ARYZE spoke to Investor, Consultant, Entrepreneur, and Advisor Jimmie Steinbeck to discuss Bitcoin, Blockchain, DeFi, and ICOs. Jimmie is a multifaceted character who has a background in sales (B2C, B2B), business development, project management, and currently works for Coinify as an International Business Consultant. His journey into the crypto world started 11 years ago.
He candidly recalls this time :
I had always been very entrepreneurial and had several companies in the sales business. I provided corporate services by helping people start companies in Denmark and other countries to help them decide which jurisdiction framework would best fit their business organization. A client mentioned Bitcoin to me by chance back in 2010 as an international payment solution for the future, and from that moment on, I became very interested in the topic and gained all the knowledge I could regarding Bitcoin and blockchain.
Jimmie started earning Bitcoin, the “old school” way, by mining with his own CPU, and then he progressively became more knowledgeable about it. This led him to partner with some colleagues in the crypto space to explore the mining industry’s possibilities and create a company that could provide hash power for blockchain mining.
We created Cryptominer.dk to give others the opportunity to get bitcoins without having to invest in expensive machines. The idea was to lend hash power for the mining of the Blockchain and we paid with Bitcoin to acquire butterfly miner machines (ASIC miner) and then lent them out. However, the drift costs ended being too high in the long run.
Leadership, coaching, and consulting
Studies show that a healthy workplace culture is essential for well-being, creativity, and productivity. The benefits are mutual for both employees and employers, boosting life quality for employees and productivity for the company, thus making it more profitable. Jimmie is a tenacious performance-driven individual who excels within business development, early startup development, and investor relationships. He draws his expertise on a solid background in sales, leadership, coaching, and negotiation skills.
When asked about his leadership, coaching and consulting style, he replied :
My overall focus is to strengthen and optimize companies by providing employees with the necessary tools to achieve their full potential. This is achieved by thorough training, motivation techniques, and ongoing coaching in sales training, negotiation, and sales techniques such as BALA, AIDA, KISS, etc. Another important component when creating healthy work environments is to keep the ability to take in new knowledge and keep our minds open to understanding the tasks at hand to generate tangible results.
Investor and advisor
Jimmie´s extensive background in sales has provided him with the right toolset to embark on raising money for several ICO projects in the past. When asked about his personal motivation behind investing in the crypto and financial space, he responded :
My main motivation is helping people avoid the same mistakes that I have made when I started my own journey in the crypto world. I have always been a very entrepreneurial person, having the will and desire to actually make something new and better for people. Of course, when I first got into Bitcoin, I was also initially attracted by the anarchistic aspect of it, being decentralized and me being skeptical of the current system we have. Now, I have a much broader perspective and believe that the future lies in a combination of traditional finance and the innovation of technology.
We asked Jimmie on his opinion on what should be the indicators for assessing the potential of an investment. He replied:
Investing in crypto is no different than other types of traditional investment. For example, you should look at the company, the product itself, the space that they are planning to penetrate, and especially you should look at the team behind it. Also, ask yourself the following basic questions: What is the opportunity in the process? What is the likelihood of adoption (will many people use it)? How will they get there and at what speed?
Apart from being one of ARYZE´s advisors, Jimmie is also one of its first investors. We asked him about why he decided to invest in ARYZE and he answered :
As an investor, I approach any opportunity with a little caution. Of course, I also like to get all-in on the project, know the people behind it, and exchange knowledge and valuable information. I knew Jack from the time he was Head of Coinify Innovation Lab, where he spent years involved in several use cases, projects, and solutions exploring blockchain and payments. I knew this was someone with great insight into trends within cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, digital payments, and tokenization. Finally, when Morten joined the team, I was even more convinced that we would really have the potential to create something big and interesting. We now had the powerful combination of the traditional finance world coming together with the crypto world.
Additional to a great team behind ARYZE, there is an advisory panel with solid backgrounds from different relevant spaces. Together we can all work toward making dumb money smart and navigate the regulatory scene while still being innovative in our mission to create programmable money.
Things move really fast in the crypto space, which is why companies need to adapt and be innovative every day. Crypto must go towards a more regulated environment. For example, this can be illustrated with the rise and fall of ICOs making room for STOs. Following regulations can lead to a slow start at the beginning for many companies, but it proves to be the wisest strategy. In the long run, another good example of this are the recent events with Ripple after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said the token had been illegally marketed to retail customers, leading to dire consequences. It appears that Ripple did not commit to a market cap on total issued XRP tokens, which enabled them to create a perpetual token issuing machine.
DeFi and the future of crypto
If we place the evolution of crypto into a timeline we can conclude that there have been trends that become popular throughout each stage of the journey. For example, when Jimmie first got into crypto, mining was ruling the crypto space at that time. Nowadays, it is DeFi (Decentralized Finance), a wide term that encompasses a variety of financial applications and draws on blockchain technology.
A vast amount of these applications are built on Ethereum which is currently the second-largest cryptocurrency platform in the world. Ethereum differentiates itself from Bitcoin in the sense that it can be used for multiple purposes and to build different decentralized solutions that reach beyond ordinary transactions due to their platform of smart contracts.DeFi applications have taken different shapes, including innovative cryptocurrency trading algorithms, derivatives trading, margin trading, money transfers, and most importantly, lending markets.
We asked Jimmie about his thoughts on the current DeFi and crypto space and he replied :
Right now yield farming and staking are ruling the market. Celcius Network and Coinify have partnered to look into offering interesting solutions in this space. The Celcius Network is a CeFI/DeFi platform that combines cryptocurrency lending and cryptocurrency interest accounts into single user-friendly platforms, making your crypto work for you again.I believe that we will witness very interesting developments in the crypto world in the near future. Also there are more than 100 DeFi projects out there ,many will fail like in the 2017 ICO boom, some will grow and start the next round, Polkadot, Chainlink,Aave,Dai, Compound etc.
To learn more about Jimmie connect with him on LinkedIn, or check out his website. If you’d like to read more about crypto, blockchain, and tokenization, check out our blog or visit our website.