Video Transcription

Hey everybody, it’s Justin with B2B Vault: The Payment Technology Podcast with your host, Allen Kopelman. We’ll provide educational information about business payments, FinTech, decentralized finance, and the technology businesses need in today’s world. In today’s podcast, we’ll be talking about Bitcoin Miami 2022. It was pretty cool. Yeah, so let’s get right into it. Let me go, Allen. Hey everybody. We’re talking about Bitcoin Miami 2022. We went down to the Miami Beach Convention Center to check it out. It was pretty cool. Got some cool hats. I got some cool sunglasses. You know, can’t see good with these. So let’s talk about Bitcoin Miami 2022 and what was happening there. But first, we got an email from Feed Spot, which helps you find and keep track of interesting stuff on the web, and they named the ten best payment technology podcasts of 2022. And we’re on the list number Two, So that was pretty cool. And you know, anytime we get recognized for what we’re doing is always nice.

So if you’re watching on YouTube, you can see some pictures, and we’re going to post some pictures on social media of different things. But one of the coolest things about Bitcoin 2022 was everybody taking pictures out in the front because they had this sculpture, and I read about it. It took months to prepare, and it was this massive Bitcoin bull, The Miami bull. Yeah. And they’re going to move it from the front of the convention center to one of them, and I think Miami Dade college and the company who did it was called trade. What was trade something? I can’t remember. Oh, well, What some, the company who did it was pretty cool. Everybody was taking pictures out there. So that was pretty cool. Got a Free Shirt. Yep. Get a free shirt. That was cool. I messed it up. I put spaghetti sauce on it on the first day of wearing it. Wow. But we’ll give that, and I thought I wrote down who the company was now. I feel bad that we’re not going to recognize them.

Yeah. So shout out to the trade station for making that Miami bowl. That was cool. Yeah. We added EV there, we’re having everybody take a picture, and then you had to tag them on Twitter, and you know, so Yeah, they were cool. They were eating a veggie burger. So I could relate. I mean, I don’t know if they’re part of the train station, but the people who were like Dan and not the teas were everybody was the cool chill crowd. So what was Bitcoin 2022 all about? So there were speakers, hundreds of people down there, thousands. There were investors, people investing in Bitcoin, investing in IP, investing in companies, Bitcoin enthusiasts, you know, people who are trading Bitcoin, buying, and selling Bitcoin that worked for companies involved in the space. It’s a space that’s growing booths were very expensive.

There were a lot of companies that spent tens of thousands of dollars on booths with all kinds of TVs and everything. Yeah. Some of these booths looked like they were designed by someone who does movie sets. Oh yeah. It was crazy. And there were a ton of events going on down there. There were hundreds of exhibitors, you know, we saw one wall of startup companies and early-stage companies exhibiting. And then at the center of the room where a lot of the established companies, I mean, I didn’t even know there were that many Bitcoin wallets like were or exchanges. There were dozens of them. And then there were tons and tons of events going on. There was a concert going on. There was a whole park in the park, across the street from the convention center. It was like a massive thing with slides, food trucks, and all kinds of stuff we saw there. That’s where the soundstage was.

Yeah. And then they had the and that, that other concert inside, you know, Sound Money was the first Bitcoin concert, and they had a comedy show and all kinds of stuff going on, it was like a huge, huge, huge, massive event that went on for many, many days Real quick. We want to thank our sponsors and PS bank, NPS printer, the payment advisory boards, and nationwide payment systems. Be sure to check out B2B vault.info for the past episodes. You can connect with Allen there. Schedule an appointment and possibly learn more about sponsoring the podcast. We’re available on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Google podcasts, apple podcasts, Stitcher, and Pandora, and you name it. We’re there. Follow us on social media, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And recently, we signed up for TikTok, its @B2B vault. So yeah, man, check us out. Follow us, subscribe. Looking forward to seeing your new followers. All right.

Back to the podcast. So what did we see down at the convention? What kind of companies were there? So while what companies we saw, like companies who had software, where you could store, you know, outside of the crypto exchange, you know, where you could store your crypto on a wallet like in the cloud. Then we saw these physical wallets that looked like, you know, little hard drives. We also saw little credit cards with like an EMV chip on them. And you could store your crypto on that. I mean, it was pretty much a lot of technology. There were three different types of cars. You could store your crypto on. You could store your codes on another one. Yeah. Your pin codes for your wallet. Then there was something else that he did, and He had it and a special one for NFTs two. Don’t worry. It’s cool because you could design your debit card, pin card, or whatever you want. That was pretty cool. They had this village section, so people had different artwork back there. The Bitcoin bizarre is what they named it. A bunch of different vendors were selling products. I don’t know if there was anything like it. It wasn’t anything. I mean, I’m sure a part of the prerequisite would have.

They would have to have been able to accept Bitcoin as payment. Right. I’m assuming Some of it was Bitcoin-related, like art, and Bitcoin-related, like shirts. A guy was selling NFT art. He was selling the different things, like light-up things, Gullah and glass cases, etc. There were all kinds of vendors. A startup company back there had unique sports-related and Ft art, but they were in very early stages. You know, we also saw peer-to-peer trading sites. One of them was the Bitcoin Bazaar. We spoke to them, and it’s like, where you can go, you can buy a coin there, but it’s like a secondary market for buying and selling cryptocurrency. That’s pretty interesting. I know that there are a few of those out there. Again, we saw the different hardware, wallets, and mortgages. We saw a cup it’s, it’s amazing. Like how many booths we walked past selling almost the same thing. Everyone was Selling like security, a lot of security apps mortgages using Bitcoin. So there must have been quite a few companies offering that.

We saw crypto IRA, where you can take your IRA account and then incorporate a cryptocurrency into your IRA. You could trade within the account, which is interesting because you’re buying and selling crypto inside the IRA. That was interesting. There were a couple of companies doing that. We saw different ways to store your tokens and NFTs. And there was a whole NFTE, like section in the middle of the floor. And there was like a lot of the art. Yeah. It was the original artwork of the NFTs. So that was pretty interesting. We also saw a lot of like virtual cards where you can link your credit. You could link a credit card through a company to your crypto wallet and then earn crypto by spending money on these different credit cards. That was pretty interesting. One thing that surprised me was the amount of crypto mining equipment. It was insane. Like, I didn’t even know there was that much. I was telling Justin, a friend of mine, he built a bunch of those rigs just from cards and hooking them up on pieces of wood. Right. Do you know? There are these massive rigs. We saw one, and they were building them inside a shipping container. Multiple companies were Doing it. Yeah. There was a bolt. I couldn’t believe how many companies were doing crypto mining. And then the, I feel like they would be better off if they all like joined forces.

And like when like Voltron’s style, like mining company and they, were wealthy, but instead they’re all fighting amongst each other for the same. Yeah. It’s like, and it was crazy. I don’t get it. I Didn’t get it either. I would not start a crypto mining company at all. Maybe in my house, but not like these guys are doing it on the scale. I hope that everyone succeeds, and I don’t want anyone to fail, but when the market is so, And it wasn’t cheap, it wasn’t cheap. No. And that, and there were so many, I was surprised at the number of companies. Like we came around the corner, and I was like, wow, how many companies do this? Like, And I was shocked that none of them were like nothing like differentiated themselves from the next, Only the one, the guy that had like the, there was the one place I like the big shipping container. They were selling this thing that builds your mining, your, your, you put your mining equipment inside of his shipping container. But I don’t, I, the rest of it like good luck guys. It was a very complicated part of the industry regarding crypto mining.

Because people also talk as green, are they using no, we know that it uses a ton of electricity and, you know, can they do it with solar and trying to put it in areas of the country where it’s cold? So, because the mining equipment gets very hot. I remember my friend, he built just a few miners, and he had him in a room in his office. He had to put extra air conditioning in there and everything. Cause it was boiling running all these, it’s. There’s like a bunch of little computers all stacked up together. It’s quite crazy. And you know, so there was, you know, the NFT thing was cool. Cause you also saw monitors that had NFTs on them and NFTs inside a glass case. And then, you know, it’s interesting that artists had their cell, their actual artwork, and then add and sell the NFT simultaneously. And I think that a lot of people want to get that. Especially like we saw a guy there with the sports thing too. Right. And he was saying, no, you can get the, you can get the picture, and then you can also buy the NFT, this, the sports picture. So that’s interesting, you know, to see how that goes. And there were many investing with crypto, like investing in crypto stocks, investing in companies. Many early-stage companies were still looking for money that did different things. Like bill like pay your bills with crypto, and they’re going to take the crypto and convert it to cash and then send it to the electric company and stuff like that.

So there were a lot of different little companies like that. People were giving away all kinds of stuff to hats and hats and shirts, and you know, all their little wears and everything they wanted to give away to promote their companies, you know? But there it’s a very, very big space. I mean, there must have been a thousand vendors in there. I mean, it looked cool. Yeah. It looked cool. There was a lot of stuff, many vendors in the hall, and you know, all types of security, software, security apps to protect your crypto. You look at it, and you go, well, as I thought, there are maybe five or six wallets, and they’re in such competition. They were all like, if you register for the wallet and buy some crypto, we’ll give you some free crypto. Anywhere from 10 bucks, we saw one booth was giving away $150 of crypto. I don’t know how much you had to buy to get it. And there were a couple of other ones, and if you signed up, they were having a contest. Someone was going to win a Bitcoin. The whole Bitcoin cash app had a contest down there giving away something. So CashApp was selling their t-shirts. and I was a little, and they should have given them away.

Dude, you’re selling your t-shirts at Bitcoin 2022. Okay. Nobody else is selling anything. Right. We saw some people, and I gave away books doing a book signing. Yeah. We saw many interesting things going on, and obviously, people are starved to get information. how much did they want for the Bitcoin 2022 shirt $35? Yeah. $35 for a t-shirt for the show. That’s crazy. There were plenty of other free t-shirts that were given away. I mean, we could have picked up two dozen t-shirts Easily. Everybody was like, you want a t-shirt, you want a V shirt, but it’s like, you know, but a lot of people were there for the classes and the breakout sessions and all that to learn about crypto, learn about how to invest in crypto. I mean, I tell everybody, like, we are not giving people investment advice, you know, we’re not given that, you know, because people ask me all the time, oh, should I invest in crypto? I tell them, you know, it’s just like the stock market. You can put in what you can afford to lose. And then otherwise it’s not for you. You know, it’s a very volatile industry, but it’s exciting, and it’s not going to stop. I read some stories recently about Visa doing some stuff with the metaverse and crypto. Quietly, MasterCard also filed some paperwork to do something with the metaverse and crypto. American Express is doing something with the metaverse and crypto. You read about these large companies, fortune 500 companies talking about setting up like restaurants and different things with the, with crypto and in the metaverse.

So it’s not going away. The federal government is talking about their central digital bank currency, which probably takes too long to get done, but They shot up the Sheba got listed on Robin hood today. Oh yeah. That’s, that’s very exciting. You know, I think that we’re going to, you know, there’s a lot of exciting things happening in the crypto world. Cryptocurrencies are not going away. There were thousands of people down at this convention. It was like a four or five-day thing. The ecosystem is strong and growing. That’s proven by the number of vendors in the room at people investing in all these different companies. Many people are showing interest in and learning about cryptocurrency. I’m reading about colleges that are now teaching crypto in college courses. The trade station group is sponsoring Miami Dade College for some of these companies. I read about it. That’s why they’re going to put the bull there. Cause they’re doing some education with cryptocurrency. It’s very, you know, it’s interesting. It’s moving along. You know, we saw a lot of startup companies down there, like they’re in the startup stage, early-stage companies, companies. And there were companies there from all over the world too. So they weren’t just from the United States.

There were people down there from all over the world. And then I would say a lot of them weren’t from the United States. I would say about 50/50 because some had offices here and offices and other places. Some of them weren’t from America. Yeah. A few companies we saw from India, from Australia. There were a lot of companies from around the world. So it’s a, it’s definitely like an international thing. Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin are very international. So what are nationwide payment systems doing in the space? And why do we talk about an ear on the B2B vol? We talk about it because this is a growing thing. It’s an emerging market, and it’s of an emerging new payment type. We did a podcast a while ago called cash, credit, and crypto. Before, businesses only took cash; they started to take credit, and now cryptos are the next thing. Then there are other things coming alongside it, too, like buy now, pay later, and different types of services. I don’t know what Rocky’s dealing with today. So what are we doing?

We launched two things to do with cryptocurrency. So one is Worldwide Digital Payments. We have a website for that. So you can get information. https://worldwidedigitalpayments.com This is where we can get merchants who are crypto companies set up with credit card processing. So you can, if you’re an exchange, if you’re putting out a coin, if you’re going to sell, if you an NFT platform, we can get you linked up. We have a domestic partner. So for domestic only inside the U S processing and then we have processing for worldwide. So that includes the USA and internationally to do crypto and credit card processing. We can also get merchant accounts for businesses supporting the crypto industry. So if you’re selling hardware, you know, crypto wallets and things like that, not everyone wants to be involved in this, you know, in this whole crypto space, but we’re working with banks and credit card processors who support the crypto space. That’s what we specialize in. You know, like I don’t call it high risk. I call it niche. You know, there is a niche market, the crypto space. And we have, you know, banks and processors supporting the cryptocurrency space. We’re doing the other thing we have our product NPS going NPS coin.com, which is our crypto to dollars. This is for businesses that want to accept cryptocurrency. You don’t need to know anything about crypto. It’s not just for investors. It’s used to do business today. Large and international transactions are probably the top two things going on with cryptocurrency. I mean, there’ll be the day.

We saw AMC would accept Shiba at AMC theaters. Okay, great. But I mean, you know, how many people will do that. You know, not many right now, but it’s going to happen at some point; you know, are you going to go to a restaurant and check out with Bitcoin one day? Maybe probably, you know, it’s going to happen. I mean, I’m sure people are already doing it. Yeah. It’s being done on a small scale, but the larger scale is done with large transactions, such as jewelry, jets, cars, real estate, and international transactions. It makes doing an international transaction easier because it’s a lot shorter time period than trying to send money from one country to another country. It’s very complicated. It can take five to seven days, and it can be expensive. If it’s a massive transaction, it could be just a flat fee, but it could be expensive. And crypto is an alternative to getting money from, you know, international currency.

So you can get more information about these two products, https://worldwidedigitalpayments.com/ or go to https://npscoin.com/ and or you could go to https://b2bvault.info and get set up with an appointment to get a 15-minute consultation. We’ll take care of you. So thank you for listening to B2B Vault.

Follow us, like, and subscribe on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, iHeart, and Amazon music. Follow us on social media at @b2bvault at B 2 B vault the number two. Thank you for listening, and have a great day, everybody. Carpe diem, seize the day!