Introduction (00:21) You're listening to KBkast Cyber Security podcast for all executives cutting through the jargon and height to understand the landscape where risk and technology meet. Now, here's your host, Karissa Breen. Karissa (00:35) Jasun, welcome back to the show. You're like the original OG. I think you were like one of my first one to ten interviews. So going back a long time now. So I'm really keen to get you back on the show, knowing you're probably going to be a level of intensity that's off the charts. So really appreciate good energy. I'm going to keep the energy through the whole interview today. So thank you for coming back. How have you been anyway? Jasun (01:01) I've been fantastic. Thanks for having me back. It's such a wonderful situation to be back on this podcast. It's been so long since we've reunited, but everything is up and up. Black Alchemy is still in effect. I'm doing my thing and living my life. Karissa (01:16) Yeah, well, you're just going hard for everything. Security, which we're going to get into today, so let's get into it. NFT, also known as nonfungible tokens. But WTF what is this? So many people are talking about this in the market, but you're already in this game, so just break it down as easily as you can, please. Jasun (01:41) Not a problem. So I'm going to keep away from the technical specificities of NFTs and go into the outlay so your audience can really digest it. When you think NFT's first and foremost an NFT or non fungible token is a technology. It's a more of a cryptological algorithm that specifies a lot of different capabilities. More commonly known, most people see NFT's as a digital image, and that's just the surface. The images that you're seeing are attached to smart contracts, which is a new technological advancement where digitally you can have contracts established based off of different criteria that are electronically stored on the ethereum blockchain, which is a very innovative thing. There are endless possibilities in the NFT space. Just unfortunately, right now, a lot of people have the misconception that it is some form of digital art, when in fact, the digital art that you see is the overlay of an underlying technological backbone that is so vast, so expansive, and so endless possibilities that I believe everybody's going to be in the NFT space within a few years. Whether that's in smart contracts with your utility bills, leveraging smart contracts for how you purchase vehicles, even to more recent times, the use of electronic voting with smart contracts and NFPs through voting in our political systems, what you're looking at with NFT's and more specifics is a technology that allows transparency across the entire board. Jasun (03:30) There are no room, there is no room for back end communications. Or let's just from a voting perspective, if you have an open ledger system or a blockchain type technology like NFT where people could purchase or they could opt in to their voting solution, where everybody could see it, I'm so amazed by entities. It's such a wonderful technology. Unfortunately, right now the market is so excuse me, inundated with negativity. And by negativity I mean people trying to make financial advantages over others scammers. There's a lot of things in the market that are causing people on the outside to look at it with a lot of scepticism. But when you think NFP moving forward, what you should think first and foremost is something along these lines. Back in the day, I'm 40 years old, so back in the day I would buy baseball cards and NBA basketball cards, and we're talking about the current empty market. So back in the day, you buy a basketball card and it has the rookies and those special mints and the one on one and the one of 500 and those specialty cards that have certain values based off of the community that provides the value to it. Jasun (04:56) For instance, if you weren't a basketball card trader, you probably don't see the value of having a LeBron James card. Now, excuse my references, I know they're pretty old, but if you don't see the value in it, then that's just not the market for you to have value in. With the NFT space, there are multiple communities, let's just say different distributors of their own basketball cards, that have their own utility attached to these basketball cards. And I want to remove my tag of basketball cards and now place the NFT. When you join an NFT community, each NFT community is its own community. It's not connected to the old legacy systems like Twitter and Instagram and LinkedIn, where these single companies have the power to control the voice, to control the narrative, to control the output, to control the valuation, to control the monetization of everything under their organisations. In the NFT space, however, you're looking at a technology where people, anybody can come in and create their own project based on their ability to engage people, based on their ability to create communities. They've established their own community of interest. Where you are part of a club. Jasun (06:18) In these NFT communities, each one that you see, whether it's BoardApe or Coolcast, and I'm not dropping any names for anybody listening to say, oh, I want to go buy this. I'm mentioning ones that are pretty prominent in the market. But when you think about these big projects, and even the small ones, here's what's really happening. You are adopting or inserting yourself into a community that's been established by the founders of that community. And they have their own rules their own verbiage, their own language, their own code, and their own access to real life events. The possibilities are very endless. However, it's really important to understand this. This is year three. So what you're seeing, what everybody's seeing and hearing about Mt is, yes, there's money involved and there's valuation, and people are getting rich, people are getting scammed, people are losing money. But we're looking at year three. It's a very relatively new market, relatively new technology, and it has endless possibilities to incorporate innovations that will change the way we live, how we do business, how we conduct our health care systems, how we conduct our daily business. Our pattern of lives will change based off of how innovative people can be by leveraging the NFT technology. Karissa (07:34) Wow. Thank you. I think that was a really great explanation. Okay, so a couple of things in there. Number one, you referenced basketball cards, so I agree. Now, I think what was coming from my mind is, if you look at society and let's use LeBron James as an example, like, he's number one basketball player, there's all this media press to how good he is, and he obviously wins all these basketball games. If I'm saying something incorrectly, I'm not a massive basketball fan, so I apologise for bear with me. But I think that that's what society deems, that he is the best. So, of course, his basketball card has inherent value over perhaps, I don't know, another deck of cards which has no value, for example. And then I guess it's the same for, like, the luxury handbags market. Some people see value in buying a chanel handbag because it's rare. There are only ten of them made in the world for some particular design, for example, so the value goes up. But then I think a lot of that value is probably a lens being put on by society and by the media to say, this is valuable, because really, at the end of the day, and I love bags as well, but it's just a bag. Karissa (08:49) So how does that translate into the NFT space? So, for example, we can sit there and say, this thing is important to us and it's valuable, but then how do other people think that it's valuable? Jasun (09:03) Good question. Very good question. And it's funny. As art imitates life and might imitate arts. It's beautiful. So just in the same vein of the demonstration or example that you gave about bags, to your point, bags can be created in your backyard, or you can go and spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on a Louis Vuitton bag, or Michael Kors or whatever your taste is. However, when you buy into these brands, 99% of people that buy these brands are buying the brand's illusion, the marketing, the advertisement, the creation of that company's ability, or the development of the company's ability to advertise its value, is really what makes it valuable in your eyes. I think we both know that a Louis Vuitton bag, the leather, the buttons, the upholstery or the intricacies that go involved, that are involved in these bags definitely do not amount to the value that they go for in the stores, nor do they amount, do they equate to the value that other people put on them. And that's the same thing in the NFT space. In the NFT space, these images or these programmes or these NFPs, let's just use that because remember, NFPs are a technology. Jasun (10:23) It's not just a JPEG or it's not an image. It's a technology that is very complex but beautiful and simple in the same time. However, when these communities build themselves up, right, and they say, hey, I'm going to create NFT and I'm going to have the backbone of my NFT be focused on mental health, now I'm going to create an image that portrays my brand like something like a logo, right? So you have logos, the Louis Vuitton logo, the Coach logo, the Coach brand, or the image or their trademark. In the same vein, NFT communities or the people that found their own projects, they say I'm going to establish a brand and that brand is going to have recognition based off of the image. Now to the valuation, how do we create value in that image? How does that one image or that one person, that person's art, or those group of people's art turn into or equate to evaluation that is anywhere from one eight to 25th or fifty thousand dollars to one hundred thousand dollars. This is where it gets tricky. The NFT community is so relatively small, we're looking at I'm not even going to get into the numbers, but it's relatively small. Jasun (11:34) So the people that find value number one in cryptocurrencies already have an understanding of the Ethereum or which is the backbone currency of NFTs. They have an understanding that Ethereum, it has its weight against the dollar. It's leveraged functionally against the dollar in some form or fashion. So whatever you buy in at 99% of the time it's done with etherum, which automatically inherits at value, then the value that the community puts into the project. For instance. Some projects come out with very innovative ways to create communities and say. Look. If you come into our if you buy into our NFT community. Not only do you get to be a part of like minded individuals who also bought into this product. But you have access to. For instance. Mental health counselling. You have access to different memberships and private club entries. Golf courses. Yacht clubs. These are real things. So the valuation today as it stands is coming from the amount of utility that you can apply to the community of people that purchase your product. And in this case, the thing that is being purchased is the NFT. So it's just the same formula except it's been reduced to a micro level. Jasun (13:02) Instead of you having the traditional brands of Yesteryear, Coach, Fendi, Microsoft, where these big companies spend thousands of millions and billions of dollars advertising to create number one brand awareness and to establish a brand function in your life, to integrate their brand into your mind, believing that it has utility into your life. The NFT community is doing that on a very macro scale. They're doing it individually, they're compartmentalised. It's not one company that owns NFPs and people are trying to buy CISOs of that to create communities and create revenue streams based off of that. That's not what's happening. These communities come together and they say, hey, listen, for instance, I'm thinking about creating an NFT project. What about mental health awareness or about teaching people more about privacy? Okay, so what are we doing with that? Well, I want to create an image, and this is of course, I'm paraphrasing, but I'm creating an image and I want that image to convey not only a brand, whether it's a monkey, a dog, a sea leg or bell, whatever that image is, for all intents and purposes, it's a brand that represents that community. Now, the people that decide to become part of that community have to be enticed. Jasun (14:21) You have to entice through marketing, through right now, the main space where people are really pushing their product, unfortunately, in my opinion, is on Twitter, and they call it in the space Alpha. Alpha is the term that's leveraged to communicate incentives or valuable intelligence about a project, similar to what's done on Twitter, advertising. So these projects create their own buzz based off of their own ability to establish, number one, a story, just like in traditional business. What is the story of Viennati? Well, some of it is science fiction, some of it's fiction, some of it's proper science, different domains. There's no silo that keeps people contained. The possibilities are endless when it comes to what you can create within a t. So they go in and they say, okay, well, we're going to create our story. Our story is this I was a guy or I was a female and I went to the military. I got PTSD from a lot of time in Iraq and Afghanistan. And now I'm realising that there are a lot of people out there who need help and I want to be able to provide help to these people. Jasun (15:32) And the way that I plan on doing that is to create an NFT. And over a period of time, I'm going to project out a road map. I'm going to give everybody on our website what I intend to do when I sell this project. Now, this is just one formula of creation of entities, but follow me for a second. I'm going to create a roadmap and I'm going to establish in that roadmap, based off of how many NFTs I sell, how much money is driven into the project. These are the things that I'm going to provide to the 10,000 to the 5000 people that are part of my community, free healthcare. I'm going to establish a relationship with Cigna Health and Humanoid and anybody that joins into this community spends this $4,000 on one of these images. There's actually a smart contract that actually says legitimately that inside of this purchase you will have access to healthcare and this type of healthcare and these types of different services. And then once that idea is formulated and they get together with a graphic designer, they get together with a smart contract developer and then of course you have all the other developers involved that create the economy in the entire universe of that NFP. Jasun (16:50) Then they tie in the services. That's what they're supposed to do and we'll get into that later. They get into the services, they legitimise all of the offerings that they say that they're going to offer and then they tie it into the smart contract and bam. Now you have the base premise of mental health solutions based off of the procurement of an NFT or more commonly understood as an image that has given you a key to unlock elements of mental health and now you are surrounded with a lot of other people that are in the same vein. Now that group of people in that one silo and we're specifically talking about this example of mental health. That group of people are literally in a self contained environment. There's no infrastructure, there's no top core company that can say at any given time, hey, you know what, I don't think that mental health is a good idea. Or let's be, let's take away the conspiracy and add more reality to it at no point in time other than overtime when the legal aspects become more mature. But at no point in time can let's say a good healthcare company, let's just say CVS. Jasun (17:58) CVS can't say, well listen, we don't like this idea of people getting free health care on your product, so we're going to stop one of our services which is going to impact you. That can't happen. NFT communities are siloed. They're self contained organisations if you will. An organisation is not really the name to use, but there are self contained entities that establish their own community and I'm going to use a strong word, their own organisations, own gangs, own tribes. Tribe is a better word. They're their own tribes. And these tribes have their rules, they have their bylaws, they have their affiliations, they have their rankings. And instead of having a basketball card where you have to pull it out of a folder and say hey man, I collect basketball cards too. And the value of that basketball card is based off of the creator like Upper Deck which is one company that makes basketball cards, or trading cards rather. Upper Deck is going to create the valuation because of how many cards they meant, how many of them are star players, how rare they are. That whole construct like upper Deck did for the entire masses of car collectors. Jasun (19:08) Now take that to a very condensed level and say, oh, these micro communities are creating their own rarity, their own valuations of specified cards or specified NFPs. Certain entities have different traits and certain access points that may cost more money, and that creates its own value. So to your original question, I didn't mean to go around my neck to get to my foot, but the valuation is determined by the people that find value in it, number one. But it's up to the community to influence or to encourage people that the value is what it is. So I say that to, say, a little comma. There are a lot of projects, I would say about 85% to 95% of projects out there today that there is no logical formula that exists that can accurately determine how the value was derived in that project. It's just out of the blue. Karissa (20:04) So what I'm hearing thank you for that. So what I'm trying to follow, and correct me if I'm wrong, the only people that really matter are the ones probably in the community. So, for example, if I created KV's Labrador community, the only people that are going to care and put value on are the people that equally love Labradors, not someone that loves potting plants, for example. They don't find value in that. So is it more so it's a lot smaller and it's more sort of close knit rather than going macro. And we got to find value in everything the people are going to find value in that is, people who like dogs, for example, or Labradors versus someone else that's doing something completely different, they may not find value in that. Is that what I'm hearing that you're saying, or do I have this wrong? Jasun (20:53) No, you actually have it spot on. The value is based off of the people who find value in it. To your example, if you're creating a Labrador project, the Labrador project may not be valuable or have any kind of interest to a person who's a cat lover. Karissa (21:10) Yes, and that's where I'm getting it. So I think that's perhaps where people may be confused on how it works, because I was like, oh, who would find value in that? I'm like? Well, I don't know. I think someone said that they have an NFT project, and it's about how the sun shines on the moon. That is very random. I've never thought of that. But maybe people find value in that. So for me, I don't find value in that personally, but other people may. So is that what you're saying? Like, for example, okay, I'm just trying to come up with this as I'm speaking to you. Certain stores I find more value in than other stores. I don't like camping stores, I don't find value. I don't like camping. But clothing stores, sure, that's a very different conversation, but then someone equally who likes camping may not like clothing stores. Does that make sense? Jasun (22:05) It does. And unfortunately, you're just scratching the surface of how that interest is pulled in psychologically. So think about it like this. While you have a friend or associate, I forgot how you identified that person, but they are creating something, an NFT project about how the sun hits the moon or how the moon reflects the sun. Wonderful project. I don't find interest in anything from I don't find interest in that at all. Not right now. I don't see an interest. However, if you were to send, if I was on Twitter, and the ability of that project owner to engage people on Twitter holding spaces, not only talking about how the sun hits the moon, but if they also go into how the moon affects the dirt and cycle of the human body and that may pique my interest. And then he also. That person speaks to that person. Says. Hey. Everybody who gets a part of this project. Number one. We're going to have a weekly or we're going to have a yearly tour down to NASA and we're going to go to look at the space centre and then we're going to go to SpaceX and then that says. Jasun (23:10) Okay. Well. I didn't care about the moon hitting the sun. But you know what. For two ETH every year. I can go see Elon Musk and actually possibly. Maybe be on a list to go to the moon. Those marketing tactics, those incentivized baiting solutions or situations are what makes the interest more compound and I hope that hit the mark. Karissa (23:34) Yeah, Jasun (23:35) that makes more sense. I mean, that would entice me a bit more. But then how true is that? Because you said you got a smart contract, but then it's like, is that just null and void? Because it's like, oh, it's an NFT, maybe the legal system is not regulated, so how do you enforce it? Jasun (23:55) Right? And that's where we are now. So in the last two months, specifically, we've seen the DOJ Department of justice take some serious positions on pursuing people that are not fulfilling the contractual obligations that they advertise in their NFT project, which is phenomenal for two sides of one coin, right? One side, you're looking at the United States actually saying, we understand this crypto, we understand that it's real. And not only do we understand it's real, we're going to establish some kind of framework to go after people who don't do the things that they say they do on the project. That's one. Number two is, okay, now there's agency in it because when it first started, like you said, there was no regulation, there are rugs and that's what the terminology is, using the space. When you have a project that solicitor advertises that this is what they're going to do, and then all of a sudden after all the images are sold or after all of the entities are sold on the marketplace, the owners and the founders just disappear because most people are not transparent. They haven't fully disclosed who they are behind these projects. Jasun (25:08) And yes, you're probably saying to yourself, then why the heck would I invest into a situation where it's kind of shaky and I don't understand who's behind it? Well, that's just where we are. That's just where we are, people. There are projects out there where nobody is known by their real identity, and then they just disappear with 25 million, 50 million, 100 million. Oh, God, 50 million. Yes. That's a whole different show. That's a whole 5 hours to talk about the rug pools and the scams and the hustle. Listen, there are people I'm going to tell you like this. There are people that I know for a fact we're probably living in a one bedroom apartment six months, no, nine months ago, that are living in mansions in Puerto Rico now because of an NFT project. And they didn't do anything. They did a few Twitter spaces, but is it legit? No. Well, wait, is what legit? Karissa (26:01) Okay, so this person people that you've referenced, you said they're living in one bedroom now, living in some mansion and wherever. But is that through scheming people they got the mansion or because of legitimate ways? Jasun (26:14) In my definition, I believe that legitimacy is a very strong word. Do I believe that those people, this person in particular, did everything on the up and up like they said what they were going to do? They applied truth and understanding and honesty into the product they were delivering? Absolutely not. They went out and they got connected with a group of other people who were not necessarily nefarious and not necessarily scammers. They just knew how to manipulate people, which is no different than what Google does and what Facebook does with their ads and enticing you and manipulating you to buy a product that you probably don't need. And when you get the product, you're like, I don't really want this. And then by that time, you've already spent $50 or $100, $100 times $25,000. You do the math. Karissa (27:03) So then what happened to that person? They just appeared on the face of the earth. And then what happens? Do people try to come after them? They can't because they can't identify them. Jasun (27:12) Well, that's why we have companies like mine and there's a few other companies that are what we specialise in. Karissa (27:18) So you're trying to get this dude or what? Can you answer that? Jasun (27:22) Yeah, I can answer that. We did expose that person and that person did. They're undergoing some serious repercussions from a legal system. Also, the communities upset. So you're looking at think about it like this. It's not just the legal system that people are starting to rattle now. You're talking about VCs, who are investors of major companies that are jumping behind certain projects, and some of these projects are collaborating with other projects to increase their visibility, to increase their brand standing, to create more agency in their project. And then because there are no background cheques, because there's no proper vetting process, now you have a situation where people are linking up with other projects that may be shady, but they didn't know they were shady. And now you've got really upset. Highly powerful people looking to find out who other people are for whatever reason. I'm trying to speak in between the lines. You've got, you know, let's just say it's the streets out here, you got people really upset. You just lost $25 million, and now you want to find out who was behind it. Now you're hiring every cowboy and every cyber investigator to go in there and try to unmask these people and do whatever act of ungodly holy that you want to do on them because you feel like you got slighted. Jasun (28:40) And is that common? Absolutely, right now it is. Karissa (28:43) Wow. But how common are we talking here? Like eight and ten scams or one in ten? Or what are the numbers here? Jasun (28:52) So when we use the word scam, please define scam. Scam is anything where it's just nefarious in nature or what? Karissa (28:59) Well, I think, okay, let's go with financial loss. So the 25 million, I mean, maybe not necessarily that level all the time, but like people who lost money over these NFT scamps. Jasun (29:10) Yeah, I would say, and I'm going to be very conservative, I'll say three out of ten. More than that. Six out of ten. Unfortunately, projects are Karissa (29:21) what? Jasun (29:23) Well, let's redefine scam. Let's use the word rub. Karissa (29:29) So losing money, though, this is what gets that's quite high. Jasun (29:32) That's beyond well, that's a risk you take. And that's the problem with the NFT space. Karissa (29:39) Oh, man, I'm all ready to take that risk. Stop that. Jasun (29:42) Wait. That's because you're thinking about the NFT space or getting into NFTs for financial gain. When you shift your paradigm, which that's what the market is going to do. That's why we're in a bearish market right now. But when you shift your paradigm and say, okay, well, there's more than gaining money. Somebody buying an NFT so they can flip it two weeks later for three times its value. Yeah, that's where you lose. You're going to lose every time. Because those types of projects, we call them flipper projects, those flipper or PFP profile picture projects, they don't really have any serious value. They just have a lot of hype. And when you invest into a project that has hype, you're going to fall always, every time. And unfortunately, the hype concentration in the NFT space is exponentially high. Karissa (30:28) But what if I legitimately saw a project and I thought, okay, I actually like this, not for financial gain, but more so, I believe in it. It's use the Labrador example and I put money behind it and then I got scammed. That's what. I'm saying that's what I would personally be apprehensive. Jasun (30:47) Okay? So there's always a solution to that. And that's one of the big things that everybody talks about. Every one of the truth bears, if you will, in the space is this. Number one, because there's a cash grab and because a lot of people are looking at the financial incentive in the entity space, there are a lot of scammers. So how do you watch out for scammers? How do you watch out for people who are just making a good illusion for you to join? And as soon as you join, as soon as they sell their number, they leave. Number one, do your research. You've got to do your research. Don't just look at the website and say, oh, I like Labradors. They have pictures of Labradors. They say that I should trust them. Let me spend 10,000 for one of their images. No. Or one of their NFTs, rather, because this NFT gets me access to all of the Kennel Club pedigree shows, whatever. Do your research. Number one, verify all of the claims. Every NFT project has what's called a roadmap. Personally, I believe that the roadmap scenario is akin to the pitch deck scenario. Jasun (31:50) When you're going after investments or any kind of financial bootstrapping for your business is the same thing. What are you going to do with the money? Every NFT project has one. They have a road map. Look at these roadmaps. Identify where you are in the roadmap. Like, are you in phase one, phase three, phase seven. Okay, so you jump in at phase seven of a project that's already done. Six other phases go into the discord or go into their community. Ask and see. Look for the quantifiable evidence that they achieved every one of their roadmaps. And that should give you a little bit more confidence on you're wanting to involve yourself with that project. Number two, how transparent is that project? Now, remember, we're talking about AFTs that are primarily permissed under the Ethernet cryptocurrency, which is where you have with the blockchain based technology. So you have the ability to look and see the transactions. Look at the wallet size of the project. Are they spending their money in the project or by putting reinvesting it into different things to achieve their roadmap? Or are they posting pictures of the owners posting pictures on their Twitter of Maserati and Lamborghinis and yachts in a country that you have never been to? Jasun (33:04) Look at those things. Look at the ego. Look at the words that they say. There are ways to basically narrow down projects that are less susceptible to being rubbed or scams, but a lot of people don't do that. People walk blindly into the space and they listen to other people. Instead of doing their own research, they follow a few Twitter handles. They pay somebody for some insider information, and then they invest $20,000.06. Months later, the project doesn't exist. I think that's actually quite common, unfortunately. But that's not to say that the market is not going to be something grand. We're talking about Fortune 500. We have multiple organisations that are really now starting to put their tracks into it. You have artists now who traditionally you'd have to go through a distributor and have a producer and you have to have all this. You have to sell your soul and the soul of your babies to even get into the music industry. And now you have artists that are coming out self producing, leveraging their NFT art or their NFT music, because remember, it's not just a picture, there's people doing film and they're leveraging their NFT creativity to finance the programme to create a situation that is actually going to be viable for them and the people around them. Jasun (34:22) And that's what you're seeing in the artist community, especially, you're seeing the starving artists now actually taking 75% of every sale instead of two cent of every sale on their work. Same thing with the artists, the people who actually do art, who do graphic designers, who actually do real art. Those artists are now having their platform to establish themselves and their brand on their own terms, not following under the big corporate types or the very draconian contracts that some of these studios have, and also the thieving ones that they don't come out with anything at all. Now you have the opportunity as an artist, as a creator, as an entrepreneur, as a politician, to establish not only your own community based off of your ability to innovate, advertising and marketing and establishing a voice within yourself, but now you have a way to finance it and now it's legitimate. So it's a 50 50. When you look at risk and reward, you have to say to yourself, okay, why am I in this space? Am I in the space to create a community? Am I in the space to change the world? Am I in the space to run for political office? Jasun (35:35) What am I doing here? Now you have the ability to do it. You don't have the censorship of the big corporate types or the big tech industries who have that ability to silence you on Twitter or Facebook. And I'm not knocking any of these platforms. Obviously, we're leveraging the technology now on certain elements. What I'm saying is now the power is in the hands of the creator to do things that they couldn't even dream of five years ago. And that's what we have to stay focused on. When you think about NFTs, is the market a little bit, and I'm going to use a very low vibration term, is the market inundated with shady activity? Absolutely. Same thing was with crypto ten years ago. You first got into Bitcoin, you got into all these other cryptocurrencies, everybody was IPOing or ICO, and then they were just falling off until everybody stood up and said, hey, I'm not going to deal with this anymore. I want to have viable security about the investments I have. And then the market established its own rules and regulations. And now we are at a place where even though crypto is a little bit unstable at the moment, it has more legitimacy than it did five or ten years ago. Jasun (36:45) And that's where we are at the end of the community. Give it time. Karissa (36:48) So there was something that came out in Bloomberg that Bill Gates made a statement saying the NFT shams based on greater fool theory. What are your thoughts on that? Jasun (36:58) I can resonate with that message. I understand where it comes from, from an outside looking in. And Bill Gates most definitely is not an outsider, but he's definitely not an insider in the game. He probably has a large team of people around him giving him insights on how the market currently is. What he just said or what that statement says is that he's seen it from where it is now, not the value that it could or the potential that it could have at a later time. Yes, he's spot on. It's definitely almost a fool's errand, too, and I'm using my words very wisely, but it's almost a fools that are in right now. It's for anybody to jump into anybody else's project, especially when you can create your own. The name of the game in the NFT space is to create, not to be a consumer in five years, mark my words. Karissa (37:49) But don't you need the consumers, though, to buy into it? Jasun (37:53) Everybody needs fuel. Karissa (37:54) That's what I'm saying. Because like you were saying with the scams that people were buying like $25,000 what are you saying? $25 million they put into this thing and then they got scammed. Like someone has to buy into it at some point. We can't all just sit there and be creative. We need other people to fuel that creation. Jasun (38:11) Right, but here's the beauty of that. So the scenario we're in now, where you need people to fuel it because there's so much scepticism in the market, nobody's buying into the foolery of yesterday. Now you have to come better before. All you have to do is create a website, spend maybe $500 on the dark net to get a stolen or a compromise or a tradable. Verified Twitter account, change the Twitter account, create a name for your project. Now you have a verified mark. Then you go hire some influencers. You call and these influencers, now, they're the real scammers. Don't get me started on that. But you call up an influencer, you call up Floyd Mayweather. Yeah, I use that name for a reason. And you say, hey, I'm going to pay you a million dollars just to put your name on the back of my NFT, and now I'm going to use your name to sell my legitimacy. And then Floyd Mayweather and entire team takes away with $7 million. Those days are over now because unless you're a new person coming in and all you're doing is hearing information about the NFT community from Scammers. Jasun (39:12) But everybody in the NFT community knows now they don't trust influencers. So now creators are being forced to create more robust, more intricate, more elaborate programmes and projects that will entice people to adopt into the not only adopt into the NFT game, but adopt into their ideology or their idea of what an NFT project is. So what am I saying in more precise and concise terms, the maturity of the NFT space has now forced the creators to develop more elaborate and intricate systems to bring in new adopters of the NFT, let's just say technology into their lives. So yes, those new consumers that are coming in, they're the fuel. But at one point in time, or at some point in time, these same consumers, because we're so new in the game, are going to be creators. That would be the name of the game right now. We're two years in. Everybody that's in this game right now, that's in this space at one point in time, five years now, are going to be experts into a very highly complicated, highly complex system. And they're going to have the ability to consult and give advice on how to create better. Jasun (40:25) And that's how any architecture works. That's just looking at the human progression. We take lessons from our past and we understand those lessons, we build upon them. And now, even through instinct and through normal human behaviour, you're not going to make those mistakes again, hopefully. And if you do, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Not going to fool me again. Jasun (40:48) Like Bush said, Karissa (40:49) wow, there's so much it kind of gives me Ponzi scheme vibes a little bit, if I'm honest as you're speaking a little bit, I'm playing devil's advocate. I want to have the real conversation. This is stuff that people have said to me, it feels like a Fonzie scheme. Like all of this that I'm asking you is what conversations I've had on the street with people to have this conversation. Jasun (41:10) And they're not incorrect, but they're not also correct. Karissa (41:14) But this is what gets me what okay, go. Jasun (41:18) So here's the thing. It's like saying that. It's like saying this. All laptops are and you know me personally, so I will stand by the statement saying all laptops are intelligence collection devices. All they do is collect information about you and now you're privacy exposed. And then you said to me, Jasun, you're talking about all laptops? And I said, yes, all laptops are intelligence collection devices. And we don't talk about the function of the laptop. We don't talk about the fact that you can process Word documents, that you can look at websites, that you can do all this other stuff. But because so many people have been scammed on this laptop scenario, and because I'm a security person, I'm going to speak through a lens of my expertise and I'm going to stick by and say, yes, it is true that laptops are intelligent collection devices. However, there are other more robust capabilities within this laptop that may negate the negativity that some people have experienced. That's where we are. Is it a scam? Is it a positive scheme? It has the propensity and the potential to be a very elaborate and very functional Ponzi scheme. Jasun (42:30) But in that same vein, that 1% of Ponzi scheme vision, that people see it through the lens of which they see the NFT industry, if you will, through that Ponzi scheme. Look, they're not looking at the 98% of the 99% of other options, capabilities and innovations that it has the potential to changing our lives. And unfortunately, that's where we are. I really don't want I really like in my heart of hearts for you and everybody else who's not really familiar I'm not saying you're not. I'm saying anybody who's not familiar with the NFT space don't allow the headlines to dictate how you feel about it. Understand that NFT's are not an image. It is a technology. And that technology has the capacity to change the way we live our lives. However, the way we are using it right now is only for very small it's highly focused on only generating revenue. Small portions of it are the rest of the communities are trying to build things that make our lives better. It's just like the human system with nuclear weapons, right? We have nuclear technology. NFT we have nuclear technology. And the nuclear technology has the ability to not only create perpetual energy to do science that we've never done before, but because humans are humans. Jasun (43:55) The first thing that we went through or went forward with nuclear technology or one of the main things that people know nuclear technology for is its destruction capacity. And that's not what all nuclear technology is used for. The medical applications, there are so many things that we can do with it, but because we're humans in a certain style of living, in a certain era, we understand it to be, oh, well, I can blow people up with it and it wins wars. Well, okay, well that's one thing, but you can cure cancer and you could also possibly solve AIDS. Of course I pulled that out of the sky. But that's the same way that MPs are being postured right now. It's being postured that way because new sales so when you turn on Coincide or finance Reports or Yahoo Tech and you see empty's, you're only going to hear about the blue chip stocks like the board apes and the CISOs and the moon. You're going to hear about those big ones where people are selling it for $50 million and there's no way to identify that person. And then you're going to hear about the scams. Jasun (44:54) You're going to hear about the pain. Very rarely are you going to have a news agency or anybody on a platform that is widely digested? This speaks to all of the wonders and the magic of NFTs. And that's specifically why I'm going to NFT NYC in a few days and that's why I'm speaking there on the same topic we're talking about now because I see the potential and I also see the danger of people not fully digesting what its capabilities are and then pawning it off or just charging it off to being nothing but trash when it's so many things you can do. So many ways that we can change the way we vote. We can change the way we run our political systems. We can the transparency of the blockchain. On top of the fact that you can tokenize different elements of this technology to provide validation of work. Validation of utilisation. Validation of geographical location. There's so many things that we haven't allowed our brains to fully merge ourselves into to create the various innovative capabilities that the NFT community or the NFT technology is capable of. Just wait for it is what I say. Karissa (46:09) Okay, I'm curious to know, I released a podcast episode this week about cryptocurrencies and the scam and everything like that researcher from Tenable, great guy. Long story short, someone responds with, oh, but cryptocurrency is worth nothing now as per the stock market. So what are your thoughts on that? Jasun (46:28) Yeah, okay. So that person, whoever said that they're seeing the market through a certain lens, what do I think about the crypto market is taking a dump right now? It sure is. Absolutely it is. Why is it taking a dump? Well, there's about 15 main variables that are establishing it's. The bear market that we're in. Number one, the lack of regulation in the crypto market has opened up the channels for lots of let's just use the word scams. Lots of people claiming to do one thing but not doing another because the transparency while blockchain provides transparency and the open ledger technology, a lot of people aren't really effectively doing their research. A lot of people are blindly investing and they're getting into situations that they know nothing about. Then you have the accountability aspect of it too. Look at Luna. And I don't hate not to mention Luna, because what's going on with Luna, which is a very big crypto project and they're not the only ones. But for all intents and purposes, they had a technology, they had a cryptocurrency that was pegged to the dollar that was allegedly would never go below the value of the dollar and it dumped down to like 25, then it tanked. Jasun (47:43) The whole system crashed. Why? Improper algorithm construction, improper evaluation. I'm going to say something I might regret and I'm okay with it because I stand by everything I say. But you're looking at cryptocurrencies are a relatively new situation created by a relatively new generation with high intellect. This generation that's creating these algorithms. They're geniuses. The creativity that they have with the development of the mathematic formulas that create the values of these cryptocurrencies that they establish. However common. They're still. And I mean this with respect. They're still kids. They don't have the maturity. The experience and the tenure in the space of finance or economics to say. Well. This is the experience based feedback or retribution or this is the experience based decision that I'm making on creating this. And if it fails here's, the fail safe, the fail safe in this space is the wow. West no regulation, there's no real oversight. Yeah. While the SEC does what it does, the cryptocurrency market right now, I believe it's making its correction into a space where it's going to have more regulation, more expectation of responsibility to the people that invest in it. And unfortunately, that's going to create an element of the market where people are going to be dismayed by it. Jasun (49:14) Because one of the fun things about certain aspects of crypto is anonymity. It's the ability that you don't have to go out and give up your first name, last name, the whole kycaml. You don't have to give up everything about your identity to hold or possess it. That was one of the attractive portions of it. You go out there right now and try to buy 1000 stocks or 2000 stocks of Apple without your name, that's going to be impossible. You have to give up your whole, you have to give a pound of blood and 2oz of flesh just to be a part of that system. And crypto, what entices people is fast gains. And anytime you have a high reward system, you have high risk. So that's one thing. Number two, it's not really established itself. There's no serious agency, no serious integration into the economics situation that we live in. So you're dealing with a lot of speculation, hype, and advertising and that's part of the reason why it's crashing. And I believe that every market should crash so that it can correct itself and be more resilient in the future. So to that person, if they want to be the person that they are, which making the statements that they have by looking from a bird's eye view and saying it's falling down, it's crapping. Jasun (50:33) Yeah, it was kind of supposed to. In order for any economic, technological system to be resilient, to be stable, to be a finite establishment in our reality, it has to fall. In order to become whole, one must become broken. And that's, you know, that's the Dowdy. And I understand, I believe that, I believe that this breaking of the system is going to make a correction, it's going to make it more resilient and we just have to give it time. And that's me being very positive. But I'm also basing it on past experience with all technologies. Karissa (51:11) Now, I do agree with you there and I think, like I said, it's economics. Things can't keep going the way they're going. There are so many articles out there, especially in Australia, like eight or $9 for letters? Are you serious? That's crazy. We haven't seen this stuff in our lifetime. But then I guess it's going to crash and then it's just going to wash through. It's just going to take time. So I do agree with you, but one of the things I was curious about is you said, obviously, if you buy stocks in the stock market, yes, you need to have your identity and all of that, but you're saying the attraction towards that crypto, for example, is people want to remain anonymous, but why would they want to remain anonymous? For me, that just feels like a breeding ground for criminal activity. Jasun (51:54) I'm going to answer that question with an experience. So just full transparency. I am a part of the what do you call the ape community. Yes. My business partner. And I own Board Apes. Right. The relevancy of that story, of this story is this. A year ago, my business partner reached out to me. I was in the islands. I think you've seen some of my posts. I was out in the islands doing my meditation sessions and really just working on myself and establishing more elements of my business. And I get a call, I'm on the beach. He's like, Jay, cheque this out. This is thing NFT stuff, man. I need you to do some research and write a report on it, please. People need to know about entities. And I literally said to him, I said off the cuff, I was literally coming out of my yoga meditation and I thought before I spoke. But the first thing that went through my head, like a rolodex, like a screenplay, was like, all the news articles, just to your point, that I had read about the scams in it. And I responded with this, brother, are you serious? Jasun (53:04) The only thing NFTs and crypto is good for at this point, right now is money laundering. It's unregulated. It's unmonitored. If Pablo Escobar was alive, he would have a field day with this because he'd be able to move all types of money through laundromats or technological laundromats. Laundromat is the key word for money laundering here, or the engine, rather. And that's all it's doing. Why do we need to write a report about that? And his response to me was, the same one I'm going to give you, or something along the same vein. Remaining anonymous is a feature that can go both ways, just like crypto and NFT. Anonymity is freedom. It's the ability to do and live in your truest form without oversight and regulation. However, all freedom comes at a cost. All freedom comes at a cost of whether or not that freedom is leveraged for the better, good or for nefarious. That's a choice that we make in all our lives. The laptop that you use right now or this computer, the system that we're using right now can be used for this radio, this podcast, or it could be used to facilitate or strategically organise a hit on somebody. Jasun (54:18) What we do with the mediums that are available are up to us because anonymity I know I'm butchering that, but because anonymity is synonymous with nefarious on certain levels and I can understand that most people think darknet, nobody's anonymous, it can't be tracked. But it's also freedom. It's also the ability to possess wealth without organisational or governmental oversight. It's the ability to enact change in systems where regulation and surveillance are mainstay and the ability to navigate those waters in stealth. That's a freedom, that's a power. And I'm not talking about any anarchy or political systems. I'm saying this if you look at the ability or think about it many times that people don't want to identify themselves based off of their ego, emotions, ideology, racism, genderism, all of those different separatists or separating qualities because identity is associated with it. Your ability to have a voice without a name sometimes gives people more power. Your ability to transfer money or move things freely without regulation gives you a lot of more freedom to do the things that you need to do to accomplish the task that you may want. Whether or not that agenda is in line with an institution like a bank or a government organisation or that agenda is about something personal, about your life, about being free and your ability to express yourself and make choices about your life and your body that only you should make choices about, not some government. Jasun (55:58) That freedom comes with a cost and in this case that anonymous activity, while it may have been baked in ovens of negativity in the ferrier by the perceivers of others, but it also is the backbone of a lot of innovative and future innovative technologies and capabilities that we've never seen before. Talking behind a shadow and behind a mask is a good thing and a bad thing depending on what side of the road you're sitting. Karissa (56:30) Wow. Well, I guess I can't fault your answer. I think that this whole thing does still get to me a little bit, I'll be honest. But I mean I wanted to have this conversation, I wanted to bring someone who's in this game like yourself, to share some of people's questions. This is what this platform is about. It's about asking the question. I'm just facilitating. I'm not here to dictate or make judgement. I'm just here to ask the questions people want to know and it's up to people to make their own decisions about what they want to do. I'm on the fence about this one. I don't know, give me some more time. Really loved your insight, your frankness, your honesty, your realness and your awareness about the space because I think that's what we need and that's why this platform exists to give people a voice to talk through their thoughts. I want to ask real questions and hard questions and get real answers. So thanks, Jasun, thanks for coming on the show. Jasun (57:38) I appreciate being here. It's always an honour and a blessing to be here with you. I appreciate what you stand for and what KBI is doing, bringing the voice to the people. I love it. Thank you so much for having me. Karissa (57:49) Thanks for tuning in. We hope that you found today's episode useful and you took away a few key points. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast to get our latest episodes. If you'd like to find out how KBI can help grow your cyber business, then please head over to KBI Digital. This podcast was brought to you by KBI Media, the voice of Cyber.