The Crypto Conversation

Latest Episodes:

Josh Olszewicz - Bitcoin's Stock to Flow, Boomers & Millennials, Libra & Facebook Nov 15, 2019

Show notes

Professional trader and market analyst Josh Olszewicz joins Andy Pickering for a brain dump on the crypto news cycle. Bakkt's volume hit a new all-time-high, and Square had its sixth consecutive growth quarter - bullish for Bitcoin? Plus recent developments in China, why Libra is dead in the water, and Andy tells the story of how Kim Dotcom introduced him to Bitcoin.

Key takeaway:

Crypto has a scam problem, a fungibility problem, and a user-experience problem, are these solvable? Darknet markets still prefer Bitcoin over privacy coins, why? As Boomers fade out, millennial adoption of Bitcoin as digital money for a digital world will become inevitable. China has been working on the digital yuan for 3-4 years, what is really happening, and why China is so adept at playing the long game. Bitcoin's stock to flow model suggests a $55,000 Bitcoin after the 2020 halving.

Why you should listen:

Andy and Josh discuss whether "nocoiner" is a derogatory term in the same way as "Ok Boomer," and Josh outs himself as an Overwatch and Magic: The Gathering enthusiast. Everyone is mad at Facebook, and just as well, as Libra looks like it is designed to use private social media data to calculate credit scores. That would be dystopian. The story of the next decade will a Darwinian battle between decentralized digital currencies, corporate coins, and central bank digital currencies. Spoiler alert - Josh picks Bitcoin as the winner.

Supporting Links:

Plan B - The Bitcoin Stock to Flow model

Josh On Twitter

Brave New Coin on Twitter

Andy on Twitter

Josh's Brave New Coin reports

Josh's Trading tips

Ledger Status

Libra is Architecturally Unsound

Startup Nation - Israel's tech culture, Dapps are doomed, and can blockchain solve corruption? Nov 04, 2019

Show notes

Tal Kol is the co-founder of Orbs, a public blockchain for enterprise. Tal is a veteran of Israel's 8200 unit, a military intelligence agency comprised of the smartest 18 - 21 year-olds in Israel. Alumni of the unit have been unusually successful in the global startup scene. Tal believes that the Dapp model is flawed, that Dapps can't compete with their centralized counterparts, and that public blockchains should work with enterprise to build out Web 3.0.

Key takeaway:

Tal says the 8200 unit is a tech incubator and it's one of the reasons why Israel is a global technology innovator. Learn why Tal says public blockchains for Dapps such as Ethereum, Tezos, EOS, and Cosmos will not succeed and nor will private, permissioned blockchains such as Corda and Hyperledger. Instead, Tal thinks that public blockchains that help enterprise is the only model that makes sense.

Why you should listen:

Tal has some extremely insightful things to say about human nature, power, corruption, and how blockchain can help. Does blockchain have a role to play in the Israeli Palestine conflict? In the Crypto Conversation hot take round, we get deep - Tal says that the global populace and the 1% have a different understanding of governance, power, and how the world really works. Everything is up for manipulation, and nothing can be trusted because power corrupts - can blockchain help? Finally, Tal explains why the laws of physics suggest that in the future as humans start to expand beyond Earth - we will inevitably split into different races and end up at war with each other across the universe.

Supporting links:

The Pirate Portal - John McAfee on Bitcoin price predictions, the McAfee DEX & life as an outlaw Oct 28, 2019

Show notes

John McAfee speaks to us from inside a Faraday cage. At the height of the 2017 crypto bull run John made a wild Bitcoin price prediction and bet his manhood on it coming true. John is a renegade, he's an outlaw, he may or may not be on the run from the US government and he has just launched a new decentralized exchange that he says will rival Binance in six months time.

Key takeaway:

A passionate Libertarian, John seeks to free people from corrupt governments. His latest endeavour is the McAfee Decentralized Exchange (DEX). A DEX cannot be shut down by authorities. John believes that governments will continue to crack down on the crypto ecosystem and to defend against this, it is critical that a network of decentralized exchanges exist to enable the free exchange of crypto assets.

Why you should listen:

John is a notorious prankster, trickster, and modern day pirate. That makes him a very entertaining interview subject. Listen as John explains why he is talking to us from a Faraday cage so that the authorities cannot track him. We discuss John's wild Bitcoin price prediction, why he thinks the math says that Bitcoin hits 1 million by Dec 31, 2020, and why John believes this is a bet he can't lose. Plus - John's fascinating history working as a programmer at NASA, and on black projects at Lockheed, and we finish with the Crypto Conversation hot take round.

Supporting links:

Brave New World - Science fiction and the future of crypto, bitcoin, and blockchain Oct 22, 2019

Show notes

A crypto entrepreneur and blockchain evangelist, Fran Strajnar is the founder and CEO of Brave New Coin. Fran says his mission is to "terraform the digital asset landscape." Brave New Coin's latest product is BNC Pro - a ground-breaking all-in-one crypto portfolio management platform.

Key takeaway:

Information flow in today's crypto economy is fragmented, fallible and flawed. Market beating insight and advantage is available to those who can assemble, curate and filter this data quickly. Launching in November, BNC Pro is an all-in-one crypto asset management solution that integrates a user's portfolio with Brave New Coin's verified market data, newsfeeds and analysis tools - delivering actionable insights in near real-time. Premium tools are unlocked using the BNC Token which is launching via IEO on November 4th at Liquid.com.

Why you should listen:

Fran explains his vision for the future of the crypto and blockchain space and why BNC Pro is positioning to be the terminal experience at the heart of the industry. Plus - why science fiction is the literature of ideas, and the eerie similarities between Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984. Fran explains Star Trek's unique ability to provide a glimpse of the future, it's foreshadowing of mobile phones, iPads, and other technology, and how Gene Roddenberry's clever commentaries on the cultural issues of the day shaped today's world.

Supporting links:

Brave New Coin

Liquid.com/bnc

BNC-pro.com

A-pioneering-business-model-for-a-frontier-industry

Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near

Mark Yusko on creating wealth by being an early investor in innovation Oct 14, 2019

Show notes

Mark Yusko is the CEO of Morgan Creek Capital. Mark is one of the most insightful investors and most articulate Bitcoin bulls on the planet. Mark's investment thesis is that the greatest wealth is created by being an early investor in innovation. Making that investment requires believing in something before the majority of people understand it.

Key takeaway:

Being able to generate significant wealth from investing early in innovation requires doing the work and having conviction. Blockchain and crypto assets are a technological evolution equivalent to the internet.

Why you should listen:

Andy and Mark discuss Ray Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns, why new technology adoption tends to follow an s-curve, and why the human brain struggles to understand the speed of exponential growth. Plus - why crypto is a virus that will keep spreading, the myth of Warren Buffett's "Aw shucks" persona, why institutions must #GetOffZero and allocate to Bitcoin, and Mark explains why he thinks Tesla is a good company but not a good stock.

Links:

Morgan Creek Capital

Brave New Coin

Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near

The Virus Is Spreading

Inside Bill's Brain

Mark's Webinar on #GetOffZero

Mark Yusko on Twitter

Andy Pickering on Twitter

Decred's Privacy Flow - Building a better Bitcoin & the legend of Satoshi Nakamoto Oct 06, 2019

Show notes

Jake Yocom-Piatt, Decred co-founder and project lead talks about the mysterious Decred origin story and how it relates to Satoshi Nakamoto. A hybrid proof-of-work/proof-of-stake store of value asset, Decred has strong governance, good security, privacy features, and an innovative incentive alignment. If Bitcoin is about being your own bank, so is Decred - but it's also about having a say in your bank's policies. Plus, surveillance capitalism, Decred's new privacy features and we listen to the 'Privacy Flow' hip-hop track.

Key takeaway:

Decred is about reorganizing society around fairer games. Decred's point of difference is the addition of a governance system on top of a hybrid proof-of-work/proof-of-stake cryptocurrency. Decred now has privacy features that compete with Monero and Zcash. Bitcoin maximalists often support two other projects - Monero and Decred.

Why you should listen:

Jake is a fascinating guy with very strong opinions. Learn why he thinks Satoshi Nakamoto was a team of at least three people and the mysterious similarities in the origin stories of Bitcoin, Monero and Decred. Plus - listen to Decred's 'Privacy Flow' hip-hop track, and learn why Jake feels vindicated by Edward Snowden's revelations.

Supporting links:

Decred.org

medium.com/decred

Twitter.com/decredproject

blog.companyzero.com/2015/11/bitcoins-biggest-challenges

placeholder.vc/blog/2018/5/12/decred-investment-thesis

Hello Future - Is Hedera Hashgraph a blockchain killer? Oct 01, 2019

Show notes

Hedera Hashgraph is an enterprise-grade distributed ledger platform. After years of development, Hedera came out of stealth mode and launched the public beta of its mainnet in September. The Hedera team describes the Hashgraph as a 3rd generation public ledger (they refer to Bitcoin as 1st generation and Ethereum as 2nd generation). Hedera claims the Hashgraph can process up to 10,000 transactions per second, an order of magnitude faster than current blockchains.

Rather than use a blockchain platform, the Hedera Hashgraph is based on a DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph). This form of DLT doesn't rely on a proof-of-work or proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. Instead, Hedera network participants act as nodes that validate each other's transactions which leads to faster consensus. However, the hashgraph is not decentralized. Instead, it has a governing council with members including corporate heavyweights such as IBM and Boeing.

Mance Harmon co-founder and CEO of Hedera Hashgraph talks about his early years at the Missile Defense Agency where he met Leemon Baird, the inventor of the Hashgraph algorithm. The two tech entrepreneurs say they've solved blockchain's scalability problem. Have they? Let's try and find out...

Key takeaway:

Hedera is no threat to Bitcoin. But when compared to platform blockchains like Ethereum, Hedera appears to offer a compelling feature set and faster transaction times.

Why you should listen:

Mance explains why he thinks Hedera is a generation ahead of current blockchains, why the team has been consciously controversial, and why existing within legal and regulatory frameworks is a feature, not a bug.

Supporting Links

Hedera.com

Hedera Hashgraph - Time for Some Fud by Eric Wall

Counter Fud by Hedera's Paul Madsen

Counter Counter Fud by Eric Wall

Fair Access v. Fair Ordering, & Transactions Per Second Examined & Explained

Twitter.com/hashgraph

Twitter.com/ManceHarmon

Secrets of an altcoin trader - Why the altcoin market cycle is a pure expression of human emotion Sep 26, 2019

Show notes

The Bitcoin price has risen 300% in 2019 but the long-suffering altcoin markets have not been able to keep pace. Earlier this month, while BTC was in a range, we started to see some altcoin moves. ETH, Stellar and Dodge all made gains in USD and BTC terms. Is there an alt window opening? What are the chances of a Q4 alt season? When is the point of maximum opportunity and minimum risk for altcoins? Can Bitcoin lead a market-wide recovery? Or is there simply more pain to come?

Altcoin trader, crypto market researcher, author, and analyst Nik Patel provides his assessment of the crypto markets and where we are in the wider altcoin market cycle.

Key takeaway

Trading altcoins is extremely risky but it can be profitable. Due to the varied trading experience and diverse nature of global market participants, the altcoin markets are a hyper volatile expression of pure human emotion.

Why you should listen

Learn why Nik is short term bearish on BTC and why he thinks an alt season may be on the cards for Q4 2019. Nik discusses his website, his research process, the book he published in 2018, An Altcoin Trader's Handbook, and he reflects on the importance of security and what he learned after a significant portfolio loss due to a hack.

Supporting links

altcointradershandbook.com

An Altcoin Trader's Handbook (on Amazon)

A-Notsofast-security-primer

Jameson Lopp's privacy-protection-proposal

turtlebc.com/tools/bull_percentage/btc

twitter.com/cointradernik

twitter.com/AndyPickeringNZ

Bitcoin and beyond - The innovative investor's guide to crypto assets with Jack Tatar Sep 15, 2019

Show notes

Bitcoin is the best performing asset on the planet across the last ten years. Modern Portfolio Theory suggests that by allocating 5% of an investment portfolio to Bitcoin, investors could generate outsized returns without taking on high levels of risk. Jack Tatar, an investor, advisor, and author talks about crypto assets as an investment class and reflects on the impact of the book he co-authored - Crypto Assets, the Innovative Investor's Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond.

Key Takeaway:

Modern Portfolio Theory suggests that an investment portfolio should allocate 5% towards high-risk, high-return assets such as Bitcoin. Investors can reduce overall risk while maximizing return by holding a diversified portfolio of non-correlated assets.

Why you should listen:

Learn why Jack thinks Bitcoin hits $20,000 in 2020 and the likely impact of the Bitcoin halving. Plus Jack talks about the altcoin market, his favorite sci-fi novels and the two portfolios he tracks for his Forbes crypto asset newsletter subscribers.

Links

Forbes.com/newsletters/forbescryptoassetadvisor

Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor's Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond

Modern Portfolio Theory

The Sirens of Titan

What's the Deal With Bitcoin?

twitter.com/JackTatar

twitter.com/AndyPickeringNZ

Europe Vs The U.S. Who wins the coming wave of Security Token Offerings? Sep 04, 2019

Show notes

While the SEC drags its feet, the EU is embracing blockchain and the emerging Security Token Offering model. Monique Bachner, a Luxembourg based company law and corporate governance expert discusses the different regulatory approaches of the EU and the U.S.

Key Takeaway: Blockchain friendly EU directives are creating a positive regulatory framework for Security Token Offerings.

Why you should listen: Learn why Luxembourg is a hub for blockchain, tech and AI. Plus, just because tokenization will soon make it possible to trade a digital sword for a fraction of a Ferrari, it doesn't mean you should.

eublockchainforum.eu thinkblocktank.org twitter.com/moniquebachner twitter.com/AndyPickeringNZ

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