Episode 5: Brandon Zemp, Interviewing a Crypto Entrepreneur and Author of the Satoshi Sequence

Speaker 1: 0:10

[inaudible].

Speaker 2: 0:11

Welcome to the global investor podcast. The goal of this podcast is to offer investors and entrepreneurs insights and practical advice to dramatically improve the kinds of deals you invest in and the returns you get. My name is James Evanson. I am one of the partners at crown private. If you're unfamiliar with Obras. Uh, we are a membership syndicate of investors. Our membership and our community are made up of likeminded, yet unique and adventurous individuals as well as family offices. Today I'm very pleased to be interviewing Brandon Zim. Brandon is a block chain entrepreneur. Uh, we first met about two and a half years ago. He had just finished his undergraduate degree in neuroscience at Pitzer College in State of California. He was destined for Medisca medical school, uh, but inspired by entrepreneurship and the emerging world of crypto. Brandon put med school on hold. He started investing in Crypto. Well at university. This stemmed from a fascination with a theory Eum, uh, and the months that followed, uh, graduating from university, Brandon wrote and published the Satoshi sequence, a seminal book that discusses how blockchain technology will continue to evolve. I read the[inaudible] sequence shortly after it was published and I continue to rate it as a, an outstanding overview of block chain. Uh, in early 2018 Brandon started building a crypto mining operation. He also started a blockchain consulting business called block Hash. A block cash has now evolved into the block camps podcast that Brandon hosts. And he'll be telling us a bit about that as well.

Speaker 3: 2:01

Hey Brandon, welcome. Thanks for having me on a, where do we find you today, sir? Um, so I generally go back and forth, um, between Oregon, Nevada, depending on the time of year. Um, I live down in Vegas most of the time, which gets pretty hot during the summer and it's usually over like a hundred degrees, which can be tricky for me since I like being outdoors a lot. And, um, so you'll see me in Oregon most of the time depending on the time of year it is. Um, and then I also, if I'm not in Oregon and Nevada, I'm usually international or domestically traveling somewhere. I like to be abroad and experience new cultures, city's lifestyles and whatnot. So

Speaker 2: 2:43

your Instagram photos are quite revealing of where, where you spend your time. It's a, it seems, it does. You do seem to be quite, quite active. Good. Good for you. Well, let's start by, uh, going back a few years, a, as I understand it, while your friends were, were studying and drinking, you were studying, maybe drinking, but also investing in a, in a,

Speaker 3: 3:10

uh,

Speaker 2: 3:10

crypto, uh,

Speaker 4: 3:13

how did you get interested in the crypto world and, uh, and blockchain on sentence,

Speaker 3: 3:20

right. So I, so while in college, I think it was my freshman year when I first actually heard about Bitcoin, um, that was around the time that it first broke out. And so the news and had gone up to around$1,200 or so. And for a lot of us as students, that sparked a lot of interest in what it was, what it a, but it wasn't until like summer of 2016 that I really started to actually look into it a bit more. And I believe actually that Spring of 16 was when I went to a conference in Vegas and listened to Peter Schiff talk about it. Um, he wasn't very positive and bullish on where the market was going. Um, but he had a lot of good points and it sparked a lot more interest for me. And then when I went to del Mar, um, for my first meetup with Obrist at that point, Seraph, um, that's when I learned about theorem for the first time and the Dow and the Dow is essentially the decentralized autonomous organization to mouthful. Um, and that is the same Dow that's infamous today for being hacked and driving controversy into the blockchain space. Um, but anyways, that was that knowledge that I took. I took back with me to college my senior year, um, and left quite an impression on me and I couldn't really stop thinking about what etherium had accomplished with the dowel and what the effects of that would be in the future. Um, so what did that accomplish? We saw that it was possible to build smart contracts on a blockchain that eliminates trust and middlemen and in a world that grows more distressful and problematic every single day, um, that, that's everything. So on top of it, a blockchain wasn't really being discussed in college. Professors weren't really aware of it. Students didn't have access to education that would help them understand it. And so it was just seen as not important for awhile. But I had a completely different opinion on it entirely and on what the tech could actually do for reasons I just mentioned. So in the spring of 17, um, my last year in college, uh, while I was writing my thesis actually decided to start buying some etherium and like$7 and was able to convince some of my friends and family to look into it as well. And by the time may of 17 came around, I probably really made the best financial decision of my life at 22. And that's essentially what started me down the path of blockchain. And it's not quite like a Zuckerberg Winkle via social network type of backstory, but I think almost all my friends thought I was a little crazy to invest as much money as I did and to theory them at the time before crypto really became relevant. And there were a lot of mornings where I would be like half asleep in the dining hall before my biochem class, a downloading wallets and buying a theory IOM or light coin and people would walk by and thinking that I'm trading stock before class or something like that. Cause it was kind of hard to explain the whole idea to another student, um, or to any of my friends. And a lot of the time I would just tell them that I'm trading this virtual currency on this exchange that's in South Korea so that I can sell it on another exchange that's in Japan so that I could take advantage of this currency arbitrage. And they all just thought it was high or something because it didn't really make any sense. But, but today they're starting to come around to it a bit more and it's a little bit more mainstream and

Speaker 2: 7:18

kind of lazy at times though, isn't it to, to, to be that all the naysayers to, uh, to now recognize that, hmm, maybe maybe Brandon was onto something.

Speaker 3: 7:28

I'm, I'm nice to them. I don't rub anything in their face. I mean it's, it was a big speculative risk. Um, so it could've went straight into the dirt or it could've went straight to the moon. And fortunately for me, it went up a little bit and made me seem a little bit smarter. So,

Speaker 2: 7:47

well, and, uh, clearly you didn't, uh, snub your, you know, raise your nose at other people. You ended up writing a book to educate people, uh, the[inaudible] sequence, uh, who, who is your audience and what was the inspiration for that? And give us a quick overview of the book.

Speaker 3: 8:06

Absolutely. Um, so I think it was immediately, yeah, it was immediately after I graduated from college that I decided to write my book, the snowshoe sequence. I wasn't necessarily setting out to write a 300 page novel, uh, nor was I any kind of crypto guru necessarily. Um, but I had pages and pages of notes from College, um, late nights and doing research that I accumulated regarding bitcoin and ethereum and my free time. And coupled with my experience buying ethereum, I thought I could provide some value to people by sharing what I saw in the technology. What I saw was this, like exponential shifting growth from what bitcoin was to what a Therian was promising to us. Um, so Sitoshi Nakamoto, who's this mysterious creator of Bitcoin gave humanity a gift by planting this financial seed in the world, developers began watering this seed and now we have bitcoin up, peer to peer trustless payment system that belongs to the individual as much as it does the collective. Um, from this developers realized that the underlying technology, which we all call blockchain, uh, had the ability to do many other things as well. This eventually became ethereum. So in my book, I referenced Ethereum as the beginning of quote unquote like Gen too much like the iPhone when it goes from version seven to version eight to version 10, et cetera. Um, it's a never ending growing process. And at the core of my book, uh, this is eventually the takeaway that this technology will continue to be revolutionary for years to come. Hence the title, the Sitoshi sequence. And I wrote it for the average person that is new to blockchain, mostly for students, um, that might want to build a career in blockchain or go down that path, um, and to help paint a picture for them of where the industry might take us. So that's also kind of my general audience.

Speaker 2: 10:16

Right. Well, I can tell you, uh, I read it just after you released it and I remember we were meeting up. We, uh, we had an overdose event in Austin, Texas, and uh, that was, we actually, I remember we promoted the book there, but I remember writing in the end, the event was, uh, primarily focused on blockchain. This was what, a year, a little over a year and a half ago. Uh, and I remember writing in the, the, the Uber to the hotel. And my driver was telling me about how he was wanting to get involved in it. And of course, my first thought was, man, you need to need to read the, before you invest in anything, blogs, read Brandon's book. So it is fun to promote, to, to offer something like that. That is, uh, it is, it's a, it's a great foundation. Um, we'll, we'll reference that at the very end of the podcast so that people want to, to grab it off of Amazon. They, they can do. So, uh, I thank you for writing that book. I am a, I still consider myself a a little bit better than a neophyte in the world of blockchain. Absolutely fascinated by it, but it's folks like yourself, Brandon, that, uh, really help us, uh, get a good foundation so that we know what at least how to, how to build from that. Um, we're going to dig into some heavier stuff in a minute, but why I want to go where I want to go next is you have a mining operation in Prineville, Oregon. I'm guessing that most of our listeners and watchers have no idea where Prineville, Oregon is. So, uh, for those listening and watching, if you look at the map, look for bend, Oregon and Prineville is just a little bit north high desert of Oregon, absolutely spectacular place. So tell us a bit about mining in central Oregon. What are you doing? Where are you going with

Speaker 3: 12:06

absolutely. So I think at the end of 2017 I'm a little bit, after I published my book, um, I started digging a bit deeper into what kind of makes blockchain tick and what incentivizes the network to actually work. Cause it's a decentralized network. There's no centralized authority that's growing at pushing it forward. So obviously there's, there's some incentive going on. So I wanted to understand what those incentives were. Um, and I came away with the realization that in from working on my book that there are other ways to profit and blockchain in the blockchain industry. Um, other than making a direct investment. And this is when I kind of stumbled upon what the opportunities were in mining. Um, so for those of you that will be listening to don't understand, mining mining is also called proof of work. Um, proof of work is a form of validating transactions. Um, so when you make a transaction from person a to B, that transaction gets placed into a block of transactions, a ledger of transactions, and that goes onto the blockchain. Um, and for the in computers do this work, uh, computers, um, get rewarded a dividend and there is, and this is where the profit actually comes from so it gets far more technical. So I try not to get too nerdy, but I'll do my best to explain. Um, but so I took that concept and I ran with it. I'm learning as I, as I went as well. Um, raised some funds, rented some space stove and had first made a lot of mistakes, a lot of mistakes, um, but eventually kind of worked out the numbers and started to make it work. Um, it can be quite brutal and quite a headache and that take away, uh, the takeaway actually is that from a tax perspective, the miners are getting rewarded a dividend, which is considered income. But in reality, crypto is generally bullet tile, meaning you can make projections on where the price may end up down the line in six months, a year, two years, five years, et cetera. Um, so the best way I tried to describe it is does a gold miner mine gold for profit? Um, or does a gold miner wait for the gold to appreciate and value before pulling it out of the ground and turning a profit, um, which has its own target price because running machinery and digging it up is very expensive. And the same is very true for crypto mining. Um, very, very similar. It's expensive to run miners cause of electricity costs and rent costs and the price that it's at currently. Um, so a lot of it is very strategic. It's not necessarily just a plug and play type of thing. Um, there's, yeah, it can get a little complicated and there's many factors that dictate whether or not mining crypto is profitable. Um, and it kind of actually has its own market as well as well so that you can kind of watch and analyze it over time. But overall it's, it's going well. Um, I wouldn't recommend it to someone that doesn't have a solid understanding of how complicated it can become. But regarding central Oregon, it was a good location because central Oregon has low electricity prices. It has generally good weather. It's high desert is pretty cool. Um, get a lot of moisture during certain parts of the year, which keep it cool. And then even during the summer it is pretty dry. Um, so it's a good environment, uh, coupled with electricity prices and get some good deals on, uh, rent for warehousing. So overall it's going well. Uh, that's, that's kind of the, the whole mining setup in a nutshell. Um, yeah,

Speaker 2: 16:16

I liked that you, the way you approach it from a comparing it to, to mining, uh, I think that oftentimes people might think it is a bit like the, uh, the person panning for gold, uh, and the, the streams of California where really it's much more like a, so I'm active in co co copper mining and industries that support that. And I watch as the, the copper mines oftentimes will have to run, uh, even when they're not, even when copper is selling at a ridiculously low price unprofitable price. But they, they, it's, it's much more complex than one would think. But I do appreciate that you, uh, you saw a niche that were, where you could take what you knew and, and put it to work. And, uh, and it's a, I know it's an act. I've seen the photos of your, uh, of your operation there and it's an active and ongoing, um, busy business for you. How many people does it take to run that?

Speaker 3: 17:14

Um, nobody. The, the machines are like my little[inaudible]

Speaker 2: 17:17

employees. They work. It's, it's my, um, robotic sweatshop. They work 24, seven. They don't sleep. So you're not having to pay workers' comp insurance something. I don't have to do that. Um, just feed them the electricity that they need and, and it makes sure that they're healthy and happy. Very, very good. All right, well let's, uh, let's, let's dig in a little deeper into a, something, a couple of topics that I know very important to you right now. And I will tell you this is going to push the limits of my understanding and I'm going to guess that probably a half to a third of our listeners and viewers will already know what you're talking about that, but we're going to have to get a little bit remedial here. So I know that you're, because of, because not all of us are, uh, at that depth of knowledge. So you're spending a lot of time learning about and investing in, uh, nfts which are non fungible tokens. Uh, let's start with the word fungible. Is it fungible or fundable?

Speaker 3: 18:23

I'd say fungible.

Speaker 2: 18:25

All right. So what does fungible mean?

Speaker 3: 18:28

So essentially when something is interchangeable with another identical item, then it's considered fungible. In economics, it's when a good or a commodity has individual units that are interchangeable. So for example, an ounce of gold is interchangeable for any other ants of gold. The U s dollar is interchangeable for any other U s dollar.

Speaker 2: 18:51

So non fungible tokens are non interchangeable tokens. Can you give us, give us some example to help understand what are nfts

Speaker 3: 19:03

so non, yeah, so nfts or non fungible tokens, um, unlike an ICO token or bitcoin or ethereum, each NFT non fungible token is entirely unique from one another. So on the ethereum blockchain, uh, some of you might recognize an NFT as an ERC seven 21 token. Um, and most tokens are considered an ERC 20 token, which is generally used for ICO projects. Um, because it's fungible. The main difference between ERC 20 and ERC seven 21 is the fungibility aspect. Um, but yeah, so the, the easier way of looking at them is just calling them nfts. You don't have to remember the ERC stuff that it gets. We'll sit with[inaudible]

Speaker 2: 20:00

useful, uh, within blockchain and in the broader world as well as how are they useful to you.

Speaker 3: 20:07

So they're very useful in both the, the digital world and in the real world. So in the digital world, online on the Internet, you may have heard of something like Crypto kitties for example. Um, crypto Kitty's is a decentralized application, a dap for short that functions as a collectible. So essentially you can buy a crypto kitty with some of the theory of them. You can breed quote unquote, breed those crypto kitties like in a Pokemon game and you can get a unique version return. Um, all these crypto kitties on dap are then generally bought sold traded auctions, um, on online marketplace like open, see, um, they have a perceived value to those that play around on the Crypto kitties decentralized application, which stems from the fact that they are an fts. Each crypto kitty is non fungible and is completely unique, um, individually unique in every way. So here's a good example. So recently there was a dap called Formula One delta time, uh, based on the Real Formula One Grand Prix in Europe. Um, they auctioned off a formula one car in the form of an NFT that can be used in a future racing video game that they might build at some point. The Formula One NFT sold for 416, a Theorem, which was a little over 110,000 at the time, about a month ago. Um, that, so that's an example of an fts in the digital world, in the real world. And FTEs can be used in many different ways as well. They can represent a title deed for a car or property. They can represent a product. Louie, uh, Louis Vuitton, for example, is launching their own private blockchain, which is an offshoot of etherium to help track their products and verify their authenticity. Um, they plan on doing this by registering an NFT for each luxury good that they produce. So in the resale market and in the supply chain, this is incredibly invaluable to any major retailer. Um, so that's an example of how nfts can be used in the real world.

Speaker 2: 22:37

So let me ask[inaudible]. So for a Louis Vuitton wallets to say, have a Louis Vuitton wallet is going to be digitally trackable for its authenticity. So there's something on the physical item that correlates with a something digital.

Speaker 3: 22:55

Yes. So from what they have revealed so far with, um, I forget, I forget what it's called, uh, with they're calling their private blockchain, but, um, from what they've revealed, that's essentially how it'll, it'll work. So your wallet has a number and it's individually unique from any other believe, Louis Vuitton wallets. And to prevent it from being, um, copied from someone making replicas. Um, if someone wanted to resell it, um, if you wanted to track it in the supply chain, if you wanted to verify that w that it's actually Louis Vuitton, uh, there's a lot of benefits to using NFT because you can go online and you can instantly verify that your Louis Vuitton is real, that it is. So there are some benefits to that as well with a products,

Speaker 2: 23:49

right. Well, I know in the art world right now, there is, there's a lot of calling out of the fakes. And, uh, last year we had a company come and pitch to us at the, uh, at the Budapest event. And, uh, they are doing something very similar for, for, for the world of art so that everything can be verified, uh, which I think is significant. So how do you make money in this? Now, Brandon?

Speaker 3: 24:18

Uh, for me and most people, it's an investment opportunity. So whether the NFT represents a digital asset or a real world asset, they are, again, each entirely unique and have high speculative value. So there's uh, there's another decentralized application called Crypto voxels that I spend a lot of time investing in as well. Um, crypto voxels is a virtual world that you can walk around in and interact with people, um, and you can buy virtual real estate called parcels and those parcels are represented by nfts. So if I thought that virtual reality is going to be a big, huge technological developments, maybe because of what Facebook is doing to promote the space with Oculus, um, and that crypto voxels in the future might attract a lot of visitors for those in, in virtual reality, then owning an NFT parcel on that platform could present investment opportunity that make sense for advertising purposes in end game items and retail to entertainments. Uh, the list goes on and on. So you never know what might be the next Formula One NFT or the next popular application like crypto cuties or Crypto voxels. Um, and the same thing in the real world. It's a bit early to kind of speculate, um, for Real, real world assets. But at some point I'll be able to invest in a property on the other side of the world with the click of a button, um, or whether it's real estate or gold or, and I'll be able to verify that. So NFT is not only, um, our great technological advancement in blockchain, but they're also very interesting investment vehicles as well that are fun to explore sometimes.

Speaker 2: 26:26

Can you give me an example of one that you've bought recently and why you bought it and where you think it might go?

Speaker 3: 26:32

So I've been buying a lot of, uh, like I mentioned the parcels on Crypto voxels because the, um, I have pretty strong feeling that virtual reality will continue growing at the rate that it is and that it will become a staple of our modern lives and people that are in the virtual world that are online that play video games are going to want a virtual place to go to. So I think virtual real estate is a good investment to look at. Um, so I'll, I'll look at buying nfts for applications like Crypto voxels or decentral lands, um, in metal versus metal world, stuff like that. Um, primarily that's what I've been looking at. And then you can look at ens domains, um, like dot ether domains where you can send addresses. There's a lot of people that are buying those up as well. Um, those are pretty popular to invest in. Um, you can invest in Crypto kitties, you can invest in all kinds of random collectibles. Um, the other thing I like to look at for nfts, like you mentioned earlier, art art is actually been growing like crazy on the blockchain, uh, for obvious reasons because you can verify your ownership and no one can copy it and claim ownership. Um, there's a lot of benefits to that. So there's a lot of NFT arts that might be good investment as well, depending on who the artist is. So that's another good thing to look at.

Speaker 2: 28:09

[inaudible] wow, very cool. Very cool. Good education. Uh, the wonderful, uh, you're also very active with staking and lending and Crypto, so,

Speaker 3: 28:23

okay. So I'll again, try not to get too nerdy.

Speaker 2: 28:27

It's a, it's okay. It's okay. We're keeping this intentionally keeping it mixed so we get nerdy and less nerdy. I'll try and make it understandable. I'll ask for your favorite color later and then that'll really,

Speaker 3: 28:40

okay, cool. So, uh, staking is, um, pretty new and it's very early but staking is a lot like mining. Um, there are two common ways to verify transactions and to place those blocks of transactions on the blockchain. Um, so in a nutshell, kind of like I mentioned earlier, mining, which is proof of work uses computational power to solve a puzzle and then it competes with other computers from all over the world that are doing the exact same thing. And the computer that solves the puzzle the fastest gets to place a block of transactions on the blockchain, hence the name and earns a dividends and that piece of the blocker war and blah, blah, blah. Um, so stinking achieves the same goal but in a different way. So staking is where you voluntarily freeze or lock up your crypto in a, I'm like, you will eventually be able to do with Cardona or on a platform like you can do today with tron and depending on the quantity of the crypto that you freeze, you earn a dividends in return. So basically the largest bag holder during a certain period of time, it gets to sign off on a block of transactions that gets placed on the blockchain. These segments of time have all kinds of different names. Uh, for example, in the car Dano ecosystem is called an epic. Um, and if you are large largest bag holder in a specific period of time, you get the[inaudible] transaction, you get a dividend for it. It's very similar to mining except you don't need all the equipments. All you need is to actually own the, the Crypto, the asset itself. Do we need both mining and sticking? It's a good question. And a lot of people actually debate that so we may not need both. Mining uses a lot of energy. It's bad economically because it raises electricity prices. Um, it's bad for the environment staking is considered a massive improvement and could generally replace mining. Um, even a theorem is looking to migrate from mining to staking as a form of validation for its blockchain. Um, can mining get better? Can the technology get better? Can it use less energy? Can it be more efficient? Sure. Um, there's no guarantee that mining will disappear and mining has been around for a very long time. If you look at bitcoin that's been around for like 10 years, mining has been around with Bitcoin for 10 years, and if you mine bitcoin, it's still profitable depending on the numbers. Um, and that's due to a lot of factors, but it staking does prevent presents a better solution. So you'll probably see a lot of projects that eventually moved towards staking, uh, because it just offers more. Um, and you've referenced lending and staking. How, tell us about that. So lending is interesting when it comes to crypto. Um, it gives you more flex. Crypto lending gives you more flexibility and generally has less restraints. Um, so for example, one of the best platforms to borrow against your crypto is nexo. Um, I'll give you an example. So earlier this spring, Brock Pierce, who's a former child star for Disney and um, number of other things, he bought a one point$2 million house in Amsterdam by using his bitcoin as collateral on Nexo, which is pretty cool. What's awesome about Nexo is that you don't have a, you don't have a minimum payments. Um, so while interest does accrue each day, you can pay it back over any time period you want essentially. And there's no credit check process to go through or anything like that. As long as you have enough crypto as collateral, you can borrow against that crypto and that set at a certain ratio. And with that said, you probably don't want to borrow in a bear market and risk losing your collateral, collateralized Crypto, uh, which could be sold to pay back your loan. That's where a lot of people get kind of iffy and worried about crypto lending. Um, because they set a ratio and people worry that if I borrow against my bitcoin and bitcoin goes down, then my bitcoin might start getting sold to pay back the loan. So yeah, that's a risk that you run, but you might not want to borrow against your bitcoin in a bear market, um, because not as, that's a real risk. But if you,

Speaker 2: 33:43

right, people might want to be a little cautious about doing. So I would imagine that lenders would be kind of a bit cautious right now as well.

Speaker 3: 33:50

Right. Um, but as the market slowly progressed as upwards, it does, it is a better opportunity to try it out, um, while it's early. Um, and with that said, there are, I'm not attacks, I'm not offering tax advice, you know, considered such, um, this is Zoe.

Speaker 2: 34:12

I got, I gotcha. Gotcha.

Speaker 3: 34:14

With that said, there are tax benefits to using next zone. Um, and I'm sure if you talk to your accountant, you'll realize that if you have massive unrealized capital gains, for example in Bitcoin, you don't necessarily want to sell it right away because you may have a very, very large capital gains tax at the end of the day. But you can use something like next. So to borrow against your Bitcoin, take advantage of liquidity legally kicked the can down the road. Um, so there was also tax benefits to using next zone. It's an option people should consider exploring on their own as well.

Speaker 2: 34:50

Again, you're not giving tax advice, not at all. Please listeners, viewers, please refer to a kind of contact. Your uh, your, the, all right, well, hey, this has been absolutely phenomenal. Uh, Brandon, I think that we need to go one step further, uh, and let people know about block hash. So you started it off can with consulting, blockchain consulting and now is it primarily the podcast? Why don't you just give me an open,

Speaker 3: 35:20

open, give us an overview of that and we want to watch and listen to a block cash. So block hash started small. As an idea. Um, when you look at the landscape for the blockchain, that whole blockchain industry today, there's a lot of cool stuff going on, um, at a very high level and the average person has no idea how that works. They have no idea what's going on. Um, even I being involved in it every single day have a hard time understanding at all. So how is the average person ever supposed to use this stuff? There's a, what I've realized is that there's a massive gap in education between the technology, which is awesome, and the people that would like to use it that don't know how to use it. So with block Hash, um, I started it with the idea to find a way to promote education for individuals, for small businesses. Um, and especially for students that want to explore a possible career in blockchain, um, or go down that rabbit hole. And the demands for blockchain jobs have spiked as well. Um, I believe blockchain is the most in demand, even above tensorflow for like with AI, with Google and, um, it's, it's growing very quickly and the demand is there because there's not enough people that are coming out of college that understand crypto or blockchain and how it works. So the educational gap extends into colleges and high schools as well. And you can't necessarily blame any of them, but there's no education and there's not a lot of education being put out. So with block hash, I wanted to come up with different ways to provide education. Um, and one of those avenues was starting a podcast. Um, cause a lot of people learn better hands on whether it's visual or audio and sense. Audio is getting very, very popular and podcasts are growing quickly. I thought it'd be prudent to start a podcast focused around educating people on blockchain, um, and exploring the different things that are going on in the technology. And I've been doing that, um, religiously since the beginning of 2019 and that has sucked up most of my life than it's doing very well though. Um, and, um, but I've noticed that it is helped a lot of people and I get people thanking me every day, uh, for doing it and that they find it interesting and they tune in all the time. And even though the audience is still small but growing quickly, um, it's awesome seeing that it's helping other people and, um, find education around this stuff. And it also keeps me on top of my stuff as well and it keeps me focused and researching all the time. Um, as, as you might know, doing a podcast that keeps you engaged and locked in with different whatever your topic is. So. Exactly, exactly. Well, we will make sure

Speaker 2: 38:36

that the access to the podcast as well as the, uh, how to, how to buy the[inaudible] sequence a book are available on with your biome on the global investor podcast. Uh, I just have two more questions for you. You're still early in your career. I know that you initially put, uh, med school on hold. Um, what, what's, what's going to happen in the next few years for you? And then where do you also see yourself 30 to 50 years from now? And most of us are dead.

Speaker 3: 39:10

Okay.

Speaker 2: 39:10

No, maybe we won't be dead.

Speaker 3: 39:13

Well, you know, the life expectancy's going up every decade right now. So I mean, you'll probably live a very long time and then I'll live even longer and then my kids will live even longer. So you never know.

Speaker 2: 39:23

Yeah, exactly. Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 3: 39:27

Um, but over the next 30 to 50 years, it's a, that's a good question. So, um, I see myself forging away as a pioneer in the blockchain industry and looking for new opportunities as it continues to develop. Some of those will be investing and hopefully those investments continue to grow over time and to compounds. Um, and then hopefully block cash also continues to grow and the podcasts continues to grow. Um, that could be a big source of revenue one day could also have a much wider reach and it could help a lot of people get into blockchain. Um, and I'd love to see block hash continue to grow as a business that's focused on education to help students to help individuals better understand it, to help small businesses except crypto and get involved with it and integrate with it as more stuff comes out. Um, it's hard to predict where I want to be over the next 30, 50 years, but hopefully very successful.

Speaker 2: 40:35

I don't think there's a question about that. Wow. All right, well, hey Brandon, this has been wonderful. Thank you very much for your time and, uh, I will, we'll sign off for now. So, uh, all the best.

Speaker 3: 40:48

Awesome. Thank you for having me on. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 40:50

You're welcome. Absolutely. Brandon is a great example of an Oberst member. Uh, we're diverse in age and Brandon is definitely at the younger end of the spectrum. Uh, members range from, uh, Post University actually up to folks in their sixties and seventies with a lot of folks in between. Um, we're definitely unique, a unique group. A significant element of obras is a contribution that our members make to the quality, uh, of our, of our group. Um, Brandon's really a good example of this. Uh, we use slack for our communication platform, uh, for members to interact with each other. And so Brandon, since we started a a car check slack channel called Crypto, everything, Brandon has been a key contributor to that, uh, for the last year and a half. And uh, uh, the s slack channels like Crypto, everything are a way that our members communicate as well as educate each other. Uh, I've certainly learned a significantly from that. So if you are an active and accredited investor, I strongly recommend that you consider obras. It's obras invest.com and there are a couple of recommendations I would make to you. One is go over to Oberst, invest.com. Learn about our group. Uh, we are welcoming new members at this time. Second, we're getting close to the, uh, Panama Global Investors Summit. We do some, it's around the world. And uh, from July 15th to the 20th of 2019, we will be in Panama City, Panama at the five star led Meridian hotel. And uh, consider coming to the event. If you go to a obras, invest.com/panama 2019 you can learn about the event and purchase a ticket. Uh, thank you very much for joining us this week. Have a great time and hopefully see you in Panama.

Speaker 1: 42:57

[inaudible].