 Good evening everyone. Hello. How are you? This is actually my first time at an ethereum meet-up. I've been interested and involved in ethereum since the very beginning actually since two weeks before the very beginning because Vitalik sent me the white paper and He asked me for comments So I probably Called him told him exactly why it wouldn't work and then he explained to me why I was wrong and As is usually the case with Vitalik. He has this very annoying tendency of being right So I got really excited about ethereum and I've been involved since then Before we get started This is my new book the Internet of money. It was published 10 days ago my first book is mastering Bitcoin and And it is a book about how Bitcoin works and how blockchains work in general This book is a collection of my talks and it's about why this technology Matters and most of the ideas apply very much to any Open public decentralized Borderless permissionless blockchain whether that's Bitcoin ethereum or any of the other several hundred Systems that exist out there if you're at all interested. I have a few copies with me I'll be selling them after the event and signing them if you want All right, so let's get started The title of this talk is the lion and the shark Some people have called me a Bitcoin maximalist. I am not a Bitcoin maximalist I'm Interested in the possibility of open public borderless the centralized permissionless blockchains and disrupting everything and in that space I think there is Plenty of space for many different approaches to many different problems So the first question you have to ask is well, what is ethereum and perhaps what is Bitcoin and How do the two compare? So Let's see what Google has to say So I type into Google ethereum is and Google suggests as the first search ethereum is Dead now the good news is ethereum is not alone in that because if you type Bitcoin is Google suggests Bitcoin is dead So already we see that these two systems share one thing in common They are consistently underestimated. I call them zombie currencies Even after the double tap as You're walking out of the supermarket. You just looted during the zombie apocalypse. You hear behind you Because as always the zombie refuses to die if you actually do the search ethereum is you get the definition which is on the ethereum website and Oh, now it's refreshed on me ethereum is a decentralized platform for applications That run exactly as programmed without any chance of fraud censorship or third-party interference if you type in Bitcoin is You get the title of Soto Shinakamoto's white paper that says Bitcoin is a system of peer-to-peer electronic cash and so now we have to ask Are these What they say they are is ethereum in fact what it says on the website is Bitcoin what it says in the white paper and And by asking that question we have to look at the inescapable conclusion That what the founder wants something to be is Not always what that thing is and that shouldn't be surprising Because that applies to every technology and the more disruptive it is The less a founder or inventor is able to predict What it will end up being how it will evolve what? fitness it will find for what applications the internet is a military network designed to allow the continuity of data routing in the case of a targeted strategic nuclear attack against the United States or The world's single largest repository of cat videos DARPA did not set out To create the world's largest single repository of cat videos Tim Berners-Lee designed the web to be a mechanism for physicists to be able to exchange knowledge papers data and images between research institutions Not to post photos of what they just ate or To use just the right camera angle with just the right pouty duck face look To impress everyone in the world simultaneously unintended consequences Are part of technology technology is a tool and as a tool it doesn't exist in the vacuum it's dropped into a society and Society decides how every person uses that tool in a very decentralized manner and As you use the tool You change the tool Your interaction with technology changes its nature it molds to become what you want it to be That is true of centralized technologies It is ten times as true of decentralized open systems Where innovation does not require permission Where the development is guided by consensus in an open system? It is Absolutely naive to assume that just because the founder thinks this is what it will be That's what it will be and it turns out that Ethereum is not a system of applications that's run Exactly as written without third-party interference censorship, etc. Etc. And Bitcoin is not simply a system of peer-to-peer digital cash They evolve and the tricky thing about evolution is even when it's directed when you make a choice on any feature of the system You're constrained by two things one you have no idea What the marketplace what society will do with that choice and what path it will send you down and more importantly when you make that choice You are always making a trade-off If you choose one path You close the possibility of pursuing other paths if you are a shark and You have gills you can breathe in salt water but by Necessity you cannot breathe in Open-air if you are lying and you develop claws You will not have the dexterity of primate fingers Every choice opens one path and Closes Billions of other possibilities that could have been pursued even if you knew exactly where you're going Choices have consequences. They limit things. They are trade-offs. They are inherently trade-offs and The reason I'm using the lion and the shark as an example is because I think that is one way to look at these systems of Blockchains that we have Ethereum and Bitcoin when comparing them if Ethereum is a shark it is The apex predator within its own environment It's a fast swimmer. It can breathe under water. It eats anything that bothers it If Bitcoin is a lion it rules the land But it doesn't swim very well, and you can never really put these two apex predators in a ring together and Say let the best one win Because the outcome is decided Entirely by whether you fill that fighting ring with water or not Fitness for purpose is something that is decided through this evolutionary process in a marketplace There is no such thing as best In evolutionary terms fitness does not mean the strongest It means the one that has the best adaptation for its environment. And so then the question becomes what is the environment? For Ethereum, what is the environment for Bitcoin? What applications are the ones? That are most suited to be solved with something like Ethereum and what applications are the ones that are most suited to be solved by Bitcoin Or any of the other systems out there And necessarily some choices have consequences I'm not a maximalist because I think maximalism is both counterproductive and hubris It assumes that you have Not just control over outcomes, but even the ability to foresee the outcome in the future I Can't make predictions about what's going to happen in this space three months out Because it changes too fast So what is Ethereum best suited for? Ethereum has made some very specific trade-offs and these were not accidental. They were very deliberate It is a Turing complete language which offers enormous flexibility in programming and brings Ethereum applications very close to the actual platform Bitcoin is not Turing complete And that's not an accident. It's not Turing complete for a very specific purpose It's designed to be extremely limited in its flexibility in order to deliver very very robust security because simplicity is a fundamental security practice and If you choose to do things in a very simple way to make them very robustly secure You necessarily close the door on billions of applications that we've never thought of that you do not have the flexibility to do And if you choose to create the flexibility to do those applications You're also signing up for much more rapid pace of development but also For much more complexity, which means many more bugs Many more unexpected conditions Many more unpredictable and unintended consequences one Necessitates the other if they're a maximalist will say if they're him can do Everything that Bitcoin does comma Expect except for Robust security and sound money and that's okay Because to make that choice to do sound money and robust security you necessarily make it very difficult to build decentralized applications Ethereum and Bitcoin have launched themselves on different paths those paths do not cross Bitcoin cannot do many of the things that Ethereum does Ethereum cannot do many of the things that Bitcoin does But they can both do Something miraculous They can reorder the fundamental institutions of society Around network set centric systems of organization instead of institutions They can create opportunities for permission without for innovation without permission For anyone to construct applications Where the minimum required market audience size is two and that's it If I have an app and I have somebody else who wants to run that app We have a network on Ethereum or Bitcoin. We can run an application We don't have to ask for anybody's permission and that is a magical thing It's an amazing thing and what it's doing in both cases is creating this exponential Explosion of innovation that we've never seen and It's going to affect some societal institutions and structures that have remained unchanged Since the beginning of the industrial revolution and that is the unique promise. I Am not a Bitcoin maximalist. I Am not an Ethereum of maximalists. I am a maximalist for open borderless decentralized permissionless systems that allow us to solve problems in society with technology That is open for everyone. I think that is a magical recipe And it doesn't matter whether you try to solve them in Ethereum or try to solve them in Bitcoin or what you think Bitcoin is or what you think your theorem is because you don't get to decide and Even Vitalik doesn't get to decide The market decides and if you wanted a system where the founder decides We already have those They're called hierarchical institutions. Our society is run by them if you want a system where There is no possibility for evolution into uncharted territory there is no possibility for change with unintended consequences then You appoint a dictator they make all of the choices things are much more simple The outcomes are predictable Economic exclusion human misery poverty the loss of freedom Predictable outcomes. However, some will benefit tremendously from these systems but in engaging in this particular system in signing up to play in The sandbox of Ethereum or Bitcoin You are saying I don't know what will happen because I'm not in charge and even better Nobody knows what will happen because no one is in charge because these systems have been unleashed Into a sea of creativity Where the markets will decide what applications they think are best and Maybe it will work and maybe it won't and in the end These things will fall into a niche where they fit perfectly for a very special set of applications and We have no idea What these will be Celebrate the line Celebrate the shark they're both kings of their own unique Environmental niche. Thank you