In this episode, Makram Hani interviews Peter Merc, co-founder and CCO at Blocksquare. In their discussion, they talk about different topics that include the regulatory landscape of crypto, the challenges the industry faces, and the potential for asset-backed tokens. In this article, you will find a summary of their discussion.

What is Blocksquare?

Blocksquare is a company that has developed a blockchain-based system for tokenizing real estate. This process, called tokenization, allows for the digitization of the value of real estate properties and enables the creation of online investment platforms for tokenized real estate deals. Blocksquare’s goal is to connect investors with real estate opportunities around the world through the use of its tokenization protocol and white-label platform. In 2022, the company also entered the decentralized finance (DeFi) market with Oceanpoint.fi, a platform that allows real estate owners to access decentralized financial markets through tokenization.

Who is Peter Merc?

Peter Merc is a co-founder of Blocksquare and a member of the core team. He is responsible for the legal aspects of the organization, including its legislative approach, partnerships, and contracts. Prior to joining Blocksquare, Peter worked in the banking industry and started his own legal advisory company, where he gained experience in the startup and venture capital world. He has previously started businesses in startups, eSports, and venture capital. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, sailing, and playing video games. He believes that successful startups need to consider legal aspects in order to succeed and is happy that regulation is now coming to the cryptocurrency industry. Blocksquare has been prepared for future regulation and sees it as a comparative advantage. Peter believes that the company is one of the few in the industry that has always had regulation in mind while building its products.

Regulation in the Cryptocurrency Industry and Potential Global Standard

Makram Hani and Peter Merc are discussing the evolution of regulation in the cryptocurrency industry, with a focus on its use in real estate. Peter explains that initially, regulators had a limited understanding of the industry and saw it primarily as a tool for money laundering. However, through efforts such as the Blockchain Think Tank in Slovenia and discussions with regulators, the industry has been able to educate regulators and improve their understanding of the technology and its potential uses. Peter notes that while there have been some soft regulatory guidelines issued in the past, the recent draft of the MiCA markets crypto assets regulation in Europe is comprehensive and could become a global standard for cryptocurrency regulation. Makram adds that regulation is necessary for the industry to achieve maturity and stability, and for businesses to offer a clear path forward to investors.

Challenges of Regulating Cryptocurrency

They go on by discussing the challenges of regulation in the cryptocurrency and distributed ledger technology (DLT) industry. Peter explains that there is currently no specialized regulation for these technologies, so they must fit into existing regulatory frameworks for financial instruments or assets. This can be a problem because technology is evolving quickly and the regulatory process is slow. The MiCA regulation in Europe has been in the works for more than three years, and Peter is concerned that events like the Terra Luna and Celsius events could disrupt the process further. Makram agrees that it is important to have a base regulation in place and then build upon it, rather than trying to incorporate every possibility into the initial framework, which could limit the potential benefits of new technologies and asset classes. Peter adds that regulators also face challenges in terms of understanding and keeping up with the fast-changing technology, as well as in finding a balance between innovation and investor protection. They also discuss the challenges of regulating a rapidly evolving industry and the importance of stability in regulation. Compliance is a priority for Blocksquare and they strive to create solutions that are compliant in multiple jurisdictions. Their expertise in the field of real estate tokenization and their willingness to share their knowledge and experiences with partners will further fuel the project’s success.

Asset-Backed Tokens and the Future of Real Estate Tokenization

Peter and Makram discuss the possibility of asset-backed tokens becoming the future of real estate tokenization and the potential for a simplified process for issuing these tokens in the Western world. They also mention the potential for a “super app” similar to WeChat in China to facilitate the purchase of assets and marketplaces on Blocksquare’s infrastructure. Interoperability may be needed in order to facilitate the use of these markets.

Conclusion

Both mentioned the challenges that would need to be overcome in order to create global token markets, including regulatory approval and standardization. Overall, Blocksquare seems to be best positioned for the future of real estate tokenization. The team at Blocksquare has a wealth of knowledge and experience across a range of industries, and prioritize a cautious approach in order to maximize the likelihood of success. This may involve taking extra time in the development process, but the team believes it is worth it to ensure a safer and more successful outcome.

For more information about Blocksquare ➪ visit Blocksquare.io and Oceanpoint.fi

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Blocksquare is developing a blockchain-based real estate tokenization system. Property owners can tokenize their real estate assets and receive a cash flow. This also offers opportunities for investors to partially invest in those real estate assets and make them available for investors of any size.

The Block-chat airs live every second Thursday with exciting guests from the Web3 world. In Block-chat #16 Simon Kruse joined the chat. He is an advisor for Blocksquare and CTO of Paribus, a cross-chain borrowing and lending protocol on Cardano.

Makram Hani: Thank you for joining us on the brief today. Today we’re having a spotlight session with Simon Kruse. Who’s Simon Kruse? What is his job all about at Blocksquare? What does he do? How does he add value? What would he say to members of our community? And he’s an active member of the community and much more Simon how are you?

Simon Kruse: Hey Makram! Thank you for hosting me. I’m really good and it’s a pleasure to be here.

Makram Hani: You’re in Dubai.

Simon Kruse: Yes. Right.

Makram Hani: Simon decided to move to Dubai. So, it’s a pleasant thing and he’s enjoying Dubai as it seems today.

Simon Kruse: Yeah, I really do. I really do. It’s a bit hot and but I think I will get used to it.

Makram Hani: Yeah, you need to start also getting on with some water sports, and then probably you would not feel it’s hot any longer. This is a message to all of you to move to Dubai. You can’t find a more safe, pleasant, and vibrant city as much as this. By the way, are you onto the coming upcoming AI week? Are you part of that?

Simon Kruse: Not sure yet. I don’t know if I have the time to make it, but if I have any free time, I will be there.

Role at Blocksquare

Makram Hani: If you want to tell me after this session and we probably would join there. Guys, we will talk about much today. Simon has much to say to the community and has much to talk about our project and the details and Simon understands the tech side as well as the logic behind the tech. So, I believe that we will have much value to add. What we’ll try to do is because we’ve heard some of the comments that say: “make these as shorter as possible.” We’ve heard other comments that said: “please explain it with more access to simple details.”
In other words, make it as explanatory as possible. But the bigger number of our viewers said: “you know what, make it as short as possible.” And probably we’ll try to target 30 to 45 minutes, which is supposedly good enough to do a deep dive into Simon today. Simon, tell me what do you do at Blocksquare?
And how did you join Blocksquare and why are you an active member of our team?

Simon Kruse: I joined Blocksquare back in the old days during the ICO. Even before that, when they had the bug bounty programs running and I was from the early days one of the community members. Then I talked a lot with Dennis.
I felt we had a great connection to each other and that’s kind of how I started advising Blocksquare and I joined the team. Now I’m there since 2018 helping, developing everything, and helping on the tech side. It’s really, really a, a great experience so far.

Professional Background & Crypto Deadlines

Makram Hani: So last time we met, you mentioned that you’re into tech. However, today what you do mostly in tech is not what you were into tech with initially, isn’t it? Why?

Simon Kruse: I started as a software developer. That’s my experience and which I did the past years, I would say. However, I moved more into positions being a technical lead or even CTO not at Blocksquare, but at another project. So, I kind of moved a lot away from developing actively and more on the tech management side, tech advisory side. I never thought I would do that, but it’s really, really good for me and I really enjoy it.

Makram Hani: Give us a comment here. You know, tech projects are known to sometimes take much longer than expected or required. When that happens, usually everyone around the tech team freaks out. I’m sure you’ve lived this plenty of times and you’ve seen this plenty of times. Tell me why it would usually take so much time when we say we are launching version two of this and it, it, it doesn’t happen in time. It takes another month or two or three. Why would that happen usually and is there a solution? Is there a process map that we can follow to avoid that somebody can discover one day or probably not?

Simon Kruse: That’s a good question. In general, you always work in software development with timelines that you estimate based on the task that you were given. However, the problem with these timelines is, and especially in crypto, this changed a lot and it’s quite hard to estimate how much time you really need for something.

Makram Hani: Is it because there’s no blueprint, no schematic?

Simon Kruse: Yes and no. The main reason I would say is that the tech stake that we have in crypto, which all the different services that we need to combine together make it very difficult in my opinion to give estimated timeframes. Let’s say we work with a blockchain, like Ethereum, issues can happen there and it will give you back an error message that you don’t even understand because there is no defined error for that. Then you sit again as a developer there for four days and try to figure out what this error is and how you can solve it without any real information. That’s just one of the things. Then also, you possibly have a wallet that doesn’t support the standard as it should, and all these different things.
This can cost you faith. And then don’t forget at the end, you need to go to an auditor, which then says: “Hey, I need one week to audit it, but it takes three.. Then you’d have a delay very easily.

Makram Hani: Yep. What Simon is saying is the following. Simon is saying correct me if I’m wrong, Simon. In his world, in the tech world, they shouldn’t be giving timelines and deadlines. They do so because, in our world, we enforce that on them. So, they’re trying to adapt to what we think and how we think, and how we are wired. And that’s where things fall apart. Is this what you’re saying?

Simon Kruse: Yes. I believe more in saying: “Hey, it would be ready doing Q1 this year rather than like the 15th of April will be our launch day. Never give a specific day in crypto where something will happen because there’s always something that can give you delays. I believe more in: “let’s aim for like last week of Q2” for example. If we published it earlier, it’s good for everyone. We can market that as well, but never give it a date.

Makram Hani: Guys, just for you to know. I totally disagree with Simon’s theory. I believe in deadlines, and I believe they should be given, and I believe I don’t have the solution, but I believe someone, as smart as Simon will come up one day and create a solution where a time can be estimated with contingencies and audit and audit contingencies and fixes and fix contingencies. And then give it a timeline. Now, the problem here becomes that project owners or managers or the people behind the project usually try to squeeze developers into a certain timeline, and this is where it happens.

But in my view, developers should be able through a scientific way that is approximately fool-proof decide the approximate time a project would take. But then people from the other universe, us, to them and try to squeeze that. They tell us it takes six months and we tell them, no, we expect it in three.
Then we argue, and then it becomes three and a half because of the contingencies, for example. And then it takes four and a half [months]. They’re probably delivering if they’re a good team and they know what they’re doing prior to the time they should deliver, but that happens. This is how it happens. And we need to find that kind of marriage in between.

Why Blocksquare?

Now, Simon is someone who’s very enthusiastic about everything we do at Blocksquare. It’s very interesting to me to understand why. From his point of view, he’s a young gentleman. His background is tech. It’s not real estate. It’s tech, and it’s becoming an investor in tech, through initially bug bounty is what you were after. Today, why do you think what we are doing at Blocksquare and Oceanpoint is something that matters to the world? Why do you support the project the way you do support it?

Simon Kruse: That’s a good question. I think for me, the most important thing about Blocksquare is actually that it gives access for everyone to invest in real estate.
I mean, try to invest in the property these days from a traditional finance background. You need a big amount of money just to enter the market and I think that’s wrong. Everyone should be able to do it, especially in our times. Someone should have like $50 every month that you can invest in tokenized real estate and that’s later for its pension. I think that’s really important. Also with Blocksquare we kind of have a case study, in my opinion, of how we can tokenize other assets in the world. Not only real estate, but we build a framework that could be a case study for other assets or even stocks possibly in the future if you have like a licensed broker that kind of handles the system.

I see it being adopted for different areas as well, rather than just real estate. That’s what is really interesting to me because I try to change the world as a tech guy. That’s what for me, is changing the world. You’re defining something new that isn’t like regulated yet. And you try to make the best tech. That’s a regulator happy with you.

Makram Hani: Tell me something here. We have tech that does that. You have also looked at Oceanpoint as a product and as a solution. Where do you see Oceanpoint coming into the picture? And why do you believe Oceanpoint as a solution does add this much value to the whole ecosystem?

Simon Kruse: In my opinion, Oceanpoint is really great for all users. Especially if you want to earn passive income. I could see a world where Oceanpoint is part of your pension portfolio and later possibly like a bank or some other portfolio management. We’ll take the money every month from you, invest it in Oceanpoint, and this is where you invested in different real estate.

You don’t even invest in one property, you invest in a basket of properties, which is always good. We all know how the market can be and that one city might be not valuable anymore, so we have properties in different cities. I can see this being a thing for your pensions in the future and that’s what I believe, need to be the case because how much can we really trust our governments that they will help us when we are old? I mean I’m young and I don’t see it anymore for my age, so I have to do something on my own.

Makram Hani: Look, you have that worry because where you come from, there’s a government who still is debatable, trying to take care of your future. Where I come from that debate is closed, has been closed a long time ago. No one cares. For us, it’s easy. It’s easier for me. However, a good thing about Dubai. I’m not sure if you know. I’m from Lebanon. Dubai, the city I live in since around 20 years has started a kind of pension scheme and a kind of job security scheme, and a kind of insurance scheme.

I believe those will be developed because they are just recent. Hopefully, in the future, Dubai will have such systems in a capitalist manner. It’s not in a socialist manner and by socialist or capitalist, I mean, in a way that’s sustainable where it doesn’t weigh much on the community and the economy and the environment and the government’s finances where it’s sustainable for a long time. In perpetuity, if we look at something that’s really sustainable and can develop and grow, why not? Your luck is changing. Joining us in Dubai. Now, Simon, you’ve been a community manager as well.

Simon Kruse: Oh, yeah. My early days in crypto. Yes, I did that, but I don’t want to go back to that.

Makram Hani: Sure, but I want to take you back for a second there. What do you feel about our community? So, at Blocksquare, we have a small community but I feel it’s a very solid community, a very active community. What do you feel about our community and what do you feel are things that we need to do? We talked to Julia, our CMO after the session and we chat with her about things we need to do to uplift our community, improve where we stand, and grow from there.

Simon Kruse: And you are asking me a lot about marketing right now. Like that’s not my specific area.

Makram Hani: Sure. But I would like to know about your community-building experience.

Simon Kruse: Well, to be fair it’s hard to say for me. What I really enjoy about the Blocksquare community is that since the beginning, like since 2018, most of them stayed there. Even when we had nothing to publish and we went really quiet for some time, the community was loyal and they stayed with us. That’s what I really appreciate because we have our core community that is supporting us since the launch, basically and that’s really good. I wish we had a bigger group like that like 5,000 members. But all like our initial community members, that would be amazing. It’s quite hard to say how to grow a group or something because I’m not in marketing. I usually hire people for that.

USP of Blocksquare

Makram Hani: Sure. Let’s dive into the tech that we have. Why is our tech different? And a question that we are always asked. So what we’ve built, we’ve built on Ethereum which in general is seen as high cost, sometimes low efficiency in people’s eyes. We answered this plenty of times. However, in Simon’s eyes, what is different about the tech we’ve built?

Simon Kruse: First of all, for everyone, that complains about Ethereum. Yes, the fees are high. I get that, but also keep in mind, that Ethereum has proven to be the most secure chain I would say over the year. We have institutions moving around 100 million dollars in tech and they trust the chain. So I trust it as well. That’s the thing with real estate and tokenization of real estate. You want to make sure that the chain itself is fine and that everything is working and that you can trust that nothing happened to the chain itself. In my opinion, for security Ethereum is the best chain. Does it cost more?

Yes, of course. But I mean, it’s not like you will stake every day or every second. So you maybe do it once a month. You maybe do it once every six months and then it’s fine. Then you have the chain that is proven to be good. It’s secure and you pay a fee once or twice a year. That’s how I see it.

From a tech stack itself, we try to be as decentralized as possible. We use a website that could be run by everyone technically. It’s filled in React so that’s not an issue. If anyone wants to run the website, for the data fetching, we use something called ‘The Graph’ which is a decentralized protocol for indexing data from the blockchain, which basically means we just tell them how to read the data and they give it back to us in the way we need it.

That’s decentralized as well. Smart contracts are decentralized as well. For one reason in the future, someone else wants to run the Oceanpoint website. They could do it, that’s not an issue at all. I believe that’s the future. That’s what we say with DeFi we actually want it decentralized and not only run by Blocksquare, or only run by Oceanpoint. The vision long term is that everyone can run it.

DAO

Makram Hani: Okay. Here we touch on the DAO side of what we’re doing. Do we believe we are becoming a DAO? And how do you believe we’re becoming a DAO and why is it important? You’ve answered part of why is it important to become a DAO.

Simon Kruse: So, the DAO itself is a bit different than the decentralized hosting of the infrastructure. I was more explaining the decentralized hosting part. But definitely, a DAO in my opinion is important because it gives everyone the right to decide about the future of the protocol. How many times that we had in this current world where we didn’t agree was the decision that a fortune 500 company made and we wish it would be different or how difficult it can be to vote in an actual government these days?

Imagine you can just do it from your computer with your wallet. That’s it. You take part in the decision-making process and that’s what everyone wants, in my opinion, and what everyone should be able to do if they later take the vote or not, that’s up to them, but they should have the possibility to vote. Easily and frictionless even from that smartphone.

Simon Kruse’s biography

Makram Hani: Perfect. So let’s dive into Simon, the person. What’s the background that you come from? What have you studied in school? Dennis and I yesterday were with Kieran Mesquita, an amazing gentleman. I believe when you see that episode, you will love it. And that guy at 11 was on the first blockchain mailing list.

He received the Bitcoin whitepaper in 2009. He was 11 years old. I still can’t comprehend and understand that. Where did you start? How did you run into tech? Was it by mistake? Was it by choice? Kieran says that for him, he had very few friends, so he had that as a resort to communicate and interact. How did you end up there? Let’s start with your school years and your upbringing, please.

Simon Kruse: Well, actually, I started around 11 as well with tech but I started in the beginning with the easy stuff, like website development back in the old days, or,

Makram Hani: With 11 you wear developing websites?

Simon Kruse: Well, I started to learn it and created my first website. I mean, none of them were good, but I tried to start it and that’s how I got interested in the system and I did more and more on the hobby side. Then later I decided: “Hey, why don’t you make it your profession? You love it anyway.” So, I went to school and then I did, a traineeship in Germany was a company for three years. And after that, I was a software developer. I was like, great: “what do you do next?” And I don’t know, like, I felt like office is not my thing. I really didn’t enjoy it. So, I started with crypto. I started with bug bounty programs where I tried to break websites and get paid, which worked really well at that time.

Makram Hani: So, you like to break stuff?

Simon Kruse: Oh, yeah. I like to test it and break it until it hurts. I did that. And during these times I saw Blocksquare start to interact with you guys and joined the team at one point. From there, as I said, I was three and a half years, technically the right protocol that went to, I think, 650 million market cap at one. Now I’m the CTO at Paribus which has a like investment fund, which is like the anchoring arm of Cardano which is really good as well.

Over the years, I’ve built a lot of connections within the space, especially on the tech side, but also on other things like exchanges and so on. I see myself in a really good position to help Blocksquare long-term. Even if people complain about the head, you should list on an exchange or whatever, like guys that will come, like don’t worry about it.

It’s a long-term goal. Having the product out first is what I learned. Make sure your product is solid. That is the most important thing, in my opinion. I really don’t like to market anything that isn’t ready. I’ve learned over the years with exchanges that the better your product is the more likely they will list you, and the easier it is for you to go through all the compliance. That’s, I think one of the most important things and what a lot of projects is that they don’t understand. They want to get listed on day one or the community wants them to get listed on day one but guys, don’t forget, at the moment it’s just a vision like 1000 other projects have. The moment you have actually a product and you have it live you’re differentiating yourself from them.

Makram Hani: Exactly, because at that time you have economic value. So, it’s beyond the white paper and the vision of a few guys who felt that this is a good thing to have. You’ve touched on something very important here, which everyone always talks about which is the hype that you can build around the project, starting by listing on exchanges and creating more volume.

Tokenization of real estate

Then you talked also about the value behind it. A product that is onto the market that touches people’s lives. Do you feel that we are on a brink of touching people’s lives mass in the tokenization of the real estate side? Because over the past few years in general, tokenization, blockchain, and real estate, have had many challenges.

One of them is legislative. On the tech side, I’ll not take you to legislation. I’ll keep you on the tech side. Do you feel that we are ready for the world? And do you feel that we are at that, at that tipping point?

Simon Kruse: Yes. So I can definitely see that we are at this tipping point, but I mean, to be fair right now, most people invest in crypto. Either meme coins or like in NFTs that have no value. And I think we need to shift the thought of everyone. Why don’t they go with something like Blocksquare and invest in real estate? I mean, even if there’s the next crash in crypto, the underlying real estate still has value. So, your investment is secured.

Makram Hani: It still has cash flow which is as important as the value.

Simon Kruse: Exactly. That’s the issue in my opinion right now with the entire crypto market. I mean, people invest in all these projects and try to get rich really quickly. I mean most of these projects or NFTs or whatever, they invest in, have no underlying value. And I think we need to shift the market to a point where things have an underlying value. It’s backed by real estate. We use stablecoins that are backed by gold, for example, rather than just US Dollar I mean, if you look at the US Dollar inflation, it doesn’t make sense to me why someone should hold Tether or USDC. I mean, you’re just inflating your crypto capital then. That’s the point I wish more people would use gold, stable coins, or silver stable coins, or whatever, but it’s backed by real assets.

Makram Hani: Yeah, probably backed by commodities because I’m anti-gold.

Simon Kruse: Yeah. Backed by commodities in general, that is more than fine, but something that is used in the traditional economy that is used to produce around the world. I mean, then you have crypto that has an underlying value just because the product behind it is used in the economy. So even if things go bad in crypto, I can redeem this crypto for the underlying value and still have my thing.

Let’s say you have Tether gold and it’s backed by one ounce of gold, it always has a value because you can redeem this crypto and get the actual gold behind it. It won’t go to $1 or even lower because you know, there’s gold behind it. I think that’s what we need more in general with commodities as a general topic or real estate, for example …

Makram Hani: … real estate is a better bet. Real estate is a cash-flowing asset. Gold is not.

Simon Kruse: Well, I disagree with you there. Not especially with gold, but in general, I think the commodities market is way bigger or way more stable than the real estate market but that’s my opinion.

Makram Hani: I’m sure, I’ll disagree with most people in the world on that because I believe that no one should hold gold and whoever holds gold should not hold more than 2% of their wealth in gold. That’s my personal belief. I believe that gold has no intrinsic value.

And in general, no utility value. The value of gold is similar to the value of the US Dollars because we believe that there’s the scarcity of it. And there is scarcity. It’s not a belief. That’s the fact. However, we believe that this is the value to it. And we’ve linked too many things to its value thus moving it up and down. However, I believe that whatever does have value is similar to a cow. What Benjamin Graham calls, something that can produce. Now, the problem with a cow is that it produces, but eventually, if you want to eat its meat, it dies or eventually it will die regardless if you want to eat its meat or not. Real estate is a property or is a cow that does give you milk all the time, and you can continue eating from it and it’ll not die, and you can mortgage it. Grant Cardone says the bank would not lend you 75% of the value and for a 60-year loan on their own stock but will do it on real estate.

Simon Kruse: Right. That’s true.

Makram Hani: Yeah. There is value there in my view in the underlying, but I disagree with most people and most people will disagree with me because I’m biased to real estate, I believe. I’m biased for a reason in my head. The other reason says that I do have more value and people will have more value. It doesn’t matter what the value is tomorrow morning. I’m always being paid based on the dollar value tomorrow.

I’m always being paid average with inflation tomorrow. If the labor cost changes, my real estate income will change because people will be able to afford more for a home to rent or to pay. Prices, go up renters increase. So, I will have more tenants. I agree to go back again to the subject, I agree with what you’re saying about the concept. We disagree with the underlying in a way or another, or what’s a better underlying for stablecoins and here we’re talking about stablecoins

Simon Kruse: I mean, crypto, in general, doesn’t even need to have stablecoins, but I mean, if you have NFTs in the future, why don’t you back them by real assets? This gives the NFT directly an underlying value, then you have like a floor price that won’t go below a specific price.

Your entire collection is worth more. I don’t get why people don’t do that. And I think people don’t do that because it’s still too early. They don’t want to bother with how I can have commodities behind it. Nobody wants to bother with that. It’s such a headache and legal stuff you have to figure out. So, nobody does it, but I see the market there and it’s the same with real estate, and why I think Blocksquare is so important is because Blocksquare is so early that there’s this market and there’s this demand and that we need to somehow get into this market. I know what you guys did behind the scenes.

In the past years, just the legal work that was done. It’s unbelievable. You won’t believe how much legal work was behind this. That’s what I was just saying. Not many people or projects want to actually do that. But Blocksquare is different from that, and they try to change the world.

NFTs

Makram Hani: A hundred percent. And you touch on a very important point here, which it’s way beyond the tech. You also touched when you talked about NFTs, which is tech is not for tech. We create NFTs. Why is it? Is it proof of ownership? Is it a record of ownership? What is an NFT for music? For art? For real estate? For anything?

So NFTs have a use. Why do we use it currently? We use it just to earn bananas or Loomies or whatever you want to call it. You are recycling no value to no value, but unfortunately the hype, or fortunately for some people the hype makes the value of it. So you’re telling me, you’re not an NFT buyer or investor?

Simon Kruse: Well, I buy NFTs. Don’t get me wrong because I mean, on the hobby, I’m a trader as well. Not a good one, but I try my best. I wish I could actually buy more NFTs that have an underlying value. The reason I can’t is that the market doesn’t serve enough, which first of all goes through my own quality control if they make sense to me from the team behind it.

Makram Hani: The brave room.

Simon Kruse: Yeah. And then they are sometimes backed by stuff that doesn’t make sense to me at all. I think NFTs can be so much more, I mean, let, let’s say at one point we have proof of ownership just for car history or whenever there was a car maintained or whatever. These are the things that can be done with NFTs as well.

You have a record of this car that which can never be faked again. I think that’s the most important or like that are some important areas where NFTs will get into eventually. The supply chain is another thing. Just supply chain management for every product, you could have an NFT and you know, where it was produced, where it was refactored, and when it arrived somewhere in the shop. Why don’t we do it? Well, because it’s not easy to change the supply chain management and the big companies don’t want you to change it because …

Makram Hani: Eventually they would.

Simon Kruse: IBM, for example, they’re working for years on, on the blockchain for the supply chain management. So, it’s not an easy task, but there are some companies working on it, but it will take time until it eventually would be used in our everyday life.

Makram Hani: And you’re hearing it guys from the man who breaks projects. And if it stands his test, it should stand any test. And we stood the test, guys. What is a question that you should have been asked, or you would have loved to be asked today, Simon, that you haven’t been asked?

Simon Kruse: Oh man, I have no idea.

Makram Hani: Tell me something you would like to tell our community that you haven’t had the opportunity to say before or today.

Simon Kruse: Don’t use your traditional banks anymore and try to get rid of them. That’s what I can tell you.

Makram Hani: Okay. Simon Kruse, thank you so much for being on a spotlight today on Block-chat, an episode of the brief. I enjoyed this chat. I had the opportunity to meet Simon on a few occasions personally, and an enjoyable character who knows what he’s talking about.

Again it’s a pleasure seeing you. You’ve been part of Blocksquare by the way before even I’ve been part of Blocksquare. So, it’s a pleasant thing to have team members who are very involved tech advisors who really believe in the project belief in the calling, and do understand the background of their belief.

For Simon, it’s a technical belief as well as an economic logic belief. So he understands that this is the future from both sides. Simon, thank you so much for joining us. And for your time, is there a last message you would like to send to our community?

Simon Kruse: Well, first of all, thank you for hosting me. It was a pleasure. If you meet me ever again, just give me a message and I’m more than happy to join. If you need anything tech related explained.

Makram Hani: And for those who are on discord and telegram, Simon is there. So if you want to ask him any question at any time, feel free to, isn’t it?

Simon Kruse: Not on Discord but on telegram, I’m not a big fan of Discord but for Bloksquare I will join.

Makram Hani: Perfect. So, I have that as a promise.

Simon Kruse: Yeah, you, you have my promise. But other than that what I would say to the community: don’t invest in every hype, make sure you do some research about the team and the core concept behind it. Not everything that looks gold is gold. Be careful out there. The crypto world is a wide west right now and we need to be careful to navigate through it.

Makram Hani: So that it doesn’t fall apart for us because eventually, it will fall apart and then stand on again. But so that it doesn’t fall apart for us. With this thought thank you all for joining us. Welcome to another session of Block-chat Spotlight. Have a pleasant day.

Ciao.

Simon Kruse: Thanks, everyone. Bye.

For more information about Blocksquare ➪ visit Blocksquare.io and Oceanpoint.fi

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