Episode 14 was arguably our biggest show so far, with crypto expert Phillip Nunn joining us for 36 minutes of epic crypto and blockchain exploration.

Who is Phillip Nunn?

Phillip founded Blackmore back in 2013, a business with substantial assets and a suite of investment products for individuals and institutions in the UK and overseas. He has more than 15 years of experience in financial services, he’s a specialist in wealth management, angel investment, commercial property investment and financial technologies (FinTech). Blackmore was founded on the core belief that clients should be given real and tangible alternatives to poor investment performances.

In the cryptosphere, many of Phillip’s 180,000+ LinkedIn followers are there because of his global influence as a speaker at some of the world’s biggest blockchain events and because of his online influencing activity. He has sat on advisory boards of many ICOs over the last 12 months and has helped structure and fund some of the biggest companies of the future. Along with his business, ‘Wealth Chain’, Phillip will be launching his own crypto fund to invest in ICOs and existing blockchain technologies.

Enough about his impressive bio, we’re going to enlighten you to an abridged version of some of what Phillip said during the podcast, without giving too much away.

How did Phillip get into crypto?

We were curious how he came to be this mega-influencer in the space, but we wanted to start from the beginning. Phillip told us ‘I’ve been intrigued by the space for many years, my background is financial services, then it crossed over into FinTech, so that was really the sort of bridge to the technology side of the fence, and then ultimately I’ve always been intrigued by distributed ledger technology and the advent of blockchain via things like blockchain blowing up. It’s been a gradual process really.’

Kevin ‘nodded’ in agreement too when Nunn said ‘Now I’m completely obsessed and I never sleep’. We are sure that some of our listeners have the same crypto-insomnia issues!

How do you sniff out a good project as an investor?

You’re only as good as your track record, right? So, Phillip is on a pretty epic run in terms of his investment choices, but that’s not down to luck, there’s far more to it than that. With an abundance of ICOs, and many garbage ones out there, we weren’t surprised to hear him say that ‘the industry’s got ahead of itself’ and ‘even my gran can do an ICO’.

Phillip is a big fan of blockchain platforms and backed this up by explaining that 17 out of the top 20 cryptocurrencies on coinmarketcap.com are platforms. In making investment decisions, he said ‘I think the absolute fundamental for me is the tokenomics have to be right, so ‘why are you doing an ICO? Why are you not looking for angel investment? Why are you not going to the cattle markets, raising private equity or looking for VC money?’

So, is the fact that anyone can do an ICO a big risk for investors? Apparently not, if you’re switched on. ‘The market is maturing and people are much more switched on nowadays when the ICO market first popped up you could ICO anything and raise money’ he told us, adding ‘People are really looking at more sophisticated ways to choose an ICO’.

What kind of project gets Phillip excited?

‘The ICOs that really sort of get me going, in the most appropriate way and sense possible, are ICOs that have an experienced team and an established business that is pivoting that business into a blockchain strategy’ he shared, before giving us his checklist of things to be wary of.

• Established team
• Track record
• Turnover
• Active business
• Technology works
• A viable use case for blockchain fundraiser
• Raised a few £mllion early doors to validate interest
• Legitimate interest in the project

White paper talk

White papers are pretty contentious, let’s be honest. You can write whatever you like and if it’s passable as interesting technology, you could become an overnight millionaire. Without regulation, this won’t change, unless education dramatically increases and people become more aware. So, what’s Phillip’s take on all of this?

‘The market is starting to mature, and actually, the guaranteed success of ICOs will reduce because of that’ he stated, ‘last year you could put money into an ICO and make 3,000-4,000% for no real value at all.’

So, should people read the white papers? Phillip says yes, ‘I’d recommend that people do have a read of the white paper, but I think that top, high-level people, you’re looking at the strength of the team. Have they raised money before? Are they an established business? What’s the blockchain strategy?’.

How does Phillip Nunn find a good ICO then?

He does three things –

• Look for impartial reviews on ICOs
• Follow a due diligence process (which he joked has 27 factors)
• Work with his team to research the 250+ ICO offers they receive every month

We are sure that having Phillip Nunn also helps improve the chance of success, he even said that perhaps is the ‘tabasco’ for ICOs.

What does Phillip think about others in the investment space?

‘I think there’s a balance between if the next IOTA or the next Monero looks like it’s coming along, then maybe that’s a buy and hold [situation], but actually I think if we’re all honest, a lot of people here are looking for short-term gains and they’re looking to pick ICOs that they will get in cheap and get out quite quickly. I think that will evolve when governance and regulations come in, it will settle down and people will have long-term strategies.’

We couldn’t agree more!

Which sectors are most at threat from disruption in Phillip’s opinion?

‘If you’d asked me this two weeks ago I would have listed about 15 different industries that are going to be absolutely turned on their head, but I’ve had my epiphany, and we’re all getting a bit too far ahead of ourselves. We’re still building the foundations of the blockchain industry and cryptocurrency industry, so I think personally for the next 12, maybe 18 months, the companies that are really going to thrive are the companies that are platform based, they offer a solution’ he told us, and naturally we were curious what he meant by this.

‘We are still in the infrastructure phase’ we were told, ‘I think we’ll have over $1 trillion market cap by the end of this year and I think that the big pension funds, the big ETFs, the big institutional money is going to find its way into the industry this year, whereby clients portfolios will see a 5% allocation to crypto because you just can’t ignore the growth and what it is doing. It’s a chicken and egg, they’re waiting to invest but they can’t monetize it because there’s no regulation there at the moment. I think that’s going to be the tipping point, where actually in line with regulation there will be an absolute avalanche of money coming into the industry, so I think it’s going to be a good thing.’

If you want to know what else Phillip enlightened us about, you’ll have to listen to the podcast!