The Crypto Opportunity | The Motley Fool

Motley Fool Germany analyst Bernd Schmid walks host Kate Herman through his outlook on crypto — the opportunity, the most interesting applications, and how to tell pretenders from contenders as investment opportunities.

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool’s free podcasts, check out our podcast center. To get started investing, check out our quick-start guide to investing in stocks. A full transcript follows the video.

This video was recorded on Aug. 27, 2021.

Dylan Lewis: It’s Friday, Aug. 27th, and we’re bringing you a session from our recent member event FoolFest. I’m your usual Friday host, but I will not be sticking around long. Today we’re going to be airing a session from our July member event, Crypto + A Foolish Portfolio. Crypto investor and Fool Germany analyst Bernd Schmid joined host Kate Herman to talk though his outlook on crypto, the opportunity, most interesting applications and how to tell pretenders from contenders as investment opportunities. It’s a great conversation for beginner and intermediate crypto investors alike, and a nice way for us to touch on a space we don’t discuss much in our usual lineup of shows. Hope you enjoy!

Kate Herman: I’m tickled to be joined today by Bernd Schmid. He heads up our Stock Advisor Germany service. Bernd, this is going to be an exciting half hour. I’m really glad to be here with you. In Bernd’s daily work, he’s responsible for finding the best companies to invest in in the German-speaking region but he also has been diving deeply into the crypto space for the past two years. You’re here with an expert in the field today and we’re going to put all of that work and research to the test. You ready Bernd?

Bernd Schmid: I’m ready, Kate. Thanks so much for the introduction. Happy to be here.

Herman: Excellent. Well, let’s get started. First up, we know that fools who are watching today have opted into this session. There is either experience in the crypto investing space or perhaps we’re joined by a few members who are just getting started and wanting to learn a little more. I think it would be wise to make sure we’re all on the same page when we talk Foolishly about investing in cryptocurrency, we’re talking about what? The digital currency that you can use to buy things. There’s an online ledger, we’ve got cryptography, blockchain technology. Bernd, you’ve already lost me. Can you talk about blockchain technology and get us started on the basics of crypto before we really launch into a deeper dive?

Schmid: Yeah, blockchain, I think you understand best if you just think about it as a database that is distributed in the web on different kinds of computers. It’s called blockchain because the database consists of individual blocks which consist of the data that you want to have sort and the blocks are being chained together by cryptography. That’s where the term crypto comes…