458: Fighting Pediatric Cancer with Cryptocurrency!? (with Jacob Beckley from The Beckley Foundation).

Brian Nichols  
Instead of focusing on winning arguments, we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Well, hey there, folks, Brian Nichols here on The Brian Nichols Show. And thank you for joining us on a course, another fun filled episode. I am as always your humble host. And today, special guests short notice but I'm super excited to have this guest. We are talking about pediatric cancer and how we can fight back using cryptocurrency and the blockchain, Jacob Beckley from the Beckley Foundation. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show.

Jacob Beckley  
Hey, thanks for having me on. It's great to be here.

Brian Nichols  
Absolutely. Jacob, thank you so much for joining the program. And thank you for the short notice. I was talking to Eric, your assistant there early am before my workout. And I said, Wow, this is awesome, awesome stuff, we need to go ahead and get Jacob on the program. And thankfully, we were able to get you on the show today. So thank you for joining us. And I'm really excited for this conversation. Because right now, I know a lot of people are looking for ways that they can help people who are in need, and sometimes they look at their dollars and they say, Man, is my dollars gonna be worth what I hope they're gonna be worth and bring the value that I hope they're gonna bring the value and we're seeing the dollar lose its luster and thankfully we have some alternative technologies out there that are helping give awesome organization like you over the Beckley foundation help with some amazing causes that are out there. So let's first start things off Jacob, introduce yourself to The Brian Nichols Show and what is the Beckley foundation?

Jacob Beckley  
Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Jacob Beckley. I am the chairman of the board of the Beckley Foundation. And this is a foundation that was started in 2016, a nonprofit organization. And our mission was to help fund underfunded pediatric research and build awareness around that devastating disease. So we've done so many things throughout the years, we, you know, a small foundation, but we've raised, you know, 20,000 30,000 a year 50,000. And then I did a couple of crazy events. I did a I built a boat and rode across Lake Michigan to raise funds and raised quite a bit and then that caught the attention of Charles peanut Tillman, formerly of the Chicago Bears. And he and I did the same thing. We built a boat designed and built it nights and weekends and then rode across Lake Michigan. And then since then, we've started Kira, and I can tell you a bit about why in a bit here.

Brian Nichols  
I would love that. Yeah, because I mean, yeah, that's, that's awesome. We get to hang out with the Charles Tillman there from there, so why not? And he's famous for the peanut swipe there. We had rip apart the peanut Punch, punch. Thank you. I'm a Cowboys fan. So that's my, my, I guess crossed the barrier there. But no, Jacob, this is fantastic stuff. Because right now and I would love to hear as you start things out why the Beckley Foundation came to be, we're seeing though, like there are a lot of people much like you who are looking to just get involved and try to start making a difference. And I think right now in 2022, the the opportunities for people to actually take that step. They weren't there before. And now it's not only it's there, but it's actually a lot easier than it was in the past. So let's talk about that. But also, let's dig into what I guess was the, the precipice for you starting off the Beckley Foundation,

Jacob Beckley  
specifically, a few things I have been raising money since 2011. And, you know, pediatric cancer is really dear to my heart. I've met so many families, hundreds of families that have either child, children with pediatric cancer, or whoever unfortunately lost their child to pediatric cancer. And, you know, my day job is I'm an executive within a innovation firm. So I focus on dissecting problems, figuring out how to come up with new approaches, new solutions to problems that exist today. And I feel that by focusing on pediatric cancer, we're going to have cascading effects throughout all forms of cancer. And that's already been proven today. So we've started raising money for him specifically in Chicago initially for Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago, and now Rush University of Chicago as well. And we fund research labs and that focus on cutting edge research and then trying to trying to find a cure, inevitably, you know, they're trying to improve treatments, make chemotherapy, stronger, more tailored, and and also working on on trying to get rid of this catastrophic disease.

Brian Nichols  
Yeah, I have a little cousin who, just seven years old and got hit with lymphoma. And it was just it crushes you, because you look at the child and you're like your kid, you didn't you didn't deserve any of this. You're just you know, bright eyed, bushy tailed, you have your life ahead of you. And he spent the past two years going through tests and bone marrow transplants, I mean, you just go through the list of things that he's had to go through in his little life. And it breaks your heart. And to your point you nobody wants to see children the most innocent among us suffering and the fact that you're taking this step and trying to do the research that not only help those kids in need right now, but to help prevent the kids of the future from having to go through just all these this pain and suffering that we've seen happen over the years. So let's talk about some successes you're having right now. You've been doing the research since 2016. Obviously, you must be having some success getting the eyes of NFL veterans. So I would love to hear what success you're finding over the Beckley foundation and actually helping with pediatric cancer?

Jacob Beckley  
Well, it's, it's quite a bit, but you know, initially, when the foundation started, we were raising a lot of money. You know, I think the first year that the foundation was in existence, I think I raised about $3,000, you know, nothing much. And that was from just putting myself out there to to help build awareness. And but each year, it grew significantly. And since 2016, you know, both personally, and through the foundation, we've raised about a million dollars, which is a significant amount of money. And, you know, first of all foundation in those years. And, you know, one of the challenges that we had coming into the pandemic, you know, once that hit, I mean, the whole world changed. Yeah. But the thing that changed for foundations is that all fundraising kind of stopped, we used to host in person events, and where you'd have silent auction items, you know, cocktail parties, things like that, to help raise funds. And we couldn't do any of that. So we had to, we have the pivot. And what better place to pivot, then what I'm passionate about, you know, technology, you know, cryptocurrency and philanthropy and tie it all together with a little bit of innovation. And you come out with a new form of cryptocurrency that's focused entirely on building awareness and supporting research in pediatric cancer.

Brian Nichols  
How about that, and that's where I'm on to really dig in today, you've developed something that is so revolutionary in the way we help fund these different forms of research. And you've developed the cure token, which I think is a fantastic idea in a fantastic name. I'm in sales and marketing, I trust me, I see a good name like that. I'm like, oh, and I would love when I was looking at the website, that you are literally, you're the first to do this, and you're revolutionizing the way that people are being able to donate money. So let's talk about that. What has been the feedback that you've received from the public in terms of number one, the ease of being able to make these donations but number two, have you noticed anything in terms of the types of donations? Have they been better? Had they been worse? lateness?

Jacob Beckley  
Yeah, so you know, cryptocurrency is an asset, you know. So it's a tradable asset, just like you would have like Bitcoin or Aetherium, Cardano Solana, you know, and also it's like a stock, for example. So, so what people do is they buy a piece of this, just like you would buy a share of a company, and you know, it fluctuates in price, the more people that buy it, the the price goes up, you know, the supply goes down. And out of that every single transaction, there's a 4% transaction fee that goes directly to the foundation. And what I'm proud of is that our foundation is $1. In dollar out, you know, it's not a foundation as scaled so large where, you know, dollar in and 20% of it goes out to people in need, or the actual mission or the cause. So dollar in dollar out. So 4% of that is, is accumulated quite fast. You know, we were at a point where we were at a $56 million market cap, and with the foundation was pulling in about $10,000 a day, which is a not an insignificant amount of money, considering, you know, the year prior, it was it was so difficult, even, you know, raised at the grand, you know, so it's a it's a big shift. So the challenge that we've had, though, is because this is a tradable asset, you know, and people in cryptocurrency are really only out about making money, they want to double their portfolio, they want to, you know, increase, you know, how much money they actually have, at the end of the day. So they're always looking for new projects, new cryptocurrencies to get involved in, that's been a challenge for us. Because what I've tried to do is tap into those, those people with that mindset, but try to get them to think differently, you know, you can make money, you can, you know, put your, put your dollar out there, and hopefully, it'll, you know, double or triple, but at the same time, you can actually do some good, you know, or you go to bed at night and think, you know, what, I'm actually helping out, you know, I'm actually making a difference. And we've made a significant difference in the past five, six months here, in the amount of research, we've been able to fund the amount of direct family support that we've been able to help out with, you know, you know, getting a child with cancer isn't a choice, you know, it's not like you opt into it, right? It's, it's something that just happens and more times than not, when you have a child diagnosed with cancer, you immediately go into financial burden, you know, and you can't pay sometimes your mortgage or your rent, you can't pay for care or your car payments, things like that. And and we connect with with hospitals throughout the US and out now in the world, which we've never been able to do before and find these families connect with social workers and and make a difference you know, whether it's paying a car payment, you know, fixing a air conditioner, you know, building a ramp outside of a house, whatever these things are, that we can help support to ease that burden so that the families can can have a better quality of life that are not even better, just consistent, you know, quality of life that they may have had prior. That's what we're trying to do. And, you know, even so far, as you mentioned, lymphoma, there's been a few families that we've supported, where the children have been diagnosed at such a young age, in their whole world, kids in their families, the whole world revolves around cancer, the whole every, every part of their existence. And these families haven't been able to, like, for example, ever take a vacation, you know, ever. And so we granted a few a few trips to Disney World, with a charity out there called Give Kids the World and we were able to grant chips trips to these families and create memories for them, you know, and something that they're going to remember forever and cherish. So we've been able to do a lot, and I'm just excited about, you know, where we've gone, what's, what's on the horizon, and just all the great things that we're gonna be able to do here in the future. Yeah, well,

Brian Nichols  
let's talk about the things on the horizon. And obviously, that involves people getting involved and being able to help support and start things off, I want to learn how do we go ahead and get this awesome new crypto out there cure token? Number one? And number two? I mean, you mentioned that it is just like every other cryptocurrency but is there any limitations that people have to be prepared for when they go into this world of the cure token?

Jacob Beckley  
Yeah, there is, you know, cryptocurrencies, kind of a scary place, you know, I mean, it's, you know, cryptocurrencies in general, you know, you talk about mainstream Kryptos Bitcoin Aetherium. You can go to coin base Robinhood. You know, buy Nance, things like that, the very traditional methods of entry. When you start talking about some of these more complex cryptocurrencies that aren't yet listed on those tier one exchanges, it can be really daunting and difficult to buy. So it's a our project is currently on the binance of BNB. Smart chain network. And it is telling us, it's really hard to buy. So what we did is we developed a new technology called cure pay, which allows people to go to a website, which is paid on cure token dotnet, they can say how many cure token or how many US dollars they want to spend to buy. And it's just like buying a pair of shoes online. Like that's it. You don't have to you don't have to know about wallets or exchanges or swapping tokens, we just made it really simple. And we do all of that we automate that entire process, which is a pretty complex process automated in a few seconds, programmatically through technology. And then at the end of it, you get access to a dashboard, that shows your tokens where you can interact with them, you can send them to a wallet, once you become more sophisticated on what a wallet is a software wallet, or you know, you can buy them, buy more trade, sell things like that. So we've tried to simplify the process. But you know, I'm in technology. And the first time I tried to buy any cryptocurrency, at this level of cryptocurrency took me two days to figure it out. Well, it's not an easy process. So so what I want to do is really simplify it. And now it takes seconds. Now, for anyone, even a novice user.

Brian Nichols  
That's amazing. And that's right there. Sometimes the biggest challenge right to get new people to embrace this new technology is it's it's difficult my day job, I'm in sales. And my focus is exactly in that the business technology world cybersecurity phone systems bandwidth solutions. And the the number one challenge I face is getting people to say, Yeah, this looks great. But will it look great for me, and to be able to bridge that world and saying not only is it possible to get this new solution that's gonna make things better, but it's not as hair pulling of a process as people think it is. So let's talk about that. And I would love to dig more into right now. The the community that you're building, and I think that right, there may be something that we're seeing a lot with this crypto environment is it is building communities, because each crypto kind of is it's in essence, its own its own dollar. I mean, it is its own money. And it just like a country when you have your dollar like that's for that country. And now it's like these dollars are for these little communities. So what's the community looking like for the Cure token? And how is that community growing?

Jacob Beckley  
Yeah, we we've actually been growing at a pretty steady pace. You know, last last time I checked, this was a while ago, but I think we were at about 20,000 people throughout all our different social media platforms. And you know, these are people who opt in who are interested in the project who, who want to get involved. I mean, this is something that's, that's pretty crazy when I tell you this, but, you know, this isn't just me running this. When I started this, it was just me. But now we have about 180 people behind the scenes that are involved. And these are people who are handling social media, working on different marketing tactics, you know, knocking on doors, setting up meetings, I mean, all these different types of things. And so a lot of people to come on board a project and why people are coming on is because they believe in it. They believe in the charity aspect of it. They believe that we're doing a lot of good At the end of the day, so it's it's a really strong community. And this is, you know, these are volunteers, these these aren't like people who are, you know, making, making additional income from this, this is all for charitable charity sake, and they just want to get involved and, and do some good. So it's, I think that's a testament to the community that, that we're growing really rapidly and that the people aren't just their passive, passively engaging, but they they're significantly and making a difference through their engagement. And that's been pretty remarkable. And I don't think a lot of projects see that, you know, type of community support.

Brian Nichols  
Yep. Well, and let's maybe tell one of those stories. I was on the website earlier. And I was reading the story about a little girl named Kate can tell the story about Kate.

Jacob Beckley  
Yeah, yeah, this is, uh, yeah, kids, kids great. We, I'll tell you a story about the pandemic. And Kate, we, boy, my wife and I, you know, get so involved invested with the families that that we support, you know, and we try to stay connected with them, try to help them try to find ways to make a difference personally, and also through the foundation, obviously. But in the case of Kate's when the pandemic hit, she lives here in Chicago land, and she was getting treatment in New York at Sloan Kettering. And, you know, right, when the pandemic hit, it was really uncertain times, you know, you weren't sure how bad it was traveling became difficult. She had a deficient immune system, so she wouldn't be able to fly on a traditional plane. So her mother was gonna drive her to New York. And we said, No, you know, let us do it. So we had an RV, we put put her in it, got her comfortable drove to New York, it was like a valet service, or, you know, Uber is parked in front of the hospital, and then drove off when she had her treatment completed. And, and that's the type of stuff that that we do from a foundation perspective as well. But But Kate's great, she's actually in remission. Actually, I think it was two or three days ago, I received a text from her mother, that, that her scans were clear. And she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, which is the most aggressive form of childhood cancer. It's a very, very aggressive, but but she's a survivor now. And she's, she's, you have this remarkable young girl, and I can't wait to see what she she does with her life and all the great things she's going to be doing. But yeah, great individual,

Brian Nichols  
in that, I want you to share that that story, because I mean, Jacob, you're having the opportunity to give kids a future. And I mean, it's really personal for me with my little cousin. You know, he's Fingers crossed. Yeah, I know, we had a test today to make sure that he's still in remission. But his I think he's on second bone marrow transplant, and this one seems to be the one that took and, you know, it's, it's just the idea of him now being able to have something to look forward to. And for two years, him and his, so my, my cousin, who is his dad, and his wife, they move from Jersey to Philadelphia, to go to chop, the Children's Hospital, Philadelphia, and lots of special specialists there. And great hand like the doctor they're working with was one of the best in this specific area of this, you know, type of lymphoma and with, with him now having a chance, and just seeing how the family feels like to know, okay, he's got chance. And you're giving that to hundreds 1000s of children. And that's impacting real people right now. And I mean, I'm actually a little emotional to talking about because I know how much it's impacted us. So just thank you, because you're, you're, you're doing something really great. And you're helping, not just the kids, which I mean, that's, that's the most important thing is helping these kids, but you're helping their families, you're helping their their, you know, extended families. And it really is something that it gives me hope, because in all the chaos of the world and the nonsense that we go through on a day to day basis, you know, you turn on the news, and everything's negative, and just, you know, thank you for being something positive that we can talk about today.

Jacob Beckley  
Well, thank you for that, you know, it's, you know, what we do isn't always financial, as well, you know, a lot of times like you'd like you said, families, you know, they don't choose this, you know, so they, they find out in one moment that their child has has cancer, and they haven't done research before on what consequences are what's the best treatment out there. You know, they're, they're learning it just like everybody else does. But so what we do is we try to connect them with resources of people who've been through it before they can help them navigate can help them understand the terminology and help them know the different treatment plans, you know, you're different wherever you go. So it's, it's also about that. And, you know, I think I want to talk a second about, you know, the future state of cure, because, you know, it's an assets tradable asset. There's 4% goes to charity. But what is happening is that this is actually transforming into a tool that is going to revolutionize research in the world and then not just with pediatric cancer but all regions Search, whatnot when I was sending during the pandemic as well, and from this, you know, that point forward, everything around our lives is going to revolve around our time during the pandemic. But but this is one of those times, you know, so during the pandemic, I was thinking, how is it that we were able to come up with a vaccine so quickly, and having, you know, be readily available mainstream shortly thereafter. And, you know, I mentioned, I work in innovation. So always dissecting problems and trying to identify connections and different different things that we can replicate. And what I discovered was, after analyzing this hundreds of different variables, there were really three buckets, which really resonated. And that was that researchers had massive access to data, so massive amounts of data and same data, okay, then, which isn't, doesn't really happen today. Second thing is researchers stopped working in these silos and pockets throughout the world. I mean, even in Chicago, for example, there's researchers in the same city working on this the same tests, and they didn't they never collaborate, you know, so that that's a problem during the pandemic, that all changed, you know, so access to data, you know, you have researchers collaborating, working together. And then, you know, finally on the, the third point here, is that they were incentivized, you know, motivated, you know, we didn't know how bad the pandemic was going to be, you know, we didn't want it to affect us, or our families, our loved ones, our communities. So people had, like motive, like a motivation to want to solve that problem. So what we're building is this new technology, which is called cure chain, and you mentioned chop, for example, Children's Hospital, Philadelphia, we're actually working with a, an expert there, Dr. Adam Resnick is going to be supporting us on this initiative, from a research perspective, as well as we have Jim Nasser, who used to be the head of blockchain technology at the CDC. So we're actually meeting a week and a half from now to have our next workshop. But the idea here is we're building a blockchain based technology that's going to enable research to occur faster, it's going to enable more access to data and a bigger reward. And this is going to be become a platform that's community driven, community based platform to enable better and faster breakthroughs in research. You know, research today is funded from the top down, government organizations, healthcare organizations, Big Pharma sometimes, and, and we're gonna come up from the bottom and make an impact from that perspective. But I can talk about the technical details of it. But but really, it's what it is, is a dynamic based NFT network, where people you or I can put in our medical information, agnostically, anonymously. So there's no personal identifiable information tied to us. But that has a lot of value. And you should be rewarded for that. And through the power of NF T's and reward based mechanisms, that's the vehicle. And then there's going to be massive amounts of data coming in, there's going to be query data, structured data, proof, proof, data, so proof of stake data, and then researchers going to be incentivized and motivated through financial bounties as well as community driven initiatives. So it's a very big concept, that we're putting together a pretty, pretty top notch team here to help bring this to life and really excited to see where that that's gonna take us. But that's the future of cure token and work here is going,

Brian Nichols  
wow, wow, folks, how about that, because we talk about, you know, creating solutions, building the solutions, and making the and you mentioned that the old the old ways of doing things, the status quo, irrelevant, and that's what you're doing. So thank you for doing that your dog agrees as well. Good. And how about this with your dog understands, we're already close to time too. And I just looked at the clock and I realize you're close to time. So I'm a sales guy at heart, I need a call to action. what can folks do now to go help support the Beckley foundation and help support this awesome new innovation to cure token?

Jacob Beckley  
Well, I'll be very faster. There's lots of ways you can go to pure token dotnet to check out the cryptocurrency. If you're interested in that digital asset, you can also go to the Beckley foundation.org. If you would like to learn more about the research, we're funding and supporting and you can make a donation there. And then as well, I didn't mention this, but we have a sponsorship with NASCAR that we're doing this year. So you'll see us all over NASCAR this year, and racing in September, which is the month of childhood cancer awareness month, and you can go to race for a cure.com with number four. To learn all about that and get involved we're giving away two cars we're raffling off a motorcycle to tomorrow's raffling off a motorcycle as well as tons of other prizes that you can opt in to to win just by getting involved in participating.

Brian Nichols  
Wow, how about that, folks? We got a call to action and it's an easy one and you can win some stuff too. How about that while fighting pediatric cancer along the way using cryptocurrency Why not with that being said Jacob Beckley, thank you so much for joining us on the program today. And folks, if you enjoyed the episode, please do me a solid, make sure you go ahead and give it a share. And when you do Please make sure you give yours truly a tag at being Nichols liberty. And by the way, if you particularly enjoy this episode, here's how you can do go ahead and clip the artwork in your podcast catcher. It'll bring you right to Brian Nichols show calm rate to today's episode, you can find all the links for the episode the entire transcript of the episode. Oh, and by the way, all 450 Plus episodes of The Brian Nichols Show. So with that being said, Jacob Beckley, thanks for joining the program.

Jacob Beckley  
Thanks for having me here, Brian. Thanks.

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