In this episode, we’re at the RISE conference at Asia's World City, Hong Kong. We caught up with a company called Bucket Technologies that aims to help us deal with the issues and costs of handling physical change.

Francis Hwang, Daniel Kam, Mac Ling (left, Bucket Technologies) and Chris Groshong (right, CoinStructive Inc.)

Bucket is a "digital piggy bank platform" which aims to bridge the worlds of coinless cash transactions. Bucket alleviates the stress and significant costs associated with the production, distribution and handling of physical coins.

Their mission is "to accelerate humanity’s transition to a digital economy" as the world first global aggregator of coin currency for consumers and enterprise users.

Our guests for today's show from the Bucket Team include:

Francis Hwang, CEO of Bucket Technologies

Francis has over a decade of experience in creating, launching, and managing successful businesses. Having always gravitated towards enterprises and ideas that question and disrupt the status quo, it was a natural step for Francis to start Bucket Technologies. Coming up with the concept for Bucket over 10 years ago, Francis finally set aside other ventures to focus and commit to his mission of eliminating coins and alleviating the environmental and governmental stresses from the production, distribution, and management of coin currency.

Francis recently moved to Bentonville, Arkansas and when he isn’t working or travelling for Bucket you will find him off-roading with his wife Kristine in the Ozarks.

Daniel Kim, President and COO

Daniel is a successful entrepreneur who has launched and built several businesses in the technology, managed services, manufacturing, and hospitality/F&B industries. He has over 20 years of B2B/B2C sales and marketing experience within various commercial sectors including cloud-commerce, telecommunications, and graphic arts. Daniel regularly speaks and networks with leading companies and organizations on topics such as leadership, innovation, branding, and operations management.

When Daniel is not working he enjoys spending time with his wife and 3 girls, cooking or going after big fish (literally, not metaphorically).  

Mac Ling, Managing Director, Asia

Mac has over 15 years of technology and marketing leadership experience in corporations, SMEs, and startups, in both the United States and Asia. His personal mission of leaving this world a better place than he found it made joining the Bucket team an easy fit.  His ability to take technical solutions and create simple value propositions for end users has served him well in both B2B and B2C environments and is committed to Bucket’s mission of eliminating coins and alleviating the retailer and consumer stresses from the use and management of physical coin currency.

Mac’s past experience includes leading Boost Mobile’s Digital Media business, heading up marketing and service delivery for i-Admin, Asia’s premier payroll outsourcing provider.  Mac received his B.S. in Cognitive Science from UC San Diego, and an M.B.A. from the Darden School at the University of Virginia.  He is also a certified Marshall Goldsmith executive coach.

After listening to this episode you will learn:

• The origin story of Bucket and how the founders envisioned the company

• What Bucket is and what problem they solve

• The extraordinary cost associated of dealing with loose change

• How Bucket made a critical partnership deal with a US bank (same one Square uses) to help structure the stable coin and adds liquidity

• The current Point of Sale system have never been upgraded and how they are going to add a bucket button on a POS system

• Why they worry that people will not learn from history and repeat previous mistakes

For show notes and more: LAB Radio

In this episode, we’re in the thick of Korea Blockchain week for our roadshow and we wanted to introduce you to one of the top movers, shakers and connectors, named Andrew Lee.

Andrew Lee (pictured left) and Chris Groshong (pictured right)

Andrew has an MBA and Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting and Economics from The Wharton School | University of Pennsylvania. He's built an extensive professional and personal network worldwide, having spent 15 years in Asia and the rest in the U.S.

In this episode, we’re in the thick of Korea Blockchain week for our roadshow and we wanted to introduce you to one of the top movers, shakers and connectors, named Andrew Lee.

Andrew Lee (pictured left) and Chris Groshong (pictured right)

Andrew has an MBA and Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting and Economics from The Wharton School | University of Pennsylvania. He's built an extensive professional and personal network worldwide, having spent 15 years in Asia and the rest in the U.S.

As a venture capitalist, entrepreneur and investment banker, Andrew worked at storied institutions such as Apple, a multi-billion dollar Tiger hedge fund, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Enron. As Andrew hosted multiple upscale events, his clients were multi-billionaires, and his sponsors were Diageo, Uber, Red Bull, Ultra Music Festival and New Face Models.

"As a global organization, FOMO MASTERNODE operates as a red carpet, curated events company and crypto fund, involving some of the biggest names in crypto worldwide. The network and participants are comprised of global & local media, influencers, market makers, exchanges, investment funds, lawyers, syndicates and ICOs ... represented from all parts of the world: Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Beijing, New York City, Taipei, Singapore, London, Dubai, Tokyo, Thailand, Israel, Hong Kong, etc.

The main driver of the company are the events, and the fund is just a by-product given all the publicity and access.

What I do is an art -- it's an indirect and subtle way of marketing, fundraising and building brand awareness, globally. These all go hand-in-hand, and if executed well, the outcome is immensely synergistic."

~Andrew Lee, founder of FOMO MASTERNODE

Sponsors for the July 14th, 2018 FOMO MASTERNODE event included:

After listening to this episode you will learn:

• About Andrew’s background as an investment banker and VIP hospitality host for billionaires around the world
• That macroeconomics was the initial gateway into Andrew’s transition into finance, and eventually Wall Street
• FOMO MASTERNODE’s story and how it is helping build the ecosystem in Asia and the United States
• How he came up with the idea and built a global brand from scratch
• His prior history organizing & hosting events for VIPs, billionaires, hedge fund & private equity CEOs, venture-backed startups  How this was the genesis to FOMO MASTERNODE
• What Andrew does in his personal time when not working
• Warnings about not over-doing things as Andrew did trading Bitcoin Futures

 For show notes and more please visit: LAB Radio

Today we are exploring a fascinating intersection of disciplines, Cryptocurrency and Economics, called Cryptoeconomics (aka Cryptonomics or Tokenomics).

To help dig deeper into these concepts we brought on Stephanie Hurder, a Harvard educated PhD economist, who is also a founding economist of the Prysm Group, a consulting firm focused on economic and governance.

Stephanie is a Harvard-educated economist specializing in human capital, market design, and the future of work. While at the Boston Consulting Groups, Stephanie worked with Fortune 50 corporations and global NGOs to build effective organizations that are prepared for the future of work. She was recognized as a firm-wide expert on organizational effectiveness and design and co-authored multiple publications on these topics.

Stephanie has held research positions at MIT, Microsoft Research, and Merrill Lynch, and given invited seminars to faculty at half a dozen top research universities across the country. She holds a PhD in business economics, an AM in economics, and an AB in mathematics from Harvard University.

Stephanie now works with the Prysm group as a founding economist:

"We are a blockchain economics & governance design firm led by PhD-level economists disciplined by the world’s top universities, specializing in blockchain and cryptocurrency contract theory and market design. We use a first principles-based structured process in reaching a customized solution for your distributed ledger database or smart contract enabled enterprise, concentrating on: Community Governance, Consensus Governance, Token Structure, Coin & Token Sale, and Market Structure."

After listening to this episode you will learn:

• What Economists study and do
• What is the Prisoner's Dilemma? (how it applies to cryptoeconomics)
• What Cryptoeconomics is? (The difference between Protocol and dApp, Token Curated Registries cryptoeconomics)
• What tokenization is (and how it connects with economics)
• About Stephanie's arguments in her article, the Economics of Tokenization 
• Best practices, fundamental principles behind "token economics"
• How Blockchains are like mini-economies (Economic systems designed in code)
• Use cases, protocols and projects that most excites her

For show notes and more please visit: LAB Radio

In today's episodes, we are going to explore some of the complexities of a Security vs. Utility token which are fresh on our minds after the recent SEC announcement about Ether and Bitcoin not being considered securities.

William Hinman, the SEC's Director of Corporate Finance made the announcement:

“Strictly speaking the token, the coin, whatever the digital information packet is being called all by itself, we don’t think is a security. Just as oranges in the Howey case were not securities. Essential to determining whether a security is being offered, however, is how it’s being sold and a reasonable expectation of purchasers.

When someone buys a housing unit to live in it’s probably not a security but under certain circumstances, the same asset could be offered and sold in a way that could cause investors to have a reasonable expectation of profits based on the efforts of others.

If the housing unit is offered with a management contract or other services where purchases are encouraged to invest rather than reside, it could be a security. Case law tells us that,” Hinman explained during his speech.

Securities are the talk of the regulator town and perhaps less so in the Cryptosphere's now that we have a solidified answer. However, many other projects have uncertain futures as to their designation which may bring pause to would be Blockchain empire builders.

The Street, a finance-focused media outlet, defines securities as follows:

"A simple definition of a security is any proof of ownership or debt that has been assigned a value and may be sold. (Today, evidence of ownership is likely to be a computer file, while once it was a written piece of paper.) For the holder, a security represents an investment as an owner, creditor or rights to ownership on which the person hopes to gain profit. Examples are stocks, bonds and options.

The Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 provides this more complicated definition, but you might want to grab a cup of coffee: "The term 'security' means any note, stock, treasury stock, bond, debenture, certificate of interest or participation in any profit-sharing agreement or in any oil, gas, or other mineral royalty or lease, any collateral-trust certificate, preorganization certificate or subscription, transferable share, investment contract, voting-trust certificate, certificate of deposit, for a security, any put, call, straddle, option, or privilege on any security, certificate of deposit, or group or index of securities..."

To help us demystify this fascinating (yet complex) situation of Securities vs. Utility tokens we brought in Joe Ciccolo, an expert in building BSA/AML programs as well as over 10 years of banking compliance.

Joe founded BitAML, a regulatory compliance advisory group, to help Blockchain startups and innovators to remain above board in a rapidly shifting (and uncertain) regulatory landscape.

For show notes and more visit: LAB Radio

David Bleznak is the founder and CEO of Totle, a Cryptocurrency Portfolio Manager and Decentralized Exchange (DEX) aggregator. David grew up in Michigan with a background in real estate and business management. 

Totle searches for the best prices across a variety of exchanges and executes on your behalf

Totle is a DEX Aggregator that pools the liquidity of the top ERC-20 token decentralized exchanges (DEX) by finding and executing a buy or sell at the best price in real time.

After listening to this episode you will learn: