 Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico. It's theCUBE, covering Blockchain Unbound. Brought to you by Blockchain Industries. Hello and welcome to our special on the ground coverage in Puerto Rico. It's theCUBE covering Blockchain Unbound. This is the industry gathering from all the global industry leaders, emerging entrepreneurs, financers, investors and cryptocurrency, Blockchain, the decentralized internet, part of our continuing coverage. My next guest is Jim Calhoun, is the founder of CoinBot, an innovative entrepreneurial project that turned into something really growing in large. Great to have you on. Thanks for joining. Thanks for having me. So CoinBot, first take a minute to explain what it is. It's a really clever way that you guys built a product for yourselves, and it kind of went crazy. Yes. And it's going great. So talk about what is CoinBot, how you guys got there, and what's going on with it right now. So CoinBot is a chatbot you can message on Facebook or Slack or Telegram that gives you real-time cryptocurrency and fiat prices. So basically what that means is it's basically an AI you can message. It'll tell you Bitcoin's price or Ethereum's price. It'll even do conversions like, how many times have you seen like 0.0549 Bitcoin? And you're like, how much is that in dollars? You can just send out the CoinBot. It'll do the calculation for you and give you the right price. So Jim, the number one question I want to ask you is everyone's going to, it's like Alexa or Siri for pricing. Is it going to go up? Hey CoinBot, is Bitcoin rising or falling? I mean, technically you're not there yet, but I mean, you can almost imagine the dots connecting with the data. Yeah. So we get a lot of analytics and data on our backend. The way CoinBot works is we're individually hooked into each exchange. And so a lot of developers find that interesting. They want access to our API and a lot of traders find that interesting as far as the data. So like you said, we can pick up on trends. We can make some positions ourselves sometimes. And a lot of people are interested in that. So it's a free service for users. Yes. So you go to CoinBot.co, CoinBot.co, it's free, but the analytics is really the compelling thing that's an opportunity. So is there an API to the data? Yes. Traders, developers, can you play with the data? A lot of people party with the data. So we're working on our API and access to our data. Right now, if you sign up for a newsletter on our website, we'll email you when it's available and you can sign up and get early access. Okay, so we were talking before we came on that side project for friends. Yes. That's kind of how Uber started, by the way. We've got a couple of town cars and next to you know, it's Uber. So in a way, then it kind of went mainstream. Talk about what happened and where is it now? So it's funny, I've been trading crypto for years and before that I was in the stock market. So a few friends of mine, we were all in the stock market trading and we said, let's meet up and talk about some trading strategies. And again, this is like in the standard stock market. So we meet at a coffee shop, we sit down, we talk about stocks for about three minutes and then crypto, Bitcoin comes up and the next three hours dominate or dominated by crypto. So we start talking about crypto currencies, this and that. And so I created a Slack group with us. It's about, I think it was about eight or nine of us at the time. I created a Slack group and in the Slack group, I noticed people were asking, what's the price of this or who's longing Ethereum, who's shorting Bitcoin? And I would go to Google, find the prices or go to the exchanges, find the prices, copy and paste it into the chat room. And one day I just thought to myself, this would be so much easier if there was a bot or something in the chat room that can do this on its own. So that's how CoinBot was born. It's basically a group of crypto hedge fund managers, crypto miners, a tight-knit group of crypto entrepreneurs and CoinBot lived there for about a year. And one of the people in the group is an, he's also in a lot of other crypto groups. And he asked me, he was like, well, I'd like to use CoinBot in these other groups. I mean, have you guys thought about releasing it? So we released it. We got 2,000 users right off the bat. It kind of exploded like wildfire. We've had exponential growth. I think we're at 25,000 users now, almost at 30,000 just this week. And we have a lot of, I think we get 12,000 queries per day minimum. How do people get it? How do people work with you guys? So let's just say I want to put it on silkenangle.com or thecube.net, our sites. How do I share it? If I'm a developer, is there, have you guys thought that through? What's the current situation with the product? I know you just gave it for free. Yes. So how do I integrate it into my workflow via API or? So why not? We could chat after this if you'd like. But right now, if you get in contact us from our website, you can email us directly. Those emails go to me, actually. And you can ask for API access. We'll ask a couple of questions. What's your project? What are you looking to do? What kind of endpoints or data are you looking for? And if it's the right fit, then we'll approve you. So far, we have a handful of developers who've built some products based on our API. One example is CoinView app. And another example is Edgeablock wants to incorporate CoinBots API into their curriculum. And the Slack group, the original nine guys or so, or gals, was that all here in Puerto Rico? Was it around the world? Around the world. And where do you live? You're living in Los Angeles. Los Angeles, okay. So you're in LA. So any involvement with Puerto Rico here, or is it just here for the conference? So Puerto Rico, I love Puerto Rico. The more I, so it's my first time here, the more I'm learning about it and the more I'm realizing there's huge opportunities here. I'd be looking to probably start something out here soon. And yeah, so. Are you gonna move here? I'm considering it, honestly. I don't know, now that I've said that publicly, I guess I might have to stick to my word, but I'm considering it really. Awesome. And let's talk about how we can help spread the love for people who want to promote its CoinBot.co. Any other things you want to say about the project? We're on Facebook. That's our newest launch. That was a month ago. Facebook Messenger. Facebook Messenger. So you can search Ask CoinBot, or just search CoinBot, we're the first one to come up. We're on there. Other platforms, they mentioned Telegram. Telegram, we're going to be on Discord next. And we've got a lot of requests for Amazon Echo and Google Home. Yeah, yeah, Echo's a key. Yeah. We got some contacts at Amazon, we can help you out there. Okay, awesome. Anything that you see in the marketplace that you're excited about, things that you're concerned about, as someone who's been trading for a while, we've been covering bitcoins since 2010, so we've seen some early-day stuff. We love the maturation of going on in the ecosystem. Your thoughts on the good, what you're concerned about, and what you hope gets better fast. Yes. I hope we get some more clarity on regulations, so especially when it comes to the ICOs, the initial coin offerings, it's a huge gray area, and everybody, of course, anybody like myself and like yourself, we want to follow the rules, we want to do things properly, but it's hard when there are no rules, necessarily, or the rules are very early. So I think 2018 is going to be the year of clarity on regulation, and I think that's where Puerto Rico comes in and plays a major role as being a more innovative space to do those types of things. I think also being in crypto for a long time as a trader, I think the old days are over, if that makes sense. Getting rich off the massive rise in three days. Yeah. That's over. I think those glory days, that's the thing of the past now, but this is a good thing, because I think it'll bring more volume, more stability, and more people will start getting involved in it. What do you say to the people out there that are getting into the trading? I hear a lot of parents of their kids that are my age and have kids that are in high school or college, they're letting them play with some money, and they're learning how fast they can lose money. So as an experienced trader, certainly in crypto, which is kind of wild west, it's a big wave coming, your advice to folks that want to dabble, put their toe on the water, whether it's learning or and or, trying to make a career out of it, what's your advice? This is good. This is a great question actually. So when I give talks at different conferences about Coinbot, I'd say half the people who come up to me after are developers, but the other half are people who are completely new to crypto. And they say, I love your product because it's simple, it's not complicated, it's an easy way for me to get started. So that's part of the reason why we're partnering with EduBlock here in Puerto Rico, the education, the blockchain education group, because we know that our product is good for beginners. And what I've learned when I first got into crypto, I was in high school, I bought a Bitcoin for 150 bucks, and but because it was 150 bucks, it was a little amount of money, but because it was in there, I found myself constantly checking the prices. And as I was checking prices, I started getting sucked into it more and then I started educating myself and learning more from there. So I think if your kids are really into this, give them a hundred bucks or however much you can spare or put $100 in yourself too with your kids and you'll see you'll start getting sucked in. You can message Coinbot, you can check the prices on other apps and you'll start getting sucked into it. It's almost uncontrollable. It's addictive, it's fun. Again, I've always said, we've reported in our show and our sites, this is the biggest wave in the computer revolution ever. If you even combine the other big waves that are well-documented, the PC revolution, mini computer revolution, internet revolution, this thing is massive. This wave is here. And it's moving really, really fast compared to those. And the ecosystem is forming really fast. You got funding coming in. What's your take on the ecosystem? Obviously it's super fast. What's your view early still, but still growing fast? What's the sentiment? That's a big question. I think it's growing extremely fast. And I think that's a good thing because I think it's going to be a lot of ups and downs. So the quicker we can go through the ups, the quicker we can go through the downs. If that makes sense, I know that's abstract. Basically what I mean is I think that there's going to be some booms and there's going to be a lot of busts, especially this year when it comes to the alt coins. I think we'll start seeing some coins maybe die out. And I think that's a good thing because it's like a natural process of selection, I guess you can say. Yeah, have allusion Darwinism for the crypto world. The ICO boom obviously has been a great run for people looking to raise money, but we've been reporting obviously, and we also have tokenized our business as well, not yet ICOed or maybe not even do it, but the point is utility token, if you don't have a utility and you're raising money, you now a security token. So nice movement on the ICO front, that should clarify kind of the good, bad, and the ugly, the scams from the legit deals. So give people more time to get their utility up and running. What do you see the role of the utility token as security token emerges as the preferred way to finance news ventures? Okay, so I think I'm actually, I like the direction of security tokens. If only we can figure out a way for many people to participate as opposed to just accredited investors. So I know there's a lot of types of securities. There's your standard CF crowdfunding raise and your reggae, your reggae plus, there's a handful of different directions you can go with security tokens. And we looked into this with CoinBot as well. We've been talking about doing an ICO and we were torn between utility or security. I think 2018 may be the year of security tokens, maybe more towards July, towards the end of the year. But I think it's a good direction to go in. It legitimizes our industry. It legitimizes the technology we're building. And as long as we can get all the participants as many people involved as possible and we're not excluding people who would otherwise not be an accredited investor or have the opportunities that the accredited investors have, I think it's a good thing. That's awesome. Question again on the institutional side. I had a chance to interview the folks, ex Goldman Sachs guys in charge of Block Tower and you got Polychain kind of two different makeup of kind of hedge funds, hedge funds and crypto. I mean, come on, this is happening, right? I mean, a good thing. Money's coming into the market. How does that all fit in your mind? How does it all tie together? I think the institutions are really banking on the technology of blockchain itself. I'm not sure where they are as far as trading the actual currencies, but I know they like the technology and to me that's all that's needed. In my mind, that certainty that this industry is going to be the absolute foundation of the future of technology. Well, you're a great walking example of what we see in the ecosystem that is unprecedented. That is someone who's developed, who also makes money with coins. So your developer, you're seeing the emergence of people like building products, making money on trades and then starting hedge funds. A lot of people who are starting financing organizations are entrepreneurs and crypto traders and investors. So interesting dynamic because they're not the old model of venture capital where they're just business guys investing in ponies, the hot techies, it's kind of a new cultural shift. This is significant. A lot of different dynamics are at play here. They kind of know what's going on. So interesting to see what the outcome will be. Yeah, a lot of entrepreneurs in this space come from the front lines. So they got their start trading a couple coins, built some personal wealth from there and expanded on that and learned more. And now I see people, especially in Puerto Rico, the entrepreneurs I've met since I've been here, the native Puerto Ricans here have done amazing things coming from the very, very, coming from zero and building themselves up and then building a company and helping others and helping each other on the island is extremely inspiring. So that's why I'm excited to maybe set something up here and possibly move. And it's an opportunity for a new kind of democracy, total decentralized, no central trust issues, complete transparency, but also security with the immutable blockchain, great opportunity. Thanks for spending the time and chatting with us here in Puerto Rico. Congratulations on CoinBot, check it out. I mean, to me, it's like the Siri, it's the Alexa of pricing, a lot of opportunities and we'll keep in touch. John Furrier here in Puerto Rico on the ground for cryptocurrency, blockchain, decentralized applications, all the future of work and how society works. We are here with Blockchain Unbound. Thanks for watching.