Why is Facebook now called Meta, and what does it mean for crypto?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

So, you’ve heard the news. Facebook, the company, is no longer called Facebook. They renamed themselves to Meta, a new company with a focus on virtual reality.

Sounds crazy? Well it is! No wonder that the reactions ranged from disbelief to making Meta the topic of many jokes. But let’s break it down and take a really good look. It might actually make sense!

But first things first - Facebook, the product you know, isn’t going away, and neither are Instagram and all the other things the company operates. They will keep their names as well.

But here’s the deal: Facebook as a company has long seen the writing on the wall. User growth hit its limits, and a younger generation prefers TikTok over Facebook and Instagram. And then there are the issues of free speech vs. misinformation, privacy concerns, and potential government regulations. These are, let’s be clear, very hard problems to solve even for a company like Facebook.

So, what do you do then if you are Mark Zuckerberg: Work even harder and fight the slow death, maybe turn Facebook into something different and risk losing a money-printing business?

Absolutely not, said Zuckerberg, and instead figured he could use all that sweet money to build an entirely different empire: One that owns virtual reality. It’s a crazy gamble on a specific version of the future, but let’s look at it: Virtual reality technology is already getting so good, people fly realistic airplanes, play games, and design cars in it. Plus, Facebook already owns Oculus, one of the dominant makers of VR headsets.

It may sound distopion to you now, but is it such a stretch to assume that spending time in VR and interacting with others will be an experience many people prefer? Heck, what if we all end up spending most of our time there - working, hanging out, all the things you do.

Let’s assume that happens: Then, suddenly people will want to own things to use and show off there. Humans are humans after all. And what is better suited than crypto to pay for virtual things?

So keep an eye on it: It could be the killer use case for crypto, taking it from concept to essential. Whether Facebook will dominate the space or not, that is to be seen. But the strategy, although very bold, makes a ton of sense. If Zuckerberg succeeds, this could become the single most important turnaround any company has ever done. So, next time someone jokes about Meta, tell them there is something to this whole idea.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

Who is Sam Bankman-Fried?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Today, let’s get to know the creator of crypto currency exchange FTX, a person by the name of Sam Bankman-Fried, who - despite being a billionaire - still prefers to live with roommates and sleep in his office.

Bankman-Fried was born in Stanford, California as the son of two Standford University Law professors.

Being talented at math, he became interested in economics and started working as a funds trader while attending MIT. This turned into a full-time position, which he quit after a few years to start his own algorithmic trading firm – that means the business uses computer code to trade, not human decision.

He realized there was money to be made in Bitcoin trading at slightly different prices in different places. By buying it a fraction of a dollar cheaper in one place, and selling it for a tiny profit somewhere else using nothing but computers, he managed to grow into $25m of trading volume every single day.

Fascinated by crypto trading, he later founded FTX, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world. He moved to Hong Kong, where laws are more favorable for his business.

And if you are wondering: How do you achieve all of that? Apparently Bankman-Fried always works, never takes vacations, and sleeps on bean bags in his office. He likes them so much that he has one in every room.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

Who is Chris Dixon?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Today, in our little mini series about popular blockchain people let’s introduce you to Chris Dixon, general Partner at the famous venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz, often abbreviated as A16Z.

What makes Dixon interesting to know about is that he is one of the most prominent voices about Web 3 and crypto, which also turned him into one of the most successful investors in the space.

Dixon came to Andreesen Horowitz after a successful Silicon Valley career: MBA, then Venture Capital, two-times successful founder with exits to McAffee and eBay.

He got interested in crypto early, when Twitter shut down its app marketplace way back in 2008. This made it clear to him that the future of the internet shouldn’t be in the hands of just a few companies.

And his bets paid off very handsomely. He was a very early investor in Coinbase for example, and now leads Andreesen Horowitz’s crypto team.

You can find Dixon talking about crypto on Twitter, where he has a large following and regularly shares his thoughts on the future of the industry. Go check it out, he often breaks things down for the rest of us!

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

Who is Vitalik Buterin?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Today, we start our little mini series about popular blockchain people you should know about… and the first one is: Vitalik Buterin.

So who is he and why is he an interesting person?

Vitalik Buterin is best-known as the co-founder of Ethereum and, with the exception of the mysterious Bitcoin founder Sotoshi Nakamoto, is probably the best known person in the entire crypto community.

Buterin grew up in Russia as the son of computer scientists, and his family emigrated to Canada when he was six. He ended up being placed in classes for gifted children, because he was exceptional at math, and started enjoying programming and economics.

But he also liked gaming, and spent countless hours playing World of Warcraft. Coincidentally that put him on the path to create Ethereum, because the game publisher took away his character’s main abilities in a single software update. At that very moment, Vitalik Buterin realized that centralized services have a lot of power over their users.

This eventually motivated him to start working in Ethereum, which he first described in a paper in 2013. At the time, he was the publisher of Bitcoin Magazine, and liked the idea of Bitcoin, but wanted it to be more flexible than just do payments. Peter Thiel, co-founder of Paypal, took notice and convinced Buterin to take a $100,000 investment to drop out of school.

And the rest is history. Obviously, Ethereum has become the most important blockchain for anything related to decentralized apps and finance, and Buterin is at the helm of its foundation.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

What does “Immutable” mean?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Are you also tired of hearing those technical, hard to understand terms that blockchain insiders use all the time? So are we. And one of those often mentioned terms is “immutable”. Insiders will say things like: a blockchain is a so-called “immutable ledger”.

But don’t get frustrated. It’s very easy to translate: Immutable just means that something can not be changed.

Think of blockchains like a transaction history that is saved on thousands of computers. Because of that, and because blockchains have mechanisms in place to prevent bad actors from altering them, they are essentially unchangeable.

This means: You can see every single thing that ever happened, and you can trust that the information is correct. Refreshing in times where we seemingly can’t agree on all that many things these days, isn’t it?

And why don’t crypto insiders just say “unchangeable”? Beats us too. Maybe it makes them feel smarter. But don’t be frustrated – a lot of the tech talk is easier to understand than it seems, and we are here to teach you. One building block at a time!

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

What is a Genesis Block?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Today, we explain in simple terms what a Genesis Block is.

A Genesis block is the first block to exist in a blockchain. But let’s take a step back and revisit the concept of blocks to fully understand what that actually means.

Think of a blockchain as nothing more than a long history of financial transactions, saved indestructibly on many computers at the same time.

If you know the history of who sent whom how much, you can easily determine what is in each person’s wallet. It’s like a family tree: History is represented by generations – parents have kids, and kids have grandkids. If you know that Peter is Christian’s son, and Audrey is Christian’s daughter, you can determine that Christian has two kids.

But back to transactions now! Blocks are groups of those transaction records, and they simply exist to make it easier for computers to process many of them at the same time.

A Genesis block gets its name from the biblical story of God creating the world out of nothing. That’s kind of what is happening with crypto too: Someone just decides to start somewhere - for example 50 Bitcoins. It’s an arbitrary starting point, and the amount is set by the inventor of that blockchain. Everything after then is up to the users of the blockchain.

There you have it. All history has to start somewhere, including that of blockchains. And sometimes, there are some interesting nuggets to be found: Bitcoins Genesis block for example contained the headline of an article about banks being bailed out in the financial crisis of 2008. This led many to speculate it was invented as a currency that can’t be controlled by governments.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

Can you really make crypto while running?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Today, let’s look into a new trend: Apps that give you free crypto as a reward for being active: Run a mile, get a token. Get out of the house for a walk, get another one.

But how does that work, are those tokens even worth collecting, and why would someone do this?

You may have heard about “play to earn” games where you get crypto as rewards for participating. A new kind of app that works similarly, is getting popular: But this time it’s about “move to earn”.

The idea is simple: You get rewarded with an app’s own token for exercising, and because the token can be traded on crypto exchanges, that reward may be exchanged for money. Sounds strange that someone would just give you money? You are not wrong - so let’s look into how those economics work.

First, there are simply games that give you a token they invented and that token doesn’t have real value. It’s just a fun game to keep you on your toes - pun intended. And in some cases, even though those tokens are just like Yelp badges or Reddit Karma, speculators show up and pump the value up.

But there are also cleverly disguised schemes that are influenced by popular play-to-earn games: Those “move to earn” games require you to buy in first. STEPN, the most popular one, forces you to buy a “sneaker NFT” for over $1000 before you can earn the token. They don’t say it, but the economics are simple: You buy in, so someone else can cash out. If total users are growing, everyone makes money - until people want to get out. Ponzi scheme, or just skin in the game… you’ll be the judge.

And that’s it on “move to earn” - we will say: Get out of the house no matter what, but if you are intrigued, go do some more research! Maybe there is one you find fun to play.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

What is a custodial wallet?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Today, let’s talk about a different type of wallet. The so-called “custodial” wallet.

You may have never heard the term before, but it is the most common form of wallet. And if you have a crypto account with Coinbase, Binance, or other exchanges, you might actually have your crypto in a custodial wallet without knowing what it is.

Remember that on a blockchain, each bank account is represented by a wallet. That wallet has an address, like your bank account number, and a secret key. Without the key, nobody has access.

And managing that is cumbersome. You have to write down the keys somewhere, make sure you don’t lose them and keep others from stealing them. Countless amounts of crypto have simply been lost because people misplaced their secret key and will never be able to access their wallets again.

Enter those “custodial” wallets. Instead of making you manage all those keys, they are simply managed by someone else, for example Coinbase. You may have noticed that once you are signed up, those services simply work - no need to write any special passwords down for each blockchain.

This has huge usability advantages for you as a user of course. But at the same time, you have to trust those services not to lose your password or let hackers in. It’s a tradeoff, and some people who want to keep crypto for a very long time opt for cold storage instead - saving those passwords somewhere offline in a nearly indestructible form.

There you have it: Custodial wallet just means someone else is keeping your funds in a wallet they have custody over. You don’t have to worry about keys and such, but have to trust them to do the right thing.

The decision, as always, is yours.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

If you’ve ever come across one of those “Web 3” websites, you will have noticed that they don’t operate like normal websites: Instead of asking you to create an account with username or password, or log in through Google and Facebook, they simply connect to your wallet.

But what does that do? And is it safe?

Connecting with a crypto wallet really means nothing other than letting the website know that you own that particular address on the blockchain in that case. Think of it like buying a car on a financing plan: The dealer needs to know you actually have control over the money, they don’t really care about the sound of your name as long as you can pay. That’s why they do all these identity and credit checks.

With blockchains, it’s much easier: You are the owner of your account because only you have the key. All your history is right there for everyone you let in. Like the car dealer, those sites don’t really need to know your name or email address to allow you to use a service, for example to exchange one token for another. And because your blockchain account is tied to you and you only, it can serve a double purpose as your login.

Neat, isn’t it? But be careful - these web apps can ask for anything, including permissions to transfer things in and out of your wallet. Whatever they ask for, a dialog pops up. Always - and we mean this - always read very carefully what they are asking for. Confirming your identity is one thing, but there are plenty of scam websites out there: They will tell you it’s just a login, but hope you don’t read the dialog and just click “OK” when they are trying to clean out your wallet instead.

And there you have it: Logging in with a wallet - kind of convenient, but still a little scary, so be careful. Things will surely get better over time, but keep your guards up for now.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

Does Bitcoin have to be a Planet Killer?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

We’ve covered and complained about Bitcoin’s energy consumption in this podcast a bunch, but let’s face it: Bitcoin makes up over 40% of the money, putting it far ahead in the first place. Clearly, Bitcoin is attractive to investors despite the carbon emissions problem.

So, the question is: Does Bitcoin HAVE to be a planet killer? Or can it be changed?

Unfortunately, it’s a little bit of both and the answer is: It’s complicated. So let’s break it down!

At the heart of Bitcoin’s wasteful nature is “proof of work”, a mechanism to validate transactions that burns energy by design. The thought is: Someone could take over the network by owning more than 50% of the mining capacity - which is called the 51% attack. So, let’s make it expensive for them to try, and introduce arbitrary energy intensive tasks each miner has to solve to participate.

This mechanism has been really effective at preventing a 51% attack. But Bitcoin doesn’t have to be this wasteful. The technology could be advanced to use more modern methods, like “proof of stake”. There, miners lock up funds in an escrow account in return for mining rights, and would lose them if they did bad things. Proof of stake blockchains are not only extremely fast, but also need just minimal amounts of energy.

But there is a catch, and it’s not technology, it’s human behavior. You see, mining is a HUGE business. Miners have invested millions into highly specialized Bitcoin computers, which are good at one thing, and one thing only: Solving those Bitcoin puzzles. Take the puzzles away, and the investment becomes useless.

The problem? You need more than half the actors on the network to agree to that change and they have deep financial incentives to dislike that change.

There you have it: It’s very unlikely that Bitcoin will ever become an energy friendly blockchain unfortunately. But as they say: stranger things have happened! Maybe we’ll all come to our senses one day and make the leap forward.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.