David Z. Morris – Bitcoin is Magic Transcript
Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.
Rob McNealy
Today, we’re talking to David Z. Morris. He is an amazing author and writer. I could go into his entire bio, but I think it’s better from him because he’s just done way too many cool things. But he has been on the show before and I’m glad to see him again. David, how the heck are you?
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
I’m good. So you want me to run down? What’s been happening?
Rob McNealy
Well, for the people who don’t know who you are, which I know, there are that many people but give a little bit background. Who are you?
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
Shocked? I think we talked about 6,5, 6 months ago on the show before and at the time, I was working for a magazine codebreaker. We were covering cryptocurrency exclusively and unfortunately breakers ended. And I’m now a staff writer for Fortune magazine covering and I run the cryptocurrency newsletter there, which is called the ledger and everybody should go to fortune comm slash newsletter and sign up for those. And I also have a new book out called bitcoins magic that is mainly about the way people communicate about cryptocurrency. And the role of an actually we were before we started recording you were talking about your efforts to market and promote your own project. And a lot of the book is about how something like Bitcoin or Tusk relies a lot on a community to create it collectively. And the way people communicate about it, to communicate about it to kind of give it the reality and value that it has. So it’s, that’s kind of the main theme of the book.
Rob McNealy
Well tell us a little more. So What was the genesis of this idea for the book?
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
I got a severance package from break. Nice. I decided that I should use it to do a big project to try and kind of like, sum up. A lot of the bigger and more weird ideas I had about crypto over, you know, it’s been like five years of writing about it now. So and there is this this another topic that might be of interest to you and your listeners. There’s a big section in there about some of the crummy crypto media that the space has had to deal with over the last few years from like pay to play scandals to conflict of interest and a big section on actually this is something that we can talk about, and we can pick back up in a bit but um, I have a pretty substantial bit in the book about Forbes and how some of its policies have been really bad for scams and misleading projects in space. And the guy who used to run Forbes, or at least forbes.com is in the news recently because he took over a site called deadspin and the entire staff left because he was so bad. So that’s a media and communications stuff. And, but the impetus for the book, aside from just wanting to kind of get, I mean, it was just a pleasure to write, you know, I had time I just did it. But, you know, there’s some, some ideas and some parts of it that don’t fit neatly into an article. So that’s why you write a book. And so there’s there’s a lot of stuff in there about everything from like, you know, Anton laveyan, Satanism and ancient magicians and how they used code and how they related to the world, and how A lot of what people back in the day thought of as magic was all about belief. And money is also about belief. That’s kind of another one of the big ideas in the book is that whether something is considered money basically depends on how many people believe that it’s money. And that’s kind of the subtext of the title is that we’re all kind of engaged in this collective magical thinking about money. And there’s a lot of different things that support that. And we’re all by whether you’re buying Bitcoin or buying Tusk or buying ether or whatever your particular ecosystem happens to be that you’re choosing to part if you’re still, you know, exclusively focused on dollars. You’re part of this collective project that is a little bit like, you know, people coming together to cast an incantation, metaphorically speaking to To make this thing real, that’s actually nothing but a piece of paper or digits or things like that. So
Rob McNealy
Well, I think at the heart of it is, you know, all value is subjective. But I think, you know, and that’s pretty, you know, that’s pretty common, like Austrian economics, right? All value is subjective, you know, and I think it really is that way. But I think, where a lot of value comes from is utility, and what utility you’re bringing in so I agree with you. So, in your case, you
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
have to have both. Yeah. I mean, you have to have a functional technology that works as a currency or medium of exchange where you know, and like Bitcoin can’t be hacked or anything like that. This is my cat, by the way. Nice, literally put it right in my face. Um, so yeah, you have to have you have to have the actual utility, you have to have the actual technology. But then in addition to that, you have to have a community and and they’ll have to kind of be on the same page and regard themselves as part of this larger thing in order for for the money to have value.
Rob McNealy
So how so in your book? How did you express or how did you see his crypto is different than, say, other products out there that are being marketed and sold to a community?
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
Well, what kind of other products like other payments, technology?
Rob McNealy
What’s different about crypto and how its communicated versus a Visa or MasterCard or something like that?
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
Yeah, I mean, I do think it relies a lot more on this sense of mission. And it’s sort of the double edged sword of, you know, it sort of seems like it has I mean, it has tamped down because the Ico craze is over, but in crypto, you’re very focused on like the the relative price of the coin that you’re using, because it’s kind of a metric for how you’re competing with other currencies or existing The currencies. And in some cases that can be very shallow, like that can be a distraction. If you’re only paying attention to price, and you’re just like trading and not thinking about the bigger picture of how does this work in your case, you know, you’re reaching out and specifically trying to teach people how to use something. And so that price can be a distraction, but it is also it instills this sense of mission. And this idea that we’re going to go out and evangelize. And we believe in it because of x, y, and z, and we’re going to teach other people. And so you’re, and that’s all, you know, Visa, there’s just a company, but with crypto. Ideally, you have, you know, in the most successful projects, you have pretty decentralized communities. I mean, Bitcoin, obviously, that’s true. I think it’s increasingly true in a theorem you kind of still have a few very influential people, but there’s a lot of stuff going on elsewhere. And so I find that to be pretty optimistic signal. And and I actually got to give some credit to god i’m going to Balaji Srinivasan who was formerly the CEO of earned calm, which was bought by Coinbase and became their education platform. And Balaji is like one of the smartest people you ever hear talk he was on what Bitcoin did and they had a great talk about the idea that crypto can become this kind of virtual nation state, because people share values and kind of buy into something based on not just the payments aspect of it, but other things. I mean, if your aim is the best case, I mean, Bitcoin is doing both have this going on. There are cultures around them. It’s not just this is a technology, it’s there’s a certain ethos, there’s a certain philosophy and so that aligns the interest of all the people Who decided to join these projects or support the projects or even just by buying into them in terms of not just technology, but but values and community. And it’s very interesting. I think that
a Ethereum is a great example where I think they’ll all admit that, like all the even the people at the top admit that either as it exists now or a theory as it exists now, it doesn’t quite work the way it’s supposed to. So the technology is not quite there, and they’re still trying to figure out how to get the technology there. But in the meantime, they have this incredibly strong community that is helping carry them forward. And, you know, nobody seems acutely angsty about the fact that their technology doesn’t work all that well. It’s a it’s a collective project that they’re working on. And so that that idea of, we’re going to come together as a collective that isn’t organized around a company, like visa or you know, Any other, it’s not a bank, which is owned by a couple of people. It’s definitely a collective. And, you know, I think that’s something new in money. And I think that is kind of an under appreciated aspect of all of this. That is really interesting. And it’ll be fascinating to see see where things go from there.
Rob McNealy
So, as as things go forward, do you think that this community based this community driven thing? Do you think it’s going to Peter out, or do you think that you know, these community based products really have a good shot at becoming really, really mainstream?
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
I don’t know about mainstream, but I don’t think you have to become mainstream. I mean, I mean, Bitcoin and ether, but um, there are other interesting projects like decred. I, I’m sure I could come up with a few more if I thought about it for a while we’re, you know, they’re not gigantic and they’re not really known outside of very select circles, but they’re, you know, they’re doing active outreach, and they have particular principles that they work on. And those people, you know, they come together, you don’t have to have. I mean, that’s the thing about community, right? You don’t have to have everybody, you just have to have the people that you have. And they’re going to kind of incrementally grow, I think, and, and that, you know, if you’re looking at it from an investment perspective, that growth of the community is is key to the growth of the value and adoption of, of a project. And so the social dynamics are kind of kind of key to making all of these things successful. And that’s, that’s, again, like kind of the big underlying theme of the book.
Rob McNealy
If you had to look at your magic eight ball. Do you see the crypto space getting more diverse with disparate projects, that kind of operate or do you just see, the more likely outcome is just going to centralize into a few major projects?
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
I mean, I think that that is one question where technology really comes into it because there are a few people like at cosmos and polka polka dot, they’re working on interoperability standards that will allow things to move across blockchains you already have stuff like, racked Bitcoin on the Ethereum network. And there are other kinds of interoperability that already exists kind of on a small scale on a case by case basis. And so when you get to a point where there’s more Actually, I mean, there is actually interoperability technology that is being developed or that is already out there. And I don’t, I haven’t really thought hard about what the implications of that are, but but definitely one of them is that, um, different things can coexist and interact. And there will be dynamics around that interaction that I think are pretty dateable but i think that i think we’re definitely going to be I mean, obviously, we’re going to be a multi blockchain world because there are specialty block chains that are built for particular purposes. The question of whether we’re going to be in a multi cryptocurrency world? I think it’s a Yeah, I mean, I think that you can be a Bitcoin maximalist in some sense by thinking that, you know, this is kind of the most sound thing and you can build stuff on top of it. But I don’t think there’s that many people who can plausibly argue now, that and this is, you know, this is the most common single crypto argument that Bitcoin will eat everything, right? I mean, technologically, it’s not going to happen. Because there’s no way you’re going to get the consensus to be right, the Bitcoin code to a degree that will allow it to be liquid enough for you know, coffee or whatever. And so you’re going to have whether it’s lightning built on top of Bitcoin or different chains that can do faster stuff and then settled to Bitcoin or, you know, just things that live in two different ecosystems at once. I think there’s going to be a lot of interesting interactions. But yeah, there’s going to be a lot of different or I guess the question isn’t whether there’s going to be one crypto or many of the questions whether there’s going to be a dozen kryptos or 100. And I think if just at this exact moment, I think if you ask me two days from now, I might give a different answer but I mean, I tend to be in the school of thought that there’s going to be 100 but you know, the hundred that are big right now are not going to be the hundred that are big 10 years from now, because things are going to turn and there’s going to be new technology. But I think I believe in a multi crypto multi Watching future.
Rob McNealy
So what is your take on smart contracts platforms? Like there’s there’s multiple projects out there that are trying to do that, you know, we got Ethan iOS and Jesus and, you know, bunch of other ones I’m not even super familiar with. Do you think that? This is the question I have? Do you think there’s actually a market for smart contracts platforms that are like public Ledger’s versus, you know, or do you think that like, enterprises will just build their own for a specific application? What do you think’s more likely happen? Because, you know, I keep coming back to as an entrepreneur, you know, things like market size, number of customers, and how do you get your customers? And I’m a simple guy, right? I mean, customers are people that are willing to pay to use your system. Yeah, right. It’s not just someone who’s investing I don’t believe an investor is a user. Now a lot of people are make that that argument, but I don’t believe that an investor is a user, you know, so to me, you know, that’s why I don’t like like you were talking about market cap being like, you know, a metric I also think that it’s a bad metric. And I also think wallet holders is a patent metric is one of a number of wallets. But you know, I’m always curious about what you’re seeing out there, because you’re getting you get around probably a lot more than I do in this space. You know, is there an actual real good use case for smart contracts now that the Ico world is dead?
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
Yeah, I mean, I think there’s there’s sort of two different questions or two related questions there. The main one, I think, is well first, first of all, answer the train answer the subsidiary question which is, you know, public smart contract platforms versus basically Consortium’s or permission to platforms. And I think that that’s a it’s a really good and unanswered question, because, you know, I’ll get to the smart contracts thing in more detail, but I think that smart contracts are a viable idea. And there are use cases for them, but a lot of them will be sort of pure Companies that need to interact in a particular way for this to be more efficient. And you know, there are examples in I think logistics and shipping is shipping a pretty, pretty good one. But those don’t need to be public, you know, they certainly don’t need to be proof of work. And proof of work for those projects is wasteful. And so you can do something that it doesn’t even have to be proof of stake. It can just be these 10 people are 10 entities are all have transparency into this blockchain and they’re running nodes and they’re talking to each other. And it’s very cheap and fast, but it’s still a smart contract, but it’s not public. And so I think that there will be some of that. I mean, none of the projects doing that have really caught caught on at this point, but the level of continued to say hello to Steve’s as fast as He’s gonna knock something down. So. So so that’s like, but to get to the bigger question smart contracts, I do think that there are enough use cases that right now seemed kind of isolated and unclear. Just in terms of like, you know, recurring payments, a recurring payment is a smart contract. And obviously we do that with our credit cards now, but there are lots of reasons people don’t like credit cards you do with your bank now all the all the same reasons that you don’t want a bank in the US to have total control over what you do with your money are reasons that smart contracts will be appealing to people as far as an but I also think, I don’t know the numbers. So you know, this is sort of speculative, but I have a sense that the projects that fall under so called defy, are starting to attract users in a certain sense. And a lot of these users are active traders of crypto. But the products that are getting built do have at least potential larger audiences. So, you know, they’re not great right now because you have to be over collateralized to being able to take out a loan on a blockchain that is secured against some sort of asset that is also on a blockchain is is pretty interesting. And it requires probably a decade or two of continued development for that to be both user friendly enough and for there to be enough stuff on blockchains for that to be viable. But I think it’s an interesting and potentially attractive use case for some people. And right now, the people who are using it are you know, like, people Who would be on Wall Street doing financial games, which you don’t necessarily have to love but it’s a part of the world. And it’s, it’s pretty interesting to see that that can break out of, you know, it’s not just Lehman Brothers doing like leverage stuff, it can be just anybody on on their computer at home or you know, whether you’re in Mexico or the US or anything like that. I think that that is interesting, at least I mean, I’m not going to come out and say like, yes, d phi is going to eat the world. Um, but but it’s interesting, I will say that.
Rob McNealy
Well, I think I’m keeping my eyes open I you know, I think the space the there’s so many moving pieces and things that are moving so quickly, it’s going to be interesting to see where things are and, you know, six months to a year I mean, the the horizons right now then the rate at which things are changing, whether it be regulation or technology or just consumers or the economy. It’s It’s crazy how fast things are moving around. Last time you were on here, we did discuss, you know, things like exchanges and fake volumes that was part of our past conversation. And things changed much in the on the exchange side of things. Have you seen that space? Just the way it was before six months ago or things improving getting worse? What’s your take on that?
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
In terms of exchanges?
Rob McNealy
Exchanges? Yeah.
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
Yeah, it’s it’s actually interesting. My only real observation on exchanges at this point is that there’s way too many of them and people are watching them left and right. And I think that there’s going to be and I was talking a little bit about this with some French reparo from the block. Like there’s going to be a shakeout circle just sold Polonia x two apparently a consortium run by Justin sun, they weren’t able to get enough volume for a US based exchange to make it worthwhile as a relatively large company for them to keep doing it. And So yeah, there’s there’s going to be, I mean, the good thing is we have, I think in a lot and maybe I just haven’t been paying attention, there have been a couple of collapses and exits. But things are consolidating, and things are getting more responsible and more above board, especially with the US exchanges now being more regulated. And you know, there’s different feelings about that. But I think that we’re going to see fewer outright scam exchanges, but as far as businesses go, it’s a thing that people are trying to do, because it has proven to be able to make money. I mean, Coinbase and binance make a ton of money. But, you know, whether a whether that’s still going to be true if there’s not other stuff happening a year or two from now to justify all of the underlying trading going on on these platforms. Or I shouldn’t say The underlying underlying is, are these useful projects is this stuff that actually works and does things for people. The trading is the speculation on top of that. And if there’s not stuff that gets picked up and is actually useful and meaningful, then the speculation will end and even the big exchanges right now won’t last. But certainly exchanges starting now. They’re in for a tough, tough time. Because I think, you know, we’re at a sort of low ebb of interest in the speculation side of things. And I know that you’ve had some, you know, issues with getting listed on exchanges, and there continues to be discussion around that and what’s appropriate and what’s not. And in terms of listing fees, and I think that recently came up, and I’m going to forget, but there was a coin listed on finance that claim Anyway, I’m not gonna I’m not gonna remember who was involved in my going to try and tell this story. But But yeah, the changes are still charging, sometimes huge listing fees. And you know, maybe if you have, like a small exchange that you know, is reputable and you know, the technology is democratizing. So it is, in some ways easier to build them. And so maybe maybe small exchanges can become cottage industries of some sort. But I think that launching big ones or trying to get big at this point is is pretty tough. Because there’s just too many out there.
Rob McNealy
Well, since we’re going to our talk main that soon we’ve been again, re engaging with exchanges, you know, and, yeah, we’re getting quotes anywhere from three to 10 BTC. Right now, just to get a mid level exchanges. Yeah. Yeah. Which to me is still outrageous. But that’s the business model, really the exchange business model currently, unless you’re like a legitimate top three exchange. You Your business models listing fees that really is the business model. And but it’s kind of like a catch 22 as a project, right? Unless you have, if you’re on the tiny exchanges, that will take a risk on you for little to nothing, you’re not going to get enough volume on those little little exchanges to get on a bigger exchange that is more reputable. So you got to pay to get on some of these exchanges to get the volume that you can then make an application to a more reputable or bigger exchange. And there’s, there’s a sequence that has to go in. And so
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
that’s also you know, there’s not that doesn’t necessarily sound terrible, if it’s if there is actually a path towards organic growth. Then, you know, if you as a, you know, project creator, I mean that I think the problem with exchange listing fees, is when, like the, I mean, there’s a problem from your perspective as a project lead, who obviously wants to get visibility for your Project. But if you’re if there are also projects where there is no substance there, but they happen to have the money for the listing fee, and then that becomes legitimation in itself, right. So, you know, there’s a signaling problem there if, you know you’re looking at whether something is on a big exchange as a sign of whether it’s a good project. And so, you know, that that’s a problem with the model. And, you know, I think that there is a lot to be said with, you know, there are obviously some frustrations, but even just sort of from a conventional business standpoint, organic growth is still a viable way to grow any business, including hopefully a cryptocurrency if you’re, as you are out there and kind of pounding the pavement, talking to people about it, differentiating yourself. And you know, if I hope there are paths for that Now in the future, but, you know, if the only way to get somewhere where people can buy your token is to pay $50,000, then that is a problem for the ecosystem.
Rob McNealy
Well, it definitely makes it harder and I and I understand risk. But I think going forward, I think things are going to change. And I think, I think part of the the, I think the Ico world is still there’s still people that have that taste of Ico money. So they still have an expectation. But yeah, I think is you know, Icos are dead, and they’re dead because they were all illegal, and they’re not going to happen again. So I think that rush of misappropriation of investor funds is not there anymore. But I think, and I think it’s interesting. I’ve been talking to some people about what’s happening with American the American markets as far as exchanges go, and I think what’s going to end up happening is that the American exchanges are going to have to D list, the legal Ico token projects that were out there and probably privacy coins at least that’s kind of what I’m here. What are you hearing in that kind of world? As far as the American market goes?
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
Well, there’s definitely a lot more restrictions coming on obviously, I don’t know about I mean, Coinbase has never traded Mineiro which is, to my mind, one of the actual privacy coins. And so, I mean, I, I think that if there are, I don’t know, enough, I guess, Craig and probably trades Mineiro. But, um, I mean, I don’t know, I haven’t heard anything specific about that. You might know more than I do. But I would be Yeah, I mean, it would be I think, a bad thing if that were to happen if they had to deal with the privacy coins now. The Icos? Yeah, I think that’s, that’s going to be tougher. Because that kind of gives a lot of power to the exchanges to decide what’s legitimate. I mean, obviously, if they’re getting like legal blowback That’s a different story. But if there’s just sort of defensively delisting Icos I mean, I don’t know that that I don’t know what I think about that it feels like that’s not a decision that they should be in the position to make necessarily. I’m with you that it’s not necessarily a bad thing if that’s the outcome, but the implication is that again, exchanges a gatekeeper to legitimacy and I would love for some of these decentralized exchange projects to actually work because I don’t necessarily think that the exchanges should have that gatekeeping power, whether because of fees or because, you know, they just don’t like something. But I don’t I don’t have intel on what the status of those are.
Rob McNealy
You know, I think some of the future I see is going to be the atomic swap wallet technologies that is just there is I like the idea of the the send the taxes to get more popular and these hot swap wallets that are non custodial or You know, atomic swap wallets that are noncustodial. And I think, you know, I’d love to see that the problem with a lot of those wallets is that they don’t their volumes are not reported to the mat, the tracking things like coin Gecko and coin market cap. So yeah, you know, so there may be a lot of volume there that no one’s aware of. And so that’s again where I think like, we don’t have a lot of good signals out there for people because we have the metrics. Yeah. Well, you know, a market cap. And and
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
Yeah, like, there’s got to be a solution there. Because we figured out how to get better data out of exchanges slowly. I mean, the exchanges continue to lie. So that’s still noisy itself. But yeah, I mean, it seems like there would be market in market forces that would encourage those atomic swaps to also report volumes in some way eventually, but yeah, right now,
Rob McNealy
I think it’s I think it’s The I think it’s a trackers themselves that are not pulling that data for variety reasons. So you know, you’re out there in the space. What do you think’s coming next? What would be the what are the things that you’re working on right now as far as projects and you know, writing assignments? Are you got any good dirt on anything you want to talk?
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
Um, I don’t know about dirt. But I mean, there, you know, despite the the bear market for tokens, there does continue to be a lot of interest in a lot of the underlying technology. I think that there’s I should have looked this up. I should have reminded myself before we got on on the phone here, but there is some funding news that actually, let me let me be really a terrible podcaster. And look this up real quick.
Rob McNealy
That’s my job. I’m the terrible podcaster.
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
Because I think there is a very interesting company that I actually do want to make sure I mentioned and remind myself they’re called duality. So there’s a company called duality technologies. And what they’re doing is it’s not a cryptocurrency but it’s based on a lot of the same technology and it’s totally fascinating. So they use technology thats related to ck snarks, which is zero knowledge can see ya z cash, right? Yeah, it’s using z, cash and dualities founders were some of the people who helped come up with that. And essentially what they do is they package sensitive data. And they cryptographically rapid in a particular way, that actually allows it to be processed for big data and AI applications. So for example, they can take a bundle of health data or even an individual’s health data and turn it into my cryptographically encoded in such a way that it can still be processed without revealing Any of the data or putting it out publicly, and they just got a good chunk of Intel or a good chunk of investment from Intel and a few other people. And so that’s, that’s like crypto but not cryptocurrency. And I think it’s very interesting to see that overlap. And I think there’s going to be more instances of that of technology that we’ve seen applied in blockchain and crypto, that’s going in a different direction and being applied to other problems. And I’m pretty optimistic about that. Especially because On the flip side, obviously, the last six, three to four months I guess, the new cycle has really been dominated by Libra and Facebook. Which you know, is I’ve been since back in breaker days when this first came out. I’ve been very skeptical of the project and it has been good I think to See the pushback coming from, you know, senators and Congress people who may not all be skeptical for the right reasons, but mostly are just skeptical because Facebook has proven that they don’t deserve our trust. And and I think that that is optimistic too. I think Libra could still become something, but it’s been gratifying to see some of that pushback happen. And then on the other on the sort of flip side of the same coin, you know, two weeks ago, we had China announced that their central bank will issue some kind of digital currency, which I think I’m willing to bet pretty good odds is going to be, you know, centrally manage, not transparent and entirely designed to monitor Chinese citizens and even or non Chinese citizens. And so that’s, you know, I think for a while people have been warning that you know, we realized, you know, a few years in that Oh wait, Bitcoin is not nearly as private as we thought. And so this idea that public Ledger’s or, you know, some sort of blockchain system can actually be used to monitor and control people instead of making them free if you kind of subvert the technology enough that we’ve had, there’s been warnings about that for a while, and it’s now really coming true in ways that are pretty scary, because I think that, you know, a lot of what’s happening in China is really bad. And so to see that us to see technology that you know, people like you and me are supporters of kind of twisted in that way is really, really discouraging, and obviously, unlike, you know, Facebook has to push back against the US government, which still has at least some pro human principles, and the you know, CCP coin doesn’t have that. That problem, they can do whatever they want, they’re in charge. And so we’re going to see honestly some bad stuff come out of that. I think. So. And I think I think that is the biggest story in cryptocurrency right now, even though you know either of those are crypto currencies, they’re just kind of, especially in Facebook’s case, it’s been very interesting to watch them use some of the same language in the same ideas about like banking, the unbanked and frictionless global payments that Bitcoin was was launched, trying to pursue those ideas. And now to see them kind of in frankly, the wrong hands has been discouraging, but again, like, it’s nice to see all the pushback you’re getting, because I think they deserve it.
Rob McNealy
Well, I I totally agree with you. I don’t believe that pretty much anything that Chinese government does is in the best interest of the individual at all. It’s always it’s all it’s always designed to further the power and central control of the state and So if they get all excited about something, I’m going to probably take the opposite view that it’s probably not a good thing, because they’re never going to support technologies that give away their power. And they think that’s where it’s like, I get a little confused by some of the messaging I see from crypto influencers, I get all excited about that news. Yeah. And, and I, and I always just caution, you know, look, these are not people that care about individual liberty or freedom or the centralization by any stretch. So if they’re in if they’re looking at it, they’re looking at it as a way that they’re trying to get ahead of it. And they control it. And so, and I think you’re right on that, but I think Libra was probably a corporate version of that.
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
Yeah, like I said, two sides of the same coin. You know, I think the I had different mixed feelings about Libra. I thought on one hand, you know, it would be an Orwellian hellscape with all the data that people give them as far as personal information that combine that data with your financial transactions, and I think they would be very successful. They launched because I think they could just monetize it all through messenger and Facebook marketplace. Yeah. On the other hand, I thought it could be interesting for them to mainstream crypto and then figure out a way to ride on their coattails because they would have to create a lots of on and offer and for that to work, but and I the one thing that I wish somebody would do that had the lobbying powers get the IRS to change and how they elect to regulate crypto transactions instead of property. But maybe it’s a like a foreign currency or something. And I was hoping Facebook would have dealt with that problem, because somebody’s got to deal with that. But yeah, I’m glad it’s stalled. You know, because, you know, I don’t trust Zach and his lockbox any more than I trust, CCP coin, as far as you know, do you want so the question is the only thing the only difference there is Zach doesn’t have his army to go and forces edicts yet, whereas the Chinese government does. But other than that, I mean, they’re, they’re cool. They’re just a surveillance platform. And so in giving first of all your personal information, On top of your financial transactions on top of that did that that’s just our Orwellian and scary to me.
And you’ve identified a really interesting dynamic with some of the people who are excited when anybody does anything that’s remotely close to crypto. Without me, I mean, there are a lot of these people who don’t have the sort of, frankly ideological commitments, that that something like Bitcoin is founded on. And, you know, there are arguments about how this and you know, this is years old, there are arguments about how this underlying blockchain technology could be useful for this, that and the third. And, you know, maybe there are some efficiencies ultimately in you know, something like t zero where you’re trading stocks on the blockchain or, and, you know, maybe there are long term investments that have nothing to do with public tix where you can use this stuff in whatever way to to accomplish something. But, you know, that’s totally separate from being grassroots. Bitcoin is not really a business, you know, you can you can, I think there are some people who obviously made a lot of money off of it. Maybe one of the things that I would really hope to see is an end to speculation in Bitcoin, you know, I think that the price is never going to be stable and there is a certain adoption value in the idea that Oh, Bitcoin is going to be worth $50,000 bitcoins can do with a million dollars, whatever. But I just think it It undermines a lot of the ideas that that are the things that gave it value in the first place. So I’ve always been uncomfortable with speculation. Obviously, it fuels a lot of what happens in the space ether money is doing all kinds of weird and interesting stuff. And I can’t hate that too much. But it is sort of a it’s things interacting in unhealthy ways when you’re focused on speculative gains.
Rob McNealy
Well, I and I agree with you. And I personally believe that, you know, volatility is driven by the speculation if, you know if people were actually using Bitcoin for transactions and large volumes that would stabilize out and that’s what I kind of expressed to people is that everybody’s talking about stable coins and like, the best stable coin is your coin just used a lot.
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
Yeah, exactly.
Rob McNealy
Exactly. You know, and to me, you know, and I agree with you is like when you hear things like staking rewards and things I’m like, you’re actually incentivizing people not using your coin as intended when you do things like that. And to me that’s what we’re doing with Tosca is we’re focused on getting adoption getting users in not speculators. I don’t care about the speculation parties. I care about people using it because we’re trying to solve a problem. But, you know, we’re almost out of time here. So this has gone by really fast. And I love chatting with you and I love your take on things. Where can people find out more about your book and you?
David Z. Morris – Author of Bitcoin is Magic
So yeah, the book, I actually just got done putting together the paperback, it’s all self released, I didn’t want to deal with editors or anybody telling me to not say exactly what I wanted to. So I just I just put it out and I also wrote it really quickly. And so it’s got a kind of like, a little bit of a stream of consciousness, conversational quality to it that I hope is enjoyable to read. But it’s just on Amazon. I wish there was a easy to use crypto funded payments platform for selling books and ebooks that would be great if somebody wants to build that. But for now, it’s just on Amazon and the title is Bitcoin is magic. So that’s easy enough to look up and find and it’s got a really cool cover that I And very happy with. And yeah, otherwise I’m on Twitter @DavidZMorris, and my work is on fortune com every day more or less.
Rob McNealy
David Morris, thank you so much for coming on today. Awesome. Thanks, Rob. Thanks for having me. I’m sorry this took so long to make happen, but it’s been a crazy few months.
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