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Spartan Blockchain at MSU ⚒️
Recorded: Feb. 4, 2023 Duration: 1:03:09Space Recording
Full Transcription
And Riley, we have some of your classmates up here.
Gentlemen, would you like to introduce yourselves really quick and give us a quick background
to what you're studying and how you found your way into Web3?
For sure.
And learn more about blockchain.
And we kind of consult and we're going to do this, and we kind of consult and we're going
have a job on the job on the job on the job on the job on the student, and we're going to do this, and we're going to have a job on the job on the student organization side.
So with respect to the student organization side, how many students are currently part of that arm? And what kind of blockchain education do you guys offer? Is it very basic stuff? Is it more advanced? Or is it like tiers that students can move up and get better at?
Yeah, so on the student side?
It's very technical to very technical to just beginner.
The student side, and the student side, and the student side. So we kind of introduce them through the student side. And then once we think they're ready to start consulting and helping out in the space, we move them to the nonprofit side.
And I can have Logan kind of speak on some of the stuff that we have coming up, like our blockchain academy. And we offer like a suite of services for our members. If Logan, you want to speak on that a little bit?
Yeah, for sure. I'd be happy to. So with this blockchain academy, we're trying to work on what is essentially the master class for blockchain, where we want to have these like workshop style classes with these industry leaders coming in to teach specific skills.
So for instance, I don't know if you've ever heard of the platform Glassnode. It's a pretty big like data analysis service.
We're like talking to them right now about maybe coming in and providing for our suite of services there, like advanced package, and then having them come in and teach a course on how to use those tools to best like analyze on-chain information.
And then like on top of that, we could have courses with some like Mev bot creators that I've worked with before teaching them how to create these, you know, these trading simulator, trading bots, excuse me.
And then we also have worked with some Ethereum node creators, like people who have run those types of services.
So we can, we're hoping to work with them to create courses on how to do these types of things to kind of help lead our students to be more just involved in the blockchain space as a whole.
Yeah. And to piggyback off of Logan, we also have a partnership with ENCODE Foundation.
They essentially run these cohorts, which are free to join.
And so anybody listening, you should check them out if you're interested in learning the development side of blockchain.
They essentially provide our members with these cohorts that they can go in and do a four-week or eight-week program to learn the blockchain.
And then on top of that, they host hackathons for various blockchains.
I know I participated in a Nier protocol hackathon and I got some, I got 50 bucks for even attending the hackathon, which is, I mean, I was pretty novice at like the web development side of it or the development side of blockchain prior to joining in.
But then even just joining in, I still learned some and I got paid to do it.
So ENCODE is a great resource for everyone to utilize.
That's awesome. So how does ENCODE work? Is it a program that runs a couple times a year? How do people apply for it? Give us some insight into that, please.
Yeah. If you go to ENCODE, if you just look up ENCODE Foundation, they have cohorts and stuff going on all throughout the year.
It really varies. Like I know, I know they had an Avalanche one, an Avalanche hackathon not too long ago.
Yeah, they kind of run these programs and these cohorts throughout the year.
And some, some you have to apply to and like be accepted, but some of the ones like the Solidity Bootcamp, I know Logan participated in that and that's, that's free and you, you get a free participation NFT with that.
So, I mean, it's pretty cool just to, to learn from, from people that already have experience with it and get a, get a free NFT for your participation.
That's awesome. And I'm assuming anyone can participate in this, right? It doesn't just have to be MSU students.
Yep, exactly. So you can, you can, you can just sign up and apply if, if you're not a student.
But we just have a specific partnership with them where we, we kind of give our members the opportunity to, to get first in those cohorts, but it is free to apply for everybody.
Right. If I can piggyback on that too, like the cohort that I was a part of, there was people from all across the entire world that were joining it.
And additionally, I just looked it up. The next cohort, next cohort is going to be Friday, 24th, February, 2023.
So for anyone looking to join that, definitely go check it out on their website and apply.
Guys, you talked about the nonprofit organization where you do consulting work for various different organizations on campus.
So it's about like 20 to 25 members, if I'm not mistaken. Can you dive a bit deeper into what kind of consulting work and for what organizations on campus?
Yeah. So specifically for, for Michigan state, we, we kind of are going through these proposals with Goldman Sachs about the bond.
So they'll, they'll set Goldman Sachs will send us a proposal. Um, we'll look over it.
And then if we, we think there's any changes such as like, Hey, um, we don't think that this blockchain network is going to be suitable because of gas fees or, or whatever.
We will relay that information to Michigan state and Michigan state will make the proper changes and then relay that back to Goldman Sachs.
And we kind of, we've, we've been going through this cycle for, um, about a year and a half now.
And we're kind of getting down to the last, last leg of that to actually have this bond be active on the, um, Goldman Sachs digital assets platform.
So that's pretty cool. And then we, we also do consulting for another consulting group on campus.
So like whenever they have a blockchain project, um, they'll come to us and be like, Hey, like, is this a viable project?
Like, does this, does this make sense? Um, and we will, we'll relay the information back to them.
On top of that, we also talked to a couple of the venture capitalists in the area.
So whenever they have another blockchain project that comes across their desk, we'll, we'll vet the project and, and I'll make sure it's suitable.
Make sure we let them know any problems with the project, anything that we can see in the future that could go wrong.
Um, and essentially we'll just, we'll, uh, we'll relay the information back to them, tell them if it's good or not.
And then that's, that's kind of what we do. We don't really charge a fee for that.
We, we keep it to just experience for our members and the people that are involved.
So it's a, it's a pretty cool service to have on campus, especially if you have a blockchain company and need, need help, like kind of navigating the waters.
We have some experienced people that have been in the space and know what to look for in terms of like rug pulls and such like that.
I'm curious about, and you've talked about it, uh, a couple of times just now as well, uh, the, the tokenizing of bonds through Goldman Sachs sounds very interesting.
And I actually didn't know that Goldman Sachs was getting involved, um, in this capacity.
Do they, do they have their own private blockchain or how, tell, tell us a bit more about that.
I find it very interesting.
Yeah, I can't speak on like too much of it cause it's, um, it's, some of it's still confidential, but yeah, essentially they have their, they have their own, um, private blockchain where they, they host these, these tokenized assets.
Um, it's still, I think in the beta, like it's not fully released yet, but our, the Michigan state bond is going to be one of the first assets to be provided, um, through them.
And I think they, I think another city had done something similar.
Um, I think we're going to be the first university to do a bond.
I'm, I'm pretty sure that in the future we're going to see a lot more of, of universities and, and, um, municipals are just going to be starting to do these tokenized bonds through either Goldman Sachs' platform or actually on some, uh, decentralized network like Ethereum.
Um, it's cool that you guys get to work on them with that.
Uh, I'm, I'm interested to see what other big companies start to take the same initiative and find different ways to make blockchain solutions integrate and improve their, their current ecosystem.
Awesome. I think it's really awesome. I had no idea Goldman Sachs was doing this.
Um, yeah, I, and I understand.
Good.
Yeah. I was going to say, I think it also just provides a crazy amount of value to, um, to our members.
Cause they just get to see like an actual company like Goldman Sachs doing something in the space that is tangible.
And like each member can help out and do their own part and make their own thoughts about what should go next.
And that will actually get relayed into the, into the physical, the physical, that, I guess, I think it's pretty cool to, to see and be a part of as well.
Yeah, I agree. It builds that confidence.
Um, all of our clubs like services and functions are really designed to connect our members to as many.
Like resources and innovators in the space as possible.
So like, for instance, like right now we're working with Fidelity's crypto side to create a portfolio of our club members' resumes for them to pull from for future job hires.
Interesting. A portfolio of your club's resumes.
Um, it, but is this, are you guys having this stuff like on the blockchain and the resumes?
Are you represented as NFTs or are?
No, that's, that's just Fidelity.
Fidelity just reached out to our club and just asked for like a handful of resumes to, to, to work on, um, to work with Fidelity and Fidelity crypto.
Got it. Got it. Sorry. I got confused there for a second.
Basically they have interest in hiring students with crypto backgrounds or with, um, aspirations of working in the industry.
Yeah. And that kind of just ties into the point where we just kind of want to, we want to offer, um, the ability for people who want to work in the space, an easier route to getting into working in the space.
Instead of just, um, you know, reaching out to somebody on Twitter and trying to get a job or like being in discord and, and showing it through there.
We want to be able to have this like easy route to, if you want to work in crypto, you can work in crypto.
It's not going to be hard. We'll, we'll take a resume and we'll give it to whoever asked for Fidelity, um, et cetera.
Okay. I think it's amazing. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Logan.
Yeah, no worries. Um, so for instance, if anyone in this space right now is listening and, and, you know, that sounds like you, maybe you'd be interested in pulling from our pool of resources.
We would love to work with you. So please like DM me, Riley, the Spartan blockchain account, Mario, any of us, we would love to hear it.
So, um, I think it's really cool because as you said, Riley, you don't have to go DM people. Most of the people that work in the industry, if you ask them how they got their job, it was either through discord or telegram, or just hanging around these unofficial silos.
But it is really cool to see this paradigm shift happening in real time where the industry is becoming more, uh, is being taken more seriously.
You have these big companies and corporations that understand they can benefit from it in some way, shape or form.
And they're actually starting to reach out to folks like you for resumes and information on students that could potentially hire.
You know, I, I think I told you this on our call, Riley, and I echo this over and over again, Gen Z, Gen Alpha will be the next big wave of money adoption interest that pours into this ecosystem.
And you guys are going to really move the needle and take us to the next level.
So I think these big companies recognize that.
Let's see. I had another, I had another question to ask, but I, um, I forgot it in my, in my little monologue there, but let me ask you guys this.
And hopefully that question comes back to me, but let me ask you guys this.
So going back Riley to you, you're, you're a computer science major.
What are some ways that you want to apply what you learn as a computer science, as a computer, as a software engineer to, to web three, to, to a potential career in web three?
Yeah. So, um, currently this summer I'm working for Deloitte and doing their, um, a software engineer for their digital assets side of Deloitte.
And then I'm also building out, uh, colony, um, join colony.us is our Twitter handle, which is a, we're going to be a tokenized real estate, um, marketplace where you can come and list your, your property and get tokenized.
And then on our marketplace, you can buy and sell shares of, or tokens of real estate properties.
And I think this is like one of the core, um, the core principles of blockchain is just being able to have this accessibility.
And like real estate is, uh, typically in e-liquid asset class and blockchain allows it to be, um, very liquid.
So that's currently what I'm building and putting my knowledge towards.
I'm actually traveling to Miami on Monday to, um, pitch to some more VCs.
So we were making pretty good progress on that.
And then, um, yeah, I mean, I always have a little side project I've built, um, I've built a couple of like uni swap forks and, and, and stuff like that.
But, but the computer science you learn here is, is nothing close to what you need to be like a slitty developer, which is also one of the things that we're trying to do on campus.
There's, there's, there's one blockchain course, or it's like an intro to blockchain course on campus.
And, um, we're trying, we're in talks with the college of engineering to get like an actual solidity and Ethereum blockchain technical course to, to give to the college students that want to learn the actual web three development skills.
That's awesome, man.
I, I would love for you to come on sometime and do a one-on-one on colony and talk about tokenization of real estate and the potential that it has.
And, um, you know, what steps need to be taken for mass adoption?
Cause NFTs disrupting real estate, uh, NFTs disrupting the real estate market is something we've been talking about for a while.
So we could go on a tangent and talk about that for hours.
I want to talk to, uh, Logan, or I want to ask Logan here as a data science major, Logan, what are some ways that you see your, uh, your studies merging with your career aspirations and web three?
For sure.
Yeah.
Um, so as someone who's into data science and someone who has really been into finance for a long time, having access to those databases to use, to analyze these markets are at least in the traditional sphere is usually there's a high
barrier to entry, but with blockchain, it really opens the, uh, it opens up the, uh, possibilities for a normal person like me to get access to these types of resources.
Um, just cause like using on-chain analytics and all of these different techniques that are only really possible because of the way this technology works is it's a totally new sphere that I think data science is going to be super useful for understanding.
Um, and moving on to Martin, Martin, uh, I might've missed what you said you're studying, but if you could remind me once more, and then also tell me how you plan on bridging that with your web three aspirations, career aspirations.
Yeah. So for my career aspirations, I really want to get into venture capital as my end goal. And I guess for me, like just kind of like learning the space and really knowing the whole ecosystem would really help me in that like venture into like getting into VC. So, you know, and just really learning about everything. You know, I always tell people like you got to know something about everything and everything about something. And, you know, I think this is one of those things that I just think is so disruptive and important for the future that, you know, it's just a must learn.
And, and, you know, and I've also worked at like, uh, companies such as Verizon, where I did, um, blockchain strategy for them and different things of that aspect. So, you know, it's been a fun time for me.
Guys, you, you've, you've grown a lot in the last three years. What are some goals and aspirations you have for Spartan blockchain going into the next three years?
Yeah. So one thing that we're really trying to push to our members, we, we have our own DAO called the Spartan DAO. And we, we only have about five or six that are truly interested in doing this, this kind of decentralized student organization.
Um, we're currently, um, we're currently, um, we're currently, um, an active LP, uh, on Aave and working on getting, um, some more funds to do some more LPing on, on, on different, um, platforms.
But one of our goals is to, to really up, up the decentralized aspect of our organization and kind of add that as a third arm to, to our already student organization, nonprofit, and then have that decentralized organization as like the third arm.
Um, um, as well as just kind of ramping up our Spartan blockchain innovation conference.
And I think we're kind of leaning towards just making it, uh, the Spartan innovation conference and, and kind of having everybody come together, AI, um, all the different high tech, uh, fields come together and present, present their ideas.
And hopefully something like some kind of convergence will, will come out of that.
Um, those are kind of our main things we want to work on as well as this kind of masterclass of.
A blockchain that we can then go and present to other clubs and other schools to kind of adopt and, and follow our, our framework.
So, uh, we have, we have huge aspirations and we're, we're working towards getting all these, these goals and these checkpoints, um, together.
And yeah, you're right.
We have grown a lot over the past three years, but there's still, there's still more work to do.
Still, you still need to onboard more people.
Yeah, no, definitely.
Definitely.
Honestly, there's, there's, there's really so much more we can do, you know, like really teaching a lot more people, like how, how the blockchain works.
And then also like, just like helping people like not get scammed and really like helping them maneuver around the blockchain in a safe way, you know, because I feel like that's still kind of an issue with blockchain today.
So, you know, just really focusing on, you know, educating people and allowing them to make smart decisions for themselves.
So, cause that's really our goal at the end of it.
So guys, guys, I love your passion for this stuff.
Hey, again, I can echo it a million times.
I just love talking to Gen Zs about this stuff because it seems like, and maybe I'm biased because I'm only talking to people from blockchain clubs and leaders in the community and at the collegiate level.
But it's obvious that you not only have a passion to grow and yeah, to grow this space, but also have a passion to teach your fellow students about the potential of blockchain and Web3 and crypto.
So, so with that said, what is the sentiment like amongst the greater, the greater student base, right?
Not people that are not necessarily in the club or having interest, but everyday students at Michigan State, how do they feel about this tech in this industry, given all the things that have happened over the last year?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can speak on this.
Go for it, Mario.
Yeah, sure.
So I've done a few talks with a few different like finance classes and kind of the reaction of getting is like people are generally interested in crypto, but just kind of see like if you either get like the scam stigma or like they just really don't understand how it works and they have money invested or some sort of thing.
It was kind of just a fun thing and they don't really understand the underlying technology.
So it's, it's, it's kind of interesting because some people know, some people don't, and it really just kind of, it's been a very case-by-case basis.
And honestly, the, for, for commonly I've seen is like a lot of people are generally interested in like what crypto is and learning about it from what I've seen at least.
So, and I don't know if you can speak more on that, Riley.
I could talk about that a little bit too.
So, I mean, this is really like where our main goal comes from of teaching and spreading the knowledge around, right?
So this is kind of the idea behind even turning our Spartan Blockchain Innovation Conference to just the plain innovation conference because we want to get this message out to as many people as possible and help them understand with as many resources as we can.
So we're doing things like, like improving our website with like a blockchain A to Z type of, you know, beginner's guide to understanding what this technology is and also like providing these types of hackathons so that they can get involved and actually learn how to build in this space.
Or right now we're developing a trading competition where if there's people that aren't necessarily as technical that want to be like trading but can't really be a part of our like actual DAO trading fund, like they can get involved in the space in just an easier way.
Really it's just providing those resources and getting the message out.
So we're improving our advertising.
And then Riley, I don't know if you have anything to add for that.
Yeah, I mean, I agree.
There's been a lot of downside to the crypto community as of recent and I mean, people are still interested though.
That's the thing.
I know.
I mean, people are still interested.
People still want to know, like they hear the word blockchain, they hear cryptocurrencies crashing, yada, yada, yada.
But people are interested and people that are interested come and join our meetings.
And even if it's just for one meeting, they still take away like immense value just from that one meeting and then end up turning into a full-time member as the semester progresses.
Yeah, no, definitely.
And like one last comment I want to make, like when I like did a few of my talks for like different classes, when I brought up like crypto and blockchain, like you can just see it in people's eyes.
Like some people's eyes like kind of like spark up, you know, and like get bigger and like, huh, they're like, huh.
You know, it's like one of those things.
So it was definitely interesting seeing that.
Yeah, I would say it's kind of funny to see how, you know, participation really flows just like how, you know, bear and bull markets kind of move, right?
Like when it's a bull market, we definitely have more members and participants than in a bear market.
But we still do have a fair amount of participants right now.
So it definitely shows that this space is growing.
Yeah.
And I think that, again, generally speaking, even during bear markets, there seems to be an overall greater interest and a deeper knowledge among your generation and students at the collegiate level.
So I think that's a huge silver lining, and I think it's testament to how much the space is growing.
A really quick question.
Are there any accredited blockchain courses, crypto Web3 courses taught by professors at Michigan State University?
Yeah.
So there's the there's the intro to blockchain classes I was talking about before.
But we're I mean, there's also a couple distributed systems is also kind of a not really a blockchain facing class, but it still offers a look inside of how a blockchain runs kind of as a distributed system.
But just that that first intro to blockchain classes is something that is pretty exciting to see that they at least offer something that talks about cryptocurrency and in blockchain in general.
And we're still in talks with the College of Engineering to try to get something that's more technical and goes deeper into the underlying aspects of of what goes on in a blockchain.
And essentially, we want Michigan State to be a hub of for blockchain education.
And that's that's one of our main focuses is to bring MSU and Michigan State to to the top of of places where if somebody was interested to to go to school for for blockchain or blockchain research, they would come here instead of going to another school.
I love that ethos, guys, the second part of the space, I like to do a Q&A, it's kind of fun.
And we're going to speculate a bit.
Obviously, we always preface or rather end these broadcasts with the NFA disclaimer, but it is fun to speculate.
And you guys are highly knowledgeable in the industry, and it would be nice to hear your insights.
So let's start with Bitcoin.
What are your thoughts on Bitcoin?
And do you ever see Bitcoin being flipped?
And if so, which asset do you think is going to do it?
Kind of want to let Logan speak on that.
I know Logan does a lot of analysis on Bitcoin and in the overall market.
So, Logan, if you want to kind of speak on that a little bit.
For sure.
I mean, Bitcoin is one of the it's really like.
How do I explain this?
It's a it's a unique cryptocurrency in a way that I don't know that we'll ever have a Satoshi Nakamoto type character ever again.
Right. Like like like it's just it's hard to see that this like innovation and technology will go away.
But even if it does, I could see potentially something like Ethereum where like they're having the capability for smart contracts and that types of additions to the blockchain might overlap Bitcoin and market cap.
But I think really what would happen is the use case would change, right?
Like Bitcoin would turn into more of a store of value type of currency, whereas Ethereum would be like the Web3 type of Internet.
But but honestly, for the bear market, I if I'm being honest with you, I kind of put a lot of my my holdings in to cold storage and in stables and, you know, into staking ETH and just kind of walked away.
I needed to just focus on, you know, my own studies and not pay attention to the markets so much.
But now I think it's time to pay attention again.
Like Bitcoin is breaking above metrics like the 200 day in May.
So, you know, we're kind of seeing this flip, I think, to bull season soon, speculatively.
Yeah, I can talk about my experience, too, as someone like that is a little more active in the market.
My opinion, like I think Logan hit it on the spot that like Bitcoin, I think of Bitcoin as like a medium of exchange, whereas I think of Ethereum as more of a functionality token.
And I think I think they're both at the top of their own niche, if that makes sense, you know, and it just really depends on what what like ends up being needed more in the future, whether that's a medium of exchange or functionality.
And that really just depends on like the macroeconomics of the world, you know, like especially with so much inflation going on, like does that like inflation go to Bitcoin and you have all these different factors affecting it.
But what I think is a really good factor that I've kind of noticed like as of this year and like this kind of market is crypto is actually like assimilated itself with like the buy in the stock market.
So like that, in my opinion, gives it validity because it shows that like it's not just retail traders now, it's institutional traders.
And when institutional traders get into it, that means, you know, there's some validity behind it.
And I think that's a good thing, in my opinion.
So and I think that's really good.
And I think for like just the future outlook on like Bitcoin and like Ethereum, I think it's just like it's a thing where it's like if you hold it long enough, like I think over a four to 10 year period, I think you'll be fine.
And like, I think you'll definitely be the greedy, just having the patience for that.
But for the short term, I could see us, and this is my like just opinion, I could see us like going in a small bowl rally, then bear market down, just to like how the market's looking right now.
Yeah, I mean, I agree with most of the points spoken.
I think I really agree that we're not going to ever see a character like Satoshi Nakamoto ever again.
You're not going to have this anonymous figure that kind of pops up out of nowhere and creates this revolutionary new technology.
I don't think, I think it's gonna be rare.
And it's going to be like a very off percent that ever does happen.
No, I kind of want to hear your thoughts on where you think the market's going and what interests you in the market.
Well, I think that this bear market is different in the last one for a lot of obvious reasons, a few just being infrastructure and value prop the market, a lot of institutions and big players are finally seeing the potential as we learned on this broadcast directly from you guys.
And so I think everyone agrees that adoption is going to happen at what rate, we don't know.
I love Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is what got me into this industry.
And I hold, I mainly hold Bitcoin and ETH, especially in this bear market.
I don't know if I ever see Bitcoin being flipped.
I think Bitcoin is just going to be the base layer of this whole ecosystem and people will trade in and out of it.
But I'm also a very, I'm kind of like old school in my thinking and I'm wronged a lot about things that are going to happen.
Like I never thought Bitcoin would tip under, I think it was like 30K at one point.
This was a while ago.
I'm like, Bitcoin's not going under 30K.
And it went like 50% lower than that.
So I, as far as me trying to predict markets, it's not something I'm good at and it's not something I do, even though I've tried in the past.
With that said, I forget which one of you gentlemen it was, but you said you just, you buy and you hold and you wait.
If you wait long enough, then you're going to be okay.
Right. And that is one thing I have noticed in this market.
In the previous bull run, I bought Bitcoin from 3K all the way up to, I think like 18 or 19K all the way back down to 3K.
And I just hold, I've never sold any Bitcoin.
I hold it and I'm like up, I'm up my total cost basis.
I'm not even sure what it is, but it really benefits people to just buy and hold and forget if you believe in the asset class.
And so that's my strategy. As for whether I think this is like a clear bull reversal, I don't know.
I think back to 2019 and how we had these mini rallies and kind of periods of cooling down and then you had the big crash in COVID.
And I kind of see the same thing happening, although I do believe that there are sectors of the industry that might decouple from Bitcoin because they will offer real world utility.
Chainlink was a great example of the last bear market. Chainlink didn't have a bear market and because they actually provided utility.
And so I think we'll see GMX is kind of an example of a Chainlink from the previous bear market.
BNB, you would have been better off holding BNB than you would have been holding Bitcoin in this bear market from a Satoshi perspective.
So there are a lot of differences, but as overall market cap goes, I think we'll see bull rallies like this with cool down periods, bull rallies like this, cool down periods.
And eventually upon the happening, we're probably going to have a new DeFi.
I'm not saying DeFi, but I think we'll have something new like DeFi.
No one knows what it is yet. Everyone can speculate.
It might be Web3 Gaming. It might be a new type of utility for NFTs.
I think it's tokenization for sure. I think it's tokenization.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Tokenization of real world assets.
Yep. You nailed it on the head, man. You took the words right out of my mouth.
Tokenization of real world assets. We're already seeing it. I think it's very interesting.
And so I think it's going to be choppy, especially with just the macro conditions of the global economy and all the things that are going on.
But I think 2024 is probably when we'll start to see the light again or not the light, but back to all time highs.
There's still plenty of opportunity in the industry, more opportunity than there was, in my opinion, the previous bear market, as far as being able to identify something that actually works and not provides value and choosing to invest in it.
But yeah, that's my long winded answer to your question.
I think we're going to have a choppy journey back to all time highs, but I think we'll get there eventually in like one to two years.
Yeah, I kind of agree with your 2024 light prediction as that kind of aligns with the Bitcoin happening.
And that is always just a big propeller of the cryptocurrency market as a whole is the happening.
And so we'll have to see. And I'm excited as time goes on.
I'm currently all in cold storage and holding, staking my Ethereum and delegating my Atom.
I agree with, I think, I think GMX is, is this runs Chainlink.
And I think more infrastructure projects like that, such as like the graph and just infrastructure projects that kind of allow these other like DeFi assets and DeFi protocols to use the infrastructure that they built.
Such as like Chainlink's oracles are projects that I'm super interested in and I think are always going to be the right projects to look at going forward.
So we talked a little bit about the halving.
I'm curious, Noah, if you believe in the four year cycle, because I was also one of those people.
You mentioned you never thought Bitcoin was going to go below 30K again.
And I was also in that boat, too.
And I think that was because I believe in the four year cycle.
But, you know, it's it's just interesting.
I'm curious to your thoughts on that.
Yeah, I think that the so far, the four year cycle has been is intact, although the bear the bear market seem to get shorter and the bull market seem to get longer.
And I think I was a bit naive in thinking Bitcoin.
Not a bit.
I was naive in thinking Bitcoin wouldn't go below 30K.
I never thought that.
I don't know.
I was, again, like very silly and thinking, oh, Tesla is not going to sell.
Really, what what's Tesla's not going to sell like MicroStrategy won't sell.
You know, I saw a lot of strength in Bitcoin at 30K.
It kind of had and I'm not a trader by any means or a TA guy.
I just seen it like bounce off that off that support level.
And there just seemed to be so much interest and there seemed to be so much innovation happening.
And I think I was even though my gut told me by November when everyone was making money and your Uber driver is telling you what shit coin to buy.
It's like it's probably time to sell when people are playing the Axie Infinity and making a living doing it.
So I was very surprised to see it go below 30K.
But then looking back and seeing like Tesla liquidated and then you had the Terra Luna fiasco.
They were collateralizing with Bitcoin.
So they had to dump Bitcoin.
You had these black swan events that kind of drove the price down and brought the rest of the market down with them.
And then you just had the final dagger in the heart from FTX.
But really, given how cataclysmic FTX was and how much of a ripple effect people and it had seemingly had and people said it was going to have, I was a bit surprised with Bitcoin's resiliency.
I think a lot of folks thought it was going to go below 10K and it still can.
But I don't know if that's going to happen.
I think a lot of folks saw it going below 10K and it didn't.
So I forgot the original answer to your question, Logan.
I can go on tangents as you can as you can see.
But I hope that answered it.
Yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
I definitely agree with you.
And, you know, I think these calls for 10K, it's like you said, it could happen.
Right.
But it's hard to see that coming with how low you've gotten.
We need a lot of black swan event, I feel like.
Like Binance needs to say blow up or something like that.
Yeah, to get us down to 10K for sure.
I think we definitely had some really interesting market structure, this bull market.
Like you talked about it.
And like really from an on-chain standpoint, like the top of this market was like in April 2021, right?
Like that first peak.
And realistically, we've been in, you know, sort of a bear market since that summer, 21, when we came down to 30K.
It was really just the narrative and the hype that brought us back up to that second top.
So it's been curious.
You know, I've been very, I've been watching it very closely, just seeing how we've been moving and just kind of paying attention.
And it's been very weird.
Yeah, I mean, I looked at it as, comparing it to 2017 now, I remember in 2017 there was a crash and then like another crazy run up.
But it wasn't the same double top that we saw this time around.
And I feel like this time around in September and October, November, when things started heating up again, a whole new set of projects and ecosystems started to pump.
I haven't seen a bull market like we saw last year and or two years ago.
And I remember in 2018, 2019, people saying, oh, we're never going to see a bull market like we saw in 2017, 2018.
So I still think the space is very nascent and there's a lot of room for opportunity and people to be surprised.
That's just kind of my, just like my general thoughts, thoughts of someone who is by no means an expert or someone you should be taking financial advice from.
But this is like my anecdotal experiences being in this market for as long as I have.
And yeah, that's kind of it, guys.
We talked about Ethereum as well in the process.
I usually ask about Ethereum, BNB.
I'm curious to know, and I already know what your answer is, Riley.
But what industries, apart from gaming and art and music and real estate, since we already talked about, what industries do you guys see being disrupted by NFTs?
I don't know about NFTs, but I think an industry that could potentially get like really disrupted is telecom.
Tell us, tell us about, tell us about that.
I'd love to hear more.
I think, like, if you guys remember back in the day when there was like Xfinity Wi-Fi and you could connect to any singular Wi-Fi point anywhere if you had a login and password.
And the thing is, it turned out people didn't like that as much because the Xfinity Wi-Fi, like it wasn't a strong connection.
And most people didn't want to share their Wi-Fi because they made their connection weaker.
So a cool thing I've been seeing is using NFT, like using blockchain tokenization to allow you to, if you share your Wi-Fi with somebody, you earn tokens from that.
Therefore, then you split that revenue with like the telecom company or however.
So I think it's a really cool concept that we could possibly be seeing in the future.
Yeah, I agree.
I think telecom is a huge, huge industry.
And we currently have a couple research and graduate students, researchers and graduate students here at MSU who have written papers and done research into decentralized Wi-Fi networks, such as like, you can think of it similar to Helium.
If you're familiar, you kind of set up your own router and you get paid tokens to host Wi-Fi.
And I think that's really cool, especially because we kind of have people on campus doing research into like a focus with that is something really cool to see.
Again, like turning back to something that's tangible for our members, it's just you can see that people are actually working on it and it's not some facade that is filled with Dogecoin and stuff.
There's actually real use cases such as telecom, real estate.
And I don't know if, Logan, if you have any more that are different than that.
But, yeah, a lot of industries could be disrupted for sure.
Yeah, I mean, I could go on for days really about the disruption that could happen.
But some things that pop up off the top of my head are, you know, potentially the automotive industry.
I just read a really interesting article from, I think it was Coindesk, that was talking about how California's DMV system is looking into taking their registry for cars and putting it onto the blockchain to make it easier to access and more simplified.
Was it Tezos?
Yes.
Yeah, using, I think it's with Oxhead Alpha is the company that they're working with, something like that.
But, yes, yeah, on Tezos.
And then, like, aside from that, I know maybe even, like, the medical industry could be severely disrupted, like, for their supply chain aspects.
Like, for instance, currently, the way their supply chain system works is essentially everything is kept records on paper or using, you know,
very difficult to see from sort of a top-down scale of, like, where all their items are.
So, for instance, if a company wanted to transport surgical kits around the country and they needed, they had a supply shortage in one area,
but they had too many in another, they would have to call each of these spots to find out where the extra supply is.
But with blockchain, they could have a GPS tracker attached to the kit, and then you could have that tracker ping onto, like, you know,
token on the blockchain to be able to see exactly where each surgical kit is in real time in order to fill the voids and make sure that the supply chain is running smoothly.
I think you guys all nailed it, and it's only a matter of time.
A lot of these traditional industries are slow to move, but it's only a matter of time before someone in these industries comes along that's smart enough
and figures out how much money and resources can be saved by leveraging this technology.
So, I see it happening, I see it disrupting nearly every industry that you guys have mentioned and others beyond.
Final question, and this was a bit of fun.
What are some fun altcoins, educated gambles that you guys are making during the spare market?
Because, you know, if Bitcoin goes to $100K, right, that's a nice 4X.
But we all know that more often than not, when there's a big rise in Bitcoin, Ethereum follows, and you have alt season.
But I'm curious to know, what alts do you think have big boom potential?
But also, you're like, hey, I can see some value behind this.
I know one that we all like is AVAX.
I think that, I mean, they're really just another layer one, but I think that their technology is, you know, fairly, it's good.
It's good technology, right?
Like, they have some good value that they're providing with their blockchain, and I think it's a good one to keep an eye on.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah, I think AVAX is a huge coin, especially with their subnetwork and their technology that goes behind the subnetworks.
I don't know, you mentioned GMX.
GMX is one that I'm always paying attention to.
I think some of these AI coins are quite interesting.
I know there's a bunch of them out right now, but, I mean, they're always something.
I'm not buying any, but I'm paying attention.
But, yeah, I think Avalanche is the only one I've actually been getting my bag right, this bear market,
because I think Avalanche is ripe to be one of the top L1s up there with Ethereum.
Yeah, I agree with that, honestly.
Especially, like, the Amazon, what is it, partnership they have really boosted them up, in my opinion.
That really does give them a lot of service.
Yeah.
So, I really like that aspect of it, you know.
Well, we don't like echo chambers here on the aquarium, but we're in one right now because I and most of my team couldn't agree more with you guys.
We just had Avalanche on Monday, and all of the bullish sentiment that we already had about the future of AVAX was put on steroids because they had, I think, five people on.
And I believe one of their lead devs, Aaron, his name was, was just a gigabrain, answering all my questions and going into intricate details and then bringing them all together so that I can understand them in layman's terms.
And very impressive team, very impressive tech, love subnet technology, love the partnership.
I guess this has turned into a bit of an AVAX shell at the end of the space.
But bringing it back to, bringing it back to you guys, the students and, you know, the leaders that are going to help move this industry to the next level.
Logan, Martin, and Riley, I really appreciate you guys all coming on today.
And if there's anything left for me to talk about or ask you about or that you guys would like to share, go ahead and do so now.
But it's been a pleasure hosting you today.
Yeah, thank you so much for having us, Noah.
One thing I want to mention is that April 22nd to the 23rd, we're hosting our innovation conference.
So if anyone is close to the Lansing area and wants to show up or drive up, we host a pitch competition where you can win some pretty big prizes.
So you come in and you pitch your blockchain idea and you win some money for it.
And then on top of that, we have a huge array of keynote speakers from Goldman Sachs, Panther Protocol, people that are lower companies in the space, lower dApps, and then all the way up to Goldman Sachs and Deloitte and Accenture.
So, I mean, it's a pretty cool event and we would love to see some fresh faces and people that are just interested in innovating in general.
So, and yeah, I think that's pretty much all I have to say.
I don't know if Logan or Mario have anything else to say or even Victor.
By the way, hey, Mario, really quick.
I'm sorry, man.
When you introduced yourself in the beginning, I heard Martin for some reason.
That's why I jotted down.
So my apologies, Mario.
It's been a great pleasure having you.
Oh, you're good.
No, it's honestly pretty funny.
So I enjoyed it, man.
You know, thank you again for having us on here.
Like, we really appreciate you taking the time.
And thank you to all the listeners that came too.
Yeah, no, I could talk a little bit more about, you know, what we're working on, right?
Like, if there are any companies out there that, or maybe even just knowledgeable people in the industry that want to come and help us teach a workshop for our Blockchain Academy, like, please reach out.
We're really excited to work with anybody, honestly.
And we want to just provide as much information as possible.
And if there's a company out there that's listening that has a service that they want to provide, you know, we're looking for partnerships to give our members these resources, right?
So, you know, we're trying to provide them at a discounted rate so that our members can get them.
But this would be a benefit for you guys as a company because, you know, you're getting a new driven user base from us that are going to really want to use your services long after they graduate.
So, again, DM one of us or email us so you can find our information on the Spartan Blockchain website or on our Twitters.
We'd love to work with you.
I love it.
Guys, thank you again for being here.
That was awesome.
And I'm looking forward to seeing what the future holds for you three.
Definitely welcome back anytime onto our podium to talk about updates, different things that you guys are doing, whether you're building individual projects or any kind of news that you think is important to share with us and help us amplify through our Twitter.
So, with that said, audience members, thank you for joining today.
My name is Noah from Whale Coin Talk and you're listening to The Aquarium.
Remember, everything that you hear on this broadcast is meant for educational purposes only.
Nothing is financial advice.
So, everyone be safe out there and have a great weekend.
Have a good one.
Take care, everyone.
Have a nice weekend.
