From the Road: A Blog of a Crypto Vagabond

Episode 10 – Scott Sibley with SHAmory

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

bill deignan, elsa ramon, scott sibley, shamory, Blockchain, learn, kids, card, game, bitcoin, crypto, people, technology, money, awareness

SPEAKERS

Elsa Ramon, Bill Deignan, Scott Sibley

Elsa Ramon 0:02
Hi, everyone, welcome back to so what about crypto and welcome back to Billy you guys didn’t know but Billy was on a really nice vacation. He really needed some time off. Well, you worked really hard weekend. I’m sorry, weekend you were working before that and you’re back from a really fun nice relaxing weekend and ready to go

Bill Deignan 0:21
needed that,

Elsa Ramon 0:22
oh, everybody needs that more than ever. But you know i if you’ve been listening to our podcast, we’ve had some great people on to talk about the basics. And we’ve talked a lot about money and, and financial system, our financial system and taking looks at other countries and how things are operating there. And some leaders have some emergent technology that’s designed to really help us all and level the playing field

Bill Deignan 0:52
and trying to simplify it, you know,

Elsa Ramon 0:54
and I’m really, really trying to break it down because there are a lot of podcasts out there who were People on there are so very technical and, you know, way above my paygrade that, you know, if you’re really like a technical junkie, these podcasts are for you. We’re really trying to appeal to people who are just, you know, dipping their toes into this space. And, you know, we don’t want to scare him away with a bunch of technical stuff. And I think it’s important that there are many different ways to learn about Bitcoin blockchain and the whole everything that comes with it,

Bill Deignan 1:29
hopefully, so earning by losing it.

Elsa Ramon 1:31
Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s a tough lesson. But yes, we’re trying to prevent that. But I got an email from a founder and CEO who has created a game and it’s a card game that helps people do just that. It helps people understand blockchain a little bit better and Bitcoin and how things work and and some of the terms you may have heard when you’ve heard other people talking about it or read about it in the news. Things like blockchain and and immutability, and hacker proof and just all those kinds of terms that you hear with it. Anyway, he sent me an email and told me he’d created a card game. And it helps people learn and I thought, This is great. I love this because this is the way you reach people and then, you know, everybody learns different ways. And I think he has come up with a unique and fun way to help people learn everybody. Please help me welcome Scott Sibley. He’s the founder and CEO of summary,

Scott Sibley 2:37
dice. Hi, everybody, thanks for Thanks for having me. And for that great intro.

Elsa Ramon 2:42
Of course, because life is all fun and games. You hope witness very,

Scott Sibley 2:50
very much so and hopefully this game goes a long way like you said to kind of laying the foundation of awareness and education and fun attended the day. Yeah.

Elsa Ramon 2:58
Oh, of course. And And I always like to know, I mean, we’ll definitely talk about the game obviously. And I would I want people to take a look at it and and I gotta tell you, I watch the video, so I need some help learning it. But what I always we always like to find out like what you did in your old life before you got into blockchain and crypto in this whole space?

Scott Sibley 3:21
Yeah, so, good question. It’s one I’ve actually thought about a lot over this period of time. And really, if I think about it deep enough my synergies back to blockchain, Bitcoin. And that kind of realm of things actually goes back by, I guess, trade for lack of better words. I graduated with an accounting degree and worked at a accounting firm and their audit department for three or four years back in the early 2000s. And obviously, that was before any of anybody had any idea what Bitcoin was because it hadn’t been invented yet. But if you really think about it, my job as an auditor was to go into these companies and you say Verify that their accounting records were correct or not correct. And also, based on my work, be able to allow somebody coming behind me to verify that what I’m saying is correct. So when I really think about it, it’s kind of a long way to say, you know, in the early 2000s, before anybody idea what it is, that was kind of ingrained in the back of my head to the importance of that verifiability and trustworthiness of what you’re looking at, whether it’s numbers or anything else, but if I fast forward from there, my story specifically kind of starts like a lot of other people in that last Bull Run, pulled me in just like a lot of other people. It was the numbers going up, not only in Bitcoin, but everything surrounding it, getting sucked into the good and the bad of that. And then what I like to think of is, you know, unlike a lot of other people that may have been pushed away after seeing what these past two and a half three years have brought. It just kept consuming more and more into wanting to learn. Okay, yeah, I came in here. focused on a lot of different you know, there’s different coins and whatnot but let me understand Bitcoin better. And as I took that, that rabbit hole dive, then I kind of saw the light more and ultimately, and we get more into this started saying well I want to I want to help that education process be as easy as possible for the next generation especially the kids. So this game can be for kids or adults, but especially those kids who may be interested

Elsa Ramon 5:25
right i i love it it the simplicity of the game you created. I don’t care if it’s your kids I I need it explained to me like that explained to me like I’m seven.

Scott Sibley 5:37
Do you say the name of this game? So it’s Sean Murray. And so it actually comes from the two key things that as a created the game made it come to life. So the SHA 256 cryptographic algorithm is what powers the Bitcoin blockchain. Don’t worry, you don’t need to know anything about that in order to play, but that’s where the SH j comes from. And then Maury actually comes from the A memory. So I’m sure all three of us played the game of memory at some point in our life. And that’s really as simple as the game is really a reformed game of memory, that creates blocks to be able to then, you know, create your hashes and build it up and go from there. So those are the two key components of the game.

Bill Deignan 6:18
I think sevens would love it because I know when my kids were like two and three, they beat the heck out of me on these card games.

Scott Sibley 6:25
Yep. Now we’ve had the the feedback you know, I started pre selling in April and shipping in early July. So it’s only been a few months. But the the feedback from kids and parents that have started to play has been overwhelming as part of the only appropriate words just hearing people say different things that their kids are learning not only about Bitcoin and blockchain, but just about things that they need to learn in life in general, has been just really, really cool to see around the world.

Elsa Ramon 6:54
You know, it’s really I love hearing from people, especially people who Have some kind of background in finance, accounting, because those people like you had a grasp or have a grasp on how the economy works, how taxes work, how Wall Street works, and I feel like when those people who are on that side, kind of see what is offered on the other side, when you go down that rabbit hole of learning about blockchain and Bitcoin I just love hearing their stories because it’s it’s like two different worlds but you absolutely get it and see why the way we’ve been living so long. And what we’ve perceived about our economy isn’t always what what we thought it was. Right? So I love to hear that people like you who you know you were immersed in that life and people like that and You get it? Um, so you said you initially got into bitcoin because you know, there was a for people learning there was at one particular bull one run, which was what late 2017?

Scott Sibley 8:13
Yeah. So December 2017, or I guess that was kind of the internet and early 2018 and then right, hopefully picking back up now.

Elsa Ramon 8:23
But from there back then, but, you know, some people got into it because of, you know, money, they saw the dollar signs and they think, Oh, I’m gonna make the money. And you know, if that’s the only reason I think once they get a taste of the volatility and what, what they could lose, some people just make the exit and go back. It’s not for me, but there’s so much more to it than that. And it’s obvious that you saw that even after maybe not successfully surviving financially through the Bull Run, like many people, so when did you actually start thinking Do I need to create something to help people learn?

Scott Sibley 9:05
It was probably a little over a year ago now a year, year and a half or so ago when I said, You know, I want, I don’t know, if I necessarily started with, I want help with the learning side. But I said, I want to be involved in this industry in some way. And then, besides having that accounting background, what my role has been for the past 1213 years is actually been at an edtech company. I’m here in San Diego that I still work at as my full time job, currently, and so I have kind of that background in the education space as well, not only from that, but my mom was a 30 plus year teacher, I have aunts and uncles that were all teachers in the kind of traditional k 12 system. So I come from a lineage where education in some form isn’t in my background. And so I saw through the work that I’m doing in my day to day life, around the product that we’re working on is called journeys mapping. It’s all about bringing awareness of career pathways to individuals, and just the fact that first step is awareness, and how powerful that awareness can be to make sure that that individual can then figure out what’s next for them. And so I think all that combined into me to say, Well, you know, I like taking things that are complex and making them as simple as possible, which is the attempt at this game. And I like helping people become aware of things without having to worry about kind of the minute details of everything, because those things are really can cause the biggest hurdles. So, those factors, let me say, you know what, I want to create something along those lines. And then the game went through, you know, probably 510 different types of iterations. And it wasn’t it the real clicking moment came from the fact that when you’re thinking about Bitcoin mining, which I’ve never owned a minor I’ve never mind myself, but just as I started learning more about it, I boiled it down to two things. There’s something called a nonce, there’s something called a target. If those two things sync up, then the block gets mined. And that’s when it clicked in my head like, well, you’re matching a nonce and a target. That’s no different than flipping over two cards in memory. And then, like, essentially, the game was born from there.

Elsa Ramon 11:16
Ah, so I was just gonna say, how does one decide that? That’s it. It’s a car game. Yeah, uh, you know, I mean, cuz I don’t know that if I was forced into a room and the door locked and somebody said, You can’t come out to create a game that that would even happen. Oh, I mean, so that was your kind of aha moment that Yeah, with the game.

Scott Sibley 11:39
Yep, that was that was really the aha moment. And then it went through different iterations even after that from everything from gameplay to, you know, the way that the cards look through that time, and so it was in February, March or so of this year that I actually had the graphics and everything lined up and started going through the production. And then obviously COVID made that take a little bit longer given everything that went on around the production, manufacturing world but long story short we, it came to life.

Bill Deignan 12:13
At the cards look like a lot of fun like, we were kids would have fun with this, you know? Yeah. But you know, I love that you are a stem certified. Yep. game. How did you go about getting that done?

Scott Sibley 12:26
Yeah, that that was something I was really proud of as well. And so actually, it was a nice happenstance where, through my my job at journeys map, we got connected with the CEO of stem.org, which is really the largest certifying organization in the space. We were talking about other jobs stuff, but then brought up he brought up the fact something around blockchain in general and I weaved into the conversation that I just created this game at the time it hadn’t even been out yet. And he’s like, oh, let me you know, that might be something we can do. certify, you know, pass along the information. Probably about a after passing along what they needed, right took three or four weeks. And one day I was you know, sitting at the computer, got an email saying it went through I got I got certified The cool thing is actually they store all their credentials on a blockchain themselves. So to kind of help that verifiability so it was a nice kind of synergy there as well.

Elsa Ramon 13:24
Oh, wow. Well, that makes sense. Yeah. And I did not I didn’t know that. That’s awesome.

Scott Sibley 13:28
Yeah, it’s really, really cool. And so hopefully, while I’m not, I haven’t pursued this just yet. Hopefully that stem certification can help kind of open the doorways into the more traditional learning spaces that you know, probably aren’t even touching Bitcoin or blockchain yet but kind of help them see how it can play a role in whether they’re school or after school program or a STEM Academy. The options are endless.

Elsa Ramon 13:53
So is it difficult to get that stem certification? I mean, I know it’s a source of pride and it absolutely would be But I would imagine that there are quite a few people developing products who want that. Yeah. coveted endorsement.

Scott Sibley 14:10
Yeah, I guess, knock on wood, it was, I’ll say was easy for us. Or for me know why that was maybe I just had the right information or just kind of hit the the right nails on the head. But it was a pretty smooth process for my end they certified not on the games, but also if you’re a teacher, you can be certified. If you’re a school, you can be certified. So they’re kind of three different main buckets that I can place people or other types of things in and kind of help that process. They’ve been around since 2000, I believe, doing this sort of work.

Bill Deignan 14:44
So what about what do you find? Like, have you had anybody play this like, say an adult and like, they get it and then suddenly like, Oh, I gotta go buy some Bitcoin.

Scott Sibley 14:58
So I would say I don’t know. I’m getting Yes, I’ve had that exact comment yet. Probably mostly because so far, I would imagine the majority of the people that are buying it right now, already have the coins and maybe your studies saying, I see reminding me to go buy some more, but I have heard over and over again, particularly from the parents is saying, you know, this is the first time my kid has like, understood even a little bit of what I’m talking about, and has been engaged with it. So I’ve had multiple people send me DMS or tweets or emails saying, Hey, I was just no joke. I was just upstairs working in my office and I could hear my kids chanting Bitcoin, Bitcoin over and over again. And I came downstairs and they’re sitting there playing the game.

Bill Deignan 15:40
I know my son is the really the only child of mine that has expressed an interest. You know, when he was 10 years old. He started asking me a bit about it. Yeah. And he was usually at a point in time where I’m like, I just don’t have the time to really explain it. I felt like I needed to sit down and show him some something on a computer or something. Yeah. And so I really didn’t take The opportunity, but I’m looking forward to trying this to see, you know how they get it? Yeah. But what ties it together with the implications of you know, like, why do I care for a kid for instance?

Scott Sibley 16:14
So I think there’s a few different lessons that I’ve come about from all this some that I never even thought of. So one thing that has been told to me by a few different parents is and this isn’t necessarily specific to Bitcoin, but just kind of really life in general. Yes. He was saying he had a, like a seven year old and 11 year old and the seven year olds, a boy and the 11 year old girl, and the seven year old boys are naturally very competitive, and then would get upset typically, if he’s, you know, playing a game and he loses, you know, the typical story. And he said, he sat down with the kids, and they were playing for the first time and the dot they ended up successfully completing the game, so they mined the blocks to the appropriate amount of wood and the daughter ended up having the most recent At the end of the day, and that really, you know, upset the son. But what then happened, which he didn’t expect, is the second time they played, the same sort of thing happened. But the son realized, wait a minute, just because she got four rewards and I got three doesn’t mean she won. It just means she got more than me. But we’re all winners because we’re all in this together to make sure the block the block chain doesn’t get attacked, because if it doesn’t get attacked, then we’re all winners. And then the dad took it one step further. I think at the time Bitcoin is around 10,000 which I guess is around there today. He was like, hey, you’re right. That’s awesome. And just think of this you have three those three rewards are worth you know 6.25 Bitcoin each and then multiply that by three and then multiply that by 10,000. That’s really what you just won by successfully doing this. So we’re all winners here. And so that that lesson is one I think is awesome. But I had never even thought of before putting you know, putting The game out that I thought was just super cool. And I’ve heard it from a few different people.

Bill Deignan 18:04
Yeah, that’s when the kids went on Alexa in Boston.

Scott Sibley 18:07
Yes, exactly.

Elsa Ramon 18:10
Yeah, by the way, the guest room is now a fully operational facility. It’s really

Scott Sibley 18:15
loud.

Elsa Ramon 18:17
So, I mean, speaking of mining, this game, if I understand correctly, is specifically about Bitcoin mining. I mean, and the importance of learning about mining and everything that comes with it with as far as the safety and security of a blockchain and why it’s important.

Scott Sibley 18:36
Yeah, I guess that’s one way to put it. I guess before that, I would even say the game is simply about Bitcoin awareness. And then bringing that about through the aspect of mining is how it kind of comes to life. I don’t expect especially for the younger kids to actually necessarily know everything that’s going on from a technical sense. They just need to know the gameplay, and hopefully that’s laying the groundwork for knowing. Oh, maybe It’s two years from now. And maybe it’s 20 years from now, who knows, but something in the back their head clicks and says, I remember doing this back when I was five. And now it’s making more sense to me. I was on a show a few weeks ago, and the two people on it were in their 60s and they said, You know what, I’ve never understood the way mining works in the simple until you explained it as simply as you did. So I think you can go from both ends of the spectrum for the young and the old, where the old might take it that next step and say, Okay, now I know that little underlying basic maybe I want to go you know, pick up an article here or a book there or watch a video, you know, over here, maybe that’s the next trigger for them to to really dive into the technicals of what’s going on because I’m by no means an expert on that side of things, but hopefully I can I can be the rabbit hole starter.

Elsa Ramon 19:48
Whatever inspires us, right? People to at least, become curious enough to try to learn more. Yeah, speaking of parents, so you said you know, 60 year olds down to seven year olds You know, everybody, or I shouldn’t say everybody, but a lot of people in this space say, if you can explain this to my grandparents, and they get it, then you know, that’s that’s how we have to break it down, break everything down to make our grandparents understand. What did your family say to you, your parents, your grandparents, if they’re still with you, you know about this whole venture because my parents think I’m nuts.

Scott Sibley 20:29
I’m sure there’s a little that even if they’re not saying it, like basically, my family included. So I have. I have a wife and we have a little over one year old. And so she’s obviously not old enough to play yet. But one thing that’s been awesome as a sidetrack the way the cards are kind of created with like you mentioned the little characters. She finds them completely fascinating. And just love looking at them will came around in her hand. So in my mind, that’s another way to spread that awareness from a young age but Both my wife, you know, going back, you know, three years ago when I said hey, I want to invest some of our money into this crazy space, letting it ride through and see where it goes. And then, you know, year year and a half ago when I had this idea, she’s been extremely supportive, especially now helping to do the packing and every time we get an order and and making sure that those are getting packed nicely and sent out to everybody, and then my parents have all you know, enjoyed hearing about what’s going on listening in on on podcast learning more about it, I would say my dad probably knows the most from a more technical finance perspective. But both my mom and my stepmom you know, are extremely supportive and I do have a grandma she’s 97 and she was one of the first orders to be to get sent off. And so there is that support there. We’re not trying to have her go down the rabbit hole necessarily, but always nice to have your Yesterday’s turn 97. So, your 97 year old grandpa holding something around Bitcoin is is awesome to see. So I’m gonna challenge you here, we’re showing your video on screen. And I’m going to scrub through it. And let’s see if it within a minute, you can explain how this game works. Okay, so I know you can go kind of slow on the video Yep, to explain it. But so there are the two key things, the nonces and the target cards. So what you’re seeing here is within those nonces, you’re going to select a difficulty adjustment. And that’s going to be set down there along with the other regular nonce cards and they get set down just like you’re playing memory. After that, you take your target cards, and you’re gonna place them to the side. And then from there, there are four other cards. I’m not sure what order I show them right, there we go attack, which really is what’s gonna attack your chain reward block. And those kind of set the stage for everything as well as the dice. Essentially, what you’ll see here in a second As you roll the dice, once you roll it, there’s two different things that can happen. Either you mine or you get attacked. The goal is to find the matching of one that I just flipped over there. So that’s the target. If I roll a mine, which is a different character, there we go. I’m going to flip over when those cards, I don’t find it next player rolls by do find it, things get matched up, and you mind that block, which you’ll see here in a few minutes. That’s going to start creating your chain. If you were to roll and attack, there we go that the match there, there’s the block. Ultimately, if you’re rolling an attack, that’s going to start building on the side of your chain. If that gets longer than your blockchain, and any time the game starts over, everybody resets and essentially the game ends. The other notion there is every time you don’t see that, yeah.

Bill Deignan 23:43
Oh, there it is.

Scott Sibley 23:45
There we go.

Start bonus. Exactly. So that’s starting to build up in there. The other caveat that’s built in there is there are difficulty adjustments that got skipped over but that makes the game a little bit harder as you go along. And essentially every time you mind something, you get a reward. I mean that that’s that’s the end, you go to a height of 10. So there’s, there’s a 51% attack. There’s those rewards.

So that that’s the quick and dirty version. Yeah.

Elsa Ramon 24:12
Well, yeah, I okay. And I was just telling bill, it’s like, I watched the video and I was trying to follow along and slowly learning. But I guess it’s just like anything where you could learn all you want out of a book. But until you start doing it and putting it in practice, that’s when you really get to learn, you know, we take Driver’s Ed, we learn all the rules of the road. You know, we read everything in theory about what it’s like to drive, but until we get behind the wheel, yeah, that’s when you really start

Scott Sibley 24:44
learn. And other people have even said, I’ve had people say, Oh, you know, it’d be great if this is, you know, and there’s an app version or a digital version, which I think it can be a definitely there’s ways to make that happen. But I purposely started with the physical card version because I wanted to bring up sense of real to a heavily digital space. And so kind of to your point, you know if you can hold something, and a lot of times that helps kind of set the stage for understanding and more. So that’s, that’s part of the reason why I went down the physical card game sense instead of just creating another app, that part would probably get lost out there in the, in the various app stores and go from there. So that was part of the reason roundup fun for the whole family. Hopefully, yep. So what’s next? Um, are you going to? Are you thinking about maybe creating other games to cover various aspects of the space? Yeah, I think there are definitely other game ideas, but I’ve had people ask for extension packs, so ways to you know, make that chain higher. So that’s obviously a simple one to go out there. Based on the reception of the way the monsters look on the cards, both from younger kids and just really adults just thinking they’re cool. There are ideas around You know, the ways that this can be turned into books around Bitcoin shows, whether it’s you know, YouTube shows or whatever those ideas are out there, you know, plush toys is another way I know my daughter would love that. So those are all cards. Exactly. All those different ideas are out there as well as one of the things that I hope to see come to life, especially hopefully as the pandemic eventually ends and conferences and more face to face aspects come to back to the world is around how the game can be used as a tool for other companies in the space for their marketing or swag purposes. So I’ve had conversations with with a few of them around now, being able to put their you know, a gift from XYZ company on the card, the card box and using it to to give to prospective clients or at a conference and, and really studies show when, if you’re a parent and you’re going to a conference, you’re you’re more apt to take something that you’re gonna be able to bring back to your kids and be more excited about Then just getting another pencil or pen that’s out there. So that is another aspect that I’m interested with in connecting with people about.

Bill Deignan 27:08
Awesome, awesome. Now to me, the next question becomes, what’s next in the journey for people to learn more like, as an extension of this game? Like, where does it end? You know, you’ve got obviously who wins the game or not let’s play again. But is there an extension of it that can say, Well, now you’re gonna go learn about you know, name your name your, you know, issue like exchanges or Yeah, you know,

Scott Sibley 27:35
I can I definitely have thought of building up kind of that more. Let’s call it educational space on the website, where whether it’s through articles or videos or just simple ways to be able to help answer some of those questions in a very basic way. I know there’s obviously a lot of great content out there already.

Bill Deignan 27:53
A troll and

Elsa Ramon 27:54
yeah, keep the little monsters.

Bill Deignan 27:57
Exactly. The Twitter troll

Scott Sibley 28:00
Under this NOFA no doubt. Um, so yeah, I think that’s a very logical question that can come into play as well.

Elsa Ramon 28:07
You know, though, you said there’s a lot of great content, but really, there’s also a lot of really bad content to you. And that that might not end up teaching people what they had intended when they find it. So it’s it’s nice to be able to break it down in ways that people can really understand without becoming so technical about it. I imagine that some of the feedback that you get from people yeah, doesn’t scare them away. Not even the little monsters.

Scott Sibley 28:39
Yeah, exactly. No, definitely. That’s definitely part of the feedback. And from, like I mentioned earlier, just part of the thing that’s blown me away is just how it’s taken hold it really around the world. You know, I would say probably 40% of my orders have been international orders. And so whether it’s, I had one from Ghana Australia, you know, gone Australia, the UK, London, you name it different ways Venice the other day. So it’s just kind of seeing that spread like that it has been really cool to see.

Elsa Ramon 29:16
I don’t remember but when I looked on your website, is it translated for

Scott Sibley 29:20
people in other countries? It’s not, not currently I have randomly had had people reach out saying, Hey, you know, I’d love to translate this for for XYZ and I said, No, that could be part of it eventually. Right now I need to focus on this version and get it getting it out there and, and gone up in those different areas. The good news is really it’s a very visual game. So the majority of the translation would probably really need to be on kind of the the gameplay rules and the website and and how you play since so much of it is just really a visual nature. Once you understand that.

Bill Deignan 29:55
love to see a video of like three or four kids playing this.

Elsa Ramon 29:58
Yeah. Oh yeah. That’d be great. Yeah,

Bill Deignan 30:03
you’re drunk College Student

Scott Sibley 30:06
Yes, I’ve had a bit also I’ve had people say hey, when’s there going to be the first high stakes version? Yeah, like conferences you know instead of playing poker at Bitcoin copper just sitting around playing shomrei and so see

Bill Deignan 30:19
String strip schommer

Elsa Ramon 30:21
Yeah, we don’t want those videos.

Scott Sibley 30:24
Keep those after

Elsa Ramon 30:26
dark shomrei after dark Yes,

Bill Deignan 30:28
no forking.

Elsa Ramon 30:31
Oh my we could go on and on.

One of the things we owe and I talked to you about earlier about how you are already kind of in the world of accounting and finance and all that kind of stuff. Did it ever cross your mind before you came down the rabbit hole and started exploring Bitcoin and blockchain that are Kids and not even just our kids, US everyone needed much more education about how our economy works, how finances work, and, you know, investing and all that kind of stuff because I think, personally, I had one economics class, it was in 10th grade. And the only thing I remember from that class are supply and demand, the rules of supply and demand. And the there’s no such thing as a free lunch. That’s it, those things I remembered from that class. And then I went on to become a living major at UC Irvine. So I didn’t have to take any economic classes, but I, I mean, that was it. That was the extent of my learning. Did you feel as someone in that space that people really need that this needs to be taught in schools and better understanding of it just as a regular part of the curriculum?

Scott Sibley 31:58
Yeah, and I mean, even definitely Yeah, even as someone who was in that that world for for a handful of years and obviously going through college studying forms of of that I would even say for myself. It’s never enough and there’s not enough taught in that sense I have ever I remember to this day one of my favorite parts of being an elementary school, maybe you guys had it too, for the day when they came and kind of set up the the fake town or city at your school and you all had your different roles and you’d learn how to balance a checkbook, which sounds crazy today, and kind of go off and you could spend X amount. If I think about my entire learning of kind of how money works, that’s what stands out the most, which is probably crazy. And

Elsa Ramon 32:41
just it’s not that that’s great. It was a wait for you guys to learn at that age. How to really manage things we didn’t back in my day. We didn’t. We didn’t. We didn’t have that at all. Like I said it was one economics class that I chose to take in 10th grade and as an elective And that was it. I mean, there was no other attempt to teach kids from an early age how to manage these things on their own or to maybe become business owners or entrepreneurs or anything like that.

Bill Deignan 33:12
You know, we have we have that here in our school district, and it’s a joint venture with ja or Yeah, Junior Achievement. And it’s a fantastic facility like the sixth graders all come for a day. They have like literally a little city built with all these businesses, businesses and storefronts. Yep, in each group of kids has their own business and they have to operate it, they have to take money to the bank, they’ll get alone all these things. And so I volunteered with it when my daughter was in sixth grade, and then I went back in the when she was in the eighth grade. And then it was a separate section where it was more about home finances. And they had to manage their own home finances, and some of them were assigned a profile where they were poor, and they only had so much money and they had three children and they were Single or some of them were married with no kids and made a lot of money. And they had to navigate that. But the problem and it was just absolutely incredible. I was so impressed. But what was sad was they only got like four hours. And it still didn’t sink into them. And I was like, man, they need to do this for like a whole week. Yep. Because it’s so important.

Scott Sibley 34:20
So finance park in this town, is what you’re talking about.

Bill Deignan 34:23
Yes, it was amazing. I was so impressed with that.

Scott Sibley 34:25
Yeah, so slightly. This could be another tangent. But actually, the journeys map is the company with my full time job. We’re actually working with the local j and revamping their finance part starting the finance park by leveraging some of the tools we’re building there and potentially moving that national so that could be weaving its way into sites that your daughter’s went to as well ultimately, so I’m very familiar with that world as well.

Bill Deignan 34:50
more kids go in there but I also figured out was they The teachers are supposed to have done some advanced training Yep, with the kids before They get there. And I found that a lot of them really didn’t do it.

Scott Sibley 35:02
And that’s really what you find whether it’s j related or just in general. The teachers don’t always take that initiative to make them fit all the time. They also a lot of times, sadly, they don’t have the expertise, right. Yeah. Because they went through the school systems and had the same trajectory that many of us didn’t, we just didn’t get that kind of attention. She has important issues. It’s not fair for them. If you’re saying, you know, cybersecurity is one of the most looming fields, not only in the United States, but across the world. But there’s not a sixth grade teacher out there who knows what it’s like to be a in that field. So it’s really not fair to the to expect them to be able to teach that or even bring awareness to it to their kids. Yeah.

Elsa Ramon 35:49
Yeah. I mean, when when my kids I have a 16 year old daughter and a seven year old son, and the 16 year old she was already aware of digital currencies. in Bitcoin and had basic understandings of peer to peer activity, when I started to get involved in this in 2018, my son just hears me talk about it all the time. But if, if this comes to his school or my or my daughter’s school or there are a there’s an opportunity for them to get involved in a program separately, like this, like you were just talking about, I would sign them up in a heartbeat. In fact, they’d be hit to find out that I’m going to be in that class too. It’s never too late to learn about that. I mean, I was lucky I stumbled across blockchain and Bitcoin and really became aware of things that I had no clue of, on both sides. Yeah, when I learned about it, but I, you know, that that’s those are important life lessons, too.

Scott Sibley 36:49
Ya know that. You said it very well. And the lessons you learn on the web, you never expect when they’re going to happen. So kind of grab a hold of them when they do and see where it takes you. You

Bill Deignan 37:00
will tell us where people can find you. And yeah, exactly, they can get this game.

Scott Sibley 37:07
So it’s up. Yep. So the website is shomrei, calm sh a MLR y. So you can find it on there all the video that we played earlier other information and whatnot, you can order right on there worldwide shipping. So whether you’re here in the States or anywhere else, we can get it to you. I did make a discount code for all of your listeners in case they’re interested. So if they want to get Oh, thank you, no problem. They want to get 10% off, and the promo box, they can drop in Elsa 10. And I mean, that’ll give them there we go. That’ll give them 10% off. So feel free to use that to your heart’s content. So there’s that we’re most active on social media on Twitter. So play shomrei is the games handle. I’m also on there at Scott and Sibley. So whether you want to reach out to either of those, like engaging so I will for sure get back to you and and answer any questions or hear your feedback or ideas or whatnot. Those are the best ways to track me down.

Elsa Ramon 38:07
All right, terrific. Scott, I really want to thank you for joining us today. And I’m very excited to learn about your game. And I’m excited for my kids to start playing it when I forced them to. But I really think that they will end up liking it quite a bit. And it’s something for all of us to do together. You can think of it that way the family the entire family can learn

Scott Sibley 38:31
that exact time. Well, I appreciate both the adomian and the kind words and I look forward to hear what it’s like after you guys play a few rounds.

Bill Deignan 38:38
Yeah, I’m gonna do a drinking game version.

Elsa Ramon 38:41
Oh. Perfect. One will resonate with the adults. Yes. Are the college kids you know, shamari beer pong edition. Just throwing it out there. Just Alright, it’s got Scott, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. And thank you very much.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai