Decrypting Cryptocurrency
Business measures are changing rapidly to adapt in this new climate we live and at Hollywood Branded, we can tell you firsthand how important cyber security is for your business. As cryptocurrency and block chain proves to be one of the safest ways to safeguard your funds, we thought it would be helpful to learn a little more on how cryptocurrency could map out the future of business.
Recently, our CEO sat down with an expert in the field of cryptocurrency so she (and you) can learn a little more! In this blog, Hollywood Branded discusses cryptocurrency and blockchain, how it's changed the game for so many people and how it is impacting the future landscape of business.
A Little More About Jamar
Jamar is a cryptocurrency trading business educator and coach and veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, where he specialized in IT. He began his entrepreneurial journey as a real estate broker in Arizona, where he built his brokerage to over 200 realtors until the market crash of 2009. Returning to the world of IT and block chain, Jamar developed a passion for day trading in cryptocurrency and through sharing his wins with others, developed a consultancy focused on business growth, automation and cryptocurrency focused on helping other business owners change their lives.
Interview Transcript Highlights
Question: How can businesses and how should businesses be looking at cryptocurrency right now?
Answer: The reason that I get interviewed or people reach out is because they don't know. For business, we talk about decentralized finance, are you talking about these keywords that are block chain related and the persons do not know. In a sales environment, whoever has the most of my information and educates their customers, will become an authority. And so for business owners that are in business for when there is a way to protect some of your assets through cryptocurrency. As a business owner, you want to have education about questions like what is my contingency plan? What happens if the economy shuts down? What happens if I have to close my storefront. How do I adjust?
And so looking at cryptocurrency that is actually an option. But then when it comes to decentralized finance where your banks are in a zero interest rate, and there's an asset over here that's making 4-5% a month in stable coins, and they say, "Well, what are stable coins?" So it's really the embracing of the knowledge, the education for your owners, because the blockchain is going to impact every business out there. The same way that the internet has impacted business, before the internet, before mobile phones, the way we communicated was different. Print, mail, radio advertising, all of that has changed because of the internet. And now you have block chain, the new technology, which, cryptocurrency is an asset that runs over the block chain technology, but a business owner should think like, "Well, I need to talk to someone. How is the block chain going to impact my business?"
And for each business, it becomes a different use case. And then once they say, "Okay, this is where it's going, and I should embrace it." So like for restaurants, they should've already embraced the delivery model. The, "Hey, we'll take it to you or we'll have a custom kit that we can send to you to build your food." In this way when this had happened, where we have a pandemic, they would of had a contingency plan. What happens if we can't have people come sit in our restaurant and it's just that ideal of thinking. And so same thing with the money, right? What happens if the banking goes down and we're a business, what alternative we have to accept payments?
Do we have a way to credit our customers? What model should that be? So the contingency plans that each business should have should be something that they look at crypto as a contingency. What happens when a person, a foreigner comes in and they want to pay in crypto. I want to be able to say, "Hey, we accept all forms of payment, whether it's cash, credit card or crypto."
Question: Can you give us just kind of an insight on how you see block chain. What block chain is and how it impacts companies?
Answer: So internet is technology, and then when I ask someone "who owns the internet?" right, and that person will tell me, "Well, the internet is everywhere. No one really owns the internet. It's everywhere. And it's a technology that we use to communicate. Once ever here, once over here, communicates with each other. Well, to put it in layman's terms, the internet is technology to connect to different computers. The block chain are basically databases that store's information and information is everywhere, but it has a private key. So you can't get access to the information, even though it's everywhere, unless you have a private key. So the block chain wallets are on the block chain. So from one wallet to the next wallet on bitcoin, you send bitcoin from one wallet to the next wallet on the block chain.
And it goes from one database to the next database. And they're all synced. So every transaction on the block chain is kept in this one big database that is everywhere. No one owns it. And so that is the equivalent of when we talk about the block chain technology, we're really talking about the block chain as a database for storing information that's available to everyone, whoever has the private key, right? And there's this... This is a way to store information. So in the future maybe your medical records are kept on a block chain and you have ownership. And so when you go to a different hospital, it doesn't have to be a general doctor. It can be any doctor, and then you give them your records. And you say, "Hey, here's my private key. All my information for my medical history is here on a block chain. Here, you can have access to it."
Now this person owns his own data and he can give someone else the access. So for instance, UC Irvine, they're keeping their grades for their students. And every test that the student takes is on the block chain now. So now that student, when they says, "Hey, well, how was your experience at UCI? And where's your transcripts?" The kid can be like, "Oh, here's my phone. Let me just give you access. And I'll transfer you every test, every homework, everything I ever done at UCI." And now you have it because it is all stored in the block chain.
Question: So with cryptocurrency, and you were just saying earlier if you're a business and you want to be able to take cash or credit or checks or wire transfers or crypto, how does the business go about that?
Answer: It is actually easier because you're traditionally, we've always had a third party, right? And this is the exact time that we're in right now is we're starting to realize that the third party has been the obstacle, has been the thing that's stopping us from being free. And so right now, if a owner actually had a wallet, there's nothing stopping him from saying, "Hey, here's my barcode. Just send the money here." And then now that customer has to confirm with him, instead of having to confirm with the banking, why does a wire take three days? Or why does the wire take overnight when you can send an email right away, or we can hop on a Zoom and talk right away. So, the only reason it takes a day or two days or three days is because there's a middle person involved. It's getting a fee that is actually being in the middle of that transaction. Now, if you eliminate that person, everything happens instantly.
So, for a owner, you have a blockchain wallet and you say, "Hey, here's my wallet and my store. Send it to me." I confirm it's there and we just cut out the middle man with less fees. So, that is how simple it is. Now, for accounting purposes you want to know what product that you just received this payment for and you want to see how many times this customer has sent it. And so that's why you have a system for a business owner to put in place so you can keep your tracking of accounting, but if you really wanted it to accept something right away, I can have you download a wallet and I can send you money right now. And it will be peer-to-peer.
Question: Do you think this opens yourself up to more or less fraud?
Answer: The human aspect of it is the part where the fraud happens, not on the technology side. On crypto, the technology side is, you can't penetrate that. The fraud transactions do not exist on a technology side. They exist with the humans. So, this is still a procedure in a human process. The human thing, if the human sends it to the wrong place or is scanned by another human, then that is a human problem. It's not a block chain problem. It's not a bitcoin problem. That is a person that sent a transaction and that transaction is vital.
The thing with the banking is people have been sheltered, right? Where it's like, "Oh, we make a mistake. We call Wells Fargo and they help us fix it." Or, "We make a mistake and someone gets access to our account. We can call Visa and say it wasn't ours." And they have insurance. For crypto it is, we're responsible for the human side of it. So if you send to a wrong address, or if you give someone your private keys, then you've allowed the exposure to happen and you can't call Visa. You can't call Wells Fargo. This is something that you are responsible for. And I think that scares people. It shouldn't scare a business owner, but it scares people.
Question: What are some other, top of mind thoughts that business owners should be aware of in the cryptocurrency space?
Answer:
I mean, top of mind, I just went into a business owners, the ideal of cryptocurrency and how business is changing. It's something that they should embrace because right now being on a shelter in place and not being able to operate as they have been in the past. There was a pre-corona time and there's going to be a post-corona time and going in the future after everyone comes through this time, because this shall pass, and going into the future, it's like, let's set up the business to be able to adapt. This actually builds your tribe so you can actually talk to your customers. And so you don't lose your customers when you shut down for a month or two. You have a way to communicate with them.
One of the big things with cryptocurrency is about community and I think every business should have his own brand and community and tribe. So you have a loyal customers and this is the tech coming out of me. Because I've built CRM systems, which is customer relationship management systems. The CRM system, your business should be ran that way, where once you do a transaction with a person, now it becomes a peer-to-peer from the person to the business. In a business you think that they're peer-to-peer. It shouldn't be just a business transaction. It should be a business relationship now. And so during these tough times, when, I mean, I have Facebook groups with 26,000 people, 26,000 traders. I have other groups, business groups with over a thousand people as a mastermind. So these become my tribe and we all support each other as a business.
And so when you see business analysis and say, "Hey, I'm community based and community based." Well, after this is done, really become community based. And so you're really embedded into the business because when this happened, my business didn't stop. It actually expanded because now they're thinking, "Well, he's been operating remotely. He's been teaching them about cryptocurrency alternatives and now we need it." And now since I had a community based model, my business expanded when times get tough. Either people go apart or they come together. And so this should be a lesson to business owners to establish that where, "Hey, I'm building my tribe and I'm building my community." So this way, when things get tough and they want to support a restaurant, they're going to come support this restaurant because I've done things to support the community.
And now you have a real togetherness and that is crypto. So the more people are educated about cryptocurrency, the more valuable my currency becomes because I'm holding a lot of cryptocurrency. So if I can just give it away and, "Hey, I'm going to give you the knowledge and let you adapt it and expand it," it makes what I'm holding become more valuable. So this is one of the ways to build wealth is to give. I give all my knowledge and help other people embrace this and have a way that it makes my brand and it makes the currency that I'm holding more valuable.
Check Out The Podcast!
Jamar has so much great information from his experience in Cryptocurrency, check out the podcast below to learn more about how to drive your business with digital marketing!
Every week we have a marketing professional on our show to share their tips, tricks and lessons learned from their professional experience. Check out some of our other podcast blogs from earlier this year:
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