Speaker 1: 0:00

Most people don't understand the cloud. If you're really interested in blockchain, to start read the Bitcoin Standard by Safety the Moose.

Speaker 2: 0:14

Welcome to Sell Me this Podcast where we break down sales strategies and cutting-edge business trends. Today, we are diving into the world of blockchain, bitcoin and the future of money with Kalea, a blockchain advocate and entrepreneur with deep insights in how technology is reshaping finance and industry. We'll explore the history of money, real world applications of Bitcoin and how businesses can navigate the evolving landscape of decentralized finance. If you've ever wondered about blockchain's impact beyond the hype, this episode is packed with insights you won't want to miss. Let's get into it. Kalea, welcome to the show. We're so excited to have you here today. I'm going to dive right into things and I am super curious. What led you to where you are today and what led you into the wonderful world of blockchain?

Speaker 1: 1:02

Oh goodness, Big question to start off with. That is a big question Like how much backstory are we looking for here?

Speaker 2: 1:07

From the day you were born no, I could give that backstory. How much time do we have?

Speaker 1: 1:14

Pretty much that would be the question. It's like I could probably condense it into like seven minutes.

Speaker 2: 1:20

Okay.

Speaker 1: 1:20

The whole backstory. I don't know.

Speaker 2: 1:22

Well, were you always kind of attracted to the technology side of things Like how did you?

Speaker 1: 1:26

So you know, I think I was always attracted to business and I was raised in a very entrepreneurial family. So, like to give a quick backstory, I guess my father actually, when my mom was pregnant with my sister my older sister he used to be in construction he was a musician before that and he was trying to figure out, like how can I take care of my family? He wanted to be a Fortune 500 executive but didn't want to go back to school because he had grade 10 and didn't want to work his way up a corporate ladder. So he did this kind of whole chart of like what could he do and he figured out that every Fortune 500 executive had one thing in common and they were all ground transportation. So they'd fly into a city, they would usually hire a concierge service to like take them to meetings, take them to the hotels.

Speaker 1: 2:03

So he went to the bank, got a loan, bought a limousine, started putting ads out and then he really attracted like he specifically wanted to get access to like these big executives and he'd ask them questions and they found him really personable. He ended up raising $2 million after like just learning, and he grew to a fleet of like 13 of them. And so by the time I was three, he had raised this money and he had been growing the business, and this was before they had like executive forms. So my dad sat me down one day and he's like I'm just going to talk to you about everything. You're probably not going to understand anything I have to say, but by the time you're 21, I want to write a business plan with you and we're going to go into business together. So his whole goal in life was to literally teach me how to be an entrepreneur.

Speaker 2: 2:41

That's amazing and I feel like that's such a skill that people you know everyone focuses on the math and the science and all this academia. And then you get out of school and all of a sudden you're like, okay, what do I do next? Kind of what path do I follow? The idea to learn how money works, the idea of how to learn how people connect and work and get motivated I feel like those would set you on a way different trajectory and make a way more exciting set of experiences. It definitely did, actually.

Speaker 1: 3:06

Like my dad believed that. I think when I was five he ended up putting me into etiquette training.

Speaker 1: 3:12

He was like well, if you're going to be a young woman in business, you need to be a lady, because if you have ladylike skills, you get access Like there's no door that'll be closed to you, right. And so I was in that all the way till I was 16. And then, by the time I was eight, he would bring like financial planners to the table and I would learn what he was learning, which I really appreciate, and he would always talk to me about anything and everything. He talked about politics, he talked about economics, he talked about how the world worked, and a big one for both my parents was emotional intelligence, I think. Before it was a commonplace thing, and so by the time I think I was 11, I had my first weekend workshop with a guy named Jim Rohn.

Speaker 2: 3:45

And for those of you who might know who he is.

Speaker 1: 3:47

My dad and Tony Robbins were actually in the same classes together.

Speaker 2: 3:50

My mom and dad both knew.

Speaker 1: 3:51

Tony Robbins and my dad ended up selling his concierge service and becoming one of the top business coaches globally. He used to do like 149 trips around the world a year and he would teach TELUS, Military, IBM, all of these major companies about time management and corporate culture and business writing for results. He had all these different things so he basically was like his little assistant. I got to learn all about business. I got to travel around the world. I got to learn from people like Eric Trump and.

Speaker 1: 4:17

George Ross and Jay Abrams and Nito Kabane and all these really amazing people. My parents never focused on academics Like I literally failed high school in grade 12.

Speaker 1: 4:27

I had to go back and take it just so I could pass, and we never cared about higher learning. But by the time I was 20, I was actually about to be a mom and my dad's like, all right, it's time for us to go into business together. And that's literally what got us into tech. I never really thought of tech before that. My dad had taught me everything about branding and marketing and businesses and business plans and raising funding and all these other kinds of things, but tech wasn't quite there. But my dad believed that because we were going to have another generation and Al Gore was really talking about climate change and it was becoming a hot topic, he's like how can we develop out something that will actually help the next generation? So I spent 17 years of my life helping to support and design forced air combustion, heating, tech for oil and gas and aviation and construction recycling industry. So I was really into clean tech and it's funny, that's actually what got me into crypto.

Speaker 2: 5:14

And so it was really just kind of identifying that need in the market, kind of having the foresight to say, hey, here's some of the things that are coming down the road and here's some of the things that are really going to make an impact, creating the business around that. How did you learn a lot Like I feel like that's you know a mouthful to say in itself, and then to be able to kind of become specialized in that to build a business around it? What was that jumping off point like?

Speaker 1: 5:38

Well, this is probably going to sound a little crazy to say, but I remember when, like, the dot comcom bubble was blowing up right Because my dad talked to me about a lot of different things, and I just remember feeling like I missed the chance of a lifetime, like I was a teenager. You know, I had a couple hundred bucks but I didn't, I couldn't get a stock market account and stuff like that and I was like God, I just I missed this insane opportunity.

Speaker 1: 5:59

I wonder if another chance like this will come in my lifetime. I remember being like 18 in the housing market in Calgary and I was like God, I wish I had enough money like 200 grand for a house. And so when I learned about Bitcoin, I read the white paper and I was like, oh my God, this is, this is my chance of a lifetime like this. This is the next big thing and I think a lot of it was. I was so passionate about understanding economics and that was like learning from my dad about the government and money and how the money works. I understood how broken our monetary system was even at a young age and I was like this really does fix it. And I just saw that long term opportunity.

Speaker 2: 6:34

And so is most of your kind of passion around the Bitcoin side of things, around that kind of financial engine of the application of that technology, or is it? Is it broader than that?

Speaker 1: 6:43

So actually what really tipped me into Bitcoin is like designing forced air combustion systems and at the time I was actually commercializing a product line with a company called Imaginea. So Suzanne West was an incredible mentor to me. She talked a lot about her idea for an organization called the Alberta Blockchain Consortium. She really thought that there was a lot of value in how the technology could impact the energy sector and how we could create net zero. And those conversations and being in the clean tech space, I was like I wasn't focused on the virtue signaling of clean tech, like I think that it's been taken to a bit of an extreme level. I focused on we should be sustainable, but this should actually benefit businesses Like you need to find a way to incorporate a technology that's actually going to increase their bottom line. So our technology was focused on increasing production and minimizing downtime and being able to reduce their carbon footprint by using less fuel and transferring heat more efficiently. So she loved the tech. She gave us our first contract, got us our start and unfortunately, she passed away right as we were commercializing and I was asked by someone in industry like hey, I know you're really passionate about like blockchain. I was learning about it. I was hosting free classes for people, mostly economics, like the history of money and like why Bitcoin is digital gold, and I would literally buy lunch and like, provide lunch and learns for free. Like just come learn about your money system. And he's like I really think you could do something and keep your legacy going. So I self-funded it and built, you know, the Alberta Blockchain Consortium and converted into the Canadian Blockchain Consortium.

Speaker 1: 8:08

But I was really passionate about the energy and Bitcoin intersection and it was through Bitcoin mining because I saw a massive opportunity for Alberta because right now, well, I guess for the last 20 years, I've never heard of our ability to get our pipelines.

Speaker 1: 8:21

We have not been selling our energy to the other side of Canada. We've been importing Saudi oil. We can't seem to get our product off Tidewater. We're landlocked with our resources and it's like we could sell our energy on the internet. We could literally attract these companies because they're going to grow, to scale. It's going to be a big thing and I was like we could truly just completely find a whole new market to sell our energy, and so that's part of a big focus is actually Bitcoin mining through our data centers, through the consortium, and the financial side has always been incredibly important to me as well, but it's that economics engine and I focus on Bitcoin outside of other cryptocurrencies, like a lot of people are like Ripple, ethereum, all these other ones, but none of them were designed to be sound money, right Payment instruments projects, but Bitcoin was actually designed and fits all the mechanisms of being money.

Speaker 2: 9:10

Well, and I feel like a lot of people have this misconception around Bitcoin that it's solely cryptocurrencies. It's the ups and downs and this kind of roller coaster that I think a lot of people have been on around some of these different coins. People have been on around some of these different coins but, like if you were to describe in kind of the simplest terms, you know, the technology, the foundation, maybe some of the stuff that you taught in those initial classes, kind of how would you advise our listeners? Kind of what is Bitcoin, what is blockchain? Like, what are the fundamentals that people need to understand here?

Speaker 1: 9:39

All right. So I like to describe it that when you're first kind of looking into Bitcoin, I know crypto can be kind of overwhelming. There's like 20,000 tokens out there and all these projects and people hear terms like NFTs and DAOs, and like it.

Speaker 1: 9:53

Just it gets very like overwhelming, Like where do you start? And so I kind of like to bring it back to a few key pieces so people actually understand Bitcoin. And the first one is the security. So people can understand this form of money. We've never had a monetary system globally through the history of money, from all my studies, that actually had known scarcity, right.

Speaker 1: 10:13

So when you think back and you look into the history, the gold standard lasted for over 5,000 years, and the reason why it did was because it was scarce. Right. So it took a lot of time, energy and resources to be able to mine that gold. It could be a store of value, right. So the money, the monetary system at that point was more stable. So people trusted that. You know, 10 years from now, their money would still hold a similar value. So they were more interested in saving. They had what's called time preference. It could be a unit of account. So, back in the day of barter and trade, if I had a cow and you had chickens the only value there is I could trade milk for eggs. But if you want part of my cow and I want part of your chicken, right, how many chickens would you have to give me to be valuable enough for me to trade you my cow. So being able to have that medium of exchange that could actually support the barter and trade system, that was huge and that started coming into place when we saw metal money and you know, I think it was like 800 BC or something like that when we first started seeing instances of that. So the way that Bitcoin came about was definitely in response to the economic crisis, but they wanted to find a way that you could have a scarce asset, similar to gold, where it took a lot of time, energy and resources to get access to, could act as a store of value and could act as a unit of account and a medium of exchange, so acting as all the principles of money.

Speaker 1: 11:28

The cool thing about the security of Bitcoin, what I like to tell people is like this is like thousands of years of history in the making to culminate into like the most perfect form of money. So if you look at encryption, the first time we would have seen instances of encryption would have been in an Egyptian pharaoh tomb in like 1900 BC. It was the first time the hieroglyphs were like kind of moderately changed and people were like, oh, I wonder why they did that and they realized it was a bit of a cipher. Now, fast track, you would have. Maybe as women or men you would have seen movies in like the medieval times where they had like this, like cipher, and they had like a book and they were trying to decipher the code of what kings and queens were saying. And then all of a sudden you move it into World War I. The very first time we digitized encryption was through the Enigma machine.

Speaker 1: 12:08

And it was the reason we won that war and it's actually interesting. The US government put cryptography on the munitions list back then. So it was literally an act of terror to digitize it and sell it outside of the United States of America. And it wasn't until a gentleman named Phil Zimmerman in the 1950s. So once we started seeing the internet I think it was like 1957 or something and you would have seen, I think it was like three computers two in California, one in Nevada, or two in Nevada, one in California that sent their first signals and he's like OK, if we're going this digital, we need to be able to have a form of protection in the new digital economy. So he, the government, did not want that. They did not want to allow it because they had a software. I think it was like IBM had DES data encryption software and it was like 56-bit. It was a 20-year battle that made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where Phil Zimmerman finally won and Bill Clinton in the year 2000 took cryptography off the US munitions list.

Speaker 1: 13:04

But even then the NSA didn't want to allow for people. Just because it was an act of terror didn't mean they still want to allow for a higher bit of encryption. In my mind it's mostly. They probably had a backdoor and anyone using it they could kind of see what they were up to. So there was a global hackathon and it took two or three years for them to actually hack the NSA in less than 24 hours, and only after that. So by 2002 or 2003, the NSA was like fine, and by 2008, when Bitcoin came out, it utilized SHA-256, which, and by 2008, when Bitcoin came out, it utilized SHA-256, which is the highest level of military grade encryption that you can get. It is so secure. Bitcoin's blockchain can never be hacked. It has never been hacked. So just understanding the history of, like the technology leading up to like one component of Bitcoin Right, and then follow the history of economics and money, like if you understand what's happening with your monetary system today, in Canada alone, we've increased our monetary supply by 200 times since COVID.

Speaker 1: 13:55

That's an insane amount of money to be introduced. People are wondering like oh, rates of inflation, 5%, 7%, no, no, no, no, no. It is a massive introduction and the reason being is our government at any point can introduce more money. They believe in what we call Keynesian economics. So an increase in your monetary supply and spend theory the more money you introduce, the more you stimulate the economy. In every economy globally, throughout history, whenever they've had easy money, you've had an economic collapse. So, if history rings true, you're looking at a global financial system that is on the brink of collapse, and every country in the world, during COVID, dramatically expanded the amount of money that they had available to them. At one point, the Bank of Canada was releasing $3 billion of access liquidity per week.

Speaker 2: 14:40

From an economic standpoint, that's terrifying. That is terrifying when you think of and a lot of the economics right now and you sound like you know a bajillion times more about this than I do but is predicated on growth, and the growth is sounds like it's very artificial as well when you start injecting all of this free cash.

Speaker 1: 14:56

Well, I think people think about money actually being printed, right? So they think, oh well, our money is backed by something. It's our currency actually is backed and it's like well, our currency at one point was backed by gold. So every single country in the world the British pound, everything else was actually backed by a denomination of gold. And it wasn't until World War I that we actually took our monetary system off of gold.

Speaker 1: 15:17

So you could only spend the amount of cash or government could only print as much cash as they had as gold reserves. So you used to be able to actually take your money, go to the bank and exchange it for physical gold. Well, Teddy Roosevelt was the first one that removed that, and it was actually from the formation of the Federal Reserve, right. So the Federal Reserve is a private entity that basically got the license to be able to print money and became the central bank on behalf of governments. So governments actually borrow money off of central banks and then introduce that into the economy, and then the individual citizens are the ones that are responsible to pay the interest on the money that the governments have borrowed. So when you're born, you're birth certificate, you're a legal entity and you're legally responsible to pay a portion of the national debt, and the fact that we don't have control or say in how much debt the government actually takes on, that's a scary thing as well.

Speaker 1: 16:04

So the reason why Bitcoin is so incredible is it's anti-inflationary. So there's a fixed supply. You can never create more Supply, and demand theory basically explains the more demand you have for a particular item with a limited supply scarcity, Like Van Gogh right here. Why is Van Gogh so valuable?

Speaker 2: 16:22

He's dead.

Speaker 1: 16:23

There's only so many. He can't make more. You can't replicate it Like you can make a print, but you can't. Van Gogh is not here to make more of them, so that level of scarcity only increases that value. You need money that's going to be able to increase in value long term and, even though there's volatility in Bitcoin, it still went from 2009 being worth absolutely nothing to now being worth close to $100,000 US today. That's only 16 years later. This is a top performing asset globally. That's existed over the last two decades right. So, as volatile as it is, it's still a safer bet because it's only increased in value, where your Canadian dollar and American dollar have decreased in value due to debasement by over 90% in 50 years. What could you buy in the 1960s 70s, compared to what you can buy today? 20 bucks used to get you something a grocery cart back in the 50s.

Speaker 2: 17:10

Today $100 gets you a bag, maybe right.

Speaker 1: 17:13

If anyone wants to really understand debasement over the last four years of our currency, like the 200 times input. Look at the housing market. My house could have sold for $450,000 in 2019, 2020. I could sell it for $800,000 five years later. That's not an increase in value in my home, that's an increase in cost and that's a direct result of the amount of money that's been attributed into the economy. So when I talk to people about Bitcoin and talk about the fact that it's a hedge against inflation, the wealthiest families in the world are looking at this because they understand governments have no checks and balances to stop the rates of inflation. They believe it's actually a good thing. They believe Our housing markets are through the roof. We have more poverty. We have more people on food banks. We have less value to our Canadian dollar. Look what's happening to the Canadian versus American. That's what happens when you just spend recklessly and leave the citizens to be able to pick up the pieces of that.

Speaker 2: 18:27

That is a terrifying story you've shared here, when you think about practically the ability to be able to kind of move forward right, and so I completely understand what you're saying around the kind of stranglehold state of what happens when you have kind of finite resources around the monetary policy. But how do you make that shift right, how do you move from A to B and I realize that we could probably have a whole episode around. You know, people probably dedicate their entire careers to talking about this shift itself. Is that something that happens, you see, within our lifetimes, within the next five to 10 years? What's your thought in terms of where this is going and how blockchain and Bitcoin kind of fall into more of a public domain?

Speaker 1: 19:09

Well, I would say that we are currently on like a bit of a precipice. So countries around the world that are realizing that holding the US dollar as a reserve currency while it's being debased isn't stable Holding fiat currency itself isn't really stable. You're seeing countries, like you know, coming together for like bricks. They want to back their money by gold, by resources in their ground, by actual, tangible things that can maintain value long term. One of the things I find really interesting is and controversial is the fact that while Gaddafi was considered you know well, he had a lot of pieces that he was considered negatively from a global perspective. One of the reasons why he ended up receiving that particular reputation was he was actually going to get it. He was kicking the banks, the central banks, out of his land and he was actually going to back his dollar by the gold in the ground and it wasn't and he was like the citizens would have been exponentially wealthy. It would have been one of the wealthiest currencies in the world because they had the most gold in that particular jurisdiction.

Speaker 1: 20:07

Every single country in the world that's tried to remove the central banks has all ended up with a leader that's gotten removed because of the fact that they didn't want to comply with that particular system anymore. So our Canadian government complies very closely with the central banks and the Bank of Canada and our fiat currency. But we're starting to see countries go not interested anymore. So the fact that El Salvador was the first country in the world to legalize it is Bitcoin is legal tender. That was huge. 60% of their citizens were unbanked at that time. Now 100% of their citizens can now interact with the digital currency system, provided they have a phone and internet Right, which I know that's. That's still an issue in a third world country that everyone might not be able to access it, but to those who can, they can now participate in a way they weren't able to before. You're having countries in Africa now looking at this. A lot of Latin American countries are looking at this. You're even looking at America saying we want a strategic Bitcoin reserve right. How much of this monetary system can we stack? So I don't know if it's going to happen directly in my lifetime, but I do believe that we will see bitcoin as a global reserve currency.

Speaker 1: 21:13

It might not make as much sense, just due to transaction times and confirmations, for it to be like a transactional based currency, but definitely a long-term store of value, and with the developments that continue to happen on the bitcoin network, it truly could be a transactional based currency.

Speaker 1: 21:28

And I and to the people who don't agree with me on that one it's like well, if you look at what you're currently using Visa and MasterCard, it takes 30 days to settle a transaction on Visa and MasterCard right, and that's a long settlement time for a company to be able to receive their funds, and in between that time, you can end up with disputes and all kinds of fraudulent transactions, where with Bitcoin, the settlement can be less than 24 hours, sometimes within seconds. It's an irreversible transaction and very rare and unlikely to be a fraudulent transaction, especially if you're purchasing something, so it doesn't like. It's still a lot quicker than Visa or MasterCard. It's a lot more secure and you have access to that liquidity instantaneously and you're not paying, you know, a 3 to 1.2 to 3 percent fee, depending on the credit card that you're using.

Speaker 2: 22:16

Right, and I think one of the fascinating topics around this is the idea of trust as well.

Speaker 2: 22:18

And a lot of these institutions that have really built their whole business around applying trust. When you think about the kind of underlying technology behind it, how do you see businesses starting to adopt or tackle some of these challenges around kind of the actual blockchain technology rather than the crypto side of things? Do you see that being kind of a boon to speed up some of the adoption on the currency side of things? Or do you see them kind of as separate conversations around people adopting blockchain technologies in their businesses for certain functions and then the actual financial side as a completely different conversation, or do those kind of fit together nicely?

Speaker 1: 22:51

So to me, I kind of separate the space in three different categories. Like, I see the energy component, so data centers, bitcoin mining, what can happen there, and then I see the financial services side, and then there's the enterprise side. Right, people like that want smart contracts and other things like that. But a lot of the people on the enterprise side still kind of like use token economics, right. So it's like oh, but use my token and interact within this particular ecosystem, blah, blah, blah, blah blah and you're going to make all this money by doing it. And it's arbitrage and it's just like it's a lot of nonsense, it's a lot of noise.

Speaker 1: 23:20

I think that the fact that you know Bitcoin itself is a trustless system. So right now, you trust the banks, you go and you trust that the bank is going to protect and hold those digital ones and zeros that you have, right, and if a lot of people knew that banks had maybe 5% of the cash in reserve. So when you go and you put in your $100, 95 times what you put in can get loaned out and they make money off of that. But the fact that they only hold 5% of their money in reserve at any given time, every bank in Canada is insolvent they're effectively bankrupt and the Bank of Canada. All they have to do is continue to print money and give it to them to help back their liquidity and they get to maintain trust and solvency.

Speaker 1: 24:01

I think that people are starting to wake up and they want to operate in a system where there's transparency. You can't spend more than what you have available in your Bitcoin account or your Ripple account or your Ethereum account, like a lot of these have mechanisms that you can't. It doesn't act like a credit card, right, and you can't really leverage against it in that kind of sense. So there's more transparency. You can see the transaction record of absolutely every Bitcoin transaction that's ever happened in history and you can track that transaction. Thousands of hops. I can transfer a wire. I can track a wire transfer, maybe three right, so you have way more visibility, way more transparency and way more trust, because it's a trustless system In terms of businesses. There's value to businesses utilizing blockchain from an enterprise side, but it's limited in terms of what it's capable of Like. If you're a small restaurant owner, there's absolutely zero reason for you to adopt a blockchain Like. If you want better record keeping, if you're currently using, you know, pen and paper go to a Google Drive.

Speaker 1: 25:03

I mean realistically, just like upgrade your software systems and there's brilliant things happening in AI and IoT and other technologies to be utilized. But where blockchain technology itself has value is when you're looking at, multiple parties need to agree to the same set of facts. So, like supply chain, for example, one of the examples was like Japan and Walmart. In Japan they did a tracking for I think it was like spirulina and a few other kind of like leafy greens. So they tracked it all the way from seed to the store and it was able to reduce their food recall times down from like maybe six days to a few seconds, because they were able to figure out where it was contaminated, what packages it went into, what store it was distributed to. But every single part along that supply chain was utilizing the same database, right Certain aspects they were able to see, so they had complete line of sight.

Speaker 1: 25:54

Right now, your supply chain can get broken up between I don't know 10 or 15 different companies prior to it actually getting to a store, which is why food recalls can take so long. They're having to go back through each individual company's records to figure that out. So it's not great for a singular business, but again, if you're a company the size of Walmart, you can incentivize that. If you want to supply to us, you have to use this database for X, Y and Z, and that can be really helpful. But for more of a solo standalone business that doesn't have a lot of supply chain feeding into it, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to pay to upgrade your database just so that you can buzzword that around. If you're an entrepreneur looking to raise funding and you're using terms like oh, we're going to do a token we're going to do an NFT.

Speaker 1: 26:34

We're going to get into a DAO. Actually, long term, is going to negatively impact your corporate reputation because a lot of these things are scams or fraudulent and people look at this like a great get rich quick scheme. This industry is absolutely not a get rich quick scheme. Like more people lose their money trying to participate, thinking that they're going to be able to do that, then you know there's definitely been millionaires and billionaires brought out of it, but the billionaires in Bitcoin are the ones that bought it in 2009 or mined it and still hold it today.

Speaker 2: 27:06

They're in it for the long haul. They're kind of playing the long game there.

Speaker 1: 27:09

It's a long game industry. It's not a quick turnaround.

Speaker 2: 27:11

And I feel like the same challenge is happening in AI as well right now, where there's so many people that have added, like the dot AI, onto the end of their business.

Speaker 1: 27:19

I roll my eyes at that.

Speaker 2: 27:20

yes, I was talking to a CEO of Energy and they actually are like they're leveraging AI technology and they've taken AI off of all of their marketing materials, just because they find that it actually differentiates them to not be involved in kind of the buzzword salad that everyone else is taking a part in. The same thing's happening in blockchain, which is why I'm so curious about some of these questions, because I feel like business owners and business leaders technology leaders are being inundated with these questions around. You know why haven't they implemented some of these things? Or what's their plan to address blockchain? And there's so much noise around it as well. But this is super practical information. So, if I'm a CIO of a midsize energy company right now, is there steps I should be taking? Is there things I should be exploring, like? What's your advice for people to get started? Because I feel like, with the significance of the topic, sometimes getting started is the hardest part.

Speaker 1: 28:16

Well, I would say like so if you're a midsize energy company, so let's just say that right now you're flaring natural gas and your goal is you have a bit of a low production site. You'd like to turn into a high production site, but due to the cost of flaring and carbon carbon tax and all these other kind of things, you're actually better limiting the amount of production that you do. To offset what you, you're actually probably better off to stick a generator on your site, throw a couple megawatts worth of Bitcoin miners on there, diversify your revenue stream and they'll absorb all that natural gas so you can become more high production and you can get access to the things that you're looking for, such as the condensate and things like that. That's one aspect that would increase your revenue stream. That could bring you into a higher yield of production. And then, if you're looking at more of the corporate side I mean, there are ways to execute smart contracts there. There's also lots of technology. Like, I don't believe in a one stop shop. I don't go oh Bitcoin or blockchain.

Speaker 1: 29:22

It's the only thing you can use. It's like there's definitely interesting technologies like in AI, like I really appreciate that chat GPT for a lot of things.

Speaker 1: 29:30

It's just like wow, I don't need to hire a. There's amazing advancements in IoT and blockchain and if you look at it from a holistic perspective, it's like you have to understand what is your end goal. Are you trying to create more efficiency? Are you trying to reduce your workforce? Are you trying like, what are you trying to do? And when you understand what your goal of adopting a new technology is, that's the place that you want to start and try and figure out what technology could actually suit that need.

Speaker 1: 29:58

Versus how do I adopt blockchain? You probably don't need it, like if you're a business and you're looking at blockchain like, unless you're looking at like you're a retail business and you're trying to figure out, hey, how can I accept crypto transactions to offset what I'm paying for Visa and MasterCard? And it's quicker and it confirms easier and I'd like to be able to you know, maybe attract a new customer base because they're interested in spending their crypto. That's an interesting conversation. If you're an energy company, again, you're looking at getting access to Bitcoin mining. That's a conversation.

Speaker 1: 30:27

If you're an enterprise company and you're in supply chain and you're trying to just have better line of sight proving the authenticity of certain items, you know, maybe a blockchain is suitable for you in that regard, but again, you need to get buy-in from all the different parties that you're trying to get those similar facts to you, because bad data in bad data out. Iot captures the technology in my mind, because you want the sensors. You're trying to capture all this information, but AI helps you scrub, clean, tag the data to try and figure out what do you need to use with it. That data can go into a blockchain, because if you're looking for transparency and immutability, it's like this is the data that went in. You know people have access transparently to see where this has come from, the provenance of this item, things like that. That can be valuable, but you're utilizing holistically multiple different technologies to create the level of transparency that you want, right, not just going. We're using a blockchain because buzzword, bullshit, salad.

Speaker 2: 31:25

Yeah, we're trying to get a higher multiple in our company and we need to have these technologies integrated. Let's add blockchain here, AI here it is.

Speaker 1: 31:30

It's like I remember 20 years ago sitting at conferences where I was just like IoT, you know. And then I remember hearing AI way back in the day, like now it's getting way more traction, more popular, but then there was a whole AI versus machine learning what's the difference there? And like people still don't know how the fricking internet works. Like most people don't understand the cloud, the internet, web one, web two, like and now there's web three. There's so many buzzwords out there.

Speaker 1: 31:56

I would just tell people, like just don't get caught up in the hype of it. Like, if you're really interested in blockchain, to start read the Bitcoin Standard by Safety the Moose, start on that book, and that kind of gives you a really good understanding. Because if you understand money, if you understand Bitcoin, if you understand the technology there, you can use that lens and then look at the crypto space and go, ok, what actually makes sense? Do I want to invest in what could be money? Do I want to invest in a project? Do I want to invest in you know? Like, what exactly is it that you're looking for? Like, don't just take the whole space, it's overwhelming but like maybe kind of what's your key interest and go from there.

Speaker 2: 32:31

I'm so glad you said that because I feel like it's a tool in the tool belt right. It's not the end all be all it's a widget and people and it doesn't matter if you're buying a CRM, if you're buying a new computer. Like starting with the business case, starting with the challenge that you have and then figuring out the right tool is always the right approach, versus trying to figure out how you can fit this shiny thing into your business model.

Speaker 1: 32:55

And it's never going to work out that good. Like you're going to spend more money chasing shiny things and then you're probably going to end up with a bunch of consultants Like God when blockchain first came out the amount of consulting companies out there that were like, oh, you need a blockchain.

Speaker 1: 33:08

It's like they don't they probably really don't, and you're just pushing them and then you want them to push a token. And here's the scary part the amount of people that pushed and released tokens didn't realize the securities violations that they were doing. We have pre-existing laws and frameworks to protect consumers.

Speaker 2: 33:26

Yeah, and so, speaking of laws and frameworks, I think that leads us into some interesting territory as well. I know you do a lot of work on the advocacy side of things. What role do you see governments playing in this shift forward when it comes to blockchains and some of the crypto technologies? Because, even though you've said, it is quite disruptive potentially for the way that they've always done things as well, but I imagine government needs to play a pretty critical role in these next steps.

Speaker 1: 33:54

Well, how would I frame this? So an example to me on why government would be important. Um, let's just banking for a quick second. When cannabis was legalized by trudeau can't remember exactly what year that was and everybody and their dog started popping up a business, they couldn't get insurance and they couldn't get banking. That was really difficult things get access to you. Why? Because there was a perceived reputational risk around it. You know just everything was just like considered high risk around this particular side of the space.

Speaker 1: 34:22

And when the government came in and started selling it themselves in Ontario, it was like under like LCBO or whatever it is in Ontario. That's when the banks were like, oh, ok, well, we can't not bank the government. So I guess now we got to start giving access to banking to this industry and that was a pivotal and kind of critical shift because even though you can have an industry, that if you can't get access to the basic services a business needs, that becomes a failing point. So right now in Canada we're seeing difficulty accessing banking, we're seeing difficulty accessing insurance, we're seeing perceived reputational risk. We're seeing the media, you know, using this industry as like kind of clickbait. It's just like, oh, bitcoin died or oh, look at this scam or all these other kind of things, right?

Speaker 1: 35:06

So there's a lot of hurdles that the industry has to naturally overcome and, considering it's only what, 16 years into, you know its existence at this point. You know there's still a lot of questions like what's the value? What is it? So, when we advocate to government, it's like there needs to be a legislative position within the Canadian government that we're seeing being taken by governments in the United Kingdom, in the Middle East, in Singapore, in Asia, in the United States of America, in places like El Salvador and you know all these other countries around the world that are taking legislative positions. They help to guide the regulators Because right now, if the government doesn't step in, and it's just industries and regulators, regulators are going to look at how can this fit into pre-existing framework? Right? And when you have something new and disruptive, it usually takes regulation years to catch up to what's in existence, and by the time they catch up to what came out in 2015, it's now, you know obsolete potentially because technology advances quicker than legislation and regulation can come up with.

Speaker 1: 36:07

So we need to develop out a framework with the government from a legislative position that allows for consumers to be protected because that's the most critical thing while allowing for innovation to actually have an opportunity to thrive, and that's what we're, you know, really looking for within this government, and it's a very nonpartisan technology. It really doesn't matter if you are, you know, liberal, ndp, conservative. This technology it supports, you know, your finance industry, your tech sector, your energy sector, like the healthcare sector. There's really no area that this doesn't touch. It's not some weird standalone tech off in this obscure universe that, like, literally can impact everybody in their everyday lives. At some point, blockchain won't even be a conversation. Like encryption isn't a conversation with people anymore. You use it on your phone every single day. You have no idea how it works, you have no idea what the banks are really doing to secure it, but you're using encryption almost every aspect of your life right now, with your passwords and everything else. You're using the cloud and your Google and your Apple phone and all the other kind of stuff. Like you're literally utilizing this technology, maybe not understanding it, but blockchain will eventually be that.

Speaker 1: 37:14

But it takes time. It takes overcoming controversy. It takes time for people to accept what's new because new can be scary Right and understand. How does it benefit me? Like I'm a mom, I got two boys. Why would blockchain impact me? Well, from the Bitcoin perspective, it's definitely impacted my ability to take care of my children in a positive way. It's created a whole business opportunity for me to help people understand and advocate for this new and emerging technology. But, you know, does it matter to every single person? I think from a monetary position, if you're thinking about your Canadian dollar potentially collapsing, yeah, but from a business position, what's your business goal? Until you understand that, I wouldn't be able to help you understand how the technology could be integrated if you need it.

Speaker 2: 37:58

I love it. I'm so glad you said all that and I think that it's very easy to get swept up in some of the narrative around all the cool and shiny things, and I think that's incredibly practical advice when we look forward towards the future. So obviously there's some really interesting things that are going along with that conversation from AI? Quantum obviously is a big discussion. What do you see coming forward in the future for blockchain technologies and Bitcoin that we should be looking out for and kind of what are some of the bold predictions that you have?

Speaker 1: 38:29

Oh, I guess my bold prediction is that I do see it becoming a global reserve currency, like I do see that coming back into play, maybe not that they're pegging their dollar directly to it, but at the US dollar can be a reserve currency. I think Bitcoin can be as well. What do I see coming down the future? So, if I look at Canada specifically, I see Canada taking a stronger position into the data center side, especially in Bitcoin mining. Like a big announcement just got made yesterday, a company that we're working with, you know they're building, you know, potentially up to one gigawatt up in Alberta and Fox Creek, and that's one of many companies. Right now Alberta's entire energy grid potentially has utilizes like three gigs or a little bit more than that. So this is going to be a huge off grid site. And what's really exciting is, you know. So this is going to be a huge off-grid site and what's really exciting is, you know, as we grow as a civilization, as we increase our population, energy security is huge. The site's also going to be, you know, net zero. With carbon capture technology. It's groundbreaking To be able to create energy security. So if Albertans ended up in a position like they were in, you know, in last March I think it was February or March we had that rolling blackout situation. We could go to one Bitcoin miner and ask if we could get access to 150 megawatts of their gigawatt worth of power and supply this locally, versus having to go to another province and ask for that power right? So the more Bitcoin miners we can attract into the province, the more jobs that we can create, the more taxable revenue that we can create, the more we diversify our economy, the more we're able to sell our resources through fiber optic cables right, and the more we create energy security. So I see that being like a really powerful position that you know we can take, at least in Alberta and ideally in other parts of Canada that are having, you know, issues growing more access to their grid. These are off grid. It's not like on grid. This isn't going to impact, you know, anybody's electrical bill, right, this is something that could benefit. And then, from a financial position, you know, if Canada takes a strategic Bitcoin reserve, if we're able to, you know, moderate our spending, if we're looking at how to, you know, decrease our rates of inflation and actually create more stability into our currency. You know, decrease our rates of inflation and actually create more stability into our currency. I think, you know pegging our dollar to. You know things like Bitcoin, oil and gas, our water reserves, forestry things that we actually have in abundance that make us a very valuable economy, you know, I think that it's a really good, meaningful conversation for our country to have.

Speaker 1: 40:53

I think that eventually, this technology is just going to be utilized in our everyday lives and people aren't going to be truly aware of it. I do think it's going to disrupt our financial system as we know it. You know, exchanges can be the new banks and exchanges will actually have reserves, like there was one bank that was starting up called Custodia Bank and they'd have 102% of assets in reserve. If you look at banks today, in Canada, at least, they have 5%. In America, they have zero the amount of banks that are going insolvent because they don't hold anything in reserve. You know, I'd say that there is a lot of disruption that can come to our traditional banking industry, especially if you know PR actually pushes through open banking right, allowing for more competition in that. I think that the blockchain and the digital asset space has a lot to offer in terms of a competitive advantage to consumers. So, yeah, I know I see a lot of really interesting things coming down the pipe that people. It'll create a positive impact to people's everyday lives.

Speaker 2: 41:50

I love the optimistic nature of that. Kalaya, I feel like I could probably ask you questions for another two or three hours. This has been an incredibly insightful conversation. I've learned a ton. If people have questions for you, if they want to learn more about the work that you do, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Speaker 1: 42:09

Well, we have a website, canadablockchainca, so there's ways that they can access us there, send us an email and happy to have conversations. We do events a lot all across the country, so not just in Alberta, but do events in BC and Montreal and Ontario, even do events in the States sometimes. So signing up for a newsletter and keeping up to date on events that we have like we have one coming up on, like the future of decentralized finance, like what is this going to look like, how is this going to impact us, what does this mean from a cybersecurity perspective so we're always doing ways to educate people and help them understand better what's actually going on. And then we produce quarterly reports that people can keep up to date on for interesting things happening.

Speaker 2: 42:52

I love it If you have one final word of advice for business leaders, technology leaders, around blockchain and Bitcoin. What would that be?

Speaker 1: 43:02

Read the Bitcoin Standard, like. I definitely believe that that is the best book for people to have an understanding If you want to understand the space, understanding why the space came about. And it gives you a beautiful history lesson on economics and it was written by a PhD professor of economics, so it's a brilliant, brilliant book.

Speaker 2: 43:23

I'm excited. I'm adding that to my reading list. I have not read it and I will next time we chat.

Speaker 1: 43:28

I'll have read it, so I'll give you an example, michael Saylor, if people are familiar with him. That book is the reason why MicroStrategy has bought billions of dollars in Bitcoin and it's also part of the reason why the government of El Salvador, where the president, decided to make that legal tender. So it's a very powerful book. If you want to understand, do your own research before getting into this space, but that's a good gateway.

Speaker 2: 43:48

This has been an absolute pleasure and thank you for the chat.

Speaker 1: 43:51

Thank you, pleasure to be here.