Mark Fidelman of SmartBlocks On The 5 Things You Need To Understand In Order To Successfully Invest In Cryptocurrency

You have to understand that cryptocurrency is no different than stocks and bonds. And I know this is gonna be controversial to say this, but there has to be real value being created in crypto with the exception of tokens like Bitcoin or others that are being used as currency that have a lot of faith from the community backing it up just like the dollar Yes, the dollar is backed by taxes but the cryptocurrency industry is backed by dollars in faith that people are put into it. But when I’m thinking cryptocurrency, I’m thinking something like Ethereum, which is a platform that others build on and they pay gas fees. So it’s really generating real income. There’s real value there. So I always look at cryptocurrencies, is I do stocks and bonds.

Over the past few years, the Cryptocurrency industry has been making headlines nearly every week. Many people have gotten very wealthy investing or leading the cryptocurrency industry. At the same time, many people have lost a lot investing in the industry. In addition, more people have been scrutinizing the ecological impact of crypto mining, as well as its potential facilitation of illegal activity. What is being done and what can be done to address these concerns?

In this interview series called “5 Things You Need To Understand In Order To Successfully Invest In Cryptocurrency” we are talking to leaders in the cryptocurrency industry, as well as successful investors, who share insights from their experience about how to successfully invest in Cryptocurrency.

As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Fidelman.

Mark Fidelman is the founder of SmartBlocks.Agency, His experience includes more than two decades of technology sales, marketing and customer experience with organizations including NFT leader WAX.io

Mark has been named a 2017 Top 20 influencer of CMOs by Forbes Magazine, a Top 25 Social Media Keynote Speaker by Inc Magazine, and a Huffington Post Top 50 Most Social CEO. Mark hosts the popular Cryptonized! YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/fanaticsmedia on the hottest crypto trends

Mark is a globally recognized thought leader on the subject of cryptocurrency and ecommerce. He was a writer for Forbes and has interviewed hundreds of Global 3000 CXOs and speaks and writes regularly about how they are impacting today’s business. Follow Mark on twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/markfidelman

Where to find me online

• Bitcoinist: http://bitcoinist.com/author/markfidelman/
• Instagram and Twitter: @markfidelman
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/fidelman
• YouTube: www.youtube.com/fanaticsmedia

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a little about your backstory and how you grew up?

Well, I grew up in Minnesota seemed like forever ago and was always interested in marketing type concepts and sales and, you know, you promoting great products, always interested in technology. And so, from my point of view, I just followed my passions, mostly by mistake, but it just grew on me and developed me into who I am today and the career I’m in today

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

the movie, the natural probably has the most significant impact on me because I like symbolism look good versus evil. I like the the idea that somebody could come back from adversity and become a huge winner. I like the fact that love wins in the end.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue your particular career path? We’d love to hear it.

Yeah, the story that has impacted me the most and why I decided to pursue my current career path is that I started in sales at a technology company in the San Francisco area. And then turned to the marketing department because they were’nt delivering for the sales team. I used to say, “Hey, you’re not doing this right. Our customers aren’t responding to it. “So, I appreciate it if you did XY and Z, and they would laugh me out of the room, so to speak.” And so, I kept coming back and kept coming back to the marketing team to listen to me. I was young and didn’t know any better. And finally, they took one of my ideas begrudgingly, and decided to implement it, and it blew up. The idea was so good that they started including me in their marketing and sales meetings in order to best understand what would resonate with our customers. So, at that point I decided, hey, I might know what few things about marketing maybe I shouldn’t move my pursuits to marketing.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When I first started doing software presentations. I knew what I wanted to say. But I couldn’t say it in front of a camera. So it took me forever to get comfortable in front of a camera and to articulate my thoughts. I kept overthinking my thinking. And that led to a jumble of words and it was embarrassing and it took quite a long time to overcome that.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Don’t know if there was a particular person who helped me get where I’m going but I guess there is a CEO that always believed in me even though I made several mistakes. And he finally gave me a huge opportunity in the marketing space and then I blew it out of the water for him, and made him a lot of money. And from that point on, he’s always been my biggest cheerleader and has introduced me to several companies that have thanked him profusely for the introductions.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Yes, I’m working on a new crypto project called Tetraguard.io Tetraguard makes it very easy for people to invest in top three crypto currencies and they also receive the equivalent of a free dividend for just for holding it in their virtual wallet. So, imagine owning a mutual fund and then getting paid to own it beyond what the underlying cryptocurrencies are valued at. Normally these fees go to the mutual fund company.

Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. The cryptocurrency industry seems extremely dynamic right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry? If you can, please share a story or example for each.

Okay, the three things that I like about the crypto industry number one, it’s we’re just literally inventing new things as we go along. Most of them are going to fail, but there’ll be a few that stick that will change people’s lives.

Number two is decentralization. We have a number of countries that control a number of currencies and they’re not good stewards of those currencies, as we’re seeing with inflation today. With cryptocurrencies, there’s an algorithm that controls them for the most part, especially if they’re decentralized, and these things are less likely to happen because they’re being managed automatically.

Number three, the fact that you could create smart contracts that can do anything imaginable. If you can create a program. You can create a smart contract that itself executes without any kind of human interruption or control by a government body. That to me is very exciting, and we haven’t even touched on what’s possible in the future.

What are the 3 things that concern you about the industry? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

The three things that concern me about the industry is:

Number one you have a lot of charlatans that are trying to make a quick buck in this industry and they’re really hurting the reputation to the blockchain is still incredibly slow.

Number two: For most projects, even though it’s decentralized, blockchains will not do better than a database from Oracle or Microsoft. I think in the future that changes and we’ll see the blockchain speed up tremendously, but that’s in the future.

Number three, is government control. I’m all for let’s keep a level playing field. Let’s have referees. But I’m very concerned about government’s intrusion into the industry and how that can wreak havoc on it at this point. There was a recent bill introduced by some senators that I thought was well reasoned, and probably should be implemented. But I know government and they always want to take it farther and farther, especially if they’re making money off of it.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about cryptocurrency? Can you explain what you mean?

The Myths of cryptocurrency that it’s some fantasy currency that it’s digital made make believe money. There’s so many aspects to cryptocurrency that to define it as such. Just goes to show how much education that we still have to do.

How do you think cryptocurrency has the potential to help society in the future?

Well, cryptocurrency has the potential to help society in the future by allowing anyone in the world access to it. So for example, if you’re in Kenya and you wanted to create digital goods or value for people around the world, as long as they’re using a cryptocurrency that can be done efficiently and cost effectively, and that you can’t do that with local currencies. Even if you’re dealing with dollars. There’s a whole infrastructure you have to go through in order to make this business happen. If you’re using cryptocurrencies, it can be done seamlessly and instantly

Recently, more people have been scrutinizing the ecological impact of crypto mining. From your perspective, can you explain to our readers why the cryptocurrency industry is creating an environmental challenge?

From your perspective what can be done to address or correct these concerns?

Yeah, I think the cryptocurrency industry and its environmental challenges are overblown. Yes, there’s a lot of electricity being used, but there’s a lot of electricity being used in the Fiat world. You know what kind of computers they’re running. Yet. Some of these financial houses and stock exchanges and money printing and just managing money around the world. cryptocurrency is a small, small fraction of all that yet we only hear about cryptocurrencies environmental challenges. So I think it’s overblown, it just another attack on the industry by people that don’t know any better well, I look at cryptocurrency as similar to cash. Cryptocurrency can be hidden so can cash. And so if you’re going to do an illegal activity, yeah, I mean, cryptocurrency is kind of a natural thing to gravitate towards. That doesn’t make it right. But if it’s local, it’s going to be cash. If it’s international, it’s probably going to be cryptocurrency because shipping cash around the world isn’t as easy as just using cryptocurrency. You’re not going to stop illegal activities. cryptocurrency is is is not the reason people are doing illegal activities. It’s just a vehicle they’re using to conduct them. This is a tough one in terms of correcting them. I just point to cash would have were police authorities what is FBI where, what are countries around the world doing to address crimes done with cash? It’s not easy. It’s not an easy solution. Fortunately, for crypto, it’s a lot more trackable, but there are ways of hiding these transactions so that you really can’t track them. You know, one would be using Mineiro. But I believe that law enforcement will figure out a way to do this without intruding too far into the crypto industry industry. Okay,

Ok, fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. What are “The 5 Things You Need To Understand In Order To Successfully Invest In Cryptocurrency?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

number one, you have to understand that cryptocurrency is no different than stocks and bonds. And I know this is gonna be controversial to say this, but there has to be real value being created in crypto with the exception of tokens like Bitcoin or others that are being used as currency that have a lot of faith from the community backing it up just like the dollar Yes, the dollar is backed by taxes but the cryptocurrency industry is backed by dollars in faith that people are put into it. But when I’m thinking cryptocurrency, I’m thinking something like Ethereum, which is a platform that others build on and they pay gas fees. So it’s really generating real income. There’s real value there. So I always look at cryptocurrencies, is I do stocks and bonds.

Number two. Crypto isn’t as transparent as your companies that are traded on the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ. But neither are private companies that aren’t traded on those exchanges. You’re not getting their financial information either. In fact, you get more information from a crypto currency than you do from a private company yet people still invest in those.

Number three. Understand how the market fluctuates you’ve seen or heard, I’m sure how much these markets fluctuate, and that’s because you’ve got a number of big whale investors or people with a lot of money, a lot of crypto that are investing and then everybody else and those whales have a big influence on what happens in these markets. And so when they’re taking money out or putting money in these markets, fluctuate wildly, so that you have to understand that concept and you have to be watching what these people are doing in order not to get burned.

Number four. Invest in what you know. I’ve seen so many cryptocurrencies, trying to promote 80,000% return, which is unreal. And if you think about it, they’re not offering any value beyond Hey, we’ll give you an 80,000% return. But all that relies on is other people investing in it. It does not rely on them. Producing or generating any income to sustain that 80,000% return it’s just unheard of. So automatically, you know the buyer beware red flag should be flashing left and right. So you really have to understand what the tokenomics are. And think to yourself and talk to others about whether this really makes sense or not.

Number five, I think one of the biggest missed opportunities for most investors is not looking at the futures market and doing calls or puts in the future. Crypto isn’t that hard to figure out to see where the ebbs and flows are. There are always major dips and major ups that that occur within this industry and they’re pretty easy to see if you look historically, and I don’t see that changing for the foreseeable future.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they enter the industry? What can be done to avoid that?

I think the most common mistakes that people make are they look at almost look at crypto is gambling. And it’s not gambling. It’s something that I look at just like I look at stocks and bonds. What’s the value being created or potential value being created? And that’s how to look at the crypto and see which to invest in or not. So when I see people come in, they get excited about a crypto and they invest in it with really without really understanding what value is going to generate the future.

Do you have a particular type of cryptocurrency that you are excited about? We’d love to hear why.

Of course, the type of cryptocurrency that I’m excited about are decentralized ETFs tetraguard.io being one of them, and that’s because it’s a very easy way for beginners to get involved in hold Bitcoin Ethereum and PAXG which are in the top 10 Most held tokens and you get rewarded just for holding on to it.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I would eliminate all Fiat and move it all the digital currencies and have it extremely transparent. So you’d have digital currencies. Maybe there’s a few big countries that have their own but for the most part, there’ll be world currencies that are transparent that can be tracked. And I would make sure that there wouldn’t be any one body controlling whether more is printed or not. It would be all done by algorithm that would help a lot of people around the world and kind of balanced the playing field a little bit.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

I’d probably do a lunch with Elon Musk. I think he’s already bought into crypto and the benefits of it. I would just like to see his vision for you know in the next generation crypto and what it would do I think it would be very interesting to hear from him since he follows it. He knows it and he’s probably got some his own ideas around it. He just doesn’t have the time to implement it.

This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!