Welcome, everyone, to episode seven of the Blockchain
Bay podcast. Today, I'm with Brad from Deepin
Connection, and we are going to be talking about
the Deepin sector and what it means for the future
of crypto. Thanks, Chris. Happy to be on, man.
I'm glad we could connect on this. Yeah, definitely.
So I guess we could just kick it off. I want
to know a little bit more about you and crypto.
How did you get into crypto and the Deepin sector?
And we can go from there. Yeah, so a little bit
about my background. So I'm from St. Louis. I
live in Chicago now. My background is I have
a degree in finance and I've been in the solar
industry for like 15 years. So I'm currently
managing 10 state territory. I do a lot of, it's
more consulting role, I'd say. Like I work with
business owners on pricing strategy, marketing
strategy, making sure they have operations hired
up. And the main thing I do is sales trainings.
So I do a lot of sales trainings and national
trainings and spend some time in New York, DC.
I also worked in the drone service space, which
is kind of interesting. We were doing like thermal
inspections on utility scale solar and doing
rooftop measurements with what's called photogrammetry.
So taking like, you know, hundreds of thousands
of pictures and stitching them together into
a 3D model and then taking that 3D point cloud
and basically creating CAD files. So I'd say
like what I'm doing in the crypto space right
now is kind of a combination of different aspects
of all those things in my background. But as
far as how I got into crypto, I remember it distinctly
because there are several opportunities where
I wish I'd gotten in a little sooner. I knew
a guy back right after college that I think it
was like 2011. And he was telling us all about
Bitcoin. We thought he was crazy. I wish I'd
listened to him because I'd probably be like
on an island somewhere right now. Yeah, man.
And then, you know, again, I know you've been
in since what you said, 2017, right? Yeah. Yeah.
So I had a buddy I was sitting at the bar and
he's like, Hey, it's like 2017. And he's like,
Hey man, Bitcoin is going to a million dollars
one day. I'm like, I was like, okay, like whatever,
you know? And I was closed minded, you know,
but over time I was like, all right, there's
a lot of smart people coming into this space
and there's obviously something there. So it
was, I guess it was the end of 2020. I was back
visiting family in St. Louis and I got COVID,
man. I was sitting in a separate Airbnb because
I didn't want to get anybody exposed. But yeah,
I got COVID and that was in the early days of
COVID. So I was like, all right, I'm going to
take myself back to Chicago. And that was a rough
drive. But I remember getting back and I'm sitting
there and I'm like, man, we've been kind of holed
up for a whole year at this point. And I'm not
going to be able to do anything for the next
two weeks. It's like a 14 day quarantine. And
I was thinking like, when am I going to be in
this position again, where I don't have to choose
between going out and socializing versus staying
home. And I'm like, you know, if all I had to
show for this time is like a really bad -ass
animal crossings Island, I'm going to have some
really serious regrets. So I was like, all right,
I'm gonna, I went on Udemy and took a couple
of blockchain courses. And man, light bulb went
off. So ever since then, I just spend hours every
day researching the space for the last few years.
And once I get dialed in on something, I really
hone in on it. And yeah, it's such a cool space.
And that's really where I came across D -Pen
because I found helium. And I think you have
a similar story about how you got into D -Pen
space too, right? Yeah, it's pretty much helium.
I don't even know. I think. Oh, yeah. So I started
off watching Bitsby Trippin and Red Panda Mining
and Voscoin. Those are like the main things when
I first found out about crypto. I was like, how
do I get into this? Because people can mine it.
So I saw Voscoin's videos on how he was GPU mining
and this was 2017. So I was like, all right,
let's see what I can do. i found two 1070 i think
they're just 1070 ti founder editions or something
at a local best buy and i bought them i think
it was 400 total uh or 400 each for them so my
dad loaned me the money because at the time i
was 17 i didn't have 800 to just drop i started
mining all these random coins bitcoin z cash
whatever it was and then uh i i kind of just
let it go for a couple years and then i got back
in the space like 2021. And I saw all the Bitcoin
I mined is like, what? It's worth how much now?
And I mined Zcash and I mined a whole Zcash and
I was so happy about it. I was like, let's see
how much it's worth. And I still have it. It's
worth like $30. It's like the biggest disappointment
I've ever had. But I was able to actually, as
soon as I bought those GPUs, that was like the
last you were able to buy them. Like they were
sold out forever. And then when this most recent
bull run came. I still had them laying around,
just not doing anything. I was able to sell them
for a profit four years later from what I paid
for them. I went back on my buddy Voscoin's YouTube
channel and I saw him posting this project called
Helium. I was like, what's this? And that was
pretty much the light bulb that went off for
me as well. And I just started looking at it.
I bought like with all the money that I made
from GPU mining previously, I bought a whole
bunch of GPUs and I was mining GPUs for a while.
and then i used all those funds to buy some helium
miners and then that's kind of when my youtube
channel picked up is because i started meeting
making content on the helium miners and then
uh it just kind of exploded from there people
reach out to me i joined discords and then they
were like hey you should inform people not to
buy the never miner or the synchro bit so then
i made videos on them and attract even more people
and now i just have kind of this It's this small
following of people from Helium that have just
kind of led me along a good path and introduced
me to new projects. That's how I found out about
Highmapper and Demo and all these other deep
ends. So it's kind of a lot of the community's
thanks for why I've gone down this path is because
I see there's it seems like the GPU area is kind
of saturated with a lot of YouTubers. And I feel
like it'd be a lot easier for me to go down.
and show them a new way in crypto and this is
an emerging space and i feel like that's kind
of why you're in this space too you want to educate
people on this this new area for sure man i wish
i had seen your videos on never because i got
burned by that so like that was so frustrating
but similar though similar for me because like
so you know deep in for those that don't know
you know decentralized physical infrastructure
networks i think it's a The reason why it caught
my eye is because, well, there's a number of
reasons. For one, I think it can fix this whole
issue with a lot of stuff in the crypto space
where there's this revenue issue, right? Like
a lot of this stuff is speculative because we're
so early on in everything. Like a lot of it's
the infrastructure of like the layer ones and
then it was the layer twos. And, you know, now
you have the ZK rollups and all that. So like
a lot of it's the infrastructure kind of being
built out. Whereas with Deepin, you know, whether
it's building out infrastructure like Helium
did, right? Or you've got like, you know, render,
like decentralized cloud computing or file coins,
decentralized cloud storage. And now with this
new sensor category, like data collection, you're
seeing actual revenue coming into these projects.
And, you know, I think that gives you a lot more
legitimacy. But secondly, I'd say. these concepts
make sense to the average person because if you're
out there, you're talking about, as soon as you
mentioned the word blockchain to the average
person, like their brain shuts off, you know,
and they're like, that's way above my head, you
know? But if you're like, you know what I mean?
Like if you're, but if you're like, Oh, like
you put this dash cam in your windshield to collect
street level imagery, to create like a fresher
map than what Google has and you get rewarded
for it. It's like, Oh, that makes sense. Right.
And you know, from that, from that perspective,
like globally, right. There's, I think it's 5
% of people have crypto assets. Now, obviously,
in the US and Europe, that percentage is definitely
higher. But looking at it from a global perspective,
if you can bring non -crypto people into your
project, you're increasing your target audience
by like 20x. And so I think that Deepin can bring
new people into the space. It can solve that
revenue issue that we've seen with other parts
of crypto because we're still very early in this
technology. And the other part of this is that
Helium showed the ability to scale. And you can
really ramp up participation in ways that we've
never seen before. Like the fact that we went
from like 15 ,000 hotspots to a million hotspots
in 18 months in the midst of supply constraints.
Yeah. Um, is, is truly impressive. So, uh, that's,
that's why I really started like dialing in on
this space, man. And, um, helium, obviously they
didn't do everything perfectly. Right. Cause
they were kind of like making the playbook, but,
um, I have to say like overall, I know they caught
a lot of flack, but shoot, I, you know, I think
it overall was a really large success. Um, and
you know, and there's still, they've made it
through a bear market. Right. and faced a lot
of adversity i mean you're you're there for it
between you mentioned nebra and synchro bit right
um they had forbes like bashed them in an article
um they were also tied to the sandbankman free
thing where alameda had invested money in them
um you know so and then also like discord got
a little toxic there for a while so yeah um to
overcome all of that and it's looking like they're
gonna have like a major you know come back in
this market cycle like um i think helium really
has led the way and you know segued a lot of
people like you and me and other people in the
space into these these other projects you know
yeah absolutely i mean i have helium mobile on
my phone right now and i've been earning every
day like two dollars and fifty cents on it's
february 2nd the day of this recording and then
i have my indoor hot spot that i connect my phone
to and it's just i earn but i think something
that you pointed out is like they proved that
they could scale i also think coming into the
next bull run whenever it does approach i think
the pins have solved a very big issue that the
outside world sees as an issue with crypto and
that's energy because with all the crypto mining
traditionally in the past has been with huge
power bills with all these asics and gpu massive
farms all over the country and the globe this
was like one of the main things and that's why
ethereum went to proof of stake because they
wanted to reduce the amount of energy they were
causing i think deepen is like 100 the future
for crypto uh as far as the energy crisis like
this is the answer for sure yeah and i mean to
that end it does it does solve a lot of problems
right if you're looking at like decentralized
cloud storage like render is a great example
nasana built on uh solana has gone on quite a
run um you know they solve real world issues
um because you know if you look at the tsmc you
know manufacture the high -end microchips that
are necessary and basically everyone in the world
goes through you know tsmc out of taiwan um you
know you have apple you have google you have
microsoft the freaking us government like pretty
much everybody goes through tsmc but there's
this shortage of you know these these high -end
microchips right now So what Render and Nosana
are doing are allowing people to take idle GPUs
that are no longer being used and think about
Ethereum miners, for example, that have all these
GPUs and leverage those in new ways to open up
more bandwidth. Because with AI, for example,
there's a huge need for computational power.
And so I think that's just really one example
of where Deepin is really huge. um we talked
about helium what i'm curious what are the projects
are you uh bullish on right now in the deep end
space high mapper definitely but there's been
some things that have been brought up to my attention
that have kind of uh lead me to believe some
other things with high mapper but also i think
it's just people trying to spread fud same thing
i saw with helium a bunch of people trying to
spread fud as soon as the price went up a little
bit and i think it's because they were a little
upset that they sold all their helium when it
went to like a dollar um so there's there's high
mapper uh geonet weather xm pi phi is one that
uh it's a group of guys that i actually know
uh i could i could go on my discord i have like
a separated folder of them crank is huge as well
i've been covering crank for a good time uh things
i x i'm sure i'm missing some of them are you
just demo demo demo yeah so i am supposed to
get a demo device in the next couple of weeks
i reached out to them i had one in the very beginning
i was i think like one of the first two or three
people that covered demo when they first came
into the space and you can like look at my discord
i'm like see the date that i joined it was like
right when their discord went live but I got
one of them and then I ended up selling it because
it wasn't compatible with my vehicle at the time.
And it was $300, I think. And I needed it for
textbooks. So I sold it and bought the textbooks.
And I wish I didn't buy the textbooks because
they rewarded the founder people for buying demos
with a huge airdrop that it's worth like $4 ,500
now. i didn't get forty five hundred dollars
worth of textbooks or education out of that three
hundred dollars so it's it's a bitter uh i was
a little bitter with demo for a while but it
has nothing to do with the company i think their
their whole game plan as as a total is just like
it's really good uh but now i feel like i mean
we can we can go back and forth on this but in
terms of like picking the right block chain it
seems like d pins are on either Polygon or Solana.
And I don't know which one's going to be the
right one going forward or if just both of them
are going to be what's... Yeah, I don't know
that it really... I mean, I don't know. People
are building a Solana. I think a lot of the projects
on Solana after Breakpoint saw a lot of positive
price action. But, you know, Polygon has massive
adoption too from a lot of large... entities
i mean i think like starbucks and like coca -cola
i'm pretty sure using it like so and people are
sleeping on polygon i so i don't know that there's
actually like a bad move but and i don't there
might be some like cross -chain compatibility
coming because i know one of their founders sent
out a tweet uh that had like a demo token on
solana so i don't i don't know um but either
way i don't know that it really matters so much
because you can always change blockchains if
you need to i think it's more so with these projects
like okay are you driving participation are you
executing the drive revenue on the back end like
are the developers pushing the project forward
um and then you know digging into the tokenomics
does matter uh with these projects and yeah you
know that's something that like i'm seeing more
and more about high mapper i do want to address
in this video because um i think it is necessary
but all in all though i mean Yeah. And I'm in
similar projects, by the way. So like I'm, I
have currently 55 high mapper units out on the
road today. I have another 145 ordered, which
is something I want to bring up on this video
too, about the future state of high mapper and
where I see this going. Those orders might be
shifting. I don't know. And then, you know, demo,
I have, I'm up to like 170 vehicles in my demo
fleet. And I'm adding to that as well. And let's
see, GeoNet, I haven't deployed any units I have
plans to. I do have money invested in their token
for sure. Not financial advice, by the way, nothing
in this video is financial advice. And I do own
a fair amount of Nasana. I actually put a video
out on Nasana at like two cents. I don't think
I've heard of them. No sauna. So they're a decentralized
cloud computing protocol, a little bit like render.
But that one went, I would put it out of video
at like two cents and it's up to like, I want
to say like a dollar 40. And that was like three
months ago. It's wow. Yeah. Yeah. It was like
a 2 million market cap when I, when I first started
pushing that out, I, they've got highlighted
some on a break point. I'm like, man, this is,
you know, this is so obvious. But there's another
one actually, Teleport. I don't know if you heard
of Teleport. So I'm talking to their team a little
bit, but they're launching a decentralized rideshare
application. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead.
I was just talking about this in my accounting
class the other day. I was like, it would be
perfect. I was thinking if there was a decentralized
rideshare application, because I mean, like,
come on. It's just like right there in front
of your face. That's exactly what we need. It's
just one more thing to pull people into the space.
Absolutely. I actually had a meeting with their
CEO last week because they saw my Uber and Lyft
recruitment video on my channel and they reached
out. And so we've had some discussions. They're
getting close to launching their first cities,
but it's the perfect time because I can tell
you, Uber and Lyft, their fares have gone up.
They've doubled, actually, essentially, over
the last five years. Drivers are making the same,
in many cases, less than they were making. Uber
and Lyft, they've become so top -heavy because
they're trying to move into all these other sectors,
too, like food delivery and grocery delivery.
The whole idea, the whole concept is cutting
out all that high overhead so that you can come
to market with a better price for consumers.
uh better you know pay to drivers and i think
there's a huge market there you know so someone's
gonna do it and i was like man this group they
also got um i think like 10 and a half 11 million
dollar investment like a year ago so um i'm super
excited about seeing where they go with that
and i'm gonna try to work closely with them and
see where it goes um and let's see so i talked
about geonet demo high mapper obviously helium
i still like 60 rooftop installs on the iot side
One other thing, I forget the name of the company
you just mentioned, but SwordChain, I don't know
if you've heard of them and their modus. It's
kind of like DMO plugs in. I saw on their website,
they had plans to possibly be similar to a ride
sharing app. So there could be competitors coming
up at the same time there, but that doesn't seem
like it's on there. It's just like on their to
-do list. There's no plans yet. Yeah, I, so that's
what, so, you know, we're, and I worked in the
startup space at this drone company. It's like
at a certain point, you know, when you're like
Demo, for example, is another example of this,
like you kind of need to focus on certain things.
Like there's a lot of ways that they can, these
projects can take, you know, different, different
verticals, if you will. But if you spread yourself
out too thin and you don't really focus on being
really good at a few things, like you can really.
you can actually hurt yourself. So, uh, I haven't,
you know, I haven't looked at the motives too
much. Um, I don't know how their network connectivity
works. Um, it's through like an IOT network or
if they have cell connectivity built in, but,
um, you know, demo right now they have the autopilot
with cell connectivity built in. They have the
macaron, which connects the helium network. And
I think they do, they probably are working on
some additional options, uh, because they're,
they're the same thing. They're backordered like
crazy right now too. Um, So but yeah, man, I
mean, but I do want to I do want to talk about
Hivemapper. And I know you mentioned that you'd
been hearing some things like sounds like some
people are like salty in the community or whatever.
Yeah. What you want to expand on that? Yeah.
So this is thanks to Network Bits. That's Joe.
He added me to this chat and he sent me a Discord
link to like this private Discord server with
like a whole bunch. It was like a whole bunch
of exiled Hivemapper people. And I remember this
happened back in the day with Helium. And there
was another project I covered called Revify that
just did terrible. There's a bunch of litigation.
People are trying to sue this guy. But there's
like these Discord servers people make and everyone
can join together and kind of just talk about
stuff that you can't talk about in the normal
server. It's like you can talk about the price.
You can talk about any sort of like confidential
and important information. uh there's this this
x mod in there that has just been talking a bunch
about um high mapper and bringing up some fairly
good points about the uh token unlocks that have
been happening for the employees i made a video
i think it was it was uh two months ago wow time
flies yeah in december or maybe it was early
january no it was december about the um supply
like doubling overnight and i was like what is
going on the supply it was as soon as the price
was going up the the supply uh doubled and then
the price came back down and that's when it kind
of brought to my attention a lot of other people
about the how many like tokens are being unlocked
on a monthly basis and the effect that that's
having on the price and it's kind of just suppressing
the price like as soon as it goes up all of those
tokens that the employees have they they could
be selling and the price was coming back down.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's fair. I mean, I, obviously
before I invested in the project, like I read
through the tokenomics, like in really good detail.
So I knew all that was coming. Like, so yeah,
I mean, we can, we can hop into that. Like I
still, so here, when I look at these projects
and look at like price projections, And I think
it's important to talk about, especially with
high Mavericks, I'm seeing some pretty unrealistic
expectations about where the token price is going
to go. Because I see people talking about like
$10 per honey, $20 per honey, which is pretty
outrageous given the supply. So to your point,
this year alone between employees, what's eligible
to unlock to employees and investors, there's
3 billion tokens. Next year to employees is another
billion tokens. That's 40 % of the supply going
to investors and employees. Now, look, that's
a little bit higher than some projects. That
said, they do have a lot of overhead when dealing
with building a map, building an R &D, building
their own camera and manufacturing in the US
and all that. So I don't have necessarily a huge
bone to pick with the percentage. It's the unlock
schedule that I was kind of like, it's pretty
quick, really. Like, they're the investors to
get it all this year. And the other part of that
is, you know, there is 40 % that goes to contributors.
And their unlock schedule is based on global
progress. So I'm like, in my mind, you know,
I was like, well, you know, maybe like having
the employees like unlock period tied to global
progress too, because we're kind of on this together.
But regardless, you know, the tokenomics are
what they are. So you have four billion tokens
unlocked by the end of 2025. If all the employee
token unlocks happen, which I have to assume
they will. And then you have the treasury, which
is used to they've been using it to distribute
to participants. And then I think there's like
a helium ink for like R &D and that sort of thing.
So in total, that's that's six billion tokens.
So you have to assume by the end of 2025. that
that 60 % is going to be in circulation. Okay.
The other aspect of this though, is like kind
of unknown as far as the contributor unlocks.
So, you know, right now I think there's over
200 million tokens unlocked to contributors so
far. I expect that to ramp up as global progress
ramps up. So the number I've been kind of using
in most of my projections that I do on token
prices are out to 20, 25. okay just looking at
historical market cycles and i'm going to touch
on that a little bit too in this video but like
you know we have to make some assumptions so
i'm kind of expecting that you know 7 billion
or 70 percent of the the tokens will be in circulation
at the end of 2025. so that's part of the the
puzzle here the other part is okay what's the
market cap potential yeah okay so there's i would
say um there's a high upside case um then i do
kind of like a uh okay moderate you know what's
more possible and then a downside case because
i think we need to in the crypto space i feel
like a lot of people love i mean it's fun to
talk about the upside case but for risk management
like you have to really take in consideration
all options and scenarios so high upside case
i you know as far as market cap goes we we can
look at other projects like i look at helium
um, as, as somewhat of a comparison and helium
got to just over a $5 billion market cap in the
last market cycle. Now, you know, it's a little
bit different because helium was infrastructure
being built out and really wasn't generating
revenue at all. Um, and it was the prior market
cycle before deep end really had all this momentum.
So, um, I would say, you know, for high mapper,
they're already generating revenue. That's one
of the The big things I like about this sensor
category or data collection is that they can
turn on revenue right away. The other part is
like, okay, if we do see this bull run that we're
all hoping for, the deep end narrative is really
picking up steam, right? I hate to say narrative
because it sounds like, oh, it's just this narrative
that's going to pump. I mean, I think this is
like a legitimate sector that's coming out of
the crypto space. I do think if they do what
I think they're going to do on the hardware side,
which we'll talk about, and they announce a couple
of big name clients, which it sounds like they
have some that are under NDA right now, and the
revenue picks up and global progress picks up.
I could see a scenario where this hits a $10
billion market cap. I don't know that it would
happen, but I think it's possible. But even if
that's the high upside case at 7 billion tokens
in circulation, that's $1 .42, I think, per honey.
And to me, that's like the biggest bull case.
So for people talking about $5, $10, $20 honey,
to me, that's just not realistic. I think it's
far more realistic, again, if these things come
together and we have this bull run. you know,
I think 70 cents to a dollar, cause that's the
kind of a psychological number at a dollar. Like
I could see that more likely happening, but I
also think that we need to consider that there
are some other scenarios here. When you look
at the global economy and I, before I get into
that, cause I get into the weeds a little bit
here, but like, do you, I'm curious if you have
anything to add or what your thoughts are on
that. Yeah. So obviously I'm hopeful that the
token goes up to $20, but realistically, I mean,
it's very easy to see what a realistic number
is just by taking the token price and timesing
it by the circulating supply or the total supply.
That's how you get the market cap and people
just don't know it. Like it's, it's literally
a multiplication problem. And I've covered this
in many videos. I've showed it on screen. Like,
all right, if we were to get to $10, it would
be like, just. it would have a market cap like
the size of ethereum and it's just not going
to happen at least in the near future but i did
see when it did get listed on coinbase for two
to three seconds it was at 90 cents and i was
like oh my gosh but it didn't it didn't stand
very long yeah i think you put a video did you
put a video out on that wasn't there like a bidding
process or something that caused that yeah so
so the way it worked for coinbase is when they
release a new token i don't know if it's for
every token but they have this period so it hive
mapper went live 12 p .m eastern my time i believe
it was 12 p .m and for the first 10 minutes it's
this auction process where pretty much you insert
the however many uh honey you want and how much
money you want to spend and it fills it on a
i believe a fifo uh basis it's like first in
first out so first person that orders they get
rewarded uh with that correspondingly and basically
as it goes on people are paying higher and higher
for less amount of honey and it just fills all
those orders for the first 10 minutes and then
after that after they test it and everything
is working then it's open on coinbase .com and
just regular coinbase so that's all taking place
on the coinbase i believe it's called coinbase
pro uh it used to be called uh something else
back in the day but that's all being taken place
on Coinbase Pro and then it moves to Coinbase
and then anybody can buy it. And then after that
point, that's when the price goes from whatever
the crazy auction price is to like a stable price.
And then it goes from there. Got it. Okay. Yeah.
I was wondering, I saw that. I thought it was
a glitch. I'm like, well, how did that hit 90
cents? I was like, what? Okay. You know, I want
to talk about the thing that like a lot of people.
aren't really talking about right now because
everyone's just expecting that we're going to
have this bull run. We hope that. And I think
there's a good chance that that does happen,
right? That we do have this bull run post Bitcoin
halving. But one thing that I think we need to
talk about is the fact that for the first time
since Bitcoin's inception, we're in a quantitative
tightening environment where the Fed has been
raising rates. Bitcoin started back in 2009,
right? And it was right after the recession and
interest rates have been near zero for a long
time. And this is the first time we've had a
Bitcoin halving where interest rates are higher.
And, you know, low interest rates are very bullish
for risk on assets like crypto. So, you know,
we can look at historical market cycles, but
this is going to be a little bit different. And
there's also some warning signs right now in
the economy. So look at commercial real estate.
Right now, the vacancies in December were the
highest we've seen since the height of COVID.
And our banks are sitting on, they have a lot
of exposure right now to commercial real estate
assets. And that is very concerning. And there
were a lot of commercial loans that had gotten
extensions that are, things are about to come
to a head here. So I wouldn't be surprised if
we start seeing more regional smaller banks failing
here in the coming months. And I think it's going
to be a topic that's in the news. Now, the big
banks, the expectation is that we'll see consolidation.
The big banks will buy them up and they'll be
too big to fail. And that might be the case,
but there's still going to be uncertainty and
concern in the market, which could have an impact
on the overall economy. That second thing is,
you know, the job market. Right. So we just saw
job market numbers were at unemployment is like
three point six to three point seven percent.
I want to say so that that's still that's relatively
actually strong. OK, but. UPS just laid off 12
,000 people. PayPal laid off 9 % of their workforce.
The company I work for has had layoffs. I know
a lot of people that have been laid off. And
I think the job market is starting to weaken,
which also is a bit concerning, right? And when
you look at the consumer sentiment, the consumer
spending was pretty strong through the holidays,
all things considered. But when you dig into
how that spending is happening, there's also
other warning signs. With inflation, with the
cost of everything going up, you've seen people's
savings start to dissipate because during COVID,
people's savings had grown because you couldn't
go out and do anything. You couldn't go out and
spend money and go to restaurants or social events.
By all reports, those extra savings that were
kind of easing the burn from inflation. have
dissipated and people continue spending money.
And this question is like, how are they doing
it? And well, they're using credit cards, man,
like over a trillion dollars in credit card debt
across the country right now. And that's another
thing. I mean, so you combine all these things,
like the commercial real estate situation, the
job market itself, and the fact that people are
racking up credit card debt, it makes you wonder
what could be coming. And I think there's this
misconception about inflation in general. Inflation
is coming down, but that's not deflation. And
I think there's this concept that people don't
quite understand. They think that prices are
going to come down. And that's not the target
here. The Fed is trying to target 2 % inflation.
And globally, that's the standard. If you have
2 % inflation, that's what you want. for a strong
economy. But that means that the prices we're
at today are not expected to go down. They're
just expected to only go up 2 % a year if we
hit the goal that the Fed is trying to hit. Deflation
is not good for the economy. So I think we need
to realize this is the new normal for prices.
And then lastly, the market is pricing in four
rate cuts this year, which is a good thing. for
risk on assets like crypto. But it also begs
the question, what do they see coming? Because
they're not going to just cut rates unless there's
a need to cut rates. And normally that coincides
with a weakening job market or a recession. And
we just had our FOMC, there's eight meetings
a year. We just had one, I think it was just
yesterday. And they didn't touch rates there.
They're not, as of right now, expected to touch
rates in the March session. So we could see them
start lowering rates this summer. But it makes
me wonder, is there something they're expecting
to come in order to have to lower rates? I don't
know. So I'm not saying we're going to have some
crazy recession. I'm just saying you need to
manage risk and be aware of all possible scenarios.
I'm sure you saw it in the last market cycle.
People were telling me they were taking out second
mortgages on their home, cashing out their 401ks,
putting their life savings into the market. It's
an exciting space. There's a lot of upside there.
None of this is financial advice, but I would
just say be aware of risk management and what
possible scenarios there are because there is
a scenario here where the bull market might get
pushed out. you know, two, three years, potentially,
if we have some sort of crash, you know, in the
global economy. So it's just kind of a warning.
I don't know what your thoughts are. And then
I'll talk about where I think what the most likely
scenario is and how I'm planning on playing it.
But like, what are your thoughts? I'm glad you
brought that up, that people were taking out
mortgages and like doubling down on crypto. And
I thought it's interesting because a lot of the
people that were doing that were doing that.
pretty much at the peak of the bull run or the
tail end of the bull run when they're like nah
it's coming back down it'll go back up and these
are people that just don't understand the space
they haven't been in the space long enough and
they're making these huge mistakes on their life
savings because someone told them to buy bitcoin
or the fear of missing out fomo we see it all
the time with projects and that's a really important
thing that unfortunately a lot of people don't
know yet and they're gonna have to learn the
hard way going into the next bull run with when
or if it does happen and they're gonna we're
gonna see this time and time again until people
start to learn how this market works i mean it
still is a young space even though it's only
been oh my gosh how many years 15 years now it's
still young i mean the stock market's been around
forever so there's plenty of ups and downs that
we can see and Another thing I did enjoy that
you did mention is all of the real world stuff,
because a lot of people say crypto is like not
real. But you're comparing all this real world
stuff to crypto, which is what a lot of other
people are doing as well. And it's kind of legitimizing
the space. We're seeing all these major players
coming in, especially with the ETF launch. It's
really transitioning the space into something
more solid. And it's having a lot better of a
backing than it ever has been, I think. That
is I mean, we have no clue what that's going
to lead us to. This could lead Bitcoin to going
to a million dollars like people have speculated
for so many years. For sure. Look, I do think
that Bitcoin eventually will go to a million
dollars. I do. People might think I'm crazy for
that. But, you know, I think that it's just a
matter of like when it will happen. But yeah,
like, look, these ETFs like BlackRock's been
buying up Bitcoin. in droves. I'm not trying
to be doom and gloom. I'm just trying to make
people aware of the possible scenarios. I'm obviously
still very active in this space and I think there's
a lot of potential here. What I'm hoping, the
scenario I hope plays out here is that in the
coming months, yes, we might see some issues
with the banking and the commercial real estate.
We might see the job market weaken, but I do
think that we'll see the Fed start to lower rates.
OK, say like May, June, because inflation is
like what I think it's like three. I want to
say three point three percent. They have to start
lowering rates before we get to two, because
if they wait till we get to two, it's too late.
So I think we're going to start softening this
out and they're trying to get this soft landing.
So if they can pull this thing off, rates are
getting lower. We the Bitcoin having supposed
to be April 20th. Right. And. If history repeats
itself, we should start to see this bull run
hit July, August, September timeframe going into
election season, right? They're not going to
want a recession going into election season.
So I think this could play out where we have
this nice bull run and everything happens like
we're hoping. But I will say one of the things
I learned in the last market cycle is it's okay
to take some profits on the way up. You know,
like DCA -ing in at the bottom and, you know,
in the bear market is really smart, but DCA -ing
out in, I'm not saying like cash out your position.
I'm saying take some money off the table on the
way up, right? Because, you know, towards the
end of this year into 2025, there's still potential
that I think we could see a recession hit. You
know, like I don't think we're out of the woods
necessarily, even if we see a soft landing through
election season. So I think. You can kind of
play this, and this is how I plan to play it,
okay? Keep building my positions right now. And
hopefully this bull run hits. And then going
into 2025, start dollar cost averaging out, taking
a little bit off the table, but keeping my positions
for sure. But that way, let's say we do have
this super cycle hit that people have been calling
for for the last eight years, right? You still
have your positions where you can take advantage
of that market cycle. If you're pulling a little
bit off the table and you have this cash on the
side, you're also positioning yourself that if
we have a crash, you can pounce on that opportunity.
Because that's where, if you look back to 2008,
that's where you can make generational wealth
is by having money sidelined and cash is king
in those situations. So I think you can play
both sides of this by DCA -ing out to an extent,
keeping your positions. and kind of be able to
take advantage of either scenario and that's
that's my game plan right now i don't know if
that's going to come to fruition man but like
that's that's kind of how i'm looking to play
this thing that's great yeah uh so i'll take
that as financial advice and do not take that
as financial advice um all right what you know
let's talk about you know the future state of
high mapper um What are your thoughts, by the
way, on where the project's going? I mean, I
know you're mapping right now. Are you planning
on building a fleet or anything, or just kind
of doing your personal mapping? What are your
thoughts? Yeah, so I live with five other guys,
and one of them, I took a road trip all the way
to Louisiana and back. So we drove. It was a
weekend. It was, I think, like four days. We
drove from New Jersey, where I'm at, all the
way down and back, stopped in Nashville. Tennessee,
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana. So we saw in
Georgia and North Carolina, South Carolina, we
saw so many states along the way. And I got 20
hours to talk to him about crypto. I introduced
him to the whole space and talked to him about
Highmapper. And I was like, all right, I'll split.
I think we did like a 50 -50 split on the earnings
that I've made for Highmapper. And it paid. for
our entire trips, even splitting it. I think
we made like $2 ,300 just driving to Louisiana
and back over a weekend. I paid for all the gas,
all the food, any souvenirs you bought. And my
friend was like, Oh my God, I need to get one
of these things. I was like, all right, you can
get one, but you got to pay $2 ,300 to get on
eBay right now. Yeah. And that's like where we're
at. And this is giving me flashbacks to how helium
was seeing all the miners for sales, secondhand
market. people yeah hang an arm and a leg i did
find it interesting that ariel uh was calling
them out on twitter and in the discord uh calling
them d -bags uh saying like this is not right
but that's just kind of the space like and it's
not just crypto like you look at xboxes if the
in and shoes if there's a limited release or
if it's hard to get your hands on one there's
going to be scalpers and you can't really get
around that But for honey and their future, like
I, I firmly believe they're going to release
a different dash cam, like a third dash cam.
And I think it's going to be similar to the dash
cam ass, but better because I think they just
kind of fell short with the dash cam ass. They
really, in my opinion, they dropped the ball
in terms of like mounting points. There's only
one mounting point is the very back. So the center
of gravity is off. So it'll just wobble when
you're driving and the dash cam. uh purposes
like it's supposed to mine crypto or map and
record dash cam there's no audio on it and the
dash cam is like it will either mine or map or
uh record like it doesn't work simultaneously
so i think they're going back to the drawing
board and trying to think of a better device
and maybe a device that can produce faster because
we're seeing right now their devices are back
ordered until I think it's June now, which is
just crazy to think about. And it's mostly because
they're manufacturing it all in -house and it's
special equipment. If they could figure out a
way to make this with easier to obtain products
and materials, they could just be pumping out
these dash cams and covering the whole globe
a lot faster. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. As far as
the scalper thing, man, it sucks. But that's
just kind of that comes with the territory when
you have. And it's not just crypto, like you
mentioned, like it's when there's a high demand
and scarcity for something is what it is. And
and I know like Ariel's like, you know, people
need to stop thinking about, you know, this needs
to happen in the next six months. It's like I
get it. But, you know, if you're in this space.
like one of the beautiful things is that you
can ramp up participation, like no, like no other,
right. But there's also, you know, other things
that you're going to have to deal with that kind
of suck too, you know, with that. So yeah, I,
so I agree with you. So I, I have a prediction
on what's going to happen here. I sent out one
tweet about it, but I started, cause I've started
getting a lot of questions about people asking
like, how is a high back are going to make it
through a bear market? So I started thinking
about this because Helium did. Right. And we
talked about all the adversity that Helium faced.
And but they made it through. And the reason
is because it was completely passive. Like people
were like, oh, just leave it plugged in. Whatever.
Right. You know, there's obviously some people
that are like, oh, we're going to stand up against
Helium and unplug our, you know. hot spots. And
I'm like, please bro, unplug it because that's
better rewards for the rest of us. And you're
in a hex with like 30 other people and not providing
any value anyway. So like, yeah, unplug your
unit. That's fine. Like, so, but in the current
state with high mapper, it's not passive, man.
Like it, there, there is a decent amount of involvement
with you making sure that you're downloading
imagery, keeping the app open, uploading imagery,
like meeting the Tuesday deadline. So, you know,
it works. uh, the last like couple of years leading
up to where we are today. Um, and I think people
were like, well, you know, it's an early stage
project. The bull runs coming up. Like that's
fine. If the, you know, the, the price of honey
is low and the earnings aren't that great. Like
we're, we'll, you know, we'll work through it.
And I did have some drivers that like gave me
the dash cam back. They're like, it's not worth
it. I'm like big picture. Come on. Like, you
know, I'm sure they're regretting that now. Um,
but I will say. to your point like expectations
are being reset whether you like it or not um
i don't think these current rewards and earnings
that people are getting are sustainable by any
means um so i think people have need to have
realistic expectations but i do think that even
if they come down to a point where let's say
you're making 15 a week you know in a bear market
They need to get this to a point where it's passive
enough that people will still do it. And I think
that's where they're going with this. And I started
thinking through, how do you do it, right? And
the only way is to have a dash cam that has cell
connectivity built in to where maybe you need
your phone to set the dash cam up and see if
it's positioned correctly. But after that, it's
hands off, right? And it's downloading, uploading
on its own. You don't have to interact with it.
And I think that's where they're going with this.
you know the next question is like how are they
going to do it on the cell connectivity side
you know it would make sense i think an obvious
choice would be helium mobile because they have
a healing helium you know team as an advisor
already they've already integrated on the iot
side you could have the potential maybe dual
mining like mobile token and uh honey token with
that um regardless though like i don't think
that matters as much that'd be pretty cool But
as long as they find a cell provider that can
do it in a cost -effective way, that's how they
take this to the next level, in my opinion. Because
number one, if you're getting a dash cam, you're
like, hey, this is going to help you for insurance
purposes. Or if you get in a car accident, just
like any other dash cam, except you're passively
earning something on it. I think that's how you
get through a bear market. That's how you take
this to the next level. And it opens the door
for different types of fleets. I'll give you
an example. I have a buddy that owns a shipping
company. And he's like, I want to set these things
up with all the truck drivers in my fleet. And
I'm like, man, there's an extra layer here where
you have to interact with each individual driver
to make that work. And that's another third split
that you have to manage every week and stay on
top of. And for me, if I'm providing the cameras,
I know the business owner, but then like, that's
a layer away. I don't really have much power
or the ability to like be on top of these drivers
to make sure they're uploading. And it makes
it really difficult. It really prevents you from
moving into certain types of fleets. Now this
would allow you to get in, you know, to those
types of fleets because literally you're just
working with business owner. They put them in
there and they're like, Hey, we're putting these
in every truck for, you know, insurance purposes,
whatever. Yeah. And now you've removed that layer
of complexity. So I think, If they can execute
on that, again, they can get these shipments
out. They can name a couple of big name clients,
their customers buying this data. And we do have
this bull market that's coming up. This project
can absolutely thrive. And that's why I'm still
expanding into it. But man, that's where I see
this going. There is a tweet from Ariel about
some big announcement coming on. I saw that.
Yeah. February 21st, I believe it is. Is that
the date? I can't remember exactly. With a backwards
logo they have. So that's my prediction. I've
seen people saying that might be like a Binance
listing, something like that. I think they're
going to announce this new hardware. But that
then kind of puts you in a weird spot. Like I
have 145. dash cams ordered right now so do you
then shift those over to the new dash cam but
i would bet you know if they're just starting
production announcing this it probably won't
be ready till like the end of this year and the
next year so you're kind of faced with this decision
like do you wait or do you place a new order
or do you shift part of them over like i'm kind
of thinking through my strategy here and assuming
all this is right i mean this is just like going
off the cuff man i have no idea But what I'm
thinking about doing here is for my top drivers
that are contributing the most, like upgrading
them, if you will, and then taking their OG dash
cams and putting them with new drivers and kind
of like have it as like an incentive for drivers
that are contributing a lot. Like, hey, I'm going
to upgrade your dash cam, make your process easier.
That's kind of what I'm thinking through right
now. But, you know, there's a lot of details
we don't know. Like, what's the price for the
cell connectivity? What's the price of the dash
cam itself? Like, you know, all things to consider.
But I do think that's where this is going for
future state. What do you think, man? I don't
know. Yeah, the cost to do all this, I feel like
they would kind of have a similar thing that
Helium Mobile is doing with like a $5 fee for
Miami. I feel like if Highmapper were to release
a cellular connectivity dash cam, they'd have
some sort of promo for the first couple of months.
um and then from there you would be you'd be
paying just to get a lot of people on board and
i think also it would be wise for them to continue
to sell like all three of their dashcams because
you're gonna have people like you who are fleet
managers where absolutely having a way like just
having self -connectivity is the way to go it's
super easy less work for them less points of
failure uh where they could forget to upload
but then also for the people like me who i'm
just i'm just driving by myself i got two dash
cams in my car like it's not that much of a issue
for me to just go into my phone and download
the images before i go back into my house and
sometimes i forget a few so what because i know
i'm going to get back in my car later but i think
that would be the best case scenario for them
to have all three options it also allow them
to have a lot more inventory because they already
have these ones produced and they can continue
to sell them to the people that want them and
then focus on getting these other ones. But there
is also the possibility that if they keep all
three of them, they're going to be strained on
their resources, and they would be better off
just canning the two of them and producing one.
That's not my decision, thankfully. Yeah, yeah.
Manufacturing is tough, man. I mean, they are,
yeah, hand it to them. They've executed very
well considering their manufacturing hardware.
that has to integrate with different software.
And they're also building a map on the backend.
Like, man, that is a tall task. And at the beginning,
I mean, you were, you're involved. Like it was
pretty painful. It's gotten way better than it
was. But yeah, man, I do think that there's,
there's a lot of promise there. And I think a
lot of these projects have a lot of promise.
Like I'm, I'm excited to continue pushing out
videos. Like I like, man, I love watching your
videos. Your channel is awesome. Like. And I
mean, before I run it up on like almost an hour
here, but before we close out here, I mean, do
you have any thoughts that you want to get out
that we haven't talked about? Well, there is
one other project I didn't mention that I just
remembered. It's XNet, which is similar to Helium
Mobile. And I think there's hold on. There's
one other. Let me look at it really quickly.
But XNet is similar to Helium Mobile Carrier
One. They're all trying to be. uh these crypto
cellular networks and i think that is an interesting
space because high mapper could use one of them
as well they don't have to use helium mobile
they could use at t verizon but they could also
be uh looking to start with one of these younger
projects that has uh different options for scalability
i mean the the helium 5g devices are ridiculously
expensive and i think if they were to able to
get the price down on that. And that's just going
to happen with time as more manufactured and
the price of everything comes down. It's going
to be a lot easier for the space to grow because
everything can connect to cellular connectivity.
Like everything needs it. You need wifi for everything.
You need it for a female, for the, the sore chain.
You actually need to have your phone connected
to it at all times with a cellular connection.
Yeah. So that's, that's an issue, but that could
be fixed with some software updates. They're
planning on pushing. But we all need cellular
data and it's expensive. And I mean, I say this
at the end of like every video, it'll be interesting
to see what happens. It will be. That's the best
I can say. It will be. But, you know, like all
in all, like, look, I think we are in, I truly
believe we're in the right place at the right
time. Like in the deep end space, the thing is
going, it has just so much potential. And I think
it actually has the potential to break like the.
to an extent, this whole bull bear market thing,
because if any of these projects can drive meaningful
revenue, you can better justify valuations through
a bear market. And especially with the tokenomics
of some of these, with the burn, the mint equilibrium
with revenue coming into the project, I do think
there's the potential to break some of these
sentiments around market cycles. So I don't know.
It's exciting, man. And you're seeing a lot of
them pop up. it'll be interesting to see how
many of them do well and how many of them don't
make it you know um but yeah man i yeah i don't
know i'm just excited uh all in all and i think
this bull run is you know hopefully it comes
through like like we hope it does and um we're
all we're all having a good time and uh having
drinks and a year from now you know oh that'd
be great we can all meet up at the next bitcoin
event everyone watching this video because we
all get into deep ends and we can Maybe it'll
be a deep end event. That's another thing. Like
with the new spaces, like there's probably going
to be some deep end specific conferences and
stuff in Miami, of course. And we could probably
all meet up there. So that'd be cool. That'd
be awesome, man. Well, Hey, I appreciate you
joining me on this. Yeah, this was great. It's
a good conversation for sure. Love to do it again
sometime, man. Absolutely. Well, thank you, everybody,
for tuning in and make sure to subscribe to Deep
in Connection as well as me and unsubscribe from
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