MGR Unplugged

When it comes to crypto, I'm sure a lot of you have seen the acronyms FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) mentioned in a variety of articles.   None of them is new though since they've also been used in the past when referring to any type of speculative stock investment for a long time.  Only now with Crypto's growth and volatility in the news every day, both types of 'fear' have resurfaced stronger than ever.As with any other type of investment, the key is researching and acquiring enough knowledge to understand the pros and cons of this relatively new asset class. But even more important, is the fact that no matter where you decide to invest your money, you need to be able to sleep well at night.  Any investment that stresses you out and/or causes you sleepless nights is probably not good for you.One thing is certain.  No investment is 100% safe, and much less any investment in crypto assets.  However, neither is any investment in fiat currencies subject to uncontrolled inflation, fluctuations in value, and government manipulation.  Think of Decentralized Financing as a new way to complete transactions and a new asset class that it's still in its infancy and with a lot of room to grow.  The same FUD and FOMO was common when the Internet came into our lives three decades ago.During the Dot Com bubble, a lot of poorly run companies failed right away, and many other companies with solid leadership and fundamentals became the FAANGS that have now become part of our everyday lives.  If I told you just 10-15 years ago that you would have to enter your credit card information on a website to book a flight, pay a medical bill or buy groceries , you would think I'm crazy.  Today, you can't go about your life without doing it several times a day.I hope you enjoy our conversation.Want more?Subscribe to The Edge eComm Digest and receive weekly news directly in your INBOX >Check our other stuff out too: The Edge  Instagram  Facebook  LinkedIn  Medium  Twitter  MGR Agency Website This episode is brought to you by MGR Agency. Scaling marketing for leading digital brands.If you liked this episode, please share it with your friends.  If you REALLY liked it, please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform.  Thank you for watching or listening!

In this episode:David and I go over our opinion on what caused the crypto crash this week.  But above all, we put it all in PERSPECTIVE.  That's our keyword for this episode.Bitcoin (BTC) reached an all time high at $64,829.14 in mid-April, and during this week's crash, it lost as much as 40% in value in just a few hours.  Ethereum's token (ETH) suffered just as much if not more after dropping to around $2,000 per token from an all-time high of $4,382.73 set earlier this month.And of course when two key players plunge, the rest of the players in the crypto neighborhood suffer just as much.  But here's where Perspective comes to play...Despite the recent drastic drop in value, over the past six to eight months, the value of Bitcoin has more than quadrupled since lurking around $10,000 last September.  By the same token (pun intended) if you look at the price of ETH in September 2020 it was around $325.  Now, AFTER the crash, it's trading at around $2,800 as I type this.  True, it's not the $4,200 from a couple of weeks ago, but still, I would take this 8X gain in 9 months anytime, anywhere.  That's PERSPECTIVE.It is also worth mentioning that during this period, major financial institutions including Goldman Sachs, National Bank of Canada, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, as well as major hedge funds and other public companies including PayPal and Xbox, are adopting cryptocurrencies as part of their assets class or offerings.If you're just a casual trader trying to make a quick buck over the past few weeks with all the free money received from the government, chances are, you've lost it all and then some more.  However, if you're a long term investor with a proper strategy, even after this crash, you're still much better off than you were just 10 months ago, and definitely much better than if you had just parked your money in a traditional savings account.What goes up, must come down.  You just need to plan for it and make it part of your game plan.  At the same time, not all crypto currencies, exchanges, protocols are created equal.  Solid protocols will survive these types of crashes and come back stronger.  The weakest ones, will just disappear and rightfully so.  It's no different than any company surviving a recession or becoming a victim of it.So, there you have it.  It's crypto.  It's volatile.  Get used to it.Want more?Subscribe to The Edge eComm Digest and receive weekly news directly in your INBOX >Check our other stuff out too: The Edge  Instagram  Facebook  LinkedIn  Medium  Twitter  MGR Agency Website This episode is brought to you by MGR Agency. Scaling marketing for leading digital brands.If you liked this episode, please share it with your friends.  If you REALLY liked it, please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform.  Thank you for watching or listening!

In this episode:Why SNL has lost its mojo, so much so, that even Elon Musk's appearance can't help bringing it back.  His performance was OK and according to Nielsen, the show's ratings were third highest this season, just below the ones hosted by comedians Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle in terms of ratings.But if the show had a boost in ratings, Dogecoin price went in the opposite direction. Dogecoin’s price dropped from 66 cents to below 55 cents during the show, and fell to 43 cents in the hours following the program. Musk mentioned Dogecoin by making fun of the cryptocurrency, and even his mother, Maye joined the fun. “I’m excited for my Mother’s Day gift. I just hope it’s not Dogecoin.”Meanwhile, on a more serious (or maybe not) note, Elon Musk also announced on Wednesday that Tesla won't accept Bitcoin moving forward.  This just 3 months after Tesla announced that it would begin taking Bitcoin as payment.  Why the back pedaling?"We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel," Musk said in a statement posted to his Twitter account.   And by the way, it was also three months ago when Tesla also said at the time that it had purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin (which it plans to keep).  Needless to say, that caused the typical overreaction in the Crypto market with most crypto currencies dropping in value around 8-10%.  Haven't we seen this movie many times before?Moving on to Amazon news, we know that this year's Prime Day will be sometime in June.  When?  We don't know yet.  But sellers are starting to get a little anxious since they need a few weeks to prep and ship their inventory.  But not all sellers will be around for Prime Day 2021.  That's because Amazon has suspended several top Chinese sellers accounts and their products have all disappeared from Amazon over the past few days.  At least eleven accounts that originate from Greater China were suspended, according to Juozas Kaziukenas, founder of Marketplace Pulse.Among others, Mpower and Aukey were two of the most successful brands native to the American marketplace.  According to Kaziukenas, the total gross merchandise value (GMV) of the suspended accounts was over a billion dollars to Amazon.Amazon didn't comment on the status of the suspended accounts, but said in a statement for TechCrunch that it has "long-standing policies to protect the integrity of our store, including product authenticity, genuine reviews and products meeting the expectations of our customers. We take swift action against those that violate them, including suspending or removing selling privileges," said an Amazon spokesperson.Want more?Subscribe to The Edge eComm Digest and receive weekly news directly in your INBOX >Check our other stuff out too: The Edge  Instagram  Facebook  LinkedIn  Medium  Twitter  MGR Agency Website This episode is brought to you by MGR Agency. Scaling marketing for leading digital brands.If you liked this episode, please share it with your friends.  If you REALLY liked it, please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform.  Thank you for watching or listening!

Decentralized finance—DeFi—refers to the shift from traditional, centralized financial systems to peer-to-peer finance enabled by the Ethereum blockchain.  The replacement of financial intermediaries with automated digital contracts, is a big deal today with around $76 billion in assets locked up on Ethereum alone. From stablecoins, to lending and borrowing, to prediction markets, margin trading, payments, or insurance, the DeFi ecosystem is growing at an incredible pace.A paper released by Netherlands based ING Bank last month titled “Lessons Learned from Decentralised Finance,” carefully weighs some of DeFi’s pros and cons.  ING blockchain lead Herve Francois recently pointed out that “DeFi could be more disruptive than Bitcoin to the financial sector,” adding that the crypto-friendly Dutch lender has the ecosystem in its sights. According to Coindesk, "there are at least 2 million wallets that have interacted with DeFi protocols. So that probably means something like more than a million individuals, maybe even close to two? It’s very hard to say, but it is also worth noting that sometimes individuals participate in DeFi via third parties. So while some users hold many wallets, it’s also true that some wallets represent many users."The site Crypto Fees has been tracking usage fees charged on different DeFi applications. The top DeFi applications it lists (Uniswap, AAVE, SushiSwap and Compound) show a seven-day average of daily fees collected ranging from $1 million to more than $4 million. If there’s one kind of finance that everyone understands, it is borrowing and lending.  While traditional financial institutions are offering close to zero yield for your savings, DeFi represents a much more credible narrative with more substantive businesses because it shows products with genuine returns and provides a way for people to earn impressive yields on deposits rather than losing the value of their money due to inflation. But as all things investing, there are also associated risks that every investor should know about.  So, be extremely thorough and careful and only invest in DeFi after completely assessing all potential risks.Finally, on a lighter note, we chat about the Phoenix Suns making the play-offs for the first time in ten years!  Not only that, but as of this recording, the Suns have the best record in the NBA.  Take a screen shot of that and mint it! :-) Want more?Subscribe to The Edge eComm Digest and receive weekly news directly in your INBOX >Check our other stuff out too: The Edge  Instagram  Facebook  LinkedIn  Medium  Twitter  MGR Agency Website This episode is brought to you by MGR Agency. Scaling marketing for leading digital brands.If you liked this episode, please share it with your friends.  If you REALLY liked it, please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform.  Thank you for watching or listening!

In this episode:So Facebook has just quietly announced that they will be canceling Facebook Analytics in June, allowing advertisers two months to gather or download any past reporting data before it disappears.  Why is this (or is not) big news?Well, for professional marketers, Facebook Analytics was pretty much useless.  What started as an attempt to match Google Analytics, ended up very much dead on arrival.  Reporting was so simple that you couldn't make any use of it.  While Google Analytics keeps improving on a regular basis, Facebook Analytics was stuck with the same old and very basic reports that had little or no use.But the more relevant issue is that the disappearance of Facebook Analytics is just one more sign of how the new iOS14 privacy requirement imposed by Apple has affected the second largest online advertising platform.  The issue has been debated to death since Apple made the initial announcement in June 2020.  Since then, Facebook has fought hard (and unsuccessfully) to convince Apple to reverse this rule.  But the new policy is here to stay.If you're interested in Facebook's own opinion about this policy, you can read it here. Of course, Apple's side is completely the opposite caring most about its users privacy and their ability to choose what information they want to share with any of the apps.The bottom line is that advertisers and marketers are going to need to adjust their strategies to account for the new policy.  The accuracy of their audience targeting will decrease and more likely the revenue generating by their ad campaigns on Facebook/Instagram will also decrease accordingly.  To what extent?  Only time will tell but so far, it's not looking so good for Facebook.Finally, we shift gears completely to cover briefly what the new Uniswap V3 means in the crypto world.  For reference, Uniswap, is the leading decentralized exchange (DEX) on Ethereum and a centerpiece of the $42 billion decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. David delves into some of the details but the key change, as outlined in the new white paper, is what Uniswap is calling “concentrated liquidity.”“In this paper, we present Uniswap v3, a novel AMM (Automated Market Maker) that gives liquidity providers more control over the price ranges in which their capital is used, with limited effect on liquidity fragmentation and gas inefficiency,” it states.The lead author of the white paper was Hayden Adams, Uniswap’s founder, and three other members of the team. It also includes Dan Robinson of Paradigm, the VC fund led by Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam.Want more?Subscribe to The Edge eComm Digest and receive weekly news directly in your INBOX >Check our other stuff out too: The Edge  Instagram  Facebook  LinkedIn  Medium  Twitter  MGR Agency Website This episode is brought to you by MGR Agency. Scaling marketing for leading digital brands.If you liked this episode, please share it with your friends.  If you REALLY liked it, please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform.  Thank you for watching or listening!

David and I share with all of you a topic that we discuss frequently: how to keep your crypto portfolio safe by diversifying your storage solutions.

COVID-19 One Year Later - Where are we now? We see a bright light at the end of the tunnel. NBA playoff predictions and more!

We're fascinated about the growth of NFTs and the thousands of dollars that people are paying for them. Is it a good investment? Or is it just a new bubble about to burst?

Tesla moves Bitcoin to a new high. We explain a new way of Blockchain managed ownership in the form of NFTs.

Manuel and David share their thoughts -and even argue- about what's the best strategy to deal with Facebook's and Google's Learning phases, and what's the best strategy to advertise with a limited budget.

The GameStop saga is looking for a villain, but so far, hedge funds are losing. Will this be the time when small retailers can finally take control of Wall Street?

Bitcoin is very volatile, get used to it. Should social media platforms be decentralized? and the NBA is struggling to keep the season going with COVID cases increasing, but the Harden trade dominates the news.

So it's been just one week in 2021 and we've started the new year with a Bang! Not necessarily the right type of bang, but we still believe that everything we'll just get better moving forward.

Join Manuel and David as they take a look back at 2020. A year to forget for many reasons, but at the same time, a year that has taught us a number of valuable lessons. Some of them, will change the way we approach our lives forever.

Is Bitcoin rise for real or a remake of the 2017 bubble? If you're planning on cutting the cord in 2021, do the math first as streaming video wars and pricing options keep changing. And more companies and individual are leaving California. Happy Holidays everyone!

Facebook is sued and this time is more serious. DoorDash and Airbnb go public. We don't like the former, we prefer the latter. And the NBA season is about to start, while Formula 1's weirdest season is coming to an end.

A review of Black Friday - Cyber Monday sales numbers show how Amazon remains the leader of online sales. But we wonder why consumer spending is so high when all other economic indicators point to an upcoming recession.

If you're an NBA fun, take a listen as we cover the good and the bad of the 2020 NBA draft, trade rumors and our predictions for the upcoming 2020-21 season.

With the elections behind us, we shift our focus to the upcoming Holiday Season. The 2020 holiday season will be one like we've never seen.

Since we can't yet talk about the actual next POTUS, we spend some fun time going through the other winners and losers of the 2020 elections. Lots of comments to share.

An overview of Blockchain, Bitcoin and all things crypto. What you need to know and understand if you're on the fence between thinking that cryptocurrencies are risky and fear of missing out.

From big losses (Quibi) to big profits (Snap and Tesla) we cover why some companies are dead on arrival while others persist and succeed.

Amazon Prime Day exceeds expectations, iPhone 12 fails to impress, 5G is not what you would expect, and supersonic flights are on the way back.

We're approaching the busiest retail months of the year and this year, eComm tactics are more important than ever. Amazon Prime Day is around the corner kicking off a Holiday Shopping Season unlike any other. Join our chat.

After mocking Joe Biden about his large masks, President Trump tests positive for COVID-19. Life goes on and so does Amazon Prime Day. Netflix will raise subscription rates soon and nobody cares.

TikTok's deal is full of contradictions, the most anticipated presidential debate, Quibi is still a bad joke, movie theatres struggling and Tesla laughs at Nikola's troubles.

Wings for Warriors founder Anthony "Doc" Ameen joins me today to chat about life and the challenges of fighting an invisible enemy. How to remain positive through challenging times.

A preview of the Holiday Season. Which retailers will survive? COVID can't kill Santa, and GM bets on Nikola Motors... and the NFL is back!

It's Labor Day Weekend. We take a quick look at the latest tech news and updates as this strange summer comes to an end.

Bjorn Bengtsson is back and more creative than ever. He opens up to share with you his visual and spiritual journey so far in 2020 as well as his plans for the future.

What's wrong with California? More Americans are leaving California than ever before. We cover some of the reasons... and it doesn't look good for the future of the Golden State.

Should the government continue to bail out the USPS? Has the pandemic been the final nail on its coffin and how will their struggles affect the upcoming election if mail-in ballots will be massive? We also chat about the NBA and how Uber and Lyft are having a hard time in CA.

The NBA "Bubble" is better than expected. Microsoft in negotiations to buy TikTok while Facebook Launches Instagram Reels. All that and more in this episode of MGR Unplugged.

Anti-trust questions prove that Congress is serious about this topic. But in the meantime, the same tech companies keep reporting record profits. Shareholders are happy. Congress is not. Life goes on...

The airline industry is in trouble unless they can fill their planes. Parents don't know if their children will or should go back to school this fall, and retailers are considering canceling in-store Black Friday sales events and replacing them with eComm options.

This time, is Twitter that is in trouble. We discuss the recent hack of high-profile Twitter accounts, was it an inside job? Then we move on to the situation with the USA and Global economy. Manuel ends with his Rant of the Week.

In this episode, we discuss the banning of TikTok in India, Hong Kong and possibly soon in the US. Each government claiming that it's a matter of national security. Walmart launches its own Prime service. Plus David's "Rant of the Week."

In this episode, we go over our predictions for the second half of the year. The first half has been... well, not what anyone expected when we rang in the New Year six months ago. So let's try it again and ring in now the second half of the year!

Join Manuel and David as they talk about the Future of Livestreaming: The Most Important Battleground No One is Talking About. And how will livestreaming shape the future of social commerce?

In this episode, we cover the new partnership between Shopify and Walmart, retail sales growth in May, online advertising costs keep increasing and the EU wants to tax American tech giants.

Today we discussed where we expect eCommerce to be headed for the rest of 2020 and into 2021, then we discuss the fall of retail and malls, and we finish with our thoughts on what we think will happen to universities in the near future.

This past seven days have exposed a harsh reality in America. Join Manuel and David as they go over the events that followed the murder of George Floyd as a result of police brutality, and how we can learn from this as a nation.

Manuel and David get into an animated conversation about the latest Trump executive order against Social Media channels censoring content. They continue discussing the disconnect between main street and Wall Street and they end with a round-up of the sports making a come back.

Lots of news this week in the eComm world. Join Manuel and David as they cover Facebook's new Shops announcement, Shopify's Reunite News and Joe Rogan's huge move to Spotify.

Join Manuel and David as they cover the latest eComm and business news, including a Quibi (not so good) update, Facebook's new hurdles, movie theaters survival moves and more!

Join Manuel and David as they dissect the latest events in our new economy. Who's doing it right and who's failing miserably to adjust to the new Coronavirus social distancing and contactless lifestyle.

Join Manuel and David as they talk about Shopify's new Shop app. Facebook's big bet on India, and finally, they get into a heated discussion about why so many restaurants are victims of their own lack of planning.

Join Manuel and David as they cover the latest news regarding US unemployment, stimulus packages, the road to recovery, which industries will have the hardest survival and what governments around the world are planning for the post-pandemic life.

Join Manuel and David as they project how would the gradual reopening of America's economy affect our lives, how air travel may change in the future, and all other aspects of our lives. We also discuss Quibi's launch. Will it succeed in the streaming media wars?

As the pandemic number of cases keeps growing and we're all getting impatient, we discuss Trump's press conferences, biased journalism, politics, economics, and everything in between.

Manuel and David have a casual conversation reflecting on the past 30 days, since COVID-19 become a serious part of our lives. From conspiracy theories to the crude reality of what America and the world is facing today and how it is affecting our lives.