LETS TALK BITCOIN

Episode 91 CoinLocks, Comics and Merchant Banking

Participants:

Adam B. Levine (AL) Host
Andreas M. Antonopoulos (AA) Co-host
Stephanie Murphy (SM) Co-host
Jonathan Mohan (JM) LTB Correspondent
Ray Duran (RD) LTB Correspondent
Matt Bratton (MB) Founder of CoinLock
Francisco Dominguez (FD) General Manager of Meltdown Comics
Jeremy Kandah (JK) Founder of AppCasher
Danny Wettreich (DW) Chairman & CEO of GreenBank
Justus Ranvier (JR) Organizer of Texas Bitcoin conference




Today is March 11
th
2014 and this is Episode 91.

This episode is intended for informational and educational purposes only. Cryptocurrency
is a new field of study. Consult your local futurist, lawyer, broker, therapist, investment
advisor and private corporate banker before making any investment decisions for
yourself.

AL: Welcome to Lets Talk Bitcoin, a twice weekly show about the ideas, people and
projects building the digital economy and the future of money. Thanks to everybody getting
involved over at LTBcoin.com. If youd like to learn more about LTBcoin, the upcoming
crypto-token that will power the LTB Lets Talk Bitcoin network, theres a video Q&A open to
everyone on Saturday 15
th
March 2014 at 9.00am Pacific Time. To RSVP, visit LTBcoin.com.
[0:50]

My name is Adam B. Levine and today, were hopping.

Ray Duran is a new LTB correspondent based out of Los Angeles. He caught up with
the folks at SoCal nerd Mecca, Meltdown Comics for a chat about Bitcoins past and
future

Then, Jonathan Mohan sat down with Jeremy Kandah from AppCasher, an app
putting Bitcoin earning potential in the hands of normal people, who dont want to
drop dollars on Bitcoin but have some time available for spending

Later, my interview with Danny Wettreich, a long time investor, founder and CEO of
GreenBank who aims to be the first publicly traded company investing in Bitcoin.
We talk merchant banking and the attributes of better money.

Finally, Stephanie Murphy and Andreas Antonopoulos are joined by Justus Ranvier
for a Texas Bitcoin conference wrap up.

First, Bitcoin and content Im definitely not the only one with that bug in his ear.
Jon Mohan and Matt (?? Bratton) talk CoinLock.com, basically, a vending machine for
your content where you upload the file, set the price in your address and ... I should
just let them explain.

Enjoy the show! [1:52]


_______________________________________________


Jonathan Mohan interview with Matt Bratton


JM: Im here at the Miami Bitcoin conference with Matt of CoinLock. Matt, what do you
guys do? [2:01]

MB: We let anyone sell anything, any digital content with Bitcoin, as fast as possible. Its a
very fast, content selling platform that lets anyone sell anything, put a link in their blog or
wherever and sell without any infrastructure, without any overhead, without any
programming, without really anything at all. [2:21]

JM: I remember reading... theres an IBM article, written in the 90s talking about how
micro-transactions will reinvent currency and how digital content, for micro-transaction,
would be the savior. It wasnt until Bitcoin that anything like that was possible because of
legacy banking getting in the way. [2:38]

MB: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, its amazing... I think the types of applications were going to
see, around micro-transactions and around instant payment with Bitcoin, are going to be
very interesting. Ive tried to think of CoinLock, at its very base, as something thats kind of
like micro-transactions for files, where its like whats the base unit of digital data that we
pass around all the time? Its the file. We just are producing all this content all the time and
how do we monetize individual pieces of content? How do we share it and monetize it and
just create that type of pipeline in the system? Thats kind of what I set out to do when I
built CoinLock. [3:16]

JM: Take me through how CoinLock works. Essentially, youre monetizing online content
through a paywall, right? [3:22]

MB: Thats exactly right. *3:23+

JM: How does that work? I have my QT wallet, I have Bitcoin - what do I do? [3:28]

MB: What do you do to sell stuff? [3:30]

JM: What do I do to buy stuff? [3:32]

MB: What do you do to buy stuff? Lets say you go to someones blog and they have their
music blog and theyre trying to sell you their hot new single and they say Hey, click this
link and buy my song. You click the link, it takes you to CoinLock and you can instantly buy
it. It basically pops up a QR code, an address and a price. If you pay to that address that
price, it unlocks the content and delivers it right to the browser. [3:56]

JM: It sends you back to the website? [3:59]

MB: It doesnt. Its a delivery mechanism. *4:01+

JM: Its a delivery mechanism. OK. [4:03]

MB: It basically will do the delivery, lets you download and save the content and thats it.
Its like a one-time transaction. [4:10]

JM: Thats awesome! If I were a merchant, what would that look like? *4:12+

MB: If you were a merchant and you wanted to sell something, all you have to do is,
basically, specify what content you want to sell, the music file in that case, put a price and
you can peg it to USD or some other currency, you put your receiving address. You can use
one address for all your payments or if you wanted to do more fancy accounting, maybe an
address per thing that youre selling and you publish it. When you publish it, you get a link
back and that link represents both the file and the payment mechanism. You put it right in
your blog or wherever and thats it. *4:44+

JM: I have a friend whos in a band and he kept saying, a year and a half ago, how in the hell
do I sell my music for Bitcoin? We were like Oh, you get a BitPay account. He was like
Yeah, but how does that distribute the digital content? [4:57]

MB: It doesnt, thats right. *4:59+

JM: We were like You need to buy a... this... that... He got so overwhelmed. [5:01]

MB: The point is that right now the eco-system and ecommerce, in general, is all about the
shopping cart experience and about third party integrations with shopping carts. I think
that the entire shopping cart concept is very much a remnant of this whole credit card thing.
They needed a mechanism to integrate traditional payments. [5:21]

JM: Credit cards were so bad... [5:23]

MB: Yes, exactly, you needed... [5:25]

JM: ...that in order to deal with how horrible it was, you needed to do it all at once because
if you had to do it every single time you bought something, it was such a disgusting
experience.

MB: Right. It makes it... the experience is bad and also there are a lot of reasons around it,
right? [5:35]

JM: With Bitcoin its so easy... *5:36+

MB: Its so fast that its just... *5:37]

JM: ...that you might as well just do it every time you want to buy something and not worry
about it. [5:39]

MB: Right. If you think of it that way, Ive tried to think of CoinLock as being something
where its almost ubiquitous where if you want to sell something and get paid in Bitcoin,
and you dont want to broker that transaction yourself, which is pretty labor intensive if
youre sitting there and taking Bitcoin and sending people files all day long, you dont want
to do that, so CoinLock does it for you. Thats pretty much it. Its a very quick way of selling
whatever you want. [6:03]

JM: How long have you guys been around? [6:05]

MB: The current platform has been around six months it launched six months ago and I
built it, probably, nine months ago. Its been chugging along doing its thing. There are
certain aspects to it that we havent really touched on with respect to anonymity and
encryption and things like this because its a zero trust, or close to zero trust system, in the
sense that the content that I receive is encrypted by the user in the browser and decrypted
by the user in the browser. Im just like an intermediary for content. *6:35+

JM: Youre kind of like MegaUpload. *6:37+

MB: Yeah, absolutely. In many traditional ecommerce systems, youre kind of concerned
with what if someone takes your content. What if this guy, this guy running this service, just
runs away with whatever it is that youre trying to sell? *6:49+

JM: Right. [6:49]

MB: In CoinLocks structure, I cant do that. Its structurally not possible because of the way
that its been built. *6:56+

JM: Whats been the reception thus far? [6:58]

MB: Its been pretty good. Its interesting because its kind of divided into two camps.
There are people who immediately get it. They look at it and they say Oh, I cant believe
you built this, this is awesome. [7:08]

JM: Yeah, we call them content creators. [7:09]

MB: Right. (Laughter) They get it right away. Theyre like Oh, this is awesome. Now I can
finally make money in Bitcoin. I dont have to do anything and this is great. There are other
people who are... they fall into the Hey, well this is cool but I need a marketplace. I need
to drive traffic to my site and marketplaces help do that and you dont provide that service.
You really just provide this platform for selling without having all the other trappings of
ecommerce that we... [7:35]

JM: Its a (??) sale solution. [7:36]

MB: ...come to expect. My new site, the CoinLock 2.0 really addresses that, where its
really about the merger of being able to instantly sell content and also being able to
instantly create feeds, stores around that content so that you can syndicate it and you can
manage it in a central place. [7:56]

JM: If Im a content creator and I want to paywall my stuff and make some money off of it,
sell it for Bitcoin, pretty much the easiest way to do it right now is CoinLock. I havent heard
of another way that was... [8:07]

MB: This is hyperbole but I think its the easiest way thats ever been invented to sell
content. [8:13]

JM: You know what? Ill go one further will ever be invented. There will never be a
superior... CoinLock 2.0 wont even be better than CoinLock 1.0. (Laughter) *8:21+

MB: Nothing in the world will ever be better. Im sure no one smarter than me will come
up with anything better. [8:26]

JM: Come on. You have to upsell it some more. [8:27]

MB: It is really fast. I mean its really remarkably fast. If you want to sell something... I
dont know... Ive done a lot of ecommerce and I cant think of a faster way to do it than
this. You have to understand how Bitcoin works you have to have an address. [8:38]

JM: Right. I think thats within the reach of most people. *8:41+

MB: I think so too. I think its getting easier and easier and easier. [8:44]

JM: Thats what we need. *8:45+

MB: Absolutely. We need simple services that people can use and understand and they
realize, functionally, how they work and what theyre trying to accomplish. *8:53+

JM: If Im a merchant and I want to learn more, how would I get in touch with you? [8:57]

MB: CoinLock.com is the main site. You can go there and actually immediately sell
whatever. Ive tried to preserve the anonymity around it. I dont make people sign up for
accounts, I dont make people enter information about themselves or what theyre doing.
Its a very free forms way of selling and dealing with content. You can always reach me; if
you want to talk with anyone at CoinLock, theres support at CoinLock.com. Send me an
email; Im very responsive to issues and questions and definitely just want more people to
try it out and give me feedback. [9:31]

JM: Thats what we need is content and sell it for Bitcoin. Thats where it all begins. *9:35+

MB: I think so. I think that we need the eco-system to expand and anything that helps do
that, any type of service or system on top of the existing economy that lets people do these
things is a big deal. It helps the entire eco-system grow when these types of tools are built.
[9:52]

JM: Thanks Matt. [9:53]

MB: Thank you. [9:54]


(Song in background: Use Bitcoin whenever you pay, use Bitcoin whenever you pay, use
Bitcoin whenever you pay.


____________________________________________


Ray Duran interview with Mr Francisco Dominguez

RD: Hello everybody. This is Ray Duran corresponding for Lets Talk Bitcoin. Im sitting here
with Mr Francisco Dominguez. [10:15]

FD: How are you doing? [10:16]

RD: Yes. Hello. We are here at Meltdown Comics in beautiful Los Angeles - head of Nerdist
Industries, the core of the nerd movement in Los Angeles. Francisco, were excited to hear
about what youre doing as far as Bitcoin goes. Can you explain what the operation here at
Meltdown is? [10:32]

FD: We started researching Bitcoin a couple of years ago and I kept my eye on it and trying
to see where it was going, where the market was heading with it and if it was a valuable
thing that I should be accepting. First of all, knowing that the processing fees are a lot less
than a credit card machine is because with a credit card machine, Im paying 3. something %
for the processing and with Bitcoin Im paying less than 1%, which for me, it helps because
brick-and-mortar shops are really not making it in this business any more. Digital media is
coming in and paper media is really going out. We stock a lot of paper and a lot of books,
comic books we deal with all those things and weve been seeing the hit. Anywhere we
can save some money, which Bitcoin allowed us to do, by the processing (even though Im
not taking that many right now), eventually hopefully it will catch on where I can either
phase out of taking credit cards or maybe the credit card companies will see that with
Bitcoin, a lot of merchants are moving on to that because of the lower fees. Maybe theyll
start lowering their fees and help us all around because its a hard business right now. My
strategy here is accepting Bitcoin and teaching people how to use Bitcoin. Hopefully, theyll
go out and start asking other merchants to start accepting Bitcoin so theres a buzz that will
go around and people will grasp onto it and other businesses will accept it like we are. I was
scared for about a year. I had to do my research and I talked to Pinguino, who taught the
class today. She kind of helped me along a lot of the way. She held my hand and taught me
this about BitPay, about Coinbase, where to check how Bitcoin is doing, where its at in the
market, when to sell, when not to sell, when to hold on and just to watch the whole thing.
To me, thats exciting. Ive always liked technology and this is something new. For us,
technology is a fun thing to do. [12:22]

RD: Yeah, she was great. Just so everyone knows, we just attended a class where she gave
a Bitcoin one-on-one thing. Is this the first class that she did today? [12:32]

FD: This is the first class. This is actually our first week taking Bitcoin. [12:35]

RD: OK. [12:36]

FD: We saw a few clientele come in and other people were asking How do you use Bitcoin
and whats this deal with Bitcoin? How does that work? Me and Pinguino, we got together
and said Hey, maybe we should teach people how to use it and how the process works
and start getting them comfortable with it. Thats where this class came about. *12:51+

RD: One of the biggest things that is very exciting about Bitcoin is the fact that it stands to,
from a political standpoint, be a way to break free of other monetary systems that have
other issues, be they political issues, be they what have you. I know that you run a really
awesome comic store and thats all really what youre concerned about. As a merchant,
here in Los Angeles, what else have been any concerns of yours in moving to this currency?
Are there any things that youre worried about? *13:18+

FD: At this moment, no. Im really not worried. I see bigger companies starting to accept
Bitcoin, like the Kings up in Sacramento was kind of a push for me to like OK, Ive got to
start moving ahead with this. As soon as Overstock started accepting it, I was all in. There is
really no going back there are some banks started accepting it. Now there is word around
that the government is going to start accepting Bitcoin. With all that buzz, it was kind of a
no brainer for me to jump in. To me, it wasnt risky waters any more. *13:49+

RD: OK, OK. [13:50]

FD: There is still some sort of a risk because it keeps going up and down lately. A couple of
nights ago, it dropped to $600 and right now, its starting to climb up again but there are
those risks. Theres a risk with everything. I think Im willing to take it with Bitcoin and see
where it goes because its new, its new. Were pioneers. *14:10]

RD: The class that went on today was, basically, talking about... we went over blockchain,
we went over Coinbase, some of the more common Bitcoin systems out there. Do you think
that, as a merchant, you would be interested in hosting more classes that expand upon that,
as far as teaching people what Bitcoin is and what it can do? [14:30]

FD: Oh yeah. I would definitely love to do more classes and just bring more people in.
There was a great turnout today. Im sure now word will get around. You will go out, this
will get out in the air, people will start noticing that Meltdown is doing some classes; they
will teach you about Bitcoin. Hopefully, that gets to take it away but my plan is to have
more classes, to have more Bitcoin events, to embrace the Bitcoin audience. The audience
is out there, youve just got to cater to them and let them know that were here. Were
here for you guys. [14:58]

RD: In the Los Angeles area, there are several up and coming Bitcoin events; some things on
meetup.com. Do you find yourself needing to reach out to some of those things as well to
kind of get more of an audience? I know you mentioned you had a few people that were
getting excited about it here, where do you see, as far as how you feel within your power, to
expand word about this? [15:19]

FD: Doing the events is one way of me doing it and getting the word out. These meet up
events are all local in LA. I will go there myself, I will talk to people, I will talk to other
merchants as well and just let them know the process is kind of scary but once you dive in,
its a fun thing to handle and to do. Also, you know, the benefits... the benefits of where
youre cutting your fat and trimming the fat is taxes that youre paying and all the overheads
that you have and if there is a way to cut it, small business owners want to know those
things because they want to stay open. [15:50]

RD: Do you find that because of the clientele... I mean, this is a comic book shop... at the
heart of the clientele... [15:56]

FD: I think the clientele... yeah, yeah, yeah. We were talking downstairs the scifi, the
comic book clientele, all of those people are deep into computers. Everybodys got a
computer, everybodys got a laptop, everybody knows a hacker, everybodys deep into that
world more so than the general audience out there, especially in our realm. I think for them
to accept Bitcoin and as a currency, theyre more open arms about it than it is your
grandmother that lives down the street and thats never had internet. [16:21]

RD: Thats cool, thats cool. Do you see, as far as what Meltdown is going to be doing... I
mean, the potential to reach as many people as possible, youre obviously starting to build it
in a comic book store so for you, do you have any concerns about any limitations for
advertising for it? [16:38]

FD: As the ball keeps rolling and the snowball keeps getting bigger and hopefully, as the
snowball gets bigger, those are just dollar amounts. When that dollar amount comes in,
then yeah, of course, Ill do more advertising with Bitcoin and see if it even needs it. Weve
run our business for many years... 20 years now. Our policy has always been no advertising.
Weve never really reached out to papers and put out ads. Its always been a word of
mouth, weve always tried to give people that experience at Meltdown that they take away
and talk to people about it. Thats where we get most of our clientele. *17:11+

RD: Awesome! Awesome! [17:13]

FD: Yeah. Definitely, if its something that I need to advertise and its something that I need
to move out and for people to know, its a step that I will take. Ive got my sandwich board
sign out with a B on it. [17:23]

RD: (Laughter) That was cool. That was cool. [17:24]

FD: That announces and lets people know that are walking up and down the street that
dont normally come into the store and which most of my Bitcoin users have not been to
Meltdown before. [17:33]

RD: Really? [17:34]

FD: They just heard that we were accepting Bitcoin and they needed somewhere to spend
it. They were looking for comics, they were looking for toys, they were looking for
everything that I stock and they couldnt find anywhere else to spend it so they came here
and they were... transactions are sweet, theyre clean, theyre easy, theyre fast and yeah,
the audience is there, you just got to let them know that were here. *17:51+

RD: Awesome! Awesome! Thank you. Its good to know as well; its also very, very good
to... [17:56]

FD: Thank you. Thank you very much. [17:57]

RD: Thank you and this has been Ray Duran for Lets Talk Bitcoin. Thank you very much.
[18:01]


_______________________________________________


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___________________________________________


Jonathan Mohan interviews Jeremy Kandah


JM: Im here at the Miami conference with Jeremy Kandah and he is the founder of
AppCasher. What is it? [19:41]

JK: AppCasher.com is a mobile rewards platform that people get rewarded for discovering
content on their mobile device. Go to AppCasher.com and you get to discover free apps and
other content like videos and surveys and you get rewarded for doing so. Once you earn the
reward points in the app, you can cash out for bitcoins, or gift cards, or other rewards.
[20:03]

JM: Everyone keeps complaining how the heck do I get some bitcoins? How do I do this?
Pretty much anyone with a phone could just get on this and start making them millibitcoins?
[20:11]

JK: Yeah. I had a guy I met in Austin. He started on the platform, after I talked about it at a
meet-up there, and he made $65 in a week. He bought a domain on GoDaddy and I think he
made $20 doing that and he cashed out. I really want, one day, for him to make $1000
when the bitcoins appreciate and make $1000 for somebody. Thats really cool to empower
people in that capacity. [20:37]

JM: On the Android phone, I install this kind of like a Glu game where you do the apps and
the games and you do other stuff, except in this case, instead of just game tokens, youre
actually giving us cold, hard Bitcoin. [20:47]

JK: Exactly. [20:48]

JM: You were actually telling me that there was an interesting percentage of your company
that started shifting into Bitcoin when you made the announcement. What was it before, in
terms of distribution and what was it after? [20:57]

JK: Sure. Its been live for 45 days now. Day number 1, I didnt announce it or anything
15% of my business was given out in bitcoins. Its just been slowly climbing over time and
now its 50%. Were giving over $1000 in bitcoins a day to people. *21:11+

JM: Youre giving, pretty much, 1.2 bitcoin, as of this recording, per day out as rewards?
[21:16]

JK: Yeah. [21:16]

JM: Thats across how many users? *21:18+

JK: Thats thousands of users. *21:20+

JM: OK. Pretty cool. Is this a good way for teenagers, who have mobile phones, to get in
on getting some bitcoins? When I was a teenager, I really wanted to send some money to
Stefan Molyneux, hes like a podcaster, and I really wanted to send him $5 but I couldnt get
a bank account because I was 17 and it was just totally impossible. I was like How the
heck do I send him money so I actually started doing online surveys because they send it to
a PayPal account and I was able to PayPal the money. He sent me an email and he was like
Hey, thanks for the donation but why $3.47, I just dont understand where you came to
that. Im like Hey, Im not allowed to be in the banking sector and this is the only way I
could send you funds. Is this kind of a cool way for kids to get their hands on Bitcoin?
[22:05]

JK: Yeah, its more powerful than that. Were pretty global. Were big in Vietnam, for some
reason and there are people all over the world that get small amounts of Bitcoin and get
into it. We see the name Bitcoin and they get to learn how to use it and you empower some
people that like mobile applications and like playing games and they get to earn a couple of
milliBits around the world. [22:26]

JM: I think thats fascinating. Youre saying that people in Vietnam are making a good deal
of money off of this because $1 in New York isnt what it is $1 in Vietnam. *22:33+

JK: Right. [22:33]

JM: Is it the same amount of money or is it the rewards are different proportionate to what
nation youre in? *22:38+

JK: We make money in US$ so we do everything related to US$. [22:42]

JM: What I meant was is a user in Vietnam paid the same amount, in terms of reward, as a
user in America? [22:49]

JK: A lot of that is supply based so when the app developers decide to go distribute their
app, they probably will spend more money in the US and so its easier to earn more money
in the US. [23:00]

JM: Right. [23:01]

JK: It doesnt mean theyre not interested in other places. [23:03]

JM: This isnt a cure all but it is a way to get money into countries to which there isnt really
a Bitcoin exchange out there. [23:11]

JK: This isnt going to be the next thing that drives Bitcoin home and spreads the wealth
around the world but its just an interesting way to something youre probably already
doing, playing games on your phone. Now you can make a small amount of money doing it
and so its fun for a lot of people. *23:25+

JM: Everything is better when you make Bitcoin doing it, right? [23:28]

JK: Exactly. [23:29]

JM: Cool man. Whats the name of the app again? *23:31+

JK: Its AppCasher.com. *23:34+

JM: If we can, lets make 99% of that business in Bitcoin. *23:38+

JK: Id love to do that. The other rewards I give out are PayPal and Amazon and PayPal
takes 2.5% and so Im happy to not give that money to PayPal. *23:48+

JM: I think were all happy with not giving money to PayPal. (Laughter) Talking to you
Peter Thiel. One of the problems with these sorts of models is the fear that by the time you
reach the minimum payout amount that its not going to be there. What struck me about
your model was that youre actually paying people out. Youre not really fly by night, youre
part of the BitAngels network and youre not going anywhere. Youre really a believer in this
economy and you actually hit the milestone of $2m. What was that? Over the course of
like... [24:17]

JK: Yeah, it was a year and a half. Weve been slowly, steadily giving out money and people
have been sticking around and really like the service and the product. Weve tried to be a
great customer service industry and help anybody out if you have any questions. Were
completely transparent and will respond to every email that we get sent. [24:31]

JM: Thanks. [24:32]

JK: Yeah, thanks. [24:33]


____________________________________________


Adam B. Levine interview with Danny Wettreich


AL: Danny Wettreich is a venture capitalist, chairman and CEO with GreenBank and has
over 30 years of experience in merchant banking and capital markets. Danny, thanks for
joining us today on Lets Talk Bitcoin. *24:58+

DW: My pleasure. [24:59]

AL: In December of 2013, one of your projects, GreenBank as we mentioned, spun off a pair
of investment vehicles specifically targeting Bitcoin. What were you trying to achieve with
these and do you feel like youve accomplished it or do you feel like youre going to
accomplish it? [25:12]

DW: We do believe were going to accomplish it. We have yet to do is yet to spin it off. Its
an objective of ours. What weve done with GreenBank, which is an investment company,
publicly listed on the CoC with a symbol GBC, weve announced two subsidiaries one
called Bitcoin Canada and one called Bitcoin Angel Capital and they will be investing in the
Bitcoin space. We are the first public company in the world thats investing in Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Canada will be investing purely in Bitcoin as a long term investment play. Bitcoin
Angel Capital will be investing in small Bitcoin start-ups. There is a lot of money going into
the Bitcoin space at the end of last year from the Silicon Valley venture capital guys but we
feel that a better way to do it is to incubate these small companies and help them go to
another level. I dont think they need $25m if theyre a couple of kids with an idea. What
they need is some guidance and some incremental capital to feed their business plan.
Thats the kind of approach were taking. *26:15+

AL: Many of the people that I speak to in cryptocurrency start with a problem and then it
gets solved by cryptocurrency and so they build something around cryptocurrency. What
you have is, youve got a structure GreenBank that was already in place before you were
interested in cryptocurrency. It seems to me that many legacy players, many existing
companies view Bitcoin as a risk and yet, your company is in here. You have a merchant
bank model. Can you explain to our listeners how a merchant bank works? [26:43]

DW: Merchant banking is investment banking with a twist. Basically, what we do is we take
equity positions in our clients and help them grow to the next level of size and that
sometimes requires capital, that sometimes requires management expertise, often it
requires both. Merchant banking is a focus on that. Investment bankers, basically, raise
money for public companies. We take a long term equity position in our clients and help
them to go to another level and we feel that the Bitcoin space is particularly appropriate for
that. There are a lot of small, young companies getting into the Bitcoin space, largely run by
tech savvy youngsters who dont have a lot of experience in running a business and we feel
that we can help on that side and we can help them raise capital to get to another level.
[27:36]

AL: Is there any reason surrounding Bitcoin or cryptocurrency that has GreenBank formed
out of Canada, as opposed to the US because I know youre a US citizen and yet this is a
Canadian institution, right? [27:48]

DW: Thats correct. I am a US citizen but Im now a resident of Canada for the last three
years. I live in Toronto and I moved to Toronto because I wanted to get into the natural
resource space initially and the reason I wanted to do that was because I wanted to get
away from fiat currency. The US dollar has declined 95% in my lifetime. Thats not a very
good track record and I feel that the right thing to do is to make investments in hard assets
gold, silver and now Bitcoin. I think Bitcoin is digital gold and it has the same attributes as
gold, in terms of finite amount of the asset and being totally unaffected by fiat money
printing by the central banks and the major countries who have a tendency to print money
to resolve their debt problems. They dont solve their debt problems by reducing their debt,
they solve their debt problems by printing paper currencies and clearly, since the world is
stuck with a system whereby paper currencies are the medium of exchange worldwide, if
there is a possibility of a new currency that doesnt have the same attributes as fiat
currencies that is independent, that has relatively small cost in transactional terms that can
cross international boundaries that by passes the banking system, and thats clearly for me,
Bitcoin, then I dont see how we can not get in that space. I believe Bitcoin is a revolution in
the financial payment system. I think it will transform the financial system over the next
decade. I think its a major threat to the banking system because over $7 trillion worth of
fiat currencies goes through the banking system, simply being moved from one location to
another location and the banking system charges huge fees for the luxury of moving that
money around. I can do the same transactions using Bitcoin and the costs are infinitesimally
small and the speed is incredibly faster. [29:59]

AL: Basically, youve just identified Bitcoin as something that is a more efficient way of
doing it and therefore it makes sense to get involved before everybody else realizes that
too. [30:07]

DW: Thats correct. As I said, its digital gold, in my judgement. It has the same attributes
plus a great deal more. The main thing is its not affected by money printing and
inflationary trends. The whole world is printing money like crazy. Its a race to the bottom,
in my judgement. It cannot continue in a positive way and I think if theres an alternative,
and Bitcoin is that alternative, then I dont see how we can not get in that space. I think its
a very dramatic space. I think it will increase significantly over the next few years and we
want to be in it. [30:37]

AL: Have you made any cryptocurrency investments besides Bitcoin or is it purely Bitcoin
for you? [30:42]

DW: For the moment, its Bitcoin. Were not turning away the possibility of investing in
other coins like Litecoin and others. As you know, there are lots of currencies out there,
cryptocurrencies. I dont believe that most of them will survive. I think youll have two or
three survivors. The main thing about a currency is it needs to be widely adopted. I dont
see how you can adopt dozens of different currencies on a worldwide basis. I think youll
end up with two or three currencies that will be the winners, whether you like it or not,
Bitcoin is definitely one of them. Its like the early days of Windows. You may have critique
about what Windows does and the latest versions of Windows have generated lots of
criticism but the fact of the matter is, most of the world is on that operating system. When
you have widespread adoption like that, its basically a fait accompli. I think the same
applies with Bitcoin; it is, and will continue to be in my judgement, the number one
cryptocurrency which is not to say that others wont also have a part to play. *31:41+

AL: Let me push back on you a little bit with this. I agree with you about the momentum
thing where once people get used to using something, then theyre more likely to keep
using that unless theres a really good reason to change but, at the same time, something
like Windows for example... my mother recently switched from Mac to Windows and was
not happy with the transition. This was switching to Windows 8 too which is supposed to be
very, very new user friendly. The only element that I think is missing from your analysis is
the lock-in factor. I dont see a tremendous amount of lock-in when it comes to Bitcoin
relative to other cryptocurrencies, whereas the barrier from switching from Windows (if
thats all youve been using) to anything else (and what few options you have available) is
quite substantial. [32:21]

DW: I agree with that switching analysis but I do think that widespread usage is the key to
any currency and I think Bitcoin is way ahead of the game in terms of widespread usage
which is still not to say that its not early days. It clearly is early days for Bitcoin as it is for
cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is, by far and away, the most widely utilized cryptocurrency and
the fact that its getting mainstream acceptance like, for example Overstock.com recently
started accepting Bitcoin they took $130,000 on that first day in the States. When you get
that kind of widespread usage, its very hard to turn the clock back and say Well, wait a
minute, I have a cryptocurrency too and its got a better attribute. *33:04+

AL: Lets take a step back from Bitcoin and cryptocurrency for a second and talk about
investing in spaces like this because you said that the other area that you invest in is in gold
and silver hard assets. Whats different about looking at a gold or silver company, or any
sort of thing that you would want to invest in on that side of it, relative to looking at some
type of investment on the Bitcoin side of the companies? What are the differences in how
you assess those things? [33:30]

DW: Gold and currency have their part to play and, basically, theyve been around for
centuries and what they represent is a medium of exchange that holds its value and that has
a finite amount in existence. Its hard to mine gold and silver, its expensive to mine gold
and silver, therefore the process of taking it out of the ground has established in itself a
value of some description. Ultimately, the value is a function of usage and why people take
it on is because they see it as a way of retaining value at a time when paper currencies
continue to depreciate and a 95% reduction in the purchasing power of the dollar is a
perfect example. The additional attributes of Bitcoin are that it has the same qualities of
gold and silver, in terms of retaining its purchasing power irrespective of how much money
printing is going on in fiat currency terms but its also a methodology of transferring wealth
from one location to another. Its hard to take a gold bar and take it across international
borders and give it to somebody as a medium of payment. Its not impossible but hard.
Bitcoin takes minutes to do the same transaction, across international borders, costs very
little, by passes all currency controls and, in addition, is anonymous and comparatively easy
to utilize. You dont need to be part of the banking system. There are hundreds of millions
of people worldwide that are not part of the banking system but do have a mobile phone so
all they need is a Bitcoin wallet, which you can obtain online relatively easily, you need to be
able to buy some Bitcoin, obviously but you can also receive Bitcoin from someone else.
Either in buying or receiving Bitcoin with a mobile phone and by pass the banking system,
they can either send or receive value relatively quickly and very inexpensively. Thats a huge
attribute which gold and silver do not have. Clearly, there are other attributes to Bitcoin
that gold and silver dont have, which is not to detract from gold and silver they have a
part to play too. [35:35]

AL: Bitcoin 2.0 has become something of a buzzword lately. As we talked about earlier, this
doesnt suggest that Bitcoin is going to be overtaken by something like Litecoin, which is
superficially different but basically identical once you look under the hood. What do you
think about the money plus cryptocurrencies, like the Mastercoin protocol, BitShares,
Ethereum, Nxt, eMunie, Counterparty and it seems like there are more every day. Do you
have any thoughts about any of these or the metacoin movement in general? [36:03]

DW: I think theyre fascinating. I think they represent the next generation of how the
Bitcoin network will be utilized and I think thats another reason why Bitcoin will continue to
be the market leader in the cryptocurrency space. Basically, you do have in existence a
worldwide network which not only can be utilized for money transmission by way of Bitcoin
but can also be clearly utilized for other things and thats happening as we speak. There will
be other methodologies of attaching things like contracts and verification of deals and all
sorts of possibilities to the Bitcoin network. I think that will happen and I think its like the
early days of the internet, whereby before HTML, people were scratching their head to
figure out how we can use this new medium and when HTML came along, all of a sudden,
its become the norm and people dont think twice about it anymore. *36:58+

AL: One of the new technologies thats coming in these cryptocurrency 2.0
implementations is the ability to create custom cryptocurrencies that dont necessarily have
to try and do everything that Bitcoin does. Bitcoin represents a very broad market. You can
think of it as representing the global market for cryptocurrencies almost because its the
primary highway into and out of them but there is this idea that you can issue company
specific cryptocurrency that, basically, acts as an equity token through which you can do all
of the things that you can do in a conventional stock market but that doesnt have the
barrier to entry. This is probably illegal, of course, but in much the same way that Bitcoin is
probably illegal just because it doesnt fit within the current paradigm. You have a lot of
experience in things like reverse mergers and have been in this space for quite a while, Im
wondering do you think that this is going to be an important innovation to the world or is
this just local to Bitcoin? [37:54]

DW: I think its important innovation. Im not sure I agree with you about the illegality
aspect of it. Its just that most governmental regulations just dont know how to deal with
Bitcoin. It doesnt fit under any parameter that theyre used to seeing. The US, particularly,
is struggling with money transmission rules. There are 48 states that require licences for
money transmission, as well as a federal requirement, just to get the ability technically to be
legal takes an awful long time and an awful lot of money. Technically speaking, a lot of the
transactions that would be occurring today in the States are illegal because they dont have
the money transmission licence. Even when you make application, even if one makes an
application through the system, the regulators themselves dont quite know how to deal
with the application because they have no experience on Bitcoin. Its a learning curve for
everybody concerned. I think regulation will come and I think its to be welcomed and not
to be concerned about. I think taxation will come and I think thats fine too. There is no
reason transactions cant be taxed but the bottom line is Bitcoin is here to stay. In terms of
your other question about other cryptocurrencies having very specific usages from a
corporate perspective, that may or may not take hold. Im not certain about it. You
certainly cant behave like a stock market without being regulated like a stock market so
those hurdles have to be crossed so these are good innovative ideas but its too early to
make a judgement I think. [39:25]

AL: The last question is about regulation. You said that its a good thing and I think that I
agree with you on that. Any sort of certainty, whether rules are good or bad, its probably
better than no rules at all. Can you paint a picture for us? Where do you think were going
to find ourselves, just in terms of the eco-system and how regulation plays into that, in a
year or five years, whichever one youd like to pick? *39:47+

DW: I think its a disadvantage to the Bitcoin space to have all this constant stream of bad
news with bad players being either arrested because theyre dealing with drugs through
Bitcoin or their online exchanges are crumbling for one reason or another or Bitcoin wallets
get hacked into and the bitcoin is stolen. All these things are negative vibes for Bitcoin and
we need to get over that early stage scenario and we will. The systems will improve, the
security will improve and I think what will also improve is the regulatory framework within
which Bitcoin can operate. Im not one of those who profess to say No rules are good
rules. I think, on the contrary, I think we need to be working in a regulated environment. I
dont think we need to be in opposition to government. I think we need to be working with
government and I think that will happen. Its inevitable and I think it should be welcomed.
Whats the timescale? I would guess within the next two years. Most central banking
systems and most governmental authorities will get their head around the Bitcoin space and
introduce legislation, one way or another, to control it. I think as long as Bitcoin is accepted
for what it is, a cryptocurrency, in opposition to or in competitive terms with fiat currencies,
the fact that it has to be regulated, I dont think is a threat, I think it should be welcomed.
Once that certainty framework is in existence, I think the widespread adoption worldwide
will accelerate dramatically and with widespread adoption, you will get price increases for
Bitcoin because the more its utilized, as its a finite quality, the more the price will go up
which is I think why the price of Bitcoin in 2013 went up so dramatically from the teens to
over $1000 (although clearly its had a pullback since then) but I think that long term price
increase will continue because you do have a finite asset and as its more and more widely
utilized, naturally speaking, the price will tend to go up. [41:55]

AL: Danny, its been really great having you on. I appreciate you sharing your perspective
with us. Lets get back to GreenBank for just a second. I know that youve got a project that
youre working on. Can you share that with us? *42:04+

DW: Were in the process of raising $5m in a secured convertible debenture for our two
Bitcoin companies. The monies will be utilized equally between investing in Bitcoin and
investing in Bitcoin start-ups and our intention is, at an appropriate time, to convert that
debenture into common stock (??) to subsidiaries and then spin those out as stand alone
public companies on the CoC. Its a very unique way of getting into the Bitcoin space and
we believe for accredited investors, which is what were focused on, this will be a really
good way to get into our diversified Bitcoin portfolio without ultimate liquidity being
available because it will have free trading public stock, when and if we spin it off. Our
objective is to spin those companies off on or before December 2015 and time will tell as to
when exactly we will do that. We think once we raise the money, well invest it relatively
quickly and once we invest it, we feel that were going to be moving forward to a public
listing scenario. [43:07]

AL: Now, to be clear, I am not an accredited investor so I cant do this but for someone who
is and would like to see a prospectus, is there a site to go to? [43:14]

DW: Yes, you can go to our website GreenBankINC.com and the documentation is on there
and you can download it and look at it. Also, if youre not an accredited investor and you
want to have a little piece of us, you know, we are a public company you can buy our
stock, the symbol is GBC and its a way of indirectly participating in our Bitcoin investments.
[43:35]

AL: Danny Wettreich, thank you very much. [43:39]


__________________________________________


ADVERT:

This is Chris Joseph bringing you news on Nxt, the first true second generation
cryptocurrency for March 11
th
, 2014. Elections were held this past week to select
community members for three committees. One dedicated to Nxt infrastructure, one for
Nxt technical development and one dedicated to Nxt marketing. Elected members for these
committees are now getting set up to help manage project and bounty funds for Nxt
projects. Anyone with a project proposal can apply to these committees for funding. The
committees will assess the submitted proposal and vote to award funds for projects. In
other news, testing on the Nxt decentralized asset exchange is continuing. As confidence in
the exchange grows, a release date within the next month or so is becoming very likely. For
more general information on Nxt, head to NxtCrypto.org or MyNxt.org and stay tuned for
more news on Nxt in the next Lets Talk Bitcoin broadcast. *44:54+


__________________________________________


Stephanie Murphy and Andreas Antonopoulos interview with Justus Ranvier


SM: Were actually after the Texas Bitcoin conference and this is Lets Talk Bitcoin with me,
Stephanie. [45:05]

AA: Hi, this is Andreas Antonopoulos. [45:07]

SM: Weve got Justus Ranvier with us. Hi Justus. *45:10+

JR: Hello. [45:10]

SM: Thanks for being our guest host. Andreas has to go to the airport soon but we really
wanted to make sure that we did a conference wrap up, as we always do when we go to
conferences. We got here to the hotel. The hotel is not where the conference is. Its true
what they say about Texas everything is bigger so we had to drive from the airport to the
hotel, then from the hotel to the Circuit of the Americas where the conference was held.
Everything was kind of spread out; there was a lot of different rooms where the speakers
were speaking. [45:39]

AA: I like the fact that the other thing that was bigger was the speed limit and nice straight
roads and when youre driving to a race track, you take certain liberties. I dont know, I was
in the mood from the moment I left the hotel. (Laughter) Plus, they rented me a Mustang
at Enterprise so that was a lot of fun. [45:54]

SM: Oh my. Well, you got a good deal there. During some of the talks, I was hearing cars
doing (SM makes revving noises) (laughter). [46:01]

AA: There were a couple of Ferraris and a Lamborghini doing laps behind us and
unfortunately, they wouldnt let me get on there with a Mustang, otherwise rental car
who gives a s**t! (Laughter) [46:10]

JR: Im pretty sure that Lamborghini was the first Lamborghini ever purchased with Bitcoin.
[46:14]

AA: Oh really? [46:16]

JR: The yellow Lamborghini that was at the show. [46:18]

SM: I heard it was purchased with Bitcoin but the person wanted to be anonymous or
something. [46:23]

AA: So he brought a Lamborghini to a Bitcoin conference and drove it around the track to
be anonymous? [46:27]

SM: Mhmm. [46:27]

JR: I dont believe hes anonymous according to his forum profile. On the Bitcoin Talk
Forums, hes... I guess I would call him, formerly known as Goat because hes changed his
username but... [46:39]

SM: Thats Mr Goat to you. *46:40+

JR: Yeah. Very few people know his real name. I dont know his real name. I didnt even
get a chance to meet him. Some of our other organizers did but that was his yellow
Lamborghini that was out on the site. [46:49]

AA: That was a lot of fun. [46:51]

SM: What were your overall impressions of the conference? I guess we should say Justus
was helping to organize the conference? [46:59]

JR: The conference was originally a meet-up plus. Im a member of the Austin meet-up
group and we have weekly meetings and last summer,... [47:08]

SM: Very active. There are a lot of people that come, right? [47:10]

JR: Yeah. 40-60 people every week. Last summer, we were doing a thing where once a
month, we would have a slightly more formal meet-up, a little bit better than our weekly
ones. We were on hiatus for the winter holiday. We were thinking in October maybe in
the spring, we should do something a little bit bigger than normal. Maybe a few hundred
people and once the ball got rolling, it turned into the size of the conference that weve had
now. [47:38]

AA: Thats a theme for Bitcoin - once the ball got rolling... (Laughter) [47:43]

JR: Yes. We were not really prepared for this scale of conference. We knew that we were
about... we should have started planning six months before we did and even then, we got
off to a slow start but even with all the problems that we had, I think it turned out very well.
Our professional organizers, that we hired to help, did an excellent job. [48:02]

SM: They really did. I mean, everything was taken care of. I felt very welcomed and...
[48:07]

AA: Yeah, no it was a great conference. I really enjoyed it. I mean, you guys set the tone.
Community organized, community sponsored and you picked the right set of speakers. It
was about the community, from the community... [48:20]

SM: That was the best part about it, I think, was just there was a theme of these are
people who really care about Bitcoin and are invested in it and these are not people who
have found out about Bitcoin two months ago and want to make some money off of it.
These are people who are true... they truly care. [48:35]

AA: Charity was a very big part of the theme of the conference. There were a lot of panels
on charity. There were a lot of charitable organizations that were present. The Charity
Luncheon. [48:46]

SM: We had a Charity Luncheon. A lot of the attendees went to the Charity Luncheon and
there was performance there and put on really well by Seans Outpost, organized by
Michele Seven who was working with them. [48:54]

AA: Seans Outpost, FreeAid *48:57+

SM: Bitcoin100 [48:58]

AA: Bitcoin100 and... [48:59]

SM: Bitcoin Not Bombs [49:00]

AA: Bitcoin Not Bombs [49:01]

SM: Antiwar.com [49:02]

AA: Oh and Antiwar, yes of course. It was a great line up of charitable organizations.
[49:06]

JR: I would say that the one thing... my biggest takeaway of where we were weakest is we
didnt really take care of our exhibitors as well as we thought. We didnt drive enough foot
traffic through there because everybody was at the speakers. We had the two level setup
where the exhibitors were downstairs and the speaking was upstairs. [49:27]

SM: They were kind of in the basement and... (laughter) [49:29]

AA: From a market perspective, that might suck a tiny bit but, at the same time, a
conference that focuses on content, that focuses on having great speakers, focuses on
community and then kind of forgets the exhibitors on the sidelines is maybe a bit better
than the other way around, which is what Ive seen in a lot of the commercial conferences,
right? [49:48]

SM: Some of the exhibitors were like more community organizations. [49:52]

AA: I went through the Expo Hall and I saw both of the rooms, visited all of the booths.
[49:58]

JR: There were three rooms. [49:59]

AA: There were three rooms. (Laughter) I visited both the rooms in a two of three pattern
(Laughter) and missed one of them. [50:08]

SM: It was a multi-sig transaction. [50:10]

AA: Yeah, whoops! [50:11]

SM: (??) rooms. [50:13]

JR: Thats kind of exactly... the weather contributed to it because the exhibitors were in the
bays where the actual race cars go to... [50:20]

AA: The pit stops. [50:21]

JR: The pit stops. [50:22]

AA: They were at the pit stop bays. (??) [50:24]

JR: Because of the weather turned cold over the weekend, we couldnt leave the doors
open so a lot of the exhibitors they couldnt see in. Our plan was that the doors would be
open and it was going to be a nice, March spring day and so that would have driven more
foot traffic. In the end, a lot of people just didnt know they were down there because we
had to bring in space heaters and shut the doors to keep the exhibitors warm. [50:45]

AA: Yeah. The space was a bit difficult to get to and a bit difficult to work in but the energy
of the community was so awesome and the concert, at the end, was really great too.
[50:57]

SM: One thing I thought was really cool that was different from a lot of other conferences
that Ive been to, most conferences they usually have a main speaker and thats the only
person whos speaking at that time, or maybe one, maybe two tracks but this had five tracks
and they were sometimes five speakers on at the same time, or panels, or whatever that
you could choose from. There was a strict time limit on the speakers talks to 20 minutes,
with 20 minutes for questions and then another 20 minutes to get to the next room. I
thought that format worked really well, especially with the venue and it was cool because,
being a speaker, sometimes I feel like Oh god, I have an hour and what am I going to say in
an hour and how am I going to fit that in and do questions? Having it limited to 20 minutes,
really took the pressure off and it became a little bit more of an informal thing where
people could really ask a lot of questions if they wanted to and get to know the speaker.
[51:49]

AA: It was managed very well. It was very strictly managed... [51:53]

SM: Moderated, yeah. [51:54]

AA: ...in terms of managing the time. I feel like if you have something you can say in an
hour, you can say it in 20 minutes. [51:59]

SM: Sure. [52:00]

AA: You could probably say it better and more focused if you do it in 20 minutes, so the rest
is extraneous. It gave us more time for doing questions which was a 50/50 split which was
much better. [52:09]

JR: Im glad you two liked that. That came out of our very first planning session, when we
were sitting at the Central Market where we had our weekly meet-ups. A lot of us had been
to Bitcoin conferences before and we were trying to think of what are the things that we
could improve on and we all knew there was never enough time for audience questions
because at Bitcoin conferences, the audience always wants to participate. We said at our
first meeting Lets do equal time for audience questions just to make it more participatory.
[52:36]

AA: It was great; it was a lot of fun. I think a lot of the audience really got a lot of value out
of this. [52:41]

SM: Yeah, absolutely. I think they felt like it was focused on... its for them. Another thing
that you did that went along with that theme was sort of the general admission track, the
free admission track where anybody could go to certain talks, like for instance I gave a talk,
the very first slot of the conference called Intro to Bitcoin for Newbies in 20 minutes.
People could come to that that were just Bit curious and they did. [53:07]

AA: Oh without even paying a fee for the conference thats brilliant. [53:11]

JR: Well, it wasnt quite like that. We started out planning just three tracks and there was
one ticket price. As the scope of the conference expanded, we added... one of our sponsors
Mastercoin wanted the Hackathon and they gave us some extra sponsorship to extend to
two days, then we had more content to fill. We had lots of speakers pouring in and we had
more rooms so we said These other two tracks that have just shown up, well let the
people who pay for the Hackathon also go to those. The highest ticket price included the
three main tracks, which were going to be the only tracks. The extra tracks turned into be
full tracks in their own right and we had a general admission price that would get you those
but not the first three because we didnt want to upset the people who paid full price,
initially, when we first announced the conference but we also wanted a lower priced option
for people who wanted to come but couldnt maybe afford the $300 for the full access.
[54:14]

AA: Thats nice. You didnt do the usual Bitcoin thing which is take payments in Bitcoin,
then delay delivery for nine months and then give free funds in dollars. (Laughter) Thats a
good thing. Let me ask you something else. How many people do you think came to the
conference? Do you have any numbers at this point? [54:29]

JR: I didnt check the numbers. Not as many as what had space to accommodate. *54:34+

AA: OK, but more than you expected for a meet-up plus for sure. [54:37]

JR: We didnt get as many people as we hoped. A rough, back of the envelope guess... I
would say we got about half of the people we were hoping to see. Our hopes were formed
when the Bitcoin price was over $1000 and that was bringing a lot of excitement in. Now
that there has been a bit of a slump, we didnt get as much buzz as we thought we would.
There were enough people there to make it a successful event. [55:04]

AA: Yeah, I think it was great. Can you say if youre going to break even on this? *55:09+

JR: Well, personally, I was not involved in any of the financial aspects but as far as I can tell,
everything is taken care of. [55:17]

AA: Great. [55:18]

SM: Excellent. [55:19]

AA: Thats good news. *55:19+

SM: Yeah, thats good to know and do you think there is going to be another one next year?
[55:23]

JR: Yeah, the Texas Bitcoin Association was formed to do more of these events and theyre
definitely planning more - maybe one a year, maybe more than one a year. [55:34]

AA: I have one request next time for... if the speaking calls are not called paddocks, I
would feel more comfortable. [55:42]

JR: Alright. [55:43]

SM: Not so much like a horse. (Laughter) [55:45]

AA: Yes, I felt that name complies with the Austin, Texas theme of cowboys. [55:54]

SM: You didnt know that extra 20 minutes was for giving horsey rides around the room.
(Laughter) [55:57]

AA: No, well I was expecting my breakfast to be in a trough and I wasnt into that. *56:02+

JR: Thats the Circuit of the Americas term for those rooms and we just kind of kept with it.
[56:07]

SM: Lets talk about the themes in the conference and what some of the talks were. I was
really pleased to see that there were talks about Bitcoin privacy and anonymity; there were
talks about Bitcoin as an experiment in anarchism; there were talks about liberty and
freedom explicitly, thats what I spoke about in my second talk; there were panels about...
you were both on a panel about what happened with MtGox. [56:32]

AA: Two panels one where we talked about what happened and the environment within
which it happened and then another panel where we talked about the next steps. How we
can look forward and improve things, as an industry, so these things dont happen again.
We talked about cryptographic proofs and open transactions and things like that; better
ways of doing this. [56:51]

SM: Yeah, we had a focus on solutions for using Bitcoin, basically, as a tool for freedom and
bringing us forward into the future of Bitcoin. I think that was a tag line of the conference,
right? Racing into the future. There was, I think, a real focus on where Bitcoin is going and
some of the things that were highlighted, I was really pleased to see the history of Bitcoin,
the roots of Bitcoin and where its going in the future. *57:16+

AA: I would say this is probably the most libertarian-heavy Bitcoin conference Ive been to.
I think partly because it was in Texas, partly because of some of the speakers who were
invited and that was kind of fun. It was a different environment. It was a slightly different
feel to it than some of the other conferences which were more commercial. Im not saying
that all should be libertarian but that way, you get a bit of variety into the various
conferences that bring different points of view. [57:44]

SM: Its not an accident that you came here, Andreas because you said you were going to
boycott North American conferences if they had that special corporate feel to them, right?
[57:53]

AA: As I said to Justus, the reason I came to this and Im going to be doing a couple more
North American conferences is because its organized by the community; its a grass roots
event. Its not organized as a corporate theme to accommodate the sponsors; its organized
by the community to accommodate the community and their views. I got a feel for this; it
had a very specific point of view. Im also going to Toronto to do that conference with
Bitcoin Decentral up there and thats going to have a very different feel. I dont think its
going to be as much about libertarian ideals as this one was but were probably going to talk
more about Ethereum and were going to talk about a few other things like that. You really
get to get the different point of view from the different communities. [58:38]

JR: I would say there was definitely some tension in choosing who we were going to invite
as speakers. There are the kind of speakers that the sponsors might want to hear and there
are the kind of speakers that will engage the community and get them excited, especially if
we want them excited to ever come back to Austin. It just so happens that the libertarian
leaning speakers are, lets say, just better at engaging an audience. People will say Oh, I
had so much fun listening to Jeffrey Tucker and Andreas and Stefan Molyneux. Those are
the speakers that really get the audience excited for having come to the conference.
[59:17]

AA: I had one of my most memorable moments was watching Stefan Molyneux and
cracking up laughing when he was discussing how the libertarian movement had been trying
to fight the state for a very long time and then suddenly Bitcoin is this technology that
comes out of leftfield and offers just a straight forward solution to bypass the state. He
does this little comedy skit where he says Its like trying to fight Mohammed Ali and you
step into the ring with a blow dart and just go pffffft! (laughter) and drop him. Hes like
He spent all this time training and theres no way you can compete and you just pull out the
blow dart and that happens to be Bitcoin. I love little things like that. It was a very nicely
done speech. [59:59]

JR: Stefan Molyneux is someone you bring to a conference if you want the audience to have
fun. [1:00:03]

AA: Yeah, exactly. It was a lot of fun. [1:00:05]

AA: We might have had an easier time attracting sponsors had we had a lot of regulators
and lawyers on the panels but nobody goes to a Bitcoin conference and said Wow! I had
so... [1:00:16]

SM: I want to see that regulator. (Laughter) [1:00:17]

JR: I learned about the definitions of money service businesses and I had an awesome time
and I definitely want to come back to Austin for that. That doesnt happen. *1:00:25+

AA: Actually, you had one regulatory panel. I did go in to watch that. I lasted about 45
seconds before narcolepsy took over (laughter) and I ran out but, heres the thing, there
were four other tracks happening at the same time and that was one of the few panels that
bored me... actually, the only panel that bored me throughout the entire conference which
was the exact opposite of some of the other experiences Ive had where there was only one
or two exciting sessions. Here, it was all exciting sessions. You cant make them all perfect.
Some of them are going to be boring to some people. For me, that one was one of them. I
had so many choices and really enjoyed it. [1:01:02]

JR: Im glad you two liked it. I heard a lot of people enjoying themselves at the conference
and thats really what it was about. *1:01:09]

SM: Often, when you go to a conference, its about the people that are there too, not just
the speakers but just the attendees and it was a great group of attendees. Everyone was
friendly. I had zero bad experiences. Everyone was just super nice - kudos on that for
attracting a good group of people. Andreas, do you have to get going? [1:01:29]

AA: Not yet. [1:01:30]

SM: OK. [1:01:30]

AA: Ive got five more minutes. *1:01:31+

SM: What would you like to add in the last couple of minutes that we have about your
experiences at the conference or anything else you want to add too, Justus. [1:01:39]

AA: I think one of the things we saw at this conference, which was really nice, was a focus
on the future and looking at a lot of the new technologies that can allow us to turn
programmable money into a safer experience than fiat, whereas right now, we are having
some security issues. Were having security issues that are kind of obvious like putting your
trust in organizations and giving them the contents of your keys which can only end badly.
There are other problems in the industry with phishing and compromised machines and
users who are really... it takes a lot of experience and expertise to properly secure your
Bitcoin, paper wallets, offline storage all of this stuff is way too complicated. We saw a
conference where a lot of people, a lot of companies, a lot of coders were talking about
solutions that can make it easy, seamless, intuitive to just secure your Bitcoin by default and
get to a place where Bitcoin is more secure than banks. I think were going to get to that
place pretty soon in 2014. I was very excited to see that. That provides a wonderful answer
to all of these regulators who are saying You trusted the wrong people, now trust these
people. We look at those people and say Thats the same people who lost trillions of
dollars in 2008 and didnt go to jail so, how about no. How about we trust some algorithms
instead? Thats an OK argument to make and the libertarian crowd will cheer you on but
the problem is that argument has no backing. If instead, the argument is Well here is
some technology solutions; heres how they actually work and heres how they make this
type of regulation unnecessary. Thats a winning argument and we can have it. In fact, I
tweeted about some algorithmic approaches to regulation to Ben Lawsky, a few days ago,
and they contacted me back from his office and they want to have a serious discussion
about how to implement these. If we take, at least, some of the regulators at face value and
say theyre interested in protecting consumers, we can challenge that idea and say Youre
interested in protecting consumers, here are some technology solutions that dont involve
regulation through institutions that will protect consumers. Put your money where your
mouth is. Put your regulation behind us and we can solve this. [1:03:55]

JR: I love that approach. I also want to say a quick word about security, since you brought it
up. Its not just about securing bitcoins, its also about individual PC security. *1:04:08+

AA: Yeah. [1:04:08]

JR: We had at this conference, in the month leading up, one organizers Gmail account
password was compromised and one of the volunteers and the attackers used those
compromised Gmail accounts to send out very specific, personalized, spear phishing emails
to some of our sponsors and speakers. [1:04:25]

AA: Yep. Got one. [1:04:26]

JR: That was extremely scary because this wasnt just drive-by malware, this was the
advanced persistent threat targeted at our conference and then going after our speakers
and conferences. Secure your PCs. If youve been procrastinating, dont procrastinate any
more. [1:04:44]

AA: Yeah. Put two factor authentication on your primary email. Thats probably one of the
most important things you need to do right now because you could protect everything else
and then people send password resets to your primary email and take over every one of
your accounts. [1:04:57]

JR: Ive actually gone to the step of where I dont browse outside of virtualized
environments anymore. My web browsing is split between four virtual machines. I have
one virtual machine for Google sites and it is the only browser that can accept Google
cookies. I have one virtual machine that runs a browser that only accesses Facebook and no
other virtual machines browser can have Facebook cookies. Ive taken it a few more steps
because Im increasingly paranoid people who are known to have been in Bitcoin for a
while are going to come under specific, professional, highly targeted attacks, so take the
precaution sooner rather than later and dont put them off. *1:05:39+

AA: Yeah. As Ive said for a very long time, I keep the vast majority of my Bitcoin offline...
[1:05:45]

JR: As I do. [1:05:45]

AA: ...on paper wallets and now BIP 38, encrypted paper wallets distributed in multiple
continents. The point is that this is not a solution that the mainstream can use yet...
[1:05:58]

JR: Right. [1:05:58]

AA: ...but, were getting better. I see it very similar to where the internet was in 1992. You
had to have UNIX command line skills in order to send an email and it took two days to cross
the internet and my mum was never going to do that. Guess what? My mum now has an
iPad and she can do all of that. Will my mum have a Bitcoin wallet? Not in the next five
years but were going to get it to the point where its going to be easy enough and intuitive
enough and fully secure that yes, she will have a Bitcoin wallet at some point. [1:06:28]

JR: The last point was, its not just your bitcoins that you have to protect, its also your
reputation. Somebody who can get access to the same email as you, will use your name to
make their spear phishing more profitable and give a higher chance of success. Thats what
we saw with the attacks on the conference. [1:06:46]

AA: Thats a big problem and Im worried about that, for sure. *1:06:52+

SM: It seems like we are getting to the end of our time. Justus, I just want to thank you and
all the other organizers at the Texas Bitcoin conference for putting on a great event and I
really enjoyed this. This was definitely a lot more enjoyable than other Bitcoin conferences
Ive been to in the past, frankly, because of the community focus and because of the explicit
libertarian bent. I really appreciate all your work on that. [1:07:16]

JR: Thanks Stephanie and Im glad everybody had a great time. *1:07:19]


_________________________________________________


CREDITS:

Thanks for listening to Episode 91 of Lets Talk Bitcoin.

Content for todays show was provided by Stephanie Murphy, Andreas M.
Antonopoulos, Jonathan Mohan, Danny Wettreich, Jeremy Kandah, Matt Bratton,
Ray Duran, Francisco Dominguez and Adam B. Levine

This episode was produced by Adam B. Levine with additional production by
Stephanie Murphy and Jonathan Mohan

This episode was edited by Denise Levine, Matthew Zipkin and Adam B. Levine

Music for this episode was provided by Jared Rubens, Tatiana Moroz and General
Fuzz


Any questions or comments? Email adam@letstalkbitcoin.com.

Have a good one! [1:07:58]