LET’S TALK BITCOINEpisode 108 – The People and Projects

Participants:

Adam B. Levine (AL) – HostStephanie Murphy (SM) – Co-hostFarsha (Farsha) – Co-founder of FilmAnnex and WomensAnnexRoya Mahboob (RM) – Co-founder of FilmAnnex and WomensAnnexDmitry Murashchik aka ‘Rassah’ (DM) – Community manager for Mycelium walletNeill Miller (NM) - Co-founder of Altcoin LabsJonathan Zevallos (JZ) – Co-founder of Altcoin LabsMichael Perklin (MP) – Director for Bitcoin Alliance of Canada and promoter of Cryptocurrency Certification ConsortiumMark Edge (ME) – Radio host of FreeTalk Live

AL: Today is May 10th 2014 and this is Episode 108. This program is intended for informational and educational purposes only. Cryptocurrency is a new field of study. Consult your local futurist, lawyer and investment advisor before making any decisions whatsoever for yourself. [0:19]

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Welcome to Let’s Talk Bitcoin, a twice weekly show about the ideas, people and projects building the digital economy and the future of money. My name is Adam B. Levine and today’s show is about the people.

In 2014, the mobile space is heating up. I sat down with Rassah, community manager at the Mycelium wallet team to talk their new Local Trader feature and what comes next

Then, Stephanie Murphy caught up with Neill and Jonathan of Altcoin Labs. They talk education and consultation, meetups and Huntercoin

Later, on a rooftop in Toronto, I spoke with Michael Perklin about the Cryptocurrency Certification Consortium. What it is and how it works

Finally, we close today’s show with Mark Edge of FreeTalk Live. One of the earliest media personalities involved with Bitcoin, he and Stephanie explore the early days and how far we’ve come

But first, Farsha and Roya are founders of www.FilmAnnex.com, a blogging platform that pays participants in Bitcoin. Stephanie joins them now [1:23]

Stephanie Murphy interview with Farsha and Roya

SM: I’m here talking with Farsha and Roya and they are Bitcoin bloggers. Ladies, welcome to the show. [1:31]

Farsha: Thank you very much for having us. [1:33]

RM: Thank you very much for having us. [1:35]

SM: We are at the Inside Bitcoins conference in New York and I met Michael, over there, from FilmAnnex and he said that he’s got a blogging platform where people can get paid to blog. You are both from Afghanistan, is that right? [1:52]

Farsha & RM: Yes. [1:53]

SM: You are blogging for this site and you get paid in bitcoins so you can receive that Bitcoin payment anywhere in the world, right? [2:01]

Farsha & RM: Sure, yeah. [2:02]

Farsha: FilmAnnex and WomensAnnex Foundation is an online film platform where people can come online, they can register on the platform, and both FilmAnnex and WomensAnnex and they can upload their films, videos and blogs. The difference of our platform with others is we pay for the users if they come online and they share their stories. The other big difference is that we pay them in Bitcoin. (??) for WomensAnnex that supports women in developing countries, starting from Afghanistan and around the world. It’s a very big and huge step for women because in certain countries there are a lot of difficulties for women to access banking systems. Every transaction is always a headache for women, so Bitcoin is just the only currency that women can easily have a digital wallet and they can send and receive without any fee and also it’s not only about the currency but it’s also about the technology side which helps them to get more involved into technology – we can tell digital literacy. A digital currency for digital literacy. [3:07]

SM: OK, so how long have you been blogging on FilmAnnex and what’s your experience been like? [3:13]

Farsha: Actually, Roya and I are the co-founders and board members of WomensAnnex Foundation and we also write blogs about our activities but the main mission of ours is to find women who can blog for us. Right now, we have around 60,000 female users on WomensAnnex platform with 6,000 of them are from Afghanistan, which is a huge step for us. They are writing blogs about everything; the daily issues about education, which is everything that is interesting for them. We just measure their social media connections

with other people, and then we rate the blogs, and we pay them based on their activities. [3:53]

SM: Roya, if you tried to send money from the US to Afghanistan, how would you even do that? That’s going to be a problem, right? [4:00]

RM: Yes, this was a problem before but right now, Bitcoin makes my work easier. [4:05]

SM: Yeah. [4:06]

RM: We can send to our users any place in Afghanistan. There is no need that they have to come to the bank or they have to come to a specific location. They can receive their monies in their wallets. As Farsha says that we have 6,000 students, female students in Afghanistan, due to some problems like they don’t have a bank account, or the family is not allowed them or their age is not.... I mean, they are not of a certain age to get a bank account. There are also other security problems. Right now, we are using the bitcoins and then the students just started in February to receive the bitcoins and they are happy when they have a wallet, then they can buy online stuff. We are also talking with some of the local shops that they can exchange their bitcoins and buy stuff in Afghanistan, online. [4:56]

SM: Wow! There is starting to be a whole Bitcoin economy. [4:59]

Farsha: Yes. [5:00]

RM: Yeah I hope so. [5:01]

SM: If you’re in Afghanistan, is it a benefit to be able to have control over your own money? Is there the potential, if you’re carrying cash around, to get robbed? Or if you’re picking it up from somewhere, is that an issue? [5:16]

RM: Yes, it is an issue because, not only for the women but also for the men as well, the problem that if you have cash and you take it with yourself around, that would be a problem, especially for the women. If they have money and if they wanted to save it, they have to go to the bank. If they don’t have a bank account, the family will take their money, so they cannot always save their money. They have to pay. Even if they wanted to save for themselves, they can’t, so I think that Bitcoin is a solution for them, and then they can save it and no one knows how much bitcoins they have. Whenever they want, they can change it to cash. [5:54]

SM: Yeah, exactly. That could be a pretty revolutionary thing if women were able to keep control of their own money without their family taking it or exposure to risks when they’re carrying around cash, or whatever, right? [6:06]

Farsha: Yeah, definitely. That’s why we are trying to push the concept of digital literacy by means of digital currency which is a very huge step for women. It will also lead them to financial independence which is like... women’s empowerment. We really want the women to be a very strong part of the society that always they are going to be ignored. It’s not

always in developing countries; it’s also in developed countries as well. This is a common problem but, I mean, in Afghanistan and certain countries, it’s a little bit more of a big issue. Really, we want to involve women more and lead them to use the power of social and digital media with technology, combined with education in the right way. [6:45]

SM: How would you find bloggers? Is it a social media thing? Does it get shared and then people find out about the blog, or find out through their friends? [6:57]

RM: Through our WomensAnnex Foundation we created eleven IT centers for eleven schools and right now, we have 45,000 female students in our network. We are providing directly beneficiary and training for the 6,200 of the females that they learn how to work with computers and what is the technology, what’s the benefit of writing the blogs, and how they can get paid for that. Through this network, the students will register and then they get started to working in our centers and then they can invite their friends, so that it can grow. We are not only in Afghanistan, we also have some female students in Pakistan and we have started in Egypt as well. [7:39]

SM: How do you make money.... like, how do you provide the bitcoins to pay the bloggers with? [7:46]

Farsha: (??) space on online advertising so whenever you produce blogs and video space on the contents of the other people that share your blogs. If you share other people’s blogs, which is important, you will get paid by the measurement that we call it (??) which is our measurement, which is your social activity, whilst we pay you based on your activity. [8:11]

SM: If somebody is living in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Egypt, how much can they make doing something like this? [8:18]

RM: It is dependent on their works and activities. Some students can get paid like $500, some students only can get $50/$200, and it just depends on how much they are active. [8:34]

SM: Per blog post or per week? [8:37]

RM: No, it’s per month. [8:39]

SM: Oh, per month, OK. [8:40]

RM: Yes. [8:41]

SM: If you’re in Afghanistan, that might go further than New York City, right? [8:45]

RM: Yeah, I mean $100 is a lot of money for them and then they can do everything with them, even some of the families or parents who are working outside would probably be $100/$120. $100 only for one female is a lot of money, especially when they are students of schools. [9:04]

SM: Yeah, definitely. I want to talk about women in Bitcoin. Recently we were just talking about this. Farsha and I just filmed an interview about women in Bitcoin and the media perception that there are no women involved in Bitcoin. What do you think about this as people who have a company that exists to bring women on board and pay them with Bitcoin? [9:28]

Farsha: I think it’s not only... it’s like a typical thing for business or technology. Women’s involvement is always less than men but I think the important thing is that we have to make and build a very strong community. I think we believe in community building, which is not always as physical spaces or geographical places. Online community building is very important so that’s why we try to let the women who have certain problems in specific countries, maybe they are security problems. They cannot go out so we invite them to come online and support each other. If I have a very good experience on Bitcoin, I definitely would write a blog about it. I have this way that I made this digital wallet, I really loved it and I can send and receive money. I love my friends who also have the benefit of that. I will tell my friend and my friend has another friend, so it’s all about spreading the word. Of course, whenever we reward a person in Bitcoin, they will believe that definitely this currency will help them more. Step by step, this message will be spread around the community, so we believe that it’s not only a discussion for men but also for women that can empower them. [10:42]

SM: If someone is a blogger on this platform and they get paid in Bitcoin and they’re living in Afghanistan, how do you provide support for them to use other types of Bitcoin wallets or teach them how to do transactions, or do they just kind of figure that out by themselves? [11:00]

RM: No, we provide training for them. We have a plan that for the future that also we will provide training on how they can do mining. Right now, they just know how to get their money and about the transaction and how to make the wallet but, in future, we want to teach them how to do the side of the mining bitcoins. [11:19]

SM: Great. [11:20]

Farsha: We always try to update our users in FilmAnnex and WomensAnnex platform. That’s why we always, every day or every two other days, we write a blog about our certain changes in the platform and everything about Bitcoin because we just shift to Bitcoin, so we are going to let the users. We always update them about everything and Roya said, we are providing a certain training for girls in schools like how to make a digital wallet and for other users. We always try to keep update the users and give them the information so they feel free to interact with us and we’ll let them put their comments, or their ideas in to blogs. We go through the questions and we try to reply to them in blogs or video. [12:01]

SM: Yeah, that makes total sense. OK, anything else you want to add? [12:06]

Farsha: Thank you very much and it was very nice meeting you here and we found a lot of interesting people here in Bitcoin conference and we’re really looking forward to make a

huge change in Afghanistan, not only for women but for men also. Yeah, looking forward for a bright future for everyone around the world. [12:24]

RM: Thank you so much for everything. [12:26]

SM: The websites where people can find out more? [12:30]

Farsha: Yes, www.FilmAnnex.com and www.WomensAnnex.com. [12:33]

SM: OK, Farsha and Roya, thank you so much for your time today. [12:36]

Farsha & RM: Thank you very much for having us. Thank you. [12:38]

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Adam B. Levine interview with Dmitry Murashchik

AL: I’m sitting here this morning with Dmitry, known as ‘Rassah’ online. He’s the community manager, right? [12:56]

DM: Mhmm. [12:57]

AL: Yeah, community manager with Mycelium wallet which is an Android wallet that has been my Android wallet of choice since Andreas Peterson first made me download it, I guess about six months ago, and it’s still the one on my phone. There was an interesting new feature that I saw made it into the test version, about a month ago, that I’ve been playing with it. It’s this thing called Local Trader. Can you tell us what this is all about? [13:22]

DM: The idea is that, as a new person, you download your first Bitcoin wallet, which we hope is Mycelium, then you have a question – how do I get my first bitcoins? Local Trader is designed to make that really easy where once you launch the Mycelium wallet, there’s going to be a buy/sell Bitcoin button and once you press it, it will find all the people in your area who are willing to sell you Bitcoin for cash. In a sense, it’s like LocalBitcoins but it’s built directly into the wallet, so it’s fully integrated with your Mycelium wallet. [13:54]

AL: How do I indicate that... if I want to sell Bitcoin, I list an order for the price I want to sell and the area that I’m in. [14:02]

DM: Yeah. It’s a seller account. For now, we only have standing seller and instant buyers. Eventually, we’ll have standing buyers as well. You would create a sell order using the same system, the Local Trader, which lets you create as many sell orders as you want with different tiers of fees. For example, you can set different prices for different locations,

depending on how difficult it is to get there or different prices for the amount of money that you’re willing to trade for. [14:31]

AL: How does this process work? We want to make a trade and we’re not in the same area. Show me what happens here. [14:37]

DM: You would hit the buy/sell Bitcoin. It will use your GPS on your phone to find all the people who are close to your area organized by the top 10. It will list the sellers, their ratings, any kind of extra info they want to have, and their prices. Choose any of the exchange services that can track prices for, plus any kind of fees that they set up, and then you can have fees even be negative, in case you want to sell really quickly. Once you hit buy on one of the sellers, it will open a chat window where you can talk to the seller to negotiate where you want to buy. At the same time, it will tell you exactly how many bitcoins or how much cash you would trade and how much you would receive. [15:21]

AL: If I don’t have that many bitcoins in my wallet, can I place a sell order for them? [15:26]

DM: Since it’s all integrated, it would actually... if you don’t have enough bitcoins to cover your sell order, it will actually make your sell order inactive at the time, so when you see somebody selling, you’ll know absolutely for certain that they actually have the bitcoins to sell. [15:42]

AL: OK. We go into chat and we are negotiating. Are we talking about price or are we talking about location? What are we talking about? [15:49]

DM: Both. Until both of you agree on the location and the price, there is going to be a button there which says ‘Accept Offer’, so until you guys actually decide, you’re free to talk it out. If you don’t want to trade, you just hit ‘Stop’ and it’s not going to affect you in any way. Once you guys do agree, you have to hit ‘Accept Offer’ and the reason for that is so that there’s going to be feedback that’s built in based on whether you actually follow through with the trade and how fast you follow through with it. [16:20]

AL: There’s a reputational system built in too. [16:21]

DM: Yeah. If both of you actually accept the offer, if you renege on the offer, it’s going to put a ding in your reputation system. [16:27]

AL: We’ve agreed, we negotiate and we meet up in person. What happens? [16:32]

DM: Once you meet up in person, you give cash to the seller, the seller will have a cash receipt button and once that happens, it will automatically transfer money from one phone to the other without needing to swap Bitcoin addresses. It also has a new feature we have called a ‘Transaction Confidence Graph’. One of our servers is connected to half the Bitcoin nodes and the other is connected to the other half of the Bitcoin nodes, and it will actually track the transaction as it’s getting broadcast and transmitted through the whole network. On top of that, it will be keeping track for things like double spends, unspent inputs,

malleability and other things, which will affect the Transaction Confidence Graph. For every unspent output, it will half the ‘Confidence’. [17:18]

AL: This is an audio show, so let’s talk about this Confidence Graph for a second. Basically, in practice what I’ve seen is that this looks like... this is basically a zero confirmation confirmation, right? [17:28]

DM: Pretty much, yeah. [17:29]

AL: The idea here is that when the transaction is broadcast by the person selling the bitcoin, you are tracking how far around the network it gets. If it gets all the way around the network, or gets to most of the network, then the chances of it not being included in a block are very, very low. Even though it hasn’t already been included in a block, you have a high degree of relative... like so how secure is something like that? Is it possible to have strong confidence with zero confirmations? [17:55]

DM: The Confidence Graph never gets to 100% because there are still issues that might happen and I’m not really sure what but if the Confidence gets to 99%, that means that a proper fee was included and pretty much all the network has heard it by now. There’s non-spent input and it’s 99% sure that the transaction will get included in the next block. You can’t ever get to 100% because there could be things like chain fork, or something, where your transaction gets wiped out but it’s pretty close to 100%. [18:27]

AL: This has been kind of a sticking point in the space is that it’s really hard – a lot of people have trouble since there’s no way to... sometimes a Bitcoin block can take 20 minutes or 40 minutes and it’s sometimes very difficult to wait that long in a retail situation. This isn’t a local trading application but it seems like this has greater implications in that potentially. [18:46]

DM: Eventually, we’ll include it in the rest of the application as well and yeah, I’m familiar with that because I’ve done trades in person. Sometimes you have to sit there awkwardly for about an hour from lack to confirm. Yeah, this will definitely fix that. Another really nice feature with this is your authentication and registration is done using private key message signing. When you associate your Bitcoin address to your Local Trader account, you don’t need any passwords with that. You authenticate using a private key and all chat between you and the user is encrypted using your respective private keys. [19:20]

AL: Interesting. [19:20]

DM: The only thing we will store is the Bitcoin address associated with it, whatever user name you choose and very course location to within one square kilometer and your trade history for the feedback stuff. In a way, it can be as pseudonymous as Bitcoin itself. [19:40]

AL: One of the final sticking points here is that I noticed that you’re basically talking about the price before you actually meet in person. As we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks, the price in Bitcoin can be really pretty ridiculously volatile sometimes when it comes to these local deals. Do you have any way to deal with local volatility? [19:58]

DM: Yeah. Before you press ‘Accept’, the seller and the buyer, I’m not sure if that change might be only one of them, can click the update price button so it will be able to update the price constantly. Even if you hit the ‘Accept Trade’ button, one of you can hit the ‘Update Price’ button if the price changes too much, and it will unaccept the price again, and then you guys can continue to negotiate. Since we got Local Trader finished up, it freed up the time and added resources within Local Trader and will now allow us to pursue the next step which is going to be HD wallets. [20:34]

AL: I was going to ask about that, yeah. [20:36]

DM: Our next big feature will be HD wallets and after that, things like descriptions to your transactions, export all your transactions in a commerce and rated value file. CoinJoin too is going to be in our steps as well. [20:49]

AL: Very cool. I’m looking at your product and, like I said, I’ve been using it for about six months and I don’t see any monetization in it at all. Is there any plan for that? Is this just a play to be ubiquitous first? [21:01]

DM: Local Trader will be our first model for that too. We don’t require you to go through Local Trader but if you use our system for convenience sake, we will charge 0.2% fee on top of whatever the seller charges as well, both on a buy and sell. [21:17]

AL: OK. That’s 0.2%. [21:19]

DM: 0.2%. [21:21]

AL: OK, cool. [21:21]

DM: After that, we’re also looking into adding things like altcoins which may end up being as plug-ins that you download for a little bit of extra money, and merchant options, and things like that. We’re looking to hire developers right now to kind of help us out with this since we are focusing more on the HD wallet side of it. [21:39]

AL: Your group is based out of Austria? [21:41]

DM: Austria, Vienna. [21:42]

AL: Yeah. It sounds like you’ve got some impressive features. I know that one of the other projects that Mycelium has had on the back burner for a while, has been this wireless card. Is that still on the table at all? [21:53]

DM: Definitely. Our hardware guys are actually in the process of evaluating some test hardware right now. They probably will get the prototypes by the end of spring or so. [22:04]

AL: Great, terrific. I’m glad that’s making progress again. [22:07]

DM: We still have no idea when it’s going to be out but all of us are really anxious to get it out obviously. [22:14]

AL: I’m just glad that it’s still being worked on, like I said. That’s the important part here. [22:18]

DM: The main issue that turned out to be is that the idea ended up being a little bit ahead of its time, so the hardware wasn’t quite out yet but it is kind of... all the new stuff that’s out right now will hopefully be enough to cover it. [22:29]

AL: That’s the thing; just wait a couple of years, right? (Laughter) [22:31]

DM: Pretty much. (Laughter) [22:33]

AL: Rassah, anything else we need to talk about here? [22:36]

DM: No, that’s about it. [22:36]

AL: Well, it was great catching up with you again and I look forward to seeing your continued progress in Mycelium wallet. If people are interested in Mycelium wallet, where should they go to to download it? [22:44]

DM: www.Mycelium.com or search for Mycelium on Google app store. [22:49]

AL: That’s M_Y_C_E_L_I_U_M? [22:52]

DM: Yeah MYCELIUM. [22:54]

AL: Great, terrific. Thank you for your time man. [22:57]

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Stephanie Murphy interview with Neill Miller and Jonathan Zevallos

SM: I’m Stephanie Murphy from Let’s Talk Bitcoin and I’m here at the Inside Bitcoins New York City conference and I’m talking with Neill Miller and Jonathan Zevallos from Altcoin Labs. They also started the first altcoin meetup. Gentlemen, welcome to the show. [24:20]

NM & JZ: Thank you. Thanks for having us.

SM: Altcoin Labs. I want to talk about that but first, tell me about the altcoin meetup that you started up. Why altcoins? [24:29]

NM: Generally speaking, I got into Bitcoin back in 2011 as a miner and I was just kind of interested in it. [24:35]

SM: As a miner? [24:36]

NM: Yeah, yeah. Not a big time miner, no nothing like that. As the years went by I actually didn’t hear about Litecoin until at some point last year, probably around April. I just got fascinated by it, and then I heard of Feathercoin and like, some of these older coins, Peercoin and stuff. I just thought that was much more interesting, personally, than Bitcoins themselves. [24:58]

SM: Why were those more interesting than Bitcoin? [25:01]

NM: I’m in there and I like Bitcoin a lot. I think the technology is amazing but it felt kind of slow pace. I know that’s crazy to say because Bitcoin’s extremely fast pace but compared to altcoins and I felt like the communities of the different altcoins were like coming out in different ways. I almost liked the different attitude, maybe. [25:21]

JZ: Definitely. When we started up the meetup in Chicago, it started late September and basically, from there in late September, Dogecoin was released and it completely changed the landscape. People went from this very serious cryptocurrency blockchain Bitcoin to playful, Shiba Inu meme on a coin. I thought it was hilarious. I thought it was awesome. Altcoins made that possible. [25:54]

SM: Had you been interested in Bitcoin too Jonathan? [25:57]

JZ: Oh yeah... definitely, definitely. I first heard about Bitcoin in 2011. I became a miner, not a Bitcoin miner but a Litecoin miner in early 2013, so basically my logic was, Bitcoin is no longer GPU mineable so the derivative is going to be the next thing that is very successful and sure enough, Litecoin was extremely successful. [26:19]

SM: Yeah, so I’m hearing a little bit of like... you wanted to be involved with something from the very beginning and something that feels exciting and has a lot of energy surrounding it and perhaps Bitcoin has moved beyond that point a little bit, and so altcoins are where it’s at for you guys. Is that right to say? [26:37]

NM: Yeah, I think that sounds about right. The other thing about altcoins is just that truly they are really alternatives, so there are different innovations happening. I think Dogecoin, of course, was just kind of a joke and it kind of blew everyone’s mind though because people seriously are using it for stuff. There are actually high volumes of trades on it. Different aspects draw people in and it just seems that there’s a lot more questions to be answered and I think it also makes it a little bit more fun. Bitcoin’s a little intimidating, I think, to some people. Not to me in particular but I just think that some new people coming into it, it’s sort of... [27:13]

JZ: To add onto that as well. I feel like altcoins provide a niche. They provide consistent innovation. Now, granted all these altcoins can exist. There’s thousands of altcoins created in the market. Some of them are complete clones but the few that are very innovative basically gain value within market cap, within community and you see this kind of innovation backed by BTCs, essentially. People gain confidence in market share and community. [27:50]

SM: Jonathan, you said that you had some people show up at the altcoin meetup who were kind of like disinterested in Bitcoin but they were really excited about Doge, for instance. Tell me more about that. [28:02]

JZ: It’s funny because one of my very good friends, Matt, he worked at MicroCenter. He wasn’t at all interested in Bitcoin as much as the derivatives but what got him very excited was Dogecoin and the community of tipping. A lot of people showed up to our meetup just because Dogecoin was like this charity coin, instead of Bitcoin where people are very intimated by a lot of the political aspects and the technical aspects. Dogecoin was kind of this playful, fun thing that gave charity to different organizations, tip to each other and they treated it as fun. That opened the space for so many different kinds of people coming in. [28:44]

SM: What altcoins got you the most excited and why? Neill, you said that you see innovation happening in altcoins, whereas it doesn’t necessarily take place, at this point, within Bitcoin. Which innovations are you particularly excited about? [28:58]

NM: I think what first excited me about Litecoin in general was it never really occurred to me to swap out the proof of work algorithm and when I saw that something was actually

doing it successfully and had created a whole new network of miners, basically a whole new economy, that was a really exciting idea for me. I was really into Feathercoin as well. I realized that they didn’t necessarily change anything, or necessarily innovate but them, in particular, I thought their community was just extremely exciting. I was definitely more involved I would say with the Feathercoin community than Litecoin, in particular. Then, it just kind of snowballed from there. By the time Doge came out, it’s now to the point where altcoins are coming out every day, basically. It’s hard to say, on any given day, what the innovations are but, generally speaking, they’re tweaks to the algorithms, tweaks to maybe even like proof of stake versus proof of work – smaller innovations perhaps. I think that also bigger ones too like the ideas of encrypted blockchains, or Darkcoin. These are interesting things. I don’t know how they’re going to pan out but I’m really curious and I’m glad that somebody is doing it. [30:09]

JZ: I would actually say I’m kind of a big analyst and I always look at Bitcoin Talk to look to the new announced altcoin. I just love doing that. I love seeing the innovation behind it. I love, for example, seeing ProtoShares, now BitShares, kind of like digital autonomous corporation proposal. Another obscure coin, Huntercoin which basically has a game built on the whole blockchain. Every move that you can actually make on Huntercoin is seen through the blockchain building as a ledger for these moves you’ve performed in an MMORPG. I feel like that lays the foundation for so many innovations. [30:53]

SM: Wow! [30:54]

JZ: It’s these really obscure coins that people just don’t know about and I feel like they’re going to refine the blockchain. They’re going to create their own market shares and, in the end, they’re going to be worth significant value. Significant within whatever niche they kind of fulfil. [31:11]

SM: What do you think makes an altcoin stand out? There are just so many altcoins now. What do you think defines a successful altcoin from the ones that fail? [31:20]

NM: There definitely are so many. I would say community is a really big one. Dogecoin taught me that. I would say that technical innovation is another. Even just the shift over to Litecoin, that was the first one. There are a lot of new algorithms coming out too like X11, and stuff like that. These things are like... I think that they’re a big deal but there also somewhat incremental steps so, it’s hard to pinpoint on any one thing. It’s sort of a combination of everything. Like Bitcoin is pieced together by all kinds of different cryptographic ideas but basically, everything fell into place properly and the timing was right where people were actually interested in it and it’s taking off.

JZ: I would agree with Neill in the sense that it really depends on the type of niche that it fulfils. It depends on... I always call it market demand, right? Cryptocurrencies, I think, there is a market demand. I would actually argue with Dogecoin. There was a market demand. People probably felt like it was... Bitcoin was too serious, the market was getting spammed with all these scrypt coins that they didn’t like and they didn’t believe in, so people mined Dogecoin. I know, I did to be ironic and funny and sure enough, ironically and

funnily enough, it’s now a serious currency. The joke’s kind of being played on... not even on us... it’s just awesome! [32:47]

SM: It’s just a joke! (Laughter) [32:48]

JZ: Yeah. I wouldn’t even say it’s just a joke. It’s an evolving joke. It’s great. I think it’s awesome and it really depends on the niche at the time. That’s what I would say. [33:01]

SM: Cool. What goes on at an altcoin meetup? What do people talk about and do people have projects that they’re working on? Is it more just a social kind of event? [33:12]

NM: Generally speaking so far, it’s just largely been discussion. We’re trying to form a base of sort of regular members and we do have a fair number at this point. Later, in mid June, we’re actually hoping to do an event where we can bring in some of the devs or external influences and host a big event. I’m sure we’ll have to talk to you more about that later on as it gets closer and we give more details to it. That’s sort of... we’re looking towards promoting something like a mini conference/workshop. [33:42]

JZ: The big thing is the devs. We want to essentially put a face to the coin. I think the biggest problem in the altcoin market is trust. IPO coins, right? You don’t know whether or not these people are going to take your bitcoins honestly. Just so much funding and so many changing things, it’s overwhelming. We want to refine that and say – Hey, this person is trustworthy, they’re in this market, they’ve built this and this is their product, this is their coin. We just want to refine that. [34:13]

SM: Have you ever thought about maybe putting out or defining a set of best practices for new altcoins? Or, a kind of vetting process for new altcoins to just look for red flags when they first start before people start investing in them? [34:29]

NM: I think that’s a really interesting thing. We definitely have our own opinions on that. We tend not to publicize them, at least yet, because some of the coins that we had criticisms about are actually doing pretty well, at least for now, or have done better than we originally thought. For example, some coins appear to have a strong lack of developers which we think is a really bad thing for a coin and then, it turns out, for some reason the community, the developers come later. I think that that is a really important thing so really time can only tell. I don’t know, I mean it’s hard to really put out hard and fast guidelines, I guess. [35:06]

JZ: I would definitely agree with that, I mean, there’s proof of stake, proof of work, there’s IPO coins and there’s scrypt coin, X11, SHA 256. The landscape is constantly changing. Honestly, to put a set of guidelines – not only is it difficult, but it would just be a little bit arrogant of us to put that out there. I really think that it depends again, on the community. It depends on what the niche demand is during that moment, what the market demands and the type of innovation people push forward. I would actually say Dogecoin has pushed an innovation. That innovation is community. It defined a coin through donations, and community, and being trustworthy, and nice. I think that’s awesome! [35:50]

SM: It sounds like an exercise in open-mindedness. Would you say this has expanded your boundaries a little bit in terms of the way that you think about what a coin should be? [36:01]

NM: We all know there are so many coins and I hear about new ones all the time. Sometimes my first reaction is also that these new coins that I hear about is, it’s a joke. Again, a joke sometimes works apparently. Yeah, it’s definitely opened my mind. It’s hard to take anything too seriously until some time has actually passed. We really just need to watch the coins the best that we can. [36:26]

JZ: I think one of the big advantages I’ve always had in the altcoin space was that I was always open-minded. I always thought that derivatives are going to be stronger in some way. They’re always going to push innovation. Working on Bitcoin, you’re working on a $5 billion project; you don’t want to mess anything up. You don’t want to do an extreme change. With altcoins, it gives us space to kind of experiment. That has its good and bad to it, just like an open market. It’s a double-edged sword but, in the altcoin space, I feel like it’s a completely wonderful double-edged sword. [36:57]

SM: In order for altcoins to grow and to get adopted by more people and used by more people, do you think that there are certain things that need to happen like multi-currency wallets, or infrastructure for different altcoins, or anything like that? Or, do you not really have that kind of agenda? Are you just getting people together and then seeing what grows out of that? [37:19]

NM: Yes, I think that there’s a big development problem. That’s not currently our focus now. We are more focused on just trying to get people exposed to the different altcoins in the landscape and they can see where their place fits. I am a developer myself but, at least, that’s not where I’ve been thinking of putting my talents. I look at things like Multichain.net and it’s really neat because you can have a ton of different wallets but then again, you can kind of do that in exchanges, and then there’s the trust question. Do you trust any of these? Personally, no I don’t. I think just basic security as a whole, even for Bitcoin, just needs to keep improving, and I think it will over time. Altcoins will benefit from any of the innovations anywhere. Bitcoin will also benefit from any of the altcoin infrastructure developments. [38:04]

JZ: Not only that, I think the bigger thing is to have a completely agnostic end processing system where you can actually send Dogecoin, Litecoin, whatever down this QR code, right? It would automatically be recognized by the system, just kind of compare hashes and then it would accept Doge, Lite, Bitcoin. I think that would be huge. [38:26]

NM: So the receiver can receive it in, basically, the currency of their choice too. That would be truly amazing from a usability standpoint. [38:35]

JZ: I think truly decentralization is within multiple blockchains. With multiple blockchains there are more possibilities, niches that can be fulfilled and there are innovations that can be pushed forward. [38:46]

SM: Tell me a little bit about Altcoin Labs, which is your company that you’re both working on together. What is it? [38:52]

NM: We sort of formed out of Altcoin Chicago. We basically found that a lot of people that are interested in this kind of stuff but we also are at a point in our lives where we realize our time is valuable too. We want to teach everyone everything and we can talk all day about anything but we’re trying to see if we can actually sort of focus, and putting on things like a workshop, or whatever, basically costs money and we’re looking into finding a way to monetize, or find a balance between our education, goals. I don’t know, basically trying to figure out a good, convenient way for people to learn and for us to do what we need to do in a non unending discussion section. [39:31]

JZ: Adding on to what Neill said, Altcoin Chicago does fit within a certain niche and sometimes the information can be completely overwhelming. Basically, what we want to do is go back to basics. What is a miner? What is the blockchain? How do you build a miner? What does this computer do? I feel like adoption is critical in education and I feel like that’s kind of being ignored. People want to reach out to these companies and have... who’s going to be the next payment processor? Who’s going to accept Bitcoin next? I think the biggest thing that they’re ignoring is consumer education. Who has backed their dollars with something that is completely abstract? I feel like Altcoin Labs is going to fill that niche. [40:19]

SM: Have you done any of that yet, like educating people about how to set up miners? I think you mentioned something about that Jonathan? [40:27]

JZ: Right. Yeah, actually we do have an event planned at Freegeek Chicago. Freegeek Chicago is a non for profit org, over in Chicago, that does basically recycling. They actually take in computer parts from big corporations and they repurpose them with Ubunto and distribute them according to the volunteer hours that a person has worked there. It’s an open source culture and we feel like some kind of... it’s the easiest people to talk about with when it comes to Bitcoin and GPU mining, and building a computer because these people that are there, they’re thirsty to learn about computers, learn about Ubuntu, learn about open source systems and we feel that Altcoin Labs, and presentation of the blockchain, and altcoins, can definitely make them benefit from that. [41:22]

SM: Cool. Anything else you guys want to add? [41:27]

NM: Basically, check out our meetup. We’re at www.meetup.com/altcoinchicago and Altcoin Labs is at www.altcoinlabs.com. [41:35]

SM: Thanks guys. I really appreciate your time today. [41:37]

NM: Thanks for having us. [41:38]

JZ: Thank you. [41:40]

_______________________________________________

Adam B. Levin interview with Michael Perklin

MP: We’re putting together the Cryptocurrency Certification Consortium. It’s a non-profit organization. It’s to certify people with Bitcoin knowledge so that somebody who says that they know Bitcoin, we would prove that they actually do. We’ve put together tests for a Bitcoin Lite certification – knowledge points that someone with this certification would have would be that, they understand the blockchain, they understand why they need to wait for confirmations, they understand key management, they understand basic crypto so they know what a hash is and basically, all the information that someone would need to know to accept Bitcoin on behalf of their company. Then, there’s a developer specific certification. People with this certification would be more along the lines of, they know the RPC calls, they can build a transaction manually, they can really get into the nitty gritty of Bitcoin. [42:51]

AL: They really understand Bitcoin. [42:53]

MP: Exactly. All the professional industries out there, whether it’s security, or it’s finance, or whatever. They all have professional certifications of one kind. For example, myself in the security industry, I have a CISSP certification (Certified Information Systems Security Professional), as well as CISA (Certified Information Systems Auditor). These are industry recognized certifications that say – I know enough about security that I can help your company do what you need to do. On the banking side, there are either certified accountants, things like that, but Bitcoin is so new that there really isn’t a certification body, so we’ve built one. It’s a non-profit organization that’s already registered and we have trademark applications out there for all the first certifications that are going out of the gate. Our goal is to work with educating bodies to ensure that whatever curriculums they are making for Bitcoin, or for Ethereum, or for any of the cryptocurrencies, they cover the specific knowledge points in each of the domains of Bitcoin, so that they can train someone to produce high quality results. [43:51]

AL: This move towards standards and voluntary standards, whereas it’s essentially an opt in process rather than a – You have to do this, otherwise you can’t do this thing. [44:00]

MP: Absolutely. [44:00]

AL: This is not the first time that I’ve heard of an approach like this, although you are targeting an area. You’re talking about Bitcoin knowledge, whereas I’ve been looking at insurance companies and things like that where there are these... there is this level of certification and quality control but it’s been really lacking in the ecosystem. It kind of seems like organizations and efforts like what you’re talking about are the solution to that, right? [44:20]

MP: Yes, absolutely. Hiring managers – when they’re looking to bring someone on board to work on whatever it is they’re working on, they want to make sure that the hire that they

bring in is going to produce quality results for that company. I’m sure that many companies have hired someone who says they have the knowledge on paper but once they start to get working, after about a month, they realize – you know you may have had that on your resume but you don’t really know that area that well. We’re hoping to make a standard so that people, who do have these letters after their name, really do understand Bitcoin and can truly add an impact to the company. [44:54]

AL: One of the interesting parts about Bitcoin, of course, is that unlike many standards that are out there, Bitcoin is in flux and Bitcoin is a developing thing. What do you in two years? Is it going to be the same program? Will there be additional programs of certification that layer on top? [45:08]

MP: Absolutely, it will not be the same program. Just like the certified accountants and the certified security professionals, these fields are changing all the time. There are new technologies coming out; there are new tweaks, there are new problems, new vulnerabilities, new things that we all need to worry about. Over time, the curriculum will be adapted to take advantage of new progress, new software and anything else that comes along the way. There will be committees within C4 that will be dedicated to updating the curriculum for the Certified Bitcoin Professionals certification, or for the Certified Bitcoin Technical Expert certification. These committees work alongside existing industry experts. We envision an (??) updated curriculum that will ensure that people understand the latest and greatest about Bitcoin. [45:55]

AL: Do you think that there is any differentiation between geography? Is the program different in China than it is in... for someone in China than it is for someone in the United States? Are you planning on servicing the international community with this product immediately, or are you focusing on specific areas? [46:10]

MP: It will be global after that, although the organization was first formed in Canada, it is going to be a global non-profit organization. What C4 would do is list the knowledge points. You need to know about this for key management. You need to know about this for privacy, like why do you use different change addresses, and things like that. Once all the knowledge points are created, this common body of knowledge can be made available to educating bodies in schools, universities, so that they can build their own curriculums that teach each of these knowledge points, so that they can cover all of the aspects of Bitcoin, or Ethereum. [46:46]

AL: Interesting. This is not something that you plan on administering specifically with this organization. This is something more where you plan on helping other people teach these things and then certifying their efforts? [46:54]

MP: Absolutely, yes. [46:55]

AL: OK, great. What haven’t I asked that I should ask because I feel like there’s probably something I’ve missed? [47:01]

MP: I wasn’t actually expecting for C4 to be on your show yet or to be public knowledge at the moment. After this conference, that’s when we’re really going to be getting into gear. [47:10]

AL: It’s a couple of weeks out when we’re talking now... and we’re talking right before the Bitcoin Decentral event, rather, right before the Bitcoin Toronto event. What is the timeframe on this? What is the rollout? How long do you think it will take for us to see the first certified individuals? [47:23]

MP: Our committee is already working to build the tests. We have a few hundred questions already made and we have the knowledge domains already separated. It’s just a matter of giving these tests to existing industry experts so we can get their feedback to make sure that these tests truly do separate the wheat from the chaff. It’s one thing to say that – Oh, I’ll ask you a question about Bitcoin but it’s another thing when industry experts look at it and say – Yes, this really would show that someone understands Bitcoin. By the summer of this year, really by June, people will be able to write the tests online. For the larger tests, it will have to be proctored in person, just to make sure you’re not cheating, or whatever. For the larger certifications, they have a very in depth level of knowledge, so it needs to be at your fingertips when you talk about it. [48:10]

AL: Michael, thank you very much for your time. [48:12]

MP: No problem. Thank you. [48:13]

__________________________________________

ADVERT:

This is Steven Levine, CFO of Let’s Talk Bitcoin. As someone who pays bills with Bitcoin, I find it immensely satisfying that I can pay our designer in Canada quickly and easily. A couple of button clicks and Bitcoin moves over miles and borders, unfettered by overbearing bureaucracy. It is our goal, here at Let’s Talk Bitcoin, to create structures that allow Bitcoin, and all of its descendents, to thrive and grow into the safe, free and fair invention that Satoshi wrote about. In my spare time, I’m also the President of Bitcoin Packaging. www.BitcoinPackaging.com makes it easy to use your currency of choice to purchase mundane products. We empower you to change the financial world by spending your Bitcoin. When you buy a product from www.BitcoinPackaging.com with Bitcoin, we will send you a 10% rebate off of the already low prices. www.BitcoinPackaging.com is a virtual company. We have no warehouse, trucks or sales people. Come to our store. Take a look around. Spend some Bitcoin and tell your friends. www.BitcoinPackaging.com. [49:22]

__________________________________________

Stephanie Murphy interview with Mark Edge

SM: This is Stephanie for Let’s Talk Bitcoin and I am here talking with a very special friend. We’ve got Mark Edge here from FreeTalk Live. Hi Mark. [49:34]

ME: Hi Stephanie. Thanks for having me. [49:36]

SM: Welcome to Let’s Talk Bitcoin. You don’t have to get quite as close to the microphone as you do on FreeTalk Live. You’re looking for an excuse to stand closer. That’s ok. (Laughter) [49:44]

ME: My co-host Ian is a stickler on mic etiquette so yeah, I have to be very close. [49:50]

SM: Yes, indeed. This is because you are a professional talk radio host. You host the show FreeTalk Live and I am actually a part of FreeTalk Live. You and I have been doing the Sunday FreeTalk Live show for... [50:03]

ME: Three years. [50:04]

SM: ...going on three years now. Yeah. [50:05]

ME: Something like that, yeah. You actually were doing the Sunday show before I was doing the Sunday show. The Sunday show existed for, I think maybe, a year and a half before that as an online only thing. When we decided to swipe the Sunday show that had been created by some other activists in the area, I took you along. [50:26]

SM: Yes. I’m glad I went along for the ride because it’s been really fun. FreeTalk Live is a nationally syndicated show, like we said. It’s been on the air for ten years, over ten years. [50:35]

ME: Yeah, we’re on 140 radio stations around the country. [50:38]

SM: Mhmm. You also have a popular podcast and the website is www.FreeTalkLive.com if anyone wants to check that out. [50:44]

ME: That’s right and we do an open lines current events program that has a liberty theme to it. [50:49]

SM: Yeah, that’s the thing about FreeTalk Live. People can call in about anything. It’s primarily a call in show. [50:54]

ME: Yeah and we happen to have talked about Bitcoin before anybody, I think, just about out there. [51:02]

SM: Well, that’s the reason I wanted to have you on Let’s Talk Bitcoin because FreeTalk Live is the way that I first found out about bitcoins and you and your partner Ian there, you were

the first talk radio show to talk about Bitcoin. You’ve really exposed a lot of people to it. [51:18]

ME: What happened was we have this program. It’s called the Amplifier program. People pay $5 a month to get an ad-free version of FreeTalk Live and we’re happy to provide that. There are hundreds of those people and Amplifiers get special treatment. These are special people as they’re paying us, for goodness sake. One of the Amplifiers said that he wanted to have a meeting to talk about an alternative currency. Now, we talked about alternative currencies a lot and they are always failures. It’s always this disaster or that disaster prior to us hearing about Bitcoin. This guy wants to talk to us about Bitcoin. He wants to have lunch and this doesn’t happen too often where somebody is like – Let’s have lunch. Alright, you want to drive up to Keene, New Hampshire, we’ll have lunch with you and talk about your magic internet money. (Laughter) This guy comes up. His name is Gavin Andresen. For those who know anything about Bitcoin, this is the head developer of Bitcoin. I think that he may have stepped down from that role a little bit recently but I don’t know for sure. Gavin Andresen wants to have lunch and talk about his magic internet money and in the conversation, I begin to understand the value of Bitcoin but I’m sceptical because everything has failed up to this point. There’s a gold credit card and you can spend gold like you’re spending cash. [52:33]

SM: Oh yeah. If you’ve been a libertarian for a while, you’ve seen it all - E-gold – people trying to use silver to buy a sandwich at PorcFest, the whole shtick. [52:42]

ME: Yes, exactly. It’s always complicated and convoluted but I support alternative currencies 100%. I listened to him and I tell him – I tell you what. We have a podcast audience, a large podcast audience that would probably be interested in this. If you want to do some ads, I’ll sell you some podcast ads, low price for your magic internet money. He actually never took me up on this. [53:06]

SM: The low, low price of 10,000 bitcoins for a spot, right? [53:09]

ME: They were $0.27 a piece. He didn’t take me up on that offer to buy podcast ads at the time. He did, however, ask me to pay for his lunch and then he would pay me back in bitcoins. I got, I think, somewhere like 36-40 bitcoins for his meal. That’s a pretty good meal now at bitcoins at $500, or whatever it’s at. Nice numbers. We talked about it on air. That’s our job. We like alternative currencies and obviously, we have a tech savvy audience and one of our listeners, who’s also an advertiser, who’s also an Amplifier, one of these guys, his name’s Roger Ver. If you know anything about the Bitcoin sphere, you know that this is Bitcoin Jesus. He hears about Bitcoin that night, gets really excited, starts researching and a few months later, Bitcoin Jesus says to me that, essentially – Hey, you know that cash that I pay you on a monthly basis for advertising? That’s going to turn into bitcoins. Now, Roger Ver is the nicest person you’re ever going to meet but he turned into a gangster that moment. Hey, this is what’s going to happen, right? (Laughter) It was amazing. I’m like – OK. I was a little unsure if this was going to be a hit in advertising dollars but thank goodness, he did it. He eased us in. It was a little bit... a partial and then the full thing maybe a year later. That was very good for us obviously. If he’s Bitcoin Jesus, that makes me Bitcoin John the Baptist. (Laughter) [54:40]

SM: (Laughter) I love it. I can’t believe I have Bitcoin John the Baptist on the show with me. [54:44]

ME: Yep. My head will be served up on a platter at some time in the near future. (Laughter) Once the Fed is actually dying in its death throes, that’s when they’ll do it. (Laughter) [54:53]

SM: That was the beginning of a long relationship with FreeTalk Live with Bitcoin and now, from my perspective, I’ve been listening to FreeTalk Live for... well, I think I’ve been listening to FreeTalk Live since about 2004-2005. [55:07]

ME: Yeah, you’ve been listening forever. [55:08]

SM: For a long time. (Laughter) I became a part of the show back in 2010, something like that. [55:14]

ME: Oh, I think it was earlier than that. [55:15]

SM: Just as like an internet host and a fill in host sometimes, as I was starting out on my podcasting career. I was listening to the show daily and I heard you talking about bitcoins and for a while, I was like – Hmmm, this sounds really interesting but I’m not really sure about this. [55:32]

ME: They were hard to get back then too. It wasn’t easy to get bitcoins. [55:36]

SM: Exactly. I was thinking about – Well, maybe I should get some bitcoins but then you had to go on MtGox and you had to send them money. [55:42]

ME: They wanted a power bill from your house. They wanted all kinds of... photocopy your ID and send it to us. Are you kidding me? I don’t know happens when you do that. I’d never exchanged that way on MtGox and I guess it’s good that I stayed away from MtGox mostly. [56:02]

SM: Yeah, that might have been smart. (Laughter) At the time, there were a lot of people who were part of the libertarian community. We live in New Hampshire and there are a lot of people who moved to New Hampshire for the Free State project and our social circles. Libertarians love to blog. They love to have podcasts and they love to do creative things and so there were lots of people, at the time back in 2011 I want to say, who had podcasts and blogs, and stores, and online businesses and they were starting to take bitcoins for tips. [56:34]

ME: In New Hampshire, Bitcoin is really quite big, at least in the communities that I... the circles that I run in. As a matter of fact, when we saw Overstock.com switched to Bitcoin, New Hampshire was the number one place in the United States, at least on a map I saw, that sent bitcoins in and it’s indicative of how there’s a lot of lineage of Bitcoin going on in

New Hampshire. For instance, back in I think 2011, I bought a sandwich with a Casascius coin, the ones that had the bad minting on it. [57:07]

SM: Oh, you mean the ones that are worth like $20,000 on Ebay? [57:10]

ME: Yeah, those things. I bought a sandwich with one of those and got some change. (Laughter) From Mandrik, George’s Favorite Baklava. This is how the community works – I buy and sell. People work for me all summer long cutting wood and moving wood on my farm for bitcoins. [57:28]

SM: Yes. [57:28]

ME: I never pay them cash. There are people... we’re buying, we’re selling in bitcoins. [57:32]

SM: We were doing this in 2011 and 2012. This was more than two years ago. We’re at this Bitcoin conference right now, we’re at the Inside Bitcoins conference in New York but this is what I want people to get is that, there was a vibrant, real Bitcoin economy in New Hampshire among Free Staters when bitcoins were $0.27 to below $10. [57:57]

ME: All you could do with them at the time, on the internet, was basically buy alpaca socks... [58:00]

SM: ...and baklava, yeah. [58:02]

ME: ...and some chickens, baklava and web hosting services. That’s all you could do with them there but we were using them and exchanging them because they were viable at that point. I was using Bitcoin Spinner, which I don’t even know if that thing exists anymore. [58:13]

SM: Oh gosh, me too. Yeah, I remember Bitcoin Spinner. [58:15]

ME: You didn’t want to lose your phone there. (Laughter) The bitcoins would be on the phone and Roger Ver was showing people how to download Bitcoin Spinner. [58:25]

SM: Remember the QT client? We could download the Bitcoin QT client and it took... even then, it took forever to download the blockchain. Ah, memories. [58:33]

ME: I still keep the QT client going on a computer. I somehow feel like I’m helping the interwebs. (Laughter). I don’t know exactly. It’s a little faith-based. [58:39]

SM: (Laughter) I do it too because it runs Armory, so if you want to run Armory. [58:44]

ME: Armory has a layover for that, right? [58:45]

SM: Yeah. [58:46]

ME: They’re here, right down the way there. [58:48]

SM: Yeah, absolutely. These were the days, right? We were using Casascius coins, we were using Bitcoin Spinner, like you said the Bitcoin QT client, and people were just pasting up Bitcoin addresses on their blogs and getting tips. They were getting 5 bitcoin, 10 bitcoin tips. [59:04]

ME: FreeTalk Live has gotten rather... back in the day, rather large Bitcoin tips and there it was... just sitting there collecting tips. People were sending them in. [59:14]

SM: We had another friend who was doing cam work, basically for Bitcoin, and there were people posting pictures of themselves online to get bitcoins, right? [59:22]

ME: I’d do that if anybody would pay but I mean it’s not going to help out. [59:25]

SM: You’re going to have to get them to pay you to put your clothes back on. (Laughter) [59:28]

ME: Right, things like that. The clientele that would be paying me wouldn’t be necessarily the one that I’d be wanting to pay me. It’s really difficult to get young, beautiful women to pay you to take your clothes off. It’s just not going to happen. [59:38]

SM: That’s why you just have to pretend. [59:40]

ME: You’re right, just pretend. (Laughter) Yeah, that wouldn’t work out. [59:43]

SM: The things that people were doing with Bitcoin back several years ago, at this point. When I look back on them now, I feel really honored to have been a part of that beginning of the practical use cases for Bitcoin, in New Hampshire. [59:58]

ME: We’re the little seed pot for Bitcoin and now it’s well outgrown the seed pot and I’m delighted. All I ever wanted was for Bitcoin to go mainstream. I mean, I got the T-shirt, I can say – Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did whatever in 2011 and it’s cool. That’s fine. I want it to go huge because it’s so empowering. It’s going to help people around the world. The people who don’t have money today, it resets the playing field from 9,000 years of totalitarian statism. That’s what I want to see happen and that’s going to be a tremendous thing that Bitcoin can do. It’s going to help underserved markets, poor people, people of ethnicities, people in third world countries, women... all the people that have a difficult time accessing bank accounts. Bitcoin’s going to make that entirely different for them. They’re going to be on an even playing field. They’re going to be able to apply their labor and drag themselves out of the mire, rather than taking handouts as they’ve been doing up til now. [1:00:56]

SM: Yeah, absolutely and I know you just personally are interested in micro-lending. You’re the one who told me about Kiva. [1:01:02]

ME: Right, I love Kiva. [1:01:02]

SM: Yeah, me too and you and I both lend on Kiva and how amazing would it be if they started taking bitcoins, or if there was a competing institution that came up. [1:01:12]

ME: That’s what I’m expecting. [1:01:13]

SM: BitKiva. [1:01:14]

ME: I’m not expecting the big players to necessarily switch over. I’m expecting other institutions to come and rise up because Bitcoin’s exciting to them. The people in the Bitcoin sphere... there’s hundreds and hundreds of people at these events, sometimes thousands of people at these events and every one of these people is excited and doing something. [1:01:33]

SM: Yeah. Everybody’s got a project. [1:01:35]

ME: Some young college kids... this is what I want to do... I don’t think that’s going to work but it takes people that fail for people to have success. [1:01:45]

SM: Oh yeah, yeah. [1:01:46]

ME: I’m thrilled with what’s going on with Bitcoin. [1:01:49]

SM: Yeah, totally. Mark, I want to thank you for introducing me to Bitcoin. [1:01:54]

ME: You’re welcome. [1:01:55]

SM: (Laughter) Those stories are just so cool. One of the ones that I’d like to tell, and I think this has been on the show before but, is when Gavin actually said he’d purchased 10,000 bitcoins for like $50. He was running the Bitcoin faucet. [1:02:10]

ME: Yes. [1:02:10]

SM: This was back years and years ago and you could go to this website and get 5 bitcoins, as long as you put it in a Bitcoin address. [1:02:16]

ME: Yep, that’s right. [1:02:17]

SM: Can you imagine if people held onto them? [1:02:18]

ME: Some people did. I know I went to the faucet and I got... I don’t know what I got. It seemed like it was less than 5 bitcoins but I went to that faucet and I got some bitcoins and I funded my account. I put it in MyBitcoinWallet.com account and it summarily, a few months later, got hacked. [1:02:35]

SM: Oh, yeah. MyBitcoin, I remember that. [1:02:37]

ME: Yep. It was at MyBitcoinWallet. [1:02:39]

SM: That’s when we all learned the painful lesson of don’t keep your bitcoins in third party web wallets. [1:02:44]

ME: Yeah, thank goodness that we learned that lesson because now other people don’t have to learn that lesson. Every bump in the road, we’re going to have to... the carriage is going to have to get jostled and we have to learn these things. [1:02:55]

SM: Yeah, absolutely. FreeTalk Live is on seven nights a week. You Mark, are on six nights a week. [1:03:01]

ME: That’s right. [1:03:02]

SM: There’s kind of a rotating schedule of hosts. You and Ian are both on six nights per week and most of them overlap but one night doesn’t overlap. On Sunday night, you are on, Ian is not on. [1:03:14]

ME: That’s correct. [1:03:14]

SM: I am on with you. [1:03:15]

ME: That’s correct. You are my co-host on that evening. [1:03:17]

SM: That may have been a little more confusing than it needed to be. [1:03:20]

ME: You are my Sunday show co-host. [1:03:21]

SM: (Laughter) Yes. There we go. You can hear Mark and I together on the radio on www.FreeTalkLive.com. You can listen on the internet or you can check the local radio affiliates there. [1:03:31]

ME: We talk about anything and everything on FreeTalk Live. [1:03:34]

SM: Bitcoins are still a frequent topic of conversation on FreeTalk Live. [1:03:39]

ME: I’m delighted about Bitcoin. I think it’s going to change the world. [1:03:41]

SM: Yes, me too. We get a little cross-pollination going and Mark, thank you so much for being on Let’s Talk Bitcoin with me. [1:03:47]

ME: Thanks Stephanie. [1:03:48]

____________________________________________

CREDITS:

Thanks for listening to Episode 108 of Let’s Talk Bitcoin.

Content for this episode was provided by Farsha, Roya, Rassah, Neill, Jonathan, Michael, Mark, Stephanie and Adam.

This episode was edited by Denise Levine, with additional edits by Adam B. Levine. Music for this episode was provided by Jared Rubens and General Fuzz.

Any questions or comments, email adam@letstalkbitcoin.com.

Have a good one! [1:04:14]