March 05, 2020

Hard Forks Better Than Soft Forks? Dev Peter Todd on the Bitcoin Scaling Debate, Why it Was Controversial, and Is the Lightning Network the Right Solution?

1 hour 10 minutes

Developer Peter Todd joins Charlie Shrem on this week’s episode of Untold Stories. They begin by talking about Peter's focus on community rather than software as an important aspect of crypto. Charlie asks why the Bitcoin scaling debate was so controversial and it leads to an extensive discussion of the events of the debate, people involved, and some of the toxic environment during that period. They compare scaling and community aspects as it relates to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple as well. Peter predicts that Lightning Network will continue to grow, but not everyone will like it. He talks about the risks associated with ICO's and dishonest projects, Tierion, stablecoins, his open source project OpenTimestamps, and other decentralized projects. Charlie and Peter finish up with a discussion on hard and soft forks and Bitcoin's Berkeley DB hard fork incident.

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BitPay gives you the tools to live life on crypto. Whether you want to send crypto to friends, use crypto to buy video games or computer parts, or turn crypto into gift cards for more than 100 mainstream brands, the BitPay app has you covered. You can hold your own private keys in a secure wallet while accessing the best of crypto commerce. Get started at bitpay.com/wallet.

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Bitpanda is a fintech based in Vienna, Austria founded in 2014 by Eric Demuth, Paul Klanschek and Christian Trummer. The company is a firm believer in the innovative power of cryptocurrencies, digitised assets and blockchain technology. Bitpanda’s mission is to tear down the barriers to investing and bring traditional financial products to the 21st century. Today, Bitpanda has more than 1 million users and 120 team members. With a PSD2 payment service provider license, state-of-the-art security and streamlined user experience, Bitpanda has grown into a popular trading platform for newbies and experts alike. Users can currently trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, gold and over 20 other digital assets.

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Pepo was founded by Jason Goldberg, who has been building user experiences for creators and communities for decades. Jason has worked at AOL, Jobster, Social Median, and more recently he connected designers at Hem and Fab. Visit us at Pepo.com/stories for more information.

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If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

Thank you for listening to The Charlie Shrem Show. For more free content and access to over 400 episodes, visit www.CharlieShrem.com.

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