. So if me and you want to communicate, we could actually run, you know, our Zoom call through Phala Network, or if we have AI agents or if we have some Compute that we need to be outsourced that our local computers can't run. We could actually outsource that to file network.

Rosario Parlante [00:03:07]:
And what is filet network? It's regular people that have extra computers, they run it on, on the side. And in exchange from them running the compute, they get paid on, on this token, this vala token. So they benefit by contributing the compute to the network. And users that want access that compute pay in, in the token. So it's actually a legitimate use case for crypto, where people have have a resource, they want to get compensated, and by tokenizing the compute, they get compensated. And it's very interesting. And they've been doing it for the past five years and they're actually seeing success currently, especially with the AI agents coming on board.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:03:58]:
So before we move into the AI agents when they're doing this, is that similar to mining?

Rosario Parlante [00:04:04]:
Yes, yes, great question. So just like Bitcoin, where there's miners that contribute to the network, fallout miners, and they actually call them miners, contribute to compute. So the main difference, Donna, is Bitcoin miners actually don't really contribute anything useful. Right. They just hash an algorithm. Right. And so it's almost like a waste of electricity. Right.

Rosario Parlante [00:04:32]:
It really supports just mining Bitcoin. However, whereas Phalan Network and other blockchains, we're actually providing usefulness, we're providing compute, which is a resource. And how do you match the resource to the user is with this whole ecosystem economics of tokenization and whatnot. So similar concept. We have the miners and the users with Bitcoin. We have the same with File Network.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:05:02]:
So what is compute? What is that? Actually, it's in layman. In layman's terms, sure.

Rosario Parlante [00:05:09]:
I'm trying to think in layman's terms. So when you turn on your computer, right, that buzzing and the noise and slowly starts booting, that's all compute, right. The software runs on the hardware and all the noises you hear is the hardware physically calculating the O's and the zeros and the ones. So whatever program you're running on your computer is actually running. So you have the software layer and then the hardware layer. So when I say compute, I'm talking about the hardware layer. And any program, any software you, you need to be run, you could run it on your local computer or laptop, or you could run it on the cloud. But the underlying infrastructure, the compute, is the hardware portion.

Rosario Parlante [00:05:53]:
So like a CPU or now they have GPUs or ASICs. But just think of as a regular computer, the actual microchip in your computer does the calculations. That's the compute.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:06:05]:
Okay, yeah, that's a good description. Thank you. So when the age when the AI agents come in and you have the fallen network, you have the crypto. I never really thought about crypto and I, I always knew blockchain and AI would intersect and different industries in different ways. Can you help us understand how the crypto piece kind of intersects with the AI and how all that is beneficial to society? Because there's a lot of confusion right now. Can you help us understand that?

Rosario Parlante [00:06:42]:
Sure, I'll do my best. So let's break that down a bit. So currently everyone has an AI app or a lot of people have these AI apps, Chat, GPT, Gemini, you know, from, from Google, various AI chats. And you ask the, the chat AI agent a question, you know, you know, give me what's something, you know, for dinner that it can make with these ingredients or, or whatnot and the AI agent or chat will give you an answer. So the current world we are with AI agents is more of a replacement of Google search, right? And you see Google search is decreasing significantly because the questions that people used to ask Google are now asking the AI agents on their app. So that's one serious implication that's currently happening where Google is losing its search dominance and these AI agents are taking those questions and just giving you an answers rather links. So the next level of, of AI agents and, and one of my favorite ones is, is called AI. It's, they actually accomplish tasks for you, right? So I would upload a PDF and, and, and, and a few of them do it.

Rosario Parlante [00:08:06]:
Let's say I, I would open, upload a PDF. I asked, you know, the AI, can you summarize this document or I'm interested in buying a condo in South Florida. Can you give me 10 condos, one bedrooms under 200,000. That's within a short walk from the beach. And the AI agent would actually go to the Internet, to the web and search what you're looking for. And that's very resource intensive and why not? And right now there's a lot of feedback. It would ask you, okay, you know, do you have a cap on maintenance fees? You know, there's, there's a lot of back and forth going. So that's the next level of these AI agents where they would actually go into the real world and the real world, meaning the Internet at this point and, and accomplish specific, specific tasks for you.

Rosario Parlante [00:08:56]:
So rather than you scroll on Zillow or these other real estate websites, you have these AI agents that scroll for you and just give you the results when they're done. So that's where we're going with the AI agents. Now how crypto intersects that with that is the first, I guess wave concerns trading more on the finance side where you can have an AI agent say, you know, I, I want you to trade on these various exchanges and, and make a profit for me. And they would do that on their own, you know, based on your parameters and kind of use AI as like a payment way, a payment guardrail. Because anyone that uses the Internet, eventually they're going to come across, you know, payments, either credit cards or whatnot. So the trend is for AI agents to not have your credit card, but to have crypto stable coins and be able to use that in the Internet to accomplish your tasks, if that makes any sense.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:10:10]:
Yeah, it does. Seems like everything is just changing so quickly, but very effectively as well if you know how to utilize and what you're looking for. So if failing network, where in failing network does the tomorrow's technologies move the needle forward for failure in the future?

Rosario Parlante [00:10:33]:
Sure. So as these, So I guess, let me, let me take a step back. The biggest issue with these AI agents that are going all over the Internet and accomplishing your tasks is the fact that they're your agents and not you. You lose a certain control, right. As like if you have an employee, right? So let's say you send your employee to go and hire a new secretary, right? You, you have this agent that's working on your behalf and you're assuming that she's, she or he's going to abide by the law and certain guide rails, but there's always a risk that that person won't. So these cloud compute computer systems, the Amazon AWS and whatnot, are very hesitant to let these AI agents run amok because they're not confident that they're going to comply with the law and all these rules and regulations in particular on the finance side. But as they evolve, they want to kind of pigeonhole them and limit what they can do. So by decentralizing that infrastructure, you as an AI agent creator can avoid those guardrails and say, yes, you know, I want my AI agent to be as powerful as, you know, as possible.

Rosario Parlante [00:12:02]:
I'm going to use a decentralized platform so I don't have to be wary of all these local jurisdictions and rules. It's one decentralized platform that could accomplish the task. Because rules in Canada might be different from rules in America might be different rules. So It's a way to international, internationalize the infrastructure because like I said, it's every jurisdiction has its different rules. So that's how File Network is positioning itself as a decentralized infrastructure for these AI agents that abide by a certain rule set, you know, and you don't have to follow each local jurisdiction.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:12:45]:
So from a governance standpoint it sounds like, or geographic standpoint, the boundaries are invisible.

Rosario Parlante [00:12:54]:
Yes, that, that is the goal is to not limited to local jurisdictions and really have one international rule set because you know, obvious now we're kind of leaning into politics. So you know, currently we can lean.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:13:15]:
Back out if we want.

Rosario Parlante [00:13:16]:
No, no, I'm fine. You know, you know, so, so let me touch on this subject. So there, there's in the news, there's Canada and, and Europe coming with laws about certain speech and disinformation. Right. So my definition of disinformation might be different than yours or different from Canada's or, or different from European. So if you create an AI agent that's on X or social media, how do you know that your AI agent is going to be complying with all these laws? Right. And the cloud providers want to make sure that you're complying with these laws and there's you know, certain restrictions and certain legalities that you as an AI agent creator want to be careful with. And actually that's another side project I'm working on is almost like creating LLCs or trusts for these AI agents.

Rosario Parlante [00:14:09]:
Just so the AI agent creator kind of removes themselves from liability from their creations.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:14:17]:
Oh, I didn't know that.

Rosario Parlante [00:14:18]:
Yeah, there's, there's a whole legal aspect. Right. And again, just as you have, you're an employer and you have employees, employee could get you in trouble, you know, if they break a law and you know, even though you haven't done anything, you know, they just driving a company vehicle and get into an accident, you know, there's certain liability as an employer based on their employees actions. You kind of have to extrapolate that to AI agent creators. If you create an AI agent and you let them loose into the world, the actions of that AI agent is going to go to your responsibility. So how do you reduce your liability? And that's where I'm actually working on as a side project is this whole legal infrastructure as well, which is actually quite interesting.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:15:06]:
So that's really going to fall into like your risk mitigation and minimizing your liability and your asset protection and it's going to move into that. But then that's going to expand that with the new emerging technologies. So then those laws in time will change or modify and the governance will change and modify. So then at that point, although it may appear to be invisible, there is really the, the actuality or reality that say, just like you have the GDPR for certain compliances and information in Europe, but you may not have it over in certain other countries or states, then how do you manage that? Is that where we're going?

Rosario Parlante [00:15:46]:
Yes. I mean, that, that's going to be levels. So if, if you're a company, Right. You want to make sure you comply with all these jurisdictions. Right. So how do you incorporate those jurisdictions? You have to bake it into the air agent, you know, with specific instructions saying comply with all local rules and regulations and make sure that they have the access to those laws. But the ethos of crypto in general, same thing with bitcoin, is kind of elevating yourself above the rules and regulations. Right.

Rosario Parlante [00:16:25]:
Initially, bitcoin was if want to send you money, I don't have a third party to verify that. I don't need to go to a bank to send you money. It's between me and you. You know, it kind of, it's almost like a regulatory arbitrage. You know, it has now been incorporated into the system. But initially it was a way to go around the system. And, and that is, you know, to me, the ethos of crypto is personal freedom. You know, freedom to interact with whoever.

Rosario Parlante [00:16:54]:
Whoever you want to interact with, Communicate with whoever you want to communicate with. But there's, there's regulatory framework that's kind of boxing crypto in currently.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:17:05]:
Well, you really helped clear some things up in my mind. Those that are listening to me that are my audience consistently, I hope that really clears it up in your minds. So now that we're clear on what's really going on.

Rosario Parlante [00:17:24]:
This is my take. So.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:17:28]:
But I was kind of wondering about it. I missed that. I didn't know that was going on. But now that we kind of know what's going on. So at the end of the day, all seriousness, so when you're playing in that fintech space, I was attracted to doing the Web3 podcast because I really found value in the fact that there were populations underserved and not privileged that didn't have identity. If we don't have identity, you don't have banking, you don't have a lot in your world or your ecosystem. So I kind of got the crypto piece in that space. So in some ways, like everything you have the Good, the bad and the ugly.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:18:16]:
And you have some ways that you can play the game depending on the rules of the game and who's playing the game at the time. So that's kind of what's going on with the crypto. For people that don't understand or feel uncomfortable, some do and some don't. So I guess my question is, as we continue to move forward in the technology space and as we look at the world around us, do you think decentralization will continue to grow and make a positive impact?

Rosario Parlante [00:18:50]:
Yes. And I could describe how I use crypto as well and why I believe it's a positive impact. For example, I have certain software developers and I, I found them online and, and two of them work out of Ghana, Africa. Right. It's not easy to send money internationally using the banking system, you know.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:19:19]:
Right.

Rosario Parlante [00:19:19]:
If, if, you know, I, I could wire you money, you know, from, from New York to, you know, to where you're located, from Long island to Buffalo, you know, I might be able to wire money, you know, after a few days from, from me to Europe, but after a certain point my bank wants to know who am I wiring, why am I wiring? You know, and it doesn't financially make sense if I'm only wiring, you know, $300, it cost me $50 to send a wire, you know. So one use case that I use is payment, just paying employees, you know, wherever they located based on, you know, whatever token we agree on. You know, in this case it's Ethereum and he benefits, they benefit because they're gainfully employed, they're working in software. I benefit because I have, you know, access to good software developers no matter where they located. And that is to me one great benefit that crypto is bringing to society. It's a combination of remote working, using the software stack as we communicate online. We don't have to be physically in the same office, we don't have to be physically in the same room. We extrapolate that now we can have employees throughout the world.

Rosario Parlante [00:20:36]:
As long as they produce good work, they get paid. Doesn't have to be in their native currency, it could be in Bitcoin, these quote unquote international currencies. And to me that's the best use case for crypto. And, and that's how I see the society benefiting the most, is kind of international currency that we all could agree on outside the regular banking system that, that is slow, expensive and over regulated where you're not doing anything nefarious, you just want to send money from one person to the other and it's just a direct way of doing it. So I see that as the best use case for society benefit.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:21:22]:
So who is your customer? If someone's listening out there, who would you want contacting you or connecting with failing network? Who's your ideal customer? Who do you work with?

Rosario Parlante [00:21:32]:
So our customers are right currently startups that are on the AI agent space. So if you have an idea of an AI agent and for example one of our clients is creating an AI agent that gives psychological help counseling. You know, it's almost like someone that comforts you so like another chat app and really fine tuned by professionals to, to help people that you know, maybe they're feeling down or you know, and whatnot and just want certain responses from, from, from the agent and they just, it's easy to onboard, you know, it's almost, it's actually easier to onboard than Amazon or, or Google. We created a software stack that you know, with probably like five clicks of a button you could get your AI agent running and then it's your job to promote it, to run it, you know, advertise it and, and whatnot. So it's, it's geared towards startups and, and users right now that, that are experimenting with AI agents but really any company that needs infrastructure in a cost effective way.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:22:50]:
What concerns you right now from what you have observed or experienced or based on your knowledge base, which would be different from some of us who haven't really been in the environment and know as much. I usually ask guests what is the good bad or ugly or what raises your eyebrows or keep you up at night? What concerns you or what is your magic? Where's your, where's your magic horizon? Your wish list?

Rosario Parlante [00:23:27]:
I guess my biggest concerns with, with crypto and the, the blockchain space is almost, it has this bad reputation as a get rich scheme where people oh, he bought Bitcoin when it was a hundred dollars and now they're, they're, you know, maybe take a step back and not see it as, as a speculation but almost as like a legitimate way to fundraise, you know, fundraise legitimate projects. And, and not every crypto company is you know, scandalous or scam. You know, these are legit, have raised funds using crypto, which is a technology.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:24:12]:
Which you were saying in regards to all companies are not scams.

Rosario Parlante [00:24:17]:
Yeah, all the web Companies in the Web3 space are not scams. There's definitely a few of them that are legitimate. And you know, my goal is to. One of my goals is to educate people and say, you know, it's, it's. You have to do your due diligence, you have to do your research. And if you find a company that's, you know, creating value, yes, you could buy the token. It is a way to invest in these companies.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:24:46]:
So now that was interesting when you said value. You have some of these coins out here that they call pump and dump. And you have some of these coins out here that I don't know what they do. They may be connected to some software or something that's called utility. Right. There's no real utility for it. So is that a good way for somebody that's listening to be able to understand and tell the difference? If you were going to educate people and say, this is how you know if you got a decent company, not all the time, but your recommendation, how do you. What is your underwriting piece in your head that you say, now I ain't messing with that.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:25:22]:
And then, okay, I'll check it out.

Rosario Parlante [00:25:25]:
Sure. And the way I do it is. And you said the keyword utility. Did they have a product that I could use? Go to their website. What are they selling? Are they selling software? Are they selling a dream? Are they selling an idea? You know, if they have a physical program or software or a game or anything that, that you could actually use today, right now, that's a very positive signal. Unfortunately, a lot of these projects issue their token and not a product. And they promise a product in the future. I would avoid those and just focus on teams that have delivered and follows one company that has delivered and is continuing to deliver.

Rosario Parlante [00:26:18]:
But there's other companies out there. And then you kind of have to. After choosing a company or project, there's something called tokenomics. It's kind of how you determine how many tokens does the team have, how many tokens, you know, other users have. But that's a little bit more, you know, deeper involved. But the first step is, you know, does this company or startup have a product?

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:26:44]:
I really like the idea of what you're sharing in the crypto space because there's a lot of questions, there's a lot of concerns, a lot of confusion, and people aren't really sure. What is it that I haven't asked you that you'd like to share?

Rosario Parlante [00:27:04]:
What has benefited me is don't be afraid to experiment, right? Don't be afraid to go out of your comfort zone. Right. So now this web3 space, this crypto space, this AI agent space, it's almost out of everyone's comfort zone. Right. And you could ignore it and just focus on, you know, what you do day to day. But in order to, to evolve, to expand, you kind of have to get out of your comfort zone. So if you have an interest, educate yourself. Yes.

Rosario Parlante [00:27:42]:
But also, you know, if you see a rabbit hole or, or something that really catches your attention, you know, don't be afraid to go in, you know, to experiment. Sometimes even just putting, you know, $5 in and, and just keeping track of the token and, and, and, and kind of, you know, really follow the projects. If they have a telegram group or a discord group, you know, programs that you usually don't, you know, install on your computer, install it, follow them, you ask them questions. That's how you, I believe you. The best way to grow in this space is to follow your curiosity, see what calls you, and don't be afraid to experiment.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:28:23]:
Excellent advice. And how can they reach out to you? How do you, how can they connect?

Rosario Parlante [00:28:29]:
Sure. So I actually have. The best way is through my X account. My tagline is at DPIN Whale D E P I N Whale W H A L E. You can shoot me a dm you can follow me. And I usually post crypto related material, Web three, you know, AI agents, politics too, on occasion. But that is the best way to reach out to me.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:28:56]:
Okay, well, at the end of the day, it sounds like you've educated us in this crypto space failing network. What's going on in the future? How can it impact some societies overseas and probably here at home? And I like to thank you for your time. Rosario Palenti.

Rosario Parlante [00:29:13]:
Thank you, thank you, Donna.

Pivoting to Web3 Host [00:29:14]:
Thank you for having me and pivoting the Web3 podcast. Thank you all for listening and we're shaping them all together.