Crypto Voices

Crypto Voices: Episode 81

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Matthew and Fernando interview Henry Brade, founder and chairman of Prasos & Coinmotion, both based in Finland.

We discuss Henry's journey in servicing and onboarding bitcoin to customers, covering their various services in Finland, as well as their current offerings and entry in the Spanish market.

We explore much of the latest regulatory climate in Finland and in Europe for Prasos and Coinmotion, based on their experience; what works well, what doesn't work well, their efforts in becoming compliant, KYC/AML (does it really work?), bank scandals, bank attitudes toward bitcoin, licensing, and other regulatory issues.

We cover in depth the variety of services that Prasos offers, from Denarium's physical products to trading bitcoin on Coinmotion, from locking bitcoin on their platform to interest-bearing account services, Prasos and Coinmotion do it all.

Definitely check out their services, particularly if you're based in Europe!

Listen on to learn more.

Links for more info:

https://twitter.com/Technom4ge

https://prasos.fi/

https://coinmotion.com/

https://denarium.com/

Show Sponsor:

cryptovoices.com/tradesmithoffer

Hosts: Matthew Mežinskis, Fernando Ulrich

Music: New Friend Music newfriendmusic.com/

Site: cryptovoices.com/

Podcast & Information

Cryptoeconomics & Liberty

Thanks for listening!

Show content is not investment advice in any way.

Crypto Voices: Episode 80

Show support appreciated: 35iDYDYqRdN2x6KGcpdV2W1Hy3AjGje9oL

Matthew updates on the Crypto Voices Monetary Base exhibit for 2019 Q3. This episode will be a lot easier if following along with the tweet thread, which is here: https://twitter.com/crypto_voices/status/1191723457467355137?s=20

Or, you can also follow along with the exhibits here: cryptovoices.com/basemoney

Bottom line:

Bitcoin is currently the #9th largest base money in the fiat world.

Bitcoin is currently the #11th largest base money in the fiat world, including past base monies gold & silver.

Bitcoin is unquestionably unlike anything else in the (financial) world. However, if you are going to try and compare Bitcoin's supply with other supply curves in the financial world, don't. The *only* money supply you can compare it to is fiat's "Monetary Base," or "Base Money."

Firstly, something needs to be used as a medium of exchange to technically be called "money."

Gold and silver used to be.

Fiat is now.

Bitcoin very well could be.

But don't get carried away. We need to compare bitcoin (and gold... and silver) to fiat's "base money" supply, and *only* to the base money supply.

M1/M2/M3 and all others simply aren't comparable. Why? Because those supplies include "claims" on base money.

In this episode, we go deeper on two new charts:

1) central bank gold reserves versus their monetary base;

2) the world basic money supply compared to the world bank money supply (M3, less M0). Remember, M0 is the cash and coin that is physically in circulation, AND outside of bank vaults.

Listen on to learn more.

Links for more info:

cryptovoices.com/basemoney

Hosts: Matthew Mežinskis, Fernando Ulrich

Music: New Friend Music newfriendmusic.com/

Site: cryptovoices.com/

Podcast & Information

Cryptoeconomics & Liberty

Thanks for listening!

Show content is not investment advice in any way.

Crypto Voices: Episode 79

Show support appreciated: 35iDYDYqRdN2x6KGcpdV2W1Hy3AjGje9oL

Matthew and Fernando interview Sergej Kotliar, founder and CEO of Bitrefill.

We discuss Sergej's early vision for Bitrefill, the current business model, how the company has morphed over the years, and how the effort has always been to practically and pragmatically allow their customers to spend bitcoin on real goods, via gift cards and mobile refills.

We discuss the reason for certain altcoin integrations on their platform, and take an interesting sidetrack on the pros and cons of Dogecoin.

Sergej concludes by providing more detail on their work with Lightning integration, where he sees it going, and the Thor service.

Bitrefill is hiring.

Listen on to learn more.

Links for more info:

https://twitter.com/ziggamon

https://twitter.com/bitrefill

https://careers.bitrefill.com/people/298490-sergej-kotliar

https://careers.bitrefill.com/jobs

https://www.bitrefill.com/

Show Sponsor:

cryptovoices.com/tradesmithoffer

Hosts: Matthew Mežinskis, Fernando Ulrich

Music: New Friend Music newfriendmusic.com/

Site: cryptovoices.com/

Podcast & Information

Cryptoeconomics & Liberty

Thanks for listening!

Show content is not investment advice in any way.

Crypto Voices: Episode 78

Show support appreciated: 35iDYDYqRdN2x6KGcpdV2W1Hy3AjGje9oL

Matthew & Fernando interview monetary economist George Selgin.

We cover Dr. Selgin's latest views on money and Bitcoin, including how the Libra theoretically fits into the mix. It's always very interesting to hear George's perspective on old monetary topics and new, and we go through a few of them, such as what a reserve currency is, what inflation and deflation is (both good and bad), and what the goals of monetary policy have traditionally been, as well as George's view on improvements. Even though a fan of Bitcoin (Dr. Selgin was on the original cypherpunk mailing list), George has expressed some concerns with Bitcoin's characteristics, as these characteristics in his view relate to potential money (to become a generally accepted medium of exchange), and we cover some of them here.

Listen on to learn more.

Links for more info:

https://twitter.com/GeorgeSelgin

https://www.alt-m.org

https://www.alt-m.org/author/selgin/

Show Sponsor:

cryptovoices.com/tradesmithoffer

Hosts: Matthew Mežinskis, Fernando Ulrich

Music: New Friend Music newfriendmusic.com/

Site: cryptovoices.com/

Podcast & Information

Cryptoeconomics & Liberty

Thanks for listening!

Show content is not investment advice in any way.

Crypto Voices: Episode 77

Show support appreciated: 35iDYDYqRdN2x6KGcpdV2W1Hy3AjGje9oL

Matthew updates on the Crypto Voices Monetary Base exhibit for 2019 Q2. This episode will be a lot easier if following along with the tweet thread, which is here: https://twitter.com/crypto_voices/status/1157636589281058816

Or, you can also follow along with the exhibits here: cryptovoices.com/basemoney

Bottom line:

Bitcoin is currently the #9th largest base money in the fiat world.

Bitcoin is currently the #11th largest base money in the fiat world, including past base monies gold & silver.

Bitcoin is unquestionably unlike anything else in the (financial) world. However, if you are going to try and compare Bitcoin's supply with other supply curves in the financial world, don't. The *only* money supply you can compare it to is fiat's "Monetary Base," or "Base Money."

Firstly, something needs to be used as a medium of exchange to technically be called "money."

Gold and silver used to be.

Fiat is now.

Bitcoin very well could be.

But don't get carried away. We need to compare bitcoin (and gold... and silver) to fiat's "base money" supply, and *only* to the base money supply.

M1/M2/M3 and all others simply aren't comparable. Why? Because those supplies include "claims" on base money.

In this episode, we go a bit deeper than prior audio compendiums on what exactly is a floating currency (a prerequisite for fiat base money), and why we included the top 30 currencies that we did in our fiat table. We focus on China and the Scandic currencies, and why "backing" is not a proper term for base money (at least today).

Listen on to learn more.

Links for more info:

cryptovoices.com/basemoney

Hosts: Matthew Mežinskis, Fernando Ulrich

Music: New Friend Music newfriendmusic.com/

Site: cryptovoices.com/

Podcast & Information

Cryptoeconomics & Liberty

Thanks for listening!

Show content is not investment advice in any way.

Crypto Voices: Episode 76

Show support appreciated: 35iDYDYqRdN2x6KGcpdV2W1Hy3AjGje9oL

Matthew and Fernando interview Dr. Stuart Haber & Dr. Scott Stornetta, authors of the seminal cryptographic 1991 paper “How to time-stamp a digital document,” a key part of the technological inspiration for Bitcoin, and as a result they share 3 of the 8 references in Satoshi Nakamoto’s “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” white paper.

We discuss their early days in cryptography, their background, and what led them to author their important time-stamping idea, and why trust and document provenance must be distributed.

We spend some time discussing their latest thinking on what makes an immutable ledger, the lingering dangers in cryptography, and how distributed consensus in many ways is a completely separate field from public key cryptography. We also discuss the importance of privacy, in light of recent mainstream, large corporate hacks of personal data, the latest victim being Capital One and its clients.

Listen on to learn more.

Links for more info:

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/How-to-time-stamp-a-digital-document-Haber-Stornetta/06b055b0b53d39aa969afc2ba2c1d87985587db7

https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-paper

https://www.hs91.net/

http://www.surety.com/about-us/corporate-management/dr-stuart-haber

https://www.yugenpartners.com/team

https://breakermag.com/money-was-the-sizzle-blockchain-pioneer-w-scott-stornetta-assesses-satoshis-work/

https://twitter.com/StuartHaber

https://twitter.com/strangethingitl

Show Sponsor:

cryptovoices.com/tradesmithoffer

Hosts: Matthew Mežinskis, Fernando Ulrich

Music: New Friend Music newfriendmusic.com/

Site: cryptovoices.com/

Podcast & Information

Cryptoeconomics & Liberty

Thanks for listening!

Show content is not investment advice in any way.

Crypto Voices: Episode 75

Show support appreciated: 35iDYDYqRdN2x6KGcpdV2W1Hy3AjGje9oL

Matthew and Fernando interview Maksim Keidun (CEO) & Roman Snitko (CTO) of the Hodl Hodl Bitcoin P2P exchange, and organizers of the Baltic Honeybadger 2019 conference, coming up in Riga this September 14-15.

We discuss the much anticipated Baltic Honeybadger 2019 conference, which will occur in it's third annual iteration, organized by Hodl Hodl in Riga, Latvia. Great new speakers and guests, Unpopular Opinions in Bitcoin, how the team views the future of Honeybadger, and what the spirit and identity of the conference actually is.

Max and Roma also cover the latest from the Hodl Hodl P2P Bitcoin exchange. We discuss their new Predictions product in depth, and how it works in a peer-to-peer fashion on their platform. We also touch upon Lightning integration for their general exchange product (the first and earliest exchange to enable Lightning, by far). We also discuss privacy and principles in Bitcoin, including both at their conference and on their platform, and how this fits into their plans for the future.

To attend the conference and learn how, everything is available here: https://bh2019.hodlhodl.com/

Listen on to learn more.

Links for more info:

https://twitter.com/keidunm

https://twitter.com/romanitup

https://twitter.com/hodlhodl

https://hodlhodl.com/

https://predictions.hodlhodl.com/

https://news.hodlhodl.com/

Show Sponsor:

cryptovoices.com/tradesmithoffer

Hosts: Matthew Mežinskis, Fernando Ulrich

Music: New Friend Music newfriendmusic.com/

Site: cryptovoices.com/

Podcast & Information

Cryptoeconomics & Liberty

Thanks for listening!

Show content is not investment advice in any way.

Crypto Voices: Episode 74

Show support appreciated: 35iDYDYqRdN2x6KGcpdV2W1Hy3AjGje9oL

Matthew interviews Max Hillebrand, open-source entrepreneur and WCN YouTube host from Baden-Württemberg.

Max covers his bachelor thesis on this show, which in parallel is also interestingly available as an open-source project on GitHub. He discusses the nuances of Bitcoin scripts and UTXOs. What about Bitcoin is scarce? What about Bitcoin can be owned? What about Bitcoin is a property right? Furthermore, how will the Lightning Network's payment channels and multisig scripts form a web of trust in a new Bitcoin economy?

Listen on to learn more.

Links for more info:

https://twitter.com/HillebrandMax

https://github.com/MaxHillebrand/LightningMultiSig

http://www.towardsliberty.com/

https://www.worldcryptonetwork.com/shows/bitcoin-to-the-max

Show Sponsor:

cryptovoices.com/tradesmithoffer

Hosts: Matthew Mežinskis, Fernando Ulrich

Music: New Friend Music newfriendmusic.com/

Site: cryptovoices.com/

Podcast & Information

Cryptoeconomics & Liberty

Thanks for listening!

Show content is not investment advice in any way.

Crypto Voices: Episode 73

Show support appreciated: 35iDYDYqRdN2x6KGcpdV2W1Hy3AjGje9oL

Matthew & Fernando interview Laura Davidson & Walter Block, two Austrian economists who've written a paper in 2015 addressing Bitcoin and Ludwig von Mises's famous Regression Theorem.

Many economists have been puzzled by the emergence of Bitcoin. Is it money? Does it violate Mises's Regression Theorem on money? What precisely is the crux of the Regression Theorem? Does Bitcoin satisfy its requirements? Or does it even apply to Bitcoin? Laura and Walter give a fascinating overview as they revisit their important paper from 2015. Their paper is linked below and titled, "Bitcoin, the Regression Theorem, and the Emergence of a New Medium of Exchange."

Listen on to learn more.

Links for more info:

https://mises.org/library/bitcoin-regression-theorem-and-emergence-new-medium-exchange

https://mises.org/profile/laura-davidson

https://mises.org/profile/walter-block

https://mises.org/library/theory-money-and-credit

https://mises.org/library/human-action-0

Show Sponsor:

cryptovoices.com/tradesmithoffer

Hosts: Matthew Mežinskis, Fernando Ulrich

Music: New Friend Music newfriendmusic.com/

Site: cryptovoices.com/

Podcast & Information

Cryptoeconomics & Liberty

Thanks for listening!

Show content is not investment advice in any way.

Crypto Voices: Episode 72

Show support appreciated: 35iDYDYqRdN2x6KGcpdV2W1Hy3AjGje9oL

Matthew & Fernando update on the Crypto Voices Monetary Base exhibit for 2019 Q1. This episode will be a lot easier if following along with the tweet thread, which is here: https://twitter.com/crypto_voices/status/1131189757554384901

Also exhibits are here: cryptovoices.com/basemoney

Bitcoin is currently #10 money in the world after fiat.

Bitcoin is currently #12 money in the world after fiat, gold, and silver.

Bitcoin is unquestionably unlike anything else in the (financial) world. However, if you are going to try and compare Bitcoin's supply with other supply curves in the financial world, don't. The *only* money supply you can compare it to is fiat's "Monetary Base," or "Base Money."

Firstly, something needs to be used as a medium of exchange to technically be called "money."

Gold and silver used to be.

Fiat is now.

Bitcoin very well could be.

But don't get carried away. We need to compare bitcoin (and gold... and silver) to fiat's "base money" supply, and *only* to the base money supply.

M1/M2/M3 and all others simply aren't comparable. Why? Because those supplies include "claims" on base money.

Listen on to learn more.

Links for more info:

cryptovoices.com/basemoney

Hosts: Matthew Mežinskis, Fernando Ulrich

Music: New Friend Music newfriendmusic.com/

Site: cryptovoices.com/

Podcast & Information

Cryptoeconomics & Liberty

Thanks for listening!

Show content is not investment advice in any way.