To The Moon

Bitcoin, not blockchain

Max and Stacy have made it TO THE MOON. The year is 2019, and they ask, “will bitcoin wreck bankers or will bankers wreck bitcoin?”

Max notes that bitcoin is a system of justice disguised as a get-rich-quick scheme and the Bank for International Settlements is queen of get-rich-quick schemes, just print more money and buy as many Modiglianis as there are available. As bitcoin becomes more and more entrenched, more and more unstoppable, the FUD rises. The latest media FUD against bitcoin is that it is boiling the oceans, to which Francis Pouliot makes the case that bitcoin actually makes energy more liquid which makes energy markets more efficient, so is, in fact, better for the environment. Bitcoin’s journey began during the first days of quantitative easing when QE was supposed to be a temporary experiment to provide liquidity (they said) for the otherwise solvent banks, yet this money printing policy has been made permanent in 2019. Bitcoin nemesis Jamie Dimon also announced his bank’s own cryptocurrency, JPMCoin. So, what about the next ten years? Caitlin Long believes bitcoin will be the high-value cross-border transfer system. Will bitcoin succeed gradually or suddenly while legacy systems crumble? With a separation of money and state, as Trace Mayer says, it is game on. Finally, is it still a good time to get involved in bitcoin? Sinclair Skinner says that now is always the best time.

Guests and archival clips include Trace Mayer, Francis Pouliot, Caitlin Long, Jameson Lopp, Jimmy Song, Elizabeth Stark, Bill Barhydt, Giacomo Zucco, Nozomi Hayase, and Sinclair Skinner.

When Lambo? (E9)

On this episode of TO THE MOON, Max and Stacy look at the year 2018 for bitcoin. While it started with bitcoin prices beginning what would become a massive fall of more than 80 percent, most in the space are still euphoric about high prices, and ‘When Lambo?’ is ruling the memes. Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) continue to raise billions of dollars from hapless ‘investors.’ Meanwhile, back in the bitcoin space, Lightning Network goes live on mainnet and builders get ‘reckless.’ They explore the new frontiers opened up by second-layer technology on bitcoin. Guests and archival clips include: Amir Taaki, Sinclair Skinner, Caitlin Long, Simon Dixon, Samson Mow, Jameson Lopp, Bill Barhydt, Elizabeth Stark, Sergej Kotliar, Saifedean Ammous, and Trace Mayer.

UASF (E8)

In this episode of TO THE MOON, Max and Stacy rock into the year 2017, the year of the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in the altcoin market and of the User Activated Soft Fork as a triumphant resolution to the ‘blocksize war’ in bitcoin. The year opened on a crazy altcoin note when $5.6 billion in capital was raised from suckers hoping to get rich quick via an ICO. The phenomenon saw the rise of the normalization of 10x, or 20x, or even 50x returns in a matter of days, as euphoria gripped the market. From archival material, Max talks to Charlie Shrem about the FOMO driving money into these token scams. As ICO hysteria captured the headlines, behind closed doors at the Consensus conference, there was one last-ditch effort by a wealthy group of bitcoiners to double the blocksize to 2mb. There was an immediate reaction –NO2X– which played out on baseball caps across the user base of bitcoin. Jameson Lopp and Trace Mayer offer their insights into what then followed with the emergence of the User Activated Soft Fork. After the UASF happened, the users declared victory, they were in control of bitcoin, and The Vortex discusses this event. With the end of the blocksize war comes the mega rally in bitcoin from under $3000 to $20,000 by the end of the year. Into this volatile euphoria comes the financial derivatives market as bitcoin futures contracts become available. To the Moon talks to Caitlin Long about what the Wall Street guys entering the space with derivatives means.

Guests and archival footage material include talks with: Charlie Shrem, Stephen Palley, Jameson Lopp, Trace Mayer, The Vortex, Caitlin Long.

The blocksize wars

In this episode of TO THE MOON, Max and Stacy take on the year 2016 when the blocksize wars burst onto the scene in January, when a bitcoin core developer, Mike Hearn, rage quits in spectacular fashion. Trace Mayer explains that the blocksize is a security parameter that constrains some of the throughput of the network but it has to do with the consensus rules.

Jan Capek picks up the blocksize war issue by explaining, that a group of people believed the best way to scale bitcoin was to increase the blocksize but this could cause latencies on the network due to the geographical distribution. Jimmy Song steps in with a further explanation that one side wanted a ‘hard fork’ which is a forced upgrade in order to increase transaction capacity. Transaction capacity matters more for means of exchange, less so for store of value. The problem for the big blockers was that they wanted to force an upgrade but bitcoin is decentralized and so they couldn't do it. Giacomo Zucco elaborates that if you want fast and cheap payments, you need to centralize the systems as they are faster and cheaper, but also more fragile politically speaking whereas decentralized systems are anti-fragile but slower and more expensive.

Tone Vays believes the blocksize war was about control of the underlying protocol. Trace Mayer reminds everyone that if you think you are indispensable to bitcoin, you're going to get ‘rekt’. Bitcoin economist, Saifedean Ammous, argues that much of the underlying cause of the blocksize war was a fundamental misunderstanding of the meaning of the word, ‘cash’. Guests and archival clips include: Jimmy Song, Marshall Long, Simon Dixon, Trace Mayer, Jan Capek, Giacomo Zucco, Tone Vays, Saifedean Ammous, Francis Pouliot, Jaromil, Hartej Sawhney.

Blockchain not bitcoin

In this episode of TO THE MOON, Max and Stacy arrive in the year 2015 when the notion of ‘blockchain, not bitcoin’ took hold in the media and on the Wall Street. This was the banks’ attempt to co-opt the distributed ledger technology of the protocol (and turn it into a permissioned wall garden) without having to compete with the actual power of bitcoin as a store of value. Giacomo Zucco compares this to when Bill Gates wrote in 1995 that the internet would not be important, that what would be important is the ‘information highway,’ and that banks are at the bargaining stage of their Kübler-Ross five stages of grief. The show turns to archival footage of Tony Gallippi of Bitpay discussing the banks getting involved in what they choose to call ‘blockchain.’ Caitlin Long reminisces on her detour down the ‘blockchain, not bitcoin’ path until she realized this was like trying to force ‘intranet, not internet’ back in the early internet days. Stacy also brings up the fact that banks are members of the Federal Reserve system, a walled garden in which they are entitled to freshly-minted money. The year also sees the rise of China as a power player in bitcoin mining and the production of mining equipment. China’s capital controls also sees bitcoin prices soar as residents attempt to circumvent the controls. Not to be outdone by the Chinese, New York introduces the BitLicense, which will ultimately drive out business. Caitlin Long explains that she is trying to help Wyoming introduce enabling laws rather than restricting laws as New York had done with the BitLicense. Bitcoin economist, Saifedean Ammous, explains the confusion on the meaning of ‘cash’ in the white paper title of “peer-to-peer digital cash.” The year ends with the final Silk Road auction by US Marshals who sell 44,000 bitcoins, thus ridding themselves of some of the hardest money the government had ever owned. Guests and archival clips include: Giacomo Zucco, Caitlin Long, Simon Dixon, Saifedean Ammous, Russell Brand, Nozomi Hayase, and Tony Gallippi.

Honey badger don't care

In this episode of TO THE MOON, Max and Stacy look back to the year 2014 when the meme that describes the anti-fragile nature of bitcoin took hold. Giacomo Zucco points out that even if some users want something different, the protocol cannot be changed, no matter how vicious the attack is. The Vortex says that bitcoin thrives on being attacked, it grew up on the internet. In early 2014, Charlie Shrem, a young bitcoin exchange entrepreneur was arrested and became ‘bitcoin's first felon’. The year progressed with the collapse of the largest exchange, MtGox, and then US Marshals auctioning off 29,656 bitcoin seized from Ross Ulbricht of Silk Road to Silicon Valley billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper.

In the early days it was easy to nuke your software or lose your keys, thus, essentially, adds value to the network. From the Keiser Report vaults, Max talks to cryptographer Charles Hoskinson about the double spending problem, how bitcoin solves that, and the digital scarcity that made this experiment ultimately very valuable. The year 2014 was also the year of the great crypto winter in which prices had fallen hard and deep and the arrests and exchange collapses made the experiment appear failed. The aggressive attention of regulators and the slowness of consensus also saw the eruption of new ‘altcoins’, experimentations in various capabilities, and functions for ‘programmable money’ that, in turn, saw the emergence of the notion of ‘bitcoin maximalism’. Bitcoin was adopted without a figurehead, in 2014, when the media came sniffing about, they needed to talk to *somebody,* so they talked to individuals in the space who, in turn, used that media attention to start a coin project. Max says, “bitcoin filled a need, and it came about organically through the cypherpunk movement, the altcoins filled a space called ‘the spotlight’ and it brought about a bunch of ‘false Satoshis.’” Guests include Jameson Lopp, Francis Pouliot, Giacomo Zucco, The Vortex, Rodolfo Novak, Marshall Long, Simon Dixon, Tone Vays and Caitlin Long.