WEBVTT - The Mark Moss Show - LIVE from Miami with Austin Hill 0:00:00.000 --> 0:00:02.200 All right, welcome. You are listening to another episode of 0:00:02.240 --> 0:00:05.480 the Mark Mass Show, where we talk about the decentralized Revolution. 0:00:05.519 --> 0:00:08.760 Of course, we're talking about the way the world is changing, politics, finance, 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:11.040 and of course that's technology driving it. We're talking about 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:14.840 the decentralized revolution, and we are talking about bitcoin, of course, 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:19.239 each and every week. I'm coming to you from Miami, Florida, 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.320 where I'm here for the Bitcoin Conference. Two thousand twenty two. 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.079 About forty people expected to be here for the Bitcoin Conference. 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:28.960 It has really grown into something big. It's been pretty 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:31.800 amazing to watch it for a while. And I am 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.520 joined in the studio today with Austin Hill. Austin, thanks 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:38.000 for joining me, my pleasure, Mark, thanks for inviting me. 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:41.479 So Austin has been around UM two in the bitcoin 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:44.120 space for a really long time, and so I've been 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:45.760 around a long time, not as long as him. And 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:48.639 it's uh boy, it's grown quite a bit, hasn't it. 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:53.319 It's every day I wake up and I'm just kind 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.080 of living gratitude in the sense that you know, there's 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:58.639 such an active community, there's so many people lending their 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:00.880 hand to creating the change in the world that I 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:03.400 think we all want to see. Yeah, and you know, 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:06.360 it's one person trying to change the world. You know 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.399 the old adage, Give me a lever long, large enough 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:11.880 and I can move the world. Yeah. Yeah, I don't 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:14.679 know anyone who has you know, the weight or the 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:17.319 kind of density of intensity to do the change that 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:22.120 the community is actually doing together. Let's let's talk about 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:24.319 you know, one thing that I get frustrated with people 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:27.399 a lot is that, um They're like, oh, bitcoin can 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.480 never be the you know, reserve current, you can never 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:33.040 be the medium exchange, you can never be whatever whatever 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:35.520 fill in the blank, right, And it's like, um, just 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:38.360 because it's not that today, it doesn't mean it can't 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:40.000 grow into that eventually. It's like if I saw like 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:41.760 a little oak tree that was this big, I would 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:43.920 never go back. It's like, well, it is an oak tree, right, 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:46.720 So let's talk about that. I was at a I 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:49.360 was at a at the at the Trammel Venture Partners 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:53.440 UM Fund yesterday meeting, and there was a Trammel and 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:56.040 uh Lop, Jamison Lop. We're talking and they're talking about 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:59.400 the early days of of the bitcoin message board and 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:01.760 the and the the faucets turning on and all the 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:04.160 bitcoin coming out of the faucets. People just thrown around 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:06.640 thousands of bitcoin at a time. Um, there was really 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.160 no market for them. So is that where you were 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:12.440 in those early stages or where'd you come in at UM? Well, 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:16.320 I had a couple of exposures to bitcoin. Um, a 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:20.720 lot of my work was pre bitcoin. So back I 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:23.960 created a company called Zero Knowledge Systems, which was a 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:26.760 cipher punk research lab, and we employed we had two 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:32.160 eight employees, including a large at that time. Now, you 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:34.760 said cipher punk, so a lot of listeners may not 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:37.840 understand what that is. So what what was the cipher punk? Um? 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:40.960 So the cipher punks was kind of ad hoc group 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.880 that create was created right around the time that the 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:49.919 FBI rated a bunch of hackers in something called Operations 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:54.679 Send Devil where Sun Devil where they essentially rated a 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.760 bunch of teenage hackers, and they barged in and treated 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:02.560 them like essentially isis earists, And a whole bunch of 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:08.120 teenagers found themselves being essentially jackbooted by secret service FBI 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:11.160 held without their rights. You know, a bunch of very 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:14.240 innocent teenagers who were exploring computer networks. This is in 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:18.560 the mid to late nineties, late eighties, and that's what 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.160 led to the creation of e f F, which is 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:25.440 Electronic Frontier Foundation. It was created by John Gilmour John 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:31.120 Perry Barlow and created Lotus one, two three. John Gilmore 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:35.880 was employee number five at Sun Microsystems and John Perry 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.720 Barlow was the lyricist for the Grateful Dead. Okay, wow 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.240 what what what a group? And they kind of collectively 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:44.960 were like, we need to write a declaration of independence 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:47.320 for the Internet and we need to fight for civil rights, 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:49.760 which was before the Internet was even really a thing, 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:54.480 because I think that it existed, but WWW went live, 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:58.920 this is even pre that. Well WW actually was ninety 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:03.880 three when Timber is really published, when the first like 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:08.240 NCS mosaic started kind of coming a lot. The HTTP 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.840 protocol had been proposed, but there were no browsers. It 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:15.000 was all tax based um and so I at the 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.560 time was running one of the largest Internet providers in Canada. 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:22.120 But previously I had been part of the computer security community, 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:24.000 so a lot of my friends got arrested in that, 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:29.719 and I had before I turned eighteen, transitioned into doing 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:33.320 penetration testing for companies. So it's kind of smart enough 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:37.559 to realize hacking was not a lifetime career. I wanted 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:42.240 to stay in and so I really cared about civil liberties. 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.039 I saw what was happening to my friends and so 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:48.719 in I ended up building the largest Internet provider in 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:55.680 Canada for dial Up, sold it, and at that time 0:04:55.680 --> 0:05:00.880 Phil Zermanrin was being prosecuted for exporting p GP right 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.560 because they considered the p g P, which is basically 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.800 the encryption the encryption. They considered that munitions like weapons 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:12.000 because at the time only the military had encryption. Um well, 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:15.480 it was actually the math was known, but they created 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:19.120 something called the wasson Ear Agreement which creates created this 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:23.800 kind of control and treated math as an exportable munition, 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:28.120 like exporting nuclear technology. So you could be prosecuted in 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:31.920 the United States if you exported strong encryption. That's where 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:35.520 later my partner in block Stream out of back created 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:38.920 the t shirts with encryption algorithms and sold them so 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:43.960 people could wear munitions on plants. That's right. Um now, 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.120 so we had a thesis. After I sold my I 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:49.880 s P, I created a company which was, if we 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:52.960 can make encryption tools as easy as Netscape made browsing 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:56.680 the web, maybe we can build privacy and the base 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:59.919 layer of the Internet. We had kind of three maintenance. 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.000 One was an anonymous I P browsing, So we invented 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.559 something called the Freedom Network, which was a precursor to 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.760 tour that the Naval Research Laboratory later came out with. 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.320 So we ran it. We had it running. Then we 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:17.320 tried to develop and roll out electronic cash, anonymous electronic cash, 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:21.200 and heading up that development was dr Adam Back, who 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:26.440 I hired to build our cash. And then on top 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.240 of that, we wanted to have private identity, the idea 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:32.680 that you could prove your over a team without ever 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:36.320 revealing your name. And so we said, if we build 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:40.200 these three kind of pillars, the Internet can actually develop 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:44.280 with privacy as the base layer, without surveillance capitalism. And 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:48.040 unfortunately we got way ahead of our skis. We grew 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:51.880 too fast. The dot com collapse forced us to fire 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.520 all our researchers, pivot the company. We ended up making 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:59.400 it financially successful, but in terms of the social and 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:01.600 civic goal us that we had to kind of promote 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.400 privacy in the world, I think we actually failed miserably. 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:08.960 It seems like it's an uphill battle. Well, starting from 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:11.080 the eighties when you did, or into the nineties, I 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:13.400 would imagine it's the uphill battle because even today, in 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:15.600 today's day and age, which has gotten crazy with the 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:19.040 dystopian future that we're living in. Um, even today, a 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:21.640 lot of people still don't understand why they even need privacy. 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:23.680 And I'm guessing back in the eighties and nineties was 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:26.120 probably even a much harder sell to try to explain 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:28.960 to people why they needed privacy beyond the beyond the 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:33.240 hacker community. Yeah. So it was so funny because all 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:35.520 of our market data and all the market research we 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:38.840 tried to do everything gave us these we really bad 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:42.119 signaling in the sense that we would put a hundred 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:43.480 people in a room and say how much do you 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:45.560 care about your privacy? And it would score off the charts. 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.480 People were afraid to put credit card like, no one 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.160 was shopping online because we're afraid to put credit cards 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:55.960 off at this phase, this was I started. I started 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.360 the e commerce business in two thousand one at the 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:00.760 bottom of the dot com crash, and so right, I remember, 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:03.120 even in two thousand one, people were very afraid to 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:05.160 put their credit in. You remember, we had flus, we 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:07.200 had cyber cash. We had all these companies trying to 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.920 build alternative digital currencies. They were all centralized. But this 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:12.680 was the error when we tried to buy digit cash 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:15.280 out of bankruptcy. So we actually have the cipher punk 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:18.520 ideals and we're like, if we roll out anonymous show 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:23.400 like show me in totally, like David chomb private he cash, 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:25.760 it can actually form the commerce engione for the Internet 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.560 before credit cards were the north. So what you're talking 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:30.360 about there is is something I want to dig into 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:34.920 a little bit. UM talking about different versions of early 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:39.319 versions of cryptocurrency, digital cash, pre bitcoin, etcetera. Um, you're 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:41.000 listening to the Mark Moas show. I'm sitting down with 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:45.320 Austin Hill. We're talking from Miami at the bitcoino conference. 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.480 UM talking about the early days of bitcoin. Um and 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:50.600 so he he was there in the beginnings. We're gonna 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:54.199 talk about that. I want to talk about. Yeah, I 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:55.800 mean a lot of people, a lot of people use 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.960 this fake this analogy that you know, Bitcoin is MySpace 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:00.920 and this Facebook will come along. So so such an 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:04.079 old argument. But uh, but Bitcoin was not one of 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:05.400 the first versions. Of a matter of fact, there was 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:07.000 earlier versions. You worked on so I want to talk 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:10.640 about that. UM. I want to get into UM, we'll 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:13.400 talk more about this this privacy piece. UM. I want 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:15.800 to talk about kind of the the advancements of bitcoin 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:17.480 and kind of where we're at today with some of 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:19.880 this new technology development. People think it's like old technology. 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:21.559 So we've got a lot to dig into. Again, you 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:26.160 listen to the Markma Show. We're broadcasting from Miami with 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:29.000 the Bitcoin twit conference. I'll be right back with Austin Hill. 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:31.560 Don't go away, all right, welcome back. You are listening 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:34.840 to the Mark Ma Show. We're talking about the decentralized 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.800 revolution that bitcoin is creating right now, and we're broadcasting 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:41.120 from Miami from South Beach, Miami for the Bitcoin twenty 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.600 two conference. Supposed to be about forty thousand people showing up. 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.560 It's amazing and I'm sitting down UM with Austin Hill 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:49.800 right now talking about the early days of bitcoin. I mean, 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:52.680 we have forty thousand people here, and for sure there's 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:55.160 no way well maybe you could have predicted there could 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:57.680 have been forty thousand people here at this point. Even 0:09:57.679 --> 0:09:59.120 I was before the break, I was talking how I 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.400 started e commerce? Is this in two thousand one? And 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.480 I there was no Shopify, there was no like WordPress like. 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:06.640 It wasn't easy. And um, I went to these brands 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:08.160 and I said, hey, I built this website. I want 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:10.560 to sell your products on my website. And they laughed 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:13.040 at me. No one would ever buy anything online. They 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:14.599 told me. That was in two thousand one. And so 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.120 we're talking here a decade earlier that you were working 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:20.760 on this stuff. So, um, the bitcoin is my space 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:23.000 and the Facebook will come out kind of analogy. But 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:25.000 bitcoin was not the first version of this. So you 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:27.640 were talking about did you cash and chom what he 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:29.160 was working on stuff? So give us some of that 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:32.040 background of versions that you were working on our scene 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:34.600 that kind of led into this bitcoin. Yeah. I mean 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:37.800 not only we, but there was a community that actually 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:41.080 emerged out of the cipher punk mailing list called Koda punks, 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:45.640 and they created the hind Now was the mailing list 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:49.720 like a physical male like snail Manili was email at 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.800 that time? Okay, total mail mailing list and use net 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:55.079 use groups if you remember back in the day, there 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:59.200 was like those were essentially like the message boards and NTPA. 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:01.280 So there were why wasn't on them at the time? 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:02.600 So I don't know. I didn't. I didn't really get 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:07.240 on the Internet until probably is probably by the time 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:08.559 I got on the Internet, they were still there. They 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:10.840 may not have been used as much, but so you 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:15.040 had used it, which was like a broadcast peer to 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:18.400 peer kind of medium, not peer to peer so much 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:21.960 as broadcast medium for newsgroups, which was essentially message boards 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:25.760 back in the day. And you had mailing list and 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:28.240 so there was cipher punks, and then offshoot of that 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:31.439 was Koda punks, and that's where the adage of cipher 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:36.120 punk's right code. Because the manifesto that Tim May wrote, 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:37.920 who was one of the co founders of the cipher 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.679 punk movement, was we believe that the tools of cryptography 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:45.400 are where we'll find our freedom. There's this new world 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.120 we can build in cyberspace where we exist beyond the 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:53.560 reach of government, beyond the reach of authoritarian companies. You know, 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.199 is that is that what it's always been like the 0:11:57.120 --> 0:11:59.520 you know, the Pilgrims left for America to get away 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:02.440 from the here any of the government. Like people moved 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:04.600 west in the United States, they moved to the West 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.120 coast to kind of start this new frontier. People going 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:08.760 to the sea and now people going to the internet, 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:10.480 and like we're always trying to get away kind of 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:14.120 keep our sovereignty or autonomy from the state. Certainly, a 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:17.040 lot of the underpinnings in the cipher punk movement was 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.959 changing the balance of power exactly, the balance of power. 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.679 That's a key piece. That's where bitcoin does. It wasn't 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:26.920 so much that we don't need this or that this 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:31.160 is entirely bad. It was just if all the power 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:34.360 is concentrated in the hands of the few at the 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.199 expense of the many, then you have this imbalance of 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:43.120 power where you will always become victim to mass Yeah, 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:47.240 you know, mass thought, mass programming, um, you know, waves 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:51.679 of popular opinion. And your rights as a self sovereign individual, 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.800 whether it's property rights, freedom of speech, the rights to 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.840 express yourself should not be dependent on the whim of 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.800 the it's a it's a it's a difference of being 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:07.040 a customer who's valued and given value back, or a 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:11.800 surf or a subject who's just treated, or a or 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:16.760 an asset which spot and sold. You know. Sure, so, 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:19.840 so it's either like hey, the think of it, like 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:22.760 going to Disney World, I pay one flat fee and 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:24.960 I can choose to pay that fee. Now there's cheaper 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:26.680 amusement parks that go to if I want to pay less. 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:28.960 But they treat me as a customer, They value me, 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.480 they want my business versus the state that could just 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.600 take whatever they want without asking. So it's it's it's 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:38.200 it's changing the balance of power shifts them to kind 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:40.320 of take that more of a relationship. I mean, we 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:42.880 ran this famous ad when we thought we were flying 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.160 too high, too close to the sun, we had raised 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.319 too much Frenchshire capital. But we ran this national and 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:52.000 campaign that had children with barcodes on their forehead that 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.560 says I am not a piece of your inventory on 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:58.440 the Internet. I am in control. My data belongs to me. 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.400 You will not buy me and sell me. And embedded 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:03.880 in the bar codes we actually had a hidden cryptographic 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:08.000 message which got a lot of attention. Um, it was 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:13.160 great conceptual, great ad agency, total waste of money because 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:15.160 it was just too early. Then, well, you know, we 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:19.040 expected all these privacy signaling that we got when everyone's so. 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:21.600 I famously made this quote at a conference that was 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:25.240 kind of repurposed by a bunch of cryptography people. You 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:26.960 got a hundred people in a room and you asked 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:30.240 them if they care about their privacy, will say yes. 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.600 Take the same hundred people two weeks later, stick them 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.280 in a different room and asked them if they wanted 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.080 years free McDonald's in exchange for a DNA sample, and 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:45.080 will say yes. Because it's so ephemeral that people make 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:49.080 bad decisions about their privacy every day, because the consequences 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.280 of making a bad decision are so postponed, and it 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:57.360 requires such a level of technical, nuanced understanding consequences that 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:00.280 people It's like people who say I care about the Rman, 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:05.160 but I'm gonna buy an SUV because they offer convenience. Well, 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.520 so the key word that you said there is nuance, 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.800 and today people are not able. The majority of people 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:13.280 aren't able to and I just did it myself. The 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:15.360 majority of people aren't able to pick up on that 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:18.760 nuance and that is what changes everything. So to your point, 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:20.640 when you say do you care about privacy, They're like, oh, 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:23.000 I have nothing to hide, I guess right. Then you're like, okay, 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:24.520 give me your phone, let me let me go through 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:26.280 your phone. They're like no, So if you kind of 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:28.040 put in that, like you know, like let me let 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:29.520 me browse through your history and see what you got, 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:31.200 and then they wouldn't want that. And then you know 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:33.080 they kind of have to see that that that example 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:35.280 there um and then and then even nuance back to 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:38.360 the SUV in the climate, Like, I love the environment 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:40.640 more than anybody. I surf, I'm in the water every day. 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:42.800 I'm in the mountain snowboarding all winter long. I wanted 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:45.160 to be preserved and clean for my kids. But I 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:49.600 drive a truck. But I've done the research, and I 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:51.880 have feelings about certain things. But there is nuance, and 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:55.040 I understand the consequences. I understand the cost, I understand 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:58.280 the actual and that effect. I've actually I'm very very 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:02.000 comfortable saying, Okay, you know where I live. I moved 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:05.520 to Latin America from Canada, and I'm like, okay, I 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:08.440 support green grids, I support smart grids. I support all 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:11.720 these things. But they don't exist. Yeah, you know it 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:14.400 sounds good if they don't exist. So um, so then 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:18.120 you're working on you're working on this, Uh, you worked 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:22.200 on previous versions of bitcoin. And I then went into 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.240 venture capital, where I invested in a bunch of startups 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:29.240 above and beyond just crypto and security. Um that was 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:33.440 in Canada created like a Canadian version of y combinator UM, 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.640 which is a very famous startup accelerator in San Francisco. 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:40.920 And uh, right around two thousand eleven, a bunch of 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:43.360 friends started messaging me saying, Austin, you've gotta pay attention 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:46.960 to bitcoin. And at the time, I had been retired 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:49.400 and I was trying to become a professional poker player, 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:56.400 very arrogantly playing way above my skill level and having 0:16:56.440 --> 0:17:01.360 to humble myself UM, and I basically messaged them back 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.520 and they were like, Austin, this de cash thing is 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:08.240 finally real. And I wrote them back saying, basically, go 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:12.040 after yourself. I was like, I just spent eight million 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:15.440 dollars and ten years trying to do this. I'm glad 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.000 someone figured it out, but I'm not ready to look 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:20.280 at it. So so let's let's talk about that. I 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.200 want to UM because to the point that we're making it, 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:28.240 Bitcoin wasn't the MySpace. Bitcoin was many iterations later, and 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.359 they solved a problem that couldn't be solved. I think 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:33.119 that was kind of a key piece that differentiated it. 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:34.440 So I want to I I want to talk about that. 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.960 You're listening to the Mark Moa show. I'm broadcasting from 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:42.000 South Beach, Miami for the Bitcoin two conference. Um here 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:45.800 sitting down with Austin Hill, early early early bitcoin, cipherpunk. 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:48.280 We're talking about some of the early days and and 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:50.280 we're gonna talk about more and we get back about 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:54.240 how bitcoin wasn't the first version, what really changed from 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:56.760 the earlier versions, and then we'll bring it all the 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.159 way back to the forward to here. Forties people in Miami. 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:00.760 You listen to the Mark mo Show, sitting down with 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.679 Austin Hill. Got a lot more to go over. Do 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:06.600 not go away, I'll be right back. All right, Welcome back. 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.080 You are listening to the Markma Show. And we're talking 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.520 about bitcoin. We're talking about the decentralized revolution. We're talking 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.399 about why forty people are in South Beach, Miami right 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.720 now for the bitcoino conference. I'm sitting down with Austin Hill. 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:23.119 He's an early early, early bitcoin adopter, programmer, investor, and 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:26.320 we were talking about the early day. So before the break, Um, 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:31.320 you were talking about different versions of digital cash whatever 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:33.040 it's called cryptocurrency. I don't know what it was called 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:35.000 at that time, but but that led up to bitcoin. 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:39.160 But Bitcoin solved a problem that the double spin problem. 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:41.880 I guess that it was at the big differentiation double 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:44.119 spend had been solved before was show me an e cash, 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:47.639 but it depended on a central life server. Oh okay, 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:50.960 And so there were versions of the diggi cash mint 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.600 and we all played around with diggi cash um David 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.679 Chom and diggi cash went bankrupt and it was actually 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:02.160 patents that prevented anyone else from innovating. So patents held 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:04.840 by r s A and patents held by digi cash 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.520 ended up blocking most of the cipher punks who wanted 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.400 to build things open source and free because they were 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:15.720 worried about patent in frging and getting sued. So the 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:20.000 cipher punks were incredibly frustrated. There were various forms of 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:25.600 algorithms that were beginning to develop elliptic curve, uh, you know, 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:28.760 other mechanisms. There were some startups that actually tried to 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:32.320 do this. Brame Cohen, who invented bit torrent, tried with 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:37.120 mojo Nation. Incredible idea. It was a way to pay 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:39.720 for content and build peer to peer networking, and it 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:43.200 was built with the eye to replace Napster and ended 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:45.880 up becoming bit torrent. But They actually had a previous 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:49.960 startup that had payments, content creators, e commerce, everything called 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:53.880 mojo Nation. There were other attempts to do this um. 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:57.760 Adam Back had invented hashcash, which was a way of 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:02.000 developing digital scarcity in the form postage stamps for spam abuse. 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.600 That's when we hired him to come work for us 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:10.040 and run our ecash lap um. So there were a 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:14.800 bunch of was that was a decade before bitcoin um. 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:17.399 We collaborated a lot with Nick Sabo. We worked with 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.160 all these people. They were our friends, they were our community, 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:21.879 and we were all trying to figure out how do 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:24.719 we build the perfect version of the cash um. A 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:28.800 lot of the cipher punk's missed or miscategorized Bitcoin early 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.240 because it was so far different from the vision that 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:39.400 we had, which was totally blinded privacy enabled the cash 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:42.880 by moving to a totally decentralized and solving the problem 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:47.400 of double spend in a totally different orthogonal way, which 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:49.879 was we'll give everyone a copy of the ledger and 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:55.040 we'll solve the Byzantine general's problem, which for listeners, was 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:59.480 a very famous problem in computer science, which very kind 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:02.400 of dumb down, which is if you assume that all 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:06.959 your communication lines are untrustworthy and you want to coordinate 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:10.800 with multiple parties around the world. How do you end 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:15.600 up building trust when you can't trust what you send them. 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:17.960 This was known as the busy team in General's problem, 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.640 which was based off this kind of idea of if 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:23.320 a bunch of lieutenants are trying to attack a city 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:26.000 and you want to coordinate them all to attack at 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:29.080