0:01BSo what’s your name?
0:02AUh, my name is Seth Archibald. I’m a senior electrical engineering major at Howard University. Uh, I appreciate, um, what Howard has done for me. I like the program that I’m in right now, and I like the connections I made here so far. Uh, when it comes to crypto, I don’t really know much about it, honestly, other than it’s like some digital currency. Um, so yeah, that’s pretty much it.
0:26CHi, I’m Joseph. I’m also a senior electrical engineering student here at Howard.
0:34BIt’s --
0:34CI was a transfer student, so I’ve only been here 3 years, but it’s been a nice time that I’ve had here. I’ve had a lot of fun meeting a lot of people, like learning a lot of stuff, sort of getting into Black culture, that sort of thing. And that’s been great for me. I don’t know a lot about crypto also. I have only really seen like stuff going on with like Bitcoin, Dogecoin, that sort of stuff. Not a whole lot of knowledge of stuff behind it or anything like that.
1:10DSo.
1:10EHello, my name is Daniel. I’m a senior chemical engineering major at Howard University. Howard so far has been pretty good, like good teachers, a good program, a good community. about crypto. I also don’t really know much about crypto. I’ve heard of the NFTs and like that monkey picture that was like really expensive. But outside of that, not really.
1:31DYeah. Hello, my name is Jesse Montgomery. I’m a senior chemical engineering student here at Howard. As for what Howard has done for me as like a chemical engineering student, I’d say the program is really good. All the professors are really nice, and the program is like really a good one, very helpful. I’ve enjoyed my experience at Howard. As for crypto, I have like a surface level knowledge of it based on like I guess like things that have popped up in like the news regarding like NFTs and Bitcoin and such. I do know that. Black people have like, I think it’s been like hard for them to get like involved in like the crypto space. So initiatives that have been like made to help, I guess, encourage Black people to get like more involved in that. I have seen like a lot of those recently, especially with like the thing that’s happening on campus right now. So, um, oh. I don’t know. Is it like Black people in blockchain or something like that?
2:44BIt’s the Black Blockchain Summit.
2:45DOkay.
2:45BYou should tell people to come.
2:46DOh, well, I don’t know much about it, so.
2:50BThat’s fair enough. He said, I won’t do that.
2:51DYeah.
2:52BI mean, well, I’d be really curious, and I’d love you to repeat my question. Like, you say you’re a chemical engineering major?
2:58AYeah.
2:58BWhat is that like for somebody who’s in high school and doesn’t know what that would even mean?
3:03DOkay, so basically chemists They work on like lab benches.
3:08BHe wants to be a scientist, he’s like 7.
3:10DOh, okay. Okay. So you know how chemists, they work stereotypically in like the lab benches, like small-scale stuff with like the small flasks, like glass things, containers and stuff like that? Well, chemical engineers take those measurements that they make or like, I guess, like record, and we scale them up to like 1,000, like 10,000, So it’s like on an industrial scale, like processing. That’s basically what we do.
3:38BOkay, very cool. And so do you all have any questions about what crypto is?
3:42DI do.
3:46EWhat exactly makes an NFT valuable? What makes it different from a regular picture?
3:51DThat’s what I don’t understand.
3:52BThat’s a good question. Do you guys have any questions? I’ll try and answer all together, right?
3:56AI kind of have the same question as well, because what prevents you from just screenshotting the image? Like on social media and just like selling that. I don’t really know.
4:09CUm, I’d say like, how do you really find out what crypto is a good investment and what is gonna get rug pulled?
4:19BOkay, excellent question. You have any questions? No questions?
4:22DUm, I don’t have a question right now.
4:24BOkay, excellent, excellent. Want to hold my phone?
4:27DSure.
4:29BExcellent, thank you. So I think, uh, I’ve told you I, I got -- I started in crypto in the NFT space, um, but I think like your question is also important, right? How do you know like what’s going to get rug pulled? You’re asking about like anybody could just screenshot your NFT, so where’s the value really coming from? And I think that kind of -- it kind of presents the whole concept, right? What’s the value proposition of a Bitcoin, right? Like you said, you’ve heard of Bitcoin or Dogecoin, and what distinguishes them, right? And so Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency. It was designed to be like a currency that could disrupt like centralized government-run money, right?
5:02BAnd that’s because of inflation, right? Every year the government can print as much money as they want and do what they want with it. But as working-class people, we have to go to work to earn money. But that work is worth less when the dollar goes down in value and goods go up in value, right? And so crypto was really -- Bitcoin particularly was designed to think about what can a new kind of money be that can be separate from, you You know, the powers that be that might not always print money with our interests in mind, you know. And now it’s being proposed to really be like the future reserve currency, right?
5:30BAnd so all of money is kind of a gamble, you might say. You guys know of any countries that have hyperinflation?
5:35DYeah.
5:38BYeah, yeah, yeah. That’s a really good example. Argentina is one of the top 2 countries in the world for crypto. It’s Argentina and Nigeria. They both seen hyperinflation in the last decade. And so that’s because people there no longer believe in their currency, right? And so they’re like, they feel like it’s a really bad gamble to go to work and save your money for even a day. And so they’re already thinking about how do I, what they call hedge, right? So they’re buying US dollars generally because they feel like that’s a good hedge. But people are losing confidence. I go fast, right? I gotta slow down. People are losing confidence in the dollar because we do like stupid shit, you know, monetary policy. The US is like, we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do that. And people are like, should we really hold the dollar? Like, maybe we shouldn’t hold the dollar. You know, and then we do all the trade stuff, people even more upset. And so I’m curious, what do you guys think would happen if people around the globe started saying we actually don’t care about holding the dollar, we’re going to hold water or Bitcoin or Chick-fil-A?
6:30EI mean, it’s going to crash, right? Oh, I mean, it would crash, right? Because I mean, I see money as a type of credit that everybody agrees on. So if nobody’s agreeing on it, it has no value anymore.
6:43DYeah.
6:43ESo yeah, maybe I could pay for my tuition with Chick-fil-A.
6:47DYeah.
6:49BYeah.
6:50DYeah. Any other thoughts?
6:52BWhat are you guys hearing from what I said? Um, I didn’t really answer the NFT thing.
7:02DI didn’t really.
7:03BYeah.
7:03DHere you go.
7:03BThank you a second time. And so now you kind of understand, right, the speculation around money. And so the NFT thing is just like, people are like, oh, we can create new reserve currency ideas, new kinds of money. Well, can we create new kinds of assets? And so the same way that the Bitcoin works as a blockchain, that’s the technology underneath. It’s like a cloud server that nobody runs. And so as opposed to, you know, this video going on YouTube, being on Google servers somewhere, and Google shuts down and my video is gone, the blockchain is meant to be like the bank. The bank can’t run on a server that can go out, you know, like, like That’s, that’s a bank that can fail you, right?
7:35BAnd so the premise is, can we design a bank that has a decentralized cloud network, right? Where you could say every HBCU runs a server somewhere, like what do they call it, a data center. HBCU runs a data center so that every Black person in the world can have like a bank that they know is like all the transactions are saved at every HBCU. And with Bitcoin, that works because, you know, if you try and say, oh, that’s not, that’s not his money, it’s my money, every other computer in the world who’s mining Bitcoin will will be like, no, you’re a liar, you’re a bad actor, you should go to jail.
8:03BYou know, and you don’t really wanna go to jail, so you’re not gonna do that. And so with NFTs, it’s kind of the same thing. Your screenshot wouldn’t really work because everybody can see that if that NFT goes up in value, per se, if people are gambling that this thing could be worth more money tomorrow, ’cause that’s what NFTs were, it was people gambling on art. And it was a lot of people that didn’t really care about art, they just cared about gambling, you know? And if I can convince you to gamble on the picture, then it’ll go up in price, right? I got Post Malone to buy the monkey.
8:28BYou should want the monkey. Post Malone’s gonna be at the party. You wanna be at the party? You know, and so they’re inciting rich people FOMO essentially. And then, you know, it’s like keeping up. It’s just a new way of keeping up, right? But it collapsed because it was a casino. But people who knew how to run those kinds of casino games made a lot of money. And a lot of artists didn’t really know how to navigate those ecosystems or that they were even predatory to begin with. And so NFTs are still happening. There are artists that make money. Honestly, like X on Twitter now, you can send them money.
8:55BThey have like an Apple Pay on Twitter now. And they just did a whole NFT release, but that’s all just like getting people -- they give you free money, they tell you to give back to them, in my opinion. But so you can make money as an artist, but I think it’s the same as it would be anywhere else, right? If you’re an artist, you need to get your art in front of people who have money, who want to support you as an artist. And it’s kind of hard to find rich people with money who care about art unless you go to where they go. And I think most of them don’t feel like crypto is a safe place to go.
9:21BSo yeah, that’s my answer to all your questions. Thank you for letting me take so long. And then I have one more question, right? We do like citizen journalism around the world. My team’s in Nigeria and Kenya, and we ask people, if you could ask people around the world one question, what would you ask them? And I would love if each of you would give an answer so you can go and be in our directory. We’re trying to ask 300 people between now and November 4th.
9:39DYeah.
9:43BThank you. I know it’s been 10 minutes, so thank you so much.
9:47DOkay. I’d say in regards to a question I’d want to ask somebody, my go-to is, what kind of things motivate you in life?
9:59BWhat would your answer be?
10:01DI’d say things like my friends, my family, wanting to be successful in the future, and wanting to just like enjoy life, basically. Um, I don’t know.
10:23CHow’s your day going? Feeling all right?
10:25BHow’s your day going?
10:27CUh, pretty shit. I’m tired as hell right now.
10:35AUm, let me see, what can I think of? I can’t think of anything.
10:43CMaybe, maybe.
10:44BI’m serious.
10:45AAll right. Um, I guess what defines success for you, because everyone has different perspective on what success is and things, let’s say, things of that nature. So I guess for me, it really just depends on what goals you have. If you achieve those goals, then I’d say you’re pretty successful. It doesn’t have to always be about money. You know, it could be about, like, like she said, friends and family and stuff like that. It could even be about, um, um, yeah, honestly, that’s it.
11:21BYeah, but well, thank you guys all for this interview. You’re all going to follow us on
