Joel Comm and Travis Wright on Virtual Blockchain Week

0:20we're bad yeah yeah well you guys are bad but you're doing it in a good way you know your show has grown so much I first came on the show in one of the early episodes almost three years ago so time is flying you know could you guys give a little history to the viewers of what's been going on in the past few years since you started growing this thing bitcoins gone up bitcoins gone

0:44down we were happy for a while and then we were sad and now we're hopeful we've been at it since July 2017 so we're coming up on three years here in July and it's been a great journey Travis and I have had the opportunity to travel all over the place speak at events moderate panels do our show on stage and interview some of the greatest thinkers in the blockchain

1:10and crypto world yeah three years in the crypto world that's like a lifetime we're the Grandpa's of crypto now get off my lawn yeah you guys have definitely made a dent in the industry and as you said Joel speaking on stage live doing the live podcast which is super exciting I've seen it you know a few different times at the world crypto con for the past few years as well as

1:34one of my most memorable bad crypto podcast live events but I'm sure that because of this lockdown you know your shows and events have been affected a little bit how you guys had to make some pivots from no more live on stage of NSA yeah that part kind of sucks you know we were looking forward to going to San Francisco for Bitcoin 2020 and then to New York for consensus travis was gonna

1:57go to Hong Kong for an event I was supposed to go to Dubai for another and those have gotten cancelled but you know we're we're looking at the situation and realized that the blockchain community is still incredibly vibrant and all the speakers that had talks that they were preparing still need a venue to deliver those talks so why not go virtual with this whole thing yeah and

2:20one of the things that we did Ashton was you know we were thinking about it we were having a conversation we both sort of came and came on to the idea at the same time and we had a conversation where we've both been thinking about like why don't we just do one of these conferences that could we could do a virtual conference because I mean all these other events aren't happening

2:37and then we decided let's do it let's not just do a conference let's do a whole week of conference and let's be really ridiculous and let's do it 30 days from right now when we come up with the idea and so that's that's basically what we did for the first 48 hours Joel had reached out to a bunch of speakers got 23 speaker's confirmed I started working and building out the

3:01website got the website for the most part built out 48 hours and we had we had it we had a show and from there it was like if you build it they will come and so now I think what are we at 1500 registered attendees already that's great and the virtual blockchain week starts next week so you haven't had much preparation but part of the attraction to it is that the admission for the

3:31general admission is free so that's amazing that you guys are putting all of this together for the community and for people to start learning to get into the community you know for nothing so yeah what would you say is the goal for you know this conference is it just to bring the community together as we're in lockdown or do you guys have specific topics or stages well I think you know

3:55it's gonna be one stage throughout the event right so when people tune in whether they watch on Facebook or YouTube or Twitter or D live or theta TV wherever it is that they stream they'll be able to see all of the speakers for free on those channels but we're using zoom rooms for the networking portion and that's going to be for the VIP experience for those that upgrade to the

4:1797 or 127 dollar ticket that will get them access to the actual networking portions to work with you know to be able to work and meet with speakers and other VIPs and sponsors and influencers such as yourself you'll be participating in the Wednesday influence or happy hour and that'll be just for the VIPs but as far as the why the community aspect is a huge part of it and then the

4:45content right the world is changing right before our eyes and these the people that we're preparing their presentations for various events they're also probably changing up what they want to say based on the current state of the world and so this should be cutting-edge information that we're gonna be getting from people like John McAfee and Roger

5:05ver and Don Tapscott and Tim Draper and Caitlyn long and Brittney Kaiser and the list of speakers that we have is a veritable who's who of the blockchain world in coined Telegraph is our lead media partner they're gonna be covering this for newsworthy items from the very start to the end so we're expecting that this is gonna be the talk of the blockchain world yeah and actually you

5:29know how at normal events you can you're able to meet people you're walking through the conference halls and you chat and you make a connection or I get a business card and whatnot so that's one of the really cool things that we're doing with these for these sort of VIP networking events that we're having is we're having the speakers and the influencers and the sponsors and the

5:46VIPs in the room and then every so often mr. Joe comms gonna just switch the room up and then then what people are gonna go into random rooms and one of the things that we wanted to do there is sort of like you know on LinkedIn you can literally just put up your code and then people can scan your code and you can be able to connect so we really want

6:03to bring that's sort of you know real-life conference into the virtual conference space allow people to facilitate and build those network build build new connections and to really keep this thriving community growing even though we're having such a crazy time right now I definitely think it's a major need especially as you mentioned Joel that so much is changing right now

6:25this Black Swan event has affected the majority of businesses around the world and not only is blockchain playing a big role you know I spoke with coin Telegraph very recently about this upcoming event and they mentioned that because of the Cova 19 situation in States blockchain is helping with authentication for masks it could be helping with voting you know

6:47transparency and security across the board on all these industries never mind the stock markets and the oil markets and the crypto markets are seeing more people interested in them more than ever now so it is sounds like the perfect time to be hosting an event like this yeah it really is and so this is why we want to make sure anybody can partake of

7:07the content from the speakers you know from wherever they are now we do ask them to go register you're not going to know where to see this and when you go and register for free we'll also be able to send you additional goodies like we're creating an NF T and non fungible token an e rc 7:21 collectible that when you give us an ethereal address we'll be

7:27able to drop that to you into your wallet for free there's gonna be a number of other benefits so people should go to virtual blockchain week comm and register now the things that Travis is talking about the VIP experience is that upgrade and what we've done is partnered with finance charity they've got one of their relief efforts which is really their primary

7:49one right now is called crypto for kovat and they've got about 21 different beneficiaries that 100% of the donations they receive go to for this particular cause virtual blockchain week is donating 50% of any of the VIP ticket price directly to this relief effort were grateful to buy Nance for their you know partnership on this and that cz is going to be speaking at the event as

8:16well so a lot of great reasons to upgrade to VIP and there's some more Travis isn't there you're right you're muted there buddy one of the things our operations team has been working on is a bad crypto membership thing right where you get exclusive content in that it's not gonna launch until like I think q3 sometime but one of the things that we decided to do was like once we launched

8:40that thing anybody who bought a VIP ticket for this event will automatically get a year membership to that so we wanted to add a different things we got different speakers that are offering different different resources and then also if you're VIP you actually a greater chance to win some of the giveaways that are being given away we have our main title sponsor is crypto

9:01Matic atm they have this really really really cool ATMs for kryptos for like grocery stores or any sort of retail location where you might see regular ATM and they're giving away two of these things at our event right which is really cool and if you're a VIP you get five times as many votes in there so you're gonna get a greater chance of

9:21winning that thing and there's some other stuff that's in the works right now that we're just finalizing and we can't say ya can't say all the stuff but there's a lot of cool stuff going on and then brew because I guess when you do 3-way you have 30 days from start to finish for an event time timelines Google crunched definitely well it sounds like you two have had a full

9:40plate but you are giving away so much and giving back to the community so much by donating to charity getting a membership give aways NFT tokens you know free admission for general users this is amazing and I guess a follow-up question to that would be are the is that the attendance for people that are starting starting to learn about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies I know there's sort

10:05of a cleek of people that love crypto and are huge advocates for it there's a lot of people that are sort of scared because there's technical knowledge and they need to jump over that hurdle to start learning about this stuff is it for the general population to start jumping into crypto as well or is it more medium to advanced you know the tagline for the bad crypto podcast from

10:25the beginning has been the show for the crypto curious and the crypto serious and we've tried to bring crypto to the masses in a way that makes seemingly complex subject matter easy to understand but also by bringing the movers and the Shakers that are creating the future and we anticipate that virtual blockchain week is going to be along those same you know veins that the

10:49speakers are going to be communicating in a relevant way to what's happening in the world now and because everybody wants to see mainstream adoption right and so the days of talking over people's heads in the blockchain space I think we're past that this is where we need to be speaking to everybody garlis of their level saying here's how we practically move forward so that

11:13blockchain can truly change the world yeah we speak we speak under their heads into their heart cannibal into their chin like no into their heart oh that's by the way I looked up by Ashton you were on episode number 26 of the show back in September of 2017 that's cool we're literally coming up on episode 400 which will drop on Sunday which is the day one of virtual

11:39blockchain week but technically we've done 400 regular episodes but then we did like 60 of the crypto spotlight episodes and a bunch of other ones were really sit at about 480 total episodes that we've done in the three years but 400 officially will drop on Sunday which is day one of virtual blocking week and features John McAfee for his fourth appearance on bad crypto very very cool

12:04and all of this is coming up really soon at virtual blockchain week com I guess what would you say for the attendees you know if they're to take away one thing at by attending this conference now what should they take away from it we don't know yet because they it has an epic I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of great takeaways you know but we don't know

12:27what the speakers are gonna say we're just we're asking them to bring their a-game or like you know this is not just another webinar right this is an event this is a blockchain week and you're gonna be surrounded by other luminaries and so bring your best so that you know people walk away with value and then from the networking they might walk away with meaning Mike Tyson here I don't

12:51know the number one takeaway I was gonna say actually gonna be that it's gonna be very ferocious it's gonna be very valuable for anyone who like to tune in we're gonna have a lot to take aways and people who don't like the tune in I might punch him in the mouth so make sure you tune in the virtual blockchain week.com put on by Travis right in mr. Joel comm it's not related and there

13:12might be silliness – yeah yeah we're gonna have fun with it I mean this is you know bad crypto has traditionally been about information and Enter and so we want to make sure that this conference is entertaining in fact you know that the closing night party is gonna be music and karaoke and so we want to make sure that this is super fun and enlightening for everybody

13:36yeah that final night party is gonna be crazy one of our good friends Stewart Rodgers had a birthday party and he – he used zoom and they were pulling in karaoke tracks from YouTube and playing him and singing it was a really awesome thing and so was chatting with another one of our mutual friends Allie's Sam and she says well hey I love parties let

13:55me help put this thing together so she went out and got one of the dudes from bone thugs-n-harmony that rap group from the 8th from the 90s cut another rapper from the 80s snap I got the power guy there's there's rumors there's some other interesting people showing up at the event as well people are gonna sing play some guitar and sing some songs and drink some

14:15drinks and beer BYOB and or whatever else you let your party favors are but it should be really interesting it'll be a nice way to sort of say we are done and then actually on Saturday night is the blockchain influencer Awards put on by Adam Charles and that thing has about over ten thousand votes already on this thing and so many people are voting for

14:38their favorite influencers in a lot of different categories and so that is gonna be the final night event blockchain influence or Awards so a lot of great so I believe you're one of the nominees right that's right we're nominated for the best interview show so we're looking forward to that as well yeah well sounds like it's gonna be a great week so much to look forward to if

14:57you could remind the viewers one more time when is the deadline to register and how do they register and where do they get started they can register right now go to virtual blockchain week.com you can register for free or qualify for the VIP experience by purchasing a ticket it's it's inexpensive it's affordable for everybody and the networking is going to be amazing for

15:18that opening night Sunday networking we don't know which speakers are gonna be there which influencers but we're gonna put people in rooms and boom they're gonna speed-date and I think that they're gonna walk away with some incredible value and that's just one of the VIP events they can do that now and they do that all the way up through the end

15:36of the event it's the best way to be notified about what's going on and where you can watch great and you're giving back to a great cause at the same time so amazing work gentlemen or should I say men because I know you guys are bad on the bad crypto by dental Travis is kind of rough what you love Travis I'm a bit crass all right guys thank you so much for coming on the show

16:00I'm looking forward to virtual blockchain week I will see you guys there and let's follow up after the event and see how it all went