Around the Block With Jefferson Nunn – Interview With Mukhtar Mussabetov, Blockchain Entrepreneur

Jefferson Nunn  0:04

Live from Crypto.News global headquarters. This is Around The Block With Jefferson Nunn. And I’m here today with special guest Mukhtar and he’s a blockchain entrepreneur, which is a fascinating background. Welcome to the show.

Mukhtar Mussabetov  0:21

Thank you. And great to be here.

Jefferson Nunn  0:27

Thanks. So, tell me a little bit more about, you know, what you’ve been doing and what you’re working on.

Mukhtar Mussabetov  0:34

Well, since 2016, I was, I’ve been in the blockchain space and established my own blockchain consultancy. I basically manage a team of 12 members, helping clients on different issues regarding development, economics, marketing, and preparing for fundraising campaigns like ICO, etc. So, it was quite busy five years and it was really interesting to see how this blockchain industry is growing.

Jefferson Nunn  1:22

Yeah, it’s grown quite a bit over the last the whole industry, it’s grown quite a bit over the last decade. You know, I remember when even Bitcoin came out, it was very difficult to work with. And now I think development is quite a bit easier and more mature. Tell me, how did you get your start in Bitcoin and blockchain? And how do you find the tools now?

Mukhtar Mussabetov  1:53

Well, it started with Vitalik Buterin’s presentation at Google’s office here in Toronto, and he presented his Ethereum concept. And it was you know; it sounded like a very fascinating idea. So, it took a couple of months for me just to go around, learn more. And by April 2016. So literally two months later, yeah, I was really just launched my own blockchain consultancy, which was probably which is, which I actually launched with my previous experience in mind, which was, you know, I had several successful block technological startups in the past, and also for more than 10 years of management consultant experience. So, I combined all of that and decided just, I should be able to help blockchain startups just to manage and navigate in growth.

Jefferson Nunn  3:13

Yeah, it’s been interesting how the industry, like I said, it’s been maturing a lot of the development tools are, you know, a far cry everywhere they used to be and there’s a lot of exciting tools or upgrades coming, you know, with Ethereum 2. What do you what do you think is the most exciting development that maybe just around the corner?

Mukhtar Mussabetov  3:42

Well, the most exciting is currently is blockchain infrastructure development, which, which, as you said, started with Bitcoin, which is basically replaced as a regulated means of payments. And basically, this is a sort of universal, unregulated currency for the whole world. And in the sense, it, you know, Bitcoin was introduced, as you know, really amazing changes happened. And it started from I mean, you couldn’t in 2016, you couldn’t even probably you’re able to start your own project, if you are not a developer. Today, tools, Blockchain tools are so sophisticated that you don’t need even to be a developer. It’s like now like a Lego. You just use in constructing whatever you want. You just take building blocks, and just connect them together. And that’s it. So, you don’t even need to have specific or very strong developer skills. That’s the most fascinating and as per blockchain infrastructure, the most fascinating things that is, it is it is building quite fast. It’s just the speed of change, and a scale of change is just completely revolutionary.

Jefferson Nunn  5:22

Which raises an interesting challenge. I think, for a lot of people, how do you keep up with everything that goes on every day?

Mukhtar Mussabetov  5:34

Well, I mean, it should be fun and to learn on the go, because it’s, uh, you know, it’s new technology, and it’s developing quite fast. So, I mean, instead of going to university and studying some subjects related to blockchain and so on, it’s much, much easier and more natural just to learn from what is happening around you. And it’s the basic foundation for keeping up, if you have interest in blockchain technology, or developing some new product, a new service, then you should be fine. I mean, that’s what drives people mostly in this industry, to build something that they’re first excited, they don’t see it as a challenge. They see it as opportunity. And every day, we see new developments, new tools, new platforms, new apps, and your daily enrichment and knowledge is amazing. It’s just, it’s just crazy.

Jefferson Nunn  6:52

Yeah, it’s been really, for me, at least it’s been a wild ride. Since I first found out about it in 2010. What would you say is the is the most for the average person, the most compelling thing that they should think about when it comes to cryptocurrency? What’s like, I understand, you know, the ability to transact, but beyond that, what’s a good incentive that you will share with people.

Mukhtar Mussabetov  7:24

Well, people can earn crypto in crypto currencies, and they can save cryptocurrencies and they can invest so from earning points, so basically, you don’t rely now on regulatory system existing in you know, nations, what I mean, that you can go online and create your product, create your product service, and start earning cryptocurrencies, tokens, coins, whatever you call them, and it is yours and no one can take it out from you know, no one controls how we use it. And that’s a that’s a freedom that says, you know, that’s a sign of bigger freedoms that cryptocurrencies give people. Now you have much more options for how to save your earnings. I mean, you have, you know, so many platforms, so many new projects, and when you invest in some project, you don’t need a special regulation, whatever amount you actually invest in specific coin or token so basically, overall from individual point, it provides more freedom, which means you can do whatever you really like, make money and you have a freedom to spend to use and to invest.

Jefferson Nunn  9:06

Yeah, I agree with you is that freedom aspect, I think is one of those most compelling aspects. I know people right now. Literally right now they they’re not able to withdraw their money. They had a bank. Yeah. And they trusted their bank and they did nothing wrong. Really. They did everything right. But yeah, you know, for whatever reason, they’re just not able to access their own money that they worked hard for.

Mukhtar Mussabetov  9:36

Yeah. That’s happened a couple of times with two prominent Canadian banks is that that thing happened to me too, when you know, my money was just frozen for no reason, for no obvious reason, just because someone suspected, you know, some bank employees suspected that my transactions are not good. And they didn’t even apologize. They didn’t provide nor offer any compensation for inconvenience for keeping my account frozen for a couple of weeks. And I literally was, you know, left with no money, even for food. So, it took me for two weeks to fight with the bank. And then finally, you know, push them to really get to, you know, unfreeze my account. And this is terrible. This is terrible. When you stay in the system, and you are not protected, they can do anything with you. And that’s the most scary thing that may happen to you, you earn money, you get them, there’s nothing illegal. And suddenly your funds get frozen. And you can’t actually go to grocery and buy yourself food. That’s the most scary thing. And that happened two times. So, in each time it happened to me, I changed banks. So now I don’t have a bank account which you know, you would think traditionally, I’m on FinTech hubs. Basically, they are not actually bank accounts. This is just you know, it’s accounts with FinTech and crypto accounts. So basically, I moved out from traditional banking system completely. I do not trust our traditional banking system.

Jefferson Nunn  11:42

Yeah, that’s the thing. I think it’s that ironic, most ironic thing is that we have a completely trustless system that we can absolutely trust. Yeah, it’s almost one of those ironic things to say your paradoxical things to say. And, and but along those lines with a lot of different projects that are coming up, like the one I saw a little while ago, they’re providing an API to every single cryptocurrency that’s gonna be their plan every single major cryptocurrency to where there’s just one API that, you know, for example, an institution or government, they may have an older system. But they’re familiar with API controls. That way they can transact and interact with blockchain. So, what do you think of these different services that are now layering on top of crypto?

Mukhtar Mussabetov  12:43

Well, what I believe in is just first science, when we see is that what is happening, and it’s in essence, is actually integration of all platforms. I believe in the next five to ten years, when blockchain industry will be much stronger than today, we will have a foundation to replace even governments, basically, integration of platforms would mean that we don’t need even our governments and basically, we can, as a nation, as a community can vote for our own products. For our, you know, neighborhood, for our region, for us, and for our country. So basically, what I’m saying is the further development of blockchain system of blockchain environment is leading to making governments obsolete. And that would actually help us to eliminate corruption first, and eliminate unnecessary spending, like military, like national security, which are, you know, in most cases is not justified by real straights. In the very bottom of all nations on our planet. Not none of the nation’s leading in this world is aggressive, to fight with another nation. So only governments who push us to fight with others to actually promote propaganda have their own political agendas. And most people, except governments don’t need any propaganda. don’t need any work. We can work peacefully, spend our taxes for things that we really need, not something we were actually made to sync we need. And that says that’s the most fascinating changes that blockchain can bring to our lives.

Jefferson Nunn  15:15

Yeah, it’s really fascinating. So, what final thoughts or comments would you have for our listeners? It’s been a really interesting interview with you I, I think here’s a lot of amazing potential that’s going on out there. Like if that between traditional development and even decentralized development. So, what final thoughts would you have for our listeners.

Mukhtar Mussabetov  15:44

For your listeners, you know, my final saying would be, start using blockchain technology and bring back your freedom in your life to your hands. You don’t have to trust anyone, just take it back to your own hands, including healthcare, including education, there’s a lot of amazing projects developing even in blockchain space. So, the sooner we all get to the blockchain, sooner we start learning in cryptocurrencies. Better lives, we will see. It is for sure, absolutely. So, if earlier, we all get into this space, sooner, we’ll get the full control of our lives, from food on our tables, to national badges we’ve worked for.

Jefferson Nunn  16:53

Quite right. I think the more and now and we’re really seeing adoption, over the last couple of days actually increased dramatically. The number of new accounts is way across the board. So, I think you’re gonna see a lot more adoption, a lot more people using it, and we can finally take control back into our hands.

Mukhtar Mussabetov  17:20

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is a you know, when we talk about democracy, what we have in most developed nations, today we have representative democracy, which means that we delegated our you know, rights to some people who are getting corrupted. And in order to take it back, we have to have a chance to vote to introduce direct democracy, which means that every big issue we must have a right to express our opinion, and vote for, which means that we can hold referendums on each major point in our lives, in our nation’s life, in our community lives and so on. And blockchain is an amazing technology, which is horizontal in that makes it possible, so making referendums on each important issue in our life, not just to give up in hope for better, delegating it to the government, to the Parliament, or any other bodies we usually trust, they will solve our problems and help us to move forward. We don’t need that structures anymore. We need to take back in full control of whatever surrounds us.

Jefferson Nunn  19:00

Awesome. Well, I was so glad to have you on the show. And if you don’t mind, maybe in about six months or so when things come out. We’d love to have you back on to talk about all the exciting innovations that are happening. So, thank you, Mukhtar for coming on the show.

Mukhtar Mussabetov  19:19

Yeah, thank you for having me.