The Blockchain and Us: Conversations about the brave new world of blockchains, cryptoassets, and the

Peter Hody speaks about his work as a journalist covering the financial sector, cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, vetting crypto and ICO stories, staying objective, the role of marketing and PR firms in the crypto space, the role of advertising and paid content in the online media, quality of reporting on cryptocurrencies in the mainstream press, how clickbait distorts the story about cryptocurrencies, crypto news platforms, how the decline of Swiss banking helps market Switzerland's vision as a "Crypto Nation", the old boys' and the new boys' network in the Swiss crypto ecosystem, and much more.

Peter is the Editor-in-Chief of finews, a leading online news portal reporting about the financial sector in Switzerland. Peter has been in journalism, TV, print and digital media for the past twenty years. He has an MBA in Media Management and a deep interest in the commercial side of publishing.

Peter Hody: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterhody

Finews: https://www.finews.com/news/english-news, https://twitter.com/finews_ch

The Blockchain and Us newsletter

To stay up to date about what blockchain pioneers, innovators and entrepreneurs from all around the world think about the future of this space, sign up for the newsletter.

Hubert Ritzdorf speaks about automatic auditing of smart contracts, why almost all smart contracts have bugs, specs of smart contracts, the hacks of the Parity wallet, skills necessary to hack smart contracts, why hacking smart contracts is easier than hacking web servers, GDPR and blockchains, challenges for smart contract platforms, being a blockchain entrepreneur in Switzerland, why he avoided an ICO for his own company, and much more.

Hubert is the co-founder and CTO of ChainSecurity, a start-up focussed on mathematical proofs for smart contract security. He has been working on application security for more than 10 years and on blockchain security for more than six years, he has a PhD from ETH Zurich, and his research influenced the underlying Bitcoin protocol and the main Ethereum client implementation.

Hubert Ritzdorf: https://twitter.com/HRitzdorf, https://medium.com/@HRitzdorf

ChainSecurity: https://chainsecurity.com, https://twitter.com/chain_security

The Blockchain and Us newsletter

To stay up to date about what blockchain pioneers, innovators and entrepreneurs from all around the world think about the future of this space, sign up for the newsletter.

Niklas Nikolajsen speaks about Bitcoin Suisse and its amazing journey, why "there will be no difference between crypto-finance and finance, it will only be finance", his early cypherpunk days and Bitcoin evangelism, the importance of timing in entrepreneurship, why he understands the hesitation of banks to work with new industries such as cryptocurrencies, how all assets will move onto blockchains, why "making decentralized exchanges illegal is like making gravity illegal", how the tokenization of assets helps entrepreneurs, "when capital becomes more easily available, the whole world will become a Silicon Valley", the importance of jurisdictions for crypto-financial businesses, why he chose Switzerland as a business location, consolidation in the crypto sector and partnerships with the established financial sector, how "we're moving out of the Wild West phase into the established phase", possible pitfalls for the crypto economy, why consensus technology and distribution will impact law, governments, and society, why people should go with their passion, and much more. 

Niklas is a pioneer in the crypto-financial sector in Switzerland and the founder of Bitcoin Suisse, one of the first Swiss companies providing crypto brokerage, ICO facilitation and advisory and other related services, and today, he is the Chairman of the Board and co-CEO. Niklas holds a degree in computer science from the Copenhagen Business School, and he has a background of more than 15 years as a professional software architect and developer, primarily in the financial, manufacturing and public sectors.

Niklas Nikolajsen: https://twitter.com/nikolajsen_BTCS 

Bitcoin Suisse: https://www.bitcoinsuisse.ch, https://twitter.com/BitcoinSuisseAG 

Previous interview with Niklas for my documentary film "FinTech Made in Switzerland" (2016): https://fintech-documentary.com/interview-niklas-nikolajsen-bitcoin-suisse/ 

The Blockchain and Us newsletter

To stay up to date about what blockchain pioneers, innovators and entrepreneurs from all around the world think about the future, just sign up for the newsletter on https://www.theblockchainandus.com.

Listen to this podcast on

Spotify

iTunes

Stitcher

TuneIn

Lars Thomsen speaks about how crypto and blockchain technology entered his work as a futurist, why it takes a long time to understand what new technologies can do, how futurists work, why blockchains will be at the core of everything, why most companies might miss the opportunity, use cases for cryptocurrencies, the future of work, techniques to imagine possible futures, future-proof skills, and much more.

Lars is a leading futurist and founder of Future Matters. He has been working with over 800 companies on strategies and business models for the future. His main focus areas are the future of energy, the future of work, and mobility. Lars is also a frequent keynote speaker and a member of several think tanks and the World Future Society in Washington D.C.

Lars Thomsen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lars-thomsen-251260/ 

Future Matters: http://www.future-matters.com 

Previous interview with Lars for my documentary film "The Blockchain and Us" (2017): https://blockchain-documentary.com/lars-thomsen-future-matters/ 

Previous interview with Lars for my interview series "Digital Transformation" (2017): https://digitaltransformation-film.com/lars-thomsen/ 

The Blockchain and Us newsletter

Several new interviews go live on this podcast each week. Get an email from me every two weeks with a very short summary of new podcast episodes, so you can immediately pick those interviews you'd like to listen to. You'll never receive any marketing and definitely no spam, and you can unsubscribe at any time. To stay up to date about what blockchain pioneers, innovators and entrepreneurs from all around the world think about the future of this space, sign up for the newsletter on https://www.theblockchainandus.com.

Saifedean Ammous speaks about his book "The Bitcoin Standard", why thriving economies need hard money, the concept of time preference, comparisons between bitcoin and gold, what bitcoin could do for the world economy, how Austrian economics and bitcoin go together, why it took years for him to understand Bitcoin, why he's a self-chosen outcast in academia, why bitcoin might not replace gold after all, and why Bitcoin is neither good nor bad but simply a technology.

Saifedean is an academic economist living and teaching in Beirut as an assistant professor of economics at the Lebanese American University. He was previously a member of the Center for Capitalism and Society at Columbia University and holds a PhD in Sustainable Development from Columbia University in New York. Saif's main interest is Austrian economics and Bitcoin and he wrote the book "The Bitcoin Standard", published by Wiley.

Saifedean Ammous: https://www.saifedean.com, https://thesaifhouse.wordpress.com, https://www.linkedin.com/in/saifedean, https://twitter.com/saifedean 

Saif's book The Bitcoin Standard: http://www.amzn.to/2L95bJW 

Resources Saif recommends in the interview to learn more about Bitcoin:

Bitcoin white paper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf 

Bitcoin wiki: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page 

Satoshi Nakamoto institute: https://www.nakamotoinstitute.org 

The Blockchain and Us newsletter

Several new interviews go live on this podcast each week. Get an email from me every two weeks with a very short summary of new podcast episodes, so you can immediately pick those interviews you'd like to listen to. You'll never receive any marketing and definitely no spam, and you can unsubscribe at any time. To stay up to date about what blockchain pioneers, innovators and entrepreneurs from all around the world think about the future of this space, sign up for the newsletter on https://www.theblockchainandus.com.

Ron Resnick speaks about leading the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA), how he goes about creating standards, specs and certifications for blockchain applications, why companies join and what they plan to do with Ethereum, why some companies "get" blockchain technology and others don't, how the wide adoption of blockchain technology could unfold, why there might be more than one forerunner in the blockchain space, how blockchain standards create new business models for developers, why blockchain development differs from Linux development, and much more.

Ron is the Executive Director of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance EEA and a business development professional with over 25 years of experience growing high technology businesses and their ecosystems. Before joining the EEA, Ron worked at Intel and as President and Chairman of the Board of the WiMAX Forum, an industry association driving 4G wireless broadband, and he was also a pilot in the U.S. Air Force. 

Ron Resnick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-resnick-532189/ 

Enterprise Ethereum Alliance: https://www.twitter.com/EntETHAlliance 

The Blockchain and Us newsletter

Several new interviews go live on this podcast each week. Get an email from me every two weeks with a very short summary of new podcast episodes, so you can immediately pick those interviews you'd like to listen to. You'll never receive any marketing and definitely no spam, and you can unsubscribe at any time. To stay up to date about what blockchain pioneers, innovators and entrepreneurs from all around the world think about the future of this space, sign up for the newsletter on https://www.theblockchainandus.com.

Daniel Doll-Steinberg speaks about how blockchain technology has changed entrepreneurship, London and Switzerland as blockchain hubs, the race of territories to become blockchain epicenters, advising companies to use blockchain technology, hedging legal risk in ICOs, assessing founding teams of ICOs, characteristics of successful blockchain entrepreneurs, misunderstandings of established industries of blockchain technology, the Atari Token, and much more.

Daniel is the CEO of Blockchain Smokers, where he helps companies embrace blockchain technology to achieve growth. He is a former banker in London and New York, and a founder and co-founder of several companies, including the Atari Token, and he is also an active investor and mentor to technology companies. 

Daniel Doll-Steinberg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-doll-steinberg-64a15a/

Blockchain Smokers: https://blockchainsmoker.com, https://twitter.com/Blockchainsmoke

Article about the Atari Token: https://cointelegraph.com/news/gaming-company-atari-announces-investment-in-crypto-share-price-spikes

The Blockchain and Us newsletter

To stay up to date about what blockchain pioneers, innovators and entrepreneurs from all around the world think about the future of this space, just go to www.theblockchainandus.com and sign up for the newsletter.

Dolfi Mueller speaks about the Bitcoin experiment at the city of Zug in Switzerland and how it energized the local government and an entire region, learning lessons from the experiment, how banks (still) deal with Bitcoin companies, how the blockchain ecosystem in Zug is developing, why blockchain black boxes undermine confidence, a pilot for a digital ID on the blockchain, and how the city has changed over the last decades in the face of globalization.

Dolfi Mueller is the mayor of Zug, a city in Switzerland with roughly 30,000 inhabitants, and the first city in the world that adopted Bitcoin in 2016 as a means of payment for official permits. Dolfi has a degree in law and economics, he is a licensed attorney and a teacher of law and economics at the cantonal school of Zug. 

Dolfi Mueller (in German): https://stadtzug.sp-zug.ch/partei/stadtpraesident-dolfi-mueller/  

City of Zug: https://twitter.com/stadtzug

More about Crypto Valley: https://cryptovalley.swiss 

A video interview I made previously with Dolfi Mueller: https://www.blockchain-documentary.com/dolfi-mueller-cryptovalley-zug

The Blockchain and Us newsletter

To stay up to date about what blockchain pioneers, innovators and entrepreneurs from all around the world think about the future of this space, just go to www.theblockchainandus.com and sign up for the newsletter today.

Luzius Meisser speaks about the early days of Bitcoin and the evolution of a thriving ecosystem in Switzerland, the professionalization of the ICO market, challenges in the foundation model for ICOs, the Swiss FINMA guidelines vs. other European guidelines, the Swiss blockchain taskforce, how the law around cryptocurrencies evolves, the question if bitcoins are data, Bitcoin's "eternal September", why there may be too many different blockchains, why many tokens will go to zero, how he evaluates investments, his own experiences as an entrepreneur, why innovation comes from small companies, why regulation kills innovation in security tokens, the rise of value investing on the blockchain, and much more.

Luzius is a computer scientist and very early bitcoin adopter in Switzerland and the co-founder and now board member of the Bitcoin Association Switzerland. He is also an entrepreneur and investor in several startups and the founder Meisser Economics, which focuses on education and consulting at the intersection of economics and computer science. 

Luzius Meisser: https://twitter.com/Luzius

Meisser Economics: http://meissereconomics.com/

Bitcoin Association Switzerland: https://www.bitcoinassociation.ch/, https://twitter.com/bitcoin_ch

Other people mentioned in the podcast:

Luka Mueller: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luka-müller/ 

Niklas Nikolajsen: https://twitter.com/nikolajsen_BTCS

Alexis Roussel: https://twitter.com/alexis_roussel, my interview with Alexis: http://www.theblockchainandus.com/alexis-roussel 

Christian Decker: https://twitter.com/snyke, my interview with Christian: http://www.theblockchainandus.com/christian-decker 

Many thanks to our sponsor!

This episode is brought to you by Crypto Storage. Crypto Storage offers a proprietary solution to enable Professional storage of Crypto Assets. The storage is secure both physically and digitally on the highest-grade hardware security modules with detailed configuration possibilities for individual - based access control. To learn more visit: www.cryptostorage.ch

John Hargrave speaks about marketing basics for ICOs and blockchain companies, email lists, misconceptions of blockchain entrepreneurs about communications, creating good marketing content, "create once, use everywhere", video vs. written content, deciding on which channels to use and which ones to avoid, "talking points", how to avoid infomercials but instead create value, how to build trust, viral mechanics, and why the "white paper has to die".

John is the CEO of Media Shower, a media platform for ICOs, crypto, and blockchain projects. He is the publisher of the Bitcoin Market Journal and an author and frequent speaker at conferences. This episode is a little shorter than my normal interviews, but it is straight to the point and gives an introduction to marketing and positioning for ICOs and blockchain projects.

John Hargrave: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhargrave/, https://twitter.com/sirjohnhargrave

Media Shower: https://www.mediashower.com, https://twitter.com/TheMediaShower

The Blockchain and Us newsletter

To stay up to date about what blockchain pioneers, innovators and entrepreneurs from all around the world think about the future of this space, sign up for the newsletter on http://www.theblockchainandus.com