**Podcast** host Matt Zahab recently had an exclusive chat with Pratik Gauri, the founder and CEO of **5ire**, a fifth-generation blockchain ecosystem built with the United Nations (UN)’s sustainable development goals in mind.
Gauri discussed the intersection of profit and purpose, the concept of earning more money by benefiting the world, and how 5ire enables this.
He talked about the novel sustainable proof-of-stake model, its profitable ESG-as-a-service model, and the major past and upcoming milestones on the project’s path.
## Earning Money by Doing Good
Gauri had built eight companies before 5ire. His goal has always been to impact a billion people positively, he told Matt.
After exiting the last company, he identified his niche—the Fifth Industrial Revolution.
This is when he realized he wanted to work at the intersection of profit and purpose, or money and impact.
Gauri wanted to “prove that people can make money while doing good.” Actually, the more good they do, the more money they make, he said.
Therefore, 5ire was his entry into the cryptocurrency/blockchain/Web3 space.
“I was motivated by how you can impact a billion people, but not through philanthropy because I wasn’t rich,” he said.
Gauri doesn’t even believe in that concept—he finds it unsustainable.
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The concept he does believe in is empowering people so that they make more money than they’re currently making.
A million empowered people doing well will empower ten million more, which will continue to spread exponentially.
Through the process of building the eight companies, Gauri realized that integrating blockchain and crypto would expedite the progress and give power back to the community.
It is capable of providing a tool for financial inclusion and monetary improvement.
“This is where the banking is going to go. This is where the data storage is going to go,” Gauri remarked.
## Never Done Before: Sustainable L1
The 5ire team decided to invent something never seen before, Gauri told Matt. They created a sustainable proof-of-stake model, embedding sustainability into the Layer-1 infrastructure itself.
It works to reward and incentivize sustainable practices from the core of the blockchain.
This is basically a nominated proof-of-stake (NPOS) with an ESG layer stacked on top.
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The validator using more sustainable options receives more points, hence higher chances to validate the block and make more money.
“If you’re sustainable, you end up making more money in the whole ecosystem of 5ire versus if you’re in some other ecosystem,” said Gauri.
In a typical proof-of-stake, the rich get to validate the blocks and get richer, and the poor keep going poor. It’s very hard to bridge that gap, Gauri argues.
Therefore, 5ire came up with this sustainable proof-of-stake to “give an element to sustainable behavior.”
The team gives weightage to both NPOS and ESG.
“And now that weighted average helps incentivize sustainable behavior from bottoms up,” the CEO explained.
The model also includes a “unique” ESG score.
In fact, its ESG-as-a-service is a big revenue model for the project. Per Gauri, it is already working well with institutional clients and some Fortune 500 companies in the UAE and other countries.
## The Journey Has Just Begun
However, blockchain is not cheap. Building a good product takes time, money, and a large team of technical engineers.
Building a blockchain comes with a set of challenges.
For example, 5ire had to scrape their blockchain two times before the final version was ready.
Also, finding and retaining good talent is very difficult.
Additionally, there’s the challenge of raising money.
However, 5ire’s idea “resonated with a lot of early investors.” About 250 investors invested between $100,000 and $200,000 each.
The team hit the goal and started building the technology. Then an investor on the equity side wanted to invest $100 million on a $
