Welcome to the Wild, Wild West

Welcome to the Wild, Wild West: A Conversation with Kyle Tut, Co-founder, BlockEra

The way he sees it, Kyle Tut is a prospector in the 21st century equivalent of the wild, wild west.

“Blockchain is like what the internet was in the early 90’s – this crazy thing not everyone really understood,” he says. “The future of blockchain is constantly changing, and most of it hasn’t even been written yet. It’s wild, wild west definitely.”

Kyle is co-founder of BlockEra, an Omaha-based startup devoted to creating, building and educating around revolutionary blockchain technology. He will be among those attending the Chamber’s Blockchain: Let’s Get Real symposium on May 4. No stranger to “coffee meetings” as he works to grow BlockEra and raise awareness about blockchain (“I’ll meet with anyone anywhere to talk about blockchain,” he says), we caught up with Kyle to talk emerging tech over chocolate lattes

Let’s start at the beginning – blockchain. It’s defined, on your website, as “a decentralized or distributed ledger that verifies transactions.” Can you break it down for us beyond that?

“People call it the ‘Internet of Money.’ It’s all about the movement of money and the movement of data with that money. At it’s very basic level, blockchain is like a database, except it’s immutable and verifiable, meaning that once the data is submitted to a blockchain, it can’t change (which increases data security), and everyone that is part of that blockchain network can verify the data is what it says it is (which helps prevent fraud).”

What initially intrigued you about blockchain technology?

“I bought Bitcoin (the first use case of blockchain) back in 2015. I put a little bit of money into it and decided I should probably figure out the underlying technology instead of just speculating on the prices. That led me to teach myself about blockchain technology and follow thought-leaders in the space. One year ago, I decided it was time to quit my job at another startup and go off on my own.”

Talk about the challenges you faced – this brand-new endeavor dealing in a brand-new technology.

“If you go back in time a year ago, blockchain wasn’t as big of a buzzword as it is today. Enterprises weren’t talking about it very much. I spent a lot of time calling and emailing people, and they had no idea what I was talking about, which was difficult.

“On a whim, to get more experience, I flew out to New York to compete in the Consensus 2017 Hackathon. I met blockchain developers out there. We ended up winning the Hyperledger Prize and subsequently went to four or five more hackathons throughout the year.

“We were just building blockchain applications, really understanding the limits of the technology, and how far it could go. Going to these hackathons allowed me to get even deeper technically and start making connections with developers, which allowed me to create BlockEra.”

Tell us about the work you all are doing at BlockEra.

“We create R&D blockchain applications for enterprises and internally for ourselves. We’re trying to build out products that we think might work in this new blockchain future. At the same time, we’re also educating about blockchain. That includes trying to create a community as much as possible because there aren’t a lot of blockchain developers here. In July, we started up a Blockchain Development Group, which is a monthly meet-up now of 330 people who want to learn about blockchain.”

One year after BlockEra’s launch, how are things going?

“It took a long time. I went nine months without a paycheck. You can’t sell a technology that people don’t know – and that’s where that education piece comes in. You really need education at the business leader level, at the community level and even at the political level. Everyone needs to have a collective knowledge of what this stuff is before they can make decisions on it. Since the awareness has grown over the past year, we’ve been able to land clients.”

Why are Nebraska and Omaha the right place for BlockEra?

“I like Nebraska because it allows people to have more range to gain experiences they wouldn’t get elsewhere. I’ve been able to testify in the state legislature on blockchain technology. I never would have had that opportunity if I was in New York City or Silicon Valley. I’ve been able to reach out and have conversations with business leaders in Omaha and Lincoln. I can get the connections that I need, which is great.”

What do you think the future holds for BlockEra and blockchain technology in general?

“We’ve taken this R&D route, and we ultimately want to be a product company. We still think it’s early and we don’t know where the future is going to be with this technology. We just want to build on it as much as we can.

“For the technology itself, it’s going to come in some form; we just don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like. Right now, there are a lot of hard, technological problems that need to be solved, technology that needs to be built out, and questions around scalability. Back in the day, we had dial-up internet. We’re basically in the dial-up days of blockchain.”

You attended the Chamber’s New Kids on the Blockchain event last May. How did that help boost BlockEra?

“That’s where I met Jeff Main (Former Union Pacific Head of Application Development) who co-organized the Blockchain Development Group with me. I met Brian Poppe from Mutual of Omaha who is also an organizer of the group. It really kicked off blockchain awareness in Omaha and Nebraska as a whole. I’m constantly running into people who point to that event as their first exposure to the technology. That makes conversations so much easier. It’s great that we had such an innovative event so early in blockchain’s lifecycle to keep our companies on the forefront.

“I look forward to the blockchain event the Greater Omaha Chamber is putting on in May to see how it focuses on some of the applications of blockchain for our industries in Omaha.”

Come join Kyle (and us) at Blockchain: Let’s Get Real on May 4, 1 – 4 p.m., at The Living Room at Mastercraft.