In this episode, Kurt tells a story about how he lost a lot of bitcoin, and how it taught him lessons about being more conscious and showing proper respect for money. Chris relates it to how security problems in cryptocurrency systems lead them to become much stronger, as knowledge becomes more common and developers create more innovative solutions.
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Kurt loses his bitcoins
Kurt explains how he lost his bitcoins on an untrustworthy exchange, Bleutrade, and he also lost a phone and the money for a laptop in a business deal. After much anguish and consideration, one night he had a vision explaining that there was somehow a greater purpose to his misfortune – that the lessons were to make good use of his material blessings, and to be conscious of them and his surroundings in order to keep safe. You can hear the full story here: Money Is Sacred – How I lost my bitcoins.
Chris explains how cryptocurrency reacts as a system
Chris compares Kurt’s story to how cryptocurrency works as an economic and technological system. Every time there is a security risk exposed by people losing money in one way or another, the wisdom starts to filter through the economy, and people develop subsystems to prevent this happening again.
Thank you
Thanks for listening and watching to Cryptonomics, thanks for being a crypto bro or crypto sister and thanks for connecting with me on all social media. Most importantly, stay grateful!
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Welcome to The Paradise Paradox. I’d like to present this interview with my friend and co-host of The Multiversity Project, Chris Guida. Chris is an adventurer and investor. I’ll always remember the first time I met him. One of the first things he said to me was “What’s your opinion on the nature of objective reality?” I thought, okay, this guy goes straight to the deep questions.
In this episode we talk about what it takes to form an open-minded person, how Myers Briggs personality types can help us explain open-mindedness. We also talk about organisational structures – hierarchical and horizontal, how each has its place. We talk about cryptocurrency as an anti-fragile system and how that’s similar to the way we live our lives.
Remember to check out multiversitypodcast.com and look for The Multiversity Project on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. In the next couple of weeks I’ll be putting up interviews with the other hosts, Katy Kelly and Arielle Friedman where we talk about what helped them form their own philosophies and open their minds.
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
Facebook is planning on launching its own cryptocurrency called Libra.
For a long time, people in the Bitcoin community have hoped that it could reach mass adoption, that everyone would start using it and abandon fiat currency. That hasn’t happened yet.
Is it possible that a multinational corporation like Facebook could take this technology and use their existing user base to introduce it in a way that’s user friendly, and dominate the whole market? And if they do, what’s the worst that could happen?
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Welcome to Cryptonomics, principles of cryptocurrency and investing. Thanks for pressing like, subscribe, share, checking the description, being a crypto bro or crypto sister and connecting with me on all social media, leaving a comment and continuing the conversation.
Facebook & the Cryptocurrency Market
So, Facebook coin. Facebook has about 2.8 B users worldwide, FB also owns WhatsApp and Instagram. Whatsapp has 1.5 B users, Instagram 1 B users. Imagine if they could connect all of these users in a worldwide financial network, using a coin which is tied to the US dollar.
People say with such a large userbase, Facebook could immediately compete with PayPal’s 277 MM users, venmo’s 40 MM users. It’s not necessarily that simple. As we can see, FB messenger already has a payment option. I’ve never used it. I’ve never heard of anyone using it. Most Facebook users say they would not use their payment system.
However, for this network wide coin, it might be different. Whatsapp has 200 MM users in India alone. For a long time, we thought that Bitcoin and cryptocurrency’s primary market would be remittances.
The problem seems to be, in a lot of the world it’s difficult to spend crypto or convert it into cash. With all those users just in India, and Facebook’s possible political influence, they might be able to literally create a whole economy.
The proposed name for the coin is “Libra”, which I think is going to be confusing for millions of Spanish speakers around the world, because to them, “libra” means “pound”. Imagine starting a new payment service and just calling it Dollar or Euro. Would that be really brilliant, or really stupid?
At first people were speculating that Libra would be something like a Starbucks loyalty card. Now they’re saying it’s more likely that it will look like Bitcoin or Ether. The question is, what do they have to gain from making this look more like a cryptocurrency than a PayPal system, or like their current Facebook payment system. One answer is, Libra can piggyback off all the existing infrastructure of cryptocurrency. Exchanges around the world can implement support for Libra, and their project benefits while externalising the majority of the costs.
Facebook probably won’t want to give up too much control. Libra probably wouldn’t be a “true” cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. It will look more like Ripple or Stellar Lumens – systems where they can still shut down your account if they feel like it.
This presents some interesting opportunities:
They could reward users for viewing ads, similar to Brave browser and Basic Attention Token.
Incentivise merchants to accept coins by giving discounts on FB ads when they pay with Libra.
FB is talking to Visa and Mastercard about making physical Libra cards. Real world integration, again taking advantage of existing payment systems.
In some ways, this project could be really cool. Maybe it would open up the possibility of a lot of money flowing into India and other countries, without impediment, allowing those countries to create more of their own wealth.
There’s also a lot of ways this could go very wrong.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal. This was a breach of trust; a lot of user data was given to a third party, possibly allowing Trump to win US election.
It was discovered that Facebook stored its passwords in plaintext for about 7 years. That means certain employees would have been able to open the file and log into anybody’s account, especially in the years before FB implemented additional security measures.
The issue of FB censorship. Of course they shut down Infowars, Milo Yiannopoulos, Louis Farrakhan. But a lot of people out there complain of five day bans or 30 day bans for sharing off-colour memes. I was put in FB jail for a week for a comment I’d written maybe 7 years prior. In many cases, there’s no appeals process. With so many people using Facebook, with Facebook being one of the primary portals people use to discover news and other information, it’s not hard to see how this could be abused for political purposes.
FB encourages you to use SMSing and eventually financial services in their messenger app. Then you get put in FB jail. Imagine giving this organisation the power to control your money, and then getting cut off. And when your funding gets cut, does the Zuck give a duck’s left nut?
Economic Risks
Facebook wants to make sending money free. The question is, how do they make money from this? One way would be, they open an exchange so people can convert FB coins into their local currency and charge a fee for it.
But if I put on my tinfoil hat for a second, I’d look at the case of Tether.
Tether started out with the promise of backing every token 1 to 1 with USD, but recently changed their website to a much vaguer wording, saying every token is backed by assets. They’ve been very evasive about being audited, and the wording is so vague that we might even assume that that the assets that back many of the tethers, are other tethers.
With Tether having established their place as the premium stablecoin in the economy, and now removing the USD backing, they’ve become a de facto central bank within cryptocurrency. If FB were to pull a similar trick, it could make them the single most powerful entity within cryptocurrency, possibly with power even to rival the biggest central banks in the world.
I have to ask if Facebook would do this, considering the legal risk they’d face – possibly endless lawsuits relating to fraud.
On the other hand, this is like the story about a guy who borrows a million dollars to buy a tank. You ask him, how is he going to pay back the million dollars? He says, “Pay it back? I don’t have to pay it back – if they ever come to collect, I have a tank.”
Likewise, once you control the money supply, what could a few lawsuits mean to you?
The steel foil version of this theory is, Facebook wouldn’t have to deal with any lawsuits, because they have the support of powerful hidden interests to create a one world currency.
So, what do you think? Would you use Libra? Do you think other people would use it? If they do, are they at risk of putting a buttload of power in the hands of an alleged extraterrestrial reptilian alien overlord? Leave a comment, ask a question.
Thank you
Thanks for pressing like and subscribe, checking the description, being a crypto bro or crypto sister and connecting with me on all social media.
As always, have a look around and notice the freedoms and opportunities this wonderful world affords you, and stay grateful!
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The Story: Pococurantes don’t care about others, the future, or the truth
Dr. Aiden Gregg is an associate professor at the psychology department of the University of Southampton, where he lectures and conducts research. Dr. Gregg has done a lot of thinking and research about psychopathy, sociopathy, anti-social personality disorder and related ideas.
In this section of the interview, Dr. Gregg further explains psychopathy, and his idea of “redrawing the lines” of psychopathy, sociopathy and anti-social personality disorder, in an idea he calls “the pococurante” – a person who doesn’t care about the truth, other people, the future, or even himself in the future. He also talks about the data from Dr. Kent Kiehl’s MRI experiments with psychopaths, how they might indicate an explanation under Freudian theory, with a lack of an ego to negotiate between the sensible and baser desires of a human.
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
The total crypto market cap has gone up from 140 B to nearly 170 B over the last month. A lot of people out there are skeptical. They say the price is going to crash, the market is still manipulated, it’s a dead cat bounce.
Other people say “look at all this doubt, people are wary, the market isn’t coming back.”
It seems like a lot of people out there still don’t understand market cycles. Disbelief is a part of the cycle, and it might be a very positive one. How can you turn their skepticism to your advantage?
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Welcome to Cryptonomics, principles of cryptocurrency and investing. Thanks for tuning in, pressing like and subscribe, being a crypto bro, checking the description and connecting with me on all social media.
So, people are wary. Here are some comments I’ve seen on Twitter recently:
“Bitcoin was manipulated to $20,000 and heisted back down to $3500 in 18 months. Congratulations for bouncing back to $5,000. Ha ha ha. There are lesser fools everywhere.”
“WOW this thread is the example of fools who have invested and still expecting big return for a TOY money.”
“Dead cat bounce”
People are wary. People are really wary, and that’s good. I like it when people are wary. I don’t like it when people are going nuts jumping over their grandmas to buy bitcoin… that’s a sign that the market is overheated and overbought. Remember this important adage: “Be greedy when others are fearful, and fearful when others are greedy.”
Think back, if you can remember, all the way back to 2018. For the first quarter, whenever bitcoin moved up, there was a lot of noise. People started yelling on social media “Could this be the return? Have we seen a bottom???” And they were mistaken. It would rally, and then the rally would fizzle out and droop back like a sad panda.
Eventually, a lot of those people stopped posting. Many of the crypto Facebook groups I’m in went quiet over the following months. Then near the end of the year, I started to see a few bitter people returning to comment. People who stay in crypto groups just to tell others how little they believe in crypto.
Now with this recent rally, I’m seeing a lot of people say it’s false, it’s nonsense.
Previously rallies had a little hype around them, and when the hype died down, the rallies failed. Now crypto has a rally, and there’s very little hype – in fact, there’s a lot of doubt. That tells me that these movements are likely based on something other than hype.
One phrase which experienced traders and investors have heard many times is “It’s different this time.” It’s a phrase to listen out for, because when you hear it, you know it’s likely that the market is overheated. People say it when they believe that the market will go up forever. It’s a seductive phrase, because it always has a little bit of truth – things are always different this time, just not in the way that people believe.
Likewise, on the way down, people lose faith and they think that the bear market is different this time – that market cycles aren’t going to repeat. However, most of the time, they do.
Let’s talk about some things that change, and some things that stay the same. Let’s talk about access to cryptocurrency, and about the Halvening.
Access to crypto
When I first bought bitcoin in 2011, I had to go through a lengthy process – sending Aussie dollars to Paypal, converting them to USD, depositing to Virex, buying Linden dollars, and finally buying bitcoin – paying about 20% in commission. The next time was a lot easier, using Skrill, though they still charged me just to deposit my money.
Finally I could just walk into the bank and deposit cash into my Coinjar account. And now within the last few years people have been able to buy with credit cards, and on decentralised markets such as Bisq.
Every few months, there are new ways for people to get involved with cryptocurrency. It even keeps getting easier for people in countries where crypto is illegal.
So, every time the market goes up, it’s likely that more people will get involved, either as speculators, or using crypto practically.
The Halvening
Every four years, the rewards for bitcoin miners halves. That means the amount of money needed to sustain or boost the price also halves.
For example, as of May 2019, there are 1800 bitcoins produced every day. With bitcoin at $5,700, it takes about $10 million to maintain the price of bitcoin, assuming all of the miners are selling their bitcoins every day.
When the reward halves, it will only take $5 million to maintain the price of bitcoin, and that means the price is much more likely to increase.
The first time Bitcoin went through this halving process, in 2012, people weren’t really anticipating it, and the price increased very rapidly. However, in 2016, people were more ready and the price increased 3-6 months before the Halvening.
Then it started to increase again 3-6 months after the Halvening, partly because of this reduced selling pressure. Eventually the media started to take notice, and finally when an all-time high was reached, the media went into a frenzy, and that is a key part in forming one of these bubbles.
Bitcoin is such a dominant force in the market, and so many coins are traded in bitcoins, that an increase in bitcoin affects the whole market.
It’s likely that every time one of these bubbles happens, more and more people get involved, because they want to speculate or they find some practical use for it. In fact, the more speculation that occurs, the more hype, and therefore the more practical uses people find, because of the publicity.
A crash course in bubbles
Everyone who gets involved in cryptocurrency is going to get a crash course in bubbles, in mass psychology, in market cycles. This is important to the development of the human race. I saw about three bubbles in bitcoin, buying during two of them, before it clicked with me and I realised that the cycle was likely to continue, and if I wanted to get ahead, I had to be asmart and buy during the downtimes, the times when nobody was listening. In traditional markets, there tends to be a 7 year cycle. It might have taken 14 or 21 years for me to get those realisations. Now they’re coming rapidly, wapowapowapowa!
My long-term prediction is that more people are going to know about it, people are going to understand deeply and personally what bubbles are, what they look like and how they sound. That also means that a lot of people are going to become immune to market hype, irrational exuberance… People are going to be savvy investors, and that means the incidence of bubbles will go down.
People will start to learn that “it’s different this time” is a dangerous phrase, because it doesn’t tell the whole story.
Markets will start to smooth out, more people will invest in things that are valuable long term, less people will get taken advantage of. That means less scammers and more genuine projects, and more total wealth for humanity.
Thank you
Thanks for reading, watching and listening to Cryptonomics. Please like, share, subscribe, comment and connect with me on all social media. Most importantly, stay grateful!
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There’s a lot to know when it comes to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, but a lot of people just want to know the basics – how can I buy it and what am I even meant to do with it?
In this episode, Kurt explains how to buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, by purchasing from a regular exchange in your country, arranging a purchase on localbitcoins.com, buying from a decentralised exchange such as Bisq, or buying in person. He also explains the opportunities after you buy your coins – store them and hope the price goes up, trade them for other tokens to speculate or use, or use them for purchases such as Amazon gift cards – or illicit goods on the dark net.
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In most countries, cryptocurrencies are legal, and so they can be purchased through a regular, centralised exchange – which tends to be the easiest way to buy. The first thing to do is to go to your favourite search engine and type in “bitcoin exchange in” and the name of your country. For newbies, some exchanges are easier to use than others, such as CoinJar in Australia and Coinbase in the USA. However, generally the simpler exchanges will charge more for crypto.
Note: I stated in the episode that Bitcoin is illegal in Venezuela – that’s incorrect. In January 2018, the government’s cryptocurrency superintended announced that virtual currency is now “perfectly legal” in Venezuela.
When someone is in a country where crypto is illegal, the process becomes a little more complicated. There won’t be formal, centralised exchanges, however, purchasing is still possible. Many people use Localbitcoins.com to find buyers and sellers in these countries, and now more people are using the decentralised exchange Bisq. They might also go to crypto meet-ups and find someone who is looking to sell.
So, once you get your dirty digits on some dirty digital cash, what do you do with it? You can save it for a rainy day, trade it for other coins, or spend it.
Storing your coins
For small amounts of crypto, it makes sense to just store it on an exchange, as most exchanges have withdrawal fees. Once you get to a decent amount, it’s best to withdraw it, as cryptocurrency is still a new industry and exchanges have a habit of getting hacked or running exit scams – for example, Mt. Gox and Cryptsy, among many others.
One crypto wallet that holds a lot of different coins is Exodus. You can use it on your computer to keep your coins safe.
Trading for other coins
There are more than 1000 crypto projects, all with their own strengths, weaknesses and attributes – something like pokemon. Some offer the opportunity for passive income, such as Dash and NEO. Some have utility or grant privileges – for example, Steem allows you greater voting power on Steemit, DTube, DSound and related platforms.
You can have a look at all the coins that are traded on sites like coinmarketcap, coincap.io, and cryptocompare. These sites will give you some basic info about the coin, tell you the price, the official website, and which markets they’re trading on.
Some coins aren’t yet available on exchanges, but are being sold in initial coin offerings. By now, April 2019, ICO mania has died down, but that isn’t likely to last forever. To find coins and tokens being sold for the first time, check out ICOwatchlist.com.
Spending your crypto
You can use cryptocurrency to buy household goods on sites like overstock.com, to buy plane tickets on abitsky.com, and to buy almost anything with gift cards through egifter.com and gyft.com.
It’s also possible to download Tor and explore dark net markets and purchase items such as illicit drugs, stolen credit card information, counterfeit fiat currency, and gold-plated AK-47s.
Thank you
Thank you for watching this episode of Cryptonomics. Remember to connect with me on all social media, and most importantly, stay grateful!
You can listen and subscribe on Anchor and other podcasting services here:
The Story: What are psychopaths, sociopaths, and anti-social personality disorder?
Dr. Aiden Gregg is an associate professor at the psychology department of the University of Southampton, where he lectures and conducts research. Dr. Gregg has done a lot of thinking and research about psychopathy, sociopathy, anti-social personality disorder and related ideas.
In this section of the interview, Dr. Gregg explains his perspective on psychopathy, how it can be like looking into an abyss, how psychopaths may lack something that ordinary humans have, the link to myths like vampires and reptilian aliens, the history of “moral insanity”, the vagueness of the term “psychopathy”, the distinction between signs and symptoms of a disease, definitions from Hervey Cleckley and Robert D. Hare, Jon Ronson’s book on “The Psychopath Test”, and psychopaths in society.
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
The Story: Using Dash to get by with Joël Valenzuela
Joël Valenzuela is known for his work with the Dash Force public outreach program, delivering presentations, planning conferences and other events. Valenzuela writes for Dash Force News and also oversees the content creation and distribution. Joël is also known for being a man who lives solely off cryptocurrency – specifically Dash.
In this interview we discuss Joël’s background, growing up in Mexico and living through the peso collapse and revaluation of the early 90s, how that gave him perspective on sound money and helped him to understand Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, the connection with gold and silver, the current state and future of Dash, the technical foundations of the user-friendly Dash Evolution wallet and the challenges with its development, and how commercial and central bankers are reacting to cryptocurrency.
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
Hamilton Souther is a medicine man, given the title of “master shaman” by his mentors in the Peruvian Amazon. For 17 years he has conducted ceremonies with the sacred brew ayahuasca, and used scores of other plants to help seekers find their way to forgiveness and empathy.
In his 20s, Mr. Souther started to have a spiritual awakening, having visionary experiences, leading him to search for answers in shamanism, and looking for deeper understanding of healing and the human psyche.
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
Dash has outperformed the cryptocurrency market over the last month, rising from $79 to $120. For people not familiar with Dash, rises in price always seem unusual, but for those who follow it closely they know that good news is always coming out.
The Dash Core Group is working on making it immune to 51% attacks, and they’re on their way to releasing a revolutionary user experience for crypto. Exchanges are also listing new Dash trading pairs.
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After there was a 51% attack on ETC, there was a lot of uncertainty in many smaller crypto projects. Bitcoin and Ethereum are big enough to make such attacks impractical, but for the rest of the market, they may be exposed to this exploit. Dash is working on a solution in the form of Chainlocks, using the Dash masternodes to prevent doublespends, making the system more secure and give faster confirmations.
The Dash Core Group has publically released the code for Evolution, the wallet which Dash supporters hope will make crypto more user friendly, looking more like PayPal or Venmo than Bitcoin, allowing merchants to integrate into the wallet and offer discounts, increasing their conversions.
However, it seems the main reason that Dash has increased in price over the last month is something more related to short-term trading. Binance added two pairs – Dash/BNB and Dash/USDT. That means traders on Binance are now using those pairs to try to gain an advantage and make more money.
Read more about these developments in Dash on Dash Force News.
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