What will happen to my Ethereum after Ethereum's Merge? Blockchain Solutions and use cases - Zero Trust Solutions - PTG-Podcast-September-7-2022
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Episode Transcript
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Craig (00:00):
welcome to another podcast today.
September 7th, 2022.
It's been a while we've been onhiatus.
For a while and welcome back.
I wanted to talk about Theupcoming Ethereum merge.
Next week we've got Blake Rayonline.
Zoom (00:17):
Hello.
Long
Craig (00:21):
Yes.
Yes.
We're going to get back onschedule.
Don't
Zoom (00:24):
Yup.
And we will.
So what'd you think when youread the news about the, Emerge,
unless you're play on it.
Craig (00:33):
The first thing I thought about was Do we need to do
anything, cause I don't knowabout you but I hold some
Ethereum.
I'm sure that there are manylisteners that hold some
Ethereum.
Whether it be on an exchange orin a cold wallet.
And the first thing I waswondering was, do I need to do
anything?
And the short answer is no, youdon't need to do anything at
(00:54):
all.
There are a lot of scams andthat's why I wanted to do this
episode today because there's alot of scammers.
That are preying on people thatare wondering the same thing and
trying to send socialengineering and phishing emails.
To trick you into thinking thatyou do need to do something with
your theories.
You do not.
There's nothing that you need todo.
The merge is going to happen.
(01:14):
It's proposed on the 15th ofSeptember, which is next week.
The research that I did wasbasically, you don't have to do
anything if you're holding it onan exchange or in a cold wallet.
You don't have to sell it.
You don't have to transfer it.
You don't have to convert it.
There's nothing that you need todo or that you should do.
The only thing that they adviseis while the merge is happening.
(01:35):
Like I said, proposed on the15th.
They just advise, not doing anytransactions or anything during
that conversion period.
Zoom (01:44):
Sorry, My dog.
It was going crazy with abottle.
Yeah, no I I think it's going tobe huge.
I have been reading about ithere And I was nervous at first
as well, but apparently they didthat.
Also in 2014.
Craig (02:03):
Yeah, I have to research the date, but I think that
you're referencing when it wentfrom a theorem classic to eith
right.
Zoom (02:11):
I think so.
Yeah.
I'm trying to catch up on
Craig (02:15):
Yeah.
So basically what happens justfor the listeners is when
cryptocurrencies get an upgradelike this, a major upgrade.
Typically there's, what's calleda fork or a hard fork.
And what that means, like whatyou were just referencing when
Ethereum classic got upgraded tothe ERC 20, which is That's what
(02:35):
a lot of the NFTs are based on.
Oh.
And by the way, if you own anyNFTs, you don't have to do
anything with those either.
So don't fall victim to anyscams that say, oh, you need to
do something with your NFT.
There's nothing that you need todo.
So the only thing I recommend isif you don't have your crypto or
your NFTs on a cold wallet, Iwould recommend doing that.
(02:56):
And going through that processIf you need help with any of
that, we do have some trainingon compliance, armor.com.
That can help you with that.
But that's really my onlyrecommendation at this time.
Don't fall victim to any socialengineering or phishing emails
that tell you otherwise, there'sabsolutely nothing that you need
to do there.
But the hard fork that I wasmentioning is there, there is a
possibility that a new Ethereum.
(03:18):
Like name it was etc.
Now it's E T H there might be anew one, maybe ETH two or some
version to be traded in thefuture.
They, I don't know what they'regoing to really do after this
happens, we'll find out.
But that, that What happens, orthat is what happened in the
past with the ERC at E T H.
Zoom (03:39):
The reason why, If you look back at theory, I'm like
five days or a month.
Has gone down almost 8.6%.
Do you think people are gettingscared because of the More to
think.
Craig (03:53):
Yeah.
So there's a lot of speculation,obviously.
We're in very uncertain timesright now.
I think people that are bullishand optimistic on the merge or
probably buying Ethereum andhope that it will rise bedding
maybe on a successful merge.
Of the future.
Obviously nothing that we say onour podcast is financial
(04:13):
information and not to beconstrued as such, we're not
financial advisors, notresponsible, not condoning or
saying that you need to doanything at all.
Just put that out there, butyeah, I do think that people are
either on the bedding bullishsides of buying it and
accumulation.
And I do think that there areothers that are betting against,
just like on the stock market.
Zoom (04:35):
Yeah, I'm looking here at the chart.
Craig (04:39):
Yeah.
Zoom (04:39):
58.
Five 7%.
Which is down$2,213 and year todate.
So from January 1st to September7th and then six months.
It's down 37.63%.
Obviously that brings in.
obviously, but$937 and 63 cents.
(05:03):
And then the past month is down8%, which is$146 and 38 cents.
Obviously this has some to dowith with the crypto.
I guess the crypto.
The scare that's happening.
A lot of people are scared.
A lot of people.
A lot of commercial investors.
Retail investors, people like meand you and normal people.
(05:25):
I think the market's gettingshook, But
Craig (05:27):
I think the problem though is or much of the
problem.
Is that there's just so muchmisinformation out there even by
major news outlets that arepopular.
There's still a lot ofmisinformation around.
Around cryptocurrency aroundBitcoin, around a theory.
And other derivatives, there's alot of, Celebrity sometimes that
(05:50):
endorse and then there'srepercussions from that people.
Believe that it might be a goodthing to do.
So then they follow suit.
The reality is that Bitcoin andEthereum, especially are game
changers.
They are changing how wetransact and how we handle
certain things like smartcontracts with Ethereum.
(06:11):
They're still active.
Efforts going on in thecommunities they're still
active.
Efforts around financialinstitutions, adding or
considering adding Bitcoin tohelp their clients get into
Bitcoin.
There's still a huge amount ofaccumulation.
By large investors at wa.
(06:32):
Which otherwise known as whales.
Happening right now.
So with with Bitcoin being atrue supply and demand
cryptocurrency with a finitesupply that seems to dwindle
more and more each day becausepeople lose their passwords or
have bad hygiene.
So the real finite supply isstill very unknown, but the
reality is it's very scarce andscarce things go up typically in
(06:56):
value and.
I do think that Bitcoin is hereto stay and might not have much
utility or real world usage.
Like something like Ethereum.
That's why I like both of them.
But I, if you look at, projectsaround Ethereum and how to use
smart contracts and how to fuelsmart contracts, one of the big
(07:18):
thing, the adoption rate isstill increasing, which is good.
And that's a lot of the stuffthat the news doesn't really
tell you about.
The other thing that'sinteresting as well as is the
burn rate.
They introduce the burn rate at,with Ethereum where so much is
burning.
And you could look up theexactly, but the point is that
the S that's what they did to.
Combat or better aligned withBitcoin.
(07:39):
It is not the same though.
There still is a Ethereum beingmined in produced, and there is
it's not the same in re inregards to a finite amount.
So what Ethereum did was theystarted burning so much Ethereum
to reduce the supply and keepthe demand high.
Zoom (07:58):
Yeah.
it makes sense.
I think also obviously cryptopeople went crazy and crypto
mining and then.
He may be more complex, to mine.
I asked the proof of work gotharder.
Right or proof of stake orwhatever.
Craig (08:11):
Yeah, that's correct.
So proof of work is the currentalgorithm for both Bitcoin and
Ethereum.
And basically that is the bignews around that is it's so
horrible for the environment,but that's in my opinion, some
misinformation too, because ifyou think about it, most of our
power.
At least in our country.
And at least where I live,especially is nuclear power.
(08:33):
It's not coal power.
I know that there are places inthe world that still use coal
And that's obviously bad for theenvironment and I don't support
But the reality is most of ourelectricity in modern.
Places is nuclear and nuclear isa clean power.
Some argue that it's not cleanbecause this nuclear waste, but
it is cleaner than things likethe alternatives of fossil
fuels.
(08:54):
So my point is You know, there'sa lot of documentaries and a lot
of information around oh that,proof of work, it uses so much
electricity and it's really badfor the environment.
And There's also the big pushwith cars and automobiles,
moving from gas powered enginesto electric vehicles and all
this stuff.
And, the reality is that thecarbon footprint is it can be
(09:18):
greatly or.
Or exponentially reduced if wehad more More vegetables and
farms, opposed to reducinggreenhouse gases and methane
gases.
And I'm not a scientist oranything like that.
But my point is, if you do theresearch and you look at what
affects our environment, Mypoint here is that it's not so
(09:40):
much the big move from.
Proof of work.
And this.
Huge amount of electricityrequired to do mining of
Bitcoin.
That's not the, if you look atthe group, the big picture of
everything, that's not thebiggest thing that's causing the
global problem with climatechange.
It's it has more to do withother things that are way
(10:03):
outside of that circle.
The same for vehicles There's somuch marketing around, oh, we
need to all move to electricvehicles and we need to on the
Bitcoin side of things, we needto move from proof of work to
proof of stake or a differentalgorithm.
That's more efficient.
It doesn't draw so much power.
And yes, those are good thingsthat we do probably should
consider for the future.
But those are not the.
(10:23):
In my opinion and based on thefacts that I've read.
They're not.
Mainly the biggest areas tofocus.
Zoom (10:30):
Are you bear bearish or bullish?
I'm assuming you're probablybullish.
Craig (10:36):
Yeah, I'm bullish on at least on the two points that
we're talking about today withBitcoin and Ethereum.
I do agree with a lot of otherinvestors and a lot of other
influencers in the space that.
I would say, and I speculate.
When I say this, but I would sayover 90%.
Of the alt coins.
(10:57):
Coins or anything different thanBitcoin.
I would say that almost all ofthem will get wiped out.
And the reason why I say that,and I don't like to be a
pessimist.
I like to be more of anoptimist, but the reason why I
The reality is they're allexperimental projects and the
likelihood of even starting abusiness.
It's hard and it's harder thanever that we're in a different
(11:20):
climate.
We have different challengesthat we're all dealing with.
And the reality is most new altcoins will not survive.
There may be a handful thatsurvive.
But most of them will not.
I think that Bitcoin andEthereum.
Are both going to survive.
(11:40):
There's probably going to besome changes and evolutions
around, What's the best use forsome of those things, maybe as a
utility or a store of value.
But I think for.
There's a lot of critics around,oh you can't use Bitcoin to do
X, Y, or Z.
What was never really designedfor that?
The same as, people think that,oh, I'm going to buy coffee with
(12:01):
Bitcoin.
And you could do that, but it'sjust not really the best.
Way to use the token.
In my opinion.
It's Bitcoin specifically, it'smore of a store of value.
It's a long term, a longtermplay.
Ethereum, however, I think hasmore utility.
Like I said, you have to use thegas and the.
The fuel, so to speak from atheorem to power things like
(12:23):
smart contracts and automationand different things that are on
the Ethereum network.
So that's why you.
Based into the protocol.
You have to have a theorem, youhave to burn a Ethereum to power
those things.
So I think that there, that isbuilt into the cryptocurrency
where you have the need toalways require it.
Another coin that I like is analt coin.
(12:43):
I do not know if it'll surviveor not, but I do the project
it's called CYA coin.
CYA coin is storage, so as youneed more storage on the
blockchain, you have to use theCYA coins to power it.
So I like projects like thatkind of Always have a need for
the coin in the future.
Zoom (13:02):
Yeah.
I'm starting to become more of apastor.
CryptoWall.
And the reason why.
A lot of the users anddevelopers.
These are the reason why peopleare.
Losing their trust in crypto.
And what I mean, when I say thatis.
If you think about some ofthese.
(13:22):
These rug poles, where likesomebody will make a crypto.
And then they'll get all theirsocial influencer friends.
And then.
They'll just pull money awayfrom the liquidity pool.
And then they'll still Millionsof dollars.
There's nothing that anybody canreally do about You can look at.
Endless Examples of thishappening.
And so a lot of people are juststarting to believe that crypto.
(13:48):
And.
Craig (13:50):
Yeah.
I think that's a good point.
I think that A lot of that comeswith the complexity, people.
It's just human nature that Iwould say most people.
By default are probably not verytechnology savvy.
Obviously you've got theenthusiasts and those are
probably the early adopters thatare tech savvy and they are
(14:12):
starting, or have, frominception, they started dabbling
in projects around Bitcoin,either from an investor
perspective or maybe from amining and a research
perspective or a programmingperspective.
But for the masses, right?
Like the mass populations.
I would speculate to say thatmost are not.
Tech savvy and most probablydon't even care to know about
(14:34):
the inner workings of how thecryptocurrency works.
I think for most people it's anew shiny object that could
have.
The potential to help them witha store of value and,
alternatively to maybe the stockmarket or investing in
individual companies, It may beinteresting to them to look But
I think like you just said,Blake, I think that.
(14:57):
There's the scammers and thehackers.
The bad actors that are outthere.
They are tech savvy and they'reusing this as a vehicle to prey
upon the weak, So I think thatwith the amount of scams out
there that are just new onescoming out every day, like you
said, with pump and dump andjust so much.
(15:17):
Social interweaving around, I'llget this new shiny object, new
altcoin.
It's going to be better than XYZor whatever.
And like you said, they put allthis marketing behind it and
then there's no substance aroundit.
So I think that.
That, that's a problem.
I think that the.
The problem with regulation is ahuge one.
(15:38):
I think that The.
SCC is continuing to regulatethings.
And I think that overallregulation could be a good thing
to protect people and protectthe masses.
But yeah, you just have to bereally sharp right now and you
have to rely on the securityawareness training that we talk
about to educate yourself andmake sure that you.
(15:59):
You're able to quickly.
Determine what's real and what'snot.
Zoom (16:06):
Something I've seen a lot of.
Pretty recently is obviouslywith the rise.
I think a lot of people don'tcare The utility.
The nerds like us do care aboutthe utility side of crypto, but.
The normal people.
I don't think that they reallycare so much.
Oh, yeah.
Like I know a friend who, whodid this, or, you They're
looking at it from an investmentperspective or trying to make
(16:27):
money or Like a quick cash grab.
But, obviously with.
Scams and pumping.
And with people making money,there's always going to be
people trying to steal it.
You know what?
There's a new opportunity tomake money.
There's gonna be people tryingto reverse it and flip And I
don't know.
I know you're not on socialmedia, but I see a lot of people
(16:49):
like.
DME on Instagram or Facebook orwhatever saying, oh if you want
to.
Learn how to trade Forex.
It's just visit my website here.
We'll trade you or we'll promiseyou.
250% return on your money.
And then, you go to the website.
And it has updated their foureggs.
Foreign exchange.
Is crypto they're there.
(17:10):
They're apparently supposed tobe trading crypto and obviously
there's no regulation.
Behind trading crypto, likeThere's no professional
institution.
Regulators, crypto.
So therefore people can dowhatever they want.
The second you send them yourmoney.
It's gone.
Craig (17:25):
Yeah.
And I think one thing that comesto mind is that since there's
not much regulation right nowThere's not a lot of, even the
big companies that are in thecrypto space.
They're saying they're doingsomething.
Whether it's that they're.
Like have so much Bitcoin inreserves or have so much.
(17:46):
Ethereum and reserves like,resources, to back up their
company.
Since there's not muchregulation, there's not a lot
of.
Third party audits or processand regulation around.
How do you prove that XYZexchange has the resources to
sustain?
(18:07):
If.
So many people withdraw theirmoney like right now, like with
banks, and I'm not a bankexpert, back in the day, Banks
would have the, the dollar wasbacked by gold, right?
And now the dollar is no longerbacked by gold.
The mint, the us mint thatprints the money.
They can print money, but theydon't have to have the gold
reserves to basically back itup.
(18:29):
So what that creates isinflation, right?
And we're in like the worstinflation crisis at the moment.
It's because.
And again, I don't want to beone sided or her.
All I'm going to say is thatwith the ability to print money
on demand, without having tohave the collateral behind it,
that creates an imbalance is howI'll put it.
(18:51):
If you had regulation around acertain exchange, for example,
maybe the regulation says youhave to have X, not X dollars in
collateral.
At the same thing, I'll use theanalogy of buying a house.
You can't typically buy a house.
Unless you put up somecollateral, to get money from
the bank in the form of amortgage.
(19:11):
And if you don't have enoughcollateral, you don't have
enough assets.
They're probably not going toapprove you for the mortgage.
Or if they do approve you,you're going to pay a much, much
higher rates.
But you still have to prove toin this case, the bank, that
you're going to be able touphold your promise and your
promises to pay that mortgageback, that you're signing off
on.
So my point with regulation, Ithink there is good things that
(19:33):
can come about with regulationaround that topic where it will
help weed out.
Basically right now, it's thewild west and anyone can hang
their shingle and say, oh, I'mgoing to create a new
cryptocurrency.
Or like you said, I'm going tocreate this Forex thing, or
we're going to create a trainingprogram.
There's just all this stuff thatyou can take advantage of the
(19:53):
quote unquote buzz or themarketing around it right now.
Because there's not a lot ofbarriers legally or from
regulation that can stop peoplefrom doing that.
And I think that's part of theproblem of where we are right
now.
And that's why I'm referencing,it's like the wild west.
Zoom (20:11):
That's why I feel like the future I don't know.
I hold cryptocurrency.
So I don't want to be hypocrite.
And obviously I'm not here topromote or demote.
Crypto, but I have my my doubts.
You know about the future.
Crypto and even some of thecrypto.
Geniuses like.
The founder of Ethereum, forexample, I remember him talking
(20:33):
about how he is.
I think, I don't know if theseare his words.
Exactly.
But her, my context, you He wasdisappointed.
With the direction that crypto'sgoing, because here you are
having these.
He was mostly talking about someof the the NFTs.
Like the board apes and allthat.
And.
These millionaires that areplaying with these little
pictures of monkeys and stufflike that.
(20:54):
And that wasn't what crypto was,made for.
And I'm not super bullish as Iwas, but I'll hold crypto.
I'll see what, what happened.
I'm not.
Pump.
Everything I have into it, butobviously.
But but yeah, I think things arebecoming to.
I don't know is becoming toosaturated.
It's not becoming verydesirable.
(21:15):
As it was in my opinion.
Craig (21:17):
Yeah.
I don't have a crystal balleither, but the only thing that
I'll say is this, like withsomething like Bitcoin, for
example, Bitcoin gives theunbanked, the people that don't
have bank accounts.
Ability to trade.
And Basically do bankingfunctions without a third party
or a bank.
And I think worldwide.
(21:39):
That's a good thing.
I don't think that, and this ismy opinion, my belief, my
perspective.
I don't think that individualsin the world should have to use
a third party such as a bank.
I do think there's a place for abank.
I think a bank could be a goodthing in the event that you need
to borrow money, for example, tobuy a car or things, or like a
(22:00):
house or whatever, you obviouslycouldn't go to a bank, shell
collateral, but I see a futurewhere.
The bank.
As it is today.
I'll give you another example.
If I want to send you money fora debt.
Blake.
I can send it to you via PayPalor the banking partnerships or
(22:21):
whatever.
ACH and there's all thesethings, but if I send you money
through traditional financial,Methods.
You're going to have to waitseveral days for that money to
quote unquote clear through allthose third-party hands.
And I think that middlemanapproach is a dead dinosaur.
I think it's unnecessary.
(22:42):
I think that is vastlyeliminated by.
New disruptors, like somethinglike Bitcoin or cryptocurrency.
Now, as far as the founder ofBitcoin or Ethereum, rather
being.
A pessimist now as far?
Here's the thing, a lot of thesecreators of different things,
including like Facebook, forexample, They had all, they
(23:03):
can't, they don't have a crystalball either.
You don't know what theirintentions were when they
created it.
And you don't know if you.
How it would be used in thefuture.
That's impossible to predict,but if you look at.
How certain things like Facebookor social media.
Are now the cause of, or a bigfactor in the cause of
(23:23):
depression and children and howthere's a lot of bullying and
all these things.
I don't think that the creatorsof the social platforms really
thought that something like thatwould escalate to the level that
it has or.
Or could have predictedsomething I think my point here
is that when you unleash certaintypes of technology, that
(23:44):
potentially is a disruptor.
The iPhone, I feel was a bigdisruptor when the iPhone came
out and a lot of other companiesSamsung and all the companies
were all kind of fighting themobile.
War, so to speak, but I don'tthink that all of the creators
there ever predicted how mobileor device addiction and all
these things, these negativeeffects, could happen.
My point here is that if youlook at and you focus back on
(24:07):
Bitcoin.
And you look at the good of itand you look at the facts.
The facts are, people are tryingto hack it every day.
Nobody's been able to take itdown.
It's the most resilient.
Crypto or could arguably be themost secure, most resilient type
of instrument.
That we've ever had.
(24:28):
It gives virtually anyone theability to exchange wealth in
seconds.
I think those are all goodthings without a middleman.
And that's the thing.
I think the move towards atrustless ecosystem in.
Pretty much everything that wedo.
I think that's the future.
I think it's the future incybersecurity.
(24:49):
It's the future in finance?
I like the work that's beingdone around blockchain and
around trustless healthcareidentification and medical
records.
My opinion is I don't thinkthat.
My doctor or Mo or the hospitalsthat I go to or specialists that
I see should be in control of mymedical records.
I think that I should be incontrol of that.
(25:10):
And I think that I should pickand choose who and when and why
I should share a certainpersonal details.
I think the, my point here is.
The consumer you and I.
In the future should be theholder of, and the protector of
a lot of this.
Personal identifiableinformation.
(25:32):
And the controller of it.
It shouldn't be a third party.
Zoom (25:35):
Sorry, lost my windows.
But yeah, no, I I totally agree.
Your data is your IP is yourdata
Craig (25:44):
yeah, but you can probably only count on one hand
though.
Where or how you control yourown data?
You're trusting.
When you make data and createdata, most likely you're
trusting some third party tosecure the data.
Or have it in their ecosystemand in their, ultimately their
control, unless you were givencertain security controls.
(26:07):
Dials or knobs to adjustyourself.
My point here is that.
We're still not in a zero trustor a trustless.
Day-to-day operation.
We're still trusting bigcorporations.
We're still trusting Microsoftand apple.
We're generating data every dayon their platforms.
(26:27):
We're trusting them to keep thatdata safe and secure and there,
and, without getting into thelegal and The technicalities of
it, there's a lot of.
Security that they, thosecompanies give us, but it's in
the power of the user to enablethe security.
And it's also in the fine printthat the company that created
(26:47):
the, that security is prettymuch held harmless and it's on
the user protect their data.
So it's my point though, isthat.
There's a lot of education,security awareness training that
the user has to have andcontinue to take to properly
know what options they have onsecurity and how to properly
secure their stuff.
(27:07):
But then they have to do that inover a dozen different systems.
Maybe use Microsoft, maybe useFacebook, maybe you use
Instagram, all these differentecosystems all now have
different security controls thatneed to be properly adjusted to
properly safeguard your data.
Zoom (27:22):
Yeah, we probably should talk about that one in the next.
How to control.
Your data, especially with thethe internet.
Craig (27:29):
how cool would it be?
That if one day, and this isgoing off topic, or we're going
over time But how cool would itbe?
That in one day in the future,all your data is on a blockchain
that only you control, and thenmaybe all these platforms
connecting to your data,blockchain with your permission
(27:49):
and authorization.
But then when you're done andyou don't like that media
platform anymore, or Like thatsoftware package anymore, you
just click a button and you'veterminated that connection and
they no longer have access toyour data.
It never left your premise or itnever left your blockchain.
Zoom (28:07):
That'd
Craig (28:07):
How cool would that be?
Like you'd like you would be thesole.
Creator of that data, the holderof that data and the here's the
best part.
Since it's on a blockchain, it'ssecure by default.
So you can use.
Encryption and differenttechnologies like blockchain to
reduce the burden.
Of the security of that data.
(28:28):
I'm not saying it doeseverything.
Obviously there's responsibilityin different safeguards that you
have to do.
But my point is that it's muchless than it is now.
Look at it.
Now, every ecosystem you gointo, you have to adjust
security.
According to best practices onwhat they give you that you're
allowed to adjust.
But the reality is certainthings you can adjust and
they're not in your control.
(28:49):
They're in Microsoft's controlor Apple's control or some other
big companies control and you'retrusting them.
To do their part.
And as you've seen with theheadlines, most aren't doing
their part.
And as you've seen it ourbusiness our, what pays the
bills.
I think it's fair to say thatmost don't do enough.
Zoom (29:09):
Oh, yeah, for sure.
I think the most cool I justthought about when you said that
as obviously with blockchain,there's a ledger.
Having access to that.
With your information.
So you'd be able to see.
The X company or Y company.
Through the ledger was able torequest your data,
Craig (29:28):
yeah, it's kinda
Zoom (29:28):
how often they were.
Craig (29:30):
Like like API, right?
Like API technology and how tohook different things together.
Like Zapier is a popularplatform for connecting API APIs
of different systems.
What if we had in the future?
A Zapier, like approach toconnect various blockchains
together.
And you have to realize that.
(29:50):
Ethereum and Bitcoin, these areall blockchain solutions, right?
Bitcoin is like the first realworld use case of a blockchain.
It's the longest chainscurrently the most secure.
Ethereum is also a blockchainsolution.
So these are differentblockchain solutions that were
created, but there's going to beso many other new blockchain
(30:10):
solutions that are created.
And I hope that one of thembecomes mainstream.
That gives the user the power.
Like I just said, to store allof their information securely by
pretty much as close to defaultas possible.
And.
Like you just said, knowing,Hey, I'm going to go to this
(30:32):
social media website or I'mgoing to, I'm going to install
this application.
And it prompts you whether onyour phone or your device and
says, look, this applicationwants permission to use your
blockchain to access this data.
And it defines exactly the datathat it wants and you as the
user, get to pick and choose howlong, what they get access to
for how long and.
And all that stuff.
(30:52):
And you get a log on theblockchain because remember the
blockchain typically is appendonly.
So you get a constant stream, aunit and it's transparent.
You see everything that, thatapplication appended to your
blockchain.
And if you have any concernsaround it, you can in one click
terminate that connection.
And they're gone now.
They have no control of your,they have no access to your data
(31:15):
anymore.
So everything's at yourfingertips.
Zoom (31:17):
Whenever you said that, like I thought about is You know
how, when you use apple pay.
And, you're going through thecheckout process.
You have the option to mask youremail
Craig (31:27):
Yeah.
Zoom (31:28):
pay.
So something that popped in mymind is when you talked about
that as Giving these companiespermission.
But through some type of proxyas well.
Like how you can mask you.
They can go find your data asbeing accurate through the block
chain.
But, using like a routing.
Craig (31:44):
that, Yeah.
That's where the hashing comesin.
So the blockchain, everythinghas a unique block ID.
And, you've got the encryptionthat protects it, but if you
look at it, it's just a reallylong string of characters.
So it's pretty, I'm not going tosay Different blockchains have
different security, but.
It's more anonymized than it isnow.
Zoom (32:06):
Oh, for sure.
Craig (32:06):
You can create new wallet addresses that have never been
used before based on thealgorithm of your blockchain.
And then if you've never usedthat address before you can
treat it the same way as like aonetime or like a.
Re newly created credit card,for example, that only that
person can use and you give themthat address and you don't.
So my point is, how cool wouldit be that in the future?
(32:29):
You had.
I think I talked about this in aprevious episode where I was
purchasing some NFTs for domainnames.
I have so many of them that,which is, named dot Eve, right?
So I'm, I've purchased certainnames that Eve that I like.
And in the future with thisapproach that we're just
(32:49):
discussing Blake, it could bethat, maybe your blockchain
addresses.
Your name dot E or whatever youwant it to be.
And then everything that we justsaid is all controlled by you.
The user.
And you can get finance.
You can have somebody send moneyto that.
You can use that blockchain forall the references and use cases
(33:11):
that we just discussed.
How cool would that be?
It.
Like at a user level, how simpleor much more simple it would be.
Zoom (33:19):
That'd be amazing.
Craig (33:20):
And then all these companies like Facebook or Metta
and Instagram and all thesecompanies that you want as a
user, you may want to use.
Instead of you signing up and.
Going through the whole process.
You go to their website, you popin your blockchain ID and then
you get to pick and choose whatyou're going to share with them
and why, and for how long.
Zoom (33:42):
Yeah, that'd be
Craig (33:43):
Eliminates all of the sign-up process because you've
already got your blockchainalready.
It eliminates a lot of.
Responsibility because now theusers responsible for store.
In this case.
You're responsible for securingyour.
Your part and then it takes the,a lot of the responsibility away
from all these individualcompanies that are now currently
(34:03):
housing and holding andaccessing data.
Now you've got all this compcompliance regulation around
that.
I see a future where.
We give the users the power toprotect and store their
information on a blockchain.
And it's all like publiclyverified ledger that everyone in
the world is verifying theblocks much.
Like how Bitcoin is working.
Zoom (34:24):
Yeah, that'd be awesome.
Craig (34:25):
And in the future you could use, maybe there's a way
there's, there is a way now,like we have pancakes swap and
some different types ofservices.
There were.
Now.
In the future, it doesn't haveto be, oh, we're only going to
do Bitcoin or, oh, we're onlygoing to do with Ethereum for,
you could pick whatever you wantas your store of value.
And then in the future, it couldbe used with pancake swap or a
(34:46):
similar approach and who, Youmight be a fan of Ethereum and
the other might be a fan of CYAcoin.
It doesn't really matter.
My point is that.
It would flip to what your.
What you want as far as currencygoes.
So like right now in the world,we have all these different
currencies.
We've got Canadian currency andthe wan and the, everything, all
these different currencies therecould be a global currency in
(35:07):
the world that it could be yournative currency, or it could be
something different that youprefer, but it's your choice.
Not.
You know what I mean?
Like it's not.
it's not.
forced upon you is my point
Zoom (35:20):
Yeah, no, I can already hear all the conspiracy
theorists coming out of thewoodworks about global.
Like takeovers.
one.
Craig (35:27):
That that's why I think.
Maybe this is the closingargument or whatever.
That's why I think if you lookat Bitcoin as a store of value,
a store of money that it's notcontrolled by a single entity,
you person or a company or acorporation.
If you look at it from thatperspective, as it being a
trustless.
Vehicle right to exchange.
Money.
If you look at it through thatlens You don't necessarily need
(35:50):
an exchange, right?
Like I can send you Bitcoin orcryptocurrency without going
through a popular exchange.
I could send it to you directly.
The reason why people use anexchange is convenience.
Much like people use the bank.
People use an exchange becauseit gives the user the ability to
exchange it to What's normal orcommon for them and Fiat, or if
(36:12):
you're a us citizen, maybe youwant it to be in us dollars
because you can't go to thegrocery store.
Not yet anyway, and exchangeyour crypto directly to buy
milk.
So maybe you want to exchange itto dollars.
That exchange process is whypeople use an exchange.
Okay.
And my point here is that if youzero in on giving the users the
(36:33):
power.
Two.
Basically bank themselves andcontrol their own finances.
That's a huge disruptor andthat's why we're going through
what we're going through rightnow, because.
There's this big fight in thisbig struggle between the old
school way of finance versus thefuture.
And in that fight or thatprocess there's mass
(36:56):
elimination.
Think about it.
Do we really need like all ofthe different financial
institutions that we have.
Zoom (37:02):
Probably not.
Obviously
Craig (37:03):
do they have a purpose?
Absolutely.
Are people always going to needto borrow money?
Absolutely.
Two people need credit.
Absolutely.
So there's different things thatI'm not saying that all of them
get eliminated.
I think that what they need tobe doing though is looking ahead
of the future of maybe we won'tbe doing these functions anymore
because they're old school, butif they're smart and they're
(37:26):
able to adapt quickly.
Their financial strategy.
Maybe they embrace somethinglike Bitcoin and instead of it,
looking at it as the enemy, Theylook at it through an
opportunity.
In what I mean by that is ifbanking.
Embraced something like Bitcoinand other cryptocurrencies and
(37:47):
made it so that, Hey, you canwalk into a bank and swap a
Bitcoin for, as a down paymenton a car or a house.
If that was more of a welcome.
Process.
I think that would be, thatwould do more good than
Prohibiting
Zoom (38:02):
That'd be cool.
I think hopefully.
Craig (38:06):
My point though, I guess in this episode is it's really
about the embracing of zerotrust and trustless
technologies.
The putting the power in theconsumer and in the user,
opposed to the corporation orthe business and leveraging new
solutions like blockchaintechnologies and encryption to
better our future for all of usand reduce fees and the
(38:28):
middleman.
Zoom (38:29):
Great way to summarize it.
Craig (38:30):
Sounds good to me.
Thanks.
I appreciate it.
welcome to another podcast today.
September 7th, 2022.
It's been a while we've been onhiatus.
For a while and welcome back.
I wanted to talk about Theupcoming Ethereum merge.
Next week we've got Blake Rayonline.
Zoom (00:17):
Hello.
Long
Craig (00:21):
Yes.
Yes.
We're going to get back onschedule.
Don't
Zoom (00:24):
Yup.
And we will.
So what'd you think when youread the news about the, Emerge,
unless you're play on it.
Craig (00:33):
The first thing I thought about was Do we need to do
anything, cause I don't knowabout you but I hold some
Ethereum.
I'm sure that there are manylisteners that hold some
Ethereum.
Whether it be on an exchange orin a cold wallet.
And the first thing I waswondering was, do I need to do
anything?
And the short answer is no, youdon't need to do anything at
(00:54):
all.
There are a lot of scams andthat's why I wanted to do this
episode today because there's alot of scammers.
That are preying on people thatare wondering the same thing and
trying to send socialengineering and phishing emails.
To trick you into thinking thatyou do need to do something with
your theories.
You do not.
There's nothing that you need todo.
The merge is going to happen.
(01:14):
It's proposed on the 15th ofSeptember, which is next week.
The research that I did wasbasically, you don't have to do
anything if you're holding it onan exchange or in a cold wallet.
You don't have to sell it.
You don't have to transfer it.
You don't have to convert it.
There's nothing that you need todo or that you should do.
The only thing that they adviseis while the merge is happening.
(01:35):
Like I said, proposed on the15th.
They just advise, not doing anytransactions or anything during
that conversion period.
Zoom (01:44):
Sorry, My dog.
It was going crazy with abottle.
Yeah, no I I think it's going tobe huge.
I have been reading about ithere And I was nervous at first
as well, but apparently they didthat.
Also in 2014.
Craig (02:03):
Yeah, I have to research the date, but I think that
you're referencing when it wentfrom a theorem classic to eith
right.
Zoom (02:11):
I think so.
Yeah.
I'm trying to catch up on
Craig (02:15):
Yeah.
So basically what happens justfor the listeners is when
cryptocurrencies get an upgradelike this, a major upgrade.
Typically there's, what's calleda fork or a hard fork.
And what that means, like whatyou were just referencing when
Ethereum classic got upgraded tothe ERC 20, which is That's what
(02:35):
a lot of the NFTs are based on.
Oh.
And by the way, if you own anyNFTs, you don't have to do
anything with those either.
So don't fall victim to anyscams that say, oh, you need to
do something with your NFT.
There's nothing that you need todo.
So the only thing I recommend isif you don't have your crypto or
your NFTs on a cold wallet, Iwould recommend doing that.
(02:56):
And going through that processIf you need help with any of
that, we do have some trainingon compliance, armor.com.
That can help you with that.
But that's really my onlyrecommendation at this time.
Don't fall victim to any socialengineering or phishing emails
that tell you otherwise, there'sabsolutely nothing that you need
to do there.
But the hard fork that I wasmentioning is there, there is a
possibility that a new Ethereum.
(03:18):
Like name it was etc.
Now it's E T H there might be anew one, maybe ETH two or some
version to be traded in thefuture.
They, I don't know what they'regoing to really do after this
happens, we'll find out.
But that, that What happens, orthat is what happened in the
past with the ERC at E T H.
Zoom (03:39):
The reason why, If you look back at theory, I'm like
five days or a month.
Has gone down almost 8.6%.
Do you think people are gettingscared because of the More to
think.
Craig (03:53):
Yeah.
So there's a lot of speculation,obviously.
We're in very uncertain timesright now.
I think people that are bullishand optimistic on the merge or
probably buying Ethereum andhope that it will rise bedding
maybe on a successful merge.
Of the future.
Obviously nothing that we say onour podcast is financial
(04:13):
information and not to beconstrued as such, we're not
financial advisors, notresponsible, not condoning or
saying that you need to doanything at all.
Just put that out there, butyeah, I do think that people are
either on the bedding bullishsides of buying it and
accumulation.
And I do think that there areothers that are betting against,
just like on the stock market.
Zoom (04:35):
Yeah, I'm looking here at the chart.
Craig (04:39):
Yeah.
Zoom (04:39):
58.
Five 7%.
Which is down$2,213 and year todate.
So from January 1st to September7th and then six months.
It's down 37.63%.
Obviously that brings in.
obviously, but$937 and 63 cents.
(05:03):
And then the past month is down8%, which is$146 and 38 cents.
Obviously this has some to dowith with the crypto.
I guess the crypto.
The scare that's happening.
A lot of people are scared.
A lot of people.
A lot of commercial investors.
Retail investors, people like meand you and normal people.
(05:25):
I think the market's gettingshook, But
Craig (05:27):
I think the problem though is or much of the
problem.
Is that there's just so muchmisinformation out there even by
major news outlets that arepopular.
There's still a lot ofmisinformation around.
Around cryptocurrency aroundBitcoin, around a theory.
And other derivatives, there's alot of, Celebrity sometimes that
(05:50):
endorse and then there'srepercussions from that people.
Believe that it might be a goodthing to do.
So then they follow suit.
The reality is that Bitcoin andEthereum, especially are game
changers.
They are changing how wetransact and how we handle
certain things like smartcontracts with Ethereum.
(06:11):
They're still active.
Efforts going on in thecommunities they're still
active.
Efforts around financialinstitutions, adding or
considering adding Bitcoin tohelp their clients get into
Bitcoin.
There's still a huge amount ofaccumulation.
By large investors at wa.
(06:32):
Which otherwise known as whales.
Happening right now.
So with with Bitcoin being atrue supply and demand
cryptocurrency with a finitesupply that seems to dwindle
more and more each day becausepeople lose their passwords or
have bad hygiene.
So the real finite supply isstill very unknown, but the
reality is it's very scarce andscarce things go up typically in
(06:56):
value and.
I do think that Bitcoin is hereto stay and might not have much
utility or real world usage.
Like something like Ethereum.
That's why I like both of them.
But I, if you look at, projectsaround Ethereum and how to use
smart contracts and how to fuelsmart contracts, one of the big
(07:18):
thing, the adoption rate isstill increasing, which is good.
And that's a lot of the stuffthat the news doesn't really
tell you about.
The other thing that'sinteresting as well as is the
burn rate.
They introduce the burn rate at,with Ethereum where so much is
burning.
And you could look up theexactly, but the point is that
the S that's what they did to.
Combat or better aligned withBitcoin.
(07:39):
It is not the same though.
There still is a Ethereum beingmined in produced, and there is
it's not the same in re inregards to a finite amount.
So what Ethereum did was theystarted burning so much Ethereum
to reduce the supply and keepthe demand high.
Zoom (07:58):
Yeah.
it makes sense.
I think also obviously cryptopeople went crazy and crypto
mining and then.
He may be more complex, to mine.
I asked the proof of work gotharder.
Right or proof of stake orwhatever.
Craig (08:11):
Yeah, that's correct.
So proof of work is the currentalgorithm for both Bitcoin and
Ethereum.
And basically that is the bignews around that is it's so
horrible for the environment,but that's in my opinion, some
misinformation too, because ifyou think about it, most of our
power.
At least in our country.
And at least where I live,especially is nuclear power.
(08:33):
It's not coal power.
I know that there are places inthe world that still use coal
And that's obviously bad for theenvironment and I don't support
But the reality is most of ourelectricity in modern.
Places is nuclear and nuclear isa clean power.
Some argue that it's not cleanbecause this nuclear waste, but
it is cleaner than things likethe alternatives of fossil
fuels.
(08:54):
So my point is You know, there'sa lot of documentaries and a lot
of information around oh that,proof of work, it uses so much
electricity and it's really badfor the environment.
And There's also the big pushwith cars and automobiles,
moving from gas powered enginesto electric vehicles and all
this stuff.
And, the reality is that thecarbon footprint is it can be
(09:18):
greatly or.
Or exponentially reduced if wehad more More vegetables and
farms, opposed to reducinggreenhouse gases and methane
gases.
And I'm not a scientist oranything like that.
But my point is, if you do theresearch and you look at what
affects our environment, Mypoint here is that it's not so
(09:40):
much the big move from.
Proof of work.
And this.
Huge amount of electricityrequired to do mining of
Bitcoin.
That's not the, if you look atthe group, the big picture of
everything, that's not thebiggest thing that's causing the
global problem with climatechange.
It's it has more to do withother things that are way
(10:03):
outside of that circle.
The same for vehicles There's somuch marketing around, oh, we
need to all move to electricvehicles and we need to on the
Bitcoin side of things, we needto move from proof of work to
proof of stake or a differentalgorithm.
That's more efficient.
It doesn't draw so much power.
And yes, those are good thingsthat we do probably should
consider for the future.
But those are not the.
(10:23):
In my opinion and based on thefacts that I've read.
They're not.
Mainly the biggest areas tofocus.
Zoom (10:30):
Are you bear bearish or bullish?
I'm assuming you're probablybullish.
Craig (10:36):
Yeah, I'm bullish on at least on the two points that
we're talking about today withBitcoin and Ethereum.
I do agree with a lot of otherinvestors and a lot of other
influencers in the space that.
I would say, and I speculate.
When I say this, but I would sayover 90%.
Of the alt coins.
(10:57):
Coins or anything different thanBitcoin.
I would say that almost all ofthem will get wiped out.
And the reason why I say that,and I don't like to be a
pessimist.
I like to be more of anoptimist, but the reason why I
The reality is they're allexperimental projects and the
likelihood of even starting abusiness.
It's hard and it's harder thanever that we're in a different
(11:20):
climate.
We have different challengesthat we're all dealing with.
And the reality is most new altcoins will not survive.
There may be a handful thatsurvive.
But most of them will not.
I think that Bitcoin andEthereum.
Are both going to survive.
(11:40):
There's probably going to besome changes and evolutions
around, What's the best use forsome of those things, maybe as a
utility or a store of value.
But I think for.
There's a lot of critics around,oh you can't use Bitcoin to do
X, Y, or Z.
What was never really designedfor that?
The same as, people think that,oh, I'm going to buy coffee with
(12:01):
Bitcoin.
And you could do that, but it'sjust not really the best.
Way to use the token.
In my opinion.
It's Bitcoin specifically, it'smore of a store of value.
It's a long term, a longtermplay.
Ethereum, however, I think hasmore utility.
Like I said, you have to use thegas and the.
The fuel, so to speak from atheorem to power things like
(12:23):
smart contracts and automationand different things that are on
the Ethereum network.
So that's why you.
Based into the protocol.
You have to have a theorem, youhave to burn a Ethereum to power
those things.
So I think that there, that isbuilt into the cryptocurrency
where you have the need toalways require it.
Another coin that I like is analt coin.
(12:43):
I do not know if it'll surviveor not, but I do the project
it's called CYA coin.
CYA coin is storage, so as youneed more storage on the
blockchain, you have to use theCYA coins to power it.
So I like projects like thatkind of Always have a need for
the coin in the future.
Zoom (13:02):
Yeah.
I'm starting to become more of apastor.
CryptoWall.
And the reason why.
A lot of the users anddevelopers.
These are the reason why peopleare.
Losing their trust in crypto.
And what I mean, when I say thatis.
If you think about some ofthese.
(13:22):
These rug poles, where likesomebody will make a crypto.
And then they'll get all theirsocial influencer friends.
And then.
They'll just pull money awayfrom the liquidity pool.
And then they'll still Millionsof dollars.
There's nothing that anybody canreally do about You can look at.
Endless Examples of thishappening.
And so a lot of people are juststarting to believe that crypto.
(13:48):
And.
Craig (13:50):
Yeah.
I think that's a good point.
I think that A lot of that comeswith the complexity, people.
It's just human nature that Iwould say most people.
By default are probably not verytechnology savvy.
Obviously you've got theenthusiasts and those are
probably the early adopters thatare tech savvy and they are
(14:12):
starting, or have, frominception, they started dabbling
in projects around Bitcoin,either from an investor
perspective or maybe from amining and a research
perspective or a programmingperspective.
But for the masses, right?
Like the mass populations.
I would speculate to say thatmost are not.
Tech savvy and most probablydon't even care to know about
(14:34):
the inner workings of how thecryptocurrency works.
I think for most people it's anew shiny object that could
have.
The potential to help them witha store of value and,
alternatively to maybe the stockmarket or investing in
individual companies, It may beinteresting to them to look But
I think like you just said,Blake, I think that.
(14:57):
There's the scammers and thehackers.
The bad actors that are outthere.
They are tech savvy and they'reusing this as a vehicle to prey
upon the weak, So I think thatwith the amount of scams out
there that are just new onescoming out every day, like you
said, with pump and dump andjust so much.
(15:17):
Social interweaving around, I'llget this new shiny object, new
altcoin.
It's going to be better than XYZor whatever.
And like you said, they put allthis marketing behind it and
then there's no substance aroundit.
So I think that.
That, that's a problem.
I think that the.
The problem with regulation is ahuge one.
(15:38):
I think that The.
SCC is continuing to regulatethings.
And I think that overallregulation could be a good thing
to protect people and protectthe masses.
But yeah, you just have to bereally sharp right now and you
have to rely on the securityawareness training that we talk
about to educate yourself andmake sure that you.
(15:59):
You're able to quickly.
Determine what's real and what'snot.
Zoom (16:06):
Something I've seen a lot of.
Pretty recently is obviouslywith the rise.
I think a lot of people don'tcare The utility.
The nerds like us do care aboutthe utility side of crypto, but.
The normal people.
I don't think that they reallycare so much.
Oh, yeah.
Like I know a friend who, whodid this, or, you They're
looking at it from an investmentperspective or trying to make
(16:27):
money or Like a quick cash grab.
But, obviously with.
Scams and pumping.
And with people making money,there's always going to be
people trying to steal it.
You know what?
There's a new opportunity tomake money.
There's gonna be people tryingto reverse it and flip And I
don't know.
I know you're not on socialmedia, but I see a lot of people
(16:49):
like.
DME on Instagram or Facebook orwhatever saying, oh if you want
to.
Learn how to trade Forex.
It's just visit my website here.
We'll trade you or we'll promiseyou.
250% return on your money.
And then, you go to the website.
And it has updated their foureggs.
Foreign exchange.
Is crypto they're there.
(17:10):
They're apparently supposed tobe trading crypto and obviously
there's no regulation.
Behind trading crypto, likeThere's no professional
institution.
Regulators, crypto.
So therefore people can dowhatever they want.
The second you send them yourmoney.
It's gone.
Craig (17:25):
Yeah.
And I think one thing that comesto mind is that since there's
not much regulation right nowThere's not a lot of, even the
big companies that are in thecrypto space.
They're saying they're doingsomething.
Whether it's that they're.
Like have so much Bitcoin inreserves or have so much.
(17:46):
Ethereum and reserves like,resources, to back up their
company.
Since there's not muchregulation, there's not a lot
of.
Third party audits or processand regulation around.
How do you prove that XYZexchange has the resources to
sustain?
(18:07):
If.
So many people withdraw theirmoney like right now, like with
banks, and I'm not a bankexpert, back in the day, Banks
would have the, the dollar wasbacked by gold, right?
And now the dollar is no longerbacked by gold.
The mint, the us mint thatprints the money.
They can print money, but theydon't have to have the gold
reserves to basically back itup.
(18:29):
So what that creates isinflation, right?
And we're in like the worstinflation crisis at the moment.
It's because.
And again, I don't want to beone sided or her.
All I'm going to say is thatwith the ability to print money
on demand, without having tohave the collateral behind it,
that creates an imbalance is howI'll put it.
(18:51):
If you had regulation around acertain exchange, for example,
maybe the regulation says youhave to have X, not X dollars in
collateral.
At the same thing, I'll use theanalogy of buying a house.
You can't typically buy a house.
Unless you put up somecollateral, to get money from
the bank in the form of amortgage.
(19:11):
And if you don't have enoughcollateral, you don't have
enough assets.
They're probably not going toapprove you for the mortgage.
Or if they do approve you,you're going to pay a much, much
higher rates.
But you still have to prove toin this case, the bank, that
you're going to be able touphold your promise and your
promises to pay that mortgageback, that you're signing off
on.
So my point with regulation, Ithink there is good things that
(19:33):
can come about with regulationaround that topic where it will
help weed out.
Basically right now, it's thewild west and anyone can hang
their shingle and say, oh, I'mgoing to create a new
cryptocurrency.
Or like you said, I'm going tocreate this Forex thing, or
we're going to create a trainingprogram.
There's just all this stuff thatyou can take advantage of the
(19:53):
quote unquote buzz or themarketing around it right now.
Because there's not a lot ofbarriers legally or from
regulation that can stop peoplefrom doing that.
And I think that's part of theproblem of where we are right
now.
And that's why I'm referencing,it's like the wild west.
Zoom (20:11):
That's why I feel like the future I don't know.
I hold cryptocurrency.
So I don't want to be hypocrite.
And obviously I'm not here topromote or demote.
Crypto, but I have my my doubts.
You know about the future.
Crypto and even some of thecrypto.
Geniuses like.
The founder of Ethereum, forexample, I remember him talking
(20:33):
about how he is.
I think, I don't know if theseare his words.
Exactly.
But her, my context, you He wasdisappointed.
With the direction that crypto'sgoing, because here you are
having these.
He was mostly talking about someof the the NFTs.
Like the board apes and allthat.
And.
These millionaires that areplaying with these little
pictures of monkeys and stufflike that.
(20:54):
And that wasn't what crypto was,made for.
And I'm not super bullish as Iwas, but I'll hold crypto.
I'll see what, what happened.
I'm not.
Pump.
Everything I have into it, butobviously.
But but yeah, I think things arebecoming to.
I don't know is becoming toosaturated.
It's not becoming verydesirable.
(21:15):
As it was in my opinion.
Craig (21:17):
Yeah.
I don't have a crystal balleither, but the only thing that
I'll say is this, like withsomething like Bitcoin, for
example, Bitcoin gives theunbanked, the people that don't
have bank accounts.
Ability to trade.
And Basically do bankingfunctions without a third party
or a bank.
And I think worldwide.
(21:39):
That's a good thing.
I don't think that, and this ismy opinion, my belief, my
perspective.
I don't think that individualsin the world should have to use
a third party such as a bank.
I do think there's a place for abank.
I think a bank could be a goodthing in the event that you need
to borrow money, for example, tobuy a car or things, or like a
(22:00):
house or whatever, you obviouslycouldn't go to a bank, shell
collateral, but I see a futurewhere.
The bank.
As it is today.
I'll give you another example.
If I want to send you money fora debt.
Blake.
I can send it to you via PayPalor the banking partnerships or
(22:21):
whatever.
ACH and there's all thesethings, but if I send you money
through traditional financial,Methods.
You're going to have to waitseveral days for that money to
quote unquote clear through allthose third-party hands.
And I think that middlemanapproach is a dead dinosaur.
I think it's unnecessary.
(22:42):
I think that is vastlyeliminated by.
New disruptors, like somethinglike Bitcoin or cryptocurrency.
Now, as far as the founder ofBitcoin or Ethereum, rather
being.
A pessimist now as far?
Here's the thing, a lot of thesecreators of different things,
including like Facebook, forexample, They had all, they
(23:03):
can't, they don't have a crystalball either.
You don't know what theirintentions were when they
created it.
And you don't know if you.
How it would be used in thefuture.
That's impossible to predict,but if you look at.
How certain things like Facebookor social media.
Are now the cause of, or a bigfactor in the cause of
(23:23):
depression and children and howthere's a lot of bullying and
all these things.
I don't think that the creatorsof the social platforms really
thought that something like thatwould escalate to the level that
it has or.
Or could have predictedsomething I think my point here
is that when you unleash certaintypes of technology, that
(23:44):
potentially is a disruptor.
The iPhone, I feel was a bigdisruptor when the iPhone came
out and a lot of other companiesSamsung and all the companies
were all kind of fighting themobile.
War, so to speak, but I don'tthink that all of the creators
there ever predicted how mobileor device addiction and all
these things, these negativeeffects, could happen.
My point here is that if youlook at and you focus back on
(24:07):
Bitcoin.
And you look at the good of itand you look at the facts.
The facts are, people are tryingto hack it every day.
Nobody's been able to take itdown.
It's the most resilient.
Crypto or could arguably be themost secure, most resilient type
of instrument.
That we've ever had.
(24:28):
It gives virtually anyone theability to exchange wealth in
seconds.
I think those are all goodthings without a middleman.
And that's the thing.
I think the move towards atrustless ecosystem in.
Pretty much everything that wedo.
I think that's the future.
I think it's the future incybersecurity.
(24:49):
It's the future in finance?
I like the work that's beingdone around blockchain and
around trustless healthcareidentification and medical
records.
My opinion is I don't thinkthat.
My doctor or Mo or the hospitalsthat I go to or specialists that
I see should be in control of mymedical records.
I think that I should be incontrol of that.
(25:10):
And I think that I should pickand choose who and when and why
I should share a certainpersonal details.
I think the, my point here is.
The consumer you and I.
In the future should be theholder of, and the protector of
a lot of this.
Personal identifiableinformation.
(25:32):
And the controller of it.
It shouldn't be a third party.
Zoom (25:35):
Sorry, lost my windows.
But yeah, no, I I totally agree.
Your data is your IP is yourdata
Craig (25:44):
yeah, but you can probably only count on one hand
though.
Where or how you control yourown data?
You're trusting.
When you make data and createdata, most likely you're
trusting some third party tosecure the data.
Or have it in their ecosystemand in their, ultimately their
control, unless you were givencertain security controls.
(26:07):
Dials or knobs to adjustyourself.
My point here is that.
We're still not in a zero trustor a trustless.
Day-to-day operation.
We're still trusting bigcorporations.
We're still trusting Microsoftand apple.
We're generating data every dayon their platforms.
(26:27):
We're trusting them to keep thatdata safe and secure and there,
and, without getting into thelegal and The technicalities of
it, there's a lot of.
Security that they, thosecompanies give us, but it's in
the power of the user to enablethe security.
And it's also in the fine printthat the company that created
(26:47):
the, that security is prettymuch held harmless and it's on
the user protect their data.
So it's my point though, isthat.
There's a lot of education,security awareness training that
the user has to have andcontinue to take to properly
know what options they have onsecurity and how to properly
secure their stuff.
(27:07):
But then they have to do that inover a dozen different systems.
Maybe use Microsoft, maybe useFacebook, maybe you use
Instagram, all these differentecosystems all now have
different security controls thatneed to be properly adjusted to
properly safeguard your data.
Zoom (27:22):
Yeah, we probably should talk about that one in the next.
How to control.
Your data, especially with thethe internet.
Craig (27:29):
how cool would it be?
That if one day, and this isgoing off topic, or we're going
over time But how cool would itbe?
That in one day in the future,all your data is on a blockchain
that only you control, and thenmaybe all these platforms
connecting to your data,blockchain with your permission
(27:49):
and authorization.
But then when you're done andyou don't like that media
platform anymore, or Like thatsoftware package anymore, you
just click a button and you'veterminated that connection and
they no longer have access toyour data.
It never left your premise or itnever left your blockchain.
Zoom (28:07):
That'd
Craig (28:07):
How cool would that be?
Like you'd like you would be thesole.
Creator of that data, the holderof that data and the here's the
best part.
Since it's on a blockchain, it'ssecure by default.
So you can use.
Encryption and differenttechnologies like blockchain to
reduce the burden.
Of the security of that data.
(28:28):
I'm not saying it doeseverything.
Obviously there's responsibilityin different safeguards that you
have to do.
But my point is that it's muchless than it is now.
Look at it.
Now, every ecosystem you gointo, you have to adjust
security.
According to best practices onwhat they give you that you're
allowed to adjust.
But the reality is certainthings you can adjust and
they're not in your control.
(28:49):
They're in Microsoft's controlor Apple's control or some other
big companies control and you'retrusting them.
To do their part.
And as you've seen with theheadlines, most aren't doing
their part.
And as you've seen it ourbusiness our, what pays the
bills.
I think it's fair to say thatmost don't do enough.
Zoom (29:09):
Oh, yeah, for sure.
I think the most cool I justthought about when you said that
as obviously with blockchain,there's a ledger.
Having access to that.
With your information.
So you'd be able to see.
The X company or Y company.
Through the ledger was able torequest your data,
Craig (29:28):
yeah, it's kinda
Zoom (29:28):
how often they were.
Craig (29:30):
Like like API, right?
Like API technology and how tohook different things together.
Like Zapier is a popularplatform for connecting API APIs
of different systems.
What if we had in the future?
A Zapier, like approach toconnect various blockchains
together.
And you have to realize that.
(29:50):
Ethereum and Bitcoin, these areall blockchain solutions, right?
Bitcoin is like the first realworld use case of a blockchain.
It's the longest chainscurrently the most secure.
Ethereum is also a blockchainsolution.
So these are differentblockchain solutions that were
created, but there's going to beso many other new blockchain
(30:10):
solutions that are created.
And I hope that one of thembecomes mainstream.
That gives the user the power.
Like I just said, to store allof their information securely by
pretty much as close to defaultas possible.
And.
Like you just said, knowing,Hey, I'm going to go to this
(30:32):
social media website or I'mgoing to, I'm going to install
this application.
And it prompts you whether onyour phone or your device and
says, look, this applicationwants permission to use your
blockchain to access this data.
And it defines exactly the datathat it wants and you as the
user, get to pick and choose howlong, what they get access to
for how long and.
And all that stuff.
(30:52):
And you get a log on theblockchain because remember the
blockchain typically is appendonly.
So you get a constant stream, aunit and it's transparent.
You see everything that, thatapplication appended to your
blockchain.
And if you have any concernsaround it, you can in one click
terminate that connection.
And they're gone now.
They have no control of your,they have no access to your data
(31:15):
anymore.
So everything's at yourfingertips.
Zoom (31:17):
Whenever you said that, like I thought about is You know
how, when you use apple pay.
And, you're going through thecheckout process.
You have the option to mask youremail
Craig (31:27):
Yeah.
Zoom (31:28):
pay.
So something that popped in mymind is when you talked about
that as Giving these companiespermission.
But through some type of proxyas well.
Like how you can mask you.
They can go find your data asbeing accurate through the block
chain.
But, using like a routing.
Craig (31:44):
that, Yeah.
That's where the hashing comesin.
So the blockchain, everythinghas a unique block ID.
And, you've got the encryptionthat protects it, but if you
look at it, it's just a reallylong string of characters.
So it's pretty, I'm not going tosay Different blockchains have
different security, but.
It's more anonymized than it isnow.
Zoom (32:06):
Oh, for sure.
Craig (32:06):
You can create new wallet addresses that have never been
used before based on thealgorithm of your blockchain.
And then if you've never usedthat address before you can
treat it the same way as like aonetime or like a.
Re newly created credit card,for example, that only that
person can use and you give themthat address and you don't.
So my point is, how cool wouldit be that in the future?
(32:29):
You had.
I think I talked about this in aprevious episode where I was
purchasing some NFTs for domainnames.
I have so many of them that,which is, named dot Eve, right?
So I'm, I've purchased certainnames that Eve that I like.
And in the future with thisapproach that we're just
(32:49):
discussing Blake, it could bethat, maybe your blockchain
addresses.
Your name dot E or whatever youwant it to be.
And then everything that we justsaid is all controlled by you.
The user.
And you can get finance.
You can have somebody send moneyto that.
You can use that blockchain forall the references and use cases
(33:11):
that we just discussed.
How cool would that be?
It.
Like at a user level, how simpleor much more simple it would be.
Zoom (33:19):
That'd be amazing.
Craig (33:20):
And then all these companies like Facebook or Metta
and Instagram and all thesecompanies that you want as a
user, you may want to use.
Instead of you signing up and.
Going through the whole process.
You go to their website, you popin your blockchain ID and then
you get to pick and choose whatyou're going to share with them
and why, and for how long.
Zoom (33:42):
Yeah, that'd be
Craig (33:43):
Eliminates all of the sign-up process because you've
already got your blockchainalready.
It eliminates a lot of.
Responsibility because now theusers responsible for store.
In this case.
You're responsible for securingyour.
Your part and then it takes the,a lot of the responsibility away
from all these individualcompanies that are now currently
(34:03):
housing and holding andaccessing data.
Now you've got all this compcompliance regulation around
that.
I see a future where.
We give the users the power toprotect and store their
information on a blockchain.
And it's all like publiclyverified ledger that everyone in
the world is verifying theblocks much.
Like how Bitcoin is working.
Zoom (34:24):
Yeah, that'd be awesome.
Craig (34:25):
And in the future you could use, maybe there's a way
there's, there is a way now,like we have pancakes swap and
some different types ofservices.
There were.
Now.
In the future, it doesn't haveto be, oh, we're only going to
do Bitcoin or, oh, we're onlygoing to do with Ethereum for,
you could pick whatever you wantas your store of value.
And then in the future, it couldbe used with pancake swap or a
(34:46):
similar approach and who, Youmight be a fan of Ethereum and
the other might be a fan of CYAcoin.
It doesn't really matter.
My point is that.
It would flip to what your.
What you want as far as currencygoes.
So like right now in the world,we have all these different
currencies.
We've got Canadian currency andthe wan and the, everything, all
these different currencies therecould be a global currency in
(35:07):
the world that it could be yournative currency, or it could be
something different that youprefer, but it's your choice.
Not.
You know what I mean?
Like it's not.
it's not.
forced upon you is my point
Zoom (35:20):
Yeah, no, I can already hear all the conspiracy
theorists coming out of thewoodworks about global.
Like takeovers.
one.
Craig (35:27):
That that's why I think.
Maybe this is the closingargument or whatever.
That's why I think if you lookat Bitcoin as a store of value,
a store of money that it's notcontrolled by a single entity,
you person or a company or acorporation.
If you look at it from thatperspective, as it being a
trustless.
Vehicle right to exchange.
Money.
If you look at it through thatlens You don't necessarily need
(35:50):
an exchange, right?
Like I can send you Bitcoin orcryptocurrency without going
through a popular exchange.
I could send it to you directly.
The reason why people use anexchange is convenience.
Much like people use the bank.
People use an exchange becauseit gives the user the ability to
exchange it to What's normal orcommon for them and Fiat, or if
(36:12):
you're a us citizen, maybe youwant it to be in us dollars
because you can't go to thegrocery store.
Not yet anyway, and exchangeyour crypto directly to buy
milk.
So maybe you want to exchange itto dollars.
That exchange process is whypeople use an exchange.
Okay.
And my point here is that if youzero in on giving the users the
(36:33):
power.
Two.
Basically bank themselves andcontrol their own finances.
That's a huge disruptor andthat's why we're going through
what we're going through rightnow, because.
There's this big fight in thisbig struggle between the old
school way of finance versus thefuture.
And in that fight or thatprocess there's mass
(36:56):
elimination.
Think about it.
Do we really need like all ofthe different financial
institutions that we have.
Zoom (37:02):
Probably not.
Obviously
Craig (37:03):
do they have a purpose?
Absolutely.
Are people always going to needto borrow money?
Absolutely.
Two people need credit.
Absolutely.
So there's different things thatI'm not saying that all of them
get eliminated.
I think that what they need tobe doing though is looking ahead
of the future of maybe we won'tbe doing these functions anymore
because they're old school, butif they're smart and they're
(37:26):
able to adapt quickly.
Their financial strategy.
Maybe they embrace somethinglike Bitcoin and instead of it,
looking at it as the enemy, Theylook at it through an
opportunity.
In what I mean by that is ifbanking.
Embraced something like Bitcoinand other cryptocurrencies and
(37:47):
made it so that, Hey, you canwalk into a bank and swap a
Bitcoin for, as a down paymenton a car or a house.
If that was more of a welcome.
Process.
I think that would be, thatwould do more good than
Prohibiting
Zoom (38:02):
That'd be cool.
I think hopefully.
Craig (38:06):
My point though, I guess in this episode is it's really
about the embracing of zerotrust and trustless
technologies.
The putting the power in theconsumer and in the user,
opposed to the corporation orthe business and leveraging new
solutions like blockchaintechnologies and encryption to
better our future for all of usand reduce fees and the
(38:28):
middleman.
Zoom (38:29):
Great way to summarize it.
Craig (38:30):
Sounds good to me.
Thanks.
I appreciate it.
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