[00:00:00] Donny Dvorin: The world is waking up to the power of crypto. And we are seeing this with new NFT and token launches every day, all using blockchain technologies. We’re also seeing huge marketing spends by crypto exchanges and platforms. And so this season, we are speaking to the marketing leaders of those crypto companies hosted by brave software in me, Dani, Devon.

[00:00:26] You’re listening to a new episode of the brave marketer. And I think you’re going to like this one, because we talked to duke Kim, who’s the director of crypto partnerships from the giving block. The given block has a really interesting business model. They make it easy for nonprofits to accept cryptocurrency donations, and then for users to donate in a more tax efficient.

[00:00:47] This interview was actually something that we recorded for giving Tuesday a couple of months ago for our YouTube channel, but the conversation ended up being so impactful and there are all these little good nuggets that we want to [00:01:00] share it with our podcast listeners for our crypto theme season that we’re in.

[00:01:04] The giving block has been a partner of ours for a long time and has worked with advertisers, such as Nexo to raise money for various charities via brave ads. One campaign alone that we did raised $25,000 for save the children via the hashtag save with crypto. And you’re going to hear more about this in this episode, and we’ll link the case study in the show notes.

[00:01:28] In this episode we learned about, of course, crypto philanthropy, why donors should donate cryptocurrencies to nonprofits rather than dollars themselves and how our own brave users can donate their bat. But before we hop in today’s episode, we want to share with you our brave. So this week we want to feature by bit by bit is a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange.

[00:01:53] They ran sponsored image with us and they run them now, push notifications and brave news to drive [00:02:00] user acquisitions. And I’ve been running ads for over a year. They have seen record growth over the past year, and I’ve been made brave ads and an integral part of their advertising. Now for this week’s episode of the brave marketer,

[00:02:22] welcome everyone to our crypto for good video. And thank you for joining us because we have a really special conversation today. We are talking to duke from the giving block, and Duke’s going to talk more about the giving block in detail, but basically it’s an unlocking the full. The potential of philanthropic, nature of both humans and organizations by giving back to non-profits and charities worldwide.

[00:02:47] Welcome to this show, duke, how are

[00:02:48] Duke Kim: you? fantastic. Donna, thank you so much for having me today. as you had mentioned, right, we’ve kicked off the charitable giving season of crypto. I’m just recovering from a very busy, crypto giving Tuesday, which was just [00:03:00] two days ago where the giving block raised, uh, just over two and a half million dollars or just about two and a half million dollars on a single day of charity.

[00:03:07] And that really kicks off the whole season of December, to really activate the crypto community, to show everyone that the crypto is. Gotcha.

[00:03:15] Donny Dvorin: So why don’t we just start off by you telling our audience about duke.

[00:03:18] Duke Kim: Oh, well, that’s my name? My name is duke. I’ve joined the giving block about, two months ago.

[00:03:22] but I’ve been in, in crypto and more importantly, actually, I guess, throughout my professional career, working, for philanthropic organizations and giving back to the. So even when a college I was working with a group called a university of Michigan dance marathon, raising money for children’s physical rehab programs, went into the world of wall street where it continued to give back, prior to going into crypto full-time in 2018.

[00:03:45] my last kind of philanthropic initiative was over at Bloomberg, where we did a, you know, guests, the closing price of Bitcoin at the end of 2017. And we raised about $700 for toys for tots. Fast forward four years later. Now I’m working with the giving block. You know, [00:04:00] our goal here is to raise, you know, close to a hundred million dollars this year for a variety of charities and

[00:04:05] Donny Dvorin: causes.

[00:04:06] Okay. Gotcha.

[00:04:06] Duke Kim:

[00:04:06] Donny Dvorin: And how do you decide where the money goes, which charities in which.

[00:04:10] Duke Kim: me personally, it’s obviously just kind of, you know, what’s really struck a chord with me. so again, looking back from very early on, it’s always been about giving back, mostly to children, but also just to communities that are underrepresented, and really need support that oftentimes get overlooked, in a variety of other programs.

[00:04:26] So I tend to look for the underdog and a lot of things that I do, I consider myself an underdog and I, always want to give back to, to programs like. Yeah.

[00:04:34] Donny Dvorin: And for this past Tuesday, the $2 million, where did that money?

[00:04:39] Duke Kim: that went to, you know, across our 1000 charities on our platform. so crypto giving Tuesday is really meant to be crypto spin on what is more traditionally known as giving Tuesday, which is again, just a global day of fundraising awareness, giving time goods and services to organizations and groups that need it.

[00:04:58] and again, for, us, what we [00:05:00] ended up realizing was. the crypto community has wide variety of causes and charities they support. And so that money raised went to, you know, anyone from, American cancer society, save the children United way all the way down to, to local, you know, animal shelters, philanthropic organizations across the country and across the.

[00:05:19] Donny Dvorin: Got it. What makes giving encrypto different than giving in cash or Fiat?

[00:05:25] Duke Kim: Oh, this is one of my favorite topics and I really hate calling myself a tax guy for all sorts of reasons, but there is actually a huge tax consideration for particularly for, for us donors. So, if you donate crypto, it’s sort of like donated, appreciated stock or your car or your boat, you can actually, Not pay the capital gains that are going to be triggered.

[00:05:46] I, if you were to sell that crypto to give the cash proceeds, you have to be a capital gain on the sale of the asset. If you donate that asset, the nonprofit receives the full amount, the nonprofit doesn’t have to pay taxes on it because of its [00:06:00] nonprofit status. And then you can also deduct the fair market value of that.

[00:06:04] against your other taxable liability, super important this year, given how active people have been trading NFTs have written the price of Bitcoin up from, you know, call it $4,000, late last year, early last year, all the way to now. but the, the bigger story here is that we’re actually showing that crypto is used for good, right?

[00:06:24] that crypto is not just used, on the dark web or that it’s used as, hacker tools or anything like that, that were actually. You know, using that crypto to power, all of these non-profits. and I think that’s, oftentimes missed in all the pool. Even what we’re doing is really, it’s more than just donating those assets, but it’s actually empowering the nonprofits and then promoting the idea that crypto can be used as a force for good.

[00:06:46] Donny Dvorin: Got it. That makes a lot of sense. and where are you seeing most of the donations come from from individuals or from, corporations?

[00:06:53] Duke Kim: you know, it’s hard to tell, I think, well, I guess it’s relatively easy to tell a large majority of where we’ve [00:07:00] raised our funds from, uh, thus far has been from individual donors.

[00:07:04] And that donor demographic is really interesting and I think is a cause for why we’ve also seen such a huge uptake in nonprofits. You know, coming to, to work and onboard with us. We’ve seen about a tenfold increase in the number of non-profits from the beginning of this year to, to right now, in terms of working with us, we’re powering about a thousand, pro crypto nonprofits.

[00:07:24] the reason for it though, from the individual donor perspective, the typical sort of crypto holder investor trader skews younger, and maybe because of the environment that he or she has grown up into, they also skew to be very, very charitable. and then that creates a, a really strong sort of confluence of events that makes these people want to donate more, to do good with this money.

[00:07:46] And the other piece of it is. Number has gone up, right. We’ve seen just a huge rise in prices of, of NFTs of blue-chip projects like crypto punks and Ford apes. We’ve seen Bitcoin and ether and it, and Solana all I’ll take off [00:08:00] in terms of price point. So a lot of people are kind of waking up and saying, I’m quote unquote, you know, overnight rich or overnight wealthy.

[00:08:08] and because of that, they wake up, they see. there met a mask wallet, overflowing w their, their brave wallets overflowing with crypto kind of wealth. and they want to immediately give back to people. the best way to do that is obviously by donating those assets directly, rather than, you know, selling for cash.

[00:08:25] Donny Dvorin: Got it. Okay. I appreciate the subtle, brave wallet plug, which we just launched a couple of weeks ago. Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:08:34] Duke Kim: Absolutely. I’ve been a brave, personal user for a very long time. I would say, you know, not to shell too much, but you know, every company I worked for a consultant, immediately, you know, making sure that the brave browser becomes the browser of choice and that kind of displaces anyone else, anything else that, people may be.

[00:08:51] Donny Dvorin: Yeah, that’s awesome. So what’s a way for a company to add, philanthropic, you know, charity donations to,the company.

[00:08:59] [00:09:00] Individuals makes total sense. You just go on the website you donate, but what about.

[00:09:03] Duke Kim: Sure. That’s a fantastic question. So there are a lot of ways that we work with, crypto corporate partners or corporate partners in general. Obviously the, the very easy one is simply through financial sponsorship or you’re just accepting a donation in cryptocurrencies.

[00:09:17] and then, you know, routing that to any of the nonprofits or causes that that corporation wants to support and stand up. Uh, the other way we actually work with groups is creating corporate social responsibility programs alongside of that organization. Again, going back to the idea that, our first and foremost sort of, mission here is to promote the idea that crypto is good, that crypto can be used for.

[00:09:38] Good. And as the ecosystem has continued to mature and evolve, a lot of organizations reach out to us and reach out to me. You know, we’ve gotten to a certain point in terms of, employee headcount, in terms of revenue. We realized that we have real voice and following, how can we use that platform?

[00:09:57] How can we use our platform to better the world in which we’re [00:10:00] operating? So we work together to help them identify non-profits that they could support, you know, help them have a create time for their employees. Physically donate time and energy with these non-profits locally around their community.

[00:10:12] really, again, help these crypto startups become more mature organizations and understand the power and responsibility that they have within their community, both locally, physically, or as well as in the metaverse, you know, just in terms of supporting, international organization.

[00:10:27] Donny Dvorin: Yeah. Okay. That makes a lot of sense, you know, back to you for a second. what was in your heart that made you want to kind of follow, donation, philanthropic, area for, you know, since such a young.

[00:10:38] Duke Kim: a fantastic question that, you know, I think the, where it came from is, and this might sound cheesy, but 100% true.

[00:10:44] my parents have always instilled a, you know, this, this sort of sense that a I’m blanking on the term now, but basically an obligation of the Nobles, right? I’m sure there’s a fancy Latin term for it, but basically, you know, if you are blessed, you really should turn around and, and try to bless other [00:11:00] people.

[00:11:00] so even though. You know, pretty solidly middle-class as, first-generation immigrants, and Texas, you know, it was always been a whatever, whatever excess we have, whatever extra we, we run upon, let’s turn around and try to give that back to another, person, another community. I think I’ve taken that, and it’s become more ingrained inside of me as I’ve gotten older.

[00:11:20] And part of it again is just like younger. Millennials that are growing up kind of crypto rich. you know, I’ve, I’ve been in this space for a number of years and obviously finding myself also blessed and wanting to, turn that back around on a very, very personal note. my second daughter has, some medical issues and, you know, at the beginning of the year, we were at our local hospital and one of the intake questions was, if you have any concerns about.

[00:11:41] Your mental health or your capability to, pay for all of this, please let us know. and my wife and I turned around to each other and said, well, guess we’ll be okay, barring some sort of ultra rare disease that costs, you know, millions of dollars per pill. We can probably weather the storm. And we realized, you know, that not a lot [00:12:00] of people can say that.

[00:12:00] so it really ignited inside of us, you know, or reignited that passion to give back to people that can’t necessarily, you know, support themselves on.

[00:12:08] Donny Dvorin: Got it. That makes a ton of sense. are there any like really good kind of case studies or examples besides like the next oh, one of companies or individuals giving and you know, where the money went and you know, anything that you want to share?

[00:12:21] Duke Kim: particularly this year, we’ve seen this, rise of, of NFT, driven donation and charitable activity. So, just the other day, we actually had Twitter spaces and a with Jack butcher who runs visualized value. Kara.org, one of the largest and oldest, charitable organizations on the planet.

[00:12:40] And earlier this year, Jack had created a series of NFTs. you know, the proceeds donated to, feed children in Afghanistan and families in Afghanistan that were impacted sort of through the conflict that sprung up this summer. and, and you know, what we had seen was that the NFTs that represent us very specific call to action.

[00:12:58] As you purchased each one, it told you [00:13:00] Dani, if you buy this NFT, it’s gonna. 10 families for it for this period of time, if you buy this more expensive NFT, it can sponsor a hundred families for a greater period of time. it gives you a piece of collectible art at the same time. That’s not just a flex, but it is really about community building.

[00:13:17] So someone that goes to your wallet and says, oh, well, Donnie has done this. And that represents this amount of charitable activity. but the, the broader story there though, is that really. No, we’ve seen NFT communities again, because of that, almost immediate wealth that’s coming out of this group.

[00:13:31] they want to turn this art medium into a formative charitable giving. you know, something a little bit more fun would be the board ape yacht club, you know, hugely popular. What would they consider a blue chip NFT project? They’ve donated almost a million dollars to an orangutan outreach. And that is powered by the giving block.

[00:13:49] this was, I believe about two times the annual budget of that Orangutang outreach group. and they were floored. They were, they were shocked. They were obviously very, very surprised and happy to see this. And [00:14:00] we’ve seen that a lot in the NFT community where. Charity becomes part of the, actual product roadmap.

[00:14:05] we don’t have to talk about the technical details or implications here, but a lot of times, you know, NFT projects are as part of their, their technical white paper, their roadmap, they say, as we hit certain, you know, funding hurdles and kind of goals, we are going to turn around and give them. 1%, 5%, 10% back to the community.

[00:14:24] And I think that’s a really, really neat way to activate, the, the NFT community. And again, show that that crypto is a forced.

[00:14:32] Donny Dvorin: Got it. That makes a ton of sense. switching gears to the broader crypto markets, you know, what are you seeing right now? What do you think about the NFT market? Is it a balloon about to pop?

[00:14:42] Is it just getting going? what about the crypto market over.

[00:14:45] Duke Kim: I am personally a permeable, I think, across both crypto and NFTs. and I think we’re going to continue, you know, seeing that resurgence, I mean, what, what is fascinating to me and from the NFT side is really the consumer activation.

[00:14:59] that’s [00:15:00] occurring here, you know, Budweiser buying a Tom Sachs, rocket. Now doing an NFT drop Adidas, working with, G money, you know, creating NFT projects. And, I’m not a particularly smart person, but I would imagine consumer products, organizations and companies have lots of people that are really keeping their finger on the pulse of things.

[00:15:18] and all of them jumping into this space really shows to me that it’s a thing that will continue to go up. I may have mentioned before the podcast started, I just moved my family down to Tampa from New Jersey this morning. I was buying some, Buccaneers gear for my youngest daughter or my, my eldest daughter.

[00:15:34] And on the company website, when I was making the purchase, it said, if you buy more than $99, you get an NFT Jersey as part of like the, the freebie. So I think we’re seeing more and more of this activity. So I think NFTs as a, technology, as a, concept, we’ll be here, I think, you know, and then certainly on the cryptos.

[00:15:53] Again, I’m just a generic permeable. see this really, changing a lot of things and, you know, prior to getting into [00:16:00] the crypto space, I was a wall street guy. And so, the fact that I like to throw out to the folks that are still stuck in a trad five, Is that the crypto market cap is about two and a half trillion dollars.

[00:16:11] That’s excluding kind of the NFT market cap as well versus the 120 trillion or so that are sort of, global assets under management. And so the point there being is that as, as crypto continues to gain relevance and take precedent in the ecosystem, the traditional asset managers that are benchmarked against relative value.

[00:16:31] Half to try to make up for the fact that they’re not participating in crypto, buy, buy more stocks and more bonds, right. Or they can take the easy way and get into crypto themselves and get that direct exposure. So, you know, it’s an asset. That’s barely a teenager, but I think it is really, you know, taking center stage and we’ll continue to do.

[00:16:49] Yeah,

[00:16:49] Donny Dvorin:

[00:16:56] I want to remind our users, like most of our users are probably already [00:17:00] brave users, but to download the brave browser, you can do that@brave.com.

[00:17:04] And then when you apt into viewing ads, you earn bat and then you can take your. And you can donate it view via the given block. So there’s a lot of connections between our two companies. also you’ll be running some, sponsored image, notification ads. And with those you’ll see opportunities to donate as well.

[00:17:25] So lots of opportunities to donate your crypto by going straight to giving block or via the brave browser, but, any closing words for the audience.

[00:17:34] Duke Kim: no, thank you so much for having me, Donnie. This was a real pleasure and a real honor on my part. as you had mentioned, right, we do support that we do support about 45 other crypto assets to be donated to the 1000 charities on our platform today.

[00:17:46] but the, the really bigger message here is that, you know, December is a month about, looking back and then kind of counting your blessings. And what we really encourage is that users, regardless of the tax implication, you know, just to. Make a charitable contribution to [00:18:00] give back to the community that has given so much to you, you know, you being the, the general you, and so we really just hope to continue that trend of driving philanthropic activity vehicle.

[00:18:09] Donny Dvorin: And so do you have all the meme coins, the, the dos, the Sheba we

[00:18:14] Duke Kim: do indeed. and we actually, I’ve seen quite an uptake in, in those, those coins being donated. We were, partially, you know, behind some of the workforce, some of other organizations that are raising large funding campaigns this year.

[00:18:26] I don’t know if I can actually disclose just yet, but we saw. Ton of Sheba flow through our coffers. because of that reason, I mean, again, these coins are, I don’t even be, I can’t even begin to tell you, I guess what the return multiple has been from the beginning of the year to now. But you know, everyone was pointing to that wallet that had, you know, started with $8,000 with the Sheba turned into $5.7 billion.

[00:18:50] That’s a huge taxable live. You know, donating some of that asset is certainly sound decision to be made. so we do see that plus again. Oh, and actually, before I go, I would [00:19:00] like to say that on crypto giving Tuesday, for the first time ever, we saw Eve actually flipping Bitcoin in terms of the most donated asset, which was, very interesting to see that, you know, Bitcoin has, you know, an in person.

[00:19:12] We’ll always be king, but we saw, it’s humongous, Eve donations come through. And I think we’ll honestly continue to see that given the out-performance and price as well.

[00:19:22] Donny Dvorin: Yeah. What about our Solano? And then the dose version of Salono is.

[00:19:27] Duke Kim: so Solanas, as one of the, funny ones we do support the asset. it’s not unfortunately supported directly with our institutional exchange partners. So, you know, the workflow is a little bit different, but we do encourage, donors of Solana to reach out directly to me, duke at the giving block, to actually, work together, to figure out the workflow and, and make those donations.

[00:19:46] But it’s, you end up making it. Charitable donation to a nonprofit, and then it ultimately goes to the nonprofit that you would like to support. Yeah.

[00:19:54] Donny Dvorin: And we’ll see if Sammo gets as big as the, the doge and the Sheba he knew. Absolutely. [00:20:00] All right. On that note, thank you so much for coming on duke.

[00:20:03] Duke Kim: Thank you Dani. Have a great day.

[00:20:05] Donny Dvorin: Thanks again for listening to the brave marketer podcast, to stay up to date on all things brave, sign up to the brief ads inside a newsletter@brave.com forward slash add news.

[00:20:17] You’ll get tips for advertising on the cookie lists, world exclusive content industry. Best practices for consumer privacy and more. If you’d like to get started on your brave ads campaign or speak to someone from the team email ad sales@brave.com. That’s 80 sales air, brave.com. And finally musical credit goes to my older brother.

[00:20:37] Ari divorce provides inspiration every single day until next time.