Out of the ashes of dead newspapers that no one reads and local news that only âthe oldsâ consume for their Preparation H fix, there is a new outlet to document emerging Southwest Florida entrepreneurs â The Come Up sponsored by the hot new streamer CWT â.
It is a video podcast hosted by local media personality Scrappy Jackson. The Come Up lives on this blog and new episodes drop every Friday at 3 pm ET on our YouTube channel.
Read below for highlights for The Come Up maiden voyage.
Crypto in Florida
Michel Pacifico is Scrappyâs first guest. He is a successful cryptocurrency entrepreneur based in Cape Coral. He has founded three different businesses over the years, including USScyber, a blockchain company focused on cybersecurity, WSCE, a sports token company that aims to revolutionize the world of sports, and XLiquidus, an upcoming cryptocurrency exchange platform.
Sports and Crypto? Better than Peanut Butter and Chocolate
Why invest 17 minutes on The Come Up? Here are the CliffsNotes, a list of tantalizing nuggets that Scrappy covers with Michel in Episode 1:
Primer on crypto: Learn the three types of cryptocurrencies and that NFT doesnât stand for ânon-fungible testiclesâ (for some).
About blockchain: People use crypto for trading, but Blockchain is the main system, that’s where you need to look if you are serious about this new realm of non-fiat currency.
About sports token/utility token: Sports Tokens benefit fans around the globe and create a new ecosystem for adventurers, blockchain enthusiasts, crypto investors and even gamblers. Learn about how Bulgaria, tokens and sports find âsynergy.â
NFTs Can Help Sports Fans Make Money: NFTs are available in all the sports, have launched soccer recently, listed 95 countries, over 2,760 soccer teams, divisions A and B. The entirety of South America, North America, the entirety of Europe, Asia, Africa, and so on. Michel is signing up clubs, working on the entire Bulgarian thing and other markets.
About Europe’s situation and token benefit: The war cooled things off a little bit in Europe. Learn how Michelâs company is pumping resources into sports clubs and giving fans a âsports stock market.â
Qualities of an entrepreneur: Michel details how a successful entrepreneur is realistic, has a clear vision about the product and is more disciplined than Mark Wahlberg around weights!Â
What percentage of Michel Pacifico is passionate vs. opportunist: He leans passionate but pockets opportunist. Find out just how wildly it can swing depending on the product.
What advice would he give himself in his younger years: Michelâs advice involves Bitcoin and the tender age when people bar hop instead of opportunity hop.
About Michel Pacifico and Content with Teeth.
For UnBoring Content like The Come Up, contact Content with Teeth HERE. You can get your crypto jones and all things Michel Pacifico HERE and HERE.
The Come Up Episode 1 Transcript
Michel Pacifico: Hey buddy, how are you doing? Thanks for having me here, appreciate the time. I’m doing great, man. I’m feeling great, too. It’s such a beautiful day in Florida.
Scrappy Jackson: Absolutely. You were from Brazil, you immigrated here when you were 19, 20 years old, to Cape Coral. You were a pilot, and you got into cryptocurrency in 2010. Tell us about your journey.
Michel Pacifico: Yes. Coming from Brazil, I was in pilot school. I decided to go over my entrepreneur skills. I quit all that, all the schooling. Back in 2010, I was introduced to Bitcoin. What fascinates me was the technology behind it, which is the blockchain, the cryptocurrency, and the new digital money, the new digital coin. What’s that? It was intriguing, it was very interesting. I started digging in, unfortunately, I didn’t invest at the time, because I wasn’t sure what it was.
Scrappy Jackson: Sure.
Michel Pacifico: What’s up? Welcome to The Come Up. I’m Scrap Jackson, and this is a weekly podcast celebrating Southwest Florida’s up-and-coming entrepreneurs. We call it The Come Up, up and coming, we flip it on its ear. There are a lot of intriguing stories right here in Southwest Florida. Talking about ambition, challenges, sacrifice. Our guest today is my man Michael Pacifico. He’s the owner of three startup companies, cryptocurrency businesses: USS Cyber, WSCE Coin, and Xliquid USBR. Content With Teeth is this awesome content creative company, doing all kinds of big things, and they want to make sure that, when you look at this logo behind me, they do things big, really big. Big engagements online, a creative content agency. So make sure you show them some love.
Like everybody else, I wish I did, but I was learning so much about it. The more I was looking into it, the more fascinated and intriguing the blockchain is. The cryptocurrency today, usually people utilize it as a secondary market. Trading to make money. Actually, we have to look into the blockchain, the system. That’s what I think is the most valuable of all.
Scrappy Jackson: Okay. Now, there’s cryptocurrency, there’s NFTs, there are assets, digital assets, there’s Bitcoins, there are tokens, there’s a lot of vernacular out there. Can you break it down for us that don’t really know about cryptocurrency?
Michel Pacifico: Sure. There’s actually three different types of crypto right now. There’s regular cryptocurrency, which is Ethereum, and Bitcoin, which is a form of security, but not called security yet by the SEC, and so on. There’s the NFT, which is the new generation of token, non-fungible token. There are also security tokens. We are launching a new form of tokens based on future performance tokens, sports based on performance.
Michel Pacifico: The cryptocurrency Bitcoin, today it’s usually for trading faster payment processes, and so on. Back then, it was the fastest thing ever. You would’ve transferred money within 30 minutes. Ethereum came along a few years later, with between a 10 to the 20 minutes gap, usually 15 to eight minutes, 12 minutes or so, to do a transfer. Now, there are payment processors out there which are super, super fast. Give an example, our payment processor, we can do a 100,000 transactions in a minute. The blockchain has been growing and growing, the evolution of the technology has been out there.
Scrappy Jackson: You’re a technological nerd, so I’m going to break it down for our audience just a little bit. From my perspective, blockchains to technology, you’ve got Bitcoin to the left, for currency trading, and on the right, you’ve got tokens, NFT, nonfungible tokens that you use for sporting events, VIP opportunities, experiences. That’s the realm you’re in. You’re not so much a Bitcoin guy as you are a token guy for sports, correct?
Michel Pacifico: Exactly. Our first launch, our first product is WFC, World of Sports Coin Exchange. We wanted to specialize in that market for sports, at first. Our coin is based on performance of games, of teams. Give an example. Soccer, which is our first coin at the moment, live, every time you pick a team, a country, perhaps it’s Spain, you pick Real Madrid. Every time they do well on the field, the token goes up in price.
Scrappy Jackson: It’s betting. You’re betting, you’re hedging.
Michel Pacifico: It’s different than betting, though. Betting is a one-time event. This one, you lose a fraction of it, if the team doesn’t do well. It’s an algorithm. It’s an intelligence algorithm that we created, artificial intelligence that we created, which is attached to the performance of the team, game by game. That will give a price according to their matches during the season. I’m sorry, not a price, a value, according to the matches through the season.
Scrappy Jackson: Why don’t just call my local bookie, Jimmy the Bookie in New York City, and say, “Yo, dude, hook me up with a Boston Red Sox?” Why would I go with your thing rather than something that’s more tangible?
Michel Pacifico: Put it this way: it’s heaven. Think about it. If the Boston Red Sox don’t do well, you still own your token. It’s still there. By the end of the season, who knows? It could win the World Series, and it could explode in evaluation, instead of if they don’t do well, and you lost your investment, as a bet. We’re not a betting company. There’s nothing to do with betting. It’s a mixture between stock market with commodities. Because it’s based on future performance, which is not a commodity entity. It’s something new. It’s a new form of token out there. It’s a new product out there. It’s hard to describe but think of it this way. The Miami Dolphins, touchdown, boom! The token goes up in price. The other team, the token is going down on price.
Scrappy Jackson: It’s a sports stock market.
Michel Pacifico: Yes, very similar to that. Very similar to that. We want to be careful with the words here, but yeah.
Scrappy Jackson: Okay. When I think of sports tokens, I think of more of a VIP perspective. Access to the players, voting, balloting maybe on what the song is at halftime, merchandise.
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Michel Pacifico: Yes.
Scrappy Jackson: Are you in that realm as well?
Michel Pacifico: We have a part of that too, as well. That’s called a 100% utility token, but we’re utilizing those offers as well. We just closed with a team in Bulgaria. Lokomotiv, and we are doing pretty much everything for them. Their token right now, it’s not doing so good, because they lost a couple of matches, as you can see on the platform.
Scrappy Jackson: You as a business person, as an entrepreneur, you’re watching the game saying, “Come on Bulgaria, please!”
Michel Pacifico: Exactly. We’re literally opening a new channel for people all over the world to watch games, that was not so much of an expression out there. Teams in Bulgaria, I would never watch a game in Bulgaria, but now I’m watching a game in Bulgaria, just to see how the token has performed.
Scrappy Jackson: Absolutely. You have an investment in the team, emotionally and financially.
Michel Pacifico: Exactly. It’s for the fans, and also for adventurers out there. Blockchain enthusiasts, crypto enthusiasts who like crypto, and so on. For everybody, even gamblers, they’re welcome to come in.
Scrappy Jackson: Is it really competitive, getting Bulgaria to sign on with you guys? I’m thinking to myself, the volatility of it, the level of competition, how it’s exploded. How do I get hooked up with a team as a startup entrepreneur in Cape Coral, hooking up with Bulgaria?
Michel Pacifico: First, we were going for major leagues. Bulgaria plays in a major league, they also play Champions League as well, and Euro Cup. The way we structure the algorithm is, we have to go by what the FIFA ranking is, according to the leagues. We have Bulgaria, they’re not so strong in Europe, but they are a bit strong. It was the first team that actually loved the project. They jumped right in it. Not just the Lokomotiv team, which is the team that we closed. We have a lot of other teams in the pipeline and want to close with us, because we’re a new form of revenue for the clubs. We are giving tokens to the clubs as they’re signing up with us. Plus, we’re giving them transactions fees too, every time somebody buys a token from them.
Scrappy Jackson: Sure.
Michel Pacifico: We give them some percentage of a transaction as well. We’re a new form of revenue for the club, especially clubs in soccer right now. As you can hear in the news, you know it’s been hard all over the world with major soccer teams and they don’t have money. There’s so much that fans can help with. Now, this is a great take for the fans. They can help the club that they love, and they can earn something from it. Not just the gambling, which you help, and if you lose, you’re out. No, at least if you lose, maybe by the end of the season you can do well, and the token can go up in price.
Scrappy Jackson: You still have equity, which is really cool. I’m thinking to myself, I’m a big New York Knicks fan. It’d be cool to have an NFT on that. What I could do is stack them up, and get my meet and greet with Randle. That’d be cool.
Michel Pacifico: Exactly.
Scrappy Jackson: That’s fun.
Michel Pacifico: Yes, man, it is fun. We do all the sports. Right now, we’re launching soccer. We have in the platform right now listed 95 countries, over 2,760 soccer teams, divisions A and B. The entirety of South America, most of North America, the entirety of Europe, Asia, Africa, and so on. We’re signing up clubs as we go with it. Right now, we are pretty much working on the entire Bulgarian league, Portuguese league. We’re working on the Spanish league. We’re trying to bring everybody with us because fans love it. Everybody that sees the project and hears about it, they love it. You can make money with the team that you own. Why not?
Scrappy Jackson: Contractually, do you have them locked down? They’re pretty much in your back pocket now?
Michel Pacifico: Yeah, we have contracts with them. Everything is contracted.
Scrappy Jackson: That’s great.
Michel Pacifico: We’re only with one team at the moment, but we have pipelines with other teams right now. The war cooled things off a little bit with us because people don’t know what’s going to happen in Europe. It cools off a little bit, some of the contracts. We are talking to Russia, we had to back away from Russia. We’re engaged in Ukraine, too. Unfortunately, we had to back away from that, because of what’s going on today. The rest of the world, we’re working on it.
Scrappy Jackson: If your teams are your strategic partners, tell us about your customer, and how you market to them.
Michel Pacifico: Yeah, what we do is this: every time when we close a club, all we ask is for them to market. That’s all we ask from the club.
Scrappy Jackson: Interesting.
Michel Pacifico: We’re giving 25 million tokens for the clubs, plus a percentage on the transactions, buy and sell, for life. All we ask is for them to do our marketing. Their cost, and their risk, are very minimum. Zero, because they own a marketing team. They own their own marketing. That’s what we ask. In the meantime, we’ve been doing our own marketing about our technology. We focus on our technology. We created a really awesome hybrid technology that today, the world needs. Our gas feed is very, very low. Our transactions are really fast and secure, too. We’ve been marketing our technology.
Scrappy Jackson: That’s fascinating. You have the clubs actually working for you. They’re the ones that market to the fans, and you worry about the tech, and hooking up the teams, more or less.
Michel Pacifico: Yeah, we work together. They don’t work for me. We are working together-
Scrappy Jackson: Okay.
Michel Pacifico: For the success of the token, because remember, they have half of it. 50% of the token belongs to the club, in total of 50 million coins per team. They own half of it. We’re giving them half. We’re working together for the success of it. The more you market, you know how it is, supplying demand has an influence into the algorithm, too. Our algorithm is based on performance: goals, league difficulty, draws, wins and losses, and points into the leagues. We also have a calculation in the algorithm for supply and demand, which is pretty strong, too. We need people to support their own clubs.
Scrappy Jackson: Very cool. Switching up, you’re from Southwest Florida. Youâre a start-up entrepreneur.
Michel Pacifico: Yeah.
Scrappy Jackson: What qualities do you think entrepreneurs need to have in order to succeed?
Michel Pacifico: You need to have a vision for your product, and you need to be realistic if this is good or not. I think the most quality…discipline is everything. You go into the gym, and you want to work out, and you want to look good, and you have to have discipline. Wake up early in the morning, do your exercise, eat well. It’s the same as starting a business. You need to start with discipline from the beginning, because how strong is your discipline is going to determine how you are going to grow.
Scrappy Jackson: Okay. Are you adverse to risk? Are you risk taker? “No big deal, I’m not worried about the sacrifice.”
Michel Pacifico: Nah, man, I’m all the away. There’s no 80/20. I’m all the way in, man. I’m chips all in. I don’t do it half away. If you’re going to do something, and you believe it, you got to do it all.
Scrappy Jackson: Okay. I want you to give two pieces of advice. First, advice to young entrepreneurs, maybe getting out of FGCU, they want to embark on this journey. What do you tell them?
Michel Pacifico: If you want to become an entrepreneur, the first thing you need to do is to start a business, and you want it to grow into your idea. First, you need to go legal. What I mean by legal is, go to an attorney, ask them about your idea, ask them what type of contracts you need. You want to protect yourself. I’m giving you business advice. You need legal on your side first, to make sure, because that’s going to determine how high you’re going to grow. Then, you don’t have any problems in the future with partners, or with employees, or any type of legal.
Michel Pacifico: The other advice that I give you is personal advice. You need to believe in yourself first, before you do anything. You need to know if you’re capable of doing, if you’re capable of growing. How to create this belief is to think, eat, sleep, and dream about your project. Every day, think about it. Don’t think about the gains. Don’t ever think about money. Think about the problems that come with it. If you can resolve every single problem of it, you’re going to succeed, no matter what.
Scrappy Jackson: What percentage of you are passionate versus opportunist?
Michel Pacifico: That’s a good one, man. That is a good one. I think it’s 60/40, and depending on the product, it’s 80/20. 80 passion, and 20 opportunities.
Scrappy Jackson: I can feel your passion, as far as this project and business is concerned. Last question, as far as advice is concerned, what advice would you give to yourself back in 2010, when you were just starting in cryptocurrency. What advice would you give yourself?
Michel Pacifico: Buy Bitcoin! Sell your house and buy Bitcoin. Sell your car, stop partying, buy Bitcoin!
Scrappy Jackson: My man, Michael Pacifico. Entrepreneur, three different businesses, doing it big with tokens and sports worldwide, globally. Highly impressive my brother, highly impressive. I’m Scrap. I have a large head right now, right beside me, and it’s dwarfing my head because it’s big. That’s how Content with Teeth do business. They get big results. They deliver unboring content, like this podcast.
Scrappy Jackson: Michael Pacifico, man, I appreciate you. Can you give out all your IG handles, and your social handles?
Michel Pacifico: Yes, one more time. Scrappy, thank you so much. If anybody wants to reach out to us, for the blockchain, the name of the company is called USScyber.com
. We also are on all the social media. For the sports token, it’s WSCE.world., worldofsportscoinexchange.world
. For the exchange that we’re launching globally, we have that in Portugal. We already have that in Brazil. We’re working on Asia right now. The name is XLiquidus.com, XLiquidus.com.
Michel Pacifico: Thank you very much Scrappy, I really appreciate what you’re doing.
Scrappy Jackson: I want a dozen tokens on Bulgaria, please!
Michel Pacifico: Yes sir.
Scrappy Jackson: We’ll see you next week with another Southwest Florida entrepreneur.
