This week, I got the opportunity to catch up with crypto investor and visionary Ben Knaus, to get his opinions on what is happening in the crypto world and beyond.
Q – Ben, tell us about your relationship with crypto?
A couple of years back my good friend Devan called me to ask me my opinion of a crypto. I remember telling him I’d do some due diligence but I thought crypto was speculation at best with nothing backing it. The more i set out to disprove of the space the more I became a believer, especially being educated on the intrinsic of fiat currency and monetary systems around the world. I invested myself 2 months later. I would study projects from cradle to grave. Flash forward to today I’m in the top 1% of Bitcoin holders in the world and the top 10% of ADA holders worldwide.
I do get asked about crypto often and to be honest I become disenchanted most times as it’s purely from a speculative standpoint.
I’m not a tourist here, nor a speculator, and I don’t want to support crypto tourism. I’m here for the long run to see white papers reach fruition and utility. While one of my largest holdings has over 100 x’d in value this year I’ve only sold about 2.5% of my portfolio, mostly to rebalance.
Q – the crypto sphere has been continually evolving, where are we at now?
You always hear “we’re early , if this was baseball we’re only in the 3rd inning in this space”.
Honestly I’d say it’s more like we’re just finishing the National anthem of a long double header on a hot Sunday afternoon.
The normal person in 2021 has probably heard of Bitcoin , and regrettably in my opinion …meme winner Dogecoin (an inflationary marvel). The common narrative is there are all these cryptocurrencies, and they all think they will replace fiat currency and be the only means of transaction.
While in a small part true; most crypto projects aren’t trying to only be a transactional means of exchange.
The reality is the term cryptocurrency is very misleading. I’d use the term crypto assets or digital assets. And if you permit them, they will change the world. We’ve got some amazing innovations taking place in the space.
Q – And what innovations and developments have caught your eye?
Just looking at Cardano, a generation 3 decentralized Crypto, is setting itself up to bank the unbanked. Providing financial inclusion to the 30%+ of adults in the world without a bank account.
Now through protocols like Cardano, the unbanked can finally have a financial identity, a place to transact, a secure wallet, a means and a bridge to micro loans and decentralized finance. And a means of remitting money to friends and family at 49% less cost than other avenues like Western Union or money gram. The unbanked can now send money like an email. And remit in seconds.
We’re seeing Cardano develop identity solutions for nation states who struggle with education and national verification. Recently 5 million students and teachers are onboarding educational accreditation and records into the Cardano blockchain, these will forever be tamper proof, and accessible with the click of a button.
Q – What real world cases of blockchain use impresses you and where do you see this evolution heading?
Supply chain management is an interesting one.
Supply chain management is tracking real assets in the world by tokenizing assets.
For example, if you want to track a bottle of wine, and track it as it goes through the supply chain. You can create a token and represent that bottle of wine as a digital token. And for each token you can assign metadata, that meta data will include the exact origin the wine originated, certifications, history of processes (how long was fermentation, how long was delivery to distribution). Each token can be assigned its unique QR code. We can track this QR code by scanning data, and see the whole supply chain timetable of events etc. This can give consumers validity of sources, and ingredients etc etc. On the other hand, companies can streamline and find lags on their supply chain.
This is already being done on Cardano with Georgian wineries, and Vechain with Coach and other luxury goods. Vechain also has a deal with Walmart China And is working hard on pharma supply chain tracking as well as food.
There’s also a company in Wyoming known as Beefchain who have implemented this on beef in the US to ensure sources and prevent theft.
Unibright, an ERC20 token (on Ethereum’s blockchain), has signed a deal with Coca Cola to use Baseline protocol to verify and monitor its supply chain movement and production.
Smart contracts – use the distributed ledger to store contracts. These contracts are completely digital and stored on chain. Smart contracts are immutable, they can’t be changed after negotiation. They’re tamper proof. Insurance companies are using it to process certain claims, and paymaster services are using it to use decentralized paymaster services to release funds upon success of transactions. Currently 60+ Billion USD is being settled on Ethereum every day.
NFT’s non fungible tokens. Non interchangeable assets and limited quantity assets. Many artists (digital art/ virtual land/gaming) are making art/music into NFT’s which are digital. The digital certificate is stormed and public all verifiable intellectual property stored on chain. NBA/NFL/MLB are all in the NFT space already.
The digital asset space has many use cases which are indeed alive. We may be a decade after the inception of Bitcoin, but rest assured, we’re very early in the development of this space.
Lots of middlemen will be cut out by blockchain and there will be a point where we keep deeds and birth certificates on chain and can always access them without a third party.
Just think, the largest taxi company in the world owns (UBER) 0 taxis,
The largest overnight stay company in the world owns no real estate (Air BNB).
In the future …The largest bank will be a protocol on the blockchain.
The anthem has just ended, and we’re just getting ready for the first pitch.
Like it or not, Blockchain and crypto assets are here to stay. And soon you will not even know you’re a consumer of the technology.
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