Hi everyone, I’d like to take a moment to introduce Sam Kazemian, Founder and CEO at Everipedia. Sam is a fellow UCLA grad, baus, and blockchain enthusiast. His company, Everipedia, is a crowd-sourced internet encyclopedia and knowledge base. We are very humbled to have him be our first interview on the site, as his insight sheds light upon the current blockchain landscape and provides an interesting story of one of its early adopters:

When did you first hear about the blockchain and what made you realize its potential?

I got into mining back in 2013 when bitcoin was just getting big for the first time. I was living in the UCLA dorms and apartments so electrical power was flat rate/free. So mining and experimenting with GPU and CPU based coins was becoming all the rage. I think I mined over 50 different coins in total just to check them all out and learn about the innovations that was happening in the blockchain. My favorite from that era was Dogecoin, Namecoin, Datacoin (RIP), and Vertcoin.

Tell us a little more about your mining setup and experience while at UCLA.

Back then, ASICs weren’t even a mainstream thing. The only ASIC chips were for SHA256. If you had GPUs you were a high roller. A lot of the coins were CPU only as well, so even GPUs could not mine it. A big thing around that time was Darkcoin (now rebranded as Dash to be not so sketchy sounding) and it could only be mined on a CPU. So basically my setup was just a bunch of CPUs and a few GPUs:

Which exchange do you use to trade, and how often do you trade?

I actually didn’t trade as often as you would think. I straight up mined in a multipool (or back then a popular one was wafflepool) and the payout was in BTC. A multipool is a pool in which the operator uses your mining power to mine the most profitable coin that specific day and then immediately trade it in for BTC and send you the payment after taking a cut. Very streamlined. I also mined Dogecoin straight up. I didn’t day trade as much as you think, I let the multipool handle it for me algorithmically.

If you had to be long in one, BTC or ETH, which would it be and why?

Neither. If you believe that cryptos will take over the world, then both are safe bets. If you are more cautious though I think that the 1000x returns have ended for BTC/ETH. If you didn’t get in on the train for BTC when it was $5 or $.50 for ETH don’t worry though! There are 1000x returns happening every few months. You just have to have a good eye. The next BTC/ETH is probably already in the works!

What’s your favorite alt coin and why?

Favorite altcoin is hands down DOGECOIN! Such wow. Very coin. I grew up mining that and currently hold millions. My love for doge knows no bounds. Even though I am working on Everipedia now, Dogecoin was always my first love. The dogecoin community is just so welcoming. Unlike anything else in crypto, Dogecoin is where the memes start.

Explain technology behind it as you understand.

It’s more about the community, memes, and fun than the technology. But dogecoin itself is extremely secure, fast, and has a lot of cool technology coming to it like Lightning Network and Dogethereum.

What is your suggested number of alt coins to choose for a crypto fund?

However much you have the stomach to hold. Altcoins are pretty iffy. EXCEPT FOR DOGE. DOGE will be $1/coin in a year or two.

What is your view of Proof of Stake versus Proof of Work?

Proof of stake is actually a new consensus paradigm that is becoming quite trendy in the cryptosphere recently. The basic premise is that proof of work (the way bitcoin is mined) is extremely cost and power inefficient. To reach consensus on the bitcoin blockchain (and any proof of work based chain) a lot of power must be burned/used in electrical costs to secure the chain. The point of proof of stake is to virtualize the consensus process and save a lot of power and resources while still keeping the chain as secure. I personally think the most interesting project currently being undertaken that is going to use proof of stake is Tezos. The other blockhain I am really excited about is EOS.io led by Dan Larimer and Brock Pierce. They have potential to truly overtake ethereum once their product is released. I don’t hype stuff too often, but these guys are extremely legit.

Why do you call Proof of Stake Proof of STEAK?

Proof of stake is far more lucrative of a mining algorithm for big cats so the STEAK is much larger.

Will the Ethereum hard fork be good/bad?

The Casper client (the name of the update that is supposed to switch ETH to proof of stake) hardfork is still a long ways off, if it ever even happens. But once it happens, it will change the entire ethereum ecosystem forever. No one really knows how it will go. I am really hopeful about it though! Vitalik is the smartest person in all of crypto so if someone can do it right, it’s him.

What would be the main advantages of say, integrating the blockchain into Everipedia?

Steemit revolutionized the way that people are rewarded for contributing content to a social network by rewarding crypto to users. We want to take this model and apply it to a wiki encyclopedia. This is the approach we are taking to design our current ecosystem. We will likely build a unique token that lives on the Everipedia platform. Editors will be able to reward writers and content creators that produce reputable and useful information on the Everipedia platform.

Thanks again Sam for joining us for this interview and shedding light upon what’s going on currently in the blockchain community. We hope you all learned something from this baus, and if you haven’t already, check out Sam’s wiki.