All language subtitles for WTF.Is.Crypto.S01E02.1080p.TVNZ.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-BTN-CEsubs

Cryptocurrencies are a real serious
proposition.

Crypto and blockchain are changing the
world.

Now we know why crypto is such a big
deal.

It's really undoing the last 20 years of
technology.

But if you want to join the ride, where
do you get on?

Cryptocurrency is absolutely for
everyone, but I can fully appreciate how

daunting it is to get started.

We meet the family behind Easy Crypto.

one of New Zealand's biggest crypto
success stories. We all start knowing

nothing, and I run a cryptocurrency
business, and some days I still feel

know nothing in this space because it's
moving so fast.

Hey, bro, I heard about this Bitcoin
thing. Can you get some for me? I can't

figure it out. It's much easier to
understand once you've tried it.

You should not approach this from a get
-rich -quick scheme.

Don't just follow the FOMO.

Make that first step and see where the
journey takes you.

People want to know what... My children
do. I tell them that my two younger

children are running a crypto business.

At that stage, people of my generation
say, ah, now I've heard about that.

What's that?

I grew up in Auckland. My mum and dad
ran a computer business.

Computers were the new big thing.

So we had them in the house basically
since they were babies.

We'd have the latest model that had come
through on its way to the showroom

floor. My brothers were very tech savvy.

We got our first computer. It was a
handy TRF80 monochrome screen. My father

bought us some books on programming,
basic computer language.

Alan was a very enthusiastic, life and
soul of the family type person.

Janine was a bit of a philosopher. She
was always asking why and how.

I really liked that idea of
understanding the physical world,

creating stuff.

But I was a pretty average student. I
ended up dropping out after fifth form.

I just wasn't enjoying school.

We said, but you can't leave school
without a job.

Then she came home a day or two later
and said she had a job.

I worked in a cafe for a little while. I
went over to the UK to do the OE.

I came back to New Zealand for a
friend's wedding, and at that stage I

this was a good opportunity to go to
university.

So I enrolled at Auckland University as
an adult student.

I ended up doing an economics degree,
and then in my last year I tapped on

finance. I first heard of Bitcoin, I
think it was in 2014, and I just

thinking how much sense it made.

We have with the internet this global
village, but we didn't have a global

payment system.

So it seemed to me the no -brainer that
this Bitcoin thing would be...

a part of the future. Value soared to
more than $315 per Bitcoin.

So what does this mean for those of us
who may be interested in investing in

digital currencies?

I remember searching online trying to
find out how to buy Bitcoin.

There were very few guides or
explainers.

I called up Alan, my brother, to ask
him, how do you buy this Bitcoin thing?

he's like, I don't know.

Definitely it was for the very tech
adventurer. And it was just so

Buying Bitcoin back in the day was very
unusafriendly.

It was just so hard to get involved.

I couldn't set up an account.

It was not easy.

There were some offshore exchanges, but
you had to wire up some weird bank

accounts in some obscure country.

I was sitting there nervously, wondering
where they were going to come through.

It was still very much sort of seat of
your pants, making it up as they go

sort of stuff.

We figured it out. I think Bitcoin was
$300 at the time.

So I bought some back then just to see
how it worked. You know, I didn't put in

much, but it was a really daunting
process.

And I was right there on her laptop
helping her, and I didn't buy any.

So she was the smart one, the visionary,
and I was just the idiot who helped her

and didn't take part.

I put it in a wallet, I left it there,
and I just freaked out that if I ever

touched it, I would probably lose it.

The cryptocurrency Bitcoin has rallied
after taking a bit of a Christmas

It really started to come into public
consciousness in 2017.

Prices started going up. The media
started talking about it. This week,

shot up 70%. At its peak, one Bitcoin
was worth 25 ,000 New Zealand dollars.

Cryptocurrencies are a real and serious
proposition for the future. I was

working for one of the large banks here
in New Zealand.

People knew that I had Bitcoin and
they'd come to me with all their

cryptocurrency questions. And I became
the bank's expert on Bitcoin. So they

called me Jcoin there, which is a
nickname that has stuck.

The Ventures team at the bank asked me
to do a presentation on what is Bitcoin,

blockchain and cryptocurrency.

And I'd never done any public speaking
before.

I was so anxious. I think I almost
pulled out at the last minute.

But I got up on that stage and tried to
simplify the concept to help everyone

understand what this technology was
about.

Another thing about Bitcoin that makes
it really unique and special is that it

has no central control.

The blockchain is the technology that
underpins Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is like an application, and
blockchain is like your phone or the

operating system that that application
sits on.

Off the back of that, I would always
have people come in to me and say, so

can I buy Bitcoin?

There were no easy websites in New
Zealand for doing it. And there was no

way. You know, I knew how to buy my own
cryptocurrency, but it was a real

hassle. And I was just like, Alan, can
you buy me this? Can you buy me that?

I was traveling at the time. All my
friends, they were all getting in touch

me. Hey, bro, I heard about this Bitcoin
thing. Can you get some for me? I can't

figure it out. So I was doing that for
half of 2017.

I am at heart a very lazy person. And I
was like, man, there's got to be a way

to automate this.

And then I was like, shit, if I automate
it, that's a business.

I spent 24 hours a day for four days
straight coding up this website.

I thought, ah, easy crypto, that sounds
about right.

People who had no knowledge whatsoever
of crypto, they could just come on the

website, say I want to buy $100 of
Bitcoin, they make the payment, and bam,

have the email. And you'd have a secure
encrypted wallet emailed to you with

that cryptocurrency in it.

No need to send funds overseas.

One click, pay your money and you're
done. Very simple.

I went live with the site on a Monday
and we had orders rolling in on the

Tuesday. We had a $10 ,000 order the
Wednesday, Thursday, had multiple of

size. And then all of a sudden...

Just people are sending money my way,
which was around about the time that I

Janine involved.

He calls me up, his little sister, and
says, hey, I've built this thing. Is

there any reason I shouldn't be doing it
or anything I need to be aware of? Not

entirely sure this is legal. I need a
bit of help here.

Please take this offline immediately.

I don't know how this is illegal, but
I'm sure you're breaking, you know, who

knows what regulations.

Janine was absolutely horrified.

So I remember spending the summer of
2017, 2018, just poring over pages and

pages of legislation, regulation, and
then we worked on getting the right

licenses, and we went live in January
2018 with a fully fledged, properly

licensed and regulated version 1 .0 of
EasyCrypto.

The back -end part of it at that time
was all manual, so the orders would come

in, I would place the trades myself,
create the wallet and send it off. We

answering all the help desk queries, we
were googling the site, adding new

features. I did so much of the coding on
various beaches, train stations, the

side of the road and a bus stop. Any way
you can get an internet connection, I

was working.

Running a cryptocurrency business was
100 times harder than doing a normal

startup, I think.

I had my day job, so I was just working
on the business nights and weekends. It

was so much hard work, a lot of hustle.

Banks didn't want to talk to us. We were
in crypto and it just was too scary,

too risky.

You can't get insurance.

You can't get a business loan. So
everything we did, we had to do it off

backs. We used all of our own money.

I was working every hour that I was
awake on trying to grow the business,

for things like bank accounts.

It was a time that I feel like I didn't
have a life, really. There was nothing

outside of Easy Crypto. I sort of lost
myself a bit.

We were constantly running into brick
walls. I did often ask myself, is this

worth it, and are we going to make it?
The challenges were so huge, and at

they seemed just insurmountable.

Running a cryptocurrency business was
100 times harder than doing a normal

startup. I approached every bank in New
Zealand two or three times.

It wasn't until May 2018 that we
actually managed to get a bank to

onboard us. That was what got us over
the line.

Less than a year into running the
business, we became the largest provider

New Zealand, which was amazing for us
that it was still a very small market.

We definitely weren't making enough
money to leave the day jobs or anything

that. Really, we were just doing it
because we both really believed in the

potential of what blockchain and crypto
could do, and we wanted to make sure

Kiwis weren't left behind.

With my background in strategy, I've
always been really big on the company,

having goals, plans.

Janine came up with this grand vision of
what she expected EasyCrypto to do.

And the numbers are ridiculous. A
billion dollars in revenue by year five.

I'm sitting there thinking, look,
there's no way. I don't see it, but I'm

on board and I support you and do
everything I can to make it happen.

We built this amazing thing for New
Zealand and it became really successful.

had the tools to take this to other
countries around the world. So I said to

Alan, let's take this thing global.

To have equal and fair access to finance
is, I think, one of the things that

really brought Janine and I together.

That's really what the crypto revolution
is to me at heart. It's that next great

global equaliser.

We launched Australia in 2018 and then
moved into South Africa in 2019.

Easy Crypto was continuing to gather
momentum, but at the start of 2020, we

decided the time was right for me to
leave the day job and go full -time into

Easy Crypto, and then COVID hit.

A state of national emergency has been
declared.

A country shutting up shop today as New
Zealand heads into an historic lockdown.

I was in Malaysia at the time. But he
didn't have the right visa to stay in

Kuala Lumpur with his wife.

We made the very difficult decision that
I would leave the country, go back to

New Zealand.

And then we both went down and stayed at
mum and dad's place in the Bay of

Plenty.

It was the first time in the history of
Easy Crypto that Janine and I had been

in the same room.

We have a huge room in our property
upstairs. That became the office. I made

myself into chief cook, clothes washer.

Alan and I were just working flat -tack
on the business, and the business grew

leaps and bounds during that time.

Being together in the same physical
location was epic.

It was like, hey, Alan, can we do this
on the site? Can we have this

functionality? I'm like, yeah, shit,
yeah, we can.

Bam, it's done.

I think Mum and Dad really loved having
us back. It was quite novel, right? It

felt like this project, the building of
Easy Crypto, was something that we were

all doing together as a family.

In the early days of the business,
Janine said, would you like to do the

Mum? And I said, not really.

But then when they got busier, I said,
oh, maybe I'll do that one little bit.

By the time they were home with
lockdown, I was fully involved in the

side of things.

Our business just went nuts.

And we were needing to hire more staff
to help look after customers.

Things sort of just exploded when COVID
happened.

People who'd always meant to look into
crypto suddenly had the time to look

it. People were distrusting regular
institutions.

Interest rates were almost non
-existent, so the money people had in

doing nothing.

I think we just got more comfortable
with digital.

We were all having meetings on Zoom, we
did our shopping online, and people

became more accepting of value being
digital, of Bitcoin as a digital

They had these milestones, and every
time another milestone was passed, there

was another special bottle of whiskey.

And then the milestones just kept coming
so fast.

By the end of 2020, we'd done over $200
million in total turnover through the

platform.

It felt pretty surreal. We just kept
looking at each other and going, have we

really built this thing?

The site's continually developed. It's
kept improving. But the ideology behind

Easy Crypto hasn't changed.

What Easy Crypto is all about is making
it easy for people to get involved in

this industry.

We really believe that blockchain,
cryptocurrency, digitization of assets

be where the future goes. And we want to
make it accessible to everyone.

Your country might be subject to various
sanctions and you simply are not able

to play on the same global stage.

It's just about giving people the option
to participate in global finance.

Part of being an honourable player in
the market is making sure that people

what they're getting into.

Crypto itself is still relatively
complicated and hasn't really been

by many.

The math and the underlying plumbing is
complex, but, you know, so is email.

We all use the internet every day, but
none of us need to know how it works,

we need cryptocurrency to get to that
same place.

It's still in that kind of early adopter
phase, and it can be a bit confronting.

It's much easier to understand once
you've tried it. The moment you learn

about it, you understand its potential.

So if I want to jump aboard the crypto
train, what are some of the things I

to be aware of?

All you have to do is realize that the
single best investment you could ever

make is spending the time to educate
yourself about how this works.

Spend an hour a month finding out, well,
how does it work?

Just tip away at it.

There are hundreds of crypto exchanges
and providers all over the world, and

there's over 20 ,000 different
cryptocurrencies.

The first thing you need to consider
when you're getting started with

cryptocurrency is how to store it.

There are countless stories of people
losing all of their crypto. So how

I look after mine?

You can store it yourself in your own
wallet or you can entrust it to a third

party exchange and let them act as a
custodian for you.

With an exchange, it's a way for people
to buy and sell cryptocurrency online.

And so your Bitcoin or your assets will
be stored by the exchange until you

choose to withdraw it.

Is there anything I need to be aware of
with exchanges?

So the centralised exchange, it's a
normal company.

It's got an office and a CEO and it can
act like a crypto bank. The benefits of

that are that it's convenient.

You can log in and if you lose your
password, you've got a number to ring.

But you're also risking your funds and
trusting them to keep them safe for you.

If they go through a hack, you might
lose all of that crypto.

There is one confidence in the history
of crypto that exchanges go under, even

well -operated ones at times.

I wouldn't store more money on an
exchange than I was willing to lose.

OK, if I'm not storing on an exchange,
what are the options for looking after

myself? If you're storing your funds
yourself, you do have full control over

them, which is a real benefit.

But Bitcoin isn't physical.

We like to put up these images of these
gold Bitcoin coins. That's not what they

look like. It is just purely digital.

A wallet allows you to receive
cryptocurrency and to send it. So

different types of wallets and they have
different levels of security and

different levels of accessibility.

So one type of wallet is a hot wallet.

So a hot wallet is quite often an app on
your phone, really easy to download, to

use, to send funds from. That's good for
everyday use. The amount of value that

you'd store in your back pocket and your
day -to -day wallet, that's what you

use a hot wallet for.

If you have larger amounts of
cryptocurrency, you can look at

cold wallet.

A cold wallet will look like a little
USB device.

It's not connected to the internet, so
it has a greater degree of security.

The other type of wallet you'll hear a
lot about is a web wallet.

Web wallets enable you to connect your
wallet to different online services.

For example, say if you want to buy an
NFT, you can go to the site and you

connect your wallet, which allows you to
trade NFTs directly from your wallet

with that platform.

But I'm always losing stuff. What
happens if I lose my phone with my

it?

So your wallet has 12 words and you
write them down or you memorise them. If

you've got access to that, then if you
lose your phone, if you lose everything,

all you need is those 12 words.

If your computer dies, as long as you
keep your seed phrase, you have your

money. But if somebody else finds those
12 words, they can reproduce your

wallet, they can steal your money.

It is really important that you pay
attention to how you store that seed

and make sure that you can always
recover your wallet.

What is the safest way to store my seed
phrase?

Don't put it online.

The safest place to store it is offline,
written down. If you've got a safe, put

it in there.

So keep it in more than one place. You
can put them in the fireproof box.

and you can bury it like a pirate if you
want to.

Now I know how to keep my crypto safe,
but what can I actually do with it?

In terms of why people buy
cryptocurrency, there's a few different

is as an investment, but there's stuff
that I'm most excited about is the real

-world use cases of cryptocurrency.

Gaming, there's NFTs, which can act as
collector's items, and I personally use

cryptocurrency to pay my staff overseas,
and I'll receive it within seconds.

Okay, so how else can I protect myself
out there in crypto land?

Cryptocurrency is still a very confusing
space, and that's a big challenge for

the industry to make it easy for
everyday people to get involved and do

safely.

Do your own research and know who you're
dealing with. Make sure you're using a

safe wallet.

Use strong passwords.

Don't click on links that you don't know
what they are.

Protecting yourself from scams and
crypto is really important.

Be skeptical.

If an opportunity to invest approaches
you, if someone cold calls you, that is

definitely a scam because that is
illegal in New Zealand.

If you are dealing with third parties,
minimize your exposure to them. If you

get an email, if you see a news article,
just be really skeptical about any of

those opportunities to invest.

You should not approach this from a get
-rich -quick scheme, right?

Don't invest more than you're willing to
lose. Don't put all your eggs in one

basket. Don't just follow the FOMO. I
think it's a really important piece of

advice.

Cryptocurrency is absolutely for
everyone. It's an incredibly exciting

be involved in. The innovation here is
just immense.

I can fully appreciate how daunting it
is to get started, but ideally everyone

would be comfortable with this space
because it is where the world is

Next time. You've heard of NFTs, but
what exactly are they? With NFTs, we've

found a medium that people really
connected with.

Everything they did was five, six steps
ahead of anything that anyone in the

industry was doing. We meet the local
company making millions.

Well, this is bigger than anything that
we've been thinking of.

$15 million in power.

Collaborating with international
superstars. There's only one Kiame. And

to hang with the DOWG. In bringing the
metaverse to the masses.

It's going to blow people's mind who
we're heading to now.