 But yeah, this is your interview. You're free to run it as you as you wish and hopefully I'll do my best with my answers Perfect see as interviewing you have you have the right not to answer a question that you might Deem inappropriate or about the structure or purely nonsensical. So it is completely up to you what questions you answer and what you don't answer Okay Blockchain and yeah, very it's a very kind of it's a very good topic of interest between the people who actually know About it, but together I think it's a very niche topic Yes, I mean, it's it's interesting like here in in Cape Town. There's quite a big following for it I mean we've got that guy called Vitalik who created a ferium. He's coming to Cape Town Next weekend. So So, yeah, so I'm definitely going to the conference gonna hear what he has to say and Yeah, so we definitely a hot spot when it comes to this technology But I think y'all that's something about South Africans is we we like to see ourselves very much as the leaders of tech entrepreneurs I mean, you just have to look at Silicon Valley and I mean Elon Musk is South African and that guy who Who owns that mega hedge fund or investment fund was called is it called sequential capital or something like that? His name is roll of Bertha and he's also a South African and actually as well So that's we can actually heads up. Yeah, one of the biggest investment firms in Silicon Valley So, yeah, so that's proud to be South African and part of this tech culture and yeah We've definitely taken blockchain and we're happy with it I mean, we've got coffee shops dedicated to the stuff and regular meetups So we like to think that we know the technology of course It's very complicated and it's progressing at a rate that unless you're a computer scientist It's difficult to keep up But as long as you can keep a grasp of the basics and you know the philosophy around it It's amazing at opportunities that you can see, you know where this can be applied specifically in the realm of finance So yeah, yeah, just give me 20 seconds. I don't know why I just decided to Play up now, but it's starting so And then I will proceed my with my first question I'm gonna start with the first question and I'm gonna if I'm as Saying the question too fast. Please stop me and I'll say it again. Okay So my question to you is Current applications of blockchain technology that might have an impact on finance Especially in the field of taxation Okay, so look, I mean the way I see blockchain is that you know One of its core things is the fact that it's a transparency, you know, that is what blockchains giving us It's giving us transparency and it's giving us security And this has been phenomenal when it's come to to payments Especially economic transfers over the internet because now what you have is as soon as you make that transaction It goes through the security protocols and that transaction is deemed valid And you can't do something called a double spend attack Which is what people were doing all financial systems, you know, they would tell someone Oh, I'm paying you with my my bank account and then as soon as the person gets proof They're like, okay, great And then they quickly cancel it and they can get the goods and keep the money So blockchain was was brilliant in in doing that When your question now applies to say tax it gets very interesting because one of the things with Bitcoin Was that it was created as a decentralized system Whereas tax is a funding mechanism for a centralized government system And it's quite nice to maybe just before we progress further to take like a just a step back and look at what exactly tax is Because you've got some people who deem tax as a slavery, you know, they come up with this big statement saying You know, government's taking a portion of my labor without my consent, you know, this is a form of slavery Of course, I think personally that's a little bit ridiculous I I understand I understand like everybody wants to pay as little tax as possible and get as much government You know benefits whereas government wants to try to receive as much taxing as possible and provide as little benefits as possible But at the end of the day in working democracies, you know, it's the citizens that are voting governments into place And we want tax because it's a way that we can all collectively You know finance the government in order to do certain operations Sorry, that is my phone ringing Should have put that on silent before So no, so as I was saying, it's you know, tax is something that citizens throughout, you know A lot of us might not enjoy paying for it, but throughout the course of history We've come to this social contract agreement with governments that hey, we want to pay tax in order to get various benefits Of course So we yeah, we can maybe say that tax is a good thing where it becomes questionable is how much tax to pay And what method should we use to to apply tax? um And I mean here here in South Africa I'm not sure how it works elsewhere in the world is we have quite an efficient tax system I mean in fact, I think the South African tax system is one of the best in the world in the sense that It does work. You know, if you do something wrong sars will be, you know, knocking on your door saying hey You have to pay your tax but one thing that we've done quite well is we've introduced fuel tax And what's great about that is people who then use government services like let's say the road They're then paying the most tax for the person who uses it the most so the more you drive your car on the road The more tax you're going to pay through fuel. Of course, that assumes that all roads are equal Which of course we know are not the case sometimes in the mega cities The highways are of a better quality than say the roads in the rural areas In which case a good tax has been introduced as having a toll gate um So these introducing tax this way and taxing things the most efficient way possible is important for citizens Of course, South Africans get very angry and this is a place where I do see blockchain helping out Is that we feel that government is Inefficient with the spending of its of money that it collects and South Africa You'll often hear people complaining about corruption of the misallocation of funds And when you have blockchain and transparency and everybody can see those payments Then that's going to make it difficult for corruption to occur Imagine if you're every time a government official made a transaction People would say hey, you know, why are you receiving, you know, a large sum from a You know corporate individual and then, you know, the next thing, you know A rule is introduced that helps that said corporate, you know People can then ask questions and journalists will have a you know make their job a lot easier So I definitely see the the aspects of blockchain the fact that transactions are transparent As being a very critical thing. So whether we use blockchain or something else Whatever that something else is going to be it has to incorporate that transparency That bitcoin in the blockchain has so graciously given us So, yeah, I think that's That's one of the great, you know potential applications of of the technology that is already in place We really have that, yeah Perfect, perfect My next question is most of the top tier firms and when I say top tier, I'm referring to Deloitte KPMG Anticipate blockchain technology's potential in tax to be major and revolutionary Do you agree and what are your thoughts? Well, I mean, it's interesting you look at these accounting firms I mean, they basically have built their business around, you know The accountant the audit process and also is having tax experts Because like I said going back people want to pay as little tax as possible And we want to try tax in the most efficient way possible So what government does is it's not just like a general tax Oh, everybody pay, you know, $10 a month to be in the country various activities are taxed differently in all these things But as soon as you start introducing weird and wonderful rules You're going to get these specialists these intellectual people that KPMG and EY and all these accounting firms Employ that are going to discover loopholes, you know So, oh, if you put your assets in a trust, you're going to get a tax benefit or oh If you set up an offshore business, you're going to get a tax benefit and what the government has to do is Or where it gets a little bit irritating instead of them going back to the drawing board and saying, okay Let's try to figure out something else. They just keep on adding more and more rules And these rules start getting confusing which the accountants are actually quite happy with because it makes their skills Even more in demand because now the rules are so complicated. You need these accountants So I think tax has has been very beneficial The whole process has been very beneficial to these accounting firms because it's given them a lot of business Where where I'm quite interested is you look at this blockchain technology And especially where it's going and when I mean about where it's going if we had to go from say, you know bitcoin introduces transparency But then you've got these platform coins like ethereum, which can You know, they talk about the smart contract. We could start seeing smart transactions And what I mean by smart transactions is that when you now send people money in the future You won't just say, oh, you know, here's ten dollars You'll say this is ten dollars and you'll say this is in payment of a salary or this is a donation Or this is for the purchasing of bread and depending on what reason you give What the the platform or blockchain technology can automatically do is apply the right Tax amount. So if it's bread, it can be zero percent if it's salary It can be stepped according to how large their salary is if it's a donation It can be a slight discount and then what happens with that is tax can be done immediately And not have to be done retrospectively or, you know, every six months like how, you know, currently doing And I think that's going to be really critical for the economy because Not only are you taking away all the stress or this financial burden You know, I don't have to no longer pay Deloitte studio my tax because it's done automatically But all that economic data that the government's going to be getting it's going to be seeing Okay, how much money actually is going to bread? How much money is going to donations? How much money is going to these various things? And I think that's exciting Of course, of course, you know, we can't We can't be naive and you know, some people will maybe stop paying salaries and you know saying that it's bread in order to into that zero Percent tax gap or you know, we'll maybe lie on the smart transaction And that's where I see, you know, maybe artificial intelligence or some machine learning techniques coming in to try and pick up on that, you know, illicit behavior So if an amount exceeds the normal cost of bread, you know, that's going to be a little bit of a red flag Then maybe the government can can investigate But coming I guess back to the question is Yeah, I do agree that the technology Eventually will be embraced because of the benefits that it is promising Of course now there's there are a few hurdles and a few difficulties But in the future, I can see that those things will be ironed out And the benefits will outweigh the cons and your blockchain will become part of our payment mechanism perfect Okay, so my next question is I feel like I might be repeating myself at this, but just bear with me What's the potential does blockchain technology hold in your opinion? What is the most immediate cost benefit and the earliest adoption application when it is? So now look, this this is a good question because I mean, it's it's very easy to talk about the ideal state You know the state when blockchain is fully implemented when adoption has been completed And you know bitcoin is saturated in the market. Everybody understands that everybody's using it Then you know fantastic. We can get all these these great benefits But the problem at the moment is or I see this there's two two big hurdles with bitcoin at the moment is It's inefficient with you know in forms of electricity You know you need like an internet connection and you need all these things, but also it's complicated. I mean You've got you've got to remember that the average person in the street when they did their schooling and everything like that They would talk mathematics with coins and you know, like, okay I'm not sure about how the denominations are In in your country, but in South Africa, you know, you've got 50 cents 20 cents 10 cents 5 cents And the teachers would use these as tools to say okay, if you bought something for 75 cents, what coins do you need? And money and education especially at an early age played such a critical role together because it's such a lovely way to do practical problem solving That people kind of you know, we're ingrained with this is what money is Money is a technology That is issued by the central bank Blockchain comes in and it questions that whole idea. It kind of says no no You know money is anything that we agree is a store of value Or it's anything that we are prepared to to use to facilitate trade It doesn't have to be issued by a central authority To get people's head around that is going to be a massive massive hurdle And I think a lot of people are going to resist they're going to say this is too too difficult to understand Uh specifically i'm talking about older people. So like people like our parents who are so used to the old method You know bitcoin comes in and they You know, they're going to be wary they're going to be wary. I mean already they battle to to use normal apps on the phone Now you want to digitalize the entire you know payment process Um and ja I mean and and this is something that we've seen like in South Africa We've got a company called snap scan which allows people to make payments using their mobile phone You know scanning little qr codes and and it's very efficient and it's a great thing But you mainly only see what we call the hipsters and the young people using it because any technology I mean old people are going to have a a bit of a resistance to So I think that's there's there's the practical adoption problem And then of course, like I said, there is that technology inefficiency But I think that one it's interesting I think both will be solved in time You know the old people are going to be replaced by our generation Who's going to be comfortable using it and technology is improving at a rate that we will be able to do these things faster And maintain that same level of security that makes blockchain so trustworthy So but ja I would say that those are maybe two of the hurdles, but they will dissipate in time yes perfect So my next question is What changes will it make to your profession in terms of personal cultural and structure of the organization? You know what I think it's It's it's an interesting question In the sense that I think it will make people think about money a little bit better uh, specifically like I say blockchain the whole great thing about is that there's this transaction history and it's transparent People I think well, maybe not people directly, but I think apps will develop that You know, you'll download this app and then to look at your past transactions And it will draw, you know pretty visualization of how you're spending your money And people will be able to see oh, wow, you know, look how much money is going into entertainment Look how much money is going into food. Oh, look how much money is going into education and Yes, I know Certain people do that already, you know, they who do their own books and they keep all that counting stuff but a lot of people don't do that and I think this technology is going to allow these third party apps to be built on top of it that are going to provide You know details with people and it's going to help people to spend A little bit more wisely, you know, people are going to save a little bit more and there is going to be that culture change I also see that people are going to start becoming maybe forced to be a little bit more ethical You can imagine if all your transactions are transparent Um, you know and your wife can go to you and be like, oh, honey, you know, what what are you spending money at? You know two o'clock in the morning, uh, you know at this this area where there's a strip club You know, there will be these things where before cash cash is silent You know cash you can just do your thing and no one there's no paper trail when it comes to cash Where once money becomes completely digitalized, there will be this trail And yes, I know people say are you infringing on privacy? For me privacy is not that important For me, I see transparency has been better because yes People can't maybe get away with doing whatever they want to do But that also means that government officials can't get away with, you know, doing corrupt activities And I think that when you look at the big picture is more beneficial So, yeah, I think there will be there will be a shift in in culture Um, and like I said, it'll make us maybe a little bit more ethical just because the chances of us getting caught up So going to be much higher And it is going to give us a bit of a better overview of our financial position and we're going to spend money better Perfect Oh, I actually agree What are the potential obstacles you see are there any institutional barrier regulatory other stakeholders resistant to change? Yeah, I think this is this is something again. It's it comes with You know most technologies when you initially introduce them there is a little bit of a resistance And I think the reason for that is you look at new ideas and you look at threats like valid threats Both of them introduce chaos in the short term The difference is that the new idea hopefully creates better structure in the long term Whereas the threat, you know, it's just chaos all the way through But in the short term a new idea and a threat Are kind of seen as the same thing. They're both causing chaos in the short term So what we'll see is you will see people who are against bitcoin who are against blockchain They will call it scams. They will call it, you know disruptive technology Just for the sake of being disruptive that it's going to push us into this anarchy position And a lot of the times they've got justifications because there are scamsters who are using bitcoin You know to run their business I mean Ico's was a classic example of how people just took the money and ran And it did kind of hurt the whole image of of bitcoin as being a new technology compared to just say A threat that's coming in and you know ripping everyone blind So I do see a lot of this pushback and this is even something that we're seeing here in in South Africa Um, and I mean I get a little bit annoyed because you look at our South African reserve bank And they're like we have to introduce all of these regulations because of financial terrorism And I'm like what do you mean financial terrorism? I mean in South Africa especially a country like let's say South Africa We don't really have terrorism, you know So when they start talking about oh the point of this regulation is financial terrorism And what I mean by regulation is they're saying that all these blockchain Exchanges need to have you know, know your customer policies. Everyone needs to be Featured their details need to be given There's this whole convoluted process that they want to try put in place To prevent financial terrorism where I'm like if this was truly trying to be regulated to safeguard the market and all that The regulation would also include that exchanges have to keep certain reserves and and other things that we see in You know the the derivative markets and and other things like that So I think you're at the moment We are seeing pushback and like I say it's because I think the people who are in charge of these institutions Um are old and are seeing this new technology as being Having similar properties as a threat, you know blockchain will cause a little bit of chaos in the short term Um, I mean already in my own life. It made me question. What on earth is money? And you can imagine that's that's on someone who's studied this thing Um when that starts hitting the public It we don't know what the short term effect is going to be we can see ideally the long term effect is going to be better But in the short term, there might be chaos. There might be inefficiencies And I think there will be people in those institutions who will want to push back Also, also, I mean And maybe this is more of a sinister or more of a skeptical look is One of the things blockchain promises to do is to decentralize power And you might say that these institutions have a hunger for power and therefore want to block it because they see This thing as a threat to their their stronghold. Of course, that's maybe being a little bit too cynical of the financial institutions Um, I think that they Yeah, I think that their purpose is to try and you know push the economy forward rather than just to hold into power But that is a view that we sometimes see being discussed Is that yeah, because blockchain wants to decentralize that's why there's being a pushback this kind of resistance fight for power Perfect. Perfect. I notice you mentioned disruptions in your answer and my next question follows disruption So my next question is do you recognize any dangers or disruptions? Talk in relation to blockchain technology itself So so yes, I mean like I said in the short term, we're we're going to be seeing some chaos We're going to be seeing some chaos People are going to be questioning what exactly is money And I mean to to a certain degree we've already seen this manifest itself the whole blockchain Bubble that was in you know end of 2017 early 2018 People panic. They were like, okay Maybe this is the new money and people threw in, you know life savings into this technology Only for that bubble then to burst and then people got burnt people lost a lot of money so I think we've already seen some of the dangers occur ICOs are another classic example of a danger where they came in person promises I'm going to create a new wonderful technology that's going to change the world And people are like, well bitcoin did so, you know, maybe this random stranger on the internet is going to he's got a pretty website He's got this confusing white paper here. Take my money. Make me rich and he's promising, you know times 20 Uh, you know returns This person then takes all this money and I don't know let's pretend he's he's an honest guy and he first looks and he says, okay I've got all this money. Let me actually try to solve this problem that I said I was going to do And he maybe starts he starts the problem. He realizes wait, this was a cloud in the sky idea There's no way I can do it And look, I'm accountable to no one because people all around the world have given me money in the form of bitcoin It's irreversible You know, do I slave away at a problem that I cannot solve or do I buy a yacht and sail into the sunset and have fun? And that's what we saw happened with icos. That's why I think facebook google started banning that those Mark, you know, those adverts which kind of stopped the demand for for bitcoin and one thing that we need to realize is Especially bitcoin like coin ethereum all of these things There's a constant supply getting pumped into this market every single day, you know, every time block is mined coins are being released into the system And there's this constant supply. Yes, it hogs every so often, but you know for periods There's this constant supply So suddenly demand has to go down and you're still getting in the supply Price is going to start coming down as soon as that price starts coming down for a long period of time People start getting that fear. There's uncertainty and they start selling their coins Which what it does pushes supply up even more reduces demand and we have a little bit of a spiral Or a market crash, which is what we saw And because it wasn't regulated In the sense that there was no government because sometimes what happens in in our markets is if that starts happening Government sometimes steps in we see china does this and they just start buying up stocks just to try to prevent the crash from happening Because bitcoin had no central authority or no government backing it It went into complete free fall and we saw the the thing almost wiped out Um, so yeah, so I think there are dangers. There's definitely it's not like, you know, don't put your pension money behind this thing But yeah, it's it's But I think all technology is going to come with with as possible risks even a machine learning I mean things learn by failing so it's going to fail before it gets things right And yeah, I think society is kind of still failing But we're learning how to apply bitcoin and blockchain to our economies perfect um My second last question is This is from the south africa point of view. What is the time span for adoption in south africa? I know you've told me already that they've started adopting the technology But when I say time span, how long do you think It'll take for south africa till adoption is fully integrated into society So look, it's it's uh, it's a very good question, especially, you know in south africa because There's the one view. Like I said, we're south africa. We have some amazing amazing entrepreneurs and some really really intelligent people Who can we have the ability to implement it to you know, change the brand put it all in the blockchain The south african reserve bank is testing the technology. They are working with some entrepreneurs Um, and they are some amazing, you know, bitcoin blockchain ideas coming out of south africa So that kind of suggests, you know, we're going to get this technology before anybody else We're smart. We know how to use it and we can see the problems that it can solve On the other hand, we have a government that has got much more pressing issues at the moment Um, because south africa, we are a country with such high inequality It's more important for for the government, especially in getting votes for the next election That it is seen addressing issues of poverty and you know, pushing money towards education Housing for the poor making sure that just basic human needs are in place Such as sanitation and internet and these type of things So, you know, you look at governments, they've got their hands full with just doing normal tasks You know, normal things that governments need to do To now come to the government and say, oh look, you know, there's this new technology That could completely, you know, like, yes, it's going to be efficient But hey, you know, it's going to take time. It's going to take money to to invest in this South africa, this african government is going to say no They're going to first say let's wait and see other governments put it forward So I could see smaller economies such as malta, maritius, bermuda Maybe implementing the technology first South africa will take a step back. We will wait We will wait. We'll see how they do it before we change it because This is one thing that we we see just in actuarial science. I mean in corporates Is legacy systems are very, very difficult to replace And I mean, this is at a company level where an insurance company finds it very, very difficult to go from The systems they were using 20 years ago to this modern day technology In fact, we call it boiling the ocean. That's how difficult we say these projects are So what they do is they normally just use a little bit of the technology in various Areas, so you sort of the legacy system and then you add these new components on top And I think that's what will eventually start happening in governments is it we very read to see an entire financial system being Replaced and put on the blockchain even though that's more efficient It will give us more data and you know, it will allow progress to accelerate I think we will slowly see these things coming into play So it'll first be the biggest and most efficient things that they'll do first before it slowly trickles down into the rest of the economy So, yeah, I think South Africa It depends on on how other countries do like I say if Mauritius adopts it and it's benefits them Then the government will say, okay, let's go on board But our governments they you know, they're not going to venture into the unknown unless there's sufficient evidence The benefits are going to be there, especially since just like I say South Africa We've got all these smart people who are for bitcoin. We also have a bunch of smart people who are against bitcoin And like I say as soon as you've got the debate, you know, having both sides government will rather stall Or be patient rather than jumping in and getting its fingers burnt Because then the citizens are going to be upsetting. I say waste all this money on a tech project Where you could have been building more houses for the people So, yeah Yeah, of course. That's the reality of things Yeah, yeah, perfect So my last question last question is any informed opinion? Where do you think blockchain technology will be in the next 20 years? I know the time span on giving is kind of very far-fetched, but Next 20 years, what do you think blockchain technologies will be Well, I mean this this is the thing with with technology is that we need to understand that it is progressing at an accelerated rate So I think oh, yeah, I'm quite optimistic. I think in the next 20 years We are going to see maybe not necessarily in like I said in South Africa We're going to first wait and see other countries But I think we're going to see some countries adopting this technology taking the plunge saying hey, let's go for it I'm going to see the hardware improving drastically so that the inefficiencies of blockchain Um It's going to be reduced. We're going to see these payments being made instantaneously We're going to be seeing the security protocols getting even better And I think it's just going to be like I said, I'm optimistic I see that the technology side really really accelerating drastically so in 20 years time I think it's going to be it's going to be a wonderful thing for the economy Blockchain is going to be implemented. Maybe not everywhere But I think the countries that do adopt it that do see that you know that increase in hardware capability are going to benefit drastically from it and then Yeah, it was kind of like, you know, whenever there's a big monetary change, you know First there is a little bit of a hesitation. One country does it people see. Okay. Wow. That actually works And then these things spread like like wildfire and I think central banks all around the world will start adopting it But yeah, so 20 years it is a fairly short period. It is a short period of time But like I say one thing that we if you look at history is that we are advancing in our technology at an accelerated rate And I know it's dangerous to extrapolate But if you had to if you had to it does paint a very pretty picture of the future So I think in the next 20 years time people are going to be a lot smarter with their money there's going to be a lot less inefficiencies And yeah, we're going to be using this economic advantage. We're going to tackle climate change and all the other problems in the world So overall I'm optimistic Um, but it's because like I said, I've been looking at the past data and life has been getting better Not necessarily for everyone, but as a whole technology has been getting better and everyone slowly does rise So, yeah 20 years time. It's going to be it's going to be a good place to live Yeah Yeah, hopefully Yes, that's the end of my interview questions Okay, fantastic You're like participation. Thank you. No, no Yeah, I only uh to be honest. I only got um acquainted with the topic of blockchain of us About nine or ten months ago. Okay I knew the difference with blockchain and bitcoins, you know, most of the people think blockchain is bitcoin, you know Yes It's because we're not educated. It's one of the things that you know kind of needs to do some education on Because if it's going to be the next big thing, you know, people need to Get familiar with it, you know need to know how it works and everything So but no, I decided to do that this for my dissertation because the topic when you interested me and The more I'm going going into it, you know, kind of thinking of pursuing, you know for the research into it after my undergraduate degree, so we are And I Yeah, I thought You are your opinions are like your thoughts and you informed Opinions were very very good and it kind of made me See blockchain from a different perspective Because people I've interviewed those Not necessarily, you know, the perspective aren't that, you know, different from yours But they're talking about, you know, the Implementation and the structure and the political infrastructure, you know in Ireland But it's nice to hear, you know, you in South Africa where the technology has already You know developed further away than, you know, Ireland in Ireland. So it's brilliant. Brilliant. And yeah, thank you so much No, no, I'm really happy to have helped and yeah, I hope all the best with with the project And yeah, let me know how it goes. I do know that we Yeah, I know the zoom calls do normally cut out after 40 minutes So if it does cut out just straight away, it is because of that not because I'm being rude Just sitting there Thanks, you know what if you were if you are not and I'll take you up a few points and I was helping me Thank you. Like, you know, thank you so much. I don't even know how to pay you I love Guinness. So if I'm ever if I'm ever there, I'll I'll hit you up You know, your first five points are on me Thank you so much and enjoy the And I wish you the best and I'm I've started following you on linkedin and I'm going to be spending awareness Of your youtube channel of your linkedin and your smartness. So yeah No, no, thank you very much and you have a have a great evening and I'll send you this this recording soon Perfect. Thank you so much and I'll you know what wants my dissertation Thank you, I'll like that. Thank you. Enjoy the raid. Thank you. Fantastic. Cheers. Hey