It would seem that cannabis and blockchain are wrong for each other. However, there are examples of a symbiosis between the two seemingly incompatible phenomena. Each of them is remarkable in its way as they are both changing our lives, though cannabis has a much longer history. While being known to humanity for thousands of years through its various uses, innocent and not so innocent, cannabis is making a comeback in the US and Canada due to the sweeping legalization of its use for both medicinal and recreational purposes.
All in all, there are 33 states where the medical use of cannabis is permitted by law, 18 states allow its recreational use. There is still a long way to go to make cannabis use legal in the rest of the states. It’s a big question when—if ever—cannabis will become legal on the federal level and descheduled. Despite the slow progression of cannabis legalization the cannabis industry’s growth as a whole has been spectacular, especially in the two COVID years as the pandemic has taken its toll on people’s mental health which lead to the spike in the medical cannabis use. The global cannabis sales are expected to rise from $13.4 billion in 2020 to $33.6 billion by 2025. Though the cannabis industry is rapidly growing, it is still in a quasi ‘gray zone’ and one of the hurdles to its further expansion is the limited access in the US to the traditional banking services. Here is where the symbiosis with the newest blockchain technology and crypto money kicks in.
One of the trailblazers in this area is Eric Benz, a serial entrepreneur with an impressive 15-year record in various businesses, from finance to crypto; he strongly believes in blockchain’s potential to spur the cannabis industry growth.
Among Eric’s accomplishments is the position of CEO of Changelly, a crypto trading platform, and that of a partner in up-and-coming MYNT.vc. Parallel with this, he made investments in and consulted many other cutting-edge business projects. His recent pivot to the cannabis industry is the testament to his acute ability to sense business opportunities ahead of others. As a result, Eric is leading the creation of CannaDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization. DAOs are internet-based businesses that are owned and managed collectively; they don’t have CEOs or CFOs and all business processes are controlled and verified by a code. Business decisions in such an organization are governed by proposals and voting of its members. Hence, the level of trust DAOs ensure is unrivaled.
CannaDAO will also launch its governance token, $CANNA, a tool whereby members will be able to participate in project management and have a say in determining new cannabis growing opportunities, vote on proposals and approve funding. In a nutshell, the DAO will allow the community to participate in and earn rewards from real-world cannabis industry operations. CannaDAO’s launch is scheduled for 3rd Quarter, 2022. The project management team expects the organization’s Total Value Locked (TVL) to top $100 million in the next 6 to 18 months, a parameter that measures the sum of all assets deposited in the CannaDAO’s decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols earning rewards, interest, new coins and tokens, fixed income, etc.
Eric also plans to popularize cannabis and its many uses beyond the medical and recreational ones. Hemp, the cannabis plant’s fiber, has been known to man for thousands of years. Whereas archeological excavations in China give proof to the use of hemp seeds as a source of protein as long as 6000 years ago, another discovery shows Koreans sported clothes woven from hemp fiber some 5000 years ago. In Medieval Europe, hemp was used to make cheap armor (thick hemp rope was sewn on top of a coat) that could withstand a sword strike. The era of printing began in 1456, when the famous Gutenberg Bible was printed on hemp paper, the first ever printed book. In 1619, Georgetown residents in America were ordered to grow hemp, to mainly make ropes. These are just a few amusing examples of hemp use; the list could go further.
The old—cannabis—and the new—blockchain—will now coexist all thanks to Eric Benz, who has spotted the synergy that can bring the cannabis industry to a new level. You can learn more about Eric and his take on crypto’s role in today’s economy by watching this Youtube video. To stay up to date with the launch of the revolutionary CannaDAO and all of Eric Benz’s innovative future ventures, visit the CannaDAO website and follow Benz’s Twitter.
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