Heroes in Business - Hamiz Awan Founder Partner Plutus21 strategic investing in Blockchain technology

Episode Date: July 16, 2021

Rethink your currency. Hamiz Awan, Founder and Partner Plutus21 strategic investing in Blockchain technology is interviewed by David Cogan founder Eliances "Where Entrepreneurs Align" and famous celebrity host Eliances Heroes Radio Show broadcast on am and fm network channels, plus podcast syndication.  www.eliances.com

Up in the sky, look, it's captivating, it's energizing, it's Alliances Heroes. Alliances is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities, and startups, where our heroes in business align. Now, here's your host flying in, David Kogan, founder of Eliance's. Yes, that's right. And you know, just what an amazing opportunity it is to be able to share with you the interviews and the people that we are able to interview and share their knowledge with you. It's truly amazing. And we always appreciate the feedback, so keep it coming, especially when I recently interviewed the vice chairman of Ernest & Young. So you can check out those past episodes by going to elancer.com.

That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-R.com. All right, I've got a few words for you. Blockchain, NFTs, DeFi, or D-E-F-I, and much more. And we're going to learn what those mean. We're going to learn some really interesting things on the latest technology that's out there with Hamiz Awan. He is the founder and partner of Plutus21. It's a strategic investing blockchain technology and you could

reach him just by looking down below at Plutus21.com. The link's below, also the website's below. So welcome to the show, Hamiz. Thank you so much. Really a great opportunity to be here and you know excited to speak with you. Well it's going to be incredible. You are a wealth of knowledge, and I want to get really right into it. All right, so you have the Strategic Investing Blockchain Technology firm. What exactly, though, does that mean? It really is quite simple. I'm sure people are familiar with investment firms that invest in more traditional things like equities or real estate. people that are familiar with investment firms that invest in more traditional things, you know,

like equities or real estate. We do the same thing, but we just focus on blockchain technology as an investment. And we specifically focus on blockchain infrastructure. All right. So companies come to you and you invest in those companies. Talk to us about maybe some of the various technology that's out there of what you are investing in. Absolutely. You know, when people hear the word blockchain, they usually just think about currencies. And, you know, from that, the most popular one being Bitcoin. The blockchain is really just an innovation on how databases are structured and how information is shared. And so there's a lot more to it than just currencies.

People are building banks on the blockchain. They're building insurance companies on the blockchain. And those things are really what are exciting to us, which is far broader than just the currency aspect of this, which is going after you know many of the traditional businesses that you and I are very familiar with and giving them a technology spin and making them more accessible and cheaper to the vast majority of people that don't have access to these financial services today. So we love investing in that type of innovation where we can see millions of people around the world

finding value in those technology solutions. And talk to us about what you see in the future. Do you eventually see everything going on to blockchain? Not everything. There are certain businesses that really cannot be taught to computers. There's advisory or doctors. That's a much harder business to teach to a computer. But if there's a business out there that can be taught to a computer, and by that I mean many of the businesses today are just purely based off of inefficiencies. So they're pushing paper or they're doing repetitive tasks for people. Those type of businesses are probably going to be first. They will be talked to a computer and a lot of that will be run on a blockchain

so absolutely i think major parts of our economy are going to see less people involved and more computers involved and then blockchain is going to be a very big part of that transition and as big as blockchain is now why do you think, and I'm safe to say this, the general public has no idea what blockchain is. We hear it every day in the news, but we don't know. Yeah. And, you know, it's actually very interesting. I don't think that it matters whether the general public understands the intricacies of the technology behind this, right? Because you and I have sent emails today, you know, both of us received emails and sent emails, but I don't think either of us can explain

how the email protocol works, right? Like, but it doesn't matter because it's faster, cheaper, and easier, you know, than traditional mail. And so there will come a point in time where blockchains will become so user-friendly that my grandmother will send money using a blockchain and she won't even realize that she's done that.

And all that she will care about, what users at the end of the day care about are products that are cheaper, faster and easier to use. They let the engineers figure out how the actual technical stuff works. They let the engineers figure out how the actual technical stuff works. But the vast majority of consumers don't want to or don't have the time to understand how each technical piece of their daily lives works. Okay, Hamiz, I want to make money on this. How do you make money? I can't give any financial advice to anybody.

I think that this is just another technological revolution, which will have few winners, but many, many losers, right? Like the same way that, you know, in the 2000s, you had hundreds of companies that were trying to use the internet to solve many different problems. And today there's really only a handful that are relevant, right? And so there were thousands and thousands of other ideas and concepts that were not successful. So it's going to be very similar here as well.

And that's why it's so difficult to, and we spend all day every day trying to make sense of this. It's so difficult to really see which one is going to be the most successful. But I think one of the good ways to think about it is whichever blockchain technology gets adopted by the most people is going to be the most valuable. And so if you can get a sense of where the users are going, then I think you can get a very good sense of where, which of these technologies can be the most successful. Now with your firm, can somebody, do they invest into a fund or is it specific companies

that they're investing in? And the second part is, is how do you go about finding those companies that you allow into your portfolio? Yeah. So we typically do have funds that people invest in and then those funds go and invest in a portfolio of different projects and companies and ventures that we're interested in. And again, you know, our North Star has been adoption. So there have been many concepts on all of the concepts using blockchain all sound great. You know, we're going to fix this problem in the world and we're going to fix this problem in the world, and we're going to fix that problem in the world. But the truth is that 99% of those ideas and concepts are never

going to come to a stage where they have a working product that people use on a daily basis. And so because we have such a strong focus on adoption, things that are actually being used by people on a daily basis, and they keep coming back and finding value in those products and services, that's how we decide what goes in the portfolio and what doesn't go in the portfolio. Because at the end of the day, the only reason technology is valuable is not because you and I think that it will go up in value or you and I think that it will solve a problem. It's when the mass of users find value in it on a daily basis. That's the only reason that technology is valuable.

And so we try our best to figure out which of the applications of blockchain are getting the most users and will continue to get the most users. Well, we're going to want to find out about NFTs and DeFi and any of these other terms that, again, we're always hearing about. But before we do, remember, you're listening and watching to me, David Kogan, host of the Eliance's Hero Show. Make sure you go to Eliance's.com, E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. Why? Because, again, it is the only place where entrepreneurs align because we have with us amiz awan he is the founder and the partner of clued us 21 that's a strategic investing in blockchain technology and you can reach him at cluedust21.com and of course we'll have it on our

website also all right i read a ton about nft. It's all over the place. It's the biggest thing. And some of these NFTs we're hearing are going for gazillions of dollars and so on and so on. And you just put something up and you make a lot of money, but that's probably not the fact. So fill us in, please. Absolutely. So, you know, NFTs are here to stay. The concept of digital collectibles is something that isn't going anywhere. Having said that, investing in NFTs is just as difficult as investing in art or collectibles in the real world, right? So just because you know something about blockchain or you might be comfortable with technology doesn't give you any edge in understanding which collectible will be valuable to somebody else in the future. And so if you are a really good

collector of baseball cards in the traditional sense, then you probably have a good chance of being a really good collector of baseball cards that are digital now. But you can't just make that transition without knowledge of those collectibles and those digital pieces of art. I think that NFTs will go far beyond just these paintings and baseball cards. I think there's going to be innovation by entrepreneurs. We've already heard some examples of sports teams taking the tickets that they have and making them NFTs so that if those tickets get resold to other people in a secondary market, the original team still gets a cut from every sale that happens. We've seen examples of paintings doing the same thing where if a painting gets sold again, the original creator of the painting gets a cut from that transaction because that can

all be codified into the blockchain and can be taught to the painting as it gets sold. But I think NFTs are also going to be experiences. I can totally imagine a world where somebody like Taylor Swift says, I'm going to have an NFT, a super fan NFT. And anybody who has this super fan NFT can get front row seats at any of my concerts and can come see me in the backstage if they'd like. Those NFTs are going to be valuable. There's going to be real value that fans attach to that. valuable. There's going to be real value that fans attach to that. And if one of these artists does something like that, or one of these sports teams does something like that, then everyone is going to follow suit. So the concept of digital collectibles is here to stay. But the idea of, you know, buying these things and making a quick buck is, I think it's probably not going to work

for the vast majority of people work for the vast majority of people because the vast majority of people don't have the knowledge to understand which collectible is valuable and which one is not. This is truly amazing. I mean, with all the things that you've said, it opens up an entire whole another industry like never before. And potentially we're talking about almost royalties for life from the original person. Absolutely. Like we could have a recording of this and anybody that wanted to watch this would have to have a certain NFT. And every time they purchased that NFT, we would all get royalties

from it. And that can be tied to the NFT and that can be codified in the blockchain so that no matter what happens, as long as that transfer happens the original creator gets a card from it now is how is your firm involved with nfts is it um yeah so the way that we are involved is we invest in the infrastructure that allows nfts to exist to be created to be transacted instead of the nft themselves. I have no specific knowledge about a painting or a certain artist, but I think our team has some specific knowledge on understanding which platforms are going to be used to make this entire ecosystem run. And so we invest in those platforms, not necessarily the NFTs themselves. Tell me what you would share now, knowing everything you know and where the future

may take us with all of this, the type of advice and secrets that you would share to those that are in high school now that want to make their mark in the world like you have and continue to do. Absolutely. I would say that we have to realize that the decisions that our parents made or our grandparents made were in a completely different world. The world is very different today. The jobs of yesterday are not relevant anymore, and they're not going to be relevant in 10 years either. And so look to the future to figure out what you're passionate about. And regardless of whether it makes sense today, if you can see a world where more and more technology comes into our lives and creates entire new industries,

and that's something that's interesting to you and you're passionate about it, don't go down the beaten path that everybody has already taken. Try to create your own path, because it really is kind of illogical to expect extraordinary results by doing ordinary things. You kind of have to do extraordinary things to expect extraordinary results. And so you have to take the less taken path, and you have to create something for yourself and just make sure that you're really passionate about it. Because if you are, no force in the world is going to slow that progress down and you're going to get something out of it.

All right, we got time for one more question. Listen, Hamiz, I know what Wi-Fi is. I know what Hi-Fi is, but I don't know what DeFi is. Absolutely. So DeFi is all of the financial services that we are used to, you know, banks, loans, insurance companies, the New York Stock Exchange. All the financial services that we're so accustomed to are now being built on the blockchain. And when they're being built on the blockchain, there are no companies or people involved. they're being built on the blockchain there are no companies or people involved you're able to go buy and sell something or lend something or borrow something without any people involved in the middle so you're completely cutting out the middlemen which are you know some of the largest institutions in the world and you're replacing it with a piece of code that just has the rules of

the game and as long as you follow the rules of the game, you can get financial services from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. That's what DeFi is. Fantastic. Well, Hamiz, you invest in the future and educate on blockchain technology, educating us on it. That's a hero. Hamiz, hello. That that's right he is the founder of clueless 21 make sure you reach him at clueless21.com this has been david cogan with the alliance of hero show