 Today's episode of The Bitcoin Show is brought to you by bit-pay.com and Mt. Gox, mtgox.com and tradehill.com and usgoldcoins.com, 1-800-HOTCOIN and mezegrill, m-e-z-e-grill.com. Hello everybody, welcome to The Bitcoin Show. This is episode 33. My name is Bruce Wagner, as you probably know. Today is a sad day for Bitcoin. The site, the very famous eWallet site called mybitcoin.com has apparently disappeared. It's gone AWOL and all of its account holders, bitcoins are missing as well. So you may have already been aware if you're following the Bitcoin forums and tweets and so on that I disclose that Ed and I, my partner and I here in only one TV and in life, lost over 25,000 bitcoins and you can do the math, it's a lot of money. Because of this horrible mistake on our part to trust an eWallet service, this particular eWallet service at least, mybitcoin.com. So I wanted to say a little bit about what happened and what our thoughts and feelings are. We discovered that actually, I had been having questions about my bitcoin for quite a long time and I had been pretty public about, I am public about everything that I do. I tweet about it, I post forums, I'm very transparent so you know what I'm thinking. And Thursday evening I went home, actually Anthony Anderson, our host of the Anthony Anderson show was over visiting and so Ed was there and Anthony were there and they were talking about something else and I said, you know, something is bothering me, my bitcoin thing is really, really, really bothering me. I had this really weird intuition that something was wrong and I can't pin it on anything. I didn't know anything. I mean nobody had told me anything. I had no experience whatsoever but I just said something's wrong and I need to get our bitcoins off of mybitcoin.com. That was Thursday evening, Ed said, you know, well let's transfer them, let's just transfer them to Mt. Gox or Trade Hill or both and I said no, you know, we'll get it set up with a secure system tomorrow and we'll finally get it done, we'll finally have time to take the time to create a secure system and transfer them all off and we'll do that tomorrow and then of course tomorrow was Friday and that's when mybitcoin.com just went down and disappeared. I now know, I'm told that I wouldn't have been able to move them off even Thursday night because apparently 24 hours, about 24 hours before it went down, mybitcoin.com stopped processing withdrawals. You could do a withdrawal and it looked like it went through but it didn't actually happen so they only accepted deposits and the withdrawals never happened 24 hours before it shut down then it just disappeared and vanished and the who is records changed and all of that. So obviously it was as a rough weekend that's probably why you haven't seen me on camera since then. It's, you know, not only the blow of losing that much money personally that's enough to really punch you in the gut hard. The worst thing was all of my friends, my family, my loved ones, people that I love most in life that I had turned on to Bitcoin because you know I'm so excited about it and I share and I evangelize it, I admit it, I evangelize Bitcoin. They bought into Bitcoin and they follow what I recommend and so for the non-technical user my Bitcoin is what I would suggest and they lost everything. So obviously I've had to and I'm still having to talk to each one of them individually and explain to them what happened and explain to them that no Bitcoin is not a scam, Bitcoin is not a fraud, it's just basically one site that apparently was. So I want to explain a little bit about this my story from the beginning of this whole scenario. This MyBitcoin.com was the oldest longest-standing Bitcoin e-wallet site in existence. If you're new to Bitcoin you may not know this but it had a strong record of stability. Bitcoin itself was invented, you know, the Genesis block was something like January 2009 and from what I understand my Bitcoin came on board around July 2009. I didn't discover it until October or November of that year so of 2010 that is. So MyBitcoin itself, MyBitcoin.com had been around almost as long as Bitcoin itself. Alright so it's important to understand that since nearly the beginning of Bitcoin people who trusted using an e-wallet at all trusted MyBitcoin and they used it. Obviously by now the site had probably tens of thousands of account holders. Some of the smartest, most reputable, long-standing Bitcoin community leaders, the names that you know and trust, used MyBitcoin.com at least occasionally and sometimes more than occasionally for larger amounts. Only two people ever complained to me and all this time that I've been involved, only two people ever complained to me about me listing MyBitcoin.com on this on my site, Bitcoinme.com. One was a very, very, very long time ago and the other one was only very recently. Neither one could give me any concrete reasons why MyBitcoin.com should not be trusted other than I just have a bad feeling about them. Of course at that time that would be kind of like saying I have a bad feeling about them was kind of be like saying today, Mt. Gox, I kind of have a bad feeling about them because you might say why? They seem reliable to me. They're still here. People trust them and use them every day. They had never given me or any other users any reason to believe that they were not reputable. Also at that time almost none of the big players in the Bitcoin world ever had ever been public about their identity. At that time no one I knew had ever met Jed, the founder of Mt. Gox. In fact I was the only one I knew who had met Jed. Yet everyone used Mt. Gox and no one I never knew had ever met Mark when Mark later took over Mt. Gox and until his recent appearances on the Bitcoin show no one ever had met him yet everyone continued to use Mt. Gox and still does. Being anonymous was the norm back then. In fact I think Gavin Andreessen and I were probably about one of the two or two of the only people who put our real names and faces out there in the Bitcoin forums back then. Even today the vast majority of the forum members are remain anonymous and don't use their names or their pictures. My Bitcoin was pretty much the only game in town. As far as e-wallets if you believe that keeping your bitcoins in an exchange site was more risky due to the popular theory that governments would eventually crack down on exchange sites first then mybitcoin.com was pretty much the only e-wallet game in town. Not to mention mybitcoin.com was by far the easiest and most usable e-wallet service. The only one with a simple address book, instant transactions and was used by many reputable merchants as well for their merchant processing. In recent months I tweeted on Twitter and made forum posts criticizing mybitcoin.com for the lack of a forgot password function. I speculated that that was their business model. Maybe that's how they're making money. That's a little shady but you know there have been worse situations but they're using this lack of a forgot password function as a business model to keep people's Bitcoin. And also for the lack of communication with account holders. Since November I hadn't heard anything back from them although I had had correspondence in the past with Tom, the famous Tom. And more recently I began posting asking for suggestions for better alternatives to mybitcoin.com. Unfortunately it was pretty clear that there really weren't any competing non-exchange e-wallet services back then until very very recently like in the last weeks. There were many posts saying the same thing, we need a competitor to mybitcoin.com yet none appeared. Not in time. And even now as new e-wallet services are suddenly springing up like weeds everywhere they're all brand new and we basically know nothing about these people who are starting them. Even though I was critical of mybitcoin I was hesitant to come out strongly against them until I had a better solution to recommend. Unfortunately for the totally non-technical user there were very few other choices and this remains true today. And this is a problem that needs to be fixed immediately if Bitcoin is to ultimately succeed. You have no idea how much I regret telling people about mybitcoin.com and how much I regret using it of course. People are asking me and no I have not lost any faith in Bitcoin. Just because a bank was robbed that doesn't show any flaw in the currency itself only in our choice of who we trust. I will remain an enthusiastic evangelist of Bitcoin and now more than ever a proponent of protection and security in all its forms. To those of you who have written to me I want you to know that I feel your love. Your words of support and encouragement mean so much to me. I can't even tell you how much. Obviously this is a major international issue. The FBI has been in contact with me. They ask that if you have been affected by this incident that you contact the nearest FBI office to you the closest or the closest international office. They have offices in many countries on most every continent and ask for the cyber crime division. And if you have any information or tips you can also contact them. You can ask them to protect your identity if you choose. Also Bitcoin community members have also asked that if you have any information or tips regarding this incident that you can share them that information pseudo anonymously via the IRC network free node on channel Bitcoin dash police and or tiny URL dot com slash my Bitcoin again that's IRC network free node on channel Bitcoin dash police and or the website at tiny URL dot com slash my Bitcoin. The good news there are applications under development which will handle wallet security the way you would want it handled the way it should have been designed from the beginning. If Bitcoin had been mature when it was born giving you the user total control of your own wallet backing it up in a highly encrypted form and giving the central backup site or sites absolutely no access to your wallet at all ever. So now I'd like to talk to you in the chat room. I know you've been very patient waiting for the show to start today but I want to to discuss this with you and see if you have any questions or anything you'd like to to talk about. So give me some questions and let's chat. I understand you're sorry for my loss. Yes. I mean like I said you know my loss financially money comes and goes. I've had lots and lots of money and I've lost lots and lots of money and I've made it back again and luckily if you work hard and you're smart you can do that in no time. So I don't I'm not emotional really about losing the money. I really you know it just doesn't really faze me that much. But what I'm emotional about is talking to my best friends my friends and family that that trusted me and they put their faith in me blindly really and did what I recommended and I made a big big big mistake by ever talking about my Bitcoin.com. You know I'd be with that Bitcoin is in its infancy as we know it's kind of like the the gold rush. There are you know we've just discovered gold. There's a gold rush on everybody's mining. Suddenly you know everybody's getting rich in these small western mining towns and they don't know what to do with the gold. So now there are stagecoach heists happening and then there are bank robberies and we're going through all of this in these early pioneer stages because we're realizing that Bitcoin is not a bank. Bitcoin is not something that is regulated and can be controlled and reversed and so on and so on. So it's really like it really is just like cash or Bitcoin. I mean cash or gold or silver in many ways that if it if it's cash it's irreversible it will absolutely be a target for theft. You know people talk about stolen credit card numbers and I always wonder like what difference does it make. I really wouldn't care so much of my credit card number was stolen. It's all reversible anyway. You check your bank statement every day and you just report it and it's done and it's so simple because banking lets you reverse everything but we're not talking about that. We're talking about literally like a vault full of gold. If it's gone it's gone and that's what Bitcoin is. So we're realizing this is a fundamental difference in the money of the world. Bitcoin is so different in its nature. We're not used to that. So we are learning that the number one priority for Bitcoin as far as its usability is security. How come you had so much Bitcoin in my Bitcoin. Didn't you make tutorials on how to create secure wallet. Yes. I had planned to you know we're very busy around here. We're in a launch mode of a new network. We have 31 shows we're launching with. I mean there's no excuses. Do you have a will. I mean you know it's one of those things where you know you should do it and you say well first thing tomorrow it's going to work its way up to the priority list. You know you start out with a few Bitcoin and if you buy it at 20 cents it's really not that much money. But then you you know you know how it is in the last six months you turn around and it's like holy mo there's a fortune there. It's a lot of money. You're like damn we better do something about this and let's get right on it. So let's put it on our to do list but you know there's no excuse. It's just like anything else in life. You know do you have insurance. Do you have your will done. Do you have you know you do you have funeral arrangements made. I mean these are things in life that everybody should do and in hindsight of course it would have been nice if they had done. But we don't. Life goes on. We get busy. There's no excuse. And we learn lessons the hard way. And those are the lessons we never forget. So this is one that I haven't forgotten. Let's see what other questions are there. Give me some questions. How many. What is it. I should get a bit. Should I get out of Bitcoin now that the exchange rate is below nine. Well I'm not going to give you advice on buy or sell. You know. I think that it is. It definitely is going down because of this. You know people are realizing that Bitcoin has a flaw. There's not a flaw in Bitcoin itself or the Bitcoin network or the Bitcoin technology. There's a flaw in the human human beings and the tools that are there to protect it. So it's it's absolutely cash. It's absolutely reversible. And at first it was a cool fun wacky currency. And it's all fun and games. And then all of a sudden boom it became extremely valuable. And now we've got vaults full of gold. And you know people just weren't prepared to protect it. And technical users very very very technical users. As you know if you've been following the headlines. The third largest exchange site in the world. The guy obviously must be pretty technical. And he made a mistake. And he deleted all the bitcoins in the third largest exchange in the world. Which was less quite a bit less than we lost as a matter of fact. But it's still devastating. Every single person who had funds on deposit with that exchange lost him. And that was a technical person. Okay. The same thing with the other previous one the guy who lost four hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of Bitcoin or something at the time. He was a technical person. He made he made one misjudgment about how the application dealt with the wallet. And he lost he accidentally completely overwrote his Bitcoin. The thing is if technical people can do this. How in the world do we expect the average user to do this. We can't. And that's why we need something very very simple. As simple to use as dialing a phone number. It has to be absolutely simple. And you know not vulnerable to viruses security your own mistakes dropping your phone in a lake. I mean it has to be absolutely as rock solid and reliable as Bitcoin itself. And it has to trust no one absolutely no one except yourself. It has to be that way by design. And it has to be open source so that people can audit it just like Bitcoin itself. Open source transparent and trusted. That's the only way to have high security and a technology like this. So we've learned a lesson the hard way. You know. Hey if I'm your teacher I suppose that's why I needed to learn this lesson myself. And boy have I ever. You know when I have to sit down at brunch on Sunday and tell my friends what happened. You know I will never forget this this experience. And you're going to hear me preaching a lot about security. I'm just telling you right now. The messages are flying by so fast. Bitcoin becomes more legitimate than it's more likely targeted government agencies. How can we reconcile the anonymous regulatory. Yeah. If Bitcoin becomes more legitimate then it's all the more likely to be targeted by government agencies. How can that be reconciled. The anonymous and the regulatory. Yeah. It's going to be an interesting thing. I mean no but that's the 64 million dollar question so to speak. People don't know what's going to happen. There are stances where people are on a campaign to become more compliant. New exchanges that are more and more new exchanges that are at you know that are saying we are the most compliant. We are absolutely compliant. And other exchanges that are saying no we're more compliant than you and that that's the only way for it to to you know really become widely accepted is to go completely mainstream and for total regulation. Then there's the opposite. People that are starting exchanges that they want to be more and more in the shadows and you know more and more anonymous and so on. You know both are happening and who knows what will happen. I mean the future is yet to be seen unless you have a fortune ball a fortune. What a crystal ball. We don't know what's going to happen. But both things are happening and we'll see which one actually ends up working. The you know both directions are happening. That's the one thing that's again beautiful about the technology of Bitcoin is that it can work both ways. It could actually be in a format that's completely as regulated as freaking you know city bank or Western Union. But it can also work in a format that's completely anonymous on the down low like my bitcoin.com. You know where you're absolutely trusting an anonymous person who named himself what the second most common first name and the second most common last name in the world. Doesn't this latest fraud and the fact that you had to run to the FBI. Oops it's scrolling off. I missed it. There's so many questions scrolling by here. Well doesn't this latest fraud and the fact that you had to run to the FBI for help show fundamental flaws in the liberal libertarianism and unregulated markets interesting. Well I didn't run to the FBI. I could tell you that. The FBI contacted me. I mean it's already in the press. Before this show obviously it's already been in the New York Observer and it's been reported up from the forums it's gone everywhere. It's all over the internet and in the press. The fundamental flaws in libertarianism and unregulated markets. Well now I don't really think so because it's the same thing as if you had a whole bunch of gold bars and you're safe in your you know your master bedroom. If people know that it's there it will be a target and it'll be stolen. If you go down to the bank a new bank they just opened or maybe an old bank that's been there forever but the owner is never there you don't know who it is it's very shady it's just an ATM only location and they have safety deposit box and you put all your gold in it and you have no idea who owns it. Then you go back you know nine months later and all of a sudden it's all boarded up and nobody's there. The same thing could happen. Obviously less likely with gold but the point is that if you have anything like cash, gold, silver or something like that that's valuable and sort of untraceable, more untraceable than banking then it's going to be a target for theft. It's part of the nature of a cash like system. These are all things we're learning the hard way. Let's see banks are regulated and insured by the FDIC. Yeah they are aren't they? They're insured by the FDIC. They don't have any problem doing that because they can always print more money if there's ever a shortage they can just print more. Let's see. Yeah, Mezzy Grill you know the this is also very painful that all of the merchants that I talked about Bitcoin2 and evangelized Bitcoin2 they were all set up with my Bitcoin2 so yeah Mezzy Grill lost their Bitcoin and they're down for the moment but no they have not lost faith in Bitcoin and it wasn't because I had to convince them again or anything like that. Marwan at Mezzy Grill is like this is not a flaw of Bitcoin it's nothing to do with Bitcoin it's just this one criminal website this this criminal conspiracy behind running this website and that really has no impact on Bitcoin or the future and he realized that right away he told me this so no everybody's still behind Bitcoin the only people that are selling right now are probably the the ones that are just not they don't really understand Bitcoin they just somebody told them to buy it it was a good investment and now they're getting scared and they're selling but it I believe that Bitcoin will come back it's if anything when the price is low it's usually a good time to buy but I think that you know Bitcoin itself is not a flawed system it really is a beautiful system and people realize that who understand it people don't understand it are just bewildered they just this is to people who don't understand it and and a lot which is like most of the media they're going to say oh Bitcoin again another Bitcoin disaster and people think that Bitcoin is about disasters and fraud and theft and so on but you know you could say that about gold in the gold rush days the gold was about theft and robberies because it was you know that's what happens if you have gold and you're not careful about it it's going to be stolen okay let's see any more questions oh Bruce what do you think about Bud Dwyer's plan to about reversible Bitcoin transactions to the protocol I don't know I really don't like that idea there's a proposition to alter the interesting to hear what Gavin and the technical leads on the Bitcoin project have to say about that but I read that thread and you know I don't know I don't like that idea at all you start modifying it so the transactions are reversible and you just you just have a credit card you ended up with PayPal and credit cards again and that means merchants are scammed I would rather see better escrow services built in so that I send Bitcoin and when the person when I receive the goods I release it and things like that but I don't like the idea of reversible transactions now that's just my personal opinion I'd be interested to hear what other people think have you considered let's see do you Bruce do you think FBI can do anything about the my Bitcoin disaster I have no idea I've never I have no knowledge or experience whatsoever about the FBI or their resources I mean I only know what I see on CSI I mean that's about the limit of my knowledge your guess is as good as mine I mean I've heard that they've been able to track down people who've created viruses and things like that so I would imagine that a lot of it has to do with how many people were harmed into what financial extent it was so that's why they're saying they're asking me to ask you if you've been affected by this to contact your local FBI office and ask for the cybercrime division and explain to them you know the situation with mybitcoin.com because if they hear from 10,000 Americans or and foreign foreign nationals as well because there are FBI offices all over the world and if they hear from 10,000 people even if it's a small amount I have a feeling they might reprioritize their their efforts but as far as you know I can't predict what they could possibly do about it let's see crazy questions I want to call it Interpol okay how many bitcoins have your friends lost? I don't know I don't know I don't think we've totaled it up I mean I don't even know what all their balances are you know it's just it's devastating I mean obviously no one I know had more bitcoin in my bitcoin than I did you know and in fact you know people I'm so transparent that when I was questioning my bitcoin I mean that might have actually you know scared them and made them decide that it's time to take the site down because of sort of you know speaking out loud and telling them my thoughts that this might be the time that I would withdraw my funds so now's the time for them to shut it down and run my are you concerned about trade hill mount gox being insolvent after the 1.5 million US dollar duality charge back fraud 1.5 million dollar duality charge back fraud well I don't know but where you getting that number 1.5 million not sure about that trade hill said something like thirty seven thousand dollars they lost in last month another ten thousand this month or something like that or was it thirty seven altogether thousand dollars I don't know I I'm not privy to know exactly those numbers but you know it's uh... who knows trade hill said 1.5 million sure I do not know about that I don't know really about their solvency but you know this is something that uh... I mean pretty much I've always said this is not new I pretty much always said I when I go to a currency exchange like if I if I got back from London with a whole bunch of British pound and I wanted to exchange them for US dollars I would walk into the currency exchange and I would exchange my pounds for dollars and then I would take them home I would not leave them there so you know I've always been a pretty outspoken advocate for not using any currency exchange as a bank they are not banks and uh... they're not supposed to be used that way the uh... you know so I just I would take your you know your dollars are your coins in and and exchange them and then take them out I mean there's no reason to store your wealth in an online service I mean especially an exchange site you know that's the thing I've always advocated not storing your uh... your wealth in an exchange and therefore you know well that like I said because people were saying that you know that exchanges will be targeted before anything else my bitcoin was safe because um... it's bitcoin only so it's not going to be under the scrutiny of a government attack at least not in their first lines and so my bitcoin would be safer than an exchange site there were a lot of people who express that opinion and it's you know it made sense to me so okay so they're estimating the total of all the exchanges yeah who knows that duela fiasco is another one I mean there's been a lot of problems haven't there um... how they contact you what what again if you how did they contact you and what did they ask well my phone numbers right there i mean if you just look at the bottom of the page click contact and you've got my phone number two everybody has my phone number uh... our bank safer than bitcoin it depends it depends on the bank and it depends on where you put your bitcoin doesn't it uh... are you going to by name called okay let's see what else what else what else how will you pay back your friends and family yeah good question not with bitcoin have you talked about gawks about the theft the guys probably selling them there right now yeah well a lot of people have said that uh... you know they're watching for a big sell-off uh... but uh... i've also heard the theory that uh... if you think about it if this was the intention of my bitcoin dot com from the very beginning if you think about it if this was the intention from the very very beginning then of course they would remain completely anonymous from the very beginning and wouldn't it make sense that they would have been selling it this is theories that i've read in the forums wouldn't it make sense that they would have been selling it as soon as you deposit it that you know you you deposit the money and the bitcoin and their s the theory goes that they were selling it almost as fast as you deposited it so they could have sold it all over the last two years almost by the way you notice almost two years to the day it was up uh... to your anniversary and if they were selling it all along it will be more difficult to uh... to trace and you know they their sale of it would have happened in the past not now uh... let's see no this will not affect the conference if you want some good news the uh... you know ed and i had invested in bitcoin obviously and um... we were trying to maintain that investment by not selling it so our lifestyle was a lifestyle where we refused to sell it if we could at all avoid it we were not going to sell it and um... therefore we've been living with without selling it so it hasn't affected our lifestyle or our income at the same time also when asked about it will affect the conference and know that the conference was designed to not to make a profit but not to lose up just a break even so we have uh... you know tried to to make the admission you know two bitcoins which is like about twenty five bucks well now it's like eighteen bucks then uh... so affordable that you know it's less than a movie theater ticket in the city so we wanted to make it very very affordable so that not every no one will be turned away because they couldn't afford it hopefully and uh... vendor tables are only ten bitcoin which is what like ninety dollars today we're trying to make it extremely affordable and uh... yet not make a profit and yet not cost anything either not be a loss but uh... if it paid for itself that's that's our goal so no the loss of our bitcoin shouldn't affect that interesting question okay bruce you say bitcoin is a currency can you name one other currency that has had this kind of extreme volatility without the monetary system breaking down into a barter system well bitcoin is uh... is a currency it's a cryptocurrency obviously but it's not like any other currency in the history of mankind because uh... it's obviously completely different it's not issued by any central issuing agency not any government or company uh... it's not uh... centralized so no one can print more of it it's volatile right now because it's new and it's scary uh... for good cause uh... let's see wouldn't banks be safer than bitcoin oops scrolled off we gotta catch up here mm-mm-mm-mm banks would be safer than bitcoin it did you know like i said if you yeah if you store bitcoin in my bitcoin dot com then a bank would be more secure wouldn't it it you know would gold be more secure than a bank would a bank be more secure than gold depends on where you store your gold depends on what bank you bank with some banks have ended up in solvent as well bruce none of the bitcoins have been moved out of my bitcoins wallet do you think some wins might just be dead or he might just be very uh... shrewd because if the bitcoins are still in my bitcoins wallet then i doubt that he's dead i i just i really doubt that he's dead if someone died they would certainly find the records uh... of what he was maintaining and it would come out uh... if they haven't been moved out of his wallet it's probably because he knows that uh... they can be traced bitcoins are not anonymous as has been brought up many times if you you know if you had uh... you know millions and millions of dollars worth of bitcoin and you knew they could be traced what it where what are you gonna do you're gonna buy alpaca socks with them i don't think so uh... he's probably pretty shrewd and if that's the case let's see does it bother you that everyone of them no uh... does it bother me that uh... everyone involved in between is a scam no because it's not true uh... only a few people are and uh... you know it only it's just like anything else does it bother you that uh... everyone who uses cash as a drug dealer that's an absurd question so let's see what else do we have even insolvent bank deposits are insured by the fdic why do you deny that it's a huge difference between fdic insured bank and bitcoin i don't i don't deny that it's a complete it's a very different uh... that's a huge difference because uh... the fdic insures bank deposits and they can do that because they can print all the money in the world so yeah that is more definitely safer like i said bitcoin is completely decentralized is your responsibility as a bitcoin user to know how to protect it many many people have failed at that including me and uh... so it's completely completely different but you know if i could just print more bitcoins anytime i wanted then i could cope in a bank and fdic insured as well i could i could bruce wagner insured because event against any losses i guess print more bitcoins and give them to you but that's a difference you can't really compare it bruce what site are you going to use now i'm not going to use a site i'm not going to store my uh... my bitcoin on a site we're going to talk about that in upcoming episodes stay tuned because we're going to be talking a lot about security you're going to get sick of hearing about security but there are lots and lots of things that you can do to secure your bitcoin in three different types of amounts one is what you would carry around amounts that you would keep typically carry around town in your pocket and second being amounts that you would typically keep in your checking account for your you know day-to-day expenses and like monthly bills and things like that online shopping and such and then the third is what you would keep in a savings counter ira or investments that basically what you would consider your wealth three different categories and three different categories of security we're going to talk about that great length in coming episodes trust me uh... let's see bruce what do you think about this rumor of my bitcoin was an attempt to discredit lia laissez-faire capitalism by george soros no idea let's see what was your my bitcoin receiving address we can monitor the thief yeah uh... actually i think is it still on the on the donation page if you uh... click on our contact us uh... on only one tv dot com click on that contact us tab it's probably still on that tab but don't send any bitcoin to it obviously but uh... will record it before we remove it from that page that needs to be done today here that many uh... how will this affect only one tv it's not really gonna affect only one tv because like i was saying only one tv is uh... like the conference is designed to be self-sustaining we receive income from our sponsors and we are very grateful for that so uh... our sponsor support only one tv uh... and i is personal bitcoin investment did not uh... subsidize anything really uh... i guess a little bit of the very very beginning and uh... but since then we had uh... been on a no-selling uh... policy so uh... it wasn't sustaining us so thank god for that we uh... only one tv is self-sustaining so speaking of the sponsors keep giving me some good questions and uh... many get on the on the moderator track here chat room happy and friendly and uh... let's just take a real quick moment to uh... thank our sponsors who who bring us to you every day we're here every weekday two p.m. eastern time that's new york time and uh... and we thank bit-pay dot com we call it bit-pay but i say bit-pay dot com because i make sure you go to the right place bit-pay is really cool there uh... our newest sponsor they are revolutionizing online bitcoin merchant shopping carts it's so cool it's kind of like the uh... another paypal button on the google checkout button for bitcoin and what's brilliant about it is you don't have to know anything about bitcoin uh... you can be any merchant who i just says i have a website and i want to accept bitcoin whether you are sophisticated you know web designer where you have already have a sophisticated uh... shopping cart solution in place if you do it integrates into your uh... actual uh... existing shopping cart if you don't then it will uh... it has its own built-in uh... you know kind of stripped down but very basic shopping cart you can see it if you visit the uh... conference site about the uh... world's first bitcoin conference and world expo coming up in two weeks go to bitcoinconference dot com all our case bitcoinconference dot com and check that out and you'll see an example where you click register now that is uh... bit dash pays button so that you can actually buy an admission and uh... and or a vendor table and so on using it you'll see how brilliant it is what's really cool is that they uh... they've made it so that a vendor who doesn't know our merchant who does not know uh... anything about bitcoin necessarily uh... totally non-technical can actually enter their bank account number and all that and they can use ch regular u s dollars right into your bank account so you customer pays in bitcoin and you can use either except bitcoin or u s dollars without any uh... issues at all it's just uh... absolutely brilliant in its simplicity and john johnson saying bruce do you genuinely believe in bit pay dot com or are they something to scroll off i genuinely believe in them uh... you'll try it out and you'll see i mean i don't accept sponsors that i don't believe in i really really don't and uh... we are using them for the conference specifically for that purpose because it's uh... you know they've been on the show we know who they are and they don't hold your bitcoin in fact uh... i didn't get my bitcoin address fast enough and they were really nagging me because they don't want to hold on your bitcoin for more than twenty four hours they want to just receive it and send it right on to you they're very very uh... upstanding and uh... reliable and super easy to use and everyone who has seen it has been really impressed so we're really happy to have them as a sponsor and not gox dot com everybody knows m t g o x dot com i mean it's almost goes without saying not gox has a vast majority of the market share of online bitcoin purchases you can buy bitcoin sell bitcoin you want to know the price of the bitcoin where do you go not gox not gox has been around the longest and uh... they have been hacked like big banks have too but they are resilient they're here to stay they are still the number one exchange site and uh... we've met them they show us their face uh... mark's been on the show several times now and uh... we really appreciate them being here and sponsoring only one TV in the bitcoin show trade hill dot com the second largest exchange site trade hill dot com the uh... they're new uh... the revolutionary they offer multiple ways to get the money in and out they have u s dollar exchange and a native euro exchange now so that you don't have to convert your euros into dollars and then convert them back into euros on the other end uh... so trade hill dot com is uh... making you know making new strides in what you can do with an online exchange so again we thank them for their support as well and u s gold coins dot com one eight hundred hot coin that's our buddy andy gauss he's uh... monetary expert guru extraordinaire he is uh... if you want to diversify your investments and invest in rare gold and silver u.s coins otherwise known as numismatic gold and silver coins he's the guy to talk to he's an expert actually if you have any type of question about money he's the guy very accessible if you're in the u.s. just call one eight hundred hot coin ask for andy andy gauss he's the man he's uh... we've been fans of his radio show for years and we you know he's been a we've been a customer of his and he's been over to our place for dinner and he's now bringing one of his radio shows on wednesdays here to only one tv very excited about that and he's one of the original sponsors of only one tv and we're very very appreciative of andy gauss and uh... i have referred friends to him that have i got a friend who was uh... in foreclosure and he wanted to know something about uh... advice that he had uh... i had heard andy say on his radio show and i said just call just call andy and he called my friend called him he didn't even tell him that he knew me or anything just called one eight hundred hot coin and asked for andy and andy he said he spent like thirty minutes talking to him and giving him the best advice and helped him save his home that's not his business though his business is selling rare gold and silver coins as an investment but i i totally stand behind him he is uh... absolutely the most honest uh... genuine guy i've met mesi grill the famous one and only mesi grill me zee grill dot com you can check out their menu and the the beautiful pictures of the location it's uh... like an upscale chipotle uh... but it's not mexican so don't get any burrito ideas this is authentic mediterranean food it's absolutely delicious super super healthy and it was one of a and i's favorite places and that's why we ended up you know falling in love with the food and we ended up meeting the owner and hanging out and becoming great great friends so we told him about bitcoin and of course the rest is history he then became the world's first brick-and-mortar restaurant i guess what other kind of restaurant is there anyway the world's first restaurant to accept bitcoin and now recently the world's first rest uh... retail establishment as far as we know to uh... buy and sell bitcoin for cash so they are uh... and even after this my bitcoin fiasco which yes they did use my bitcoin uh... and yes they did lose their bitcoin even after that they are a bitcoin evangelists uh... and they are in it for the long haul so we thank them so we're back and uh... tell me tell me guys uh... what are the questions you have or whatever uh... what are their comments or topics what else do you want to talk about who is matthew m right do you know him no i don't he seems to be a new face in the forums promoting something like a better business for a bureau for bitcoin but it's very strange because it doesn't it seems to be like brand new and nobody's really behind it except this person matthew and right so i have no idea what that's about you know i would be very very very very very very skeptical and more now than ever before of anybody that is a new new on the scene and spamming basically spamming you know uh... all there's this new way you visit this website and you can uh... mine bitcoins you know and uh... or this new organization when you go to a website and you look always look for the contact us to have and look for the address in the phone number and google a phone number google the address find out is this like a rent a desk place a p o box is it a real phone number it's very very easy to use google and find out that a little bit about something but most importantly you know do do business with people that you've seen here as guests on our show whether they're not afraid to show their face you know we really only do business especially now more than ever were recommitted to only doing business with people that actually show their face uh... there's really no need to um... deal with dark shadows uh... it's just not necessary there are enough people in bitcoin now that you can do business with people that you are you know in your own country at least and have uh... you know have a face at the very least that you know their face you know where they live you know that they're around and again when it comes to your bitcoin make sure that you store it yourself and we're gonna like i said we're gonna be discussing this at length and many many upcoming episodes so make sure that you subscribe and uh... stay tuned as we go into all the details about how to how to uh... uh... you know protect your bitcoin ellie says bruce how do you plan uh... wait what did she say how do you plan to get your revenge well i'm not into revenge uh... i don't believe in that i don't think that way uh... you know i really it's actually you know you might think it's a funny question but actually it's a very important question because i'm not the type of person who believes in revenge i believe people who do things like this are miserable people they will end up uh... basically their own life will be their punishment i mean i don't believe that people need punishment they uh... make mistakes and they learn because their life will be miserable so in a sense you can think of it as their life itself will be their own punishment you know if you're a thief and you steal millions of dollars guess what's gonna happen to you you're gonna you hang out with other thieves and as soon as you blink they're gonna steal it from you and you're gonna end up with much much much worse than having your money stolen you're gonna have a very miserable and probably short life so i don't i don't think that way anyway i don't think about you know revenge or getting even or anything like that i just say you know easy come easy go life is short uh... money is just money it can come it can go nobody died as far as i know uh... we have our health and all that stuff and we're very very very smart talented people we will make that money back in no time but um... these guys won't they'll get it stolen and they will probably have a very very miserable life and uh... and i don't take any joy in that it's just a fact i think that's kind of how it works i mean some people call it karma i don't think of it as karma so much as just uh... lessons learned and everybody's at where they're at on their journey and everybody has their their own lessons so when somebody you know says something horrible to me it really i know that has nothing to do with me it has to do with them if they're just broadcasting where they're at on their journey when somebody commits a horrible egregious crime or something against me or theft or something like that it really does nothing to do with me it really tells the universe where they're at on their journey and uh... like i said i'll make the money back in no time they will probably not uh... unless they somehow make amends with with themselves and their spirit in the universe and all that uh... no it doesn't want to get revenge either he we we're like minded in this let's see what else do we genuinely believe it okay let's see we need some chatroom moderators don't we don't ask the same question a thousand times let's see what else you don't support keeping your money on exchanges what do you think about boxes withdraw limits then well uh... not gox has the apparently not gox has the reasons for the withdrawal limits you know i'm sure that it has something to do with you know governmental regulations they have many customers in the united states and if it's less than a thousand dollars a day uh... i'm assuming that there are some kind of regulations that uh... apply if it's more than a thousand dollars a day and things like that in their way i think that they're doing it probably more as a uh... compliance issue to make to prevent themselves from becoming a target to be shut down also it's uh... it has protected them in a way i mean you can't deny nobody likes that if you have whatever if you had a hundred thousand dollars amount gox and it took you a hundred uh... whatever ten months to withdraw it because it's ten thousand dollars a month limit last time i heard without idea of course you can present your know your customer idea and all that but if you want to stay anonymous and it took you ten months to withdraw it it would be very annoying i'm sure but on the other hand apparently has prevented a lot of their losses because when they got hacked if they hadn't had that limit they would have lost everything so in a way it's a security measure they didn't you know they didn't lose it all because of that let's see what else i saw another good question uh... do you think privatized regulatory agency would work for bitcoin a privatized regulatory agency i don't know what that is what what is a privatized regulatory agency like a private you mean like a uh... uh... consumer like a seal of approval or something that better business uh... something like that now uh... i don't know i really don't think so because of its privatized and it's just a private organization you have to voluntarily become a member like the what is it the consumer electronic seal of approval or something that it's a it's okay but i think that most people just really don't pay enough attention to things like that it's more about deciding who you can trust and how much you can trust them with and what city's going to use bitcoin to pay my bills well it depends on what your bills are you know uh... you can buy a lot of things with bitcoin nowadays more more every day uh... how do i make my job how do i make my money and you have a regular job this is my regular job i mean you might not believe it but i actually am a talk show host and we have sponsors and they sponsor us so that's uh... that's what pays the bills uh... you get your dollars and breaking down uh... an agency in charge of investigating let's see okay am i per how are you what how are you personally are you okay yes i'm personally okay like i said it was devastating i can't deny it was devastating the uh... not one of my better days this is the best weekend i slept like three hours the whole weekend mostly thinking about my friends and uh... so uh... but i'm okay i'm all right my friends are wonderful wonderful people very loving and very understanding thank god they don't blame me and uh... life goes on do you think stores will start accepting bitcoin soon and if so how will they decide how much their own items uh... worth their items have in bitcoin well you know these are the the yes it's gonna happen real soon it's already happening we've got mesi grill in manhattan we have hudson eatery in manhattan we have a crapes restaurant in brooklyn we have uh... a couple metro pc s dealers here in manhattan you'll see if you come go to bitcoin conference dot com and in two weeks you come here and you'll see many businesses that are accepting the current already and if they use these things like uh... bit pay and so on they will actually be able to price their items in u.s dollars on the back end and it'll display the prices up to the minute in the current bitcoin price so the merchant doesn't have to worry about that so let's see any more questions i think and heard about hudson eatery it's hudson eatery you spelled it right issue ds on eatery e-a-t-e-r-y hudson eatery dot com they're not a sponsor yet but we're gonna get them but yeah hudson eatery is the second uh... restaurant in manhattan to accept bitcoin of course i told them about it uh... i guess i haven't talked about it too much on the show maybe miss that episode but hudson eatery now accepts bitcoin too and uh... you come to the conference will be having lunch at missy grill will be having dinner and cocktails and icebreaker things uh... parties at hudson eatery you'll see all these places so make sure you go to bitcoin conference dot com uh... by your ticket right away and uh... by a vendor table and so on and we're gonna have the most amazing melding of the the most brilliant players and movers and shakers in the bitcoin world are all converging on new york city they're coming there literally flying here from china africa australia central south america new zealand everywhere and uh... we're really really looking forward to that it's gonna be a blast we're out of time but uh... thank you all i do feel your love i really really appreciate your letters and uh... your comments and i really appreciate that you uh... that you care and uh... we love you thanks we'll see you tomorrow two p m eastern every day money through friday the bitcoin show