 Today's episode of The Bitcoin Show is brought to you by Mt. Gox and Thank You Economy Book and MemoryDealers.com Hey everybody, welcome back to The Bitcoin Show. I'm Bruce Wagner as you know and today we have really big news. You may have walked past a news stand and seen the December issue of Wired Magazine. Well right here it's all about Bitcoin. So it's an article called The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin by a man named Benjamin Wallace and those of you in the New York Bitcoin community probably know him. But he's our guest today. Welcome, Ben. Thanks, Bruce. Good to be here. Good. Thanks. Wow. You were basically an embedded journalist into the Bitcoin community here in New York, right? I mean you were hanging out at all the meetups and the convention and the conference. Everything. Yep. Do you always get so immersed in your story? I mean I have the luxury to time-wise and also when the subject is so interesting that I want to spend as much time in it as I can and Bitcoin was one of the most interesting stories I've worked on in a while. And how long did you work on writing this story? I mean the actual writing of it may be a week but the reporting and research was several months. Yeah. I'm trying to probably three months. That's what I thought about three months. Just research and note-taking and all that. And just talking to a lot of people, coming to your meetups, coming to the convention, buying some Bitcoins and playing around with them to sort of see what it was like to buy them, to see what it was like to use them and store them and just expose myself to Bitcoin in as many different ways as I could. Cool. So I mean obviously I look at you as a friend because you're just like another one of the Bitcoin guys here in New York. I mean everybody knows you here but obviously people around the world may not have seen you yet, only your name. But I was going to say, had you heard of Bitcoin before, like were you assigned this story or did you pitch this story? I was assigned this story. I never heard of Bitcoin. Really? I write about all different sorts of things, not tech specifically, I mean I've written for Wired before but not a lot. And my editor said, hey have you heard of Bitcoin and I said no and he started telling me about it and it sounded so interesting that I was excited to work on it but it was the first I'd heard of it. Oh wow. Okay, okay. And how long ago, I mean how long before you started the story, was that like right away? I mean I started right away and then I kind of got right away and started researching it. Yeah, maybe a couple weeks but yeah. Oh that's so cool, that's so cool. Alright now, since you finished writing this story and it's obviously it's on the newsstands now, have you stayed involved in what's going on with Bitcoin or just I mean I have a Bitcoin Google alert so I pretty much get the daily digest of what's going on. Yeah. You know, the Bitcoin Google group digest, so yeah I mean I'm generally up on it but I haven't been as immersed in it as I was. Yeah, of course. Okay, so I keep watching to see if my Bitcoins are gonna regain the value they had when I bought them. Exactly. So I want to talk about that too but well speaking of that, that's what I wanted to talk about is the title, the rise and fall of Bitcoin, there's so much power in a title and I don't know what I'm making this number up but I'm guessing at least half the people who see an article somewhere just read the title and don't have time to read the article. Questa, did you come up with the title or was that assigned by? Yeah, I did not come up with the title but I also, I think it's a fair title, I mean I think that a big point of a headline is to get people to read the story so you're definitely gonna err on the side of making it interesting, making it dramatic, having said that I mean if you look at Bitcoin just in terms of its valuation, it clearly has had a dramatic rise and fall. I understand that there are people in the community who might object to saying that it has fallen because it's still here and they view the rise as a bubble in the first place but on the other hand I don't think that fall means death, it's not the rise and death of Bitcoin and it could be the next chapter could be another rise but I do think that in certain pretty important senses there has been a fall. Right, oh yeah definitely. So the only reason I ask is well because of that you basically said it is that it can be read and I guess that's the cleverness of a title that it makes it newsy that it's like oh it's dramatic and whatever and does that mean it's dead or does that mean the price rose and fell and how do you, you could take it more than one way. Sure. Obviously the price has risen and fallen so on that level there's that issue which I'll talk about in a minute and then the other is like the death of Bitcoin but obviously it's not dead. Obviously it's not dead. Right. I mean certainly I think there are some other ways in which you could say there's been a rise and fall certainly in terms of media you know exposure and interest. I think there was a rise and fall I mean there was a real intense sort of media moment for Bitcoin that has kind of receded and probably the breadth and diversity of people interested in Bitcoin is not what it was at that height. I mean I think there were people who came in as speculators who maybe have now retreated from the market and now it's really in some ways it's maybe a healthier more solid just group of people who are you know really interested in building Bitcoin and aren't interested in the speculating gambling and sort of the daily moves of it. Yeah. So yeah and that's another question is that do you think that the media frenzy was a result of the price going up from the speculation or do you think the speculation was a result of the media frenzy or is it a chicken and egg? I think it's a spiral. I mean I think you know certain you can definitely track certain spikes in the price to media events like there was a Forbes story online that caused the price to I think triple or more actually much more than triple and it went up like 10 or 20 fold then Gawker had that story about Silk Road that caused it to triple again to 30 but every time that that happened it just caused more and more you know press attention and then the spiral works in reverse on the way down right you know when it starts falling then there's a story a negative story and then that causes and you know more negative that's true I think you're absolutely right in fact I've been you know I usually don't obsess about the price or anything and people ask me what's the price of Bitcoin today and I'm like I don't know I only check when you ask me you know what is the point today it's interesting because I just pulled it up on my little widget and I have noticed that since the wired story every time I've checked it hasn't it's been higher than the previous time okay it's not going up like like 30 times its value but I think it was 220 something and then 230 something then 240 something and then 248 this morning now it's 253 so I like that actually I like that slower steadier growth and speaking of the value of Bitcoin you know actually I was I was rereading the article this morning on the way in and the quote where I said that you know this is definitely not a stock it's it seems like it's just going to go up up up obviously speculation makes it go up and down you know like a roller coaster but I still kind of stand by the basic premise but here's the thing when the price of Bitcoin value of Bitcoin goes up and down and up and down and up and down obviously all that noise up and down is speculation obviously I mean what else could it be but if you take the bottoms like every time it drops and then you connect the dots of the bottoms and you may just make that curve of the bottom value that's the more realistic value and going from 6 cents to what it is now $2.53 in one year something like 4900% so that's the thing I remind people that true it's gone to $30 but that's all speculation noise don't buy it when it's high hello right buy it when it's low connect the dots when it's low don't buy it as a one month investment or three month investment and think of it as a lifetime investment and if you're going to invest in it is this is what though how I view it and also the you know the fact that gold went up 25% last year silver went up 50% and Bitcoin went up 4900% or whatever depending on how you calculate it it's still an amazing investment it's just people who bought it when it was $20 or something are going to be not they're not going to look at that way when it's $2 but it's it's an interesting thing it's an interesting thing do you think that there's going to be continuing speculation or do you think it's it's really stabilized and it's going to be a real steady growth curve from this point I mean I feel given how volatile it's been so far I can't imagine that people who are doing it purely for speculation are going to rush in now because they've seen what can happen with it I mean were it to undergo another dramatic spurt and you know go back up to 30 in a short time I'm sure a new set of people would be attracted to thinking hey this is you know a get rich quick scheme but I would think that now the people who buy it are going to buy it because they want to use it they want to take part in this community they want to you know take part in this currency but I would I would think that a lot fewer people would be inclined to do what Rick Falving of the Swedish pirate party did which was at least what he said he was going to do is put his entire life savings into Bitcoin I think you know a more prudent approach might be to put some of your money into Bitcoin and still leave some of yours in the traditional banking system yeah I wonder if we know what the value what the price of Bitcoin was when he wrote that article what do you if he did it was definitely he's definitely lost money if he put his money I mean I don't remember was it I think it might have been I don't know if it was at 30 it might have already come down a bit but it was maybe it was in the 20s yeah it's probably before that yeah interesting well anyway I hope he left it in there and it keeps growing because I mean my opinion is that it will it'll go back up again but it's just crazy to triple you know in a week and it actually there was a long period of time where it was averaging out doubling you know doubling every week if you take a look at that it's crazy it's crazy and saying growth but that's always a red flag you know like when anything when Yahoo stock did that or Google stock did that it's like really you know dangerous time but it's like day trading it's like anything you know speculative but it's very very prudent to just look at the lows in my opinion so what about okay then the other issue is security obviously with it being cash like it's a whole new thing of electronic cash is different than any other kind of cash we've ever had where there's a central just you know central you know distribution point that can reverse transactions and prosecute people for doing things that are wrong it's not easy to do with Bitcoin that's the whole point of it is that it's decentralized and it really literally is like gold you can steal it and run off and it's gone so between the bank heists of my Bitcoin and the and Bitcoin 7 you know about that yeah it's a I heard that it disappeared and took everybody's money another online wallet it's actually well it's an it was an exchange sites you know there were red flags when the first site when the site came up and another exchange site accused them of copying and pasting all the text it was just like really sketchy oh and then the worst thing actually was before that when they were contact they contacted me they emailed a lot of the key people in the forum and key people in the Bitcoin community and offered to pay us to say good things about it and I was like oh my gosh that I posted the email that they that they sent to me and I'm like this sounds sketchy and sure enough apparently I heard that they shut down and kept everybody's money so that's going to happen and now e-wallets are springing up like weeds all over the place so it's sure to happen a lot more I moved my money off of I mean I only bought it you know not a lot of not a lot of bitcoins but enough to play with and I I used to keep them in exchange and I moved them into a you know personal desktop solution yeah just because you know there's just too many of these exchanges about problems you got to make sure that it's not like windows or I mean even Mac is gonna they're gonna viruses are gonna show up viruses are already in the wild in windows that will grab and steal your right now the new version of the which leads to the next thing the security as far as application development it hasn't been as fast as I anticipated because I thought you know within a month or two or three it's gonna be here but it is it's they're coming and so the next couple episodes we're going to be demonstrating some of these new apps that actually are super super sophisticated they'll the standard Bitcoin client now encrypts your wallet there been some bugs that they're working out with that but you know it's anyway it's a development that's the standard client but now there are some other open source clients which actually do more they encrypt your wallet from the beginning and then they back up an encrypted copy to a server using us the standard server which is all open source software so you can pick the server you trust but it doesn't matter because the whole thing is encrypted anyway so it's all free open source software and it's encrypted anyway before it's backed up so literally if you have your app on your phone or your laptop you could drop your laptop or your phone in the lake and wouldn't matter you could I mean in the sense that you could retrieve that as long as you remember that you know your secret password you print out and have it home so it's really smart smart software that's come coming so I believe it's just like in a couple days it'll be available so between you know the media attention of Wired magazine your story and these new apps finally coming to to market I think that Bitcoin's time is actually still yet to come I think it's going to be interesting so what what was the most intriguing part of the the research that you did I mean I think the most interesting thing to me was just the amount of creativity because this entirely new economy was being created and so there's just all these people doing such neat things like you know whether it's an entirely new you know TV show about this thing or you know Mark Soops in in Brooklyn is you know creating in Bitcoin ATM or you know people talking about Bitcoin's as collectibles and you know trading that you know with the Genesis block fact you know numismatic value of Bitcoin's you know even stuff like Silk Road and the black you know the tour sites I mean that's pretty fascinating to see these sort of black markets arise that use Bitcoin so all of those all of these things it's almost just watching like a new world come into being you know it reminds me of I lived in the Czech Republic after the fall of communism and it was like you know they were just transitioning to this entirely new way of being and all the institutions and businesses and sort of ways of living and working that we take for granted were had to be kind of created from scratch and there's a lot of dynamism and you know brain power and creativity that makes it really interesting and form follows functions whenever there's a need of people coming up with creative ideas it's true and you I love that's why I love traveling because you have different cultures and different economies and you you get ideas of wow look how they sell things like in this place this is a convenient way to do it we should do that in the brainstorming it's really cool we did there's a last episode we did on this site called bets of Bitcoin which is another innovative thing it's where you can and there's more than one but this particular one you could put any statement you want and then bet on it and it's obviously gambling but then again it's Bitcoin so as the founder was pointing out you know it may not be technically illegal because it's just legally speaking it's funny money it's just digits we're betting for it's like play money like monopoly money so we'll see how that pans out but it's interesting though another thing you can do with it you can just bet you could put any statement you want on who's going to get elected or what sports team is going to win or if it's going to rain on Friday anything you want it's going to be worth in ten years yeah right exactly exactly the tenth your article reminded me of the ten thousand Bitcoin spent on two pizzas oh my yeah the hundred and you know what was it the two hundred and something thousand dollar pizza pepper pizza you know yeah yeah two hundred eighty thousand two hundred eighty seven or something I know crazy crazy and then of course now it's gotten way down so it's only you know whatever thirty thousand dollar pizza yeah that's crazy it's still a thirty thousand dollar pizza I know even even so it's much more realistic the current price so what else do you have okay so after all of your extensive research and interviews and all that who do you really think Satoshi is believe me I mean you know I know a lot of people think it's sort of silly to be so interested in who Satoshi is and some people think it's unimportant and some people think you know leave the guy alone and I say you know it's human and human nature to be to be intrigued by a mystery Satoshi made himself mysterious you know I say you know it's fair game and I would love to know who Satoshi is I tried you know my darkness to figure it out I talked to as many you know sort of smart people as I could who might know something about it talked to all the people who had been named as suspects and they all denied it and in general someone flat out denies it I assume they're telling the truth I mean I all I can say is what I ended up with which was more of a profile of who Satoshi might be than a name or a job or a company and again based on what these other more informed people said including some of the developers of Bitcoin this profile suggests it's in someone with academic training but not necessarily a PhD maybe just a masters someone probably who's British in origin or at least speaks British English possibly someone around the age of 50 based on their style of programming notation beyond that I really have no idea I mean I'm pretty confident it's not a Japanese person in spite of his name I don't know do you know no I don't know quick to deny that I know but yeah I mean I think you're right I mean I think the your profile is sounds accurate from what I've learned and heard whatever but then again we've heard the same things the did you read the New Yorker article where I did really wanted to do you do you overall do you agree with his assessment of who he thinks it is well he named specific person and that specific person has denied emphatically that it's him and again I you know I'll take him at his word and so I assume that's not the person and so you know I don't think that there have been a few other attempts to figure out who it is I don't think anyone has really managed to put their finger on the right person and if you did if you accidentally found out who it was would you would you publish that would you would you have would you tell people unless there was some compelling reason not to I think I would I mean Satoshi Nakamoto has you know is has done something in public created a very public phenomenon kind of an important significant phenomenon I'm not sure that I would necessarily think that Satoshi Nakamoto's right to privacy would Trump public interest in who Satoshi Nakamoto is but you know I would take it on a you know I would look at the specifics and maybe something I thought about that would make make it compelling to not disclose his identity what if you found out that you knew who he was and he asked you not to disclose it it would depend what why he asked me I mean it would really depend on the specifics of the case I mean I wouldn't want to be a total hardliner you know if he convinced me there was a good reason to keep his identity but you know I don't know I'm a journalist my job is to reveal secrets not concealed them you know which doesn't mean I never exercise discretion okay here that Satoshi so be careful watch it watch it Satoshi watch yourself around journalists watch your back exactly so I want to remind the audience we're broadcasting live now and so if you have a question for Benjamin or me you can text message it right now to 646 580-0099 if you're watching live or you can do it anytime 24-7 and we'll try to address your questions on the next episode but if you do it right now live we might be able to answer it right here on the show so it's send a text message SMS to 646-580-0099 that's a USA number plus one and or send an email to feedback at only one TV dot com that's feedback at only one TV dot com all spelled out now take a this is a good time to take a quick break and thank our sponsors obviously who bring us to you and so first we'd like to thank Mt. Gox Mt. Gox obviously everybody knows who Mt. Gox is they are the de facto place to buy and sell bitcoins online you can buy bitcoins and sell bitcoins back and forth of more than 16 currencies anywhere on the planet 24 hours a day seven days a week is an autumn it is the automated online exchange site to buy and sell bitcoin they have super security they have been around the longest they have been hacked famously but they are very resilient they came back nobody lost any bitcoins in any of the hacks either by the way except Mt. Gox lost a few but the no but no account holders actually lost any money which is very good they and they they didn't run away and you know disappear they're still here so there's that and also they have the state of the art in two-factor authentication they have a little key ring dongle called the USB key it's I mean sorry it's a USB key called the UB key why UBI KEY and on mountgox.com you can just click send me a UB key and what that does is it gives you a you plug this little USB thing in and it gives you a secret password that is only good for two seconds I think or two minutes I forget anyway the point is that even a keyboard capture virus can capture it all at once and they won't be able to get into your account so it gives you the state of the art in security so again Mt. Gox is or otherwise known as Mt. Gox however you want to pronounce it it's mtgox.com we thank Mt. Gox for sponsoring the Bitcoin show and thank you economy by New York Times best-selling author Gary Vaynerchuk Gary Vaynerchuk you may know as Gary V on Twitter he's very famous in social media and Twitter and all that he is an entrepreneur he took over his family's liquor business turned it into a huge wine store online as well as brick and mortar and he's now written his second book which is all about how to turn your business your brand into to leverage the state of the art in again social media so Twitter Facebook and this this age of the internet to use that to bring your business the customer service of yesteryear like your grandparents experience from the corner store so it doesn't matter if your business is small medium or very very large it's totally scalable and this is kind of the Bible and how to do that it's an excellent book Gary is young but brilliant brilliant guy I've been a huge fan of his way before he became a sponsor so check it out thank you economy book com it's thank you economy book com and read all about it and love you Gary Vaynerchuk big fan and memory dealers calm you know Roger there the founder of memory dealers calm I gave him the nickname Bitcoin Jesus he is such a Bitcoin evangelist and memory dealers calm is one of the largest retailers in the world that accepts Bitcoin and promotes Bitcoin to they are famous for being one of the largest inventories of fiber optic networking devices switches routers anything any kind of device that could have anything to do with networking infrastructure as well as of course all types of memory and even Bitcoin mining gear all site all sorts of stuff but check it out Bitcoin I'm sorry memory dealers calm I see the big Bitcoin logo there and I want to say Bitcoin but it's memory dealers calm and they even sell physical forms of Bitcoin which you can buy with credit cards and paypal which is another interesting twist so anyway check out memory dealers calm we think Roger there the founder and CEO of memory dealers for for his sponsorship of the Bitcoin show and we're back so let's see let's check and see if we have any any questions so what would you like to tell the audience what would you like to say that you haven't already said in your article you said it all in your article I said it all because you know I think I was mentioning to you earlier I mean obviously I'm thrilled to have any members of the Bitcoin community read this article but it really was for everyone not the rest of the community it was about the Bitcoin community and so I think you know if you're in the Bitcoin community you might find this to be a good sort of summary of everything you've already experienced but for people who aren't in the community it might introduce them to Bitcoin and sort of tell them the short history of it and all it's very eventful short history like a massive Wikipedia the light the life of Bitcoin to date something like that so what is the future hold if you're if you're going to write another article two years from now the continuation of Bitcoin what will it say what do you predict you know if I knew I would know whether to sell my bitcoins or buy more more I think it's hot you know it's very unpredictable I mean my hunch for Bitcoin is that it's going to do what I think it is already done somewhat which is basically find its niche like I don't see Bitcoin personally as overturning the Western financial system I see it as you know occupying a valuable small niche but you know a very valuable small niche among people who believe in it and who can use it for certain types of transactions that it really is better than the traditional currency at I mean in general I don't I don't think it's a solution I think someone said you know it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist and I think to some degree that's true like you you can fault the banking system you can fault central banking you can talk about you know all the issues of money supply and and big government and all of that but basically it works it works you know with its problems it works and there's as one digital currency kind of pioneer said to me there's an entire trust fabric based on legal mechanisms and that's very important and Bitcoin doesn't necessarily have that but you know I actually think even though I think sometimes you know Bitcoin people don't like to have so much attention paid to the black market uses of it I think that's actually a great use for Bitcoin I mean it's a perfect use for Bitcoin and it and it's kind of a it's a big economy it's a it's it's a big I mean of course you know when you talk in drugs come on drugs and gambling and whatever look at the mob right it's a huge economy again tonight and I'm not in any way suggesting that I you know hope that someone will you know buy a assassination contract using Bitcoins but for some of you know for for some sort of more harmless you know gray activity I don't I think Bitcoin's a good a good that's a good privacy that's a great use for for Bitcoin I think a great use for Bitcoin is transactions across borders into countries where there's repression like China so I just think Bitcoin is going to find all these niche uses that it does better than anything else that's out there yeah I mean it that's already true like for sure it's the cheapest way to send money to China for example things like that it's the cheapest way to send money anywhere really but the there are lots of advantages that everybody is quick to point out a lot of them may be political or philosophical like you say freedom liberty minded all that and also there's the gray black market and all that which I mean that's just common sense I mean I'm not a I don't really do anything that's even gray market but but it's common sense that when Gawker published the thing the article about Silk Road the price tripled right or something like that yeah so I mean everybody has a little sense knows that there's an economy there and then there is a use but but what's you know they talk about apps on a platform and then there's the killer app I think that the benefit there's all these benefits of Bitcoin but there's the killer benefit and to me I think the killer benefit is one that most Bitcoiners under play under value under under talk about and that is 45 billion dollars a year is spent each year in the US alone on you know no credit card fees merchants pay credit card fees every time they accept Mastercard Visa and forget PayPal it's crazy so a total is I read this on Duwala so we'll use them as a resource but they say 45 billion dollars a year correct me if I'm wrong is just in the US just on credit card fees alone now that's one thing and then you're on top of that you've got chargebacks six months later and all that and like you said people PayPal is really easy you click click go you buy whatever I mean it does work most of the time if you overlook the exorbitant fees and you like grumble about them but you do it anyway and you know the closure account and season keep all your money twice that's happened to me and you're really really pissed but it really does work you're right and it exists and there is that infrastructure and people accept it and all that and if someone you know misuses your credit card information the credit card company generally makes you whole so there's some protection there right that you don't have with Bitcoin you know if you I mean I just don't see like a non technical user anytime soon getting into Bitcoin right because it's just too hard there's too much friction even if it becomes easier in one step that's still like a step beyond what people currently have to take right so the okay so what the here's what I think that the killer app of you will is the transaction fees being virtually zero and the it being cash like financial privacy not traceable you know publicly like everything else is not identity related like when you order something online you have to prove that you are Ben Wallace or else they won't sell you something but with this the only thing they know is did you pay or did you not pay and where do you want it sent you know or whatever it is that's the only thing they care about so there's no such thing as identity theft I mean all that's over it really seems like the future but this idea hit me the other day I'm sure I'm not the first one with it but that oh the other but the problem the downside of all that is the currency risk they call it the value the value of Bitcoin fluctuating so here's the idea that I thought of like I said I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of it but what if Bitcoin is not the thing that you use to buy lunch you get paid you get your paycheck in dollars and the restaurant needs dollars to buy their produce that week right but it's the intermediary I think of it as the Star Trek teleportation thing you get on the platform and you get you know disintegrated into atomic energy or whatever and then you get rebuilt again and so imagine if your dollars get with one click get converted into Bitcoin it doesn't matter what the value is because your dollars your 1285 dollars get converted into Bitcoin boom sent and then they get immediately converted back into dollars again and what happened then is that first of all the transaction fee is virtually zero and the currency value doesn't even matter it could be two cents of Bitcoin or $200 of Bitcoin doesn't even matter because it's converted converted and so it's very stable that you still have the financial privacy because we don't know where you sent it you just converted to bitcoins and sent it you know so you have the zero transaction virtually zero transaction the irreversible nature of it the no chargebacks no credit card fees and privacy you have all the benefits but you have and you have no currency risk so I think that's going to be the solution I think that there these new apps are going to make it one button send $12.50 boom received $12.50 so I mean there's still banking involved because it's going to have to go well not exchange or someone some intermediary but something like in the somehow you have to get the dollars in but but if it's if it's Mt. Gox for example you can have US dollars in your Mt. Gox account and it's still dollars and it doesn't actually once it's in Mt. Gox it doesn't involve any banking right I will say one of the sort of philosophically interesting things to me about Bitcoin and it was really interesting about working on it was just there seems to be some you know latent widespread desire to eliminate the need for trust in the world like people have like trust issues or something and they want you know they don't trust the government they don't trust the bank and Bitcoin is somehow an answer to this and if you use Bitcoin you don't need to trust those people but you know as I think this is one of the focuses of my article is that there's always someone you need to trust whether it's the exchange whether it's the merchant you can't remove the need for trust from the system and so I don't know I do think Bitcoin is some sort of attempt to displace you know that need for trust but as you know my Bitcoin showed you know a fly by night internet storefront is not necessarily more trustworthy than the Federal Reserve right exactly but the smart people didn't keep their money in my Bitcoin either they knew better smart people did keep the money in my Bitcoin and I mean look at you know Stefan Thomas I mean one of the smartest guys I mean yeah I mean so you know such smart people yeah and he wasn't in my Bitcoin but he you know he just he lost his his password for his own desktop yeah and then some of the other ones I think he misplaced the wallet I mean it's so easy at this point there was a Dropbox issue you know yeah yeah so Dropbox overwrote the fire with the same name but right I mean that's the thing I mean you know the people involved in Bitcoin couldn't be smarter and even they have problems yeah this early pain I think we're going to look back at it like the early attempts to create a light bulb you know I think that the early pain is what where the develop well look Stefan Thomas is who we're going to have on you know the next episode because we're going to talk about the one after next I think anyway about his new newest projects and stuff he's the one who created the server side like there's a whole bunch of new client apps that you know I was telling you they back up and I mean they encrypt the wallet locally and then they back up on the server he created the server side and there's like two or three or six apps that all use the same server engine he created that and so out of his pain has this you know this Phoenix has a reason of a new technology that is I'm sure you know you have a real passionate interest in making sure this doesn't happen to anybody else just like me I'm such an advocate for security also because of what happened to me so where was I going to go with that so these new apps I think that that's the way it is and that's the way it has been but I see what's coming and as really changing real game changers because when if these Android apps and and even iPhone web based apps they're working on you can literally put in a dollar amount US dollar amount hit go and it sends it through the Bitcoin network and then the person on the other end the restaurant or merchant whatever can receive it boom as US dollars into their mount whether it's their mount gox account or whatever it is right they this will make it so so easy to do and all the benefits ease of use security right so that nobody ever loses it again you know like you're saying there's the theft issue and you were talking about trusty so that's what you're talking about trust well the thing that people it seems like the people we trust the least are the governments and the banks probably the banks who then own the government but those two entities you know we just have absolutely no control over at all and they're probably the least trusted of all these potential parties and so that's the one thing Bitcoin does sort of eliminate buyers and sellers have to trust each other if you if I'm buying something I trust I trust my bank and I trust the US government more than I trust Tom Williams well that's true that's the thing but well once again Tom Williams was a bank that was a bank it was basically the Bitcoin bank so I mean it's like you know they have these know your customer laws I say well know your bank or is even more important than them knowing their customer you're the one giving them the money but Tom but Tom Williams is not subject to FDIC is not subject to government regulation so that's why you know I'm not I don't know I'm a little bit of a traditionalist and then I'm I recognize there are huge problems with our banking system and with our government but it's still better than the alternative which is anarchy and people just fly by and ate businesses that don't have no regulation yeah that's well okay yeah there's a you know regulation is one of those tricky words and I it's like love it's like you could be taken way many different ways but regulation is I mean even the most liberty-minded people are pro-regulation when it comes to eliminating monopolies for example so regulation depends on what kind of regulation and what are you regulating and all this stuff it's just such a big term but but I see what you're saying the obviously you know you you don't trust a stranger I mean that just goes without saying so that my big point it's about it's sort of I mean it's a it's obviously an example we had to learn it's a what do you call it a wild cat bank yeah it's like the wild wild west with a wild cat banks you put up a sign bank and then you take everybody's money for six months and then skip town I mean this is something we had to learn that oh that's right this is not a traceable credit card thing that can be reversed this is cash so we all got whoever got burned but um the okay so aside from that issue the with the current state of it assuming we've learned that lesson we still have to trust the buyer has to trust the seller or the seller has to trust the buyer I mean if I'm buying something cash if I'm buying you know whatever say me you made some handcraft of leather good I'm buying it for trust you're going to send me the briefcase and I'm going to send you the cash we either mean a person and we do it at the same time or you know I have to make sure that the cash is real whatever there's there's always trust so I would say don't ever do business with somebody you don't trust like that's easier said than done though especially you know in the gray market or something you don't know you don't trust anybody and online you don't know who you're dealing with but so there's where Bitcoin we always have to remember it's cash like because when you if you're selling something it eliminates the need to trust because they're sending you cash and you got the you got the Bitcoin you know you got it but the buyer has to trust you so that's why there's these you know escrow services have sprung up and different things like that it's a different way of doing business but in general I think that usually when there's things being sold online there's a merchant that has many customers it's a one to many relationship with the merchant having many customers and if you're I mean it's different Craigslist one to one is different and then you're going to have reputation and escrow and all that and you still might get burnt but if there's a merchant as an online store then it's less likely that the store is going to rip you off it's not impossible but it's it's a little bit less likely because they have a reputation to uphold a random customers just they don't know you from Adam but the idea then is the customer sends the the payment then the store responds with the products and store maintains its reputation the customer doesn't have to worry about a reputation because nobody knows them so that's that's a good thing with with credit cards and and paypal the stores get ripped off the merchants get ripped off I think the merchants should be the biggest advocates of Bitcoin because merchants get ripped off constantly people reverse credit card charges six months later five months later and say that they they say that they're I was never in New York I don't know what you're talking about whatever and American Express says well they're a platinum card customer we always side with them it doesn't matter what the facts are you could have their thumb print and they're a notarized contract doesn't matter you know so merchants get screwed really they do and so I think merchants you know should be a huge advocate of Bitcoin and if you can if we can if these apps these new apps can tie it in so that there's absolute security and speaking of trust you know banks and institutions and all that I think people people say you know in cryptography we trust you've seen that slogan I think that we trust in Bitcoin's cryptography and the free open source software part of it so if these apps especially if the apps are free open source software and everybody can see the source code and we know that it is what it says it is right that people that's probably the most trustworthy thing other than yourself which you can't even trust yourself some people need to be protected from themselves absolutely even these technologies like we were saying so so do you see more merchants and retailers just in the New York area using Bitcoin I mean not really like you say there's been there's been a waning interest in it it all has to do with the value you know when the value is going up everybody's it's everybody's in a buzz about it and then the value going up makes the media attention which makes it go up and all that and then like you say it spirals up speculation and all that and media interest makes more merchants interested but so I think it's going to be slow I think it's going to be a more slow natural organic growth which is actually good I think people who really understand Bitcoin think that that's a good thing because if it goes if it grows like exponentially and explodes it is dangerous it's much better to be slow like like a like a business growing it's much better to be slow and steady slow and steady plotting along and its growth the way Mastercard and Visa did do you you're not old enough to remember but I remember when stores didn't take Mastercard and Visa it was a real exception to have a logo a great big logo and it wasn't both it was one of the other they were competing you know and they were several others diners and I'm like yeah there'd be a big thing Mastercard you know and it was a real exceptional thing to find a place that took a credit card especially a standardized credit card that was more than one store because every like Macy's whatever you know department stores had their own credit card they kind of started I think started the thing and then they be then this Mastercard and what came along and then later Visa and so on and it was really an exceptional thing and it took many many many years for that to catch on and it was only credit of course way before debit but the point is that if I mean I don't I don't want Bitcoin to grow that slowly but if it grows more organically and slowly and steadily I think it will be better and healthier and people will be able to to trust it more the apps are going to mature very quickly you know I mean it's kind of like civil rights I mean you say it's really really things are changing fast but not fast enough that's it it's growing fast but not fast enough and it's kind of a crazy thing when you look back at how much things have changed and civil rights for example and for for African Americans and for and gay rights and things like that if you look back 10 years you look back 20 years wow it's amazing how much it's changed but not fast enough it couldn't be fast enough yeah same thing with Bitcoin I mean I would love for every every retailer to accept Bitcoin online and offline Rick and Mortar and everything but the these things have to be solved and I think a lot of it has to do with the software development which is ready I think it's just ready which I think these do now and it has to address the currency risk which I think these things do because you can convert dollars to bitcoins bitcoins dollars instantly and with those two things in place and then more and more ease of use I think that I think it will spread fast that's going to be very interesting to watch hopefully it won't go you know from $2 to $30 and then back again you know repeatedly but it probably will who knows who knows has more and more people talk so well thanks we have to do this again for sure yeah thanks for having me we shouldn't wait another year we have to do this you know more often and see what's up are you going to write any more stories about Bitcoin? I mean I don't have any assigned right now but who knows you know if a whole bunch more activity starts happening with it conceivably okay we'll stay in touch for sure come to the meetups okay great thank you alright take care see you guys next time thanks for joining us