AI Today (Aired 06-18-2025) Crypto, AI and Control: How to Protect Your Money in a Shifting Digital Economy

[00:00:00] Speaker A: SAM welcome to AI Today. I'm your host, Dr. Alan Badot. And today we're tackling something that is an exciting topic for us. We look at AI and its reach into so many different technologies and industries, and we're looking at trying to bridge the gaps between blockchain and artificial intelligence, two technologies that, on their own, are already confusing for some folks. But this week we're going to talk about how they can work together, and we're going to try to show you that the convergence of artificial intelligence and blockchain and cryptocurrency, it's not just a interesting research topic. It's something essential that can help you for your businesses as well as in your personal lives going into the future. In today's digital age, blockchain and AI are transformative technologies. You've seen the impact that it's had, especially crypto, when it really first started to take off and where it was, well, where it is today, and AI is, you know, we, we already know what has taken place with that. And as these technologies are converging, you know, the effects are, are significant. Whether it's, you know, accepting crypto into your business or, you know, if you look at the real estate, you know, industry putting a investment on a blockchain to help prevent, you know, identity theft or things like that, those technologies are really starting to converge, and it's having a large impact on a lot of different businesses. And what my goal is with this show is to help you understand what that recipe looks like and how innovation is going to change the way that you are doing business in ways that you may not expect. And, you know, I want to paint a picture for you. So if you imagine that you're, you know, you're, you're a small business owner and you're trying to accept, you know, payments from customers worldwide, right. You know, normal banking systems can be kind of expensive, they can be a little slow, or it can give you a hard time if you have somebody that's trying to buy something from overseas. Right. And, you know, from an AI perspective, we're already using it for fraud detection, and we're using it for transaction verification, you know, and while normally that's, that's pretty good, but, you know, when you add in a layer of cryptocurrency on that, that can handle the transfer itself, and then you have, in theory, no banks, you've got no waiting and you got no fees, and that's, that's pretty good, right? Because, you know, any way we can put more money in Your pocket. That's, that's what we're trying to do. Another example could be you're worried about identity theft. And, you know, we talk about identity theft all the time, you know, protecting your information and making sure that, you know, you're not putting the wrong things online so that AI can go out and get that kind of information. But if you combine AI with blockchain, that's going to make sure that your personal data is always going to be in your control. And this, again, this is not science fiction that we're talking about. This is stuff that we can do right now. You've heard me talk about agents and how, you know, in the agentic. Remember agentic. Ooh, the agentic period, that you can use blockchain to, you know, monitor and keep track of your agents, making sure that they're staying in the, the enclaves that they're supposed to be, you know, allowed to, to access or not access. And then even, even going to your smartphones, right? And you've, you've got, you know, so many different devices out there, you know, as you're, you know, using it more and more and more to, you know, do transactions, to do, you know, whatever kind of, you know, communications that you're, you're doing on it, from texting to talking, etc. Etc. There's a lot of different applications there as well. And what we're going to do is we're going to break those technologies down and we're going to try to figure out how we can make sure that as you combine them, that we're doing it in a smart way, we're doing it in a safe way. And, you know, at the end of the day, we're, we're doing it the right way, you know, because, you know, in both cases, whether it's AI or cryptocurrency or, you know, even, you know, blockchain, whatever folks are talking about, there's always going to be an elephant in the room. And that elephant is fear. Either fear of missing out or just a basic fear that you're using a technology that's not. Not either well known or to you or just, you know, an uncomfortable position. And, you know, you look at it and as we're tackling these, you know, they get more complex, of course, but they are still important. Right? You know, complexity is always going to be a difficult thing because AI is scary to people because they don't understand what's in the bo. And crypto is scary to people because they don't understand necessarily how the technology works and how is it that you can put all your information out there and be safer? We're gonna, we're gonna walk through those. And security, of course, that's really the number one thing and that's what we're gonna try to do. As we are going through this again, we're gonna try to cover as much as we can at a level that is going to make you hopefully feel a little bit more comfortable moving forward. Because, you know that control, the control of our identity is always key. And it's really one of those things where as AI and crypto are giving you more control over things, especially over traditional systems that we have, it's going to become, of course, more standard. And if you're not keeping up with those technologies and you're not accepting them or you're not using them, then that's a, that's going to be a disadvantage for you and your, your enterprise as you move forward. So what I'm excited about is the future as we combine these. There's a really wonderful way that as you, as you are building your systems, as you are building your information, as you're building your data, and as you're working with your customers, the ramifications are going to be huge. And it's positive as long as you're doing it the right way. And so this week we are going to explore those, and we are lucky enough that our next guest has a voice that really bridges the gap between AI and blockchain. It's one of the folks that I go to as I need to feel comfortable in some cases with, you know, digital ledgers and cryptocurrency, especially when things get a little scary. But, you know, we're lucky enough to have Mr. Mark Venables on the show and he's going to be with us in our next segment. So I want you to stick around because I guarantee, I guarantee you're going to learn something and you're going to feel a lot more comfortable moving forward after you hear from Mark. So stick with us. And we'll be back after a few messages from our sponsors. Welcome back to AI Today. I'm your host, Dr. Alan Badot. Do you love what you're watching? Well, don't miss a moment of AI Today or any of your favorite NOW Media TV shows, live or on demand, anytime, anywhere. Download the Free Now Media TV app on Roku or your iOS and enjoy instant access to our full lineup of bilingual programming. It's in both English and in Spanish. Prefer to listen on the go catch the podcast version of the show right on Now Media TV's website at www.nowmedia.tv. from business to breaking news to lifestyles to AI to culture and everything in between. Now Media TV is streaming 247 and it's ready whenever you are. So, as I talked about in the first segment, I gave you a little teaser that I had a great guest on, somebody that I actually follow. And I have, you know, when I need to feel good about crypto and some of the directions that it may be going, I try to find an article or I try to find some interesting information that our next guest puts out. And I'm lucky enough to have Mr. Mark Venables on the show. And he is a pioneer entrepreneur in technology and in, you know, a huge, huge wealth of knowledge on crypto and AI and blockchain in general. And, and we, you know, are, as I said, I am lucky enough to have him on the show. Mark, thank you so much for being here. [00:11:07] Speaker B: Thank you very much. That was a quite the introduction, so hopefully I can live up to that. [00:11:13] Speaker A: Oh, it's going to be great. It's going to be great. I, I, I think, you know, the, the knowledge that you have around crypto and, and you know, I know for many years that whenever there was an issue, folks would look to you for advice because you were always the stable one, even during the FTX stuff and everything else that was going on. And I know it really helped a lot of folks out and it's just absolutely fantastic for what you're doing for just the space in general. [00:11:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's important that we demystify it, humanize it somewhat because there's a lot of people that avoid it for that very reason. And it's, it's not that complex. There's a lot of facets to it, of course, but there is to currency trading. You know, if anyone thinks that their currency isn't already digital, then they probably might want to think again, but. [00:12:11] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. And, and, and I think, you know, you have been, you know, you know, you've been a proponent of, you know, cold wallets for, for, you know, years, and you've warned folks many times over and it seems like sometimes they either don't pay attention or they, you know, just voluntarily forget the past. But, you know, when you start looking at AI with crypto and with distributed ledgers, you know, it's two topics that scare folks by, it's, by themselves and when you combine it it really starts to scare care of them. So, you know, what would you say to people, you know, really what are some of the real dangers that, that they should pay attention to as they're, as they're looking to get into and you know, both of those. [00:12:59] Speaker B: Well, I mean with the, Even without AI, there was always, you know, there's always a danger with your digital assets, keeping them online. But, so you throw it AI into the mix and you've got the scams. But now they're more advanced. So you know, these deep fake scams, the AI generated videos of celebrities that, promoting certain currencies or tokens or that, or that sort of thing. It's far more convincing than they could do before. You know, there's much more sophisticated fishing attempts because they can, you know, AI can write incredibly convincing emails that look like they're from legitimate sources or, or they create fake trading bots where you're going to give these AI bots your, either your information or you're going to pay a small fortune to be able to use these, you know, incredibly intelligent bots or you. So you consider that it's going to, you know, make you rich. And I think, I think you have to step back and you know, everything's driven by greed or fear. [00:14:22] Speaker A: That's right. [00:14:23] Speaker B: And it's, it's often the breed that gets people in trouble and, and it's not, you know, and that's, it's perfectly natural. It's just that you, you just need to be aware that you need to be aware. You know, the social engineering on, on, on social media, it's, it's kind of everywhere. But there's always, there's always ways to tell and they're not always very obvious. To be fair, I, I had my website, the cryptomerchant.com completely copied and unless you're really paying attention, all of the links on there for support and everything went to my support or went to certain pages. But what they were asking for was the crypto merchant do something else. And, and it's, it's very, it's very, very easy to, to miss that. Yeah, you know, we, we try to keep our customers informed. You know, we're always, we're always receiving emails. Hey, you know, hook your ledger up to Ledger live. Here's a link. And it's, of course it's, it's actually not really that sort of thing. But I think one of the other things with AI and from a trading standpoint, the AI bots, they can create fake sentiment which, which can Alter the markets. And, you know, crypto is a, it's a volatile, it's a volatile market anyway. [00:16:04] Speaker A: That's right. [00:16:05] Speaker B: You know, so it, there's, there's a, there's a lot to look out for, which is why the, the hard wallets are so important. And it, and it just amazes me, the people I speak to with utter fortunes that they don't have a cold wallet or hardware wallet. It's, it's quite scary, I think. I think only there's so many people with crypto. I think only about 10 of people that have crypto have a cold wallet. [00:16:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's, that's surprising. And, and clearly they did not learn their lesson from the FTX stuff. [00:16:40] Speaker B: Oh, the ftx and the actually quite embarrassing story because there were, there was company, I don't know if you heard of BlockFi. So there was, you know, I, I had to have a block fight credit card because it was crypto and it was cool. That led to their exchange. And I did have, you know, about five grand in crypto on the exchange, which is incredibly embarrassing because they got into financial difficulty and of course FTX came to the rescue, which was probably the worst rescue in history, and it didn't go well. So there I am surrounded by thousands of cold wallets and I've now got like $5,000 crypto locked into the BlockFi exchange because I didn't take my own advice, which is fairly normal for me, I think. So a little embarrassment took me two years to, to basically get it out. I did get it out. And that's not usual, you know, you have to be persistent, but it's, it's not always there to get out if, you know, if, you know, I mean, especially like ftx, you know, even before that with the Canadian exchange. [00:18:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:18:02] Speaker B: Which if, by the way, you haven't seen it, Trust no one. Which I think's on Netflix, which is about that whole thing. It's. And I think it entwined some actual footage and interviews and it's, it's very interesting. It certainly gives you a, a good view of what can be done, you know. [00:18:27] Speaker A: That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, I think one of the, one of the challenges people have, you know, they associate, you know, these, you know, you know, bitcoin, for example, with everything that has to do with blockchain and that's all there is. And that's, that's not even close to, you know, it's like the iceberg, you see, the, the bitcoins and the altcoins that are popular at a certain time and then everything else is below the, the surface and they forget about all the other applications that you can use it for and especially if you're a small business and you know, trying to do a variety of different things with that. So just in general though, what habit do you think, you know, if folks are going to try to get involved in either of them, what habits should they really start today to be safer online? [00:19:25] Speaker B: Well, I mean I would suggest taking a, being involved with a website that is all about security so you're constantly getting updates. But of course there's that there's, it's very important to check your passwords, to renew your passwords and this sort of thing because a lot of people just don't because it never happens to them until right to them, you know. And so of course with a hardware wallet, with a, with a cold wallet, you're taking the crypto offline except you're not really technically crypto is always within the blockchain and your cold wallet is really holding a very, very secure passkey or password. So seed phrase is what they're often referred to as. So just being, just being kept up to date and updating firmware, updating software, security software update. The firmware is also very important because it's a constant battle between good and evil where someone can build something, someone will find a way in and, and on it goes to, you know, to reinforce and this sort of thing. So it's a, you know, somewhat it's a safer than others but they're all having one is better than not having a bad one isn't better than not having one at all. And to be perfectly honest I, I don't really see there's any bad cold one is out there. Certainly not that we would sell. And, and that yeah brings me to another point. If, if you are buying one it should be from an authorized reseller. So you know, if you're buying a Trezor you can check on Trezor website their authorized resellers in any country. And the same with, with some of the smaller manufacturers may not have that yet but we're working with them so that people know who can be trusted. If you're particularly technical, I mean you can buy an open box one and reset it and test it but to save 15 bucks or something like that, is it, is it really, is it really worth it? [00:22:14] Speaker A: Right? [00:22:15] Speaker B: I mean but that, that's basically you just, you just need to keep up to date with all of your security measures that you currently have and extend them to crypto. If, if you want to get into crypto. It's, it's not that scary. It's not that complex either. And it's, it has far more uses than just being a fairy dust currency, as I sometimes hear it referred to. [00:22:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:45] Speaker B: So it has real world uses as well. And when with the AI, you can, a very simple AI bot can recreate passwords and that sort of thing, if you're so inclined. [00:23:04] Speaker A: Yep, yep. And I think, you know, that's some of the stuff that we're going to get into and you know, in the next segment. But you know, before we go to break, Mark, just let folks know, you know, how they can get ahold of you, so. [00:23:20] Speaker B: Sure. In the US of course, the cryptomerchant.com we have the cryptomerchant.co.uk for those Brits out there. And we also are just expanded into Canada as well. So the Canadians, very polite, will be happy to know that the Cryptoshop ca is, is a crypto merchant company. So that's, that's it, that's the easiest way. Everything through the website because it's very secure. So if you contact support at the crypto merchant, it will make its way to me if, if that's what you've requested. So all right, if it's anything else and someone else might be able to help, but if you actually want to, if you need any help from me personally, then that's what are the easiest ways. [00:24:11] Speaker A: That's great. [00:24:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:12] Speaker A: And so, you know, I encourage the audience. You guys need to stick around. We're just getting started. We've got a lot more that you're going to learn from the next couple of segments. And you know, if you have any interest in getting into this space, you know, especially combining the two, you better stick around. So, you know, we'll be back after a few short, you know, messages from our sponsors. Sam Foreign welcome back to AI Today. I'm your host, Dr. Alan Bideau. And are you loving what you're watching? Don't miss a moment of AI Today or any of your favorite NOW Media TV shows, live or on demand, anytime, anywhere. Download the free Now Media TV app on Roku or on your iOS device and enjoy instant access to our full lineup of bilingual programming, both in English and in Spanish. Prefer to listen on the go catch the podcast version of the show right on Now Media TV at www.nowmedia.tv. from business to breaking news to lifestyle culture, AI today and everything in between now, Media TV is streaming 247 and it's ready whenever you are. Now, in the last segment, you know, we were talking about, you know, different security issues and we are lucky enough to have Mr. Mark Venables on the show. Back with us for another segment, who's gonna really help us understand some of those nuances and some of the challenges around crypto, just in general, whether it's buying, whether it's, you know, you know, selling, whether it's taking it out. You know, there's a whole myriad of challenges sometimes that we will run into. And then when you put AI on top of it, it doesn't make it any easier necessarily. And we always talk about ways that AI are, you know, is supposed to be used to make things easier and crypto is supposed to be used to make things, you know, more secure. And it's not always the case. And so, you know, Mark, you know, we were talking during the break about some of the challenges and I was complaining about the challenges that I've had. You know, what can we tell our viewers that, you know, some of the challenges that they're gonna, that they're gonna run into when they try to use it every day as part of their business? [00:27:11] Speaker B: Well, I mean, it's, it's tough enough to get it. So if you, you know, if you can actually get it, then if it's not on your hardware wallet, you don't own it, is generally what we, what we say. But what I would suggest is if you're going to get into crypto, your, your regular bank, you need to check them out with regard to if they're crypto friendly because just the word crypto can have your account closed down. And, and it's happened to me. I've had, I've had a case where I'm buying seed phrase backup devices. And these are just essentially metal plates. But because the supplier, who, who's out the country had the word crypto in the name when I transferred them or wired them the money, the intermediary bank refused to forward it on because they have a no crypto policy forbidden industry because, you know, these, the banks can't monetize it. And so they're trying. There's a, there's an awful lot of propaganda. Of course you'll hear that the only reason to use bitcoin is for crime. And we hear that constantly. You know, crypto, bitcoin. You know, I hate to point out the fact that more crimes committed with cash than anything else on the planet and the, the Other thing is the whole reason they will tell you that crypto is used for a lot of crime is because it's a, it's, you know, you don't know where it's come from. It's anonymous, which you can trace a, every bitcoin back through the blockchain from when it was mined to where it is now. So you know, if you, it's not that, it's not that anonymous or impossible to trace. But much like you know, any other currency that there's. The people are going to find a way. So, you know, I would just be careful and look at some of the, you know, some of the online banking facilities. They're actually very, very good and you know, quite crypto friendly. [00:29:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:42] Speaker B: Because I mean just what I found a couple of my banks actually is they're fine when I'm trans. When I sell crypto and I transfer funds to my bank, they have no problem. But if I want to transfer funds to Coinbase or Kraken or Binance or any of the exchanges to buy crypto, then that's a no go. They just simply will not do that. And, and there's just no real reason for this other than punishing those that want to use a decentralized currency because, because they can't monetize it as yet. And I'm sure they'll find a way and I'm sure that will be making it simpler for people that again don't want to get into having to do it themselves, much like buying stocks or shares, that sort of thing. You could get as, as involved as, as you wish. But is it's, it is quite, you know, quite a pain because we have crypto in our name and we don't deal with crypto as a company. We deal with hardware. I mean, right, the clue, you know, the clues in the name, you know, hardware wallets, cold wallets and the, the banks premise this on protecting the consumer, which really I don't see as protection. I see it as a terrible overreach where they can tell you or me or anyone that they cannot invest in something. They're too stupid to invest in something. So we are going to government, we're going to police this. We have your best interests at heart and we're not going to let you buy crypto, you know, so you have to. And I've had this actual conversation with a bank in the UK and I said, well, are you gonna, you know, ban all, every construction person that does driveways or roofers because there's been scams in this since the beginning of time. [00:31:52] Speaker A: That's right. Somebody coming in to pave your driveway. [00:31:55] Speaker B: You know, that's it. You're telling me you're protecting the little old lady, you know, well, had a 40 minute conversation. I'm not a little old lady. That's being scammed. And yet you still won't do the why? Because it's policy. It's punishment. That's, that's what it is there you step outside. [00:32:14] Speaker A: Well, do you think, do you think that with, you know, President Trump and what they've tried to, you know, well, heck, he had his own, you know, altcoin that he started for a while and may, you know, and do you think there's some momentum that is starting to hopefully change that a little bit? And you know, even I've even heard Jamie Dimon say from, you know, Chase a couple of times that, you know, they're trying to figure out a strategy to do exactly what you said, use it. And in which we know means monetize it. But is there a little bit of momentum where maybe it's going to start to change? [00:32:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. You know, we have these, you know, know, cryptos, like the, the main crypto is Bitcoin, Ethereum and this sort of thing. It's very, very cyclical. And so we have these huge bull runs where you have millions of people a week coming into the space and then it crashes after 18 months and then you have no one jumping on the sinking ship. And this sort thing, it's very volatile, which is how people lose their money by putting money into they can't afford, which they need to liquidate when it's gone down. And I, I'd be guilty of the same thing. But what's going to happen is, you know, you have these big funds and trusts and even financial institutions that are offering crypto or getting into crypto. Of course the banks won't tell you that they're invested in bitcoin because it is actually digital gold. You know, you know, you, you know, you will not, as our customer be allowed to invest in crypto because you're not clever as us. So, but we can see the potential. So we hold it. It's, it's, I think so now you've got more people adopting it. Of course that's going to bring more regulation which is, is not always a bad thing and equally it's not always a good thing. But with the regulation will make the markets less volatile because they're gonna, you know, the regulations are going to probably be, sorry, designed to protect the consumer, to protect a retail trader and this sort of thing. [00:34:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:34:31] Speaker B: It's going to get complicated. It's probably going to get worse before it gets better because you know, the rate, the very reason for the existence of crypto is it's decentralized. It can't be controlled by bank, it can't be controlled by government, so it can't be controlled by anyone. And that's global. So you need global regulation. Which, that's going to be tough. That's going to be, that's going to be quite the feat. But I think, you know, if they work on sort of, you know, morality or decency type scenario then I, I think everyone could agree to that. Unless you're, you know, maybe there may be a few countries that wouldn't agree to that. Dictatorships and so, but it's, it, it, it is going to be more and more not to. I, I don't think people really have, we always have a choice. But by not adopting it, I mean I don't know if you, Ferrari started to accept crypto in payment for that. Yeah, I, I don't know if that was a bit of a, you know, a media grab, you know, because, and it's actually a good idea for a couple of reasons, but they don't actually, they accept crypto as in they're selling a five hundred thousand dollar car, they will accept the crypto or someone on their behalf who will immediately liquidate and give them their euros. [00:36:17] Speaker A: Yes. [00:36:18] Speaker B: They're not going to hold on to it or anything like, like that, but it opens the market for, you know, the, you know, the younger crypto billionaires type thing, but it also has the potential of saving the buyer tens of thousands of dollars because what happens is when, and this actually, you know, happened to us, we, some real estate was sold and you go to the we to transfer it internationally, you go to the bank and you, you know, I want to change this from dollars into euros or pounds and of course they have their spread. So you know, what they're selling it for is very different to what they're buying it for. And I had to do this at one point for a wealthy client and I inquired with the bank, it was bank of America and to be fair, you know, the lady sat behind the desk, she's given me the tourist rate. Not however, but just as an example, the difference between what you would get by using their service to change it into sterling and send it to a bank, it was $90,000. So, so the bank, you know, so of course they're upset. I mean, so the bank would have made $90,000 on that, on that exchange. Now, if you, if, if you took $2 million and bought Bitcoin, transferred it to the UK and then sold it immediately, you, you get the absolute exchange rate. [00:38:12] Speaker A: Yes. [00:38:13] Speaker B: So, so that's, you know, and so of course, now you can see why they, they may be a little upset. These financial institution and services are getting, you know, they're just not being able to, to capitalize on this. That's quite an extreme sort of example. But if you take someone that's. They're working, they're working here in the US and their families in Honduras or some, you know, somewhere else now they want to send their poor mum 20 bucks. Well, I don't know exactly what the fees are, but I'm sure you don't. They have to make a trip to Western Union and come up with their ID and pay the, you know, maybe $6. And then three, four days later it gets to Honduras or whatever it's going, and little old mum has to go down to her Western Union and, and pay the fees that end as well. And so she gets 12 bucks out of 20 bucks that her daughter sent out, you know. [00:39:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:39:22] Speaker B: If it's, you know. [00:39:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, I think that is a good place. I want, I want you to hold that thought because I think that's a great place for us to transition into the next segment because this is an important concept for everybody that's watching this, the show or listening to it. And I want to give you time to hammer this point home for folks. So stay with us. We'll be right back. We've got Mark Venables talking about cryptocurrency and some challenges that we run into in some ways, hopefully that we'll be able to use it and some regulations breaks maybe, hopefully that are coming, you know, soon. So stay with us. We'll be right back. Welcome back to AI Today. I'm your host, Dr. Alan Badot. And do you love what you're watching? We've got a great segment going. I don't want you to miss a moment of AI Today or any of your favorite NOW Media TV shows. It's live or on demand, anytime, anywhere. Download the free Now Media TV app on Roku or your iOS device and enjoy instant access to our full lineup of bilingual programming. It's in English and in Spanish. Do you prefer to listen on the go, maybe while you're driving? Well, catch the podcast version right on Now Media TV's website at www.nowmedia.tv. from business to breaking news to lifestyle to culture to AI and absolutely everything in between, now Media TV is a streaming 24 by 7 ready whenever you are. So take advantage of it. So, you know, Mark, in the, in the last segment, I, I, I, I rudely cut you off. You're, I, I didn't want to rush through this segment, you know, through the segment because it's an important point, I believe, for folks to, to listen to and to pay attention to. And we were talking about, you know, just some of the challenges of using a digital currency. But if you think about it and flip it from an opportunity perspective, boy, you know, if, if, if we get things in the, you know, momentum going in the right direction, I think it can be a positive for, for our audience, you know. So please, please finish your, your thought around, you know, using it and you know, the, the benef, you know, not having to pay as much. [00:42:20] Speaker B: And it is funny because you, you've referred to crypto as digital, digital currency. But if you were transfer, if you are wiring dollars to Panama or somewhere, how is that not a digital currency? Because you're not putting an envelope and having to carry a pigeon, take them over. So, so you know this, you, and so all that's happening is it, it's a different digital currency but where the banks, you know, they're very, very helpful in allowing you to send your money from one place to another, you know, which is one of their main profit centers, I would imagine. So when you look at a decentralized digital currency and you, you need to send that to, for instance, like we were saying last segment, you know, someone that wants to send their parents 20 bucks, you know, they don't have a whole lot of money and, and it's going to take up 60 in fees with Western Union or, and this sort of thing, unless they have a bank account. It might be slightly less if they have a bank account, but there's still that aggravation of doing it, which you might as well apply that to a decentralized currency and just learn how you would send 20 bucks in Solana because you do it from your, from your phone or from your desktop. You wouldn't need to go to Western Union or anywhere else. And your little old mum in Honduras could then just sell it, which is click of a button, you know, because of, because crypto is involved, it, it, all of a sudden it becomes very complicated. People stop listening. But it is just a, you know, it's a few clicks of button and it's now in dollars. Of course, you just transfer to your bank with another click of the button. We do it every single day. So as that progresses and you know that that's just like the, the tip of the iceberg because when you start thinking about use cases and you expand out from that, well, the exchanges, they're going to make it easier and easier for you to do that, you know, and that might cost you 3 cents. So I'm not going to say it's free, you know, but not a financial advisor, but, but you know, you got, you got gas fees and you know, and, and some other scary sounding things which really just means that's how much it's going to cost you to send. The bank has it and they call it something different. [00:45:15] Speaker A: Right. [00:45:16] Speaker B: But you know, there's a, there's a real world use for a, for one of the currencies and you know, take your pick and then you've got a, you've got a worldwide decentralized economy which is very stable because it's not being manipulated by governments or banks or propaganda and this sort of thing, you know, going to be something to it, you know, you, there's always going to be issues with something because there has to be, otherwise no one would have a job. But. [00:45:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, well, that's exactly right. And I think one of the, I think one of the challenges also that our audience runs into and I get questions about this all the time is, you know, where can I go learn more about, about crypto? And I'll be honest, I send them to your website because that's where I go get information too sometimes, you know, or I'll, I'll try to dig up a, an article that, you know, you've, you've pulled together or somebody's interviewed you or something. But can you tell folks, you know, some of the resources that you have on your, your, your website where they can learn and understand from a trusted source what, you know, kind of opportunities are there for them to, you know, to use it, to learn about it, to buy it, to sell it, you know, the, all the, all that stuff. [00:46:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean we, we have the, the blogs and, and, and the usual sort of suspects, but I, I am actively looking at other ways using AI essentially to be able to explain the basics and, and, and more than just the basics, but we're looking far more at educating people because I think, you know, with, with, with the education becomes the demystification and humanizing it if you like, but of course I don't. There's, there's a great book called Bit by Bit that, you know, it's by this guy Mark Bren is basically, it's, I say beginner's guide, but it's not technical. And the best way I can explain it is if you're a, if you're a party and someone's talking about crypto, if you've read that, you're going to understand what they're saying. You're not going to know the intricacies of Web 3.0 or the blockchain, but you're going to know what they're saying and you're going to be able to have a confident conversation with, you know, with other people because there's lots of buzzwords and there's, you know, there's lots going on and there's this, you know, there's 4,5000 currencies now. [00:48:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:06] Speaker B: Honestly, I ignore all of them. [00:48:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:12] Speaker B: But, you know, bar three or four, depending on the use case. But, you know, there's, there's, there's so much to be learned. You have to, you know what, you have to identify the reason you're getting into the crypto eco space. Do you want to trade, do you want to invest? You know, do you want to create income or wealth? And, and it's exactly the same as any other investment vehicle, if you like. [00:48:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's, that's one of the things that I do. I, I focus on the big three. People can look that up. I'm not, I don't want somebody to think that I'm, you know, a financial advisor also. And then I have my, my billionaire maker that I have a little bit in that if it goes up, you know, 10,000% for, for some crazy reason, a hundred dollars isn't going to seem like that bad of an investment in it. Right. And so, you know, I'm with you 100 on that. [00:49:11] Speaker B: It's like we don't talk about it because that's stupid. So. But yeah. [00:49:16] Speaker A: Oh, maybe if it dollar it hit the dollar. Yes, yes, I can retire. [00:49:21] Speaker B: Yes, it was, we had these, these crypto, these physical bitcoins which were actually preloaded with 0.01 of a Bitcoin. So if it's, you know, Today it's probably 106,000 for Bitcoin. So it's 106 bucks. These coins are worth. And they were made by a company called Ballet who makes, they make these. They're quite special, they're quite good. So they're Cold wallets. Oh yeah, these are made by ballet. This is a special one. So you can buy these. But the, the physical bitcoin was, was kind of cool because you could send it to a niece or nephew or you know, grandkids or your kids. You send them one for their birthday, one for Christmas and you know, they, they collect them over 10 years or at least that was the plan. And you know you got 20 of these things. When bitcoin hits a million dollars and I'm pretty confident it will, you've got 20 grand worth of these coins. And I like stack them up and pretend I'm John Wick, but I'm. Yeah, I don't know if I have one. But they could get the light. I guess they were categorized as a, like a gift card, like a pre loaded because it was pre loaded. And unlike this for instance or any of these guys, the Danos, if you, if you took this from me, it would be useless to you. But with the physical bitcoin who, you know, that was self custody, whoever has custody of that coin, you know, but so it's not a classic cold wallet. Although they, they do do the coin cold wallets now because they just couldn't get the sort of the licensing and authorization to, to sell a pre loaded, you know, because it, it's very much has its own regulations and laws and this sort of thing because it was such a good idea. And I had about a thousand of them and they sold out very quickly and it's a shame because they were not allowed, but it's just nice to sometimes have something you could hold. And it says bitcoin on there and, and it's, it. I mean there's plenty of them around you can buy on ebay that say bitcoin or Doge or XRP. Of course they're worthless other than the 15 cents worth of metal. [00:52:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:15] Speaker B: But yeah, I think you know with these actually being having some value that you could just, you know, it's just like going back to the days of this never happened in the UK but I've been coming over here since I was 10 years old. I had friends and they'd always get a bond or something for their birthday, what it's called. But it was on Risky Business. I do remember that. So, so yeah, so it, it was kind of reminiscent of that that you could actually give someone and you can get. There's, there's bitcoin gift cards that, that we sell that you could preload and sent to you whoever. They're just not as pretty as the coin or that sort of thing? [00:53:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that, and that, you know, that, that makes a lot of sense with, you know, trying to, trying to figure out what the right strategy is and trying to think of, you know, oh, how do I gift it, how do I get it? You know, know, there's a lot of things and we, you know, unfortunately, we just touched the surface on some of this stuff and, you know, I, I, I, I appreciate you being on the show and, and really offering your wisdom, your sage wisdom on these, the nuances of, you know, bitcoin, crypto in general and just some of the challenges that our, our viewers could, could see. You know, I, I'm excited again about the future and, you know, I think, I think we're gonna have to have you on again sooner so we can talk a lot more about crypto and AI working together. And so, you know, I do want to tell our audience thank you for, for watching this week. I know you're going to have a lot of emails for us. I will, if you send them to me, I'll do my best to get them over to Mark, you know, as well. But thank you again, Mark, for, for being here. And I want, you know, I want the audience to, to understand, you know, next time with that we talk, we're going to deep dive again and you're going to learn a lot. And so until then, I want folks to stay curious, stay cautious, and make sure you stay in control. [00:54:35] Speaker B: Absolutely. It.