EP27: Crypto in the Real World: Where It’s Already Solving Problems

In Part 2, the conversation moves from theory to reality.

Nicholas explains where crypto is already solving real problems - from inflation-ravaged economies to faster settlements, lower transaction costs, and access to capital across borders.

They also explore the risks business owners must understand: custody, scams, asset selection, regulation, and why most people underestimate the complexity.

This episode is grounded, practical, and honest - offering clarity without selling certainty.

Three Key Takeaways

1. Crypto already solves real problems in unstable economies - Stablecoins are protecting purchasing power where local currencies fail.
2. The biggest risk isn’t crypto - it’s poor execution - Custody, platform choice, and asset selection matter more than timing.
3. Most business owners shouldn’t go it alone - Education or professional management reduces risk dramatically.

👉 Visit www.bizrev.co.za to learn more about our coaching, consulting, and full-service business support solutions.

📊 Want to see where your business really stands today? Take our free Biz Clarity Score™ — a 3-minute diagnostic to uncover gaps in financial visibility, tax strategy, advisory support, and business resilience. Get instant feedback and actionable next steps.

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Let’s build better, together.

Transcript

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let's get into it
welcome to the Rev Room powered by Buzz
Rev Advisory we're into part 2
talking to Nick Richardson
with regard to cryptocurrency
welcome Nick
hi
so Nick with regards to
how crypto is solving our real problems today
where do you see crypto really saving
obviously not future promises
but current use in our environment
and commercially and etcetera
I think the most demonstrable example of like
a solution today is things like uh
stable coins in South America
like so South America is plagued by like
various levels of inflation all of them
like generally speaking
the countries with like high inflation
Venezuela Argentina
um take your pick
are like very very high
like north of 100% um
which
which makes sort of life in these countries very hard
you know if you're
you're sort of working and then the next year
like
your entire sort of work is worth like half as much
so it's like like how do you save
how do you plan for the future
um it's like very
you create a very unstable economy
a very unstable social
dynamic when people cannot like plan for the future
so you have the
like proliferation of stable coins in these countries
which is like tokenized or like digital dollars
and with these like digital dollars
you can
you have like the ability to sort of like do trade
right like you can buy
you can take out a loan
you can like
you can exchange your time for money knowing that like
that money is gonna be worth something
in a week's time so things like that
like very high uh
inflation regimes
like stable coins offer some refuge from
from that um
silver coins are like the clearest and like
strongest example of like solving a real world problem
um
I think the the other
the other useful thing is
although like these become a bit more um
experimental is things where you have people
like connecting
people in one
continent with people in a different continent
like underwriting loans uh
to people in like a different continent
so like you're like giving people access to credit
like people in like the third world
like
they can get access to like credit on favorable terms
um so I think like the things like this are quite good
but Nick that's really huge
I mean I have
I had no idea that I mean
you can sort of hedge your
your
your wealth with regards to using cryptocurrency in
in the current countries like Venezuela etcetera
I mean that is
huge if you're having your
your your capital eroded
that's massive so is it currently happening today
I mean is it quite a big thing in
in different kind of economies
where there is massive political unrest and massive
fundamental problems in in the economies
so some of the biggest like
uses of stable coins outside
of the United States are like
these third world countries
you know
Nigeria quite a lot of stable coin usage there
so yeah I mean
it's generally
you know if you
if you think about it in terms of like the
the dollar is a strictly better currency than like
almost every other currency on the planet
like maybe X sort of like Swiss franc um
or like a few others so
you know you take the dollar and like
you introduce the dollar to like a third world country
right like
that's a strictly better
solution than their local currency
you obviously
you introduce sort of geopolitical or like
internal issues whereby
like the the local government
when the local government no longer has like
a monopoly on
on like the creation of its like domestic money
like you can get a bit
you run into a bit of an issue there
but it's given the sort of like
permissionless nature of the technology
um it's not
it's not clear that like it's banable
um so yeah
it's like this is the type of like
adoption driven by like a non speculative demand like
a demand for the technology for its like actual utility
which I find to be a quite
quite encouraging
so but I mean in
in South Africa we
we have seen the um
we've started seeing that
that property is being tokenized
I mean I obviously
I mean your view on that particularly
I mean I would
I would understand that actually
you find it very positive right
the I don't know
the exact details of the properties being tokenized
in South Africa I think like the tokenization of things
generally speaking is a good idea
assuming one gets like the legal construct correct
so okay
so if you tokenize a
say you tokenize like commercial real estate
um
that commercial real estate pays
obviously they like they pay rent or need not be
let's say residential real estate
that's probably an easier example
so you commercialize tokenize residential real estate
so like what
what exactly are you tokenizing
like the like
are you tokenizing the rights to the cash flows
are you tokenizing the like
actual like ownership of the building
um
like and then like
where does like the legal liability fall
so I think like tokenization as an idea
broadly speaking of like
let's take this thing and then we'll like
we can take it and put on a blockchain and like
cut it up into smaller pieces
so then and then like
anyone can like buy rights to like this thing
like broadly speaking I think that's a
very constructive idea in terms of a
as a let's say as a South African
I can buy cash flows associated with like
a residential real estate property in New York
like I think like okay
that's a great idea but like the actual legal structure
like how you know
if
if there's like if there's like a default
like as a holder of like a token in South Africa
like what is like my legal
like reach in terms of like recouping there
um like where
like what is like the on chain
off chain like legal structure
so I think it's like quite complicated
um
but broadly massively
massively
the Reserve Bank and SARS as an example
I mean both would
you know those are two fundamental or an organisation
state organisations that would be uh
asking some heavy questions
yeah yeah
and if you don't do that you know
responsibly then there could be a
a serious consequence you know
based on on
on that on its own but so tokenization is
is it can be meaningful
and it actually can change the way we behave
um with regards to our assets particularly
I mean so I would assume that if it's done responsibly
um it would be done
it would be the right thing to do
yeah yeah
yeah I yeah
like I said I think at a high level
it's a cause like the
the high level pitch is like
you're taking a thing that's like a
liquid right take
so take let's say
let's say you're tokenizing a
um
okay we carry on like a commercial real estate like
so the commercial real estate has like a value um
or a residential real estate
say that example so has like a value
like the building has a valueable
has a value
there's like cash flows associated with the building
but if you were to like sell the building
I think it's it's quite an illiquid market
like the spreads quite wide there
so if like you take the building and then like
you take like the value
you strip like the value from like the physical
and like you tokenize like value whatever
however you kind of want to do that
you put it on chain
um cut it into a bunch of smaller pieces
so now it's like more accessible to people
cause like you can buy like
like half a percent of the building
so like the building becomes a lot more liquid
um yeah
the value of the building becomes a lot more liquid
and it's also available to a
um basically like anyone on the planet in theory
so there's much more like demand for the actual yeah
building so that
that that's like the
both like the liquidity and like the actual yeah
you're opening it to like an investor demographic
that's like far bigger
or like the pool of capital
yeah becomes far bigger
yeah it makes sense commercially it
may and it seems quite simple simplistic in
in in the in the form I mean
obviously to me but um
the structure
behind that might be a little bit more difficult
to implement
so
what are the safety concerns
with regards to people who realistically are
should be aware of crypto
I mean what
what concerns would you have with regards to
if I had to buy crypto in whatever
what however or in any transaction
what are the risks to to our viewers
what could the possible risks be
well so like to start there's
there's no like fidic uh
in terms of like insurance on like deposit insurance
there's no like we're getting there with regulation
but we're still like a ways off there
mm hmm
so it is still the Wild West like metaphorically it's
it's less of the Wild West than it used to be
but it is still um
brought with risk
so the things like if you would think about it
someone's buying crypto so if you go through like
the flow of like buying crypto
so you take your
your dollars or your rands and then you send them to
uh are you you exchange them for crypto right
so you exchange them on a venue
so the first thing you have to do is
sort of make sure that venue is safe
so you you
you you check the venue the venue safe
then you swap your your dollars for what
crypto right
cause like what crypto you buying
you know there's
there's I don't know how many 10
hundreds of thousands of cryptos there are um
naturally a lot of it is worthless
I mean there's
there's obviously a bunch that are super interesting
so the next thing is like
you have to make sure like
you're buying something that has like value
um and then like once you buy the asset
like you're underwriting
like the risks of the asset in terms of like whatever
like the sort of idiosyncratic risks and sort of like
smart contract risk execution risk
team risk etcetera
all your other like litany of
of risks
then now that you own the asset
you gotta think about like um
like getting hacked you know
like'cause 'cause it's like it's self custodial uh
depending on kind of what solution you use
so it's like not like a bank
where the bank like holds your money in theory
in some in like through some
some types of like uh
transactions or like ways of like
uh investing like you actually hold the asset
so now you could like you could be hacked
so like it it's generally pretty fraught with risk
um a lot of that is getting worked out
but the main risks would be like
counterparty risk in terms of like
the actual venue that you're executing on um
asset asset selection risk
the type of assets that you're buying
and then within like the specific asset like
like idiosyncratic risk to that asset
um I think
like the easiest ways to sort of prevent that is like
just using um
you know like
like a Coinbase or or a Kraken
like these are US companies
um so that's generally like a
like a good start and then sticking to
uh assets in the top sort of 20 by market cap
like you're you're
you're avoid like most of the risk doing that
um obviously there's still like a bunch of risk
and then the other risk is things like
there's a lot of like data breaches within
like there's just data breaches generally across
like all industries but like within crypto
like you get a data breach
like so then someone gets your email
they send you an email um
that says like oh
you have to secure your account
you click on the email you click on a link
and then like all your crypto goes like fishing attacks
like that kind of stuff um
it's still like at at like a high level
the Assumption is like
it's just a very adversarial landscape
um okay
so yeah I think those are the risks
I also perhaps the last thing I'd say is like
you can also just invest with a fund manager
and then like they manage all of that for you
right like
so like they understand what they're doing
they take care of all those risks
they've been around long enough to not um
not fall for these types of things
so I think that's
that's the other useful way to think about it
it sounds like solid advice
I mean I
I didn't even know you would find you would get a
a crypto fund managers I mean
is that I mean
is that a thing do we have some
does in South Africa do we have fund managers
um around the world
I'm assuming they would be
yeah yeah
there's a bunch of uh
naturally since South Africa
being like a smaller player on the global map
there's not as many most most being New York
London uh
New York London and Singapore
other other
other three biggest places
but I mean
you don't have to be in the same geography to sort of
no no
fair enough but I mean
still your
your suggestion is looking at the top 20 market cap
with regards to the funds
and actually use use that as a base to start looking at
where to maybe invest or wherever to buy it
it makes sense
um and so pretty much
I mean if you would like to start
if I would like to start trading with crypto now
the suggestion would be if I'm gonna do it myself
spend a lot of time finding out which is the best
and how to do it and investigating it
or getting a fund manager will be able to take over
some of the the
the the
risk as far as management is concerned
which most in most investors do that
so it's no different in actually having your
funds listed in an investment house
it makes sense so Nick thank you very much
we so appreciate your time
and the valuable input that you've given
so we thank you very much
so um
thanks for having me we look forward yeah
it's a pleasure
we look forward to having you on the podcast again
I'm sure we're gonna have some queries and questions
um and I'm
I'm trusting you'll help us to be able to answer them
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