Why Everybody Who Doesnt Hate Bitcoin Loves It

And, and I mean, Gemma and I are all very, very secure. I, I think Jim and I even got SOC one and SOC two certifications, and I mean, it, it's a very sophisticated type of type of setup on top of that. One of the other big things that we're seeing is a lot of major traditional banks are getting into the the crypto custody. I mean, you need to, if you're going to buy some exchange, it needs to be a trusted one with a good security setup. Those things have absolutely nothing to do with the Bitcoin itself or, or theory. And, and that's a big misconception that I typically say.
They’re regulated by FinCEN, some money service businesses. They’re actually typically regulated on a state-by-state basis, those money transmitters. They’re not exactly regulated the same way banks are, because banks obviously have FDIC protections, and if Bitcoin Chart the bank goes bust, the government will guarantee your savings in that bank up to a certain threshold. That’s not the case with bitcoin banks because there’s no possibility to have that FDIC because there isn’t a lender of last resort beneath that system.



In fact, as the former senior editor of Forbes, Laura was the first mainstream reporter to cover crypto assets full-time. A 'node’ is the crypto equivalent of your bank account details. You can run your own node, if you’ve got good internet and want to spend some money on hardware. The information discussed is current as of the date of this podcast and it's subject to change at any time based on market and other conditions. As a reminder, past performance is no guarantee of future results. But if I don't call him in 98 mile an hour, hour fastball, I'm going to get fired.
In my own mind, they refer to assets that rely on cryptography to work for people to authenticate themselves. The networks remain secure and are generally permissionless. To me, that’s the circular process of monetization bitcoin into this sort of asset that is actually globally useful, which we’re not really there yet.

Still early, Coinbase was just going through YC at this point in time. Cameron and Tyler—as they start to learn about it and think about it—realized, holy crap, this is money with network effects. They don't put the whole $300 million and that would have been the whole market cap of Bitcoin itself at the time. But they started buying Bitcoin in the summer of 2012 at about $10 a bitcoin.
But there are no other exchanges out there. You've got maybe 7%, 8% that Satoshi—whoever Satoshi is—owns. There's all these Bitcoin that are in areas that aren't transacting, people holding it there for the long-term. There are only, even today, 3 or 4 million bitcoin that are actually trading hands and available in the supply-demand equation to set the price. The accusation was that he had tried to pay—I don’t know if it was through Silk Road or through other darknet sites—to have people killed who he thought were after him.

When the mafia lend you money, they come after you with a gun if you dont pay the money back. The exchange rate isn’t fixed, bitcoins is its own sovereign currency governed by the laws of math and by computer code. You exchange with people who have bitcoins who want dollars. Creation of new bitcoins is confirmed by the network as a whole. Your computer provides the answer to a math problem and the other computers in the network doublecheck the math and the network assignes new bitcoins to your account.
I’d be very interested to hear more economics discussion and analysis of it. You’re right that most people would not scan the code. But enough people do that if there is anything suspect you can be sure there will be a huge reaction and advisory for people not to use the changed version of the software. Bitcoins are theoretically dividable up to 8 digits. So while there are fewer theoretical Bitcoins than people, there are far far far far more actual units of currency than that. Some advantages are that there are no middleman transaction fees, and that the transfer of money is irrevocable .
In the next quote you say that we shouldnt trust the banks and shouldnt trust payment in the form of bank money. The fact that we now accept payment in the form of an increased balance in a bank account was never sanctioned by the government and is not subject to legal regulation. We just do it, because we know that others do it, too. I still don’t see why bitcoins would make any difference. The government does not collect taxes by tracking money. I dont claim that i understand bitcoin or its future prospects.

To help make the choice easier, I asked ‘Crypto Twitter’ to share their favorites. Even if you create a bank account in a bitcoin bank and save your money there, the bank is NOT saving or storing your money. It only claims it is able to pay back your money. What currency would the Treasury accept for the payment of taxes? Currently it accepts checks drawn on commercial banks, and makes its payments with checks drawn on Federal Reserve banks.
They end up accumulating well over 100,000 bitcoins that cost them under $10 million. It was 1% of all Bitcoin outstanding at the time. Banks dont create check money out of thin air but from the monetary base. Banks will create check money out of bitcoins if the bitcoins are the monetary base. It doesnt matter what base money you have, gold, fiat money or bitcoins. Check money can be created out of all these base moneys.

And that doesn’t mean co-opting it or capturing it or changing it in any way, but just to allow it to flourish, which is what’s happening. So the NADs that are the hubs of the network are regulated in a certain way. And then bitcoin as an asset is also regulated, or it’s taxed, rather. And then there’s other regulatory bodies, you know, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for instance, they regulate banks. And they said banks can custody bitcoin on behalf of their clients.
On an absolute basis, for anybody who knows their climate, this means 23 megatons of CO2 are put out into the atmosphere per year because of Bitcoin. Another comparison is if Bitcoin were a country using energy, it would be right between Jordan and Sri Lanka in terms of their greenhouse gas pollution. If you include other cryptocurrencies, mostly Ethereum, that actually doubles, to help you estimate how much energy is being used.