Anthem Hayek Blanchard And Austin Davis Of HeraSoft On Security In NFT And Blockchain, Plus: WazirX NFT Marketplace, Chicago Physical NFT Gallery, Paragon NFT Fragmentation +
Security breaches are a major concern in many industries today, especially now that most work is done from a home-based setting. NFTs aren’t exempt from the concerns, and blockchain security is often under the microscope as well. In today’s episode, our hosts Eathan Janney, Jeff Kelley, and Josh Kriger are joined by Anthem Hayek Blanchard, the CEO of Hera Software Development and Anthem Gold, and Austin Davis, the Chief Revenue Officer of Hera Software Development. They discuss personal and network security and why it is very important in today’s fast-paced digital world. They also give us a look at HeraSoft’s Enterprise security solutions and how they work. Plus, we’re treated to a discussion on the present and future of NFTs and how they will impact our life and commerce well into the future.
Chad Koehn, president and founder of United Capital Management, said he was referred to Blanchard by a friend for a software build he was doing, and became impressed with the security solution like gamification solutions, enterprise security, finance solutions.
This episode features guests Anthem Hayek Blanchard and Austin Davis of Hera Software Development Incorporated. The zero-failure, ransomware-proof, enterprise software solutions company. It helps to solve the world’s toughest enterprise and cybersecurity finance, gamification, and logistical challenges. Anthem is Cofounder of HeraSoft serving in-house public blockchain software stack, Hercules, gold-blacked cryptocurrency company AnthemGold Inc., and Cofounder of precious metals dealer Anthem Vault Incorporated , gamification solutions, enterprise security, finance solutions.. He was raised by legendary goldbug and precious metals pioneer James U. Blanchard III, who helped restore American’s right to own gold and also founded Blanchard and Company. One of the world’s largest rare coin and bullion companies.
His passion is empowering people to manage their crypto portfolios and understand the joys and pitfalls involved in the space. Austin is Chief Revenue Officer at HeraSoft. He is also Cofounder of CommunityElectricity.io and other tech ventures. He also began dabbling in the NFT space many years ago. Building prototypes and hosting community and educational events in LA related to new token standards, such as NFTs. He holds Advanced Degrees in Engineering, and Austin is also a strategic advisor to tech companies, such as CasperLabs, HeraSoft, and MeWe.com. He’s an avid entrepreneur with proven experience and passion for efficiency, driven tech, and renewable energy solutions to benefit all humanity.
Great bios, guys. There’s much more that we had to trim, so the readers shall know that you have a lot of cool stuff going on and we’re happy to dive right into it.
Good to see you guys. Austin, it’s been a minute since we both have seen each other in LA. Where in the world do you live these days? Are you in LA when you’re not traveling to the Middle East?
I’m over the place. I’m bicoastal. I’m on the East Coast a lot these days with my family. I’ve got a little one. I’ll be in LA, so maybe we can see each other. I was in Dubai with Anthem. He’s over there still right now. I don’t know he’s been going on a world tour, but we both travel quite a bit.
Hello to our Dubai audience. You guys might get a kick out of the fact that at one point, we were number 38 in show and technology and Dubai. We hit the radar at some point. Maybe our audience will get excited about this episode as well.
Within the first few weeks of our launch at that, so very exciting.We’ve talked about your friend’s background already, and there’s such an interesting story behind the evolution of HeraSoft and the work you’ve done. We understand it spun out of AnthemGold, which is the cryptocurrency that allows you to buy gold with blockchain technology. How did that transition happen? What was the inspiration?
I appreciate it again. Thank you very much, guys, for having me on the show. It’s a pleasure. It was a lot of luck. I was adopted into an amazing family that became pretty legendary in the gold business. My parents, one of their claims to fame was helping to push for the relegalization of gold ownership in the United States, which was illegal for 40 years and became relegalized again in 1975. My parents were responsible for founding and building the world’s largest gold coin and bar retailer named after my dad, James U. Blanchard III, and company gamification solutions, enterprise security, finance solutions.. They sold it to GE Capital many years ago. That was my basis. My dad passed away in 1999. When I graduated college at Emory in Atlanta in ‘02, I looked at our estate’s portfolio and took a liking to a digital gold currency company called GoldMoney.com. It was a fledgling startup under $500,000 metal.I got to spend six years there and it was an awesome board secretary, director of marketing strategy, product, help with audits, accounting, and client service. It’s an awesome experience like a utility. That gave me some good experience as it turned out into cryptocurrency “public protocol.” My wife and I founded our precious metal company, Anthem Vault, years ago. We started developing in this public protocol technology that the Bitcoin founders created years ago. It’s been quite a long run playing in these tools. From there, we started building gold, stable coins, prototypes like Reuters credited us with building the world’s first gold token a few years ago as a marketing tool.
In 2017, we built an inventory log anchored into Bitcoin. That is 100% public protocol. We created our own public protocol layer called Hercules that serves like an index, a library, or a very basic operating system. We serve the solution to governments and companies. What it does is it provides them with 100% uptime ransomware proof and guaranteed data integrity to the level of Bitcoin. Obviously, with the news, JBS meatpacking, the world’s largest meat processor getting cyber hack colonial pipeline. It’s getting cyber hacked that our reserve is going. Now, the publicity is out there. The world knows about it. It’s impossible to hide these attacks anymore. It had been happening exponential rates for a couple of years and every day gets more so. As Bitcoin and cryptocurrency get more valuable, one of the repercussions is that the bounties that you can extract from ransomware and denial of servicing systems for example, gets exponentially greater. It’s something to understand.
Security is quite an issue these days, especially with their ICS double ends of the spectrum. There’s a theme in our culture, especially since the early 2000s of being open and sharing. We’re all creating profiles and all these sites, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and all these different places. At the same time, not only is there more of a need for security but there’s also a different set of culture that is all about being more secure with things. It’s almost even more difficult these days. In general, outside of the specific rounds that you deal in, any thoughts on how an individual or their business as they’re growing their business, how they might manage their security?
I’ve got some basic tips for that I still correct people all the time even people that have been in this industry for many years. Never use your real cell phone number, especially not on your email signature. A lot of people still have their actual cell phone number and email signature. You might have multiple cell phones in that one. You don’t have any attachments to any real email accounts or bank accounts or anything like that, but most people do. The easiest way to your wallet, whether it’s a bank account or a crypto wallet, is through your phone number gamification solutions, enterprise security, finance solutions.. SIM swap is a huge problem. A mutual friend of ours, Michael Turpin has a notorious case with AT&T for, I believe, $200 million. He’s selling them. I’m not sure if that closed or not yet, but at any rate, it’s a big problem in the industry.
Don’t broadcast where you live. Your address is sacred. You never want people to know where you live and if you can avoid it. Some people live in the same place they work and they have meetings there. That’s unavoidable. Basic things like that. Use different email accounts for everything. Don’t use the same password for anything. I know that’s hard, but there are ways to manage it. There are platforms that help you manage your passwords if you trust them but some of those have even been breached. The best way would be to come up with your own password system and have different passwords for everything and save storage of those passwords offline.
Austin, that’s great advice and putting that in the context of NFTs. We want you to have in the show because security is not a sexy topic when it comes to NFTs. Everyone wants to talk about the cool stuff that NFTs can do, but the reality is there are real security issues here that both consumers need to address and enterprises that are building this cool stuff with NFTs. Any addendum you would add to the basic set of advice? You’ve got NFTs that are in closed systems like NBA Top Shot, where what you shared is very relevant. What about NFTs that live in the open space that someone has in their MetaMask wallet? Any extra precautions that you guys think of when you think of NFTs?
Specifically, the MetaMask. How safe is your computer like basic way if someone can get into your computer? Potentially, they can get into your MetaMask wallet and transfer that in NFT out. MetaMask and webtrees systems have been breached as well in the past. They’re not foolproof. They’re a lot more secure than other things, but they’re not 100% foolproof, especially in this industry where you have people reviewing code all day long looking for these loopholes and tanking projects or accounts and draining things gamification solutions, enterprise security, finance solutions.. Luckily, there are funds to replenish the coffers sometimes like with finance. They’re notorious for replenishing when a project gets hacked and drained if it’s in their ecosystem.
I would say be as cautious as possible with your computer, your phone, and anything that you’re clicking through with those devices because you are the weakest link, even if there are no code flaws that people can hack or anything like that. People can certainly easily be hacked. It’s always you, that weakest link. Be cautious of what you click on and where you store these things. Don’t store them all in one place either. Traditional is very simple gamification solutions, enterprise security, finance solutions.. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Don’t put all your NFTs in one MetaMask wallet. You can create 1,000 MetaMask wallets on different devices if you want.
This issue gets more complicated now that we look at the intersection of NFTs and defy. Every day, there’s a new project coming out and we’re pretty excited. We’ll have some guests on the show talking about collateralized loans against NFTs, both physical, digital assets, and fractional NFTs. The idea of loaning in NFT adds more fuel to the fire at the end of the day.