Videos:
Podcasts: What Bitcoin Did
Joe does a great job breaking down how many of the problems in our society are rooted in our monetary system by breaking down the second and third order effects of an inflationary money.
This is a great place to start for anyone curious about Bitcoin.
Watch here.
One of the best, if not the best, Bitcoin for beginners videos that exists.
This will also be a good introduction to Andreas, he is going to come up a lot.
Watch here.
The Ultimate Bitcoin 101 with Vijay Boyapati - WBD300
Description:
As we are in another Bitcoin bull market, many new people will be considering investing, but understanding what Bitcoin is and why it is important isn’t straightforward.
Bitcoin is multifaceted, and the use cases can vary dramatically depending on where you live in the world and your circumstances.
There is no standard narrative or way of explaining Bitcoin; for example, it is a medium of exchange, a way to bypass government and as an inflation hedge. Others are investing in Bitcoin to speculate against the net benefit of all use cases.
To help answer some of the most common questions and lay to bed some of the common misconceptions, I talk to software engineer and author, Vijay Boyapati for the ultimate Bitcoin 101.
Bitcoin Philosophy with Gigi - WBD324
Description:
Bitcoin is an implicit rejection of the existing system. From the early cypherpunks to the recent multi-billion dollar CEOs, the people that take the plunge down the rabbit hole possess an ability to think outside-the-box. They come with an open mind and often discover that Bitcoin has changed them.
The permissionless nature of Bitcoin means that anyone who is running a node and interacting with the network is able to decide for themselves what Bitcoin is. For different people, it solves different problems, but ultimately, everyone on the network is confined to the rules of consensus.
In this interview, I talk to Bitcoin writer Gigi. We discuss the philosophical teachings of Bitcoin, toxicity as a feature, and how bitcoin creates its own space-time.
Bitcoin & Human Rights with Alex Gladstein and Natalie Smolenski - WBD804
Description:
Alex Gladstein is the Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation and Natalie Smolenski founded and leads the Texas Bitcoin Foundation. In this interview, they discuss how Bitcoin is a cheat code for human rights, privacy, sovereignty and the reciprocal loss of trust.
Part 1: The Emergence of Money with Lyn Alden - WBD703
Description:
Lyn Alden is a macroeconomist and investment strategist. In this interview, we discuss Lyn’s amazing new book: Broken Money. This show, the first in a series of three shows, delves into the history of money: the concept of money as a ledger, its different forms throughout history, as well as the properties that make a commodity suitable for use as money.
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One of the key concepts Lyn explores is the idea of money as a ledger, of which there are three main forms: commodity money, governed by the specific properties of the physical commodity being used as money; bank money, which is a ledger governed by nation states and managed by central banks; and, open-source money like Bitcoin, where the ledger is governed by the users, who create and maintain the rules of the system. But how did money develop?
Money emerged as an innovation to solve the problems of barter, where the limitations of the double coincidence of wants and lack of trust between traders made transactions difficult. Money emerged as a liquid accounting system making transactions more efficient. Different cultures used various commodities as forms of money throughout history, including shell beads, cocoa, salt, and furs.
Each type of commodity used as money had unique properties that made them suitable, such as divisibility and the ability for them to be recombined. As technology advanced, people were able to produce more of these commodities, which led to their devaluation. However, two commodities that were difficult to devalue were silver and gold. These precious metals were rarer and had a natural difficulty adjustment, making them more suitable as money.
As important as the technology of money was the evolution of the theory of money. Two competing theories of money emerged: commodity theory and credit theory. Commodity theorists believed that barter was the precursor to money. However, credit as a form of money has been found in modern hunter-gatherer societies and used as an effective way of circumventing the need for commodities as money.
The current paradigm is seeing bank money and credit theory coming under significant strain. Every system controlled by human administrators degrades over time, with most currencies experiencing high inflation or even hyperinflation within a human lifetime. However, despite attempts to find alternatives like the dollar or Bitcoin, nothing quite fills the void left by the local currency. How money broke will be the focus of the next show.
Bitcoin Mining 101 with Harry Sudock - WBD400
Description:
Bitcoin mining requires energy expenditure as a fundamental pillar of the proof-of-work consensus mechanism. While bitcoin is considered energy-intensive by some, it is often misreported in the media, overlooking its importance and the positive benefits for humanity of having sound money.
Similarly, while some criticise bitcoin mining as wasteful, there is ignorance regarding how mining companies are improving communities, the efficiency of the energy grid, and even the impact of energy use itself.
So how is bitcoin mining a driving force for beneficial change?
In this interview, I talk to Harry Sudock, Vice President of Strategy at Griid. We discuss how bitcoin mining works, mining as a force for good globally, and demonetising the political class.
Altcoins, a History of Failure with Nic Carter - WBD190
Description:
Bitcoin can be intimidating for beginners. The protocol is complicated, the community can be aggressive and unforgiving, silly mistakes can lose you money, and it is easy to succumb to altcoin marketing.
Bitcoin does though, offer you the opportunity to hold a new type of monetary asset, one which can't be seized by the government and is censorship resistance and It has the potential to change the way the world.
The goal of What Bitcoin Did has always been about making things simple; there are no stupid questions, and the show is here to help beginners navigate this new world. To kick off 2020, we are launching a special series to help beginners understand Bitcoin. We will be looking at the basics from breaking down the protocol to explaining the economics and discussing the potential societal shift.
Beginners Guide Part 9 - Altcoins, A History of Failure with Nic Carter
From faster transactions to lower fees to better privacy, almost every altcoin promises to improve upon some technical aspect of Bitcoin. The blockchain myth, as some utopian database structure, has been nothing more than a marketing term for fundraising and hype, with little to no real-world traction.
The soul of Bitcoin is not embedded in some technical measure but in the trust of the protocol. Improving upon some technological measure of Bitcoin always comes with a trade-off such as reducing decentralisation or security. The beauty of Bitcoin is in its simplicity, something which can take time to understand.
The altcoin marketing machine can be a tempting distraction for those new to the world of crypto, but the long-term trend suggests that these investments are risky. Even trading altcoins as a way of increasing your Bitcoin holding comes at significant risk. Since the ICO bubble of 2017/18, the vast majority of these projects have all but died, with many holding worthless bags of hopium.
In Part 9 of the Bitcoin Beginner’s Guide, I talk to Nic Carter Partner at Castle Island Ventures a Venture Capital firm focused on public blockchains. We discuss the history of altcoins, their inferiority to Bitcoin, and why the failure rate is so high.
Books:
The Hidden Cost of Money - Seb Bunney
A great book for beginners. Avoiding too many technical details about Bitcoin and the current monetary system Seb does a brilliant job of linking many of the most prominent problems in society to the fiat monetary system. Some paragraphs may take a couple re-reads but you will struggle to find a book which explains the problem which Bitcoin solves in a more simple and concise manner. (MORE DEPTH)
Hidden Repression - Alex Gladstein
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