How to Make the Blockchain Real Deal

Here we have something from our friend from overseas. Dean Kirkland once again came up with an excellent podcast where he mentions us. As usually podcast transcription is edited and condensed. If you want to listen for the full version, click HERE

Dean: We got a couple of articles from our buddies at BitNewsToday. The first one we got is 'DLT, how to make money on Freedom of Speech'.

Charlie: This is so important because of the fact, for instance, social media that dominates
everything is of course Facebook, but Facebook has been censoring a lot of content lately. I mean
we've all known about the big news, the Alex Jones controversies and everything else. But what people are saying, "We have to have a decentralized method of being able to communicate with each other, and Facebook and the methods we have now for the most part don't work", there's I think two billion people who are on Facebook, and as they're saying, "Don't expect these people to go out there and do anything to try and facilitate free speech, but what you've got to do is find a decentralized method to be able to do social media and get information out." Guess what they're gonna be using? Blockchain.

At some places they have already begun to do this, I think there's a place called See Me, they haven't used blockchain but this is an alternative method. Let me back up, let me finish that box. Daemon is not a blockchain controlled method of social media, I'm just saying that's an alternative to some of the other social medias. The question about blockchain is once it’s out there it can’t be altered and it can’t be discarded, it is there for good. If it works well, if it does its job, then the likes that you get are genuine, these are people who are willing to go and spend their time on your content.

Dean: What’s Facebook got to say about, were they quoting anything in here or it’s just an example?

Charlie: In this particular article they did mention the situation that was happening with Facebook and that Facebook has been involved in a controversy regarding content, that they wanted to make sure the content was not hate speech or fake news or whatever else, that any other method was out for any other excuse that they had. But if you’re gonna have that situation, you’re gonna have to have one person making that decision, what’s legitimate and what’s not. People are arguing and saying: “Look, can blockchain be used as the method of being another alternative method where you don’t have to deal with any of this?” Again, it’s a decentralized method of being able to communicate with each other and this is the thing they believe – blockchain can actually be used to do. To tokenize speech, to have people be willing to go out there and subsidize and pay for the information that they get.

Dean: We have a little bit presence on Steemit, I think you can find Crypto the Wonderdog here. Crypto is kind of a big thing on Steemit. A lot of people that we see have articles, videos on Steemit and I think it’s a way you can monetize your content. You get enough content on there you can monetize it. You are not the subject to scrutiny of things like Facebook where they can randomly just take your crap down if they feel it doesn’t comply with their rules and regulations, but they can take your information and content and sell it to the highest bidder.

Charlie: Exactly, that’s the whole point! That’s what is so incredibly unfair because they’ve been caught, Facebook has been caught data mining, taking the information of their subscribers and selling it, I guess, to the highest bidder. And remember something else. You did a story about how Facebook was gonna not allow cryptocurrency advertising. They were gonna block all that. I mean, cryptos may have problems and we all know that, but there are a lot of other methods, investments and vehicles that are just as problematic. And It seemed not to have any sort of problem getting advertising, so this is another way of being able to decentralize. In real world it has to solve real world problems. Well, here is one. Censoring is a real-world problem that somehow blockchain should be able to figure out a method around. If it can do it, this might be the way to do it. We’ll have to wait and see, and that is quite interesting.

Dean: The next thing we have is “Iran, India and the EU are running out of the US control”.

Charlie: This is even more important in my opinion. What happens is there’s a telecommunication system that banks use, that financial institutions use, which is called Swift. Society for worldwide financial transactions. This particular mechanism is what controls all financial transactions that go on. If you get a letter of credit of some sort of financial instrument from other country or institution, it has to go through this. It has to go through Swift. If the US, actually other Western unit of countries but Western industrialized countries, but mainly the United States is going to sit there and say, “We’re gonna browbeat you and take you off from Swift if you don’t conform to what we say politically”. Other nations are saying, “You know what, this is no way to act”.

And this came about because of what happened when the US got involved in what was happening in Ukraine few years ago. They did not like that the Russians were supporting a certain faction in that war. And they said, “We’re going to punish you by taking you off the Swift system”. Which was pretty much an act of war. If you cannot have access to that particular mechanism, you can’t do transactions, and they did that same thing with Iran and they were threatening to do that with Turkey, in any other nations that they did not feel we’re conforming to what they wanted to do. Not economically, but just politically.

What right do you have to do something like this? So these other nations are beginning to find out, and you’ve got good enough job talking to other cryptocurrency and Bitcoin entrepreneurs, “Look, we’re going to use the cryptocurrency or the blockchain to facilitate things like trade.” Well, what the German Foreign Minister, Finance Minister has said is that EU is gonna have to figure out another way of doing an alternative to the Swift system. “We’re gonna have to create our own version of Swift”. And the major reason is why? Germany gets so much of its gas and oil from Russia. Russians have always been a major supplier of gas and oil to Western Europe.

The way they do the transactions is of course through the Swift system, you take that away and you’re pretty much going to be affecting a lot of Western Europe and their standard of living. So Germany has come along and said, “You know what, we can’t keep doing this. We have to be able to do something else.” Guess what they are looking at? Blockchain. And I thank the folks at Bitnewstoday.com, because to be quite honest with you, I don’t know any other mainstream media that has covered the story at all. And the folks at Bitnewstoday.com have done the story, so I would suggest everybody that’s listening us – go to Bitnewstoday.com, patronize their site and start reading what they have to say. They’ve done a very good job of bringing you this kind of information. And again, like you and I have said repeatedly, if blockchain is ever gonna become real, it’s gonna have to solve these problems. And here we have it, right here. This is as real world as you get. If you can’t facilitate oil and gas transactions, not only you cannot do business, you’re gonna freeze to death. That’s going to be something for us to follow up on, and I thank the folks at BitNewsToday for doing the story and giving us that information.

Dean: We’ve got a few more stories we’re going to be covering here coming soon and we appreciate the guys at BitNewsToday for dropping those off to us and giving us a little bit talk about. And it’s always good to have you on, Charlie - because you’re the smart one. (Laughter)