0:11BSo this was my actually second year attending the conference, but because of the endeavors that I’m working on currently, I was on a panel discussing my involvement in stablecoins and how with the ecosystem, dual token ecosystem that I’m creating, Using stablecoins.
0:30AOkay, and for people who don’t know what a stablecoin is, can you define a stablecoin?
0:33BYeah, so a stablecoin is, um, a stable version of a fiat currency. So like for us in America, it’s like 1 to 1 to the USD for businesses or, um, investors to be able to transact in something that is stable in comparison to like a Bitcoin, which tends fluctuate, as we’ve seen it going from like $125,000 to like $40,000, $50,000. So this one, it’s pretty stable. Like I said, 1:1 USD.
1:05AOkay, awesome. And so tell us about your dual token ecosystem. What is that?
1:09BYes, so it is, um, the dual token ecosystem is a self-sustaining funding ecosystem that is powered by stablecoins because last year the Genius Bill required that if you’re going to be a stablecoin operator in the US that your stablecoin has to be backed partly by short-term Treasury notes. And so with that, that means you’re receiving a 4 to 5% about yield on the amount of stablecoins that you would have in circulation. Now, one of the things that’s being fought right now with the Clarity Bill is that the banks don’t want our consumers, uh, to be able to receive the benefit of the yield from the stablecoin.
1:54BSo my thought was, okay, cool, we can’t pass down that yield to the consumer. But if we’re going to say, hey, let’s think about what does it look like for the Black dollar to circulate? Well, if we had a stablecoin, and then from the yield of that stablecoin, we’re able to create a treasury to now help support funding Black ventures and Black real estate development, we can really re -- like, revolutionize how we’re gaining and harnessing the economic power from the use of stablecoins to now be able to invest in our businesses and invest in our communities in the way that we know we tend to lack within our community.
2:41AAnd I’m curious, what do you think adoption would be for the kind of product you’re trying to build?
2:45BSo there is -- it’s a tiered process. I don’t think it’s automatically like, hey, go out and use a stablecoin. I think we are ultimately going to get there within the next 5 years just because that’s just the map, the roadmap. When you look at what’s being created, the Genius Build was first and you have the Clarity and then you already have banks that are creating their own stablecoins. So it’s just really a matter of time before our consumers are transacting with stablecoins and they won’t even know it. They won’t even realize it. But what does that tiered process look like now to get to that point before we get to mass market adoption?
3:23BTo me, that looks like first, okay, let’s bring our stakeholders, let’s bring our banks, our Black banks together to create a consortium that gives that regulatory oversight for the stablecoins. And then from there, you’re creating an MVP where you’re bringing in small businesses, real estate developers, and the banks to be able to transact in the stablecoins. So whether that is the real estate development side or for B2B purchases or getting funding from banks to be able to, um, build capital for businesses, That’s your MVP. So we’ll work there first. And then from there, you start to look at mass migration in the pilot adoption.
4:09AAnd I’m curious, how do you think about capital coordination in the Black community now? You talk about Black banks coordinating. Like, I never heard of that.
4:17BYeah.
4:17ASo I think paradigm shifter. I’m just -- I’m late to the party.
4:20BYeah. Yeah. So the Black coordination now. So one of the issues that Black banks or small banks may have is to be able to fund a business. They don’t have the data that they need to underwrite for, and so not to saying that they completely lack that, but I’m saying if they had better insight into their data, they would have more opportunities to fund our ventures and provide the capital. And because stablecoin is operating on the ledger that’s an immutable ledger that will help them in being able to underwrite and provide capital to said businesses. Or on the capital markets side, which is a little bit different than banks, because banks, you may be working with smaller businesses and mid-sized businesses, but when you’re raising funds for real estate development deals, they’re going to family offices and these Certain institutions in order to raise funds, not always the bank.
5:22BIn order to raise funds from anywhere from like ten to hundred million dollars, they’re not typically going to the bank. So also, that’s what I’m saying: we bring into the stablecoin ecosystem that dynamic of being able to raise funds because once again, we have data. Absolutely. And also, you have a network of. funders who can operate on a smart contract in order to, yeah, invest in deals in a more streamlined process.
5:54AThat’s really well said. And I’m curious, like, as someone who’s also spent time working in consulting, right, what do you feel like every day people aren’t really understanding about what it takes to operate a business and even consider, right, what it means to, to really pursue ideas that maybe do have data but they don’t necessarily see the conviction or understand how data is leverageable? In today’s market?
6:12BI think, um, to be an entrepreneur, you have to be able to see things both on a macro and micro scale. You need to be able to see the big picture to bring key stakeholders in, in order to usher in the vision that you’re trying to bring to fruition. And also that micro scale from being able to delegate tasks to your team members to execute. So I think that’s important. But also having your sponsors, having your mentors, because you don’t know what you don’t know. So it’s always great to have other great minds that you can bounce ideas off of or who can give you another perspective based off of their lens as well.
6:59AOkay, very interesting. And another question I would have is, you know, I’m here asking people a lot about inflation. And how they perceive and understand the relationship between inflation and cryptocurrency. I think a lot of people, they see crypto, they only see a casino. They don’t see a conversation about inflation, de-basement, and the way that fiat currencies actually work. How would you address that conversation if you were speaking to maybe someone who’s 16 and doesn’t really understand that relationship?
7:19BLet me make sure I want to understand it first. So we were trying to ask her, so with the inflation piece, are we thinking about like emerging economies? Are we thinking about specifically within the States and inflation? Or in relation to cryptocurrency, because the way I look at it like this, like crypto aside, inflation is a monetary, um, outside of -- like, it’s cycle. You have the business, like you have your recessions, you have your, um -- And I’m trying to make your peaks. Uh, economic peaks. So whether crypto was around or not, inflation would be.
8:02AI put us in front of the cold air, didn’t I?
8:04BYeah, I was like, I’m like, we can move over. Yeah, I’m like, thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. So, um, whether crypto was around or not, you -- if you understand economics, you would understand that like that’s going to be a part of it.
8:21ABut now A lot of people don’t understand economics, right? So I love that you said crypto. Are we talking about emerging economies, which people often don’t even have any reference for? So I love that you said that, right? Or the US, right? Yeah, right. So yeah, however you want to tie it all together, if you could tie it all together, you would be a key piece of content from this event.
8:38BOkay. Okay.
8:39ASo that’s a -- that’s, that’s, that’s an invaluable learning opportunity in my eyes.
8:43BOkay. Okay. So let’s tie this all together because as we talked about The, the typical business cycles that we know where you have like, um, you’re at your peak, you’re at your trough, you have your recession, and then, um, you might be in depression, and now you’re in expansion territory. Well, that is the normal monetary cycle in any economic cycle. And so crypto, whether crypto was around or not, that was going to happen. But because of crypto being a new tool, a new monetary tool for people to use, you have the -- let’s see, I will say your wealthy individuals, large institutions, they’re going to look for ways to hedge their funds, hedge their money.
9:39BSo if your market is doing great, Then, um, I might go and buy a bond. But right now the U.S. bond market is pretty trash. No, you like used to have like China, Japan would be some of our biggest bond buyers in America, but right now they’re also facing inflation and going through recession, so they’re not even buying our bonds. And also just because the general tension that’s going on between America and other countries right now. So you now have, um, your fund managers, your wealthy individuals, large institutions, countries that need to look for a safe haven, safe haven to hedge their money against inflation, which is why you saw a lot of, um, a mass exodus from crypto into gold.
10:36BBecause gold is usually like a pretty good standard for, um, maintaining its value. And then from one cycle, like, okay, cool, we go from there. And after they’ve been able to attain all the gains that they would need from gold, then they might actually exit over to crypto in order to reap the gains that you see from crypto. For example, We saw Bitcoin in the beginning of this year, it went down, and like maybe the lows was about like $50,000, $60,000, but now it’s back up to $80,000. So it’s probably going through an expansion cycle. So these are just typical cycles that you’ll go through in, in economic cycle, business cycle, but you -- there are different tools and mechanisms that you’ll use in order to hedge against Losing the devaluing dollar, against our devaluing dollar that we’re currently facing right now.
11:36AAnd how do we think about what it means for us to have a devalued dollar as everyday American people?
11:40BWell, that means right now things are more expensive. Like, people are living paycheck to paycheck. The dollar does not stretch as long as it used to, um, and that’s why I say wealthy individuals own assets. To hedge against that in particular. That’s why I said they want to go from gold to then they can go to crypto and then they might go to stocks.
12:03AThey rotate. And that’s why they rotate. They’re always thinking, how am I hedging against the fact that this economy is extractive implicitly?
12:09BYes.
12:11AAnd I guess, you know, I think it’s really important people understand that relationship. You know, and I’m curious, in a world where we’ve lost this reserve currency status potentially, how do you think that impacts working-class Americans? What do you think life is like for people living paycheck to paycheck right now when a dollar is more devalued?
12:26BYeah.
12:27AIs that the outcome, you think, or no? You seem very smart, so I’d like to hear what you think.
12:31BYeah. Um, I think that -- I mean, off the record and on the record, I think that it was -- they’re purposely trying to devalue the, the dollar, this administration in particular. Um, there’s a lot of research that would kind of point to that and to why. Because ultimately, we know that this administration is crypto-friendly, and you have USDC and Tether, who they also have like large stakes in, investment stakes in. So ultimately, what might happen is, you know, we lose our world reserve currency value, but at the same time, now You have all of a sudden a market crash, whatever. Then they usher in a solution, something like a stablecoin, to say, hey, okay, this is going to be a new, um, you know, means of commerce, or however we’re going to transact, and using that stablecoin to save the day, so to speak. But what it ultimately does --
13:39AYou have me goosebumps.
13:40BWhat, what it ultimately does, what people don’t realize is, like I said, the stablecoins have to be backed by short-term treasury notes. And those bonds, the American debt, that, that’s where when you, when you buy a house or you buy a car, the bank doesn’t hold on to that note. They sell it on the secondary market, and that, and then that market also gets sold in bond market. And other countries will come, other large institutions will come, and they’ll buy our bond market. If they’re not buying our bond market, then our deficit goes up, and that’s how we see like $40 trillion. And so being able to back stablecoins to short-term Treasury notes also helps address that picture as well. But, um, does it work in the long run? I mean, we’ll see, but that is ultimately the overall picture with You see specialists talking about right now.
14:38AWow. You’re so like nail on the head. It’s really impressive. And, you know, Kamal, he writes our newsletter. I actually met him here a couple of years ago. He has a book called DeFi for the Diaspora. And a question he asked me to ask people here is, do you feel like DeFi is still a big opportunity for the Black community? And if so, why? If not, why not?
14:55BI think there are those who there is an opportunity for and who it is going to work for. And I think there are those who are just kind of implicitly going to still transact in whatever financial ecosystem works for them. Because at the end of the day, and I’ve said this and had conversations with a lot of other people, finance is something that -- finance and technology is something that goes over a lot of people’s heads. So trying to educate everyone as to like why DeFi works for you, I don’t think is realistic. I think if you were to build something and say like, hey, here’s a great product where you can build wealth, then, you know, like people will be, oh, okay, great. But if you’re trying to educate them as to why they need to learn about DeFi, why --
15:43ASo they can build their own product, they’re probably not gonna come and build their product after you teach them.
15:46BNo, no, no. Because at the end of the day, that takes a lot of brainpower. And not to say that people don’t have the capacity for that brainpower, but people are more worried about what is affecting me right now.
15:59AWow, excellently said. And, uh, you know, we’re kind of pivoting from doing just crypto journalism to doing citizen journalism as the distributed network. So my team is based in Nigeria and Kenya. We put up bounties in crypto on the Ethereum, uh, blockchain where people can come and essentially go out and do interviews like these at blockchain events, really anything, as long as they ask the questions that we ask people to, which is right now we’re doing one about inflation. So ask people about inflation. And then we ask people to also ask, you know, if you could ask people around the world one question, what would you ask them?
16:25BYeah.
16:26ASo that our citizen journalists can go out and ask the questions. Okay. And so I’m curious, if you could ask people around the world one question, if you could deploy a diasporal citizen journalism network on your behalf, what would you want to know?
16:36BHmm. Okay. Diasporal journalism. Let me see. I really think that we, with the use of crypto, have the opportunity to create a global diaspora stablecoin and to be able to use the harness, the value, economic value from that. If that’s the case, then what expertise, what skills, what technology do we think we would need in order to usher in a -- that type of ecosystem? All right, what, what do people -- what innovation do people want to see? What would be beneficial for them? What would make them -- I think that’s the real question I want to ask. What would make them want to actually participate in that ecosystem? What type of benefits are they looking for to be able to participate in a global diaspora ecosystem?
17:42AAnd what’s your -- what was your answer?
17:44BFor me, I think, um, you, you have to appeal to what’s in it for me, what do I get in it for me. So I think it’s from the standpoint of, cool, um, I say dual token because you have a stablecoin and then you can have a protocol token. So by simply using the stablecoins, you can get points that you can then maybe go and buy other crypto like a Bitcoin or redeem it at other businesses. Like you get 15% off here. Think of it like your credit card point system. So the more I use this stablecoin, the more points I get, the more I can redeem it for other goods and services.
18:28AOkay. And so it’s really about the incentives, you feel like? Okay, absolutely. Fantastic. And do you have a message for people that aren’t here? About the summit, about anything? Where are you from?
18:39BHouston.
18:40AYou have a message for Texas, for Houston?
18:42BOh man, I don’t know if I have them. I don’t, I don’t have a message right now outside of just like, you know, stay curious.
18:50AUm, that’s a good message. That’s an important message.
18:53BYeah, you know, like don’t always take what someone is telling you at face value. Do your own research. And so, um, trust but verify.
19:03AExcellent. Thank you so much.
