“Creating A Blockchain Based Payroll System With Smart Contracts” with Crystal Stranger Founder of Peacounts
I had the pleasure of interviewing Crystal Stranger,Founder of Peacounts and author of The Small Business Tax Guide, who has more than 14 years of tax experience, with a focus in international tax. She has been writing about Cryptocurrency tax and regulatory issues since 2014. Wanting to help her tax clients who struggled with regulatory compliance, she founded PeaCounts, a blockchain accounting software company building a revolutionary new payroll system.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us the story of how you got involved with the Regtech or Crypto markets?
I had a number of friends from when I lived in LA who were early Bitcoin investors. Like many in the industry I kick myself for not buying in back in 2011 when I first heard of it. When the IRS issued the cryptocurrency guidance 2014–21 I started writing some articles and blog posts on the tax issues of cryptocurrency investments, and speaking on this subject for tax industry groups.
Can you share 5 ways that Regulation and Regtech can help stabilize the Crypto Economy?
It’s funny you ask this. Just last night my husband came home asking me if anyone is using blockchain to stop all this voter fraud that he keeps hearing about on NPR. Regtech is an area where there is so much opportunity now, and so many ways blockchain companies can really make a difference. Here are five ways I see:
- The answer I gave my husband was that Blockchain can be used to create voting mechanisms that will verify transactions in a more transparent manner, and some companies are definitely working on this.
- A whopping 38 percent of the world is unbanked, and blockchain can help close this gap by providing financial services to those who are not seen as good risks by the banking world due to the trustless nature of cryptocurrencies.
- Many refugees do not have any documentation. This can be solved by blockchain identity projects that are aiming to create a sovereign remedy for documenting identity without relying on citizenship of nation-states.
- Decentralized autonomous organizations can be used beyond tokenized venture funds to vote on different issues, and I foresee more organized action within segmented social groups based on interests such as music taste, political leanings or collectible items, that people now identify with more than the classical bonds of patriotism.
- At PeaCounts we are working to create a blockchain-based payroll system with smart contracts so that employers and employees are on the same page as to the work terms. This is especially helpful in countries where there are poorly structured legal systems and workers or employers have little recourse. In this way we are improving liquidity in people’s work lives.
What are the top concerns that crypto firms should be considering in order to have a competitive edge?
I think the shortage of developers is a big concern. Many companies have raised a lot of money without a clear plan of how to actually make their projects a reality. Then there is big competition for the best developers, especially for those familiar with Solidity, the coding language for building Ethereum smart contracts. My opinion is that there should be more of a focus on developer community building in early stages of planning, and companies need to make sure they retain enough tokens to properly incentivize the team.
Can you share examples of measures you take to prevent internal data breach?
We have taken a completely different approach than most companies in that we are forking off Bitcoin to create our own blockchain. Bitcoin has been around almost ten years without its blockchain being hacked, a long security record which is pretty unheard of in the tech world.. Plus, a fork gives us full control over the updates and implementations, rather than relying on another platform and trusting their decisions.
Can you share a story of a time when things went south for you? What kept you going and helped you to overcome those times?
When PeaCounts started I had formed it with a co-founder, and we just didn’t see eye-to-eye on a number of business aspects. The bottom line was we were trying to do too many things for our resources, and nothing was being done as well as it should be. For the blockchain side I saw so many ways we could go bigger, but it didn’t fit in with the U.S.-based small business bookkeeping model. It made sense to break the company into two separate companies, and my prior co-founder took the small business bookkeeping company and I took the payroll side of the company.
I won’t say it was an easy transition. There were a lot of stressful moments and I wasn’t sure if I would get the support I needed to re-build. But I feel very grateful that I have some amazing advisors in Patrik Wijkstrom and Glen Hellman, and an amazing CTO in Ben Stewart. They really encouraged me over that time that this was all for the best and stimulated a full refresh of rethinking every part of the business and tech model. PeaCounts is 1000% stronger now because of that, and it really was a blessing now that it didn’t work out easier, as we have worked through a ton of issues that would have held us up with the prior model.
What are some things that you do on daily basis regardless of how busy you are?
Family time is of ultimate importance. We eat dinner at home together every evening, when I’m not at conferences at least. I try to make some time every evening to read with my four year old daughter as well. I remind myself that I’m building PeaCounts to make a better world for our kids, but what good is it to be doing all this work to if I don’t take time to help them become good people as well?
We also have horses at home, so I feed them and clean their corral every morning at 7am. No matter how crazy business things are I think having the needs of living creatures puts it in perspective a little, nothing is life and death no matter how crazy it feels. And being outside really balances out all the time spent in the ethereal world in front of the computer.
What are the top 3 upcoming conferences you are attending and are excited about?
I’ve been asked to moderate the panel “Regulate or Rogue” at the Uprise festival in Dublin in October. This panel will look at how Governments and Banks are striving to put systems in place for Crypto and new funding methods. We’ll address big questions like, if we regulate Crypto and ICOs will this fly in the face of the ideals they were meant to represent? In whose hands do we place the power of Crypto? I’m very excited to lead this discussion.
I’ll also be speaking at Tech Beach in Jamaica. I’ve heard it’s an amazing conference as far as the attendees go, and you can’t complain about going to Jamaica for the weekend for a crypto conference, right?
I’ve put together a panel for SXSW next spring I am very excited about- “Real World Applications of Blockchain Technology”. I’ve convinced three other amazing panelists to join me, Jeff McDonald who is co-founder of the NEM foundation, Patrik Wijkstrom from Dispatch Labs (who is also our advisor at PeaCounts), and Cleve Mesidor who used to be a White House speaker and now is applying blockchain to activism through Logos. We made it through the first hurdle and are on the panelpicker site now, and we’d all appreciate your vote as this will be a super fun talk.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My motto to live by is “I’d rather regret something I have done than something I haven’t done.” I actually picked this up in high school from the intro to a Butthole Surfers album and it somehow just stuck in my head that it was better to try and fail than to regret never having tried.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
PeaCounts is on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/peacounts/ Twitter @peacounts and on Telegram at https://t.me/peacountsupdates
