Tom Kineshanko. He’s been investing in cryptocurrencies, also called digital assets or tokens, since 2013. He founded and exited the first bitcoin and ethereum fund in Canada, invested in the ethereum cloud sale and has made 10x the returns in bitcoin after ethereum classic, golem and several other tokens. He’s also the founder and general partner at First Block Capital, a digital asset fund manager where Tom leads investments in new token issuance. He’s also the founder and CEO of Walter.ai—a company that is building a distributed Bloomberg terminal—which intends to make the best supplier of market data to the cryptocurrencies market.
Famous Five:
Favorite crypto-related book? – Introducing Ethereum and Solidity
What CEO do you follow? – Brian Armstrong and Olaf Carlson
Favorite online tool? — Cryptocurrencies exchanges
How many hours of sleep do you get? — 8 plus
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I wish I understood which industries were sort of young-man game versus old-man game”
Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:05 – Nathan introduces Tom to the show
02:31 – There’s a market of new old coin tokens and there’s little information about it
03:12 – “This is liquid venture capital”
03:15 – The tokens represent an exposure to startup projects
03:25 – As people know, investing in startups is about qualitative information rather than quantitative
03:45 – Tom decided to apply the distributing models in building companies
04:50 – Tom shares the common way to build companies
05:10 – Blockchain ecosystem has a technology that is a combination of 4 different technologies
05:15 – The technology allows secure transfer of value on the internet even without a third-party approval
05:28 – Blockchain is a secure transfer layer that overlays on your internet
06:06 – You can track the activity on the blockchain because it’s an open source
06:16 – The tricky part is to identify who’s doing what
06:46 – Every time there’s a transaction on bitcoin blockchain, you’re leaving clues to who you are and what you’re up to
07:43 – The best use case of bitcoin blockchain is a stored value
08:22 – The issue with bitcoin blockchain is that it’s not yet as trusted as gold
08:27 – Tom believes though that bitcoin blockchain will be as trustworthy as gold
08:38 – As an investor, you want to be diversified across multiple blockchains
08:56 – Every one of these tokens is the unit of currency within a blockchain
09:32 – Bitcoin is a unit in a chain with 21M units
09:38 – Tom uses the analogy of a train with several carts to explain bitcoin and blockchain
10:08 – Ethereum is a place you can go to build blockchains and host them
10:45 – If bitcoin becomes as trusted as gold, it can be worth billions of dollar
10:55 – “You can never prove that any blockchain is secure because there’s always a bug they might find in the future”
11:03 – The longer you wait to find the bug, the more trusted it becomes
12:07 – Tom believes that the way blockchain is built is the way companies will be built in the future
12:15 – For investors interested in technology, go to Coinbase.com which is a mutual friend of Tom’s
13:01 – Coinbase has different types of cryptocurrencies or tokens
13:05 – Tom recommends buying bitcoins on Coinbase
13:09 – Then open up a Poloniex.com account where you can buy whatever you want using bitcoins
13:54 – The people who took advantage of the gold rush didn’t look for gold, but created something that can be of use for gold
14:50 – In the crypto world, you can design a microeconomy with incentives
14:55 – The people will join your microeconomy and work for you to get the incentives
15:08 – The incentives are the bitcoins
15:51 – Walter is creating an army of people who contribute data in exchange for a reward
15:55 – The people are getting paid with tokens
16:29 – Crypto businesses are difficult
16:52 – The easiest way to get good returns in the space is to buy tokens which are units of currency in micro-economies
17:14 – Tom uses the analogy of buying Facebook IPO
19:20 – There are games where you can earn cryptocurrencies and online casinos for cryptocurrencies
19:53 – When you buy cryptocurrencies, you are already in a crypto economy where you need to do your due diligence
20:33 – Ethereum is one of the currencies that you need to run apps
21:21 – A token is like a packet (in relation to IP protocols)
21:54 – Blockchain is the protocol layer upon which tokens are transferred around
23:33 – Tokens are also called cryptocurrencies
23:15 – A miner is someone who runs an algorithm on his own piece of hardware that checks for activity within a blockchain
24:48 – The ways that you can contribute data varies
25:51 – It’s the first time in history that you can have liquid venture capital in the industry
25:58 – There’s an extreme demand, but with a limited supply
26:44 – Tom believes that now is a good time to participate in cryptocurrencies
27:31 – Tom shares to Nathan the questions that Nathan can ask a guest who is into investing in cryptocurrencies:
27:40 – What are tokens? How do you make a venture capital investment?
28:06 – Do you have a personal relationship with MetaStable and Polychain?
29:35 – What is the history of cryptocurrencies?
30:12 – Another question can be their strategy of trading
31:00 – Why people should use Walter:
31:05 – All of us in the space need to support a good project and invest in the right projects so we can all have a good return
31:21 – Walter is building a global community of contributors who are researching the space and gathering information in exchange for incentives
31:42 – “Get involved and join the conversation”
33:18 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
Bitcoin may not be as trusted as gold, but it will be in the future.
Building a crypto business isn’t easy, but the demand is here.
Study and research an industry before jumping in, and know the RIGHT questions to ask.
Resources Mentioned:
The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
