What is Ethereum & is it better than Bitcoin? | The Happy Spender

Maddy: [00:00:20] Hello and welcome to You're In Good Company, a podcast that makes investing accessible for everyone. I'm Maddy and as always, I'm in some very good company with my co-host that has a sore throat. Sophie. 

Sophie: [00:00:33] It's not. Yeah. If you haven't noticed already, my voice is gone. It's not a sore throat. It's just. I was screaming at the footy for my team and it's just gone and I, you know, and it was like, Oh yeah, you want to lose your voice? It's like kind of see, I'm like, this is the most annoying thing ever. Like, I hate it.

Maddy: [00:00:52] I, on the other hand, I'm recovering from the flu, so if I sound nasally, I am very sorry about doing obviously this like. 

Sophie: [00:01:01] Well, today is an exciting day because we are kicking off another crypto series. We did a crypto series in our last season about bitcoin and this time we are jumping into Ethereum and NFT is. 

Maddy: [00:01:12] Highly recommend you heading back to our crypto series in November if you are interested. But today we are very excited to be sitting down with Jordan Franklin, a.k.a. the happy spender. Jordan started in this space and she began sharing her crypto learning journey on Tik-tok. Fast forward to today and she is a highly regarded woman in crypto. From side hustle to full time job, Jordan now works full time in content creation and Web3 consulting. Her favourite cryptocurrency is Ethereum, which is also the second largest crypto in the world, and we have asked her to join us today to help us break down everything that we need to know. Welcome, Jordan. 

Jordan Franklin: [00:01:50] Thank you. Thank you guys so much for having me. I'm excited to talk about the wonderful world of Ethereum. 

Sophie: [00:01:56] We love your social media content, so we're so excited to have you on as well. We start the episode the same way with every guest, so we're asking what is the best thing that's happened to you in the past week? 

Jordan Franklin: [00:02:05] The best thing that's happened to me in the past week is I recently joined a new gym and I definitely have to go to the gym like frequently. It's so good for my mental health and it creates so much structure in my days, especially now that I'm not working a full time job. So I go bright and early. I'm up at six, I go and I was going by myself, which is fine, but I feel like we all know that going with the gym buddy, it's almost, you know, a more enjoyable experience to have someone there that you know and that you can partner with. And what I've I saw the best thing that's happened in the past week is that I found a new gym buddy and I. I love it. And I know that's probably an unusual thing. Best thing to happen to you in the past week. But yeah, I love working out with other people and being amongst other people. And yes, I'm really, really enjoying that part of my schedule at the moment. And doing it with new people is always fun. 

Maddy: [00:03:05] I love it. It definitely helps me to get out of bed in the morning if I know that I'm meeting someone at the gym. Jordan if you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be and why? 

Jordan Franklin: [00:03:14] Right now, I would love to have dinner with Katie Hall, and she's the reason I got into cryptocurrency early last year. In 2021, she was formerly a US federal prosecutor and she played a hand in charging criminals involved in money laundering on the Bitcoin blockchain and in that process became so interested in blockchain technology that she decided to leave her career as a lawyer altogether and pursue a career in the Web3 space. And she's had a lot of success and recently raised $1.5 billion for a new venture capital firm. 

Maddy: [00:03:52] That has a lot of money. 

Jordan Franklin: [00:03:54] Yeah, absolutely. And I think that hearing Katie talk about cryptocurrency, you know, is a female someone with a non-technical background and in very simple terms that was very easy to relate to and to to resonate with. So I'd love to have dinner with her and pick her brain. And she also just seems like a lovely human. She's got a few podcasting tubes floating around. If anyone wants to listen to.

Sophie: [00:04:14] Them, well, definitely look them up and link them for the community. And if you could be a stock or company, who would you be and why? 

Jordan Franklin: [00:04:23] That is a great question. I have definitely my head's been a lot more in the crypto game over this sort of stock game more recently, but I'm trying to think about what I currently on at the moment. I think that. One thing that I'm really admiring at the moment is the whole push towards investing in more ethical companies. So something that people are taking the time to research and invest in to better their own knowledge about what's happening in the world. And obviously that leads to better investment decisions, just like how more education in the cryptocurrency space should lead to better investment decisions. 

Maddy: [00:05:02] You really should have changed that for you to say if you could be a stock company or a crypto, it would have been much more appropriate.

Jordan Franklin: [00:05:12] I hadn't really given that question too much. Thought was probably obvious, but. 

Maddy: [00:05:17] Well Jordan, I'm keen to get into it then because you did say when you were I think chatting actually to our friends over at Crypto Curious, which is another Equity Mates podcast that your favourite cryptocurrency is a theorem so keen to get a quick rundown to start off with what is Ethereum and how does it work? 

Jordan Franklin: [00:05:37] So Ethereum is a smart contract blockchain, so, you know. 

Speaker 2: [00:05:44] It's a good word for good jargon. 

Sophie: [00:05:46] Let's break it down. 

Jordan Franklin: [00:05:48] So basically a quick recap of the blockchain. A blockchain is just a place where we store data. And the way that we store data is you take the information or a transaction that's made on a blockchain and you organise it into a block and then those blocks chain together to form the blockchain. And there are a few special features of the blockchain that make it really unique, and that is that it's decentralised, it's immutable, it's transparent, meaning that once the information is stored, it can't be changed. Anyone can say it and it is a completely secure way of transacting. So we take the idea of the blockchain, which is just a ledger where information lives, and then we're combining it with a smart contract or smart contract capability. The easiest way to think about a smart contract is using that sort of infamous analogy of the vending machine. You put $5 in, you click a button, and then that vending machine is programmed to deliver whatever you have clicked the button for. So like a can of coke or whatever it is, so that a vending machine is a very simple version of a smart contract. You are telling it to do X and it does Y. So a smart contract is really just an agreement where conditions have to be met in order for that agreement to be executed. So when we think about a smart contract blockchain, it's a place where we can transact in a way that is extremely, I guess, secure and transparent. When you transact using smart contract capability, you know that if this happens, if X happens, then Y happens and you can trust that the blockchain is going to facilitate that transaction for you. So in simple terms, Ethereum is used to transact, to make purchases, to play games, to do a whole bunch of things. The Ethereum ecosystem is huge. 

Sophie: [00:07:58] Can you give us an example of a smart contract under in the Ethereum ecosystem to give people some context? 

Jordan Franklin: [00:08:04] I guess right now you would use if you want to buy a certain cryptocurrency, say, for example, you want to buy Bitcoin, you would download a cryptocurrency exchange upside like swift x or coin spot, and you would buy cryptocurrency on the exchange platform. Whereas in the Ethereum network you might be able to you can buy different cryptocurrencies and exchange different cryptocurrencies on decentralised or in decentralised finance, where instead of having to rely on the middleman that is swift X or coin spot, you are instead facilitating that transaction using smart contract capability. So smart contracts really just replace the role of a person that you have to trust to make that transaction with a smart contract. Because you know that by reading what the smart contract is programmed to do, it's going to make sure that your transaction is executed basically. So smart contracts, like I said, really just replace the role of a person with a programme. 

Maddy: [00:09:07] We're going to talk a little bit later in the episode about the differences between Bitcoin and Ethereum and also touch on the price, because I think that is pretty relevant, especially at the moment. But before we get there, I'm interested to understand what is Aether and is it different from Ethereum? So when I'm actually investing in this crypto. 

Jordan Franklin: [00:09:26] Yeah, sure. So the Aether cryptocurrency is the native cryptocurrency to the Ethereum blockchain. So you've got the cryptocurrency. Ethereum the blockchain, aether powers the Ethereum. Blockchain, but the terms are used interchangeably. So you can call it a you can call it it's most commonly referred to, I think, as a theory and you know, when you're going to invest in it. But it's probably also good to note that Ethereum and lots of other cryptocurrencies, they are investment assets because we've made them so. However, cryptocurrencies like Aether actually have a lot more utility beyond just being an investment asset, and I'm sure we'll probably touch on that later as well. You can use the Aether cryptocurrency to do a lot of things in the Ethereum ecosystem, like via NFT is you can game in there, you can do a whole bunch of things. So it's a very cool cryptocurrency, I think. 

Maddy: [00:10:24] So when I'm buying it, it's actually aether in a theorem of the same thing. 

Jordan Franklin: [00:10:29] Yes, good to know. 

Sophie: [00:10:31] I was going to say I've always thought of it like so differently. And this is why we have to have this conversation because, you know, I don't know a lot about it, the Ethereum, but I'd always thought of it like, this is probably going to sound stupid, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always thought of Ethereum as like a video game, right? Like it's like a platform that you enter into. And then I think of it as like the little gold coins that you collect as you're in the video game to buy, like, you know, your new shield or your new boots. And that's how I've always thought about it. 

Maddy: [00:11:00] Video game you play.

Sophie: [00:11:02] I don't really play video games, but I just play.

Jordan Franklin: [00:11:05] That's probably I mean, that's probably a great way of thinking about it because in order to participate in the Ethereum ecosystem, just like a game, you need to have the tokens that grant you that access. So that's that's actually a really good way of thinking about it. I think even though, you know, obviously you can use Ethereum to do lots of different things, but having the asset cryptocurrency allows you to transact in the Ethereum network. 

Sophie: [00:11:29] Makes sense then. I'm glad that I used an analogy that worked. 

Speaker 2: [00:11:34] Yeah, perfect. 

Sophie: [00:11:35] I've also been reading a little bit lately about, you know, how a theorem is changing, and I think there's a lot of buzzwords around it. But one of the things that I have been reading about is the theory emerge. Would you mind, I guess, explaining what that is and what it means? 

Jordan Franklin: [00:11:49] So I like to call the merge ethereum's glow up. 

Maddy: [00:11:52] Love map for Ethereum. 

Jordan Franklin: [00:11:54] Yeah, I'd love that for a theory. We love a glow up. It's definitely it's definitely do I mean we've been talking Vitalik Buterin has been talking about the merge since I think as early as 2016 and it is basically ethereum's transition from a proof of work blockchain to a proof of stake blockchain. The Bitcoin blockchain is a proof of work blockchain and all that really is proof of work and purchased like a just the two main ways that blockchains validate transactions. Now proof of work has come to be quite inefficient, energy intensive and a proof of stake network. Yet proof of work really requires a lot of sort of computers to work quite hard to validate all the transactions that happen in a network. Whereas proof of stake only requires that people sort of block funds in order to provide liquidity in the form of cryptocurrency to the platform. And that is basically the way that they the blockchain is powered and proof of stake is a much more efficient way of doing that. But upgrading a network as big as Ethereum to a completely new way of doing things is not an easy task. So it has been years in the making and people believe and are hopeful that that the merge will happen this year in the middle of the year. And the merge really refers to the merge between the beacon chain and Ethereum's current network. So the beacon chain is proof of stake and Ethereum's current network is proof of proof of work. And so once they combine, ethereum's should become completely a proof of stake network. And the effect that this is going to have on the Ethereum blockchain, and especially for its users, is that it should make Ethereum cheaper and more efficient to use. So whenever you transact in the Ethereum sort of ecosystem, you are charged what's code gas? And that's for the pleasure of, you know, of buying an NFT or playing a game or whatever. And when the Ethereum network is congested and really busy, the price of gas goes up. You know, I've paid as much as $100 for one transaction to make just one transaction. So the whole point of the merge really is just to make it cheaper and easier to use for end users. Because if people think that it's too expensive and it's too slow, I mean, obviously people hate waiting. People don't like paying a lot of money for things, then they're going to go elsewhere and use different blockchains. So Ethereum has to work really hard to make sure that it can achieve that upgrade to retain all of the. Liquidity that's on the platform and to make sure that they don't lose like essentially the equivalent flight their customers.

Sophie: [00:14:44] And when you say you pay the gas fees because I've heard that term a lot, especially in the NFT space, where do those fees go to? Is it the platform that you're buying an NFT off or transacting with? 

Jordan Franklin: [00:14:55] Yeah, that's a great question. So those fees are actually the rewards that are given to the validators in the network. So blockchains are decentralised. Ethereum is decentralised. And in the absence of a trusted third party, like a bank or whoever, we need to make sure that we can prop up the network via like a different means. So the gas that we pay goes to as a reward to the to the validators in the network to say thank you for, you know, staking the cryptocurrency and helping us validate everyone else's transactions. It's just a reward paid to the people who prop up the network of. 

Maddy: [00:15:39] Validators different from miners. 

Jordan Franklin: [00:15:41] That's a great question. So as miners is to proof of work, validators are to proof of stake. So. 

Maddy: [00:15:48] So it's the equivalent on the new system tracks.

Jordan Franklin: [00:15:51] Yeah. So when you mined Bitcoin, for example, mining is, is, you know, the action or the verb of the proof is the proof of work blockchain. So you mined cryptocurrency to or you mined Bitcoin to validate the transactions, secure the network, and to release more of that cryptocurrency into the ecosystem. When you validators stake cryptocurrency to essentially do the same thing in a much more efficient way. So proof of stake has stakers validators and proof of work as miners. 

Maddy: [00:16:27] And if you'd like a recap all about Bitcoin mining, we have done a three part series on that, so I recommend you head back and listen to that one. But we are going to take a quick break for our sponsors, and we'll be right back to discuss the use cases for Ethereum and whether or not it is better than Bitcoin. 

Sophie: [00:16:47] So I think in obviously our previous episode with Bitcoin, we've spoken about its use cases and I guess for a lot of it people have been saying that you can you can transact with it like a currency or it's a bit of a store of wealth. How does a Ethereum differ? I mean, what problem does a theory and solve? 

Jordan Franklin: [00:17:04] That's a great question. And I think that I firmly believe in, you know, in the investment value of looking at a project and going, okay, what problem does it solve? Because ultimately, if it, you know, provides a solution to the problem, then people are going to use it. Right. And if you're investing in that cryptocurrency, then obviously that has the effect of driving up the value of your investment. But there are lots of use cases for Ethereum. I think the most important point here to make is that anyone can build on a theory. And Ethereum is kind of like this. It has the infrastructure, so it has the smart contract capability, you know, whatnot and programme is can go onto a theorem and build decentralised applications and a whole ton of things for people to, for people to use. And really you can use Ethereum for anything. It's like a general purpose blockchain. So when we think about the use cases for Ethereum, there's a lot of, I guess, real world things that we can take and go, okay, you could use the Ethereum blockchain or something similar to the Ethereum blockchain to achieve the same thing. So you might look at, for example, supply chain management and go, okay, well, you know, let's take fast fashion as the example. Right. And this might be, you know, I'm just sort of talking about blockchain in general, but essentially in theory and this is something that a version of Ethereum could do right now. You know, we know that fast fashion is a really big problem, but it's it's the fact that fashion market is saturated. It's also in extremely high demand. And in the first world, we have the privilege of turning a blind eye to the origins of a piece of clothing. You know, we sort of don't really there's no way for us to really, like, look into a piece of clothing and go, where was that manufactured on on what date? By who, where, you know, whatnot. So I think if you take a concept like that and say, okay, well, we're going to register, we're going to take this piece of clothing and we're going to record every single piece of data about that piece of clothing on the blockchain so that you can trace the origins of where that came from and all the information about it. So once it arrives, you could look at a serial number, so you could then search it on Google or whatever and you could say made two days ago or you know, you know, all made made here by by this person, by this manufacturing company. And then you could go, oh, well, you know, does this manufacturing company have ethical practises and standards? Do they endorse child labour? So by taking something like fast fashion and putting it on the blockchain, we can actually see that there's a lot more awareness about where where our clothing is coming from. 

Maddy: [00:20:01] A little bit of a tease out. We are going to have Jordan back next week to discuss all things nfts. So if you are wanting to learn more about that, make sure you keep your eye out for that. But Jordan, I'm keen to hear your thoughts as a retail investor myself. You know, one of the ways that I can get exposure to the crypto space is through companies that are using the technology. Do you know of any companies at the moment that are using Ethereum to improve their business? And what are they actually using it for? I don't know. 

Jordan Franklin: [00:20:29] Of any companies that are using Ethereum to improve their business processes per say, because Ethereum wasn't really built to do that. It wasn't built as a product for private businesses to then to then use to like improve the way they do things. Ethereum was built as a standalone network to eliminate businesses from facilitating transactions, so that that's quite a difficult mental shift to make. I think seeing as we are so used to relying on businesses to do things for us, whereas Ethereum takes away that reliability and you need to trust people to do certain things. But there are examples of businesses that are using private versions of, you know, old versions of the Ethereum blockchain to, you know, to improve their business models and business types. So I think there's enormous potential for businesses with, you know, to use blockchain technology to improve what they do, especially in, say, ecommerce, like we said, supply chain management, that sort of thing. Even it's use for health and medical records. However, I wouldn't say that just because blockchain is sort of the hot new technology doesn't mean it needs to be used. Absolutely everything either. So I think that, you know, there's no kind of need to fear blockchain. Absolutely. Taking over the world. It definitely has a place and it definitely has extraordinary utility for some things, but but not everything. And I really I think it's it's really important to note that the Ethereum blockchain was really developed not not as a product for businesses, but for individuals to, you know, to transact in a way that is peer to peer, like I said before, without having to rely on a business. So making that separation in your in your own mind is important. But that's definitely not to say that businesses are exploring the power of blockchain technology to better what they're doing.

Sophie: [00:22:27] One example that I had read about, which I think is like something that really helped me understand it. When you say that businesses don't necessarily use it but could use it to replace, what they're doing is the example of Facebook and Ethereum being able to produce, I guess, a platform on the decentralised platform where you can do the same things that you do on Facebook, like a social connexion network, but it's not controlled by any one person.

Jordan Franklin: [00:22:52] Yeah, correct. That's actually a really great point to make because the whole point of the of the cryptocurrency and blockchain world is to make it so that it's to eliminate the sort of the Googles and the, you know, the Facebooks and those sort of big companies that really take a top down approach to managing our privacy and our data and that sort of thing, and making it more decentralised and connecting people directly instead of relying on the platform that is Facebook. 

Maddy: [00:23:27] It's an interesting dichotomy that they're built to replace. Yeah, like your companies like Facebook and then you've got Zuckerberg embracing it. So much so that he can control. But I don't know what's going on.

Jordan Franklin: [00:23:39] Yeah, exactly. But you know, one thing that I really learnt about the cryptocurrency space in the blockchain space is that there's there's a very strong sense in that community for blockchain and crypto to develop a new world that is standalone to the world that we're used to. And again, really, really difficult sort of mental transition to make an it. It's kind of weird to think, well, we wouldn't rely on a bank to, you know, host our savings. We'd rely on like ourselves and, you know, we would have complete custody of our own cryptocurrency wallet and whatnot. And we transact on a on a blockchain that there's no customer service line to call. And that has happened to me before. But I think as the space evolves and people become more comfortable with using it and with transacting in that way, then, you know, hopefully we'll see and improve. 

Maddy: [00:24:29] Well, I think that brings us very nicely to discuss some of the key risks of Ethereum. And I guess I'm particularly interested to know whether there any particular downsides which we should be considering that could mean it could actually become sort of a less popular platform? 

Jordan Franklin: [00:24:43] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Ethereum has this enormous first mover advantage. It's the second blockchain developed after the Bitcoin blockchain minus all this sort of version twos of the Bitcoin blockchain that we developed. But it's the first of its kind in terms of being a smart contract blockchain. But ultimately, Ethereum is a new and emerging technology, just like this whole space is, its new, it's emerging naturally. There are going to be risks. And I think that the risks that we would want to most care about are really the ones that affect us as the users of the Ethereum platform. So the risk of expense, you know, like we spoke about before, it's it can be quite expensive to transact on Ethereum and the risk of it being quite slow. And also there's a big risk of, you know, even projects that are built on the Ethereum network, there is a risk that they might rug pull and I'm not sure if you've heard that term before, but a rug pull is basically when a team sets up a project side, they bring investors in and then they kind of run away with all their money. And unfortunately, because of the lack of regulation in the space that is completely legal and it does result in people losing their cryptocurrency funds, also, it's the same as skins as well. I almost fell for a scam the other day and lost about $40,000 worth of nfts and crypto. Luckily I didn't. But the space is, you know, still. Unfortunately, there are scams in the space. And because of the lack of education and knowledge we have about how to transact on Ethereum, it's difficult to know what's a scam, what's not. You kind of just it's it's through sort of is trial and error and the spending time in the Ethereum network to to sort of discern what is legitimate versus what appears to be legitimate. So I think that there are a few risks, obviously, as well with, you know, if you're looking at Ethereum from the view of being an investment asset, then the. Value of that investment really depends on how many other people are investing in it too. So, you know, if people aren't using the Ethereum network and if people sort of if developers especially aren't building in the Ethereum ecosystem and you know, this sort of ISA cryptocurrency loses utility and you know, people don't want to use it anymore, then obviously that's going to drive the investment value of the Ethereum down. One sort of indicator that I find really useful is, yeah, like I said before, software developers using a theorem to develop on it. That is a really important thing that I have learnt. And where will those software developers go? Where else will they go to build things if they think that a theory is too slow or expensive to use? Because ultimately that's going to affect us as a the investor or the user of the Ethereum network. So there is a risk that, you know, obviously there are other competitors in the space that are kind of trying to rival what Ethereum is doing, and they are doing it somewhat successfully, just not to the same scale yet, but because this space is so new, anything could happen. Anyone could take over, any other blockchain could take over Ethereum if they're sort of doing if they're doing the right things. 

Sophie: [00:28:00] So so I have to ask because he said one of the key risks is obviously the value of a theory. I mean, if you're using it as an investment asset, what that value is at the moment, we are seeing a large drop in a lot of the cryptocurrencies and that's obviously to their nature that they're quite volatile. But is it because people aren't, you know, using it, there's developers not using it as a platform or what are the kind of main reasons that we're seeing at the moment for the drop? 

Jordan Franklin: [00:28:24] Yeah, that's a really great question. I think that there are a lot of things that are contributing to the kind of drop or the downward spiral of the cryptocurrency right now. And unfortunately, these factors not to do with how good Ethereum is or, you know, people's belief in cryptocurrency, it's actually to do with a whole bunch of external factors. You've got the Fed just announced that inflation is at 8.3%. You've got war in the Ukraine, pressure on global supply chains, threat of regulation, that absolute disaster that happened with Terra's Luna cryptocurrency this week that wiped almost a quarter of that trillion dollars that was lost in the cryptocurrency market with that downward spiral. So, you know, there are a lot of other factors at play as well. The cryptocurrency market is closely correlated to the stock market and stocks are also down. So when stocks go down, crypto is also going down as well. Cryptocurrencies are a little bit like a, you know, a toddler trying to walk and it's constantly being pushed over by all these external factors that are beyond its control. So I think when people say cryptocurrency go down, they think, oh, cryptocurrencies crap, it's not worth anything, you know, blah, blah, blah. But actually when you step back and look at the broader picture, there are a lot of macro economic factors that are at play that are affecting the movement of the markets as well. And one thing that is definitely worth noting is that in most of that market movement, I mean, is caused by these really, really big institutional investors they call white or whale investors, people with a lot of money in the cryptocurrency market. They are ultimately causing that rapid movement in the cryptocurrency market. And what does that mean for retail investors? Unfortunately, that that affects our positions. But really, investing is an emotional game, as you would know. And if you can sort of see the big picture, the big picture factors that are at play and you can understand why the markets are down, then you'll sort of know that it's not a lack of or it's not for the reason that cryptocurrencies is a bad asset. It's actually a great it's a it's a great asset.

Maddy: [00:30:33] It's so interesting because I feel like for a long while there people were really kind of telling this narrative that crypto was kind of like a diversification tool from the stock market and that it wouldn't really move with the stock market. And yet over the last few months, that's really what we've seen happen. 

Jordan Franklin: [00:30:50] That's a great point, Matty. I think a lot of people were hopeful that cryptocurrency would be an inflation hedge. So, you know, they sort of they thought, great, you know, when everything goes to crap in the economy and when the fiat currency system is down, everyone's going to throw their money into cryptocurrency and it's going to be this safe haven. And, you know, whatever.

Maddy: [00:31:11] Has not.

Jordan Franklin: [00:31:11] Happened. And that's and that that's exactly right. That hasn't happened. And, you know, cryptocurrency hasn't had the chance yet, I don't think, to prove itself as an inflation hedge. I mean, we're really just at the start of what could be a very few painful years for the market and whether or not cryptocurrency will kind of decouple from the stock market and stand alone as its own kind of, I guess, asset, asset class that the people are going to invest their money into is yet to be seen. However, in the same sense, cryptocurrency was never developed to be an inflation hedge, and really it was never developed to be an investment asset. We have made it into that because that is what we're familiar with. And obviously, the more money that people have made is out of investing in crypto, the more it's become an asset to invest in. But really, cryptocurrency was was firstly designed as an alternative altogether to the fiat currency system. And, you know, other cryptocurrencies serve more of a purpose in that in terms of being able to transact on the blockchain. So it's interesting how we kind of take this thing that was meant to be, you know, that was designed to to provide an alternative. And we've gone, well, it should work in our current system, and how can we make it work in our current system? And it should be able to do this. But that's not actually the case. And it'll be interesting to see what way it goes. 

Speaker 2: [00:32:33] As. 

Maddy: [00:32:33] I'm trying to make up.

Speaker 2: [00:32:34] Something. Yeah, exactly. 

Maddy: [00:32:37] I have to ask because when I started investing in crypto on first sort of started thinking about the space, I felt like I had to pick one crypto currency that was going to be the winner. Is that like when we look at Bitcoin and Ethereum, they're the two biggest cryptos in the space. Can only one be successful or can they all sort of work together in this whole new world that we're potentially moving into and sort of bring different use cases to make things better? 

Jordan Franklin: [00:33:06] There's lots of different kinds of blockchains and they all serves different purposes as well. So Ethereum isn't really a rival to the Bitcoin blockchain or Bitcoin itself because they're completely different cryptocurrency assets. Yeah, you use the different things. I mean, the Bitcoin blockchain is used to use to exchange bitcoins, peer to peer without interference from a bank. And it's a scarce digital asset and that's why it retains so much of its value. There's only ever going to be 21 million Bitcoin to ever exist, and because of that scarcity, it drives the value of Bitcoin up. And that's what makes it a store of value asset. Whereas with a theory there's no kind of, you know, there isn't it's not a scarce digital asset, you know, it's used for a completely different purpose in the Ethereum ecosystem. So yes, while there are some cryptocurrencies that are absolutely in competition with each other, you might think about Solana as being a direct competitor to theory. And, you know

Maddy: [00:34:17] More F serves on that. 

Jordan Franklin: [00:34:19] Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, you can sort of venture down the whole rabbit hole. But right now we're really just saying it's kind of like when the Internet first became a thing and all these companies, there was the Internet bubble and all of these companies which is vying to be the Google that were vying to be the Amazon that was going to be the Facebook. Everyone was competing to be that kind of like then the winner. And that's exactly what's happening in the cryptocurrency market at the moment. There's a lot of projects that are cropping up and everyone's sort of in competition with each other and they're all vying for the top spot. And like I said, they all perform different things. So it's tricky to, you know, when you're thinking about investing in cryptocurrency as an asset, I guess I don't think that there's going to be one winner necessarily, just like there wasn't one winner to come out of the out of the Internet era. I mean, we've got, you know, a lot of big companies that are profiting. But when you think about the cryptocurrency space, it's, you know, what purpose does this cryptocurrency serves? What does the blockchain do? What problem does it solve? And you'll probably find that there are lots of different blockchains doing different things that you think, Oh yeah, cool, that that solves this problem. And that's where I want to invest my money. 

Sophie: [00:35:30] I am really curious because, you know, you've just mentioned that this this world of cryptocurrency, there's information overload. It's just like when the Internet was popping up. There's so many people involved. What are your go to resources to really understand the world of cryptocurrencies? And I guess for Ethereum specifically as well. 

Jordan Franklin: [00:35:47] It's taken me a long time to really hone the voices that I trust the most. I would absolutely say the coin bro on YouTube is a phenomenal resource and also whiteboard crypto on YouTube as well. So they're both really sort of top, top end like resources that I that I use quite frequently to help me understand things as well as Bank Cliffs, the podcast. I've really been enjoying that.

Maddy: [00:36:15] I feel like after we did our mini series on crypto and we focussed on Bitcoin in particular, I felt like I had a really good base understanding. And then recently I actually went to this evening where we discuss crypto and I honestly left and I was like, I'm more confused the when I started and I think it's because this space is like the more you learn, the more you realise how much you don't know and that's okay. Like that's quite exciting, but there really is just so much to it that it is just I take it.

Sophie: [00:36:44] Day by day. 

Speaker 2: [00:36:45] Course. Yeah. 

Jordan Franklin: [00:36:48] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You have to. And you know, the best analogy that I've heard is that, you know, trying to learn everything about cryptocurrency is like drinking water from a fire. It just, you know, it's like it's too it's too much. 

Speaker 2: [00:37:01] Too much water.

Maddy: [00:37:02] It's a great visual. Jordan What piece of advice would you give to someone starting out on their crypto journey who wants to really get involved online a little bit more?

Jordan Franklin: [00:37:13] I think an important message is that you don't need to know how to service a car in order to be able to drive it. Just like you don't need to know how to programme or be a complete nerd to be involved in the cryptocurrency space and to explore it. It certainly helps, but you don't need it. All you need is a curious mind really to get started and you get to choose what you want to learn. I think the most important thing is just to just to make a start. I would also say that this space is incredibly welcoming. I've found I feel like there's a bit of a perception of the cryptocurrency space, that it's for a certain kind of person. It's absolutely not. Everyone is welcome, and I think that we need to create the resources to help people understand the space. And if people don't understand the space, then we're doing something wrong. So, you know, a piece of advice that I would give to two people just starting out is start having conversations with your friends, start talking about it. Once you become known for talking about a topic, people will come to you with information like that's what I've really found is that we need to be having these conversations and granted, it's a very intimidating topic to get across. But the more that we can sort of come together and learn about it together and the easier it's going to make learning about the topic all together. 

Sophie: [00:38:37] My piece of advice would be to go across to the happy spend on your tik tok or your Instagram. Because honestly for me it was like this space is really difficult to understand and I feel like you break things down very nicely and you also get like really specific bits of information and then you break that little specific bit down. So if you just want to learn one little bit for the day, it's not an overwhelming amount. It's just that cool. That's a now a new term that I understand. And we don't have enough time right now to talk about all the bits of Ethereum. So if you are interested to go and learn more, I would highly recommend the happy spend. 

Jordan Franklin: [00:39:12] That's me.

Speaker 2: [00:39:13] Just Jordan. Yeah, we can learn that. 

Maddy: [00:39:17] Oh, Jordan, thank you so much for helping us off right down the road of a theorem. As I did mention in this episode, we are so excited to welcome you back next week to help us learn about the NFT space. So we will end it there for today. But we cannot wait to see you again next week. 

Jordan Franklin: [00:39:35] Great. Can't wait. Thank you. 

Sophie: [00:39:37] I think every conversation that I have about Ethereum or any cryptocurrency just gets a little bit easier. Like, I know that's information overload. I'm a little bit like a little dot connects each time that we have these conversations completely agree. 

Maddy: [00:39:51] I think it is the space of never ending learning, but it's a very interesting one at that where we'll be posting more content on our Instagram at YIGC podcast. You can also check out our Tiktok by YIGC Podcast and we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and of course if you have any follow up questions, so please join our Facebook group. 

Sophie: [00:40:13] At YIGC Investing Podcast Discussion Group. 

Maddy: [00:40:16] We haven't done that in a while, have we ready for that? We are super excited to welcome John back next week to break down the world of Nfts, but until.