Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
welcome back to another episodeof the drive program.
My name is Tom driver and todaymy guest is, will skipper.
will is involved in mining forcryptocurrency.
And if you don't know what thatis, we talk all about it in
today's episode we also talkabout.
What cool ideas might beemerging in the web three space.
Near the end of ourconversation, we discuss weight
(00:21):
loss.
Cardio eating healthy.
And What it takes to make achange in your life if you want
to follow his company blockcaddy they.
Our at block catty on Twitter.
I'll put all of his links in thedescription below.
I hope you guys learnedsomething from today's episode.
This is episode 36 of the driveprogram.
(00:43):
With guests will skipper.
All right.
So we'll when did you firststart getting into the crypto
(01:05):
space and then specifically themining space.
When did you first start gettinginterested in that?
Yeah, so I started my interestin crypto started way before I
was able to get into the spacelike financially.
I had been interested in cryptoprobably since, since we were in
high school.
I mean back back in like 20 15,20 14, somewhere around there.
(01:31):
But obviously I didn't reallyhave the ability to get into it
back in high school.
I didn't have the money for it.
I was just trying to figure outmy place in the world.
I, at the time I probably wantedto be a journalist or something,
but now fast forward, to 23, 21February.
I've kind of graduated fromcollege probably three years out
now.
I've got a marketing degree.
(01:51):
I've been in marketing for threeyears now, professionally and I
wanted to find somethingadditional to add to my.
Whereas I didn't particularlyhave to be so hands-on and
spending my time with withmaking that money.
I mean trading time for money isa big thing.
That's what one, there's likefour major four major categories
(02:12):
in which people can make theirmoney.
Trading time for money is one ofthem.
And I wanted to find a way whereI could generate money by not
really having to give that muchtime.
So I figured out mining Bitcoin,Ethereum, even helium, and
cryptocurrencies, such as that,you only had to tad to give X
(02:33):
amount of hours of work andspent have X, X amount of
background knowledge to startgenerating that income that was
constant.
No matter what.
So, did you get immediatelyinterested in, in mining the
Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, ordid you ever purchase any and
try to just kind of trade or, orbuy NFTs or anything before you
(02:55):
started mining?
Or was that just kind ofimmediately what stuck out to
you is kind of what you wantedto get involved with in this
space?
Yeah, so interestingly enough,was most interested in mining
first.
I don't know why, but I neverhad traded cryptocurrency before
I had never bought anything withcryptocurrency, but I knew a
(03:16):
good amount about it.
And I was obsessed with miningand just generating the currency
rather than potentially feelingthe burn.
When you, when you invest at apoint in the market and it goes
down, I feel much morecomfortable in, buying the
product and setting it up andhaving the background knowledge
of generating the currencyrather than being a part of the
(03:38):
market fluctuations, because itjust is stacking for me rather
than having to put a dollaramount in.
So I'm pretty sure I fullyunderstand what mining is, but
I've actually never talked aboutit on my show before.
So what kind of is mining forcryptocurrency in the basic
terms like, so this is how Iexplain it to everybody that
doesn't understandcryptocurrency at all.
(03:59):
When you have$20, that$20 billand you want to put it into your
bank account you go to the bankof America, you go to the Wells
Fargo, you take that$20 bill andyou put it into the ATM.
You expect for that ATM orwhatever Wells Fargo bank of
America to make a verificationthat your money is in the bank
(04:19):
account.
It is there and they show you ascreen and it pops up your bank
account information and yourbalance.
So for mining, when you have aminor or any kind of mining
hardware, it is in a sense doingthe same thing, whether it be
for a financial institution or awireless network provider, or
(04:41):
what have you.
There's so many applications ofthat kind of thoughts of doing
that validation process.
So in this sense, my minors arevalidating that a person has
bought X amount of Bitcoin orEthereum.
My minor is validating as an ATMwould that their money has gone
(05:02):
into the system.
My minor, is solving analgorithm, which is based on the
network.
that it's mining.
And it provides that validation.
One-to-one that's this is avalid transaction and that money
has been exchanged.
Okay.
in a system like Bitcoin, I knowthat everyone has to validate
(05:24):
everything on the network.
Is that correct?
So if you were mining Bitcoin,you would be playing a small
part in just kind of all thetransactions that happen on that
network and playing a part invalidating whether or not
someone paid someone else, or ifthe transactions are there or
not.
Is that, does that soundcorrect?
Exactly.
Yeah.
Okay.
And so then how did you go aboutdeciding which coins you wanted
(05:49):
to mine and what are some prosand cons that you would weigh
out when making that decision?
first, it was the accessibilityof, being able to mine it.
How easy was it for me to getthe hardware, to get into this
kind of project?
That was when I started, when Iwas just getting, involved
because it's pretty expensive inthis industry where the hardware
(06:10):
can be like 10 K to, to 25 K forone machine.
So accessibility was first.
And then the utility of thehardware.
What kind of role is thehardware playing in the entirety
of the project because for themost part, when you're talking
about mining, it's not a perfectsystem.
(06:31):
Not many people believe thatmining is the forever solution
to this.
What it is though, is thejumping board for most projects
to provide decentralization fortheir project before moving into
a concept called proof of stake.
And that is another concept inwhich you're providing a network
(06:54):
validation based on adecentralized network, but those
are two different concepts.
Okay.
So the, mining equipment is thefirst step to validating that
this system could actually bedecentralized, right?
That's correct.
(07:14):
For the most part, that's thefirst step.
Whereas the.
There are companies that willattempt to start with a proof of
stake algorithm project.
But the most popular way rightnow is going with the proof of
work concept building off ofthat.
And then graduating from thatinto something new.
Okay.
But are aren't you mining forEthereum or at least in, you
(07:36):
spent some time doing that?
Wasn't that project already kindof proven to be a stable network
already that you could join?
Or were you helping prop up somenetworks that weren't already
online yet?
So I'm mining right now.
I'm on Bitcoin, Ethereum,helium, and and DPN deeper
network.
But I do mine, Ethereum for afair amount of the.
(07:59):
Have the capability that I mindfor.
What's the difference on yourend between those four projects?
What do you have to dodifferently to set up your
thing?
Does it, does one waste moreenergy than the other?
Is there a certain like currencythat, you get more value from?
Or what, what do you even thinkabout when you're looking at
those four different cryptoprojects they're all way
(08:20):
different projects.
So when you talking about heliumthis is the project where you
are pretty much creating a 4gnetwork bubble around yourself
and other people that have thisTealium mining device are also
doing the same, providing thatsame validation that we were
talking about earlier as if Iwas mining Bitcoin, but
(08:43):
validating a 4g networks or.
So in a sense, helium iscreating its own imagine at and
T Verizon big cell phonewireless tower, but decentrally
through mining.
Whoa, that's crazy, man.
Yeah.
That's one of the concepts thatwe're mining on.
Then there's GPU mining, whichis the proof of work concept
(09:06):
that we're mining for Ethereumright now.
Then there's another, which isthe deeper network mining, which
allows you to, which is a crazyconcept that when I was speaking
on behalf of these areas thatare very much censored at this
moment in the world where you'renot able to particularly search
(09:27):
or have the privacy that you'dlike to have necessarily to make
decisions about what you want tosee on the internet.
Deeper network mining devicesallow you to create a, a tunnel
in a sense for others to utilizea decentralized, somewhat
private internet service,anywhere in the world that they
(09:48):
would like to, whereas locally,they would not be able to do
that.
Okay.
Let's talk about block caddy fora minute.
So this is the company youstarted, you do obviously crypto
mining, but then isn't there,like you said, I'm going to be
like a media aspect where you'regoing to make some sort of like
YouTube tutorials for people to,set up mining on their own.
(10:11):
What, what kind of led to thatdecision and how do you think
about block catty?
So block, he came as an offshootfrom mining.
Mining was my, was my originallike baby, that was what I
thought this project was goingto be.
But obviously I do marketing.
I do affiliate marketing for mytraditional nine to five
position.
So I'm driving bottom linerevenue for a fortune 50 company
(10:33):
where I partner with publisherswithin our service area.
So they're creating articlesabout a subject it may be mining
or anything kind ofcryptocurrency.
And we partner with those guysto put a hyperlink to our
advertisers webpage in order todrive that bottom line revenue
(10:54):
for that advertiser.
Got it.
Okay.
So marketing is kind of like yousaid, your nine to five job, and
so helping people promote theirmining businesses through
marketing, kind of just madesense for those two things to
connect for you, right?
Yeah.
And now not just mining those.
all projects and initiatives andcrypto and web three.
(11:15):
So I'm a, I'm really looking tosupport anybody.
That's looking to drive bottomline revenue and brand awareness
for their initiative or projectthrough mainly in AR and
primarily through affiliatemarketing.
And again, that's, working withpopularized web service where
web articles and publishers toget those qualified, qualified
(11:36):
leads and traffic that you'relooking for to your webpage in
order to drive that conversion.
So, what are some of the coolestideas, do you think that are
going to come out of web three,obviously, right.
There's this decentralizednetworks that are popping up and
you're even helping supportthose.
So you probably have a betterperspective than most people.
Like what kind of interestingcompanies are you working with
(11:57):
or just interesting ideas do youthink can emerge from a web
three slash decentralized, youknow, systems like this?
Like why should a normal personbe excited about this?
I was in Puerto Rico the otherday and I met this girl.
She was probably our age.
Maybe it's going to be like 23or something, but she was
speaking about a project thather and her friend had been
(12:18):
working on for farmer's markets.
And this was.
I won't say the product.
I won't say their names, but itwas, it was a product in a sense
that people, that shotapartments markets go for a
specific reason.
They know it's there, there's alocal aspect to it.
And there's a chance to use a,crypto lake or native
(12:40):
cryptocurrency aspect to thatfarmer's markets.
So imagine going to a farmer'smarkets and saying, okay, I need
to transact in farmer's token soI can get my rewards this week.
Because if I transact atfarmer's token, when I'm at the
farmer's market, I get,$500 offnext time I shop.
(13:01):
There's things like that towhere people are building
projects right now.
That are just crazy concept thatare going to be involved in your
daily life.
That they're going to be able tocreate rewards systems for
people that are going to beutilizing these, crypto
decentralized initiativeprojects.
If that makes sense, not onlyare the ones like Bitcoin car
(13:24):
Dano, Ethereum, all of thesemassive concepts projects.
these are all the, pretty muchthe internets of what's going to
be the future of technologicalapplications.
So where you have the internetand then you have Facebook, and
then you have all of these otherapplications that we've built
within the internet.
(13:45):
There's going to be now thesesystems that allow for these
decentralized applications to bebuilt on top of.
So it seemed like one of thebiggest reasons a normal person
would be excited about this issomething like you're saying
these reward programs, becauseif you're logging into something
like Facebook or Amazon, you'restill just using someone else's
(14:08):
place.
It's like, it's like being avisitor in someone else's home,
but if you're on this farmer'smarket app or something, that's
build with a decentralizednetwork, you're actually being a
small part owner right.
In that system.
And you're going to be rewardedhandsomely for investing in
different decentralized systems,probably moving forward.
Does that, does that make sense,right?
(14:30):
Yes.
So a great example of that.
Another applicable one, I I'vewrote down a few projects that I
thought it would be applicableto just normal people, that
aren't going to be just like acrazy to crypto, but another one
is brave, right?
Brave browser is just like yourGoogle Chrome.
It's like your internetExplorer.
It's built with the same kind ofback end applications like
(14:51):
chromium.
but it rewards you for certainteaching and being a part of the
the process with breaking tokensor I think it's back tokens, but
instead of being a part ofGoogle's search process or
internet spores search process,when you're just browsing the
internet, for whatever reasonyou're going to be rewarded for
(15:11):
doing so in that native currencythrough brewery browser.
Okay.
So just by using their browser,you're going to be rewarded a
small amount in their currency.
why though?
Just cause you're helping theirsystems stay up and running.
Like how, how can I afford togive all their users money just
for using the.
So that goes back to the proofof work algorithm and the, what
(15:35):
we're doing to provide thatvalidation.
That's exactly what you're doingby being a part of the system
and providing and searches andqueries and things like that.
You are creating a proof of workconcepts in order to provide
validations that this system is,working.
It it's, it's the networkvalidation concepts, where
(15:57):
that's the power that you'reproviding and why you're being
rewarded for it.
So this proven work cost thatthat is sometimes inefficient
with how it uses energy can beotherwise utilized in different
ways, such as this other bravebrowser concept that is crazy,
applicable and, worth lookingat.
(16:18):
Okay.
So why don't more people set upmining rigs in their house?
Like, is it, is it expensive?
Is it hard?
Is it difficult?
If I were to ask you, Hey, willI seriously want to set up one
of these in my house over thenext two weeks?
What, what kind of advice wouldyou give to me?
You want to see?
One?
(16:39):
Yeah, this is going to be overaudio.
So not everyone will be able tosee it, but yeah, tell me about
it.
What is it doing that isn't atheory of minor.
It's got six.
It's got 6 30, 60 TEI.
GPU's so it's, I guess it'sconsidered a supercomputer.
So imagine this computer righthere.
(17:00):
But with just six processors.
And what that does is providehashing power for the proof of
work algorithm that is theEthereum network at this moment.
And so I guess the reason whypeople don't don't mind in their
homes is one it's, it's not theeasiest thing to learn how to
build the rigs itself.
The ones that I'm utilizing atleast these are purpose-built.
(17:21):
So I built them for this, forthis reason you can buy like
commercial minors, but you stillneed a two 10 volt outlets which
are not typically available inthe U S so it's kind of hard to
do that, but otherwise it doesuse a lot of electrical.
And you need to have a certainelectric rate in order to be
profitable.
(17:42):
So, whereas I mine at about 8cents a kilowatt and I'm able to
be profitable.
Some other people in otherstates in the us may mine at 12
to even higher and they can't beprofitable.
I was going to say, so thatthing definitely uses less
energy.
Then big coin that it's it'smining, right?
(18:04):
Like it costs less to run that,then you're making off of it.
Correct?
No, I would say this uses about3000 Watts versus a Bitcoin
miner, which uses like 3,400Watts.
So it's very similar.
The electric utilization fromthe machine.
Sorry.
I'm not saying compared toBitcoin, I'm just saying a
theory.
(18:24):
You're making more money off ofthat than you're spending on the
electricity to run it.
Right?
Definitely.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
But it was difficult to set upand you had to go over some
hardware and softwarechallenges, right?
Like, is there a certainlanguage that Ethereum uses that
you needed to basically uploadsome code for it?
Or were you able to find thatonline or how difficult was the
(18:48):
software aspect of setting?
No.
Yeah, I understand.
There's no code that'snecessary.
Regarding setting up your mininghardware, everything is built.
There are programs such asBolina editor, which you will
upload the mining platform,which you're going to mind on.
So all you have to do is, uploada brain to a flash drive plug it
(19:10):
into the motherboard.
That is the the mining hardwarethat gives it the, the brains to
mine, or do what it needs to do.
So you're not having to reallycode anything.
All you're having to do isupload a program from a website
onto a flash drive, stick thatinto the four that you built in,
and now it knows what it needsto be.
(19:31):
Okay.
And so how long would it takefor one of those things to pay
off?
Like how much did all thehardware costs and did it take a
year or two for it to pay itselfoff and then start making money?
Like what was the timeframe?
Yeah.
Great question.
So originally I started lastyear, February I went in for
(19:52):
something like that, 30 K aroundthere.
And I was able to start withlike 15 GPU's.
So that's, like two or threemining rigs for Ethereum And so
probably a three, three miningrace.
And that was during like therun-up of this year, a time
where it was still kind ofcoming up.
It think it was before it wasat, even before it was, it was
(20:14):
around 2,500 when I got into theminers and I was able to build
everything and get it together.
So there was still a lot of timeto go.
I think we ended the bull run at4,500 or something like that.
So during that time it took meabout three months to get an up
three months, maybe six monthsto get the original investment
(20:35):
back to where I then took thatand bought back in for more
hardware.
Not quite as much, but Bob, backin at like half of what I did
originally and bought about halfthe horrible.
Made that back in maybe threemonths and did the same thing
(20:55):
again in just a few months ago.
So it's definitely been a parentthat I'm able to reinvest in
order to grow the amount ofhardware that I'm utilizing and
the amount of crypto that I'mable to mind from it.
Okay.
So it took about three months,you said to make that money back
and then you reinvested it, butthat's pretty good then.
(21:16):
Yeah.
would honestly say probably sixmonths, six months, and then
that's fine, man.
It's still awesome.
It was absolutely fantastic, butit, it definitely took a
learning curve.
I definitely I'm thankful I hadsomebody I got into it by, on
Facebook.
I was just looking to buy somecheap miners and figure it out
by myself.
(21:37):
And this guy was offeringconsulting services.
So I paid him like five grand tocome down to Virginia and like
papers, hotel, and everything.
we stayed we had like 12 hoursessions where we would just be
building and I would be learningin my basement and plugging up
these minors.
So from there I knew what Ineeded to do.
(21:59):
And in fact, he is now Doing amuch bigger service where he's
providing commercial space whereyou can rent out mining space.
So that's an even bigger projecton his end and it's been great
to be partnered with somebodythat's been so influential in
space and to be able to makeconnections that I have.
That's awesome, man.
(22:20):
That's one problem that Iactually have, like on my
journey as an entrepreneur isfinding a good mentor.
You know, I have a hard timetrusting someone and letting
them in and kind of openingmyself up to being mentored.
But I need to get advice frompeople, you know, so it's very
difficult for me to find theright advice.
Sometimes it's a part of thereason I created this podcast
too, is to create a flow of justmentorship or, people who I can
(22:43):
ask for advice.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Shout out to all the people thathave been on this podcast, by
the way kind of Tommy and I havebeen looking, I've been talking
about me being on the podcastfor a little while now.
And I've been kind ofapprehensive about it just cause
I've, I've kinda, I told Tommy Iwas out, I wanted to wait for
the perfect time, but I was, youknow, in my head I was like,
(23:05):
there's never gonna be a perfecttime.
There's never, it's never goingto be exactly what I want it to
be until it is.
and maybe come back to it andmaybe one day it will be.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was telling you that with myapp I was always waiting for it
to be ready and ready.
It was never, it's never reallyready.
You know, it's something you'realways kind of working on.
So I'm glad you came on andshared where you're at, instead
of trying to wait untileverything was perfect, you
(23:28):
know, but why aren't you at,where do you want to be at and
what kind of have you struggledwith, you know, to get there?
Because to me, it basicallyseems like you could own like a
whole you know, storage unitfull of these mining things.
Right.
But the end goal for you seemedsomething more of a hybrid where
you're you're you own a coupleof these, and then you have like
(23:50):
a, like an educational, YouTubechannel type of thing.
Right.
But that's just kind of likewhat it looks like for me.
What, what is your, yourlongterm goal with this and what
have been some, difficultiesgetting there?
That's a great question.
Thank you for asking it., I knowmining is going to be a part of
my, of my long-term.
Long-term learnings.
I'm passionate about mining andwhat the technology, what the
(24:13):
proof of work concept canprovide to this space.
And as well as alternativeconcepts.
But I'm also in love withmarketing.
I've always thought that mycalling has been to facilitate
communication I feel like I cando that very well through
marketing and even now even moreso that I can apply it towards
the crypto and my three space.
(24:34):
Hopefully in the next five yearsor so, I can be a part of a
company that's has a fewemployees that are similarly
driven to.
I guess, to optimize on the samekind of business concepts and
projects and initiatives thatthat drive me, that interests
me.
That's why we're working.
We were going to work with likethe niche group of crypto and
web three projects, blockchainprojects, because those are what
(24:56):
interests me.
Those are what gets me out ofbed to like excites me about the
future of technology.
And I'm excited to optimizethose campaigns and get those,
projects out there to be thenext crazy technology that
influences the world.
It's possible, man.
I already know some friends thatare leaving their nine to fives
to go work on some web threestartup companies.
I think, you know how there's somany people leaving their jobs
(25:18):
right now, they're calling itthe great resignation.
I'm pretty sure that's becausethere's so many web three
companies popping up right now.
And it seems very similar tothe.com burst of the late
nineties, right.
Where everyone was just leavingtheir company and starting a
website.
And they didn't really know thepotential it had, and it's kind
of hard to predict it, but it'sdefinitely going to change the
(25:40):
world as well.
It's going to revolutionizeeverything.
I just keep listening topodcasts and reading books about
it and just getting excited.
I mean, it seems like it's goingto truly change the way we can
govern ourselves too, you know,as a society.
I mean, I don't thinkgovernments would adapt this
type of technology as far aslike lawmaking, but it doesn't
(26:01):
matter, like with something likeBitcoin popping up, it's already
governing the way that wedistribute our money systems.
So whether governments areinvolved or not, it's definitely
going to be.
A more of a libertarian powerstructures that are gonna be set
up, Because of web threetechnologies, Yeah.
It, it's, it's exciting, butit's also scary, I will say,
(26:23):
because you kind of touched onthe current financial aspects of
how the world works anddefinitely understanding how
many applications there are withcrypto and web three and
everything involved with it.
You can understand how muchmoney is going to begin to flow
into the space and how muchmoney will also flow away from
(26:48):
traditional economies.
That's a whole nother thingwhere it's kind of scary to
think about the future Ofinvesting where your money is at
and if it's going to still be asgood of an option as it is today
in the next 20 years.
Yeah.
I mean, I think hopefully it'lljust grow the pie, right?
There's that mentality of like,okay, we gotta cut another slice
(27:11):
out for the crypto space orwhether crypto and web three,
we'll just grow the whole pieand there'll be more value
created in new places, which iswhat I hope will happen, you
know, instead of seeing valueor, or money being, like you
said, pushed from kind of thelegacy systems over to the
crypto space.
I hope that's.
(27:31):
Exactly what happens, but Idon't know.
I don't know what's going tohappen.
Yeah, no, no.
I liked that opinion to do that.
There is still enough pie to goaround for legacy system and
new, innovative differentsystems.
I like them.
Okay.
Let's jump into how crypto hasaffected you create an
(27:52):
Afghanistan.
You were telling me right beforewe got on camera it's just super
interesting.
All of the, crypto initiativesthat are applicable towards
trying to create peace in inUkraine at this moment.
Whereas I know that it seemskind of crazy.
Ukraine has a Twitter right nowwhere they've posted their
Ethereum and Bitcoin addresses.
(28:12):
You can donate to this effortswhere, the Ethereum foundation
has already confirmed that thisis their valid government
address.
And you can make a donation andtry to make a difference in
what's going on in that arearight now.
But also there are things likein Russia where you're not able
to get the money that yourightfully own that you've
earned out of your banks rightnow, because there's no ATS.
(28:34):
You can't get a regular ATM.
So now people are literally, aswe spoke of earlier, having to
rely on cryptocurrencies andminors, such as digital ATM's,
so they can still utilize somemoney.
So they can still transactsomehow with some kind of
currency.
So the applications ofcryptocurrency are being very
(28:55):
well outlined in these, newtimes of war yeah.
I did not know that that's wild.
And you think that this ishelping fund projects for
Ukraine, that wouldn't have beenpossible before, like
cryptocurrency or would we justgot it there a different way?
We may have gotten it there adifferent way.
(29:16):
I don't think that there wouldhave been such a public outpour
of support though with these newtechnologies, people in the
public like myself even are nowable to quickly make a donation
to Ukrainian efforts to supportthem.
Whereas there's a reason whypeople haven't, donated through
other traditional paths.
(29:37):
It creates a new avenue to beable to to support well,
definitely with the Russiancurrency plummeting, right.
Then you couldn't have donatedthe same amount of funds over
there, the same way.
Right.
You know, because it might notbe worth the same.
Right.
And at a certain point.
So I think definitely with thepeople of Russia, crypto is
(30:00):
probably a very good asset forthem at the moment.
Is that fair to say othercountries is the same with,
volatile economies.
So not only Russia is Russiaexperience in this, but other
countries around the worldexperienced these volatile times
and their currency where it'sworth pretty much nothing.
So they then depend on somethingthat is a little bit volatile.
(30:20):
Yes.
Typically, but it's still there.
Yeah, that's cool.
That's cool.
I didn't know, just in general,like the fundraising world has
gotten a lot easier with thingslike NFTs and crypto projects
that get popped up.
Right.
It's just much easier for peopleto fund ideas in this space than
ever before.
It seems like no matter wherethose efforts are being head
towards.
(30:41):
Right?
Yeah.
Even my sister, she worked forquite a large finance company
and she's also does take docks.
She's known as trading theproject.
If you look her up, her teamhas, are working on fundraising
and, community fundraising inthe future and how that's going
to be applied.
So that's exciting, excitingresearch.
You know, I don't know if you'regonna be able to answer this
(31:02):
question, but I figured I mightask if you're in the marketing.
Would you have any advice for meon how to market this podcast?
Should I go about it throughlike Facebook advertisements or
YouTube ads, or I don't know ifthat's up your alley, but what
would you, what kind of, do youhave any marketing bias, maybe
general advice when it comes toonline marketing?
(31:23):
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
Typically to drive brandawareness.
It takes a certain, certain typeof marketing.
You don't want to waste moneywhen it comes to marketing
because it can be expensive, butthere are avenues that you can
go through that are just organicoptimizations, such as creating
a website that has a lot ofutility to it, where people are
(31:44):
going to click on stuff.
People are going to interactwith it all the time, and
they're going to sign up fornewsletters and they're going to
do all of these things, engagewith your website.
That creates a community and areason for our audiences to come
back and a place for people togo to and engage and interact.
Whereas a lot of people becometick-tock famous, They don't
create a space that is optimizedfor their audience to engage
(32:08):
with.
So, whereas Tik TOK stars mightget famous.
Does not really a place foradvertisers have their cut of
the pie in there.
So yes, it's been a painting.
It's great.
But to really start optimizingfor yourself and for your
audience and create a place forthem become a community
engagement with that's one ofthe most important aspects of
(32:29):
creating a brand and marketing.
I've heard recently that a lotof Tik TOK stars are trying to
move to create a podcast or atleast a YouTube channel, because
the way the algorithm on Tik TOKworks is that it's very user
centric, not like follower,channel focused, so people could
watch your videos every day onTik TOK and not really give a
(32:50):
crap about who you are.
Or what you're doing, right.
Because they're just kind ofshowing up on their for you
page.
And they're not really followingyou as a creator.
Whereas like, if you get themeven just onto a YouTube channel
or something like a podcast, nowthey're following you and
they're caring about the thingsthat, you know, if you want to
promote a product or something,they're kind of more invested in
(33:13):
you as a creator instead of justgetting their entertainment from
you on there for you algorithmpage.
So I definitely see got into theright place, where they want to
network with people that are,engaged with you.
Yeah.
So I'm definitely alreadyputting a lot more emphasis on
my podcast, Instagram account,just because the reels from
(33:33):
Instagram will feed people backto like a place where they can
get information about thepodcast instead of just on
Tech-Talk it's not really goingto have the same retention, you
know So what have your strugglesbeen just like starting a
company, starting a projectoutside of your nine to five you
were saying you want to talkabout maybe conviction or some
general ideas about kind offollowing your dream, your
(33:54):
passion, doing something extraoutside of what's expected as an
employee, yeah.
I have a.
Thing of my sweater that I'vepinned right now, it says, and
this is talking about crypto.
It says beginning your cryptojourney is like getting up early
on a sunrise boss tour.
It's hard as hell to get upearly, but it's for sunrise bus
tour, you know what you'regetting, you're going up the
(34:15):
mountain and you're going to getthe beautiful sunrise and the
beautiful peak that you're goingto see.
So imagine that is similar tobeginning your crypto journey.
So you're going to, you're goingto get up.
You're gonna to start going upthe, up the mountain on the bus,
and there's going to be optionsfor you to pull the, bus cord
and get off and get off at itspeak, this beautiful overlook.
(34:38):
That's going to be a beautifulopportunity.
You'll probably make a lot ofmoney from it.
And if you stick to it, it's agreat view.
But you know that this sunrisemountain, top bus tour.
So you know what the objectiveand the goal is, if you are
patient and you wait to get tothe top.
And so you keep on going up themountain and once you get to the
(34:59):
top, although you've beenpatient and you've, been waiting
where other people might havegotten off and spent their.
Time, their investmentelsewhere.
You've basically waited to getto the top and you've gotten to
the top where it's the best viewpossible.
And you've done all the researchthat you could have done and you
apply yourself everywhere youcan.
And that's kind of how I feelabout my journey right now is,
(35:19):
is kind of, I feel as thoughI've, reached where I wanted to
reach, and I've learned so muchabout this space, I continue to
learn every day.
That it's really awesome.
Yeah.
That's really important, man, tohave that kind of patience with
things and not expect thoseimmediate returns, what does it
take like specifically to havepatients with crypto and the
(35:40):
space?
Is it just understanding, right?
Like the market will have thesedown moments and these moments
Warren Buffett.
He says, write something aboutbuy when the market is low.
What does the saying?
Be brave when everyone else isbeing coward or, something like
that.
Right.
Basically, what does it take tobe patient with this industry?
I think it's, it's reallyapplicable to also the style of
(36:03):
work that I've chosen to do inmining.
Whereas though, a lot of peoplewill argue and say, mining's not
worth it.
You can just, you can trade somebeef and get that, get the same
kind of profit like you weredoing for mining in whatever.
It's like, yeah, yeah, you cando that.
That's an overlook.
That's a peak that you can stopoff and go enjoy.
But.
(36:23):
For me, I love mining.
I love watching my investmentgrow and watching my investment
ROI and then continuing on afterthat.
that's been, what's fun for me.
And what's been, what's beenreally successful as well.
it's definitely, you know,you're setting up a whole system
to be paid later, right?
Like this is probably the mostpatient and long-term route with
(36:44):
crypto, you know, other thanjust holding your coin, but
actually setting up systems inyour house that are going to
generate money while you sleep,you know, are there any other
arguments against mining?
Do?
People say you shouldn't do thisand are there any good arguments
as to why this isn't the routepeople should take?
Morally and ethically?
(37:04):
No.
I would just say for people tomind their own business and live
their own lives, but some peoplemight say that, you're wasting
energy.
But for me, it's a way of life.
It's a way to, take on your timeand to subtract, from the time
that you're working subtractfrom the time that you're away
from your family.
Having to give, time to othermoney-making objectives where
(37:25):
you can do it 24 7.
You can make money in yoursleep.
You can make more money whenyou're sleeping, then you can
spend when you're awake.
I don't really see any reasonnot to do it.
almost want to go by my own rigand set this up to at least one
of them, just to understand itand just to have some passive
income, it seems like the way togo about things, Node mining as
well.
(37:45):
That is a new, style of mining.
It doesn't require all the,bulky hardware aspects of it,
but it's still similar just tokind of concept of the
verification that's happening.
What does the name black caddymean?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Blocked catty.
So a caddy is typically thegolfers assistant.
Somebody's helping somebody out.
(38:06):
And a block is the precursor toblock chain.
And I'm referencing blockchain,crypto services.
So I'm a caddy for theblockchain and crypto space, a
block catty.
I should have been.
I should've been able to figurethat out on my own.
I'm not, I'm not a golf guy.
I don't know.
(38:26):
I don't, I, I thought it was aclever when I came up with it,
but who knows?
I think it's a time will tell.
I know square just changed theirname to block, so, oh, really?
That's interesting.
I did not know that.
I think CEO of Twitter.
Jack Dorsey Jack Dorsey.
(38:46):
I feel like he stepped down asthe CEO of Twitter so that he
could get more involved withcrypto projects.
That's my theory, at least.
Yeah.
I undoubtable I think he's forthe Bitcoin lightening network.
He's doing a lot of work forthat for that, for that space
too.
There's a lot of financialinstitution projects such as
PayPal, Stripe square.
(39:08):
Those are not as massive,obviously as like visa and
MasterCard, but obviously theyare more flexible in their
capabilities.
And so what they're doing iscreating innovation in the
crypto space that the worldwill, I'm sure be grateful for
in the next 20 years.
What are some of the people youlook up to in this space as Jack
(39:29):
Dorsey, one of them, are theresome other CEOs or Twitter
accounts, are you tubers thatyou go to for your information
and that you kind of areinspired by?
Yet Jack Dorsey's a, aninteresting individual and I
definitely do follow him for hisinnovative teachings, but also I
guess the Winklevoss twins.
They're they're an interestingduo that have seemingly always
(39:52):
been chasing something, youknow, they've always been in the
mix, whether it be with markZuckerberg or on the brink of a
new, a new and innovativedigital wallet, such as Gemini.
they're behind that Gemini, thebig boss twins they're either
the owners or they, they have alarge investment in it, they've
done some work in the cryptospace and I'm excited to see
what they have to offer as well.
(40:13):
What is your favorite likecrypto wallets or crypto
exchanges that you use orrecommend these?
Yeah, so I personally, and Ihaven't done much research in
this space to be clear, but Iuse Exodus as my personal
wallet.
And I just used Coinbase and aand Q coin as my preferred
(40:34):
exchanges, two coins and aninteresting one, not too many
people on it yet, but they'veproven to be very trustworthy
over time.
I would not recommend Robin hooddo not use Robin hood for
anything.
This is not any, if you're onRobin hood and get off Robin
hood, that's Charlie said in,the interview you just listened
to with him.
(40:54):
He said that that's one of thereasons he moved over to crypto
because of the whole Robin hoodscandal made him uncomfortable
buying and selling stocks likepersonally.
Charlie's one that I him and Ihave started to talk more and
more just about crypto.
I mean, I've been friends for awhile as well.
So I'm excited to see where hegoes in his uh, Yeah, I actually
think it'd be fun to get likeyou and him or some other people
(41:15):
on like a three-way call, youknow, for crypto, especially
cause I'm not as knowledgeablein this topic as everyone else's
and so it'd be cool to get acouple of crypto heads on here.
I got one more interview linedup too, with a guy he's creating
some sort of video game platformfor NFTs, where you can
basically get paid to play videogames, which I think is like
(41:35):
another big cool innovationthat's going to come with.
Decentralized networks is like,I think we're basically on the
cuffs of just getting paid toplay video games because of the
way these NFTs are sopotentially valuable, the proof
of work algorithm providingyour.
Power or whatever you'reproviding to a system.
(41:55):
That's the same application aswhat you're doing in NFTs or in,
in games where you're gettingpaid to play, you're providing
some kind of service that is youdoing something to earn whatever
you're earning and whatevernative currency.
Yeah.
It makes sense.
If someone's getting paid, justlike you were saying for using
that browser, you know, if wecan tie gaming into mining in a
(42:20):
certain way, it's just going tobe entertainment to go make
money online, you know, and it'sgoing to be a pretty awful.
I love gaming and I can't waitto see what kind of NFT objects
I can own and kind of forms thatI can take in whatever virtual
world that kind of okay.
Metta verses and things.
(42:40):
What have you they've beenaround for years?
Let's be honest.
They're just, they're just lowerfive game Arby's call of duty
was pretty much the metaverse.
but, okay.
So given that Metta versus theconcept is pretty cool with,
with AR kind of virtual styleglasses and so I heard an idea
recently it was overlappinginstances in which you've
(43:02):
interacted with people before asa social concept.
So you're wearing a style of ARglasses.
And when you look at someonepretty much a pops over their
head and says, reminds you whereyou've interacted with them
before.
That's pretty tight.
Yeah.
That is a cool concepts.
(43:23):
I mean, yeah.
So going off of that, I do thinkthe AR and the metaverse is
going to be really cool oncethey can kind of layer it over,
you know, tech, I don't thinkwe're going to be using screens
the same way once we can justkind of put holograms places,
right.
Like that.
But also to go back to thegaming, if you remember rune
scape, I don't really play it,but people would make a lot of
(43:44):
money playing rune scape back inthe day, just by getting certain
valuable items and selling them.
So the whole NFT idea is notnecessarily new.
Like we've had systems like thisset up before, you know similar
like rune scape was in Barackall the times to selling,
selling different armor andthings I used to, I used to
game, I played moonscape.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
(44:05):
You could sing some hours intothat game.
Let's see.
The other thing I wanted to talkabout was just your fitness
journey.
So it was like 2020, I thinkwhen the pandemic hit, you lost
like at least 30 pounds or 40pounds or something.
And I wanted to with chat withyou then I don't know how your
fitness journey has been sincethen, but at least what was it
like?
During the time period where youlost a bunch of weight and what
(44:26):
kind of helped you get there?
And yeah.
What was that all about?
This was, I don't know if youcan see this, but this was my
face in 2020.
I see it.
It's just like quite play roundas, yeah, no, you're still
looking good, man.
You thin, but yeah, it's beengreat.
this year I've only beendrinking water other than some
(44:47):
time in Puerto Rico where I hada little break, so I've only
been during water this year, sono S no sprites.
No, not the thing.
No beer.
But also I run a lot now I runprobably 50 miles a week or so.
Just I like to have a long, likea 10 K on a Sunday and then like
a couple of miles every day, butthat's been like a long, long
(45:07):
time coming to be able to dothat.
That didn't start off that way.
it started off when I was livingin Arlington and I, and I lived
with four roommates next to theGold's gym in Boston.
And one of my roommates was alsoreally into fitness.
So him and I would kind of.
And now I've definitely droppedoff.
I dropped from like 200 poundsto about one 60 for the knife.
(45:31):
I've got a congrats man.
That's awesome.
I don't know if I caught youright when that happened, but a
late congratulations for me thenyou so much.
It feels better.
It influences the way I'm in mylife now.
And hopefully we'll continue todo so.
Yeah, man.
That's funny that you saidwater.
That's exactly what Lauren saidto if she could give someone one
(45:51):
piece of advice.
Right.
And me too, I, I got one ofthose gallon jugs recently, or
half gallon jugs and it, and itcompletely changed my life.
You know, I even kind ofreplaced my, my smoking habit
with drinking water.
So, you know, I used to havelike a Juul and I replaced that
habit with just drinking waterall the time.
And it made such a huge impacton my life too, you know?
(46:12):
Yeah, it's been awesome.
Just a kind of seeing thechanges and indefinitely trying
to influence them by drinkingwater, eating a lot more food
and different types of food hasbeen really, almost scientific
over the last couple of years,how I've applied different
eating.
And then when I eat and what Ieat when I eat after I've done
(46:33):
an exercise or what have you.
Hmm.
Well, how do you think aboutdiet then now compared to
beforehand?
So now I believe that this is atime and place for everything.
So if you've done a days longof, of running and, hard work,
you can go have two pieces ofbread, have two pieces of bread
and a steak.
That's totally fine.
If not healthy.
(46:54):
That's going to be more healthyfor you than really, if you
don't have that replacement ofcarbohydrates from after that
long days of work.
But before I started reallyunderstanding fitness sense and
eating and nutrition things, Iwould do that as workout still
and not have that bread or nothave something that I felt as
though it was not good for you.
(47:16):
Now learning that everythingpretty much is, I mean, other
than a few artificial things,Mostly everything that's that's
natural is it can be good foryou depending on how you've run
your day or what you've done inthe day.
Yeah, man, I definitely havelearned carbs are a good thing.
I don't know where that myth gotstarted, and a lot of people are
(47:38):
still on the keto diet and noteating carbs.
I don't understand why they dothat because I, a lot of carbs
all the time, I think as long asyou're working out, I guess, but
even if you're not working out,you need them.
I mean, if you're, if you'resitting in bed all day, if
you're literally not doinganything, maybe don't eat a lot
of bread or ice cream or whathave you, but um, you are an
active individual.
There is nothing wrong withgrades.
(48:02):
what does it take to have thismuch motivation?
Right.
You're in good shape.
You're starting, you know, aside project, you got bigger
plans to expand it into mediaand stuff.
And I don't know why, why areyou so driven all of a sudden
compared to like two or threeyears ago when you were out of
shape?
obviously I don't think you'rean expert to talk on nutrition
specifically, but you could bean expert on just how to make
(48:25):
that radical shift in your lifefrom someone who is apathetic,
who doesn't care, who doesn'thave big dreams, what caused the
shift and like what does it feellike?
What is it?
Yeah.
What do you attribute all thischange to over the last couple
of years?
Yeah, that's a really goodquestion.
Thank you.
I guess the timing of it wasRight either before or right as
(48:45):
a pandemic kit.
So I'm not sure if it's reallyreplicable in a way.
But the disconnect from what wasreality back in the day, that's
that happened when the pandemichit and, how I took that mood
forward.
Cause I mean, when the pandemichit, I actually took my laptop,
my work laptop into my car anddrove around the country.
(49:06):
By myself, obviously I didn'tinteract with hardly anybody.
I slept in the back of my car.
This was for two and a halfmonths just driving around the U
S just seeing everything, andthat was big influential in
myself because at the time Ilived with three roommates,
great guys, we all live near thegym and it was hectic.
And it was like a guys frathouse, which was fun.
(49:27):
But I realized on that trip whenI was going around the country
the, the necessity ofself-accountability and how
important my alone time and timefor myself was what I could
really do with that time.
And so I guess that trip thattrip around the country, has it
been an advocate reallyinfluenced me to take
(49:47):
accountability of all that I wasdoing and figure out how I best
can support myself and beingbetter.
Yeah, you wrote down here too,on our notes, that freedom was
something that's important toyou.
It seems like the pandemic gaveyou an opportunity to kind of be
free and to, you know, take thattrip around the country.
(50:08):
I think a lot of people gottheir own time back, right.
Working from home and stuff.
So you realize how valuable thatfreedom was and you wanted to
create a company and createfitness habits that gave you
more freedom and more abilityto, to have passive income and
to have, the fitness to go doadventures and, whatever you
(50:29):
wanted to do with that freetime.
Yeah.
I think being free to do what Iwanted to do is important, but
also utilizing the time that wehave to the best of our ability
for your passions.
So it's important to me to dowhat you're passionate about and
spend your time with those thatyou wanna spend time with.
It's so important to, spend timewith people you care about and
(50:52):
make memories with the ones youlove because those are the two
most important things in lifefor me are our time and
memories.
Yeah, man, to tie back into thepodcast.
That's a big reason I did thispodcast because as I started
working on my app more and more,every year I was isolated myself
from so many people, and then itbecame time to promote the app,
(51:13):
you know?
And so I built the podcast, butpart of the reason I stuck with
the podcast is because I finallywas able to start connecting
with people again.
And I was realizing like thevalue of just building
connections.
And if I look back on my lifeand I had worked on this app all
these years and it didn't dowell, then I might regret it.
But if this podcast doesn't dowell, well, then these are still
(51:34):
memories and time that I'mspending with people I enjoy.
And it's always going to beworth it.
Even if no one listens, for meto sit down and, and connect
with people instead of justwriting code for eight hours a
day or, observing some marketingalgorithm these things are
great, but they're not.
It wasn't allowing me to connectwith people in a healthy way
that I felt like I needed, Yeah.
(51:55):
That's the same, kind of thing.
I felt kind of when I was, whenI was still working just a
traditional nine to five and nottrying to extend myself, to do
more, now that I'm just a lotmore full not, I don't know
about full, but just a lot more,a lot more busy and a lot more
kind of excited for what I'mdoing today.
I'm going to do tomorrow.
(52:16):
Well, that's awesome, man.
I love to see it when people arespending time on what they love,
what they're passionate about.
I really hope that the whole webthree industry just does well
over the next decade and thatyou're able to continue to
progress with a block catty boththe mining and like the
marketing fronts.
I think very exciting, veryexciting space to be in some
glad that I know you, I knowsomeone involved in it right
(52:38):
now, because like I said, Ihaven't talked to anyone who's
into mining yet.
This is definitely a an excitingconversation just to, just to
sit down with someone who is soinvested into it, yeah.
I appreciate the time to be ableto come in and then kind of talk
about it.
And and I'm excited for anybodythat sees this.
I hope you'll reach out and askquestions and try to learn about
(52:59):
this industry because it's anindustry where you can jump in
and you can succeed and I I'mhere to help.
I want everyone to know that I'mdown to help.
Let me know, hit me up with anyquestions you have.
You can reach out informally onmy phone or through block
catty.io.
But yeah, I'm on Twitter too.
I ad block catty.
All right, guys, you heard himgo reach out on Twitter at block
(53:19):
catty.
If you have any questions aboutcrypto or mining thanks will and
I think that's going to be aboutit.
Well, that was really awesome.
I'm glad we kind of hit on a lotof the topics and block caddy
was a big one of them, and I'mreally excited for anybody that
reaches out.
I think a lot of people probablyare in the same space trying to
learn about, the opportunitiesand in crypto.
And I hope that we can behelpful Yemen.