The Crypto Factor

By Paul Democritou and Blaise Mathai

Fact: "By the time you've finished reading The Crypto Factor, you'll know more about how to succeed in the cryptosphere than 98 percent of so-called investing gurus - guaranteed!"

Do you want to learn from the most respected and successful global influencers?

Do you want to discover the mindset of the greats? To learn how you can achieve financial freedom while avoiding the dangers and pitfalls of crypto?

​​​​​​​Keep reading to learn what 98% of people in crypto don't know – even the so-called gurus.

International business consultant Paul Democritou and blockchain communications expert Blaise Mathai talk to the experts, dig deep, and discover what it actually takes to succeed in life and in crypto.

You will learn directly from the experts themselves:

• What it took to get where they are, and how can you get there too

• How you can avoid the dangers and pitfalls of crypto on the road to success

• Why some failures are actually your ticket to success

• How to gain the financial freedom that your loved ones deserve.

Includes exclusive insights such as

• An introduction to Bitcoin with Andreas Antonopoulos 

• Pandora's Box with John McAfee

• The Spirit of Enterprise with Roger Ver

• Bitcoin All the Way with Tone Vays

• Blockchain in Every Pocket with Derek L. Jones

• The Future of Money with J.R. Willett

• A Maelstrom of Opportunity with Nicholas Merten, (DataDash) 

• When the Bitcoin Bug Bites with Josh Rosenblatt

• Do What You Love with Brian D Evans

• Educate, Communicate, with Naomi Brockwell

• Grow Your Knowledge First with Charting Man Dan of The Chart Guys

• Gotta Have Chispa with Catalina Castro

• Focus on Functionality with James Lee (JL777)

• Philanthropy on the Blockchain with Calvin Bradley

• Do Good Stuff with Joel Comm,

Get your copy of The Crypto Factor now, and join the crypto revolution today

• Language: English
• Publisher: Howson Books
• Release date: Jan 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386287810

Book preview

Part One

The Big Questions

The Interviewees

ANDREAS ANTONOPOULOS, one of the world’s foremost bitcoin and open blockchain experts. Andreas was posed the questions slightly differently and giving answers from the point of view of Bitcoin personified.

JOHN MCAFEE, founder of security software company McAfee, and two-time US presidential candidate.

ROGER VER, early investor in bitcoin-related startups, and prominent Bitcoin Cash supporter.

TONE VAYS, blockchain specialist, crypto trading expert, leader in crypto and Bitcoin maximalist.

DEREK L. JONES, co-founder of mom-friendly membership-based cryptocurrency UnitedCoin.

J.R. WILLETT inventor of the ICO, with Omni (Mastercoin), founder and ICO Designer for UpToken.

NICHOLAS MERTEN is the YouTube’s Data Dash Guy, a long-time student of the stock market and cryptocurrency trader.

JOSH ROSENBLATT, SVP of Development & General Counsel at BTC Inc, a lawyer specializing in all things cryptocurrency.

BRIAN D. EVANS is an Inc. 500 Entrepreneur, Forbes #7 marketing influencer, Blockchain Influencer of the Year 2018

HAYDN GITTEMEIER in the crypto space since 2012, mined Bitcoin in the dorms at the University of North Carolina.

NAOMI BROCKWELL, CEO of Rainbow Productions and host of Bitcoin Blockchain, the Technologies of Our Future.

CHARTING MAN DAN of The Chart Guys offers market analysis and talks crypto on The Chart Guys YouTube channel.

CATALINA CASTRO, relative newcomer to the Cryptosphere, has first-hand experience of the cryptocurrency boom in Latin America.

JAMES LEE (JL777), inventor and lead developer of Komodo, open-source blockchain infrastructure.

CALVIN BRADLEY, founder of Blockchain for Change, and CEO of SCIK, a platform for trading and investing in sneakers.

JOEL COMM, best-selling author, sold calssicgames.com to Yahoo! Internet OG, and self-professed eternal twelve-year-old.

What Does Success Mean to You?

I

F WE’RE GOING to talk about success, first we need to define it. We asked interviewees to define success. Some focused more on the success of Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and blockchain technology, like Andreas Antonopoulos (who was answering questions as the voice of Bitcoin):

Andreas Antonopoulos (The Voice of Bitcoin)

That's a really good question. I think I see it very differently from many of the other participants in this space. Some people define success for Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies or the open digital currency space as mainstream adoption. The idea that maybe the majority of people use this as their day-to-day currency, maybe that’s success. Or maybe the price is very high, or lots of investors are invested in these digital crypto currencies.

To me these are not very useful metrics of success, especially the idea that the system with the most money invested into it is the winner. That's measuring currency based on wealth. Wealth is held by the status quo and you don't disrupt the status quo by using their metric of success. There is a lot of wealth and power in the hands of people who certainly didn't earn that wealth but raped, stole, and pillaged it through generations of abuse. Measuring what currency they use as the measure of success is hardly interesting.

...Nobody would have allowed Bitcoin to launch itself on the Internet if the Internet wasn't free, where you could do that without asking for permission. The fact that there is a part of the Internet where no permission is required to launch your application is the reason Bitcoin was launched. And so it's that corner of freedom that created Bitcoin which is a corner of freedom within the currency world.

So, my view of success for Bitcoin is: Does it provide a small corner of freedom? And the same applies to other cryptocurrencies. They provide a small area of freedom, a system that people who need to use it can use it. And it's not going to be the mainstream. ... And as long as they exist, and they allow freedom, then we're succeeding. And the more freedom they give to more people, the more successful they are.

John McAfee

It’s not just Bitcoin. It's all cryptocurrencies. Success comes when the new world of currency arrives - giving each person full control over their store of value.

Naomi Brockwell

For me, success is completely tied to my ability to communicate ideas, so if I'm able to explain to people the fundamentals of blockchain, why it's important, if I am able to even educate one person on this, I consider that a success.

Others focused more on success on a personal level.

Roger Ver

I think success means your own happiness. You have to decide for you what makes you happy. If sitting on the beach every day sipping martinis makes you happy figure out how you can make that happen. If working every day, and spreading cryptocurrency around the world makes you happy then do that. You need to look inside your own heart, in your own mind, and figure out what makes you happy, and then figure out how to be able to do those things that make you happy. It's different for every person.

Tone Vays

To me success means doing what you love while being financially comfortable for your lifestyle. It gets a little bit complicated, because as you become a little more successful, most people raise their financial lifestyle. To me that's not necessarily what success means. To me, success means doing something you love, and that to me means making your own schedule. As much as I complain about being unreasonably busy and not having any free time, I wouldn't trade this for the world. I would never go back to having a boss. I will never go back to showing up at an office. To me success means freedom, but with a financial component.

Derek L. Jones

To be honest, I think success to me is the ability to spend time with your loved ones when you want to.

Freedom, you know? ... being able to have that little bit of freedom, doesn't really matter how much money you make.

Nicholas Merten

I think people in the West generally see success in a dollar value. I don't think that's really wrong. If you like material values or if you want to be financially secure, there's nothing wrong with that. But for me, success more than anything is leaving some sort of impact, and having a legacy.

...Money tends to come when you're not thinking about earning money, and you're thinking about doing something cool. Do you think Elon Musk goes every day, How can I make Tesla stock could go up? He's digging holes in the ground, he's trying to bring rockets to space, to get people on mars. Pushing. Him and his brother, pushing in regards to residential solar, Tesla automotive. Amazing stories that go along with just one entrepreneur. But it's the same with other people. Jeff Bezos doesn't think, How can I push up Amazon stock? He thinks, How can I expand my business and build an empire?" That's the mindset you have to have. I think money comes with it. So, success is more than anything chasing the creation of things that you want to see, or building a better you.

Catalina Castro

Success. I was going to say progress equals happiness. As long as we are progressing towards who we want to become, that is success, everyday success. But my definition of success is something that I learned from Tony Robbins many years ago. It's to have the resources and be able to give and teach those resources and abilities to more people that are in need. Not only in need, but have the chispa to get it and put it to work to build a legacy. I'm not gonna lie, I want financial freedom. I want resources, choices, but the ability to teach other people more like like Tony does. He has the resources, the ability together, the best. I think that is success. There are many different definitions of success. Success is the quality of your relationships, how happy you are in many different fields, but I think that is my definition of success that I've had for many years.

James Lee

Being able to do what you want to do is a good success.

Joel Comm

Components to success. For me, the first one is freedom. To be able to do what I want to do, where and when I want to do that, with the people I want to be with, and how I want to do it. Being the manager of my life, where I am not subject to other people's schedules.

... I think, financially, success is having enough to be within the boundaries of that freedom. I've had a lot. I've lost a lot. I know how to make money. If I wanted to make more money, I could, by doing things that I don't really want to do. I mean legal things. Ethical things, just they're not where I am right now, so I don't want to do them. ... I choose to make less than I'm capable of, because I want to be true to the lifestyle that is important to me, that freedom to do what I want to do. That to me is success.

What can we take from this? It seems everyone thinks other people measure success in financial and material terms, but when it comes down to it, few actually measure their own success that way.

Success, for most of our interviewees equates to freedom. Freedom of choice, freedom of expression, and self-agency. Financial freedom plays into this, but comes a distant second.

Can Anyone Succeed?

S

OME INTERVIEWEES were asked whether they thought anyone could succeed in life in general, while others were only quizzed about their thoughts on success in the cryptosphere.

In life

Not surprisingly, everyone who expressed an opinion believed that anyone could succeed in life.

Derek L. Jones

I'm convinced anybody can do it. I've experienced it myself in my own life. I think that the biggest thing that people struggle with is the fear of failure. People are afraid to fail. Whereas, I may have been taught or I may have learned that you have to fail to succeed.

My dad used to tell me all the time, Nobody can tell you no seven times. So, if nobody can tell you no seven times, that means you have to fail six times in order to succeed.

Catalina Castro

Yes, I do believe so. Of course, there are many factors that can affect or influence that. You have very poor people that do not have the resources, or maybe the internet connection when we talk about very extreme situations. Their opportunities are more limited. But then on the other hand we have very rich people that have a lot of resources and connections and they don't use it. Everybody can do it. And for the people who do not have the resources and the internet connection we have to help them. Because I'm sure there is a Steve Jobs right there somewhere, or someone with enough potential to do something, and we need to give the resources to people. But yeah, I just think anyone can be successful.

Though most point out there is effort involved and success is neither guaranteed or easy.

Roger Ver

Yeah, if they try, but you have to try. If you don't try you're guaranteed to fail. I can't count how many people I've met that have these ideas on how to do this and do that and do this and they have all the ideas but they don't even bother to try. If you don't bother to try you're not going to succeed.

Another piece of good advice is to read more books. Reading books is like having a one-on-one tutoring session with some of the smartest humans to ever live by picking up the books that they wrote. Reading the books it's like you can absorb all the knowledge and thoughts that these people had. I think I heard Ludwig Von Mises say it, but he might not have been the first, but he said, If I was able to see farther than others it's because I stood on the shoulders of giants.

That's exactly right. So by reading books it's like you get to climb up the backs and stand on the shoulders of intellectual giants and see father than they did. And we have the Internet, you can look up anything you want to know anytime. Read books and use the Internet is my advice.

James Lee

Certainly, everybody has the ability to achieve this (with very few exceptions), however many get trapped in life situations that are very hard to escape from, especially as the education system is designed to trap people in many parts of the world.

Of course, if a person doesn’t even try, then there is no chance. If you try and work hard, then it will usually lead to success. Be it finding out what you truly want to do, or simply to be able to have enough money to have the freedom to pursue what you want to, anyway

Tone Vays

Yeah, of course. Anyone can because again success is based on what you think success is...

I think everyone could reach success, but you gotta have your head on your shoulders at least a little bit. You gotta go out and do something. Success is not gonna come to you, you have to go out and get it.

I still have friends for twenty thirty years that are still struggling. There comes a point in life where if you struggle for so long, you're so frustrated that your life has been a giant struggle, and that's unfortunate. But you've had the tools to put yourself in a better position, you just didn't do it. Now, when you're in your thirties, when you're in your forties and you've never capitalized on some of those tools, it becomes harder and harder. Because people have known you. The longer people have known you and the longer they've known you without any success, or even a glimpse of success, the less those people will help you.

Anyone can succeed, but it gets harder and harder in the future if you don't have any history of prior success. Now, if you've had multiple stages of successes and failures, it is much easier to succeed when you're older, because people will remember your successes. They will also remember your failures, but they're confident you've succeeded before, you can succeed again. Whether you fail then after or not is debatable. But if people have never seen you succeed you are gonna have a major problem with every single year that goes by because you just don't earn the confidence of your friends, peers, and family.

And some pointed out that success need not be financial, and can be found in many different arenas in life.

Joel Comm

Yeah, I think anybody could. I think people succeed in life. Look, we're all given certain gifts and talents, right? I believe they’re God-given. They’re who we are. We can't control the body we were given, this is who we look like. Now, we could abuse it, and we can get fat, or we could be malnourished. Then there's outside circumstances that could affect our health, but this is who we are. This is the skin we walk around in.

You didn't control who your parents would be. You didn’t control when you were born. You didn't control what class, if you were poor or wealthy by family. There's so many things that we don't control. But the choices that we do control, you know, we could be victims of society or we could be overcomers. Everybody has the opportunity to overcome. There's more than enough stories of people who started with nothing or less than nothing who have overcome that. Nobody has an excuse to say, Well that's okay for them. I can't do that. You choose not to do it. You choose to allow your circumstances to dictate what your potential is. But the fact is, if you're alive and breathing, you have potential to do something. To live your dream, to discover what gifts, talents, and abilities have I been gifted with?

And then, How do I want to operate in those gifts to bring value to others? Now, a lot of people, they put those gifts away, right? They stuff them in those chests, and lock it away, and they're like, Well I need to work this job. I need to go to work every day. Don't get me wrong, being responsible, especially when you have a family to take care of is essential. If it means you have to work three jobs you hate to make sure that there is a roof over your children's head, clothing on your back, food on the table, that's a different set of circumstances. You have to do what you have to do to be a responsible adult. But there's a lot of people that have choices, that choose to stay in the traps for fear of losing what they already have.

I know people that for decades have gone to jobs that they hate, planning, waiting for the day. Maybe this is the year that I’ll escape. I'm thinking, How tragic is that? You're waiting your life away. You know, I've got to say this. In the last week-and-a-half, there have been five deaths that I have become aware of. One of them was a gentleman my age, who used to work for me, who got ill with diabetes, passed away. Another one was a great affiliate marketer friend James Martell. Again, near the same age as myself, who passed away. Two friends’ parents, fathers. They lost their father this week. The point is, life is short, and you don't know. We don't know how much time we have. We do not know. Ind if you're planning just for the future. There's definitely wisdom in thinking about the future, and having a plan in the event that you get to enjoy it. But how tragic for somebody who plans for the future, sacrifices themselves daily on the altar of one day, and then that one day never comes for them. How very tragic.

Nicholas Merten

Yeah, I think it's a good question. The thing you mentioned earlier that's very true is that I think a lot of people watch the Gary V's of the world, and a lot of these people, and they watch them for a short period of time and think, Man, I need to be an entrepreneur.

You don't have to be an entrepreneur. Some people like I said, even if you say you want to but you can't attain it, it's no big deal. You don't have to be a Bill Gates to be special in this world. You can just be someone who contributes in some way. If you help with a local charity, you've helped more than most people in the world.

I wouldn't say most people, but a lot of people in this world are selfish and just looking for their own self-interest. They're not happy even though they're millionaires or entrepreneurs. But if you can find a way where you fit in this world, and you provide value for someone, that's the big thing. I think the big thing though in regards to success is you have to be able to be happy yourself, be able to think for yourself, provide for yourself, and then from there taking on that value that you've been able to find yourself and bringing it to others by teaching people, providing financial support for ideas, and just building other people up and contributing. That's where I think you can find success. Again, not everyone's gonna be an entrepreneur. If we were all entrepreneurs, that would be a lot of businesses in the world. That's why most businesses fail. So, yes. I know that's it's a hard question to answer, but I believe you can find success and it just depends what you value as success.

In crypto

When asked about success specifically in Crypto, the answers were more varied. There were still those who thought everyone could find a role and become successful.

Derek L. Jones

I think that anyone can, yes. I think that anyone can. Currently there's a learning curve, United Coin is doing its best, as well as a lot of other good companies out there, to reduce this learning curve. I think that in the future blockchain and cryptocurrencies may be one of the major means of success for individuals.

The reason why I say this is, right now, we are in a technological revolution. Databases are being changed to blockchains. Servers are being changed to blockchains, clouds are being changed to block chains. Block chains are being put on clouds. I mean, it's a wonderful world that we live in right now, and there's opportunity everywhere.

Just to use this opportunity, you must educate yourself. You must educate yourself. And so those who are willing to educate themselves, willing to go online, willing to do the work to learn about blockchain technology, they are going to be at the forefront of this. Less than one thousandth of the population of the world has a Bitcoin wallet. We're still in the very beginning of this. We're still in the very beginning of this.

Naomi Brockwell

I think in cryptocurrency, if you mean are there barriers to entry, I don't think there are. I think there are a wide variety of jobs for people. You don't all have to be technicians or engineers in order to get something from this technology. There are lots of jobs to offer.

There's a lot of information out there so you can educate yourself and it's really exciting that there are so many people who want to share this valuable thing that they've learnt about and share information with others. There's a lot of lot of good stuff out there to help people get involved. A lot of bad stuff too, but you have to use your discretion. To separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak.

J.R. Willett

I suppose that depends on how you define success. I doubt there is a type of person that has no role in the blockchain industry. Do you define success as pioneering new tech that will change the world? That certainly takes a specific skill set. Or maybe success for you is getting fabulously wealthy? That's a different skillset. Or maybe success is just finding a way to contribute? Anybody can do that.

Several interviewees focused on the need to differentiate and bring value to succeed on the cryptosphere.

Andreas Antonopoulos (The Voice of Bitcoin)

It depends on which application you're looking at. I think we're going to see the emergence of a number of successful cryptocurrencies that will address different types of problems in different ways and be used for different types of applications.

I think it's very difficult for another cryptocurrency to succeed in the narrow domain of sound, hard money and in the function of reserve currency which is something that Bitcoin does very well. Very high security, high-value transactions, with a lot of liquidity and with a very stable long-term value. I think in that, the early advantage of Bitcoin is very difficult to overcome.

Now, there will be currencies that differentiate. If they don't differentiate enough then they lose because Bitcoin is already there. And unless you have something that is radically better, not just a bit better but radically better, it can't displace the early adopter from the existing system.

But if you make it radically different then it no longer competes directly with Bitcoin. And we've seen that with some of the other cryptocurrencies whose primary focus is things like flexibility for smart contracts, rather than security and robust money.

When you make trade-offs like that, the trade-offs mean that you no longer compete. They're simply moving into a different niche to serve a different space. And I think we are going to see the emergence of different cryptocurrencies serving different niches, not competing directly against each other, but competing against other types of applications, competing against cloud computing, for example instead of central banking. Competing against database applications, federated software services and things like that instead of central banking.

Tone Vays

Again, in crypto this is very frustrating. Because in crypto, success seems to come with how much money did you raise in your latest ICO? which I would refer to as a scam. To me, based on my metrics of honesty and providing a useful product, and not simply leeching off of the ability to fund your product through unqualified investors, I think there's only been very few successes in this space. Which is why there is not that many people that I respect.

When it comes to Bitcoin and blockchain, at the end of the day it's code. I don't have the ability to contribute to the code, so I am doing my best job I can in explaining the code and why the code is important. Because that is my skillset. I spent 10 years on Wall Street, working with developers and explaining code, and testing the usage of code. So, me doing that in the crypto space was second nature.

But so many people want to succeed in the crypto space, but they have absolutely nothing to offer. So, they try to come up with some idea and they try to finance that idea by unqualified people. I don't call any of those people successful. I don't care if you just raised two billion dollars for your project. I think you did it unethically, and I do not consider you successful. You leverage your reputation. If you have to leverage your reputation to make money, I don't know about that.

I think any anyone can succeed, but there is not that much... To me, the crypto space is government free money. There's not much you can do with just that. It's just government free money. Now I don't want to solicit that money from people. In fact I've recently removed all of my donation addresses, because I'm at a point where like I don't want to sound cocky, I don't want to say I don't want your $10 donation gift for all the free content that I do.

But I was able to monetize with my workshops of teaching people how to trade, and I'm doing okay with that. I'm doing okay based on my lifestyle. So, for me asking for donations, in my case, it's not necessary. I don't want to beg or ask people for money. That's just my view.

I have restructured. I'm gonna asking people, instead of donations, just use my affiliate codes. I have a website, and I put up a bunch of companies as affiliate codes. These are not multi-level marketing affiliate codes. I don't profit on a ladder system. I only put affiliate codes where a person is gonna pay X amount anyway, but the company now gives, let's say 10% of that, or 15% of that. If you use my affiliate code you're just gonna take everything to the company, but you use my affiliate code, you're paying the company and me, but it doesn't cost you anything extra.

There were those who focused on the difficulties, and saw higher barriers to entry.

Haydn Gittemeier

A lot of people think people get rich by doing just a couple things. And that's it. That's how they made their 10 million dollars. They made this one trade, they're gonna do it right now, now's the time.

And that's just not how people really make wealth. Wealth is hard work. You can't just create wealth sitting around with a small amount of money and expect to make a shit load of money. It's unrealistic.

Nicholas Merten

No. And the reason I say that is because crypto, as much as it is a market where you're much more likely I think long-term, even as a trader, to probably turn a profit, especially when it's in a bull market, the thing is I've learned from traditional markets and from myself - it took time to become an actual trader.

Most people don't have the dedication to become a trader. That's not an insult. It's not talking down anyone. It's just like how I'm not a professional tennis player. I don't have the time and dedication to spend every single waking morning going out and hitting the ball with a tennis racket. There are some people who do that. But for me, I found an absolute passion. I thrive for financial markets. So, for me it was very simple to build a routine and become a better trader over time. There's still some that are way better than me. But to be profitable in trading, the reason I say most people can't be good traders is because if you're gonna be a trader you need to be able to turn a bigger return than you would by simply investing.

Haydn Gittemeier

It just concerns me, when you watch the evening news and they talk about Bitcoin, it's kinda like, oh boy. Someone sends me a Facebook message out of the blue and asks me, What do you think is going to do better, Ethereum or Litecoin?

I think Ethereum was at least $200 or something like that. I tell them, I don't know, probably Ethereum because it's a better technology. This is someone who knew nothing about investing, and it kinda scared me, like, how much money are they going to put into this?

And there were those who thought it takes a certain type of person to succeed in crypto.

Brian D. Evans

Like anything in life, I think there are things that we are all predisposed to have success in. I wouldn’t be a great math teacher, it’s just not my thing. I think you have to have a strong desire, some natural abilities, and a lot of dedication and borderline obsession to be good in this field.

Dan (The Charting Man)

It takes a lot of studying, and an organized brain. People ask me, Can anybody do it? and anybody that puts in the time can definitely use technical analysis to make more informed financial decisions. But in terms of people have different kinds of brains, you know there's artistic people, and there's people that are analytical. People that are analytical and good with numbers are going to have an easier time. It doesn't mean people that don't can't do it, it's just gonna take more time. It's gonna be a little bit harder for them. If you are putting in the time, and if you are studying, definitely education comes before anything.

You don't just jump in. My analogy is, you don't go to Vegas with real money and sit it down at a poker table to learn how to play poker. You have to practice. You have to put the education in first. Then you start to play around in the market. You don't play around in the market and then lose. This is what most people do. They play around in the market and then lose, and then they either give up, or then they realize, I had no idea what I was doing. Now it's time to get some education. Education comes first. You put in the hours.

The more experience you have the better. If you're interacting with the community of people, again, that human interaction really drives home points more significantly, and it's a good support system. It feels like you have a team on your side. That's what I love about stocks, is you don't have to be against everybody, you can have teams where if some of us are making money, we can all be making money. I really love the human interaction part of it. That's why we did create The Chart Guys, to build a community around.

Then there were those who thought it was either too late to enter the fray, or too early to tell who would be successful in the long run.

James Lee

It is pretty late to be starting in crypto now. I think the days where you can bootstrap without anything other than hard work might be limited to those with a lot of technical skills. But it all depends on what you mean by success. If helping other people is a success for you, then certainly anybody can do that

Catalina Castro

I think now is too early to see who is going to be successful. Successful in which way? That is a good question, successful in which way? Being a communicator, educating, or building something amazing to create jobs. It depends. I think anybody can be successful in crypto, yes, as in any other industry. You just have to have the patience, do things right. Don’t take short cuts that may affect your persona, to build credibility within the community. I think right now is too early, and I haven't built anything to be talking in