Crypto off the Chain
It has been a bumpy path over the last few years but financially, cryptocurrency is finally starting to hit the mainstream. Crypto began as a bunch of nerdy looking people spending their time and energy “mining” something called “bitcoin”. People laughed at it. Now, it is able to be traded for tokenized stock fractions on major stock exchanges. This is a massive development and has implications far beyond the size of your digital wallet.
Before we get too much into crypto itself, let’s take a moment to understand the tokenized stock concept. When the stock market got started way back in the late 17th century there was the idea that nearly anyone would be able to participate in the ownership of a company. Over time, some of the biggest companies grew so valuable that they were priced well beyond the capability of most people to ever own more than a couple shares, if any at all. Tokenized stock ownership allows a person to buy a fraction of a stock (much how one can buy a portion of bitcoin), returning the stock market to its original, decentralized intent.
So, how does the concept of partial ownership relate to cryptocurrency? They both contribute to a decentralized economy. How? First, the simple act of allowing more people to own more things puts more money and more freedom into the hands of more people. Secondly, cryptocurrency operates without a central bank. That means that it is much harder if not impossible for anyone to control or manipulate. The only fluctuations in the worth of the currency are based on the market, just as it should be. And with cryptocurrency becoming more mainstream, it will be able to be used for more and more purchases. Imagine a world where you don’t need a bank to make major purchases like a car or a house? The payments and the records of ownership are all kept in the blockchain, cutting out middle men like banks and title companies, even the filing system at city hall.
Of course, some will raise security concerns. That’s understandable. However, the nature of blockchain is such that you have to fool every node at once in order to steal or manipulate someone’s crypto. This is something that is only possible in theory as the computer power necessary is more than anything out there. Of course technology will continue to develop but that means the blockchain and its security will also.
Ah, but what about things like a solar flare or emp that could destroy enough of the nodes to make a difference? Honestly, what do you think is more likely, that city hall with all of its records burns down or a massive solar flare wipes out half the computers on the planet?
The real question is why has it taken so long to gain traction? Why has it taken this long to move out of its mom’s basement and into the real world? For that answer, you really only need to look at who is opposing it. That would be the Warren Buffets, and the big banks, the major governments and organizations that thrive on regulation, on control. These entities are too used to the way things have been done since the early 20th century. And hey, who can blame them? They’ve made a ton of money in that older system. That success does two things. One, you can easily dismiss crypto advocates as people jumping onto a fad, as people just looking to make a quick dollar, or as people who have been duped. Second, success can easily block a person’s ability to see another way of doing things. Pride gets in the way and makes people blind to what should be obvious.
What should be obvious is that people are wanting to decentralize, to break away from the major systems that need us to interact in a certain way, and keep us tied to one place. TARTLE is a major part of that, and not just because we use bitcoin. TARTLE is the first company to seriously take on the task of returning control over data to the individuals generating it. That power is placed not in the hands of world-spanning companies but in you. If your data is shared or traded, it’s because that’s what you want and it’s you that gets rewarded in the process.
What’s your data worth? Sign up and join the TARTLE Marketplace with this link here.
It has been a bumpy path over the last few years but financially, cryptocurrency is finally starting to hit the mainstream. Crypto began as a bunch of nerdy looking people spending their time and energy “mining” something called “bitcoin”. People laughed at it. Now, it is able to be traded for tokenized stock fractions on major stock exchanges. This is a massive development and has implications far beyond the size of your digital wallet.
Announcer (00:07):
Welcome to TARTLEcast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future, and source data defines the path.
Alexander McCaig (00:25):
You want to open it up?
Jason Rigby (00:26):
Yeah. I want to get into a little bit of cryptocurrency blockchain, because we're doing these data news. Something new just happened, and we're seeing a development of cryptocurrency being like this these guys, and they had these weird rooms and they're mining, and they got little glasses and everybody laughed about it.
Alexander McCaig (00:47):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (00:48):
But now when we're seeing decentralization and blockchain. This was interesting. And I want you to speak to this. You can now trade high demand stocks like Tesla, Apple, and Amazon represented by tokens on the FTX Derivatives Exchange. Through its fractional stock offerings 12 equity and cryptocurrency pairs will be offered, allowing users to trade tokenized fractions of stocks seemingly up to a half a stock at a time against Bitcoin and stable coins.
Alexander McCaig (01:16):
Yeah. So ...
Jason Rigby (01:19):
What I wanted to people to understand is you're taking a hard asset. I mean, stocks, that's when the stock market, 1908, or who knows.
Alexander McCaig (01:27):
Probably times, yeah. That's actually when fast food started, but let's keep going.
Jason Rigby (01:30):
And now they're recognizing this and saying, "Okay, there's value in this."
Alexander McCaig (01:36):
So fractional ownership is a funny thing. So let's kind of get into that with the financial part of it. The idea is that if you want to own a stock, okay, it's going to cost you maybe 200 bucks to own a stock. I don't have 200 bucks.
Alexander McCaig (01:52):
I want to be a part of the company. But I can't afford one stock. Oh, but wait a minute. The collective power of a lot of people could own a stock. So what if we fractionalize the ownership? What if we have a way to be like, okay, maybe I'm going to come in as the company, a large market maker, and I'm going to buy the stock and I'll say, I'll divide it up amongst my shareholders. You own this function, this piece, this piece, this piece, this piece. And the tokenization is something that FINRA, SEC, all the financial regulatory bodies have been like, "Whoa, slow down with the tokenization of assets," because when you tokenize an asset, you decentralize it.
Alexander McCaig (02:36):
So now no centralized authority is actually keeping and maintaining the record of the ownership of that asset, is actually managed by a blockchain. So that means you have a series of encrypted hashes that are coming together. And so it's, I own this hash, which is one 10th of the stock. And this other guy owns this hash, which is one half of the stock because he could afford that much. And so all these people come together on the hash owning a part of this coin. Right? And so they can take that and then they can hedge the risk against other stable cryptocurrencies on their own blockchains.
Alexander McCaig (03:10):
Okay? So what they're trying to do is the group of us decentralized can own an asset, a hard asset run by a central agency, and then we'll disseminate the ownership. And then we'll hedge the risk at that ownership against other cryptocurrencies, which are now readily adopted by hedge funds, certain mutual funds, Fidelity, all those different things. So now we can have an applied value to actually measure against that.
Alexander McCaig (03:36):
So that means if we do have a loss on our ICO, we can then take the differential on our hedge that was gained from the cryptocurrency on the other side. I'm trying to explain finance. It's not very simply, but it's like a scale, right?
Jason Rigby (03:52):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (03:52):
As one goes down, the value of the other one goes up. So if our coin offering fails on buying these stocks split ownerships decentralized, I'll take the value of my Bitcoin over here and swap it out. And people are okay having that hedge put in place.
Jason Rigby (04:05):
Yeah. I think it, because they like the stability of having Tesla, Apple, Amazon, you know those?
Alexander McCaig (04:10):
Yeah. They want the blue chip boys.
Jason Rigby (04:12):
Right, right.
Alexander McCaig (04:12):
Okay? But they also want to get it in a decentralized format. But the government, financial regulators want to know who owns it.
Jason Rigby (04:19):
Yes, yes.
Alexander McCaig (04:19):
But when you decentralize it, we're like, "Holy crap. Like 300 people own one thing now."
Jason Rigby (04:24):
But what I thought was interesting is that we're approaching this, and we're approaching it kind of rapidly. You know? Like [inaudible 00:04:30] sharing with you off-air, a lot of hedge funds this year to make up the losses that they've had, is buying Bitcoin. And so now it's over 1400.
Alexander McCaig (04:39):
At first, they didn't want to touch it. Buffett's coming out and saying, "It's useless, it's garbage, is no real thing." All these people are like huge advocates against it. That should be your first contrarion red flag that these people are dinosaurs, and they're not ready to adopt something that financially empowers the globe and actually elevates finance. They didn't see the value in it because they're so blinded by a system they've been winning in for so long.
Jason Rigby (05:00):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (05:00):
And so when you transition that power from the few back to the many, of course, they're going to fight that. And now the hedge funds are like, "Crap. We should have just gone with what the people were doing, put the value in this."
Jason Rigby (05:12):
And it's funny. CoinDesk's Sebastian Sinclair, he reports that the product is conducted in partnership capital markets solutions provider Digital Assets AG and investment firm CM Equity. FTX calls it a first of its kind product.
Alexander McCaig (05:25):
Well, it is the first of its kind. Well, actually it's not. They've taken old models of financial technology, certain swaps hedging techniques. And what they've done is they've just applied it towards cryptocurrencies. They haven't reinvented. They haven't invented anything new. They've reinvented something. It's not something that's truly unique. They've just applied old models. And now they're moving finance really in an abrupt way, an abrasive way in a decentralized system. And I've spoken with FINRA, FINSEC, and the SEC. I'm speaking with their legal groups and their, whoever was running the cryptocurrency divisions. They're trying to catch up.
Jason Rigby (06:08):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (06:09):
Because it's now in a digital format, it's so decentralized and there's so much societal value and people say that's worth this much, they need to catch up on the regulation and they're slow to get there.
Jason Rigby (06:20):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (06:21):
So all these things are happening and they're like, "Man, the way this is ... It's at a rate that we honestly can't handle right now." What the government is feeling regulators is that they're losing their grip.
Jason Rigby (06:31):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (06:31):
They don't have the grip anymore.
Jason Rigby (06:32):
No pun intended.
Alexander McCaig (06:33):
Yeah, no pun intended. It is now the power legitimately goes back into the hands of an individual in these de-centralized systems. So there's a lot of beauty about giving decentralized finance what it truly needs. It actually affords everybody to be a part of the system. It's not just people that have had the resources and everybody else gets redlined.
Jason Rigby (06:52):
Yeah. Like right now you can buy Bitcoin 24/7.
Alexander McCaig (06:54):
If I want to be a partner-
Jason Rigby (06:55):
You can buy fractional shares of Bitcoin. You don't have $14,000. You have $2. You can go in there and buy $2.
Alexander McCaig (07:00):
Yeah. You can ...
Jason Rigby (07:01):
The market is open 24/7.
Alexander McCaig (07:03):
Yeah. You don't have to buy a whole Bitcoin. You can get little pieces of it.
Jason Rigby (07:05):
So they said they were the first of their kind. But I want to talk about TARTLE being the first of its kind with how it's using Bitcoin with data exchange, whether you're purchasing data or you're selling data.
Alexander McCaig (07:15):
Yeah. That, I don't want to sound like we're tooting our horn, but it is our channel. You know what I mean?
Jason Rigby (07:21):
Right, right.
Alexander McCaig (07:23):
We are the first of our kind for data. No one ever anywhere has, one, allowed people to control the things that they are creating and retain 100% of the value for it and be able to share it. In any sort of digital medium that's never happened before. And we opened up the availability of that value to everyone across the globe.
Jason Rigby (07:45):
I love that.
Alexander McCaig (07:45):
By choosing a decentralized currency, a digital currency, because if a digital currency can be transacted on my cell phone and I don't have to go to a bank, that opens up the body of people that can actually adapt and adopt to a system like we have very efficiently outside of what their governments or the regulations are saying that have naturally and unfairly prevented these people from operating in.
Jason Rigby (08:15):
Because it's so interesting, whether you want to buy art or you want to buy a house, you have the opportunity right now. If somebody will take it to just go right to that person and purchase Bitcoin and claim. I mean, think about that. How many people get involved when you purchase a home?
Alexander McCaig (08:30):
Too many.
Jason Rigby (08:31):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (08:32):
And so now you can have a direct person to person transaction. And people are worried about the record of the transaction, the record of ownership. So what we're saying, okay, we'll give the deed. Here's the deed, but the city will hold onto that record. What's the point of that?
Jason Rigby (08:45):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (08:46):
We have all these decentralized systems that can come together and manage the smart asset as a smart contract to actually watch the history of how that hash has been transacted. We know exactly who owns it.
Jason Rigby (08:56):
Yeah, we don't have to go to city hall.
Alexander McCaig (08:57):
We don't need a centralized authority to do it. We don't need-
Jason Rigby (08:59):
To pull a file on.
Alexander McCaig (09:00):
And an efficient system.
Jason Rigby (09:01):
And get an old map and look it up and see what records were signed on.
Alexander McCaig (09:04):
Yeah. And so that's-
Jason Rigby (09:05):
Is there a tax lien?
Alexander McCaig (09:07):
They're wigging out.
Jason Rigby (09:07):
Yes. Yes.
Alexander McCaig (09:08):
Because these fantastic decentralized technologies are driving us in a direction of our own sovereign control of things we should have been in control of in the first place.
Jason Rigby (09:19):
Because you don't need a mortgage company.
Alexander McCaig (09:20):
No.
Jason Rigby (09:21):
You don't need a title company.
Alexander McCaig (09:22):
No.
Jason Rigby (09:22):
You don't need a realtor.
Alexander McCaig (09:23):
No.
Jason Rigby (09:25):
What else is involved? I mean, there's so many different agencies that are involved.
Alexander McCaig (09:28):
Sometimes lawyers.
Jason Rigby (09:29):
Yeah. Yeah. Lawyers, real estate lawyer.
Alexander McCaig (09:31):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (09:31):
Yeah, you don't need any of that.
Alexander McCaig (09:32):
I don't need to go to the city for any special permit.
Jason Rigby (09:33):
No.
Alexander McCaig (09:34):
I'm going to sell it on my own time.
Jason Rigby (09:36):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (09:36):
Okay? And here's the record. If you want to follow the record, go into the blockchain and see who's bought it.
Jason Rigby (09:41):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (09:41):
See what IP address it came from.
Jason Rigby (09:43):
And it is more safe. It is more safe than it's sitting in city hall.
Alexander McCaig (09:49):
City hall can burn down.
Jason Rigby (09:50):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (09:51):
The likelihood of all the computers burning down is much less. Okay?
Jason Rigby (09:55):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (09:55):
All the nodes that support this blockchain system is much less and less. Unless there was a massive coronal ejection out of the sun, which is like a huge pulse, like a big solar flare, that would wipe out most of the computers.
Jason Rigby (10:08):
Yeah. But don't they have those like protective wallets and stuff you can put your Bitcoin on that's portable?
Alexander McCaig (10:13):
Not against something like that. That sends neutrinos. It's just blasting through your body, it shuts stuff down. But that's not ... The likelihood of that happening is [crosstalk 00:10:19]
Jason Rigby (10:18):
I will take that sun.
Alexander McCaig (10:18):
I'll absorb the sun.
Jason Rigby (10:21):
And I will shine like a ...
Alexander McCaig (10:22):
Shine like a diamond.
Jason Rigby (10:22):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (10:23):
Shine bright like a diamond.
Jason Rigby (10:25):
We got to throw Katy Perry if we're talking about decentralization.
Alexander McCaig (10:27):
Yeah, shot out to Katy Perry and decentralization. But yeah. So anyway, that's the gist of it and I'm all fired up.
Jason Rigby (10:33):
Oh, that's good. Thanks Alex.
Alexander McCaig (10:34):
Cool deal ICO.
Announcer (10:43):
Thank you for listening to TARTLEcast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future, and source data defines the path. What's your data worth?
