Marc De Mesel is large capital investor in the crypto space who has recently caused a buzz by offering to buy out LTBcoin with NXT so that they could use that in place of the LTBcoin asset. While his attempts at negotiations were ultimately turned down, he hasn’t let it tarnish his optimism that he can get the outreach done that’s necessary to strengthen NXT.
So, Marc, tell us a bit about yourself. How and when did you get started in the trade of investing?
Marc: My introduction to investing came about at the age of 18. I put some money into a stock that ended up being a scam and thus dissolved that capital entirely. I suppose you could say I wouldn’t have been too keen on investing were it not for an inheritance from my grandfather.
The money had been left in the hands of a bank that was investing it under their own discretion. This might not shock some people, but the money was being poorly allocated, and even squandered. After 3 years half the purchasing power was lost in the dotcom bust.
From there I just had to pay attention to my money, otherwise it might all disappear. So after reading many books on investing I realized the banking system was at great risk of collapsing, and I turned back to my portfolio – investing it in physical silver, gold and mining stocks. Of course, my family and bank criticized me for this approach, but I ultimately ended up coming out ahead in the 2008 financial crisis wherein I only lost 10% of my capital, whereas most people saw a loss of 40%.
You know, it’s interesting that it was the bank that was largely responsible for your money being poorly managed. I mean, we deal in the world of crypto, after all, which has the potential to free people from the banking system.
Marc: Absolutely, my scepticism towards banks is what drove me towards gold. But the problem with gold is that eventhough in the long term it goes up equal to the real inflation rate of 6% per year, it can underperform for decades as well. This because gold has lost a lot of it’s function as money. It’s just an asset class these days that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.
So I ended up using and promoting the Permanent Portfolio, which is a diversified portfolio containing gold but also stocks and bonds. This was pretty stable but here the problem is that it is too complex for the common man, especially if you want to reduce counterparty risk. So when I saw Bitcoin, I first rejected it but upon further study I suddenly saw the light: this is decent money that has the potential to be simple to use for the common man, and solving all the problems of our current sick money and banking system: inflation is gone, and counterparty risk is gone as well.
Why have you chosen altcoins — particularly NXT — over a more stable and established crypto like Bitcoin?
Marc: At first, I was really against altcoins. I just looked at them and said “Look at these copycats! They’re just slightly altering the code and trying to earn a piece of the Bitcoin pie!”
But I started thinking about it and came to the conclusion that Bitcoin cannot be infallible. I mean essentially we’re just dealing with competing software companies in this case, and the risk of a 51% attack is simply too great. Statistically, it’s certain to happen.
I was first introduced to NXT through my brother, actually. He introduced it to me and its client. I hadn’t been sold on NXT at that point; I didn’t see how it offered many advantages over Bitcoin. Sure the code was totally new, the client looked original and they had a strong vision to decentralise everything, not just money like bitcoin, but also exchanges, communication, even facebook, but I thought it was overambitious.
However, once I started studying the underlying architecture of NXT, Proof of Stake and figuring out how this new system offered several big advantages over proof-of-work such as faster transactions, no inflation, much stronger security, and I saw how the market capitalization jumped from $1 million to $30 million in a very short time frame, I began thinking “Wow, this is a platform that could really go somewhere. I think it just might be the next Bitcoin, even.” So I did what any real investor does – I put the money down in the project I believed deserved it.
So what is the strongest feature NXT can bring to people? Why should others be trusting it with their time and money like you have?
Marc: While there are a number of strong points about the NXT project — the proof-of-stake, the asset exchange, the monetary system, decentralized messaging and so on — I think the actual strongest point of NXT is its safeguard against a 51% attack, combined with the scope of its infrastructure. NXT is at a very strong point, currently. The price has gone down, but the platform as a whole has become more robust in the past year.
That and the team now has a history of actually releasing updates. They’ve been shown to at least be capable of delivering -some- of their promises.
Marc: Indeed, and I’d also like to point out that the updates it has managed to produce have a great deal of weight in their significance once they’re understood.
For example, when I first heard about the NXT monetary system, I didn’t understand why it was being implemented. I thought it sounded incredibly redundant, almost like it was accomplishing nothing that the Asset Exchange couldn’t. Why would people need another crypto inside of NXT?
But then I thought of the whole LTBcoin situation and how the monetary system could help resolve it. People would be able to create their own currencies to their own specifications, without needing a direct tie to NXT in the same way an asset does. Sure, you need NXT to create the coin and it can be burned from the new form back into NXT.
Are there any misconceptions or stereotypes you would like to address about investors as a whole? I often hear people using the phrase “It’s more than just the money; I’m not in it for the money.” But the money is extremely important since it represents accumulated wealth, time and resources. Thus it’s key that it gets put into the right hands, wouldn’t you say? (Just wanting to give a little respect back to the community of investors which seem to get a lot of flak for doing what often turns out to be, socially, a pretty thankless job.
Marc: I love your question, because I think these stereotypes are part of what hold people back. Including what has kept me back in the past. So there are many stereotypes one has to overcome, about money, investors, greed, things along those lines. This allows one to become a true investor.
To me, an investor is someone who allocates their money to a project in a significant amount that will allow it to gather the other resources it needs to break out into a success. Because when it comes to launching a successful project, one can only really put down their time. An entrepreneur will do this through his physical labor and direct involvement with the technical proceedings of the work, while an investor puts down his time through capital (because wealth takes time to accumulate).
Both are taking risks and I feel it’s really worth noting that I hear this theme of “don’t invest more than you can lose” out there when advising others about buying into cryptos. This approach is simply nonsense if one wants to actually become an investor. It’s like telling an entrepreneur not to put any more labor and energy into a project than he can afford to lose. It sounds ridiculous when you put it that way because if he’s serious about his project he has to go all or nothing. He’s better off giving it everything than trying to trim and hedge – it just makes him more likely to fail and feel comfortable in backing down!
Also, anytime someone tells me “I’m not in it for the money,” all I hear is the opposite. It stands out too much. It’s as though they’re trying to mask their intentions with nobility and it’s just laughable.
I’m sure you’re not the only one that feels that way. However, it’s getting close to time for us to part. So, Marc, what’s your personal message to the world? avJNC-GmWhat’s the one thing you would want people to take away having listened to you?
Marc: Improving the world and improving yourself go hand in hand. Currently, I think investing in NXT is a step towards really improving the world because we really need something better than Bitcoin – especially given its 51% vulnerability. A security flaw that is known on a scale so large and is left completely unaddressed is something that simply cannot be accepted. NXT offers an answer to this and a lot more.
But this also relates back to improving yourself. If you want to build real wealth then you need to be willing to do things that most people are not willing to do. You have to give companies or projects your capital at the beginning when they really need those resources to take off. Projects do not need your money after they’re well into their development cycle and stable.
It might seem risky right now, but risk is part of seeing significant returns. Even more so when you’re aiding a budding space that may or may not bloom into prosperity. Remember, none of these projects will succeed unless we’re serious about them. People gave Bitcoin their serious efforts ever since 5 years ago and it has developed into a respectable platform. I’m here to give that level of seriousness to NXT so we can achieve something even better the second time around.
If you don’t take a significant risk, then you won’t make a large profit.
You can find more about Marc De Mesel and his projects at his personal Twitter (https://twitter.com/marcdemesel) and YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1WYajSaECI0VrnP97yNOYg)
