The future of finance

Transcript

is my label backwards hi everybody an sorry to interrupt yeah okay no worries my name is Paul btic and welcome to this live hangout in which we're going to talk about the future of finance and probably a lot of other interesting things as well with a focus of course on bitcoin we uh couldn't find a guest for today's show so we just decided to pull some random people off the street and guess what they Happ been to know a lot about cryptocurrencies now I'm kidding of course because I couldn't be more excited about the amazing guests we have today we have Bitcoin entrepreneur Roger ver he's um an investor in Gillian startups I advice you to check him out at roger.com hi Roger hi everyone and we have Eric Vorhees he is Bitcoin evangelist um and

he is founder of coils and we also have um T deer free market Economist and uh and of of course we also have our co-host yob Hardo welcome guys hey hi so before we are going to talk about the future of Bitcoin crypto and finance Let's uh first talk a bit about the satachi round table which you guys attended last weekend in the Dominican Republic some observers made reference to the famous Jackal Island meeting of 1910 that led to the creation of the destructive Federal Reserve and some others likened it to the annual Bilderberg conference so Roger how was the meeting and and why all the secrecy um there wasn't a bunch of secrecy the

meeting was fantastic uh basically was a bunch of bitcoiners sitting around talking about Bitcoin which goes on all over the world all the time it just happened to be a lot of the the bitcoiners that have been involved in a big way from early on and it was fun to get to see them all in a small setting where we weren't uh constantly interrupted with other distractions and were there any any minutes or presentations made available uh I don't know there were there weren't any secret you know major secret plans or or major announ announcements or or anything like that it was basically just a bunch of us uh spending a wonderful weekend together and talking about uh just how far bitcoin's come in the last couple of years and How likely it is to go even farther in the coming years Roger just

Roger wasn't invited to all the meetings with the secret plant all right he doesn't you'll have to forgive him he doesn't know that they happened so there was even within within the satosi round table was it was an in core of only like five six people and um Y what just dare to get drunk that's right yeah there were secret circles and uh secret conferences going on and actually most of the event was just a um a big Diversion the actual event happened over in Cuba where some even more important bitcoiners were and so they had the the real plans were there while everyone was distracted with Dominican Republic very smart move so any things that so what did you guys

talk about any any agreements or plans or resolutions for uh for this year or next year it was the context was mostly social um you know a lot of us I guess have known each other now for three or four years and we live all over the world and we're all busy doing Bitcoin stuff and we get to see each other once in a while at the um at the normal Bitcoin conferences but they are usually you know kind of jam-packed schedules and a thousand people and um th those are great and it's really wonderful to see that the industry has grown so much but uh this was this was wonderful and that we we could just sort of hang out and relax and um talk about you know this this industry that we all love in a more casual setting there were uh there

were some seminars and presentations um many of which were great but um I think the the real key was just you know kind of a different environment than what we normally get at the conferences right on the one end I I I understand on the other end of course Bitcoin is open source protocol and a lot of things um take place and with full transparency and and presentations are made available online and um so I guess that's kind of sort of counter to to meeting in in in in in a private place but I understand you guys want to hang out with each other and and talk about things in a more um in a more relaxed setting I wanna something to that yeah go ahead I mean like first of all it just annoys me a little bit to uh

I mean of course it's great to share stuff and uh it's great if if everybody's invited everywhere but I don't know like the some of the bitterness that I heard on Twitter and elsewhere like about this meeting like kind of a sense of entitlement that some people have like oh I'm supposed to it's like well like sometimes things and um but on the other hand it's I mean I think a lot of these things that that're discussed everywhere they're coming out anyway and one thing to keep in mind as well is that sometimes and this is again like I completely agree with Raj Eric like it's it's not that I like I haven't heard things that were major secret or anything but uh like to say things in a

in a public space is Al is sometimes not even not always possible and that has to do uh sometimes with the the legal structure that we're in like governments and um like the the the the the the ways people just will launch into lawsuits and and those kind of things uh even like if you don't have any major Secrets it makes you be more on guard if you're in a public setting and there's cameras around um which actually was the case and Sally Round Table they were cameras um but um like that just as a side note I think uh it's the same for a conference if you want to go somewhere well then you know you you you uh you save money and uh until you can pay the

price uh I think that's also the the the Boon of of Bitcoin it's it's a it's a a currency that encourages saving and uh and and not everything just comes to you just like that anyway that's just just a side note that uh that I had to uh throw out there right so a different know um for example Eric you are into Bitcoin for a few years now just like Roger and some of the other guys and um is there like also uh do you guys have a group let's say in WhatsApp or telegram whatever with some of the big owners of big holders of Bitcoin to to talk in private about um whether you guys want

to buy or sell or is there something like that going on as well or not not not with me not anything that I'm part of but that's because I can never buy more Bitcoin because I'm already all maxed out so I wouldn't be much use yeah I think a lot of the early Bitcoin people have absolutely no desire to sell any of their Bitcoins uh myself included uh every time I wind up with more dollars I I just convert them into Bitcoins yeah so there you guys don't have a stop loss or something let's say if the price goes below 50 or 40 like okay this just going to um to cash out no I don't no if the if the price fell to 50 there's no reason not to just Rite it all the way to the ground I mean the low price like the low price right now

this is this is when when it's wonderful to be able to buy I just can't buy because I don't have any dollars what's the thing Eric was talking about this a wheel Protection Program but not a lot of private members of that what is that no no no I'm just joking around will protection program or some sort on telegram or whatever I don't know something yeah it's like all uh troll levels of talking about Bitcoin especially also what two said like a a lot of people still like to troll on bitcoin you know so if we have this Satoshi Round Table event then a lot of people will just jump on it because of hey there is an event and they I'm not invite

right true and so what what is the what um kind of what what's the the thinking in in Bitcoin right now for 2015 um uh Roger Eric what are the things you discussed with with the other guys and uh and thr your Round Table what are the expectations for for Bitcoin for this year in terms of development I I think you uh you you assume incorrectly that a lot of this stuff gets planned out in advance um this is a very open and diverse industry with lots of different competing interests and so it's very very much not like a bunch of people get together and set an agenda and try to figure out what to expect this year

um it's it's more just you know find find people that want to build projects with you and and start building them it's a it's a very decentralized you know uh opposite of having a core Mission um and that's that hurts sometimes right because sometimes companies can do really well to the extent that they have a very clear clear Mission and a clear brand and they push forward with their goals so Bitcoin doesn't get that benefit but it gets the benefit of a thousand people working in a thousand different directions but sometimes it's hard to understand that it works that way right but there still there's still a protocol that that needs maintenance and um and updates and improvements um and of course there's

different opinion on as to how the protocol needs to develop um where there discussions about that too for example whether to increase um block limits or block size stuff like that Roger you want to take that one yeah there there was uh definitely some discussion of of that but uh my favorite part of the conference was the overall sentiment of of everybody there that uh there's more reason to be bullish on Bitcoin today than at any point ever in the entire history of Bitcoin and it's just so clear more than half a billion dollars worth of VC capital is poured into Bitcoin at this point there's startups probably in every single country in the world at this point uh maybe even some government agents in North Korea maybe there been working on

some Bitcoin stuff at this point it's hard to know um but there's just so much happening everywhere that uh despite the price you know being down from where it was a few months ago there's so much more reason to be bullish on Bitcoin today than at any point since uh the creation of Bitcoin what do you think Roger is the is is the biggest opportunity for Bitcoin um let's say this year or so uh it's it's like Eric said you know there may may a thousand flowers bloom it's whatever anybody wants to do with it and it's available to anyone and everyone to figure out what they want to do some of the things that are kind of interesting coming up are you know store J or uh and then factum is interesting and uh I'm a big fan of purse.io I see that as a real good way to bring you

know maybe a million or several million new users to bitcoin because it allows anybody to get you know 10 20 even 30% discount on goods from Amazon so there's just so many different things happening all over the place yeah I think this year will be the year of um where the concept of remittances in Bitcoin went from being just just an idea that we all knew would happen to to the this will be the year where it is happening and that's because there are finally three or four excellent companies around the world that have focused on specific corridors and they're they up and running doing remittances now so this includes like rebit pH includes bit PESA um and a couple others uh send bitcoin. MX is

another good one um so these you know we all kind of knew that this was going to disrupt remittances but it was just Theory until you know some entrepreneurs actually got out there and built systems and and executed on what was a good idea so um that's I think what the big story of this year will be that's there's going to be many many thousands of new users who who aren't ideologically motivated they don't care about central banks they just realize that now they can send money to their family at a at a better price and that's going to be a big big deal yeah that's amazing and um for example I live in in Ecuador and we um are we the government's introducing its new currency here which is basically based on a dollar still but it will be electronic for people to use on their

feature phones even I actually opened my my wallet last week and so um very soon I'll be able to pay in the taxi using my using my phone with with a new digital dollar basically um what do you think of these developments and do you expect other countries to to use those types of uh currencies as well well we everyone's already using digital dollars that's that's not anything new when you use your credit card in a taxi you are transferring digital dollars from the the credit card company to the the taxi company it's all It's All Digital now um doing it on a phone you know is not much different either I can today use my phone to use PayPal and pay someone uh in person that's It's All Digital dollars I I don't know how people got

tricked into thinking that the dollars are something physical and now that there's these like phone mobile phone payment systems that's digital money it's all it's been digital money computers were around yeah the difference is of course that um as you know most of people in countries like Ecuador have no bank account and they do everything with cash and through this system they're they can skip the whole bank account process because they open an account straight away with the Central Bank basically using their feature phone without having to provide documents because it's all based on their identity number and of course the government already has all the documents it needs so it can you can bypass the banking system by by using this system but how how is it really by bypassing the banking system because if you're if the government knows who you are and

you're just connected to the central bank that that's as connected to a banking system as yeah you're bu the commercial banking system you're only skipping the first layer of the banking system that's what you're doing you Bank directly with the central bank which is which is quite unique of course um uh anyway I I I wonder if um if it will be a success and whether other companies other countries will will copy it but at least it's it's kind of a training session for people to start getting used to digital money or digital money like using their phones and from there it's possibly an easy step to bitcoin what kind of rules are on that on that account like are there limits you can send can you only send to certain people can you send it other country yeah it's for now relatively small only just only

small amounts because people have no not much money to spend anyway um uh the ones for which this is meant and uh one of the issues of course is also that it's you can track it completely um as a government so all the expenses of the citizens are tracked instantly which is quite quite scary giv me the sh sorry is said it gives me the Shivers to think of that exactly yeah so we have a question from um from ostor from the audience um T were there also any any core developers present at the Satoshi Round Table meeting there were um yeah I think there was um there was there was one there were going to be three more

from blockstream but uh they did not um they did not make it so uh yeah um there was one core developer there and then I mean obviously some some more developers and entrepreneurs and uh people that were uh in various ways involved in the Bitcoin ecosystem I think the list is available for the people who are interested yeah you can just go to Satoshi round table.com and look at the names yeah and um talking a bit more about uh development of Bitcoin to your are you in favor of um of improving the the block um limit block size uh I'm I'm un

excited about that uh like you mean to increase the amounts of transactions that can be included in uh in every block yeah yeah I'm excited about that I mean there there's you know there's some advantages that could happen if you uh if you uh allow for that um but then again there it's it's always a tradeoff and um keeping the blog size limited actually uh should not be that much of a problem it's just going to push Bitcoin more towards um um a store of value for the long term and then we can have side chains or other coins in which transactions can happen more quickly and more cheaply and then uh

Bitcoin can serve as um a value anchor for those transactions uh or those Curren es in the same way as that gold often serves as a value anchor for their traditional Financial system uh but yeah I know there are discussions about increasing that limit uh and as of now the discussion is still ongoing it's it's unclear whether it's going to happen or not but I don't think it's going to change bitcoin's future whether it does or whether it doesn't how do you see that Roger are you agreeing with to there yeah maybe I have a slightly different take I think it's pretty clear that the block size have to be increased and uh something I didn't realize until actually the the event there at the Satoshi Round Table

is that apparently in the original Bitcoin protocol there was no block size limit blocks could be of any size and it was only later that they implemented the one megabyte limit to prevent people from just spamming and bloating the Block Chain so uh I don't see any problem with increasing the block size limit and I think that it's going to have to happen here uh and the fact that we're even discussing this shows what a success Bitcoin is and a few years ago it was unimaginable it was almost unimaginable for us to think that we're gonna have to worry about there being so many Bitcoin transactions happening that they all couldn't fit in each block and uh the fact that we're discussing it just shows that Bitcoin is on the right path and don't you fear for for more centralization if people um um cannot

easily run a full note anymore um I think Mo's law will will still be able to keep up uh at this point so the blockchain is getting a little bit big but for anybody who's uh you know willing to spend maybe 200 bucks or something you can you can do it so yeah or even less if you just buy the hard drive I think uh you don't you don't need full decentralization of a system in order to get the vast benefits of decentralization um not everyone needs to run a node for us to feel like it is you know sufficiently decentralized to prevent the problems of centralization so you know as long as and it's not like it's not like it costs $1,000 doar to to run a note or something it's just that

you can't really run one on a phone or an old laptop but you know any any kind of web server can can easily do it any desktop PC can do it without any problems um and I I expect that that will continue the block size will grow and hardware and and bandwidth will grow um of all the things that could be you know terrible futures for Bitcoin I don't imagine that the problem will be uh one of to not enough people running full notes so what's what's the main um challenge or risk you think Eric that that Bitcoin had or or something that possibly keeps you up at night every now and then uh well it used to keep me up more um basically my my biggest fear was you know the governments can't stop Bitcoin

of course but uh they can certainly do a lot of damage and especially when it comes to PR and propaganda and rhetoric and all those things so my my concern you know two or three years ago was that governments would as soon as they realized the potential of this would come out vehemently against it and would start a campaign against it to to win the minds of the people um and they haven't done that largely I think it's because they don't really understand the existential threat that Bitcoin poses to their monetary power um but also there there's just a lot of there's just a lot of hubris and they don't they don't quite realize that that Bitcoin can can do what some of us think it can do so so

I think uh Bitcoin has grown now to a size where it would be a lot harder to to destroy its reputation I mean it it certainly damages its own reputation to a great degree and uh and it survives and grows even even with all that happening so um so the concern I had before I think is mostly way laay but you know as always I feel like the the men with guns are the ones who can screw a good thing up for for the rest of the people right so how how do you see the whole um gree situation play out Eric and do you expect Bitcoin to profit from or just just to flourish as a result like we saw with Cyprus which led to a price spike and more more adoption what

what do you expect to happen with Greece and and how does it relate to bitcoin um well countries often go through these currency crisis where they fall apart um and everyone is devastated savings get devastated the economy is destroyed for several years uh and and inevitably the government will come back with a new currency uh a new value and you know start the charade all over again um and so now there's actually an alternative that people can use and so to what extent will people figure this out I'm not sure and I don't and it's it's just a question of time there are not enough people using Bitcoin day-to-day in Greece that if uh the economy collapsed tomorrow they would

all switch to bitcoin but um it will be there over the next years and I think at the margins more and more people are going to realize that there's a reli monetary system outside of the hands of the banks and of the governments that they're all understandably growing to to hate right how do you see that to your what's your your um thought on that yeah I've been looking at the situation in G Greece with regards to the the Euro Zone and and the EU uh the image that comes up for me is that of like a a broken marriage but there's no divorce yet so like there's a lot of resentment and one one partner has a lot more resources than the other and like Greece keeps

like um acting resentfully and then and then Europe responds and then in the end they still kind of have some kind of compromise but I think I think the trust is broken I think um there will be a breakup and um uh and and that of course Europe knows that this is going to be a blow for its reputation just like uh you know it's very scary for whatever to people who are married to actually go through the divorce and it's very costly uh I think that's why it's such a prolonged process but I really think it's going to happen in the end and we're going to see countries break away from the the Euro Zone and it's going to hurt the Euro it's really going to be uh very painful for uh the Euro and it's going to be very destabilizing because a

lot of uh central European banks have very bad uh paper uh debt paper um bonds from these Southern European countries and once those uh go away from the Euro once they break away from the Euro these bonds are going to crash and so there there's going to be this ripple effect um and a lot of volatility and that's going to be just fantastic for Bitcoin but do you expect situation where let's say that Euro breaks down and um countries have to start over again in C in a way with with new currency systems or possibly by by using old systems like the Gilder or or the Mark or the Frank do you expect that on the ashes of of uh of of a burnd Down Euros system there is there is a chance

for cryptocurrencies because if I if I look at National discussions especially like in Holland but also in Belgium the UK Canada even a lot of people are talking about um reforming the monetary system they're talking about bringing back the printing press to the state Chicago plan these types of things are are being discussed in Holland for example 100,000 people have signed a petition to discuss monetary reform in the in the Parliament and to consider the option of um of letting the government Sprint money itself without having to use a central bank for that so what do you expect what what will be the Dynamics after a breakdown of the Euro do you do you see Bitcoin or may maybe something else like Chicago plan or just an oldfashioned Central Bank I think it's too soon I think it's too soon for

uh countries to go to bitcoin I mean not even 1% in in name any random country not even 1% has adopted Bitcoin so I think politicians usually try to look at the you know their constituents and what the people want or consider is reasonable and so maybe maybe if you have a currency breakup and five years from now or or a bit longer maybe some countries would uh consider that but I think the main takeaway is that we have a backup Financial system that's really uh I mean the engine is getting bigger and bigger and stronger and uh everything is getting more resilient we have all these various uh solutions for people to be independent financially and I think that's the main takeaway like if

we have a currency breakup in no matter which country people can switch to this Global decentralized uh cryptocurrency system uh without much effort and stay connected and allow uh uh their customers to pay them from anywhere in the world I think that's that's um what's really important and then yeah the politicians they will follow but as always they're going to follow the market and the market has to lead first and that's why I think we need more adoption first before governments might follow I I don't think that any uh country will ever adopt Bitcoin VAV the government um mandating that it become the money and this is because it is in no interest of any government to to

implement a cryptocurrency as their monetary system um doing so would essentially be shooting themselves in the in the foot and it would it would create a monetary system that they could not manipulate and that they cannot inflate and these are two of the most important powers that governments wield over people so unless there was some very enlightened government somewhere that that cared about the population cared about protecting the population as opposed to protecting the government um I I don't see that happening the the way it will happen is when individual people all over the world start using it on their own accord in a very decentralized way and it just becomes the deao currency of a country not because it was mandated but because it was used by all

the people in the marketplace like that's like to kind of connect with Eric saying like I I think that's true it's like I mean talking about the the the the era of cryptocurrencies or whatever or the era of private currencies it's kind of similar as talking about the the era or the age of atheism for example like our country is going to accept atheism it's like well no but the church is going to lose power over time and the institution of the church is not going to go away but people going to care less over time I think it's similar with these Fiat currencies people are going to care less and government governs are going to interact more and more with these cryptocurrencies be it like buying them as Reserve currency for their own uh foreign exchange reserves or just

accepting them as taxes and then switching them back to their own Fiat value uh Fiat currencies uh I mean that's what I mean when when I talk about countries accept or or adopting to uh to bitcoin although I do think uh there is going to be some advantage in uh in in governments um switching to bitcoin entirely uh if you look at for example the French Revolution there was hyperinflation and uh the country was in tatters and the way that Napoleon gained power After the Revolution was to pay the soldiers in silver currency in genuine silver coins and that's how he got the the population behind him so that there can be a a political uh reason for um for for governments to

accept it is that would be my my argument yeah we have a question here from a new human maybe Roger you can answer this it's sort of in line of what we just discussed can you foresee a future where governments not only accept but embrace the transparency um offered by Bitcoin blockchain technology clearly government agencies have no difficulty tracing seizing and profiting from Bitcoin auctions uh I think we're going to see more and more privacy tools in the future so I don't know if the transparency level of Bitcoin is going to continue to be uh as the level that it is currently uh I think eventually people will be able to choose just how much transparency they want to have or how much privacy they want to have so um and just to touch back on what Eric and

tour were talking about previously like if a country does start adopting Bitcoin I think it's likely to be from the bottom up rather than the top down yeah and Eric you were working on something like that in in a small island Dominica I think with your company coin build where you wanted to um give Bitcoin to thousands of people I read something on coin desk can you elaborate on that uh well yeah first of all I'm not working with quinol anymore um okay not since last year but I'm still a co-owner and so I have a little bit of idea what they're up to um that project actually recently just was cancelled and um I'm not sure of all the details but I think a large part was that uh when when the government agents uh were being

approached on that island uh to let them know that this was going to happen and to sort of get their um stamp of approval uh they were very welcoming and very happy to uh take some take some money you know to examine the issue and uh consider it uh and as soon as money was paid then um for some reason they got all cold and they didn't seem to care anymore about the actual project and just wouldn't answer calls or emails or anything anymore so perhaps it was naive to think that that anyone in a government office would actually help do something useful but uh as of now that project has been sheld right so because it sounds like a good plan to to kind of airdrop coins to

um to people especially for a small island where they can easily start um using it amongst themselves yeah would certainly be a fasinating economic experiment to to to make it happen it's a bit like what Aurora coin tried to do in Iceland I wonder if that still exists but yeah the problem is that they dropped a worthless coin that every you could have expected that the moment anyone who knows what they're doing gets one of those coins they would have instantly just converted it into Bitcoin because Bitcoin is going to maintain its power as purchasing power better than that so but but if you if you drop Bitcoins somewhere and get them used that that could actually work but obviously it's a very experimental undertaking hopefully someone does it

somewhere soon because it would be fascinating to watch yeah so just in general a lot of people of course that are not into Bitcoin um yet they complain about the Bitcoin 1% or the fact that Bitcoin is not distributed very evenly um to what extent is it more um could it work to have a different cryptocurrency that is air dropped on a sort of a more Global equal basis so everyone can just profit from the start is that something that could possibly help the adoption of a new currency or is it possibly also something that Bitcoin is currently um struggling with that um that there's a lot of resistance from nonusers about the the way the coins are are distributed I think that the more important point is not that not that a

money is distributed equally to everyone but that it is distributed fairly and the way I would Define fair is that no person has some special privilege over any other person and in any Market you're going to have people that are very poor and people that are very rich um and that shouldn't necessarily be a problem the problem comes from when the people who are rich got that way through an illegitimate mechanism and in the world we have today with fiat currency many people are able to get rich because money is printed by a certain group of people it is given to other certain groups of people and those people benefit um in a in an illegitimate manner from from that that system so that's what people should be concerned with not that there are some that are

rich and some that are poor Bitcoin is equalizes people's uh ability to use it and access it and integrate with markets it does not equalize what they do with their own talents and and work and creativity that will always be different and there will always be rich and poor because of it but don't you think a lot of altcoins um are or monetary Architects are are working on new coins just for that reason so they can assure a different or possibly fair I'm just trying to to think of the way they think for example names Stellar um is kind of a ripple clowing but then the the distribution is done in a different way um but even if you even if you distribute like if you distributed if

all the Bitcoins today were created just today and distributed evenly to everyone that was interested like two or three million people around the world all got an even even amount of coins um fine then they start trading and what's going to happen after a month or a year or or 5 years they're not all going to be even some of them will have made brilliant Investments and gotten wealthy yeah some some of them will have bankrupted themselves um and everything in between so even if you start with some sort of equal distribution as long as people are free to choose and free to act in the way that they feel is best you're going to end up with inequality and the the important point is not that people are equal the important point is that they have the same rights and the same access to tools and the same ability transact

with each other without interference right and Roger what are the the cryptocurrency projects it's or like the the maybe the altcoin or the cryptocurrency 2.0 projects that you currently most interested in Bitcoin bit Bitcoin has the the biggest uh the biggest am ecosystem it has the most amount of infrastructure it has the most exchanges it has the most wallets it has the most shopping sites it has the most payment processors it has the most everything and because of that it has the most utility and because it has the most utility it has the most value and uh it looks like it's going to continue to be the case there's probably at least a thousand if not 10,000 developers working on bitcoin for every one developer working on one of these altcoins and uh I think it that that

ratio is going to only expand in the future but every now and then do you read a white paper of a different coin or do you sometimes buy altcoins as well no I've never bought any altcoins uh and I but if something better than Bitcoin does come along that has better properties than Bitcoin that's great the whole world gets to benefit from that I'm not opposed to it in any way but at this point uh Bitcoin really seems to be the the cryptocurrency with the the most uh the most offer I one one interesting um point on that is that a lot of the a lot of the alt coins were created I think and and don't really do anything interesting at all they just tweak some rules um but there are now some coins that do things

fundamentally differently than Bitcoin like uh new bits and bit USD which is based on bitshares and tether all these things are digital tokens um that track the value of a dollar and they're they're designed to do that and they have different ways of doing it but um they all do that and so there's absolutely a reason to have um Bitcoin on one hand and then an asset that tracks some other some other thing like the Dollar on the other hand one of them um one of them provides much more stability in terms of value and the other one you know has this huge Network effect and developers working on all these things so to the extent that there are coins that do something uh unique and that can find a niche you know darkcoin is more private than Bitcoin

and there is certainly a need for more privacy so anything that has a certain Niche and a certain ability to fill that um I think can coexist but in terms of just raw money I mean Bitcoin blows away everything else so what do you think of Ripple then Eric um I mean Ripple seems more like just a bank Bing system um it seems more like kind of a a sexier version of PayPal that is a little more distributed um and the to their credit I think they're doing a really good job setting up an interesting banking network but it should be understood as a banking Network and so it will have all the the problems and pitfalls of that um and we'll we'll see I mean ultimately I'm

just glad that that there isn't just one coin being worked on I'm glad that people are experimenting with all this stuff most experiments fail but if we weren't experimenting with things then the industry wouldn't wouldn't learn and grow U so I think it's a sign of a really healthy ecosystem um really fertile soil that all these different projects uh are are sprouting up yeah to still with ripple you have this trusted C of trusted gateways you know just so you still have no complete decentralization but I'm wondering um how about the 2.0 stuff are you interested in that kind of stuff like the the counterparties the nxds and points like that and but just take on that yeah uh NXT I I like a lot uh mainly because it has this asset

exchange built into the blockchain um which is really cool I mean it basically does what bitf funer or impex did uh before but it's decentralized so it's all done on the blockchain uh and so companies or people can issue shares of things uh and raise money all in a decentralized manner which is extremely important for regulatory reasons but also important um just for freedom and and access and uh for funding things that wouldn't otherwise uh be funded if they had to go through certain censorships um so that's that's one reason I like NXT and you know I think there's a lot of projects that I don't even understand enough to comment well on them are you also 100% in in Eric then

in Bitcoin Eric or do you do you have some altcoins I I would say probably 99% in Bitcoin like Roger are you interested in those 2.0 projects or yeah um I guess they just have to make them uh useful at this point and there's so much going on that uh it's hard to keep up with it all at this point but uh from the little bit that I've read about NXT and bitshares and some of this stuff it looks interesting uh but it'll take some time to to develop it and make it easy for people like myself to use to be honest but uh but the more things that people try the better and uh like Eric said you know if people didn't experiment and try new things the society would never move forward so it's good that people are trying all these new things

and to did you originally change your opinion on uh on those counterparty in NXT because we talked about it a bit did I change my opinion about it well um you were also like um looking at some of the 2.0 stuff a couple of months ago when we talked about it and I was wondering do you still have the same opinion do you have a preferable one yet or or what's you say yeah I'm still in the phase of uh of doing research uh in in general I think um you know know we're in an ecosystem of protocols and uh you can compare that with languages with programming languages or even uh the the English I mean like just the spoken languages and usually what tends to happen is that in an in a connected

environment uh we see a power law distribution so uh for example in the world now the more the world is interconnected the more we have one language that's really dominant which is English for the moment and then of course um Chinese and and uh Arab and then there's a few that are big as well but from there it goes goes down really quickly um and so you see the same in programming languages um some languages are very very dominant and then there's a long tail of smaller languages so I expect the same to happen for cryptocurrencies um but right now it's if you look at the market capitalizations of uh of these uh altcoins they're very very small uh like Roger said the amount of developers involved is is very limited compared to bitcoin so the jury is still out there I

really do think that there will be uh altcoin and 2.0 projects that fill niches that will really be used very intensely and will grow big um but I feel the most certain about Bitcoin because it um the protocols tends to be tend to be very sticky it's once once it's the development has started and once there's a certain momentum it's very hard to uh to stop to stop them right and how do you look at that on on on a price level I want to know because that's very interesting because like if you want to get into one of these old currencies you have to get into it through Bitcoin or Ripple and that's about like all the options you have right so first you have to buy Bitcoin for as a new guy to go into um like this altcoins how does that um do you see any

matches between that in the Bitcoin price or or Oh you mean that bitcoin price might be like might rise because people want to go in altcoins h well no but if you want to buy an altcoin directly from your dollars or your Euros you have most of the times with most altcoins you have to first buy Bitcoin right so it's like an entry point for the entire Market to get yes I think yeah that's not likely to change a lot of course I mean if if the ecosystem grows as a whole we'll see more exchanges and we'll have dollar to altcoin exchanges too uh but I think that's going to be largely true most of the liquidity is going to be expressed in Bitcoin and so from that point of view it makes sense to me if you have an altcoin portfolio is to express the

value of it in Bitcoin and to really measure the performance of your altcoin portfolio in in Bitcoins to see whether or not it's performing and uh right now I recommend people buy a small basket of alt coins uh but I mean I I share Eric's and and Rogers um strategy in that I only have a very very small percentage of my uh crypto Assets in altcoins right okay guys before we wrap up maybe a few more questions from the audience um Roger do you do you see an important role for decentralized identification and reputation systems in the Future Finance pretty much everybody knows that

when you have a monopoly you get poor service and bad you know high prices and I don't see any reason why to think that that wouldn't be the case with identification services so and even today in the free market there's various credit rating agencies and things like that so uh the more the more choices that consumers have the better yeah especially for you Roger seeing your experience with uh with being denied a visa on the states if anyone would benefit from a from a proper decentralized identification system it's you I think yeah yeah um then t a very important question for you how long have you been growing that be asked by Mr Bitcoin from Holland Martin whis well I'm gonna give five dollar in Bitcoin to anyone who can guess it to

the day okay that's that's a good that's that's a very nice challenge so everyone can tweet um the number of days that two has been growing his beard yes closing the bed at 24 hours yeah that might be last question from the audience before we Rew wrap up um uh Eric for you then any reaction to Sig's arguments um there is a tendency in computerland to seek Technical Solutions to political problems we are terrible at predicting the social outcomes of technological innovation um ask Tim ERS well uh I think people are generally terrible at at predicting outcomes of all types uh this is why we probably

shouldn't rely on a bunch of wise people sitting in a room to decide our our Fates for us um ultimately technology is going to be a messy process uh like you know look at look at Bitcoin look how many problems Bitcoin has caused how many hacks and losses and um Devastation it has caused to people and yet still it grows and still it has become a net benefit to society because it brings Freedom where there wasn't any before uh so so you know Tech technological adoption is uh inherently volatile and disruptive it will hurt people um but the goal is that anything that helps people be free of coercion anything that helps people communicate or Express themselves or live the life that they

want to live without hurting other people is probably something worth pursuing and ultimately that's that's the most important reason to be involved in Bitcoin what's the freest place right now in the world to live do you think I don't know not the United States that's for sure definitely not yeah I would argue it's Bitcoin I mean Bitcoin is the freest place to live you you want to live in the cloud yeah the cloud the cloud is the right place to live the internet's the freest place in the world I agree buy a jet pack and live in the lant yeah well thank you guys so much any anything um any other things you want to discuss or questions you want to you want to address I think I'm good Roger for for

your friends that aren't philosophically interested in Bitcoin show them purse.io and how uh I just bought this new uh iPad air2 right here I saved 29% by buying it with Bitcoin via purse.io so I saved almost $200 on this iPad by using purse.io so tell all your non-political non- philosophically moded friends about purse.io and how they could save a fortune on anything they want Shi direct from Amazon only for US citizens or for everyone for for anyone anywhere in the world has Amazon or where Amazon ships I want to I want to second that yesterday I did my first purchase on purse.io uh the first purchase apparently only limits the reduced the reduction to 8% so I did that I ordered uh it was very

easy to set up in one minute it was it was done uh if you uh choose to have a reduction of below 10% they give you Amazon Prime for free so the the the bag that I ordered the suitcase that I ordered actually arrived today uh and it was 8% less than I would have paid otherwise and the next item that I buy they're going to give me 15% off so I'm really excited about this I wish I had started using it a lot sooner first.io and thanks Roger for recommending awesome okay so Roger people should check first.io and also they can go to roger.com to find out about all your um startups and and your life right right perfect and Eric where can where can find people you where

where can people find you um my blog is money and state.com which I post to you know every so often but Twitter is probably the best way to keep in touch and that's just Eric Vorhees spelled like it is on my little name tag here is it like Dutch do you have Dutch ancestors or it is Dutch uh tour I think thought I was Dutch when we first met but unfortunately I I don't speak that language and uh so it's in it's dutch and name only I suppose okay cool well thanks and um to you can be find on Twitter found on Twitter right to me and yep at blog Trail so thank you guys so much and um I really enjoyed you in the show and let's do it again one day just some extra points guys we're gonna have

a university debate next week going on at the University of laa from The Innovation Center and we from Lille will be handing out free Bitcoins there so if you're interested in the discussion please join it's findable on Facebook and on the University page I think perfect for all for all Dutch students and people living in Holland great okay thanks guys see you next time thank you see you thank you all bye