March 10, 2025 • 44 mins
Money has evolved over thousands of years, but never has there been such a radical reimagining as what we're witnessing with Bitcoin and blockchain technology. In this riveting conversation, blockchain advocate and entrepreneur Koleya pulls back the curtain on how this revolutionary technology is reshaping our financial future.
Growing up with entrepreneurial parents who prioritized business acumen over academics, Koleya's journey from clean technology to blockchain advocacy offers a unique perspective on the practical applications of this often misunderstood technology. Her explanation of Bitcoin's fundamental value proposition – a truly scarce digital asset secured by military-grade encryption – cuts through the hype and misconceptions that plague mainstream discussions.
What makes this conversation particularly valuable is Koleya's pragmatic approach to implementation. Rather than suggesting blockchain as a solution looking for a problem, she outlines specific use cases where the technology genuinely adds value – from energy companies monetizing otherwise wasted resources through Bitcoin mining to supply chain tracking that can reduce food recall times from days to seconds. Her emphasis on starting with business problems rather than technological solutions provides a refreshing counterpoint to the "buzzword salad" that dominates many blockchain discussions.
The most thought-provoking aspect of our conversation centers on Bitcoin's potential to disrupt our global monetary system. As Koleya explains, traditional currencies have lost over 90% of their purchasing power in recent decades due to unlimited supply expansion – a stark contrast to Bitcoin's fixed supply of 21 million coins. This fundamental difference raises profound questions about the future of money, banking, and national sovereignty that extend far beyond cryptocurrency speculation. Whether you're a business leader weighing technology investments or simply concerned about preserving your wealth in uncertain times, this episode offers invaluable perspective on one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetime.
Sell Me This Podcast is brought to you by the team at Deliver Digital, a Calgary-based consulting organization that guides progressive companies through the selection, implementation, and governance of key technology partnerships. Their work is transforming the technology solution and software provider landscape by helping organizations reduce costs and duplication, enhance vendor alignment, and establish sustainable operating models that empower digital progress.
If you believe you deserve more from your technology partnerships – connect with the team at:
www.deliverdigital.ca
This episode of Sell Me This Podcast was expertly edited, filmed, and produced by Laila Hobbs and Bretten Roissl of Social Launch Labs, who deliver top-tier storytelling and technical excellence. A special thanks to the entire team for their dedication to crafting compelling content that engages, connects, and inspires.
Find the team at Social Launch Labs at:
www.sociallaunchlabs.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Most people don't understand the cloud.
If you're really interested inblockchain, to start read the
Bitcoin Standard by Safety theMoose.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to Sell Me this Podcast where we break down
sales strategies andcutting-edge business trends.
Today, we are diving into theworld of blockchain, bitcoin and
the future of money with Kalea,a blockchain advocate and
entrepreneur with deep insightsin how technology is reshaping
finance and industry.
We'll explore the history ofmoney, real world applications
(00:36):
of Bitcoin and how businessescan navigate the evolving
landscape of decentralizedfinance.
If you've ever wondered aboutblockchain's impact beyond the
hype, this episode is packedwith insights you won't want to
miss.
Let's get into it.
Kalea, welcome to the show.
We're so excited to have youhere today.
I'm going to dive right intothings and I am super curious.
What led you to where you aretoday and what led you into the
(01:00):
wonderful world of blockchain?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Oh goodness, Big question to start off with.
That is a big question Like howmuch backstory are we looking
for here?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
From the day you were born no, I could give that
backstory.
How much time do we have?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Pretty much that would be the question.
It's like I could probablycondense it into like seven
minutes.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
The whole backstory.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Well, were you always kind of attracted to the
technology side of things Likehow did you?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
So you know, I think I was always attracted to
business and I was raised in avery entrepreneurial family.
So, like to give a quickbackstory, I guess my father
actually, when my mom waspregnant with my sister my older
sister he used to be inconstruction he was a musician
before that and he was trying tofigure out, like how can I take
care of my family?
He wanted to be a Fortune 500executive but didn't want to go
(01:46):
back to school because he hadgrade 10 and didn't want to work
his way up a corporate ladder.
So he did this kind of wholechart of like what could he do
and he figured out that everyFortune 500 executive had one
thing in common and they wereall ground transportation.
So they'd fly into a city, theywould usually hire a concierge
service to like take them tomeetings, take them to the
hotels.
So he went to the bank, got aloan, bought a limousine,
started putting ads out and thenhe really attracted like he
(02:09):
specifically wanted to getaccess to like these big
executives and he'd ask themquestions and they found him
really personable.
He ended up raising $2 millionafter like just learning, and he
grew to a fleet of like 13 ofthem.
And so by the time I was three,he had raised this money and he
had been growing the business,and this was before they had
like executive forms.
So my dad sat me down one dayand he's like I'm just going to
(02:31):
talk to you about everything.
You're probably not going tounderstand anything I have to
say, but by the time you're 21,I want to write a business plan
with you and we're going to gointo business together.
So his whole goal in life wasto literally teach me how to be
an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
That's amazing and I feel like that's such a skill
that people you know everyonefocuses on the math and the
science and all this academia.
And then you get out of schooland all of a sudden you're like,
okay, what do I do next?
Kind of what path do I follow?
The idea to learn how moneyworks, the idea of how to learn
how people connect and work andget motivated I feel like those
would set you on a way differenttrajectory and make a way more
(03:04):
exciting set of experiences.
It definitely did, actually.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Like my dad believed that.
I think when I was five heended up putting me into
etiquette training.
He was like well, if you'regoing to be a young woman in
business, you need to be a lady,because if you have ladylike
skills, you get access Likethere's no door that'll be
closed to you, right.
And so I was in that all theway till I was 16.
And then, by the time I waseight, he would bring like
financial planners to the tableand I would learn what he was
(03:27):
learning, which I reallyappreciate, and he would always
talk to me about anything andeverything.
He talked about politics, hetalked about economics, he
talked about how the worldworked, and a big one for both
my parents was emotionalintelligence, I think.
Before it was a commonplacething, and so by the time I
think I was 11, I had my firstweekend workshop with a guy
named Jim Rohn.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
And for those of you who might know who he is.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
My dad and Tony Robbins were actually in the
same classes together.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
My mom and dad both knew.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Tony Robbins and my dad ended up selling his
concierge service and becomingone of the top business coaches
globally.
He used to do like 149 tripsaround the world a year and he
would teach TELUS, Military, IBM, all of these major companies
about time management andcorporate culture and business
(04:11):
writing for results.
He had all these differentthings so he basically was like
his little assistant.
I got to learn all aboutbusiness.
I got to travel around theworld.
I got to learn from people likeEric Trump and.
George Ross and Jay Abrams andNito Kabane and all these really
amazing people.
My parents never focused onacademics Like I literally
failed high school in grade 12.
I had to go back and take itjust so I could pass, and we
never cared about higherlearning.
(04:32):
But by the time I was 20, I wasactually about to be a mom and
my dad's like, all right, it'stime for us to go into business
together.
And that's literally what gotus into tech.
I never really thought of techbefore that.
My dad had taught me everythingabout branding and marketing
and businesses and businessplans and raising funding and
all these other kinds of things,but tech wasn't quite there.
But my dad believed thatbecause we were going to have
(04:52):
another generation and Al Gorewas really talking about climate
change and it was becoming ahot topic, he's like how can we
develop out something that willactually help the next
generation?
So I spent 17 years of my lifehelping to support and design
forced air combustion, heating,tech for oil and gas and
aviation and constructionrecycling industry.
So I was really into clean techand it's funny, that's actually
(05:13):
what got me into crypto.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
And so it was really just kind of identifying that
need in the market, kind ofhaving the foresight to say, hey
, here's some of the things thatare coming down the road and
here's some of the things thatare really going to make an
impact, creating the businessaround that.
How did you learn a lot Like Ifeel like that's you know a
mouthful to say in itself, andthen to be able to kind of
become specialized in that tobuild a business around it?
What was that jumping off pointlike?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Well, this is probably going to sound a little
crazy to say, but I rememberwhen, like, the dot comcom
bubble was blowing up rightBecause my dad talked to me
about a lot of different things,and I just remember feeling
like I missed the chance of alifetime, like I was a teenager.
You know, I had a couplehundred bucks but I didn't, I
couldn't get a stock marketaccount and stuff like that and
I was like God, I just I missedthis insane opportunity.
(05:59):
I wonder if another chance likethis will come in my lifetime.
I remember being like 18 in thehousing market in Calgary and I
was like God, I wish I hadenough money like 200 grand for
a house.
And so when I learned aboutBitcoin, I read the white paper
and I was like, oh my God, thisis, this is my chance of a
lifetime like this.
This is the next big thing andI think a lot of it was.
(06:20):
I was so passionate aboutunderstanding economics and that
was like learning from my dadabout the government and money
and how the money works.
I understood how broken ourmonetary system was even at a
young age and I was like thisreally does fix it.
And I just saw that long termopportunity.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
And so is most of your kind of passion around the
Bitcoin side of things, aroundthat kind of financial engine of
the application of thattechnology, or is it?
Is it broader than that?
Speaker 1 (06:43):
So actually what really tipped me into Bitcoin is
like designing forced aircombustion systems and at the
time I was actuallycommercializing a product line
with a company called Imaginea.
So Suzanne West was anincredible mentor to me.
She talked a lot about her ideafor an organization called the
Alberta Blockchain Consortium.
She really thought that therewas a lot of value in how the
technology could impact theenergy sector and how we could
(07:04):
create net zero.
And those conversations andbeing in the clean tech space, I
was like I wasn't focused onthe virtue signaling of clean
tech, like I think that it'sbeen taken to a bit of an
extreme level.
I focused on we should besustainable, but this should
actually benefit businesses Likeyou need to find a way to
incorporate a technology that'sactually going to increase their
bottom line.
So our technology was focusedon increasing production and
(07:26):
minimizing downtime and beingable to reduce their carbon
footprint by using less fuel andtransferring heat more
efficiently.
So she loved the tech.
She gave us our first contract,got us our start and
unfortunately, she passed awayright as we were commercializing
and I was asked by someone inindustry like hey, I know you're
really passionate about likeblockchain.
I was learning about it.
I was hosting free classes forpeople, mostly economics, like
(07:48):
the history of money and likewhy Bitcoin is digital gold, and
I would literally buy lunch andlike, provide lunch and learns
for free.
Like just come learn about yourmoney system.
And he's like I really thinkyou could do something and keep
your legacy going.
So I self-funded it and built,you know, the Alberta Blockchain
Consortium and converted intothe Canadian Blockchain
Consortium.
But I was really passionateabout the energy and Bitcoin
(08:09):
intersection and it was throughBitcoin mining because I saw a
massive opportunity for Albertabecause right now, well, I guess
for the last 20 years, I'venever heard of our ability to
get our pipelines.
We have not been selling ourenergy to the other side of
Canada.
We've been importing Saudi oil.
We can't seem to get ourproduct off Tidewater.
We're landlocked with ourresources and it's like we could
(08:31):
sell our energy on the internet.
We could literally attractthese companies because they're
going to grow, to scale.
It's going to be a big thingand I was like we could truly
just completely find a whole newmarket to sell our energy, and
so that's part of a big focus isactually Bitcoin mining through
our data centers, through theconsortium, and the financial
side has always been incrediblyimportant to me as well, but
(08:51):
it's that economics engine and Ifocus on Bitcoin outside of
other cryptocurrencies, like alot of people are like Ripple,
ethereum, all these other ones,but none of them were designed
to be sound money, right Paymentinstruments projects, but
Bitcoin was actually designedand fits all the mechanisms of
being money.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Well, and I feel like a lot of people have this
misconception around Bitcointhat it's solely
cryptocurrencies.
It's the ups and downs and thiskind of roller coaster that I
think a lot of people have beenon around some of these
different coins.
People have been on around someof these different coins but,
like if you were to describe inkind of the simplest terms, you
know, the technology, thefoundation, maybe some of the
stuff that you taught in thoseinitial classes, kind of how
(09:32):
would you advise our listeners?
Kind of what is Bitcoin, whatis blockchain?
Like, what are the fundamentalsthat people need to understand
here?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
All right.
So I like to describe it thatwhen you're first kind of
looking into Bitcoin, I knowcrypto can be kind of
overwhelming.
There's like 20,000 tokens outthere and all these projects and
people hear terms like NFTs andDAOs, and like it.
Just it gets very likeoverwhelming, Like where do you
start?
And so I kind of like to bringit back to a few key pieces so
people actually understandBitcoin.
(10:01):
And the first one is thesecurity.
So people can understand thisform of money.
We've never had a monetarysystem globally through the
history of money, from all mystudies, that actually had known
scarcity, right.
So when you think back and youlook into the history, the gold
standard lasted for over 5,000years, and the reason why it did
was because it was scarce.
(10:22):
Right.
So it took a lot of time,energy and resources to be able
to mine that gold.
It could be a store of value,right.
So the money, the monetarysystem at that point was more
stable.
So people trusted that.
You know, 10 years from now,their money would still hold a
similar value.
So they were more interested insaving.
They had what's called timepreference.
It could be a unit of account.
(10:42):
So, back in the day of barterand trade, if I had a cow and
you had chickens the only valuethere is I could trade milk for
eggs.
But if you want part of my cowand I want part of your chicken,
right, how many chickens wouldyou have to give me to be
valuable enough for me to tradeyou my cow.
So being able to have thatmedium of exchange that could
actually support the barter andtrade system, that was huge and
(11:02):
that started coming into placewhen we saw metal money and you
know, I think it was like 800 BCor something like that when we
first started seeing instancesof that.
So the way that Bitcoin cameabout was definitely in response
to the economic crisis, butthey wanted to find a way that
you could have a scarce asset,similar to gold, where it took a
lot of time, energy andresources to get access to,
(11:22):
could act as a store of valueand could act as a unit of
account and a medium of exchange, so acting as all the
principles of money.
The cool thing about thesecurity of Bitcoin, what I like
to tell people is like this islike thousands of years of
history in the making toculminate into like the most
perfect form of money.
So if you look at encryption,the first time we would have
seen instances of encryptionwould have been in an Egyptian
pharaoh tomb in like 1900 BC.
(11:44):
It was the first time thehieroglyphs were like kind of
moderately changed and peoplewere like, oh, I wonder why they
did that and they realized itwas a bit of a cipher.
Now, fast track, you would have.
Maybe as women or men you wouldhave seen movies in like the
medieval times where they hadlike this, like cipher, and they
had like a book and they weretrying to decipher the code of
what kings and queens weresaying.
And then all of a sudden youmove it into World War I.
The very first time wedigitized encryption was through
(12:07):
the Enigma machine.
And it was the reason we wonthat war and it's actually
interesting.
The US government putcryptography on the munitions
list back then.
So it was literally an act ofterror to digitize it and sell
it outside of the United Statesof America.
And it wasn't until a gentlemannamed Phil Zimmerman in the
1950s.
So once we started seeing theinternet I think it was like
1957 or something and you wouldhave seen, I think it was like
(12:28):
three computers two inCalifornia, one in Nevada, or
two in Nevada, one in Californiathat sent their first signals
and he's like OK, if we're goingthis digital, we need to be
able to have a form ofprotection in the new digital
economy.
So he, the government, did notwant that.
They did not want to allow itbecause they had a software.
(12:51):
I think it was like IBM had DESdata encryption software and it
was like 56-bit.
It was a 20-year battle thatmade it all the way to the
Supreme Court, where PhilZimmerman finally won and Bill
Clinton in the year 2000 tookcryptography off the US
munitions list.
But even then the NSA didn'twant to allow for people.
Just because it was an act ofterror didn't mean they still
want to allow for a higher bitof encryption.
(13:11):
In my mind it's mostly.
They probably had a backdoorand anyone using it they could
kind of see what they were up to.
So there was a global hackathonand it took two or three years
for them to actually hack theNSA in less than 24 hours, and
only after that.
So by 2002 or 2003, the NSA waslike fine, and by 2008, when
Bitcoin came out, it utilizedSHA-256, which, and by 2008,
when Bitcoin came out, itutilized SHA-256, which is the
(13:32):
highest level of military gradeencryption that you can get.
It is so secure.
Bitcoin's blockchain can neverbe hacked.
It has never been hacked.
So just understanding thehistory of, like the technology
leading up to like one componentof Bitcoin Right, and then
follow the history of economicsand money, like if you
understand what's happening withyour monetary system today, in
(13:53):
Canada alone, we've increasedour monetary supply by 200 times
since COVID.
That's an insane amount of moneyto be introduced.
People are wondering like oh,rates of inflation, 5%, 7%, no,
no, no, no, no.
It is a massive introductionand the reason being is our
government at any point canintroduce more money.
They believe in what we callKeynesian economics.
So an increase in your monetarysupply and spend theory the
more money you introduce, themore you stimulate the economy.
(14:15):
In every economy globally,throughout history, whenever
they've had easy money, you'vehad an economic collapse.
So, if history rings true,you're looking at a global
financial system that is on thebrink of collapse, and every
country in the world, duringCOVID, dramatically expanded the
amount of money that they hadavailable to them.
At one point, the Bank ofCanada was releasing $3 billion
(14:37):
of access liquidity per week.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
From an economic standpoint, that's terrifying.
That is terrifying when youthink of and a lot of the
economics right now and yousound like you know a bajillion
times more about this than I dobut is predicated on growth, and
the growth is sounds like it'svery artificial as well when you
start injecting all of thisfree cash.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Well, I think people think about money actually being
printed, right?
So they think, oh well, ourmoney is backed by something.
It's our currency actually isbacked and it's like well, our
currency at one point was backedby gold.
So every single country in theworld the British pound,
everything else was actuallybacked by a denomination of gold
.
And it wasn't until World War Ithat we actually took our
monetary system off of gold.
(15:17):
So you could only spend theamount of cash or government
could only print as much cash asthey had as gold reserves.
So you used to be able toactually take your money, go to
the bank and exchange it forphysical gold.
Well, Teddy Roosevelt was thefirst one that removed that, and
it was actually from theformation of the Federal Reserve
, right.
So the Federal Reserve is aprivate entity that basically
got the license to be able toprint money and became the
central bank on behalf ofgovernments.
(15:38):
So governments actually borrowmoney off of central banks and
then introduce that into theeconomy, and then the individual
citizens are the ones that areresponsible to pay the interest
on the money that thegovernments have borrowed.
So when you're born, you'rebirth certificate, you're a
legal entity and you're legallyresponsible to pay a portion of
the national debt, and the factthat we don't have control or
(16:00):
say in how much debt thegovernment actually takes on,
that's a scary thing as well.
So the reason why Bitcoin is soincredible is it's
anti-inflationary.
So there's a fixed supply.
You can never create moreSupply, and demand theory
basically explains the moredemand you have for a particular
item with a limited supplyscarcity, Like Van Gogh right
here.
Why is Van Gogh so valuable?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
He's dead.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
There's only so many.
He can't make more.
You can't replicate it Like youcan make a print, but you can't
.
Van Gogh is not here to makemore of them, so that level of
scarcity only increases thatvalue.
You need money that's going tobe able to increase in value
long term and, even thoughthere's volatility in Bitcoin,
it still went from 2009 beingworth absolutely nothing to now
(16:43):
being worth close to $100,000 UStoday.
That's only 16 years later.
This is a top performing assetglobally.
That's existed over the lasttwo decades right.
So, as volatile as it is, it'sstill a safer bet because it's
only increased in value, whereyour Canadian dollar and
American dollar have decreasedin value due to debasement by
over 90% in 50 years.
What could you buy in the 1960s70s, compared to what you can
(17:06):
buy today?
20 bucks used to get yousomething a grocery cart back in
the 50s.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Today $100 gets you a bag, maybe right.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
If anyone wants to really understand debasement
over the last four years of ourcurrency, like the 200 times
input.
Look at the housing market.
My house could have sold for$450,000 in 2019, 2020.
I could sell it for $800,000five years later.
That's not an increase in valuein my home, that's an increase
(17:35):
in cost and that's a directresult of the amount of money
that's been attributed into theeconomy.
So when I talk to people aboutBitcoin and talk about the fact
that it's a hedge againstinflation, the wealthiest
families in the world arelooking at this because they
understand governments have nochecks and balances to stop the
rates of inflation.
They believe it's actually agood thing.
They believe Our housingmarkets are through the roof.
(17:55):
We have more poverty.
We have more people on foodbanks.
(18:16):
We have less value to ourCanadian dollar.
Look what's happening to theCanadian versus American.
That's what happens when youjust spend recklessly and leave
the citizens to be able to pickup the pieces of that.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
That is a terrifying story you've shared here, when
you think about practically theability to be able to kind of
move forward right, and so Icompletely understand what
you're saying around the kind ofstranglehold state of what
happens when you have kind offinite resources around the
monetary policy.
But how do you make that shiftright, how do you move from A to
B and I realize that we couldprobably have a whole episode
(18:49):
around.
You know, people probablydedicate their entire careers to
talking about this shift itself.
Is that something that happens,you see, within our lifetimes,
within the next five to 10 years?
What's your thought in terms ofwhere this is going and how
blockchain and Bitcoin kind offall into more of a public
domain?
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Well, I would say that we are currently on like a
bit of a precipice.
So countries around the worldthat are realizing that holding
the US dollar as a reservecurrency while it's being
debased isn't stable Holdingfiat currency itself isn't
really stable.
You're seeing countries, likeyou know, coming together for
like bricks.
They want to back their moneyby gold, by resources in their
(19:31):
ground, by actual, tangiblethings that can maintain value
long term.
One of the things I find reallyinteresting is and
controversial is the fact thatwhile Gaddafi was considered you
know well, he had a lot ofpieces that he was considered
negatively from a globalperspective.
One of the reasons why he endedup receiving that particular
reputation was he was actuallygoing to get it.
(19:52):
He was kicking the banks, thecentral banks, out of his land
and he was actually going toback his dollar by the gold in
the ground and it wasn't and hewas like the citizens would have
been exponentially wealthy.
It would have been one of thewealthiest currencies in the
world because they had the mostgold in that particular
jurisdiction.
Every single country in theworld that's tried to remove the
central banks has all ended upwith a leader that's gotten
(20:13):
removed because of the fact thatthey didn't want to comply with
that particular system anymore.
So our Canadian governmentcomplies very closely with the
central banks and the Bank ofCanada and our fiat currency.
But we're starting to seecountries go not interested
anymore.
So the fact that El Salvadorwas the first country in the
world to legalize it is Bitcoinis legal tender.
That was huge.
(20:34):
60% of their citizens wereunbanked at that time.
Now 100% of their citizens cannow interact with the digital
currency system, provided theyhave a phone and internet Right,
which I know that's.
That's still an issue in athird world country that
everyone might not be able toaccess it, but to those who can,
they can now participate in away they weren't able to before.
You're having countries inAfrica now looking at this.
(20:55):
A lot of Latin Americancountries are looking at this.
You're even looking at Americasaying we want a strategic
Bitcoin reserve right.
How much of this monetarysystem can we stack?
So I don't know if it's goingto happen directly in my
lifetime, but I do believe thatwe will see bitcoin as a global
reserve currency.
It might not make as much sense,just due to transaction times
(21:16):
and confirmations, for it to belike a transactional based
currency, but definitely along-term store of value, and
with the developments thatcontinue to happen on the
bitcoin network, it truly couldbe a transactional based
currency.
And I and to the people whodon't agree with me on that one
it's like well, if you look atwhat you're currently using Visa
and MasterCard, it takes 30days to settle a transaction on
Visa and MasterCard right, andthat's a long settlement time
(21:39):
for a company to be able toreceive their funds, and in
between that time, you can endup with disputes and all kinds
of fraudulent transactions,where with Bitcoin, the
settlement can be less than 24hours, sometimes within seconds.
It's an irreversibletransaction and very rare and
unlikely to be a fraudulenttransaction, especially if
you're purchasing something, soit doesn't like.
(22:00):
It's still a lot quicker thanVisa or MasterCard.
It's a lot more secure and youhave access to that liquidity
instantaneously and you're notpaying, you know, a 3 to 1.2 to
3 percent fee, depending on thecredit card that you're using.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Right, and I think one of the fascinating topics
around this is the idea of trustas well.
And a lot of these institutionsthat have really built their
whole business around applyingtrust.
When you think about the kindof underlying technology behind
it, how do you see businessesstarting to adopt or tackle some
of these challenges around kindof the actual blockchain
technology rather than thecrypto side of things?
Do you see that being kind of aboon to speed up some of the
adoption on the currency side ofthings?
(22:38):
Or do you see them kind of asseparate conversations around
people adopting blockchaintechnologies in their businesses
for certain functions and thenthe actual financial side as a
completely differentconversation, or do those kind
of fit together nicely?
Speaker 1 (22:51):
So to me, I kind of separate the space in three
different categories.
Like, I see the energycomponent, so data centers,
bitcoin mining, what can happenthere, and then I see the
financial services side, andthen there's the enterprise side
.
Right, people like that wantsmart contracts and other things
like that.
But a lot of the people on theenterprise side still kind of
like use token economics, right.
So it's like oh, but use mytoken and interact within this
(23:12):
particular ecosystem, blah, blah, blah, blah blah and you're
going to make all this money bydoing it.
And it's arbitrage and it'sjust like it's a lot of nonsense
, it's a lot of noise.
I think that the fact that youknow Bitcoin itself is a
trustless system.
So right now, you trust thebanks, you go and you trust that
the bank is going to protectand hold those digital ones and
zeros that you have, right, andif a lot of people knew that
(23:34):
banks had maybe 5% of the cashin reserve.
So when you go and you put inyour $100, 95 times what you put
in can get loaned out and theymake money off of that.
But the fact that they onlyhold 5% of their money in
reserve at any given time, everybank in Canada is insolvent
they're effectively bankrupt andthe Bank of Canada.
All they have to do is continueto print money and give it to
(23:56):
them to help back theirliquidity and they get to
maintain trust and solvency.
I think that people are startingto wake up and they want to
operate in a system wherethere's transparency.
You can't spend more than whatyou have available in your
Bitcoin account or your Rippleaccount or your Ethereum account
, like a lot of these havemechanisms that you can't.
It doesn't act like a creditcard, right, and you can't
(24:19):
really leverage against it inthat kind of sense.
So there's more transparency.
You can see the transactionrecord of absolutely every
Bitcoin transaction that's everhappened in history and you can
track that transaction.
Thousands of hops.
I can transfer a wire.
I can track a wire transfer,maybe three right, so you have
way more visibility, way moretransparency and way more trust,
(24:39):
because it's a trustless systemIn terms of businesses.
There's value to businessesutilizing blockchain from an
enterprise side, but it'slimited in terms of what it's
capable of Like.
If you're a small restaurantowner, there's absolutely zero
reason for you to adopt ablockchain Like.
If you want better recordkeeping, if you're currently
(24:59):
using, you know, pen and papergo to a Google Drive.
I mean realistically, just likeupgrade your software systems
and there's brilliant thingshappening in AI and IoT and
other technologies to beutilized.
But where blockchain technologyitself has value is when you're
looking at, multiple partiesneed to agree to the same set of
facts.
So, like supply chain, forexample, one of the examples was
(25:22):
like Japan and Walmart.
In Japan they did a trackingfor I think it was like
spirulina and a few other kindof like leafy greens.
So they tracked it all the wayfrom seed to the store and it
was able to reduce their foodrecall times down from like
maybe six days to a few seconds,because they were able to
figure out where it wascontaminated, what packages it
(25:43):
went into, what store it wasdistributed to.
But every single part alongthat supply chain was utilizing
the same database, right Certainaspects they were able to see,
so they had complete line ofsight.
Right now, your supply chain canget broken up between I don't
know 10 or 15 differentcompanies prior to it actually
getting to a store, which is whyfood recalls can take so long.
They're having to go backthrough each individual
(26:05):
company's records to figure thatout.
So it's not great for asingular business, but again, if
you're a company the size ofWalmart, you can incentivize
that.
If you want to supply to us,you have to use this database
for X, Y and Z, and that can bereally helpful.
But for more of a solostandalone business that doesn't
have a lot of supply chainfeeding into it, it doesn't
really make a lot of sense topay to upgrade your database
just so that you can buzzwordthat around.
(26:27):
If you're an entrepreneurlooking to raise funding and
you're using terms like oh,we're going to do a token we're
going to do an NFT.
We're going to get into a DAO.
Actually, long term, is goingto negatively impact your
corporate reputation because alot of these things are scams or
fraudulent and people look atthis like a great get rich quick
scheme.
This industry is absolutely nota get rich quick scheme.
(26:50):
Like more people lose theirmoney trying to participate,
thinking that they're going tobe able to do that, then you
know there's definitely beenmillionaires and billionaires
brought out of it, but thebillionaires in Bitcoin are the
ones that bought it in 2009 ormined it and still hold it today
.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
They're in it for the long haul.
They're kind of playing thelong game there.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
It's a long game industry.
It's not a quick turnaround.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
And I feel like the same challenge is happening in
AI as well right now, wherethere's so many people that have
added, like the dot AI, ontothe end of their business.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
I roll my eyes at that.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
yes, I was talking to a CEO of Energy and they
actually are like they'releveraging AI technology and
they've taken AI off of all oftheir marketing materials, just
because they find that itactually differentiates them to
not be involved in kind of thebuzzword salad that everyone
else is taking a part in.
The same thing's happening inblockchain, which is why I'm so
(27:40):
curious about some of thesequestions, because I feel like
business owners and businessleaders technology leaders are
being inundated with thesequestions around.
You know why haven't theyimplemented some of these things
?
Or what's their plan to addressblockchain?
And there's so much noisearound it as well.
But this is super practicalinformation.
So, if I'm a CIO of a midsizeenergy company right now, is
(28:04):
there steps I should be taking?
Is there things I should beexploring, like?
What's your advice for peopleto get started?
Because I feel like, with thesignificance of the topic,
sometimes getting started is thehardest part.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Well, I would say like so if you're a midsize
energy company, so let's justsay that right now you're
flaring natural gas and yourgoal is you have a bit of a low
production site.
You'd like to turn into a highproduction site, but due to the
cost of flaring and carboncarbon tax and all these other
kind of things, you're actuallybetter limiting the amount of
(28:38):
production that you do.
To offset what you, you'reactually probably better off to
stick a generator on your site,throw a couple megawatts worth
of Bitcoin miners on there,diversify your revenue stream
and they'll absorb all thatnatural gas so you can become
(28:59):
more high production and you canget access to the things that
you're looking for, such as thecondensate and things like that.
That's one aspect that wouldincrease your revenue stream.
That could bring you into ahigher yield of production.
And then, if you're looking atmore of the corporate side I
mean, there are ways to executesmart contracts there.
There's also lots of technology.
Like, I don't believe in a onestop shop.
(29:20):
I don't go oh Bitcoin orblockchain.
It's the only thing you can use.
It's like there's definitelyinteresting technologies like in
AI, like I really appreciatethat chat GPT for a lot of
things.
It's just like wow, I don't needto hire a.
There's amazing advancements inIoT and blockchain and if you
look at it from a holisticperspective, it's like you have
to understand what is your endgoal.
(29:41):
Are you trying to create moreefficiency?
Are you trying to reduce yourworkforce?
Are you trying like, what areyou trying to do?
And when you understand whatyour goal of adopting a new
technology is, that's the placethat you want to start and try
and figure out what technologycould actually suit that need.
Versus how do I adopt blockchain?
You probably don't need it,like if you're a business and
you're looking at blockchainlike, unless you're looking at
(30:05):
like you're a retail businessand you're trying to figure out,
hey, how can I accept cryptotransactions to offset what I'm
paying for Visa and MasterCard?
And it's quicker and itconfirms easier and I'd like to
be able to you know, maybeattract a new customer base
because they're interested inspending their crypto.
That's an interestingconversation.
If you're an energy company,again, you're looking at getting
access to Bitcoin mining.
(30:26):
That's a conversation.
If you're an enterprise companyand you're in supply chain and
you're trying to just havebetter line of sight proving the
authenticity of certain items,you know, maybe a blockchain is
suitable for you in that regard,but again, you need to get
buy-in from all the differentparties that you're trying to
get those similar facts to you,because bad data in bad data out
(30:46):
.
Iot captures the technology inmy mind, because you want the
sensors.
You're trying to capture allthis information, but AI helps
you scrub, clean, tag the datato try and figure out what do
you need to use with it.
That data can go into ablockchain, because if you're
looking for transparency andimmutability, it's like this is
(31:08):
the data that went in.
You know people have accesstransparently to see where this
has come from, the provenance ofthis item, things like that.
That can be valuable, butyou're utilizing holistically
multiple different technologiesto create the level of
transparency that you want,right, not just going.
We're using a blockchainbecause buzzword, bullshit,
salad.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Yeah, we're trying to get a higher multiple in our
company and we need to havethese technologies integrated.
Let's add blockchain here, AIhere it is.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
It's like I remember 20 years ago sitting at
conferences where I was justlike IoT, you know.
And then I remember hearing AIway back in the day, like now
it's getting way more traction,more popular, but then there was
a whole AI versus machinelearning what's the difference
there?
And like people still don'tknow how the fricking internet
works.
Like most people don'tunderstand the cloud, the
(31:51):
internet, web one, web two, likeand now there's web three.
There's so many buzzwords outthere.
I would just tell people, likejust don't get caught up in the
hype of it.
Like, if you're reallyinterested in blockchain, to
start read the Bitcoin Standardby Safety the Moose, start on
that book, and that kind ofgives you a really good
understanding.
Because if you understand money, if you understand Bitcoin, if
you understand the technologythere, you can use that lens and
(32:14):
then look at the crypto spaceand go, ok, what actually makes
sense?
Do I want to invest in whatcould be money?
Do I want to invest in aproject?
Do I want to invest in you know?
Like, what exactly is it thatyou're looking for?
Like, don't just take the wholespace, it's overwhelming but
like maybe kind of what's yourkey interest and go from there.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
I'm so glad you said that because I feel like it's a
tool in the tool belt right.
It's not the end all be allit's a widget and people and it
doesn't matter if you're buyinga CRM, if you're buying a new
computer.
Like starting with the businesscase, starting with the
challenge that you have and thenfiguring out the right tool is
always the right approach,versus trying to figure out how
(32:52):
you can fit this shiny thinginto your business model.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
And it's never going to work out that good.
Like you're going to spend moremoney chasing shiny things and
then you're probably going toend up with a bunch of
consultants Like God whenblockchain first came out the
amount of consulting companiesout there that were like, oh,
you need a blockchain.
It's like they don't theyprobably really don't, and
you're just pushing them andthen you want them to push a
token.
And here's the scary part theamount of people that pushed and
(33:17):
released tokens didn't realizethe securities violations that
they were doing.
We have pre-existing laws andframeworks to protect consumers.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah, and so, speaking of laws and frameworks,
I think that leads us into someinteresting territory as well.
I know you do a lot of work onthe advocacy side of things.
What role do you seegovernments playing in this
shift forward when it comes toblockchains and some of the
crypto technologies?
Because, even though you'vesaid, it is quite disruptive
potentially for the way thatthey've always done things as
(33:46):
well, but I imagine governmentneeds to play a pretty critical
role in these next steps.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Well, how would I frame this?
So an example to me on whygovernment would be important.
Um, let's just banking for aquick second.
When cannabis was legalized bytrudeau can't remember exactly
what year that was and everybodyand their dog started popping
up a business, they couldn't getinsurance and they couldn't get
banking.
That was really difficultthings get access to you.
Why?
Because there was a perceivedreputational risk around it.
(34:16):
You know just everything wasjust like considered high risk
around this particular side ofthe space.
And when the government came inand started selling it
themselves in Ontario, it waslike under like LCBO or whatever
it is in Ontario.
That's when the banks were like, oh, ok, well, we can't not
bank the government.
So I guess now we got to startgiving access to banking to this
(34:36):
industry and that was a pivotaland kind of critical shift
because even though you can havean industry, that if you can't
get access to the basic servicesa business needs, that becomes
a failing point.
So right now in Canada we'reseeing difficulty accessing
banking, we're seeing difficultyaccessing insurance, we're
seeing perceived reputationalrisk.
(34:58):
We're seeing the media, youknow, using this industry as
like kind of clickbait.
It's just like, oh, bitcoindied or oh, look at this scam or
all these other kind of things,right?
So there's a lot of hurdles thatthe industry has to naturally
overcome and, considering it'sonly what, 16 years into, you
know its existence at this point.
You know there's still a lot ofquestions like what's the value
(35:18):
?
What is it?
So, when we advocate togovernment, it's like there
needs to be a legislativeposition within the Canadian
government that we're seeingbeing taken by governments in
the United Kingdom, in theMiddle East, in Singapore, in
Asia, in the United States ofAmerica, in places like El
Salvador and you know all theseother countries around the world
that are taking legislativepositions.
They help to guide theregulators Because right now, if
(35:42):
the government doesn't step in,and it's just industries and
regulators, regulators are goingto look at how can this fit
into pre-existing framework?
Right?
And when you have something newand disruptive, it usually
takes regulation years to catchup to what's in existence, and
by the time they catch up towhat came out in 2015, it's now,
you know obsolete potentiallybecause technology advances
(36:05):
quicker than legislation andregulation can come up with.
So we need to develop out aframework with the government
from a legislative position thatallows for consumers to be
protected because that's themost critical thing while
allowing for innovation toactually have an opportunity to
thrive, and that's what we're,you know, really looking for
within this government, and it'sa very nonpartisan technology.
(36:26):
It really doesn't matter if youare, you know, liberal, ndp,
conservative.
This technology it supports,you know, your finance industry,
your tech sector, your energysector, like the healthcare
sector.
There's really no area thatthis doesn't touch.
It's not some weird standalonetech off in this obscure
universe that, like, literallycan impact everybody in their
(36:47):
everyday lives.
At some point, blockchain won'teven be a conversation.
Like encryption isn't aconversation with people anymore
.
You use it on your phone everysingle day.
You have no idea how it works,you have no idea what the banks
are really doing to secure it,but you're using encryption
almost every aspect of your liferight now, with your passwords
and everything else.
You're using the cloud and yourGoogle and your Apple phone and
all the other kind of stuff.
(37:07):
Like you're literally utilizingthis technology, maybe not
understanding it, but blockchainwill eventually be that.
But it takes time.
It takes overcoming controversy.
It takes time for people toaccept what's new because new
can be scary Right andunderstand.
How does it benefit me?
Like I'm a mom, I got two boys.
Why would blockchain impact me?
(37:28):
Well, from the Bitcoinperspective, it's definitely
impacted my ability to take careof my children in a positive
way.
It's created a whole businessopportunity for me to help
people understand and advocatefor this new and emerging
technology.
But, you know, does it matterto every single person?
I think from a monetaryposition, if you're thinking
about your Canadian dollarpotentially collapsing, yeah,
(37:50):
but from a business position,what's your business goal?
Until you understand that, Iwouldn't be able to help you
understand how the technologycould be integrated if you need
it.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I love it.
I'm so glad you said all thatand I think that it's very easy
to get swept up in some of thenarrative around all the cool
and shiny things, and I thinkthat's incredibly practical
advice when we look forwardtowards the future.
So obviously there's somereally interesting things that
are going along with thatconversation from AI?
Quantum obviously is a bigdiscussion.
What do you see coming forwardin the future for blockchain
(38:22):
technologies and Bitcoin that weshould be looking out for and
kind of what are some of thebold predictions that you have?
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Oh, I guess my bold prediction is that I do see it
becoming a global reservecurrency, like I do see that
coming back into play, maybe notthat they're pegging their
dollar directly to it, but atthe US dollar can be a reserve
currency.
I think Bitcoin can be as well.
What do I see coming down thefuture?
So, if I look at Canadaspecifically, I see Canada
(38:51):
taking a stronger position intothe data center side, especially
in Bitcoin mining.
Like a big announcement justgot made yesterday, a company
that we're working with, youknow they're building, you know,
potentially up to one gigawattup in Alberta and Fox Creek, and
that's one of many companies.
Right now Alberta's entireenergy grid potentially has
utilizes like three gigs or alittle bit more than that.
(39:13):
So this is going to be a hugeoff grid site.
And what's really exciting is,you know.
So this is going to be a hugeoff-grid site and what's really
exciting is, you know, as wegrow as a civilization, as we
increase our population, energysecurity is huge.
The site's also going to be,you know, net zero.
With carbon capture technology.
It's groundbreaking To be ableto create energy security.
So if Albertans ended up in aposition like they were in, you
(39:36):
know, in last March I think itwas February or March we had
that rolling blackout situation.
We could go to one Bitcoinminer and ask if we could get
access to 150 megawatts of theirgigawatt worth of power and
supply this locally, versushaving to go to another province
and ask for that power right?
So the more Bitcoin miners wecan attract into the province,
the more jobs that we can create, the more taxable revenue that
(39:58):
we can create, the more wediversify our economy, the more
we're able to sell our resourcesthrough fiber optic cables
right, and the more we createenergy security.
So I see that being like areally powerful position that
you know we can take, at leastin Alberta and ideally in other
parts of Canada that are having,you know, issues growing more
access to their grid.
These are off grid.
It's not like on grid.
(40:23):
This isn't going to impact, youknow, anybody's electrical bill
, right, this is something thatcould benefit.
And then, from a financialposition, you know, if Canada
takes a strategic Bitcoinreserve, if we're able to, you
know, moderate our spending, ifwe're looking at how to, you
know, decrease our rates ofinflation and actually create
more stability into our currency.
You know, decrease our rates ofinflation and actually create
more stability into our currency.
I think, you know pegging ourdollar to.
You know things like Bitcoin,oil and gas, our water reserves,
(40:44):
forestry things that weactually have in abundance that
make us a very valuable economy,you know, I think that it's a
really good, meaningfulconversation for our country to
have.
I think that eventually, thistechnology is just going to be
utilized in our everyday livesand people aren't going to be
truly aware of it.
I do think it's going todisrupt our financial system as
we know it.
You know, exchanges can be thenew banks and exchanges will
(41:06):
actually have reserves, likethere was one bank that was
starting up called Custodia Bankand they'd have 102% of assets
in reserve.
If you look at banks today, inCanada, at least, they have 5%.
In America, they have zero theamount of banks that are going
insolvent because they don'thold anything in reserve.
You know, I'd say that there isa lot of disruption that can
come to our traditional bankingindustry, especially if you know
(41:28):
PR actually pushes through openbanking right, allowing for
more competition in that.
I think that the blockchain andthe digital asset space has a
lot to offer in terms of acompetitive advantage to
consumers.
So, yeah, I know I see a lot ofreally interesting things
coming down the pipe that people.
It'll create a positive impactto people's everyday lives.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I love the optimistic nature of that.
Kalaya, I feel like I couldprobably ask you questions for
another two or three hours.
This has been an incrediblyinsightful conversation.
I've learned a ton.
If people have questions foryou, if they want to learn more
about the work that you do,what's the best way for them to
get in touch with you?
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Well, we have a website, canadablockchainca, so
there's ways that they canaccess us there, send us an
email and happy to haveconversations.
We do events a lot all acrossthe country, so not just in
Alberta, but do events in BC andMontreal and Ontario, even do
events in the States sometimes.
So signing up for a newsletterand keeping up to date on events
(42:32):
that we have like we have onecoming up on, like the future of
decentralized finance, likewhat is this going to look like,
how is this going to impact us,what does this mean from a
cybersecurity perspective sowe're always doing ways to
educate people and help themunderstand better what's
actually going on.
And then we produce quarterlyreports that people can keep up
to date on for interestingthings happening.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
I love it If you have one final word of advice for
business leaders, technologyleaders, around blockchain and
Bitcoin.
What would that be?
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Read the Bitcoin Standard, like.
I definitely believe that thatis the best book for people to
have an understanding If youwant to understand the space,
understanding why the space cameabout.
And it gives you a beautifulhistory lesson on economics and
it was written by a PhDprofessor of economics, so it's
a brilliant, brilliant book.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
I'm excited.
I'm adding that to my readinglist.
I have not read it and I willnext time we chat.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
I'll have read it, so I'll give you an example,
michael Saylor, if people arefamiliar with him.
That book is the reason whyMicroStrategy has bought
billions of dollars in Bitcoinand it's also part of the reason
why the government of ElSalvador, where the president,
decided to make that legaltender.
So it's a very powerful book.
If you want to understand, doyour own research before getting
into this space, but that's agood gateway.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
This has been an absolute pleasure and thank you
for the chat.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Thank you, pleasure to be here.
Most people don't understand the cloud.
If you're really interested inblockchain, to start read the
Bitcoin Standard by Safety theMoose.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to Sell Me this Podcast where we break down
sales strategies andcutting-edge business trends.
Today, we are diving into theworld of blockchain, bitcoin and
the future of money with Kalea,a blockchain advocate and
entrepreneur with deep insightsin how technology is reshaping
finance and industry.
We'll explore the history ofmoney, real world applications
(00:36):
of Bitcoin and how businessescan navigate the evolving
landscape of decentralizedfinance.
If you've ever wondered aboutblockchain's impact beyond the
hype, this episode is packedwith insights you won't want to
miss.
Let's get into it.
Kalea, welcome to the show.
We're so excited to have youhere today.
I'm going to dive right intothings and I am super curious.
What led you to where you aretoday and what led you into the
(01:00):
wonderful world of blockchain?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Oh goodness, Big question to start off with.
That is a big question Like howmuch backstory are we looking
for here?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
From the day you were born no, I could give that
backstory.
How much time do we have?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Pretty much that would be the question.
It's like I could probablycondense it into like seven
minutes.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
The whole backstory.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Well, were you always kind of attracted to the
technology side of things Likehow did you?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
So you know, I think I was always attracted to
business and I was raised in avery entrepreneurial family.
So, like to give a quickbackstory, I guess my father
actually, when my mom waspregnant with my sister my older
sister he used to be inconstruction he was a musician
before that and he was trying tofigure out, like how can I take
care of my family?
He wanted to be a Fortune 500executive but didn't want to go
(01:46):
back to school because he hadgrade 10 and didn't want to work
his way up a corporate ladder.
So he did this kind of wholechart of like what could he do
and he figured out that everyFortune 500 executive had one
thing in common and they wereall ground transportation.
So they'd fly into a city, theywould usually hire a concierge
service to like take them tomeetings, take them to the
hotels.
So he went to the bank, got aloan, bought a limousine,
started putting ads out and thenhe really attracted like he
(02:09):
specifically wanted to getaccess to like these big
executives and he'd ask themquestions and they found him
really personable.
He ended up raising $2 millionafter like just learning, and he
grew to a fleet of like 13 ofthem.
And so by the time I was three,he had raised this money and he
had been growing the business,and this was before they had
like executive forms.
So my dad sat me down one dayand he's like I'm just going to
(02:31):
talk to you about everything.
You're probably not going tounderstand anything I have to
say, but by the time you're 21,I want to write a business plan
with you and we're going to gointo business together.
So his whole goal in life wasto literally teach me how to be
an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
That's amazing and I feel like that's such a skill
that people you know everyonefocuses on the math and the
science and all this academia.
And then you get out of schooland all of a sudden you're like,
okay, what do I do next?
Kind of what path do I follow?
The idea to learn how moneyworks, the idea of how to learn
how people connect and work andget motivated I feel like those
would set you on a way differenttrajectory and make a way more
(03:04):
exciting set of experiences.
It definitely did, actually.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Like my dad believed that.
I think when I was five heended up putting me into
etiquette training.
He was like well, if you'regoing to be a young woman in
business, you need to be a lady,because if you have ladylike
skills, you get access Likethere's no door that'll be
closed to you, right.
And so I was in that all theway till I was 16.
And then, by the time I waseight, he would bring like
financial planners to the tableand I would learn what he was
(03:27):
learning, which I reallyappreciate, and he would always
talk to me about anything andeverything.
He talked about politics, hetalked about economics, he
talked about how the worldworked, and a big one for both
my parents was emotionalintelligence, I think.
Before it was a commonplacething, and so by the time I
think I was 11, I had my firstweekend workshop with a guy
named Jim Rohn.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
And for those of you who might know who he is.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
My dad and Tony Robbins were actually in the
same classes together.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
My mom and dad both knew.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Tony Robbins and my dad ended up selling his
concierge service and becomingone of the top business coaches
globally.
He used to do like 149 tripsaround the world a year and he
would teach TELUS, Military, IBM, all of these major companies
about time management andcorporate culture and business
(04:11):
writing for results.
He had all these differentthings so he basically was like
his little assistant.
I got to learn all aboutbusiness.
I got to travel around theworld.
I got to learn from people likeEric Trump and.
George Ross and Jay Abrams andNito Kabane and all these really
amazing people.
My parents never focused onacademics Like I literally
failed high school in grade 12.
I had to go back and take itjust so I could pass, and we
never cared about higherlearning.
(04:32):
But by the time I was 20, I wasactually about to be a mom and
my dad's like, all right, it'stime for us to go into business
together.
And that's literally what gotus into tech.
I never really thought of techbefore that.
My dad had taught me everythingabout branding and marketing
and businesses and businessplans and raising funding and
all these other kinds of things,but tech wasn't quite there.
But my dad believed thatbecause we were going to have
(04:52):
another generation and Al Gorewas really talking about climate
change and it was becoming ahot topic, he's like how can we
develop out something that willactually help the next
generation?
So I spent 17 years of my lifehelping to support and design
forced air combustion, heating,tech for oil and gas and
aviation and constructionrecycling industry.
So I was really into clean techand it's funny, that's actually
(05:13):
what got me into crypto.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
And so it was really just kind of identifying that
need in the market, kind ofhaving the foresight to say, hey
, here's some of the things thatare coming down the road and
here's some of the things thatare really going to make an
impact, creating the businessaround that.
How did you learn a lot Like Ifeel like that's you know a
mouthful to say in itself, andthen to be able to kind of
become specialized in that tobuild a business around it?
What was that jumping off pointlike?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Well, this is probably going to sound a little
crazy to say, but I rememberwhen, like, the dot comcom
bubble was blowing up rightBecause my dad talked to me
about a lot of different things,and I just remember feeling
like I missed the chance of alifetime, like I was a teenager.
You know, I had a couplehundred bucks but I didn't, I
couldn't get a stock marketaccount and stuff like that and
I was like God, I just I missedthis insane opportunity.
(05:59):
I wonder if another chance likethis will come in my lifetime.
I remember being like 18 in thehousing market in Calgary and I
was like God, I wish I hadenough money like 200 grand for
a house.
And so when I learned aboutBitcoin, I read the white paper
and I was like, oh my God, thisis, this is my chance of a
lifetime like this.
This is the next big thing andI think a lot of it was.
(06:20):
I was so passionate aboutunderstanding economics and that
was like learning from my dadabout the government and money
and how the money works.
I understood how broken ourmonetary system was even at a
young age and I was like thisreally does fix it.
And I just saw that long termopportunity.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
And so is most of your kind of passion around the
Bitcoin side of things, aroundthat kind of financial engine of
the application of thattechnology, or is it?
Is it broader than that?
Speaker 1 (06:43):
So actually what really tipped me into Bitcoin is
like designing forced aircombustion systems and at the
time I was actuallycommercializing a product line
with a company called Imaginea.
So Suzanne West was anincredible mentor to me.
She talked a lot about her ideafor an organization called the
Alberta Blockchain Consortium.
She really thought that therewas a lot of value in how the
technology could impact theenergy sector and how we could
(07:04):
create net zero.
And those conversations andbeing in the clean tech space, I
was like I wasn't focused onthe virtue signaling of clean
tech, like I think that it'sbeen taken to a bit of an
extreme level.
I focused on we should besustainable, but this should
actually benefit businesses Likeyou need to find a way to
incorporate a technology that'sactually going to increase their
bottom line.
So our technology was focusedon increasing production and
(07:26):
minimizing downtime and beingable to reduce their carbon
footprint by using less fuel andtransferring heat more
efficiently.
So she loved the tech.
She gave us our first contract,got us our start and
unfortunately, she passed awayright as we were commercializing
and I was asked by someone inindustry like hey, I know you're
really passionate about likeblockchain.
I was learning about it.
I was hosting free classes forpeople, mostly economics, like
(07:48):
the history of money and likewhy Bitcoin is digital gold, and
I would literally buy lunch andlike, provide lunch and learns
for free.
Like just come learn about yourmoney system.
And he's like I really thinkyou could do something and keep
your legacy going.
So I self-funded it and built,you know, the Alberta Blockchain
Consortium and converted intothe Canadian Blockchain
Consortium.
But I was really passionateabout the energy and Bitcoin
(08:09):
intersection and it was throughBitcoin mining because I saw a
massive opportunity for Albertabecause right now, well, I guess
for the last 20 years, I'venever heard of our ability to
get our pipelines.
We have not been selling ourenergy to the other side of
Canada.
We've been importing Saudi oil.
We can't seem to get ourproduct off Tidewater.
We're landlocked with ourresources and it's like we could
(08:31):
sell our energy on the internet.
We could literally attractthese companies because they're
going to grow, to scale.
It's going to be a big thingand I was like we could truly
just completely find a whole newmarket to sell our energy, and
so that's part of a big focus isactually Bitcoin mining through
our data centers, through theconsortium, and the financial
side has always been incrediblyimportant to me as well, but
(08:51):
it's that economics engine and Ifocus on Bitcoin outside of
other cryptocurrencies, like alot of people are like Ripple,
ethereum, all these other ones,but none of them were designed
to be sound money, right Paymentinstruments projects, but
Bitcoin was actually designedand fits all the mechanisms of
being money.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Well, and I feel like a lot of people have this
misconception around Bitcointhat it's solely
cryptocurrencies.
It's the ups and downs and thiskind of roller coaster that I
think a lot of people have beenon around some of these
different coins.
People have been on around someof these different coins but,
like if you were to describe inkind of the simplest terms, you
know, the technology, thefoundation, maybe some of the
stuff that you taught in thoseinitial classes, kind of how
(09:32):
would you advise our listeners?
Kind of what is Bitcoin, whatis blockchain?
Like, what are the fundamentalsthat people need to understand
here?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
All right.
So I like to describe it thatwhen you're first kind of
looking into Bitcoin, I knowcrypto can be kind of
overwhelming.
There's like 20,000 tokens outthere and all these projects and
people hear terms like NFTs andDAOs, and like it.
Just it gets very likeoverwhelming, Like where do you
start?
And so I kind of like to bringit back to a few key pieces so
people actually understandBitcoin.
(10:01):
And the first one is thesecurity.
So people can understand thisform of money.
We've never had a monetarysystem globally through the
history of money, from all mystudies, that actually had known
scarcity, right.
So when you think back and youlook into the history, the gold
standard lasted for over 5,000years, and the reason why it did
was because it was scarce.
(10:22):
Right.
So it took a lot of time,energy and resources to be able
to mine that gold.
It could be a store of value,right.
So the money, the monetarysystem at that point was more
stable.
So people trusted that.
You know, 10 years from now,their money would still hold a
similar value.
So they were more interested insaving.
They had what's called timepreference.
It could be a unit of account.
(10:42):
So, back in the day of barterand trade, if I had a cow and
you had chickens the only valuethere is I could trade milk for
eggs.
But if you want part of my cowand I want part of your chicken,
right, how many chickens wouldyou have to give me to be
valuable enough for me to tradeyou my cow.
So being able to have thatmedium of exchange that could
actually support the barter andtrade system, that was huge and
(11:02):
that started coming into placewhen we saw metal money and you
know, I think it was like 800 BCor something like that when we
first started seeing instancesof that.
So the way that Bitcoin cameabout was definitely in response
to the economic crisis, butthey wanted to find a way that
you could have a scarce asset,similar to gold, where it took a
lot of time, energy andresources to get access to,
(11:22):
could act as a store of valueand could act as a unit of
account and a medium of exchange, so acting as all the
principles of money.
The cool thing about thesecurity of Bitcoin, what I like
to tell people is like this islike thousands of years of
history in the making toculminate into like the most
perfect form of money.
So if you look at encryption,the first time we would have
seen instances of encryptionwould have been in an Egyptian
pharaoh tomb in like 1900 BC.
(11:44):
It was the first time thehieroglyphs were like kind of
moderately changed and peoplewere like, oh, I wonder why they
did that and they realized itwas a bit of a cipher.
Now, fast track, you would have.
Maybe as women or men you wouldhave seen movies in like the
medieval times where they hadlike this, like cipher, and they
had like a book and they weretrying to decipher the code of
what kings and queens weresaying.
And then all of a sudden youmove it into World War I.
The very first time wedigitized encryption was through
(12:07):
the Enigma machine.
And it was the reason we wonthat war and it's actually
interesting.
The US government putcryptography on the munitions
list back then.
So it was literally an act ofterror to digitize it and sell
it outside of the United Statesof America.
And it wasn't until a gentlemannamed Phil Zimmerman in the
1950s.
So once we started seeing theinternet I think it was like
1957 or something and you wouldhave seen, I think it was like
(12:28):
three computers two inCalifornia, one in Nevada, or
two in Nevada, one in Californiathat sent their first signals
and he's like OK, if we're goingthis digital, we need to be
able to have a form ofprotection in the new digital
economy.
So he, the government, did notwant that.
They did not want to allow itbecause they had a software.
(12:51):
I think it was like IBM had DESdata encryption software and it
was like 56-bit.
It was a 20-year battle thatmade it all the way to the
Supreme Court, where PhilZimmerman finally won and Bill
Clinton in the year 2000 tookcryptography off the US
munitions list.
But even then the NSA didn'twant to allow for people.
Just because it was an act ofterror didn't mean they still
want to allow for a higher bitof encryption.
(13:11):
In my mind it's mostly.
They probably had a backdoorand anyone using it they could
kind of see what they were up to.
So there was a global hackathonand it took two or three years
for them to actually hack theNSA in less than 24 hours, and
only after that.
So by 2002 or 2003, the NSA waslike fine, and by 2008, when
Bitcoin came out, it utilizedSHA-256, which, and by 2008,
when Bitcoin came out, itutilized SHA-256, which is the
(13:32):
highest level of military gradeencryption that you can get.
It is so secure.
Bitcoin's blockchain can neverbe hacked.
It has never been hacked.
So just understanding thehistory of, like the technology
leading up to like one componentof Bitcoin Right, and then
follow the history of economicsand money, like if you
understand what's happening withyour monetary system today, in
(13:53):
Canada alone, we've increasedour monetary supply by 200 times
since COVID.
That's an insane amount of moneyto be introduced.
People are wondering like oh,rates of inflation, 5%, 7%, no,
no, no, no, no.
It is a massive introductionand the reason being is our
government at any point canintroduce more money.
They believe in what we callKeynesian economics.
So an increase in your monetarysupply and spend theory the
more money you introduce, themore you stimulate the economy.
(14:15):
In every economy globally,throughout history, whenever
they've had easy money, you'vehad an economic collapse.
So, if history rings true,you're looking at a global
financial system that is on thebrink of collapse, and every
country in the world, duringCOVID, dramatically expanded the
amount of money that they hadavailable to them.
At one point, the Bank ofCanada was releasing $3 billion
(14:37):
of access liquidity per week.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
From an economic standpoint, that's terrifying.
That is terrifying when youthink of and a lot of the
economics right now and yousound like you know a bajillion
times more about this than I dobut is predicated on growth, and
the growth is sounds like it'svery artificial as well when you
start injecting all of thisfree cash.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Well, I think people think about money actually being
printed, right?
So they think, oh well, ourmoney is backed by something.
It's our currency actually isbacked and it's like well, our
currency at one point was backedby gold.
So every single country in theworld the British pound,
everything else was actuallybacked by a denomination of gold
.
And it wasn't until World War Ithat we actually took our
monetary system off of gold.
(15:17):
So you could only spend theamount of cash or government
could only print as much cash asthey had as gold reserves.
So you used to be able toactually take your money, go to
the bank and exchange it forphysical gold.
Well, Teddy Roosevelt was thefirst one that removed that, and
it was actually from theformation of the Federal Reserve
, right.
So the Federal Reserve is aprivate entity that basically
got the license to be able toprint money and became the
central bank on behalf ofgovernments.
(15:38):
So governments actually borrowmoney off of central banks and
then introduce that into theeconomy, and then the individual
citizens are the ones that areresponsible to pay the interest
on the money that thegovernments have borrowed.
So when you're born, you'rebirth certificate, you're a
legal entity and you're legallyresponsible to pay a portion of
the national debt, and the factthat we don't have control or
(16:00):
say in how much debt thegovernment actually takes on,
that's a scary thing as well.
So the reason why Bitcoin is soincredible is it's
anti-inflationary.
So there's a fixed supply.
You can never create moreSupply, and demand theory
basically explains the moredemand you have for a particular
item with a limited supplyscarcity, Like Van Gogh right
here.
Why is Van Gogh so valuable?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
He's dead.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
There's only so many.
He can't make more.
You can't replicate it Like youcan make a print, but you can't
.
Van Gogh is not here to makemore of them, so that level of
scarcity only increases thatvalue.
You need money that's going tobe able to increase in value
long term and, even thoughthere's volatility in Bitcoin,
it still went from 2009 beingworth absolutely nothing to now
(16:43):
being worth close to $100,000 UStoday.
That's only 16 years later.
This is a top performing assetglobally.
That's existed over the lasttwo decades right.
So, as volatile as it is, it'sstill a safer bet because it's
only increased in value, whereyour Canadian dollar and
American dollar have decreasedin value due to debasement by
over 90% in 50 years.
What could you buy in the 1960s70s, compared to what you can
(17:06):
buy today?
20 bucks used to get yousomething a grocery cart back in
the 50s.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Today $100 gets you a bag, maybe right.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
If anyone wants to really understand debasement
over the last four years of ourcurrency, like the 200 times
input.
Look at the housing market.
My house could have sold for$450,000 in 2019, 2020.
I could sell it for $800,000five years later.
That's not an increase in valuein my home, that's an increase
(17:35):
in cost and that's a directresult of the amount of money
that's been attributed into theeconomy.
So when I talk to people aboutBitcoin and talk about the fact
that it's a hedge againstinflation, the wealthiest
families in the world arelooking at this because they
understand governments have nochecks and balances to stop the
rates of inflation.
They believe it's actually agood thing.
They believe Our housingmarkets are through the roof.
(17:55):
We have more poverty.
We have more people on foodbanks.
(18:16):
We have less value to ourCanadian dollar.
Look what's happening to theCanadian versus American.
That's what happens when youjust spend recklessly and leave
the citizens to be able to pickup the pieces of that.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
That is a terrifying story you've shared here, when
you think about practically theability to be able to kind of
move forward right, and so Icompletely understand what
you're saying around the kind ofstranglehold state of what
happens when you have kind offinite resources around the
monetary policy.
But how do you make that shiftright, how do you move from A to
B and I realize that we couldprobably have a whole episode
(18:49):
around.
You know, people probablydedicate their entire careers to
talking about this shift itself.
Is that something that happens,you see, within our lifetimes,
within the next five to 10 years?
What's your thought in terms ofwhere this is going and how
blockchain and Bitcoin kind offall into more of a public
domain?
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Well, I would say that we are currently on like a
bit of a precipice.
So countries around the worldthat are realizing that holding
the US dollar as a reservecurrency while it's being
debased isn't stable Holdingfiat currency itself isn't
really stable.
You're seeing countries, likeyou know, coming together for
like bricks.
They want to back their moneyby gold, by resources in their
(19:31):
ground, by actual, tangiblethings that can maintain value
long term.
One of the things I find reallyinteresting is and
controversial is the fact thatwhile Gaddafi was considered you
know well, he had a lot ofpieces that he was considered
negatively from a globalperspective.
One of the reasons why he endedup receiving that particular
reputation was he was actuallygoing to get it.
(19:52):
He was kicking the banks, thecentral banks, out of his land
and he was actually going toback his dollar by the gold in
the ground and it wasn't and hewas like the citizens would have
been exponentially wealthy.
It would have been one of thewealthiest currencies in the
world because they had the mostgold in that particular
jurisdiction.
Every single country in theworld that's tried to remove the
central banks has all ended upwith a leader that's gotten
(20:13):
removed because of the fact thatthey didn't want to comply with
that particular system anymore.
So our Canadian governmentcomplies very closely with the
central banks and the Bank ofCanada and our fiat currency.
But we're starting to seecountries go not interested
anymore.
So the fact that El Salvadorwas the first country in the
world to legalize it is Bitcoinis legal tender.
That was huge.
(20:34):
60% of their citizens wereunbanked at that time.
Now 100% of their citizens cannow interact with the digital
currency system, provided theyhave a phone and internet Right,
which I know that's.
That's still an issue in athird world country that
everyone might not be able toaccess it, but to those who can,
they can now participate in away they weren't able to before.
You're having countries inAfrica now looking at this.
(20:55):
A lot of Latin Americancountries are looking at this.
You're even looking at Americasaying we want a strategic
Bitcoin reserve right.
How much of this monetarysystem can we stack?
So I don't know if it's goingto happen directly in my
lifetime, but I do believe thatwe will see bitcoin as a global
reserve currency.
It might not make as much sense,just due to transaction times
(21:16):
and confirmations, for it to belike a transactional based
currency, but definitely along-term store of value, and
with the developments thatcontinue to happen on the
bitcoin network, it truly couldbe a transactional based
currency.
And I and to the people whodon't agree with me on that one
it's like well, if you look atwhat you're currently using Visa
and MasterCard, it takes 30days to settle a transaction on
Visa and MasterCard right, andthat's a long settlement time
(21:39):
for a company to be able toreceive their funds, and in
between that time, you can endup with disputes and all kinds
of fraudulent transactions,where with Bitcoin, the
settlement can be less than 24hours, sometimes within seconds.
It's an irreversibletransaction and very rare and
unlikely to be a fraudulenttransaction, especially if
you're purchasing something, soit doesn't like.
(22:00):
It's still a lot quicker thanVisa or MasterCard.
It's a lot more secure and youhave access to that liquidity
instantaneously and you're notpaying, you know, a 3 to 1.2 to
3 percent fee, depending on thecredit card that you're using.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Right, and I think one of the fascinating topics
around this is the idea of trustas well.
And a lot of these institutionsthat have really built their
whole business around applyingtrust.
When you think about the kindof underlying technology behind
it, how do you see businessesstarting to adopt or tackle some
of these challenges around kindof the actual blockchain
technology rather than thecrypto side of things?
Do you see that being kind of aboon to speed up some of the
adoption on the currency side ofthings?
(22:38):
Or do you see them kind of asseparate conversations around
people adopting blockchaintechnologies in their businesses
for certain functions and thenthe actual financial side as a
completely differentconversation, or do those kind
of fit together nicely?
Speaker 1 (22:51):
So to me, I kind of separate the space in three
different categories.
Like, I see the energycomponent, so data centers,
bitcoin mining, what can happenthere, and then I see the
financial services side, andthen there's the enterprise side
.
Right, people like that wantsmart contracts and other things
like that.
But a lot of the people on theenterprise side still kind of
like use token economics, right.
So it's like oh, but use mytoken and interact within this
(23:12):
particular ecosystem, blah, blah, blah, blah blah and you're
going to make all this money bydoing it.
And it's arbitrage and it'sjust like it's a lot of nonsense
, it's a lot of noise.
I think that the fact that youknow Bitcoin itself is a
trustless system.
So right now, you trust thebanks, you go and you trust that
the bank is going to protectand hold those digital ones and
zeros that you have, right, andif a lot of people knew that
(23:34):
banks had maybe 5% of the cashin reserve.
So when you go and you put inyour $100, 95 times what you put
in can get loaned out and theymake money off of that.
But the fact that they onlyhold 5% of their money in
reserve at any given time, everybank in Canada is insolvent
they're effectively bankrupt andthe Bank of Canada.
All they have to do is continueto print money and give it to
(23:56):
them to help back theirliquidity and they get to
maintain trust and solvency.
I think that people are startingto wake up and they want to
operate in a system wherethere's transparency.
You can't spend more than whatyou have available in your
Bitcoin account or your Rippleaccount or your Ethereum account
, like a lot of these havemechanisms that you can't.
It doesn't act like a creditcard, right, and you can't
(24:19):
really leverage against it inthat kind of sense.
So there's more transparency.
You can see the transactionrecord of absolutely every
Bitcoin transaction that's everhappened in history and you can
track that transaction.
Thousands of hops.
I can transfer a wire.
I can track a wire transfer,maybe three right, so you have
way more visibility, way moretransparency and way more trust,
(24:39):
because it's a trustless systemIn terms of businesses.
There's value to businessesutilizing blockchain from an
enterprise side, but it'slimited in terms of what it's
capable of Like.
If you're a small restaurantowner, there's absolutely zero
reason for you to adopt ablockchain Like.
If you want better recordkeeping, if you're currently
(24:59):
using, you know, pen and papergo to a Google Drive.
I mean realistically, just likeupgrade your software systems
and there's brilliant thingshappening in AI and IoT and
other technologies to beutilized.
But where blockchain technologyitself has value is when you're
looking at, multiple partiesneed to agree to the same set of
facts.
So, like supply chain, forexample, one of the examples was
(25:22):
like Japan and Walmart.
In Japan they did a trackingfor I think it was like
spirulina and a few other kindof like leafy greens.
So they tracked it all the wayfrom seed to the store and it
was able to reduce their foodrecall times down from like
maybe six days to a few seconds,because they were able to
figure out where it wascontaminated, what packages it
(25:43):
went into, what store it wasdistributed to.
But every single part alongthat supply chain was utilizing
the same database, right Certainaspects they were able to see,
so they had complete line ofsight.
Right now, your supply chain canget broken up between I don't
know 10 or 15 differentcompanies prior to it actually
getting to a store, which is whyfood recalls can take so long.
They're having to go backthrough each individual
(26:05):
company's records to figure thatout.
So it's not great for asingular business, but again, if
you're a company the size ofWalmart, you can incentivize
that.
If you want to supply to us,you have to use this database
for X, Y and Z, and that can bereally helpful.
But for more of a solostandalone business that doesn't
have a lot of supply chainfeeding into it, it doesn't
really make a lot of sense topay to upgrade your database
just so that you can buzzwordthat around.
(26:27):
If you're an entrepreneurlooking to raise funding and
you're using terms like oh,we're going to do a token we're
going to do an NFT.
We're going to get into a DAO.
Actually, long term, is goingto negatively impact your
corporate reputation because alot of these things are scams or
fraudulent and people look atthis like a great get rich quick
scheme.
This industry is absolutely nota get rich quick scheme.
(26:50):
Like more people lose theirmoney trying to participate,
thinking that they're going tobe able to do that, then you
know there's definitely beenmillionaires and billionaires
brought out of it, but thebillionaires in Bitcoin are the
ones that bought it in 2009 ormined it and still hold it today
.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
They're in it for the long haul.
They're kind of playing thelong game there.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
It's a long game industry.
It's not a quick turnaround.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
And I feel like the same challenge is happening in
AI as well right now, wherethere's so many people that have
added, like the dot AI, ontothe end of their business.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
I roll my eyes at that.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
yes, I was talking to a CEO of Energy and they
actually are like they'releveraging AI technology and
they've taken AI off of all oftheir marketing materials, just
because they find that itactually differentiates them to
not be involved in kind of thebuzzword salad that everyone
else is taking a part in.
The same thing's happening inblockchain, which is why I'm so
(27:40):
curious about some of thesequestions, because I feel like
business owners and businessleaders technology leaders are
being inundated with thesequestions around.
You know why haven't theyimplemented some of these things
?
Or what's their plan to addressblockchain?
And there's so much noisearound it as well.
But this is super practicalinformation.
So, if I'm a CIO of a midsizeenergy company right now, is
(28:04):
there steps I should be taking?
Is there things I should beexploring, like?
What's your advice for peopleto get started?
Because I feel like, with thesignificance of the topic,
sometimes getting started is thehardest part.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Well, I would say like so if you're a midsize
energy company, so let's justsay that right now you're
flaring natural gas and yourgoal is you have a bit of a low
production site.
You'd like to turn into a highproduction site, but due to the
cost of flaring and carboncarbon tax and all these other
kind of things, you're actuallybetter limiting the amount of
(28:38):
production that you do.
To offset what you, you'reactually probably better off to
stick a generator on your site,throw a couple megawatts worth
of Bitcoin miners on there,diversify your revenue stream
and they'll absorb all thatnatural gas so you can become
(28:59):
more high production and you canget access to the things that
you're looking for, such as thecondensate and things like that.
That's one aspect that wouldincrease your revenue stream.
That could bring you into ahigher yield of production.
And then, if you're looking atmore of the corporate side I
mean, there are ways to executesmart contracts there.
There's also lots of technology.
Like, I don't believe in a onestop shop.
(29:20):
I don't go oh Bitcoin orblockchain.
It's the only thing you can use.
It's like there's definitelyinteresting technologies like in
AI, like I really appreciatethat chat GPT for a lot of
things.
It's just like wow, I don't needto hire a.
There's amazing advancements inIoT and blockchain and if you
look at it from a holisticperspective, it's like you have
to understand what is your endgoal.
(29:41):
Are you trying to create moreefficiency?
Are you trying to reduce yourworkforce?
Are you trying like, what areyou trying to do?
And when you understand whatyour goal of adopting a new
technology is, that's the placethat you want to start and try
and figure out what technologycould actually suit that need.
Versus how do I adopt blockchain?
You probably don't need it,like if you're a business and
you're looking at blockchainlike, unless you're looking at
(30:05):
like you're a retail businessand you're trying to figure out,
hey, how can I accept cryptotransactions to offset what I'm
paying for Visa and MasterCard?
And it's quicker and itconfirms easier and I'd like to
be able to you know, maybeattract a new customer base
because they're interested inspending their crypto.
That's an interestingconversation.
If you're an energy company,again, you're looking at getting
access to Bitcoin mining.
(30:26):
That's a conversation.
If you're an enterprise companyand you're in supply chain and
you're trying to just havebetter line of sight proving the
authenticity of certain items,you know, maybe a blockchain is
suitable for you in that regard,but again, you need to get
buy-in from all the differentparties that you're trying to
get those similar facts to you,because bad data in bad data out
(30:46):
.
Iot captures the technology inmy mind, because you want the
sensors.
You're trying to capture allthis information, but AI helps
you scrub, clean, tag the datato try and figure out what do
you need to use with it.
That data can go into ablockchain, because if you're
looking for transparency andimmutability, it's like this is
(31:08):
the data that went in.
You know people have accesstransparently to see where this
has come from, the provenance ofthis item, things like that.
That can be valuable, butyou're utilizing holistically
multiple different technologiesto create the level of
transparency that you want,right, not just going.
We're using a blockchainbecause buzzword, bullshit,
salad.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Yeah, we're trying to get a higher multiple in our
company and we need to havethese technologies integrated.
Let's add blockchain here, AIhere it is.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
It's like I remember 20 years ago sitting at
conferences where I was justlike IoT, you know.
And then I remember hearing AIway back in the day, like now
it's getting way more traction,more popular, but then there was
a whole AI versus machinelearning what's the difference
there?
And like people still don'tknow how the fricking internet
works.
Like most people don'tunderstand the cloud, the
(31:51):
internet, web one, web two, likeand now there's web three.
There's so many buzzwords outthere.
I would just tell people, likejust don't get caught up in the
hype of it.
Like, if you're reallyinterested in blockchain, to
start read the Bitcoin Standardby Safety the Moose, start on
that book, and that kind ofgives you a really good
understanding.
Because if you understand money, if you understand Bitcoin, if
you understand the technologythere, you can use that lens and
(32:14):
then look at the crypto spaceand go, ok, what actually makes
sense?
Do I want to invest in whatcould be money?
Do I want to invest in aproject?
Do I want to invest in you know?
Like, what exactly is it thatyou're looking for?
Like, don't just take the wholespace, it's overwhelming but
like maybe kind of what's yourkey interest and go from there.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
I'm so glad you said that because I feel like it's a
tool in the tool belt right.
It's not the end all be allit's a widget and people and it
doesn't matter if you're buyinga CRM, if you're buying a new
computer.
Like starting with the businesscase, starting with the
challenge that you have and thenfiguring out the right tool is
always the right approach,versus trying to figure out how
(32:52):
you can fit this shiny thinginto your business model.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
And it's never going to work out that good.
Like you're going to spend moremoney chasing shiny things and
then you're probably going toend up with a bunch of
consultants Like God whenblockchain first came out the
amount of consulting companiesout there that were like, oh,
you need a blockchain.
It's like they don't theyprobably really don't, and
you're just pushing them andthen you want them to push a
token.
And here's the scary part theamount of people that pushed and
(33:17):
released tokens didn't realizethe securities violations that
they were doing.
We have pre-existing laws andframeworks to protect consumers.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah, and so, speaking of laws and frameworks,
I think that leads us into someinteresting territory as well.
I know you do a lot of work onthe advocacy side of things.
What role do you seegovernments playing in this
shift forward when it comes toblockchains and some of the
crypto technologies?
Because, even though you'vesaid, it is quite disruptive
potentially for the way thatthey've always done things as
(33:46):
well, but I imagine governmentneeds to play a pretty critical
role in these next steps.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Well, how would I frame this?
So an example to me on whygovernment would be important.
Um, let's just banking for aquick second.
When cannabis was legalized bytrudeau can't remember exactly
what year that was and everybodyand their dog started popping
up a business, they couldn't getinsurance and they couldn't get
banking.
That was really difficultthings get access to you.
Why?
Because there was a perceivedreputational risk around it.
(34:16):
You know just everything wasjust like considered high risk
around this particular side ofthe space.
And when the government came inand started selling it
themselves in Ontario, it waslike under like LCBO or whatever
it is in Ontario.
That's when the banks were like, oh, ok, well, we can't not
bank the government.
So I guess now we got to startgiving access to banking to this
(34:36):
industry and that was a pivotaland kind of critical shift
because even though you can havean industry, that if you can't
get access to the basic servicesa business needs, that becomes
a failing point.
So right now in Canada we'reseeing difficulty accessing
banking, we're seeing difficultyaccessing insurance, we're
seeing perceived reputationalrisk.
(34:58):
We're seeing the media, youknow, using this industry as
like kind of clickbait.
It's just like, oh, bitcoindied or oh, look at this scam or
all these other kind of things,right?
So there's a lot of hurdles thatthe industry has to naturally
overcome and, considering it'sonly what, 16 years into, you
know its existence at this point.
You know there's still a lot ofquestions like what's the value
(35:18):
?
What is it?
So, when we advocate togovernment, it's like there
needs to be a legislativeposition within the Canadian
government that we're seeingbeing taken by governments in
the United Kingdom, in theMiddle East, in Singapore, in
Asia, in the United States ofAmerica, in places like El
Salvador and you know all theseother countries around the world
that are taking legislativepositions.
They help to guide theregulators Because right now, if
(35:42):
the government doesn't step in,and it's just industries and
regulators, regulators are goingto look at how can this fit
into pre-existing framework?
Right?
And when you have something newand disruptive, it usually
takes regulation years to catchup to what's in existence, and
by the time they catch up towhat came out in 2015, it's now,
you know obsolete potentiallybecause technology advances
(36:05):
quicker than legislation andregulation can come up with.
So we need to develop out aframework with the government
from a legislative position thatallows for consumers to be
protected because that's themost critical thing while
allowing for innovation toactually have an opportunity to
thrive, and that's what we're,you know, really looking for
within this government, and it'sa very nonpartisan technology.
(36:26):
It really doesn't matter if youare, you know, liberal, ndp,
conservative.
This technology it supports,you know, your finance industry,
your tech sector, your energysector, like the healthcare
sector.
There's really no area thatthis doesn't touch.
It's not some weird standalonetech off in this obscure
universe that, like, literallycan impact everybody in their
(36:47):
everyday lives.
At some point, blockchain won'teven be a conversation.
Like encryption isn't aconversation with people anymore
.
You use it on your phone everysingle day.
You have no idea how it works,you have no idea what the banks
are really doing to secure it,but you're using encryption
almost every aspect of your liferight now, with your passwords
and everything else.
You're using the cloud and yourGoogle and your Apple phone and
all the other kind of stuff.
(37:07):
Like you're literally utilizingthis technology, maybe not
understanding it, but blockchainwill eventually be that.
But it takes time.
It takes overcoming controversy.
It takes time for people toaccept what's new because new
can be scary Right andunderstand.
How does it benefit me?
Like I'm a mom, I got two boys.
Why would blockchain impact me?
(37:28):
Well, from the Bitcoinperspective, it's definitely
impacted my ability to take careof my children in a positive
way.
It's created a whole businessopportunity for me to help
people understand and advocatefor this new and emerging
technology.
But, you know, does it matterto every single person?
I think from a monetaryposition, if you're thinking
about your Canadian dollarpotentially collapsing, yeah,
(37:50):
but from a business position,what's your business goal?
Until you understand that, Iwouldn't be able to help you
understand how the technologycould be integrated if you need
it.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I love it.
I'm so glad you said all thatand I think that it's very easy
to get swept up in some of thenarrative around all the cool
and shiny things, and I thinkthat's incredibly practical
advice when we look forwardtowards the future.
So obviously there's somereally interesting things that
are going along with thatconversation from AI?
Quantum obviously is a bigdiscussion.
What do you see coming forwardin the future for blockchain
(38:22):
technologies and Bitcoin that weshould be looking out for and
kind of what are some of thebold predictions that you have?
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Oh, I guess my bold prediction is that I do see it
becoming a global reservecurrency, like I do see that
coming back into play, maybe notthat they're pegging their
dollar directly to it, but atthe US dollar can be a reserve
currency.
I think Bitcoin can be as well.
What do I see coming down thefuture?
So, if I look at Canadaspecifically, I see Canada
(38:51):
taking a stronger position intothe data center side, especially
in Bitcoin mining.
Like a big announcement justgot made yesterday, a company
that we're working with, youknow they're building, you know,
potentially up to one gigawattup in Alberta and Fox Creek, and
that's one of many companies.
Right now Alberta's entireenergy grid potentially has
utilizes like three gigs or alittle bit more than that.
(39:13):
So this is going to be a hugeoff grid site.
And what's really exciting is,you know.
So this is going to be a hugeoff-grid site and what's really
exciting is, you know, as wegrow as a civilization, as we
increase our population, energysecurity is huge.
The site's also going to be,you know, net zero.
With carbon capture technology.
It's groundbreaking To be ableto create energy security.
So if Albertans ended up in aposition like they were in, you
(39:36):
know, in last March I think itwas February or March we had
that rolling blackout situation.
We could go to one Bitcoinminer and ask if we could get
access to 150 megawatts of theirgigawatt worth of power and
supply this locally, versushaving to go to another province
and ask for that power right?
So the more Bitcoin miners wecan attract into the province,
the more jobs that we can create, the more taxable revenue that
(39:58):
we can create, the more wediversify our economy, the more
we're able to sell our resourcesthrough fiber optic cables
right, and the more we createenergy security.
So I see that being like areally powerful position that
you know we can take, at leastin Alberta and ideally in other
parts of Canada that are having,you know, issues growing more
access to their grid.
These are off grid.
It's not like on grid.
(40:23):
This isn't going to impact, youknow, anybody's electrical bill
, right, this is something thatcould benefit.
And then, from a financialposition, you know, if Canada
takes a strategic Bitcoinreserve, if we're able to, you
know, moderate our spending, ifwe're looking at how to, you
know, decrease our rates ofinflation and actually create
more stability into our currency.
You know, decrease our rates ofinflation and actually create
more stability into our currency.
I think, you know pegging ourdollar to.
You know things like Bitcoin,oil and gas, our water reserves,
(40:44):
forestry things that weactually have in abundance that
make us a very valuable economy,you know, I think that it's a
really good, meaningfulconversation for our country to
have.
I think that eventually, thistechnology is just going to be
utilized in our everyday livesand people aren't going to be
truly aware of it.
I do think it's going todisrupt our financial system as
we know it.
You know, exchanges can be thenew banks and exchanges will
(41:06):
actually have reserves, likethere was one bank that was
starting up called Custodia Bankand they'd have 102% of assets
in reserve.
If you look at banks today, inCanada, at least, they have 5%.
In America, they have zero theamount of banks that are going
insolvent because they don'thold anything in reserve.
You know, I'd say that there isa lot of disruption that can
come to our traditional bankingindustry, especially if you know
(41:28):
PR actually pushes through openbanking right, allowing for
more competition in that.
I think that the blockchain andthe digital asset space has a
lot to offer in terms of acompetitive advantage to
consumers.
So, yeah, I know I see a lot ofreally interesting things
coming down the pipe that people.
It'll create a positive impactto people's everyday lives.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I love the optimistic nature of that.
Kalaya, I feel like I couldprobably ask you questions for
another two or three hours.
This has been an incrediblyinsightful conversation.
I've learned a ton.
If people have questions foryou, if they want to learn more
about the work that you do,what's the best way for them to
get in touch with you?
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Well, we have a website, canadablockchainca, so
there's ways that they canaccess us there, send us an
email and happy to haveconversations.
We do events a lot all acrossthe country, so not just in
Alberta, but do events in BC andMontreal and Ontario, even do
events in the States sometimes.
So signing up for a newsletterand keeping up to date on events
(42:32):
that we have like we have onecoming up on, like the future of
decentralized finance, likewhat is this going to look like,
how is this going to impact us,what does this mean from a
cybersecurity perspective sowe're always doing ways to
educate people and help themunderstand better what's
actually going on.
And then we produce quarterlyreports that people can keep up
to date on for interestingthings happening.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
I love it If you have one final word of advice for
business leaders, technologyleaders, around blockchain and
Bitcoin.
What would that be?
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Read the Bitcoin Standard, like.
I definitely believe that thatis the best book for people to
have an understanding If youwant to understand the space,
understanding why the space cameabout.
And it gives you a beautifulhistory lesson on economics and
it was written by a PhDprofessor of economics, so it's
a brilliant, brilliant book.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
I'm excited.
I'm adding that to my readinglist.
I have not read it and I willnext time we chat.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
I'll have read it, so I'll give you an example,
michael Saylor, if people arefamiliar with him.
That book is the reason whyMicroStrategy has bought
billions of dollars in Bitcoinand it's also part of the reason
why the government of ElSalvador, where the president,
decided to make that legaltender.
So it's a very powerful book.
If you want to understand, doyour own research before getting
into this space, but that's agood gateway.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
This has been an absolute pleasure and thank you
for the chat.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Thank you, pleasure to be here.
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