1
00:00:02,680 --> 00:00:06,320
Speaker 1: I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg News,

2
00:00:06,800 --> 00:00:10,280
Speaker 1: and this is Bloomberg Crypto at Daily Bloomberg I Heart Podcast.

3
00:00:10,640 --> 00:00:18,040
Speaker 1: It's Thursday, July fourteen. Since the founding document that led

4
00:00:18,079 --> 00:00:20,880
Speaker 1: to the invention of bitcoin first appeared in two thousand

5
00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:24,639
Speaker 1: and eight, Bitcoin's true believers have adopted a philosophy that

6
00:00:24,720 --> 00:00:27,960
Speaker 1: resembles one for all and all for one, or at

7
00:00:28,040 --> 00:00:31,920
Speaker 1: least all who believe in bitcoin. Bitcoin is often mentioned

8
00:00:31,960 --> 00:00:35,280
Speaker 1: as a means to improve financial inclusion or to allow

9
00:00:35,320 --> 00:00:38,400
Speaker 1: people who are oppressed by their governments to maintain or

10
00:00:38,479 --> 00:00:43,080
Speaker 1: reclaim a sense of freedom. In Bitcoin, everyone's equal, or

11
00:00:43,120 --> 00:00:45,920
Speaker 1: so the theory goes, But does that theory match the

12
00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:49,919
Speaker 1: reality of the ecosystem. What we did was a systematic

13
00:00:49,920 --> 00:00:53,400
Speaker 1: origin study of bitcoin, telling the story of how this

14
00:00:53,520 --> 00:00:56,040
Speaker 1: came to be in a very very specific period. That's

15
00:00:56,120 --> 00:01:00,520
Speaker 1: data scientists Alyssa Blackburn. On today's episode, Alyssa and Dr

16
00:01:00,600 --> 00:01:04,080
Speaker 1: Aras Lieberman Eden, an Associate professor of molecular and human

17
00:01:04,120 --> 00:01:07,600
Speaker 1: genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, join me to discuss

18
00:01:07,640 --> 00:01:11,680
Speaker 1: their research into who controlled bitcoin from the very earliest days.

19
00:01:17,680 --> 00:01:20,360
Speaker 1: Alyssa Era's what a pleasure to have you. Thank you

20
00:01:20,400 --> 00:01:22,400
Speaker 1: so much for joining the pod today. Thank you for

21
00:01:22,440 --> 00:01:26,080
Speaker 1: having a son. I don't often get to, you know,

22
00:01:26,240 --> 00:01:29,920
Speaker 1: talk to folks doing the type of research that you

23
00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:31,440
Speaker 1: all have been doing, and I get to talk to

24
00:01:31,480 --> 00:01:34,200
Speaker 1: them even less frequently when it comes to, you know,

25
00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:38,520
Speaker 1: applying that research into the wild world of bitcoin. So

26
00:01:38,680 --> 00:01:40,600
Speaker 1: let's jump right in. Tell me a little bit more

27
00:01:40,720 --> 00:01:43,480
Speaker 1: about your paper and your findings and why you have

28
00:01:43,480 --> 00:01:45,920
Speaker 1: found this to be such a captivating line of inquiry.

29
00:01:46,360 --> 00:01:49,720
Speaker 1: Often times in crypto you hear from kind of two

30
00:01:49,760 --> 00:01:53,800
Speaker 1: camps of people. The first are kind of classic economists

31
00:01:53,840 --> 00:01:57,680
Speaker 1: who do these first principal analyzes um and there's a

32
00:01:57,800 --> 00:02:03,600
Speaker 1: variety of outcomes in that. You have people saying, maybe

33
00:02:03,640 --> 00:02:06,040
Speaker 1: it's I don't really like this term, but like kind

34
00:02:06,080 --> 00:02:08,200
Speaker 1: of a scam, kind of a Ponzi scheme. There's not

35
00:02:08,280 --> 00:02:11,040
Speaker 1: a there's not a there there. And the second group

36
00:02:11,639 --> 00:02:13,960
Speaker 1: tends to be from people who are long on crypto,

37
00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:18,760
Speaker 1: crypto enthusiasts, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but

38
00:02:18,840 --> 00:02:21,320
Speaker 1: both of these are kind of like a priori analyses.

39
00:02:21,720 --> 00:02:25,359
Speaker 1: We are scientists, We are setting the phenomenon of crypto

40
00:02:25,600 --> 00:02:29,600
Speaker 1: and trying to characterize the space, trying to study the

41
00:02:29,680 --> 00:02:32,359
Speaker 1: dynamics of the space and the incentive structure in the space.

42
00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:35,120
Speaker 1: So it's a different kind of analysis that we do,

43
00:02:35,639 --> 00:02:38,680
Speaker 1: and we do not invest in this space as a

44
00:02:38,680 --> 00:02:41,800
Speaker 1: group as scientists, So I kind of want to differentiate

45
00:02:41,800 --> 00:02:46,680
Speaker 1: our work here from kind of other conversations that kind

46
00:02:46,720 --> 00:02:55,160
Speaker 1: of get said about this. So what we did was

47
00:02:55,200 --> 00:02:58,080
Speaker 1: what we sought to do was a systematic origin study

48
00:02:58,320 --> 00:03:01,640
Speaker 1: of bitcoin, telling the story of how this came to

49
00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:04,720
Speaker 1: be in a very very specific period. We kind of

50
00:03:04,760 --> 00:03:08,079
Speaker 1: referred to this as the incipient period of bitcoin, is

51
00:03:08,120 --> 00:03:11,440
Speaker 1: book ended by the launch and when Bitcoin reached price

52
00:03:11,480 --> 00:03:16,000
Speaker 1: periority with the US dollar. In retrospect, this at the time,

53
00:03:16,040 --> 00:03:19,000
Speaker 1: this is not at all foregone conclusion. This is true.

54
00:03:19,040 --> 00:03:21,280
Speaker 1: It was a truly incredible story to us. It's one

55
00:03:21,280 --> 00:03:23,839
Speaker 1: of the most exciting stories of the interface of kind

56
00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:27,679
Speaker 1: of economics and technology. And what we wanted to do

57
00:03:28,080 --> 00:03:31,480
Speaker 1: was paining a very detailed data driven picture of what

58
00:03:31,639 --> 00:03:34,600
Speaker 1: this looked like, who was involved, what did it look like,

59
00:03:34,720 --> 00:03:37,520
Speaker 1: what are the dynamics like, what is the motivation for

60
00:03:37,560 --> 00:03:41,200
Speaker 1: this space, what can we learn from this? And then

61
00:03:41,240 --> 00:03:44,080
Speaker 1: what can we kind of translate and can we make

62
00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:48,200
Speaker 1: this a serious academic story. Can we get beyond kind

63
00:03:48,240 --> 00:03:51,120
Speaker 1: of this like niche crypto conversation and kind of have

64
00:03:51,240 --> 00:03:54,680
Speaker 1: it in a wider, academic, rigorous space. And what did

65
00:03:54,680 --> 00:03:57,320
Speaker 1: you find? First of all, is we did a lot

66
00:03:57,320 --> 00:04:00,880
Speaker 1: of address linking in this space. We used methods that

67
00:04:00,960 --> 00:04:04,800
Speaker 1: may be called DAI leakage fingerprinting to kind of link

68
00:04:04,880 --> 00:04:08,600
Speaker 1: these addresses together. And there are a couple assumptions that

69
00:04:08,640 --> 00:04:10,840
Speaker 1: we were able to make in this very very early

70
00:04:10,880 --> 00:04:15,640
Speaker 1: period that made this process just specific to kind of

71
00:04:15,680 --> 00:04:18,919
Speaker 1: this time horizon. So we were able to recapitulate a

72
00:04:18,920 --> 00:04:21,839
Speaker 1: lot of the early actors. And then once we had

73
00:04:22,520 --> 00:04:26,560
Speaker 1: these users, we were able to do analyses. We were

74
00:04:26,560 --> 00:04:29,160
Speaker 1: able to see how the community changed over time, We

75
00:04:29,160 --> 00:04:33,680
Speaker 1: were able to trace transactions through the network. We were

76
00:04:33,760 --> 00:04:37,800
Speaker 1: able to see what the reality of the system was

77
00:04:37,880 --> 00:04:41,520
Speaker 1: like in contrast to what conversations about the system was like,

78
00:04:42,080 --> 00:04:44,760
Speaker 1: and to kind of explore the gap between those two things.

79
00:04:51,880 --> 00:04:54,280
Speaker 1: The significance of address linking is the following. Right. If

80
00:04:54,279 --> 00:04:57,279
Speaker 1: you look at you know, the Bitcoin blockchain designed to

81
00:04:57,320 --> 00:05:02,960
Speaker 1: be afford identity masking I a pseudonymity. It's the individual

82
00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:09,720
Speaker 1: records relate to addresses pseudonyms. Now, of course, an address

83
00:05:10,480 --> 00:05:12,640
Speaker 1: is not a very interesting thing to study on some level,

84
00:05:12,640 --> 00:05:17,200
Speaker 1: and addresses no incentives and address makes no decisions, etcetera, etcetera.

85
00:05:17,240 --> 00:05:20,240
Speaker 1: If you want to study the sociology of bitcoin, if

86
00:05:20,240 --> 00:05:21,960
Speaker 1: you want to study the economics at bitcoint, you have

87
00:05:22,040 --> 00:05:24,839
Speaker 1: to be able to translate from the space of addresses,

88
00:05:24,880 --> 00:05:27,800
Speaker 1: from collections of addresses to people and the choices that

89
00:05:27,839 --> 00:05:30,240
Speaker 1: people are making and the ways in which people are

90
00:05:30,240 --> 00:05:33,000
Speaker 1: interacting with one another. So that's the role that address

91
00:05:33,080 --> 00:05:36,680
Speaker 1: linking plays in this study. The address linking is not

92
00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:39,159
Speaker 1: there for the purpose of like, gotcha, you know, I

93
00:05:39,240 --> 00:05:41,719
Speaker 1: figured out who you are. In fact, you know, the

94
00:05:41,800 --> 00:05:45,400
Speaker 1: goal is study was not at all two docks anyone, right,

95
00:05:45,480 --> 00:05:49,000
Speaker 1: it's orthogonal is is of no interest to us. But

96
00:05:49,200 --> 00:05:51,440
Speaker 1: the goal of the address linking is to translate the

97
00:05:51,480 --> 00:05:55,720
Speaker 1: blockchain into terms that make it possible to ask questions

98
00:05:55,760 --> 00:05:59,719
Speaker 1: about sociology and economics and game theory and all kinds

99
00:05:59,720 --> 00:06:04,040
Speaker 1: of scientific phenomena that bitpoint can be, but all kinds

100
00:06:04,080 --> 00:06:10,760
Speaker 1: of scientific phenomena that bitcoin can illuminate. And Lissa, one

101
00:06:10,800 --> 00:06:13,680
Speaker 1: of the things that you kind of talk about is

102
00:06:13,720 --> 00:06:17,839
Speaker 1: the like the necessity of persistence in trying to get

103
00:06:18,080 --> 00:06:20,279
Speaker 1: or arrive at those kinds of you know, like insights

104
00:06:20,279 --> 00:06:23,279
Speaker 1: of sociological conclusions that Auras is describing. Can you say

105
00:06:23,279 --> 00:06:26,159
Speaker 1: just a little bit more about how that worked? Sure? Sure.

106
00:06:26,480 --> 00:06:32,160
Speaker 1: So the reality is humans are responsible for coin movements

107
00:06:32,560 --> 00:06:36,960
Speaker 1: on the blockchain. Humans tend to do things differently than computers.

108
00:06:37,400 --> 00:06:41,520
Speaker 1: Humans like round numbers, humans like consolidating their gains. There

109
00:06:41,520 --> 00:06:45,960
Speaker 1: are these little pieces of data um we call them

110
00:06:46,040 --> 00:06:49,640
Speaker 1: data leakage. Some blockchain forens experiment call them like fingerprinting.

111
00:06:50,240 --> 00:06:54,760
Speaker 1: But there are certain behaviors that give insight as to

112
00:06:54,800 --> 00:06:58,040
Speaker 1: who is moving the coins. And if you put these

113
00:06:58,200 --> 00:07:01,200
Speaker 1: all these little pieces of data together, what you get

114
00:07:01,200 --> 00:07:06,159
Speaker 1: our links between addresses. And when you have multiple links

115
00:07:06,160 --> 00:07:10,480
Speaker 1: of different types of leakage from different data sources in aggregate,

116
00:07:11,080 --> 00:07:14,440
Speaker 1: what you can do is put together clusters of addresses

117
00:07:15,080 --> 00:07:18,760
Speaker 1: with a high level of accuracy. And so what that

118
00:07:18,800 --> 00:07:21,480
Speaker 1: means in practices you basically figured out who the first

119
00:07:22,080 --> 00:07:27,480
Speaker 1: sixty four miners were that were responsible. Yes, it means

120
00:07:27,520 --> 00:07:30,800
Speaker 1: we put together the very early mining the agents who

121
00:07:30,880 --> 00:07:34,360
Speaker 1: mind a lot of coin um. The number sixty four

122
00:07:35,120 --> 00:07:38,880
Speaker 1: comes from what is called the Satoshi coefficient, where it's

123
00:07:38,880 --> 00:07:41,680
Speaker 1: the number required for a majority attack to be greater

124
00:07:41,720 --> 00:07:45,080
Speaker 1: than So I want to clarrate that that sixty four

125
00:07:45,200 --> 00:07:48,840
Speaker 1: is over twenty five months, and frequently, at any given

126
00:07:48,840 --> 00:07:52,120
Speaker 1: moment in time, actually a very far far smaller number

127
00:07:52,200 --> 00:07:54,560
Speaker 1: are actually the number of people actively mining and maintaining

128
00:07:54,600 --> 00:07:57,120
Speaker 1: the network at any given point in time. It was

129
00:07:57,160 --> 00:08:00,840
Speaker 1: a very small community. What was the most interesting perhaps

130
00:08:00,880 --> 00:08:04,400
Speaker 1: like behavioral elements of this community, or maybe something that

131
00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:07,600
Speaker 1: neither of you were expecting to find. So one one

132
00:08:07,720 --> 00:08:10,680
Speaker 1: thing that we frequently point out in the paper is

133
00:08:10,760 --> 00:08:14,119
Speaker 1: we do not find evidence of people attacking the chain.

134
00:08:15,480 --> 00:08:21,080
Speaker 1: And one Sutoshi originally described this currency in the initial

135
00:08:21,120 --> 00:08:24,200
Speaker 1: emails to the cryptographic Lesser, in the initial white paper,

136
00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:27,520
Speaker 1: on the original bitcoin website and frequently on the forums

137
00:08:28,120 --> 00:08:31,760
Speaker 1: as not relying in a third party, is being decentralized

138
00:08:31,760 --> 00:08:36,880
Speaker 1: and trustless, and is being anonymous. And some opinions on

139
00:08:36,960 --> 00:08:40,160
Speaker 1: the perceived anonymity of bitcoin have changed over time. I

140
00:08:40,160 --> 00:08:42,199
Speaker 1: mean probably people who are very very familiar with the

141
00:08:42,200 --> 00:08:44,920
Speaker 1: Bitcoin protocol now would not describe as anonymous, They would

142
00:08:44,920 --> 00:08:48,920
Speaker 1: described as studonymous. But Bitcoin was designed at least partially

143
00:08:49,200 --> 00:08:52,640
Speaker 1: to have these pseudonyms to effectuate some level of privacy.

144
00:08:52,800 --> 00:08:56,400
Speaker 1: Bitcoin was also designed to not rely on a third party.

145
00:08:56,440 --> 00:08:59,600
Speaker 1: But what we find frequently, because you have these very

146
00:08:59,679 --> 00:09:04,079
Speaker 1: large minors, not many mining at one time, there's frequently

147
00:09:04,200 --> 00:09:07,240
Speaker 1: in a minor that's functioning as the trusted arbiter of

148
00:09:07,280 --> 00:09:11,080
Speaker 1: the network. We find about five blocks minduring this period

149
00:09:11,559 --> 00:09:14,320
Speaker 1: our mind and majority streets where one minor does in

150
00:09:14,360 --> 00:09:17,160
Speaker 1: fact have a majority control of the network. So what

151
00:09:17,240 --> 00:09:20,079
Speaker 1: I'm hearing you say is that is the literal opposite

152
00:09:20,520 --> 00:09:23,760
Speaker 1: of the idea of decentralization when there isn't supposed to

153
00:09:23,800 --> 00:09:29,319
Speaker 1: be a single centralized entity that's making those kinds of coals. Yes, exactly.

154
00:09:29,440 --> 00:09:33,000
Speaker 1: And what I want to focus on here is the

155
00:09:33,040 --> 00:09:38,760
Speaker 1: gap between the computational ideals and how this was described

156
00:09:38,880 --> 00:09:42,480
Speaker 1: and the actual state of the system, because it's it's

157
00:09:42,480 --> 00:09:45,760
Speaker 1: a little bit easy to say, now, well this is

158
00:09:45,800 --> 00:09:48,080
Speaker 1: a ten year old data set. What are you telling

159
00:09:48,080 --> 00:09:51,840
Speaker 1: me about the block chain today? And what I want

160
00:09:51,840 --> 00:09:55,160
Speaker 1: to highlight is the tension in that gap. I only

161
00:09:55,200 --> 00:09:57,320
Speaker 1: studied these two years. I cannot tell you like a

162
00:09:57,320 --> 00:09:59,720
Speaker 1: blanket statement about the system today, and I'm not going to,

163
00:10:00,280 --> 00:10:03,359
Speaker 1: but I will say that at this time that decentralized

164
00:10:03,400 --> 00:10:06,160
Speaker 1: trousis mechanism was not functioning. Yeah, I mean, I think

165
00:10:06,160 --> 00:10:11,319
Speaker 1: it's It's also worth noting, right that like today we think, oh, bitcoint,

166
00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:13,880
Speaker 1: it's worth a trillion dollars, and if it's not worth

167
00:10:13,880 --> 00:10:15,959
Speaker 1: a trillion dollars, you know, there's a bit of a

168
00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:17,719
Speaker 1: temptation to be like, oh, you know, before it was

169
00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:20,800
Speaker 1: worth a trillion dollars, it kind of wasn't worth anything. Look,

170
00:10:21,040 --> 00:10:26,360
Speaker 1: you know, there's no doubt that the value of you know,

171
00:10:26,400 --> 00:10:30,280
Speaker 1: bitcoin and it's importance have changed greatly over the last

172
00:10:30,280 --> 00:10:34,079
Speaker 1: ten years. There's no doubt that the state of that

173
00:10:34,120 --> 00:10:37,160
Speaker 1: community has changed greatly over the last ten years. At

174
00:10:37,160 --> 00:10:39,480
Speaker 1: the same time, it's worth noting that by the end

175
00:10:39,679 --> 00:10:42,160
Speaker 1: of the period that we examined, this twenty five months

176
00:10:42,200 --> 00:10:47,480
Speaker 1: long period, uh, bitcoin is a functioning currency. Right the

177
00:10:47,559 --> 00:10:50,160
Speaker 1: end of the twenty five month long period, at this point,

178
00:10:50,559 --> 00:10:54,120
Speaker 1: Quiki Leaks has already invested in bitcoint to get around

179
00:10:54,800 --> 00:10:59,880
Speaker 1: the payment blockade, the financial blockade that was enacted against

180
00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:02,680
Speaker 1: it by the government in the world. It's after the

181
00:11:02,720 --> 00:11:07,720
Speaker 1: Electronic Frontier Foundation is starting to solicit donations in bitcoin um.

182
00:11:07,720 --> 00:11:11,120
Speaker 1: It's after bitcoin transactions start. There's a market price for

183
00:11:11,200 --> 00:11:16,280
Speaker 1: bitcoin that's a dollar. Um. It is coincident with the

184
00:11:16,400 --> 00:11:20,440
Speaker 1: launch of the Silk Road, you know, which became, you know,

185
00:11:20,520 --> 00:11:24,840
Speaker 1: a massive online black market denominated in bitcoin. So it

186
00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:27,640
Speaker 1: was at this point was it what it is today?

187
00:11:27,679 --> 00:11:31,040
Speaker 1: It was not, But was it functioning as a currency. Yes.

188
00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:35,400
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more from Melissa Blackburn and

189
00:11:35,520 --> 00:11:46,920
Speaker 1: Dr Eras Lieberman Eden. I also want to point out

190
00:11:47,080 --> 00:11:52,400
Speaker 1: the importance of studying the difference between the sort of

191
00:11:52,720 --> 00:11:56,880
Speaker 1: ideals that you're hoping a cryptocurrency can achieve and the

192
00:11:56,960 --> 00:12:00,840
Speaker 1: reality of what it does achieve, which and be quite different.

193
00:12:01,120 --> 00:12:04,760
Speaker 1: Not every cryptocurrencies as long in the tooth as Bitcoin, right,

194
00:12:04,800 --> 00:12:08,120
Speaker 1: if you look at other cryptocurrencies, you know, you look

195
00:12:08,160 --> 00:12:10,960
Speaker 1: at Luna terra ust that that's an example of a

196
00:12:10,960 --> 00:12:14,160
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency that's only a couple of years old. In that

197
00:12:14,200 --> 00:12:17,720
Speaker 1: period of time, it became clear that there were significant

198
00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:20,160
Speaker 1: you know, and especially recently, it's become very clear that

199
00:12:20,160 --> 00:12:23,680
Speaker 1: there were significant deviations between the ideals what people said

200
00:12:23,679 --> 00:12:27,920
Speaker 1: their intentions were, and you know, the reality of how

201
00:12:27,960 --> 00:12:30,920
Speaker 1: that community worked, the reality of you know, even the

202
00:12:30,920 --> 00:12:34,480
Speaker 1: attention of the founder and founders of that community. I

203
00:12:34,480 --> 00:12:37,400
Speaker 1: think a measured response to This is not to say

204
00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:40,320
Speaker 1: that the sky is falling and distant applies, you know,

205
00:12:40,800 --> 00:12:43,760
Speaker 1: wader catastrophe for bitcoin. That wouldn't be a measured response,

206
00:12:43,760 --> 00:12:46,160
Speaker 1: but also wouldn't be a measured response to say that

207
00:12:46,160 --> 00:12:49,000
Speaker 1: that this period, because it was ten years ago, can't

208
00:12:49,080 --> 00:12:53,960
Speaker 1: teach us valuable lessons for bitcoin and for other cryptocurrency communities.

209
00:12:54,080 --> 00:12:56,439
Speaker 1: We kind of used the term a little bit informally

210
00:12:56,480 --> 00:13:01,400
Speaker 1: internally of like stress testing and cryptocurrency eco system And

211
00:13:01,720 --> 00:13:03,920
Speaker 1: I mean, Bitcoin is far in a way the most

212
00:13:03,920 --> 00:13:06,880
Speaker 1: popular with the highest market cap, but the reality is

213
00:13:06,880 --> 00:13:09,880
Speaker 1: there a lot of young, you know, crypto ecosystems that

214
00:13:09,960 --> 00:13:13,840
Speaker 1: perhaps have not been as tested as thoroughly, and they're

215
00:13:14,160 --> 00:13:17,280
Speaker 1: likewise maybe a gap between how they're being described how

216
00:13:17,280 --> 00:13:19,360
Speaker 1: the founders may describe them in the actual state of

217
00:13:19,400 --> 00:13:22,080
Speaker 1: the system. And I think it's kind of important to

218
00:13:22,120 --> 00:13:25,240
Speaker 1: go into this kind of space with some degree of

219
00:13:25,320 --> 00:13:32,000
Speaker 1: healthy skepticism. Also, in your description of you know, your

220
00:13:32,000 --> 00:13:34,400
Speaker 1: attempts to even get to the point of being able

221
00:13:34,440 --> 00:13:38,079
Speaker 1: to ask questions, you describe some challenges that you encountered,

222
00:13:38,120 --> 00:13:40,720
Speaker 1: like getting kicked off of your university network because they

223
00:13:40,760 --> 00:13:44,360
Speaker 1: thought that you were mining mining crypto. If if there

224
00:13:44,360 --> 00:13:47,840
Speaker 1: are other academics out there who are hopefully listening to

225
00:13:47,880 --> 00:13:50,360
Speaker 1: this podcast and thinking, I too would be very interested

226
00:13:50,400 --> 00:13:53,200
Speaker 1: in engaging in some deep dives into the stuff. What's

227
00:13:53,200 --> 00:13:57,400
Speaker 1: one thing that you would tell them that's interesting. I mean, frankly,

228
00:13:57,440 --> 00:14:00,400
Speaker 1: the data is all public. I'm mean, if you have

229
00:14:00,520 --> 00:14:04,280
Speaker 1: enough compute power, you have like a graph database, anybody

230
00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:07,600
Speaker 1: can honestly get started. It's public data, or at least

231
00:14:07,640 --> 00:14:10,640
Speaker 1: the parts that I mean, we we assessed. But what

232
00:14:10,760 --> 00:14:13,640
Speaker 1: you said actually made me think of something else. And

233
00:14:13,840 --> 00:14:18,360
Speaker 1: in those frustrations that are kind of like bureaucratic in nature,

234
00:14:18,960 --> 00:14:22,360
Speaker 1: it made me think of kind of the information asymmetry

235
00:14:22,400 --> 00:14:25,760
Speaker 1: out there between people who are very very familiar with

236
00:14:25,760 --> 00:14:28,600
Speaker 1: bitcoin and the client and the protocol and those who

237
00:14:28,600 --> 00:14:30,680
Speaker 1: are less familiar with the client the protocol but may

238
00:14:30,680 --> 00:14:33,800
Speaker 1: still even be in the crypto space. And I think

239
00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:38,560
Speaker 1: that's something that we are trying to address kind of

240
00:14:38,600 --> 00:14:42,800
Speaker 1: that junction and like have a better seal there between

241
00:14:43,200 --> 00:14:46,320
Speaker 1: kind of taking this space seriously as an academic an

242
00:14:46,320 --> 00:14:52,400
Speaker 1: incredibly rich sociological data set, and not necessarily require you

243
00:14:52,440 --> 00:14:55,440
Speaker 1: to be a bitcoin software developer in order to kind

244
00:14:55,440 --> 00:14:59,160
Speaker 1: of engage in conversations here, but in terms of getting

245
00:14:59,160 --> 00:15:01,440
Speaker 1: involved in this case, I mean, I think there's just

246
00:15:01,600 --> 00:15:06,720
Speaker 1: a significant startup costs in terms of information. It's it's

247
00:15:06,760 --> 00:15:11,880
Speaker 1: hard to simply begin. You have to know how this works,

248
00:15:11,920 --> 00:15:14,760
Speaker 1: you have to know the use cases of it. I mean,

249
00:15:14,880 --> 00:15:17,320
Speaker 1: and I think academics are free to reach out to us,

250
00:15:17,320 --> 00:15:19,720
Speaker 1: actually if there's kind of interest in this area where

251
00:15:19,840 --> 00:15:22,800
Speaker 1: we're happy to have those types of conversations. It can

252
00:15:22,880 --> 00:15:26,920
Speaker 1: be tricky for academics to do this sort of work.

253
00:15:26,960 --> 00:15:29,840
Speaker 1: Like a great example is you start looking at this

254
00:15:29,960 --> 00:15:32,000
Speaker 1: data set. It's you know, it's it's a large data

255
00:15:32,040 --> 00:15:35,400
Speaker 1: set and you want to analyze it. So good, good

256
00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:38,360
Speaker 1: thing is your academic you have these big computer clusters

257
00:15:38,440 --> 00:15:41,680
Speaker 1: and resources available through the university. So Lissa starts to

258
00:15:41,720 --> 00:15:45,760
Speaker 1: analyze the data, and you know, within short order she's

259
00:15:45,800 --> 00:15:49,400
Speaker 1: thrown off the cluster and band because they see, you know,

260
00:15:49,600 --> 00:15:52,560
Speaker 1: the word bitcoin is sort of associated with her code,

261
00:15:52,560 --> 00:15:54,040
Speaker 1: and they say, oh, you must be and you're using

262
00:15:54,080 --> 00:15:57,680
Speaker 1: all this compute, you must be bitcoin mining. Alyssa was

263
00:15:57,720 --> 00:16:00,680
Speaker 1: never able to prevail on them that she could possibly

264
00:16:00,720 --> 00:16:04,200
Speaker 1: have any other interest in bitcoin other than to mind it.

265
00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:06,360
Speaker 1: So then we were actually in worse shape now because

266
00:16:06,400 --> 00:16:07,960
Speaker 1: you have this based and massive data set, and you

267
00:16:07,960 --> 00:16:10,560
Speaker 1: don't have access to all the clusters usually used. So

268
00:16:11,160 --> 00:16:14,560
Speaker 1: who actually got a computer dedicated to this, which we

269
00:16:14,640 --> 00:16:18,080
Speaker 1: called hail Mary since we thought the odds were perhaps

270
00:16:18,080 --> 00:16:21,080
Speaker 1: against us. So there are challenges. Look, there's challenges to

271
00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:24,040
Speaker 1: approach this from from the academic sector. But I also

272
00:16:24,080 --> 00:16:25,720
Speaker 1: want to highlight that for the reasons that a Lista

273
00:16:25,760 --> 00:16:29,840
Speaker 1: pointed at the beginning, right, you know, you have a

274
00:16:29,920 --> 00:16:33,040
Speaker 1: lot of people with a lot of really strong views,

275
00:16:34,400 --> 00:16:38,640
Speaker 1: but there's a real need for folks who you know,

276
00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:43,480
Speaker 1: don't have financial interest in the matter, who are working

277
00:16:43,520 --> 00:16:46,560
Speaker 1: the public interests and the way that scientists do taking

278
00:16:46,640 --> 00:16:50,040
Speaker 1: data and looking at the data and digesting the data

279
00:16:50,200 --> 00:16:53,600
Speaker 1: and drawing lessons from that data in the public interest.

280
00:16:53,640 --> 00:16:56,200
Speaker 1: And so I actually think that this is an extraordinary

281
00:16:56,200 --> 00:17:00,560
Speaker 1: opportunity for scientists. Says hail Mary is still running. Hail

282
00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:05,840
Speaker 1: Mary was actually cannibalized into one of our other clusters,

283
00:17:05,880 --> 00:17:10,679
Speaker 1: but in theory she's she's in note in one of

284
00:17:10,720 --> 00:17:14,320
Speaker 1: our other conversational clusters. Now we're going to probably need

285
00:17:14,359 --> 00:17:19,800
Speaker 1: to ye, I don't know if you have any proposals

286
00:17:19,880 --> 00:17:22,480
Speaker 1: or your listeners a proposals as to what to name

287
00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:26,560
Speaker 1: that machine. But we're looking okay, great, I will, we will.

288
00:17:26,960 --> 00:17:29,560
Speaker 1: This is our first question to our audience. What should

289
00:17:29,680 --> 00:17:33,000
Speaker 1: these two scientists game their next computer for their next

290
00:17:33,000 --> 00:17:36,160
Speaker 1: research project. Send us your answers to Crypto at Bloomberg.

291
00:17:36,359 --> 00:17:39,320
Speaker 1: What is it computing computer faces that I feel like

292
00:17:39,320 --> 00:17:46,280
Speaker 1: that one's played out? Yeah, that's yeah. Sorry, sorry, I'm

293
00:17:46,359 --> 00:17:51,080
Speaker 1: dating myself. Well amazing. Thank you both for you know,

294
00:17:51,160 --> 00:17:55,359
Speaker 1: sharing your your time and your research interest and just

295
00:17:55,520 --> 00:17:58,320
Speaker 1: giving our our listeners the opportunity to hear a little

296
00:17:58,359 --> 00:18:00,879
Speaker 1: bit more of like the technical on their pinnings and

297
00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:04,199
Speaker 1: as you describe the gap that exists between theory and

298
00:18:04,240 --> 00:18:07,879
Speaker 1: reality that is, you know, so often overlooked or at

299
00:18:07,920 --> 00:18:10,680
Speaker 1: least less well understood. Thank you so much for having

300
00:18:10,720 --> 00:18:12,680
Speaker 1: a son and giving us a chance to talk about

301
00:18:12,680 --> 00:18:15,840
Speaker 1: our work a little bit. Thanks so much. You can

302
00:18:15,880 --> 00:18:19,040
Speaker 1: find Alyssa on LinkedIn and on her website, and you

303
00:18:19,040 --> 00:18:22,520
Speaker 1: can find Eras on Twitter. He is at Eras a

304
00:18:22,760 --> 00:18:27,120
Speaker 1: terras that is e er easy, a t e R easy,

305
00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:29,440
Speaker 1: don't forget. If you have suggestions for what they should

306
00:18:29,480 --> 00:18:32,760
Speaker 1: name their next computer, send us a note to Crypto

307
00:18:32,800 --> 00:18:37,760
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot net. On the next episode of Bloomberg

308
00:18:37,800 --> 00:18:41,600
Speaker 1: Crypto every day around the world. The reporters and editors

309
00:18:41,640 --> 00:18:44,240
Speaker 1: who work on Crypto Bloomberg wake up often at the

310
00:18:44,280 --> 00:18:47,160
Speaker 1: crack of dawn and start figuring out how we'll tackle

311
00:18:47,240 --> 00:18:49,600
Speaker 1: the biggest and most important news events of the day.

312
00:18:50,080 --> 00:18:53,160
Speaker 1: Crypto is a twenty four seven asset class. It doesn't

313
00:18:53,160 --> 00:18:56,080
Speaker 1: stop trading and it doesn't take holidays, so it's our

314
00:18:56,160 --> 00:18:59,040
Speaker 1: job to assess both the big trends and the small moments,

315
00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:01,919
Speaker 1: and to figure out how those translate into stories and

316
00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:06,040
Speaker 1: of course, podcast episodes. On the next episode, you'll get

317
00:19:06,080 --> 00:19:08,960
Speaker 1: to meet three of Bloomberg's Crypto editors, folks who are

318
00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:11,639
Speaker 1: making decisions all day long about how we approached this

319
00:19:11,680 --> 00:19:14,840
Speaker 1: asset class. You'll hear from Beth Williams and Dave Litka,

320
00:19:14,960 --> 00:19:18,000
Speaker 1: who are both based in New York, and from Philip Blagerkranzo,

321
00:19:18,160 --> 00:19:25,000
Speaker 1: who's based in Zurich. I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael, and this

322
00:19:25,040 --> 00:19:28,159
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily podcast from Bloomberg and I

323
00:19:28,280 --> 00:19:31,320
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more shows from I Heart Radio, visit

324
00:19:31,359 --> 00:19:34,359
Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

325
00:19:34,400 --> 00:19:37,919
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Email your questions, comments, or suggestions for

326
00:19:37,960 --> 00:19:40,960
Speaker 1: the show to Crypto at Bloomberg dot net and you'll

327
00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:45,760
Speaker 1: find us on Twitter at Crypto. The supervising producer of

328
00:19:45,760 --> 00:19:48,879
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Crypto is Vicky very Galina. Our senior producer is

329
00:19:48,960 --> 00:19:53,040
Speaker 1: Janet Babin. Our producer is Sharon Burriro, Associate producer is

330
00:19:53,119 --> 00:19:56,760
Speaker 1: Ty Butler. Desta wonder Ad is our engineer. Original music

331
00:19:56,800 --> 00:20:08,399
Speaker 1: by Leo Sidrin all Ash and as app