Poorly informed or disingenuous critics often point out to Bitcoin’s “slow” transaction validation time. Yet a truly decentralized and global currency needs to have a rigorous verification process which allows all nodes to validate and broadcast transactions.

The 10-minute block time is not just some cautious threshold that a concerned creator has added to an obsolete technology, in an era when internet speeds were slower. It’s a reasonable amount of time which allows everybody to be in sync with the rest of the network – from the miners who harness solar energy in the middle of the desert to the metropolitan node operators, all participants should have the capacity to download and validate ~1 MB every ~10 minutes.

Regardless of what shitcoin marketers will tell you, Bitcoin’s conservative monetary emission is nothing like the speed limit of a Ford Model T which shakes when driven on bumpy roads. It’s not slow, it’s just secure enough to avoid double spends and guarantee that no hidden inflation occurs.

One of the earliest and most famous cases of Bitcoin criticism belongs to Daniel Larimer. In 2010, he complained about the 10-minute block time and suggested that payment validation should be “as fast as swiping a credit card”.

Satoshi Nakamoto himself went on to argue in favor of a decentralized system in which users validate their own transactions, then dropped his famous “If you don’t believe me or don’t get it, I don’t have time to try to convince you, sorry” quote.

Bitcoin Security vs Banks

Speaking of transaction validations that happen as quickly as swiping a credit card, the concept of waiting ~10 minutes for the next block appears to be weird for people who come from traditional finance. In their minds, the currency of the internet should transfer instantly and confirm just as fast as their PayPal transfers.

This type of expectation is unrealistic in relation to decentralization. In order for a bank settlement to happen within seconds, there is a lot of institutional trust involved. The banks must trust each other, and the transacting parties are vetted by an intricate institutional setup that prevents double spends.

If Alice sends $1000 to Bob, then the confirmation happens instantly thanks to institutional agreements between their banks. The system relies on trust and is regulated by laws. Once confirmed, money transfer is not permanent and can be reversed or frozen at any time. Also, the actual settlement may take a very long time to happen, as banks keep tabs on each other and only move physical money when they think it’s necessary.

Bitcoin is completely different in its design and requires specific security to preserve its qualities. First of all, Bitcoin is decentralized. This means that no central party has more authority than the other, and decisions are made with a consensus between nodes.

Secondly, confirmed transactions are final and irreversible. Attacking the network to reverse a transaction after one confirmation took place costs as much as 50 coinbases (312.5 BTC after the 2020 halvening), so the financial incentives are stacked against this type of action (using the same hash power to mine bitcoins generates a greater profit).

Thirdly, bitcoins are scarce and the Bitcoin network secures the emission at all times. If banks can get bailed out if they fail and new money can be printed by central banks to tax the wealthy through inflation, then Bitcoin operates outside of these political decisions.

These concepts are hard to grasp by people who have spent most of their professional lives appealing to an authority that has decisive powers to make changes. But in Bitcoin you can’t appeal to a government or bank to revert a payment and you need proper security to make sure that transactions follow the rules.

Yet it seems like not even centralized exchange owners like Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ), who have been around the Bitcoin space for a while, seem to understand how the network works. So there’s no shame in trying to learn and understand.

Bitcoin Security vs “Fast” Shitcoins

If one was to document all the instances when altcoin/shitcoin proponents have pointed out to Bitcoin’s slowness, an entire encyclopaedia of misleading marketing schemes from the “blockchain industry” could could be written.

Every cryptocurrency derived from Bitcoin (with the exception of contentious forks that tried to identify as “the real Bitcoin”) has reduced the block time. Litecoin (created in 2011) releases new blocks every ~2.5 minutes. Dogecoin (created in 2013) generates a new block every ~1 minute. Ethereum (created in 2015) generates a new block every 15-20 seconds.

Yet there are lots of projects whose marketing departments (a concept that’s foreign to Bitcoin and any truly decentralized network) directly attack Bitcoin for being “too slow”. They’ll say that they can handle thousands and millions of transactions per second, they can compete with Visa and Mastercard, and they enable decentralization for mainstream adoption/institutions/a better future/whatever buzzword a marketing department can invent.

But the problem is that their definition of decentralization is very different. To many shitcoins, being decentralized only means lacking a central point of failure. Having a handful of nodes being operated by different actors is sometimes enough of a reason to engage in misleading comparisons with Bitcoin.

They don’t care as much about every user being sovereign and running a node to validate all transactions. They don’t educate users to download the reference client to verify the coins they’re receiving and increase their own privacy. It’s also likely that they will find excuses about full nodes being wasteful, expensive to operate, and unnecessary in their “revolutionary” and “decentralized” network.

Most of the times, these shitcoins target audiences that feel disillusioned by the legacy banking system. So they will highlight their quickness by comparing themselves to Visa, Western Union, or PayPal, and then drop the “decentralized” argument. If they also include hype words such as smart contracts, DeFi (decentralized finance), AI, machine learning, and other terms that are popular in Silicon Valley, they might just attract the investments of clueless newcomers.

But how decentralized and secure is a network that is worth a few billions, but can be attacked for less than $10.000/hour? And what difference does it make if your shitcoin of choice receives a confirmation in 15 seconds, if it takes 5 extra hours to be sure that it’s as final as a Bitcoin transaction?

Also note that the case described is that of Ethereum, which has a reasonable amount of hash power to secure it – in the case of DASH you’d have to wait 8 days. If these network don’t improve their security with proper incentives, it’s likely that the gap will widen in the future.

Right now, the “slow” Bitcoin network is a lot faster if we consider security (which is the best metric for decentralized networks). And the 10 minute block time is just perfect to not discriminate between metropolitan broadband internet users and isolated individuals who use mesh antennae and have very slow connections. Everyone gets to be in sync with the network, everyone is encouraged to run a full node and can do it for less than $200, and every transaction that gets included in a new block is properly verified against double spends and inflation.

This “Model T” of cryptocurrencies actually turns out to be better according to the metrics that actually matter in decentralized networks. And for the scope of this analysis, only base layer transactions and security have been taken into consideration. The Lightning Network, Liquid, and other off-chain scaling solutions offer more privacy, speed, and scalability without minting new shitcoins.

So the next time somebody says that “shitcoin X” is faster than Bitcoin or claims that Bitcoin is slow, show them the criteria that truly count in a decentralized network. And when they claim to have invented the next Bitcoin, they better bring the network effect and security – or else it’s just a good idea that can be very well incorporated into the Bitcoin ecosystem as a sidechain.

Are shitcoins just a convenient smokescreen which keeps governments and regulated distracted from Bitcoin? This has to be the most memorable and controversial part of this season 3 finale with Christian (@ck_SNARKs on Twitter).

The POV Crypto Podcast co-host also expresses some ideas which he read in James Dale Davidson’s “The Sovereign Individual” and perpetually reminds everyone that we are in the middle of the hyperbitcoinization process: it’s not something that will just happen someday, but a marathon which we’re all running and whose starting gun has been shot by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.

Listen to this unique 90-minute discussion and think again about the purpose of shitcoins: are they risky investments that newbies should avoid at all costs? Definitely! Do they deserve to get liquidity in their experimental and mostly dishonest marketing-based state? Clearly not! But are they successful mechanisms to keep the media and the governments busy while Bitcoin is blossoming? Well, they might just be.

The episode is available on iTunes and Spotify.

Support the Bitcoin Takeover Podcast!

Starting this season, 25% of all donations will go to the Free Ross campaign, to help Ross Ulbricht get a second chance. The draconian sentence that he received should concern every bitcoiner around the world, as the government which poses as a champion of liberty gives a double life sentence for indirect and non-violent crimes involving Bitcoin. 

It’s a slippery slope that should concern us all, regardless of the jurisdiction under which we find ourselves. The case of Ross Ulbricht has set a dangerous precedent all around the world, as lesser democratic countries can simply prosecute bitcoiners under similar charges and with outcomes that are just as harsh. 

If Ross was to receive clemency or at least a second trial with another judge by taking into account the new evidence, the decision would get noticed by judges and politicians worldwide. Whether we like it or not, the USA is an example for the rest of the world and we can actually try to make a difference in a positive sense.

As usual, 50% of BTC earnings will be sent to the guest. In this situation, Colin will be rewarded for his time, effort, and knowledge.

You can donate on the main chain at the address below, via Lightning on Tippin.me, and you can send $1 of your dirty and criminal fiat on Patreon.

American bitcoiner Sasquatch Muscle has really come a long way. He started out as a poorly informed shitcoin speculator who was constantly looking for that easy 100X, and through research became a Bitcoin maximalist who runs his own node and onboards Lightning without resorting to custodial wallets.

The story of Sasquatch Muscle isn’t singular though, and this episode of The Bitcoin Takeover Podcast is meant to be educational for newcomers. While it seems tempting to invest into the asset which appears to be going to the moon, you have to take into consideration the greater centralization which creates leverage for market manipulation and insider trading. Also, the future of most shitcoins is uncertain and you might end up bagholding something worthless.

Since Sasquatch Muscle has a professional background in public health, we also spend some time discussing the Bitcoin maximalist carnivore diet, as well as other aspects which concern the discrepancies between public affairs and the anarchy of BTC.

The episode is available on YouTube, iTunes, and Spotify.

If you would like to support the show and project, you may donate some sats through the QR code below, send a tip via Lightning, or spend $1 of your dirty fiat on Patreon. Keep in mind that 50% of BTC donations will be sent to Sasquatch Muscle or a charity of his choice, as his time and educated insights are valuable.

Automatic Transcript (Helps with SEO):

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[Music]

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hello and welcome to the Bitcoin

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takeover podcast

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I am glad and my guest today is

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Sasquatch muscle or whatever that means

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and she's an American Bitcoin er who

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started in 2017 at the very top it was

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when she bought his first amounts of

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crypto I'm not sure if it was

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specifically Bitcoin but I really think

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that the lesson that he can teach us is

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valuable and should be passed on to

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future noobs and plebs were to get into

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the Bitcoin space this upcoming bull

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market so hello hey thanks for having me

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I'm really happy that I get to talk to

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you and part of the platform of this

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podcast is to invite people who usually

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don't get a voice and don't get invited

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to other podcasts so the fact that we

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get to talk and share the kind of

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experiences that most of the times are

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just told in the third person by crypto

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influencers is valuable and I'm happy

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that we get to do this

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I appreciate it as well it definitely is

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something where you see the stories and

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I can relate to many of them but you're

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right they come from influencers from

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their perspective so I'm more than happy

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to talk a little a little bit about my

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experience also you have a background in

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research did I get that right yep I work

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in public health and in health promotion

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and manage some population health

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programs okay before we get into that

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part where you started with Bitcoin how

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does this work

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that you work for a government

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institution and you support the kind of

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currency that is agnostic to

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nation-states and basically tries to

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take away the money showing power from

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the government so do you find any kind

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of ideological incompatibility between

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the kind of work that you do and the

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fact that you support that coin

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you know I I think I'm like many others

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who do see just from the you know

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American political landscape there are

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issues that you see at work but you know

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your livelihood depends on it so

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depending on if you you know have

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Bitcoin has has obviously been something

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that I have found to be kind of a you

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know a guiding force for what I've

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always thought we should be doing in

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health promotion so I think as the more

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I learned about Bitcoin and looking at

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things in a high time preference

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approach I think about how Bitcoin could

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potentially help in educating changing

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behavior and on what I do currently in

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health promotion so when we look at the

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cost of health care you know we all see

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the year-over-year trends getting bigger

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and bigger medical benefits costing more

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premiums more prescriptions or costing

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more even gym memberships are costing

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more so I've actually started to look at

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Bitcoin as a potential to provide some

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of those same services that we typically

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use our fiat or a USD on that have

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become overpriced as an opportunity to

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provide the same type of solution

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whether that's a service or a program

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but at a relatively much lower cost

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today due to our ability to utilize

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Bitcoin and the high time preference

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aspect of it so you know today you may

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spend $21 on a two month healthy eating

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program

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where a lot of people they don't even

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see the value of the health behavior of

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eating better they don't see any value

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in the $21 spent because they want to

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lose weight next week

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they don't want two months of a program

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or one year of a program to change their

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behavior and maintain that change but

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potentially with Bitcoin it gives us the

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ability to you know provide a program

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for maybe 10,000 sets or one dollar that

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from the business perspective you hold

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that 10,000 sets and that value

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increases allowing you to provide that

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program that you otherwise would

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overcharge in USD but you can provide it

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in at a much lower cost as well as

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educating individuals on the benefits of

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Bitcoin the high time reference living

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healthier managing your health and and

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doing those things that you you need to

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do to live healthier and live longer so

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that you can actually see the realized

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gains of that Bitcoin or your health

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okay I never really thought about it

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from this perspective but then again I

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didn't have much to do in my life with

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medicine and this side of public health

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care even though my mother has worked in

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a hospital for years I was just a child

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and I didn't know much yeah definitely

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is a lot of individuals as you get older

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as you become more involved the nice

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thing is that that I guess the nice

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thing and the unfortunate thing is you

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can access information get quality or

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bad quality information online so you

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can access it and get it but it's a

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matter of how do you get programs that

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are evidence-based that are looking at

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the health behaviors that can maximize

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your health and also looking at things

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outside of that things that we can't

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control the other dimensions of health

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like not only the physical side but the

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emotional side that we're starting to

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learn a lot more about the environmental

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side not so much carcinogens but how are

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our communities put together are there

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areas with a lot of fast food are there

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sidewalks in your neighborhood that have

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curb cuts that lead into other

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neighborhoods the financial aspect of it

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which is an area which is of an emerging

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health-related area that companies are

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starting to focus more on is how do you

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manage your finances and how do you

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educate your employees to do that so

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Bitcoin is an area that could easily

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become an alternative financial

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opportunity or education piece for

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individuals and for companies and for

0:08:14.090,0:08:17.960
government entities to educate on if

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they ever thought that that was

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something that they wanted to do but it

0:08:20.940,0:08:26.610
looks like most likely they'd rather

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focus on their on their dirty fiat

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versus Bitcoin and then the last thing

0:08:29.460,0:08:34.320
is going to be you know the social

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aspect of Health and a lot of those same

0:08:34.320,0:08:40.740
things and same dimensions are in

0:08:37.370,0:08:43.680
Bitcoin and I kind of take that

0:08:40.740,0:08:47.010
population health approach to Bitcoin

0:08:43.680,0:08:49.829
which is interesting to me to look at

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something that I'm not an economist I'm

0:08:49.829,0:08:54.490
not develop

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but i'm somebody who does my own

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research and understands some of the

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behavioral aspects only because of my

0:09:01.060,0:09:07.330
area of expertise yeah that makes a lot

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of sense and i'm happy that i realize

0:09:07.330,0:09:13.650
that there are so many fields of work

0:09:09.180,0:09:17.650
which bitcoin can definitely improve and

0:09:13.650,0:09:20.850
also it just proves to us that it's not

0:09:17.650,0:09:24.490
just developers and economists and

0:09:20.850,0:09:27.640
journalists that this space needs and we

0:09:24.490,0:09:30.490
need people from all types of working

0:09:27.640,0:09:32.500
sectors just to be able to understand

0:09:30.490,0:09:36.400
the full potential of this disruptive

0:09:32.500,0:09:39.760
financial technology I couldn't agree

0:09:36.400,0:09:43.300
any more with that it also proves that

0:09:39.760,0:09:45.370
point which somebody said to me during

0:09:43.300,0:09:50.020
the podcast but I don't remember exactly

0:09:45.370,0:09:52.510
whom that if you come from a background

0:09:50.020,0:09:55.900
you're going to look into Bitcoin and

0:09:52.510,0:09:58.180
try to apply it specifically into your

0:09:55.900,0:10:00.910
field of work and then spend some time

0:09:58.180,0:10:02.800
researching and figuring out how you can

0:10:00.910,0:10:04.810
do something and probably the first

0:10:02.800,0:10:06.850
impulse that you have is that you can

0:10:04.810,0:10:09.340
put stuff on the blockchain and you can

0:10:06.850,0:10:13.210
create a separate product call which

0:10:09.340,0:10:14.800
serves a particular purpose but it takes

0:10:13.210,0:10:17.710
some time to realize that it's actually

0:10:14.800,0:10:20.340
a bad idea and that there are computer

0:10:17.710,0:10:23.730
scientists who can do it without

0:10:20.340,0:10:27.029
wasteful block chains and implement

0:10:23.730,0:10:29.920
better databases

0:10:27.029,0:10:31.510
did you think of putting medical records

0:10:29.920,0:10:34.680
on the blockchain or did you think that

0:10:31.510,0:10:39.639
it's a good idea back in 2017

0:10:34.680,0:10:44.019
you know I first when I was first

0:10:39.639,0:10:45.430
introduced to cryptocurrencies I there

0:10:44.019,0:10:46.779
was a lot of talk about that you know

0:10:45.430,0:10:49.600
putting avocado on the blockchain

0:10:46.779,0:10:53.199
putting you know bottled waters on the

0:10:49.600,0:10:55.269
blockchain my area is not so much in the

0:10:53.199,0:10:57.389
medical record that is an area that

0:10:55.269,0:11:01.660
actually first when I thought about it

0:10:57.389,0:11:04.300
applied but I am more in the service and

0:11:01.660,0:11:08.589
solution and the development of program

0:11:04.300,0:11:13.839
so it took me a little bit to start to

0:11:08.589,0:11:17.220
see Bitcoin and crypto currencies but

0:11:13.839,0:11:21.519
Bitcoin specifically as an avenue to

0:11:17.220,0:11:25.240
provide solutions at a relatively much

0:11:21.519,0:11:32.829
lower cost today but with the potential

0:11:25.240,0:11:35.260
of that value being being there over the

0:11:32.829,0:11:39.910
course of somebody's progress through a

0:11:35.260,0:11:42.040
program of course this is one of the

0:11:39.910,0:11:44.800
advantages of sound money it's not

0:11:42.040,0:11:47.920
inflated it doesn't lose value over time

0:11:44.800,0:11:50.350
and in relation to the inflationary

0:11:47.920,0:11:54.269
currencies it actually becomes more

0:11:50.350,0:11:54.269
valuable as time passes

0:11:54.839,0:12:02.350
absolutely and I looked at that in the

0:11:57.069,0:12:05.980
same way as learning how to eat healthy

0:12:02.350,0:12:09.730
or learning a physical activity routine

0:12:05.980,0:12:14.319
or being involved in athletics or an

0:12:09.730,0:12:16.959
exercise group that in the long run the

0:12:14.319,0:12:20.259
immediate results of learning those

0:12:16.959,0:12:23.079
skills are not almost are not always

0:12:20.259,0:12:25.269
realized in the moment over time after a

0:12:23.079,0:12:27.309
month of being involved a year of being

0:12:25.269,0:12:31.569
involved three years of being involved

0:12:27.309,0:12:34.389
that one week worth of education can be

0:12:31.569,0:12:35.860
decades worth of value to you

0:12:34.389,0:12:40.209
and that's one of the ways that I

0:12:35.860,0:12:42.550
actually related health in general and

0:12:40.209,0:12:45.329
health promotion and public health

0:12:42.550,0:12:49.779
directly to what I was learning about

0:12:45.329,0:12:51.430
Bitcoin from some of the from some of

0:12:49.779,0:12:54.249
the innovators and and some of those

0:12:51.430,0:12:58.720
individuals who are putting out a lot of

0:12:54.249,0:13:01.019
that great content for us right you know

0:12:58.720,0:13:04.300
what I was thinking of right now

0:13:01.019,0:13:09.399
basically you deal with public education

0:13:04.300,0:13:11.290
and relationship health and I see this

0:13:09.399,0:13:14.290
big trend that Bitcoin of people

0:13:11.290,0:13:17.379
becoming carnivores and only only eating

0:13:14.290,0:13:19.660
meat and from your perspective as

0:13:17.379,0:13:23.920
somebody who works for a governmental

0:13:19.660,0:13:26.529
agency which basically issues advice on

0:13:23.920,0:13:28.959
how to live a healthy life do you think

0:13:26.529,0:13:33.610
that's healthy or is it a little too

0:13:28.959,0:13:36.579
much the only meat you know I am NOT a

0:13:33.610,0:13:39.249
dietician okay but and I'll put that

0:13:36.579,0:13:42.550
with the caveat but what I will say is

0:13:39.249,0:13:45.699
that everybody is different we are all

0:13:42.550,0:13:49.959
very complex organisms and we all

0:13:45.699,0:13:52.209
respond completely different to the

0:13:49.959,0:13:54.279
foods that we eat the types of activity

0:13:52.209,0:13:57.459
that we're engaged in we all handle

0:13:54.279,0:13:59.949
stress differently we all have different

0:13:57.459,0:14:03.370
sleep patterns we all live in different

0:13:59.949,0:14:07.960
communities with different social

0:14:03.370,0:14:12.160
support groups so I believe for some

0:14:07.960,0:14:17.160
individuals that is the perfect approach

0:14:12.160,0:14:20.649
I am an advocate for individuals eating

0:14:17.160,0:14:22.360
me I'm an advocate for individuals

0:14:20.649,0:14:28.020
understanding where their food comes

0:14:22.360,0:14:31.300
from looking at wholesome foods that

0:14:28.020,0:14:33.700
people can easily access and are

0:14:31.300,0:14:35.709
affordable and I believe that that's

0:14:33.700,0:14:38.649
going to be different for everybody so

0:14:35.709,0:14:41.230
when we look at things like the Bitcoin

0:14:38.649,0:14:43.060
Twitter or crypto Twitter you know

0:14:41.230,0:14:47.800
people don't realize it really is an

0:14:43.060,0:14:53.290
echo chamber just like if I'm on NFL

0:14:47.800,0:14:55.480
Twitter and there is a certain echo that

0:14:53.290,0:14:58.540
occurs in some of those maybe you know

0:14:55.480,0:15:00.040
Tom Brady is a cheating liar and most

0:14:58.540,0:15:02.220
people kind of echo that around and some

0:15:00.040,0:15:04.899
people may not believe that that's true

0:15:02.220,0:15:09.190
but but the same thing kind of occurs in

0:15:04.899,0:15:11.260
in Bitcoin Twitter in and just like you

0:15:09.190,0:15:14.080
know what people call themselves toxic

0:15:11.260,0:15:15.250
plants and and some of those individuals

0:15:14.080,0:15:17.620
I think are just a little bit more

0:15:15.250,0:15:20.470
assertive and more willing to discuss

0:15:17.620,0:15:25.209
their experience with eating me and

0:15:20.470,0:15:28.000
being full carnival or maximalists do I

0:15:25.209,0:15:31.450
think that that's appropriate I think

0:15:28.000,0:15:33.480
there's some people it absolutely is and

0:15:31.450,0:15:37.240
for some other people they may have a

0:15:33.480,0:15:39.400
intolerance or a sensitivity to me and

0:15:37.240,0:15:41.740
those are still things that we're all

0:15:39.400,0:15:46.480
still trying to find out they're still

0:15:41.740,0:15:48.790
not nutrition science is one of the ones

0:15:46.480,0:15:51.970
that's lacking the most evidence I will

0:15:48.790,0:15:53.860
say as we learn more about some of the

0:15:51.970,0:15:57.779
things that were going on in the 70s and

0:15:53.860,0:16:01.810
80s in terms of stigmatizing fat and

0:15:57.779,0:16:05.380
reducing some of that responsibility off

0:16:01.810,0:16:07.750
of sugar which has kind of changed the

0:16:05.380,0:16:10.510
American diet I think all of those

0:16:07.750,0:16:15.850
things do play a role but we've got to

0:16:10.510,0:16:17.920
be honest in thinking about you know

0:16:15.850,0:16:19.279
that our stuff that what we do and what

0:16:17.920,0:16:24.170
works for us is not what works for

0:16:19.279,0:16:27.290
everybody right I guess that's the best

0:16:24.170,0:16:29.300
kind of advice anyone can give just do

0:16:27.290,0:16:31.850
whatever feels right and whatever makes

0:16:29.300,0:16:36.050
you feel healthy and full of energy

0:16:31.850,0:16:37.490
after you eat right and you know there

0:16:36.050,0:16:41.420
are some things that we absolutely know

0:16:37.490,0:16:46.069
you know hydrogenated oils the impact of

0:16:41.420,0:16:47.420
sugar and sweet beverages those things

0:16:46.069,0:16:51.199
are absolutely we know the data is out

0:16:47.420,0:16:53.959
right since the 70s and since the

0:16:51.199,0:16:55.370
dietary guidelines of the u.s. Dietary

0:16:53.959,0:16:58.129
Guidelines since I've been putting those

0:16:55.370,0:17:02.559
out about every 10 years there was a

0:16:58.129,0:17:06.890
huge push in the late 80s early 90s to

0:17:02.559,0:17:10.339
stigmatize fat and since that point

0:17:06.890,0:17:15.730
since we have done that we have seen a

0:17:10.339,0:17:20.000
dramatic increase in obesity in the

0:17:15.730,0:17:22.669
consumption of fatty foods and highly

0:17:20.000,0:17:25.399
processed foods and we've seen a direct

0:17:22.669,0:17:29.530
result of that is we have a population

0:17:25.399,0:17:32.960
that from 10 years ago we've seen

0:17:29.530,0:17:37.610
obesity rates significantly climbed from

0:17:32.960,0:17:44.770
around 30% to getting closer to 40% of

0:17:37.610,0:17:47.809
adults are obese or or highly overweight

0:17:44.770,0:17:50.179
using you know a metric of BMI that I

0:17:47.809,0:17:52.700
won't get into that today in terms of

0:17:50.179,0:17:54.679
its complete validity but we know that

0:17:52.700,0:17:58.610
we're trending to a much unhealthier

0:17:54.679,0:18:01.039
population and a lot of that has to do

0:17:58.610,0:18:03.320
with some of the information that is

0:18:01.039,0:18:06.679
being provided to you from governmental

0:18:03.320,0:18:10.039
agencies and anybody who just like a

0:18:06.679,0:18:12.559
shit corn charlatan is trying to sell

0:18:10.039,0:18:15.890
you something so that you can give them

0:18:12.559,0:18:17.809
something that is a value to to them and

0:18:15.890,0:18:21.230
sometimes that's money sometimes that's

0:18:17.809,0:18:23.510
time sometimes it's attention but we see

0:18:21.230,0:18:26.409
that in almost every industry that that

0:18:23.510,0:18:30.370
we're in but nutrition and

0:18:26.409,0:18:35.830
public health is is you know not not a

0:18:30.370,0:18:38.260
special case okay so now that we

0:18:35.830,0:18:42.159
discussed this and I had the perfect

0:18:38.260,0:18:45.940
opportunity to approach this topic let's

0:18:42.159,0:18:49.299
move on to getting into Bitcoin and I

0:18:45.940,0:18:54.309
guess the first cryptocurrency that you

0:18:49.299,0:18:59.289
bought in 2017 was not Bitcoin it was

0:18:54.309,0:19:03.750
not it was 0.15 light coin at two

0:18:59.289,0:19:06.250
hundred and eighty-five dollars a coin I

0:19:03.750,0:19:07.960
had reached out it's not really bad

0:19:06.250,0:19:11.919
right you could still make a profit a

0:19:07.960,0:19:14.500
twenty three hundred something yeah I

0:19:11.919,0:19:20.169
actually caught it I think it went from

0:19:14.500,0:19:22.990
three hundred and forty you know dropped

0:19:20.169,0:19:25.960
down the to sixty I bought it at 285 my

0:19:22.990,0:19:29.409
friend who told me to buy light point he

0:19:25.960,0:19:31.690
said it's faster it's the silver digital

0:19:29.409,0:19:34.419
silver to bitcoins digital gold it's

0:19:31.690,0:19:38.200
cheaper he said oh man I think you got a

0:19:34.419,0:19:41.020
good price on that and the interesting

0:19:38.200,0:19:43.630
thing was is then he also pointed me to

0:19:41.020,0:19:46.529
additional shit holes he says you can go

0:19:43.630,0:19:52.029
on to this website called Finance and

0:19:46.529,0:19:57.010
you can start to trade your litecoin for

0:19:52.029,0:19:59.640
other points that I've read have a lot

0:19:57.010,0:20:06.549
of potential the two first ones that he

0:19:59.640,0:20:10.240
told me about where XRP and Trump so

0:20:06.549,0:20:13.720
looking back now you know you if you

0:20:10.240,0:20:15.970
hear those two you know okay you know

0:20:13.720,0:20:18.610
this person is a shit corner over there

0:20:15.970,0:20:21.220
just so uneducated on the space that

0:20:18.610,0:20:25.830
those are recommendations to what I

0:20:21.220,0:20:29.380
consider to be a pretty good friend

0:20:25.830,0:20:32.380
right but you could have made worse

0:20:29.380,0:20:34.030
decisions in this regard I remember on

0:20:32.380,0:20:37.990
by Nance there was a lot of speculation

0:20:34.030,0:20:39.230
on the equivalent of penny stocks which

0:20:37.990,0:20:42.169
never went anywhere

0:20:39.230,0:20:45.649
as opposed to like going Tron and what

0:20:42.169,0:20:48.049
was the other one x RP x RP they're

0:20:45.649,0:20:51.139
still around they're still in the top 10

0:20:48.049,0:20:55.730
I guess so you could have made worse

0:20:51.139,0:20:58.720
choices oh I did I thought I was a

0:20:55.730,0:21:04.880
traitor is the next choice that I made I

0:20:58.720,0:21:11.029
a traitor with no understanding of TA or

0:21:04.880,0:21:12.679
how it worked I didn't know anything

0:21:11.029,0:21:15.559
other than he told me a couple people to

0:21:12.679,0:21:19.100
follow and I had a super low time

0:21:15.559,0:21:23.059
preference I was looking for that a

0:21:19.100,0:21:25.490
hundred time coin so I was hopping in

0:21:23.059,0:21:28.370
and out of coins not understanding that

0:21:25.490,0:21:31.279
you know my USD value was maybe staying

0:21:28.370,0:21:35.240
the same but I was losing in Bitcoin

0:21:31.279,0:21:38.600
ratio every single week as I saw even

0:21:35.240,0:21:40.669
with the bad trades I started to trade

0:21:38.600,0:21:43.789
more to try to get more I was putting

0:21:40.669,0:21:46.539
more USD in the buying litecoin I was

0:21:43.789,0:21:49.850
still buying like coin as as kind of the

0:21:46.539,0:21:53.840
the coin that was I was trying to

0:21:49.850,0:21:57.590
accumulate more of and it is something

0:21:53.840,0:22:01.340
that I'm sure many people as they've

0:21:57.590,0:22:04.370
seen the price Bitcoin going up they're

0:22:01.340,0:22:06.950
getting into probably the same exact

0:22:04.370,0:22:08.539
scenario that I got into was thinking

0:22:06.950,0:22:09.350
that you were a traitor with low time

0:22:08.539,0:22:14.779
preference

0:22:09.350,0:22:18.529
I actually was holding about 20,000

0:22:14.779,0:22:24.110
Trung at one point right before it shot

0:22:18.529,0:22:28.909
up to I think it was like 2,000 SATs in

0:22:24.110,0:22:31.220
the ratio and I didn't have sold it

0:22:28.909,0:22:34.789
right before that so then after that I

0:22:31.220,0:22:38.299
basically just bought every top all the

0:22:34.789,0:22:41.840
way down until when Bitcoin was right

0:22:38.299,0:22:45.830
around 6,000 so in the middle of a 2018

0:22:41.840,0:22:48.679
was when I took my money out and I said

0:22:45.830,0:22:51.200
okay I I'm it's not working you know I'm

0:22:48.679,0:22:52.720
putting more money and I'm losing my

0:22:51.200,0:22:54.220
money and I'm not gaining

0:22:52.720,0:22:56.140
in any Bitcoin value I saw I was

0:22:54.220,0:22:57.910
starting to understand reading and

0:22:56.140,0:22:59.440
seeing individuals on Twitter saying you

0:22:57.910,0:23:02.560
have to look at it from the Bitcoin

0:22:59.440,0:23:04.330
ratio you can't be looking at it at USD

0:23:02.560,0:23:06.760
you have to look at it at Bitcoin ratio

0:23:04.330,0:23:09.340
and as I continue to go down I sold it

0:23:06.760,0:23:12.610
all I got out of that I probably lost

0:23:09.340,0:23:16.720
you know I think maybe 500 or so dollars

0:23:12.610,0:23:20.350
which to me at that time is a lot and it

0:23:16.720,0:23:23.590
still has a lot today but at least it

0:23:20.350,0:23:27.190
didn't just a couple weeks later and you

0:23:23.590,0:23:29.680
know it plummets down to to mid 3 3

0:23:27.190,0:23:32.650
thousands and by that point I was

0:23:29.680,0:23:37.710
starting to educate myself a little bit

0:23:32.650,0:23:41.830
more into Bitcoin and Bitcoin only I was

0:23:37.710,0:23:44.680
started to remove some of those TA and

0:23:41.830,0:23:46.780
Chacon charlatans from my Twitter and I

0:23:44.680,0:23:50.320
really didn't do much of anything for

0:23:46.780,0:23:54.910
about 6 months and come around December

0:23:50.320,0:23:59.560
when I see the price you know about 3334

0:23:54.910,0:24:01.210
hundred I started to think ok I think

0:23:59.560,0:24:04.300
I'm gonna put a little bit more money

0:24:01.210,0:24:07.630
and if I do it I'm gonna put it only a

0:24:04.300,0:24:10.960
big point and I slowly started to put

0:24:07.630,0:24:13.570
money back into Bitcoin but I fine I

0:24:10.960,0:24:17.340
found myself not learning anything I

0:24:13.570,0:24:22.120
would see Bitcoin Spica you know to

0:24:17.340,0:24:24.550
3,700 and I would sell it and then it

0:24:22.120,0:24:27.460
would you know go up even more and I

0:24:24.550,0:24:29.800
would buy more at 3900 and when it was

0:24:27.460,0:24:32.140
hovering around 4,000 I was buying it it

0:24:29.800,0:24:36.130
would go down to 38 with a dip and I

0:24:32.140,0:24:38.500
would sell it at a lost and I kept

0:24:36.130,0:24:41.110
finding myself wanting to get back in

0:24:38.500,0:24:45.430
the USD and I don't know what it was

0:24:41.110,0:24:47.980
other than just Brady from citizen

0:24:45.430,0:24:51.350
Bitcoin but it really well is the fault

0:24:47.980,0:24:55.010
Keynesian you know I was just

0:24:51.350,0:25:00.260
constantly in this wanting to look at it

0:24:55.010,0:25:02.179
in USD value and not Bitcoin so I

0:25:00.260,0:25:04.270
started to do just that a little bit

0:25:02.179,0:25:07.429
more research looking at it looking at

0:25:04.270,0:25:09.590
and the unfortunate thing is I was I was

0:25:07.429,0:25:12.260
learning a lot of it from tone Vaes at

0:25:09.590,0:25:14.440
the time and not that there's anything

0:25:12.260,0:25:18.260
wrong with that other than the fact that

0:25:14.440,0:25:20.450
they kept putting this damn hyper wave

0:25:18.260,0:25:23.150
in my mind and it just sounded like it

0:25:20.450,0:25:25.280
was so legit that I kept expecting it to

0:25:23.150,0:25:26.990
go lower so even though I was getting

0:25:25.280,0:25:30.799
these great prices and putting this

0:25:26.990,0:25:33.770
money in with every dip and every little

0:25:30.799,0:25:35.539
candle I was selling it off with the

0:25:33.770,0:25:37.520
thought that I could make twenty bucks

0:25:35.539,0:25:41.000
here and when it dropped down to a

0:25:37.520,0:25:46.280
thousand that I would have more Bitcoin

0:25:41.000,0:25:51.940
and it wasn't until it was actually when

0:25:46.280,0:25:58.820
I I started following peer Rashard and

0:25:51.940,0:26:00.710
he had his lightning note launcher and I

0:25:58.820,0:26:05.600
downloaded it I got it on my computer

0:26:00.710,0:26:08.590
and I started to just think in Bitcoin

0:26:05.600,0:26:14.210
and started to immerse myself in

0:26:08.590,0:26:16.340
following the appropriate you know on

0:26:14.210,0:26:19.640
the appropriate individuals reading the

0:26:16.340,0:26:23.659
as much as I could about the white paper

0:26:19.640,0:26:26.210
I read the white paper several times I I

0:26:23.659,0:26:28.039
was just starting to get myself into the

0:26:26.210,0:26:32.510
point where I was approaching it more

0:26:28.039,0:26:33.950
like I do the work that I that I do in

0:26:32.510,0:26:37.159
public health the research that I've

0:26:33.950,0:26:40.039
done in my past instead of somebody who

0:26:37.159,0:26:42.740
was trying to get rich quick it was

0:26:40.039,0:26:45.950
always I was trying to find that scheme

0:26:42.740,0:26:48.500
even though I did not understand I

0:26:45.950,0:26:50.390
didn't understand cryptocurrency I

0:26:48.500,0:26:53.330
didn't understand Bitcoin I didn't

0:26:50.390,0:26:56.030
understand the differences at that time

0:26:53.330,0:27:00.320
but I I really began to focus on Bitcoin

0:26:56.030,0:27:03.260
only and from once I did that a lot of

0:27:00.320,0:27:04.430
things changed I started to connect the

0:27:03.260,0:27:08.930
dots on

0:27:04.430,0:27:11.290
how Bitcoin how the higher time

0:27:08.930,0:27:14.900
preference approach is so much

0:27:11.290,0:27:19.100
applicable to things that I know and

0:27:14.900,0:27:20.840
started to trust that be that the

0:27:19.100,0:27:22.940
research that I was looking at that the

0:27:20.840,0:27:25.280
articles I was reading the podcast I was

0:27:22.940,0:27:26.660
listening to that there was a reason

0:27:25.280,0:27:29.930
that they made sense because they were

0:27:26.660,0:27:33.190
starting to make sense less of getting

0:27:29.930,0:27:37.100
rich tomorrow or next week or next month

0:27:33.190,0:27:40.550
and I had happened to have bought at you

0:27:37.100,0:27:43.730
know almost the tippy top of the end of

0:27:40.550,0:27:48.230
the last bull market that I got to see

0:27:43.730,0:27:51.040
it unwind and was a lot more confident

0:27:48.230,0:27:53.240
that the individuals who were making

0:27:51.040,0:27:56.480
appropriate calls or writing appropriate

0:27:53.240,0:27:59.450
articles that it came full circle right

0:27:56.480,0:28:01.850
back to him and they didn't change their

0:27:59.450,0:28:04.640
approach I didn't change their view and

0:28:01.850,0:28:07.130
that kind of entrusted me along with

0:28:04.640,0:28:08.810
downloading the note launcher to not

0:28:07.130,0:28:11.300
only just dip my feet but become

0:28:08.810,0:28:14.000
somebody who is truly Bitcoin only sees

0:28:11.300,0:28:18.670
the value of it sees the value of it in

0:28:14.000,0:28:21.980
other fields but also understands that

0:28:18.670,0:28:25.490
new adopters and getting individuals on

0:28:21.980,0:28:29.800
board for any behavior or any solution

0:28:25.490,0:28:31.880
takes time and there's not going to be

0:28:29.800,0:28:33.620
this isn't going to be the last time

0:28:31.880,0:28:37.220
where you'll hear a story similar

0:28:33.620,0:28:39.290
similar to mine and you probably even

0:28:37.220,0:28:40.490
over the course of the last couple you

0:28:39.290,0:28:42.650
know the last two weeks where it was up

0:28:40.490,0:28:44.390
to almost 14,000 I'm sure some people

0:28:42.650,0:28:47.750
were euphoric had heard it from their

0:28:44.390,0:28:49.250
friends by the 14,000 so that 10,000

0:28:47.750,0:28:52.820
expecting maybe that it's going to drop

0:28:49.250,0:28:56.570
the 6,000 there somewhere lower but it

0:28:52.820,0:28:58.490
you have to put yourself in in the right

0:28:56.570,0:29:01.480
position then you have to do your own

0:28:58.490,0:29:05.840
research absolutely every single time

0:29:01.480,0:29:09.500
yeah you told a lot of information there

0:29:05.840,0:29:11.930
and it made me think that you know the

0:29:09.500,0:29:14.740
predictions of tone base which most of

0:29:11.930,0:29:17.270
the times are based on pretty good

0:29:14.740,0:29:17.840
analysis but at the same time he has his

0:29:17.270,0:29:21.230
own up in

0:29:17.840,0:29:23.720
which don't happen to be right most of

0:29:21.230,0:29:26.750
the times and he has this strategy of

0:29:23.720,0:29:29.929
doubling down on whatever he says until

0:29:26.750,0:29:31.850
it happens that he's right but he causes

0:29:29.929,0:29:33.650
a lot of harm and even there was some

0:29:31.850,0:29:36.200
people learned to trade from him which

0:29:33.650,0:29:40.039
in itself is an accomplishment to be

0:29:36.200,0:29:43.279
able to interpret graphs and not predict

0:29:40.039,0:29:46.039
but manage risk and understand what

0:29:43.279,0:29:49.279
you're getting into and what the chances

0:29:46.039,0:29:53.390
are for you to actually make gains or

0:29:49.279,0:29:55.730
lose money well I'm happy that you found

0:29:53.390,0:29:58.130
hero short who has been into the space

0:29:55.730,0:30:02.440
for a long time he is one of the

0:29:58.130,0:30:06.470
cofounders of the Nakamoto Institute and

0:30:02.440,0:30:09.440
he I spoke to him a few months ago and

0:30:06.470,0:30:11.270
he has a background in accounting but he

0:30:09.440,0:30:14.809
ended up becoming a software developer

0:30:11.270,0:30:18.529
and she's a brilliant guy and I'm happy

0:30:14.809,0:30:20.630
that he receives this kind of praise

0:30:18.529,0:30:22.460
because he deserves it and he has

0:30:20.630,0:30:27.380
developed something truly unique with

0:30:22.460,0:30:31.520
the not note Lanter I I completely agree

0:30:27.380,0:30:35.870
when I was you know I have my mine on

0:30:31.520,0:30:38.539
and on a Twitter account and when I

0:30:35.870,0:30:40.490
started kind of with Sasquatch muscle

0:30:38.539,0:30:42.529
and and I've been a lurker for a really

0:30:40.490,0:30:45.380
long time and on my other account and

0:30:42.529,0:30:46.760
and you know I only had I think I

0:30:45.380,0:30:49.220
reached out to him one of my first

0:30:46.760,0:30:51.380
tweets I think even was hey you know

0:30:49.220,0:30:53.929
download it's an old launcher it worked

0:30:51.380,0:30:56.360
really well and he followed me back and

0:30:53.929,0:30:59.510
I think you know I only had like seven

0:30:56.360,0:31:02.090
followers at the time and it was it was

0:30:59.510,0:31:07.940
actually one of the most exciting things

0:31:02.090,0:31:10.340
that I've had occur just in that realm

0:31:07.940,0:31:14.960
of getting into this euphoric okay

0:31:10.340,0:31:17.250
Bitcoin and Bitcoin Twitter there's

0:31:14.960,0:31:19.200
something there right and

0:31:17.250,0:31:22.980
he was it was definitely somebody who

0:31:19.200,0:31:24.720
helped me out in a tone base he actually

0:31:22.980,0:31:26.910
you know although with the you know with

0:31:24.720,0:31:28.380
the trading and all of that I for some

0:31:26.910,0:31:30.450
reason I thought that that's what was

0:31:28.380,0:31:33.330
necessary as being involved in Bitcoin

0:31:30.450,0:31:35.010
is that's what people did but as I I was

0:31:33.330,0:31:36.510
involved a little bit more he he he

0:31:35.010,0:31:38.940
definitely calls out the shit corners

0:31:36.510,0:31:41.370
and and he did help to turn me into a

0:31:38.940,0:31:44.190
Bitcoin maximalist but then once I got

0:31:41.370,0:31:47.700
into the right circles on Twitter you

0:31:44.190,0:31:49.950
know I became a Hodler and when I knew I

0:31:47.700,0:31:52.049
was being preached just to go back to

0:31:49.950,0:31:54.419
when I bought it at all-time highs at

0:31:52.049,0:31:56.669
the beginning of 2018 when I was doing

0:31:54.419,0:31:59.250
some trading they were telling me kind

0:31:56.669,0:32:00.870
of the same thing some of the Twitter

0:31:59.250,0:32:03.419
shellingtons they were saying you know

0:32:00.870,0:32:05.880
just huddle you know yeah it's okay just

0:32:03.419,0:32:07.140
buy more and dollar-cost average and

0:32:05.880,0:32:10.980
huddle but they were telling me to do

0:32:07.140,0:32:13.049
that with shit coins and so the concept

0:32:10.980,0:32:14.520
I understood it but when I started to

0:32:13.049,0:32:19.250
see the hot lards

0:32:14.520,0:32:22.350
and the concept of modeling with Bitcoin

0:32:19.250,0:32:26.850
that is really where it was reinforced

0:32:22.350,0:32:30.750
and and I've become a you know a Hodler

0:32:26.850,0:32:36.150
of last resort and and hoping to you

0:32:30.750,0:32:38.820
know set myself up my my family up my

0:32:36.150,0:32:40.919
son and up for for the opportunity to be

0:32:38.820,0:32:42.600
like okay he was on the right track he

0:32:40.919,0:32:46.890
got himself some Bitcoin and there's

0:32:42.600,0:32:50.520
fruits to that end some some way down

0:32:46.890,0:32:52.830
the road not sure when but sometime now

0:32:50.520,0:32:54.480
that I think about it you acted just

0:32:52.830,0:32:57.690
like these people who wants to lose my

0:32:54.480,0:32:59.669
weight within a week you bought some

0:32:57.690,0:33:02.130
kind of cryptocurrency and expected to

0:32:59.669,0:33:06.480
have the family the fabulous gains that

0:33:02.130,0:33:08.910
you saw on mainstream media in 2017 and

0:33:06.480,0:33:11.580
then you just kept going hoping that

0:33:08.910,0:33:14.010
something special it happened and that

0:33:11.580,0:33:19.200
you would basically get that lucky run

0:33:14.010,0:33:22.830
and I guess this is more can gambling

0:33:19.200,0:33:25.950
than anything else you're just shooting

0:33:22.830,0:33:30.000
in the dark hoping that you get done

0:33:25.950,0:33:30.659
that 100 X or 1000 X with some kind of

0:33:30.000,0:33:34.139
obscure

0:33:30.659,0:33:35.970
which you know nothing about but sounds

0:33:34.139,0:33:39.779
good it looks promising and people talk

0:33:35.970,0:33:42.139
about it and also it makes a lot of

0:33:39.779,0:33:44.609
sense for people to be Bitcoin only and

0:33:42.139,0:33:48.299
in the long run is the only project

0:33:44.609,0:33:50.549
which has any kind of rationality and

0:33:48.299,0:33:52.799
future and it's the only one of which

0:33:50.549,0:33:57.419
I'm certain that will be around ten

0:33:52.799,0:34:00.359
years from now as if you look at the out

0:33:57.419,0:34:03.869
coins that were being traded in 2013 or

0:34:00.359,0:34:07.529
2014 2015 the only ones that are still

0:34:03.869,0:34:09.270
around are ripple and litecoin the other

0:34:07.529,0:34:11.250
ones just disappeared

0:34:09.270,0:34:13.589
they're not around anymore nobody works

0:34:11.250,0:34:17.669
on them I guess you haven't heard a pure

0:34:13.589,0:34:21.659
coin or named coin or other projects

0:34:17.669,0:34:24.690
like this which looked interesting when

0:34:21.659,0:34:27.950
they got released but had no development

0:34:24.690,0:34:33.119
I guess dogecoin is also pretty

0:34:27.950,0:34:35.339
long-standing yeah you're you're

0:34:33.119,0:34:39.359
absolutely right I did take the same

0:34:35.339,0:34:42.299
approach as that yo-yo dieter I even

0:34:39.359,0:34:45.990
though from my understanding of behavior

0:34:42.299,0:34:47.909
change and encouraging the adoption of

0:34:45.990,0:34:54.210
new behaviors I was literally falling

0:34:47.909,0:34:56.730
into that same trap and those the chick

0:34:54.210,0:35:00.020
coins basically I was I was you're right

0:34:56.730,0:35:04.400
I was falling in to chasing these coins

0:35:00.020,0:35:09.390
with little research or understanding of

0:35:04.400,0:35:13.079
what they were what their ultimate use

0:35:09.390,0:35:15.809
case was you know I was having you know

0:35:13.079,0:35:19.020
I'd split my Bitcoin into 10 different

0:35:15.809,0:35:21.869
alt coins and every once in a while one

0:35:19.020,0:35:23.430
of them would get a pump and dump a yeah

0:35:21.869,0:35:27.059
basically a pump and dump and I'd catch

0:35:23.430,0:35:29.309
it with a you know with limit sell order

0:35:27.059,0:35:33.150
that I just happened to set at some

0:35:29.309,0:35:36.829
arbitrary value that I had no

0:35:33.150,0:35:38.640
understanding of and I and I don't I

0:35:36.829,0:35:42.630
suspect that there's a lot of other

0:35:38.640,0:35:44.190
people who who will fall into that trap

0:35:42.630,0:35:46.109
once you

0:35:44.190,0:35:49.770
the price of Bitcoin going up and you

0:35:46.109,0:35:53.460
get on onto Twitter and you see just the

0:35:49.770,0:35:57.750
mass of everybody having and trying to

0:35:53.460,0:36:00.089
show you basically trying to take your

0:35:57.750,0:36:02.520
Bitcoin if you have it or trying to get

0:36:00.089,0:36:05.670
you to never even get into that area and

0:36:02.520,0:36:07.920
hopefully lose sight of you know lose

0:36:05.670,0:36:11.510
all your money and then kind of be fed

0:36:07.920,0:36:15.630
up with crypto and basically just leave

0:36:11.510,0:36:18.950
and I know a lot of cases of people who

0:36:15.630,0:36:21.420
are only around when the good times roll

0:36:18.950,0:36:23.460
whenever there is a bear market or a

0:36:21.420,0:36:26.280
price correction they just leave and say

0:36:23.460,0:36:29.220
this is not for me but then they see the

0:36:26.280,0:36:31.319
news about the price increase and that's

0:36:29.220,0:36:33.690
when they buy and once again and it's

0:36:31.319,0:36:36.690
like a never-ending cycle where they get

0:36:33.690,0:36:38.670
burned and this is also why even though

0:36:36.690,0:36:42.599
it's very irrational for people to buy

0:36:38.670,0:36:45.480
alkynes they basically rely on human

0:36:42.599,0:36:48.900
greed there will always be somebody

0:36:45.480,0:36:52.589
hoping that the project would find some

0:36:48.900,0:36:55.109
kind of purpose on the market and there

0:36:52.589,0:36:59.490
will always be people talking bad stuff

0:36:55.109,0:37:01.650
about Bitcoin so as long as there are

0:36:59.490,0:37:03.390
really people willing to put their fiat

0:37:01.650,0:37:06.089
money into whatever cryptocurrency

0:37:03.390,0:37:08.910
project looks promising to them there

0:37:06.089,0:37:13.950
will be what they call the outseason

0:37:08.910,0:37:16.650
where random out coins come how on top

0:37:13.950,0:37:19.500
in terms of daily gains and they show

0:37:16.650,0:37:22.470
promise only financially but then again

0:37:19.500,0:37:24.510
they have a low volume which means that

0:37:22.470,0:37:28.559
they can be manipulated in terms of

0:37:24.510,0:37:30.869
price by rather small amounts of money

0:37:28.559,0:37:35.039
usually bitcoins that are flowing into

0:37:30.869,0:37:36.539
the trades and also the founders of the

0:37:35.039,0:37:38.910
project have a lot of insider

0:37:36.539,0:37:44.190
information and they're able to call the

0:37:38.910,0:37:48.140
shots and be the conductors of pump and

0:37:44.190,0:37:50.430
dump schemes which is nasty if this was

0:37:48.140,0:37:53.940
regulated in any way but it's impossible

0:37:50.430,0:37:55.840
to become regulated there would be a lot

0:37:53.940,0:37:57.430
of people going to jail

0:37:55.840,0:37:59.980
and from this perspective I guess

0:37:57.430,0:38:03.520
Satoshi Nakamoto did a great job when

0:37:59.980,0:38:07.990
she just left and she also left the

0:38:03.520,0:38:11.070
million bitcoins in his wallet and some

0:38:07.990,0:38:13.570
people speculate that they are a way of

0:38:11.070,0:38:15.520
passing on the trust that the

0:38:13.570,0:38:18.070
cryptography works and there is nobody

0:38:15.520,0:38:21.880
who can hack into your wallet and steal

0:38:18.070,0:38:24.070
your bitcoins as long as satoshis coins

0:38:21.880,0:38:28.660
aren't there you can just trust the

0:38:24.070,0:38:30.640
system that is that is absolutely right

0:38:28.660,0:38:32.920
I see that as well I think that that

0:38:30.640,0:38:35.380
million dollars locked or those million

0:38:32.920,0:38:39.070
coins locked up is definitely a trust

0:38:35.380,0:38:42.430
factor for many of us and and you know

0:38:39.070,0:38:44.650
there's that's always why that kind of

0:38:42.430,0:38:47.200
an attack vector is you know who is

0:38:44.650,0:38:50.140
Satoshi you know what is gonna happen

0:38:47.200,0:38:51.520
with these coins at some point in the

0:38:50.140,0:38:52.900
future and what's that going to mean for

0:38:51.520,0:38:55.750
the price are they going to pull or

0:38:52.900,0:38:58.810
Charlie Lee and and sell at the you know

0:38:55.750,0:39:02.680
three three hundred and and you know

0:38:58.810,0:39:04.450
it's what's gonna happen so I know for

0:39:02.680,0:39:07.840
me just getting some skin in the game

0:39:04.450,0:39:11.590
getting some Bitcoin getting the node

0:39:07.840,0:39:14.230
launcher you know now I you know Co

0:39:11.590,0:39:19.810
enjoying through wasabi I have a cold

0:39:14.230,0:39:24.130
card those are the reinforcing behaviors

0:39:19.810,0:39:27.790
of learning about all of the mechanisms

0:39:24.130,0:39:32.310
of you know cold storage of corn join of

0:39:27.790,0:39:35.800
on the amenity of privacy fun durability

0:39:32.310,0:39:38.500
those are for me really honestly some of

0:39:35.800,0:39:41.320
them are foreign concepts I understand

0:39:38.500,0:39:44.380
them but getting that skin in the game

0:39:41.320,0:39:47.020
is definitely something as a you know a

0:39:44.380,0:39:49.330
newer Bitcoin blood is is definitely

0:39:47.020,0:39:52.630
helpful but there's also kind of a

0:39:49.330,0:39:56.620
little bit difficult you know a couple

0:39:52.630,0:39:59.740
examples is if you are wanting to do

0:39:56.620,0:40:02.080
something like you know do a coin joint

0:39:59.740,0:40:04.870
through say samurai or something I had

0:40:02.080,0:40:06.640
brought up recently on Twitter was you

0:40:04.870,0:40:08.290
know have people done some coin joins

0:40:06.640,0:40:09.200
and you know a lot of people were

0:40:08.290,0:40:11.360
telling me in the joint

0:40:09.200,0:40:14.420
telegram get on you know do your own

0:40:11.360,0:40:18.320
research you should just do it there's

0:40:14.420,0:40:20.330
nothing to be worried about but what I

0:40:18.320,0:40:22.220
was come my perspective was you know

0:40:20.330,0:40:24.140
these are kind of I don't have a lot of

0:40:22.220,0:40:26.990
precious Bitcoin I didn't you know I

0:40:24.140,0:40:28.670
didn't accumulate a ton of them when the

0:40:26.990,0:40:30.710
price was lower like I wish I would have

0:40:28.670,0:40:32.930
if I would have known and been involved

0:40:30.710,0:40:35.390
and the ones that I have are precious to

0:40:32.930,0:40:39.440
me from what I understand and how I

0:40:35.390,0:40:40.940
approach it and it is difficult to

0:40:39.440,0:40:43.810
understand that you know we are still

0:40:40.940,0:40:46.760
the early adopters I don't know how many

0:40:43.810,0:40:51.080
individuals have downloaded the world

0:40:46.760,0:40:53.870
cool dojo on a samurai wallet and done

0:40:51.080,0:40:57.110
the coin joint but I would assume it's

0:40:53.870,0:41:02.150
less than 100,000 right and if we're

0:40:57.110,0:41:06.680
looking at encouraging individuals to to

0:41:02.150,0:41:09.440
utilize some of the solutions that have

0:41:06.680,0:41:12.260
been made available well because of

0:41:09.440,0:41:16.310
Bitcoin it definitely is the education

0:41:12.260,0:41:19.490
aspect of it and the recklessness of it

0:41:16.310,0:41:22.010
is sometimes a little bit makes your

0:41:19.490,0:41:24.380
just a little bit hesitant to get

0:41:22.010,0:41:27.080
yourself in a situation where you know

0:41:24.380,0:41:31.280
maybe you lose you know Oh point zero

0:41:27.080,0:41:33.830
zero three Bitcoin it may not be a lot

0:41:31.280,0:41:36.800
of the USD value today but if you're a

0:41:33.830,0:41:39.680
hablar you know that point zero zero

0:41:36.800,0:41:41.690
three is something that you're looking

0:41:39.680,0:41:44.150
at with a high time preference and

0:41:41.690,0:41:51.530
looking out at potentially the values

0:41:44.150,0:41:53.950
lost over that course of time right and

0:41:51.530,0:41:57.860
also we should give a shout-out to

0:41:53.950,0:42:00.200
Rodolfo Novak who designed the cold

0:41:57.860,0:42:02.330
wallet is that what you call it by the

0:42:00.200,0:42:08.000
way yeah it's the cold card wallet

0:42:02.330,0:42:10.370
wallet and it's basically a labor of

0:42:08.000,0:42:13.640
love because he didn't need to release a

0:42:10.370,0:42:15.200
Bitcoin product he could just live off

0:42:13.640,0:42:18.110
the bitcoins that he accumulated

0:42:15.200,0:42:20.690
throughout years but he was not happy

0:42:18.110,0:42:22.610
with the ledger and the treasurer and

0:42:20.690,0:42:26.150
wanted something that suit

0:42:22.610,0:42:28.220
his needs and so far I haven't heard

0:42:26.150,0:42:30.380
anything but praise for the project and

0:42:28.220,0:42:33.890
I wish I could get one of those but

0:42:30.380,0:42:36.440
they're not as easy to find here in

0:42:33.890,0:42:38.660
Europe and even if you find them you pay

0:42:36.440,0:42:41.900
for extra ship shipping costs for the

0:42:38.660,0:42:45.680
DAT and that's not very convenient to do

0:42:41.900,0:42:47.450
it just like the Casa products I really

0:42:45.680,0:42:49.130
wanted to get a casa note but then I

0:42:47.450,0:42:52.610
figured out how much I would have to pay

0:42:49.130,0:42:56.090
for the shipping how much it actually

0:42:52.610,0:42:59.480
costs if you take v80 into consideration

0:42:56.090,0:43:02.870
when you pick it up and if it's a lot

0:42:59.480,0:43:06.230
for you in terms of $300 in here I'd

0:43:02.870,0:43:09.920
have to pay 19% just for the v8c and

0:43:06.230,0:43:12.770
about $100 extra for the shipping which

0:43:09.920,0:43:15.650
is not very convenient so I hope that as

0:43:12.770,0:43:19.130
you said we are still in the early days

0:43:15.650,0:43:21.500
and I guess it's just the privileged few

0:43:19.130,0:43:25.430
who get to use these services and try

0:43:21.500,0:43:27.920
them out and develop them but in order

0:43:25.430,0:43:31.040
to actually scale in terms of adoption

0:43:27.920,0:43:34.220
we have to take into consideration some

0:43:31.040,0:43:37.610
cheaper solutions and one of those that

0:43:34.220,0:43:39.260
I saw came from a Japanese group and the

0:43:37.610,0:43:40.930
name escapes me right now I don't

0:43:39.260,0:43:44.960
remember what it's called but it's

0:43:40.930,0:43:47.630
supposedly the fourth implementation of

0:43:44.960,0:43:50.060
the Lightning Network and it runs on a

0:43:47.630,0:43:53.210
Raspberry Pi zero which costs about

0:43:50.060,0:43:55.910
twenty dollars and the idea that you can

0:43:53.210,0:43:58.160
run a full node of a software

0:43:55.910,0:43:59.230
implementation our technology which is

0:43:58.160,0:44:02.930
very promising

0:43:59.230,0:44:06.140
on a device that's so easy to acquire

0:44:02.930,0:44:07.940
and so accessible gives us hope that in

0:44:06.140,0:44:11.360
the future we might see much more

0:44:07.940,0:44:14.600
adoption as soon as the interfaces

0:44:11.360,0:44:17.540
become friendlier and I guess right now

0:44:14.600,0:44:20.360
the easiest way to run a lightning node

0:44:17.540,0:44:22.640
and you're on the network is to either

0:44:20.360,0:44:25.160
use a custodial wallet but if you want

0:44:22.640,0:44:28.930
to be pure and support the network you

0:44:25.160,0:44:34.369
download zero shards no larger

0:44:28.930,0:44:37.369
right yeah so the price definitely so

0:44:34.369,0:44:39.619
you know I always look at it now as you

0:44:37.369,0:44:41.509
know Matt Odell and Marni Bennett have

0:44:39.619,0:44:45.259
kind of you know stacking SATs and

0:44:41.509,0:44:49.819
they've they've really helped to put

0:44:45.259,0:44:52.910
that as a mindset of you know $300 for

0:44:49.819,0:44:56.630
for a node or you know maybe I get

0:44:52.910,0:44:58.789
myself some some satoshis with that $300

0:44:56.630,0:45:00.499
and the great thing is be Erin Scott has

0:44:58.789,0:45:02.450
his node launcher so there is

0:45:00.499,0:45:04.519
alternatives if you have a spare laptop

0:45:02.450,0:45:06.049
hanging around with enough space and the

0:45:04.519,0:45:08.119
processing power you should be able to

0:45:06.049,0:45:12.829
run it and you're right about the

0:45:08.119,0:45:14.660
custodial wallets you definitely we're

0:45:12.829,0:45:16.970
still in the infancy of a lot of those

0:45:14.660,0:45:20.329
things but the great thing is not only

0:45:16.970,0:45:22.190
are we early and if you do and if you

0:45:20.329,0:45:24.799
are able to get your hands and test out

0:45:22.190,0:45:26.960
some of the things that some of the

0:45:24.799,0:45:30.619
products that are being put out for

0:45:26.960,0:45:33.259
Bitcoin there is great support I mean

0:45:30.619,0:45:36.049
Rodolfo he'll you know he will message

0:45:33.259,0:45:38.269
you back send you a tweet back max

0:45:36.049,0:45:41.299
Hildebrand has a ton of really great

0:45:38.269,0:45:43.670
videos and they're very responsive in

0:45:41.299,0:45:48.920
their telegram group so you can

0:45:43.670,0:45:51.559
definitely find find the information the

0:45:48.920,0:45:52.999
documentation that you need but honestly

0:45:51.559,0:45:54.979
I'm just a little bit more assertive I'm

0:45:52.999,0:45:56.180
more willing to kind of put myself out

0:45:54.979,0:45:58.640
there I've always been kind of a

0:45:56.180,0:46:02.660
technophile I you know I when I

0:45:58.640,0:46:03.829
graduated I was really I really wanted

0:46:02.660,0:46:05.930
to go into computer science I just

0:46:03.829,0:46:07.190
didn't I went a different route and life

0:46:05.930,0:46:09.769
changed a little and life was a little

0:46:07.190,0:46:11.420
bit different for me so I'm a little bit

0:46:09.769,0:46:13.880
more willing to put myself out there but

0:46:11.420,0:46:16.430
as these products get tested and the

0:46:13.880,0:46:19.450
ease of use and the on-ramp becomes

0:46:16.430,0:46:22.099
easier further that next wave of

0:46:19.450,0:46:24.920
adopters and Bitcoin only and Hodler

0:46:22.099,0:46:27.920
xand maximalists I think they will be in

0:46:24.920,0:46:31.839
a good spot of being able to run their

0:46:27.920,0:46:35.710
own node be able to have you know a

0:46:31.839,0:46:38.130
appropriate cold storage that's

0:46:35.710,0:46:42.760
you know that a cost-effective price

0:46:38.130,0:46:44.290
that's secure that's easy to get and

0:46:42.760,0:46:47.080
then potentially start seeing some of

0:46:44.290,0:46:49.450
these in more mainstream outlets even if

0:46:47.080,0:46:52.960
it's you know a couple of the big-box

0:46:49.450,0:46:54.700
retailers you know having hardware

0:46:52.960,0:46:59.350
wallets that you could have in their

0:46:54.700,0:47:01.510
computer department or having you know

0:46:59.350,0:47:05.350
something like being able to purchase a

0:47:01.510,0:47:07.390
Casa node or a novel at you know at the

0:47:05.350,0:47:10.960
Best Buy shelf right next to a Toshiba

0:47:07.390,0:47:15.550
laptop or something like that yeah that

0:47:10.960,0:47:18.400
would be ideal right it would definitely

0:47:15.550,0:47:21.250
you know I used to work at a big box

0:47:18.400,0:47:23.110
store like that and and you do not you

0:47:21.250,0:47:25.870
cannot imagine how many people come in

0:47:23.110,0:47:29.490
to try those out and I think if we're

0:47:25.870,0:47:32.950
trying to get mainstream adoption for

0:47:29.490,0:47:34.990
Bitcoin and get more individuals to

0:47:32.950,0:47:37.170
understand how to use a hardware wallet

0:47:34.990,0:47:41.200
the current way that we're doing it is

0:47:37.170,0:47:45.400
there's barriers to a scalability of how

0:47:41.200,0:47:50.010
do we onboard

0:47:45.400,0:47:50.010
you know half a million new bitcoiners

0:47:50.190,0:48:00.060
how do we do that and we have to partner

0:47:54.550,0:48:03.390
we have to develop connections with

0:48:00.060,0:48:06.340
those on ramps that are pre-existing

0:48:03.390,0:48:08.620
because you know even buying a cup of

0:48:06.340,0:48:10.600
coffee with you know with Bitcoin it

0:48:08.620,0:48:13.720
doesn't seem feasible because it's just

0:48:10.600,0:48:16.410
much easier to use USD and you know some

0:48:13.720,0:48:20.470
of my family members from where I'm from

0:48:16.410,0:48:23.460
I know maybe three people who are

0:48:20.470,0:48:23.460
bitcoiners and

0:48:24.240,0:48:31.380
may not even be full-on maximalists but

0:48:29.010,0:48:34.500
the adoptions on the east and west coast

0:48:31.380,0:48:36.030
kind of let the docs myself kind of

0:48:34.500,0:48:37.860
geographically but the east and west

0:48:36.030,0:48:40.160
coast they're much farther ahead and and

0:48:37.860,0:48:44.430
that's some of the problems that we see

0:48:40.160,0:48:48.390
is the lack of understanding that not

0:48:44.430,0:48:51.900
everybody and not every adoption group

0:48:48.390,0:48:56.550
is the same as the one I am currently in

0:48:51.900,0:48:59.820
or geographically located in or the echo

0:48:56.550,0:49:02.580
chamber that I involve myself in so I'm

0:48:59.820,0:49:04.800
hoping that just with me being a fool on

0:49:02.580,0:49:06.300
blab and asking some ridiculous

0:49:04.800,0:49:08.910
questions that sometimes I'm embarrassed

0:49:06.300,0:49:11.220
to ask just you know how do you use this

0:49:08.910,0:49:12.570
have you done this in a telegram and

0:49:11.220,0:49:14.060
sometimes you get ignored and that's

0:49:12.570,0:49:16.500
okay and you just kind of keep going

0:49:14.060,0:49:18.390
keep asking questions because you know

0:49:16.500,0:49:20.190
in some of those you know you just have

0:49:18.390,0:49:21.690
your messages where a lot of people are

0:49:20.190,0:49:23.190
asking the same things everybody kind of

0:49:21.690,0:49:25.170
wants to know and some of them have

0:49:23.190,0:49:27.600
already maybe been rehashed and they and

0:49:25.170,0:49:31.230
somebody else expects somebody else to

0:49:27.600,0:49:35.430
answer but you really I'm hoping that

0:49:31.230,0:49:38.370
that the plebs like myself are helpful

0:49:35.430,0:49:43.410
outside of just being hostlers helping

0:49:38.370,0:49:46.260
to helping to reinforce the importance

0:49:43.410,0:49:47.760
of having Hardware wallet coin joining

0:49:46.260,0:49:51.800
making sure that you're not reusing your

0:49:47.760,0:49:55.020
addresses doing all of those things that

0:49:51.800,0:49:57.810
you know legacy I'll calm legacy

0:49:55.020,0:50:01.710
bitcoiners know and understand but those

0:49:57.810,0:50:07.500
on the on new new adopters don't have

0:50:01.710,0:50:08.190
any idea about I suppose one of the most

0:50:07.500,0:50:11.280
frightening

0:50:08.190,0:50:13.800
ideas for the people who get into this

0:50:11.280,0:50:16.200
space is the fact that you have to take

0:50:13.800,0:50:20.400
care of your own money and you have to

0:50:16.200,0:50:22.710
take care of your private key and a lot

0:50:20.400,0:50:25.260
of people who can barely remember their

0:50:22.710,0:50:27.840
email password and it's so convenient to

0:50:25.260,0:50:30.660
click that button which says forgot your

0:50:27.840,0:50:33.960
password just type in your email address

0:50:30.660,0:50:36.470
and we'll send to you a link to reset

0:50:33.960,0:50:40.940
your password

0:50:36.470,0:50:44.300
has been the paradigm so far but to some

0:50:40.940,0:50:48.290
it might seem burdensome to handle that

0:50:44.300,0:50:51.380
kind of information and protect it from

0:50:48.290,0:50:53.420
what they perceive as malevolent forces

0:50:51.380,0:50:56.030
whether they might be friends who come

0:50:53.420,0:50:58.310
over at their place and might see their

0:50:56.030,0:51:01.310
private key which is stored in some kind

0:50:58.310,0:51:05.359
of box or hackers on the internet might

0:51:01.310,0:51:07.400
be watching their internet activity or

0:51:05.359,0:51:10.690
even governments which might be

0:51:07.400,0:51:14.770
malevolent and try to steal their

0:51:10.690,0:51:18.230
citizens bitcoins after they ban it so

0:51:14.770,0:51:21.140
it's difficult in this regard and I

0:51:18.230,0:51:24.170
suppose this is why hardware developers

0:51:21.140,0:51:28.670
are also reluctant in terms of joining

0:51:24.170,0:51:30.859
the big retail tech world they don't

0:51:28.670,0:51:33.500
want to sell their products without the

0:51:30.859,0:51:35.359
proper kind of education and you can

0:51:33.500,0:51:37.099
imagine a person walking into a store

0:51:35.359,0:51:41.000
and buying something like anodal

0:51:37.099,0:51:41.690
and then running it and if you run it by

0:51:41.000,0:51:45.349
itself

0:51:41.690,0:51:47.780
I suppose you're helping the network but

0:51:45.349,0:51:50.450
if you start using the interface and are

0:51:47.780,0:51:53.119
not aware of the consequences and don't

0:51:50.450,0:51:55.700
have a proper education which by the way

0:51:53.119,0:51:58.420
doesn't it doesn't come as quickly as

0:51:55.700,0:52:00.800
reading the instruction manual and

0:51:58.420,0:52:03.650
there's something that takes a few

0:52:00.800,0:52:05.960
months of research that's not quite

0:52:03.650,0:52:08.930
ideal and I suppose that's one of the

0:52:05.960,0:52:11.869
the parts that slow down the adoption

0:52:08.930,0:52:15.080
and from this perspective it would be

0:52:11.869,0:52:17.089
much easier to just rely on exchanges

0:52:15.080,0:52:19.250
but that's a bad idea as they are

0:52:17.089,0:52:22.450
trusted third parties that can get

0:52:19.250,0:52:26.020
hacked they're not always honest actors

0:52:22.450,0:52:28.510
they can do lots of crazy stuff and

0:52:26.020,0:52:31.099
resorts to fractional reserves

0:52:28.510,0:52:33.500
fractional reserves if they are allowed

0:52:31.099,0:52:38.570
to and I'm looking at you but the next

0:52:33.500,0:52:40.970
right now yeah no I think there's a you

0:52:38.570,0:52:42.710
know I think there's a lot of shit you

0:52:40.970,0:52:47.020
gotta sift through and I think that's an

0:52:42.710,0:52:52.510
I think in every area Bitcoin and

0:52:47.020,0:52:54.280
excluded so definitely for adoption the

0:52:52.510,0:52:56.050
you know I look at it from the health

0:52:54.280,0:52:59.280
education health promotion perspective

0:52:56.050,0:53:01.810
we're still trying to figure out how to

0:52:59.280,0:53:04.120
educate the general public to do the

0:53:01.810,0:53:09.700
things that they know are healthy for

0:53:04.120,0:53:15.220
them so bitcoin is a much more complex

0:53:09.700,0:53:22.600
idea and concept is going to need that

0:53:15.220,0:53:25.480
front facing forward pushing education

0:53:22.600,0:53:30.430
that comes from those reliable

0:53:25.480,0:53:34.840
trustworthy resources and there are some

0:53:30.430,0:53:38.350
you know there's the the Nakamoto

0:53:34.840,0:53:41.140
Institute is great I know

0:53:38.350,0:53:43.150
Bitcoin only calm is another great

0:53:41.140,0:53:44.710
resource following some of the Bitcoin

0:53:43.150,0:53:48.700
maximalist you find a lot of really

0:53:44.710,0:53:51.160
great resources but at the same time

0:53:48.700,0:53:55.570
there's just so much to wade through

0:53:51.160,0:53:59.350
that it that it'll be interesting to see

0:53:55.570,0:54:02.020
how that area of the next adoption

0:53:59.350,0:54:06.970
occurs is does it occur naturally is it

0:54:02.020,0:54:09.160
gonna be CNBC which I doubt but what is

0:54:06.970,0:54:11.980
it and who is it going to be and what

0:54:09.160,0:54:13.330
platform is it going to occur on is it

0:54:11.980,0:54:15.760
going to be something that's embedded

0:54:13.330,0:54:17.740
like in the cash app where you're able

0:54:15.760,0:54:21.790
to watch videos and you can buy and sell

0:54:17.740,0:54:25.540
and store and send and deposit a Bitcoin

0:54:21.790,0:54:29.500
into I think that's I really see the

0:54:25.540,0:54:32.770
cash app as being potentially one of the

0:54:29.500,0:54:37.890
biggest catalysts for the education of

0:54:32.770,0:54:40.780
some of the more some of the more

0:54:37.890,0:54:44.350
widespread issues that people have like

0:54:40.780,0:54:46.350
taxation or you know handling your own

0:54:44.350,0:54:49.480
keys withdrawing to different addresses

0:54:46.350,0:54:51.550
etc I believe that they have the

0:54:49.480,0:54:56.200
resources and the potential opportunity

0:54:51.550,0:55:00.000
to set up some foundational education on

0:54:56.200,0:55:03.810
Bitcoin that then is able to be utilized

0:55:00.000,0:55:07.340
by individuals who produce products or

0:55:03.810,0:55:10.800
software solutions and haand lers alike

0:55:07.340,0:55:14.010
but that is a I believe that that the

0:55:10.800,0:55:16.470
cash app and others like them I know in

0:55:14.010,0:55:18.510
every region there's there's kind of

0:55:16.470,0:55:21.870
different providers but I believe some

0:55:18.510,0:55:26.180
of those Bitcoin only true kind of to

0:55:21.870,0:55:30.630
the North Star companies really have a

0:55:26.180,0:55:33.540
lot on their shoulders for the adoption

0:55:30.630,0:55:36.480
and education of Bitcoin outside of the

0:55:33.540,0:55:41.900
current channels that we have like

0:55:36.480,0:55:44.310
Twitter Twitter really is the one that's

0:55:41.900,0:55:47.390
you know in telegram as well and then

0:55:44.310,0:55:49.710
some other ways that people communicate

0:55:47.390,0:55:51.900
but those are really I think the big

0:55:49.710,0:55:54.480
drivers right now but how do we continue

0:55:51.900,0:55:57.210
to do what we need to do to educate

0:55:54.480,0:55:58.790
individuals on you know the monetary

0:55:57.210,0:56:03.480
policy we all see it going on

0:55:58.790,0:56:07.440
politically every single day so the

0:56:03.480,0:56:11.730
alternative is there but how do we

0:56:07.440,0:56:14.790
educate them and build those on ramps

0:56:11.730,0:56:19.050
not only in buying Bitcoin but storing

0:56:14.790,0:56:22.520
it managing you know your node how do

0:56:19.050,0:56:26.940
you do your addresses all of the above

0:56:22.520,0:56:29.610
right I guess cash up does a really

0:56:26.940,0:56:33.060
great job at providing an easy interface

0:56:29.610,0:56:35.280
for everybody and I noticed that it's

0:56:33.060,0:56:39.690
quite a popular application in the

0:56:35.280,0:56:41.820
United States among teenagers they I saw

0:56:39.690,0:56:44.490
that they had a few giveaways of US

0:56:41.820,0:56:46.830
dollars during weekends and a lot of

0:56:44.490,0:56:50.730
people are a lot of teenagers sign up

0:56:46.830,0:56:54.360
for the potential 15 bucks they can win

0:56:50.730,0:56:57.050
and I guess the fact that they use it

0:56:54.360,0:56:59.850
and they understand how that works and

0:56:57.050,0:57:01.650
they become curious to see what else is

0:56:59.850,0:57:06.180
there they're going to get into Bitcoin

0:57:01.650,0:57:07.830
inevitably and the moment they do it's

0:57:06.180,0:57:10.610
important to have the kind of

0:57:07.830,0:57:15.020
educational resources to

0:57:10.610,0:57:16.820
guide them from day one so that they

0:57:15.020,0:57:18.860
don't fall for traps and by the way I'm

0:57:16.820,0:57:23.120
surprised you haven't fallen for the

0:57:18.860,0:57:26.570
Bitcoin cash scam as you fell for Tron

0:57:23.120,0:57:29.120
you fell for whatever the other one was

0:57:26.570,0:57:31.220
but you haven't fallen for Bitcoin cash

0:57:29.120,0:57:34.870
you didn't get into that whole narrative

0:57:31.220,0:57:38.390
of the original vision with big block

0:57:34.870,0:57:41.240
scalability and stuff so I guess you

0:57:38.390,0:57:44.270
didn't let me talk long enough I

0:57:41.240,0:57:48.110
actually didn't get into B cash because

0:57:44.270,0:57:52.310
of the up for any reason other than when

0:57:48.110,0:57:54.410
they were listed on coin base and I just

0:57:52.310,0:57:57.290
want I thought of the arbitrage you know

0:57:54.410,0:57:58.550
the price spiked up thirty five hundred

0:57:57.290,0:58:00.290
or whatever it was and then some

0:57:58.550,0:58:02.330
exchanges I was new and some of them it

0:58:00.290,0:58:04.970
was much less than that I was just

0:58:02.330,0:58:07.010
looking at you know can I buy it and

0:58:04.970,0:58:11.170
then could I send it to another exchange

0:58:07.010,0:58:16.130
and then have more USD at the end of it

0:58:11.170,0:58:17.750
so I got I kind of did as long as you

0:58:16.130,0:58:20.560
made money there's nothing wrong with

0:58:17.750,0:58:24.170
that but you didn't really believe in

0:58:20.560,0:58:26.240
satoshis vision and interpreting the

0:58:24.170,0:58:30.500
white paper like it's some kind of

0:58:26.240,0:58:32.720
gospel no I did not and and the thing is

0:58:30.500,0:58:35.150
is you know when people read the white

0:58:32.720,0:58:38.030
paper and they and they look at it as

0:58:35.150,0:58:42.530
some sort of you know you have to read

0:58:38.030,0:58:46.310
it literally but they look at Bitcoin

0:58:42.530,0:58:48.350
and they don't see some of those you

0:58:46.310,0:58:50.960
know they don't see the p2p or the cash

0:58:48.350,0:58:54.470
like you know transactions and you think

0:58:50.960,0:58:56.930
well it really it still is you know from

0:58:54.470,0:58:59.150
I like I said I'm not a huge technical

0:58:56.930,0:59:03.890
into knowing really the background of

0:58:59.150,0:59:05.150
everything but from my perspective when

0:59:03.890,0:59:08.690
they try to plead their case whatever

0:59:05.150,0:59:13.580
arguments that they have I just don't

0:59:08.690,0:59:16.310
see it as being that big of a problem

0:59:13.580,0:59:19.060
that you would need to do what they did

0:59:16.310,0:59:19.060
in fourth off

0:59:20.000,0:59:25.790
it was mostly about politics and issues

0:59:23.150,0:59:30.080
were not new the scaling debate began

0:59:25.790,0:59:32.480
around 2015 I think or even earlier I

0:59:30.080,0:59:34.750
think Mike Hearn who was one of the

0:59:32.480,0:59:38.930
early developers has published a

0:59:34.750,0:59:41.720
proposal around 2010 or 2011 to increase

0:59:38.930,0:59:45.290
the block size to 8 megabytes and that

0:59:41.720,0:59:47.360
the time Satoshi himself responded on

0:59:45.290,0:59:50.120
the forum post and said it's too early

0:59:47.360,0:59:53.360
for this just forget about it let's not

0:59:50.120,0:59:55.970
split the community but from that point

0:59:53.360,0:59:58.190
onwards it was like some sort of agenda

0:59:55.970,1:00:02.420
by people who owned businesses with

0:59:58.190,1:00:05.180
which used Bitcoin to reduce the fees in

1:00:02.420,1:00:07.610
order to they said they wanted to

1:00:05.180,1:00:10.610
increase the the adoption and a lot more

1:00:07.610,1:00:13.610
people to buy it but the engineers were

1:00:10.610,1:00:16.280
not in favor of it they just said it's a

1:00:13.610,1:00:19.160
bad idea the whole points of this

1:00:16.280,1:00:20.780
invention is to be decentralized and the

1:00:19.160,1:00:22.970
more you increase the block size the

1:00:20.780,1:00:26.330
harder it is to synchronize between

1:00:22.970,1:00:28.760
nodes and it's not just a matter of disk

1:00:26.330,1:00:31.310
space it's about Internet bandwidth

1:00:28.760,1:00:33.560
worldwide it's about all these mining

1:00:31.310,1:00:36.530
rigs which maybe exist somewhere in

1:00:33.560,1:00:40.250
China where the internet signal is not

1:00:36.530,1:00:42.200
as strong as you would find on in

1:00:40.250,1:00:44.720
metropolitan areas where they have

1:00:42.200,1:00:47.750
broadband so they were much more

1:00:44.720,1:00:49.490
conservative and said that it's the

1:00:47.750,1:00:52.010
decentralization that has to be

1:00:49.490,1:00:57.710
preserved or else we turn into some kind

1:00:52.010,1:01:02.660
of PayPal 2.0 and the struggle at the

1:00:57.710,1:01:05.720
end of 2016 and early 2017 was to form

1:01:02.660,1:01:08.800
this sort of alliances and you see that

1:01:05.720,1:01:12.530
the signatories of the sever to acts

1:01:08.800,1:01:15.020
protocol which was part of the New York

1:01:12.530,1:01:18.670
agreement are actually business owners

1:01:15.020,1:01:22.880
and exchange owners and it was like

1:01:18.670,1:01:25.490
conglomerate miners and exchanges and

1:01:22.880,1:01:28.220
businesses who wanted Sue's not to

1:01:25.490,1:01:30.440
adjust their business model according to

1:01:28.220,1:01:33.349
the limitations of Bitcoin but changed

1:01:30.440,1:01:37.729
Bitcoin according to the larger amount

1:01:33.349,1:01:39.559
so profit that they could make and okay

1:01:37.729,1:01:43.549
yeah that makes sense if you're a

1:01:39.559,1:01:46.069
business person and I some people who

1:01:43.549,1:01:49.519
signed the New York agreement back in

1:01:46.069,1:01:52.609
2017 have been forgiven and I think this

1:01:49.519,1:01:54.799
CEO of Fabri bill Barrett is one of them

1:01:52.609,1:01:58.339
but then there are people like Roger

1:01:54.799,1:02:00.349
Vere and Erik Voorhees who seem to not

1:01:58.339,1:02:03.339
have learned anything from it and they

1:02:00.349,1:02:08.539
think they have done what was right and

1:02:03.339,1:02:13.009
followed their itas to the utmost extent

1:02:08.539,1:02:16.069
and from this perspective I guess it was

1:02:13.009,1:02:18.229
healthy for the community to split so we

1:02:16.069,1:02:21.589
have these two schools of thought we can

1:02:18.229,1:02:25.009
see which one gets developed in the best

1:02:21.589,1:02:28.670
way and which one may be Bitcoin cash on

1:02:25.009,1:02:31.640
the short term has the advantage of you

1:02:28.670,1:02:34.579
know lower fees and they say it was the

1:02:31.640,1:02:36.470
Toshi's vision but somebody I think it

1:02:34.579,1:02:39.380
was roubles I'm not sure if you follow

1:02:36.470,1:02:41.719
him here's a black stream employee and

1:02:39.380,1:02:45.710
she works with the mesh antennas and

1:02:41.719,1:02:47.869
he's a very ingenious person there's a

1:02:45.710,1:02:54.079
lot of interesting engineering stuff and

1:02:47.869,1:02:56.630
she posted an old version of the bitcoin

1:02:54.079,1:03:01.069
dot org page where it was specifically

1:02:56.630,1:03:04.309
mentioned that the minimum fee was 0.01

1:03:01.069,1:03:06.589
Bitcoin or something and in today's

1:03:04.309,1:03:08.509
money that's a lot but at the time they

1:03:06.589,1:03:10.609
said this treasured as the minimum

1:03:08.509,1:03:13.640
transaction fee as a way of avoiding

1:03:10.609,1:03:19.219
spam in the network as a bitcoin was

1:03:13.640,1:03:20.140
just a few cents it those are you know

1:03:19.219,1:03:21.819
those are some

1:03:20.140,1:03:27.039
those are interesting things to think

1:03:21.819,1:03:30.190
about in terms of you know like you said

1:03:27.039,1:03:32.349
the research approach of it is you know

1:03:30.190,1:03:35.529
you have Bitcoin and then you fork it

1:03:32.349,1:03:37.869
off and then you can compare the

1:03:35.529,1:03:41.380
adoption the scalability the

1:03:37.869,1:03:43.170
functionality so it'll be it'll be

1:03:41.380,1:03:45.910
interesting to see how they approach

1:03:43.170,1:03:47.559
some of the problems and some of the

1:03:45.910,1:03:49.660
issues that we were kind of discussing

1:03:47.559,1:03:54.219
in terms of Bitcoin in its scalability

1:03:49.660,1:03:56.380
with new users and adoption because

1:03:54.219,1:03:58.719
they're gonna run into similar problems

1:03:56.380,1:03:59.709
with much more limited amount of

1:03:58.719,1:04:02.170
individuals who are going to be

1:03:59.709,1:04:05.019
interested so one of the reasons I was

1:04:02.170,1:04:07.150
you know one of the first things I'd

1:04:05.019,1:04:09.039
learned when I got onto crypto Twitter

1:04:07.150,1:04:11.619
was actually that you know be cash was

1:04:09.039,1:04:13.539
getting called a scam and Roger fir was

1:04:11.619,1:04:15.219
you know kind of a charlatan and watched

1:04:13.539,1:04:17.979
couple videos and he's just you know

1:04:15.219,1:04:22.180
it's kind of an idiot he's full an idiot

1:04:17.979,1:04:25.660
most of the time but I I was lucky

1:04:22.180,1:04:29.259
enough to never get into that but my

1:04:25.660,1:04:31.269
friend who actually you know I reached

1:04:29.259,1:04:34.329
out to initially about and he told me

1:04:31.269,1:04:38.499
about litecoin he recently sent me a

1:04:34.329,1:04:39.940
message and said man I just the he's

1:04:38.499,1:04:42.369
like I just took all the money that I

1:04:39.940,1:04:45.549
had had sitting in and my finance and I

1:04:42.369,1:04:48.789
bought a B cash I think it's like be

1:04:45.549,1:04:51.219
cash ABC or whatever it is now and he's

1:04:48.789,1:04:53.619
like I can't believe that bitcoin is

1:04:51.219,1:04:57.130
going up right now he's you know he

1:04:53.619,1:05:00.130
called the King Bitcoin but he still was

1:04:57.130,1:05:02.549
unwilling to just buy anything other

1:05:00.130,1:05:07.180
than shit coins he was still wanting to

1:05:02.549,1:05:11.109
get that Lambo and get you know get rich

1:05:07.180,1:05:13.989
quick so I I can see how some people

1:05:11.109,1:05:16.329
without doing their research can can

1:05:13.989,1:05:19.359
overlook really anything other than

1:05:16.329,1:05:21.789
things that sound good and people who

1:05:19.359,1:05:23.859
make you know try to make their case on

1:05:21.789,1:05:26.170
Twitter and and if you're in an echo

1:05:23.859,1:05:28.930
chamber if you have confirmation bias

1:05:26.170,1:05:33.640
and it's it's very easy to stay in those

1:05:28.930,1:05:36.800
traps as we see Bitcoin

1:05:33.640,1:05:40.340
adoption grow as we see you know less

1:05:36.800,1:05:42.020
satoshis available for everybody those

1:05:40.340,1:05:43.040
individuals to hopefully come around and

1:05:42.020,1:05:46.870
they'll probably come around when the

1:05:43.040,1:05:51.080
prices is much higher or never at all

1:05:46.870,1:05:53.450
well that's fine I guess sometimes I

1:05:51.080,1:05:55.760
think that shit coins are great just

1:05:53.450,1:05:58.160
because you get to learn about how

1:05:55.760,1:06:00.740
Bitcoin works in a way that's less risky

1:05:58.160,1:06:02.840
so if you lose it it's something that

1:06:00.740,1:06:04.730
will not hold a great value in the

1:06:02.840,1:06:08.360
future but at the same time there are

1:06:04.730,1:06:12.440
only 21 million Bitcoin and that's all

1:06:08.360,1:06:14.210
there will ever be so it's important not

1:06:12.440,1:06:17.120
to waste it even there were some times

1:06:14.210,1:06:19.700
when you waste your coins and they can

1:06:17.120,1:06:20.420
never be recovered you actually help the

1:06:19.700,1:06:23.390
others

1:06:20.420,1:06:26.240
you increase the scars the TFG up the

1:06:23.390,1:06:28.790
supply and it helps the price go up in

1:06:26.240,1:06:34.340
this regard as the next wave of high

1:06:28.790,1:06:37.790
demand finds a lower supply but then

1:06:34.340,1:06:41.690
again it's important to once again have

1:06:37.790,1:06:45.470
that kind of education and have the kind

1:06:41.690,1:06:49.670
of videos and tutorials and people who

1:06:45.470,1:06:53.750
are very willing to help and from your

1:06:49.670,1:06:56.960
experience it's not much about the very

1:06:53.750,1:06:58.820
I don't know how I should call it but

1:06:56.960,1:07:01.640
nowadays a lot of people say that

1:06:58.820,1:07:04.370
Bitcoin areas are toxic and there's a

1:07:01.640,1:07:07.880
lot of toxicity and their approach and

1:07:04.370,1:07:10.160
they just do nothing but call every

1:07:07.880,1:07:12.350
finger scam and argue with each other

1:07:10.160,1:07:14.330
but at the same time when you need

1:07:12.350,1:07:17.980
something and you want to learn more

1:07:14.330,1:07:21.200
about let's say the node launcher or

1:07:17.980,1:07:25.820
anything else any kind of software

1:07:21.200,1:07:27.200
product or hardware wallet you find some

1:07:25.820,1:07:28.940
very nice people who are more than

1:07:27.200,1:07:30.890
willing to explain to you how it works

1:07:28.940,1:07:32.210
and tell you what you're doing wrong and

1:07:30.890,1:07:34.880
make sure that you're having a good

1:07:32.210,1:07:38.240
experience and whatever you tell them is

1:07:34.880,1:07:41.420
actually valuable feedback that they can

1:07:38.240,1:07:43.220
use improve and that's how you know that

1:07:41.420,1:07:45.620
we are in the early days because you

1:07:43.220,1:07:46.640
find some of these big names following

1:07:45.620,1:07:50.109
you on Twitter

1:07:46.640,1:07:53.509
responding to DMS and being on telegram

1:07:50.109,1:07:56.480
by showing they're very nice and helpful

1:07:53.509,1:08:00.200
side but once again where's that Success

1:07:56.480,1:08:04.069
City and what is it more specifically

1:08:00.200,1:08:06.769
sometimes I wonder that yeah you know

1:08:04.069,1:08:09.410
and I think the toxicity is just like

1:08:06.769,1:08:13.160
anything else right there are just some

1:08:09.410,1:08:14.960
people who if you were in a room with

1:08:13.160,1:08:17.859
them and there was somebody telling you

1:08:14.960,1:08:20.029
a bullshit story they call them out and

1:08:17.859,1:08:22.460
some people love those people some

1:08:20.029,1:08:24.049
people hate him but we need them why

1:08:22.460,1:08:26.630
because there's a lot of people who say

1:08:24.049,1:08:28.790
a bunch of bullshit and there's a lot of

1:08:26.630,1:08:32.420
us who are passive who would let it just

1:08:28.790,1:08:34.639
go but we also have those friends who

1:08:32.420,1:08:36.319
who we love very much who are the

1:08:34.639,1:08:38.690
assertive type we're going to call them

1:08:36.319,1:08:40.580
out who's gonna make a situation awkward

1:08:38.690,1:08:43.969
because they're gonna call somebody out

1:08:40.580,1:08:48.199
on something that's not factual but that

1:08:43.969,1:08:54.949
benefits us all and as long as they're

1:08:48.199,1:08:57.580
not degrading to somebody or being truly

1:08:54.949,1:09:01.369
cruel in a way that is just unnecessary

1:08:57.580,1:09:04.509
those toxic individuals that support and

1:09:01.369,1:09:10.960
are kind of the frontline fighters for

1:09:04.509,1:09:15.020
all of the bad actors who are trying to

1:09:10.960,1:09:17.569
limit the potential of Bitcoin or limit

1:09:15.020,1:09:19.429
the adoption or stop you from finding

1:09:17.569,1:09:22.810
one of the best things you'll ever find

1:09:19.429,1:09:27.319
in your life there is it is a necessity

1:09:22.810,1:09:29.420
coming from coming from the Wellness

1:09:27.319,1:09:33.080
field you know the the white blood cells

1:09:29.420,1:09:35.270
of the body fight the cancer cells and

1:09:33.080,1:09:39.560
they will fight and fight and fight and

1:09:35.270,1:09:43.310
sometimes you know ultimately it's it's

1:09:39.560,1:09:48.049
for no avail but we do learn from that

1:09:43.310,1:09:50.569
and those toxic plebs are a part of the

1:09:48.049,1:09:52.790
system they're ingrained some of them

1:09:50.569,1:09:55.570
have been here the longest note and have

1:09:52.790,1:09:58.100
seen these charlatans come and go

1:09:55.570,1:10:01.640
whereas I've only been through

1:09:58.100,1:10:03.470
one pair and then potentially what we

1:10:01.640,1:10:04.970
suspect is the beginning of the next

1:10:03.470,1:10:09.740
boom you know like I said I don't know

1:10:04.970,1:10:13.430
anything but they're necessary is that

1:10:09.740,1:10:16.070
for everybody it is not is it is Twitter

1:10:13.430,1:10:19.220
safe space it is not is bitcoin Twitter

1:10:16.070,1:10:20.840
or safe space it's not but they're

1:10:19.220,1:10:25.570
absolutely necessary and I think it's

1:10:20.840,1:10:29.270
it's an important part of the Hodler

1:10:25.570,1:10:30.830
mentality is that we support the idea

1:10:29.270,1:10:31.940
that yeah other people have different

1:10:30.830,1:10:35.420
approaches different ideas different

1:10:31.940,1:10:37.010
shit coins different financial products

1:10:35.420,1:10:42.950
that they want to attach to it to take

1:10:37.010,1:10:45.200
your Bitcoin but end-all-be-all we truly

1:10:42.950,1:10:48.740
believe that bitcoin is is the only one

1:10:45.200,1:10:50.870
that will be left and we'll remember I

1:10:48.740,1:10:53.480
think some of the individuals who got a

1:10:50.870,1:10:58.430
bad rap during the times where where

1:10:53.480,1:11:03.320
people were afraid to be politically

1:10:58.430,1:11:06.560
correct on Twitter at the beginning of

1:11:03.320,1:11:09.230
our discussion we revealed some details

1:11:06.560,1:11:11.510
about your record and how you got into

1:11:09.230,1:11:14.000
shit coins and how long how long it took

1:11:11.510,1:11:17.570
you to discover the virtues of Bitcoin

1:11:14.000,1:11:19.670
and really get into it and let's say

1:11:17.570,1:11:23.060
that let's assume that we have some

1:11:19.670,1:11:25.520
newbies listening right now and we can I

1:11:23.060,1:11:28.600
guess we are in a position where we can

1:11:25.520,1:11:34.460
make some recommendations for them and

1:11:28.600,1:11:36.800
we can establish some lines of chart or

1:11:34.460,1:11:40.640
recommendations for what they can do and

1:11:36.800,1:11:43.100
also suggest some good products that

1:11:40.640,1:11:45.800
they should be using right from the very

1:11:43.100,1:11:49.400
beginning just to get used to what is

1:11:45.800,1:11:52.520
best so let's start with exchanges I

1:11:49.400,1:11:54.650
guess you can I guess that's the first

1:11:52.520,1:11:58.580
way in which you're going to get any

1:11:54.650,1:12:01.490
Bitcoin not many are fortunate enough to

1:11:58.580,1:12:04.940
have a Bitcoin or friend who sells them

1:12:01.490,1:12:08.990
or have access to one of these ATMs and

1:12:04.940,1:12:11.480
they're going to go online and look most

1:12:08.990,1:12:14.210
likely Google or buy Bitcoin

1:12:11.480,1:12:17.390
and they then adjust their behavior

1:12:14.210,1:12:19.670
according to whichever interface they

1:12:17.390,1:12:22.100
find nicer and it's very likely that

1:12:19.670,1:12:23.930
they will end up on point base and at

1:12:22.100,1:12:28.220
this point Queen base has a bad record

1:12:23.930,1:12:30.650
of banning users and taking too much to

1:12:28.220,1:12:33.110
register and asking you for a lot of

1:12:30.650,1:12:36.860
documents during the qia process and

1:12:33.110,1:12:40.060
then taking as long as two weeks to

1:12:36.860,1:12:43.700
allow you to withdraw your funds and

1:12:40.060,1:12:46.520
sometimes actually not sometimes all the

1:12:43.700,1:12:47.840
times that's not convenient I don't

1:12:46.520,1:12:50.330
think that should happen

1:12:47.840,1:12:52.670
it gives Bitcoin a bad name as a

1:12:50.330,1:12:55.250
technology as people will assume that

1:12:52.670,1:13:00.830
it's defaults a Bitcoin for being slow

1:12:55.250,1:13:03.620
and I guess we have better alternatives

1:13:00.830,1:13:06.980
and what do you think is a good exchange

1:13:03.620,1:13:11.060
that you would recommend to people you

1:13:06.980,1:13:14.000
know I I have a cracking account but

1:13:11.060,1:13:16.220
honestly I think if individuals want to

1:13:14.000,1:13:19.040
get in the Bitcoin finding something

1:13:16.220,1:13:22.190
that's Bitcoin only that has no exchange

1:13:19.040,1:13:24.590
or trading platform is best because you

1:13:22.190,1:13:26.660
will get sucked into the gambling aspect

1:13:24.590,1:13:29.720
of how do I take my point one Bitcoin

1:13:26.660,1:13:32.030
and make it one whole Bitcoin and with

1:13:29.720,1:13:35.710
something like the cash app I think

1:13:32.030,1:13:38.239
bitter is another alternative Amber app

1:13:35.710,1:13:43.130
there are some alternatives getting

1:13:38.239,1:13:46.130
Bitcoin learning how do you take it and

1:13:43.130,1:13:48.560
withdraw it to your own wallet

1:13:46.130,1:13:52.670
whether that's samurai or wasabi or the

1:13:48.560,1:13:55.970
two and and green wallet the black

1:13:52.670,1:13:58.580
stream wallet on iOS or the ones that I

1:13:55.970,1:14:00.980
encourage people to use and then like I

1:13:58.580,1:14:03.800
mentioned I have a gold card wallet that

1:14:00.980,1:14:06.650
I use but I would try to I would

1:14:03.800,1:14:08.900
encourage people to avoid anything that

1:14:06.650,1:14:10.910
is going to tempt you to gamble away any

1:14:08.900,1:14:12.950
of your Bitcoin and look for something

1:14:10.910,1:14:16.220
that you can buy with your local

1:14:12.950,1:14:17.920
currency withdraw it as soon as you

1:14:16.220,1:14:22.090
possibly can

1:14:17.920,1:14:24.639
and put it into a mobile wallet whether

1:14:22.090,1:14:29.760
you mix them with wasabi or potentially

1:14:24.639,1:14:34.119
samurai but then get them into a cold

1:14:29.760,1:14:36.310
storage if you can because it's

1:14:34.119,1:14:37.989
difficult to get yourself to trust and

1:14:36.310,1:14:40.480
like you mentioned how do you you know

1:14:37.989,1:14:43.360
the likelihood that you'd lose your keys

1:14:40.480,1:14:45.909
or your passcode or whatever it is it's

1:14:43.360,1:14:47.080
is very high if you especially if you

1:14:45.909,1:14:49.810
don't know what you're doing so for new

1:14:47.080,1:14:52.929
adopters that's why I'm hopeful that

1:14:49.810,1:14:55.510
wasabi and and Samurai I'm gonna Android

1:14:52.929,1:14:59.230
user so I think that those two I'm

1:14:55.510,1:15:02.199
hoping that they the integration with

1:14:59.230,1:15:03.520
cold storage continues to increase on

1:15:02.199,1:15:07.030
that wasabi is they're doing some

1:15:03.520,1:15:10.869
offline SBT type of things but

1:15:07.030,1:15:15.040
definitely that's my recommendation so

1:15:10.869,1:15:16.330
avoid bit max bit max definitely avoid

1:15:15.040,1:15:19.600
that unless you're unless you know what

1:15:16.330,1:15:21.580
you're doing right well a black man I

1:15:19.600,1:15:24.400
got I gotta get going in I appreciate

1:15:21.580,1:15:26.409
the time that we've chatted and I

1:15:24.400,1:15:28.000
apologize for having to kind of leave so

1:15:26.409,1:15:30.070
abruptly I kind of gotta get out of here

1:15:28.000,1:15:32.980
okay this was great and thank you very

1:15:30.070,1:15:35.790
much this has a Squatch how can you be

1:15:32.980,1:15:39.460
followed on Twitter as it was yeah a

1:15:35.790,1:15:42.550
Sasquatch muscle that's where I am on

1:15:39.460,1:15:45.400
Twitter I'm in Bitcoin clubs and the

1:15:42.550,1:15:46.150
taco clubs on telegram you can find me

1:15:45.400,1:15:48.100
there

1:15:46.150,1:15:51.340
I appreciate it white and it's been a

1:15:48.100,1:15:54.150
good time man okay talk to you later bye

1:15:51.340,1:15:54.150
take care

In January 2019, Anthony Lusardi was the director of the ETC Cooperative – a development team that was working on the side of Ethereum that refused to break immutability after the infamous and community-splitting DAO fork.

Yet in spite of this mild case of shitcoinery (which he has cured in the meantime), Lusardi focuses on some of the most pressing issues in Bitcoin: the store of value vs medium of exchange debate, Luke Dashjr’s proposal to reduce the block size to 300kb, the Lightning Network’s burgeoning first year, the rejection of the New York Agreement and SegWit2X, and Gemini’s clueless marketing campaign that lobbied for more regulations.

Listen to Anthony Lusardi on iTunes and Spotify!

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If you’d rather donate some of your dirty criminal fiat, use Patreon. For Lightning Network transactions, I have accounts on Tally Coin and Tippin. 

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Full transcript

Vlad Costea (00:01):

Hello and welcome to the Bitcoin takeover. I’m Vlad. And today my guest is Anthony Lusardi, who is best known for his work at the ETC Cooperative, but at the same time, he’s also won fair yards and proponents of Bitcoin and somebody who really, really believes in immutability and technology behind sound money. So hello, Anthony.

Anthony Lusardi (00:25):

Hey bud. Thanks for having me.

Vlad Costea (00:27):

It’s good to have you, and I’m happy that I get to you. You’re not aware of it, but I’m happy that I get to have guests from all the corners of the world. And I get to ask them about the state of Bitcoin as a, of fixed change on the planet. I’ve had a guest from Portugal, I’ve had another one from United Kingdom and you’re on the East coast of the United States of America. Okay. So I guess the situation of Bitcoin as a currency is a lot better in New York and you actually have places to pay wedded and you have restaurants to pay bills and maybe hotels, which accept Bitcoin. What’s the situation like?

Anthony Lusardi (01:17):

Yeah. I’ve never actually transacted with Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency in person. I mean, I have used them when doing either what would it be like a transaction between two people. Like if I have a friend or something we might trade in Bitcoin bought an umbrella with Dodge fine now long ago. And yeah, but as far as actually spending it, I have seen a couple of places like bars and restaurants that accept the Klein. I have personally used one of those types of credit cards where you pay with Bitcoin and it automatically converts it to cash. So you can buy pretty much anything you want with Bitcoin, which I think is really cool. But yeah, I think still adoption isn’t really quite there as far as being able to transact in person. I think that’s going to improve over the next year or two with a lightning network. Once they really, you know, get some more usage, it can actually do larger, larger channels. Cause right now I think it’s limited to about $160 or so per child, the max reliably. But yeah, it’s definitely growing just nowhere near the point where I think I could actually use Bitcoin day to day yet, at least for what I use it for.

Vlad Costea (02:46):

So when was the first time you heard about Bitcoin and what was the main point that drew you into it? What made you say this is what I, what I like to work for? This is the of money and this is something which I like at least ideologically or practically,

Anthony Lusardi (03:05):

But I didn’t say any of that about the corn. The first time I heard about it, the first time I heard about Bitcoin was like 2013 that I heard about the market crash and I read a little bit about it. I was like, Oh, wow. That seems like a great idea. It’s too bad. It’s dead now. That was my first exposure to Bitcoin. And then I didn’t look at it on or anything really until 2014 when I realized that Bitcoin and these other cryptocurrencies were still around. And that’s kind of what I got into understanding Bitcoin and what it gives you and the importance of it beyond just the ability to, you know, go and make a quick buck, which at first, when I first started in 2014, all I thought to myself as well, this stuff is still here. So maybe it’ll take off again like it did.

Anthony Lusardi (04:01):

And I want to go on a bunch of Dogecoin instead, I think. And yeah, I kind of learned, I learned a lot there. I, you know, learned that fr I was just trading with stuff that I didn’t understand. I was getting involved with buying these cryptocurrencies for just the wrong reasons. And I don’t think I actually learned the importance of Bitcoin or that any of this to really dawned on me until 2015. I think it was when I first really started to take this stuff more seriously. And even then I was still more a theory them because they were doing new, interesting things. It wasn’t until 2016 or so that I really started to truly appreciate the tech and the approach and ideology that the Bitcoin community and the big fine network sort of has intrinsically to itself.

Vlad Costea (05:00):

Was there any point when you automatically associate at Bitcoin with the silk road and you’re taught it’s just money for people who want to buy drugs?

Anthony Lusardi (05:11):

No. I never really thought that I did. It was the silk road was one of Bitcoin’s earliest and largest use cases. That’s not the case anymore, but definitely many, many years ago you know, 2013, 2014, it was definitely where the majority of economic activity around Bitcoin seems to be happening.

Vlad Costea (05:40):

Okay. I was about to ask you about bit license and the fact that in the state of New York, you actually have fewer use cases and it’s actually much more difficult to use Bitcoin in business than in every other state around the U S and I guess here in Europe, it’s much different since the adoption level is much lower and yet sororities don’t really care about regulating Bitcoin or create a single legislative framework for transactions. So how, I guess you’ve traveled around the United States and you’ve seen different approaches to how Bitcoin is used. And do you think it’s stricter and the New York area,

Anthony Lusardi (06:26):

It is for New York residents. It’s definitely harder to get on exchanges. You can only set it on bonds and you don’t get access to a lot of other financial products that come along with that because in New York, any licensed exchange is pretty much just an order book with buys and sells. In general though. Yeah, I don’t, I don’t like the license. I think it really restricts the cryptocurrency market in general. It restricts people from, you know, kind of being able to invest in and use things that they should have access to, you know, everybody should be able to do so. I think one of the reasons why we see Bitcoin in general become so popular amongst a lot of people in terms of buying and selling. Isn’t so much the tech, it’s the fact that if you want access to any sort of good investment with a high rate of return, and of course, high risk too, you need to be an accredited investor. And so you don’t get access to things where you can actually put in a dollar and make a hundred dollars very, very often. I think a lot of people first, when coming to Bitcoin, they kind of look at it like that, where here’s finally this thing where I can invest like the big boys step. But yeah, it’s really, I don’t, I don’t like the license and it sucks that it’s now being exported to other States too, in the us.

Vlad Costea (08:07):

I remember I spoke to Alex Mashinsky, who is one of the VIP innovators. And he also has this venture, which is called Celsius network, which is somewhat of a bank in the crypto sphere. And he said during a conference that for the first time in history, Bitcoin has given regular people the opportunity to invest and make money before the one percenters did. So in this sense, it was something which came from below, from maybe computer scientists and libertarians who are interested in this idea of digital sound money. And it was much later when the bankers realized just what potential this has. And I guess even right now, when we speak, there’s a very limited amounts of institutional money, which is going to get ordered in at least then 2019. Maybe it will get better in time.

Anthony Lusardi (09:12):

Yeah. I don’t know the numbers exactly, but I’ve definitely seen numbers where it seems like institutional investment trends up every year, but yeah, it’s just a way to get access to an investment. I guess they would call it a vehicle that normally regular people wouldn’t have access to. I think you actually, you see that now too, where like what’s that exchange Gemini is now advertising that crypto needs rules and this type of thing, and it’s the right regulatory framework. And I agree regulations are good in some ways because they can protect people. Like it would be great if every exchange could be completely 100% insured and regulated to make sure that they’re not doing fishy things like wash trading, but on the other end the other thing that comes with regulations is the fact that any regular person tends to get pushed out in time.

Anthony Lusardi (10:12):

So we’ll have this glorious period where everybody’s free to do what they want with their money and accept their own responsibility and take their own risks for their own rewards. And yeah, I think regulation eventually is gonna sort of crush that, but at the end of it, we’ll still have a decentralized, highly distributed permissionless money that anybody could use anywhere across the world without fear of censorship or being taken away from you or, you know, state senior HB printing more money to finance for us. So Bitcoin’s still gives us a lot, even if we ended up with those crap regulations, eventually

Vlad Costea (10:56):

Another event or treaty, which I associate with the New York is the New York agreement, which took place in 2017. And I think ultimately it was a big compromise between the different scaling ideas that people had at the time. And it was mainly pragmatic people who didn’t care much about, I mean, they found the middle ground between technology and scalability, and they had this view, which was in the middle between minors and regular users and developers, even though it wasn’t as bad as Bitcoin cash is right now, I guess it’s still had its community. So what is your view regarding to the New York agreement? And is there any thing that you found out just by being there? Was there talk on the streets about it?

Anthony Lusardi (11:57):

Now there was only talk on Twitter. So the New York agreement at first back in like 2016 even was, it was near evergreen was 2017. So yeah, when I first saw it, I saw it that it was generally a good idea. I’ve obviously since then rethought my position quite a lot, and I’m glad that it didn’t go through, but it seemed a way to reconcile kind of tech and politics. There were a good amounts of people who you would potentially lose if it didn’t go through and, you know, you’re just fracturing the community longterm. I think it’s actually been very good for Bitcoin because they’re moved a lot of rather nefarious people from Bitcoin. You know, we had the recent Bcash Wars and that was pretty ridiculous to see how these this part, this particular group of people decided to go about their business.

Anthony Lusardi (13:14):

And, but yeah, in general, I don’t know, I, the SegWit2X was a good idea on paper, but it’s not a very good idea in actuality because not only does a, not only was SegWit2X not needed because SegWit itself already provided nearly double the transaction capacity as pre segue. It also wasn’t needed because, and it should have been resisted because it was a consensus change to the way that Bitcoin works. And any consensus change really needs to be thought through incredibly seriously take a very long time to do. And in general, probably shouldn’t be done as long as the network is operating fine. And for Bitcoin, the network’s been operating quite, quite well for its entire 10 years, except for a few days to maybe a couple of months in late 20 in late 2017 where the transaction fees went up a bit. Yeah,

Vlad Costea (14:30):

Yeah. I can think about, I mean, the idea of two megabyte blocks is not that bad, but it was about the mean of achieving two megabyte blocks, which involved a hard fork. And I guess the most difficult issue about it is not per se to have blocks, which are twice as big because you’ll have them with segway. You have to megabyte blocks sometimes due to the elimination of the block size and it’s replaced with the idea of block weight, but biggest problem was that it created a precedent and which they would hard for the consensus and once they have done it, it could be done once again, might maybe every year in the future.

Anthony Lusardi (15:16):

Yeah. Make larger and larger blocks. And you know, of course, you know, block propagation times and all that also you know, just validation times, those all increase to with two megabyte blocks, whereas seq would actually made processing transactions far more efficient. But yeah, and I think in general, it really, if you have an easy, hard fork, it just shows that you’re not working as centralized. That’s quite frankly, the crux of the issue Bitcoin is very decentralized. And so you were not going to ever get an easy or simple, hard for the only hard fork you are really going to get was a network participants splitting off. And I mean, under most cases, there probably are cases where you can have eventually got a hard fork, but in general, that issue, that coordination issue is actually, I would argue a very good thing because it means that yeah, nobody was able to change the Bitcoin network. They even wrote code to change it and it wasn’t able to be deployed and take over Bitcoin. So I think that’s really, really great. And it was a really great precedent to be set up when it was because like you said, otherwise if you achieve at once, then you can achieve it much more easily the next time. And the time after that,

Vlad Costea (16:45):

I guess it was also the first time when we saw that actually notes are much more important than minors. And there was this whole narrative which came from minors and their financial interests, which said that there is no reason actually, to run your own node, whereas the developers and the coders and those who got into Bitcoin early on and were for the idea of decentralization, as opposed to making a quick buck, they would actually promote every day, the idea that you should run your own node and validate your own transactions. And in the whole process, it’s not just about the transactions, which you validate, but it’s also about having a vote in the network and being able as a participants to say that you want to maintain the current consensus as opposed to any kind of social attack, which can be deployed on the network. And in this perspective, I guess it was fascinating. And it was in viewing to see how the community decided stick together and not do the SegWit two X fork.

Anthony Lusardi (17:55):

Yeah, exactly.

Vlad Costea (17:57):

Anyway, they already had Bitcoin cash to switch to so they could just join that side and say, okay, this pretty much achieves the same goal. It’s a hard fork. It has eight times the block size, which I guess with SegWit2X, you could also achieve eight megabyte blocks if I’m not mistaken or at least four. But anyway,

Anthony Lusardi (18:23):

Yup. Equivalent of about a four megabyte pre-SegWit block.

Vlad Costea (18:27):

It’s not like in Bitcoin cash. We’ve never seen such a demand for block space that we saw blocks fil. And I know that they have the six months upgrade system in West. They hard fork in order to increase the block size, but it’s pretty ridiculous. And as far as I can understand, it is just a way of further centralizing the network and putting the power in the hands of dos who can actually run nodes.

Anthony Lusardi (19:01):

Yeah, exactly.

Vlad Costea (19:04):

In the end, I guess it’s not a popular opinion, but Ethereum seems to have a similar case. And on one hand you have people who argued that there are many more independent nodes being run non deuterium network than on the Bitcoin one. But on the other hand, I saw people like Jameson Lopp, who tried to run their node on the Ethereum network, like a full node. And they had a top notch configuration, which you can build from parts that you can find in regular hardware shops. And he was unable to synchronize. It went up to 90% or something, but it wasn’t possible for him to carry on. And he came to the conclusion that the only way to achieve this apparently difficult task is to have an industrial machine, which has this specific role of running a node and validating every transaction on blockchain. And I guess it’s different with it’s your own classic, right?

Anthony Lusardi (20:09):

Sort of so long actually date succeed in sicking, the Ethereum chain after about four or so days, it’d be five on a very beefy computer, like you said, in general, that was going to sink. I think some of the client software on a theory on men, etc, to have Italy isn’t quite created sinking yet particularly go Ethereum. Isn’t that good parody is way, way better. And I think when I’m not sure, but

Anthony Lusardi (20:48):

I think when Lopp actually managed to sync Ethereum and he used Parity, which has, is much, much more efficient and just simply better at actually following through and syncing all that client’s software is definitely improving over time. So yeah, hopefully those things where the sinking just halts become improved, but it wasn’t that it is taking way too long though. I would say to sync the Ethereum base chains. And a lot of that has to do with how high gas usage has been made. And that’s definitely an issue for any Ethereum base chain, including etc. That we need to really think about in the future.

Vlad Costea (21:35):

I think in terms of scalability, I’ve seen today, one of those crypto Twitter memes, which presented the whole idea of increasing the block size as stacking together 56 K madams, and saying that this is the top technology that we have, and we should have as many as we want, if we want to achieve a faster speed. Whereas the other way of scaling is to create a better technology and maybe improve on optic fiber and the whole cable system so that you improve on the device itself instead of buying many devices and stacking them.

Anthony Lusardi (22:18):

Yeah, exactly.

Vlad Costea (22:21):

I guess this is a good metaphor.

Anthony Lusardi (22:24):

It is. It’s kind of funny how that is.

Vlad Costea (22:28):

And in that sense, I’m happy that we got to this point in Bitcoin development where they have a precedent for soft forking. They saw that at works with SegWit, and now they have ideas such as snore and maybe confidential transactions in order to improve the fungibility and reduce the transaction size. In the case of snore, it’s all about making the blocks that we have more efficient and making every transaction take up of lesser or a smaller amount of space, which is really great. If you ask me, and then you have people like, look dash who talk about decreasing the block size to 600 kilobytes, some of that new nodes can synchronize faster.

Anthony Lusardi (23:22):

Yeah. I think he actually wants like 300, 350 kilobytes and these kind of right over time, that’s not going to work. It’s just going to, it’s going to make everything far, far more difficult to sync. No Bitcoin don’t seem pretty fast already on a beefy hardware set up. You could sync it in like five or six hours,

Anthony Lusardi (23:46):

Which is pretty incredible that it’s been running for 10 years and has very high usage and is able to send like that. I think it’s something every blockchain should strive to get as close to as possible with regards to sick times.

Vlad Costea (24:01):

Yeah. But if you use a raspberry PI, I think it takes about a day or more than that.

Anthony Lusardi (24:09):

Oh yeah. Probably. yeah. That’s a Raspberry Pi.

Vlad Costea (24:17):

I don’t think at least the regular user, I don’t think anyone will buy a high end machine just to run a node. It defeats the purpose. I guess you just want something small, something efficient, which doesn’t take up much space. Doesn’t make much noise and doesn’t consume too much electricity and you just keep it in a corner of your room and forget about it.

Anthony Lusardi (24:43):

Yeah, absolutely.

Vlad Costea (24:45):

That’s why, I guess it’s much more convenient for somebody like me to buy one of those Casa nodes than to actually run a full node on my desktop computer, because I know I use it for different applications throughout the day and I wouldn’t want part of the Ram memory and the processing power to be used at the same time. I want full capacity on my desktop. So I’d rather use a different device for this purpose.

Anthony Lusardi (25:16):

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, I don’t normally run a note on my work or personal computers either normally run them on servers or not a raspberry PI or a Casa node yet though those constant notes are expensive. I’m being honest. So waiting until a cheaper version comes out.

Vlad Costea (25:40):

Yeah, they are. And I spoke to Alena Vranova from Casa, I think two weeks ago. And she told me that there is no chance that we’ll see a cheaper version because it’s just like in the case of an iPhone, you don’t really pay for the hardware. You pay much more for the software and all the developments and the supports that’s going to be put into the product after you purchase it. She actually said that they plan to support the device for multiple years. And they’re going to have employees to answer phone calls and offer you complete support, which I guess to people like us who are enthusiastic, it’s not quite something that we need, but once they get to a larger, I don’t know, once they get maybe shopping models, which purchase nodes, so that day they can take lightning payments, then they’re going to need support desks. Yeah, absolutely.

Anthony Lusardi (26:44):

I guess it’s just, it’s not a, it’s not a product really designed for it’s as officer and people are use cases and I guess I just don’t overlap with them.

Vlad Costea (26:57):

So when you think of Bitcoin, do you automatically associated with gold or do you see something more in that

Anthony Lusardi (27:07):

Is, is Bitcoin being digital gold? Not enough. I think that’s a good, amazing, incredible use case. But yeah, Bitcoin is first and foremost, a very digital replacement for gold or for just money or value storage in general. It’s also the world’s most decentralized timestamp server, you know, it’s the so really interesting thing. It’s definitely not one thing, but I mean, Bitcoin main use case I think is more than enough. I don’t think Bitcoin itself needs other things tacked onto it. I think if you want to do that, then you go and do that with all declines or some other thing. I actually don’t even agree with in general with forking cryptocurrencies and a contentious white. So contentious hard forks I disagree with in general, because you should just start a new network. You should start with your own Genesis block. You keep all the same rules. You keep all the same issuance, but you know, taking a different blockchain and just kind of copying the account balances and watching it. I just really, really disagree with in general, do you believe that

Vlad Costea (28:40):

Maybe the greater adoption of the lightning network will lead to this scenario where lots of altcoins just become redundant and people stopped buying them and they just die?

Anthony Lusardi (28:54):

I, yeah, I think a lot of altcoins will fade out. I don’t think all of them well I’m obviously bias but even ignoring my biases, I don’t and not saying for any specific altcoin, but in general, I would say that people are really bad at settling on just one thing. We don’t seem to have just one of any type of thing. So the idea that we would settle on just one global money is also very unlikely that’s even for, you know, for example, privacy coins the level of privacy that some privacy points can give you. Bitcoin’s probably never going to be able to achieve without either using layer two networks or without a hard for, and the fact that there’s other cryptocurrencies that give you that and they can do it on layer one with the maximum amounts of decentralization without having to resort to layer two, I think is really interesting and important and probably a particular use case that people are gonna want.

Anthony Lusardi (30:12):

Same thing with having digitized types of smart contracts between people. You know, you can do that on layer two, but then you still rely on the layer, two routes. You haven’t removed all the trust, the same way you would on a layer, one blockchain. And I think that’s another area where there’s going to be use cases and things sticking around because of that, because they do other things. I think it’s really cool how much potential decentralization and permissionlessness that proof of work in general is getting us I think Bitcoin is such an excellent and probably the best example of that, but I still think there’s a lot of room for others.

Vlad Costea (30:59):

I’ve heard. What I think is a very interesting point of view in regards to altcoins, which comes from Udi Wertheimer, who was a developer. And he told me that even though the lightning network will someday reach this level of adoption, which is unprecedented and impossible to compete with altcoins will always find a way to reinvent themselves and say that they provide something unique difference or just the opportunity to go 1000 decks in a couple of years.

Anthony Lusardi (31:41):

Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know if I’d agree with that. I don’t think altcoins’, sole reasons for existence are to promise something better where we’re generally trying to promise the same thing that we’re trying to pro give, give the same type of decentralization to other things, and you’re not going to ever get that on lightning network. That’s just not the way that it’s going to work. Even lightning network itself, even though you’ll be able to make confidential transactions and potentially even choose your own routes through the network. You’re still not going to get that type of decentralization where there’s no set of parties or there’s no, I guess, I don’t know. It’s just layer is never going to be as decentralized as layer one and that’s the way it is.

Vlad Costea (32:40):

But do you ever recommend that there will come a moment when maybe that Ethereum classic will join the lightning network and we’ll be able to do atomic swaps and maybe make smart contracts on the lightning network, which gets settled on the main chain?

Anthony Lusardi (33:01):

Yeah, maybe atomic swaps and that type of thing are kind of hard to do cross chain they’re already hard to do. It’s already kind of hard to do on a single chain, but yeah, I could, I could see it.

Vlad Costea (33:20):

I know that up to this point, maybe the vision for Ethereum classic is to scale to sidechains and have as many applications that are deployed on specific side chain switch, fulfilled the requirements. And do you think that it will be as successful as we see that it is with Bitcoin right now with what’s it called? Blockstream is what’s the name of Blockstream site chain? I forgot. Well that quit. Yeah.

Anthony Lusardi (34:01):

Remains to be seen. We’re still such chains are still definitely being built, but are nowhere near production ready yet and yeah, we’ll hopefully see more of them. Obviously there’s a lot of benefits to layer two. I just don’t think layer two provides every single benefit under the sun. If it, if it did, then you wouldn’t need big wine and you clearly need big hearts.

Vlad Costea (34:31):

Right. Because I remember there was this discussion that you can actually build a Turing complete site chain on top of Bitcoin, even though I’m not sure how it works with the final settlement. And if it can have all the functions of material, maybe that someday that will be possible, but I’m not sure if it will have all the features.

Anthony Lusardi (34:56):

Yeah. I don’t think it’ll work the same way. The final terms of the settlement would have to be agreed upon on layer two before getting to layer one. Whereas with smart contract platforms, the file settlements can actually happen on layer one itself, you know, the final logic around it can happen on there.

Vlad Costea (35:24):

I think I’ve heard this argument from Donald McIntyre who also works or used to work for Ethereum classic. He once said that in every venture and then every business or industry you have at least two or three or four different alternatives to the main one, just in case one fails or has its limitations or it gets overcrowded. And that’s one of the reasons why he thinks that proof of work will have three or four blockchains to function simultaneously.

Anthony Lusardi (36:04):

Yeah. Yeah. I think proof of work in general is probably going to have now I think cryptocurrencies are going to settle on three or four cryptocurrencies. I think whether or not they’re crucial work is going to depend on how and how we can all properly communicate the importance of proof of work as a means towards decentralization.

Vlad Costea (36:32):

Right. But at this point, it’s very interesting to see the dynamics of the market and how sometimes you have this, these ideas for Bitcoin side chains, which other people turn into altcoins, which have the rise and then you see them fall all of a sudden, but the idea is still there. And maybe someday we’ll see something like Mimble Wimble, or advanced confidential transactions and other innovations which have been made in the space being deployed on Bitcoin side chains.

Anthony Lusardi (37:11):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I hope to see these things expand everywhere. I think just going back to the cryptocurrencies thing, I think the important thing to keep in mind is that when false equivalencies are made between all non Bitcoin and cryptos kind of weakens, the argument for POW and it makes this kind of space for the ripples of the world to, you know, move in. But yeah, I mean, remember when bowls in interesting tech, I don’t know if it’s beneficial on a side chain, because it seems to rely just on a lot of coin mixing or enjoying type operations. But yeah we’ll say,

Vlad Costea (38:10):

I guess Bitcoin, I mean, in terms of Bitcoin maximalism, it’s useful to keep Bitcoin as the main actor as the King of this kingdom of cryptos, but it’s also useful to at least take some lessons from the history and the experiences of every other altcoin out there as even though maybe that they will never reach the same scale of adoption and they will never achieve mainstream success. They still have history and you see how the community reacts and you see how different features get added and how the consensus works. I guess, from a development point of view, all of the altcoins which have been deployed and are Bitcoin hard forks can be lessons for the Bitcoin developers in terms of how to operate and what kind of mistakes they should avoid.

Anthony Lusardi (39:11):

Yeah, definitely. There’s definitely a lot of lessons to learn and, you know, as far as mainstream adoption goes, I think I think Bitcoin needs to kind of be careful because there’s a lot of coins that don’t share that type of ethos or that type of approach to running their network that have now, because we know about cryptocurrencies they’ve advanced far faster, they’ve grown at a much higher click than a Bitcoin currently is. And I think that that’s something that’s kind of overlooked, you know, Bitcoin had a substantial head start and my fear is that in 10, 15 years we see Bitcoin actually gets replaced by another cryptocurrency. That is a cryptocurrency in name only. And kind of just, you know, this was all for nothing. And a new generation will rediscover all the advantages of decentralization and, and proof of work in particular and how it helps achieve that. But yeah, that’s kind of a scenario that I don’t want to see happen. So I think it’s important for Bitcoin in general, to be aware that a lot of people are not going to care and that education of people is very vitally important to getting proof of work and Bitcoin in particular, to stay where it is which is in my opinion, absolutely necessary to the real future of this space. Otherwise it just becomes backwards.

Vlad Costea (41:01):

Sometimes I see Bitcoin as a one sin, less civilization chance to get away from money, which is owned by the government because otherwise it’s very hard for me to imagine how a new actor can step into the scene and benefit from the same kind of enthusiasm and actually grow in a decentralized way that is ethical as opposed to having pre mines and rewards for the founders and a centralization, which is granted by the existence of the founders themselves.

Anthony Lusardi (41:39):

Yeah, exactly. And yet a big one is that one in a million shot to actually have that otherwise it may just get replaced by things that aren’t anything like it, but yeah, I really, really, really, really hope it doesn’t. But the more like I look at it, it’s more, you even just see these stupid ad campaigns about how crypto needs rules, the more the more, I wonder if it’s gonna end up going that way. And hopefully Bitcoin can grow to a critical mass to where it’s used so much that this becomes impossible, but I don’t think we’re quite at that point yet

Vlad Costea (42:25):

About data from the Gemini exchange. I guess it made me lose some respect for the Winklevoss brothers. They got in at a point when maybe Bitcoin was not as popular and they saw the potential in it. And maybe that their trust in the cryptocurrency has given Bitcoin some more legitimacy in the eyes of some investors, but at the same time, they, I, I’ve never actually seen them defend the cypherpunk ethos. How would you pronounce it? Ethos of Bitcoin. I’ve never seen them stand for the ideals of Satoshi or Hal Finney to them. It’s just business. And I guess that’s something that should be worrisome and should be a big red flag for us, at least for those who use Gemini, which in itself is a KYC exchange.

Anthony Lusardi (43:28):

Yeah. It’s tough.

Vlad Costea (43:32):

I hope I don’t get sued for making these claims, but I don’t think there’s anything untrue and the statements that I’ve made.

Anthony Lusardi (43:41):

Yeah. yeah, I think it’s kind of, it’s silly to portray cryptocurrency like this and to say that, you know, we need these certain groups to bring rules in order to the situation like we’ve gotten along absolutely fine before this. So it’s just but that’s the type of thing that I see eventually happening is where we need to get to a critical mass first in order to have true decentralization and true usage of Bitcoin globally. But anyway, but I hate to cut this short, but I have to head out. So yeah,

Vlad Costea (44:29):

That’s fine. I’m really that you’re able to do this and maybe that some other time, maybe in another season of the Bitcoin taker, we can talk some more about the same topic Sydney. It was good to have you and thank you for listening,

Anthony Lusardi (44:50):

Right. Thanks for having me. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.