WEBVTT - Who Owns All the Bitcoin?

0:00:02.680 --> 0:00:06.320
<v Speaker 1>I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg News,

0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:10.280
<v Speaker 1>and this is Bloomberg Crypto at Daily Bloomberg I Heart Podcast.

0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:18.040
<v Speaker 1>It's Thursday, July fourteen. Since the founding document that led

0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:20.880
<v Speaker 1>to the invention of bitcoin first appeared in two thousand

0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:24.639
<v Speaker 1>and eight, Bitcoin's true believers have adopted a philosophy that

0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.960
<v Speaker 1>resembles one for all and all for one, or at

0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.920
<v Speaker 1>least all who believe in bitcoin. Bitcoin is often mentioned

0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:35.280
<v Speaker 1>as a means to improve financial inclusion or to allow

0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.400
<v Speaker 1>people who are oppressed by their governments to maintain or

0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:43.080
<v Speaker 1>reclaim a sense of freedom. In Bitcoin, everyone's equal, or

0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:45.920
<v Speaker 1>so the theory goes, But does that theory match the

0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.919
<v Speaker 1>reality of the ecosystem. What we did was a systematic

0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.400
<v Speaker 1>origin study of bitcoin, telling the story of how this

0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:56.040
<v Speaker 1>came to be in a very very specific period. That's

0:00:56.120 --> 0:01:00.520
<v Speaker 1>data scientists Alyssa Blackburn. On today's episode, Alyssa and Dr

0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:04.080
<v Speaker 1>Aras Lieberman Eden, an Associate professor of molecular and human

0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.600
<v Speaker 1>genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, join me to discuss

0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:11.680
<v Speaker 1>their research into who controlled bitcoin from the very earliest days.

0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:20.360
<v Speaker 1>Alyssa Era's what a pleasure to have you. Thank you

0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:22.400
<v Speaker 1>so much for joining the pod today. Thank you for

0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:26.080
<v Speaker 1>having a son. I don't often get to, you know,

0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.920
<v Speaker 1>talk to folks doing the type of research that you

0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:31.440
<v Speaker 1>all have been doing, and I get to talk to

0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.200
<v Speaker 1>them even less frequently when it comes to, you know,

0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:38.520
<v Speaker 1>applying that research into the wild world of bitcoin. So

0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:40.600
<v Speaker 1>let's jump right in. Tell me a little bit more

0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:43.480
<v Speaker 1>about your paper and your findings and why you have

0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:45.920
<v Speaker 1>found this to be such a captivating line of inquiry.

0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:49.720
<v Speaker 1>Often times in crypto you hear from kind of two

0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:53.800
<v Speaker 1>camps of people. The first are kind of classic economists

0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:57.680
<v Speaker 1>who do these first principal analyzes um and there's a

0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:03.600
<v Speaker 1>variety of outcomes in that. You have people saying, maybe

0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.040
<v Speaker 1>it's I don't really like this term, but like kind

0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:08.200
<v Speaker 1>of a scam, kind of a Ponzi scheme. There's not

0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.040
<v Speaker 1>a there's not a there there. And the second group

0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:13.960
<v Speaker 1>tends to be from people who are long on crypto,

0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:18.760
<v Speaker 1>crypto enthusiasts, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but

0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:21.320
<v Speaker 1>both of these are kind of like a priori analyses.

0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:25.359
<v Speaker 1>We are scientists, We are setting the phenomenon of crypto

0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:29.600
<v Speaker 1>and trying to characterize the space, trying to study the

0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:32.359
<v Speaker 1>dynamics of the space and the incentive structure in the space.

0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.120
<v Speaker 1>So it's a different kind of analysis that we do,

0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:38.680
<v Speaker 1>and we do not invest in this space as a

0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:41.800
<v Speaker 1>group as scientists, So I kind of want to differentiate

0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:46.680
<v Speaker 1>our work here from kind of other conversations that kind

0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:55.160
<v Speaker 1>of get said about this. So what we did was

0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:58.080
<v Speaker 1>what we sought to do was a systematic origin study

0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:01.640
<v Speaker 1>of bitcoin, telling the story of how this came to

0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:04.720
<v Speaker 1>be in a very very specific period. We kind of

0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:08.079
<v Speaker 1>referred to this as the incipient period of bitcoin, is

0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:11.440
<v Speaker 1>book ended by the launch and when Bitcoin reached price

0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:16.000
<v Speaker 1>periority with the US dollar. In retrospect, this at the time,

0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:19.000
<v Speaker 1>this is not at all foregone conclusion. This is true.

0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:21.280
<v Speaker 1>It was a truly incredible story to us. It's one

0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:23.839
<v Speaker 1>of the most exciting stories of the interface of kind

0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:27.679
<v Speaker 1>of economics and technology. And what we wanted to do

0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:31.480
<v Speaker 1>was paining a very detailed data driven picture of what

0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:34.600
<v Speaker 1>this looked like, who was involved, what did it look like,

0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:37.520
<v Speaker 1>what are the dynamics like, what is the motivation for

0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:41.200
<v Speaker 1>this space, what can we learn from this? And then

0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:44.080
<v Speaker 1>what can we kind of translate and can we make

0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:48.200
<v Speaker 1>this a serious academic story. Can we get beyond kind

0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.120
<v Speaker 1>of this like niche crypto conversation and kind of have

0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:54.680
<v Speaker 1>it in a wider, academic, rigorous space. And what did

0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:57.320
<v Speaker 1>you find? First of all, is we did a lot

0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.880
<v Speaker 1>of address linking in this space. We used methods that

0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:04.800
<v Speaker 1>may be called DAI leakage fingerprinting to kind of link

0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.600
<v Speaker 1>these addresses together. And there are a couple assumptions that

0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:10.840
<v Speaker 1>we were able to make in this very very early

0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:15.640
<v Speaker 1>period that made this process just specific to kind of

0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.919
<v Speaker 1>this time horizon. So we were able to recapitulate a

0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.839
<v Speaker 1>lot of the early actors. And then once we had

0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:26.560
<v Speaker 1>these users, we were able to do analyses. We were

0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:29.160
<v Speaker 1>able to see how the community changed over time, We

0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:33.680
<v Speaker 1>were able to trace transactions through the network. We were

0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:37.800
<v Speaker 1>able to see what the reality of the system was

0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:41.520
<v Speaker 1>like in contrast to what conversations about the system was like,

0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.760
<v Speaker 1>and to kind of explore the gap between those two things.

0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:54.280
<v Speaker 1>The significance of address linking is the following. Right. If

0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:57.279
<v Speaker 1>you look at you know, the Bitcoin blockchain designed to

0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:02.960
<v Speaker 1>be afford identity masking I a pseudonymity. It's the individual

0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:09.720
<v Speaker 1>records relate to addresses pseudonyms. Now, of course, an address

0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:12.640
<v Speaker 1>is not a very interesting thing to study on some level,

0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:17.200
<v Speaker 1>and addresses no incentives and address makes no decisions, etcetera, etcetera.

0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:20.240
<v Speaker 1>If you want to study the sociology of bitcoin, if

0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:21.960
<v Speaker 1>you want to study the economics at bitcoint, you have

0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.839
<v Speaker 1>to be able to translate from the space of addresses,

0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:27.800
<v Speaker 1>from collections of addresses to people and the choices that

0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:30.240
<v Speaker 1>people are making and the ways in which people are

0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.000
<v Speaker 1>interacting with one another. So that's the role that address

0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.680
<v Speaker 1>linking plays in this study. The address linking is not

0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:39.159
<v Speaker 1>there for the purpose of like, gotcha, you know, I

0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:41.719
<v Speaker 1>figured out who you are. In fact, you know, the

0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.400
<v Speaker 1>goal is study was not at all two docks anyone, right,

0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:49.000
<v Speaker 1>it's orthogonal is is of no interest to us. But

0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:51.440
<v Speaker 1>the goal of the address linking is to translate the

0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:55.720
<v Speaker 1>blockchain into terms that make it possible to ask questions

0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:59.719
<v Speaker 1>about sociology and economics and game theory and all kinds

0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:04.040
<v Speaker 1>of scientific phenomena that bitpoint can be, but all kinds

0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:10.760
<v Speaker 1>of scientific phenomena that bitcoin can illuminate. And Lissa, one

0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:13.680
<v Speaker 1>of the things that you kind of talk about is

0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.839
<v Speaker 1>the like the necessity of persistence in trying to get

0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:20.279
<v Speaker 1>or arrive at those kinds of you know, like insights

0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:23.279
<v Speaker 1>of sociological conclusions that Auras is describing. Can you say

0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.159
<v Speaker 1>just a little bit more about how that worked? Sure? Sure.

0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:32.160
<v Speaker 1>So the reality is humans are responsible for coin movements

0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:36.960
<v Speaker 1>on the blockchain. Humans tend to do things differently than computers.

0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:41.520
<v Speaker 1>Humans like round numbers, humans like consolidating their gains. There

0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:45.960
<v Speaker 1>are these little pieces of data um we call them

0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.640
<v Speaker 1>data leakage. Some blockchain forens experiment call them like fingerprinting.

0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:54.760
<v Speaker 1>But there are certain behaviors that give insight as to

0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.040
<v Speaker 1>who is moving the coins. And if you put these

0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:01.200
<v Speaker 1>all these little pieces of data together, what you get

0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:06.159
<v Speaker 1>our links between addresses. And when you have multiple links

0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:10.480
<v Speaker 1>of different types of leakage from different data sources in aggregate,

0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:14.440
<v Speaker 1>what you can do is put together clusters of addresses

0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:18.760
<v Speaker 1>with a high level of accuracy. And so what that

0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.480
<v Speaker 1>means in practices you basically figured out who the first

0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:27.480
<v Speaker 1>sixty four miners were that were responsible. Yes, it means

0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:30.800
<v Speaker 1>we put together the very early mining the agents who

0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:34.360
<v Speaker 1>mind a lot of coin um. The number sixty four

0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:38.880
<v Speaker 1>comes from what is called the Satoshi coefficient, where it's

0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:41.680
<v Speaker 1>the number required for a majority attack to be greater

0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:45.080
<v Speaker 1>than So I want to clarrate that that sixty four

0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:48.840
<v Speaker 1>is over twenty five months, and frequently, at any given

0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:52.120
<v Speaker 1>moment in time, actually a very far far smaller number

0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:54.560
<v Speaker 1>are actually the number of people actively mining and maintaining

0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:57.120
<v Speaker 1>the network at any given point in time. It was

0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:00.840
<v Speaker 1>a very small community. What was the most interesting perhaps

0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:04.400
<v Speaker 1>like behavioral elements of this community, or maybe something that

0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:07.600
<v Speaker 1>neither of you were expecting to find. So one one

0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.680
<v Speaker 1>thing that we frequently point out in the paper is

0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.119
<v Speaker 1>we do not find evidence of people attacking the chain.

0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:21.080
<v Speaker 1>And one Sutoshi originally described this currency in the initial

0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:24.200
<v Speaker 1>emails to the cryptographic Lesser, in the initial white paper,

0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.520
<v Speaker 1>on the original bitcoin website and frequently on the forums

0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:31.760
<v Speaker 1>as not relying in a third party, is being decentralized

0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:36.880
<v Speaker 1>and trustless, and is being anonymous. And some opinions on

0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:40.160
<v Speaker 1>the perceived anonymity of bitcoin have changed over time. I

0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:42.199
<v Speaker 1>mean probably people who are very very familiar with the

0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:44.920
<v Speaker 1>Bitcoin protocol now would not describe as anonymous, They would

0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.920
<v Speaker 1>described as studonymous. But Bitcoin was designed at least partially

0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.640
<v Speaker 1>to have these pseudonyms to effectuate some level of privacy.

0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:56.400
<v Speaker 1>Bitcoin was also designed to not rely on a third party.

0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.600
<v Speaker 1>But what we find frequently, because you have these very

0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:04.079
<v Speaker 1>large minors, not many mining at one time, there's frequently

0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.240
<v Speaker 1>in a minor that's functioning as the trusted arbiter of

0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:11.080
<v Speaker 1>the network. We find about five blocks minduring this period

0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:14.320
<v Speaker 1>our mind and majority streets where one minor does in

0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:17.160
<v Speaker 1>fact have a majority control of the network. So what

0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.079
<v Speaker 1>I'm hearing you say is that is the literal opposite

0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:23.760
<v Speaker 1>of the idea of decentralization when there isn't supposed to

0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:29.319
<v Speaker 1>be a single centralized entity that's making those kinds of coals. Yes, exactly.

0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:33.000
<v Speaker 1>And what I want to focus on here is the

0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:38.760
<v Speaker 1>gap between the computational ideals and how this was described

0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:42.480
<v Speaker 1>and the actual state of the system, because it's it's

0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.760
<v Speaker 1>a little bit easy to say, now, well this is

0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.080
<v Speaker 1>a ten year old data set. What are you telling

0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:51.840
<v Speaker 1>me about the block chain today? And what I want

0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:55.160
<v Speaker 1>to highlight is the tension in that gap. I only

0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:57.320
<v Speaker 1>studied these two years. I cannot tell you like a

0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.720
<v Speaker 1>blanket statement about the system today, and I'm not going to,

0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.359
<v Speaker 1>but I will say that at this time that decentralized

0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:06.160
<v Speaker 1>trousis mechanism was not functioning. Yeah, I mean, I think

0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:11.319
<v Speaker 1>it's It's also worth noting, right that like today we think, oh, bitcoint,

0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.880
<v Speaker 1>it's worth a trillion dollars, and if it's not worth

0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:15.959
<v Speaker 1>a trillion dollars, you know, there's a bit of a

0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:17.719
<v Speaker 1>temptation to be like, oh, you know, before it was

0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.800
<v Speaker 1>worth a trillion dollars, it kind of wasn't worth anything. Look,

0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:26.360
<v Speaker 1>you know, there's no doubt that the value of you know,

0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:30.280
<v Speaker 1>bitcoin and it's importance have changed greatly over the last

0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:34.079
<v Speaker 1>ten years. There's no doubt that the state of that

0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:37.160
<v Speaker 1>community has changed greatly over the last ten years. At

0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:39.480
<v Speaker 1>the same time, it's worth noting that by the end

0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.160
<v Speaker 1>of the period that we examined, this twenty five months

0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:47.480
<v Speaker 1>long period, uh, bitcoin is a functioning currency. Right the

0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.160
<v Speaker 1>end of the twenty five month long period, at this point,

0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:54.120
<v Speaker 1>Quiki Leaks has already invested in bitcoint to get around

0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:59.880
<v Speaker 1>the payment blockade, the financial blockade that was enacted against

0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.680
<v Speaker 1>it by the government in the world. It's after the

0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:07.720
<v Speaker 1>Electronic Frontier Foundation is starting to solicit donations in bitcoin um.

0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:11.120
<v Speaker 1>It's after bitcoin transactions start. There's a market price for

0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:16.280
<v Speaker 1>bitcoin that's a dollar. Um. It is coincident with the

0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:20.440
<v Speaker 1>launch of the Silk Road, you know, which became, you know,

0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:24.840
<v Speaker 1>a massive online black market denominated in bitcoin. So it

0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:27.640
<v Speaker 1>was at this point was it what it is today?

0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:31.040
<v Speaker 1>It was not, But was it functioning as a currency. Yes.

0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.400
<v Speaker 1>We'll be right back with more from Melissa Blackburn and

0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:46.920
<v Speaker 1>Dr Eras Lieberman Eden. I also want to point out

0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:52.400
<v Speaker 1>the importance of studying the difference between the sort of

0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:56.880
<v Speaker 1>ideals that you're hoping a cryptocurrency can achieve and the

0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:00.840
<v Speaker 1>reality of what it does achieve, which and be quite different.

0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.760
<v Speaker 1>Not every cryptocurrencies as long in the tooth as Bitcoin, right,

0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:08.120
<v Speaker 1>if you look at other cryptocurrencies, you know, you look

0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:10.960
<v Speaker 1>at Luna terra ust that that's an example of a

0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:14.160
<v Speaker 1>cryptocurrency that's only a couple of years old. In that

0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.720
<v Speaker 1>period of time, it became clear that there were significant

0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:20.160
<v Speaker 1>you know, and especially recently, it's become very clear that

0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:23.680
<v Speaker 1>there were significant deviations between the ideals what people said

0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.920
<v Speaker 1>their intentions were, and you know, the reality of how

0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:30.920
<v Speaker 1>that community worked, the reality of you know, even the

0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:34.480
<v Speaker 1>attention of the founder and founders of that community. I

0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.400
<v Speaker 1>think a measured response to This is not to say

0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.320
<v Speaker 1>that the sky is falling and distant applies, you know,

0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.760
<v Speaker 1>wader catastrophe for bitcoin. That wouldn't be a measured response,

0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.160
<v Speaker 1>but also wouldn't be a measured response to say that

0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:49.000
<v Speaker 1>that this period, because it was ten years ago, can't

0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:53.960
<v Speaker 1>teach us valuable lessons for bitcoin and for other cryptocurrency communities.

0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:56.439
<v Speaker 1>We kind of used the term a little bit informally

0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:01.400
<v Speaker 1>internally of like stress testing and cryptocurrency eco system And

0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:03.920
<v Speaker 1>I mean, Bitcoin is far in a way the most

0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.880
<v Speaker 1>popular with the highest market cap, but the reality is

0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:09.880
<v Speaker 1>there a lot of young, you know, crypto ecosystems that

0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:13.840
<v Speaker 1>perhaps have not been as tested as thoroughly, and they're

0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:17.280
<v Speaker 1>likewise maybe a gap between how they're being described how

0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:19.360
<v Speaker 1>the founders may describe them in the actual state of

0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.080
<v Speaker 1>the system. And I think it's kind of important to

0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:25.240
<v Speaker 1>go into this kind of space with some degree of

0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:32.000
<v Speaker 1>healthy skepticism. Also, in your description of you know, your

0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:34.400
<v Speaker 1>attempts to even get to the point of being able

0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:38.079
<v Speaker 1>to ask questions, you describe some challenges that you encountered,

0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:40.720
<v Speaker 1>like getting kicked off of your university network because they

0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:44.360
<v Speaker 1>thought that you were mining mining crypto. If if there

0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.840
<v Speaker 1>are other academics out there who are hopefully listening to

0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.360
<v Speaker 1>this podcast and thinking, I too would be very interested

0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.200
<v Speaker 1>in engaging in some deep dives into the stuff. What's

0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:57.400
<v Speaker 1>one thing that you would tell them that's interesting. I mean, frankly,

0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.400
<v Speaker 1>the data is all public. I'm mean, if you have

0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:04.280
<v Speaker 1>enough compute power, you have like a graph database, anybody

0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:07.600
<v Speaker 1>can honestly get started. It's public data, or at least

0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.640
<v Speaker 1>the parts that I mean, we we assessed. But what

0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.640
<v Speaker 1>you said actually made me think of something else. And

0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:18.360
<v Speaker 1>in those frustrations that are kind of like bureaucratic in nature,

0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.360
<v Speaker 1>it made me think of kind of the information asymmetry

0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.760
<v Speaker 1>out there between people who are very very familiar with

0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:28.600
<v Speaker 1>bitcoin and the client and the protocol and those who

0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:30.680
<v Speaker 1>are less familiar with the client the protocol but may

0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.800
<v Speaker 1>still even be in the crypto space. And I think

0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:38.560
<v Speaker 1>that's something that we are trying to address kind of

0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:42.800
<v Speaker 1>that junction and like have a better seal there between

0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.320
<v Speaker 1>kind of taking this space seriously as an academic an

0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:52.400
<v Speaker 1>incredibly rich sociological data set, and not necessarily require you

0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:55.440
<v Speaker 1>to be a bitcoin software developer in order to kind

0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:59.160
<v Speaker 1>of engage in conversations here, but in terms of getting

0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:01.440
<v Speaker 1>involved in this case, I mean, I think there's just

0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:06.720
<v Speaker 1>a significant startup costs in terms of information. It's it's

0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:11.880
<v Speaker 1>hard to simply begin. You have to know how this works,

0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:14.760
<v Speaker 1>you have to know the use cases of it. I mean,

0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:17.320
<v Speaker 1>and I think academics are free to reach out to us,

0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:19.720
<v Speaker 1>actually if there's kind of interest in this area where

0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:22.800
<v Speaker 1>we're happy to have those types of conversations. It can

0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.920
<v Speaker 1>be tricky for academics to do this sort of work.

0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.840
<v Speaker 1>Like a great example is you start looking at this

0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:32.000
<v Speaker 1>data set. It's you know, it's it's a large data

0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:35.400
<v Speaker 1>set and you want to analyze it. So good, good

0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:38.360
<v Speaker 1>thing is your academic you have these big computer clusters

0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.680
<v Speaker 1>and resources available through the university. So Lissa starts to

0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:45.760
<v Speaker 1>analyze the data, and you know, within short order she's

0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:49.400
<v Speaker 1>thrown off the cluster and band because they see, you know,

0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:52.560
<v Speaker 1>the word bitcoin is sort of associated with her code,

0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:54.040
<v Speaker 1>and they say, oh, you must be and you're using

0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:57.680
<v Speaker 1>all this compute, you must be bitcoin mining. Alyssa was

0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.680
<v Speaker 1>never able to prevail on them that she could possibly

0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:04.200
<v Speaker 1>have any other interest in bitcoin other than to mind it.

0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:06.360
<v Speaker 1>So then we were actually in worse shape now because

0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:07.960
<v Speaker 1>you have this based and massive data set, and you

0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:10.560
<v Speaker 1>don't have access to all the clusters usually used. So

0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:14.560
<v Speaker 1>who actually got a computer dedicated to this, which we

0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:18.080
<v Speaker 1>called hail Mary since we thought the odds were perhaps

0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:21.080
<v Speaker 1>against us. So there are challenges. Look, there's challenges to

0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:24.040
<v Speaker 1>approach this from from the academic sector. But I also

0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:25.720
<v Speaker 1>want to highlight that for the reasons that a Lista

0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:29.840
<v Speaker 1>pointed at the beginning, right, you know, you have a

0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:33.040
<v Speaker 1>lot of people with a lot of really strong views,

0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:38.640
<v Speaker 1>but there's a real need for folks who you know,

0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:43.480
<v Speaker 1>don't have financial interest in the matter, who are working

0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.560
<v Speaker 1>the public interests and the way that scientists do taking

0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:50.040
<v Speaker 1>data and looking at the data and digesting the data

0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.600
<v Speaker 1>and drawing lessons from that data in the public interest.

0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:56.200
<v Speaker 1>And so I actually think that this is an extraordinary

0:16:56.200 --> 0:17:00.560
<v Speaker 1>opportunity for scientists. Says hail Mary is still running. Hail

0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:05.840
<v Speaker 1>Mary was actually cannibalized into one of our other clusters,

0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:10.679
<v Speaker 1>but in theory she's she's in note in one of

0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:14.320
<v Speaker 1>our other conversational clusters. Now we're going to probably need

0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:19.800
<v Speaker 1>to ye, I don't know if you have any proposals

0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:22.480
<v Speaker 1>or your listeners a proposals as to what to name

0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:26.560
<v Speaker 1>that machine. But we're looking okay, great, I will, we will.

0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:29.560
<v Speaker 1>This is our first question to our audience. What should

0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:33.000
<v Speaker 1>these two scientists game their next computer for their next

0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:36.160
<v Speaker 1>research project. Send us your answers to Crypto at Bloomberg.

0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:39.320
<v Speaker 1>What is it computing computer faces that I feel like

0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:46.280
<v Speaker 1>that one's played out? Yeah, that's yeah. Sorry, sorry, I'm

0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:51.080
<v Speaker 1>dating myself. Well amazing. Thank you both for you know,

0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:55.359
<v Speaker 1>sharing your your time and your research interest and just

0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:58.320
<v Speaker 1>giving our our listeners the opportunity to hear a little

0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:00.879
<v Speaker 1>bit more of like the technical on their pinnings and

0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:04.199
<v Speaker 1>as you describe the gap that exists between theory and

0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:07.879
<v Speaker 1>reality that is, you know, so often overlooked or at

0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.680
<v Speaker 1>least less well understood. Thank you so much for having

0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:12.680
<v Speaker 1>a son and giving us a chance to talk about

0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.840
<v Speaker 1>our work a little bit. Thanks so much. You can

0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.040
<v Speaker 1>find Alyssa on LinkedIn and on her website, and you

0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.520
<v Speaker 1>can find Eras on Twitter. He is at Eras a

0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:27.120
<v Speaker 1>terras that is e er easy, a t e R easy,

0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:29.440
<v Speaker 1>don't forget. If you have suggestions for what they should

0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:32.760
<v Speaker 1>name their next computer, send us a note to Crypto

0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:37.760
<v Speaker 1>at Bloomberg dot net. On the next episode of Bloomberg

0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:41.600
<v Speaker 1>Crypto every day around the world. The reporters and editors

0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:44.240
<v Speaker 1>who work on Crypto Bloomberg wake up often at the

0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:47.160
<v Speaker 1>crack of dawn and start figuring out how we'll tackle

0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:49.600
<v Speaker 1>the biggest and most important news events of the day.

0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.160
<v Speaker 1>Crypto is a twenty four seven asset class. It doesn't

0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:56.080
<v Speaker 1>stop trading and it doesn't take holidays, so it's our

0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.040
<v Speaker 1>job to assess both the big trends and the small moments,

0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:01.919
<v Speaker 1>and to figure out how those translate into stories and

0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:06.040
<v Speaker 1>of course, podcast episodes. On the next episode, you'll get

0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:08.960
<v Speaker 1>to meet three of Bloomberg's Crypto editors, folks who are

0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.639
<v Speaker 1>making decisions all day long about how we approached this

0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.840
<v Speaker 1>asset class. You'll hear from Beth Williams and Dave Litka,

0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:18.000
<v Speaker 1>who are both based in New York, and from Philip Blagerkranzo,

0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:25.000
<v Speaker 1>who's based in Zurich. I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael, and this

0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:28.159
<v Speaker 1>is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily podcast from Bloomberg and I

0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:31.320
<v Speaker 1>Heart Radio. For more shows from I Heart Radio, visit

0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:34.359
<v Speaker 1>the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.919
<v Speaker 1>get your podcasts. Email your questions, comments, or suggestions for

0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:40.960
<v Speaker 1>the show to Crypto at Bloomberg dot net and you'll

0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:45.760
<v Speaker 1>find us on Twitter at Crypto. The supervising producer of

0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:48.879
<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg Crypto is Vicky very Galina. Our senior producer is

0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:53.040
<v Speaker 1>Janet Babin. Our producer is Sharon Burriro, Associate producer is

0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.760
<v Speaker 1>Ty Butler. Desta wonder Ad is our engineer. Original music

0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:08.399
<v Speaker 1>by Leo Sidrin all Ash and as app