Kasta Co-Founder Carl Runefelt joins Yahoo Finance Live to detail how the company was created to mitigate expensive fees when using cryptocurrency for smaller transactions.
Video Transcript – 2021 is shaping up to be another breakout year for crypto, as a DeFi movement picks up steam, and fintech evolves to integrate crypto assets with traditional assets.Kasta is helping customers send crypto around the world instantly and for free.And for that, we have the Kasta Co-Founder with us right now, Carl Runefelt.And Carl, thank you for joining us today.
And let me just ask you about your company here.
Because a lot of people have a lot of crypto assets right now.And they’re not necessarily fungible.But it seems that the payment space, the interoperability space definitely evolving here very quickly.
CARL RUNEFELT: Yeah, hello.
Thank you so much for having me on.
And yeah, so Kasta is my company.I am a Co-Founder.And I guess the reason why we started Kasta is because of the fact that gas fees, transaction fees in crypto have been rising in the past few years.And that has been a big narrative that people feel like crypto is becoming something that only whales can take part in, especially when you’re using the Ethereum network, or other networks, where the gas fees can be sometimes even higher than the actual transaction in the first place, which is a little bit absurd when you’re thinking about it.
Yeah, if you want to buy a cup of coffee, there is very, very few options out there.And if you want to use Bitcoin, then you’re going to have to pay probably $2 or $3 to the network for buying a cup of coffee.And obviously, a coffee is usually like $5.
So then you have to essentially pay half of the coffee just for transaction fees.
So Bitcoin is absolutely fantastic when you want to send big transfers.So if you want to send $1,000, $1 million, even a $1 billion, there is nothing out there that can compare with the security and the decentralization of Bitcoin.
That is for sure.And I am an extremely strong Bitcoin believer.Some people think I’m a Bitcoin maximalist.I wouldn’t go that far.
Story continues But still, what we still have to fix is those small transactions.
Because of course, when you’re buying a cup of coffee, you don’t really care about the full decentralization of Bitcoin.You just want to get in, get your little fix of caffeine, and then get out, right? So that’s what we’re fixing.
– And Carl, it’s clear that you’re a bit of a Bitcoin bull, right, based on just the model for your business.But you say Bitcoin will reach $5 to $10 million once it hits some key indicators.And I’m wondering what are those indicators that you’re looking for, what gives you that much confidence that’s where it’s going? And is it just Bitcoin, or crypto as a whole? What about Ethereum, for example?
CARL RUNEFELT: Well, first of all, if Bitcoin goes up, crypto goes up.
That is something that has been true in the history.And I think it’s going to be true in the future.OK.So my $5 million to $10 million prediction, it’s not really a technical analysis point of view on that.It’s more of a fundamental analysis I have.
So if you just look out there in the world, you see Fiat currencies ruling the world.And Fiat currencies are fundamentally flawed and broken.
They are breaking slowly, but faster and faster.You can see inflation in Turkey taking off, inflation in US taking off as well.
Actually, inflation in the whole world is taking off rapidly.
Like, the system is still breaking slowly enough that people don’t necessarily notice it on a daily basis in many countries.If you go to the grocery store, for example, it’s not like milk goes up 100% in value, or in price in the next few days.But over time, you can be sure if you hold dollars, or yens, or liras, you’re guaranteed to lose money over time.So it is a broken system.
And if you go back into the human history, there have been thousands of Fiat currencies.
And I can tell you right here with a very, very strong confidence, that zero of them ever survived, if you go back like thousands of years back.So that means that if you look at the current system we have today, the dollar and et cetera, they have an extremely low chance of surviving long-term.And the higher the inflation goes, the more likely it is that I’m proven right, that the Fiat system that we see today is actually going to collapse, or at least get extremely rearranged where something else will take over.And I think that’s going to be Bitcoin.
– OK.
And so and really quickly, just want to follow up with you back to Kasta, you say that it will become the Venmo of crypto.That’s what your hope is.And it launches Q1 of 2022.But talk to me about US regulation that is surely to come more of it next year, and how that might impact where crypto goes, and how it impacts your business model, only a short time left.
CARL RUNEFELT: Honestly, I think my lawyers will hate me if I start talking too much about the legal stuff.But definitely, what we want to do is, we want to make Bitcoin and crypto accessible for everyone.That’s very important for me, and all of our co-founders.We’re four co-founders, in fact.So everyone out there who’s waiting for Kasta, be sure that eventually we will make it accessible for you.
And we’re launching the app Q1 next year.
– And Carl, we’re out of time here.We have to leave it there.But really appreciate you stopping by.And I want to have you back and kind of probe some of those 5 million to $10 million per Bitcoin projections that you have.That is the Kasta Co-founder joining us, Carl Runefelt..