Video Transcription

Hey everybody. It’s Justin from the B2B vault, the payment technology podcast with your host; this guy right here, Alan Kopelman, providing educational information about business payments, FinTech, or financial technology, decentralized finance, and the technology businesses need in today’s world. And in today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about the alternative products expo. Yeah, that was fun. It was Cool. Very chill. So yeah, we decided they were going to go to a business expo, and that’s one of the highest risk categories because there were vape companies, their flavored vape companies, CBD hemp flower, the illustrious cradle, Creighton. Yeah. Creative. And there were a lot of people selling cradles. There were A lot of other different companies there that did differently. There was this A company like with this missing product missing the, and I guess the hemp or the, Yeah. So I guess so with this mist shield harnessing the power of nature. So if your crop, like if you’re growing hemp, you’re growing, it eliminates the mold, the mycotoxins spider mites, bacteria, powdery mildew, bud rot, and root rot. I thought it was cool. There is a local company out of Boca Raton. Yeah. So if you’re in the weed, burly weed Growing industry, I would take a look at Mr. Shield.

Yeah, that was pretty cool. There weren’t that many companies. There isn’t another company doing the same thing as that. No, if you had another one, no, I’ve never even heard of that type of process before. So that was unique. Yeah, there was a lot, cause it was a lot of the boots, you know, selling a lot of the similar type products, you know, it’s been cool, they were giving them away. So you can put, store things in here, Keep it fresh, and keep your stuff fresh If you’re into it. What else? Who else have we got up here? Oh, these guys DMO shout out to Steven Wong. Steven Wong was a sales rep for so there’s a bunch of companies under this company. Loop reverse key lo e-liquid and DMO, hemp.com. And Stephen looked out for us. He gave us a bunch of treats and other types of stuff, you know, to make ourselves relax and have a smooth ride through the product. What alternative products expo. Yeah. So it’s, I a lot of companies they’re looking for payment processing, and there were many payment processors There. Yeah. We met a couple of those guys. Yeah. So there was different, we saw a lot of farmers, so we had tons Of farmers. Right. And there was one guy who told him we give him a shout-out on the podcast and Amish. Yeah. Yeah. And there have, and they have, you know, the farm there in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Guy’s name was Sam Fisher, Lancaster county Amish-owned.

Linco premium Sun-grown hemp. Yeah. Linco premium.com. So that was, that was pretty cool. It was interesting. Cause most of the other people were from down here. There were people From North Carolina. Yeah. California too. I didn’t; I don’t. I’ve met two guys from Cali, but everyone I’ve bumped into was from somewhere in North Carolina. Yeah. Yeah. So there were a lot of different farmers there, there was a cooperative, and they had like, you know, like 10, 12 different farms and then they all sold together. Oh yeah. Special shout out to Frannie farms Frannie. She’s also from North Carolina. I guess she was one of the first women hemp farmers to get her license or something like that. So she was proud of that, and she’s in the process of She was franchise Franchising out; she’s got some letters of intent in Miami Del Ray beach, Miramar, And somewhere else you mentioned down here in south Florida. So good luck to you. Franny was a pleasure to meet you, a beautiful soul. So it’s an exciting show started today with, I think, just business to business. where we were able to go to the show and walk the show met a lot of interesting people, the shows here are on Saturday and Sunday, which is more aimed at consumers that get information about products and learn about different things and get some samples. You can listen to a lot of different speakers that speakers. Yeah. I guess today w somebody was talking about Yeah, there were a few speakers today, and then Was it the pet products? I think it Was pet products. I think it was, and I think It was so, yeah, so they have different speakers to open Saturday and Sunday, alternative expo, alternative expo.com, alternative products, expo all-pro expo.com.com. That’s where it is. We’ll put the link in the show notes. So we have it in there. And yeah, we met some other guys from another hemp, farm hemp, family farms. There, there were many people out at the show with all different types of products and selling different services. We met somebody with a magazine. I mean, we got so many goodies. T-shirts Trinity hemp. It’s very, and It’s very soft. You know, that’s a cool shirt. Oh, DMO. Yeah. Shout out to DMO. They really, that guy showed a lot of love. I like that this is exclusive merge two.

They said this would be their new logo for The, for this year. And this guy, I’m not going to shout out because he was a d****e. But yeah, man, we got book bags. We got a bag from DMO. They gave us a bunch of stuff, man. I mean, yeah. So one of the things we got asked by some people is why it’s so hard for them to get a credit card processing account. So why are their websites shut down? All kinds of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Bank accounts get frozen. Like some banks that don’t want to do business with people if they touch the flower. So, you know, every, you know, banking has Well, I, that was, that blew my mind. When I, I thought that was like a joke, like touching the flower. Yeah. But that’s real. Like that was literally Yes, I was. You know, it’s the kinds of businesses. When they’re forming a corporation, I always tell people, like name it something generic. If you’re going to be in a business where there could be some restrictions because sometimes you can get away. If you’re, you know, let’s say you have a mortgage at the bank, and now you’re opening a business bank account. They’re more likely to pay attention, maybe not if the name’s not, you know, you know, Bob’s hamp.com. If it was just Bob’s LLC. Right. You know, they’re, they’re not going to ask you so many questions about what you do necessarily. You could be vague. I’m a wholesaler or a retailer, the word and not go into the, you know, whatever it is that you do. But you know, getting a merchant account is the same way. And you know, that CBD, there’s a lot of banks. Now we have there are five or six states that are talking about that. They want the internet to read the internet retailers. If you want to ship into their state, you have to get a business license. So yeah, there was an Alaska, New York, Idaho, California, no, not California. I don’t remember. There were about five or six states of either law or pending law to do that.

So that’s, you know, they were making it, you know, deep, we need more deregulation, especially when it comes to legal products, so they need to have more deregulation for that. And then more banks would have worked with the product, you know, cause they understand it. And that’s, you know, there’s only a, maybe three banks, maybe four doing CBD. Some have heavy underwriting restrictions, and some of them except brand new startup businesses. So, you know, there’s a variety of options and also do cryptocurrency. Right. So, you know, and especially for the target of that market, a lot of millennials, gen X, gen Z, you know, there are people in the age where they’re, you know, not only investing in cryptocurrency, but transacting in cryptocurrencies, someone asked me the other day this, oh, I thought it’s an investment. No, there’s a lot of people transacting business there’s over the last time I looked there were over a million dollars a day in a business transaction, crypto, none, no a billion, not million, right? Yeah. A billion dollars a day in crypto transactions. That was a few months ago when they tracked that. And those were business transactions, not like a wallet to wallet transfers and things like that. Actual transacting of business, probably a lot of that’s driven by the NFTs for sure because there’s a lot of activity of people buying NFTs and flipping them for higher prices. Then the metaverse the Metro versus the metaverse do, people are, people are getting involved in the metaverse, and there’s now a few games coming out and Ft games and you know, all that crypto is becoming very popular. So we just did a podcast before this called cash credit or crypto.

We talk a lot about cryptocurrency, and it’s good for many businesses. especially in vape CBD, hemp cradle, you know if you’re not taking crypto, we can get you set up with a cryptoprocessor the way. We can give you a demo of how the system works. You get sent an invoice, take it in person, or plug it onto your website. And it’s a great product. You can check it out @ npscoin.com. Yeah. A lot of that where we’re spinning, you know, they tell them about the crypto stuff that many people were like, wow, this sounds like a cool idea. Yeah. They’re very interested. And they think that you know, and especially like right now with the current administration, no nobody’s making any moves to like legalize marijuana. Nobody’s the government also, which I find not good because, like us, made law with CBD and hemp legal, right. And that the farm bill and all that, but now they’re for, and this only happened recently. Now they’re going to let six states legislate against the federal law. It’s stupid. Right. It doesn’t make sense.

It’s backward. And it’s, you know, but that’s, you know, that’s what we’re dealing with. And, you know, a cryptocurrency, the US government is acknowledging that they need to understand cryptocurrency better, and Biden has put forth some studies to be done and this new central bank to issue crypto. Still, it would be based on the dollar needs and backed by the federal reserve. So that’s interesting in itself because that could be some a popular, I don’t know how popular that would be as a payment method. Because when you look at the United States, we have the cash credit and gripped, I’ve talked to that 20% of people or more are using cash, you know? And then the rest of that is mostly credit cards. I mean, checks, no, not so much checks today.

And you know, the, an ACH is just getting bigger, but still, not note, we are credit card processing volumes. Right. You know, so people like their credit cards for the benefits. That’s the only thing that you don’t get with something like a stable coin. Right. You don’t have, and they’re not going to have benefits like a credit does where you get points, miles, cash back, and All That. So, right. Exactly. They don’t have that type of stuff Yet. Right. That’s what I mean, like, that’s the direction would have to go into for people to do that because they don’t want to give up their points Just randomly, though. Did you see what, you know, how I’ve been? We’ve been talking about the NFTE for businesses and stuff like that. Did you see last night that Gary V finally says that FTS and businesses will be like businesses and websites in 2000? Meaning if your business doesn’t have an NFT, what are you doing? Right. So I just wanted to say that. And he told you, so I’ve been saying this for two years now. I don’t want to talk about all these other people I’ve told about. I won’t. I won’t, and I’m just saying, I told you, and now yesterday’s price is not today’s price. So No, but we saw Gary V’s involved with that restaurant. There are a few partners. Right? And the finance, the restaurant, sold NFTs, and people were reselling. We were, we thought it was cool that this restaurant was selling. The NFTs come to find out is Gary V’s restaurant. Right. The NFTs finance it. They must have to raise how much millions, billions of dollars, right.

Millions of dollars. And the restaurant’s not even open. No. And there were like two levels, one level, you got to go to the restaurant, but you couldn’t like, let your brother use it all the UK only you can use it as A private dining. And then they added a special membership, which was the last number for this special sushi room. Right. With some amazing sushi. Yeah, sure. That all, no, no. She’s saying like, that’s what it sounded Like. That’s what it was, But that only gets you into the door, and he’s got to pay for, you got to pay for Yeah. You got your Meals, and You got to pay for your meal Was, it was like 40 grand. Yeah. It was crazy. It was $40,000. They started lower. But then there was, there were, there were levels That people were reselling them because there was only about, I think, five or six statuses altogether. So people were all over that New York City. Yeah. Crazy. Let’s go, CRA. I mean, you own part of the restaurant. I mean, for 40 K, I would want to know, but I’m just saying, If you’re saying as they find it, the buyers, is that going to be a way that’s like new crowdfunding, so an NFT to craft fun? No, I’m just saying that’s, that’s the first one I’ve seen, right?

No. And that’s why we talked about in the previous podcast about the sec, you know, looking at these NF, what people are doing with NFTs and saying like, some of them are borderline that’s right. And if you want to catch us on any of the older podcasts, take a look. You can find us on all of the DSPs. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Amazon Music, Pandora, and soon to be on title. That’s it. We’re everywhere. Any The ones we’ve never even heard of that you could find us. Go ahead and check out B2B vault.info for the website. If you have any con questions or want to, you know, possibly be a guest on the podcast, there’s a form for you to fill out there. If you have any, anything, you know, any input or anything, you’d go ahead to B2B vault.info leave us a message there, and you can follow us on social media at B to B vault everywhere. You know what, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, we’re not on LinkedIn, but the three major ones at B2B vault. And go ahead and check out these past episodes. Be sure to subscribe, like, and subscribe to the YouTube channel for us. We’re trying to get our numbers up there. But yeah, that’s all I got. All right. We’re out, and we’re out. We had a great time at the expo, and we have, I think, 19 Minutes, I think people in the CBD industry and that, you know, all vape, crate them all, whatever we saw there that I think like they’re very interested in cryptocurrency. Oh yeah. Out of all of them, You know, it was, That was very, Cause they were kind of like surveyed people like, oh, do you take credit cards? Have you thought about taking crypto? You know, there, you know, so there was a, I would say Mo most of the people, except for one guy, I think most of them were interested in learning more about cryptocurrency.

Oh yeah. Everyone was, yeah. Their eyes got big when I started explaining it to them a little more. Cause at first, you know, they’re like, they’re saying like how you were saying, well, crypto is who wants to spend their crypto? And I’m like billions of dollars being spent a day. Yeah. There’s over. It was over a billion dollars. So everybody, have a great weekend. If you can go check out the alternative products expo at the Broward convention center off 17th street and Fort Lauderdale.