#60: Chris McAlary on Digital Currency Machines

Chris McAlary is the Founder and CEO of Coin Cloud, the world’s largest and fastest-growing network of Digital Currency Machines.

In this conversation, we discuss:
- What is a Digital Currency Machine (DCM)?
- Buying crypto with cash
- The evolution of the Bitcoin ATM
- The role of cash in our economy
- The future of digital currency
- Hot takes + predictions
- Stablecoins 

Coin Cloud
Website: coin.cloud
Twitter: @CoinCloudDCM
Instagram: @CoinCloudDCM

Chris McAlary
Twitter: @Chris__McAlary

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This episode is brought to you by PrimeXBT.

PrimeXBT offers a robust trading system for both beginners and professional traders that demand highly reliable market data and performance. 

Traders of all experience levels can easily design and customize layouts and widgets to best fit their trading style. PrimeXBT is always offering innovative products and professional trading conditions to all customers.

PrimeXBT is running an exclusive promotion for listeners of the podcast. 

After making your first deposit, 50% of that first deposit will be credited to your account as a bonus that can be used as additional collateral to open positions.

Code: CRYPTONEWS50

This promotion is available for a month after activation. Click the link below:

PrimeXBT x CRYPTONEWS50

Transcript

Matt Zahab: 0:08

Ladies and gentlemen, Matt they have here from the crypto news podcast and let me tell you, we ever have a great guest on today's episode. This gentleman is the founder and CEO of coin cloud, the world's largest and fastest growing network of two way digital currency machines. More than just a Bitcoin ATM. coin cloud digital currency machines enable customers to buy and sell Bitcoin and over 30 other digital assets with cash. Before founding coin cloud, our guests was an online poker player who quickly fell in love with crypto. And the rest is now history. Today, coin cloud has over 4000 machines across the USA and Brazil. Folks, I'm very pleased to welcome to the crypto news podcast, Chris mcalary. Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris McAlary: 0:54

Thanks, Matt. Happy to be here.

Matt Zahab: 0:55

Chris. You are sitting in beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada with a killer background. What is crypto land like in Las Vegas?

Chris McAlary: 1:04

It's great. You know, Nevada is a great place to to live, low cost of living, relatively high economic freedom, relatively small government. They're very supportive of you know, small, medium sized and even large businesses. So very happy to live in Nevada and run it run our business out of Nevada

Matt Zahab: 1:27

and the crypto community there's a lot of big dogs there. I know Chris Adams in the dream routine is there as well. What's the community like?

Chris McAlary: 1:35

You know, there's a lot of early adopters here in Nevada. I was going to Bitcoin meetups here in 2011. And you know, it's been strong since then. And the communities continue to grow. There's a lot of more and more businesses here prime trust is right up the street from us. They have a huge business in a crypto space. So yeah, the community community is great here and continues to grow. And you know, as more and more people flee California, a lot of tech entrepreneurs are coming here for for all the reasons that I just mentioned.

Matt Zahab: 2:13

Everyone's getting out and going to Vegas, Texas and Miami. Did you ever think that was gonna happen? Like it's Cali everyone's like, oh, once you go to the west coast, he can never come back and now everyone's peace in the scene and get out of there.

Chris McAlary: 2:24

Yeah, you know, it's California is beautiful, beautiful state and there's a lot going for it. But you know, once once they cost of living and the government starts Yeah, sort of being a little bit too burdensome. It makes sense. People are getting out of there.

Matt Zahab: 2:37

I love to hear that. I'm very very curious to learn more about the coin cloud backstory now. It's funny to talk about Bitcoin ATMs. I am born and raised in Toronto, a Canadian and I actually saw the first few ATMs that were installed in Canada in the downtown core, sort of close to you know, vitalik and his crew with with the whole aetherium ecosystem. But I'm very curious to understand the coin cloud backstory and how they differ from a Bitcoin ATM.

Chris McAlary: 3:11

Yeah, um, so the backstory? It goes back to I got into crypto in 2010 when I heard about Bitcoin on my favorite podcast, econ talk

Matt Zahab: 3:24

2010?

Chris McAlary: 3:25

Yeah, I wish I'd bought I wish I'd bought then Wow. So I heard about him 70 cents on they had Gavin andresen who was like the Bitcoin Core developer at the time on this podcast and he went on this you know, hour long podcast pitch the idea. I thought it was an amazing idea and really piqued my interest and I sort of went on to the Bitcoin talk forums and went down that wormhole and studied it and you know it took me probably like six months to completely understand what was going on and wanted to buy some and you know, at that time, you can really buy anything mt Gox was just started to get going and I was playing online poker at the time and you know wiring money internationally back and forth was was difficult. So I just decided hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna mind this I'm gonna you know teach myself how to how to build a mining rig and write some scripts and eventually, you know, had like this thing that had like a bunch of graphics cards, you know, on a motherboard and was mining Bitcoin off of that and eventually got my my electricity bill after like two months here in Vegas going and going into the summer he and I got like a$600 electricity bill and normally was like $100 and I was mining like $2 Bitcoin at like two a day. And I was just like, this doesn't make financial sense anymore. It was like fun while it lasted. So I I am playing The mining rig and but I had my first Bitcoin and eventually sort of like you know, Bitcoin continued to grow I became sort of a Bitcoin evangelist here in Vegas and amongst my friends and acquaintances and was you know, would convince people hey, yeah this is a great idea how do I how do I get Bitcoin? I was just like, well I'm not selling you mine, you're gonna have to figure out how to do it either wire money to Japan or, you know mine it but you know, I saw the problem in the marketplace of like, easily acquiring Bitcoin and 2013 came around, actually a company here in Las Vegas, or actually it was a kid from Reno who grew up in Vegas but went to college in Reno built this prototype Bitcoin ATM called Robo coin. And they debuted it at a Bitcoin conference and I ended up talking to those guys and saying, Hey, this is a great idea, I'm interested. And they watched the first one in Vancouver actually, because you know, Canada didn't really have any laws regarding cryptocurrency yet and so you know, a bunch of people watched me Canada, but in the US fincen had financial crimes enforcement network came out and said, you know, your your money service business, you're like, Western Union money gram, a currency exchanger, you need to run all these compliance procedures. And so fortunately for me, I had a friend who was a lawyer, talk to him, it took like a few months to develop our KYC AML process. And we launched on the Vegas Strip, our first machine and 2014 and was one of the first in the United States, we got a lot of press on it, and continue to just, you know, grow and meet consumer demand. And, you know, there's there's ups and downs in the cryptocurrency business, and it's volatile business, especially in the early days. But we've we've grown significantly, you know, all fueled by consumer demand. And now we've got 4000 locations, 48 States and Brazil. And we're continuing to just pump out 250 to 500 a week into more and more places. And, you know, we're, we're just trying to meet the consumer demand and, you know, bring this technology mainstream.

Matt Zahab: 7:31

It's such a cool story. And another question that I've been so curious about, again, whenever I'm doing research for the show, there's always a couple narratives or a couple main points that like, really get me go on where I'm just so curious, I want to keep me up at night kind of thing. And you're one of the few people who have had on the pod who owns a hardware business, right? Like, of course, there's obviously a big chunk of software in the machines as well. But can you talk about some of the hardships and just the absolute probably nightmares that you've had to go through running a hardware business in the crypto ecosystem, because everyone else like 99.9%, and this ecosystem, it's all just software, and now you're pumping out hardware? What's that? Like?

Chris McAlary: 8:10

Yeah, great question. That's not when I get very often, because most people were like that. But in the early days, it was a total disaster. I mentioned this prototype robot toy machine that we had, and it broke down basically, every other transaction every other day, and I would have to drive down, like in the middle of night, and I remember like, you know, hand paying people, you know,

Matt Zahab: 8:32

on the street?

Chris McAlary: 8:32

like the World Series of Poker, cashing out like $10,000. And I'd have to just go down and hand pay.

Matt Zahab: 8:40

And this is on the strip, this is on the strip,

Chris McAlary: 8:43

yeah, I'm like, rolling up in my car with a huge wad of cash. And like, you know, just counting these people out, because like, there was a bill jam, or, you know, the software wasn't talking to the hardware properly, stuff would break down on a machine every single day. So yeah, that, you know, the early days working through the prototypes, were probably on like our seventh or eighth iteration of our kiosk today. You know, we, in the early days, we like relied upon third third parties for that. That was really frustrating, we had sort of a lack of control over the, over the product. And, you know, we're relying upon them for shipping lead times that the performance of the hardware, the performance of the hardware and the way it talks to the software. And, you know, over the years, we've essentially just taken it in house, the hardware, and, you know, we produce them here in the United States. You know, we're, we're vertically integrated in that way we control our lead times. It's just a better way to do business and taking you know, it's a huge responsibility and a huge cost, but, you know, at the scale at which we're deploying machines, and we're working Do you need to deploy machines? It's for us it's the best way to go.

Matt Zahab: 10:03

You gotta love crypto what other what other industry is making their own ATMs in the USA and I very well could be wrong with as it could be every ATM in the states is made there. But from a betting man, I'd probably say they're made overseas, you're doing this creating jobs to the economy probably have a factory going, and the government probably hates you.

Chris McAlary: 10:21

Exactly. Right. Exactly. Yeah, if they only knew, you know, we need I guess to be have a better better representation in Washington or spokespeople. But yeah, a lot of our competitors make their machines and they're made by Korean. Gen mega, as big company in this space. And this company out of the Czech Republic makes a lot of their machines. But yeah, we're, we're 100% made here in the USA.

Matt Zahab: 10:45

So we talked a bit about sort of the backstory of coin cloud. Now I'm very curious about the difference between Bitcoin ATMs and your machines. And I guess another side question to that. Did you ever think of calling them I guess, digital currency? ATMs? Why the word machine? Like why DCM?

Chris McAlary: 11:04

Yeah, we, you know, I think it reflects our goal to be bigger than just Bitcoin. And you know, it's really not an ATM. You know, ATM of like, you know, refers to sort of that legacy ATM technology where you link your bank account, and you withdraw cash,

Matt Zahab: 11:21

right

Chris McAlary: 11:22

So we're definitely not that where you know, the actual service, the machine is much closer to a foreign exchange kiosk, where you're converting digital currency to cash. And vice versa. So, you know, we're 100% two way network. I'm pretty sure there's not many other companies that, that do that, and especially do that at the national and international scale, which we do it, you know, we made a commitment to, you know, allowing people to book purchase and withdraw digital currency,

Matt Zahab: 11:53

same time, right.

Chris McAlary: 11:55

To reduce any fears they may have and build trust that, hey, I have this how do I get out? And you know, we believe you know, that two way functionalities are really key part of mainstream adoption, and the usability of digital currencies. So, you know, that two way functionality is very different from legacy ATMs legacy, ATMs only spit out cash, you know, we accept and we dispense cash. And as well, you know, I mentioned we're not just Bitcoin, right, we're 30 we're 30 plus digital currencies, I think we're actually like 35 to 38. Today, we're constantly adding more and more, we, you know, we've got aetherium, we've got stable coins, we've got governance tokens, sushi maker, dow, Ave a lot of those defy tokens we have Dogecoin. So we're constantly adding, you know, different tokens to the kiosk and stable coins, we believe are really really here just because you know, remittance remittance corridor, people may may think that, you know, crypto is not for them, it's too volatile. But with stable coins, you know, you can sort of leap over that hurdle. And allow people to, you know, sort of bank themselves with their digital wallet, right? They can store US dollar send US dollar pay people with nothing more than a crypto wallet. That's not noncustodial. And so the power of that technology, escaping the banks, like, you know, our machine is cashed to crypto, cash and digital currency, we enable people to sort of skip the banks and not be tethered to that legacy system.

Matt Zahab: 13:49

If you ever had any rookies who are very, very new to crypto, and we're actually expecting like a physical coin to pop out. I'm dead. I'm dead serious. Like I go through your customer support tickets, I would bet the house that that has happened at least once or twice.

Chris McAlary: 14:05

Absolutely. I guarantee you're right, you'd be a winner on that bet. And you know, I was actually taking a customer support calls for like our first year or two. And I'm sure I've been asked that people there's over 50% of our customers are new to crypto. And that's sort of an opportunity that we really relish that, you know, the digital currency machine is a really familiar interface. People have been using legacy ATMs for most of their lives, that technology has been around for 50 years. And so people find it, you know, approachable. They appreciate the fact that the kiosk is but as you say, real world hardware,

Matt Zahab: 14:46

right

Chris McAlary: 14:46

Bitcoin and aetherium just isn't often the ether space that they can walk up and like touch and feel

Matt Zahab: 14:52

yeah

Chris McAlary: 14:52

a kiosk that there's a real company behind, you know, Bitcoin and aetherium that will pick up their phone call if something goes wrong. Or not even that even if they want to get educated on you know how to download their first wallet or do their first transaction they can call our 24 seven customer support line and learn how to you know, do all those things and they don't even have to be your customer you know, you could you know, we talk to people every single day that we'll never use our machine that or whatever trying to figure out how to download a coin base wallet but we found it's really great for our business that we're able to build trust with these people as their sort of gateway to this new technology there's a lot of fear when you're approaching a new technology there's a lot of fear when you're you're you're approaching personal finance both of those things can be really misunderstood and combine them together. It's a you know, misunderstood squared. So we we relish the opportunity to build that trust with the customer and you know, make them a lifelong customer. So you know, the ATM or the digital currency machine is really a fantastic gateway for people who are new new to

Matt Zahab: 16:07

you guys also got a great name and a great logo. the space Like it's a it's a very welcoming name and logo in my opinion, you know, it's not like I don't I guess I don't really have an example of a scary or intimidating crypto logo off top my head but a name

Chris McAlary: 16:21

I think the word crypto is actually scary. We know that a lot. You know what songs aren't

Matt Zahab: 16:26

because everyone's felt coin since they were a kid, you know? Like, that's a good point. A good point.

Chris McAlary: 16:31

Like crypto like I think of like Tales of the crypt on the old show on HBO was like that skeleton guy that was like

Matt Zahab: 16:39

the danger zone? Tell me why have you in the team going full throttle on retail outlets, like grocery stores and convenience stores. Like I would have thought that, I guess grocery stores make a lot of sense. But I would have said maybe full on mega malls, strip malls, stuff like that. But tell me why you've gone full throttle on grocery and convenience stores. And the States and Brazil.

Chris McAlary: 17:01

Yeah, we're, we're trying to meet people where they are every day, right where they find convenience. That, you know, they don't have to go off their beaten path to sort of access this technology. So you know, grocery stores, I saw a statistic somewhere and somebody internally shared it with us, like, people are in a grocery store twice a week, on average, you're getting groceries, they're running errands. And then people are filling up gas people are

Matt Zahab: 17:32

right Right

Chris McAlary: 17:33

in a candy bar, they're buying their soda, even more frequently. And so to bring access to digital currency into those spaces, is a pretty, you know, core to our mission to bring digital currency to all and we've found success there. You know, we find that when we put these kiosks in those places, and your customers respond to it, customers, you know, want access to this technology. They want it close to their home. We found people will drive hours to their We have machines in Utah and like Wyoming and nearest machine. Montana, where people drive literally two or three hours to buy and sell Bitcoin because it's the closest machine to them. And so, what we found is our product is primarily about convenience, hey, I want crypto Hey, I want digital currency. I want it fast. I don't want to wait on my bank to approve you know my wire I don't want to wait on you know, an online exchange to approve my account. In my utility bill. I want customer service. I want convenience I want speed. And so putting these kiosks in convenient places like C stores and grocery stores and beyond. You know we're in malls, we're in a lot of different venues. We've just found a lot of success in a lot of different places without chaos

Matt Zahab: 18:56

and talk to me about the actual UX experience like if I roll in there and I want to use one of the coin cloud machines Um Do I have to put in any info that my own or am I completely offline Can I just throw some Canadian or US dollars if it's in Canada? Can I throw some in the states Can I throw some US dollars in there and Bitcoin or ether whatever currency I want pumps out and never knew it was me.

Chris McAlary: 19:22

So yeah, we've got different tiers of AML KYC levels, you know, we're obviously regulated like a financial institution in the United States and Brazil as well. So the first level would be you just put in your phone number, right? That's, that's all we take is just a phone number up to $1,000 lifetime. So you know, we've enabled that level to allow people who are new to crypto who are sort of cautious about the space to you know, try by the first crypto without necessarily, you know, doxxing themselves and, you know, that's a level of business. relationship, you know, our compliance staff and we worked with regulators to come up with that, you know, they're comfortable from, from a business perspective that, hey,$1,000 lifetime, this person's not going to be, you know, running some like, you know, criminal empire. With that amount, if you want to do more than that we take a photo of you stand in front of the kiosk, you hold up your your government, Id take a picture of the government ID at the kiosk. And those two items will allow you to do up to 80 $500 per day, we've got a tier even above that, where you just put in your social security number, and answer a couple questions about you know, your source of income, and will allow you to do up to 20 $500 per day.

Matt Zahab: 20:44

Wow.

Chris McAlary: 20:45

So, you know, we do have some power users that really take advantage of that. You know, I'm really surprised and impressed some of the volumes that people people do.

Matt Zahab: 20:59

And do you find that there's still that level of scariness and intimidation with ATMs in general, because like when I'm traveling in a, maybe a country that is not 100% developed, sometimes. And maybe that's just a me problem is sometimes I'm a little sketched out, I'm like, Am I gonna get this cashier and their native currency, you know, like, you've put in my Canadian bank card, or my American bank card, and I'm just praying, and I'm like, Oh, I hope this currency comes out. Is there still that like, when I'm when I'm buying off an exchange? Of course, I do my due diligence on exchanges before purchasing crypto. And a lot of the ones I use are regulated in their own countries, but the people still have that intimidation factor with ATMs? And if they do, how do you? How do you help them get over that?

Chris McAlary: 21:45

that's a that's a really interesting question. That, you know, I think, with the legacy networks and legacy banks, it's like, you're exactly right, you know, does that make Canadian bank communicate with the American bank? Or does the Canadian bank communicate with the Italian bank to process your transaction and spit out that local currency? And I think that really points out sort of some of the friction in that legacy system that I think crypto and solves that like Bitcoin aetherium you know, the stable coins. All the digital currencies are really borderless, and they operate really seamlessly. And so, you know, digital currency machines don't suffer from that same problem. That right, like Bitcoin works the same in Canada as it works in Italy or United States. So that I think I believe there is more trust to your point, when you approach a digital currency machine, that you know that the back end is backed by Bitcoin or aetherium network, and is able to process that transaction directly to the kiosk rather than having to run through five or six different banking networks.

Matt Zahab: 22:57

Makes sense now completely makes sense. Folks, taking a quick break to shout out our sponsor the show prime XP team. These guys have been partners of crypto news.com for years, and we are always incredibly excited about the products that they have to offer. Me personally, I've been using prime x vt for last couple months, and I absolutely love it, as they offer a robust trading system for both beginners and professionals that demand highly reliable market data and performance. One of my favorite parts is that you can easily design and customize layouts and widgets to best fit my trading style. I'm no pro I'd say I'm in the in between a rookie and a pro. I like to do a bit of ta technical analysis. As prime x PT is always offering innovative products and professional trading conditions to all of their customers. Just for this pod prime max PT is running an exclusive promotion for listeners of the pod after making your first deposit 50% of that first deposit will be credited to your account as a bonus that can be used as additional collateral to open positions. This promotion is available for a month after activation and will be the boost you need to get the hang of trading quickly and efficiently. Please use the promo code crypto news 50 that is crypto News 50. All one word to take advantage of this offer. Now back to the show folks. Chris jumping back in here very curious, the partnership with you and ephi benefits shoppers, that is absolutely huge news. Why did you choose to attack that?

Chris McAlary: 24:23

Yeah. You know, unifies a huge wholesaler I think they've got three or four somewhere 5000 somewhere in the multi 1000s of locations that they you know, sell to in the United States with independent grocery stores. So you know, there's a huge partnership and for us in being in that many locations and fantastic grocery store locations. And you know, they're, they want to bring customers in their door. They want to bring this technology to their customers and you know attract that additional foot traffic. We obviously also pay them rent, we sort of sublease that space in their store. And you know, it's just, it's just a win win, they get a lot of driven traffic where people you know, Google, where do I buy bitcoin? locally? I want to buy bitcoin with cash, how do I buy bitcoin, and people will drive 1520 minutes across town to a location to visit our machine. So you know, they get a lot of incremental sales based on those visits. So unify, you know, their, their reach in terms of the number of stores is fantastic. And, you know, they had a earnings call recently where they announced this partnership. And, you know, I think we had probably 200 locations with them at that time. Their stock jumped like 20 20% that day, I'm not gonna say it was, you know, coin cloud alone, but

Matt Zahab: 25:53

it was a coin cloud bumped into the next step, next earnings call, they're gonna be like, Hey, we're now accepting Bitcoin, ie tether and a couple other currencies, and then it's just to the moon.

Chris McAlary: 26:02

Exactly. And you know, what, the next big announcement I think will be will be in 1000. Other stores not not too long away?

Matt Zahab: 26:09

Wow, that's incredible. 1000 stores, and that's just for them.

Chris McAlary: 26:13

Yeah, just just for you in fine. So they supply you know, tons of independent grocery stores. So some chains have like 60 stores, some have two or three, some have 100, all different geographies. And so those stores are sort of one by one. Choosing to implement this technology with the with the recommendation from you and a thought

Matt Zahab: 26:33

to to fun questions for yet question. Who know, who would be your dream retailer? And question numero dos, if you could put a one of your machines anywhere in the world in any place, I'm talking in the pyramids, Eiffel Tower, looove, wherever, where would it be?

Chris McAlary: 26:49

Wha ha, Dream retailer. You know, we have we have a HDB is big grocery chain in Texas are now considered to be the leader in the grocery space University, you know, Walmart looks to htb when they do stuff. And so we just launched with hgb, they got 400 stores in Texas, they're sort of considered to be, you know, both higher quality than Whole Foods, but also cheaper than Whole Foods.

Matt Zahab: 27:20

Wow.

Chris McAlary: 27:21

That's the reputation they have. So they're incredible at buying and sourcing, you know, their products, and so we're very privileged to call them a partner. And so, you know, that's one we already have in our belt, I think one a big retailer that you know, I think it's the Big C store and grocery chains, whether it's like a 711 or like Kroger will be fantastic partners just because, you know, by dollar volume, they're just leading retailers in the world. In terms of dollars, also, in terms of customer visits, they're fantastic. In terms of like, Cool locations. You know, being here in Vegas,

Matt Zahab: 28:07

you know, up there.

Chris McAlary: 28:08

When casino the winning casino, you got like the best shopping, you've got the best restaurants, you got the best nightlife, you got the best shows. You got the best golf they're having one of the win would be really, really fun for us.

Matt Zahab: 28:24

Having one at the win. Still never been to Vegas. gotta gotta check that off the list. It will we'll rip around we'll look at some of the some of the machines and we'll play around that that'd be a treat. We'll put that on the schedule for 2022. Speaking of 2022 any hotcakes and any industry predictions for 2022 that are a little out of right field where the average Joe or the average Jose would be like Chris, what are you on when he talked about?

Chris McAlary: 28:50

Yeah, you know, I think being in kryptos so long, early Bitcoin adopters were very sort of anti establishment that like Bitcoin is going to dethrone the dollar that this is going to take over the world banking system. You know, fiat currencies don't have a shot versus superior technology. What's happened is sort of this like stable coin revolution, where, you know, more and more dollars are being issued on blockchains. And, you know, I actually think that dollars on blockchains will entrench the dollar status is like the world reserve currency that is going to superpower the dollar and actually cause it to be even more universally used. And so you know, the weaker fiat currencies around the world, like countries like Argentina or Venezuela or Zimbabwe that have you know, already weak currencies that dollars on blockchains will will go there first and they will, those countries will adopt US dollar stable coins as sort of their Primary store value means of transaction and so I think stable coins are going to continue to flourish I think they will be an entry point for a lot of people into crypto and you know i think you know we'll have a lot of success introducing the people through the kiosk or digital currency machines around the world you know as we as we expand more and more internationally I think there's gonna we're gonna see a lot of demand for that product on our kiosk

Matt Zahab: 30:34

now I absolutely just put my mind in a practical there that's that's one of the that's one of the best takes I've heard in a while it makes a whole lot of sense to do you think that countries like the Zimbabwe's in Argentina ism Venezuela, do you think they'll ever come out with their own sorta, US dollar backed digital currency? Because I feel like that makes a lot of sense to like, instead of, instead of adopting tether or USD C or something of the like, or by Nance, USD T or whatever that one's called. I feel like they're gonna make their own at some point.

Chris McAlary: 31:05

Yeah, that's a that's a good idea. I think I think China's like experimenting with like a digital one. Obviously, that's going to be super centralized and controlled by the government. You know, I think what stable coins are Yeah,

Matt Zahab: 31:16

not that I'm not talking about a cbdc. I don't mean like, like one that that backs their own currency. I mean, almost like a cbdc. That backs the US currency that is also decentralized, but somewhat ran by the state. I know that's, that's like, I'm in dream world here. But I feel I feel like that could pop off.

Chris McAlary: 31:34

I think you're onto something. I think I think Yeah, you're saying like US dollars sitting in Zimbabwe and bank account, like that's controlled by the Zimbabwe and central bank or the Zimbabwe. coin against those assets? Exactly.

Matt Zahab: 31:48

But it's not an actual Yeah, exactly what you said it's not the US dollar. It's their version of the US dollar.

Chris McAlary: 31:53

Yeah, no, I think I think that will definitely happen. I think you're like two steps ahead of them. That will eventually happen because I think those governments do want control over you know, the money in some way. So they will, they will definitely want control issuing it and tracking it. So I would not be surprised at all if that happened.

Matt Zahab: 32:13

And I also had asked about NF T's I could be completely wrong here and my apologies but while we were just shooting the ship before we jumped on I swear I heard a couple discord notifications pop off in the background are you are an NF t guy.

Chris McAlary: 32:26

I am an NF? T. I

Matt Zahab: 32:27

knew it. You got your

Chris McAlary: 32:29

Yeah, my d fi and I'm an NF t guy. I'm like deep into both of those. d fi first, but yeah, my Discord. Notifications are going off for the projects that I like, I just bought a Uer beats originally familiar with that project, I'm not No. So it's sort of one of the first generative art for for music. So they this guy eular, who you probably learned about like in like high school algebra ulis theorem. He was like this old mathematician who was super also into music. And he came out with like, this formula for harmonies. And so these like this, your beats project took those formulas and created generative art, or generative music based on those and they're really, really cool, there's 27 originals that are, you know, you own the originals. And then people can can make prints based on a bonding curve. And you get royalties based on when people make prints of your songs. So I bought one of the originals a few months back, but like the community, you know, the community is fantastic. These guys are like, you know, both building community, they're building new technology. But the same is true for a lot of the different projects in the space, both both in NF T's. And in d fi. That's why we've really made a commitment on our project roadmap to both include a lot of these tokens on our kiosk, because consumers want them they serve a very useful place and personal finance. But as well with Anna t stuff. You know, we want to start adding, you know, NF T's to our kiosk, giving consumers access to culture to art, we think that's a huge driver of mainstream adoption.

Matt Zahab: 34:22

Maybe see you see right now, the people that sort of run culture in North America and even around the world, a lot of the time it musicians, actors and athletes, right, get to the OTG influencers. And now you have some influencers to all three of those categories. People from those categories are getting into NF T's right now.

Chris McAlary: 34:42

Exactly right. No, it's like digestible, you know, finances like boring and stuffy and whatever, but people get our people get culture. And so it's an amazing entryway for most people to this technology.

Matt Zahab: 34:56

But like think about it this way. And this is an analogy that I use for a lot of my friends and family too. We're just anyone who who's willing to learn and listen but if I invest in a publicly traded company What do I get in return? Right let's say I just buy one even Apple stock What do I get from that I get a 20 page booklet you know once a quarter asked me to vote for x wires that are the financial statements or whatever, which I couldn't give one crap about, I can find all that stuff online. What do you get when you invest in an NF t which is still a token at the end of the day, you get a beautiful piece of art right most of the time, and then you get the discord you get a 10,000 or plus person community and it's just it's a big party where everyone has the same goals same aspirations everyone likes the piece of art everyone likes the culture of the project and everyone wants to get rich right? It's like it's it's something that's just so hard to explain. And it's just what the crazy thing that I always try to tell people is the qualitative aspects of NF T's are on explanatory at the moment because you don't unless you're actually in it you can't feel what it feels like

Chris McAlary: 35:55

well what's uh what's beautiful is starting to happen obviously you have these online communities that are you know, growing and emerging that are beautiful they're creating these incredible interactions incredible art and even incredible wealth what I bumped into a guy who had a he had his board eight on his Apple watch at a bar and I just saw it I'm like, bro you get aboard as you're wearing on your watch like we just started talking crypto for like 15 minutes

Matt Zahab: 36:21

that's awesome

Chris McAlary: 36:22

and you know he's like yeah, I bought my Bitcoin 10 years ago and I used it to buy you know acid somewhere Alright, right this guy's in oh geez. Like I wish I'd held on to it. But uh, you know, he's throwing a board a party for all like the board eight people in Vegas somewhere and we're going to you know, we're going to give him a couple DCMS for the party, too to help them out so it's crazy how it's like both creating community online and then the spillover that's happening in the real world. And even like these conferences that people go to like like in New York, or Miami recently, you know, people who have these like deep online relationships finally come together for in person for the first time. And it's a special

Matt Zahab: 37:12

it's it's an incredible community. I wake up every morning, and I'm just so grateful that I get to do this and work in this space as a job. I I feel like I'm part of the herd when it comes to that as well. It's Yeah, some special. This has been incredible, Chris, really appreciate your time you jumping on here. Any questions for me? before we let you go?

Chris McAlary: 37:33

What would you like to see on our kiosk? Which token or NFT

Matt Zahab: 37:38

I was gonna say NF T's in general, like, like a top 100 on open see kind of thing. That'd be great. That'd be, that'd be really incredible. But otherwise, of when I was doing the research, you guys got all the ones I want the only one I don't want to see in there as DOS, I still think Doge is a is a dog's breakfast. But otherwise,

Chris McAlary: 37:56

I've been Doge pilled. Recently, I always thought it was the dog breakfast. But if you look at the supply curve, right is actually at the point where it's like turning flat. So it was like issuing a billion a billion billion billion for the first few years. And then all of a sudden, it's like, you know, you can only issue a billion a day.

Matt Zahab: 38:18

So yeah,

Chris McAlary: 38:18

for so long to taper off in terms of you know, that amount versus the total supply. So it's actually turned flat and so the like the the curve sort of is starting to look like Bitcoins. And if you think it's like, you know, fairly distributed and it's giving people who are, you know, a little bit, you know, less tech savvy, more opportunity to get in early. It's more of like a people's currency so to speak. You know, I think it has a shot, I don't think it's total horseshit. Like it was like, you know, intended to be originally I think it's actually like sort of morphed into something that is more meaningful today.

Matt Zahab: 38:56

That's a very good point. I've always again, it's just me being stubborn and me also being maybe jealous or envious would be the right word of my friends who knew nothing about the space and put a grand into Doge you know, 12 months ago and now they're riding lambos right like that so it's a little weird and I'm not sure if you saw the curaytor who just made I think 100 nF T's this was like two or three days ago no one bought one of them in three days then he tweets about it now the floor is like 20s

Chris McAlary: 39:25

nowhere

Matt Zahab: 39:26

yep

Chris McAlary: 39:27

project called

Matt Zahab: 39:27

I forget I can look it up after the show for you. But yeah, that's bananas. But anyways, on a separate note, last little plug here and this is a shameless plug on my end and my team and I are working on a coin that we're launching soon and when that pops out, we'll have a chat because we'd love to get that on the ATM. Cool. Can't wait on the DCMS. Chris has been incredible really appreciate you can share it with you. And if I ever get out to Vegas or if you ever come to Toronto for you will play around. If you come to Toronto in the winter, we definitely won't be playing around maybe we'll play some hockey Have you ever done that but otherwise really appreciate you coming on and last thing where can our guests find you? And the coin cloud team on social?

Chris McAlary: 40:06

Yeah, we're at coin cloud DCM on most platforms. And our website is coin dot cloud. And you can find our customer support information on there email chat. could give us a call anytime we're happy to answer your questions. Learn more about coin cloud or more about crypto and we're here we're here to make it easy.

Matt Zahab: 40:28

We're gonna treat Chris thanks again for coming on. definitely gonna have a young friend to the near future.

Chris McAlary: 40:31

Thanks, Matt. It's a pleasure,

Matt Zahab: 40:33

folks. This was Chris mcalary from coin cloud really had a blast talking with Chris and I hope you did too. I will include the show notes and links to absolutely everything in the description. As always, please stay safe out there. Appreciate you all. Love you all. Have a great start to q4 and we will see you all shortly. Thanks for listening. Have a good one. Bye bye.