Travis John (00:00.878)
Welcome back to another episode of the Real World Assets Show. Today we have a special guest. We have Cynthia Huang, the CEO of D travel and welcome. How are you today?

Cynthia Huang (00:10.555)
Thanks, Travis, for having me. Really excited to be here.

Travis John (00:13.55)
Awesome. Or I should say this evening, I know you're coming in from Hong Kong and I'm at Consensus in Austin. So the beauty of connectivity. So welcome to the show. So I've been at web three around the world and telling the story to everyone that's tapped into the new digital world. So it's exciting. So I guess to start off, I know we've chatted a bit over the past two, three weeks and.

Cynthia Huang (00:24.731)
Yeah, that's Web3, right? All around the world.

Travis John (00:43.63)
digitally and excited about this conversation. But for my viewers and just, I know D travel is, is not a new project and that's an exciting part of this new movement. And the acronym RWA really wasn't even a thing when you guys started D travel. So, it's, it's exciting to have that hashtag now for RWA and to have that be kind of a little bit of a movement and more people kind of coming in and made a bridge to, to this. Cause clearly you've already.

Cynthia Huang (00:59.259)
Mm -hmm.

Cynthia Huang (01:12.315)
Mm -hmm.

Travis John (01:13.358)
seeing this before the acronym, before all the buzzwords. And just like to hear a little bit more about how you got into this, how the travel started and just a little bit about Cynthia.

Cynthia Huang (01:24.443)
Yeah, yeah. So I started my web3 journey in 2017. actually, it was probably before that. So my husband who is an engineer found out about

Ethereum. So we had heard about Bitcoin and didn't really know much about it. It sounded like a scam, like people say when they don't know much about the crypto industry. But I think Ethereum was really excited about because being a developer, he really loved the concept of programmable smart contracts. And so he decided to run an experiment where he built a bunch of mining rings, and we ended up having like 10 of them in our house. And

He was trying to convince me to do this thing and I started researching blockchain. It just seemed really interesting at the time what could happen. And then fast forward two years, there started to be more, I guess, like consumer applications for Web3, which was still very early. Like CryptoKitties was obviously the first big one that kind of blew up and being from Vancouver, CryptoKitties is in Vancouver. So it just felt like very,

connected to what we were doing and like seeing that unfold and we wanted to basically onboard people into web3 because or crypto as we called it because at the time like our friends we were telling them about crypto and they all thought it sounded really crazy and At the time everybody who got into crypto was doing so primarily through trading. So there wasn't really a big ecosystem of Projects or utility back then it was primarily

You bought cryptocurrency and you traded it, might hold in a wallet. And that's like pretty much all you could do back then. Obviously we're very lucky that there's a lot of things that you can do now. But what we saw was that people who were coming to the space and were trading, if they didn't know a lot or they bought a very volatile cryptocurrency, they would lose money, get scammed, and then want to exit the market very quickly. And obviously that was not going to help with mainstream adoption. So we decided to launch a game.

Cynthia Huang (03:30.107)
that was a trading simulation game. So like a paper trading for stocks and make it really easy for people to learn about crypto in a fun and gamified way. And we give away prizes for people who would build the best portfolio every week. And we worked with different sponsors. And it was pretty interesting because like back then the space was pretty small. And so you knew a lot of the people in the space. So like, you know, I talked to Devin, like the CEO of OpenSea, it was like, you know,

him and his co -founder at the time. NFTs weren't really a thing. It's just so crazy to see how the space has grown. But yeah, we did that for a couple of years and unfortunately ran into some issues with Google Play because we got banned from the Play Store. But I think it was like a fortuitous thing that happened because then what ended up happening is a group of us started talking about how to design this vacation rental ecosystem that was decentralized and using blockchain.

And my background is I've been a host for over 10 years. So it felt like something that was very personal to problems that I was experiencing on that set of things. So then we came up with the idea of D travel, put together a white paper, launched the first version and the token in late 2021. And it's been almost, I guess, like three years since that day.

Travis John (04:51.15)
That's exciting. Yeah, as I've told you, I've been aware of the project pretty early on. So in the 2021 timeframe, so as you mentioned, things come full circle. The ups and downs of the word, using the word crypto and the ups and downs of crypto still exist in 2024, as you know, but, and the scams still exist, although albeit to a little lesser extent. And, you know,

Cynthia Huang (05:08.571)
Yeah.

Travis John (05:17.55)
I've heard some quotes recently of crypto never misses that chance of shooting themselves in the foot. The Figure Markets founder and CEO used that quote, so I'm giving him credit for that. But we've done a good job doing that, but we've also done a good job of moving a revolution forward of the new financial markets and also a decentralized app ecosystem, essentially like the Google Play and the Apple Store.

of Web3. So I know you guys are doing that. And again, like you said, you were early doing that. It's not been easily the road to kind of bridge that adoption or use Web2 tools to...

Cynthia Huang (05:48.347)
Mm -hmm.

Travis John (06:00.014)
have a marketplace for you or have a marketing angle or a platform for your web3 project isn't always easy because as you mentioned Google Play, you know, wasn't for it eventually so some of that is has moved along of course even Google's become a little more open with things as you know, but you know, like you said, it's a fortuitous thing to because it helps you to kind of realize where you need to pivot and where you need to kind of focus in harder and I love how you your background

Being a host, obviously, I always like to hear those things. And I think listeners do too. It's like, what's that itch? What's that little aggravation that drove you to kind of invent something different? So that's exciting. So let's talk more about Dtravel. Like you said, you're at a three -year anniversary, roughly. And...

A lot has happened. Obviously we had a fairly significant two plus year bear market smushed in there. So tell me a little bit about where you are now. Just kind of the overall ecosystem kind of, let's start with just kind of the problem. You mentioned you had a personal things that drove you to creating this, but what is the big problem you see this solving currently?

Cynthia Huang (07:15.931)
Yeah, so I became a short -term rental host in 2014. And when I first started, I was using Airbnb and I...

drank the Kool -Aid, like I loved Airbnb. My dream job was to work at Airbnb, you know, like I was such a big advocate. I went to all the host meetups. I was like one of the super hosts in Vancouver and also one of the first. So because I also co -founded a forum for hosts in, well, it wasn't in Vancouver, but it was a global forum and it's become basically the largest forum today. But when we first started it, I think it grew very, very quickly because there was just such a need for people to connect.

with each other in this new industry that was quickly growing and a lot of new people coming into it who didn't really know what to do. So we were community leaders in Vancouver and so there were a lot of events where they would invite us to and there'd be like VIP events and they'd want to partner etc. So I was like very very immersed in the Airbnb space and I think for probably like until 2015 or 2016 they stayed very very host centric.

and I still loved Airbnb. But what we saw happening was that over time, especially after they became a public company, they became way less, well, or just not host -centric at all. And even now, I think they're not guest -centric because there's so many guests who are unhappy with the experience also. And so they're not making either side happy. And for a host in particular, which is my perspective,

we have no control. So what happened during COVID was that there were mass cancellations and they basically forced hosts to take on all these cancellations and lose out on a lot of money. And I think that moment was when hosts realized that they really had no power and they couldn't rely on just a single platform, which is really good for us because that was also, I think, kind of like a watershed moment where something like what we were building,

Cynthia Huang (09:14.587)
became something really important and something that the market wanted because they wanted to diversify and start to have more ownership over their policies and also over their payments because whether it's Airbnb or booking .com or VRBO, there's a lot of payment issues because they're the intermediary. So they process the transaction and then they send the money onto the host. But oftentimes there's payment issues. Like last year there was a payment issue with booking .com and for over six months, hosts didn't even get paid.

which obviously, as you can imagine, if you're trying to run a business and not getting income for six months, that's a really big problem. So, you know, the third problem is fees. So both on the operator side and the guest side, somebody is paying, right? Usually it's a combination where there's a small fee on the host side and then the guest is paying most of it on Airbnb. But in aggregate, the fees are generally between 20 and 30%. So somebody is paying that.

And whether that's the host side or the guest side, that's obviously a lot, right? Because if you're staying for a month somewhere or a week somewhere, you're staying in an expensive city, that is a pretty significant amount. And I think with the way that the guest experience is right now, a lot of guests feel like they're paying this money, but they're not really getting anything in return for it. So that was like the main problems that we wanted to solve. Control, ownership, and then the cost.

Travis John (10:39.31)
Yeah, I love that. I mean, I think all of our minds, I always think this because I, you know, just being a growth guy over my career, people think in threes, there's a psychology of three and, you know, it's like solving for three problems is always like, I always find very interesting and exciting because I think it's the most powerful. But I also, I, you know, it is really to emphasize, I think these, these three things, cause they are major problems. As you mentioned, not everybody knows about the problem.

Cynthia Huang (10:50.491)
Yeah.

Travis John (11:09.326)
of say, for example, like host control, like, you know, knowing that Airbnb is public publicly traded. I think a lot of people that are in the know these days know that when companies become publicly traded, things change dramatically. Like you like their customer is Wall Street, their shareholders, like that, that becomes their number one customer. And for better, for worse, it's usually for worse, but.

Cynthia Huang (11:13.275)
Mm.

Cynthia Huang (11:27.387)
the shareholders, yeah.

Travis John (11:36.846)
you know, if you're a shareholder, maybe for better, but I mean, realistically, it's not better for the overall, you know, the world as a whole. But, you know, everybody relies on the quarterly earnings. Everyone relies on what's next. And it's always about delivering on the share price. And, you know, we've seen that at places like Facebook. We've seen that at places, you know, across the board. I mean, Facebook's just a perfect example. I mean, they obviously...

had to do a lot of interesting things on their platform in the past few years when they're stock tanked. And they went strictly into mode of how do we increase share price? So they went from, I mean, I'm just sitting aside, but I think we've seen these big brands and we can see it firsthand. And I use Facebook example just because it's one of the biggest social media brands still, whether you use it or not, most people have enough understanding of all the problems that they've had over the years and how they...

Cynthia Huang (12:14.587)
Mm -hmm.

Travis John (12:32.654)
you know, are, are always in the news for things they're doing to kind of keep their share price up and how that might affect their platform. So I think, Airbnb is, you know, certainly had been in the news about some of these things too, but I'd say probably to a lesser extent. maybe they've done better damage control, but overall, I think that's, that's a very important thing that most people don't know about. I think what people do know about, you know, is the cost and it's interesting. And I think that's like a major, aspect.

Cynthia Huang (12:38.523)
Mm -hmm.

Travis John (13:01.678)
Like you mentioned, I know for example, well, even just payments, people out of the United States don't use booking .com a ton. They don't in comparison to like Airbnb and VRBO, which have the bigger line share in the United States. In general payment issues at booking .com from what I've heard, and you just confirmed is, you know, it's significantly, it's a big problem. Like there's, there's a lot of problems they've had internationally outside of the U S and.

Cynthia Huang (13:10.939)
Mm -hmm.

Travis John (13:30.094)
Those are, again, not something everybody's gonna know that's not in the industry like yourself. But the cost, the third one, definitely is one that I think we all see and experience. And I know that you have that clear on your website, and I think people do see that, that it's somewhere between 20 and 30 % all in.

From a host side, I mean, what are your estimates? I mean, I know it's not, it's a little fuzzy because clearly they don't tell you the percentages, right? Like probably exactly, but since you're a host, you probably have a better idea. I mean, what does that split look like? Like what is usually happening? Like how much is the guest typically eating of that part? And then how much is the host having to contribute to that? Like that hefty 20 or 30 % that's getting paid back to the platform.

Cynthia Huang (14:13.051)
So it really depends on the platform and it depends on whether you're more of a casual host.

or what they consider a professional host, so somebody who runs a whole bunch of different properties. And then it also depends on your region. And so I can break that down. In North America, for example, generally if you're a casual host on Airbnb, you're paying 3%, and then the guest pays somewhere between 13 % to 17%. If you're a professional host, then you pay for the full 15%. And I think that's up to 30 % in some cases.

like I think in Mexico, for example, you have to pay 30%, which is crazy. But what I think ends up happening is regardless of what the host pays, the guest is always the one who ends up paying because even if the host is paying that 15%, for example, so they're technically paying the fee, they're marking up their prices by 15 or 20%, just passing that on to the guest. So at the end of the day, it's always the guest who's paying for it.

Travis John (15:12.622)
Right.

Travis John (15:19.63)
Right. That's huge. And I didn't, didn't want to go too far into the weeds, but I think one of the biggest things that, you know, I geek out on RWA stuff and I geek out on like how this affects real world impact. And I think solving for a big problem and like, obviously you're solving for three problems that are, you know, comprehensive in this roll up into this solution you have for travel. But the, if you, if you look at ways that you can solve for that money.

you know, in decentralization, blockchain can, can solve for a lot of financial and efficient, inefficient issues. And I think this, you know, to me personally, like that's, and again, I think that's how your user base, I know you have extremely active community, very active telegram, et cetera. And a lot of this does stem from that idea as, as someone that uses, you know, as an end user.

Cynthia Huang (15:56.251)
Mm -hmm.

Travis John (16:16.463)
how much more money you're paying to get into the network of Airbnb and VRBO and booking .com. So that, I think, it sounds like your customer base, a lot of it is driven from social media and these groups to really help drive this cost savings in the future as you start onboarding people. So yeah, I think we can obviously start about how...

Cynthia Huang (16:23.131)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Travis John (16:41.23)
how you're doing that now. I think that's probably a good transition point, but I really do love that you're solving for an existing problem that really exists. I think that's one of the biggest problems I do see, even though the acronym RWA is here and it's exciting and we seem to be somewhat moving in toward more of a bullish market and where blockchain is accepted into the real world applications.

But I do see and do talk to a lot of projects that aren't necessarily quite clear on solving real problems where money, like where you can follow the money. And I think that's the most important thing right now. And I'm not saying that things that are fuzzy that don't solve for financial problems are not gonna work. I just don't see that right now. Like where we are in this movement.

Cynthia Huang (17:13.883)
Right, right.

Travis John (17:28.398)
of blockchain, it's very early. People want either cost savings or they want to have a yield. Like they want predictable income or they want to save predictably. And I think if you can't solve for one of those two things right now, it's very hard to raise money. It's very hard to, to gain users. Like, I think that's like where I see the business going. And just cause I talked to a lot of people and you know, it's, it's, it's obviously simple when you think about it, but I think that's again, just.

Commending what you're what you're solving for I think is is a really key part of this so yeah, let's talk about what the solution looks like what the platform looks like and I'll let you kind of Do some more talking on that side of things?

Cynthia Huang (18:13.691)
Sure, yeah, just to, I think, add to what you said, what we're seeing is this transition where, you know, in the past probably like five years, we've had a really, really big focus on infrastructure, tooling, dev tools, protocols, but we're moving into this phase of like consumer crypto, real world assets, real world application. And...

projects that are especially in the RWA space, if they're just trying to target like Web3 users, which I still see a lot of, right? Because with RWAs, you still have a lot of people trying to target like Web3 natives specifically. But a lot of projects are trying to move out of that, especially in the deep -end slash RWA intersection. If you are focusing more on like either Web 2 .5 or even just Web3,

web 2 users because like you said, you're saving them money somehow or maybe the experience is better than what they get in web 2, you're building a much more sustainable business because like in the last bear market, a lot of projects who are relying on just web 3 users and web 3 development really had a tough time getting through the bear market because they're relying on the market that's like very

subject to macro conditions outside of your control. But if you're a project that's focusing on Web 2 .5 or even Web 2 users, then you have a lot more.

you're immune to a lot of the market cycles that you would be otherwise caught in. So like for us, for example, a lot of our hosts actually know nothing about crypto. And it's not really important for them to know because they just love our product as it is. But for people who want to get deeper into it, then they love the aspect of us being decentralized, of us having blockchain rails, especially for the crypto payments and hosts and everybody within the ecosystem.

Cynthia Huang (20:16.653)
getting ownership via token, being able to contribute, etc. So there's levels of participation and knowledge that each user can have based on what their preference is. We don't force you to know about the Web3 stuff if you don't want to. It's there if you want to get deeper. We're trying to slowly red pill you into going down that rabbit hole. But the product that we have is good enough that it doesn't really matter that it's Web3 or not. For somebody who is an operator, they're like, okay, great. It's

It's simple, it does exactly what I need, it's modern, and I love it. And I think that's really the direction that all Web3 projects really need to go to, especially in consumer crypto, because bear and bull market cycles are inevitable.

It's like taxes and death, right? You can't get away from it. And so how do you build a project that is less subject to those cycles that you can actually get through them? And I think Deepin and RWA, like that intersection is really interesting because there's been a lot of analysis on Deepin projects who have actually come through the bear market a lot better than some of the other the other niches of crypto, I guess, because they were focusing much more on like

Web 2 or Web 2 .5 users.

Travis John (21:34.702)
Yeah, no, that's well said. I heard this recently from Natalia Proppy and they're building real estate side. And I think what's interesting and it was just one of her kind of analogies and it makes perfect sense too is similar to Netflix disrupting Blockbuster many years ago. Netflix didn't go straight digital. Like they started just sending DVDs to your house. Like that was most of their business. And it was like, hey, by the way, like if you...

Cynthia Huang (21:40.635)
Mm -hmm.

Travis John (22:02.702)
that like this internet thing, like if you want to like go in here and watch movies on the internet, like it seems weird, but like try it. So, and then of course, obviously we've moved completely over there, but I think that's exactly, I completely agree with you. They're a good example of a project that's rooting specifically in web two users, just like yourself. And not only does it help you to,

avoid the death and taxes of, of bear and bull markets, but it's also and bear them. but also it's, it's, you know, you're building a network that, that obviously can sustain that. But also I think that is just where the market is right now. The market is obviously in that web two web 2 .5 market and making blockchain invisible is the most important part anyway, ultimately, like I know we can all geek out on this and it's, I find myself sometimes over, overdoing it from a technical perspective as well, but.

Cynthia Huang (22:40.091)
Mm -hmm.

Travis John (22:57.806)
It's the goal, like you said, and you said it well, is just to build with the blockchain in the background. You know, like it's not an important aspect. And I think that's, talking about that, I think from the operator standpoint, I know you have some things I think we should talk about, like operators are able to onboard with a similar, like with Airbnb, where they're able to have like an actual site.

And you know, all of this stuff, which is very web to like, you know, so I'd like for you to tell me a little bit about kind of the operator side, because I think the hosts at this point, like that's probably your biggest focus. Cause I know you're just, you need to get hosts on there so you can create that network effect. So I'd like to kind of like talk about that first. I know the big problem is solving for the entire eco as you, as we already discussed, but I'd love to hear just about some of the key things you're doing differently and how hosts can get involved.

Cynthia Huang (23:25.691)
Mm -hmm.

Cynthia Huang (23:40.059)
Mm -hmm.

Cynthia Huang (23:53.115)
Yeah, so there's basically three main elements to our entire ecosystem that we're starting with. So the first is host or operator tooling. And we wanted to give hosts the ability to create a direct booking website or direct booking listing that they could then use and guests could book directly with them. So we're not in the middle of that transaction, whether it's a fiat payment or a crypto payment, it's always directly between the operator and the guest.

The funds always flow directly from the guest to the operator. We never touch those funds and they get to keep all of their funds within their own accounts. And then we've basically built out all of the tooling and infrastructure for that already. So that product is live. We call it D Travel Direct. We have a lot of operators already using it who love it. And so the next solution we're building out is a MetaSurge. And so this is a discovery piece of it.

We've built out the operator tooling where they have everything they need to run their business. And up to this date, they've been basically driving their own booking. So these are, tend to be operators who are more professional in nature and they really want to increase their business for peer to peer rental specifically. So they do use platforms like Airbnb and booking, but they want to reduce that share and have more of it be direct. And so we've given them the tooling, but obviously.

every operator, including myself, will always want help with distribution. And so we have a meta search that's coming out and the meta search is basically an aggregator for direct booking sites and websites and not just the ones that we power under D Travel Direct, but anybody who has a direct booking website. So we have a partner who is also another direct booking tool and they're actually distributing all their properties over to us.

Travis John (25:23.982)
Mm -hmm.

Cynthia Huang (25:47.771)
And so we'll continue to have these partnerships where anybody who wants direct distribution can connect to our meta search and have it show up that way. And again, all of those bookings will always be peer to peer. So always be directly between the operator and the guest. And that's how we're growing our ecosystem to bring in more operators on like a more scalable way. And then the third and really important piece, and this one is a very like big, hairy audacious goal that we're working towards that will take much longer.

but we're starting to build out some of the initial stages of this is the data layer. So we've built out the Nite protocol, which underlies all of the products within our ecosystem. And the reason that this is really important is as an operator, or even as a guest, when you're using a platform in short term rentals, you don't own any of that data. So with Airbnb, for example, if they decide to ban my account tomorrow,

I would have no recourse and I would lose everything. Alternatively, if let's say I decide tomorrow, hey, I don't want to use Airbnb anymore, but I've built up, you know, 300 plus reviews and I have a 4 .8 rating, that's all lost. And that's really such a shame because, you know, it takes a lot of time and investment to build up credibility and a history like that. And there's really no reason that you should lose it, right? Because if let's say I decided that I'm going to create a VRBO account tomorrow,

I should be able to take all of my credentials that I've built, bring it over to another platform and be able to benefit from that. And that goes for both the host and the guest side, because if you're starting over from scratch on another platform as a host, then the guest doesn't know that you have reputation. And same thing, like if you're a guest and you're just starting to use a new platform, but you had a history somewhere else, you're not bringing that with you. And so there's a lack of trust on both sides that ends up wasting time.

and you have to build your credibility from the beginning again, which I think doesn't make a ton of sense. The world that we're trying to work towards is, you own your own data, you can bring it wherever you want. And then as an operator, you can actually choose where you want to distribute your listings as well. And this data layer will make it a lot easier for anybody who's building apps in short -term rentals to be able to build. Because what happens today is there's tons of API connections.

Cynthia Huang (28:08.859)
So if I'm company A and you're company B, we're building literally the exact same connections to other companies and we're maintaining it and we're spending a lot of time and money on doing that. When it's really inefficient, we could just connect to one data source, which would be decentralized and an open protocol, get the same data, and then be able to benefit from sharing data as well. Because something that's a cost center today for you to maintain and to build, you could actually benefit from.

monetizing that data if you decide to share it. So this is a much bigger vision that we're trying to build out on the data side that will take a while, but we're taking the initial steps right now. We're the first users of the protocol and we're starting to onboard more partners as well.

Travis John (28:55.47)
That's amazing. Yeah, I agree. I mean, that's definitely the future of, you know, did, you know, from decentralized IDs and decentralized data. Yeah, that's, you're just doing that at a protocol level for operators or hosts, not their personal identity, but their property, which is their personal property. So that's, you know, we're...

Cynthia Huang (29:01.915)
Yeah, exactly.

Cynthia Huang (29:13.851)
Mm -hmm. And I think there's like an interoperable play here too, right? Because for us, like as individual people, all of our data is siloed across every single platform that we ever use. And so there's no web of.

us being represented for who we are across everything. But imagine if, let's say, for example, let's say that you decide that you want to become an operator or a host and you've never done it before. So you come into the Dtravel ecosystem, but let's say that you, you know, you have this podcast, you've contributed to other projects, you've done a whole bunch of stuff. Like that should count for something, right? But right now there's no way for us to actually cross reference and have that knowledge graph.

of who you are as a person or your credentials in another ecosystem. So the way that I see it is like with the interoperability of blockchains, eventually over time, we'll actually be able to have these graphs that sit on top. And then we could call to say like, okay, well, you have, you know, a lens profile. And so that means something. And that gives you some sort of credentials and the Dtravel ecosystem. And I think that's really the beauty of decentralization and open protocols is for us to be able to have this interoperability.

which is deliberately not possible today with all these siloed, you know, ecosystems or companies.

Travis John (30:36.398)
Right.

For sure, yeah. Obviously we know, data is certainly like gold. It's one of the most valuable things, which is why clearly it's a bold initiative, like you mentioned what you're tackling, but ultimately not only is it an asset to Dtravel and a revenue source in the future, as you know, building it right now is not necessarily, it's more of a...

Cynthia Huang (30:45.883)
Mm -hmm.

Travis John (31:06.926)
cost than it is a revenue source, but you're building that data layer, ultimately, the interoperability combined with the distribution access. People are going to be able to plug in, like you said, whether it's app developers or even people who can get onboard into your eco. It makes that a lot easier. Because as you know, that's one of the biggest things the network effect can't be. There's a lot of people going back to my silly example of Facebook.

Cynthia Huang (31:28.059)
Mm -hmm.

Travis John (31:34.862)
There's a lot of people that would say bad things about Facebook, but they still use it because they don't feel like they have any other options because like they already have like certain friends on there or whatever, you know, so we already know like, and your, your exact point of Airbnb, there's very commonly hosts that are disgruntled that aren't happy, but the network effect has them feel victimized essentially, being able to do that. So you're giving that.

Cynthia Huang (31:38.747)
But I still use it. Yep. Yep.

Cynthia Huang (31:53.115)
Mm -hmm.

Travis John (32:03.246)
You're giving that bridge, you know, that, that carrot, that incentive of getting people to kind of like put their toe in the water, like get into your distribution, you know, pipeline, so to speak. And, like you said, it's, it's in someone that doesn't do this business or doesn't understand this business, may not realize, you know, how difficult it is to kind of get people to switch, but, and as you mentioned, distribution is everything. So most hosts are using.

multiple platforms, like they're not using one distribution channel. Like if they're, so you're stepping in as a new alternative distribution channel. And obviously going back to what you mentioned with your search, that's really the meta search, like that, that apps that definitely I see where that becomes a really important catalyst in your whole ecosystem, because you're able to essentially, you know, give people that, like real time.

Cynthia Huang (32:34.427)
Mm -hmm.

Exactly.

Travis John (33:00.878)
in their face data that shows here's the pricing on this platform, here are these properties available and then they essentially can see pricing comparisons, right? Like, and just see what that's gonna look like if they use Dtravel in the Dtravel application versus maybe Airbnb in that case.

Cynthia Huang (33:16.475)
And I think one really big difference that separates like Web2 ethos from Web3 ethos is that in Web2, moats and, you know, keeping people in a locked ecosystem is your competitive advantage. Whereas I think in Web3, even though...

with the protocol, like theoretically anybody could build another meta search that could be a competitor to D travel. Like we are actually fully on board with that because that means that whoever is building a meta search needs to make sure that the user experience is the optimal, like best user experience. And so you can't just rely on, okay, well, people are sort of locked within my ecosystem. They can't leave or don't want to leave because they have no other options. And so therefore, you know, I know that people are going to be unhappy, but that's okay. Instead,

we're moving to this world where, you know, you need to provide the best user experience, the best customer experience for people to stay because it's going to be very easy for people to build alternatives to what your solution is because everything is open and permissionless. And I think that ends up actually having a much better user experience for everybody involved. Whereas in web two, like you have, you know, like you said, like how many people actually like using Facebook, probably nobody, but people are still on it. Like I never use my Facebook, but I still have it because there's value with

Travis John (34:31.246)
Right.

Cynthia Huang (34:35.133)
in that network where if I want to connect with somebody, I can reach out, but it's not that it's necessarily a good user experience because they've optimized for ad revenue so much that there's really no reason to even use it. I mean, same thing with Instagram. Like when they first started, it was great to connect with your friends, but now when I open it and I never use it, you see more of like people that they're trying to get you to follow than you do of people that you're actually connected with. And so it's, they almost become like a victim of their success.

Travis John (34:50.03)
Sure.

Cynthia Huang (35:05.053)
right?

Travis John (35:06.23)
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, well said. I'm curious, too, just kind of talking about the encapsulation of what we're talking about, like your ecosystem. I'm curious, just what have been any of the challenges of getting hosts on board? Have you had hosts that are very much interested in this kind of like,

fully decentralized side of things or has it been, have you mainly just been able to easily onboard people just as a new distribution channel? Like what's been, have you had challenges in that area? I'm just curious, because I think that's obviously where the big initiative is right now is building your network.

Cynthia Huang (35:49.595)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think like any startup, when you first start, there's a lot of learnings that you go through. So for us, our thesis was it's better to have like 100 people love you, like that concept of 100 true fans than to have a whole bunch of people like kind of just feel okay about your solution. So when we started, we just had a MetaMask Connect because we were like, we're trying to solve for or we want to target the people who are like,

Travis John (36:05.486)
Mm -hmm.

Cynthia Huang (36:15.931)
Web3 natives who also happen to be hosts and they just like fully believe in this decentralization model. And so we did that, but we didn't really get that many people signing up because that was just such a big friction point. So we kind of evolved and added an email sign in, and then we started getting a lot more people and we started to change our language and made it a lot more approachable for people who.

wanted to use us more as a web2 solution. And so I think we found this really good place where.

I think there's a lot of people who are using us just for the solution, but there's also seems to be an increasing amount of operators, whether it's because they're finding out about us or maybe now that web three and crypto is becoming a lot more well known that there is a growing group of this, but there's a surprising number of operators who come to us and they're like, I'm really into crypto. Like I love the decentralization. I want to accept crypto. I love what you guys are doing. Like, how can I use you guys? And so that group of people is definitely growing, but I'd say.

it's like half and half right now, where half the people are using us and they don't even have crypto payments enabled. They just like love our solution. And then the other half are all into the web three side. And now when we have this distribution, I think that is that group is going to, well, both groups are going to grow even larger because when you have a solution where they have to drive their own bookings, it's obviously a lot harder. Like there's very specific people that come in that we are trying to target. But with the distribution channel,

because it's so easy where they just create an account, connect their, or create a listing and then just kind of sit back and we'll help with the bookings. That's gonna open it up to a lot more people who are looking for more of an easy experience, more similar to Airbnb than like a Shopify where they have to drive their own sales.

Travis John (38:06.542)
Yeah, that's a good reference point of even like Shopify. That's obviously an excellent reference point of a network that's proven, that's successful, but you are on your own. It's powered by Shopify, but there's 99 % of those stores fail, clearly, just because it's not easy, necessarily. So yeah, it is good. I like how you...

Cynthia Huang (38:12.027)
Mm -hmm.

Cynthia Huang (38:20.443)
Mm -hmm.

Travis John (38:31.95)
see that and I know you probably can appreciate that company being from Canada, you know, the rise of Shopify. You know, like I, I, you have spent a lot of time working with Shopify and over the years. So like, I can appreciate that. I think very powerful e -com platform and I'm a big fan of just studying their success. I think they're, they've done a really amazing job and, but, and this is really a lot of how you're doing it. It doesn't mean it's bad that you stand on your own with Shopify.

Cynthia Huang (38:35.803)
Yeah.

Cynthia Huang (38:42.747)
Nice.

Mm -hmm.

Travis John (39:01.934)
Like there are the clearly the biggest e -com platform out there. They're not providing any distribution channels other than they're providing a platform that works. It's the best e -com experience out there. And people still sign up. They don't say, well, you know, you're not going to send me business. So I think it does prove your model. Like if you really look at that, like, you know, I didn't think about it in that perspective, but I think that I just wanted to kind of.

Noodle on that point real quick, because I think that is really an interesting way to look at like how D travel success, can piggyback on the success, you know, like of similar brands like Shopify, you don't have to create the next Airbnb. Now, clearly your success will drive a network and you are doing that with this meta search and you are focusing on that. Cause I do think that is clearly a, like you said, it's a way, it's a quicker path to red pilling people and to, you know, you know, full, full,

Cynthia Huang (39:49.659)
Mm -hmm.

Cynthia Huang (39:57.883)
Mm -hmm.

Travis John (40:01.486)
exposure into your platform versus maybe just one distribution channel. So I do love that. I think that's, that's excellent. Yeah, it's exciting. You really have thought about, it seems like all the verticals and all the psychology and all the things that are going on, you know, from a, from a macro standpoint and just from a business 101 standpoint. So that's exciting.

Cynthia Huang (40:22.651)
Well, there's always...

As I'm sure you know, there's always things that come up and always things to learn. I mean, like with Shopify, I think probably when they started, which was a long time ago now, they probably did have a lot of e -commerce operators asking them like, Hey, how can you help us get traffic to our e -commerce site? Right. But I think it shows how that industry, like the e -commerce industry has also evolved where people maybe started out not knowing how to drive their own traffic. But over time, that industry has really matured.

and there's been a lot of resources and tooling and even people's appetite for learning and wanting to take full ownership over that, I think has changed. And so I see the short -term rental industry in a very similar way where for a long time, I mean, the industry is still fairly new in its current evolution with it being tech enabled, like really 10 years. But even in that time, I think we're starting to see a maturity of the market where people are realizing that they just need to diverse.

diversify their business overall. And actually, something that was interesting is Airbnb has experiences. So you can book an experience like a cooking class or something in the city. And they I think, axed 50 % or more of those experiences, like basically overnight. So they reviewed it based on the ratings, the uniqueness, and I think like the quality or something, but they ended up

taxing the majority of it. And a lot of those operators are tour guides who have their own companies. And I think they were really upset because there was no notice basically. So kind of very similar thing that happened over COVID where they immediately had all these cancellations. They did this with experiences. And so one of the takeaways was, yeah, we need to diversify away. And so I think there's a lot of verticals where this is happening, where people are realizing they really need to own a customer relationship.

Cynthia Huang (42:23.547)
Because if you're using a platform, you're not the one who owns that relationship. So that's being applied to a lot of other verticals, which I think is good because the more that people realize this, the more they're going to move away from centralized platforms that really are trying to take full control and have all the power.

Travis John (42:40.494)
Yeah, I know I keep going on tangents, but I completely agree with that. And I think that's a perfect example, just going back to the Shopify experience, is Shopify store owners, many of them rely heavily on Amazon as a channel. And that's exactly, and it's a perfect example of that, where you're paying Amazon a lot of money, it's centralized, and you don't own the data, and...

Cynthia Huang (42:54.491)
Mm -hmm. And they hate it.

Travis John (43:06.382)
It's a perfect example of you are relying on a network that you have no ability to, you can't leave because you have no ability to like talk to those people or communicate with customers in the past and the future that you did business with in the past. And like you mentioned, your data layer and all the things you're building will help to give that stability for a host to be able to be portable and to be able to have that.

you know, reputation, you know, be existing across the web, which is great. So yeah, I think that's really is obviously where it's going. It's very early, as you know, and like you said, there's always learnings and always, you know, new things you have to implement and learn from. But clearly the thought process and what you guys have executed right now is commended for sure. That's very exciting. Yeah.

Cynthia Huang (43:50.459)
Mm -hmm.

Cynthia Huang (43:58.587)
Thank you, really appreciate that. We're very excited. We have a lot of stuff coming up, so.

Travis John (44:03.438)
Awesome. Well, I think we should talk about the token, the token economy, $TRVL. What I think that's everybody likes to hear about tokens. I think the and not just from speculative, I'm not saying it from that perspective. I think that the projects that are going to survive in these real world applications are going to be token economy type of projects. So I'm very much for that. I'm not for.

Cynthia Huang (44:27.899)
Mm -hmm.

Travis John (44:32.718)
a lot of speculative gambling type of things, but when a token fits in an ecosystem that's well thought out like yours, I think it just, it complements and it really adds fuel to the fire for the growth. So I'd love to just hear a little bit more about your token, how that fits into your economy there.

Cynthia Huang (44:51.739)
Yep, so we have a couple of different utilities. One is payments, which is already implemented. So you can pay with $TRVL on an operator site if they've enabled that as a payment. Rewards, obviously. So operators get a 3 % give back right now, which is the same fee that we're charging. And then we're going to be introducing traveler rewards as well. We actually have a points program that's coming out pretty soon where people who are contributing different things to the network, like booking property,

making referrals, etc. They can earn points that will lead to being able to earn $TRVL rewards. And then governance is obviously another big one. And then finally, ownership. So one of the things that has always kind of, I think, been

a lost opportunity, especially with Airbnb is they've managed to create this really amazing ecosystem where you have not just hosts and guests, but they've built all these businesses on the periphery like cleaning companies, property management systems, property management companies. Like there's this whole ecosystem of,

companies that basically support this industry, right? But despite the fact that they've been such a pivotal part of creating this industry, it's a closed ecosystem. So these companies and these businesses are created not...

Travis John (46:06.926)
Yeah.

Cynthia Huang (46:22.747)
with the help of Airbnb, but almost like despite Airbnb. And I think that's really a lost opportunity because every time you have an ecosystem and you're inviting people into the ecosystem and you're saying, hey, if you're bringing more people into the ecosystem, if you're adding value by contributing to it, then you're going to get rewarded. You're going to get ownership in that ecosystem. I think that allows the ecosystem to flourish and grow even bigger because now you have these like crazy network effects.

that just become more and more flywheels. And if everybody feels like an owner, then they'll want to keep contributing, right? Whereas what I think is happening with Airbnb, and I've felt like this for a while, is all these people who are contributing tons of growth to it, whether they're leading a community, whether they're building a business within the ecosystem or building a software company, they're not really getting anything for it. And in fact, it's becoming harder and harder to build and support the Airbnb ecosystem.

And I think that's really challenging because like on the one hand, you have this company that's become public and they're making a ton of money.

And like you're trying to support the ecosystem, but you're not getting anything for it. And so that to me is like one of the most important parts of where $TRVL fits in is to reward people and give them ownership. So not only do they benefit from the growth of the network, but they also have a say in different things that are voted on. So over time, like we're moving to this DAO model, but people will be able to make proposals, vote on proposals and actually be able to drive the growth of the network, especially the protocol layer.

which we need a lot of partners for that. And we don't want it to be something that we own or direct, but to have that be completely open and governed by a lot of people, because that's the only way that everybody's interest will be served instead of just one person's interest or one company or one project's interest.

Travis John (48:18.254)
Yeah, that's great. I think that the token economy with having those incentives, like you mentioned, whether it's being able to pay with the travel token, that's obviously huge. You can save also, in addition to the savings that you're already gonna see, which are substantial, 3 % to 5 % versus 20 % to 30%.

Cynthia Huang (48:41.787)
Mm -hmm.

Travis John (48:41.87)
But you can also in participating with the travel token, you can also save an additional amount if I understand that correctly. Right. Like, so that's, yeah. And then the host obviously is incentivized by receiving travel tokens. They want those and you're rewarding partners that are coming into the ecosystem. Like you mentioned, obviously these big publicly traded companies don't all of these ecosystems, these sub -ecosystems that they were built underneath them are despite of that. And they don't.

Cynthia Huang (48:49.019)
Yeah, exactly.

Travis John (49:10.926)
the shareholders, it's a inconvenience for them to mess with it, which is not right, like you said, but it's just, it makes sense for corporate America, honestly. I can see why they don't want to deal with it, but it doesn't mean that there's not a massive network effect. And we see that with other...

Cynthia Huang (49:21.915)
Mm -hmm.

Travis John (49:31.918)
platforms and you know, I mean going back I didn't expect this theme to keep coming up but I think talking about how web two solves web three problems, but we know from Shopify as well like their partner program is one of the most significant of any large company, you know, they have the number of Shopify partners that support Shopify. They fully embrace like they have a full certification program, all of those things where.

Those are kind of the tales of two coins. You know, you have Airbnb that doesn't support any partners and you have Shopify that's, you know, we're going to give you the best software. We're going to provide you the platform. We're going to provide you all the apps, all these third party people. We're going to like literally give them the best platform they can to reach you and survive and succeed, not just survive, but also we're going to have a partner program where we're going to purposely.

Cynthia Huang (50:03.483)
Mm.

Travis John (50:28.814)
drive success there as well. And I think that's, you know, yeah, I mean, I see a lot of those similarities in what you're building, like from a, from a success standpoint and from a brand that people don't hate. Like, I mean, you don't hear many people hating on Shopify, honestly, like, you know, and I've spent a lot of time working with companies on Shopify in this area. And, as much as there are some frustration at times, I'd say like, you rarely hear anybody say anything negative about how they.

Cynthia Huang (50:45.051)
Right, yeah.

Travis John (50:58.094)
how they built and how they've grown their ecosystem. So, yeah.

Cynthia Huang (51:01.723)
Yeah, I think it's definitely that balance between like open versus closed ecosystems, right? People feeling like they have a choice, feeling like they have that support versus feeling like they're locked in just because there's no other options.

Travis John (51:14.382)
Yeah. So what did I miss? As we're wrapping up here, is there anything that we didn't talk about that you'd like to bring up?

Cynthia Huang (51:27.163)
I think we, this was a great conversation, very comprehensive. I think just reiterating some of the big things that we have coming up. So the meta search is coming up in the next couple of weeks.

We also have a two -way Airbnb sync connection that we're really excited about. And we have the points program, which we'll be launching in a couple of weeks. And then a couple other surprise announcements that we're very, very excited about. I can't really say anything, but there's a couple that are really huge that.

I think our community will definitely be super excited about it and hopefully more people will find out about Dtravel. And when we launch the MetaSearch, if you are looking to book travel somewhere, then I hope that people will come to Dtravel because you'll earn rewards for booking and become an owner in our ecosystem. You might as well get rewards if you're going to be booking anyway and also save, of course.

Travis John (52:25.774)
Yeah, absolutely. And I love how all of that is major alpha. Thank you. And we'll stay tuned on some of your updates you can't provide yet. But I think even going back to one of the things you mentioned, which is not to be highlighted as the most important, but just the point system is actually a big deal. Going back to bridging Web2 to Web3, most Web2 points programs honestly suck. And.

You know, you probably agree, I'm not putting words in your mouth, but like the, and a lot of people have discounted points programs for web three because of their experience in web two, but web three actually solves most of the issues that people have with points programs. So I think that's another thing that I would say that is quite exciting that I just wanted to point out. Cause I, I know sometimes when, when, when.

Cynthia Huang (53:04.091)
Mm.

Travis John (53:20.334)
projects say, you know, we're going to be doing points or rewards, you know, people, sometimes their eyes will glaze over like, you know, and I just wanted to emphasize how much better points are when they're done through a web three mindset and a web three flow. And, you know,

Cynthia Huang (53:38.427)
I hadn't thought about that, but yeah, I do agree with that.

Travis John (53:42.798)
Good, I was trying not to end with a controversial statement, but yeah, I do think that that's good. So yeah. Well, it's been a lot of fun, Cynthia, definitely a pleasure. I know that it's a little later where you're at, so I do appreciate you working this into your schedule and excited to share this with my audience and keep getting the word out and keeping up with what you're up to. Love to have you back at some point and we can continue the conversation and talk more about the growth at Dtravel.

Cynthia Huang (53:47.611)
No, no, I love it. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

Cynthia Huang (54:12.795)
Thanks so much, Travis. This was definitely a lot of fun. Really excited to have our community see this as well.

Travis John (54:18.99)
Sam, sounds good. Talk soon.

Cynthia Huang (54:21.403)
Thanks.