My guest today is my good friend Eric Benz, serial entrepreneur, advisor, and thought leader. Eric has over 15 years of experience working in and around innovative financial technology. He has delivered SaaS systems for some of today’s biggest institutions around payments, identity, and banking and blockchain. Eric is currently a partner in MYNT.vc and has been in the Blockchain space since 2012 participating in a number of blockchain and fintech businesses as an investor, board director and founder. These businesses include GoCoin, Uphold, Cryptopay, Changelly and Bitcoin.com Exchange. Eric is also currently a contributor at Cannadao. Cannadao is a decentralized, member-governed platform for cannabis growing and operations. Governance is managed on the NEAR blockchain with a cross-chain bridge to other decentralized communities Eric was the CEO of Changelly, which has been operating since 2015. Changelly is considered to be the most reputable and efficient non-custodial instant cryptocurrency exchange service on the market with over 140 digital assets available to swap. Eric also serves on many boards and acts as an advisor to many of today’s most prominent blockchain and fintech related businesses. We discuss a variety of different topics in the interview including DAOs, the future of the crypto space, the Near protocol, Cannadao, the marijuana industry, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing the cannabis industry. Eric begins by breaking down how the cannabis industry has evolved over time and the stigma it has developed. Eric details the various government propaganda that has negatively labeled the cannabis industry and how things are beginning to change. Our conversation transitions to discuss Cannadao and the future of the cannabis industry. Eric discusses how Cannadao is allowing anyone interested to become involved in the cannabis industry. Eric also details how the cannabis industry and the crypto industry mirror each other when it comes to evolution, adoption, and regulatory scrutiny. Our conversation transitions to the topic of DAOs. We discuss how DAOs will change how society collaborates and works. Eric details how DAOs are still in their infancy and how he envisions the technology being adopted across a wide range of different industries. Our next major topic of discussion was the Near Protocol. Eric details why Near is a next generation layer 1 that has been optimized for mass adoption and real world use-cases. He discusses why Near is the perfect protocol for unlocking the value of Web3 and the future of DAOs. He touches on the strength of the Near community and the technical prowess of the founding team. Our next conversation topic was about the growth of the crypto industry and where we envision the industry headed. Eric discusses how surreal it is for him to see how far the crypto industry has come in only a decade but he emphasized how things are still very early. He discusses why there is still a tremendous amount of opportunity for nontechnical people to become involved in the space and what he would advise people who are interested in making the leap into crypto. Please enjoy my conversation with Eric Benz.
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