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

00:00:06:02 – 00:00:59:12

Richard Carthon: What’s up, everyone? We have a special extra for you today, so, as you know, this is our 200th episode and we wanted to do something to go a little bit deeper to connect with you and to just also so you can hear it from us. So, as you know, at the beginning of the year, we added another great addition to the team. We have Steven Miller, our COO, he’s in the studio with me today joining, so, that we can discuss some of the things that we’re really happy and feel accomplished about in our first 200 episodes and then to kind of just talk about where we’re headed with things are coming up new with Crypto Current. So, you know, a lot of great things to unpack, but the first thing that I kind of want to ask you, Steven, is what projects that have come on through our show have kind of blown your mind, not just in the capacity of like, what they’re actually accomplishing, but how much they’ve been able to accomplish since coming on the shows like where they presently are? 

00:01:00:01 – 00:01:32:21

Steven Miller: Love the question. And again, I’m just glad I could be here, man. Two hundred episodes is a huge accomplishment and milestone for the channel, so, I love where Crypto Current’s headed and I love what we’ve done so far. So to me, to answer your question, I think the one biggest so far has been Hedera Hashgraph. I know it’s a recent win, but to me, that was a remarkable episode, not just in the fact that they’ve done incredible things since we had them on, but the fact that they’ve done such incredible things leading up to now, right? That  to me is a big deal. 

00:01:32:23 – 00:02:00:00

Steven Miller: And the other one that if you want to talk longevity, has been Ocean Protocol. I mean, it’s really hard to think that Ocean Protocol hasn’t been one of the standout cases. I mean, there’s plenty and I’m sure that you’re going to tell me a couple of your favorites in a second here, but Ocean Protocol is doing something that is so totally unique in the marketplace. They’re not just a first mover, they are going to monopolize that space almost without a doubt, right? 

00:02:00:12 – 00:02:00:27

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:02:00:29 – 00:02:19:18

Steven Miller: So to me, I think that’s incredible. But I really want to know, because, again, you’ve been around for 150 episodes prior to me even coming on board. What do you think? Like, who’s the project that has done the most significant things and has driven so much more forward from when you had them on? 

00:02:20:15 – 00:02:59:22

Richard Carthon: Yeah, I mean, there’s plenty. I mean, I’ve obviously enjoyed everyone who has come on this show, but there have been some pretty cool ones. One being that immediately comes to my mind is BlockFi. So, I had Flori that came on the show and BlockFi has grown so much since first when they appeared on our show. They now are one, have a ton more money that has been put into their like, ecosystem, they now have a card that’s about to go out, they’re giving out loans now. And of all the different places that you can go and earn APY, they’re probably one of the most secure in the industry right now. So, that one was really cool. 

00:03:00:15 – 00:03:28:25

Richard Carthon: Another got to give a shout out to Gilded. Gilded is doing some great stuff. Raina, we had her on very early in our show and she and Gilded have gone, you know, through TechStars, have gone to raise money, are now like, churning and burning, growing at such a fast rate. Joey Ryan, who’s also been on the show. If you are in the Crypto space and you have a company and you’re looking for ways to pay your workers or send out any payments, Gilded.Finance, really, really cool. 

00:03:30:01 – 00:04:33:27

Richard Carthon: Had a show where we had CryptoTrader.Tax and I thought that was a really cool one. Just from this year, I had to do my taxes and I actually use them to help figure out like, cost basis and everything else that I needed to get a lot of that figured out and it was very user friendly, extremely user friendly, was able to get everything that I needed to give to my accountant in a very quick fashion. So, that was a very cool and helpful tool and has grown a tremendous amount as well. And the final and I know I actually gave the shout out in Episode 100, but I want to go back to it again because I think it just, it impacted me so much, Swan Bitcoin. When they first came on the show to where they are now, they’ve grown a lot. They are expanding a ton. And yeah. They really, I mean, just the conversation I had with Yon helped convince me to proactively be getting more in diversifying into Bitcoin. So, I’ll just leave those. I can talk about a lot of our speakers all day, but I’m just going to start with that. 

00:04:34:10 – 00:05:11:25

Steven Miller: So, let me ask because I think that it’s a really important point. Of course, we can talk about like, all day which people have made the most, I guess, who have had the most momentum since we’ve had them on the show, but which of these interviews has had the biggest impact on you? Because obviously I think that you can say that Swan Bitcoin has had a huge impact in that they were the ones that convinced you to be a dollar cost average investor with Bitcoin, but is there been another one that’s been just tremendously impactful in the way that you think about Crypto and the way that you invest or even in the way that you just view the marketplace as a whole? 

00:05:12:24 – 00:06:06:06

Richard Carthon: Yeah, there have been quite a few that like, really changed my perception on that, so I’m actually going to blend two conversations. So, Joey with Gilded, even though we had BlockFi on the show, I knew about them and I was looking at all of that and was still kind of new-ish, was trying to figure out like APY and how to do it and I had a conversation with him post interview and he was like, I use it, it’s been great, I love it so far. So then I started using it, I was like, Oh, this is really great. And then fast forward to this year, we actually have Tantra Labs, shout out to Tantra Labs, who came on the show and the APY for what my long term holds are which are Bitcoin and Ethereum or just so much greater, right? So, going from anywhere from on BlockFi, I think it was like six to eight percent to 12 percent. Like, it just wasn’t close. 

00:06:06:08 – 00:06:54:28

Richard Carthon: So, now, you know, I’m using Tantra and like, it’s been great. It’s great to see my portfolio grow and be there. But other ways that my mind kind of like, started to shift was even along the strategy. So, we had Coach K who came on the show and talked about different strategies on like, how you can be adapting and growing in this space and I really enjoyed that conversation. Another conversation I liked a lot was with the CEO of EQIFI and man, that episode was awesome in a lot of ways, but also just hearing his entrepreneurial experience. And then that was when I first started asking questions on like, What are some of the biggest takeaways? And his biggest line that he would go back to was, play the long game. 

00:06:55:03 – 00:07:48:06

Richard Carthon: If your time horizon is longer, you repeatedly win. So, there’s still a lot of people who are trying to make a lot of money in a short amount of time, get in, get out, but if you are just in the mindset that like, I am playing this long game because I see this as the future, you’re going to win and you’re going to win in a major way. And I just thought that was, you know, sensational. And the one other that I thought was was really, really cool, well, there’s a lot and I’ll stop there because I could ramble on and on about it, but you know, I kind of, I don’t want to pose it all the way back to you, but I kind of in a way, this one like, you had an opportunity to join us on the team, and I know that you had already been previously listening to a lot of our episodes, was there a guest that came on that you were like, Wow, I would have never have guessed that this is a direction that I could go?

00:07:50:20 – 00:08:36:08

Steven Miller: It’s a really tough question, and I think it’s a great question to be thinking back on, but the way that I want to answer is a little bit different. I knew that this was a way that I wanted to go, but the way that I’ve thought about this show since, honestly since you originally started it, because you and I go way, way back, was that I need to start putting myself through a filter and figuring out, Okay, who is a trusted source? Who is it that I can trust in this industry? Because, again, a lot of this industry, right? A lot of it is just talking heads. It’s people spitting FUD, it’s people that are just throwing hopium out there. And we need to have almost like an intermediary. 

00:08:36:10 – 00:09:18:27

Steven Miller: You need to be able to filter down to the ones that are not just trying to give you the moon without like, showing you the path there, right? If you can’t find those people, this industry is not meant for you. And to me, I started putting myself through that filter and trying to see the industry from that, you know, perspective and that’s what eventually showed me that I could be in this industry. So, I hope that’s a roundabout way of getting to the answer of your question, but to me, I think that’s the most important thing that anybody can do before going in here, because a lot of people just jump in way too early. They need to do their diligence, not just like, on whether or not they want to be an investor in Crypto, they need to do their diligence on whether or not this feels right to them. 

00:09:19:20 – 00:09:20:05

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:09:20:07 – 00:09:59:18

Steven Miller: There are plenty of people depending on where you’re from and how you were raised and, you know, what your core beliefs are, you may not originally align with this, right? There’s a chance that, you know, it may be completely against your core or values, your belief set, the way that you choose to invest. To me, this made tons of sense. You know, it’s the opportunity to give people economic freedom, it’s the ability to have a further degree of financial literacy, it’s a way to level the playing fields between economic powers. To me, that’s a big freaking deal. So, I know that’s a really big way of answering the question there, but that would be what I would say to you on that. 

00:09:59:27 – 00:10:40:17

Richard Carthon: Yeah, no, I love it. And it’s the impact. Again, for one of the drivers that I have with this is, yes, to be a reliable, trusted source of truth, but then to also be able to have impact and drive value back to people and give them a way to actually have actionable steps to do something with it, right? You can feed a person for a day and they’re fed for a day, if you teach them how to fish they can eat for a lifetime. And like, what I want to do is teach people how to fish in the world of Crypto, right? Because there’s a ton of different ways, there’s a ton of different spots that you can go to fish and it can feel like too much at once to get started. 

00:10:40:19 – 00:11:25:12

Richard Carthon: And I just want people to get started and have a way and have that point of connection that will drive them to action and we’ve been seeing it. And kind of the next direction I want to go and kind of talk through is just highlighting some of like, some cool things that we’ve been able to do in the 100 episodes, right? So, since the last major milestone, we have gone from doing one podcast a week to now doing two consistently and have the capacity to potentially do more. We are putting out daily content on our website, so, if you have not checked out our website, make sure you go check that out. We are putting up some fresh content for you all the time. We’ve grown our contributors, we’ve grown our team. We have been able to get on things like Google News. We have new swag. 

00:11:25:14 – 00:12:20:06

Richard Carthon: If you are watching this right now, you can clearly see me and Steve are rocking some really cool dope swagged out sweaters. We got all kinds of stuff on the website, but now if you really like our company and brand, you can go read some of that stuff as well. We have some really great things on the horizon to grow and some new partnerships and other things that we kind of have out there that I’ll let Steve tease. And of course, we have a Clubhouse that’s been going out, so we’ve been literally talking directly to all of you on a weekly basis. And because of our Telegram channel, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, if you don’t know, we have a secret Telegram channel that if you join us on Clubhouse, we will invite you to so that you can communicate with us throughout the week as well. And quite a few other things. And Steve, I’ll let you all kind of pass it to you to talk about some of the others, but it’s just been fun to see all of these new elements that we’re able to keep adding and driving more value to our audience. 

00:12:21:11 – 00:12:59:10

Steven Miller: I mean, to me, one of the biggest value adds that we have is that content that you’re talking about on the website. And we do a lot of really phenomenal content here on the podcast, on YouTube and now especially on Clubhouse. But to me, it’s like the hidden gem is these articles that you can find up on Crypto-Current.co. It’s our, what’s the way to say this? It’s our best way of showing who we are within our team, right? Because you may see that it’s written by Crypto Current staff, but every single member of our team is participating in that and that’s a huge deal to us. 

00:13:00:01 – 00:13:57:07

Steven Miller: You know, we have such diverse content because of that. It’s not just one person’s interest set that writing every single week or every single day, it’s every single person on our team lending their voice, lending their interest and giving diverse content. That to me is a really big deal, but I also think that one of the coolest milestones for us across the last call it last year, because again, I’ve only been here since January, but I think the biggest one was being able to go to the Miami Crypto Experience. And a big shout out to Wayne, Marcel and the whole team over there at MCX. That entire experience was incredible for us to be able to go and officially lend our outlet because, again, we’re an education platform here first, but being able to go there and provide not just educational content, but newsworthy content, It was a pleasure, it was a privilege, it was all of those things and that’s not me just blowing smoke. 

00:13:57:09 – 00:14:24:10

Steven Miller: I mean, it was a really cool thing to be able to say that before Episode 200, we were able to actually be a press partner. We’ve covered other conferences in the past, like we’ve, you know publicize the events for the Blockchain Lockshin Africa Summit, plenty of other events. That one to be on site for especially being one of the very first conferences out of let’s just call it the pandemic, because I don’t want us to get demonetized on YouTube. 

00:14:25:27 – 00:14:26:12

Richard Carthon: Yeah.

00:14:26:14 – 00:15:08:06

Steven Miller: For us to do that was incredible to be there amongst 800 people who were all just super passionate about Crypto, that to me was one of the turning points. That was to me showing that Crypto Current is going to go the distance. So, that would be my answer to the question, from your perspective, though because I think that you’ve seen it a lot bigger, not looking at Crypto Current in particular, but looking at the entire time that you’ve been in the Crypto space, what do you think right now looking forward is the biggest opportunity? Because, again, time this episode airs, we may be already back in the heat of the bull cycle. 

00:15:08:15 – 00:15:09:00

Richard Carthon: Right. 

00:15:09:02 – 00:15:14:29

Steven Miller: But I want to turn it economic for a second and see what you think is the next big opportunity or the next big trend in Crypto. 

00:15:15:22 – 00:15:56:01

Richard Carthon: So, I’m going to steal a nugget out of Dr. Leemon, who came on the show and was very passionate about hashgraphs, I think that is going to be its own subset. I think Blockchain is going to continue to grow in a lot of different ways. Blockchain’s here to stay, period. And of course, Crypto’s built on top of Blockchain, so, there you go. But I think I’m always, has been and will continue to be a fan of Eth. I think with a lot of things that have already been announced and dropped within the Eth ecosystem, as if the Eth 2.0 ecosystem really is starting to get its legs, I think we’re going to see a lot of more great things happen with that, probably by Episode 300. 

00:15:56:03 – 00:16:37:00

Richard Carthon: By the time that airs, I think we could be seeing a market cap that is competing with Bitcoin’s market cap. That’s a hot take, I’d be happy to hear if that’s accurate or not come Episode 300. I also think that there are a lot of like, small cap gems out there that could come out to be huge, that I won’t steal your thunder on a couple of those because I know that they’re near and dear to you, but I think that we have a huge opportunity in the altcoin space and there are going to be a lot of companies that ultimately make it. And when I talk about make it, again, my time horizon is five to 10 years. I’m talking about companies from now on that get it. 

00:16:37:06 – 00:17:11:18

Richard Carthon: Open Protocol taught me something very great. One, is that when they came on the show, I understood and it made a ton of sense to me, but I didn’t have the capacity or the knowledge because I haven’t gone through a Crypto bull cycle or a bear market before of when you find an opportunity where they’re building for the future and if the investment makes sense to just go in and be okay with letting the time take care. At the time of the recording, go ahead and look this up of whatever the price is now, but I had the opportunity to get in around three cents, when I thought it was good. Didn’t take the opportunity, lesson learned. Same thing with Manna. 

00:17:11:20 – 00:17:45:27

Richard Carthon: Dencentraland came to our conference back in 2019, learned about it, made a ton of sense to me, and had an opportunity to get into that investment around four cents. Go ahead and look up what it’s worth now. So, I’ve just learned that when you find projects that make sense and you believe in the time horizon of five to 10 years, what have you, if you feel good about it and you’re comfortable with the risk and want to make an investment, pull the trigger, most of the time you’ll probably end up being okay. And if worst case scenario, you have an opportunity to at least get your money out. So, those are kind of some of my takes, but what are some of yours, Steve? 

00:17:46:24 – 00:18:31:11

Steven Miller: So, across the last couple of weeks, we’ve been sharing a couple of things in that private Telegram channel we mentioned, right? And, the big one to me is a post that I re-shared, it said that if for any investor that has held Bitcoin for three and a half years, none of them are in the red. Every single one of them has made money on that investment, if they just hold for three and a half years. To me, the takeaway is not buy and hold, to me, the takeaway is this industry is still so young. People say that we’re still in the first three innings, buddy, we’re not even at bat. Like we’re at the gate, that’s how early people are in this industry right now. 

00:18:31:26 – 00:19:00:16

Steven Miller: So to me, that says don’t be so foolhardy to jump in and be super gung ho when we see this market start to tick back up again. It’s coming. Like, that’s my opinion. I personally believe that in the next 30 days, we’re going to be back in upward momentum. However, that is not the time to buy, right? You want to buy when you’re up, not sell, sorry, buy when you’re down, sell when you’re up, not the other way around. 

00:19:02:09 – 00:19:45:25

Steven Miller: So to me, I see a huge amount of opportunity in the space at large. So, again, going micro first and then we’ll take it macro. But to me, I want to be buying when we’re in the bear market, I don’t want to be putting down a big investment right now or even in the next couple of weeks when the market is starting to tick back up. But on the macro side of things, the big trend and the big opportunity that I see right now is two fold. I think capital efficient protocols are going to be a really big deal, and that can be from both like, the way with which they offer DeFi transaction, but that also is with how they allow you to manage your assets, okay? 

00:19:45:27 – 00:20:18:22

Steven Miller: So, that means, you know, wallets, exchange protocols, things of that nature within DeFi. Not necessarily what I once thought was a really, really big play during this cycle in the derivatives market. Personally, I think that’s gonna be the first thing that gets regulated, so, I’m staying away from it, but to me, I think those are the biggest opportunities right now. But into the future, social, gaming, all of these things have a huge play, infrastructure. You and I were talking the other day about DAC, Constellation with defense projects. 

00:20:20:03 – 00:20:43:20

Steven Miller: You don’t realize that if you’re listening right now and you’re thinking about, Wow, like what is the true reach of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency? It’s going to touch every part of our lives. We are pre-Internet right now, if you want to go by comparison. We are like in the 1997, 1998 phase of the Internet. That’s where we are with relation to Blockchain. So to me, there’s nothing but opportunity, but it’s about timing. 

00:20:44:01 – 00:21:43:15

Steven Miller: It’s all about timing. It’s how and when you want to get into the market and what you think is the right play at a certain point. I’ll tell you right now, the number one project on my list is still Cardano. I’m going to be accumulating Cardano until the cows come home, and I don’t even really mind if this first roll out of their smart contracts platform doesn’t go the right way, because I know that they’re developing. I know the community behind it is the strongest community in all of Crypto. So to me, those are the biggest things, but to wrap this whole thing into one pretty package for the big Episode 200, I want to put a little bit of a number in front because I ran the numbers, I came up with the actual date, and by June 2024, you will have hit Episode 500. So, what’s one bold prediction that you have for the state of Crypto in June of 2024, and what’s one prediction that you have for what Crypto Current might look like in June of 2024? 

00:21:44:10 – 00:22:22:12

Richard Carthon: Alright, two fun questions, I like it. So, June 2024, we’ve hit another havaning event, or coming right around the cusp of it. So, I’m going with a bold Bitcoin price prediction of $237,000. I’m going to go ahead and put that out there in the ecosystem for the next four years. And I also think that that’s going to be on a pullback. That won’t be the all time high, I think it will have gone up. I think it will be retracing around that and accumulating before seeing another push up, so, I’m going to go with that number. 

00:22:22:14 – 00:22:48:24

Richard Carthon: Crypto Current, I think we are going to have a much larger team. I think we are going to be at a place to where we can have a couple of more full-time employees, which is going to be exciting. I think we’re going to be putting out all kinds of different streams of content. We’ll still have podcasts. I think that although I still will be hosting the podcast, I think we will have other hosts that join as well with their own types of segments. 

00:22:48:26 – 00:23:27:11

Richard Carthon: I think on YouTube we are going to have some very specific content. I think on other social platforms, we’re going to be doing a lot more video and a lot more engagement in the sense of that and having a lot of different types of personalities that come and join us. I think we’re going to have a lot more contributors, a lot of new and emerging Crypto influencers that come into our ecosystem and help put out content and work with us. And we can help build them up and get them out in front of our audience a lot faster. And I think we’re going to be in a lot of really dope projects. I think that we’re going to after it’s all said and done, we’ll have anywhere from 10 to 50 100X projects that have come on the show. 

00:23:28:25 – 00:24:04:16

Steven Miller: That’s a pretty wild projection, and I love that. And look, I think it’s nothing but a bright future for us and for the Crypto space. And if there’s any one thing that can be said right now, it’s a big thank you to you, the listener, because honest to God, we’re only here for you. We want to make sure that you’re educated, we want to make sure that you’re not in this space and blind to what is in front of you. You need to understand what you’ve got going on here, what the opportunity looks like and I think that Richard is spelling that out for you right there in that awesome outlook of what he sees in the state of Crypto, in the state of Crypto Current going forward. So, I love that. 

00:24:05:12 – 00:24:33:26

Richard Carthon: Appreciate it, man. Well, thanks again for spending some time with me and spending time with the audience. For everyone listening, I hope you enjoyed it, I hope you are feeling a lot more connected with us and the team. And if you ever have anything, please feel free to reach out to us. I’d like to consider us the current crew, the Crypto Current family. We’re here, we want to grow with you and we want to make sure that if you ever have questions, you can come and ask them. Otherwise, appreciate everyone’s time and hope everyone will continue to Stay Crypto Current.