Lessons learned and Grandma-friendly Crypto

in #introduceyourself7 years ago

BlockPay-S

A lot of people know me as #tinfoilken since I tend to believe in a lot of conspiracy "theories" like Bilderberg, Chemtrails (shout out to Erik Voorhees), perpetual War (shout out to Roger Ver), Gun Bans (shout out to Alex Jones), Internet Censorship (shout out to Jeff Berwick), Simulation Theory (shout out to Elon Musk) and of course all of the Energy and Finance cartels.

Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes its laws.
Mayer Rothschild

I started coding professionally in 1991 (DOS, dBase, etc) towards the end of my enlistment in the US Navy. I learned a lot about various hardware and software systems back then, and of course a lot about war (Desert Storm). What a senseless waste. When I got my Honorable Discharge in 1993 I started up my first software company (Line9) and invented the world's first "shopping cart" and eBusiness software (Tek9 Pro). Amazon attacked me a couple years after that claiming that I had to cease and desist the sale of my Tek9 Pro eCommerce software, or pay them royalties because of their "one click checkout" schema. It's a good thing I document everything (thanx to the military I guess) because when you can show "proof of use in business" years before the "copyright cartels" come after you, they quickly move on to their next victim. At peak, I had about 37 people on staff and outsourced too. If you plan on starting a business, make SURE you learn how to hire/fire/manage decentralized teams of top people from around the world in different countries, and keep your overhead as low as possible. Just because you have built an awesome product does not mean that Marketing it will be successful. Even after the dotcom bubble burst, I managed to keep Line9 Corp. running until 2003 or so when we eventually ran out of money. Open source is great, and I still code open source software, but after awhile when enough people copy your software and have better marketing teams, well, you lose.

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I tried to do something about the Energy cartels by starting a little sustainable living business focused on solar energy. I built that company up pretty quick, invented the first portable solar powered generator and focused on getting it to everyone I could. It was expensive and not really as powerful as I would have liked, but hundreds of people loved it nonetheless. What I learned after a few years was that there are really only a couple of companies out there where you can even buy the components at a competitive wholesale price. I paid a company called Sunwize over $330K to get me the parts I needed and even when you do that it still does not ensure that you will get what you need in time from Germany and other solar product producing countries. Have you ever tried to ship a pallet of batteries over an ocean? I even paid my neighbor Jerry over $20K to use his alibaba skills to get me the parts, all to no avail. Running that business was not easy, and it eventually bankrupted me personally, but I learned a lot. Diversify your product line and always have backup vendors for the components that you'll need, from the beginning. Go wide. This was an awesome business though, I loved helping so many people get off of the grid and start providing for themselves.

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Next, I decided to take on the Gun Bans issue. If the government was going to start grabbing people's rights to self-defense, then I (as an activist) had to stand up to this and do something. When your loving government starts forcing you to buy permits for everything and can trample all over (and steal) a person's rights and property, you know that you are living in a police state. So, I went to school and learned all about guns, Simunitions, laws, self-defense and tactical. I became a Law Enforcement Firearms Instructor and hired numerous police officers to help me teach classes and get as many people their licenses as possible. With hundreds of 5-star reviews mounting on google, we quickly became one of the most popular gun schools in the nation, second only to the huge shooting range out in Arizona. Whoa momma, speaking of the range, if you don't have your own facility, then you need to buy or rent one, right? Well, the brand new multi-million dollar county indoor gun range was still virtually unused, so I figured hey man, I'm a taxpayer so I should have every right to use the range. Wrong. I was emailed every excuse in the book by the top cop why "his" range was unavailable, booked solid, not a good fit, and so on. I call BS. I emailed the top cop's attorney, acquired the real stats on the range via sunshine law (freedom of information) and it proved that every excuse that I was given was a lie. Earlier, I was given a tour of the range and was shown every inch of it, including the tactics area, gun maintenance room and even the offices.. all but one room. The armory. Hmm, why was I being kept from that room? Hmm, and what's with the little airstrip out back? Use your imagination. The new Marine Corps top cop that was running for office filled me in on the rest. So, I contacted the media. I organized a protest with my biker friends out front of the range called "Takin' it Back!". (they had to lock the gates that day to keep us out haha). I also found out that the top cop was best buddies with a couple of our competitors. Ok so long story short. He may be in the wrong, and violating multiple laws, but remember one thing.. He is the government. Standing up for your "rights" sometimes will get you into all kinds of hurt. The gov cannot "lose" as they will do whatever is necessary to hold on to their positions. They will smear you, harass and extort your customers, find ways of hurting your supporters, twist the law to say whatever suits them best, and even abuse your family to make you go away. So, the next time you think about protesting something, do it in a way that can just render the bad people obsolete. I am known for rattling cages because I can't stand to see all the hurt and injustice in the world and if we don't stand up to them somehow, then who will? So, to do that, I went back to Building..

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So, back in early 2015, I took all these lessons learned and started up BitShares Munich (shout out to Taulant at BitSapphire). I couldn't even afford to buy a new computer, but with my decades of experience in outsourcing I contacted some of my old crew and started coding up a mobile wallet for Bitshares. The Bitshares community seemed to like it (even though I was nowhere near happy with it yet) and they voted me in with their millions of BTS (Bitshares has an awesome decentralized governance model) so that I could get paid a few hundred bucks per month and improve the wallet. A very generous Investor loaned me a few thousand bucks more and I made some final improvements to that old wallet and started up a brand new (much faster) one with a much better UI/UX called the Smartcoins Wallet. Now that Bitshares has a couple of mobile wallets to choose from, hundreds of referrals started rolling in. How do we get crypto into the hands of the masses, I thought. I can't spend my Steem Dollars, BTS or Bitcoin in a store, so what needs to be built next? Well, let's enable all of the various Point Of Sale systems and cash registers out there to accept these cryptocurrencies, and many more, at zero cost. So, I invented the Smartcoins POS (later named to BlockPay). I found myself a handsome CEO/CFO, gave him 49% of my company and we got the ball rolling. He held a fundraiser, got the cash needed, sent out the OPENPOS tokens, and I just sat here in my dark bedroom architecting, leading, and slowly expanding my Dev teams and quickly released the first version of BlockPay on the google play app store. As a huge believer in open source since my very first days of coding, I know that the network effect of having the tools you need to rapidly build new programs is imperative, so my Devs also built the first Bitshares mobile app library called graphenej. Now anybody can build mobile apps for the platform. Hmm, what to build next.. People want the option of keeping their property absolutely private, right? Ok, since Bitshares' Stealth product was started (shout out to Dan Larimer) but not completely finished, I decided that that project needed to be tackled as well. If you are going to put your life savings onto a blockchain, then it better be damn secure, user friendly and absolutely private (unless you are required to reveal your assets of course). Now, I think this Internet Censorship issue I mentioned is getting pretty bad now, don't you? We need a better Internet, a truly decentralized Internet. Thanx to platforms like Steemit, Bitshares and soon Echo, we can decentralize our communications, and finances. But what about our data? Do you trust google, apple or microsoft with all your photos and private information? I don't. Actually, when I submitted the Bitshares Wallet to the Apple app store, they denied the app because it supported an "unsupported" cryptocurrency (BTS), and then they said that the Bitshares market cap was "not big enough", excuses excuses. I went around and around with Apple, appealing their denials for about a month. I have not the time or desire to try to convince a billion dollar corporation that the Bitshares blockchain is worth their while. Ok, their loss. So, expecting other app stores to start doing the same thing to our crypto products, I decided that decentralized app infrastructure will be my next big move. IPFS, baby! Go and Javascript are great, but not really suited for mobile in my opinion, so I knew that we need to code an implementation of IPFS in the C programming language. This would not only allow me to totally decentralize our app architectures, but we would no longer need to be "approved" by some centralized app store company. C-IPFS was born. Now, with our apps having a totally decentralized Core written in C, we can install our apps onto nearly anything. Imagine sitting on your couch watching the home shopping channel, you tap a button on your remote or phone to buy the item, a huge QR code is displayed on screen, you scan the code with your Smartcoins Wallet and approve the payment. Your TV makes a "ch-ching" sound and your new Roadhouse Barbie is on its way. Imagine paying with any crypto at a vending machine, or at the grocery store, the gas station, or even at the car charging station. Yes, all this and more is already in the works. I'll post another video in a few days that shows you some of the other stuff we're building, so please Follow, I think you'll like what you see..

Grandma-friendly Crypto, baby :)

Well, it's almost lunchtime already so I better get back to work, but I hope you enjoyed the read. The point here being, if you fail at something, it doesn't make you a failure, it makes you smarter. You will get better with every try. With every new thing that you try, you learn. Keep trying new things, keep building, keep planting seeds.

Much love and build towards world peace, daily.
.ken

keybase io / kenCode
kenCode at protonmail ch

Please Upvote / Resteem : let's bring Crypto to the masses!

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I have had the pleasure of Ken's hospitality while in Munich. I know him as a man who wants to build a better world for his children.

Promoted and re-steemed!

hey man! we still need to hook up for another weissbier! miss you so much! MUCH love brother will catch you at the next Anarchapulco I hope! :)

Anarchapulco WAS a blast and next year BitShares better have a strong presence there, so count me in!

FYI - several people asked about the BlockPay T-Shirt I was wearing one day, awarded by Chris4210 for a xmas contest here on Steemit. You're all doing a FANTASTIC job Ken, what a powerhouse! Looking forward to the release of BitShares Stealth and regaining our spot in the top 10 Coin Market Cap list.

Nice intro article too! Upvoted

Yeah, I remember that article that Amanda Johnson wrote about us when Bitshares was in the top 5 on cmc. It seems all the pump and dumps took over lately lol. Stealth is gonna be awesome, oh, and un-beatable of course. Follow me here on Steemit for all my weekly updates about it, much appreciated. Hit me up at Anarchapulco too.. dos mas cervezas por favor! ;)

I know it sucks, still off topic :D

Count me in on that Anarchapulco fiesta! Great meeting you in Munich, Ken, absolutely love what you're doing for the Bitshares community and that other community we call humanity...

true that man, i am already trying to save some money so that i can get down there next year. lots of awake minds down there doing good things. it was awesome hangin with you too! MUCH love :)

I've always been a big fan of yours @kencode. I still remember when you first showed up on the BitShares forum and established yourself immediately as someone who sets goals and targets and then gets at it until they're done.

I also witnessed first hand how you have kept a rock bottom overhead in showing great honour and respect to your investors!

I'm looking forward to seeing your products coming into full bloom knowing that things are in good hands with you.

aaaah, love you for this kus-knee, thank you man really. It feels really good to be appreciated. You know I don't work this many hours because I have to, I absolutely love my work and creating things that will help humanity to Thrive! I know that may sound like cheesy BS to some people but I mean that from the heart. Humanity is at a tipping point now and we have got to turn things around. build build build! MUCH love kus-knee thank you :)

Hello Ken, I hope you are well.

Very well written post, I am sorry about you know who???
Thanks for the tip to retain 60% ownership, I was not aware of 49/51 was not good enough. I will be following closely.

I would follow @tinfoilken as I believe a lot of that stuff to.

I look forward to a Grandma-friendly Crypto World.

Be well...

This is so great, thank you for sharing. Motivation dot com. Onwards and upwards - Good luck in all your ventures! Upvoted and followed to learn more

thanx daisyd, it's a labour of love :)

Wow, you are like the Elon Musk of Cryptocurrencies.

hehe ;) thanx idealist

Ken you are the bed rock of this decentralized community. You lead by example and speak your mind no matter what pressure is applied.

I have a deep respect for you and really appreciate all you have done to improve the quality of life of more people than you can imagine. I always love our discussions because they are genuine and honest. To come meet you in Munich one day is definitely on my bucket list.

Keep crushing it!

aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh, thank you man. from the bottom of my heart, thank you :)

You've done a lot, kenCode and it is impressive. We look forward to what you'll do in the future for liberty. Keep up the good work!

WOW thanx so much Mr. Brock! :)

Very inspiring piece Ken! Loved reading about your history and wish you and bitshares-munich every sucess in the future!

Thank you so much steempower! Cool name by the way- Go Steem!! :)

You're the man! I'd like to translate this into Russian, and then you can post that into golos. Bit busy though, so I'll put that onto my backburner, and do that as soon as I have some time.

thanx xanoxt! funny you mention translations, I am about to have some more "Crowd Voting" job postings here soon so that the new versions of our wallets, BlockPay and all the products we release has the most up to date 44 languages displayed. Follow me here if you like, would love the help, thanx! :)

I would love to have my Latvian lover work on it again! That Steemit job post blew many of us away and was what got my stock broker girlfriend interested in crypto.

I know it, right? That was crazy! Those CrowdVoting posts I did just killed it in SBD earnings, man it helped me polish our software projects and connect with a ton of new awesome people! Steemit is awesome, period. :)

So much great content to read from you. Followed :)

amazing story, now i know you even better ;)

thanx man! i tried to be funny in a couple spots so it doesn't seem so long winded and boring, but i don't do funny very well. glad you liked the read though! btw, i'll still be hangin out in telegram from time to time as well, but i really would like to keep posting my weekly reports right here on steemit :)

I'd love seeing your updates here Ken, it will get more eyeballs on it here than the bts forum, but publish here and I'm sure others will link to it from the forum. I will if you don't :)

deal. i will leave all my stuff on the bitsharestalk forum too, but steemit is where my heart is now, so I will do my best here to keep rollin out my weekly updates, thanx again! :)

Voring? No! But long and deep. I wonder about your next post... Follow

What a potent introduceyourself post!
thanks a bunch for the loads of information concerning you and your career, it is very impressive and super interesting a read too. Namaste :)

Thank you eric-boucher! Namaste :)

.3. Did you really accomplish all of this? I am woefully disillusioned with my inability to express how intrigued I am. My curiosity has been piqued quite high. I am expecting great things. ;P

Great work @kencode. You and the Bitshares Munich Team are building real world solutions for crypto-currencies adoptions. Building the infrastructure needed is the key. Bitshares and the Graphene ecosystem have been growing steadily and now the Blockchain community are starting to see the sleeping giant that's DPoS. Ark Blockchain - https://ark.io/ - with it SmartBrige technology is also joining the DPoS consensus mecanism to speed consumer adoption. What a great time to witness all this and I'm looking forward to bring those products into local community, taking Blockchain from Online to Offline.

Exactly, without the infrastructure to support all these cryptocurrencies, who the heck is gonna use them? BlockPay is changing all that and I hope to keep adding features to it, Integrating it with IoT and all kinds of things so that even my Grandma wants to use it. Thanx pnc! :)

great introduction ken. we now know a bit more about you and your vision. really inspiring. the crypto community and the bitshares in particular are proud of having you. congratulations and keep the hard work :)

It's not hard work when you love what you do. Thanx oxarbitrage! :)

Very interesting and educational article. Thank you.

Totally awesome trajectory. Up-Voted and now following for my own edification. Certainly humanity will be uplifted by our actions -- that indeed is the meaning of Human Action. The knocks and bumps alternate with joyful success to show us the way.

Thank you lyfo! :)

this is really awesome, so useful and informative. ^_^ It keeps my motivation going, thank you for sharing @kencode Such a great introduction! Upvoted and resteemed ! More blessings to come your way. :-))

hey thanx fernwehninja! :)

you're most welcome @kencode I followed you to broaden my knowledge concerning crypto, because I am still starting to learn , so it's pretty new to me hehe My husband encourage me to join steemit, so far, I'm loving and enjoying it . Will do my very best! ;-)))

Wrapping your head around cryptocurrencies, blockchains and all this, one thing becomes very clear. The more we use it, the less funds will be extorted from us to support all these wars. With enlightenment comes peace. Thanx for the Follow fernwehninja, stay tuned! :)

You're most welcome. I really admire your enthusiasm while reading your introduction, such an awesome personality you've got . It's really great to help yourself and help others as well. Kudos @kencode! Keep inspiring. ;-))) Looking forward for your next post ^_^

I enjoyed reading especially the bits about scraping a business together when you can barely cover your bills... it's wonderful now there is these distributed systems full of people who are interested in getting stuff to happen...

Having just recently, hopefully permanently, got myself off the street partially thanks to this blockchain, bless it, I am now in the position of having some great ideas but no idea how to put together the necessary resources. Hopefully life won't get as shitty as it was for the last 3 years ever again, cos I think next time it'll kill me.

Keep up the good work and the good fight :)

Thanx so much l0k1, I'm with ya man. Lived on the streets myself for quite a while so I know what it feels like to lose everything (more than once obviously). The thing is, with social sites like Steemit, financial systems like Bitshares, bright minds and eager bodies you have a win win win win ahead of you man. Once you lose everything, you are free to do anything (wasn't that V for Vendetta?). Anyway, take care of yourself man, I'm sure our spirits will connect again. Peace and Love. (ps: sorry my upvotes are so weak right now)

Excellent post! I like your work My friend

hey thanx mars9! i love your avatar by the way, not sure if you're also a star gazer too.. :)

I will have to try this app out!

i hope you like it and thanx! if you have feature suggestions or anything just ping me :)

Welcome to the platform. Great to see you here. Have a wonderful day. Don't forget to have some fun. :)

Incredible and amazing life stories! ... Look forward to seeing all the applications of C-IPFS and good luck with all the other great projects you're working on!

It's definitely a labour of love, thanx steemrollin! :)

Hey Kencode, glad to see you posting here. Your team has been doing awesome work!

Hey robrigo man! Nice to see you here on steemit! Thanx for the comment, MUCH love! :)

wow very nice informasion I respact for you

Wow, excellent post! Thank you!

Good read, inspirational. For sure a follow. You going to post much on the conspiracy stuff? I set up a site for a friend who likes to write about conspiracies over at realityfordummies.com, you might enjoy some of his stuff. He too is a vet.

Thanx fester :)
I will definitely Resteem conspiracy posts if they seem well informed and sourced etc, but I don't have much time to write about that stuff myself. I love to help keep the dialog goin on those subjects though, so of course I will be leaving my 2 cents worth here and there on them.

What I find amazing over the last few years is the number of Vets that have woken up. Most of the guys I served with were just as brainwashed as I was, but now most of us have all caught on to the lies. Even some of the jarheads on my ship (the shitty kitty) are awake now, it's cool to see the transformation happening.

I'm sittin here listening to the Euronews channel right now and I can hear the propaganda loud and clear, nearly every word in every sentence is worded in just the right way as to form your opinions about the "terrorists" and such. It's deafening at this point, scary stuff. We have got to de-fund these maniacs. Crypto!

I hear you there. Last night on a program called the Independent Eye they ran a documentary about seeds and how the chemical companies are applying patents through their GMO efforts. The interesting thing, aside from the information regarding this practice, was how the descriptive blurb in the guide touted how their efforts were somehow saving plants. Total disconnect from what the program was about. A small manipulation perhaps but a manipulation by mainstream media nonetheless.

yep, Monsanto is notorious for doin that crap. saving plants my ass. activists call them "terminator seeds". watch the documentary called "the future of food"... (but don't eat first, as you might hurl)

all i got here was "eat first", :D so thanks for the nice meal :) yummy steeming posts :D

cheers mate, best of luck, kind regards and all that, please don't wire everything for the benefit of ease of use since ordering and sitting in a couch all day is being done for 100 years and people are getting just fatter and dumber :D

anyways It's nice to see such a proficient writer/coder you have many good things posted above and seeing you communication with the people around only serves to vouch for that :) so thank you for being here and gracing us with you presence. I will make sure to learn all i can from your expertise :)

Thanx so much j3dy :) As always, I'll keep my weekly posts rolling up here (i dumped the forum in favor of Steemit). Steemit is awesome! Thank you for the kind words too, much appreciated. Cheerz! :)

Awesome !! If at first you dont succeed , try , try , again !! 👍👍👍

This is so great, thank you for sharing
@fahrullah