The World's First Bitcoin PhD - Christian Decker, Blockstream

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Blockchain Indaba, where pioneers and thought leaders talk about their journey in blockchain technology, crypto assets, and the token economy. And I'm your host, Manuel Staggers. If you enjoy this podcast, please give it a top rating and review on iTunes. And feel free to follow me on Twitter at Manuel Staggers. This episode is brought to you by Crypto Storage. Crypto Storage offers a proprietary solution to enable professional storage of crypto assets. The storage is secure both physically and digitally on the highest grade hardware security modules with detailed configuration possibilities for individual based access control. To learn more, visit www.cryptostorage.ch.

Today's guest is Christian Decker. Christian is a core tech engineer at Blockstream and a Bitcoin enthusiast from the very beginning in 2009. As a researcher at the Distributed Computing Group at ETH Zurich, he wrote the world's first PhD dissertation about Bitcoin and the creation of a number of protocols, including Peer Senses and Duplex Micro Payment Channels. The goal of his research is to improve the understanding of the underlying consensus mechanisms and to enable the network to scale with increasing demands. And now, to the interview.

Welcome Christian to the Blockchain Indaba. Yeah, thank you very much for having me. It's uh it's been about a year since we last spoke and um back then you were working on Lightning Network. So, are you still doing that? Oh, yeah. I'm still very much involved with Lightning. Um we're moving forward really quickly and finally there is uh some uh some end uh in sight so we can we can actually start looking forward to what comes next. How did you get working with cryptocurrencies?

Oh, that's that's a long way back. So, back in 2009 I did I was just starting my master's in in distributed systems and I came across this this paper on some obscure mailing list and and I thought, "Okay, this this sounds interesting. It seems to solve a few problems that that were thought to be unsolvable before. And I sort of read into it and and thought this was interesting. Send a few Bitcoins back and forth with some other people and then quickly lost interest because there wasn't too much to do with it and uh sort of forgot about it and a few months later I

read about this in a in a blog post again and thought, "Okay, yeah." I was mining at the time, so I was I was like, "Okay, there's some real money involved now, so this might be interesting." I checked and I uh and uh I indeed did my first Bitcoin sale for 5 cent each. Um worst sale of my life so far. Um and uh so When when was that? Um that must have been So, I read the paper in 2009 and I rediscovered it again in 2010.

Um and uh just just a few months later we had our first Bitcoin meet up here in Zurich uh with Mike Hearn and Stefan Thomas nowadays from Ripple and uh and one other guy whose name I can't remember. Sorry about that. Um but uh yeah, we we had we had a an early meet up and and we sort of discussed and and this whole topic became more and more interesting to me. And so, when it came to to look for a topic for for my PhD, it was pretty much a done deal that that I would do it on Bitcoin. And if that didn't work out, I

wouldn't do a PhD at all. Um luckily, it worked out in the end. And so, I started looking for a topic, and uh Bitcoin was not as sexy as it uh as it uh is nowadays. Um uh indeed, I I started as a researcher uh instead of a PhD student because well, we weren't sure uh at the time that uh that this would turn out to be good research topic at all. So, Um but uh yeah, it sort of picked up speed, and and a year later uh we were we were both fascinated by by the possibilities of this and and by by how successful uh the research was was going. So,

um we made it a full PhD uh student position, and uh and the rest is history, I guess. Yeah, so if you go to if you go to a Bitcoin meetup um today, I mean, there there can be hundreds of people, right? Depending on where you go. But uh how was it back then? Yeah, it was just four of us. It was It was It was quite an interesting meetup uh because it was just uh we posted on the forum that we would be interesting in we would be interested in in doing a meetup and and just talk about technology.

And uh so so we met up at uh at an Irish pub, and uh we we just we just talked over a few beers for hours and hours on end, and uh uh decided to make it a regular thing. And um yeah, we we still have a picture from from that one uh that I proudly carry uh wherever I go. Um Yeah, it was quite interesting. Now now we sort of all went separate ways, but it all started with Bitcoin. Since I mean, you've been in this space for for quite a long time, probably longer than anyone else I know.

Um what have you seen change in the in the last few years? I mean, what were the most obvious changes? Oh, a lot has changed. So uh Yeah, so so so one of the one of the major changes that I see is that that there is a certain amount of frustration that is mounting with the uh with the um uh scalability as as we try to as we try to solve that issue. Um and that that later gave on to this this whole issue with the with the block size increase, the small blockers, the big blockers, and generally speaking, this this whole this whole discontent with

with the with the current situation where where it's kind of hard to sort of discuss these technical issues with everybody in the community um without some people getting upset uh that the promises that they sort of bought into uh are no longer are no longer what uh are no longer true. Mhm. Do you also feel like that? I mean, do you feel that Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, this whole space, do you feel they have lost some of their original spirit in in the recent years?

Um I I don't think so. I mean, most most of the most of the early adopters were very clear on uh on on what the what the limits of the of the system are. And so, we we sort of started very early on to to address them even if people said, "Yeah, that's that's not going to be an issue." Um So, we always knew that there are these limits and that we should we should try to address them as early as possible. Uh it's taken longer that than than we would have liked to, but uh but I think that we now have a very solid understanding of of what these limits are and how to solve them.

Have you convinced maybe people to learn more about cryptocurrencies or to get involved in this space themselves? Um I try not to I try not to to to get people into cryptocurrencies at all. Um I am absolutely excited about this. It's it's not it's not a matter of of excitement, but this is after all a very very volatile space uh and uh and I get the feeling that I that I annoy people quite quite easily with when I when I start talking about

cryptocurrencies because I can actually drone on and on and on about this topic. So, I usually have people come to me and ask for for a specific things uh rather than trying to go out and and uh and convert convert everybody to the uh to the gospel of Bitcoin. Um So, I I try I try not to be a cryptocurrency missionary, but uh rather uh rather the the place where people can get information if they need to.

Information about um what the technology is and what it can do for us. I mean Yes, I I think it's it's very necessary to have people that that actually have the technical background and and tell uh and and be able to discern a good use case from a bad use case currently because the whole the whole blockchain space is so over hyped that that it's kind of hard for for non-technical people to to discriminate between between a good use case and a bad use case. Um and yeah, that that generates a whole lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt or fear of missing out. Um and

it it usually it usually just means that that that you need to have additional information and that you need to think about what you're doing and and sort of make up your mind before jumping into cryptocurrencies. This after all is a very very volatile investment if you're looking at it from a from an investment point of view. Um and so you should you should not do that in a hurry and you shouldn't do that with money that you that you can't spare.

Um So, yeah, that those those are basically my my two advices. Don't don't get exposed to too much fear of missing out and don't don't sort of make make gut gut decisions and only ever do that with money you can spare. It's always very hard to give investment advice and disclaimer, we're not doing that here. Absolutely yes. I I should I should mention that that I'm absolutely a techie and not not an an investment guy. Um and the I I really respect people that that are in it for the tech and not for the monetary incentive.

Uh but I totally get I totally get the monetary incentive as well. Uh Yeah, it's really quite remarkable what this space has become. I mean, at the very beginning most people didn't really take it serious and now you have big investors, you have pension funds looking into into these asset classes even though there are still a lot of uncertainty and also security issues around them. You had at some point Bitcoin stolen from you, right? I mean I think it was How many was it? 10,000 Bitcoins?

9,222 if I'm not mistaken, yes. Almost 10 10,000. Wow. And and when was that? That must have been my birthday 2012. Yes, I think 2012. Yeah, it was it was a really really nice birthday present. How did that happen? It's at the time I was I was just starting my my research and one of the first things that I did was basically just just map out how information flows in the Bitcoin network.

Part of that part of that research basically meant that that I would try to accelerate how information flows. And so I basically just took my laptop at work and and was forwarding I was connected to a large part of the network and I was forwarding information as fast as I could with a custom implementation of of Bitcoin. And um Yeah, so so some of the some of the block explorers were showing my ETH address as being the origin for all of these blocks.

And so rumors started flying that ETH Zurich is just joined the mining game and the Swiss government tries to shut down Bitcoin and uh So so people started started looking around and at the time we were also working on another project called BitThief, which is a BitTorrent client to a file sharing client, but people naturally assume that it was had something to do with Bitcoin. Um and so now besides trying to disrupt the Bitcoin network by being big in the mining game, we were also stealing other people's funds apparently.

Um and so yeah, people people started looking around and we and and somebody figured out that I had my SSH my secure shell server listening there and uh I also had the same password that was leaked a few weeks before on a website um was still being used there. Uh so they basically just connected uh then connected to my work laptop and then connected from my work laptop to my home laptop. And my home laptop had the private keys on it.

So back then the the wallet.dat file wasn't wasn't being encrypted. And I was just in just starting to move the coins into into an air-gapped setup where all the keys are kept separate from from the internet. But hadn't hadn't really started that process and afterwards I didn't need to because the coins were were gone. Were were those your coins or were they those coins of the university?

No, those those were mine. Um uh as I mentioned I I started mining in in 2009 when uh virtual machine somewhere on on a cloud server was sufficient to to actually mine quite a few Bitcoins. Um yeah, I I also had to explain at some point uh to the university security staff that these were not mined using university resources. Um and that quickly moved on to how can we ensure that that these resources aren't being misused and then so I sort of became their advisor for these issues.

Um but yeah, it's those those were my coins and we never actually bought any coins with the university funds. Um that would have been a big no-no for for uh um ethical standards. Yes, I guess. How How did you mine them back then? I mean, did you have a big mining rig or was it just a laptop? Oh, it was it was just it was just a a VM VMware virtual machine sitting somewhere in the cellar.

Um and yeah, no no special hardware needed whatsoever. It was even it was even a virtualized CPU, so Oh wow. Um Early days, clearly. Those were the days, yes. We We didn't know this stuff would actually be worth anything, so uh yeah. We weren't really good with security back then. Yeah, I mean, you know, um the more conversation I have with people in this space, the more I realize that it was by no means clear that this would ever end up where we are today. I mean, even very early adopters, some of them, you know, say they they had no clue that that this would ever become as big as it has

become. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I mean, we we as as early adopters were were always joking that one day we would have one Bitcoin and and $1 being having value parity and and and this this was this was actually big joke for quite some time and then and then it happened. Uh and and we were just looking at our screens incredulously and and we're like, okay, so now this happened. Um, oops. When did that perception change, you think? I mean, when when did it change for you where you all of a sudden thought, "Hm, maybe there is something, you know, something bigger than just a science experiment."

Um, for me it still is a big science experiment. I mean, what what intrigues me is is the the technical innovation and the and sort of the um the possibilities and the challenges that we that we are facing. Um, it's it's nice that that Bitcoin has has reached a global audience and and it's nice that that these Bitcoins now have a value. But uh but what's most valuable for me is is basically the the technical exploration and the technical challenges that we that we have there.

Um, so it's still it still is what what what I what I started off with. This this very interesting concept and this very interesting technology and and we still learn new things every day, right? This is so this is such a fast-moving moving uh place. Uh and and we still haven't explored the full capabilities of the system. Um, so that's what what keeps me on my toes and and that's what what most of the people that that I know are interested in.

Mhm. Most people I meet in this space, I mean, even even people who made lots of money, they were never into it for the money. I mean, they got into it for ideology or because they were really interested in it. Uh but nobody was speculating back then, you know, or thought like, "Oh, wow, this is going to make me a millionaire." So that I find quite quite cool. Um, Yeah, it's it's also the most honest way to approach this, right? I mean, I mean, all of this could could stop existing any day. And and we we we wouldn't we we would still be proud to have worked on this, right?

Mhm. When we spoke um about a year ago for the for the documentary film, you said uh a thing that that quite uh stuck with me. And you said it this is a bottom-up movement. And this is something made by us geeks. It's not top-down. It's not a bank or a government, but just everybody a code or a programmer can do something that impacts the world. Yeah. Um So, how how do you feel about it? How do you feel about this now? I I still think that this rings true even today. It It started out from from a need or a curiosity from from us tech people.

Um and and from from a need from from users. And and we sort of we sort of have this this ground movement that that came up with this technology and that is now is now challenging for the establishment to to understand or to integrate. Um But but I think in the end we all will will benefit from from its from its existence. Yeah. Before you said that um you feel this vision, the original vision has been diluted a little bit or lost maybe even.

Um how do you feel about new developments? For example, this whole ICO craze or all the new coins that are coming up. How do you feel about that? Honestly, I don't like them that much because they they sort of piggyback onto this this whole grassroots movement to to sort of follow their own agenda. Um I I think ICOs definitely have a a place in in the in the financing world. Uh they they are they are a great way for a company to to acquire funds to sort of get started.

Um but at the same time uh they they are being used as a way to to sidestep existing regulation um to attract money from from from um what some people would call unrefined investors or investors that that are not aware of of the risks that they are getting involved with. Um and uh and and people that are basically just just pouring in their hard-earned cash into something into some promise that the people make to them, which is not even a promise because you don't you don't get any guarantee of

success in return. You don't you don't get a stake stake in in the company. You don't um you don't get any sort of privileges uh from your investment. Um so yeah, that's that's what I what what we usually have in securities is that you actually have some leverage onto the company, whereas ICOs are very very uh very set on on not giving you any of these of these advantages. Uh some of them really are are a good investments and some of them make it very clear that this is a

security and this is an investment in a company and also also call out the potential losses and and the and the risks involved with investing in it. But some of them actually went go out of their way to hide these facts from from potential investors to create this this fear of missing out by by creating very short timelines and and being very very coy about about their internal structure and and not and not releasing this information that any sort of VC investor would would ask right away from from a potential investment, right?

Um so I usually advise against an ICO because there is there is this risk of being associated with all of the scams that are out there. Um but I do see I do see uh it as a as a useful investment vehicle. But we absolutely need some additional rules on on how to on how to promote these and who to promote these to and um and what what the minimum information requirements are uh to to to sort of uh give give the investors all the information needed to to make a an informed decision.

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The hardware security module, the tamper-proof signing devices, and the tailored software solution are all developed by leading Swiss providers with vast experience in finance and IT security. To learn more, visit www.cryptostorage.ch. It's sometimes funny, I think. Um a lot of these investments in ICOs or in crypto in general are just the pure opposite of what a traditional investor would do.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean I mean the the one of the fundamental rules of of of investment is don't rush into the something that you haven't cleared up for yourself. Um so so do your due diligence and and if it still looks like a good promising investment, then do it. But don't don't let others pressure you into into doing an investment. Um and uh yeah, the the the more open and an investment is about pros and cons that the the higher you can the better you can you can gauge the the opportunity there.

Uh from a purely speculative point of view, ICOs might be good thing because yeah, there there is a lot of money to be made with these huge huge price swings and and the uh and and pre-sale not pre-sale and discounts here and left and right. Um but but I see what what happens with with most of these ICOs. I regularly get get invites to pre-sales that where you can get a 2 to 90% off and and and I usually just just mark them as spam and and throw them away because this these these huge discounts to to sort of get you to endorse a project are are uh

with without any any any any other differentiating feature is just is just dishonest in my point of view. And it's also I think it's counter the spirit of this whole bottom-up movement, right? That you that that you mentioned at the beginning, where you said this is really it's a flat structure and it's not about, right, rushing into things and creating lots of money that separates this person from from others. It's about an inclusive field. And and sometimes I feel the perception of this whole cryptocurrency and token economy space has really suffered because of these ICOs and the whole spirit that came with it.

Yeah, I I think so. Some people will definitely get burned by ICOs and and and then and then ask for intervention by by the regulator and that may may give us some unwanted attention and and we we know the regulator is not going to to be very very selective about what to what to prohibit. They they might be tempted to just prohibit the entire cryptocurrency space. Um and and that would be a huge step backwards. Now, the SEC and the and the Swiss FINMA have have been very selective in in in what they look at and and I absolutely

applaud that approach because because it means that they have or they sort of try to make this this informed decision about what is good and what is bad and not just not just they take out the biggest hammer and try to smash the whole thing. Do you think that that risk is real? Um well, it it would be a setback. It would be a setback both in perception as well as as our ability to use cryptocurrencies in our day-to-day life. Um Um We we're having a very hard time for for to to get away from the perception that Bitcoin uh is just for drugs and illicit

activities. Um there's far better options for that. Uh fiat cash being one of the examples there. Um But uh but this perception is still is still very much present in in pop culture. So, if uh if we have if we have a government that that tries to that tries to squash this entire space, then this will create the perception that this is indeed indeed not not a good investment or not not a good technology in the first place.

Mhm. Do you see any signs of that happening at all? Um well, you hear a lot of of rumors about this government now moving against uh against this cryptocurrency or that government uh now not moving anymore against this cryptocurrency, but very very little that is actually substantive. Um substantiated? Substantiated? Um So uh yeah I I don't I don't think it's it's going to to happen um overnight and and I don't think Well, we we might be we might be in a safe place now. Um where we sort of have

enough traction that that this is hard to this this is hard to destroy, but it's still possible. Mhm. Mhm. What what might a scenario like this uh look like? I mean, would it be a bad actor where maybe let's say, you know, pension funds jumped into this and then lost billions of dollars of people's pensions based on some scam coin or something like this or what kind of scenario would you imagine could lead to the death of maybe Bitcoin or the whole cryptocurrency space?

Yeah, I I mean, pension funds are definitely one thing to look out for. If if if there is any any kind of movement in that direction, I will I will definitely try to make my voice heard against that. But it's happening. I mean that is happening right now, right? I mean endowments are looking into maybe investing. You have all these institutional investors pushing into the space, the big hedge funds who were serving these institutional investors.

Yeah, right. But but I mean those are those are mostly voluntary investments. I I don't want my pension fund to depend on the cryptocurrency space. Well, I I don't want to be the cryptocurrency space to be a speculative space only. I want it to be a currency. But we'll see how that turns out. A currency where you could basically go and buy an apple or a sandwich for for bitcoins in the shop. Yeah, that that that would be great. And I mean and I mean it it can continue to be an investment, but it should it should be an investment just like you you diversify your funds into US dollars or euros or Swiss

francs. It shouldn't be like buying Apple stocks. But yeah, volatility currently makes that makes makes cryptocurrencies very attractive to to investments because they sort of always have the promise of of having a huge return of investment, right? Right, which makes it very difficult to use as a currency, so. Exactly. Yeah. Have you seen any promising moves in that direction, you know, that make that make maybe Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies more cash-like or more money-like? Have you seen anything like this that excited you?

Well, I mean the more the more mainstream kind of use cases we can we can build on top of Bitcoin the less the less volatile it becomes right? Um so if we if again we start this ground ground movement and actually start accepting Bitcoin for our goods and services uh then we both need the need the um the non-volatility, but we also we also contribute to it not be not being as volatile anymore.

Um so I think the more the more bars that I can buy my coffee from with Bitcoin or the more the more gardeners I can pay for Bitcoin the more stable the currency as a whole will be. Mhm. But now it's less, right? Because of the high transactions fee fees. So it's it's hard to go buy a coffee. I I don't think it it's as expensive anymore. We had we had a huge spike back in in January February where yes, we had fees of $5 to $10 per transaction.

Um but things have have calmed down since then quite a lot and and most of the well, I don't want to point fingers, but but some of the traffic was was definitely spam that was intended to actually drive up the fees. Um and and I mean the the current rather low fees are are proof to that. Um so uh yeah, I mean we we sort of are back to to a to an acceptable level of fees for on-chain transactions.

Um then again on-chain transactions are expensive are naturally expensive they are um, because this is a shared medium that everybody that everybody is trying to access. So, um, we we probably shouldn't have all of the all of the coffees in the world being bought on chain. Um, yeah. And that's that's where where initiatives like like lightning come into play and and we actually start talking about about off-chain payments as well.

Are you working on anything now that where you say this could really lift up maybe the the adoption of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies or just make it a make it a better tool that that can actually have an impact in people's lives? Well, I mean, lightning is is an extension to the to to the use cases that we can still currently serve with with on-chain payments. Um, so as such we open up new use cases such as buying coffee on on in a from a barista or or doing micro payments between devices and and we open up this this whole this whole um,

uh, use case of of internet of things uh, devices paying other devices or or pay as you go kind of of subscriptions. Um, one of one of the use cases that is very near and dear to my heart for for lightning is is for example the the ability to um, to compensate content creators for their work they they have put into um, on on the internet for example. Um, currently if if I if I write articles for a living, if I work for the New York Times for example, then then I work on a subscription-based

based payment system, right? Where people have a subscription, they pay every month and and uh and uh I in return create content for that. Um that might work for for a big outlet like like the New York Times, but smaller uh smaller uh content providers uh are having a hard time getting people to sign up for a subscription. So, the only option that that is left is sort of uh the ad space. Um so, they they ads advertisements into their into their content um and and get well, some breadcrumbs for it, right?

Um and we see that we see that both for written content or audio content or we see that for uh for a video content. Um and every time that YouTube changes their uh their compensation model, there's a huge outcry from from content producers because they are now cut out from from their revenue stream. Um so, this ability to basically tip uh a content content producer for their uh services or uh or pay to get access to uh to an article uh on demand and only the article that I

that I'm interested in um that that is very attractive to me um because it because it sort of shifts the uh the uh the compensation power away from ad companies um that may get 5 cents uh from from upstream and and will send 1 cent forward downstream. And it will also remove the the need for these very extensive profiles that ad companies now now create about us just because they need these uh these profiles to tailor advertisements to us.

Whereas if if I go to website and I pay for the content that I need, nobody ever needs to create a profile about me. The The only thing that that the content creator learns about me is that I like this content. Um So so this is this is this is one of the use cases where where I see lightning or Bitcoin as a as a whole contributing whole lot to to this whole democracy democratization of of the of the content space.

Yeah, and I and I mean every time I watch a YouTube video and I see these like 10-second ads and only then I can skip skip the ad, I I would be willing to pay a few cents every time I can skip that. Yes, absolutely. What is your view on these other applications of the blockchain right or of blockchain technology, distributed ledger technology um that does not necessarily involve Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency but that focuses more on the whole blockchain technology. How do you Where do you see that going?

Yeah, that that sort of leads us into into a into the rabbit hole of of what actually is a blockchain because uh what what people nowadays call under the term blockchain is is is a very diverse set of technologies that that sort of spans the whole spectrum of of of use cases. Um So I mean for for for the Bitcoin blockchain has a very specific uh specific context in which it is sensible. It's It's a It's a constant context where we don't know who the other participants are, where we don't know

how many there are, and we don't know whether all of them have expressed their opinions about any kind of operation. Um and that that leads us to to making some some very specific design choices like, for example, having proof of work. Um so if if on the other hand we do have we do have a way to know who is who is participating and who is who has a say in our decisions like, for example, the what what is being promoted as permissioned ledger or DLTs or permission blockchains.

Um then we can use a completely different set of of tools and where where we can actually have where we can have an explicit vote between between the participants and once everybody has voted, we we can we can take a certain decision. That's that's basically classical consensus like we had it we had it for last 30 years now. Um people still call it blockchain, but in in my opinion the blockchainy aspect in here is is merely having a common interface between the different participants and and having a a common interchange format between these participants.

Um so yeah, it it sort of depends on on what you what you call blockchain whether these whether these things are very are actually sensible. I do think that there is there that there is a need for example to have a federation of of banks and a common common interchange format to to exchange information about a shared ledger. Um and to have this shared ledger in the first place, um but I don't think that that a Bitcoin-like blockchain would be very sensible for uh for a setting where where people actually sort of know each other.

But, you know, can you really separate blockchains from cryptocurrencies? I mean, is is that even possible? Yeah, I mean, it's it's um it's the entire context that makes sort of all of these fall into place, right? And if you change the context in which you use you use signal uh the technology, it it may lose some of some of its uh of its validity. Okay cool. Let's uh let's talk a little bit about your current project if you want or just something that you think is important should you know, people should know about cryptocurrencies, should know about Bitcoin, or or all of these blockchain technologies.

Sure. Um yeah, I mean, we're we're making massive progress towards uh towards enabling all of these use cases that that we that we were talking about and and actually realizing the full potential of of Bitcoin as a currency um that people were always promised, wrongfully so, but now we we are creating them after the fact. Um and uh and yeah, I'm actually looking really forward to to having light lightning out there and and being used, and hopefully people will come in and and start using it.

Um and uh we're we're currently looking for for good applications that we can uh that that people are interested in running on on lightning and then see if if uh if we can actually bootstrap this uh this network from from zero. Um so and and looking forward uh we we also started working on on future versions of of lightning and off-chain protocols in general.

Um we just published a paper 2 days ago uh about about what we see as a potential future version of lightning and how we can implement other use cases as well. Um so this is this is a very quite a fast-moving space and and it's it's absolutely amazing what we can do both off-chain and on-chain. Um we have we have many new things that are that are coming into Bitcoin or are being discussed currently.

Um there's proposals for graft root and tap root and I can't even name all of them. Um all very very interesting innovations that that might open up new stuff and improve improve the system as it is today. Yesterday I was in Zug and I spoke with the with the mayor there of of the town that was the first to accept Bitcoin payments right for as official payments for their permits and and stuff like this that you could previously only buy in Swiss francs.

And he said that this whole Bitcoin experiment or this Bitcoin initiative that he led and he's now I think 62 years old, he said that's the most exciting thing he ever did in his career. Oh yeah, I'm I was I was there when when they when they officially started and and it was it was an incredibly nice round table and and we had we had a lot of fun chats and this is this is definitely this is definitely a really interesting development. And kudos to him for uh, for, uh, starting this all.

What what do you think would you be doing if if there weren't any Bitcoin or if there weren't any cryptocurrencies? I would be sad. Um if I if I'd not known about Bitcoin, um yeah, I'd I'd probably just be just be a drone somewhere working on on code and uh not talking to you, probably. Maybe. Who knows, right? Who knows? I mean, it's it's the same same with me. I mean, I'm so glad I stumbled into this space and Yeah, every once in a while I definitely do have to pinch myself and and see if I'm if I'm not if I'm not sleeping or dreaming. It's, uh, Yeah, well, let's let's hope we never

wake up if it is a dream. Absolutely yeah. Well, thanks so much for your time today, Chris. Thanks a lot. Thanks. Thanks so much for joining us today. More info on our guest and our sponsors is in the show notes of this episode and on the podcast website, theblockchainandus.com. To help people find this podcast, it's important that you download, subscribe, and give it a top rating and review on iTunes or on the podcast platform of your choice. I'm Manuel Stägers, and I thank you very much for listening.