"Banning crypto in your own country is like pulling a bullet on your own foot" An interview with Hugo Jacques, CEO at BC Impact

1. Hello, Hugo! As a CEO of BC IMPACT can you introduce this agency to those of our readers who don't know about it? What are you working at right now and what plans do you have for the close and distant future?

BC Impact was born on 2017, right after the first peak of anyone even understanding or hearing for the first time of what BITCOIN is, and, at the same time when the blockchain bear market began. Even in the bear market at that time, I still believe and foresee the future potential of blockchain; therefore, BC Impact was created to support businesses in ICO marketing campaign, mostly in strategic and execution. After observing and experiencing the good, the bad, and the ugly of the blockchain roller coaster over the years; BC Impact adapted and restructured the services with everything we developed to date. Today, we offer the following services:

• Blockchain advisory for startups, SME, and corporations (transformation or enhancement).
• Boarding Director in startups: We help startups with our network of resources/investors and support them in talent management, operations, marketing, and growth.
• Investor relations consulting: includes fundraising (token sales and equities)

We are proud to announce, one of our current customers we supported, NODLE, just secured the 11th Polkadot Parachain slot with 7528 contributions, and 2.48 M DOTs equaling $42 million dollars!

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Currently, we have several projects in the horizon covering high-tech trading, gaming, (NFT/METAVERSE/E2P gaming), and Defi. We are in the process of doing our due diligence process with these projects because we are looking for a strong quality partnership; BC Impact's value is quality over quantity. In the foreseeable future, BC Impact will continue to advise and support blockchain startups to succession.

2. You have been a professional in the finance sphere long before Bitcoin was born. Do you now perceive the times before the invention of cryptocurrencies as pre-historical in some way? Or do you rather see cryptocurrency emergence just as a regular step in the financial sphere evolution? What is the scale of the changes cryptocurrencies bring to the world?

This is a great question.  Absolutely not. I learned along the way, and I do not limit my knowledge only in cryptos. I believe in constant learning and immersing myself in finances, economics, technology, and worldly events through books, programs, and courses. It's also a passion of mine to learn and progress.  I cover global economy and geopolitical subjects to constantly keep myself fresh and up to date. With the knowledge I have, I can successfully advise and discuss with entrepreneurs and economists alike.

Every step forward humanity takes is a part of evolution. Before the birth of cryptocurrencies, digital money was already in the blueprint of some great companies like PayPal.  We also had all generations of online techies. It is just a continuity. Each new phase brings positive improvements, like pieces in the evolution puzzle.

The best part of the blockchain technology is the amplitude of change that comes with it. It will bring a paradigm shift in all sectors. This disruption is focused on the interaction, low cost, decentralisation, ownership, and a fair system (more control back to the people). It will change the way we pay, receive incomes, incentives, and how we can influence an organization we're apart of.

Cryptocurrency is per design for financial purpose ownership (token utility, NFT, etc.) that empowers users and give them more incentives. The disruption will siphon into the banking system, the stock markets (we call it the new Wall Street), the ownership of assets, and data management. This is financial changing huge!

The first scalable use case that will be noticed is the rise of the stable coins. Central banks will take control over it (fiat to crypto and crypto to fiat), and investors will use it as a safe storage and a way to transact without volatility concerns.

Blockchain is evolutionary but with every evolution in the beginning, there will be some obstacles and we are not naive to think otherwise.  Blockchain has a lot of challenges to deal with, like, managing scalability, security, interoperability, and decentralization from the inside and from the outside, more transparency, simplicity (UX/UI), regulation, and more quality projects. Fortunately, this is constantly evolving.

3. Can you name a couple of your favorite blockchain projects that you see as a vivid example of how blockchain already stands to its potential? Please tell us about these examples a little.

I believe Ethereum is still the outsider, SOLANA, FANTOM, and DOT deserves special attention. We don’t know yet who will survive in this early-stage race but all of them have a huge potential.
 
Lending solution such as Celsius, IoT solutions (smart city/industry) such as NODLE (A crowdsourced decentralized IoT Network), Helium, and technology solutions for gaming and trading (NFT Trading).

4. Blockchain solutions can be implemented in probably any sphere of life one can think of. What use cases have caught your eye lately? What are the new exciting projects or trends to watch for?

I have so many projects that I would like to share but I will reference two to make it short:

• NODLE (IoT): A competitor of Helium. They do not have yet the support they deserve, but when they will reach the level of expansion (very soon), you will indeed hear about them. They just secured the 11th Polkadot Parachain slot for 42 million dollars. They have now 20,000 nodes in their network. Just keep an eye when they are listed. I would not be surprised to see this token in the top 5 exchange platforms. They are a strong contender in the smart city industry.
• MoonPay: This start-up enables people to buy and sell cryptocurrencies using credit cards, mobile wallets, and bank transfers. After 3 years, its valuation rocketed to $3.4 billions after securing $555 millions in its first financing round. I'm betting a win on this one.

5. In 2018, you have written an interesting piece about smart cities. What progress have smart cities made since then? What are the new trends in this sphere?

At that time, I was involved in a Smart City project as a co-founder. We were not in blockchain but we were fully aware of the challenges. I think this sector is still under rated and lacks the attention it deserves. With blockchain it can impact cities in many ways:

• Energy efficiency:
• Data management: A full city connected could implement better decisions on direct data for traffic, voting, surveys, transportation occupation rates, demand and supply, etc.
• Connectivity between objects: From supply chain to parking lots, the application limitless and can bring direct value to citizens.
• Others advantages are system scalability improvement, a guaranteed data immutability, a stronger authentication, privacy, security, and automated communications.

The trend will focus on public administration and services, new ways of fundings, and smart mobility.

1/ Funding is definitely a new approach. Political candidates can request citizens to put their money directly on a project they so choose to associate with and reduce taxes for those who participate to the vote and funding. The money is traceable, stored (hard wallet) and people can easily follow-up on the project status (via data management process). If a project is cancelled, people can be refunded.

2/ Public administration and service could directly send surveys and analysis quicker. Ask citizens to participate in environmental actions in exchange for incentives. Tokens won can be used for paying transportations and food, just to name a few.

3/ Smart mobility (my favorite) space will expand fast. People will have everything connected in the palms of their hands. They can stake or participate in the proof of location and receive incentives by doing so. Citizens will participate in digital active asset in the community. Interconnectivity is the key to improve the level of life, environment, security, energy management, and transportation network. You can get the data of a specific location, on a decentralized network made up by people and designed for the people foremost.

Blockchain can also be an enabler for Mobility-as-a-Service solutions, where various additional services can be delivered to citizens such as car sharing, payments, insurance, and maintenance.

This will impact the way city administrators do things, including the use of its power/authority. Decentralized is the best when it comes about the functionality of a city. I do not think mayors should be afraid of losing their power; they have more to win than to lose.

Of course, we have challenges and risks for such implementations, that is part of the game (law, infrastructure, funds, adoption, limited IoT resources, weak data encryption, and scalability)

6. How do you see the perfect model of relations between the government and cryptocurrencies? What are the best and the worst examples that exist today? Should crypto projects move their headquarters to countries with better regulation climate or rather they should push their local authorities to change their stance?

Regulation is volatility, just like a pinball game bouncing between yes's and no's and anything in between; any new concepts will have ups and downs. When it comes to new tech, there are always skeptics, we saw this in history with airplanes, and even the internet. And it's happening now with cryptos. Personally, I think banning crypto in your own country is like pulling a bullet on your own foot.

China banned the mining activities; the result was a direct migration of the activity abroad China in favor of other countries.

Cryptocurrencies are seen with the eyes of organization who are not capable to deal with their economy and crisis they created. Since it's a new concept, they also do not understand well the technology and all the benefits that could arise from it. The central bank's motive is somewhat to protect the fiat, which is already weakened by a succession of bad decisions.

Government should implement a fair regulation and an ecosystem that supports the development of this technology because they cannot deny the growth (people trading) and the revolutionization in many industries. That include finance, gaming, social media, logistics, and many other things. Cryptos' market size rocketed to $2.3 trillion and continues to grow as we speak. It's simply too large to ignore. You're either on board and win or missed the boat and cry afterwards. Therefore, I do not recommend companies leaving and moving to Switzerland, Singapore, Malta, or other countries with better regulation climate. I consider this as a pure lost of economic potential.

When you know that many former SEC executives are now part of the blockchain ecosystem, this speaks volumes.

7. Dogecoin is the only top 20 altcoin that doesn't have a strong dev team, roadmap, original technology, millions worth of investments, etc. In your opinion, what keeps this coin at the top? Do you think it will keep its positions in the following years? 

Dogecoin benefits from a special treatment. It is supported by Elon Musk who have a lot of influence in the crypto ecosystem. The value increased as investors are mostly betting on a value based on a global opinion; after all, the market is made up of human emotions too. I will not say there is no absolute value in Dogecoin, but you have such better valuable solution in the market, and nothing can say who will take the lead in a such early stage of this technology.

8. Now let's fantasize. If you had a chance to ask Satoshi Nakamoto one question, what would you have asked? And what is the one thing that you wish you could say to him?

Can I pick your brain?

Let’s create something new together!

9. Thank you for sharing your knowledge! We appreciate it!

My pleasure. I hope it will help the cryptogeek community.