Hello and welcome back to Investing After Hours — our Wealth Daily podcast dedicated to helping everyday investors navigate major investing trends. Our team of experts has specialized knowledge in a variety of investing methods.
And we broadcast this knowledge from our office above the Baltimore harbor.
I am your host Alexandra Perry, the research director at Wealth Daily.
Welcome to Episode 25: “Paul Walsh Talks Cybersecurity and the Future of Digital Currency.”
Today, Paul Walsh joins us to talk about cybersecurity and also the role it’ll play in the evolving blockchain and digital asset market.
Walsh is the founder of the MetaCert protocol. He has many years of experience in working with trust- and security-related web-based startups.
Walsh and the rest of the team at MetaCert are busy meeting one of the biggest needs of the digital currency market: protection against scams.
Whether investors realize it or not, scams are a big issue in the digital currency space.
Over $9 million in digital currency is stolen every day. Why does this happen? Well, as amazing as blockchain technologies can be, they also provide the perfect platform for scammers.
The world of blockchain technology is fast-paced and largely profit-driven with little regulation. So, scammers often take advantage of this environment. They lure in investors with fraudulent websites and aggressive marketing schemes. In this kind of world, it’s almost impossible for an investor to tell whether a link they’re clicking on is safe or not.
And then there’s the added danger of digital currency-specific phishing scams.
Your typical phishing scam is when an individual receives an email, call, or message on a platform like Telegram or Slack that solicits personal or sensitive information. In the digital currency world, phishing scammers ask for passwords, wallet information, and even actual digital currency.
Over the course of 2017, scammers who execute these kinds of scams have increasingly moved onto messaging platforms. On these platforms, scammers send fraudulent links that imitate websites of initial coin offerings (ICOs) to trick people into sharing their wallets.
These kinds of scams not only put investors at risk but also undermine the integrity of the channels that blockchain startups use to communicate.
These risks have made it hard for investors to engage in the rapidly evolving blockchain space.
But Walsh and his team at MetaCert hope to put an end to all that.
The MetaCert protocol is a game-changing technology that allows users to protect themselves against fake news, fraudulent websites, and other online dangers.
Both individuals and companies can use the protocol to provide an extra layer of security.
Recently, MetaCert launched its new cryptocurrency-focused browser extension: Cryptonite. You can download and use Cryptonite on Firefox, Chrome, and Opera.
If you want to learn more about the MetaCert tool, click here to visit its website.
MetaCert is also launching its own utility token that would be used within the MetaCert Protocol. To learn more about that token, you can engage with the team inside its Telegram community: t.me/MetaCert
If you’re relatively new to the world of digital currency, make sure to check out our “3 Digital Currency Red Flags” resource page.
We also mentioned in our podcast that we would include a report that explained the difference between utility and security tokens. Click here to access that report.
Paul Walsh
Paul Walsh is an Irish entrepreneur with many years of experience in working with internet businesses and cybersecurity. Over the course of his career, he’s helped to launch many renowned developer communities internationally on behalf of Vodafone and Telefónica.
Walsh began his internet career at AOL. He joined in the early ’90s when the company was still a small startup. He was also the company’s first technical accounts manager and international beta coordinator to be hired outside of the U.S.
In 2003, Walsh founded a software-testing and -compliance company called Segala. Segala later became the first software-testing company worldwide to join the GSM Association (GSMA).
Since then, Walsh has filled many roles. He was the chair of the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) for three years. He was also the British Council’s advisor on its Digital Pioneer program with Hong Kong and to its Creative Entrepreneur program with India. And he was instrumental in the creation of many internet and mobile standards at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Today, Walsh’s vision is to make MetaCert the open security protocol for the internet by relaying trust and reputation information about domain names, applications, bots, and crypto wallet addresses. The protocol’s registry is machine-readable and query-able for use by internet service providers (ISPs), routers, crypto exchanges, Wi-Fi hot spots, mobile devices, browsers, websites, and applications to help in addressing cyber threats. These threats include phishing, malware, online brand protection, child safety, and news credibility.
Alexandra Perry
Alexandra Perry is Wealth Daily’s research director and an associate editor of Technology and Opportunity. She also recently launched a new digital currency- and blockchain-focused website, called Token Authority. The goal of the website is to provide investors with the tools and knowledge they’ll need to take part in the fast-paced and evolving digital currency market.
She has multiple years of experience in working with startup companies, primarily focusing on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, alternative energy, and biotech. Her take on investing is simple: A new age of investors can make monumental returns by investing in emerging industries and foundational startup ventures.
