January 18, 2022 • 15 mins
Chris Duffus an experienced financial technology entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of Fonbnk, Inc. an emerging mobile technology company addressing financial inequity across the developing world joins the Money Moves podcast.
Host IG: @itstanyatime
Guest IG: @cduffus
Guest Website: Fonbnk
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily podcast,
determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom of
financial stability, wealth and abundance. So as we go deeper
into this, how important how important is it to diversify
(00:23):
which cryptocurrencies you invest in? I think this is, you know,
very typical in the stock investing world, but does it
apply the same way in the crypto world. So I
would say that most cryptos, there's a high correlation between
bitcoin and ethereum. I think I'd approach that question a
bit differently, and that crypto isn't you know, if you
(00:45):
were if you were to ask an institutional money manager,
they would look at this as what's called an alternative
asset class, and by definition, as they design their portfolios,
they might only put a small portion of their overall
assets into this alternative asset class. And the reason why
they do that is that, you know, just it's highly volatile,
(01:09):
and you know, in the same way that an average
person might have bills to pay every month, or long
term goals like college, you know, for their children, or
paying off debt that they don't want to like bet
everything in one type of asset, and you could be
in the venture capital space and be highly diversified, but
you're still in the venture capital space, and it's subject
(01:31):
to a lot of the conditions and volatility of that
particular segment. Same as same as crypto. So while sure
you might be diversified in a number of different crypto,
it still should probably be a relatively small percentage of
your overall portfolio. And obviously, if you're maybe a little
bit younger, you can afford to take those risks versus
(01:53):
if you're older and have a specific obligations that you
have to address. That's really good advice, because I do
feel like age does factor into this, you know, and
I think that's true of all investing and all you know,
life planning in terms of your financial goals and needs. Um.
I think back to when I first started really hearing
(02:13):
about cryptocurrencies and bitcoins, and I obviously will kick myself
because I had friends that were very very early on
in the bitcoin days that we're actually mining them themselves.
You know, we're based here in Atlanta, Georgia, so Georgia
Tech is in our background and in our in our
in our backyard, and I was like, Wow, these guys
are really really onto something here, but I didn't dive
(02:36):
in as early as I wanted. But you know, I'm
I'm into cryptocurrencies now and I'm still learning every day
UM and starting to take bigger bets and explore different coins,
and it's actually become quite fun and maybe a little
bit profitable. I'm not gonna tell you guys my you
know inside details here, but uh, I've had a really
good time learning more and more about it. Um. So
(02:58):
the other day, we had a question yesterday about whether
or not cryptocurrencies affect one another's values. Can you speak
a little bit about that and how the different cryptocurrencies
are used. Sure, um, there there is a lot of
correlation amongst them and the types of currencies, and so
(03:21):
you know, they look at sort of Bitcoin as the
bell weather, right, and in many respects, it's kind of
the gateway into the crypto world, or at least it
historically was before there are these other on ramps. But
you know the way, you know, the way Bitcoin goes,
all the other coins follow. But now ethereum is taken
(03:41):
off and it is literally the foundation or operating systems
for many uh cryptocurrencies that are um uh in the
market today, and so there's definitely a correlation between the
price of ethereum and whatever plagues that network protocol and
how it might affect other applications or uh coins. Um.
(04:06):
And then you know there are other sort of trading
pairs like uh, Ripple and Stellar right there. They they
sort of branched out from from one another. Uh. And
so as you educate yourself into the crypto world and coins,
you'll see all these different types of relationships. Um. You know,
(04:27):
it also could be related to where the trading volumes
are significant. Uh. You know at one point, like Ripple was,
its top market was South Korea, right, Um, So obviously
if things affected that particular market, it would affect the
price of of of Ripple. Uh. And you know, just
(04:48):
like and this is no different than stocks, you kind
of have to do your research and and and be
sort of you know, sleuthy about it and and dig
deep and and and figure out what are the factor
that drive into this crypto is just a very nascent market.
But the goodness is as compared to when stocks started. Uh.
(05:08):
You know, we have this thing called the Internet, and
you perhaps of research anywhere in the world on the
most arcane subjects, and you know, it's a bit of
a it can be a bit of a rabbit holes,
and this is one of these things where this is
what will lead you to um discovering sort of other
(05:30):
coins to buy once you've done your research and you're like,
oh my gosh. Well, the reason I actually got into
ethereum was that I realized that, you know, um, there
were hundreds and hundreds of uh other coins that were
built on top of Ethereum that had an Ethereum had
a fraction of the market cap of these other coins.
(05:54):
That was the way to do it. Research, research, research. So, Chris,
earlier you mentioned n f T s and I am
completely fascinated with n f T s. I feel like
the world has just exploded with n f T talks.
We've seen incredible numbers being garnered at auctions for this
digital art. Can you tell us a little bit more
about non fungible tokens? Have you purchased any um and
(06:15):
your thoughts on what that looks like in terms of
future markets and investing. Sure, but well, an n f
T you know, the way I like to describe it
is it's really has it's a piece of work, artwork,
whether it's crypto or digital or music or something, and
(06:35):
it has the digital rights management around it, and that's
what the crypto rapper provides, that sort of security and
sort of this authenticity that can't be replicated. And so
that opens up an opportunity for all types of creatives
or makers of this type of work to sell directly
(06:57):
to whomever you know loves their there um esthetic anywhere
in the in the world digitally and as such um
you know, significant value that now doesn't have to go
through middleman. So if you're a musical artist, you can
sell directly, you know, through some music n f T
to your fans. I think these youth cases are so
(07:18):
interesting because everybody gets it like music, you know, for
years we've had this debate of who owns this speed
or who owns this and it's embedded now in this
n f T and if it's being sold over and
over and over again, you can directly track the revenue
from that. I mean, this is really revolutionary, and I mean,
if you're telling me it spans music and art and
all these other things. I think this really helps people
(07:41):
understand what the beauty of blockchain can do across all
industries exactly like I'll give you an example, So there's
this company called uh that that's monetize with this product
called NBA Pop Shop, Yes that, you know, which is
essentially video clips from you know, NBA highlights that they
(08:04):
used to show on like you know, uh espn um. Well,
the company Dapper Labs is now worth like three billion dollars, insane,
and they all this is one of those companies that
got started out of the whole COVID era where people
sitting at home and you know, thinking, thinking about what
they could do. Well, imagine, you know, I don't know
(08:27):
about you, but you but one of my guilty pleasures
is looking at memes and as I think about our
our culture. Um, you know, imagine these kids are young
men and women that create these cultural crossover phenomena in
in a meme, they can actually get paid. They can
get paid. I think about you know, you're talking about
(08:47):
COVID and sitting at home the Cranberry juice ocean spray
guy that went viral and you know, I hope he
got paid off of the This is a perfect example
of how you can embed value in that and now
as it starts to spread, it's actually going to the
creator and so your point on this about how this
is really revolutionizing entrepreneurship. Like Dapper Labs is a great example.
(09:09):
There were two guys sitting at home in the middle
of the pandemic and they're like, huh, scratching their head.
Imagine if I took this meme and I added it
to blockchain, and now they've created this incredibly valuable company.
I mean, this is great. Yeah, and you know, I
think I think it's if you're a maker, you're creative,
(09:30):
I think this is a great um opportunity explore. And
there's platforms. They're almost as simple to use as some
of the you know, free website services right like Wixer,
square Space, and it could you could even do things
like recipes or uh, you know, any any number of
(09:51):
you know, digital creative things where now you can sort
of you know, tract the provenance and ownership and you
might even give things away, but you know initially, but
you could program into the smart contract that if it
gets sold, you know, in the future, you get a
royalty from it. Here's our smart trunk contracts coming back.
And that's you know, the forward thinking that allows you
(10:12):
to really control the process of sales, et cetera. That's
embedded into this. I love that. That's a really great example.
I bought my first I've got a couple of n
f T s um a couple of weeks ago, and
I'm really proud of them. I love them. You know.
It was just a piece of art that I really liked. Um,
and there was a story behind it. I felt passionate
about it. And you know, I used nifty Gateway and
(10:34):
I sat there till the drop happened, and I mean
it was kind of an exciting process. And now I've
added a couple more to my portfolio. Um, it feels good.
It feels good. And even going back to the investing theme,
what people forget is that these are real This is
real art, and you paid money for it, and it
will have value and it might even be more valuable.
And what's mind blowing about something like the blockchain is
(10:58):
you have equity in that in the same way that
you might have in a house. And who knows in
the in the future, you know, maybe Greenwood will give
you an equity line of credit against your n f
T portfolio and you can spend it on one of
their debit cards or something product roadmap Greenwood Okay, great,
thank you. I appreciate that. So, Chris, I'd be remiss
(11:20):
if I didn't close out by asking you about your
company that you're working on, Phone Bank. Can you tell
us UM a little bit more about that as well? Sure?
You know, I think there are a lot of ways
in which you can make an impact in this sort
of new technology, right, And one of the things that
you know in my ethos is around education and financial
(11:43):
literacy on a global basis. And there are many people
UM outside the US that don't have sort of the
access to financial services UM that we do here. And
it's even more binary, right like, oh, if I don't
have a phone, I can't access the Internet, and I
can't you know, deposit funds any of wann to learn
(12:04):
about things. And so what we do in phone Bank
is we essentially convert a unit of access or this
data into a type of currency that can be UM
available anywhere in the in the world where someone has
a mobile phone. I get it, Phone Bank. That's brilliant. Wow,
(12:27):
that's actually really changing the lives for people. I mean,
it's it's creating you know, pathways to upper mobility financial access.
That's really incredible. Can you tell us a little bit
more about I mean, the entrepreneurship side of this. You've
started this company, UM, did you, you know, use your
own funds? Tell us a little bit more about where
it came from for you to begin this business. So
(12:50):
I'm a serial fintech entrepreneur. I built and sold three
fintech companies in the past decade. And but Phone Banks
actually was It's a culmination of many experiences. But it
actually technically started with a bet from with my young
brother in law who came back from Kenya. And your
brother in law comes up a lot in conversation. He does,
(13:12):
he does, He's very very smart young man. UM. But
he he came back and he had a hundred dollars
left over on the local SIM card there, and he
bet me that I couldn't resell it back to someone
in Kenya. And UH, long story short, I sort of
packed together a clever way to uh advertised to some
(13:36):
folks and got them into a WhatsApp group and I
used his simcard and UM Mobile money account to sell
it back to someone. And today now we've done millions
of transactions. We have tens of thousands of wallets that
we've created, across the world and growing pretty rapidly, supporting
(13:59):
hundreds of mobile carriers and nearly any uh every country
on the planet. Oh, I'm so glad I asked that
story because I feel like there are so many businesses
that are born out of these wacky ideas or in
your case, a bet that you know. It just takes
a little bit of push for people to act on
and it grows into a huge business. So with that,
(14:19):
thank you very much, Chris. That was incredibly inspiring, I mean,
and your conversation and knowledge on cryptocurrencies UM has really
been so beneficial to so many of us. So thank
you so much, Chris. We'll hope to see you back again,
UM and make sure that you stay with us this week. Folks,
thank you so much for tuning into Money Moves. Thank
you so much for tuning in Money Moves audience. If
(14:41):
you want more or a recap of this episode, please
go to the bank Greenwood dot com and check out
the Money Moves podcast blog. Money Moves is an I
heart radio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc.
For more po pdcast on I heart Radio, visit the
(15:01):
i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get
your podcasts from,
Hey, money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily podcast,
determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom of
financial stability, wealth and abundance. So as we go deeper
into this, how important how important is it to diversify
(00:23):
which cryptocurrencies you invest in? I think this is, you know,
very typical in the stock investing world, but does it
apply the same way in the crypto world. So I
would say that most cryptos, there's a high correlation between
bitcoin and ethereum. I think I'd approach that question a
bit differently, and that crypto isn't you know, if you
(00:45):
were if you were to ask an institutional money manager,
they would look at this as what's called an alternative
asset class, and by definition, as they design their portfolios,
they might only put a small portion of their overall
assets into this alternative asset class. And the reason why
they do that is that, you know, just it's highly volatile,
(01:09):
and you know, in the same way that an average
person might have bills to pay every month, or long
term goals like college, you know, for their children, or
paying off debt that they don't want to like bet
everything in one type of asset, and you could be
in the venture capital space and be highly diversified, but
you're still in the venture capital space, and it's subject
(01:31):
to a lot of the conditions and volatility of that
particular segment. Same as same as crypto. So while sure
you might be diversified in a number of different crypto,
it still should probably be a relatively small percentage of
your overall portfolio. And obviously, if you're maybe a little
bit younger, you can afford to take those risks versus
(01:53):
if you're older and have a specific obligations that you
have to address. That's really good advice, because I do
feel like age does factor into this, you know, and
I think that's true of all investing and all you know,
life planning in terms of your financial goals and needs. Um.
I think back to when I first started really hearing
(02:13):
about cryptocurrencies and bitcoins, and I obviously will kick myself
because I had friends that were very very early on
in the bitcoin days that we're actually mining them themselves.
You know, we're based here in Atlanta, Georgia, so Georgia
Tech is in our background and in our in our
in our backyard, and I was like, Wow, these guys
are really really onto something here, but I didn't dive
(02:36):
in as early as I wanted. But you know, I'm
I'm into cryptocurrencies now and I'm still learning every day
UM and starting to take bigger bets and explore different coins,
and it's actually become quite fun and maybe a little
bit profitable. I'm not gonna tell you guys my you
know inside details here, but uh, I've had a really
good time learning more and more about it. Um. So
(02:58):
the other day, we had a question yesterday about whether
or not cryptocurrencies affect one another's values. Can you speak
a little bit about that and how the different cryptocurrencies
are used. Sure, um, there there is a lot of
correlation amongst them and the types of currencies, and so
(03:21):
you know, they look at sort of Bitcoin as the
bell weather, right, and in many respects, it's kind of
the gateway into the crypto world, or at least it
historically was before there are these other on ramps. But
you know the way, you know, the way Bitcoin goes,
all the other coins follow. But now ethereum is taken
(03:41):
off and it is literally the foundation or operating systems
for many uh cryptocurrencies that are um uh in the
market today, and so there's definitely a correlation between the
price of ethereum and whatever plagues that network protocol and
how it might affect other applications or uh coins. Um.
(04:06):
And then you know there are other sort of trading
pairs like uh, Ripple and Stellar right there. They they
sort of branched out from from one another. Uh. And
so as you educate yourself into the crypto world and coins,
you'll see all these different types of relationships. Um. You know,
(04:27):
it also could be related to where the trading volumes
are significant. Uh. You know at one point, like Ripple was,
its top market was South Korea, right, Um, So obviously
if things affected that particular market, it would affect the
price of of of Ripple. Uh. And you know, just
(04:48):
like and this is no different than stocks, you kind
of have to do your research and and and be
sort of you know, sleuthy about it and and dig
deep and and and figure out what are the factor
that drive into this crypto is just a very nascent market.
But the goodness is as compared to when stocks started. Uh.
(05:08):
You know, we have this thing called the Internet, and
you perhaps of research anywhere in the world on the
most arcane subjects, and you know, it's a bit of
a it can be a bit of a rabbit holes,
and this is one of these things where this is
what will lead you to um discovering sort of other
(05:30):
coins to buy once you've done your research and you're like,
oh my gosh. Well, the reason I actually got into
ethereum was that I realized that, you know, um, there
were hundreds and hundreds of uh other coins that were
built on top of Ethereum that had an Ethereum had
a fraction of the market cap of these other coins.
(05:54):
That was the way to do it. Research, research, research. So, Chris,
earlier you mentioned n f T s and I am
completely fascinated with n f T s. I feel like
the world has just exploded with n f T talks.
We've seen incredible numbers being garnered at auctions for this
digital art. Can you tell us a little bit more
about non fungible tokens? Have you purchased any um and
(06:15):
your thoughts on what that looks like in terms of
future markets and investing. Sure, but well, an n f
T you know, the way I like to describe it
is it's really has it's a piece of work, artwork,
whether it's crypto or digital or music or something, and
(06:35):
it has the digital rights management around it, and that's
what the crypto rapper provides, that sort of security and
sort of this authenticity that can't be replicated. And so
that opens up an opportunity for all types of creatives
or makers of this type of work to sell directly
(06:57):
to whomever you know loves their there um esthetic anywhere
in the in the world digitally and as such um
you know, significant value that now doesn't have to go
through middleman. So if you're a musical artist, you can
sell directly, you know, through some music n f T
to your fans. I think these youth cases are so
(07:18):
interesting because everybody gets it like music, you know, for
years we've had this debate of who owns this speed
or who owns this and it's embedded now in this
n f T and if it's being sold over and
over and over again, you can directly track the revenue
from that. I mean, this is really revolutionary, and I mean,
if you're telling me it spans music and art and
all these other things. I think this really helps people
(07:41):
understand what the beauty of blockchain can do across all
industries exactly like I'll give you an example, So there's
this company called uh that that's monetize with this product
called NBA Pop Shop, Yes that, you know, which is
essentially video clips from you know, NBA highlights that they
(08:04):
used to show on like you know, uh espn um. Well,
the company Dapper Labs is now worth like three billion dollars, insane,
and they all this is one of those companies that
got started out of the whole COVID era where people
sitting at home and you know, thinking, thinking about what
they could do. Well, imagine, you know, I don't know
(08:27):
about you, but you but one of my guilty pleasures
is looking at memes and as I think about our
our culture. Um, you know, imagine these kids are young
men and women that create these cultural crossover phenomena in
in a meme, they can actually get paid. They can
get paid. I think about you know, you're talking about
(08:47):
COVID and sitting at home the Cranberry juice ocean spray
guy that went viral and you know, I hope he
got paid off of the This is a perfect example
of how you can embed value in that and now
as it starts to spread, it's actually going to the
creator and so your point on this about how this
is really revolutionizing entrepreneurship. Like Dapper Labs is a great example.
(09:09):
There were two guys sitting at home in the middle
of the pandemic and they're like, huh, scratching their head.
Imagine if I took this meme and I added it
to blockchain, and now they've created this incredibly valuable company.
I mean, this is great. Yeah, and you know, I
think I think it's if you're a maker, you're creative,
(09:30):
I think this is a great um opportunity explore. And
there's platforms. They're almost as simple to use as some
of the you know, free website services right like Wixer,
square Space, and it could you could even do things
like recipes or uh, you know, any any number of
(09:51):
you know, digital creative things where now you can sort
of you know, tract the provenance and ownership and you
might even give things away, but you know initially, but
you could program into the smart contract that if it
gets sold, you know, in the future, you get a
royalty from it. Here's our smart trunk contracts coming back.
And that's you know, the forward thinking that allows you
(10:12):
to really control the process of sales, et cetera. That's
embedded into this. I love that. That's a really great example.
I bought my first I've got a couple of n
f T s um a couple of weeks ago, and
I'm really proud of them. I love them. You know.
It was just a piece of art that I really liked. Um,
and there was a story behind it. I felt passionate
about it. And you know, I used nifty Gateway and
(10:34):
I sat there till the drop happened, and I mean
it was kind of an exciting process. And now I've
added a couple more to my portfolio. Um, it feels good.
It feels good. And even going back to the investing theme,
what people forget is that these are real This is
real art, and you paid money for it, and it
will have value and it might even be more valuable.
And what's mind blowing about something like the blockchain is
(10:58):
you have equity in that in the same way that
you might have in a house. And who knows in
the in the future, you know, maybe Greenwood will give
you an equity line of credit against your n f
T portfolio and you can spend it on one of
their debit cards or something product roadmap Greenwood Okay, great,
thank you. I appreciate that. So, Chris, I'd be remiss
(11:20):
if I didn't close out by asking you about your
company that you're working on, Phone Bank. Can you tell
us UM a little bit more about that as well? Sure?
You know, I think there are a lot of ways
in which you can make an impact in this sort
of new technology, right, And one of the things that
you know in my ethos is around education and financial
(11:43):
literacy on a global basis. And there are many people
UM outside the US that don't have sort of the
access to financial services UM that we do here. And
it's even more binary, right like, oh, if I don't
have a phone, I can't access the Internet, and I
can't you know, deposit funds any of wann to learn
(12:04):
about things. And so what we do in phone Bank
is we essentially convert a unit of access or this
data into a type of currency that can be UM
available anywhere in the in the world where someone has
a mobile phone. I get it, Phone Bank. That's brilliant. Wow,
(12:27):
that's actually really changing the lives for people. I mean,
it's it's creating you know, pathways to upper mobility financial access.
That's really incredible. Can you tell us a little bit
more about I mean, the entrepreneurship side of this. You've
started this company, UM, did you, you know, use your
own funds? Tell us a little bit more about where
it came from for you to begin this business. So
(12:50):
I'm a serial fintech entrepreneur. I built and sold three
fintech companies in the past decade. And but Phone Banks
actually was It's a culmination of many experiences. But it
actually technically started with a bet from with my young
brother in law who came back from Kenya. And your
brother in law comes up a lot in conversation. He does,
(13:12):
he does, He's very very smart young man. UM. But
he he came back and he had a hundred dollars
left over on the local SIM card there, and he
bet me that I couldn't resell it back to someone
in Kenya. And UH, long story short, I sort of
packed together a clever way to uh advertised to some
(13:36):
folks and got them into a WhatsApp group and I
used his simcard and UM Mobile money account to sell
it back to someone. And today now we've done millions
of transactions. We have tens of thousands of wallets that
we've created, across the world and growing pretty rapidly, supporting
(13:59):
hundreds of mobile carriers and nearly any uh every country
on the planet. Oh, I'm so glad I asked that
story because I feel like there are so many businesses
that are born out of these wacky ideas or in
your case, a bet that you know. It just takes
a little bit of push for people to act on
and it grows into a huge business. So with that,
(14:19):
thank you very much, Chris. That was incredibly inspiring, I mean,
and your conversation and knowledge on cryptocurrencies UM has really
been so beneficial to so many of us. So thank
you so much, Chris. We'll hope to see you back again,
UM and make sure that you stay with us this week. Folks,
thank you so much for tuning into Money Moves. Thank
you so much for tuning in Money Moves audience. If
(14:41):
you want more or a recap of this episode, please
go to the bank Greenwood dot com and check out
the Money Moves podcast blog. Money Moves is an I
heart radio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc.
For more po pdcast on I heart Radio, visit the
(15:01):
i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get
your podcasts from,
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