A few weeks ago, recovering rebound king Dennis Rodman showed up in the cable news rotation to speak in his capacity as an expert on US-North Korea diplomatic relations. Since he was sporting a T-shirt for the Canadian peer-to-peer payment PotCoin, we offered a brief pedestrian intro to the wide world of cannabis cryptocurrency including düber (DBR), a token that “incentivize[s] and improve[s] information exchange in the cannabis community [between] consumers, retailers, labs, processors and growers,” as well as others, including Smoke, Paragon, and GreenMed, which markets itself as “the world’s first ERC-20 Ethereum token backed application enabling customers to purchase Legal Marijuana using their Debit or Credit Cards.”

While you’re not mistaken if you have detected snarkiness in our coverage of this issue thus far, there is nonetheless a part of us that thinks it is important to keep up on these things. It’s a new economy inside another new economy, and explainers are needed—even for those of us who aren’t clicking crypto trade mags all day. On that note, we reached out to Tchia Alona Altar, CEO of Cannabium, whose angle is that it’s establishing “the benchmark for the medical cannabis extracts industry by using the power of blockchain to create a transparent and traceable commodity market” and representing “the first product-backed cryptocurrency in the cannabis extracts industry.”

We basically asked, What does that all mean?

What’s your elevator pitch? How do you explain this to people at a party?

Cannabium is a decentralized blockchain solution for the cannabis extract industry. Our approach enables Cannabis extracts producers and buyers to operate in a transparent marketplace enabling a perfect equilibrium based on the information provided by the Cannabinum smart contracts. In our vision the Cannabium token will become the standard token for cannabis extract trading, and together with our blockchain solutions will help the cannabis extract industry become more open, traceable, tradable, and transparent while saving time and money on unnecessary processes and intermediates.  

What problem does this solve?

The problems we are solving is that buyers want as much info about the CBD (origins of plants, where it was extracted, when it was extracted, and so on) and producers want to reach buyers easily. Both want to operate in a safe high-quality marketplace that audits the producers and buyers (legally-wise and quality-wise) and help make transactions easier. As the usage of CBD becomes more common, we believe a lot of smaller players (buyers) will enjoy a smart and easy way to purchase CBD for their needs.  

Why is transparency needed? What is the advantage of using blockchain to track transactions?

Transparency is needed in order for the buyers to know exactly what he is buying and the origins of the product and where is was produced. For example, a buyer might want CBD extracted from organic farms in Canada and not CBD extracted in farms in South America. Blockchain is a secure way to store data that way it becomes a source of “truth” and the data cannot be tampered, but more than that is allows to create the currency and facilitate transactions. These two features make blockchain a great solution for this industry.  

What is the main difference between Cannabium and other cannabis-related cryptocurrencies?

Cannabium’s unique features are 1—We deal with extracts only. 2—We are a market place. 3—We are the only token backed by real product.

Why the focus on medical? As opposed to on recreational cannabis?

We are not focused just on medicinal; however, CBD is a key product in that industry. We believe the usage will grow in other industries. However, we are a B2B marketplace, so the way the buyers use the CBD is up to them and their licences.  

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