The Future Is Now: Dan Reitzek Of TerraZero Technologies On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Never focus on “buying the dip or riding the wave;” timing the market never beats time in the market.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dan Reitzik.

Dan Reitzik, Chief Executive Officer at TerraZero Technologies Inc. He is the former CEO and Founder of DMG Blockchain Solutions Inc. Dan is a serial entrepreneur who raised more than $35M for DMG while taking the company public on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I have always been fascinated, not by trends, but by what drives trends. There’s always going to be a hot commodity, but the system that’s facilitating that commodity is what really intrigues me — infrastructure over what’s being sold using that infrastructure. If there’s a gold rush, sell shovels. And that’s especially true for technology. You can do with technology that you can’t do in many other industries. For example, artists, labels, and music licensors always want to copyright a hit song. In technology, you can write and own a musical scale that authors a million hit songs.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

I remember back when I was still CEO of DMG Blockchain and was first exposed to Bitcoin, how intrigued I was by the blockchain, the underlying technology that enables trustless transactions. As I became more familiar with it, I often thought about how this would be a gamechanger in the technology industry.

A while later, my partners and I were at a business dinner with potential investors when I brought up this emerging technology and my thoughts on how it would advance the tech world with these trustless transactions. Our dinner guests were not convinced and just laughed — simply dismissing our opinion and expertise regarding this new area.

Fast forward to two years later, and DMG owned one of the largest, most cost-efficient Bitcoin mining facilities in North America. Furthermore, once it was fully powered, it was infamously known as the most powerful cryptocurrency mine in Canada. And guess who got invited back to dinner to talk about blockchain, cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and the like?

Can you tell us about the cutting-edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

Very simply, the Metaverse is opening up a new economy and a new lifetime of opportunities for people. It’s breaking down barriers for upward social mobility — especially for people who, right now, are experiencing what the world has to offer from primarily behind a computer screen. I’m excited to be part of TerraZero, building tools to bridge the real world with the Metaverse and enabling the emergence of an entirely new economy. However, for this new economy to blossom, we need to ensure that entrepreneurial tools available in the real world are also available in the Metaverse. I’ll give you an example, a young entrepreneur with $15,000 buys a small parcel of land in the Metaverse. On this land, they could then open a small retail store, host events, or even place advertisements such as billboards to generate some ongoing revenue. However, to grow this industry properly, we need to ensure that the same tools afforded entrepreneurs in the real world are available in the Metaverse. For this reason, TerraZero offers financing on virtual real estate, which allows this same entrepreneur to purchase ten parcels with the same initial capital, and the revenue potential is now tenfold.

TerraZero is creating smart contracts which enable trustless and automated transactions for rentals and mortgages. This was the entire promise of blockchain technology, the ability for two or more parties to transact without any third-party involvement, and no need for trust.

Another beautiful thing about the Metaverse is that it’s bringing a competitive market back to technology and many other industries. There are a lot of Metaverse platforms out there, especially emerging ones, with different strengths, and many of these platforms have laid the groundwork for what a fully immersive and digitally elevated lifestyle can really be like. I look at all of this, and I go back to the idea of infrastructure. What are the tools and systems that will remove barriers to entry? What are the services that will fulfill people and empower them to leverage everything this new digital frontier has to offer? How can established businesses further capitalize on the legacies they have created? How can someone with a small sum of money take advantage of opportunities halfway across the world to change their lives?

How do you think this might change the world?

I think it already is. Look at how governments are reacting and grappling with the new normal. Once more and more banks and entities start adapting to blockchain and crypto, the more businesses will be able to operate everywhere, the more entertainment will intertwine with daily life, and the more we will all become one truly interconnected society. TerraZero employs a high school student part-time — not to grab coffee or get ‘experience.’ He’s a seventeen-year-old who was making full-on Metaverse deployments by the time we met him. He’s already a veteran in this space and will be a CTO someday. The ability to scale one’s success is unreal in the Metaverse.

I like to say that with the current internet, we consume content. With tomorrow’s Metaverse, we experience that content.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

There are many ways to look at that — and I’ll tell you why. For starters, some people think about crypto as not being secure. But the blockchain empowers a very clear ledger and chain of transactions. Moreover, the Metaverse can help someone be more anonymous in what they do digitally, but that also means social media giants won’t be able to harvest their private data and monitor their every move so easily. Lastly, people like to point out that crypto is a haven for money laundering and criminal activity. Yet so is the dollar. In fact, the blockchain’s clear ledger is one of the best things that has ever happened to the FBI. If there’s one thing, I think we need to institute Web 3 in an environmentally conscious way — and I know people are ardently working to that end, so I’m very optimistic.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?

I was the founder and CEO of DMG Blockchain from 2016 to early 2021. When I was first exposed to Bitcoin, the thing that excited me the most was the blockchain, the underlying technology that enabled trustless transactions. Over the past few years, many entrepreneurs, including myself, tried to build non-crypto blockchain platforms such as those for guaranteed provenance within a supply chain. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these efforts failed because we were trying to create a solution for a problem that didn’t exist.

When I discovered the Metaverse, and more specifically decentralized worlds such as Decentraland, I quickly realized that every parcel of land, every building, every wearable, and avatar were simply NFTs secured by a blockchain. That’s when it dawned on me that the Metaverse was the next use case of blockchain technology after crypto.

What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?

I think more people need to experience it to feel it and believe it. Once you’re in, it’s incredibly immersive, fun, and completely different. 2021 was the year everyone heard about the Metaverse. 2022 will be the year everybody experiences the Metaverse.

To this end, we are working with companies and brands on specific ways to bring more and more users into the Metaverse, whether by way of virtual concerts and events or by offering ways for consumers to purchase real-world products and receive a digital version of that which they can use in the Metaverse.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

I’ll tell you this — we’re looking to direct people to Web 3 and the Metaverse. So, we’re cooking up some pretty unique campaigns and events that will start bringing people into what we’re doing across the Metaverse platforms where we own land and build. And to give you a different kind of answer, nothing in this world is having a positive impact in the news quite like a Metaverse PR move. Many companies are realizing that, and in getting involved in the Metaverse, they’re beginning to understand why they’re going to stick around.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

In the early 2000’s I had a company called Digital Youth, a wireless network and community for teens. We partnered with a national wireless carrier and schools to promote the closed and safe social media and wireless network. The original model was to generate revenues from the sale of airtime to the network, which quickly reached a very large number of users. However, it turned out that teens didn’t have a lot of extra money to spend on airtime, so we quickly needed to figure out ways to generate other revenue streams.

I was then introduced to Randy Lennox, who was the CEO of Universal Music in Canada at the time. The music industry was struggling as the internet had enabled music to be shared free of charge, and piracy was rampant. He helped me understand the opportunity that a large customer base presented, especially as we could put brands directly into our users’ hands via their phones. We created and launched a technology that allowed our users to purchase music and other content for their phones with the charges being applied to their cell phones. This helped both industries as the record labels found an easy way to distribute paid content, and the wireless carriers had a new generation of customers that were discovering new ways to use their cell phones.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Rest assured, there are certainly many causes that I am passionate about, and much of my spare time is wrapped up in volunteering my efforts towards their success. However, I also believe giving your time and energy to causes close to your heart is a very personal thing. And for this reason, I would prefer to keep this area of my life private and separate from my work.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

• There are many great ideas, but the key to a successful venture is in the people driving it, not the idea itself.
• As a CEO, my primary role is to make decisions. Sometimes it’s the wrong decision, but the important part is making a thoughtful decision. Early in my career, I was hesitant to make some decisions for fear of failure. I wish someone had told me years ago, do not fear failure, fear indecision.
• All businesses have their ups and downs, but the key is to stay the course. For example, my last company survived through crypto winter and almost became insolvent as a result. But eventually, the markets turned, and the company’s valuation went from $10M to $600M in just a few months because the business fundamentals were sound, and we stayed the course.
• Never focus on “buying the dip or riding the wave;” timing the market never beats time in the market.
• Finally, being present with everyone in the company. I wish I had learned much earlier in my career not to simply hire employees but instead surround myself with more intelligent and knowledgeable people than myself.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

We’ve seen a lot of separation over the last many years; for different reasons at different times. So, I think what we’re doing, what TerraZero is doing, and what the Metaverse, VR, and AR are doing… We’re bringing people back together.

I want to inspire people to get out there and get creative for the next generation of community building, entertainment, and business. The Metaverse is the most untapped new frontier I have ever seen. There’s a whole new kind of business-auteur-influencer-programmer that’s going to come forward in this space.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“See a need, fill that need.”

When we started TerraZero we needed to purchase land parcels in various Metaverse worlds. I asked my partners, “how do we purchase the land, where do we purchase our real estate, and why do we purchase in these locations?” I couldn’t find a simple way to search and purchase property, nor any type of data to help us determine which real estate would be appropriate for each specific purpose we had in mind.

That was when we decided to create the tools to assist others in their search and purchase endeavors while also developing data analytics to help make those decisions. This platform is called Amadea and will be launching soon.

Some very well-known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

When an industry is brand new, lots of entities try to come in and stake it. Titans vertically integrate. Very few companies take the time to acquire experts and conquer the create and execution, let alone infrastructure products and services that can empower a new industry. TerraZaro has both tech legacy experts and Metaverse insiders driving our value. We’re a pure play company — and we know how every creative discipline intersects when creating experiences in the Metaverse. Not only that, but we’re giving privacy and control over data back to users.

We’re simultaneously leveraging Metaverse worlds with our infrastructure products — and we’re connecting Metaverse worlds to keep the space competitive, open, and filled with unlimited possibilities. If you want an orchard filled with tall trees, the best thing to do is to have planted them ten years ago. That’s the advantage of being a first-mover in the Metaverse, and TerraZero is inviting all to be involved.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Readers can find me on all the usual socials — but if you want the real deal, come check out the events we’re throwing in the Metaverse.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

You are an amazing host. Thank you for having me.

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The Future Is Now: Dan Reitzek Of TerraZero Technologies On How Their Technological Innovation Will… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.