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Peter Smith of Upstate Interactive sits down with Matt Masur at the Growth Mode Technologies Syracuse office to talk about what his company does with blockchain, crypto currency and related technologies that are shaping the future of business and economics.
Audio Podcast and Text Transcript at – GrowthModeTech.com
Our Guest Peter Smith
Email: peter@peterbsmyth.com
Visit: UpstateInteractive.IO
Mentioned:
Blockchain: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review https://g.co/kgs/VnWA5M
Computer Generated Text Transcript:
hello and welcome my friends to the growth mode conversations podcast. We are so excited to bring you this new show. I’m Matt Masur founder and chief growth officer of growth mode technologies. Your local it department. We’re a different type of tech company. And while technology is our business, our purpose is growing businesses and helping our community.
And that’s what we’re doing right here with the growth mode conversations
podcast Each week we’ll interview a different local professional, learn about their life, and get some great advice on how we can all grow and succeed from their experience. The best thing you can do to participate is visit our website growth mode, tech.com and sign up for our news. In the newsletter, you’re going to get updates on this podcast with the latest episodes, you’re going to get some technology tips, some general business information and some events that might be happening in the community.
And of course, if you need technology services to grow your business, not just support it, but make it better. That’s what we do. Again, growth mode. tech.com is the place to be, but enough with the plugs and all that , let’s get into the show. So welcome
to the growth mode conversations podcast I’ve got a very interesting guest I’m excited to learn a lot about him and I’m doing this thing with this podcast where I don’t do introductions folks introduce themselves So if you could go right ahead
tell us who you are
What business you’re in Let’s let’s hear all about it Hi I’m Peter Smith five years ago a few friends and I we started upstate interactive which today is all about blockchain services last year a few friends and I we started something called a codes
That’s a 5 0 1
C3 for the promotion of technology here in Syracuse That’s pretty
And this year friends and
I we
started flexing incorporated
you have better friends
than I do
I’m just say
that right off the bat I’ve already
figured that out but w what is that one about
Way to improve
your
exercise
for
anything that
might be
At
home training a few
years ago
I
wanted to learn
something which is a very challenging gymnastics move
I went to the local gymnastics gym I couldn’t
figure it out
It was
In the
capability of the people there to explain it It just to actually do it was not
Yeah
I found somebody
was about as good as can be on the planet with the idea that he lives in Australia
We needed to train
by
video
So flexing is the
birth of him as a world-class breakdown sir and myself
as a product developer
to come up
with something that the whole world could use
to train
handstands or plans or challenging
fitness moves
And we launched
Um I’m not sure
what the date is but soon that’s that’s incorrect so
you you’ve taken a very
Traditional very physical you know fitness
training athleticism
them
and you’ve found a
to
bring technology
to
the world here spread
it around Is
that
is that accurate
Am I stumbling
the description
right
way
there
Well it’s
very true that there are certain highly challenging
things that people are learning
on YouTube
in a way that’s
revolutionized all of
what people
are doing across the world in a number of Disciplines
For my trainer he saw
YouTube when he was 18
and there
was a move that
a French
breakdancer was doing
It
seemed darn
impossible It was
him though
as a
gymnast
the time that
was
close enough
in
seeing it he was inspired
pursue that
move
And
then he went further and
further
with it and I’ve
what he’s doing
and I’m inspired to do and many others are inspired by his name is Simon at To
try
and train what it seemed
impossible skills
So the idea of flux in is to make the impossible skills possible
That’s awesome
That is
that is such a cool
thing to do I love hearing about this is the reason I’m doing this podcast to be completely honest just to hear about these interesting things
You know I
I
know you’re a
guy in the software
Now
I find out you’re in
fitness business
That’s that’s just I love seeing
people follow their passion
find opportunities and and doing things like that That’s again that’s
whole reason we’re here
Um
let’s go back to your the first business You mentioned I
guess
that’s
Closest
to your
to five You would
say
that the
upstate
interactive
is that
24
7 Yeah Okay Fair
enough
fit in
It
does
fit in what you mentioned
that
you
with blocks that’s that’s
a
huge
buzzword
Everybody’s hearing about this in all different
facets whether
it’s in
the crypto
whether it’s what blockchain
can do for
things
that aren’t
money
what exactly
are
doing
with
it
us
When you say you’re in that business what
does
that actually
mean
A
lot of the world’s
has moved to
the idea that the institutions that serve it
are not
a
fit for the 21st century
while
a lot of
has come out
of the
world of
currency has been decentralized
currency
Bitcoin is and
it was the first to leverage the technology which
blockchain is
which
is
very much a fundamental technology
And that it be not well understood is very natural
It’s just
so
new but that’d
be heard about so
often it’s very possible because of the way that the web works and
communication goes fast and far
beyond
finance
all matter of technology are possible through
blockchain
I’ll
give you a
good example
of
Cassinia
who is as far
as upstate
goes
as brilliant
blockchain person
there is
to
talk
about
And
she’s got a
called M G
D
It is a woman
oriented
a
decentralized
autonomous organization D a
O
Dao
It Sounds
very
revolutionary but it’s very
very simple
A
group of people
anywhere on the planet it can come together and vote on the way money is spent at MTD But the
reality
of it it’s not Robert rules of order It’s not that there’s a parliamentarian under president and
it’s all based on
the blockchain Having
a set
of rules that in the beginning
everyone has
agreed
to
that are
without consensus
Not
changeable
So
everybody
has
agree if we’re
going
to
change
the
rules
but
if we all agree
on the
rules and we all have a float and we do as members of the Dao the
autonomous
organization then we can come together And in the case of MGD give grants to people that are women in order to learn more of how to develop for blockchain
so they can vote on the spending They could
vote on just
direction of an
organization
You could imagine
really
anything that you might
do
in a typical
corporation or
a
nonprofit
can be done
in a D a O Tao
So what is your part
in
the
puzzle What did what are you
Do along the
line
here
Well here I
am
today
there’s some level of the
is not so well
educated
on
blockchain
and
a
degree educating
people whether
they’re looking for
a grounded view on
it
or whether they’re looking
for something
sensational there’s
plenty out there
But
the reality
of
what we do at
upstate
interactive
is
putting aside
whatever
the
maybe
broader
In terms of how
it all
into the
world
We developed this
stuff We are technologists that are out there putting together the software And with that said
our clients
are good examples of how we fit into
the world I’ll
just give you
great idea
sample
Please Create
a Kohl’s
is
a client
out of Boston And the
fellows
that are
running
that company
are having been in blockchain for about
eight years or
so
And
their idea
is so brilliant and it is so well
To
my mind
uh innovative
that it
a no
brainer
take
them as
client
You know that there’s
these
things called NFTs
out there The whole world does
And what
happens is an artist puts out an NFT
and then hope
somebody buys
it
Sure And the price of doing
that per piece of art
it can be 400 us dollar in equivalent
depending on the day
It
up depending on the day it goes down
but
that makes it not possible for a lot of folks to participate because of the upfront
price create
a calls creative goals a
person
looking for art commissions
to say
I’d like
this
and
whatever
they
described could be
a water
bottle on
desk with
a Poster
in the background
that artists
can then post
it before they mint and enough tea before they put that $400 USD
up to
make it a real NFT
they can say
this is what I think it should be And then the commissioner
can say I do like
that and
I want
it and
I’ll buy it
So it creates
a buyer
before the seller has to go through the expense of putting it out on the blockchain
It’s
almost kind of like
a like an
Upwork or a almost
like
a
fiver
for
the
NFT
world
Right
You’re kind of
Ordering
work
oh yeah yeah in that world Good way to think about it I’ll have to suggest that over to the team
over there
Thanks
That’s
great
That’s
So
these
have
decided you
know
they’re
already
sold on
the concept They’re already in this
world and they
say now we need
a tech
partner
and
that’s
where they
they
call
you up Right Is that
yeah
the accurate
two
of
getting something available
in order to work in the blockchain
space
are the part
works on the blockchain
And
those are smart
contracts
Those are those automated sets
rules that are not
changeable
And
then
is how
does anyone
with that
It’s
very abstract to those sets of rules It’s
almost like the contract of
a corporation You probably wouldn’t
C as a
customer the contracts that run
the corporation
when you would
see some
of storefront
And we build that part
We
build a user
interface we build the parts that operate in
collaboration and coordination
those smart
contracts And the easiest thing is to say if when
you
go
the criticals application you can see it you can
touch it
upstate interactive
it Gotcha You’re definitely doing the front end
Okay
Is this something
you
know
as much as we here
about
it
is this something you’re actually seeing actual more
demand for
So are
you getting more
calls
Or
is it a
lot
of
What do
you
know What do you
find in
with
business
results
maybe
growth in
the
blockchain work
this year And
by the end
of
we’ll probably have
gone
up By
not much
We’re currently booking
at least six
out I think for new clients in
order to do
some of this work
And
as a
result of that
I
think that
the
uh Broader
world would agree whether the price of Bitcoin We’re down or whether the price of Ethereum which is
the smart
contract
blockchain
tends to
be related
to
It was up or down There
is a deep and large set of investors that are seeing this nevermind the day to day as the future of a way to operate in a decentralized manner Sure Yeah I mean I’ve heard of you know
I I I
feel like I’ve only scratched
the surface
and it almost
it almost bothers me because I’m a lifelong tech guy you know I’ve been in this business for for 30 years and seeing crypto and seeing these things come and go and
kind of ignoring
them for many
is really I’m really
kicking myself for doing that Especially when
it
comes to I
remember playing with Bitcoin wallets when they were a
thing And like why
did
not just grab
a couple of coins and hide them somewhere
That would be phenomenal today but
This is
such an
incredible world You know I follow in a lot of Gary V for anybody that follows him you know he’s he’s dove in deep in the NFT world and in all those types of things and he talks about you know a future where a mortgage may be in an Ft where you where you transfer uh
anything
you know
uh through these contracts
and decentralized
Because
ways to
kind
of maintain
piece along the
way Right Isn’t
that a it’s say in the case of an NFT where
you
it for me
and
then you
sell
to somebody else but there’s
still kind of a
almost
like a royalty type of thing that
that could
come back
Sure
Some
skepticism
on Gary the chair
I
him in
2011
And he
was sharing
that at some point in the future refrigerators would be ordering milk Okay
not decades
since
my refrigerators
we
still go to the
store and buy milk
And I would say only
that the
Possibilities
that Gary did he
talks
about are as numerous as the whole
planet is talking about
it’s
not clear
exactly what people will do someday down in the future What blockchain it’s just clear that it’s going to get better and it’s going to get broader And I think
that
we believe at upstate interactive that
the
decentralization of trust is the number
thing
that we’re
looking at
with the blockchain
De-centralizing not needing
One
thing that
it solves is a double spend problem That’s
what
Bitcoin does
If you had a
digital it would be trivial to copy it and then spend it into places unlike a real dollar which is in some ways very finite you move it from a to B So what solved this was PayPal It became a third party to say we’re not
going to allow for double spending of our digital dollars
And we’ll be the trusted entity that presents that you get you needed
paper Now
with blockchain PayPal goes away
and you and I
Matt can have a peer to peer transaction without the double spend
There’s
no way
I can take my 10 Bitcoin and send them to you
and then also send
them to
somebody
else
And that’s
Bitcoin’s
great
innovation Gotcha taking that double
spend
out of
Is one of
the
things that makes it
viable for financial work
Now how else
becomes viable is more clear as time goes
by
NFTs are brilliant and very positive and possible example Of course people can
it along
and then
maintain some royalty
That’s
one
possibility Another
client
of ours
John
Orion young
and his initials are
joy And he
embraces
created
Joy world
creates
all these NFTs of deeply intricate 3d models that are available in
different
uh
model
format
So
if
you have
of these Anaptys you can take your 3d
and
do anything
Wow
but
imagine it very much like a collectable sort of
preacher
and he’s experimented
with numerous ways of moving joys around multiple people could own it
And
ownership
could transfer over time
Even
one
contract
said you
could
buy it
at
somebody
also
and not with
permission
just
by
virtue
of spending more
could
buy it away
And
that was built right
into the contract
So
there’s
been
various
different
models on how it
say that
contract
that’s
really
kind
of
software right
So these
ones that’s kind of set in
place
Yeah These things can
happen
automatically
You don’t need
a
person
to
execute
the
contract Right Is that is that
Quite so
quite
So
the
contract
goes
onto
the
Ethereum
virtual
machine
It’s a globally distributed computer And once it’s on there there you go And then
people are
transacting with it
they’re bound
by the rules of the contract
built in
that’s incredible that’s the part that I think a lot of
people
struggle with
a little bit is
you
know like
you said
Th
today if we both had
a few
dollars in our
wallet I could
pay
it for something and
hand you that cash and walk away in
the digital world Unless
have some sort of third party
whether you’re going
through your bank and your credit card or a
PayPal or a
or anybody really even
like the Facebook
pay
the Venmos and things you’re
still
giving
your
money to
them And
then they’re
giving their
money
There’s
that third party here is the the
digital
way of handing you the
cash Right
can open my coin
wallet
and I can say send Peter
five
coins
and and there’s
bank
There’s no PayPal
There’s no you know
uh billionaires
between us
in that transaction Sure
The Facebook
FatCat Facebook
wanted
to
create
a
called the Libra
scale
and
A
Spectrum
of
different
coin
Decentralization
exists
There’s
like
Ethereum
and
Bitcoin
which are
at one
edge
of decentralized There is
no permission
needed It is entirely up
to everybody
who is
in
the
public to
decide what they’d like to use
Yeah
And then there is something on the
side which
is
what
Libra
has
an intention
to
be And that’s
where
there
are authorized
validating computers You
might
as
a
visa
or PayPal participate in Libra by spending
2
us dollar
to
have
privilege
of
validating
the coin
and the trend There
is a practical
benefit to
that level
of
validation
which
is that the
speed goes up
Libra
as proposed would be fast It
would be a fast
and it would happen in
a rapid way
that would imitate
something
closer to visa
And
without
that
on
the other
end
of
it Bitcoin and
Ethereum
transactions don’t happen as fast
They’re
better for
larger transactions but at the
of the day
it might not be I ever at today’s level of speed Plausible to make your daily coffee purchase but that you’d want to be in and out of your coffee shop in about 30 seconds
as
far as the
transaction
part
goes and
would take you a little longer
So the reality be today
we’re not quite
replacing
visa
not quite
there is work being done And in
particular
in
Ethereum
with
staking
and staking moves
all of the
concerns
of speed into
a more rapid cycle
It
gets
faster
I say uh
and they’re
moving
over to it
because
and
that’s
just
for
fun
that
That
are
So
big difference
here where you’re
talking about
decentralization you know right now
visa
say they’ve
got one visa
server
So I
swipe my card
goes ding checks
that server
Matt Scott money
approved done
where
the decentralized
in
It
is not
just one
it’s by
by
definition
There’s
there’s a
lot of literal
computers
and
things
spread out All over the place that has
verify and validate this transaction
Right That’s how it becomes
Secure So
you
can’t have a
server sitting at your house
just validates
transactions You know it gives you
endless money basically
is that is that
accurate Is
it
yeah very
much
is more people become a part
it
The
more challenging
it becomes
to validate
yet it
becomes more secure
So
it’s one
of
these
that
you might these pharmacy right there
oh these
are
doing in these places with all the
Computers
just
to explain
that for a moment
Sure as it does get
more challenging
it becomes
more computationally intensive So
buy
more computers
because the computational intensity goes out Or man
Right
And
the
reward
remains
the
same
It’s a fixed
one Bitcoin that gets rewarded
So the
value
of the
Bitcoin goes up and that it matters that you have more computers You can have more computers calculating it because the reward is greater and you calculate the probabilities and your electrical costs and this that and the other And that’s called proof of work And that’s something that’s very popular today Among all blockchains with Ethereum is doing like I said with staking is a move to a different direction where it is not a mass Buying more computer power It is more a proof of having yourself staked in terms of owning a theory theorem as a participant in the world And then you can do some validation on that and upstate interactive has done that Wow that’s
incredible
So I
think we’re we’re
probably
close to
of
time
But
what
I
wanted to do
is
ask
you this
is
obviously a
deep
subject than I I’m definitely
we’re
going
to have you
back
in and explain more of this
at times
it’s it’s
more and more
in
the
headlines but
you
could give
advice
to
somebody
in
everyday business person
been
in
for years
doing
their thing
haven’t even
thought
about
this blockchain
world
where should
they be Look
at what what is the
thing
really need to be aware of as
business
evolves And
this becomes a
bigger part of it
I would say there’s
a single book
put out by
Harvard business review That’s a primer on blockchain
from folks that are not writing the technology
And they’re also not
doing any Bitcoin farming They’re not and et cetera They’re basically just outside of it seeing it as a comparable to other technologies and they can share a little bit of education with anybody about that beyond
There
is
the other
what’s that one called Well
if you asked
me
now I’ll
tell you
it’s
by Harvard
business
review
it’s a
pink book
and
it’s
put
as part of their must reads So it might say must read blockchain
Well
We’ll
check
it
out and put
it
in
the
notes for folks are cool
And then beyond that
you could find
Other people
that are very very
much
a
part
of this So I would say you could look at what people are doing whether you want it to go on to Twitter
and just look up crypto and find a few people that
you like
You might do that Well I’ll say from my part if you follow John or Ryan Young you’ll be following an artist who is deeply cool in the blockchain world Who’s have found some success And I would say that’d be all right if you want it to follow Cassandra who is constantly going around the world and for upstate interactive checking out What’s the latest whether it’s in Japan or Prague whichever you
can find
her
Twitter at the only Cassinia And beyond that it’s
a
wide open
world And
so
just going down the rabbit hole
it’s is something that a lot
of
people
talk about blockchain way
and
it’ll
pull
you down That’s wonderful
Last
quick
question
Should
people in
their
traditional businesses be accepting
crypto
coins as payment today
I
forgot what they should
do I can tell you what
upstate interactive is decided is a fair
way to transact a bunch
of our
clients
being
in the blockchain world
Do you want
pay
us in a cryptocurrency one or the other And there are stable ones
and they are
denominated by their value being
pegged
to the us dollar So we get paid in something called a di E a I buy some of our clients
And
that
means when
they
pay us
10,000
di
That’s equivalent to 10,000
us dollar Gotcha and we can go forward from there and
Otherwise
you
taking somewhat of a
price appreciation
or
depreciation
risk in buying
Bitcoin
volatile
right Yeah So
what upstate interactive does
today
and
we’re
in
the
Lockchain world and
we’ve had deliberations about what should we do in
terms of on our
balance sheet Bitcoin and this that
when you
come
down to it as a small business and medium business what you’d like is some predictability and some certainty and you
operate by
saying that to get
your
Business rolling and
to be
a part of the crypto world something like die or what are also known more broadly as stable coins are fine and safe and basically
very
much
to U S dollar
way of running your business Wow That is incredible
There is so much to
learn and we will definitely learn
more You
know
this
is
the
In the technology world
but I’m in I’m in the
the it the
business technology
I’m setting
up networks
and we’re putting together computers
servers and cloud
solutions and things
that
But this
is a whole
nother side
of
the tech
world
That again
I’m
Embarrassed
and
angry
with myself
that
I don’t know more
about but
luckily
you’re here and
you can tell us a lot about it So uh
give
me all the just the
real
quick the
upstate interactive the
website and anything like that that you want folks checkup
Very simple to say to find
more you can
out
upstate
interactive
dot
And
that’ll get you our website from there You
can go to all our
corporate stuff
If
you’re interested
more
what I’ve got to say I’d love it If anybody reached out on LinkedIn and that’s Peter B.
Smith
with N
Y where there would be an eye and I’d
be
happy
to respond to any DMS or posts and all
And I will
personally
endorse
your
You put out
great
content
I
mean some of the videos
you shoot
there
just
even
from just
a
video
perspective
you do
great
job and
you put out some good
informative
content
an I highly recommend folks value
as
well That’s okay
Led me to draw
you in here So
we’ll take your job
and and I’m
I’m so
happy
to have you and I hope you’ll come back again I will That’s the GUI All right Thanks Peter