Simple Token CEO Jason Goldberg



Entrepreneur expects new tech to bring big shift late 2018



By Kang Seung-woo



Simple Token CEO Jason Goldberg said blockchain technology will take center stage in a year after overcoming the negative sentiment over the cryptocurrency craze.

Simple Token is a company that builds a complete blockchain toolkit for businesses based on its own digital token called Ost. Included in its customers and partners are such players as Tencent of China and Gushicloud in Singapore, whose parent firm is Korea's Yello.

"If you move past the speculation and the hype of cryptocurrency the most important is blockchain. Today people think cryptocurrency and blockchain are the same thing. But the former is a speculation of the latter. Our focus is to build the blockchain applications," he said.

"Toward the second half of this year, I think we will see a big shift in the cryptocurrency and blockchain market because we will see companies' and people's demand for cryptocurrency to be based on product, not just speculation. In 2019, that will be the norm."

With Simple Token, he strives to achieve what bitcoin couldn't — to have intrinsic value by making it useful for real businesses.

"There's a big gap between high quality and speculated tokens. Bitcoin led the revolution, but the value of bitcoin is just as much as the next person is willing to pay for it," he said.

"The value of Simple Token is the same, but three months from now, it will be the value of how many companies will be using it. They will purchase Simple Token to power their business. It's not just someone betting on something."

He compared the usefulness of blockchain to customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

"It's similar to companies that want to do CRM. They don't build their own CRM, they find the CRM providers. We're providing similar tools for the companies to be able to manage their blockchain implementations," Goldberg said.

Based on the ethereum platform, Simple Token plans to launch the alpha version of its main product in March, called Ost toolkit.

The entrepreneur likened his workers to those working at Google in 1999 when most people didn't realize the power of search but Google insiders did.

"Imagine for instance, working at Google in 1999. Knowing what you know now, you'd take the job at Google right away. That's what I feel the blockchain is at," he said.

"We are at the very beginning of an entire new revolution in technology and payments in monetary systems. There is a global phenomenon now where people have confidence in global currencies based on data and utility, not just on gold. It's a big shift."

Goldberg projected that a slew of businesses will be affected by the blockchain revolution soon.

"I think blockchain is going to have a very positive impact on almost every part of society. It's not going to happen overnight. It will happen and there will be cases where it doesn't make sense to implement blockchain," he noted.

"But then there would be cases where blockchain will completely transform and bring more value. It's like with any kind of development. There were news articles and magazine articles back in 1998 saying the internet was worthless and no one would use. We see what happened today."

The CEO expects some resistance, which he says is not wise for forward-looking people.

"Today, there's a lot of promise (for blockchain) and we need to deliver that promise. I'm a big believer. It won't have an impact on every part of society, but will impact a very large part of society," he said.

"Just like any transformation, there will be resistance. Whether its government, incompetent business, but its hard to stand in front of a speeding train. The progress will happen. In some places the progress will miss; there will be a great idea that people just didn't figure out, but someone else will come along and figure out something and cycles the technology and innovation."