Growing and selling weed can be extremely lucrative, however, FDIC laws have made it illegal to deposit money made from selling weed into federal banks. This forces sellers to either keep large amounts of money, or to deposit their money into cryptocurrency.
Due to the dangers and issues that come with keeping their money out of banks, many weed farmers choose to invest in cryptocurrency. This gives them a chance to have access to all of their money at all times as well as giving them access to financial opportunities that aren’t possible outside of crypto.
We will be talking about a lot of new ideas and concepts in this article, starting with some background on the technology that makes crypto so incredibly expensive. There is a new way for marijuana smokers, farmers, and crypto developers to work together to create community driven farms. Finally I’ll share an exclusive interview I got with a man who is on the cutting edge of cryptocurrency/marijuana technology!
Blockchain Technology publicly stores information in sections called “Blocks”. Once a block’s storage space is full it automatically opens a bridge and connects to another block. This new block now becomes the one where information is stored. Each block is connected together, which gives it the name “Blockchain”. Once information is stored on a block it becomes public knowledge and, while later updates can be made, the original information can never be changed.
Image Credit: B140970324, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
This allows growers who invested in cryptocurrency to track all of the information and conditions of their marijuana plants and would give consumers the ability to see when the weed they’re smoking is planted, what chemicals and fertilizer is used, how often it’s watered, and when it was harvested.
One of the best ideas coming out of the crypto space is a DAO ( Decentralized Autonomous Organization). DAOs allow people to hold a piece of a community treasury, like stock, that they can use to vote on ideas that members of the community propose. This is all made possible by smart contracts, or contracts that have been made into code so that the agreements written on them happen automatically. These agreements are kept track of with the use of blockchain technology!
This open sourced, community run style of business allows for groups of growers and farmers to invest in themselves in order to fund a farm/ warehouse without having to bring in outside investors. Not only that, but the grow community would be able to track all of the information to share with the people that they’re selling the weed to in order to ensure quality and transparency.
Interview with Anonymous Programmer:
- This individual specializes in Cryptocurrency DAO creation and has programmed multiple DAO systems for communities of marijuana growers.
- He has also helped in the development of tools that use cryptocurrency to allow individual people to act as their own bank, without having to deal with FDIC regulations.
- The constant marijuana and cryptocurrency policy changes in federal and State law make his work with marijuana communities in a gray area.
- It is because of these factors that he would prefer the interview to remain anonymous.
Q: can you explain a DAO?
A: a dao is a governance system over an underlying asset that allows anybody who is a holder of said asset to have a voice of the production, community, and development.
A tool used for governance of a business, agenda, or party based on an underlying asset.
Q: How can DAOs change the weed industry from a community perspective?
A: Transparency. The ability for the consumer to benefit from the growers.
Our consumers can get rewards from DAO as well and get a better experience and a more direct way to give feedback. This will help the grower better understand what the customer wants, in order to ensure they’re growing the most sought-after strains each season. It also opens the door for growers to be fully transparent with product tracking and analytics.The consumer will be able to see exact data on the plant they’re smoking ( such as when it was planted, what soil it was planted in, how much sunlight it was given, and when it was harvested).
Q: Is product tracking and analytics naturally a part of DAO or is it an added aspect?
A: Product tracking and analytics isn’t naturally a part of a DAO, but can be added relatively easily. You could add any aspect of information to the DAO. It really depends on the underlying asset that DAO uses( what cryptocurrency is used to govern the DAO). If DAO uses a tracker to track growth of plant/ life cycle to say when/where it was harvested and grown then that information can be easily accessible to the members of the DAO.
The main part of the DAO is that consumers have a say so in the development/ growth of weed. Brands then have access to this consumer information ( in a much more in depth way than just sales information). This also gives brands a more trusting relationship with their client base built on ethical transparency and efficiency.
Q: How easy is it for farmers to start up a data focused DAO?
A: Ease is really relative, it depends on the know-how. You’d need general programming/ crypto space knowledge that would take about two weeks and someone else to create the underlying asset; it really wouldn’t be too difficult at all. Product tracking technology is already readily available to farmers; the only part that needs to be done is for the farmer to connect those resources to the open sourced code of the DAO.
Q: Is it easy for a legitimate marijuana company to switch over to this
A: pretty easy given their budget. Just need to hire crypto specialists and developers. Most geo tracking stuff is already available so nothing is really groundbreaking and already occurs independently for companies. Even just using basic cloud services these companies could drastically improve their customer satisfaction and interaction.
Q: This has really been eye- opening, thank you for taking the time to be interviewed.
A: Of course! Thanks for thinking of me, don’t hesitate to reach out for any more interviews on similar topics.
Benjamin Manet has dabbled heavily in cryptocurrency over the past 24 months and has found losses and repeated successes through both short and long term investments. He enjoys spending time in nature as well as traveling.
