The Impact of Blockchain on Data Security

David:

Welcome to Disarming Data. We're looking at data and privacy from the perspective of two generations.

Paige:

I'm Paige Biderman. I'm a millennial who grew up in the tech generation.

David:

I'm David Biderman, I'm the boomer. I don't know anything about tech. I usually lose my cell phone rather than use my cell phone. I'm a tech novice. In this podcast, we'll be having conversations with cyber hackers, privacy experts, and guardians of security who can explain some of this to me.

Paige:

And Dad, you forgot about whistleblowers and other people who are interesting and influential to us.

David:

And Paige, you forgot to say thank you for listening to the show.

Paige:

Thanks for listening.

David:

Welcome all to Disarming Data where we provide two generations perspectives on data, data security, human rights, civil rights, counseling and support for refugees. Today we're extraordinarily lucky to have Emma Todd here. Emma is the CEO of MMH Blockchain Group, which encompasses data systems, consulting, communications, and events for technology organizations. Emma is unbelievably accomplished. She's a board member of the Canadian Blockchain Consortium, and she's going to tell us what blockchain is since now I can never figure it out, which is Canada's largest blockchain association. She's chair of the CBC's FinTech committee, chair of the Advisory Council for Girls and Tech, past chairwoman of executive board member of Blockchain for Impact. She's worked with the United Nations, she's spoken with such luminaries among herself as Al Gore, Edward Snowden, and others at the United Nations and other venues. Welcome, Emma. Paige, you give a quick welcome, then Emma, we'll shut up and let you say hi.

Paige:

We normally just like to start by asking our guests where they grew up and how they started to get involved with what they're involved with today.

Emma:

Guys, thank you so much for having me. I have to say, I really admire your setup. It's so professional and it's so well thought out way before. You guys are making me want to... I've got to up my game. I've got to try and give you my A game today.

David:

Your A game is probably like a... We're not even close to that. Anyway.

Emma:

I'm Jamaican and my parents immigrated to Canada when I was in my teens. I lived in Ottawa, Canada. I don't if you guys know Canada, Ottawa's the capital. It's cold. It's actually, sometimes it's colder than Siberia, but it's a really great place to raise a family. It's a little under a million people. I think they just hit a million people and I guarantee you, well, I won't guarantee you, but your kids will never get in trouble. You might know where they are, but I promise you they can't get in too much trouble in Ottawa, right? It's a really great place to raise a family. And then I discovered Toronto. I came to Toronto for work and I fell in love with it, and thought I should be living here all my life. I had been in banking. And then I'd been in banking for about 15 years, and then I was a little bit bored because 15 years, you're doing the same thing over and over again, even though I'm working for different companies.

And I said to my friend, "I think I want to get into FinTech," which is financial technology. And she said, "Wat about blockchain?" I'm like, "What?" And she's like, What about Bitcoin?" And this is 2016. And I'm like, "I don't know what you're talking about. I have no idea." And so she had me come to a conference that she was having and I fell in love with it. It was amazing. It was so transformative. And I just couldn't believe that these people, some were young, some were old, but they were just like, "We think this is going to work." And what really got me taking it seriously was at this conference, the big four were there, PWC, Ernst Young, and Homeland Security was also there, and then I went, "Oh."

David:

Oh, wow. Okay.

Emma:

That was inside information that I got, but I was like, "Oh, if they're here, I should be taking this seriously." And everybody was just so smart. And it was a level of, I won't say smartness, but it was a level I hadn't really come across very often. And so I thought, I have to get involved in this. I did something I tell all my clients not to do. I left banking and started in crypto, and I was basically building the car while driving it. I made a half-assed business plan and I was like, "We're going to do this." And now I would tell people, don't do that. I have a rough thought out business plan, but enthusiasm. I was just so enthusiastic about it.

Those early days were a little rough, but at the same time they were the best, because all those people that people can't get near these days, we were all in the same boat together, just trying to make things work. And so I could ask some questions and they would be like, "Oh yeah, WhatsApp me," blah, blah, blah. Now they would never say that. And so I was able to build some really great friendships, and it was absolutely fantastic and I really do cherish those early days. It kind of set me up for what I'm doing now. I literally believe there is nothing I can't accomplish just because I got through the early days and we didn't really know what we were doing, but we were like, "Okay, we're going that way." And so just make it work. It was really, really good. And then from there, I've been doing all these different things. So that's PR probably why, David, you say that I'm fairly accomplished. I just have an idea and I just do it and I go, "I want that. Okay, I'm going there," and I just do it.

David:

So going back, what brought your parents from Jamaica to Canada? And you said you were in your teens.

Emma:

I was in my teens. My dad had traveled a lot. Jamaica is, we don't use the term third world anymore, we use a developing country. They thought that they would be afforded a better lifestyle here. It turned out that they ended up missing Jamaica so much that they actually ended up going back. We ended going back after four, five years. It was really interesting to see it from an immigrant's perspective and I still consider... I've been here for years, obviously I've actually been here longer than I've been in Jamaica. And you see your parents work hard and try to get places and do things, and it really informed the way I am now. Probably why I'm so relentless with things, I had to learn this and I only learned it about five or six years ago. There's a difference between being relentless, but you have to know when to stop. You have to know when, okay, this isn't working. Lets, instead of... I always use the analogy instead of trying to go through the door, maybe stop, take a step back and then go through the window at the side. You'll still get where you're going, it's just okay, just a different perspective and I had to learn that. Because before I was always like, "No, I'm going through the door. I'm going through the door." And then I was like, "Hang on, stop. Take a step back, look around. Perhaps there's a different perspective." That made me a lot more successful when I gained a perspective, it really did.

David:

Yeah. You mean when you say, gained perspective, you mean just looked at the big picture or didn't sweat the small stuff?

Emma:

All of that. I stopped sweating on small stuff. I'm an only child and I'm fairly intense, so I had to kind of stop and just go, "No, it's okay." And my family was like, "We don't recognize you anymore." I'm like, "It's all right. It's all good." I was a little too zen for them. Before, I would look at just the leaves on the tree, but sometimes you have to step back and look at the branches. Okay, now we're going to actually look at the actual upper half of the tree. Okay, we're going to look at the entire tree. So I learned to take in all different perspectives when making my decisions, not just the leaves.

Paige:

I was just wondering, because now you're in a industry that I feel like is full of just very innovative people and a lot of type A personalities, but it seems like people are so creative that I know that are super interested in blockchain and blockchain technology. And I was just wondering the transition from working in just plain banking to going into the industry you're in now has been like.

Emma:

I'm in a mood today besides, so I'm going to give you the tea.

Paige:

Okay.

Emma:

My family, they're very, very smart. My dad's a genius.

David:

Oh wow.

Emma:

Yeah. You don't realize when you're growing up, but your lifestyle isn't quite like everybody. And my uncle's a genius, one of his sons is a genius. I'm surrounded by them. I am definitely not a genius, but a lot of my family, they're all incredibly smart and I still go to them for advice and they give me advice that blows me away. I think everyone should have a family like mine. And then you get into the real world and you realize, oh, not everyone's like this and oh no, everyone's... I'm like, "Oh, okay." And then I went into blockchain and these guys were just like that. Maybe a little too like that. These are guys that just the fact that you were out there talking to them was a big thing, because they would prefer to be at their computer and talking to people online.

So for them to come out and talk to you told you how important it was that they really believed in what they were doing and they were just brilliant. They were brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. And I spent my time doing a lot of research on the internet trying to figure out, what's this, what's that? So I could have somewhat intelligent conversations with people. It was really interesting. And I'll touch a little bit on the race thing. So obviously I'm black, you guys can see that. But these guys, they were considered outliers, and so they were like, "We don't care that you're black. What we care about is what's in your brain. Because we want everybody to come and learn this technology, so we just want to know what you think and how you can help us." And I was just like, "Oh wow."

It was really interesting because Toronto, I think Canada only has 28 million people and the hub for blockchain was Toronto. And I would go to these meetups and it was 500 people in the room, I have some pictures somewhere, and 495 men and five women. It was [inaudible 00:10:46], but we ruled the roost because the guys would be, "These women know what they're talking about." It was amazing. And then I got to be well known. And then these guys, they would say, "Hey, we want someone to speak," and the guys would recommend to me. They would be like, "Hey, what about Emma?" And then from there, and I'll never forget, I would get these emails. I think my favorite was the one from New York. "Hi Emma, we're having a conference in New York, we'd like you to come and moderate because all your friends are speaking." And I'm like, "I don't know who you are. How do you know who my friends are?" And then I pulled up the lineup and I was like, "Yep, that's right. They're all my friends."

David:

Wow.

Emma:

Yeah. And then from there they would say, I got invitations to speak in Europe and from there, the Middle East. And it's just friends that I had, friends that I met along the way and we were all in the same boat trying to figure out what blockchain is, knowing that we don't quite fully understand it, but we think that it's going to be transformative, it's going to help various industries along the way. And it was just really interesting for me because as you grow up, and Paige, you can probably relate to this. David, I'm talking to you as if you already know all the answers.

David:

I don't know any answers.

Emma:

As you get older, we realize that. But when you're growing up, Paige, you think, oh, everybody older than you knows everything and they will know all the answers. Then we become adults and we're like, "Oh my god, they don't know. They're just wing it like everybody else." And that's what we were doing. We're still winging it. We're doing the best that we can. We just have a little bit more knowledge now, but we're still winging it and trying to figure out how best to have this industry survive and work well with government and with banks and with regulators. And we're still figuring it out and we're making some mistakes as we go along. But then sometimes I feel like we're getting hammered just because. It's really interesting and I'm definitely not bored, that's one thing I was in banking. I'm not bored anymore.

David:

Talk about not knowing anything. Can you explain to somebody of my age, my vintage and not genius level IQ either, what blockchain is?

Emma:

I'll start by saying, so here's an interesting thing. It's an advanced database. So we've all used databases, or maybe not, but database is a record of transactions and it allows for it to be transparent and you can share it with a network. So what makes it really interesting is that the reason they call it blockchain is, the records of the transactions are stored in blocks. And then when a block is completed, then they do another block and it becomes a blockchain, a chain of blocks. So that's why they call it that.

Now, what everyone likes about blockchain is that it was used to create Bitcoin and when people were trying to figure out what Bitcoin was, they were like, "Oh, it's this new way of doing things, it's a blocked... What kind of technology is this? Oh, it's blockchain technology, let's look into this." And they realized that while it was being used for Bitcoin, it could be used for other things. It's really good for privacy and it's really good for security. Why? It's good for security because you can actually see what's happening. So if I say that this happened and it was stamped on the blockchain at 2:56, blah, blah, blah, you can't go back and change it if it's a public blockchain because everybody can see what you're doing. And remember that, because I'm going to touch back on that in a second. So it's really, really good that way, because you can actually see, so it's really good for security, so security loves it.

It's also really good for food chains. They can use that to track things. There's a very famous one, I think it's famous, used case with Walmart. Walmart before, I think they're actually the biggest grocery store in North America, but people don't think of them as grocery stores. But they were trying to track mangoes and they took them a week to track mangoes. Someone who came, put the mango on the gentleman's desk and said, "Where did this come from?" It took them a week.

Paige:

Wow.

Emma:

To track the mango. And then after they implemented blockchain using Hyperledger, which is a form of blockchain, it took them 4.5 seconds.

Paige:

Oh wow.

Emma:

So it's really, really good for certain things. Now, the thing with it is if you are in technology and you're using databases, this is where blockchain can help, but it's not for everybody. Sometimes you just need a regular database. Sometimes the Microsoft database that you used back in the day, that can still help you now, because the thing about blockchain technology is that it's a little on the expensive side, so it really has to be worth your while, so that's very, very important. I'm giving you a very high level value of it, so basically, you use it to store transactions, it's stored on a blockchain, on a group of blocks, a group of blocks make a blockchain. There you go.

David:

And is it expensive because the computer power that's necessary to maintain it?

Emma:

That's right. Well, for various things, but yeah, it can be price prohibitive depending on what you need it for. Do you understand a little bit more?

David:

I think so, yeah.

Emma:

Okay. I'll try it again with you. Basically, if you want to store any transactions, normally you want to start them on a database. So say you have a clothing store and you want to store how many shirts and jeans you have, you want to put it in a database so that you can easily access it. You wouldn't put it on an Excel sheet or in a Word document. You want to store it in a database. Now, you can use a regular database, but if you have something really crazy in out of this world, you could potentially use blockchain to do that. Now, I wouldn't advise it for clothing, because it's fairly simple and innocuous, you can just use a regular database. But if you have something that's a little bit more challenging than that, say mangoes from Walmart, [inaudible 00:16:52] then you can store it and then you can actually see where everything is. It tells you that really, really easily.

Now, here's a really good example of where blockchain can be used and I gave you the Walmart example. Do you guys remember, and I'm talking about food here, do you remember a few years ago they were like, "Don't eat salads because there was an outbreak," I think it was a Listeria outbreak and it was in California. And so they said, "We can't tell where it's coming from. We're just telling everybody any salad bags that you have that come from California, throw them out."

Paige:

I remember that.

Emma:

You guys remember that?

Paige:

I do.

Emma:

Yeah, right. If they'd been using blockchain technology, it would've narrowed down what area it came from in California, it would've narrowed down the farm and it could've narrowed down exactly what batch. So that's sort of helps, it really does help farmers and other industries with narrowing down exactly what it is that they're looking for.

Paige:

Do you find that it's still hard to sell people on blockchain because it is so new and different? And what are the points that you use as the major selling point of blockchain?

Emma:

Mangoes is my best friend. Mangoes are, I use it for..., I like to talk about the salad example I gave you, and then just other things come up that I tend to use. But I will tell everybody, it's not for everyone. It really, really isn't. So everyone gets sidetracked by the nice flashy thing, the nice flashy name, blockchain, it's good. We all know that today, what's the new flashy word? ChatGPT, right?

David:

Oh, that is.

Emma:

Right, every few years there's something. So a lot of companies are under pressure to, how are you incorporating this new flashy thing? And they're like, "Well, we're doing this and we're doing this." Sometimes you have to say, "Listen, this is just not for us. We have done our research and it's just not for us." Blockchain to me is inherently a public thing. It's public so that you can go on and check the transactions, if you have the know-how or you can ask someone like me to do it for you just to make sure everything's okay. But you also have private blockchains that banks use or where they don't want you to see everything they're doing, so it is under lock and key. And that is absolutely fine. I don't like it, but I understand the reasoning for it. The really good thing about blockchain is that it can be changed depending on the industry that you need and depending on what you need. And so I really like the fact that we don't know everything that it is capable of doing yet, I just know the possibilities are endless and I love that.

Paige:

That's really awesome. It's interesting because I feel like I know two people or two kinds of people that are very interested in blockchain. There's number one, the people that want to make a lot of money on Bitcoin or whatever it might be. And then there's the people that see it as this transformative, innovative future driven technology. And I was wondering how do you think the conversation can be driven more towards the second type of person as opposed to the first? Because I feel like especially with us, our younger generation, it's a lot of kids that are like, "I want to make quick money on Bitcoin or I want to make quick money on these smaller blockchains," if that makes sense.

Emma:

It does. It really does. So I'll tell them that everybody I know who's made money on crypto, have been in the latter category. You want to know why? Because they're more patient. They're more patient. If you are chasing the money, listen, you're going to be like, "I haven't seen it yet, I'm out." So making the money requires forethought and it requires an absolute just belief in what you're doing. It also does require some studying to see what it is, what's the better crypto or whatever to look at or to use. But I tell people all the time, don't chase the money. If you're chasing the money, you're going to end up losing more in my opinion. I know very few people who've chased the money and actually made it work. Very, very, very few, very few. But it really is a matter of if you love what you, you're here through thick and thin.

I'll also give that the example of we are currently in a crypto winter, but I was here from 2016 and you should have seen me. I was so bright eyed and bushy tail, I miss myself, I was awesome and I had no idea it was coming down. And Bitcoin was at $400 and all my family was just like, "What are you doing? What is this technology, this Bitcoin, this blockchain?" I was like, "Guys, it doesn't matter. I love the people and I love the technology, and I'll be happy." And they were like, "Can you pay your bills?" If I can pay my bills, but I'll be happy. And they're like, "Listen, you're an adult. You don't need to be happy to pay your bills." I was just like, "No, I can do that."

But we were all just in the trenches together and I think I got here late, but everybody else is like, "No, $400 this early." I have friends that got in at $10 and they're still there, but they were there through the highs and lows. When I got in at $400, when it got to $500, I'm like, "Oh my god, I've made it." We were popping... We were like, "Woohoo." And then when it got to $19,000, everybody else jumped in. They were like, "We want to make a quick buck." And then it went down, and then what happens is, if you're here to make a quick buck, if you get in a $19,000 or $20,000 and it goes down, are you going to stick around? Probably not. You might give it a couple months, but you're going to exit, right? And then everyone exited, and then it went up and it went to $60,000, right? But they're not going to have the presence of mind to stick around for two or three years. They're going to be like, "I can't do this," because they don't believe in it, they just want to make a quick buck.

So unless you have the foresight to say, "I can take some money, I'm not going to lose it." Because I always say, "Only invest money that you can afford to lose." Park it, just park it. Play the long game. But if you want to make a quick buck, quick buck and long game do not go hand in hand, so that's the story. And it went to $60,000 and everybody was like, "Woohoo," guess what? If you got in at $59,000, it went right back down. It went right back down to %18,000, and then they're like, "Oh my god." So now it's currently I think at $24,000, I think it's going to go back down, but I don't know. But people right now, they're just like, "It's a rollercoaster." Yeah, it's still speculative. We're trying to change the world, we can't do it quickly. Trying to figure things out. For people who really want to make a quick buck, no. I found the person who I know who makes... I don't mind telling his secret, he's just a guy I know. He sits down and he studies what is new and he gets in right away. So before, he was doing cannabis, and then he got into blockchain, and then the pandemic hit and he got right away into protective wear.

David:

Oh wow. Okay.

Emma:

Yeah, he got right away into protective wear. And then from there, also during COVID-19 tests and things like that. And he had the funds and just chances to change quickly. And because he'd gotten in at that time and is still sort of ongoing, he was able to get contracts. And I think he's doing well, I'm not sure. I'm not a huge fan of that, because I'm a big believer in if love what you do and you believe in it, stick with it. But he's there to make the money.

Paige:

That's interesting.

Emma:

So you have to study the trends and say, "This is happening, I'm going to get in now." That's how you make a quick buck. But if you get in when everybody else is talking about it, it's too late.

David:

All right, is there a finite amount of Bitcoin or are people still... Because you hear about people mining Bitcoin, so you say, "Well, it's not finite. How do you value it?"

Emma:

It is finite.

David:

Oh, is it finite?

Emma:

It's finite, yeah. $21 million. I think we're at $19.5 right now.

David:

Okay.

Emma:

Yeah, we're at $19.5. And then I know the question is what do you do with the equipment afterwards? We have a little bit of ways to go, but there are other things that you can mine besides Bitcoin, so you can mine other coins.

Paige:

Yeah, I heard that's why every... I am so... I barely know anything, but I heard a lot of people talking about Ethereum because of the way it was mined differently, essentially.

Emma:

Yeah. They're using proof of stake instead of proof of work. I'm not going to get into that one because I think it takes a lot. But basically, they're using a way that uses a little bit less computing power. The challenge that I have with proof of stake, you have to weigh what is more important to you. For me, it's less security.

Paige:

Oh, okay.

Emma:

If there are enough people that get together that own 50%, 51% of the coins, they can actually override the system, so that's a bit problematic for me. But you have to weigh in what you like and what you can live with versus what you can't. So if people like proof of stake, I'm not going to knock them on it. It has its uses and I do think that time will tell, time will tell whether it was a good idea or not. Yeah, that's all I'm going to say about that. I'm like, "Should I say this?" No, let's not do that.

David:

So you have Bitcoin, if you one does.

Emma:

I do.

David:

Okay. And then you can either hold it, you can trade it, I guess on Coinbase you can sell it or some other exchange or you can buy things with it, right? And that's what I want to hear about it a little bit, is what can you buy with Bitcoin that you can't maybe buy with something else?

Emma:

Okay. I don't know. No, the goal is to be able to use Bitcoin to buy anything and everything else that's out there. You can buy coffee, you can use using it...

David:

Oh, come on.

Emma:

Yeah, you can get coffee. You can get coffee at certain coffee shops. Certain companies will allow you to buy plane tickets and things like that. I've heard of this, but I've never actually used it myself. A place where you can, they will take your Bitcoin and then give you cash that you can pay your credit card bill. So they'll say that if you have an Amex or something like that, "Give us the Bitcoin, we will then change it into cash and we'll pay your credit card bill for you." So you're really everything you use, you're using your crypto for.

Paige:

I know a vet that just started accepting Bitcoin.

Emma:

A bank?

Paige:

No, a veterinarian.

Emma:

Oh really? He's playing the long game. He's playing the long game because, I was just talking about that last night, I am a big believer actually in holding or HODLing. I'll tell you why. In 2015 when I think Bitcoin, it was last maybe $10, $30, $40, $50, my friend used a lot of Bitcoin to buy an iPad. So let's just call it 50 Bitcoin. You spent 50 Bitcoin in 2015 to buy an iPad, right?

David:

Wow.

Emma:

50 Bitcoin today is not [inaudible 00:28:41] you spent what? So let me just put it out here, I must got my little handy dandy calculator, 50 bitcoin at $24,000, that's $1.2 million.

David:

That's a hell of an iPad.

Emma:

And it broke two weeks later. You spent $1.2 million to buy an iPad. No, keep your money, HODL. Keep your crypto, HODL it. If you have to use it, go ahead and use it, but just know that you don't want to be the person with this story.

Paige:

That's crazy.

Emma:

But at the same time, people need to use it, right? So I can't really fight that, but it's just the, oh. But once again, if you're not driven by money, you're just driven by, I really like this, and there are people out there that are driven by that. In general terms, I've heard of people who they have money, but they're really just sort of living a really simple life and they're taking public transit still and they're just happy, because they're all about the utility. They're all about how can we make this work for us? They're not driven by money and they're just living their best life, and it's really interesting to see. And I love going on Twitter and reading the stories.

I remember, I'll tell this story because it still gets me a little choked up. I forget what the crypto was, but this guy came on, I was reading it early, and he was in from North America and he is like, "I bought this coin at 00000,2 cents and now it's at $2. I'm pay off my house and take my wife on a cruise that she's always wanting to go. I'm good, I'm out." And I was like, "That's so sweet." Literally, all he wanted to do was pay his house and take his wife on a cruise, that gets me. And everybody was like, "Oh man, congratulations. You must be so happy." And everybody was just so thrilled for him and that's what I like seeing with crypto. I think they've said it's generated a lot more wealthy people as a result, so it sort of made things possible for a lot of people, and I love that. The thing that can give the working person a foot up, I'm all in favor of. Now, I understand why they have government regulations, because not everybody is smart or understands things and you have to protect them against scammers, but it's really nice when you hear these stories. It really is, it's just so good.

Paige:

I was wondering if you knew more about, so I have heard, and I don't know a ton about it, but about basically countries, like Lebanon, their currency sort of collapsed, and a lot of people in the country had turned to Bitcoin and other kind of crypto technologies in order to help them. And I was wondering if you knew anything about those sorts of stories.

Emma:

Venezuela's a really good example. It's a little bit heartbreaking when you hear the stories. Their currency was being devalued so astronomically quickly that they would get paid today, and then by 6:00 PM tonight it would be worth a lot less. And so some people were just so annoyed that they were using the currency as toilet paper, they were that annoyed. So they were able to... Yeah, I know. You're like, "oh my god, you must be really pissed off that you're doing that." But then what we found what they were doing is taking their pay, they were memorizing... Now, have you guys ever held any crypto or anything like that? You have a long key to memorize. It's long, it's quite a lot of digits. And they were memorizing that, and then they were crossing the border, because it was illegal to have it. They're crossing the border, going to their neighbor in Columbia, changing their pay into crypto, and then storing it that way. So it didn't then matter if it devalued, because they were changing it into another currency. It's equivalent of changing your funds into US dollars or whatever because you really want to make sure that it's somewhat stable. And just the fact that they're memorizing that number so they can do this, is absolutely jaw dropping to me. And then obviously we have El Salvador.

But my unpopular opinion that I can say because I don't care, is once we get crypto figured out, the IMF is in trouble.

Paige:

Really?

Emma:

Yeah, and I'll tell you why. We'll just use me as an example in Jamaica, because Jamaica's never going to do it. But Jamaica, a lot of developing countries, I'm really trying hard not to use the word name third world anymore. A lot of developing countries, they get long term IMF from the International Monetary Fund and that they have to pay it back with interest, and they also have to agree to certain things from the IMF in order to get the money. But we know that they're never going to be able to pay the money off. The idea is that they just end up paying a loan and this money is what they get from first world countries, I'll use that one. They get the money to give to the IMF and the IMF loans it out. What we're finding, and I'll just give you a good example here, say instead of you taking money from the IMF, you take that interest payment that you would've gotten and you convert it into crypto. Say you did that in 2016 when crypto was at $400 and it's now at $20 something, every single loan that you had on the IMF, you can now pay off. What have you done? You just made the IMF irrelevant.

Paige:

Right. That's interesting.

Emma:

Very interesting. They're fighting tooth and nail to prevent that. A lot of banks, a lot of agent government agencies are fighting tooth and nail because of a couple reasons. And I understand where they're coming from, but there has to be a way around it. If you're not using the government's currency, how can they control what you're doing? How can they tax you? How can they do this? How can they do do that? So they always need to know what you're doing with their funds and if you're not using their funds, we've got problems. So they're really trying to... In my world, in my words and my words alone, stifle this and they're doing certain things to make it a little bit more difficult.

Paige:

Is Canada doing that as well?

Emma:

Yes.

Paige:

Okay.

Emma:

It's one of those things and you learn this when you're younger, listen to what people say, not what... Look at what they do, not what they say. So they'll be like, "No, we really aren't stifling innovation. We really want to work hard to make sure that we're helping everybody along." But then they're like, "No." A really good example is banks. Banks won't give bank accounts to companies that are in crypto or they make it very, very difficult to do that. And this could be simply fixed by having a law where every single business account should be able to have a bank account, but we don't have that. Banks can go around and they can shut them down for no reason. They don't have to give a reason. Sometimes people have a personal account, banks have to give you a bank account, they can't stop you. But for a business account, they can do whatever they want.

Paige:

And so people that are starting crypto businesses a lot of the time, are they just turning to private investors, essentially?

Emma:

Or they're using US accounts.

Paige:

So is the US still much more crypto friendly at this point?

Emma:

It is. You do have some banks like Luminus Financial, the smaller banks or ATB, Alberta Treasury Bank I think it is, that will bank crypto, but they charge you an arm and a leg. So you may pay $12 or $20 in fees for a regular bank, but for these, they're going to charge you thousands of dollars.

David:

Holy smokes.

Emma:

Thousands.

David:

Wow.

Emma:

I'm telling you, if we knew then what we knew now, banking, start a bank.

David:

Do conventional banks now have a way to store Bitcoin? For example, I've got Coinbase, but if I was to take my, whatever, I've got Ethereum, based on Paige's recommendation.

Emma:

[inaudible 00:37:24].

David:

Okay. I in it for the long term too, I'll tell you. I have to be in it for the long term. But so I've got the Ethereum at Coinbase. Suppose I just say, "Hey, listen, I want to put it in Morgan Stanley bank account." Can I do that?

Emma:

I love that you said that. And here's how banks think, and this is, I'm going to talk about more US banks because they're more open about this. So banks, I didn't really want to like crypto, but you have your high net worth clients that are like, "What's this thing?" My daughter or my son, my grandson keeps telling me about it, I think I should invest. And these banks don't want to lose their high net worth clients.

Paige:

Oh.

Emma:

So what they do is if, and only if they're approached by a high net worth client, they offer them the ability to buy crypto and store it. They will not tell you that they have the ability, and Morgan Stanley is one of them. Chase does it, Morgan Stanley, BNY Mellon, a couple other small companies like VAST Bank. Actually VAST is a little bit more open about it, but they will buy it, they will store it for you. They have an agreement with Coinbase, but they will not mention it to you, you have to mention it to them first.

Paige:

Really? That's so interesting.

Emma:

And you have to be a high net worth client, because I think they said I think $2 million or something like that in deposits.

David:

So would the idea be at the end of the day that you can do transactions with Bitcoin just as you could with dollars or Canadian dollars, US dollars, et cetera? And then my question is then shouldn't the value of Bitcoin then at some point stabilize or is it going to continue to go up? What do you think?

Emma:

Oh. Okay, that's a good question. And I haven't quite worked through the metrics yet. I meant to talk to somebody about it and I did not, and now I'm regretting that, because Tim Draper, I don't know if you guys know who he is.

David:

Yeah, sure.

Emma:

He's brilliant and I was at a conference with him a couple weeks ago. The man is... I aspire to the level of Tim Draper. I aspire be to at that level of... He's just living his best life, he really is. This is what happens when you're a billionaire. Anyway, the man is living his best life. And I love how he gives his answers and he's just like, "Here you go." But he can defend them and he's very cognizant of everything, and he's very smart about it.

That's a question that I have, theoretically speaking, you would think that things are going to stabilize, but the question then becomes, as you approach the 21 million Bitcoin, near the end, more people are going to want Bitcoin so they can stabilize, it becomes a store of value. But should it, will it? Will something else replace it? What's going to happen? And I'm not sure about that answer. I do know that when we were at 60 million Bitcoins, crypto or Bitcoin was more of a... They're using it more for trading. And now as it approaches a 21 million, is now more of a store of value. I'm just going to, like I said, buy it and just keep it. But in the early days, I used to get paid in crypto, and then I would change it out. That was in the early days, before I... But I don't do that anymore, [inaudible 00:40:54] anymore. It's all cash all the time or we'll figure something out.

Paige:

Do you think there is concern as more people, I guess, millennials are coming up more and Gen Z especially? Because one of the complaints I hear is cash is dying and cash is king, and do you think that just out of curiosity, blockchain might be stopping that a little bit or no? Because I feel like less cash is less and less used. And in my opinion, I don't know about how traceable Bitcoin... I know it's not super traceable, but I've always felt like cash is the least traceable piece of currency in a way.

Emma:

It totally is. It really is the least traceable. So when people talk about, and this is my pet peeve, crypto and that it's used by youth for nefarious purposes. I'm like, "People are stupid." Everybody knows cash is really untraceable. 4% of transactions, 2% to 4% are used like crypto, those are the ones that... But the rest are, it's cash. Cash is king for that reason. What I have found is that, this is really interesting, they're trying to make... Oh, this is a very unpopular opinion, but I know I'm right.

The government and the banks, more of the government, is trying to get you to not use cash as much. Why? Because they can check what you're doing. It makes sense. When they give cash, you're like, do, do, do, no one can see it. But when you do transactions, you're just doing your card, they can see what you're doing. They can more accurately say, "You owe Uncle Sam this because we look at your transactions and here you go." And it never occurred to me until... And this was a very out of order comment, but it made me laugh, I think it was years ago, the US government was really upset with Switzerland because they still had a 1,000 Swiss franc note and they thought that you shouldn't have anything. I think they've changed it since then. Is was either a 1,000 or 10,000 note. And they were like, "You don't need this, so you should stop everybody from spending over 500. The largest note you should should be 500 francs". And I forget who the head of the monetary fund in Switzerland was, but this guy had that comment that my jaw dropped. He was like, "Listen, sometimes you want to spend money and you just want to be able to spend money on dinner or this or your mistress."

David:

That was the justification for the 10,000 franc note?

Emma:

Yeah. I was like, "Did he just say that?" Oh my gosh. I remember reading it and I was something, and I spit all over. And that's when I realized they want to track what you do. Because before that I also said, "Why not? I use my card everywhere." And then you're like, "Oh," they can literally track what you do. Now, I don't really care because I'm like, "Have at it." But now, whenever I go somewhere, literally, I have cash with me because it's just a smart thing to do.

Something happened here the other day. Oh my god, one of the banks in Canada, this happened in September, October, oh dear god, one of our internet providers went down. So Canada has three major internet providers, you all have so many. We have the really big one in Toronto is Rogers.

David:

Oh, sure.

Emma:

It went down.

David:

Oh, no kidding.

Emma:

Holy crap, it went down. It went down for 24 hours.

Paige:

Whoa.

Emma:

That's when we discovered who was using it. Oh my god, the government was all using it. Some of the banks were using it. Guess what they couldn't do? They couldn't accept crypto, so they couldn't accept cash. Sorry, you couldn't use your tap, so everyone was taking cash. Everyone was like, "We've got to go to the bank machine." But guess what? The bank machines weren't working, because sometimes you need internet and nothing was computing. So it was a shit show, it was brutal. So now I always keep some cash on me, always, because you never know. I thought it was a great day because I couldn't work. I tried to send an email at 7:00 AM and I was like, "It's not going through," and I thought I'd been hacked.

David:

Oh, that's amazing.

Emma:

Yeah, it was bad. It was really, really bad. And that's when we literally discovered who Rogers had contracts with, because they were like, "We can't work." The Canadian government couldn't work. I think our version of the RCMP, they couldn't do anything. We were just like... It was amazing. It was just like all your secrets are out there, we know everything. But that's why whenever I travel, I have US dollars. I was just in Dubai, I still have it. You never know. I have Canadian money with me too all the time. I've become my parents. I always have cash, you never know. No, I have my card, it's okay.

Paige:

Dad, you usually have cash on you pretty much always.

David:

Well, you have to because we stay at hotels and a lot of people, they help you with your bags and you have to give them cash.

Emma:

You have to tip, yeah.

David:

Yeah, you should. Then the bartender, [inaudible 00:46:28] the barber that I go to. I got a bunch, but a lot of them, they'll say, "You can put the cost to the haircut on the credit card, but tip me in cash." Because I think, well, particularly in California our taxes are outrageous, so I think they just assume get the cash and keep it.

Emma:

I never really believed in carrying cash. Listen, I'm a cute purse. It's just too much, right? But now, because I'm in different hotels, you have to tip people. I feel bad when I can't, so I now keep a little bit of cash with me. I literally keep enough just to tip. I have fives. I have $20 in fives.

David:

Yeah. That's where I am too.

Emma:

Yeah, that's it. But really I've turned into my parents. I keep cash now.

Paige:

I have heard of countries like China that are just making it so their citizens do not use cash, essentially.

Emma:

Yeah. Oh god, china's an extreme example, but oh my god, they're brutal. I can't even get into China. So one of the reasons why China banned crypto is because they want to have their own version of crypto, which they do have it, they've implemented it. But the Chinese government, they actually track what their citizens are doing with it. They have a star rating, so if you have... The better your rating is, the more things you have available for you that you can use. I'm using examples here, if you've been in prison, you've done this, you've got a lower rating than someone who's never been in prison and all that stuff, so then they have more things available to them that they can do or that they can access. And to me, that's absolutely shocking. But just the fact that the government can then see how you're using your money and where you're using it, I don't like that.

I never used to care that much about privacy and I find myself, as I get older, I care about it a lot more just because I don't think that the government should be looking at what you're doing or be judging and making decisions on what they see, on what you're doing. And I like Canada for that because we've got fairly strict privacy laws, and I'll give you an example of that. Everyone for the past two, three months has been screaming about Netflix and how if someone else has a password everywhere, they're going to have stop them. They couldn't do it in Canada. Because I was like, "I guess it's going to happen to me," and what's going to happen, because a lot of Canadians like me, I'm a snowbird, so I have my Netflix here and I have my Netflix in Jamaica. What you going to do? And we have cottages and things like that. But Canadian law for forbid them from looking at that information that's separated and charging you that way.

Paige:

Oh wow.

David:

Oh wow.

Emma:

Let's hear it for our government.

David:

Yeah, there you go.

Emma:

I really do believe in privacy and your right to do whatever you want without judgment from the government. I think people are going to be a little bit worried about it later, because people are choosing convenience these days over privacy. A really scary example, and I'm bad at it and I don't mind saying that, the majority of people I know have an Apple phone. And how do you turn your phone on? You just look at it, right? Apple has your biometric data. Now, right now they're saying, all they're going to do... They're not using it for anything and they're not giving it to the government. But theoretically speaking, that data is out there and you never knew what could happen. So I have a person that does operational security and one of the things that he's really bullish on, not bullish, very adamant about is that nobody should use that. No one should be using your... Go old school, put in your password. He goes, "Don't use facial recognition." And you're like, "But it's so convenient." He's like, "Yeah, convenience is everyone's giving up a little bit of their privacy for that." And I'm like, "Okay." And then one day, it just keeps escalating, right?

Paige:

Yeah. And I think because I grew up on Instagram and Facebook and all these kind of platforms, they've just been around since I was basically in middle school. And so I think a lot of my friends and I, it's funny to us almost how, oh, we're just talking about this thing and then we go on Instagram, and suddenly we have all these ads that are just catered. I'm talking about going to Disneyland or something, and then all of a sudden it's boom, Disneyland, it's Disney that, Disney, Disney. And I'm like, "How does it know?"

Emma:

Oh, it knows.

Paige:

It knows everything. But I think we're so comfortable with it, with something that should be completely uncomfortable almost.

Emma:

It's funny too, because I was at a round table last year with all the major banks in Canada. That was jaw dropping for me. That's when I knew, okay, I think I'm doing all right, because it was all the heads of the major banks and financial companies were all in and I was there for the Rebel crypto. We were all in a room and someone said, "Here's what my daughter says to me," and it was jaw dropping. I was like, "It makes absolute sense." She's like, "Why are you guys so upset when there's a company that is targeting you and giving you those ads?" It's like Disney World. She's like, "It's helping me make my decision. I'm okay with that." Right?

Paige:

Yeah, it's true.

Emma:

She like, "Listen, I can go up there and I can do the research, but here it is, it just comes to me and helps me make a better decision. I'm okay with that." So she's okay with giving up some of her privacy to help make her life easier. We're horrified by it, but she's like, "Eh, it's okay."

Paige:

And I'm assuming companies are as well, because you'll be like, "Oh, I need to buy a pair of sneakers," and so you'll Google sneakers. But then all of a sudden, Instagram or TikTok, it's like, "Oh, look at these new sneaker brands. Look at these new sneaker brands. Look at these ones."

Emma:

[inaudible 00:52:53] sneakers, right?

Paige:

And then you find yourself, you're like, "I don't want to, but I have to click on it. I have to know what the new sneakers are about."

Emma:

And my operation security person is like... Because when it first came out, I was like, "Is it really bad?" He's like, "I don't know, Emma, let me get back to you because I have it." He got back to me four hours later and he's like, "Emma, first I was going to say no, and then I really looked into it. There's some serious problems here. There are enough problems here that I'm actually going to get rid of it on my phone."

Paige:

Really? Because of it being run by a Chinese company?

Emma:

This is going to get me in trouble, but I'm not really pressed about the data from China because I'm like, "Someone's going to own their data anyway. Is it going to be China? Is it going to be the US? Is it going to be Canada? Is it going to be Great Britain? Someone's going to get it." But it's the way, what was intimated was that, that app on your phone is then going out and going into everything else in your phone, and taking out your data.

David:

On your phone?

Emma:

Yeah, right? Exactly. So I'm like, "What's my option here?" I think my option's going to have to be, I wipe a phone completely clean, because I have the backup phones, and then just put TikTok just on that phone.

David:

One phone, yeah.

Paige:

It is that addicting.

Emma:

One phone just for TikTok.

Paige:

The Reels are so hard, they just go and you just can't stop going through them.

Emma:

Yeah, I love it. I try to spend only an hour on it, but I literally get my news, it makes me laugh. If I'm in a bad mood, I'll watch five minutes of TikTok before a meeting and it'll put me in a good mood again, because you laugh. What am I watching, you ask? Dog videos. There's one with two little mini cows, Poppy and Petunia. What is wrong with me? Alex Earl. I'm watching, get ready with me. What is wrong with me? Makeup.

Paige:

It is fascinating though, because last night I was at the movies and one of the actors in the movie, the only thing he was known for before being in this movie was making these joke TikTok reels about being an Ikea employee. And all of a sudden, he's in this Elizabeth Banks directed film, so it's just interesting because it's kind of the way everything's sort of headed in a way.

Emma:

He really is.

David:

Well, one of my partners, his son is on a TV series. He started out on TikTok and they discovered him, and they signed him on a TV series.

Emma:

What I like about TikTok is it's a really great community. The community is fantastic. It's a very well documented one actually. Oh, I'm going to Vegas in a few weeks, I'm going to go to the store. There's this guy, he does food reviews in Vegas and he did a food review for this company. This guy was just, he couldn't pay his bills, but he didn't know who this guy was. He was just starting out and he was just sitting there talking to him, and he gave him some free food and he gave him some this and that. And the food was excellent, and it got something like 22 million views. And now people just lined up to go to his restaurant and he's, tears of joy, he's able to pay his... In fact, his employee, it was his employee who said to this guy, "Can you come and give us a review? My boss is so nice, but here's the problems that we're having." And so wherever he goes and he reviews, people are now going to go check it out and it's a really good community. And people will say things like, "Oh, this happened to me." And the community will be like, "Oh my gosh, do you need money? We'll send you money. What's your Venmo?" Or, "Okay, sis, we're coming to get you. We all write a dawn." It's a really [inaudible 00:56:45] community.

Paige:

One more question. Have people become even more hesitant about blockchain since the... because one of the most public stories would be the FTX thing, and so have you found that people have started to close up even more? And what would you say to those people?

Emma:

Not blockchain, because blockchain's technology, so people are so overall more bullish on blockchain. On crypto, definitely, they're closing a little bit more doors, it's a lot harder. I don't know what necessarily I could really say. You have various things that have gone wrong with cash and with banking, but we don't see the same problems. We just have to keep working on it. And when I say, we don't see the same problems, I mean, you have a problem with Enron. Obviously, you've got Bernie Madoff, right? You've got all these other different things that have happened, and they've just sort of focused on the company and the person, but not the industry overall. Or sorry, but not the instrument that was used. They haven't focused on the cash. And what we're seeing here is that they're focusing on the person and the instrument that was used, which is crypto. All we can do is work through it and fight through it. But what I have learned is if people don't like you, they don't like you, right? They're just going to use whatever they can to discredit you and that's what we're seeing right now.

David:

Yeah, it is. Well, we always close out with a question. Well, a couple questions. During COVID and the lockdown, what helped you get through? A book, videos, series? How'd you get through?

Emma:

Oh my gosh. Oh, I am that person, you're going to be so disappointed with me. What got me through COVID was my work. My company, I had to retool my company during COVID, because it was primarily an events company. And guess what you couldn't do during COVID? You couldn't have events, and so I had to retool my company and change it's focus. I'm a bit of a workaholic, so if I'm sad, I work because then I'll be happier and I'll make more money. If I'm happy, I'll still work because it's a great feeling and I'll make more money. And I have interactions with people. Literally, if I'm happy, sad, in between, but in between I'll work because it'll make me happy because I interact with my friends. Literally, I work all the time, it makes me so happy. So what I did during COVID was I worked a lot. I discovered Gordon Ramsey.

Paige:

Oh, he's [inaudible 00:59:29], he's angry.

Emma:

Oh my god. I was like, "Such a nice guy. He's so calm and so cool and collected." And everybody's like, "Are you talking about the same Gordon Ramsey that we..."

David:

I know, I was going to say.

Emma:

"What do you mean, he has these really great videos on YouTube and he's teaching me all these stuff." I can cook now because of Gordon Ramsey. And they were like, "You need to go back a few years." And I was like, "What do you mean?" I went back to the early 2000s, he had a potty mouth on him.

Paige:

He was an angry guy.

Emma:

He was making them crying. I was like, "This is not the guy now." Because in COVID he was lovely. And I did a lot of walks. I live by the water, so a lot of walks by the water, it was really good. Every day. Every day I did an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, because I was worried about my mental health. And so you've got to get out there.

David:

That's a lesson to close on, Emma, it's really been fantastic talking to you. I don't think I still understand blockchain, but I'm getting closer.

Emma:

I'll send you a bit a blurb.

David:

Would you?

Emma:

Yeah, I will.

David:

Oh good, and we'll post it. When we post the video, we'll post some links, so that'll be great.

Paige:

Yeah, thank you so much for coming on. We really appreciate your time.

Emma:

No problem. Thank you guys for having me. This was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed it.

Paige:

Thank you for listening to Disarming Data and thank you to Eric Montgomery for producing this podcast. To support the podcast, please rate, review and follow on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen. If you'd like to learn more about the current state of data security, head on over to our website, disarmingdata.com.