The following transcript was created using artificial intelligence. There will be some grammatical errors below. 

00:00:32:18 – 00:01:00:25

Richard Carthon: Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Crypto Current, your host here, Richard Carthon, and today I got a very special guest all the way out in Singapore. We have Dave with an absolutely incredible company that has like, I’ve been looking into for a long time now and I’m excited to learn more about Rublix and all the things that you’re doing cause you’re on the trading side, you’re on the blockchain side. So I’m hyped up to be able to learn more about you. So Dave thank you for joining us today.

00:01:00:27 – 00:01:05:01

Dave Waslen: Yeah, thanks Richard. Yeah, this is a pleasure and I look forward to chatting with you today.

00:01:05:03 – 00:01:09:06

Richard Carthon: No doubt man. So how about you get started by telling us a little bit about yourself and giving us some background.

00:01:10:08 – 00:01:51:00

Dave Waslen: Yeah sure. Well myself, I’m from Canada and born and raised and did some schooling in the U.S., lived in New York, lived over in London for a couple of years. My background’s primarily finance, I did some investment banking and private equity, but when I launched Rublix and started working on our hedge trade platform, I moved to Singapore to launch it out of this jurisdiction. So I’m here now and Singapore is a great place. And yeah, we have an international team. So still some staff back in Canada and in Europe and here in Singapore. So yeah, so far so good.

00:01:51:14 – 00:02:05:06

Richard Carthon: That’s amazing man. So like, I know you say you were doing things in the financial realm and doing some trading. What was your first introduction into the crypto and blockchain space and you know, what year was it and how did you even first learn about it?

00:02:05:20 – 00:02:58:22

Dave Waslen: Yeah, it definitely came from my Co-Founder. So his name’s Peter and when we were both in Calgary in Canada and he’s a computer programmer and a trader and he was getting into the sector, had some friends in the sector that were working in it and learning more about it. So he was telling me about Bitcoin and Ethereum. This is 2016. Yeah, 16 I would think. And then I just started doing my own research and got really into it. I was blown away with the content I was reading, YouTube videos I was watching, but yeah, kind of all starts with Bitcoin. You read the White Paper, you get to know what mining is and the technology and blockchain and then you learn about Ethereum and what it’s doing with smart contracts and taking another step further. So I completely went down the rabbit hole and got really enthralled with it.

00:02:58:23 – 00:02:59:08

Richard Carthon: Yeah.

00:02:59:10 – 00:03:03:22

Dave Waslen: And as they do, got sucked in and haven’t left ever since.

00:03:03:24 – 00:03:20:20

Richard Carthon: Yeah man. So you get sucked in around 2016 and at which point are you like I want to build a company? How do you even come up with Rublix and what made you take the plunge to leave the country and go to Singapore to start it?

00:03:20:26 – 00:04:02:04

Dave Waslen: Yeah. I was working full-time at a really great position and I was working in private equity and liked what I was doing. And when Pete and I were just starting to work together and we were thinking about some companies to start and were just brainstorming, working evenings and weekends and he was like, “Hey you know I’m doing some trading you know as well, so you know, I’m building a couple of projects, but also doing some trading and you know, Hey by the way like I’m watching these Invidia call options.” So Invidia was building the Bitcoin miners and they’re super liquid and he’s watching these weekly options and he’s like, “Hey Dave, like tomorrow morning when the market opens like, buy just call option.” I’m telling you.

00:04:02:07 – 00:04:02:22

Richard Carthon: Yeah.

00:04:02:24 – 00:05:01:09

Dave Waslen: And I was like,” Okay, sure.” And so like he is a good trader and then I did that and then two days later, “He’s like okay, like, it hit the perfect spot I was expecting and sell it.” I was like, “Okay, sure.” So I sold it and it was up 35 percent. I was like, “Oh man, that was an awesome trade, like great job.” And he’s like, “Yeah, I’m doing pretty good with my trading and you know, maybe we could start a little online business where I post my predictions on the website, I teach the audience where to buy in, where to exit and we could get them to subscribe to this website.” Well like yeah, that’s interesting. And then we were both going into the crypto space and crypto trading and then we’re like, “Well, what if we built this platform so that any trader could post their trading predictions?” And let’s build this in a way where they have to put money and stake something on their prediction, they can’t just post predictions that have no value.

00:05:01:11 – 00:05:01:26

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:05:01:28 – 00:05:59:10

Dave Waslen: And they could have a poor track record, let’s give them something to stake. And then this is kind of where we came up with the concept for hedge trade and you know, that’s kind of how the platform works now. So a trader has to make a trading prediction and it has the entry price and exit price of his trading call and then he has to stake our hedge token on it, so he can stake let’s say $100 worth of our hedge token. And then when a user sees this prediction on the platform, he can see the potential profit and how much the trader has staked and the trading pair, but he can’t see the entry and exit price until they unlock it and they have to pay one tenth of the stake, so they would pay 10 dollars worth of our token to unlock this prediction and get to see that more useful information, the entry and exit price.

00:05:59:26 – 00:06:00:11

Richard Carthon: Wow.

00:06:00:13 – 00:06:40:03

Dave Waslen: Then what happens is, if the prediction is correct, then the trader earns their stake back and the proceeds from the buyers, they can have you know, five, 10, 100 thousand buyers if they are really popular on the platform. And if the prediction is incorrect, then all the buyers get their $10 dollars baack and the trader loses his stake and we actually distribute the stake out to the initial buyers. So, anyway the concept just kind of started organically. We reinvented it ourselves and then we decided to make a run for it and build this out.

00:06:40:08 – 00:06:50:00

Richard Carthon: That’s a super interesting concept and definitely a unique one. I don’t think I’ve heard of anything like it. How has it been received so far by the community?

00:06:50:02 – 00:08:17:18

Dave Waslen: It’s plain awesome. We’ve been in beta through it for a couple of months and just kind of testing it out and people have been signing up. We haven’t done any marketing or promotion for it. We just recently went live and made an announcement last week with an exchange that tracks global. And so users are on it, they’re using it, they’re asking us questions, they really like it. There’s kind of a gamification element to it because if you find a trader that’s really good and very successful, then when you unlock his predictions, you go and make the same trade as him because he could be correct again and you could earn on the trade and pay him the fee. And then other people are realizing that if you unlock a prediction that’s going to be incorrect, then you get your money back and you receive a portion of the stake, so you can make money on these predictions that way as well. And people are having a lot of fun with it and it’s getting used everyday. People are parsing funds and posting predictions and unlocking predictions and we have a vision of really building it out to become a big ecosystem. So an ecosystem for trading predictions and cryptocurrency trading and we’ll take it into other industries and you know, have analytics and charts and pricing and even a social element to Twitter feed.

00:08:17:20 – 00:08:18:05

Richard Carthon: Wow.

00:08:18:07 – 00:08:24:28

Dave Waslen: And interaction between the users, so yeah, we really want to make hedge trading a big ecosystem for traders.

00:08:25:03 – 00:08:58:07

Richard Carthon: For sure, yeah. I mean, I definitely can see all the different elements of it. I mean, not to you know, speak of a competitor, but like just one my first thought was like you know, the open place that you know, Trading View kind of has, but you know, just like you said, you can just go there and make any kind of crazy predictions you want and there’s no repercussions if you’re wrong, right? And so with this one, it’s really making people put their money where their mouth is and like you can have a track record and really just like you said, if you’re doing a good job, people are gonna follow that and be lucrative for all parties involved, so it really sounds like a unique value proposition, for sure.

00:08:58:14 – 00:09:31:09

Dave Waslen: Yeah you nailed it. We love Trading View and we think they’ve done a great job. They’re charting’s amazing and their ideas section is amazing and that’s you know, that gave us some guidance and we really like what they’re doing and we want to help those traders make money. You know, on Trading View, you can post your prediction and then you can gain followers and likes and comments on your charts and analysis and that’s awesome. We love those guys and what they’re doing.

00:09:32:10 – 00:10:15:21

Dave Waslen: On our platform, we just want to take it another step further so that those types of traders can make the similar predictions and have their charting, their technical analysis, they can write a little blog description about their trading call and then earn money at the same time, earn money from their followers. They can state you know, as we say and put money where their mouth is and has some skin in the game and then their users can pay to unlock it and only pay for it if it becomes true. So you know, it’s kind of a win-win scenario. If it’s true, they can make the trade and earn the trade. If it’s not true, then they get their money back anyway, so you know, we think it’s a great way for traders like that to monetize their following.

00:10:15:24 – 00:10:25:00

Richard Carthon: For sure, And I was going to say so let’s say if someone’s interested and they’re listening right now and they’re like a big time trader like, I’m all about it, I want to sign up or I want to get started with this. What does that process look like?

00:10:25:02 – 00:11:28:19

Dave Waslen: Pretty simple. You can just sign up you know, just insert your information and sign up. Anybody can do it, anyone can be one of the predictors or the traders and anybody can be one of the purchasers. And you know, we also have another element where there’s an affiliate system. So if you’re a big trader with a lot of followers on Trading View or Twitter or YouTube, then you can have people sign up with your affiliate code and then any of the people that you sign up, if they earn money on the platform then you’ll receive a portion of that revenue, so, there’s multiple ways you can monetize your following. But yeah, it’s cool and we’ve actually started working with some quite reputable traders and even traders from hedge funds and hedge funds themselves that are even posting on the platform and gaining their reputation and track record. So yeah, it’s going great and then we’re going to keep building it and we just want to get the word out about it.

00:11:28:27 – 00:11:48:23

Richard Carthon: For sure. No, that’s amazing. And I mean, kind of shifting gears just a little bit, I know that you’ve been in this space since you know, 2016 you’ve been here for a while now and you’ve seen a lot that’s been developing. And 2020 is definitely shaped up to be a very interesting year, to say the least. What are some things in the crypto and blockchain space that has your attention that you think others should be paying attention to?

00:11:49:04 – 00:12:33:23

Dave Waslen: Yeah, yeah we’ve been in this space for a couple of years and we’ve seen you know, a bunch of different cycles and you know, it was kind of like a year and a half ago when the industry was saying you know, “Institutions are coming, institutions are coming. And it’s going to have a big effect and the big bull markets are going to happen and you know, they’re starting and there’s cracks, but we still need a bit more infrastructure. And you know, I guess the criticism of the sector with custodianship and you know, you can make a fat finger error and lose all your coins if you send it to the wrong place.

00:12:33:25 – 00:13:21:14

Dave Waslen: You know, I think the industry is getting there, but we need to work a little bit more on custodianship and infrastructure and making it safe and secure for institutions to come in because they’re dealing with external funds. And if there is a risk of making an error or risk of theft or a risk of, you know, any type of exchange risk, then they’re just not going to bother it. It’s not worth the downside. So I think we’re working on it. You know, there’s great groups like Gemini that are making great inroads with both U.S. regulators you know, and other groups that are really pushing the envelope to help get institutions involved. And I think we’re going in the right direction, but still even more work in that department.

00:13:21:26 – 00:14:01:05

Richard Carthon: For sure. And I think we’re closer now, since everything happened with Covid and just seeing how much global economies can be affected by a pandemic and everything else, where I think you know towards the end of this decade we’d be getting closer to institutional money regulation and everything else. I think we’re even. I think that timeline’s definitely shrunk a ton and I think within the next three to five years, I really think just like you said, we’ll start to see a big push in that direction. It’s just cryptocurrency is being seen as a viable option more and more every single day which I think is great for everyone.

00:14:01:11 – 00:14:52:10

Dave Waslen: Yeah, I totally agree and you know, this wild year that we’re in and Covid and how unfortunate it is. And yeah, there’s a lot of macro factors that are pointing towards the crypto sector. You know, there’s international remittances, there’s untrust with the banking systems, the monitoring and fiscal policies that are coming out in the US. I totally agree there’s a lot of macro factors, people working from home wanting to, you know, take control of their capital and make money online. You know, the crypto industry is positioned really well for a lot of those autos things to you know. So yeah, I totally agree on things like this in the world right now are potentially bullish and positive for crypto.

00:14:52:16 – 00:15:21:10

Richard Carthon: For sure. And as an aside because you are in a unique position where you know, you’ve been in the trading world for a long time and for everyone listening again, this is not trading advice for anybody about to listen to this. But as you’ve been in this for a long time now, if anyone’s listening right now and they’re a first time trader or that crypto is something that they’ve always thought about, “Hey I want to go and learn about this and trade and do X, Y, Z.” What is your recommendation for them to go and educate themselves on how they can like get involved?

00:15:23:03 – 00:16:43:23

Dave Waslen: Yeah. Education’s critical. You know, on our website you know, we’re a big advocate for education. You know, we have a blog with over 500 articles that explain everything. You know, up and down crypto, from beginner to more advanced. It’s what are wallets, you know, what are exchanges, what does mining mean, water hashes, what are private keys? So again, we’re trying to help the industry and help people get into the sector. And then if they join a hedge trade then they can follow a reputable trader and see someone with a transparent track record. You know he hasn’t manipulated his track record, he’s put money where his mouth is on his trading predictions. And you know, we’re a group that’s trying to help people start and get into the space and not lose your shirt and we’re someone you can talk to, but then yeah, there’s a lot of other resources out there. You know, there’s YouTube and you know, when I started, I thought it was just really fascinating, the technology and I think that’s a good place to start. Learning about the Bitcoin White Paper and what is mining, what does blockchain mean, learning about Ethereum and smart contracts and what all these ERCS tokens are all about and how they came to be.

00:16:43:25 – 00:17:29:23

Dave Waslen: So it definitely starts with education. And then if you want to do things yourself, then test it out. You know, open an exchange account and transfer in some funds or buy your first piece of Bitcoin and test it for yourself to you know, dabble and then if you want to do something more significant and substantial, then ask for help or make sure that you’re comfortable and confident with what you’ve learned or get some other group to do it for you if you want to manage your capital. So yeah, education is a key thing. And then just going down the rabbit hole and trying it out.

00:17:29:25 – 00:18:07:29

Richard Carthon: For sure. And I appreciate that and for everyone listening, I mean, as you know with Crypto Current, we’re all about education. Sounds like there are some absolute, great blog articles out on Rublix, so definitely go check those out. Then also just find ways to get engaged and to educate yourself, if you’re willing you know, put some money in there and just see what you can do and it’s all a learning experience. But you gotta take the first step and and take the choice to just act on the education and opportunities that are out there. But again, Dave I really appreciate you spending some time with us today, telling us about Rublix, but before you go, what is a final thought that you want to leave with all of our listeners here today?

00:18:08:10 – 00:19:01:06

Dave Waslen: Well yeah, I mean, Richard thanks a lot for having me, this was awesome. And the final thought is for you, keep doing what you’re doing. You know, you’re helping your audience, you’re helping them learn and get educated and meet a bunch of cool people in the space. And same with us, you know, we’re working hard, we’re making these articles trying to help people out, we’re building our platform out. People that are in the sector, let’s just keep going. You know, this is going to have a huge generational impact in our lifetime and the next generations to come because this is a new paradigm, it’s a new monetary system. And let’s all just keep working and keep learning, keep developing with each other and you know, we think in the next five, 10, 20 years, this is  it, like we’re in the middle of it right now and it’s going to change the way things work forever.

00:19:01:08 – 00:19:35:21

Richard Carthon: A thousand percent. Appreciate you saying that and everyone listening to that, you know rewind and listen to it again. Like we’re at the beginning of something that’s going to change the world and being educated on this early before we hit the mass adoption, before everyone else is truly on game with everything that’s going on is really just going to help differentiate and separate yourself to capitalize on this opportunity that’s truly being presented to everyone learning and listening to this right now. So again, Dave I really appreciate you spending some time with us. What are some different ways that people can connect with you and also learn about Rublix?

00:19:36:01 – 00:20:15:06

Dave Waslen: Yeah for sure. You know, I guess I’m on Twitter @DaveWaslen. Then there’s our Hedge Trade HQ Twitter handle. You know, check us out, go to the Hedge Trade website. You can send us an email through there or hit us up on Twitter. And yeah, come check out what we’re doing and we’d love to learn more about you guys and work together to grow this ecosystem and successfully trade. So that’s what it’s all about and learn and prosper together. So yeah, that’s it.

00:20:15:08 – 00:20:19:11

Richard Carthon: Absolutely. Well everyone listening, make sure you go check them out. And also stay Crypto Current.