Dan Martell - Episode #4 - How To Get Into The Cryptocurrency Industry w⧸ Ameer Rosic ( BlockGeeks.com)

00:00:00.080 So this one is action packed

00:00:02.200 and I'm not gonna sugarcoat it.

00:00:03.680 I didn't wanna slow it down.

00:00:04.600 I didn't wanna, you know, fish or price it.

00:00:06.800 We get deep into Bitcoin cryptocurrency,

00:00:09.760 crypto economics, ICOs.

00:00:11.840 If some of those terms are new to you,

00:00:13.520 start writing them down.

00:00:14.560 I actually highly recommend you get a piece of paper

00:00:16.680 and you take some notes.

00:00:18.160 I sit down with Amir who's arguably one of the top

00:00:20.640 thought leaders in the space

00:00:22.560 and we just deconstructed not only the incredible resource

00:00:25.920 he's created at BlockGeeks,

00:00:27.920 we've also talked about their business model,

00:00:29.800 how they look at being involved in the Bitcoin,

00:00:33.560 the crypto space and the vision for the next five years

00:00:37.080 and talk about who are the good actors, the bad actors

00:00:39.880 and how you as a potential accountant,

00:00:43.740 marketing expert, lawyer could get involved

00:00:47.740 and actually make a killing in the Bitcoin crypto space.

00:00:52.040 So I'm super excited to bring you Amir

00:00:53.740 and be sure to leave a comment below.

00:00:55.320 Let me know what the biggest takeaway

00:00:56.900 was from this conversation, cheers.

00:00:58.940 You're in the crypto space, and what is BlockGeeks?

00:01:04.260 BlockGeeks, in a nutshell, is we focus on educating developers online.

00:01:08.420 So if you're like a junior dev, and you're trying to get in the space, we offer online training.

00:01:13.640 Who would be an example?

00:01:15.960 Like, what would be a similar kind of company?

00:01:18.360 Udacity. 0.97

00:01:19.120 Okay, Udacity.

00:01:20.040 Any others?

00:01:20.660 Team Treehouse.

00:01:21.760 Treehouse.

00:01:22.420 Pluralsight.

00:01:23.240 Pluralsight.

00:01:23.760 So you know who your competitive set is, but not necessarily competitive.

00:01:26.680 We're a little bit different, though, too.

00:01:27.760 Totally.

00:01:28.080 So what's different about what you guys are doing?

00:01:30.080 So one, we're very agnostically focusing just on blockchain technology.

00:01:34.080 And number two, we're actually implementing crypto itself within BlockGeeks.

00:01:37.080 Okay.

00:01:38.080 Agnostic meaning that...

00:01:40.080 We don't just focus on Ethereum.

00:01:42.080 Okay.

00:01:43.080 You focus on cryptocurrencies, the blockchain technology.

00:01:47.080 Okay.

00:01:48.080 So you're agnostic to that.

00:01:49.080 You're teaching what though?

00:01:50.080 Because people like those other sites, they are teaching curriculum.

00:01:53.080 What's your curriculum going to be?

00:01:54.080 The difference between, let's say, you're a JavaScript developer is all you learn is just basic if, this, then that rules on JavaScript, right?

00:02:01.060 When it comes to blockchain architectural system, it's more than just coding.

00:02:04.100 You have to understand human psychology, human behavior, economic principles, etc.

00:02:08.380 So it's different actual...

00:02:09.960 Why is that?

00:02:11.240 Because you're actually building a society online.

00:02:13.800 It's not just code.

00:02:14.560 When you look at Ethereum, when you look at Bitcoin, it's a society.

00:02:17.620 And society has governance rules.

00:02:18.520 And most people think it's just currency.

00:02:20.580 Yeah, but it's not.

00:02:21.300 Yeah. So essentially you're designing the laws that this society, this set of values,

00:02:30.140 inside the currency, there's a set of rules, governance, principles, et cetera. And so it's

00:02:38.000 really the human side and it's the technology side.

00:02:40.320 That comes together, yeah.

00:02:41.360 Cool. What do you think is going to be the unfair advantage in your business in this space?

00:02:47.040 For us, right away is positioning. We're the world's biggest blockchain educational website

00:02:50.600 already. We launched about a year and a bit ago. We're doing coming up to 3.5 million visits a

00:02:55.680 month. And how did you do that? Content marketing. Okay. Well, I break that apart. Content marketing.

00:03:01.620 So I'll tell you. So good friend, my Dimitri, which is Vitalik's father. So Vitalik invented

00:03:06.460 Ethereum. I got in the space. That's an unfair advantage to a certain degree. It's a massive

00:03:10.160 unfair advantage. Yeah. The father of the son who created one of the second largest currencies

00:03:15.200 is your business partner. Yes. All right. Let's start there. So for me, I was talking to Dimitri

00:03:20.100 at that time, and I was trying to find more information about Bitcoin, about Ethereum,

00:03:23.260 and everyone kept on pointing me to Reddit.

00:03:25.260 I'm not a big fan of Reddit because there's a lot of, let's say, trolls over there, and

00:03:28.240 you go down the rabbit hole.

00:03:29.120 I'm like, I just want information.

00:03:30.200 I don't want to read through a million threads to find one diamond in the rough.

00:03:33.480 I just want to read a simple blog that, for me, I'm not a developer.

00:03:36.480 Even though I understand technology, I'm not a coder itself.

00:03:39.020 I just want to understand the 30,000-foot view.

00:03:42.420 And then it didn't exist, and it's kind of mind-numbing to me.

00:03:45.140 I'm like, Bitcoin's been around for seven-plus years at this time.

00:03:47.480 There's no resource for that.

00:03:48.720 There's no resource for Ethereum.

00:03:49.880 and there's no resource for any of these other blockchains,

00:03:52.520 I'm like, okay, I'll build it.

00:03:54.680 So it came, me and the email were talking,

00:03:56.780 well, let's do this.

00:03:57.500 And then my second idea came as,

00:03:59.340 well, I personally want to learn a little bit of coding myself.

00:04:01.380 Just to understand it, right?

00:04:02.300 Not to do it, but to understand it.

00:04:03.680 So I went to Udacity, I went to the big three.

00:04:06.880 I'm like, okay, they must have it.

00:04:08.240 It doesn't exist.

00:04:09.220 So I started talking to all the other coders.

00:04:11.100 So they have the base coding stuff there,

00:04:12.680 but they don't talk about the differences

00:04:15.380 between crypto implementation.

00:04:17.100 They don't have anything to do with crypto.

00:04:18.820 Zero, zero, Trinata.

00:04:19.580 It's just like literally if then, case statements,

00:04:22.240 like basic JavaScript.

00:04:23.340 Yeah, and for them it makes sense.

00:04:24.680 I don't think so there's enough demand yet

00:04:26.060 for them to justify the fact that investing

00:04:27.600 that much resource into it. 1.00

00:04:29.820 Then I'm like, fuck it, I'll make it myself. 0.99

00:04:31.260 I've done it courses in the past. 0.99

00:04:32.840 And so we just went in on it.

00:04:34.280 And for me, my background is online marketing growth.

00:04:36.780 Those are like the two things,

00:04:38.260 like content creation and like SEO content.

00:04:42.200 Yeah, technical SEO. 0.98

00:04:43.200 So I'm like, fuck it, let's do this. 0.99

00:04:45.080 And so I started focusing on really providing 0.99

00:04:47.620 high value content.

00:04:48.860 like we didn't skim on resources for that.

00:04:51.360 Like each blog that we come out,

00:04:53.260 I wouldn't call it blog, but I call it a resource.

00:04:54.980 It's minimum 2,500 words, base bone minimum.

00:04:58.400 Highly researched.

00:05:00.240 We put a lot of data into it.

00:05:01.980 I just send everybody to BlockGeeks.

00:05:03.540 It's easier for me.

00:05:04.360 So we spend, you know, on average,

00:05:05.820 when people talk about content ROI,

00:05:08.100 we spend anywhere between 1,500 to 2,000

00:05:10.140 for these resource cards.

00:05:10.980 I appreciate it, man.

00:05:11.820 I had a guy do CrossFit with Ian.

00:05:14.140 He asked me, he's an accountant,

00:05:16.180 And like, you know, it's kind of like pretty much a laggard-ish, you know what I mean? 0.98

00:05:20.040 Like the accountants are definitely not usually early adopters.

00:05:22.400 And he was like, hey, man, what do you know about, you know, we're working out.

00:05:25.820 Yeah, he's like, what do you know about crypto?

00:05:26.840 I was like, okay, don't open that.

00:05:28.540 Like we're about to do a workout.

00:05:29.720 Oh, the can of worms.

00:05:30.760 Yeah, and I was just like, go to Block Geeks, go spend six months, you know, read everything you can.

00:05:37.060 But I'm curious because I know you're building Accelerator and then you've obviously built this massive knowledge base that's free.

00:05:42.860 anybody can go consume it and you talk about like the right way to purchase and secure it and wallets

00:05:47.000 and all that stuff. I know you've you're very vocal on ICOs and the craziness that's going on

00:05:53.460 right now but if somebody wanted to get involved because this is the big the big question is how

00:05:57.980 how would you suggest somebody get involved not necessarily having to buy Bitcoin and or

00:06:04.360 cryptocurrency or having to become a programmer what are your thoughts to somebody's just

00:06:08.960 passionate about, they see this as the future, right? It's not just a way to make

00:06:13.700 money. How would you suggest they get involved? Well, number one, they got to

00:06:17.420 understand how blockchain works. Perfect. How long do you think that might take

00:06:21.260 somebody? Depends on their background. Like for me, it didn't take too long. Like I

00:06:25.100 think even sitting down with somebody and just doodling it out. Yeah. And looking at

00:06:29.360 some YouTube videos that we have. And you've done some whiteboard. Yeah, I've done

00:06:32.060 whiteboard for that. Just doing that and maybe just really understand and taking

00:06:35.840 your time instead of just like, most people skim through stuff, let's be honest, right?

00:06:38.880 Yeah.

00:06:39.880 When you read a blog, like, oh, I get ready.

00:06:40.880 Yeah, what's the big idea?

00:06:41.880 Yeah, the headline, you know, sub-headline, oh, I got it, I'm good.

00:06:44.720 I'm a pro.

00:06:45.720 Yeah, I'm a pro.

00:06:46.720 I'm an expert.

00:06:47.720 But really take your time and reread an art.

00:06:49.340 Like for me to understand crypto economics, and I'm not an expert at all, like I just

00:06:52.720 understand the 30,000-foot view.

00:06:54.680 It took me two to three months.

00:06:56.720 Totally.

00:06:57.720 I'm just reading and writing and reading and writing, reading and writing, I'm like,

00:07:00.720 oh, find that kind of thing.

00:07:01.720 And your output was to build this site.

00:07:04.020 It took me six months, nights, like I was, I think I was building clarity, early days

00:07:07.820 of clarity.

00:07:08.820 Yeah.

00:07:09.820 Yeah.

00:07:10.820 We were looking at how do we use Bitcoin as a payment structure.

00:07:11.820 Yeah.

00:07:12.820 Right?

00:07:13.820 Because that was, that was kind of like a great PR angle.

00:07:16.180 And I did that kind of like every night sitting down, you know, laying in bed with my wife

00:07:20.320 watching YouTube videos on Bitcoin.

00:07:22.260 She's just like, what are you doing?

00:07:24.080 Like, why aren't we watching whatever show?

00:07:25.960 I'm just like, there's something there.

00:07:28.260 Yeah.

00:07:29.260 Right?

00:07:30.260 And this was four years ago.

00:07:32.160 But I mean, once they understand it, how do they get the most out of it?

00:07:35.900 How can they...

00:07:36.900 It depends on where they come from.

00:07:39.320 We have a lot of marketers coming into this space right now.

00:07:41.500 Let's use my buddy Ian, who's an accountant, because I think that's probably more...

00:07:44.400 I'll give you a cross-example.

00:07:45.400 How should he get involved?

00:07:46.400 The biggest problem right now in the crypto space, especially for people who actually

00:07:49.680 want to liquidate into cash, is taxes.

00:07:53.020 Like for example, in Canada, it's capital gains tax.

00:07:56.760 But capital gains tax, you have both profit and loss, but profit and loss, depending on

00:08:00.700 entry point.

00:08:01.700 But entry point, you can determine on how much money I sent from my bank account to an exchange.

00:08:06.940 But you can't really determine on the movements I made from exchange to exchange.

00:08:09.960 That's not really trackable for the CRA.

00:08:12.100 So the problem is like, okay, if it's capital gain stocks, I can just claim a loss then, right?

00:08:16.420 So I always recommend accountants to really figure out the jersey.

00:08:19.200 Or if you mined it.

00:08:20.580 Or if you mined it, right?

00:08:21.700 Or if you got it somehow without just investing.

00:08:23.160 Somebody gifted it to you.

00:08:24.480 Yeah, I gifted a ton of Bitcoin. 1.00

00:08:25.900 Fuck me too. 1.00

00:08:26.480 Yeah, remember? 1.00

00:08:27.040 We were saying, well, that's five bucks a Bitcoin. 0.97

00:08:28.860 And we were like, oh shit, they're going to probably lose the money because it's like 0.99

00:08:32.040 an unsecured wallet. 1.00

00:08:33.040 I gifted a fucking couple of dollars. 0.99

00:08:34.580 Right now it's like 400 bucks almost. 0.99

00:08:36.080 Yeah, nobody paid attention.

00:08:39.280 So you're saying, figuring out what thing they're good at that could apply to the space.

00:08:44.620 Lawyers, accountants, people who specialize in taxes is much needed in this space.

00:08:49.540 Pretty much like anybody in the business infrastructure.

00:08:52.080 Yeah.

00:08:53.080 Programmers.

00:08:54.080 Because, I mean, what happens, like, there was a lot of talk about, like, buy.com, I

00:08:59.920 think, was using crypto, maybe.

00:09:01.880 Like, what's the implications for them?

00:09:03.500 Because, like, they can't stay in crypto if they're purchasing and operating their

00:09:07.100 business in fiat.

00:09:08.540 So they're going to have to, like, there's services that lets people buy in crypto and

00:09:12.260 convert that to fiat so they don't have that exposure?

00:09:14.480 Or is there, like...

00:09:15.040 Well, it depends.

00:09:15.800 Like, let's say you as a Shopify store, you have the option of taking Bitcoin right now.

00:09:20.340 Is that a today thing?

00:09:21.180 Yeah.

00:09:21.520 Oh, okay, cool.

00:09:22.080 It's dependent on you as a store.

00:09:23.960 it depends on you as a business move

00:09:26.960 of what you want to do with that revenue

00:09:28.660 you're either going to throw that

00:09:30.460 as an investment vehicle in your business

00:09:32.300 and let that ride or convert

00:09:34.180 the problem right now with Bitcoin per se 0.96

00:09:35.960 it's really fucking slow 0.89

00:09:37.640 for you to send a dollar right now 0.97

00:09:40.820 it costs you sometimes three bucks

00:09:42.200 I saw half a million dollar transaction

00:09:45.340 and then 13 minutes later

00:09:47.700 it's worth 40% less

00:09:49.040 and there's no liquidity

00:09:50.440 it all depends

00:09:52.560 Right now, Bitcoin isn't, and this is a big war right now going on with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero.

00:09:58.340 Each of them have a different use case and different technological stuff.

00:10:00.620 And people don't want to invest the time to learn that.

00:10:03.140 That's the part is they're buying stuff without knowing what they're buying.

00:10:06.380 Well, that's for anything.

00:10:07.760 It's not just cryptocurrency.

00:10:08.840 We feel like, I lost money in real estate.

00:10:10.640 I'm like, do you know anything about real estate?

00:10:12.320 Nothing.

00:10:12.880 Now, for me, I don't really invest in stocks.

00:10:14.440 I'm going to be wrong.

00:10:14.780 I have a little bit of stocks, but I haven't really sat down and invested a whole year of my life.

00:10:18.600 The amount of time required to actually be intelligent.

00:10:22.060 Confident enough to be like, I'm going to make my own bet on that.

00:10:24.720 Yeah, yeah.

00:10:25.640 And know that you're competing against some of the smartest people in the world

00:10:28.440 with more resources, time, and energy.

00:10:30.140 And for you to find the small little kind of this little crevice

00:10:34.780 that they have not explored yet.

00:10:36.360 Well, human nature is this.

00:10:37.300 There's a funny meme going around in the crypto space where you have two lineups.

00:10:40.640 One lineup is, tell me when to buy to sell.

00:10:42.600 Another lineup is, I'll actually tell you how it works.

00:10:45.580 Walk me through that.

00:10:46.520 There's a lot.

00:10:47.360 So there's two kiosks.

00:10:49.420 Yeah.

00:10:49.620 Kiosk One is a big sign that says, I will tell you when to buy and sell.

00:10:54.120 Okay.

00:10:54.400 Right?

00:10:54.700 Is that like a done for you?

00:10:55.980 Done for you.

00:10:56.500 Okay, got it.

00:10:56.760 And there's like a big lineup of people like, yeah, I don't want to think.

00:10:58.980 Just tell me what to do.

00:10:59.880 Do it yourself.

00:11:00.280 There's a dude who's like, I have to tell you how it works.

00:11:02.380 Yeah.

00:11:02.620 So make your own call.

00:11:03.620 Like, you're way smarter than 99% of the population.

00:11:05.960 Which the financial markets, I believe, back, I think it was Telex or whatever,

00:11:09.340 like a lot of these early investors, like Ray Dalio from Bridgewater,

00:11:13.120 he used to send out a Telex like 40 years ago,

00:11:16.480 and that was like a communication heartbeat, you know,

00:11:19.420 then it was newsletters and financial news so like that's been around forever

00:11:22.660 it's just a different implementation model today with the with crypto so

00:11:27.280 you're saying if you're in the business of helping businesses or infrastructure

00:11:30.640 on businesses figure out where where the intersection of what they do meets

00:11:34.540 crypto and and kind of like whatever and then spend the time to learn it where's

00:11:40.000 your bets gonna be placed as a block geek slash whatever this accelerator 0.52

00:11:45.280 The whole ecosystem, because BlockGeeks focus on all developers of all different platforms,

00:11:50.560 whether you're a Bitcoin core developer, you're an Ethereum developer, whether you're a Hyperledger

00:11:54.380 developer, or the many different blockchains that are slowly coming out right now or emerging

00:11:59.680 overseas.

00:12:00.680 How do you pick what to teach if you're building all this content?

00:12:02.680 Supplying demand.

00:12:03.680 Okay, so you're just going to look at the ones that have the highest search term, volume?

00:12:06.880 Yeah, and also talking to companies, talking to people, talking to projects.

00:12:09.880 Oh, actually talking to financial institutions, saying, hey, where are you guys thinking

00:12:13.000 of bringing your blockchain?

00:12:14.000 going with our hyperledger program yeah because you just realize that's the best implementation

00:12:17.600 yeah and they need it yeah so it's not necessarily because there's a lot of

00:12:20.880 talking bitcoin or no those infrastructure you're just saying like in a lot of these camps they

00:12:24.720 don't like each other like the bitcoin maximalists don't like ethereum right yeah uh and they don't

00:12:30.080 like anything like either bitcoin or nothing so you're approaching it with a capitalist approach

00:12:35.280 yeah but where's the opportunity there's a optimistic approach capitalistic approach but

00:12:39.200 also i want the whole ecosystem to grow as a whole i don't like if you look at organisms and if you

00:12:43.440 And the way you would think about it is kind of like protocols, like SMTP, FTP.

00:12:48.840 Yeah, at least for the next four or five years.

00:12:51.040 Yeah.

00:12:52.040 So essentially, there's the blockchain as an infrastructure like TCP IP.

00:12:55.440 You've got the protocols like the internet, like email, so different applications.

00:12:59.420 And you're saying that you're going to figure out which protocol is being pulled by the

00:13:03.540 corporate market the fastest and let's ramp up, teach those developers to get the base.

00:13:08.440 Yeah, whether it's, like I said, Bitcoin Core, you know, working on the Bitcoin or Ethereum

00:13:13.300 or working on Hyperledger, any of these big platforms, we will provide training.

00:13:18.560 Cool.

00:13:19.200 What's your thoughts on ICOs?

00:13:21.080 I think they're a revolutionary model of raising money.

00:13:23.980 Yeah.

00:13:24.540 And how would you, why are they revolutionary?

00:13:27.660 So like you're-

00:13:28.300 I mean, they're crowdfunding.

00:13:30.260 Yeah, they're actually, they're very similar to crowdfunding as a Kickstarter.

00:13:35.120 The only problem with the difference with a Kickstarter is I have an IOU promise on delivery for a product.

00:13:40.700 Yeah.

00:13:41.200 So essentially it's a pre-purchase.

00:13:42.620 It's a pre-purchase.

00:13:43.500 For an ICO, you're given nothing.

00:13:45.300 You don't have equity in a company.

00:13:46.900 You don't have voting rights in a company.

00:13:48.480 You don't have shares in a company.

00:13:50.260 You don't have dividends in a company.

00:13:52.100 It's vaporware for the most part.

00:13:54.180 Yeah, until something gets materialized.

00:13:56.700 And then the thing you got was essentially the fuel that allows you to use.

00:14:00.660 That's what they say.

00:14:01.420 That's what they say.

00:14:01.960 99% of these ICOs do zero crypto economic, let's say.

00:14:06.240 And that's a whole.

00:14:07.440 That takes a, like, the whole process of figuring out your governance model for your blockchain.

00:14:13.000 And remember, most of these ICOs, they're not, they haven't built their own blockchain.

00:14:16.440 Yeah.

00:14:16.700 They built an ERC-20 token, you know, a computer language token on top of Ethereum.

00:14:20.540 Yeah.

00:14:21.080 And they use Ethereum as their base.

00:14:24.460 And there's not a lot of reference to model against.

00:14:27.940 No.

00:14:28.180 No.

00:14:28.540 No, so essentially they're saying, I'm going to be successful implementing this new token

00:14:33.360 structure and I really don't have a whole lot of best practices to borrow against.

00:14:36.860 So I ask questions, I'm like, number one, why do you need your own token?

00:14:39.300 Why can't you just use Ether and Bitcoin? 0.97

00:14:40.840 Because I don't want your shitty token. 0.99

00:14:42.140 Yeah. 0.99

00:14:43.140 Number two.

00:14:44.140 Meaning that there's liquidity in an Ethereum that wouldn't be.

00:14:46.040 Because I want to hold Ethereum.

00:14:47.040 I don't want to hold your token.

00:14:48.040 Yeah.

00:14:49.040 Like when people say my token is an Ethereum token, really?

00:14:51.240 There's nothing fundamentally promising for me to even use your token.

00:14:55.580 Yeah.

00:14:56.580 Right?

00:14:57.580 of one of the ICUs that actually had a strong argument

00:15:00.720 for a productive use of a token?

00:15:02.620 The recent one would be Filecoin.

00:15:05.020 Okay, and what's unique about Filecoin?

00:15:07.220 So they're looking at storage around the world,

00:15:09.840 so how many tera hashes and giga hashes of free space

00:15:12.880 is on hard drives around the world,

00:15:14.520 which you can crowdsource that resource.

00:15:16.860 If people are willing to contribute to that.

00:15:18.740 Yeah, so that one was the latest one I like,

00:15:21.660 and there's also, what was the one that just happened

00:15:25.840 right now. Polkadot. So that's a side chain to help scale blockchains. I personally don't

00:15:33.840 like it as good as I like it. From a higher volume transaction speed?

00:15:36.840 Yeah, exactly. So it's pegged against, is it a Bitcoin or Ethereum blockchain?

00:15:40.840 It can be used for now for Ethereum, but there's companies like Cosmos upstairs that

00:15:46.840 we work with that might be interoperability in the future.

00:15:49.840 Okay, amongst multiple blockchains. So think about this as a scaling solution. You have

00:15:53.840 You have all these different blockchains and you can use this scaling platform to interconnect

00:15:57.220 everything together.

00:15:58.220 Yeah.

00:15:59.220 And then you can have something called...

00:16:00.220 Essentially, it's almost like a layer switch, like in the network space.

00:16:02.220 Yes.

00:16:03.220 Yeah.

00:16:04.220 So between protocols, different levels of layers.

00:16:06.020 Is there somebody trying to pull together the best practices and patterns for these

00:16:09.900 things?

00:16:10.900 Yeah.

00:16:11.900 So who's...

00:16:12.900 Like that's looking across Ethereum and Bitcoin and...

00:16:15.020 There's a bunch of people working in this space, but once again, we haven't defined

00:16:17.860 exactly what crypto economics is.

00:16:19.860 Yeah.

00:16:20.860 Crypto-economics in Ethereum is a little bit different than Bitcoin.

00:16:24.860 Crypto-economics in, let's say, Cosmos upstairs where they run is a little bit different than

00:16:29.340 anybody else.

00:16:30.340 Everyone has their own definition.

00:16:31.340 So I think we're very early right now to figure out what is some fundamental key principles

00:16:36.860 that we can use.

00:16:37.860 There's people right now.

00:16:38.860 You have Vlad from Ethereum Foundation, you have Vitalik, you have the Bitcoin core team.

00:16:42.860 You have people from Cosmos, people from Polkadot, people from Mio in China.

00:16:47.260 How big is the market right now?

00:16:48.260 Total market.

00:16:49.260 I think north of $200 billion.

00:16:51.260 $200 billion worth of value has been created from this technology that arguably four or

00:16:57.100 five years ago would have been considered maybe like...

00:17:00.260 A joke.

00:17:01.260 Yeah, a joke, a pyramid scheme.

00:17:03.260 They're still considered a joke by many.

00:17:05.260 Fair enough.

00:17:06.260 Where do you see the potential for this in the next five years?

00:17:10.260 Surpass a trillion dollars.

00:17:12.260 Trillion dollar total.

00:17:14.260 And do you have any thoughts on price of Bitcoin, price of Ethereum?

00:17:17.260 I mean, I know you don't like it to me.

00:17:18.260 It's hard to predict.

00:17:19.260 Yeah.

00:17:20.260 Because you don't know if it could just, like, it could, it just takes one developer to do,

00:17:23.020 I mean, recently.

00:17:24.020 Like, Ethereum has its own issues, but it's not Ethereum itself.

00:17:26.760 It's all these wallets and apps, the plug-in, like, for example, Parity is a multi-sig wallet,

00:17:32.720 which had a faulty code.

00:17:33.720 Yeah.

00:17:34.720 50 million or something.

00:17:35.720 More, man.

00:17:36.720 Was it more?

00:17:37.720 Coming up to, like, 300 million dollars locked away.

00:17:39.300 Oh, that was it.

00:17:40.300 300 million.

00:17:41.300 So, somebody changed something by accident.

00:17:42.300 Someone found an exploit in a bug, and it wasn't malicious.

00:17:46.620 It wasn't like, what is this?

00:17:47.780 Yeah, and when he was exploring it, essentially, it changed the signature for the wallet.

00:17:52.500 And he's like, I'm the owner now, but it got locked up, and now, like, $300 million is locked, and no one can touch it.

00:17:56.820 You can see it's almost like a clear safe.

00:17:58.560 Imagine us looking at a translucent safe, like, oh, there's the money, but...

00:18:01.920 Nobody can get in it.

00:18:02.760 Nobody's got the key.

00:18:04.260 And arguably, you'll never get it, because if you could, then it would question the whole infrastructure.

00:18:09.860 Well, no, people, for this one, they're going to take their time, but as we stand a second,

00:18:17.060 no one can access it.

00:18:18.460 Yeah.

00:18:19.460 Nobody.

00:18:20.460 But is there a potential way to get in?

00:18:21.460 Well, if Ethereum does a hard fork like they did with the DAO, so the DAO…

00:18:24.960 They're not going to do a hard fork for $300 million, are they?

00:18:26.960 No, they won't.

00:18:27.960 No.

00:18:28.960 Vitalik came out, so it wouldn't do nothing.

00:18:29.960 So essentially, it's gone.

00:18:30.960 Yeah, unless the actual parity company itself bites the bullet and pays out.

00:18:34.260 Pays out what?

00:18:35.260 The money.

00:18:36.260 But, I mean, what's their valuation?

00:18:38.260 I don't know.

00:18:39.260 It's not 300 million.

00:18:40.280 Parity's a tech company.

00:18:41.180 They're the ones who were offering the wallet.

00:18:43.000 Imagine you're a tech company offering security for somebody and you get exploited.

00:18:47.500 Typically, you have insurance, but I'm pretty sure nobody's going to touch that.

00:18:50.100 There's no insurance for this.

00:18:51.000 No.

00:18:51.500 No.

00:18:52.100 That's another big matter.

00:18:52.640 So arguably, I mean, unless they bite the bullet, agreed, the chances of that happening

00:18:57.500 very low.

00:18:59.280 So essentially, it's gone.

00:19:00.800 As we stand this second.

00:19:02.000 As we stand.

00:19:02.560 So you're saying you're going to get involved in the ecosystem.

00:19:10.000 You've got the online education.

00:19:11.600 You've got essentially the free content, which is BlockGeeks.com.

00:19:14.860 You're going to create some training programs.

00:19:16.260 We already started creating, and we have full in-house teachers upstairs.

00:19:18.480 Okay, that's what that was.

00:19:19.600 I saw those people.

00:19:20.620 And then what is that called?

00:19:22.380 That's BlockGeeks. 0.99

00:19:23.080 Okay, BlockGeeks is both the free content.

00:19:24.800 So the lead generation for us, there's two lead generations we have.

00:19:27.320 We have our guides, which gives us up to three.

00:19:28.880 And anybody could do this.

00:19:29.940 Like, that's the big thing that I feel like people don't understand is there's nothing

00:19:33.520 unique to Amir that said, you're anointed, right?

00:19:38.080 You just said, I'm going to spend the time and energy to understand this, interact with

00:19:40.700 people, build the network, produce content that's valuable.

00:19:43.120 And also not be greedy and not be sucked up because like I did my own, I've been approached

00:19:47.780 by many people.

00:19:48.780 I know all the crypto funds in this space.

00:19:49.780 I've been approached by many people doing ICO for Block Geeks.

00:19:52.420 I could have easily raised $50 million.

00:19:54.300 Easily.

00:19:55.300 Easily.

00:19:56.300 I've got more morals and ethics for that and I actually want to build a business that makes

00:19:58.860 money.

00:19:59.860 That's a hard part for me is I've got probably six friends that have created ICOs and privately I can't stand behind them.

00:20:10.180 And I'll put a million dollar bet on it and all of them burn.

00:20:12.400 I know and that's the part where it's like there's one thing of not participating and there's another part where it's like I really feel it's unethical.

00:20:20.880 I know that there's a lot of money to be made.

00:20:22.640 Yeah.

00:20:23.080 I know that in some way you've spun it in your mind that it's okay to do it.

00:20:27.940 But at the end of the day, unless there's something you know that I don't know.

00:20:31.320 Well, there's two camps I would say for this.

00:20:33.480 There's people who, like maybe your friends are in Camp A.

00:20:35.920 There's people who really don't know the space and they really view it as, oh, this token is a cool thing and it's all about raising money.

00:20:41.220 I've got to believe that's what it is.

00:20:42.720 And there's Camp 2, where it's like, I know everything.

00:20:45.320 Yeah.

00:20:46.120 And I know exactly what I'm doing.

00:20:48.420 Yeah.

00:20:48.780 Right? 0.89

00:20:49.120 They're the malicious, intelligent people.

00:20:51.280 They know exactly.

00:20:52.360 Majority of people are Camp A. 0.98

00:20:53.620 Like if you look at their ICOs, like these guys don't know what the fuck they're doing. 0.94

00:20:56.060 Yeah, and you can tell by their white paper. 0.94

00:20:57.500 Everything, right?

00:20:58.380 Yeah.

00:20:58.560 Right.

00:20:58.820 So they're not professional scammers.

00:21:02.140 They just aren't aware.

00:21:03.680 Yeah.

00:21:04.100 Right.

00:21:04.260 They haven't done their due diligence and see a money.

00:21:06.040 Like, oh, I couldn't raise money from.

00:21:07.360 I always tell people, like, why do you need $20 million at the beginning?

00:21:10.640 Right.

00:21:10.780 First of all, the majority of these tokens are not even real business models.

00:21:14.200 The business model is speculation, which is not a business.

00:21:17.420 Second, I always tell people, why do you need even a million dollars to start?

00:21:20.020 Like, why can't you even go make me an MVP?

00:21:21.920 Like, why can't you go on, oh, what's the wireframe online?

00:21:25.580 Envision. 0.99

00:21:26.060 Go on fucking InVision, hire a guy for $1,000 on InVision. 1.00

00:21:29.080 And that's fancy. 1.00

00:21:29.820 That's fancy, too, right?

00:21:30.860 I'm like UXP or Balsamic, even lower fidelity.

00:21:33.800 So $1,000.

00:21:34.600 Hire a dude on Upwork for $1,000 on InVision and get your thing made for me so I can physically see it.

00:21:40.480 See it, yeah.

00:21:41.400 Explain it to me.

00:21:42.140 Like, no one's taking these steps.

00:21:43.200 This written word thing, copy-paste, white paper.

00:21:45.300 And you see these some ICOs are raising $50 million, $200 million, but it's slowed down right now.

00:21:48.860 The saturation's gone.

00:21:49.800 Thank goodness.

00:21:50.500 I mean, it's just overcapitalization is an argument as well.

00:21:54.040 It's tough because there's, you know, the innovator in me, the capitalist in me that's excited for this new method of funding.

00:22:01.520 I don't want to slow down innovation.

00:22:04.040 You know, I believe that...

00:22:04.900 Well, majority of these ICOs aren't innovating anything.

00:22:07.500 Anything at all.

00:22:08.780 Fair enough.

00:22:09.720 I guess there's also the part that it's exposing people to a new market.

00:22:13.220 And you know what I mean?

00:22:13.720 Like, sometimes there's the motivation, right?

00:22:15.360 Like, you need to be motivated to learn something.

00:22:17.680 And sometimes the upside is the motivation, right?

00:22:19.900 So, like, people learn how to code the internet just because they're like, this is going to

00:22:24.060 be a big thing, not necessarily because they were passionate about it.

00:22:26.520 Don't get me wrong.

00:22:27.520 I think it's a necessary evil.

00:22:28.860 Yeah.

00:22:29.860 And that's the thing that I'm, like, torn with because it's like, yes, there was a lot

00:22:33.940 of people burned.

00:22:34.940 And I guess that's the problem.

00:22:36.160 I don't mind the folks that willingly know this is a very unproven market and they know

00:22:40.240 that there's risk, especially a lot of the investors buying the currency, right?

00:22:43.460 Like, you know, when I got involved in Bitcoin, I knew very well this could go to zero.

00:22:48.440 There was no liquidity, per se.

00:22:49.940 I was cool holding this for 30 years.

00:22:51.940 I don't really, at the end of the day, it's either going to be huge success or huge failure.

00:22:57.020 But most people don't have that, and a lot of people funding these ICOs, and maybe they're

00:23:00.940 not.

00:23:01.940 Maybe it's my assumption that a lot of these people are not educated.

00:23:03.420 Maybe they're educated.

00:23:04.420 Maybe they just want to be participating in the upside and some of them get stuck on

00:23:06.880 the downside.

00:23:07.880 I don't know.

00:23:08.880 Do you think people are getting burned?

00:23:12.560 I see a lot of white papers.

00:23:14.460 I get pitched every day, like ridiculous amounts.

00:23:18.740 I would say 99% of people.

00:23:20.420 Do you have like a standard video response right now

00:23:22.100 you're just sending people or?

00:23:23.440 I just don't reply. 0.99

00:23:24.340 I don't give a fuck. 0.99

00:23:25.180 Okay, you just don't even reply. 0.99

00:23:26.020 Like some of them looks.

00:23:27.820 I mean if people follow you on Facebook.

00:23:28.980 It looks enticing like some white papers.

00:23:31.000 And like people understand like,

00:23:32.340 for good proper white paper and auditing the team 0.98

00:23:34.760 and talking, it takes me like a fucking week. 0.99

00:23:37.140 You know what I mean? 0.99

00:23:37.980 It's like, do your due diligence.

00:23:39.480 Yeah.

00:23:40.760 I would honestly say 99% have no clue what they're doing.

00:23:43.640 No clue.

00:23:44.420 The talent's not out there.

00:23:45.420 I'll give you an example.

00:23:46.420 At the most, there's maybe 500, 600 legitimate full-stack devs who understand blockchain.

00:23:52.360 And then how many crypto-economic experts?

00:23:54.360 Maybe less than 20, 30.

00:23:55.360 Yeah, not a lot.

00:23:56.360 In the globe.

00:23:57.360 So essentially, you're saying, I'm making the bet on the free content, I'm then creating

00:24:01.080 the training program, and then there's an accelerator of sorts.

00:24:04.180 Yeah, so that's L4 with Dimitri, Jason, so I'm there right now as more special advisor

00:24:09.800 for them right now.

00:24:10.960 So what we're focusing on, so it's Dimitri, it's Jason Matheson, we have Ethan, we have

00:24:16.280 Josh, we have Richard, and then we have Liam Horne, am I missing anybody, oh and Jeff Coleman,

00:24:22.080 oh and Vlad, there's a bunch of people.

00:24:24.240 So basically our main thing is we're focusing on protocol layer thing and we're going to

00:24:28.340 be focusing on companies.

00:24:29.340 So multiple companies focus on protocol.

00:24:31.340 Yeah.

00:24:32.340 Elise right now.

00:24:33.340 Yeah.

00:24:34.340 And what is the expectation of these companies, are they revenue generating through corporate

00:24:38.840 support?

00:24:39.840 state channels, which every blockchain in the world needs.

00:24:43.340 Okay, what is this?

00:24:44.340 State channels.

00:24:45.340 So you can scale, I think, million transactions in a second.

00:24:47.340 Okay, so it's like blocking on the chain?

00:24:49.340 So it's off-chain.

00:24:50.340 Yeah.

00:24:51.340 Off-chain solution, where all the transactions of a business will be done on this,

00:24:55.340 but when we actually have to confirm if everything's legit, then it talks back to the root blockchain.

00:24:59.340 Yeah, essentially it like packages it up into what it should look like and it says,

00:25:02.340 is this good?

00:25:03.340 So think about like, yeah, exactly.

00:25:04.340 Sort of information, let's double check.

00:25:05.340 It's transactions for a database, essentially for blockchain.

00:25:08.340 We announced that, no monetization system for that.

00:25:12.480 So is it going to be open source with a...

00:25:14.400 Okay, so is it going to be a support,

00:25:15.660 like a traditional open source kind of revenue model?

00:25:18.540 There might be ways to monetize that in the future,

00:25:21.700 we don't know, but this is...

00:25:22.660 But we know open source has, you know, there's been...

00:25:26.400 I think right now we're in a revolution of open source.

00:25:28.440 Like the blockchains of the future that succeed

00:25:30.460 will be all 100% open source.

00:25:32.500 Yeah, that way that they can be trusted,

00:25:35.000 they can get adoption.

00:25:36.040 I mean, it's Linux, it's, I mean, these are-

00:25:38.540 The reason why Linux didn't take,

00:25:39.660 and don't get me wrong, Linux took off, right?

00:25:41.660 It's the biggest open source project.

00:25:42.500 It took a while.

00:25:43.620 There's no incentive, and now,

00:25:44.700 imagine now you have incentive,

00:25:46.400 where you can be an early developer on a platform,

00:25:48.260 like one of these-

00:25:49.100 Oh, you're saying that some of the developers

00:25:50.740 contributing are gonna get paid in coins?

00:25:52.660 Well, look at Ethereum.

00:25:55.700 I don't understand, so developers on Ethereum

00:25:58.500 get paid in Ethereum if they crave value?

00:26:01.120 The early people that worked on Ethereum,

00:26:03.120 whether it was in Ethereum or Ethereum related projects,

00:26:06.580 got paid an Ethereum token back then.

00:26:08.460 Who paid them?

00:26:09.660 The foundation.

00:26:10.620 Okay, so that was like on contract,

00:26:12.740 they had like bug bounties or?

00:26:14.040 Yeah, bug bounties or like they have, let's say.

00:26:18.140 See this is, even the bounty concept,

00:26:19.840 I know that Google.

00:26:20.680 BlockGeeks has bounty coming up in a month.

00:26:22.380 Dude, there's a company now that does this at scale

00:26:24.680 for Google, Microsoft,

00:26:27.340 like they essentially manage the bounty program.

00:26:29.520 So Zeppelin is one of the biggest dev teams

00:26:31.800 in the blockchain space really good.

00:26:33.260 They're located in Argentina,

00:26:35.020 and they're just creating this consensus model around

00:26:37.640 where they're gonna create open source bug bounties

00:26:40.120 for all these different blockchain programs.

00:26:42.000 Even BlockGeeks are having bounties.

00:26:43.340 So basically, what we're having is you get paid in Ether.

00:26:46.020 So let's say your student,

00:26:46.940 they're like, oh cool, I just did a bunch of these courses,

00:26:48.580 I know some information.

00:26:49.680 Another dev comes around and asks a question,

00:26:52.280 I don't wanna spend hours on Stack Exchange or GitHub.

00:26:54.720 Yeah, trying to answer it.

00:26:55.600 Yeah, I'm like, listen, 20 bucks worth of Ether,

00:26:57.520 and you already know the answer

00:26:58.480 because he took our courses. 0.99

00:26:59.420 Like, fuck, I want 20 bucks in Ether. 0.99

00:27:01.140 Go answer, within 24 hours, you get your ether. 0.99

00:27:03.260 This is an interesting model that I think

00:27:05.900 it really takes that whole idea of crowdfunding

00:27:09.720 or crowd, you know, whatever the Wikipedia.

00:27:13.640 Well, they just launched their blog, too,

00:27:15.600 if you saw Wiki Tribune,

00:27:17.380 where they do crowdsourcing information

00:27:19.760 for if this is real or not information.

00:27:21.900 Oh, that needs to happen.

00:27:23.260 So it's kind of like, what's that site that would do that?

00:27:26.640 Crowdsourcing?

00:27:27.600 No, they were about like, if it's real news or not.

00:27:30.140 Snoops?

00:27:30.980 Yeah, Snoops. 0.86

00:27:31.800 Yeah, so kind of like Snoops, but a little different.

00:27:33.640 Well, Snoops is centralized, controlled by one person.

00:27:35.020 Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. 0.98

00:27:35.860 It's like, oh, die, whatever, die, die. 0.98

00:27:36.780 That's a problem.

00:27:37.620 So their bias is definitely going to show up in their editorial.

00:27:40.280 So this is kind of like crowdsourced, unbiased.

00:27:45.020 So you create, is it an incubator then, or are the companies?

00:27:48.840 Yeah.

00:27:49.340 Okay, so the companies are being created through that advisory board.

00:27:52.820 L4, yeah.

00:27:53.660 The talent is, I'm assuming, going to come from the training?

00:27:55.580 Yeah, there's going to be a bunch who want to apply afterwards, yeah, definitely.

00:28:00.060 Like I said, we're very early in the stage right now,

00:28:02.600 and it's the next four or five years all experimental.

00:28:06.980 There's gonna be a lot of failures,

00:28:08.040 both through the ashes, Phoenix rises.

00:28:10.120 So I think right now, wherever you are,

00:28:12.180 if you're in for the long game, you're good.

00:28:14.680 What's your, as we wrap up,

00:28:16.400 what's the thing that you're most excited about

00:28:19.800 over the next five years in this space?

00:28:22.220 Seeing it grow globally.

00:28:23.880 So even right now, even though crypto,

00:28:26.060 in our inner circle, it's like, oh, it's older age.

00:28:28.500 Go walk on the street.

00:28:29.600 What is Ethereum? 0.99

00:28:30.560 What the fuck is this, right? 0.95

00:28:31.980 $200 billion, Netflix is $200 billion. 0.99

00:28:34.620 Netflix comes around.

00:28:35.800 Ray Dalio Bridgewater is $150 billion fund, right?

00:28:38.760 One fund, right?

00:28:41.060 The big national wealth funds from UAE or Dubai,

00:28:43.720 they want to invest in a minimum $100 billion, right?

00:28:46.240 So we're still small.

00:28:47.180 For me, I want global,

00:28:48.440 the biggest problem in the crypto space right now is like-

00:28:50.120 Too small.

00:28:50.960 It's small, plus there's no talent.

00:28:52.040 So I want to literally train 10,000 devs a year.

00:28:54.660 Is there value though, okay,

00:28:56.100 so let's say it goes from $200 billion to a trillion.

00:28:59.420 That increase is gonna come from the price increase

00:29:03.080 based on demand.

00:29:04.900 Is there value arguments for that level of demand

00:29:08.820 on the currency?

00:29:09.880 I wouldn't say it's demand,

00:29:11.040 I would say it's more hedging.

00:29:12.380 So a lot of these people are coming in,

00:29:13.940 they're looking, like, the fiat is, people-

00:29:15.660 So are they truly hedging against global

00:29:17.480 potential economic downturn?

00:29:19.020 Yeah, at least right now, Bitcoin and like Monero,

00:29:22.440 Ether, maybe in the future, it's a good hedge.

00:29:24.480 Like, look at fiat currency.

00:29:26.160 You have inflationary rates of 2% minimum per year, times that by inflationary rates of everything else around you comes on average that your dollar has an inflationary rate of 5% per year minimum.

00:29:38.240 Yeah, easily.

00:29:39.080 So you're just sitting on your money in the bank is the worst possible thing you can do.

00:29:42.500 Yeah, yeah, the day long for it to go to a whole lot of nothing.

00:29:44.100 So a lot of these people are trying to look at it.

00:29:45.620 And plus, crypto is a brand new asset class in general.

00:29:47.940 So they're looking like, how can I hedge my bets against something?

00:29:50.640 At least maybe have maybe 1% to 5% of my portfolio within crypto.

00:29:54.580 That's awesome.

00:29:55.140 Cool, dude. Appreciate it, man.

00:29:57.260 Thanks for having me on.

00:29:58.260 Dan and I were talking about cryptocurrency, blockchain technology.

00:30:02.500 It's pretty much all the rage today.

00:30:04.360 Our company, BlockGeeks, focus on training developers online.

00:30:07.100 So if you're like a junior stack developer or even a senior stack

00:30:09.300 looking to learn about whether Ethereum or Bitcoin coding

00:30:12.380 or Hyperledger coding, we offer that services.

00:30:14.760 Plus, we're the world's largest blockchain educator online.

00:30:18.060 But the whole notion of the talk Dan and I just had is

00:30:20.400 with this new ecosystem happening right now,

00:30:22.640 regardless of if you are a developer,

00:30:25.520 if you're an accountant, if you're a marketer,

00:30:27.040 if you're just a curious bee,

00:30:28.780 is like really take your time

00:30:29.940 and understand what this technology is.

00:30:31.800 It's not like anything other before,

00:30:35.180 or it's not like anything came.

00:30:36.980 Let me phrase this.

00:30:38.320 There's never been a technology like this before.

00:30:40.480 And this technology isn't new.

00:30:41.900 It's just how they stack this technology together

00:30:43.840 to create a new ecosystem around it.

00:30:45.820 So my advice to anybody is really understand

00:30:47.560 how the blockchain works.

00:30:49.080 Take your time.

00:30:49.820 Don't rush, right?

00:30:50.700 It took me a while to understand it.

00:30:52.040 and once you do understand it then you can figure out how you can contribute to it we're just at the

00:30:56.040 beginning right now like imagine i always give it the the the comparison to like netscape like

00:31:02.440 netscape came out like what 20 something years ago give or take we're on that stage of the blockchain

00:31:06.840 so we got like 20 plus years to go till we see maturation like look at e-commerce like for

00:31:12.040 example in china 90 of purchases is done on wechat right on mobile but if you look at for example

00:31:19.080 North America I don't even think so it's north of 20% for e-commerce but even e-commerce has a

00:31:23.320 long way to go so we're at the haze we're just at the very beginning of blockchain technology so

00:31:28.360 my advice to anybody regardless of it like I said if you're a developer if you're an accountant if

00:31:33.160 you're a lawyer whoever you are understand the technologies join your local meetup go to

00:31:37.000 Go to BlockGeeks.com and get involved.

Dan Martell - December 01, 2017

Episode #4 - How To Get Into The Cryptocurrency Industry w⧸ Ameer Rosic ( BlockGeeks.com)

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript