Podcasts about bitpay

In this episode, I chat with Rockstar Dev, a legendary shadowy super coder, core contributor, and cypherpunk. We explore what Lightning and eCash mean for Bitcoin's future, what it's like to live a masked identity, and how to build better systems that empower individuals. ––– Offers & Discounts –––

Despite your bad memories from the Block Size war, you should support Roger Ver's campaign for clemency – or at least this is what Layer Two Labs CEO Paul Sztorc thinks you should do. In this episode, we discuss why Roger deserves to stay free. Time stamps: Introducing Paul Sztorc (00:00:54) The host welcomes listeners and introduces guest Paul Sztorc, discussing Roger Ver's situation. Paul's Connection with Roger Ver (00:01:42) Paul shares his connection to Roger Ver and his experiences in the Bitcoin community. Roger Ver's Contributions (00:02:54) Discussion on Roger's significant investments and efforts in early Bitcoin companies. Challenges at Mt. Gox (00:03:59) Paul recounts Roger's volunteer work during the Mt. Gox crisis, highlighting his dedication. Bitcoin's Early Days (00:05:05) Reflections on Bitcoin's obscurity before mainstream recognition, including the Financial Times article. The Evolution of Bitcoin Conferences (00:06:18) Paul reminisces about early Bitcoin conferences and their small scale compared to today. Tax Evasion Claims and Bitcoin's Value (00:08:23) Discussion on misconceptions about Bitcoin's value and Roger's tax situation during its early days. Roger's Generosity and Alliances (00:10:34) Highlighting Roger's contributions to various libertarian causes and his personal sacrifices. The Block Size War (00:11:39) Introduction to the block size debate and its impact on Roger's reputation in the Bitcoin community. Michael Saylor's Skepticism (00:12:29) The host references a tweet from Michael Saylor expressing doubts about Bitcoin in 2013. Roger's Early Bitcoin Investments (00:13:13) Paul shares a story about Roger's commitment to Bitcoin, selling his Lamborghini for more BTC. Roger's Influence and Marketing (00:14:26) Discussion on Roger's positive energy and efforts to promote Bitcoin to the public. The Role of BitPay (00:15:38) Explaining how BitPay helped businesses accept Bitcoin, making it more accessible. Roger's Vision for Bitcoin (00:18:48) Paul discusses Roger's motivations during the block size war and his vision for Bitcoin's future. Aftermath of the Block Size War (00:20:06) Reflections on the complacency of the Bitcoin community post-war and the resulting divisions. Playing the Villain (00:20:45) The host introduces a playful debate format, questioning Roger's promotion of Bitcoin Cash. The Scammer Accusation (00:21:18) Discussion about accusations against Roger Ver being labeled a scammer due to perceived financial losses. The Block Size Debate (00:21:35) Debate on the implications of hard forks and naming conventions in the context of Bitcoin's block size. Satoshi's Conflicted Views (00:22:22) Exploration of Satoshi Nakamoto's ambiguous stance on block sizes and their impact on Bitcoin. Mt. Gox Video Controversy (00:24:23) Reference to Roger Ver's video on Mount Gox and its perceived implications for Bitcoin's credibility. Self-Custody Awareness (00:25:03) Discussion on the understanding of self-custody in Bitcoin during the early days compared to now. Roger's Involvement with Mt. Gox (00:26:57) Analysis of Roger Ver's proactive attempts to assist Mount Gox during its crisis. Historical Context of Criticism (00:29:06) Reflection on how hindsight alters perceptions of Roger's actions during the Mt. Gox incident. Debate Dynamics (00:31:00) Insights into Roger Ver's debate style and the challenges faced by opponents like Jimmy Song. Roger's Support of Craig Wright (00:36:22) Discussion on Roger Ver's past support for Craig Wright and subsequent regrets regarding that decision. Legal Battles with Craig Wright (00:40:14) Mention of Roger Ver's successful lawsuit against Craig Wright as a potential redemption. Romance Scams and Reporting (00:40:53) Discussion on how victims of romance scams often feel ashamed and do not report incidents. Karmic Justice and Roger Ver (00:44:16) Exploration of public anger towards Roger Ver and perceptions of justice regarding his past actions. Chaos Climbers in the Bitcoin Community (00:45:03) Analysis of individuals rising in influence by criticizing opposing factions during the block size war. Debate Analysis: Samson vs. Roger (00:46:02) Reflection on the 2018 debate between Samson and Roger, highlighting performance over substance. Clipping and Public Perception (00:48:11) Discussion on how clipped statements can distort public perception and impact reputations. Economic Growth and Human Welfare (00:49:07) The importance of economic growth for human welfare and the misunderstanding surrounding its implications. Performativity in Bitcoin Discourse (00:50:26) Critique of the performative outrage in Bitcoin discussions and its effects on community dynamics. Debate Takeaways and Misrepresentation (00:51:08) Observations on how the narrative from the debate overshadowed substantive discussions about Bitcoin. Scaling Solutions: Lightning vs. Bitcoin Cash (00:52:13) Comparison of the Lightning Network and Bitcoin Cash as competing solutions to Bitcoin's scaling issues. Hard Forks and Community Splits (00:54:43) Discussion on the implications of hard forks on community cohesion and the future of Bitcoin. Victimless Crimes in Forks (00:57:54) Reflection on the benefits of Bitcoin forks and the perception of them as victimless crimes. Toxic Bitcoin Maximalism (00:58:41) Analysis of how toxic maximalism emerged as a reaction to the proliferation of altcoins and forks. Conception of Money and Community (00:59:03) Discussion on the importance of a unified currency and the challenges posed by multiple forks. Ethereum as the Opposition (01:00:28) Exploration of Ethereum's role as a competing force against Bitcoin and its community dynamics. Network Effects and Complacency (01:00:52) Discussion on how dominant networks can lead to complacency and hinder competition in the crypto space. Block Size War and Ethereum's Rise (01:01:40) Exploration of Ethereum's growth during the block size debate and its impact on the crypto landscape. Scaling Challenges in Bitcoin (01:02:52) Overview of scaling solutions and the failures that led to external developments outside Bitcoin. Layer Two Labs Promotion (01:04:00) Introduction of Layer Two Labs and its mission to scale Bitcoin through sidechains. Drive Chains vs. Tree Chains (01:05:15) Comparison of Drive Chains and Tree Chains, highlighting conceptual differences and critiques. Bitcoin.com News Collaboration (01:08:40) Discussion about Bitcoin.com News and its valuable coverage of cryptocurrency topics. Critique of Current Thought Leaders (01:09:46) Speaker expresses disappointment in the insights provided by prominent figures in the crypto community. Exit Tax Controversy (01:11:20) Debate on the legitimacy and implications of the U.S. exit tax in relation to Roger Ver. Berlin Wall Explanation (01:21:19) Description of the Berlin Wall's historical significance and its role in the Cold War. The Berlin Wall Discussion (01:23:06) The speakers discuss the historical significance and implications of the Berlin Wall and its impact on families. Roger Ver's Moral Responsibility (01:27:02) A conversation about Roger Ver's rejection of the social contract based on his moral beliefs regarding taxation. Exit Tax Controversy (01:27:30) Debate on the fairness of the exit tax and its implications for individuals like Roger Ver. Roger Ver's Legal Representation (01:28:09) Discussion on Roger Ver's legal situation and the role of his law firm in his tax issues. Greg Maxwell's Threats (01:29:33) Mention of Greg Maxwell's threats towards Roger Ver and the potential consequences of such actions. Birthday Surprise (01:30:18) A light-hearted moment as the host celebrates a birthday surprise during the podcast. Tax Law Complications (01:32:07) The complexity of tax law and its implications for Roger Ver's financial situation are explored. Jameson Lopp's Tweet (01:35:14) Analysis of a tweet discussing Roger Ver's tax issues and the IRS's claims against him. CoinFlex Bankruptcy Discussion (01:37:01) Exploration of Roger Ver's financial troubles related to CoinFlex and the implications of his legal battles. Roger's Video Explanation (01:39:14) Discussion about a video Roger Ver released explaining his situation with CoinFlex and legal constraints. Legal Challenges and Persecution (01:42:43) Reflections on Roger Ver's past legal challenges and the perception of him as a criminal in the Bitcoin community. Vindictiveness of the Blocksize War (01:43:46) Commentary on the negative attitudes and tactics used by some during the blocksize debate against Roger Ver. Discussion on Roger Ver's Bitcoin Contributions (01:44:56) We discuss Roger Ver's early contributions to Bitcoin and the controversies surrounding him. Twitter Controversies and Public Perception (01:46:00) The conversation touches on Twitter dynamics and public perceptions of Roger Ver's financial status. Taxation and IRS Issues (01:49:02) Concerns are raised about the lack of clarity from the IRS regarding tax obligations for Roger Ver. Critique of Tax System (01:50:05) A critique of the U.S. tax system and the complexities faced by taxpayers is presented. Roger Ver's Future and Clemency (01:52:39) Discussion on Roger Ver's potential return to the U.S. and the implications of his clemency. Plea Deals and Coercion in Legal System (02:01:29) The speakers examine the coercive nature of plea deals in the U.S. legal system. Justice System Inequities (02:03:59) A reflection on the inequities in the justice system and the challenges of sentencing. Introduction to Alexander Vinnik (02:05:07) Discussion about Vinnik's arrest and his connection to the Mount Gox hack. Comparison with Roger Ver (02:06:18) Contrasting Vinnik's criminal actions with the legal troubles faced by Roger Ver. Plea Deals and Legal System Issues (02:06:39) Exploring the coercive nature of plea deals in the justice system. Vinnik's Sentencing and Release (02:08:39) Details about Vinnik's sentencing and the circumstances of his release. Negotiations for Prisoner Exchange (02:09:50) Discussion about the political implications of Vinnik's negotiation for freedom. Details on the Trade (02:10:46) Information about the American teacher traded for Vinnik and her situation. Question from the Audience (02:12:54) Transition to audience questions regarding Bitcoin's scalability and potential forks. The Exodus Question (02:13:02) Audience inquiry about the potential migration to alternative cryptocurrencies. Forking Bitcoin Discussion (02:15:17) Analysis of the challenges and implications of forking Bitcoin. Cultural Apathy in Bitcoin Community (02:20:15) Reflection on the disconnection between miners and Bitcoin's philosophical discussions. Future of Bitcoin and Sidechains (02:22:33) Speculation on Bitcoin's ability to scale and the role of sidechains in its future. Discussion on Bitcoin Market Dynamics (02:27:41) Exploration of Bitcoin's market behavior and the implications of pricing strategies in a competitive landscape. Contention in Bitcoin Governance (02:28:31) Debate on the contentious nature of Bitcoin governance and the challenges of achieving consensus within the community. Concerns Over Bitcoin's Cultural Issues (02:30:31) Discussion on potential cultural problems within Bitcoin and the implications for its future success. Measuring Decentralization (02:31:58) Introduction to the concept of decentralization and its measurement within cryptocurrency contexts. Critique of Mining Centralization (02:32:08) Examination of the complexities and contradictions in defining mining centralization in Bitcoin. Transparency and Decentralization (02:34:03) Discussion on the importance of transparency and the peer-to-peer nature of Bitcoin versus traditional systems. State Rejection of Bitcoin Reserves (02:40:55) Insights into states rejecting Bitcoin reserve bills due to volatility concerns, reflecting on societal attitudes toward Bitcoin. Bitcoin's Role in Black Market Transactions (02:44:27) Analysis of Bitcoin's potential as a payment system in both legal and illegal markets, emphasizing its dual utility. Roleplay Request on BTC vs BCH (02:48:10) Engagement in a roleplay scenario discussing the market's preference for BTC over BCH and its implications. Orthodox Plan for Scaling (02:49:21) Discussion on the orthodox plan for Bitcoin scaling and competition with Ethereum and other altcoins. Competition and Market Share (02:50:39) Analysis of market competition and the declining market share of Bitcoin compared to Ethereum and Monero. Libertarian Party Dynamics (02:53:11) Exploration of the fragmentation within the Libertarian Party and its implications for political strategy. Libertarian Vote in Elections (02:54:52) Investigation into the percentage of votes received by the Libertarian Party in recent elections. Trump's Influence on Libertarians (02:56:40) Discussion on Trump's appeal to Libertarians and its impact on voting patterns. Free Ross Campaign Strategy (02:59:17) Strategy for political advocacy, focusing on the Free Ross campaign and leveraging support for major candidates. Comparing Cryptocurrency Market Positions (03:01:56) Examination of the market positions of various cryptocurrencies and their relative values. Bitcoin Cash Capabilities (03:02:50) Discussion on the capabilities of Bitcoin Cash and its potential for innovation in the crypto space. Historical Context of Bitcoin Development (03:04:12) Reflection on Bitcoin's development history and the missed opportunities for innovation. Language and Technological Change (03:06:27) Analogy between language evolution and cryptocurrency dominance, emphasizing technological impacts. Early Bitcoin Innovations (03:09:39) Revisiting early innovations in Bitcoin and their relevance to today's cryptocurrency landscape. Ossification and Innovation in Blockchain (03:11:36) Discussion on the ossification of blockchain and the need for innovation in Layer 2 solutions. Programming Languages Debate (03:12:43) Comparison of programming languages used in Bitcoin and Ethereum, referencing Steve Jobs' philosophy. Bitcoin's Imperfections (03:14:15) Discussion on Bitcoin's evolution and the ongoing need for improvements despite claims of perfection. Vulnerabilities in Bitcoin (03:15:21) Concerns over the delayed disclosure of vulnerabilities in Bitcoin's code and its implications. Power Dynamics in Bitcoin Development (03:16:41) Analysis of the influence of Bitcoin Core on development and the challenges faced by forks. John Dillon's Controversial Emails (03:18:00) Exploration of accusations against John Dillon and the implications for Bitcoin's governance. Coinjoin Bounty Scandal (03:20:19) Revelation of John Dillon's involvement with a bounty fund and its impact on project funding. The Role of Competition in Development (03:22:14) Importance of competition among software in driving innovation and user satisfaction. Roger Ver's Legal Troubles (03:25:28) Discussion about the potential consequences for those prosecuting Roger Ver and the nature of his accusations. Mail Fraud Charges Against Roger Ver (03:27:12) Overview of the legal accusations against Roger Ver, particularly concerning mail fraud. Hypothetical Perspective on Roger Ver (03:28:44) A thought experiment about how perceptions of Roger Ver would change based on exposure to propaganda. Thoughts on Taxation and Consent (03:32:32) Discussion on the ethics of taxation and Roger Ver's views on consent in financial matters. Tax Dollars and Freedom (03:33:53) Discussion on how American tax dollars fund IRS enforcement and the implications for those wanting to leave the country. Exit Tax Debate (03:35:06) Debate on the fairness of an exit tax and its implications for American citizens leaving the country. Roger Ver's Legal Battle (03:36:04) Analysis of Roger Ver's resources and challenges in his ongoing legal issues with tax authorities. Future Tax Laws and Risks (03:36:30) Concerns about potential future tax laws and their impact on individuals' financial situations. Legal Precedents and Justice (03:37:53) Discussion on how Roger Ver's case may set precedents for others facing similar legal challenges. Political Influence on Justice (03:38:58) Exploration of the arbitrary nature of legal sentences and political influences on the justice system. Dignity in Departure (03:39:29) Reflections on the emotional toll of leaving the U.S. while maintaining dignity and facing potential repercussions. Logistics of a Pardon (03:40:30) Speculation on the political motivations behind a potential pardon for Roger Ver. Tax Law Evolution (03:41:53) Discussion on how tax laws have changed over time, affecting the classification of Bitcoin. Legal Advice and Accountability (03:43:14) Questioning the responsibilities of tax attorneys in guiding clients through complex legal issues. Closing Remarks and Thanks (03:44:15)

Ryan joins the show to talk EBX, Bitcoin history, how to reunite bitcoiners, BCH in 2025, and more. Ryan is a cryptocurrency engineer, EBX creator and founder of Identellica: a privacy-first identity verification service & social network; formerly at BitPay, Reddit, Yours, and MoneyButton. Enjoy the discussion, and please share your thoughts in the comments section.Links:Ryan X Charles on Twitter: https://x.com/ryan_x_charlesRyan's website / blog: https://ryanxcharles.com/Episode slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dJjQbce1pkCQf1MR2WCI9qKYM1wf_0Ng/Donations:bitcoincash:qzumkx4rsdmxhzswrleleq9sq952pt7xsyfm9cp6uxSponsors:Thank you very much to our FundMe.Cash contributors: https://fundme.cash/campaign/18General Protocols: https://generalprotocols.com and https://bchbull.comSocials:Website: https://www.bitcoincashpodcast.comTimestamps:00:00 Podcast starts00:37 Intro03:24 Ryan's intro08:33 BitPay & Jason Dreyzehner13:35 Reddit16:52 Blockstream & Greg Maxwell21:16 Satoshi & blocksize limit26:09 "Hijacking Bitcoin"29:24 Bitcoin history: BCH35:05 BSV & "living in a cult"51:20 Community comment: Thierry Baudet1:04:16 Earth Bucks1:25:21 How is Earth Bucks doing?1:32:56 BCH in 20251:40:22 What would it take for Ryan to join BCH?1:49:00 Rehabilitating bitcoiners1:56:26 Meme of the week2:01:00 Crypto, SOL & ETH2:05:30 Message to the community2:10:06 Podcast supporter appreciation2:12:00 Shoutouts and outro

The LowdownNo HomeKit robot vacuum for you…yetTouch Bar is ‘back'buy Bitcoin with Apple Pay2nd StringNuclear-powered Facebook?For The CultureAmazon is shading-Black DC neighborhoodsThe HookupHow to remove duplicate photos & videosPlease visit website for show links

1. ⚡️ Desenvolvimentos Recentes no Bitcoin O hype das camadas secundárias (L2) do Bitcoin diminuiu, sem grandes novidades recentes. Um desenvolvimento interessante foi a implementação de um ZK Snark num bloco de Bitcoin, mas ainda é só um conceito. Para ser realidade, seria necessário um soft fork. 2.

Can crypto payments accentuate the trend for a globally distributed workforce? More and more people in emerging markets such as freelancers are using crypto to get paid, and having crypto as a payment option enables people to get employed anywhere in the world. So if you as an employer want to have the best talent globally, using crypto as a means of payment seem to work hand in hand. One company that has garnered substantial growth over the past months is Rise, which offers a platform to pay employees and contractors globally with crypto and has processed more than $150million in volume of payments to date. Some of their clients include t3rn, Bitcoin.com, Velodrome Finance, LIDO, P2P, Zen Academy to name a few. On Episode 68, I spoke with Hugo Finkelstein, the Co-Founder & CEO of Rise, on how compensation is evolving & the incentives companies are proposing to attract talent globally. Topics covered; Episode intro (0:47) Hugo's background and story behind Rise (2:28) The current regulatory environment for crypto payments (8:42) Tax considerations (10:55) Web2 companies using stablecoins (13:10) Payroll for a globally distributed workforce (14:32) Thanks to our sponsor Web3Finance Club (16:05) Rise overview & onboarding (17:47) Using a SAFE to fund Rise account (20:36) Rise ID & keeping payroll transactions private (21:56) What does compliance mean (25:27) 1099s for contractors (27:46) Success stories at Rise (28:21) How is Rise different from its competitors - Request Finance, Coinshift, Acctual, BitPay, Parcel, Niural, Toku, & Franklin (29:48) Upcoming features for Rise (32:09) How EOR works for a South African employee (33:05) Closing thoughts (34:50) Using Rise ID to skip KYC checks (35:45) Maxim of Hugo Finkelstein (37:22) Follow The Accountant Quits: LinkedIN: linkedin.com/company/the-accountant-quits Twitter: twitter.com/accountantquits Follow Hugo Finkelstein: LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hugo-finkelstein/ Twitter: https://x.com/hugfink Review If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes. Website For show notes and past guests, please visit theaccountantquits.com/podcast/

In episode 94 of The Payments Show Podcast, I spoke to Merrick Theobald who is the VP of Marketing at BitPay.BitPay is a payment platform that enables businesses to accept bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies as a form of payment.VIDEO Version and PDF Transcript: - click here https://thepaymentsshow.substack.com/p/94 Summary of topics discussed:(00:43) - Bitcoin's Price Surge: A Crypto Update(01:11) - Introducing BitPay and the Crypto Payment Landscape(02:52) - The Surprising Popularity of Litecoin in Transactions(03:20) - Crypto Adoption Among Top E-commerce Companies(03:41) - The Growing Mainstream Acceptance of Cryptocurrency Payments(06:48) - Exploring BitPay's Success and Customer Demographics(07:34) - Luxury Purchases and Everyday Needs: BitPay's Wide Reach(09:14) - Why Companies Choose Crypto: The Case of AMC and PacSun(10:45) - Expanding BitPay's Services: Payroll, Payouts, and Bill Payments(13:06) - The Importance of B2B Payments and Stablecoins(15:05) - Educating Businesses and Consumers on Crypto Benefits(18:07) - Global Impact and the Equalizing Power of Cryptocurrency(19:05) - Nation States and Big Companies Investing in Bitcoin(20:38) - Building Trust in the Crypto Payment Industry(33:08) - The Future of Payments: AI, Bill Payments, and More(33:09) - Predictions for the Payments World: NFTs, AI, and Beyond(34:40) - BitPay's Innovations and Future Plans(36:46) - Closing Thoughts and Future OutlookDetails:- Recorded on 25 Apr 2024- Host: Satwant Phull- Guest: Merrick Theobald, VP of Marketing, BitPayNext Steps- Get in touch with Satwant: digitalmoneylab.com - BitPay: bitpay.com | @BitPay- Bit Pay Articles: > > Top Questions to Ask When Choosing a Crypto Payment Processing Partner: click here> > BitPay Blog: https://bitpay.com/blog/

Brie Olson is the Co-CEO of Pacsun, the popular youth retailer. Ms. Olson has played an instrumental role in building and strengthening Pacsun's brand through innovative strategies with a Gen Z focus, including leading Pacsun as the first retailer in its space to accept Bitpay. As an Innovative, tech-centric retail executive who consistently drives brand strength and revenue growth through game-changing merchandising and marketing initiatives, Brieane leads with creativity, innovation, and a digital first mentality. During her tenure at PacSun, Olson spearheaded innovative collaborations for the LA based lifestyle brand, including working closely with Kanye West on his first clothing launch for Donda in 2013, and the signing of Kendall + Kylie clothing partnership exclusive to PacSun when the girls were 12 and 15. She also took PacSun global with the first ever shop footprint in London, launching both Men's and Women's shops at Selfridges in 2018 with launch parties hosted by PacSun partners Jerry Lorenzo. She has also promoted both her VP's of Merchandising from within the company, true to her core leadership belief in nurturing in-house talent. Brieane graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts, Mass Communications & Business and attended Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program, where she is currently an AMP Ambassador. She is a board member at Women In Retail Leadership, Shoptalk, Pacsun and Design Thinking for UC schools. She currently resides in Newport Beach, California with her two children, Colette and Rousseau, ages 8 and 10.

18th Oct: Crypto & Coffee at 8

In crypto news today XRP gets added to the Hong Kong Virtual Asset Consortium. Uphold XRP NFTs. Taylor Swift concert BitPay crypto. FTX stakes 5.5 million Solana tokens.

Last week in crypto, the Bank of England's base rate hike impacted the bitcoin stirling pairing, which has risen above the 25-day and 50-day moving averages. NFT Platform Nifty has closed down, and Israel's only public stock exchange, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange has signed an agreement with the digital asset platform Fireblocks to jointly offer a range of new digital asset products and services.  The Litecoin halving event completed, with block rewards now halved to 6.25 litecoin per block. Litecoin is the 12th-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, and sometimes referred to as the silver to bitcoin's gold. BitPay has reported that as of June, Litecoin surpassed Bitcoin as the crypto of choice for payments, accounting for 35% of transactions.  Ethereum passed it's 8th anniversary and the crypto community joined together to celebrate. On July 30th 2015, one of Ethereum's Founders published a blog post, officially announcing that the network had been rolled out sharing “The vision of a censorship-proof ‘world computer' that anyone can program, paying exclusively for what they use and nothing more, is now a reality.' Here at Blockchain.com we gave the equivalent to $5 bonus to all our ETH buyers.  CoinTelegraph has reported that the adoption of blockchain technology is gaining momentum among farmers in Africa as it offers various benefits to agricultural practices. Blockchain helps to increase transparency and traceability in the supply chain, ensuring fairer prices for farmers' produce and reducing food fraud. Additionally, it enables better access to financial services for small-scale farmers, who often face challenges in obtaining loans due to lack of credit history. By digitizing and recording farming data, blockchain also enhances productivity and efficiency, leading to improved yields. The technology's potential to transform agriculture is drawing interest and investment in the region, supporting sustainable development and poverty reduction efforts. Sign up for a Wallet ⁠https://bit.ly/3dpcCQw⁠ Sign up to the Exchange ⁠https://bit.ly/3QzCKGP⁠ For one year, friends of Blockchain.com can get:  15% off 1Password Families  15% off 1Password Individual  Simply follow the link in our bio to claim your discount now.

Are you ready to unlock the secrets of cryptocurrency marketing and reap the rewards of your Bitcoin investments? Join us and our esteemed guest Merrick Theobald, VP of Marketing at BitPay, as he unfolds strategies to thrive in the exciting yet challenging cryptocurrency domain. Discover how BitPay, the world's leading Bitcoin payments processor, innovates to adapt to the unique dynamics of digital currency space, and prepares for the upcoming Bitcoin halving. Merrick, in this episode, also sheds light on how BitPay builds trust and expands reach by partnering with renowned brands like AT&T, Microsoft, and Gucci. His insights are not just limited to organizations; he also shares valuable advice for young entrepreneurs eyeing the cryptocurrency space. Get the scoop on user-friendly crypto apps like Coinbase and Lolli, understand the pros and cons of using self-custody versus custodial wallets, and explore the possibility of being paid in Bitcoin. Dive in for an illuminating conversation that's packed with practical strategies, thought-provoking perspectives, and inspiring entrepreneurial advice. Buckle up for a thrilling ride into the world of Bitcoin and beyond.Follow Merrick Theobald:https://www.linkedin.com/in/merricktheobald/

In this episode of Crypto 101 we are joined by Bill Zielke the CMO of BitPay who is building powerful enterprise-grade tools for crypto acceptance and spending.  Learn more about how the global adoption of crypto is moving forward with real world use cases and how a company like BitPay is leading the way since its inception in 2011.  With staying power like BitPay has through multiple market cycles it is worth keeping tabs on what they are working on and where they see the future of the space going!Please Support our Sponsors:www.netsuite.com/cryptowww.hellofresh.com/crypto10116Get your FREE copy of "Crypto Revolution" and start making big profits from buying, selling, and trading cryptocurrency today: https://www.cryptorevolution.com/freeSubscribe to YouTube for Exclusive Content:https://www.youtube.com/@crypto101podcastFollow us on social media for leading-edge crypto updates and trade alerts:https://twitter.com/Crypto101Podhttps://instagram.com/crypto_101Guest Links:https://bitpay.com/*This is NOT financial, tax, or legal advice*Boardwalk Flock LLC. All Rights Reserved 2023. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬Fog by DIZARO https://soundcloud.com/dizarofrCreative Commons — Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported  — CC BY-ND 3.0 Free Download / Stream: http://bit.ly/Fog-DIZAROMusic promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/lAfbjt_rmE8▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Stephen Pair (CEO of Bitpay) visits the Bitcoin Magazine podcast where he explains how Bitpay can give you more options for using your Bitcoin and shares his views on Bitcoin's evolution. Hosted by: ⁠CK⁠ Produced by: Chris Alaimo Lower your time preference and lock-in your BITCOIN 2024 Nashville conference tickets today! Use the code BMLIVE for a 10% Discount! ⁠⁠https://b.tc/conference/2024⁠⁠ Use promo code: BMLIVE for 10% off everything in our store THIS EPISODE'S SPONSORS: River Bitcoin 2024 Nashville Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Magazine Pro Bitcoin Amsterdam

You may know Roger Ver as “Bitcoin Jesus,” but he didn't give himself that nickname… and to be honest, he doesn't really like it. Roger is a Bitcoin pioneer who is the world's first investor in many Bitcoin startups including blockchain.com, Ripple, Z-Cash, BitPay and Kraken. Roger wants peer-to-peer cash that enables more economic freedom for the world, regardless of what the name of the coin is. -- Our first Podcast NFT Collection, "The First 100," has launched! Official Secondary Link: ⁠https://opensea.io/collection/show-me-the-crypto-the-first-100 -- Follow Roger on Twitter: @rogerkver --   Follow us on the socials:   Twitter: @showcrypto TikTok: @showmethecrypto Instagram: @showmethecryptopodcast   --   *Any financial compensation we receive will always be clearly identified as an advertisement or sponsored content. We don't accept payment to feature guests, and we don't accept payment to influence the coins/projects we discuss on Show Me The Crypto. Any ads will be clearly identified during the show, and information on our partners will be featured in the show notes.

Bill Zielke is the CRO and CMO at BitPay. In this interview we discuss Bitpay's crypto payment services, working with well known merchants such as AMC and the NBA Dallas Mavericks, Crypto regulations, delisting ripple xrp in the US, NFTs, CBDCs, and much more.

Merrick Theobald has more than 25 years experience in the FinTech industry. Currently, he is the Vice President of Marketing for BitPay. BitPay builds powerful, enterprise-grade tools for crypto acceptance and spending. Prior to BitPay, Merrick held marketing leadership roles within BillMo, iSend and CheckFree/Fiserv. He resides in North Atlanta.Links:BitPay Website: https://bitpay.com/ BitPay LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bitpay-inc-/ BitPay Twitter: https://twitter.com/BitPay *Disclaimer. Richard Carthon is the Founder of Crypto Current. All opinions expressed by members of the Crypto Current Team, Richard or his guest on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Crypto Current. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Richard as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.~Want more information on us? Please check out our Linktree for all our info :)linktr.ee/cryptocurrent

Learn about Jagruti Solanki (BitPay CFO) background, how she went from assurance partner at an accounting firm to BitPay CFO. How businesses and individuals can use BitPay to get paid in crypto and also make payments in crypto, the future of crypto blockchain and more.

In E64 of The Payments Show Podcast, I spoke to Bill Zielke who is Chief Revenue and Chief Marketing Officer at BitPay.  BitPay is a payment gateway that enables merchants to accept Bitcoin and cryptocurrency payments with zero price volatility risk.Click through the Chapters Menu at the top of the episode webpage here: http://thepayments.showSummary of topics discussed:1. Access to High-Spending, Affluent Customers2. 50% Lower Payment Processing Costs 3. Luxury Retail vs Smaller Merchants 4. Fast Onboarding for Merchants 5. Settlement: Crypto or Fiat6. Point of Sale: Not Just Online7. Who Is Using Crypto?8. Locking Prices: No Under or Overpayments To Merchants 9. Invoicing In Crypto 10. Fees and Charges: 1% - 2%And much more…Details:- Recorded on 30 Mar 2023- Host: Satwant Phull, Founder of Digital Money Lab- Guest: Bill Zielke, Chief Revenue and Chief Marketing Officer, BitPay[Next Steps]- Get in touch with Satwant: digitalmoneylab.com - BitPay: bitpay.com | @BitPay

Jeff Garzik is the co-founder of Bloq, a blockchain enterprise software company. Garzik, a bitcoin core developer, and fellow co-founder Matthew Rosen, a blockchain investor, launched Bloq in October 2015. In October 2017, the company announced the world's first cross-blockchain cryptocurrency, Metronome. Garzik graduated Georgia Institute of Technology in 1996 with a degree in computer science and began his career as a web developer at CNN. He later worked for more than ten years as Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat where he was involved in one of the best-known open source projects, the Linux kernel. In 2011, he became the CEO of exMULTI, working with bitcoin, and subsequently spent two years as a bitcoin core developer at BitPay. In 2012, Garzik founded Dunvegan Space Systems, with the goal of sending the bitcoin into space. He also founded web3 entertainment company NextCypher Productions. Jeff Garzik serves on the board of Coin Center, and the advisory board of BitFury, BitPay, Chain.com, Netki and WayPaver Labs. He has delivered presentations on bitcoin and blockchain at TEDx, State of Digital Money and bitcoin conferences, as well as in private briefings to corporations, governments and banks. Garzik is based in Atlanta, Georgia. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/crypto-hipster-podcast/support

05th April: Crypto & Coffee at 8

In this Hashing It Out Personals episode, Dee talks to Stephen Pair, Cofounder, President and CEO of BitPay.comLinksBitPay.comYouTube

Joined by Esteban @rarepassenger, a bitcoin (BTC) enthusiast and publisher of the “Living on Bitcoin” newsletter. We talk about banks' crypto sabotage (Operation Chokepoint) uncovered by @nic_carter. We also discuss Balaji's Bitcoin & hyperinflation bet, BTC mempool congestion, and more, all in a nice friendly chat..Enjoy!Links:- Esteban on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rarepassenger- “Living on Bitcoin” substack newsletter by rare passenger (Esteban): https://livingonbitcoin.substack.com- Presentation slides of this episode: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19FMq1TFTAD5flQ0JdRyBomZT_7mShE8x/edit#slide=id.g22625ee7f6f_0_0- Nic Carter on Operation Choke Point 2.0: https://www.piratewires.com/p/crypto-choke-point- Balaji's Bitcoin bet: https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1636797265317867520- Johoe's Bitcoin mempool statistics: https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC,3m,weight- Joel Valenzuela's tweet on BitPay's Lightning Network data: https://twitter.com/TheDesertLynx/status/1638247227620573188- Community comment of the week: https://twitter.com/TheBCHPodcast/status/1638975546553143297- Meme of the week: https://twitter.com/fruitymuncher/status/1638703622560047105Donations:bitcoincash:qp4u3xdgj282j89eyjkvcauednyq6cj4rgj0pqz3vgSponsors:General Protocols: https://generalprotocols.com and https://bchbull.com Socials:Website: https://www.bitcoincashpodcast.comTimestamps:00:00 Podcast starts00:37 Intro01:24 Esteban's intro & Bitcoin journey08:21 Bitcoin & #PreciousMetals20:19 Financial crises: banking crisis vs. fiat crisis30:27 Crypto market update37:50 #StudentLoans & debt47:21 Operation Chokepoint 2.057:19 Bread & circus58:57 Balaji bets big on Bitcoin1:07:50 Bartering with Bitcoin1:13:49 BTC mempool moons1:29:02 "I am a freedom maxi"1:39:04 Esteban's shoutouts1:41:31 Update on #Lightning Network1:49:53 Community comment of the week: 8 years late!2:01:17 Meme of the week: Janet Yellen & BTC mempool2:03:08 Message to the community2:10:50 Shoutouts & outro

In our latest “The story of” segment of the Blockchain.com Podcast, we'll chronicle this journey by speaking with some of the most influential people in the space – the pioneers, the advocates, the regulators and the investors. Today, we're joined by Stephen Pair  – Co-Founder and CEO of BitPay to continue on from the whitepaper, and describe how crypto went from zero to a global market cap of over $1 Trillion in, “The story of crypto economics: from Pizza to Porsche” Sign up for a Wallet ⁠https://bit.ly/3dpcCQw⁠ Sign up to the Exchange ⁠https://bit.ly/3QzCKGP⁠

2023 is here, and Bitcoin enters its 15th year!Grant (Łitecoin UndergrounĐ) joins the show in the first episode of 2023. He is a distinguished Litecoin community member, and host of a weekly Twitter spaces. He describes himself as a proponent of a multi-chain future to ensure self-custody, privacy, and decentralization.We discuss coin cooperation as allies in team anti-fiat, and 2023 strategy for adoption and confronting fiat & CBDC's.We also talk about unelected leaders in crypto, memes, banter, etc.----------Links:@LTCUnderground on Twitterhttps://twitter.com/LTCUnderground21:41 BitPay Cryptocurrency Statistics:https://bitpay.com/stats/1:46:11 Litecoin Underground: "Fork the Amish" on Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fork-the-amish/id1594458258?i=10005479229481:48:57 Roger Ver and Charlie Lee Lightning Network bet:https://youtu.be/63akDMMfiPQ?t=6342:12:14 be_cashy on Twitter:https://twitter.com/be_cashy----------Donations:bitcoincash:qq89n9cvksz9lptumt7m26vssxdgfgcehq2a0lv3nz----------Socials:Website: https://www.bitcoincashpodcast.com----------Timestamps:00:00 Podcast starts00:37 Intro01:36 LTC Underground intro, Litecoin journey04:15 #BCH and the "BCash" name12:50 Crypto and objective truth16:02 Crypto market update21:41 Stat of the week: BitPay payments36:21 #Litecoin in 202339:41 What are MimbleWimble Extension Blocks (MWEB)?44:27 Crypto common enemy & common goals48:48 Global reserve currency goal56:52 New York Bitcoin scaling agreement1:11:36 Bitcoin Cash has proven resilience1:14:43 Pros & cons of being the minority SHA256 chain1:22:14 #CBDC in 20231:35:56 Messari 2023 crypto theses1:40:03 BTC's only narrative is price appreciation1:44:53 Monarchy is like crypto

Interested in the metaverse and need to know how to get started? Meet Alan Smithson, founder of MetaVrse, multiple TED Talk speaker, and builder of “The Mall” in the metaverse, but not just any mall! If there were a hundred-page encyclopedia of the metaverse, Alan would fill every page but you'd still need more room to cover his vast knowledge of all things metaverse. It's season 2, episode 4, and we're continuing our Retail Transformers series – you'll see why Alan Smithson is truly more than meets the eye!Alan tells you what you need to get started with the metaverse, but takes us on an even deeper journey that touches on the future of jobs in digital technologies, how education needs to change to keep up, how the metaverse could make the world a better place, and of course, why shopping should be fun again! Plus, we'll learn why asking children what they want to be when they grow up is the wrong question to ask. The real question is …News alert! We're back at #20 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list, so please keep those 5-star reviews in Apple Podcasts coming! With your help, we'll move our way further up the Top 20! Leave us a review and be mentioned in a future episode! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, a Top 12 ecommerce influencer, advisory council member at George Mason University's Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring E-Motive, and Overclocked, from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno.The Retail Razor ShowFollow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazorConnect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazorSubscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTubeSubscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShowRetail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPodHost → Ricardo Belmar,Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmarConnect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmarRead my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWRBelmarCo-host → Casey Golden,Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCaseyConnect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICaseyRead my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWCaseyTRANSCRIPTS2E4 Retail Transformers - Alan Smithson[00:00:00] Pre-Show Intro[00:00:00] Alan Smithson: Good morning. Retail Razor. No, maybe too much. [00:00:05] Ricardo Belmar: actually we might, we might use that at the, in the intro beginning. [00:00:07] That was pretty [00:00:08] Good. ..That [00:00:09] Alan Smithson: like bit connect . I wanna go to a crypto conference and start doing that. Bit connect[00:00:17] Ricardo Belmar: Now that would be fun to see. [00:00:19] Alan Smithson: Too early maybe. Okay. We'll just start now. [00:00:21] Ricardo Belmar: Okay. All right, here we go. Here we go. [00:00:23][00:00:23] Introduction[00:00:23] Ricardo Belmar: hello, and welcome to season two, episode four of the Retail Razor Show. I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar.[00:00:49] Casey Golden: And I'm your co-host, Casey Golden. Welcome Retail Razor Show listeners to retail's favorite podcast for product junkies, commerce technologists, and everyone else in retail and retail tech alike.[00:01:01] Ricardo Belmar: And we have a truly special treat this week. Following up from our season debut episode on the Metaverse, we are back to talk more metaverse this week, aren't we?[00:01:10] Casey Golden: Yes, and I'm excited. Our listeners and viewers should be excited because this week we're not only talking Metaverse, but we're continuing our Retail Transformer series with special guest, Alan Smithson, founder and CEO of the company, Metaverse.[00:01:24] Ricardo Belmar: Yes. Our faithful followers will learn exactly why Alan is 'more than meets the eye'.[00:01:31] Casey Golden: Aww, you're gonna use that line, every time for these series, aren't you?[00:01:35] Ricardo Belmar: Absolutely, a hundred percent. I am totally here for that.[00:01:39] Casey Golden: Okay, so let's talk about Alan. There are few people in the early days of the Metaverse that can talk in depth about what retailers need to look at when building their metaverse strategy.[00:01:49] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, when we first talked to Alan, you know, when he first came to one of our clubhouse rooms, I was really impressed. And just like you said, he's got the knowledge about the metaverse. We'll also hear about his solution, the mall, that he's building, that will really change how retailers look at the metaverse.[00:02:03] And listeners or viewers are gonna come away with a really smart plan on, on how to attack the metaverse and get experimenting right away, just like we predicted back in season one episode four.[00:02:13] Casey Golden: And experimenting, and experimenting, trying things out is a matter of showing up and learning how to experiment. Alan hits on all of these topics and more honestly, each episode this season has been incredibly informative, but our guest energy is solid, true innovators. I don't know how we keep doing this from one episode to another, but keep those notepads handy.[00:02:35] You'll need it.[00:02:37] Ricardo Belmar: That's right. I mean, we could go on and on about all the juicy details Alan will talk about, but I think I can sum it up by saying if you were gonna write a hundred page Encyclopedia of the Metaverse, Alan would be on page one all the way through page 100, and you'd probably be asking for more pages after that.[00:02:54] Casey Golden: Agreed, so let's get to it then. Our interview with Alan Smithson co-founder of MetaVrse. [00:03:04] AlanSmithson Interview[00:03:04] Ricardo Belmar: And we are here with our very special guest, Alan Smithson, co-founder of the company MetaVrse, whose mission is to enable creation in the Metaverse for everyone. Following from our clubhouse session in our season one opener on the Metaverse and one of what's likely to be many more discussions we'll have on the metaverse going forward.[00:03:23] Alan, welcome to the Retail Razor Show. [00:03:25] Alan Smithson: Thank you so much, Ricardo and Casey. Thanks for having me. This is so, so exciting. You know, we we got to meet in person before these things, which is super cool, you know, and normally it's the other way around. You do all these podcasts and things, and then you finally meet somebody, you're like, Oh, yeah.[00:03:38] So it's really great to see some familiar faces and, and dive into the, the Occam's razor of retail .[00:03:46] Ricardo Belmar: exactly[00:03:47] Casey Golden: I'm so glad to see you Allen and having you here with us this morning. I'm just really excited to catch up and learn what's been going on since the last time we saw each other. [00:03:59] We're [00:03:59] Alan Smithson: many things. [00:04:00] Casey Golden: right. We're not casting from the, the metaverse yet. But who knows? This time next year, a seismic shift is taking [00:04:06] Alan Smithson: time next week we're gonna be releasing some cool stuff and we built in full video chat capabilities into our project. So we'll get into that later. But yeah, the three pushed some technology that will allow us to do this inside of virtual world.[00:04:21] Casey Golden: Interesting. Yes. Experiences on the internet are expected to be more immersive, three dimensional and virtual with the realization of web three . I believe the metaverse will will play , an integral role in product discovery and brand experiences.[00:04:36] Some people are saying it's dead and now it's like coming back. Some people said it's, this is just natural traction. So I mean, I think we're all here for the dips and we're all here for the eyes.[00:04:47] Alan Smithson: I really love the articles that say, you know, the Meta versus Dead or, you know, these are the same articles that in 10 years from now, people will look back and go, Oh yeah, you, you're the guy who wrote the internet as dead article. Good for you. You know, that really inspired a whole generation of people to build the internet, so, [00:05:04] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, it's like how many years ago when everybody was saying physical retail was dead,[00:05:09] Alan Smithson: I mean, yeah, like you can say everything's dead. Look, when we invented tv, people said, Oh, this is gonna replace radio. Every car still has a radio in it. [00:05:20] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. [00:05:21] Alan Smithson: like, radio didn't go away. It just changed and morphed. And you know, now we, now we have Spotify. Okay, maybe radio is not the primary thing, but it never died.[00:05:32] You know, TVs didn't go away when we got the internet. You know computers didn't go away when we got mobile phones. And, you know, mobile phones aren't going away anytime when we get VR and, and AR glasses. So, you know, adding new mediums does not necessarily mean that you, the other one fades away and dies, you know, it just becomes another medium.[00:05:51] There's, , let's say 10 years ago you had, I don't know, a billion people on the internet. Now we have 4 billion people on the Internet. Like, you know, the, the time right now is, is explosive growth. I mean, companies are raising, hundreds of millions of dollars, you know, tens and then hundreds of millions of dollars for internet technologies and metaverse technologies and web three technologies.[00:06:14] You know, this is just the money going in to invest to the future. So, I mean, we're in for a, a really, really interesting next, I guess, eight years now that we're almost kind of at the end of 2022. , By the end of this decade, the world will look very different than it does today,[00:06:30] Ricardo Belmar: Oh yeah. Yeah,[00:06:31] Casey Golden: I agree with that a hundred percent.[00:06:33] Ricardo Belmar: so, [00:06:34] Alan Smithson: none of the things will be dead.[00:06:35] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. No, none. None of it. We're just keep adding more and more I think as we're gonna get [00:06:39] into [00:06:39] Alan Smithson: more people coming on the[00:06:40] internet and more [00:06:41] Casey Golden: I'm [00:06:41] all [00:06:41] Alan Smithson: I like reading. [00:06:42] Casey Golden: web, like 6.0 already, right?[00:06:45] Alan Smithson: Why don't we have six G? I mean, my 5G phone doesn't really do anything for me. I'm like, 5g. I still have no signal. What the heck?[00:06:55] Casey Golden: It's still a marketing boy.[00:06:57] Alan Smithson: I bought a big phone that folds in half so that I can have all the things[00:07:02] Ricardo Belmar: And you're still waiting. And you're still [00:07:04] Alan Smithson: That's the wait. I still[00:07:05] Ricardo Belmar: so [00:07:06] Alan Smithson: but the technology's getting super fast. The the one thing that's exciting that. Most people are consuming the internet on a mobile phone now. Mobile phones and computers are the kind of dominant, but mobile phones kind of leapfrogged and it's places like Africa. They, they just bypass computers altogether and just went straight to phones.[00:07:22] Same with China. And so the phone technology is[00:07:25] Casey Golden: say, with 10 year olds,[00:07:27] Alan Smithson: exactly. 10 year olds in the Chinese, they, they just bypass computers all together.[00:07:32] Ricardo Belmar: Right. [00:07:33] Alan Smithson: But yeah, the, the world is using mobile phones to access the internet, and the mobile phones are getting so good. You know, the iPhone 14 came out y. These things are super, super computers now.[00:07:45] I mean, if you, One of the people that I, I really think highly of is a guy that runs this company called Otoy. They're a rendering engine and I can't remember the guy's name, but they came up with this concept of the render token. This was way before the whole crypto craze, and they said, What if we could tap into everybody's phone and computer and do batch rendering around the world?[00:08:06] So let's say Disney as a project, right? And they, you know, they need 500 servers to, to run this, you know scene of a Disney movie. Well, can't we then just push it out to a thousand phones, Have everybody, you know use the GPUs that are bit, you know, kinda sitting idle for most of the time on your phone.[00:08:22] Can we leverage that and then pay people for, for using this idle time on their phones?[00:08:27] seem to take off because I think it was a bit early, but that ability to tap into the billions of smartphones and computers out there and the processing power that is sitting idle, I think is going to be a key part of the metaverse moving forward in, in kind of the long term strategy. I mean, this is not, it's not an overnight thing. Nobody's really figured it out yet. But if we can do that, you think of how many computers around the world we could tap into for ai, for modeling, for protein folding for, you know, the good of mankind.[00:08:55] We can really use these these idle devices that are sitting idle for, you know, let's say most people, their phones are only sitting idle while they sleep, but[00:09:04] you know, it's, eight hours of sleep, depending on who you are. Casey, who only sleeps four hours a night,[00:09:12] What is MetaVrse & The Mall[00:09:12] Ricardo Belmar: Right. Well, Alan, so, diving into this space a little bit more, tell us a little more about what Metaverse is in your company and what you're doing and what you're and what that means for retailers and brands.[00:09:24] Alan Smithson: So we we started a company called Metaverse back in 2016, spelled M e t A V R s E, you know, for the vr idea, we built all sorts of projects in, in virtual, augmented, mixed reality, and 3d. We've done over 160 projects now but we've done everything from building retail locations virtual stores.[00:09:43] We've done virtual showrooms for automotive. We have built virtual training for, for medical, for consumer electronics. We did a lot of work for Samsung where we took their their new phone models, actually including this one, and then we animated them opening and you could turn it around and, you know, look inside and all this stuff.[00:09:59] We did a bunch of stuff for Samsung. We built virtual showrooms for MasterCard, but all of these things were actually built on our own engine. And so over the years we actually were building and working on our. What you would call a game engine or a creation platform. So similar to Unity and Unreal we have our own base, you know, rendering technology that allows us to render directly to the internet, directly to a web browser on a mobile phone.[00:10:24] So one of the, the claims to fame for us is that we have a low code, easy to create platform that bypasses the app stores. We actually don't have to go through Apple or Google. We just hit publish. It goes to a browser and works on any device. So this is super powerful and we really set up a goal in mind to build a platform that would let anybody participate and create in the Metaverse.[00:10:47] And so our mission is Metaverse creation for every. That's you know, that's always kind of been our ethos. It used to be XR creation for everyone, and then the whole world moved to the word metaverse. So we're like, Okay, well I guess we should jump on the bandwagon. Even though we started the bandwagon,[00:11:01] Casey Golden: What was xr [00:11:02] Alan Smithson: virtual augmented mixed reality or XR or extended reality is like a[00:11:06] Ricardo Belmar: yeah,[00:11:06] so it mixed, all of it[00:11:08] Alan Smithson: Yeah, I mean, we, we were all in on xr. We did the XR for Business podcast. We did the XR for Learning podcast. We did XR collaboration, which is a whole thing on, you know, collaboration platform. . We really, truly thought the whole world was going to xr and then outta nowhere Zuckerberg said, Hey, we're gonna be called Meta.[00:11:24] And the whole world went to Metaverse and we're like, Oh, well it's a good thing. We called our name That, and applied for the trademark before then[00:11:30] Ricardo Belmar: Ha. Good thing.[00:11:31] What moment led to creating MetaVrse?[00:11:31] Casey Golden: What was that one moment? Where you're just, cuz you've had some other businesses, you've had some worked in some other spaces. But what was that, that moment? Was there a special aha moment or something where [00:11:44] Alan Smithson: yeah. [00:11:44] Casey Golden: you're just like, I'm gonna build like the next version of the world,[00:11:48] Alan Smithson: It was a combination of things. Casey, honestly, it we owned a, a DJ product company called Emulator where it was a big glass, see-through touchscreen that you could play on and you could perform, but the crowd could see what you're doing cuz it was a see through piece of glass that you were DJing on.[00:12:01] We worked with, you know, infected Mushroom and Morgan page. And actually just recently a year ago Jean Michelle Jarre did a huge New Year's Eve virtual New Year's Eve party. It was huge. 7 million people attended and he used our emulator on stage in the virtual world as well.[00:12:15] So, I mean, we built this piece of tech.[00:12:17] We brought it to the world. We were working with big artists. And then we unfortunately brought on the wrong investor and so we lost that company. But right before that happened, I got invited to perform at Curiosity Camp by Eric Schmidt. And Eric Schmidt is, you know, obviously the former CEO of Google and he has this camp that everybody goes to called Curiosity Camp.[00:12:36] And so you go there and it's like camp in the middle of nowhere. I performed, it was kinda like a mini burning man for like 150 entrepreneurs, investors. AI nerds and a bunch of really smart people getting together just to have an UN-conference about what's coming in the world and, and, you know, new economic models and new technology models and these types of things.[00:12:55] So I got to perform. And then after that, I tried the R for the first time in this tiny little tent. And I remember putting it on, it was like a giant brick putting on my head. It was the DK one, the Oculus, and this was in 2014. Put on these giant headphones. And I sat there and they turned it on. And I remember sitting there going, Oh, like having this gasp of, Oh my God, this is amazing.[00:13:14] And I remember staring and I was looking at a concert, but it was so visceral that I felt like I was at the concert. The sound sounded right and, and I just sat there and I was like, Wow. And I remember somebody taking their hand and putting them on my shoulder, and I was on a swivel chair and they turned me around like this, and I realized that I could look everywhere. I was like, Oh my God. I could see the ceiling and the lights and the floor, and I just looked every. Then they hit a button and put me on stage, like I was up in the crowd. And then all, I was standing on stage next to Beck, looking at the artist, hearing it from my ears, looking up the crowd. And I thought, Oh my God.[00:13:49] And as a DJ myself for 20 years, I had this kind of moment where I was like, Holy crap. They just put me on stage in a place where nobody in the world gets to stand. Think about that. You know, like only the artists and the band or the DJ and maybe his manager get to stand on stage. Nobody gets to see this . And by transporting me in vr, I was there and I was like, This is gonna change everything, everything.[00:14:13] And that's, you know, right after that, we kinda lost the company, the, the DJ company. And I said, Well, let's just get into this now. And so in 2014 we started working in VR and we 3D printed our own cameras. We, we had 360 cameras built out of GoPros. We did everything. We did 360 videos. We did AR apps.[00:14:30] We did projection sandbox where you, you had connects and you, if you dug the sand out, it actually projected different things like topography of the sand. Did a VR photo booth for Samsung, which is super cool. We use their camera and you could take a picture with you and your friends and would Photoshop you into space, so you jump outta the machine and you could look at yourself in space with your friends in vr.[00:14:50] Casey Golden: That's great. So like as soon as you got like that one exposure hit, [00:14:54] it [00:14:55] Alan Smithson: that was it. That was.[00:14:56] Casey Golden: we're going this way,[00:14:57] Alan Smithson: Oh yeah. You know, I, I kind of had this thought that this is the future of human communication. This was like, okay, if I'm gonna communicate with somebody from long distance and we can stand there and like put these glasses on and be in the same room, this is gonna be the future of human communication.[00:15:11] And that was my whole ethos. I've since expanded that because, you know, and even if you go on our website, metavrse.com, we say that the Metaverse engine is the future of human communication, collaboration, commerce, and culture, because if you kind of take all of those four, that's really where we are right now.[00:15:29] The metaverse is impacting these things. So yes, we can communicate better, we can have a sense of presence, we can collaborate. You know, the, the new Bugatti was just designed in nine months rather than three years because they used VR to collaborate. You know BMW's been using VR to calibrate all the automotive companies are using it, not just to sell things, but to create.[00:15:47] Ricardo Belmar: yeah, to build,[00:15:48] to help them build faster. [00:15:49] Alan Smithson: so you know, collaboration is gonna be a big part. And then commerce, obviously 3D retail, duh. I mean, you know, Shopify's already showing in 96% improve, you know, uptick in conversion rates when using 3D on a site versus just 2D images and videos. So we're gonna go to 3D for sure.[00:16:09] Everything in the world, every brand, every company in the world will need all of their products and assets. Converted to 3D into 3D worlds, and over the next, you know, by the end of the decade, let's say. And that's a challenge because, you know, how do you convert them? Do you take CAD models and change them into 3d?[00:16:27] Do you take photographs and try to use photogrammetry? Do you use the scanners that are coming in the phones now? Do you use AI just using photographs to convert to 3d? So I think the biggest challenge over the next, you know, eight years or 10 years, end of the decade, This technology is showing massive upticks and, and conversion rates and all of the things from training to marketing to retail to e-com.[00:16:48] All of these things are being impacted positively, really positively, but it's still hard to make them. It's still hard to create the 3D worlds, the 3D environments avatars, clothing for avatars, these types of things. And so I think we're only just scratching the surface of what's possible. But AI is going to fill in a lot of the blanks over the next decade [00:17:07] Casey Golden: That's great.[00:17:08] Nexus of Three Technologies[00:17:08] Alan Smithson: I recently wrote an article called The Metaverse is the nexus of these three technologies. And the article, it, it's kinda like you have to read halfway through the article before I talk about them, because you know what, A little leading thing there. But the idea is that you have three technologies in addition to the internet we have today.[00:17:24] So the internet today, we have the ability to have video and audio and record and all these things that we're doing now, but then you wanna have depth, you wanna be able to walk around a virtual world. So it has 3D or XR vr, right? So you've that 3D component we call xr. Then you've got ai, which is gonna be, you know, natural language processing for maybe you wanna talk to a character, maybe you wanna get help in the store.[00:17:44] You can have conversations. Then computer vision, maybe you wanna see a product and you're like, What does that look like in my house? I hit a button, it changes the camera. Now I can see that couch in my house because the camera itself is using computer vision to understand my living room. Actually, IKEA came up with this really cool thing.[00:18:00] A quick video of your house and it blocks stuff out. Like it'll take your existing couch out and put the new one in for you. You're like, Whoa, this is crazy. So[00:18:08] computer [00:18:08] Casey Golden: love AR for home goods, like for furniture. I mean,[00:18:12] Alan Smithson: So you've got, you know, this 3D ar and then you've got ai, which, you know, kind of enables all that. And the new AI algorithms are allowing you to we have one called in World where you can talk to characters, and the other one that we're looking at right now is anything world.[00:18:26] And the idea is that, Use a text description and it will build a 3D environment for, you can say, I, I need a room with four walls, five windows, a tree in the corner, and a couch over here, and it will build it for you. Now it's very low poly and it's, it's not, you know, it's not perfect, but it's, it's automatic.[00:18:44] It's kinda like, you know, Have you seen Mid Journey and Dall-e yet[00:18:47] Casey Golden: I love Mid Journey. I've been playing on there until like I ran out of [00:18:52] Alan Smithson: credits [00:18:52] Casey Golden: could play [00:18:54] Alan Smithson: I was like,[00:18:55] What the amount of credits, Here's my credit,[00:18:57] my [00:18:57] money, [00:18:58] Casey Golden: do it again. I was having so much fun with it. [00:19:01] and it. [00:19:02] Alan Smithson: and licensing. So like, why would I ever go to a stock photography site ever again? Because I say, Okay, I need, the other day I said I needed a metaverse, whatever. I typed in whatever I, you know, description. It gave me a couple. I was like, not happy. I did it again. I was like, Oh, that one's nice. I up resd it and now that's the image for my article.[00:19:20] Casey Golden: Yeah,[00:19:21] Ricardo Belmar: it's exactly what you wanted. [00:19:22] Casey Golden: I, actually think that it's brilliant that if I could just go ahead and create one. and then it would create like 500 versions.[00:19:31] Alan Smithson: Oh, I'm sure that's coming. I,[00:19:33] I'm sure. [00:19:33] Casey Golden: I'm just like, okay, I like this, but like, don't gimme one now I want like a set of four. Well, you know what, just gimme a set of 500.[00:19:41] Alan Smithson: Yep. You know, this was a really good processing power at that point[00:19:45] because these images, so you know, instead of four it can generate 400. It's, this is the thing with ai, if people don't understand, it's just raw processing power. That's why if we can tap into the phones around the world, You know, use some of this idle processing power, then you just have more power available to do it.[00:20:01] Because right now it's kind of expensive, right? You, you put in a request through mid journey, it goes up to their cloud. Somebody's gotta pay for, you know, an actual computer to process that. Create these four or five or 400 images for incident em back. Anyway, the last technology that we didn't touch on, so xr, ai, and the last one's blockchain. know, how do you have a decentralized ownership of assets? How do you have a record of maybe, you know, maybe you just want something simple like a record of your employment or your record of the things you took for training. Cuz right now you go to university, you have a degree, right? That degree is held by, let's say, you know, let's just use Harvard, right?[00:20:36] Harvard holds your degree. You now put on your, on your LinkedIn, Hey, I went to Harvard at, you know, there Now does, do employers go and verify that? Do they go to Harvard? Chances are, or they. a lot of times. So maybe having a, you know, verified way to not only take your degree, but all the courses that you took.[00:20:53] Maybe you took a course on Udemy or Udacity or you, you did a side course. The side courses are really the skills that you're gonna need, because that's why people are taking, that's why people are learning on YouTube, because right now the world's moving faster than the universities, colleges, and high schools can keep up, and so the curriculums have to go through rigorous vett.[00:21:13] By the time they go through that, it's maybe two, three years, the technology's already passed and like moved on. So we're kinda in this weird technology meets, you know, learning model. And actually I did a TED talk called the, the Marriage of Technology and Education and where I just said, Look, we should be using all these technologies that are, that we're inventing not only to train people on those technologies and how to use them, but use them for this, for for learning.[00:21:39] So we should be using AI algorithm. To do this, and actually something I read yesterday, you know, the company Striver s Str r ivr, they do all the training in VR for Walmart. They've trained over a million people for Walmart. And one of the things they said in their early Stanford hit Human Interaction Lab, the, the early study they did was a teacher, very simple study.[00:22:00] They had a teacher and two students, and they were all represented as avatars in VR. Now the teacher is looking at a student, right? So they have eye contact with the student. But imagine the avatar can look at both students equally. So even though the teacher may not be looking at either student, maybe looking down the middle, the avatar looks like it's looking right at you.[00:22:19] And so you have this personal one-on-one connection, even though it's one to many. And so you imagine if a, a class of a hundred people, everybody feels like you're looking directly at them, and this is super powerful.[00:22:31] Casey Golden: That's [00:22:31] interesting. Yeah, I think that, you education versus application. It's definitely behind. I don't feel like we're, we're really preparing kids for work or to understand what the career opportunities are because it's just so antiquated of yet you don't have to do that anymore. Like, these are all the new jobs in that space, under that topic that literally nobody's talking about.[00:22:58] So I think it's very interest. I asked a, a nine year old before the pandemic, which I'm like, So what do you wanna do? Like when you grow up, right? The, the, the number one question. And she just like, shrugged and pushed back on the pool and like, went backwards. 11. She's like, It doesn't really matter.[00:23:19] It's not like they'll ex, they won't exist anymore by the time I need it. [00:23:25] I just mind [00:23:27] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm. Wow.[00:23:28] Yeah. [00:23:28] Alan Smithson: think that the key to this is asking a different question. The different question is, is this instead of what do you wanna do when you grow up? Or what job do you want to get? Because we don't know what the jobs are gonna be. We don't, we're inventing them as we go. And something like, I read a stat, something like 60% of jobs over the next decade won't exist,[00:23:45] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that's right.[00:23:46] Yeah. [00:23:46] Alan Smithson: So what are we training people[00:23:47] for? [00:23:48] We don't [00:23:48] Ricardo Belmar: Right. We don't [00:23:48] Casey Golden: a nine year old to tell me that.[00:23:50] Ricardo Belmar: we, We don't even know. That's why we need better tools, Right. To be able to do [00:23:53] What problem do you want to solve?[00:23:53] Alan Smithson: so here's the better question to ask in my opinion, is what problem do you wanna solve in the[00:23:58] world? [00:23:59] Ricardo Belmar: That's the [00:23:59] Alan Smithson: know, technology can be used. It doesn't matter if you have a problem you wanna solve, like climate change, I want to solve, I wanna stop sharks from being harvested for their fins. Okay? If you take that, that singular cue, you can use all sorts of technologies to disrupt supply chains to, you know sink ships. You could do everything in your power to people from fishing for sharks, cutting their fins off and throwing them back. I mean, imagine just one person had a singular vision on that and used every piece of technology to disrupt that industry. Of course, you do [00:24:32] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. It, it's like the, the number one thing, right, the technology brings is agility to do these things quickly. [00:24:37] Alan Smithson: we're not teaching people. that, one, they have all the technology at the fingertips as long as you have access to the internet and a phone or a computer. Two, you can make a big difference as an individual. And three, we're not teaching people to set goals and look at long term horizons. So when Julie and I got into Metaverse, this was actually not our long-term goal.[00:24:59] Our long-term goal is to build a new education system using this technology. But we're in year seven of a 30 year plan. mean, literally, you know, we started in 2014, we're now in, you know, 2022 and we're going out to, you know, 20, I think it was 2048 or something, was our kind of goal. So imagine looking 20 years out as a student instead of saying, What do you want to, what kinda job do you wanna get?[00:25:22] Well, I'll get a job and then six months later, my employer will lay me off and then I'll go through this thing. And once you get into the the rat race of having to pay rent, your opportunities to dream huge and solve world problems really diminishes. Because you just need to pay your bills. And I think this is one of the one of the things that we can do better as a society is, is give people a bit of a safety net so they can start to try to cha to take on big problems in the world.[00:25:47] But you have to tell them what the problems are and what are some of the solution opportunities, and then say, here dedicate your life to one, solving this problem.[00:25:55] Casey Golden: Yeah, no, I agree. And I think that that's a much better way of looking at it. And I think it's just gonna be inevitable. Like I will never ask that question again after I got that answer because I too realize that like, it's a wrong question.[00:26:09] Alan Smithson: You know, ask me, what are you gonna do when you grow up? And I'm like, Well, I don't know. I, I have been in my life, I, I graduated with a degree in molecular biology. I was a pharmaceutical rep. I owned a medical billing company. We owned a hostile, We we had a nutraceutical company.[00:26:26] We had a DJ business. I was a DJ for 20 years. We had a technology company and now we own a game engine. So who knows where life will take you. But now we have a, a singular vision and, and mission to, to create a new education system for the world using the technologies that we're talking about today.[00:26:41] And we, we actually settled on retail as a model to focus on that because all the technologies we need for retail at the highest levels. So, you know, we're building a virtual mall, which is insane, but we're building the world's largest virtual mall, and all the technologies in there are actually being built in mindfulness of what we're gonna need for education.[00:27:02] So the hundredth floor of the mall, each floor of the mall is a million square feet, so it's a hundred floors tall. Each floor is a million square feet, so you have a hundred million square feet of virtual space to build retail. Experiences and entertainment and all these things. But the hundredth floor is actually owned by the Unlimited Awesome Academy, which is Julie and i's trust to build this new education platform.[00:27:23] So the hundredth floor of the mall will benefit from the entire mall. The 20th floor of the mall is an education floor, so we have, you know, floor one to 20 is owned by the mall and leased to brands. So we've got like a luxury floor, automotive floor, consumer electronics, all these things. Floor 20 is actually reserved for education.[00:27:39] So we're gonna put education systems in there and let them have the, the floor, There's no charge for that. So we really do have this kind of long term vision of how we can leverage the, the retail world for the technology. Cuz we're, we're working with our partners to build insane amounts of technology, like crazy stuff.[00:27:56] We can, We built a technology recently called Infinite, l o d, or infinite level of detail that allows us to have an infinite virtual world. Meaning the mall's one building, when you leave the mall, it's vast. I mean, you could build anything you want in as far as you see. And it could be out in space like we designed it so that it doesn't, it, it loads on any phone fast and you can load and go anywhere in the world and walk around and it's just vast, right?[00:28:22] So that technology, I think is gonna revolutionize how. Build these things, because now what it typically happens is you build a scene and the scene is a fixed map, like, you know, Decentraland, a fixed map, sandbox, it's a fixed map. And then what you do is as you walk around the map, it's kinda loading different parts of the map.[00:28:40] Well, we don't have a fixed map. We have the fixed mall, but then the map is completely open to the world and what they wanna build. And so this is kind of our way of saying, okay, what does an open and unlimited metaverse look like? You know? And because that's really what people want. They want a persistent. Is never ending. It's kinda like Second Life, but you know, at a much, much larger scale available. And then Second, Life is still successful. They still have probably a million people a year on Second. Life doesn't work on mobile, Decent land, doesn't work on mobile Sandbox doesn't work on mobile. Roblox barely works on mobile.[00:29:11] So you know, having the ability to onboard billions of mobile phones into the Metas is gonna be the key. And then of course, we'll move to glasses over the next decade as well. You're seeing Oculus moved over to Meta now. Meta is introducing a new a new headset. So we're gonna see vast improve improvements of this. And then I would, I'd venture to say Apple makes their entrance into this space probably in the next year, would be my guess. We've been waiting for years and there's been lots of rumors over the years. I remember somebody in 2014 saying, Apple's gonna come out with VR glasses this year.[00:29:43] And I was like, I don't know about. Now, here we are, seven years [00:29:47] later. It's still [00:29:48] Why are brands coming to the mall?[00:29:48] Ricardo Belmar: So, so Alan, let me ask you more about the mall. I'm curious, when you talk to retailers and brands about the floors in the mall that you've got set aside for them, what, what's, what's your pitch to them? What, what's the selling point for the retailers to, Is it, for example, because you'd run on mobile where so many of these other platforms either barely do or, or don't what, what's the big selling point for the retail on the brand to, to be in the.[00:30:10] Alan Smithson: sure. I think it's, it's being part of something bigger. First of all, you know, you look. Brands are jumping into De Central and because it's, it's there and it works and it's bigger, right? It's a bigger community and there's gonna be more chance of eyeballs falling on. The problem is there's just not a lot of users there because the graphic fidelity is ma and there's a lot of barriers to entry.[00:30:27] If you wanna buy something physical, you cannot, If you want to use your credit card to buy something digital, you cannot, You have to buy with Manna, which is their in world currency. So we took a lot of the ideas from what these other platforms were doing. We said, Okay, well, how. Specifically make that for retail.[00:30:46] And really it was less about what we thought. And we've just had a lot of meetings with a lot of brands in the hundreds. And so when we, when we show them the mall, when we walk around, when we show them stores, when they say, Oh, well can it do this? Can it connect to our backend order management system?[00:31:00] Yes, it can because we use JavaScript. Can it, can we connect our loyalty program? Yes, absolutely. We have a, a backend system. And so it's just a really, a combination of. Having this idea for 'em all because we were building virtual showrooms for all different brands, and they were saying, Oh, I want a video chat on this one.[00:31:18] And this one would say, I want to dress the avatars and I, I want something over here. And so all these different disparate virtual showrooms that we're building, we built one for MasterCard, we built one for, for Samsung. We built all these things and they were asking for the same thing in different ways.[00:31:30] So we said, What if we built in a persistent mall so that if,[00:31:33] if we build a new piece of tech for one, one person, one brand, it now everybody in the mall. So you have the central part. Now brands can start driving people into their stores. So the mall.io/brand, it drops you right into the brand store. You can walk around, you get the full brand experience, but you can walk out the door as well. [00:31:52] So we've been meeting with, with hundreds of brands, and the brands that have interest in the mall, they want to get into the metaverse. And now here, here's the thing is it's a big cluster. You know, everybody's like, Oh, talking about the metaverse, the buzzword of the year. You know, do I make NFTs, do I not?[00:32:06] NFTs are kind of got like a, you know, negative connotation now that they've lost half their value. So it. Do we build our own virtual store? Do we go into Decentraland? Do we build something over here? Do we go into Roblox? And you know, the question or the answer's probably you gotta try all of the things, right?[00:32:23] And so you know, what we recommend is, look, take a budget, you know, whatever it is, 50 grand, a hundred grand, 200 grand, whatever your budget is, that's discretionary. You know, don't invest too much in this right now because nobody knows what's gonna work and whatnot. So we have like a 50 grand entrance package.[00:32:37] You get lease, you get, you know, kind of all the things included. We build everything out for you.[00:32:41] We have a full studio. And so the idea was how do we just get rid of all of the barriers to entry for a brand and then just get them into the mall. Because it's, it's all new for all of us, right? You know, people are saying, How are you gonna get any traffic in the mall?[00:32:53] Well, you know, of course we're the mall. We have to get traffic in there. But we're coordinating that effort with the brands. With the brands that we're working with, because really we don't have the brand gravitas of a, you know, of a, of a large shoe company or a, a large electronics manufacturer. You guys have, they have hundreds of thousands or millions of consumers. [00:33:12] And we're working with a candy company. They're gonna put QR codes on the candy, so that's gonna drive people directly into their store in the mall. And, they have multiple stores in the mall, so it's. It's really intriguing how, we've kind of realized that the marketing and getting people into the mall is, is less our responsibility is more of the brands, but where our responsibility is to have the right brands there and encourage them to build cool stuff because it's really less about, you, know, a store and it's more about an experience. And so, you know, one thing that I think the mall replaces or, or at least adjuncts is that, or not replaces, but adjuncts is that Amazon and Mall Walmart are the two largest retail stores on earth digitally, right? amazon.com and walmart.com. But you wouldn't invite your friends to go shopping on amazon.com.[00:33:58] You'd be like, Hey, we're gonna have a shopping date on, Go on Amazon. See what I'm ordering in my cart. It, it's taken the fun out shopping it, it's taken a front out. It's, it's just ruthless procurement of goods. Casey we'll go Amazon shopping[00:34:12] Buying vs Shopping - it should be fun![00:34:12] Ricardo Belmar: Yep. It's buying versus shopping. [00:34:14] Alan Smithson: it is. Procurement of goods versus shopping and shopping should be fun.[00:34:18] There is a reason why malls aim the cultural center of communities, and we wanna do the same thing. So our, our mall is multiplayer. You can invite your friends, you can go walk around. It's super fun actually. And we're putting little mini games in there. There's daily games that change every day so you can win prizes.[00:34:34] Just super cool stuff. So. [00:34:35] Casey Golden: That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, I think that big, that big benefit at the end of the day of participating. It may not necessarily be a conversion rate because that's not necessarily the goal Right. [00:34:48] now. What would you say is that roi? Because I don't feel that it's going to be money, like sales revenue, but I might be wrong.[00:34:59] Like today, if somebody wanted to go and have their first Metaverse experience with you, what is that main transformation or moment that you expect that that brand is going to be mentioning in the meeting to a hundred thousand or 800,000 next season? There?[00:35:19] Alan Smithson: I think you nailed it. Is, is really up to the brands to build some cool stuff and, and look, right now we made the mall look like, like a mall. It's got stores you can walk around. It doesn't need to look like a mall. It could be a, a field, it could be a space, it could be anything, right? So when you walk in your store, , Yes.[00:35:34] It looks like a store from the outside. And then when you walk in through the barrier of the door, it changes and, loads a new project. And the new project is like, Oh, now I'm in a, you know, basketball court, or now I'm like sitting court side watching you know, Nicks and nets, right? So it's one of those things that right now there's a term called skew amorphism, meaning we kind of tend to take what is already existing and build things like that.[00:35:56] So we. A mall. Looks like a mall. We put it into digital format so it feels and looks like a mall. Like you're walking around. You don't, it just feels right. It just looks like a mall or, Okay, great. I get it. I understand it this, really understand it. But that doesn't mean we can't push the absolute limits on the other end.[00:36:09] But what we need to do, and we need to do this for everybody, is make people feel comfortable in these virtual spaces and, and skew amorphism or, or bringing kind of the traditional world into the virtual world for now seems to. The right path. We've done some crazy, crazy stuff on the, on the, you know, way out there, NFT galleries and stuff. [00:36:30] And it doesn't really resonate with people. They don't know how to navigate it. They, they don't understand it. They're, there's a bit of a mix mix mash, so I think it's really gonna be up to the brands to build cool experiences that engage with their customers that. Really drive brand awareness. You look at Samsung's 8 37 store in New York. I think it's a prime example. And even Nike Store in New York City, I mean, yes, they sell shoes, but it's really about the experience of experiencing the brand. You go into Nike store and the whole first floor is the history of Nike. You can look at the old shoes, like it's just really, really cool. Yes, you can buy some shoes on, you know, one of the other floors, but it's not about that. It's about the experience of, oh my God, I was in New York and I went to this crazy store. And it, it, made me realize how how much research has gone into the Nike shoes and then like, you can really build these experiences and Samsung 8 3 7 in New York as well.[00:37:16] You go in there, you can't buy anything. You can literally just, you can look at the fridges, you can look at the kitchens, you can look at the, the mobile phones. You can, there's all these really cool experiences. There's lots of places to take selfies, which is fun. And you, you know, people's new selfie flex is gonna be, Hey, I gonna dress up my avatar.[00:37:33] And dripping in Gucci and and take a picture. But I think people's online personas are going to start being more important than their in-person personas. We're already seeing that. I mean, like, you know, people in virtual worlds are spending billion, billions on skins. [00:37:49] Ricardo Belmar: Oh yeah. Oh [00:37:51] Alan Smithson: You know, night skins.[00:37:53] I mean, I think Fortnite did something like $9 billion last year, Something [00:37:57] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm. [00:37:57] It's crazy. Yeah. So, Alan, let me ask you this. What, what would be your top advice right now for, for, let's say for this over this next year for retailers, DTC brands, I mean even retail tech businesses who are all looking at the metaverse and kind of thinking, Okay, how do I get in? What, what, what are my first steps?[00:38:17] What do I do to get started?[00:38:19] Alan Smithson: Sure. Find a, a decent partner who understands retail, who's done with this. There's, you know There's a company called Max, a Maxent. They do a great work on kind of, you know, for furniture companies, a bunch of retailers. [00:38:30][00:38:30] Alan Smithson: Marxent [00:38:31][00:38:31] Yeah, they, they do a great job. Converting things to 3d, you're gonna have to have teams that understand 3d.[00:38:36] And 3D is not easy. It's not as easy as creating a JPEG or a video. It's quite complicated. There's. You have a 3D model, then you've got layers and layers of of images that go on top of that to make it look realistic. You've got a bumpy one that makes it look bumpy. You've got texture files, all these things.[00:38:51] It's not, it's not really that easy a technology. Now, it's getting easier and we're getting there, but I think by starting now and starting small, taking a, you know, let's say 50,000 to a $500,000 budget, building something and then starting to have your teams internally. Understand how the sausage is made. How do we go from an idea or a concept or some photographs of a store to a fully, 3D environment with avatars, with products in there and everything, and, click to buy everything.[00:39:19] And so one of the reasons we did the mall is because we've done this a bunch of times for individual clients and it, it ended up becoming kind of rinse and repeat, right? We're like, Okay, well this, this client wants, and now we can build a virtual showroom in. Oh man, the last one we built, we took three days and it was beautiful. Just because we're getting really good at that. So I think the first thing is understand, learn a bit. So there's lots and lots of . I don't know how many guides to the metaverse there are, but there's probably at least a hundred that I know of. So go read some of those. You know, have somebody in your team dedicate somebody in your team to be the head of Metaverse, you know, and it's not just about, you know, 3D and that sort of thing, but you have to understand the crypto world as well.[00:39:58] People are gonna start buying in cryptocurrencies. What does that mean for you? How. How do you get paid in cryptocurrency and convert that to fiat because brands don't have accounting systems that that can take into account crypto. Right. So we have a, a partner named BitPay. So anybody can pay in any crypto they want using 95 different wallets.[00:40:16] It automatically takes their money, converts to U s D on at the end of the day and then settles with the brand at the end of the day. So you, the brands get settled in USD. . And, and the client doesn't know any, any difference in between and it's actually cheaper. So a stripe is like 3% for, you know, paying with credit cards or whatever.[00:40:34] With fiat and BitPay is only 1% because, and there's no chargebacks. Cuz once a crypto payment's paid, it's, there's, you can't reverse it. So I think there's gonna be a, a combination of. Onboarding customers or guests, we call them guests in the mall. Onboarding guests into, the crypto world slowly, but allowing them to pay in anything they want.[00:40:52] You pay credit card, PayPal, Amazon Pay, you know, it doesn't matter. We will, we will take any form of payment for physical and or digital goods in fiat and or cryptocurrency. And so from a brand standpoint, something like the mall kind of gives you. A boost because you don't have to reinvent the wheel.[00:41:10] If you're going into Decentraland again, there's a platform already there, there's people there. Roblox is great if, let's say, for example, you're a brand and your, your target customer is 25 to 30, well, your next target customer is, you know, 15 to 25. Right? Like that block. So if they're playing Roblox, and then I think something like 62% of Roblox players are under the age of 16. So if that's your next target demographic, like Gucci wants to be in the next, you know, they wanna be generationally relevant. [00:41:39] So if you're a brand that wants to be generationally relevant and be put in front of millions of people, go Roblox, you know that, that's a great starting point there. But it's, it's hard to get people's attention in there too. You've got, something like 10 million games on Roblox or something, or 4 million games on Roblox. So and then with the mall, it is a dedicated retail experience. You know, people are going there for that. They know what they're getting, and there's, there's gonna be a lot of, malls, digital malls, metaverse malls and these sorts of things.[00:42:06] But I don't think a lot of the startups that get into this realize the true depth of what's required. I mean, we spent seven years building a game engine for Enterprise. So when a, when a client says, What are your security protocols? We, we have a SOC two compliance and SOC two is not an easy thing to do.[00:42:23] It's, you know, it's eight months of, they basically take everybody on your team rip apart of their computers and you know, digitally [00:42:31] inside, make sure you don't have anything hidden. You gotta go through all these security protocols. So now that when we go to our clients, we say we are of SOC two, we also have Kronos compliance.[00:42:40] So Kronos is a 3D standard so that if you have a 3D model that you use on walmart.com, you can just pick it up and drop it into the mall and it will look the. This is important. Your product is not gonna look real in Roblox. It's gonna look like it's made out of Lego. You go, same thing with Sandbox, same with the Decentraland.[00:42:58] And they use a technology called voxels. So it's, very gamey looking like, like it's made out [00:43:02] Ricardo Belmar: Very [00:43:03] blocky. It's very [00:43:04] Casey Golden: of a standard of visual aesthetic that a lot, the higher end the brand, the less familiar that feels. And it's, but it's being adopted and it's, You don't have to be photorealistic all the time, [00:43:21] Alan Smithson: Yeah. You can have fun with it. And that's what I tell brands. Look,[00:43:24] You can use Unreal Engine for your commercials, your, your Hollywood movies. You know, they, they high, super high end. Maybe you want to build a film, a car, you know, driving through things. You can use the Unreal Engine for that. Then you can take the same asset. Down res it put it into Metaverse Engine. And now you can use it on the web, on, on the mall, right? You can use that same thing now it's interactive. You can drive it, you can, you know, on a mobile phone. Then you can take that same thing, pixelize it, and throw it into, into Decentraland or sandbox or, or Roblox or Minecraft.[00:43:51] And the idea is that you're using one asset to create several experiences and brands are gonna start doing this. I mean, it's just very few brands are doing it. [00:44:00] But I predict that you're not gonna be in one metaverse. You're gonna be in a bunch of different things, try different things, and some will be successful, Some won't.[00:44:06] Try things on your own website as well. I mean, our system. When you b build a store in the mall, you can actually build a hit, copy, paste, make a separate one and put it on your website as well. Now it'll link over to the mall, but it can reside on your know your brand.com website. We, we've taken out as many barriers to entry for brands as possible from, from our standpoint. [00:44:26] Casey Golden: Yeah. [00:44:27] Alan Smithson: We just, we've done so many meetings and it's been, I mean, our FAQ page is 50 questions long now for the mall [00:44:33] Casey Golden: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's hard enough to wrap your brain around it. At least once you make the decision. Let me take you right to it. [00:44:44] Alan Smithson: Let's just get it done, shall we? [00:44:46] And shouldn't be like one year thing. Oh my God, we're gonna build this thing in a year. Like what? No, man. If you can't build it in a, you know, eight weeks. [00:44:53] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. you'll be too late. [00:44:55] Alan Smithson: Yeah. maybe. Maybe. [00:44:58] Ricardo Belmar: You might be too late. [00:44:59] Alan Smithson: It's a crazy world we live in. It's moving so fast. That's why, one of our benefits of the engine is that it's low code.[00:45:04] We can build these things in in hours, you know like building the whole thing from scratch takes three days. You imagine how long that used to take? Six months ago, that took three weeks.[00:45:14] Ricardo Belmar: There's definitely a magic to to low code for sure, to really speed things up.[00:45:18] Alan Smithson: Yep. [00:45:19] How to reach Alan?[00:45:19] Casey Golden: what's the best way for someone to get in touch with you and follow the journey? [00:45:23] Alan Smithson: Sure. I, I, there's a couple ways. Metaverse Engine, which is, you know, the creation platform that is powering the, the mall. You can go to metaverse.com, m a t a v r s e.com. The mall is simply the mall.io. You can go sign up there, and if you sign up now for the mall, whether you're a brand or a guest, or an investor it'll ask you, you know, a dropdown for that.[00:45:43] You'll get put into a, an email funnel. So you'll have, if you sign up now, you'll have all early access to everything. So, for example, we're launching a new website for the mall, And that new website is fully built as a 3D world. So you scroll down the mall and you actually walk in and you end up inside of 3D website walking around.[00:46:00] It's not the mall, it's the website for the mall. we used our engine to build a revolutionary new website. So go to mall.io, the mall.io. And then you can just add me on LinkedIn. I can't add anybody from that, but you can follow me on LinkedIn. Cause I hit the limit of LinkedIn. Just use this my name alan Smithson. And you'll see fireworks above my head. I, I took a picture at the Formula one and that's my profile pick now [00:46:22] Casey Golden: Oh, [00:46:22] Ricardo Belmar: Oh, nice. [00:46:23] Alan Smithson: was like, this [00:46:24] Ricardo Belmar: cool [00:46:24] Alan Smithson: awesome. [00:46:25] Ricardo Belmar: Very cool . [00:46:26] Alan Smithson: Yep. [00:46:27] Ricardo Belmar: Well, I, I, I know I have really learned a lot today, Alan. Thank, thank you for that. I'm sure all of our listeners and, and viewers did too. Casey cause, you're already a, a Metaverse and, and web three advocate, so I'm sure a lot of this was old news for you after your debut event. Right. [00:46:40] Casey Golden: Yeah, I mean, we just had our second successful brand activation with Lux Lock on the 12th for New York Fashion Week. So with five brands everyone is enjoying. The experiences and looking forward to the future of commerce, like the brands are excited, the con consumers are excited. Making these early experiences is just critical into understanding like what these channels could potentially mean to your company.[00:47:06] Just do something And see what happens. [00:47:11] Alan Smithson: Yep. No, it's absolutely true. And look, one other thing that I, I didn't really mention is set some KPIs. What, what is it you want to get out of it? Because a lot of times, you know, for the last five years or six years, we've been building all sorts of marketing things, and they never really set KPIs.[00:47:25] They're just like, Hey, let's do this cool thing over there. And you're like, Yeah, I'll take your money and we'll do it. No, there's no measurement of success. So then you don't get a subsequent budget. And, and marketing teams are, they, they sometimes do this a lot, you know, they'll, they'll do things without measuring it, and that's fine.[00:47:41] Then maybe they want the media hits or whatever it is. But you have to have some metrics of success. Is it conversions? Is it time spent on platform? Is it, is it the number of visitors? What I, is the metric that you're measuring for success?[00:47:52] Because then, you can measure that. We can make changes. You can change completely everything or just some things, and you can get to the successful metrics. If you're not measuring it there's no point. So that's why actually one of the things in our mall is, complete analytics dashboard with, with everything from time spent on how much time somebody spent on a product. I mean, looking at it did they invite a friend? Did they convert from there? You know, these things are all really important.[00:48:15] And so we built, built this cool dashboard so that you can kinda look at your store and, and see a heat map of where people walked. Cause if somebody walks in your store and they all go right, and you want them to go left, well you can put a little display. [00:48:27] Casey Golden: they always, always go right. [00:48:29] Alan Smithson: Do they[00:48:29] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. [00:48:33] Casey Golden: apartment? Buildings. We'll go right[00:48:38] Alan Smithson: love it? Well, you know what? The heat map data will tell us where people go. [00:48:42] We'll find it. Yeah. Once we have this segregated data in the mall, we'll be able to tell, you know, okay. 57% of people went that way. 37 went that way. [00:48:50] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. And then you can keep adjusting, right? I mean, that's kinda the whole point is you want to keep adjusting and adapting to what, What's gonna work? [00:48:55] Alan Smithson: Yeah, you could put a plant there to make them sure. They go around it the other way. You just literally, and this is the other thing, you can re-merchandise your store for every day if you wanted to, you could be like, Hey, today we're gonna do, you know I don't know. It's October, so we're gonna do a Halloween theme, and for the month of October, it's Halloween theme.[00:49:10] And then, you know,

Mark “Murch” Erhardt and Mike Schmidt are joined by Jeremy Rubin and Paul Sztorc to discuss Newsletter #218. News Creating drivechains with APO and a trusted setup (1:07) Changes to services and client software Mempool Project launches Lightning Network explorer (51:19) Federation software Fedimint adds Lightning (45:23) Bitpay wallet improves RBF support (52:02) Mutiny Lightning wallet announced (53:03) Notable code and documentation changes Core Lightning #5581 (56:41) Eclair #2418 (54:46) Eclair #2416 (56:59) LND #6335 (58:11) LDK #1706 (59:37)

My guest today is Simon Dixon, CEO & Co-Founder of the online investment platform BnkToTheFuture.com who has invested over $1.7 billion in FinTech companies. Bnk To The Future is a global online investment platform that allows qualifying investors to invest in financial innovation, including fintech (Financial Technology) companies, funds, and other new alternative financial products. He is also the Fund Manager of Bitcoin Capital & author of the book 'Bank to the Future.' An active FinTech & Bitcoin angel investor with investments in BitPay, Kraken, BitPesa, and over 20 others. An ex-director of the UK Digital Currency Association & UK CrowdFunding Association. He regularly speaks on the future of finance to governments, businesses, investors, and financial institutions. An ex-investment banker that left corporate in 2006 to work on his book on the future of banking. Simon has been regularly quoted & appeared in major press & media outlets, including BBC, FT, CNBC, Reuters, Bloomberg, and Wall Street Journal. We discuss various topics, including Bitcoin, the Celsius Collapse, an Overview of Crypto Crash, Monetary Cycles, the Fight for the Free Market, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing the various collapses throughout Crypto's history. We begin our discussion by examining the Luna death spiral. Simon explains how Mt Gox unraveled and how they handled the situation. We discuss Bitfinex's hack. Simon describes how the team behind Bitfinex used the lessons learned from Mt Gox and how they navigated the crisis better. We finish our conversation about crypto collapses by comparing and contrasting Celsius and Voyager. Simon explains how Voyager has been more transparent and adept at handling their crisis, while Celsius has done everything they can to obfuscate blame and act in bad faith. Simon discusses in detail how Celsius management did not have proper risk management and conducted themselves as an unregistered hedge fund. Our next major conversation topic centered around monetary cycles and the fight for the free market. We discuss the fourth turning and the ending of the debt cycle. Simon explains how financial instability and economic inequality lead to societal unrest. We discuss how we are currently living through a fourth turning and what that means for society. We also touch on the fight for free markets. Simon explains how the rise of CBDCs could lead to the rise of communism. We discuss how Bitcoin is the best tool to fight to protect capitalism and liberty from the evils of communism. We stress the importance of a complex money standard and the benefits hard money provides society. Our final discussion topic centered around investing frameworks. Simon shares how he structures his portfolio to hedge against a multitude of outcomes. We finish by discussing the proper frameworks to build and maintain wealth. Please enjoy my conversation with Simon Dixon. -- This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co

How often do we hear something and then say, “that simply can't be”. Why are we always so certain? Why do we tend to be so locked into a position that we close our minds to exploring alternatives? Meet our podcast guest David Zimbeck. David grew up with an incredible imagination, a thirst for knowledge and the drive to learn. He is mostly a self-taught person whose desire to learn, think and grow are unstoppable. Among other things, he has been a major force in software developments that help shape our emerging crypto currency world. However, David goes much further than software development. Listen to this episode to learn all about this fascinating man. What David has to say is well worth your time and may cause you to open your own curious mind and mindset. Thanks for listening and I hope you will let me know your thoughts about our episode and the Unstoppable Mindset podcast by emailing me at michaelhi@accessibe.com.   About the Guest:  David Zimbeck, our lead developer, is unlike most people you will ever meet. His resilient work ethic, diverse project experience, and deep knowledge of cryptography has led to the creation of BitHalo, the world's first unbreakable smart contracting system. These decentralized contracts are the fundamental backbone of BitBay. Born in Ohio and having lived all over the world, he has acquired the vast perspective needed to create truly disruptive software. David is completely self-taught, and intimately knows a hard-day's work. He developed BitHalo's first 50,000 lines of Python code single-handedly from scratch... all while working long, grueling shifts on the oil rigs of North Dakota. It was here that he executed his idea of double deposit escrow, bringing unbreakable peer-to-peer contracts into real-life agreements. As a former world chess master, he also possesses a truly analytical mind. David has a keen understanding of cause and effect, and sees the importance of early decisions in any situation. This mentality, in addition to his innate honesty, perseverance, and self-discipline has driven him to position BitBay well beyond most other blockchain projects in terms of both development and security. “Chess has helped me visualize code. It has helped me plan, memorize and problem solve. It has helped me anticipate problems well in advance.” David now resides in Mexico, and continues to work round-the-clock to help keep BitBay on the forefront of blockchain development. About the Host:  Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/  https://twitter.com/mhingson  https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson  https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links  https://accessibe.com/  https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe  https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!  Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast  If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review  Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson  01:21 Well, Hi, and welcome to another edition of unstoppable mindset, the podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet, How's that for an opening? I want to thank you for joining us today, wherever you are, hope you're having a good day and hope that we can add a little bit to your your life and give you some things to think about today. And we have a person as our guest today, Davidson Beck, who has given me a lot to think about, and I hope that he will contribute to your thought processes as well. David, welcome to unstoppable mindset. David Zimbeck  01:56 Thank you. Thank you, sir. pleasure, sir. Honor, honor Me and on here and nice meeting you and everything. Looking forward to it? Well, let's start like I tend to do a lot. Michael Hingson  02:08 You You obviously grew up tell me a little bit about you as a as a as a child, and kind of what what you had going on growing up and where that led to, because it's you, you have quite a an interesting life. And you've done some very remarkable things. And let's talk about it. So just kind of wondering, what was it like being a kid for you? And where did it go? David Zimbeck  02:32 Well, I'm actually I've had a, I guess, cuz I know, we talked earlier, and I've had a pretty diverse background. So people kind of get surprised when they see that I've done various various things with moderate moderate levels of success. And, and mostly, you know, I was always encouraged to be creative growing up. So you know, my parents never really, you know, inhibited me I'd gone to different schools, public, private schools, as well as homeschooling, I was a little disobedient. So I didn't really, I can't say I was like, the model student or anything. But it's possible that that worked in my advantage, because what it also taught me was to think outside the box, you know, and to try to understand exactly what it is that we're being taught and why. And, you know, I also had a drive ever since I was younger, to make the world a better place that was even, even since I was like, 10 years old. And my attitude was just, well, nobody's else do it, nobody else is doing it, somebody's gonna gotta clean all this shit up. So you know, I just decided, I just decided that I would try to do it. And so that that's also something kind of kept me somewhat diverse in my careers. But at the same time, whenever I do something, I like to benchmark myself and do a really good job at it. So So with that, with that in mind, you know, I when I was in, when I when I left high school, I went straight into working, because I didn't want to waste any time. And I worked in the real estate sector as well as acting. And that was like my early. My early work. Oh, yeah. And I was also a chess player. So that was one thing that probably really helped me a lot as a kid because I was considered. Well, I was I was one of the top chess players, or at least one of the top chess puzzle makers in the world. So what I did was I first learned how to play chess when I was like 11, or 12. And then after that, I knew I didn't want to play too competitively. Even though I had gotten my master title and master rank. And I could have played competitively, but I preferred the idea to express my, my work as an art form. So because an art form kind of is a lasting thing, if you paint a picture, you know, and you put it on the wall, it's a lasting thing, but if you're competing all the time, they always say you're only as good as your last when, you know, and I didn't want to be like a dog chasing my tail like chasing my own ego. Yeah. So essentially, I just wanted to benchmark my myself, which I did, and I did I did really good work. And that's what he did as a teenager. And then as I got older, that helped me, and a lot of my work because I was able to apply it to things. And I know, I know, you'll be able to appreciate this because it helps you visualize things. So I was able to visualize things in my head, you know, because when you're playing a game of chess, you're seeing it on the board, and you're essentially moving, you're moving the pieces with your mind, before you even place your hand on a piece, you have to figure out where they're gonna go, and what the possible things could happen in the future. So you calculate all that in your head. So it's, it's very similar to what you do. And it's almost kind of like, once you crack open your mind, you know, it's it never ends. So. So yeah, actually, I gotten Michael Hingson  05:39 sorry, go ahead. You tell me how to how do you get the ranking of chess master? How does that work? I mean, I understand it, but how do you get that. David Zimbeck  05:50 So what happens is you just play, you just play enough. I mean, when you play in tournaments, or whatever, you end up playing against other players. And if you win, you gain points on your rating. And if you lose, you know, you lose points on your rating. So once you get a rating of over a certain numbers, and while in America, we have like, unfortunately, we have a different rating system. So we're like one of the only countries that does that. There's two, there's basically the US C, F and D Day. So for the United States Chess Federation, I'm like, maybe 23 2400, somewhere around there. So that's, you know, that's my, my rating. And so that's well, that's well above Master, I could have gotten Grandmaster international master titles, but for that I would have had to travel because there's more because they play under the system of the day. So so to get that, you know, I would have had to actually go to Europe, which actually I did for a little while, but I wasn't as focused on chess when I went there. Michael Hingson  06:43 Yeah, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. So David Zimbeck  06:45 no, no, it's it's a good question. Because a lot of people think it's not like something you can just pull out of a hat and say, oh, yeah, I'm a master at this. No, you actually have to earn it. And Michael Hingson  06:57 I figured that was the case. But I was always just sort of curious as to how the ranking actually was achieved. And, and clearly, you did a lot of it. And then as you as you pointed out, you have to really use your mind because it's chess is really only as an end result on the board. David Zimbeck  07:14 Well, there's something else too, which is, unlike other game, like, if you look at games like poker, or other games, which granted do do have a good amount of skill involved. It's there's also a great deal of luck. Whereas chess, there's no luck at all whatsoever. You know, you play a game of cards, you know, you need to get good cards, you play game of Scrabble, you need to get good tiles, you play a game of chess, you just need to make good moves. And you don't even play the opponent, you play the board. Because the better you move is on the board. There's nothing your opponent can do. So it's really a game of pure skill. I mean, even even you could even argue, argue some sports that Well, I'd say sports are almost pure skill pretty much for the most part, but there's still a little luck involved with you know, you could miss a shot a breeze, a breeze in the wind could knock your golf ball off course, you know, you know, something can happen. But in chess, there's, there's, there's no forces of nature that would interfere with with your performance. So so that's that's what makes it a good game to learn, especially, you know, for kids. But, but yeah, that there was that. And then when I was in, I travelled a little bit. And I was in Los Angeles, actually, with my sister who was pursuing acting, which wasn't really my interest or at at the time, but since I had my family all had like a theater background, I was I was pretty much familiar with with it. And she helped me get like an agent and stuff like that. So actually, I was doing pretty good with that, too. And I was booking like commercials. And in some movies, I booked Pirates of the Caribbean too, which is what I'm the most known for. Where they flew me out to Bahamas and you know, I was on a boat with Johnny Depp and Keira Knightley. And so. So yeah, I mean, I guess it's, I mean, I happen to work in that as well. I was. Michael Hingson  08:58 Actually you're one of the pirates. Did you have a speaking part? David Zimbeck  09:02 Um, no, but it was probably because of my audition, because when when we did the audition, it was a little bit of improv. And so all the pirates who auditioned were older, that was one of the biggest auditions in LA. Or, I think that at the time, because there's maybe like, 10,000 people that went out for it. And they only picked like, 20 of us, you know, so when when we auditioned, there was all these older gentlemen who were, you know, look like pirates. And I'm probably 30 years younger than anybody auditioning. So I said, oh, there's no way I'm gonna get this. And so, I just, I just didn't take it seriously, you know, but I did. I did a little bit, you know, I mean, I walked but I was when I went for the audition. I was like, you know, yar, I'm a pirate already barred Do you have a pretty doctor and I just kind of was just having fun. And I guess that they responded to that exuberance and thought it was funny. And and that's what got me the role actually, interestingly enough for other catalysts. No, unfortunately, There is a possibility I might have ended up having a speaking role thrown at me. It happened to a couple of the core pirates. But what happened is there was a hurricane that hit we were in Freeport, Bahamas. So there was a hurricane that hit. I think it was Hurricane Wilma at the time. And we ended up getting called home and flown home charters. So we only got about like, I would say, like a month, then change maybe out in the Bahamas before you're flown home. But it was still it was still an amazing experience. Unfortunately, I got I got snow from the credits. I don't know if it was because of that. Or because we never properly manage our contract or whatever. But that's okay. That's that's part of life. It was still a great experience. And and and yeah, I mean, it was it was really fun. So yeah, I mean, I think that those things definitely helped give me some some experience out in the field of succeeding and various different professions. But like I said, because my focus was on making, making the world a better place. I never, I never quite could, I guess you could say put like my full passion or, or my heart and into some of those ordeals actually, was one of the reasons I left chess behind as well, which eventually will get to, you know, where I were actually ended up making a name for myself, which was in Bitcoin. But that didn't that didn't come till later. I mean, I'd still work some odd jobs, I'd worked on the oil rigs for a while. And I was doing about like, 100 hour week, you know, it was just crazy. We'd sleep like four hours a night and stuff like that. And and then after that is when I got involved in in Bitcoin, but I'll turn the floor over to you for a moment that you Michael Hingson  11:36 know, that's that's, that's fine, actually. Well, even blackjack Sparrow had ethics. So just Just saying. David Zimbeck  11:46 Oh, pirates do. Yeah, they go by a different code. It's yeah. Well, I've always seen it as the the most important code of ethics to go by as a moral compass, you know, as if you have if you have a true moral compass, and one that's objective, because nowadays, our modern society is a little bit there. They believe the morals are relativistic. Well, if I believe it's okay. It's okay. But that's just not how that's not how the world works. It's not how things truly are because nothing is truly subjective. When you really boil it down to like the truth. The truth is, in fact, objective, it doesn't really matter. If 100% of the society agrees that, you know, killing people is a good thing. If they agree on it doesn't make it a good thing. It's still it's still more moral, morally reprehensible. So I think that the key the key is having a good moral compass. And then from there, and I don't know, maybe, maybe I just always had it. Maybe my parents just just raised me. Well, I don't I don't I don't really know. I mean, I mean, I feel like a lot of it, I kind of carved out on my own, because I saw so many things that bothered me. And I just said, I don't you know, I don't want a world like that would make the world a better somehow. Well, Michael Hingson  13:01 well, here's a question out of curiosity, when you, when you live your life, do you like at night or at some time during the day you you've done things and so on? Do you go back and do self analysis? Did I do that the best I can? What could I have improved on that? Was that a mistake? Do you do you do much analysis of what you do and think about that? David Zimbeck  13:21 Yeah, constantly actually, one of the one I think one of the most important qualities a person can have is introspection. You know, very few people look inside and right. One of the most, one of the most critical things for me is I sit there and I say to myself, actually, to be honest, I don't know how some people can even manage their own lives when they if they've done awful things to others in their life. It's like, how can you wake up in the morning and look in front of the mirror and be really proud, you know, of that person? You know, it's like, it just doesn't make any sense. To me. It's like as if they have no sense of self, you know, and I don't know how that works. I don't know, maybe they're proud of what they do. I have no idea. But to me, it just seems like if you're introspective and you really look inside yourself, you're gonna start caring a lot about, you know, your soul and, and how, you know, how pure how pure and innocent how you can maintain your own innocence and stuff like that. I would think that those things would be very important. Michael Hingson  14:20 That gets back to the moral compass concept again, of course. David Zimbeck  14:24 Yeah, exactly. So I do I do believe that. And you know, introspection also has has to do with casting away pride. Like if, if you make a mistake, you have to be completely honest. With your with yourself about about your mistake. Actually, again, the thing about chess is like, if you're playing chess, you know, it's ironic, you would think that strong players would have an ego, but actually they don't. Some some do. Okay, yeah, some, some are pretty bad. But for the most part to get to a certain point, you have to kind of humiliate yourself quite a lot because you're going to lose a lot, you know, or you're going to sacrifice a lot. You're going to sacrifice a lot of time, you're going to change your ideas about what you think is strong and what you think is weak, there's going to be a great deal of humility that's going to be introduced to you. And if it hasn't been introduced to you, then clearly you're not working hard enough, you know, because once you get to the higher levels, you're going to start realizing all the fantastic and beautiful possible things that could happen. And then even then, and that's only applying to chess, which is like, an eight by eight little board. I mean, imagine life, which is like, you know, it's infinitely times, well, not infinite, it's almost, it's almost endlessly more complicated. And while you could argue a person's potential is literally limitless. I mean, there's nothing. There's nothing really that we can't, that we can't do. But it's it can tends to be like, pride, which would get in the way. So one of the obvious advantages of being introspective, is, is not being afraid of admitting a mistake, not being afraid of, you know, having, you know, being a little upset with yourself over something, but But of course, working towards making yourself better. You know what I mean? Yeah, and I Michael Hingson  16:09 do, one of the things about one of the things about chess is, of course, that, in one sense, it's very unforgiving, you play, and if you make a mistake, you very well could lose. But the other side of that is, and that's why in part, I asked the question about introspection, you can then go back and look at it and say, Why, why did I lose? Or what was the mistake? Or why did I make that mistake? And what can I learn from that for the next time, and I think that's a really good subset of life. And it's something that I advocate, we've talked about it on this podcast before. And something that I think is extremely relevant is that it's important for us to look at what we do, it works better if we do it from the standpoint of a moral compass. But it is important for us individually to go back and look at what we do and what do we know? And how can we best use our knowledge? And where do we go from here? David Zimbeck  17:09 It basically like it'll, it'll help you get better get along better with other people as well, you know what I mean? Because if you're if you're introspective, you know, and somebody points something out to you, you're not really going to be afraid of criticism. And sometimes I have, I have, you know, issues with with friends, if, you know, if they have a hard time accepting criticism, which usually happens when they carry a lot of guilt, by the way, yeah, you know, maybe they've come back for more, they're just traumatized. And, you know, maybe they can even take the slightest shred of critique. And you can almost see it unfolding. It's, it's not that it's personal. It's not like that they're upset with you. It's that they can't take more responsibility, because they've had a hard time accepting the responsibility they've already had to take, you know what I mean? Which is all the more reason why you shouldn't give yourself any, any any, right? Oh, absolutely. Dragging that baggage around. And Michael Hingson  17:58 I agree. And, you know, personally, I believe I'm my own worst critic. And I want to be because I should be able to analyze and look at things, but at the same time, I never mind input from other people. Because if I have such an ego, that I can't listen to what other people say that I don't ever really connect with them. Whereas if somebody is willing to be strong enough to say to me something about what I do a podcast or whatever, and for me to then look at it and decide whether I agree with that or not, then I have a real problem with me. David Zimbeck  18:45 Yeah, totally makes perfect sense. Michael Hingson  18:48 So how did you go into programming and so on? You You obviously did that. And of course, chess certainly gives you a mindset for that. But how did you then go into the whole world of programming and doing software stuff? David Zimbeck  19:04 So so the thing is, is that I learned when I was a little kid, I think my uncle taught me to make like mazes or something in queue basic, and I was like, maybe 1011 years old, but that's about as far as my programming experience had, you know, I was just, you know, just just playing around mostly. And I remember making some cool stuff. But for the most part, you know, I didn't really do much I know in high school I did. I learned C and I think C Plus Plus you know, nothing serious. It wasn't until later when I was working on the on the oil rigs and then I had some downtime actually switched jobs and was doing easements. And then I I've always I was always good with computers because I was around computers because I was doing things like editing and web design because I did some commercial production for a while and stuff like that. So I saw I was familiar with, you know, very familiar with computers. Plus I did a lot Got a research. So from that, you know, I worked with them. And so I automated my job when I was there doing the easements. And because we were having the type of hundreds of legal contracts, which all essentially look the same. So after I audit, after I automated my job, I was able to do like a job, which maybe it would have taken weeks, and I did it in a matter of a day or two, and actually got fired for it for working too efficiently. And and then it was at that exact time where I'd already known about Bitcoin since it started, essentially, around maybe 2011. Yeah, I think it was when I knew about it, maybe like a year after so. And so I always knew about it. And I known about some of the stuff on on on the on the deep web, because I knew that, you know, it was it was interesting, because it was on Deep Web that weren't on the main web. But for the most part, it took me a while to actually have it click, because then when I'd first known about it, I didn't think of it as an investment vehicle, I just thought of it as, like a very cool kind of decentralized banking system. But I always I never really saw how it would gain the traction or the so when it when I saw it later, when I was out in North Dakota, it like it had clicked, I was like, oh my god, I can't believe it, this thing that used to be worth worth, nothing is now actually quite quite valuable at the time, it was maybe 100 bucks or something like that. But you know, it's pretty good. And so I said, Well, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna miss out on any further. And I'd made an investment. And I remember making an investment in Litecoin, or something, and I turned like $1,000 into like, $50,000 within, I don't know, a week or two is crazy. So I was and then I held on to it a little too long. And then some of that, like went back down. But I started to learn, you know, and I started to get involved in in altcoins. And in them just, you know, for fun. And but it wasn't, it wasn't my primary motive to see it is more just like an investment vehicle, which maybe I should have, because I would probably would have made a lot more money. But I was also kind of interested in what you could do with that coin. See, because the thing was is you understand the concepts of it, you kind of understand that? Well, first of all, it's decentralized, because there's many, many different people who have a copy of the ledger, kind of like if everybody has a copy of the same movie, you know, you can't change a line in the movie without everybody disagreeing. Yeah, oh, hey, that's not what he really said. So if everybody has a copy of the Bank Ledger, it's basically immune to fraud, which is Mungus ly important. And furthermore, it makes it so that nobody can just take money out of thin air and produce it, which is way more than we can say, for the Federal Reserve, because they're just printing money like crazy at their own will. So having something that's kind of like ownerless, that's immune to fraud, and can theoretically replace modern banking is and is safe, and that nobody can freeze your account is awesome. That's, that's amazing. But at the same time, I knew that politically, the government's are always going to be able to kind of plant in the eye, people's minds, beliefs and ideas and quite possibly subvert such a thing. So I wasn't completely convinced that Bitcoin is going to, you know, save the world or make it that much, it'll make it better. But just like the internet, which has allowed us to communicate, it's allowed allowing us to have this call, the internet can also be used as a tool for, for bad, you know, because nowadays, the internet's use for censorship and it's used for, there's so much censorship of information if the information that you're getting from the internet is incorrect. And also, if it makes if they make it very hard to find the correct information, then you can kind of fall into this trap of dogma. And it becomes like a whole brand new religion all over again. So that the pitfalls of technology, including including Bitcoin, by the way, of course, Michael Hingson  23:48 we have a situation right now, for example, where we've got Ukraine going on, and Russia has denied people access to Facebook, and essentially most of the tools of the internet. And so they're subverting fair free flow and relevant information, which is, David Zimbeck  24:08 you know, always a problem. Well, but actually, I would say that Facebook is not a free flow of information. And I would say that neither Michael Hingson  24:17 No, and I just use that as an example. But I'm thinking more of just David Zimbeck  24:21 I know what you mean. I know what you mean, though, but essentially, essentially, what a lot of people don't actually know is that Google controls about something like 90 some percent of all of the internet searches through through like mobile, and then fact that there's only two search engines. I know we're segwaying a little bit but I will get back into what really got me into programming. But this is kind of an important segue to give some context. Essentially, that yeah, they control all the information so so there's only two search engines. A lot of people don't realize this. There's just Google and Bing which is just Microsoft, all your other search engines like DuckDuckGo or Whatever they actually pull from DuckDuckGo, I think pulls from Bing start page. I'm not sure I think Yahoo and Yahoo and start page probably pull from Bing. And so, so a lot of a lot of these search engines actually, they're they're not actually indexing anything, okay? They're just utilizing the results from the other search engines, and which is just all Google, Google and Microsoft, which means that, essentially, a couple companies have control over all the information, and they do censor a lot. And they censor very aggressively and they censor for political reasons all the time. And it's outrageous. It's so bad, like these companies, the world would be better off. They were just shut down, honestly. So in that in that case, yeah. I understand why Russia did that. But they're no better. Okay. Russia has their own search engine, which is Yandex. Okay. And I think China has Baidu. And there might be there's one other there's Gigablast, which is a tiny little company that's been indexing the internet for a long time. And they're one of the very few independent ones. There's a decentralized crawler as well called PAC, but not enough people use it to give it to give it the information that it needs. And then there's the dark web, but they have all their indexes are just private lists of sites. So there's no, there's no way of easily navigating that at all. So yeah, there's there's very little access to free information. Like it was back in the day when Google was uncensored, because when it was uncensored, you could just find everything, which I would argue is a bad thing, because you can find things that are bad. But no, it's more important to for it to be uncensored, because that's exactly why the freedom of speech was protected by the First Amendment. Right. And in fact, even Kennedy, right before he got killed, I think is less less speech that had something to do with that. And that's exactly what he said, he says, This is why the freedom of speech is protected by the First Amendment because if you have censorship of the news, by organizations, then you you essentially lose all access to, to knowledge, you know, which is horrible. And so what we have is a modern day burning down of the Library of Alexandria, essentially, because we, you know, we have companies that are controlling the information and completely destroying it. So with that said, and, you know, I mean, when it comes to situations like Ukraine, and United States and Russia and all that stuff, I have to under you have to understand that these are just large, powerful people who target citizens, whether or not it's United States, the United States started wars for no reason. Okay. Like, and they never got sanctioned. You know, NATO joined in on the war. And in fact, I think, even certain countries like France actually had had sanctions against them for not going to war. What a joke is that in then, so you have, you have these countries that essentially have a carte blanche to like, bomb, whoever they feel like. And then when Russia starts doing it, they turn around and they have this international condemnation, which is fine. I mean, Russia shouldn't be going to war that much. I totally, totally agree, I think was disgusting. But, but at the same time, it just strikes me slightly hypocritical, because United States is engaged in so many wars, I think, I don't even think people have an accurate count of how many countries even bombed at this point. So so I don't know what why isn't everybody sanctioning and boycotting American products, and they should really based on their based on their track record. But it's true across all politicians, essentially, the victims of war are always citizens. They're not pilots. They're not, you know, they're not other politicians. They're not heads of the military. Those people stay happily in their multimillion dollar mansions, while other people go and fight their battles, which is essentially how it's always been. And it's sad, you know, but people should learn to lay down their guns, all of them that every single military member, every single cop, they should do, they should just cut the shit and stop taking orders from from tyrants. But since since we can't guarantee that that'll happen, that's why we've tried to strike at the root of things. So one of the things that I've always identified as the root of the problem is deception. And that's this is what got me excited about Bitcoin, specifically. Okay, so when I realized that because Bitcoin is electronic, an electronic account, which you can do pretty much anything with, unlike a bank, would they have their own rules? I was like, Oh, wow, with Bitcoin, you know, you could make a joint account. And with that, you can make a contract which can't be broken. So what I realized is, is that both parties essentially, make a promise. Like, I promise you, I'm going to do something because these pay you for goods or services, you promised you're going to deliver the goods or services. What happens if both of us put our money in a joint account, and we time that joint account to blow itself up? Nice. That might sound crazy, like why would you blow up money, but it's the equivalent of mean you putting our money in a safe locking the safe I have a key and you have a key and in order to get in? We have to unlock it at the same time. Okay. And then we strap you know, dynamite to it. We walk away and we say okay, we'll be back in a week. You do your part, I do mine and you do your part I pay you. And if either of us are dissatisfied with the deal, we both lose. But I said oh my god, this is the first time in history we've ever had a chance to make a deal an agreement They can be enforced without law. And that was astonishing to me. I was like, oh my, this is so important because now there's a non violent resolution to a contract, you see them saying, All modern contracts are essentially resolved violently. And what I mean by that is, behind every law, whether or not it be a parking ticket, or a walking doesn't matter, or whatever, it's actually enforced violently. Because if you don't pay that ticket, well, maybe they'll put a lien on something, or whatever. And then that lien leads to, if you don't get off your property, then they will actually attempt to take it by force. And if you don't accept the fact that they're going to take it by force, they will shoot you. It's the same thing. If you're, if you're caught, you know, not stopping at a stop sign cop pulls you over, you can't just drive away, okay, because he'll shoot you, you know, so, so actually, all laws are enforced through violence. And we need to be in a society that doesn't enforce law through violence. So essentially, this was a way to have it enforced by the money itself, which allows two people to barter and most importantly, that it's not enforced by an escrow agent. Because most deals in society are enforced by escrow agents, for example, judges lawyers, or just you know, real estate escrow agent doesn't matter, essentially, what they call a non a non biased third party, but there's no such there's literally no such thing. Non biased. Third party doesn't exist, unless it's the heavens or something. Okay, like humans don't have. Most humans do not have the moral capacity to properly judge a situation. And this is seen by our our legal system, which is completely corrupt and wicked, okay, like we see people getting thrown into jail without any evidence whatsoever for things that shouldn't even be crimes, victimless crimes. And it's, it's sad, it's, it's awful. It's the worst thing. So So essentially, the point is, and I guess I give another analogy for this, if you had, if you are accused of something you didn't do, okay, let's say you're accused of murder, but she didn't do it. Okay. Would you trust 100? Judges? Would you trust 1000? How big does the jury have to be? Would you trust a jury of 10? When you trust a jury of 20? If you presented your evidence? Probably the answer would be no. Because why would you trust somebody else? If they weren't there? You know, what, if you were framed? What if the evidence actually doesn't look good for you? But it's actually false? You know, so? Or what if the juries just a bunch of fools? I mean, why would you? Why would you put your fate in the hands of others, especially when the common person that they put on on a jury typically is supposed to be uneducated of the law, actually, and they'll handpick them to be so. So, you know, it's, it's outrageous. And I found the solution, essentially, to a big, big problem in society that had never been proposed before. So that's what caused me to develop bit Halo, which is what I am known for. And probably one of the main reasons people would recognize me on this podcast. Essentially, that was the first contracting platform ever made for Bitcoin. So to answer your question, I got involved into programming because of that. And from there I was. From there, I was all self taught. So from when I was in North Dakota, it took me about, I was very motivated, because I was already doing long hours. So I did about, I would say, the same thing was working almost 100 hour weeks, I was probably working 16 to 18 hours a day, I'd roll out of bed, I try to figure out how to code because I really didn't know how to code well enough yet. So I had to go learn Python. And instead of doing any practice programs, I just went straight and tried to make this program, you know, so at the same time as learning Python, I had to learn cryptography, I had to learn Bitcoin, I had to learn how to work with the transactions, and Bitcoins, very much like old school accounting, working with dollars, it's not like you just add 10 to your account, and then magically, you get 10. Bitcoins not like that, you got to work with each transaction as if it was, you know, digital cash, and work with digital signatures and stuff like that. So it was a lot, it was a lot of learning. And I had to figure out how to do that all on my own, and there wasn't much support material at the time, because the early days of Bitcoin. So that was about maybe 2013. So there wasn't that many resources online and just with enough effort, you know, after about three, four months actually banged up the whole prototype myself. Interestingly enough, the reason why I actually had to do the coding myself and I couldn't pay anybody but aside from the fact that would be expensive. Was I always found to have trouble with outsourcers, specifically programmers. I mean, they they pad their hours, they they lag on their schedules, you know, the you have to kind of trust them almost blindly. I mean, if you think it's hard to find a good mechanic, or a good or a good doctor, good luck finding a good programmer, it's even worse. Okay. So so so to find really good and skilled people for that that'll work, especially within your you know, budget was impossible and that's why My mom told me she said I was asking about I said, I don't know who I could find for this. She says, Well, why don't you just do it yourself? And I sat there and I thought about it. And I said, Okay. Interestingly enough, when I did the work, I was actually in North Dakota, negative 50. Below, you know, with the windchill, I was living in a trailer at the time to save money. And so imagine I'm living in a trailer in that in that weather. And I didn't just pick up and go, I had like, maybe nine space heaters, I had one space heater for my waterline because I didn't park right over it, which was a mistake. And then I had three under the skirting, I had three inside I had and I had one small space heater to keep the ammonia on my fridge from freezing, which I didn't even know that was a thing, which was hilarious, because that actually happened like my fridge froze. But that can happen because they put those on the outside of the trailer. So I actually needed a tiny little space heater for that. And and that's in addition to propane. Now granted, I was living quite comfortably with all that, but I just siphon the electricity off of the lot next to me, luckily, they were giving they were comping us on electricity, which they stopped doing later. But yeah, so I mean, it was brutal. And I had to do all that work was actually so hard, that end up losing some weight, and I had neglected my health. And I realized, oh, I have to I have to, I have to nurse myself back to health. And so I I called my parents and went out and visited them. And I said, Hey, you know, you got to cook for me for like a month and, and I just did whatever I had to put weight on at that point. I just grabbed some ensure whatever and had a bunch of Michael Hingson  36:33 them. So put on my way. So one of the things that comes one of the things that comes to mind is what motivated you to do so much self teaching of yourself. What? What was that that instilled that in you? Because clearly, you're a very curious person. I think you've alluded to some of it, but you're a very curious person. And you are not at all afraid to teach yourself and try things. How did you really get that way? Exactly? Was that from the chess? Or where is that from? David Zimbeck  37:01 Um, yes, it's a good question. I guess it was it. I mean, some of that has to obviously come directly from somebody's soul. They just have to be somebody who, who seeks, you know, who seeks who seeks knowledge who seeks who seeks truth, obviously, that's part of it, then the second part is going to be like, when you seek truth, you're going to question some of the things that you're taught, like, if the school is telling you something, you don't necessarily want to accept it blindly. You know, a student, a student would be in a class, I really can't stand how modern schools are run, for example, kids will just sit in a chair for eight hours a day listening to his teacher just literally lecture to them. And they essentially accept everything at face value, including including the sciences, which is a huge mistake. Because technically, science, the root of science is actually in replication. See, science isn't supposed to be a dictate or a mandate. Science isn't support. We're currently living under a scientific dictatorship, actually, it's totally autocratic and bad. It's no better than that, you know, people are always getting angry about old religious fanaticism when when we lived under religious fanatics, but actually, ironically, Science, Science, Science can become a fanatical cult as well, because especially because people don't actually check it. So we are under this illusion that people check all of our science properly. And in my research, because I wanted to make the world better, I ended up realizing that a lot of that's actually not the case. Most of our sciences is is horribly flawed, in fact, kind of crazy, to be honest. When people believe in you know, relativity, which is essentially time travel, they believe in you no matter bending space, how do you bend space? It's like nothing, there's nothing there. How do you bend it? So I mean, there's people don't even ask, like, fundamental questions. And so when I started to do that I started ended up really cherishing the ability to do research. And, and that's kind of how I got in, I got involved into self teaching, which is I realized, that was actually old adages to this even, even in, you know, for example, in the Bible, they'll say, you know, Prove all things, but it wasn't all it was on all the religions, people understood that in order to properly understand a concept, you have to be able to repeat it. And science is not really effective, unless I can sit down with tools, you know, and check the information, you know what I mean? So, so I think when you have that amount of rigor in your approach to anything, anything, let it be business, you know, of course, a scientific field, could even be programming. Essentially, you have to learn to do it yourself. And if you don't learn to do it yourself, you're gonna rely on somebody else to do it for you. And that's even more dangerous in programming where you're working with other people's money. Like, do I really want to be responsible for other people losing money because somebody that I hired didn't do the job properly? I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's a nightmare. If I don't have the ability to audit my own code, then it's good for nothing. I mean, how How am I gonna be able to put so much of other people's money on the line when you're dealing with financial systems? And that's a huge difference from when you're working in Bitcoin versus any other field. Because, yeah, granted, you're working in another field, like you're, you're flipping burgers, you screw up, okay, nobody's life's on the line, okay, you just, you know, you fix it and you move on. But that's not the case with financial systems with financial systems, if you screw up, you could be looking at people losing millions, if not hundreds of millions, in fact, billions, which has happened many times in the Bitcoin industry, because of absolute negligence, has to do with lack of auditing, lack of self teaching, lack of rigor, lack of discipline to a field, which is actually scientific, people don't see the cryptography industry as a scientific field, because they assume that programs just work, they just assume apps just work you get in the car, and it just goes, but that's not the case, the amount of work that goes into making the cargo that making the app work, in fact, is that requires quite a bit of ingenuity. And there's no end to which a person can self teach, which also would bring us back to humility. Because if you, if you want to be able to actually excel in anything, you have to you have to have that because a lot of the times you're gonna have to take all the notions that you have, tear them down, throw them out, and try to replace them with something better, regardless of what the modern dogma is, you could like I said, you could have the whole world believing things one way, but it but if they don't properly question it, that's their problem. And if one person comes in and starts to question it, true, they might not get the media attention, they might not get the traction, but they still might be right. And that's the thing. Truth is objective, thank God, because Because Because of that, we have the ability to check for ourselves. And so self teaching is absolutely critical. And I think that if anything was to be taught in schools, that should be the first thing, which is teaching children how to research, teaching them how to question teaching them how to be skeptics, and, and, you know, teaching, of course, I think some some some strong spiritual concepts about about how to how to truly care about truth and how to pursue it. Michael Hingson  41:59 So that gets back to something that we have a couple of things that you talked about in comments that you made that I want to want to go back to one, let's talk about science a little bit, you're right, about being able to replicate. So Einstein created the theory of relativity, general and, and specific relativity. But again, I think that with people like him with people who've created scientific theories, they're trying to create explanations for what they see. And they have created theories that explain observations that they've seen, you said, relativity is about time travel well, relativity is more about the speed of light, if it is a constant, which the theory currently says that it is. But it's also about what information you get as you are traveling less than the speed of light, and what happens to you when you travel faster than the speed of light. We also know physicists also will tell you that the expectation is at some time, there will be a theory that will come along that will explain more of what we understand today. It's like classical mechanics moved into quantum mechanics and relativity, which will go into something else. But I think that people are trying to find explanations for the observations that they make. Well, and unfortunately, some of it they can't replicate, you know, because they can only see what they can see. But anyway, go ahead. Well, so. David Zimbeck  43:33 So yeah, this is, if you don't know, I mean, this is a real can of worms. It is a subject and it may be outside of the scope of this podcast, but I'd be happy, I'd be happy to talk about it. Essentially, it's amazing how many assumptions are made in terms of of our scientific rigor in regards to these fields are purely theoretical. Relatively, relativity is not, relativity is not a proven concept at all. Neither is quantum mechanics. They're they're very theoretical. And in fact, I would argue that there are three even potentially lies even malicious ones. And I can explain a little bit as to why. So first of all, quantum mechanics was developed in response to things like the double slit experiment, which essentially debunked the idea of, for example, the electron molecule, because previous beliefs about physics, especially with chemistry, was to consider that like things like light was actually the behavior of a gas or a fluid, which they called the ether. So they felt that how do you have a wave without resistance, you know, you can't you can't have a wave without resistance waves happen because there's, there's there's pressure and pressures trying to equalize. Essentially, if you have a glass of water, you stir it, you get a wave, but how do you have a wave or an oscillating wave of light without it moving through any medium and they constantly abstract these things and they create these Really bizarre abstractions of the mind as if, as if light and gravity are just all in this other world that doesn't exist in our main physical world, but I hate to break it to them. stuff is stuff, you can't have energy without it being something, it's got to be something. So there, Michael Hingson  45:15 which is back to the comment, aspect, right, which gets back to the comment that. And I'm appreciate what you say. But which gets back to the whole point of they're, they're not explaining everything yet. And there is there's a lot more that we don't understand. David Zimbeck  45:36 I'm arguing that it actually is explainable. It's very explainable, and it's actually something can be properly physically modeled. And in fact, we had scientists before a current scientists that already had very good models for this. Not Not perfect, but good. For example, okay, so Tesla Heaviside, Maxwell, doesn't matter who you bring up any of these major scientists, pre you know, Einsteinian stuff, they actually all believed in the ether. So they believe that light was the movement of fluid, which would mean that they did not believe in atomic theory. Okay, so the major flaw in atomic theory is not so much with the proton, the model of a proton, which is fine, you know, you could argue protons, a shell that could fill and release fluid or something along these lines. But an electron, you see, the issue was having one electron for each protons. So they essentially say that the atom is essentially empty, it's completely empty space. And then there's just a single electron that that model should have gone, gone away. Tesla couldn't stand it. He thought it was crazy. He thought it was like, what you call it, you know, the emperor has no clothes. You ever heard that story? Yeah, so there. Yeah. So I mean, kind of like the emperor has no clothes. Essentially, there's all these people believing in these strange theories is actually completely complete nonsense. The idea is, is that how could it how can how can an atom be truly empty, you have the movement of matter, okay. And so you have to have the most subtle matter. So essentially, when you have the movement of electrons, you know, that should be cool. You know, atoms shouldn't be empty, they should be mostly full. And that would better describe like, for example, light behaves like a wave, it doesn't behave like a particle, okay? It never did. And in fact, when you had things like the double slit experiment, it proved that light was a wave, unequivocally completely proved that light is a wave, this debate should have been over. But what happened was, and this has to do with introspection, our modern scientists had so much arrogance, that they couldn't admit that perhaps the model of the electric of the electron and the Taunton, atomic theory was wrong. Because they couldn't admit it, they decided to create whatever math they could, it didn't matter if the electron had to travel through time, like Fineman proposed, it didn't matter if the electrons bumping into possible versions of itself and creating wave like patterns through different timelines. I mean, these people are crazy, they'll do anything to justify the theory of the electron to make it seem like a wave without it being a wave. But if you want it to be a wave, I have a better idea. Next, the idea of the electron and just say that the atom is full, it's filled, it's filled with fluid of subtle, subtle, subtle fluids moving in and out of it, it's just the changing of pressure and stuff like that. And you essentially you get, get a much a much better model for for our modern physics than then what we what we used to have, are what we have currently, sorry, I'm saying what we had prior to this was actually a better model. And in fact, if we had applied it, even today to modern computer models, I think we would find it to be much, much better. I think it explained our physics better, I think it explained our chemistry better. And, yeah, and so so essentially, it's just a misunderstanding of the behavior of solids, liquids and gases, and to the dismissal of the fact that they can be much, much more subtle. And, you know, then the hard then the hard matter, like, you know, the protons, new elements and stuff like that. And essentially, underestimating the fact that, you know, that we have we had it, we had a model, we had an answer for it, we believe that these things will wave because they remember the movement of mediums, they were the movement of fluids, you know, that when you see light, you're essentially looking at the movement of a gaseous kind of fluid almost, because when the when the flu is disturbed, just like, you know, the waves in the ocean, you know, a wave pattern is generated, because there's collision, and there's competing for pore space and pressure. And so then when you have collision, then you have, you know, a wave pattern. And when you have a wave pattern, you know, you can interpret it and all this other stuff. So it makes perfect sense. It fits within our physics, but the modern physics actually, they they literally say that, like light will come from nowhere, the electron produces the light, and then it just vanishes like, like, they just make things up the quantum theories, and I don't and I'll probably get some flack for saying all this. But essentially, the quantum theories rely on things like time travel, but you got to also have to look at it like this, like time travel or adding any type of you know, as you're, for example, as your speed increases, you, you approach the speed of light, you know, then all of a sudden time slows down which is which is just a real sad theory, in my opinion, because what it's basically essentially saying As mathematically, it's saying something mathematically, it's saying, If my experiments don't match the results, then I will travel backwards in time, and I will fix them. Essentially, it's, it's the equivalent of wanting to travel back in time and go ahead and fix errors in your in your results. But you see, science is not about taking theories and trying to force everything into your theory. Science is about measurement. And that's it. You look out, you measure, you report, you measure, you report, you don't start inventing ideas about time travel, just because you know, a certain a certain experiment doesn't quite fit quite fit your model, there's always a very logical explanation as to why these things are the way they are. One easy one would just be that light's not a constant. David Zimbeck  50:45 In light isn't really a constant anyway, because the medium in which in which you see light, if it was dependent upon the movement of a gas, or a fluid, in like the ether than in the in the medium in which you would see it, you know, that would make sense that it would change depending on what it passes through. For example, when you have light passing through water, okay, it slows down because there's increased refraction, when you have light passing through a gas, it may be different, actually, light light doesn't factor very in speed quite a bit based on the medium that is passing through, because it's a misunderstanding, when you look at light that they think light is the movement of photons, when actually lights just simply could be just the medium of a of a gaseous kind of, you know, body kind of like the ether, there was a belief that the ether was actually debunked, but actually, that was false, because there's like I think was a, there was a Mickelson Morley experiment. And there was also the segment, Segment experiment, I believe that the one one of them caused a lot more problems for them than the other, because one of them was just looking for ether drag. But the other one was looking for actually, just in general, this the idea that the ether was there, and I think they had more, don't quote me on this, you might have to double check, but I think it was the sag neck experiments caused them as so many problems. So you can see, even when you look it up all the patch work that they had to do. And then of course, they had to invoke relativity, again, I think in order to deal with these problems, because they couldn't they couldn't fit it into their model, because their model is that week. But ironically, the simpler model is, and I'm sorry, I didn't mean to go so far down this, but it's such an interesting topic. Because no, no about it. But But this model essentially is the movement is basically the behavior of fluid dynamics, which is something we already understand. It makes sense. We can apply it, we can model it, we can use it in computers, we don't have to go with all these fantastical quantum mechanics, you know, type theories. And this is just an example of kind of some of the stuff. You Michael Hingson  52:38 know, let me ask you another question that really, let me ask you another question that I'm really curious about, you made the comment earlier. And I think that there's probably some some merit to it that a lot of people don't grow up or are very moral, and we don't have the moralities, and so on that we really ought to have. If I understood your right, my question is, how do we teach that? How do we get people back into a moral or more ethical and a moral compass kind of a track? David Zimbeck  53:09 Well, you know, they always say a good teacher is a good student. Right. And I mean, I think that once one's parents, and schools and institutions, and people start to understand how far they fallen, I think that'll be a very important moment of redemption, because then they'll realize that things are getting out of hand, which they are already. I mean, we can see all over the world, things are really out of hand, and they've been so for a while, but seems that each generation, it seems to get worse. We've mentioned earlier, you know, about laws, you know, I told you were how we have, you know, millions of potentially millions of laws. But that can't possibly be right, because that can't follow a moral compass. How can you expect somebody to be to be beholden to a million laws? You know, how does even a person know what all the laws actually are? In fact, quite frequently, the judge doesn't even know what the law is. The lawyers have to go to school for 10 years or higher, five, 510 years to just figure out what the law is, heck, even my real estate, when I had to study for my real estate license, I had like 10 books, you know, which were super thick, like four or 500 pages each just to teach me the law. I mean, this is this is crazy, in my opinion, because the truth of the matter is, is actually morality is quite simple. And, you know, you know, you don't kill you don't cheat, right? You don't, you don't lie to people. You don't, you don't do so you don't force anybody to do anything. You know, you don't force them to do your do your bidding. I mean, how hard is it? I mean, there's not that I mean, there's not that many things. Interestingly enough, lying is one of the least criminalized laws. What concepts excuse me, it's criminalized when there's financial loss sometimes, but tends to be a slap on the wrist. When you have large scale fraud in the banking system and stuff that costs people billions of dollars, you don't see the heads of case or Goldman Sachs going to jail, they pay a fine and they move on. If you see pharmaceutical companies, knowingly giving people things that are going to kill them, like drugs that should have been recalled or whatever, you don't see them going to jail, they get a slap on the wrist and then move on. And in fact, they lobby for legal immunity. So this just goes to show you how nonsensical the law is and how immoral the law actually is. And actually, I find that each year, the law moves further and further away from morality becoming completely immoral to where morality ends up being. Breaking the law actually, there's there's a there's a thing that says, when freedom is outlawed, when freedom is outlawed, only outlaws will be free. So it's it's interesting to look at it from that perspective. And of course, I'm what I'm arguing is not to do anything bad. Actually, ironically, I'm arguing to do things that are good. But that's the thing, like just because something is legal. In fact, it could mean that it's actually a bad thing. You know, like there's a lot of legalized forms of atrocities, for example, like I told you the immunities that some of the drug companies get for things that for things that they do to people, knowingly, by the way, so, you know, so yeah, so I mean, I think when you look at it from that perspective, personally, I'm a minimalist, I think that the amount of laws that a government society should have should fit on a few sheets of paper, you know, like, if I can read the law in a single evening, then I, it's probably acceptable. But if it takes me 10 years of schooling, to figure out what the law is, then I think there's a big problem with the law. And I think it has a big problem with the way in which children are taught and raised. And I think that they should be taught to understand basically, the root concepts of what morality actually is all about. Michael Hingson

In this episode of Understanding Crypto, Paul Abercrombie and James Burtt discuss practical techniques for incorporating web3 tools, tactics and platforms into real-world businesses. They discuss various ways this can be done; one of the most significant ways is understanding your target market's relationship with cryptocurrency. James comments, “Just think of crypto as a new digital toolbox… [Business owners should find] those tools that would fit your requirement and solve those problems that fit the needs or the wants and desires of your ideal customer base.”   Bringing Cryptocurrencies into the Mainstream The drive by luxury firms to incorporate cryptocurrencies as a payment option heralds the mainstream inclusion of digital currency. This, according to Paul, is a progressive move that might offer a lesson to business owners interested in crypto. He feels that business owners should have a deep grasp of their target demographic's preferred payment methods. "You have to understand your customers," Paul remarks, "because if you look at the brands that are doing this, their customers are well versed, well educated, mainly, and perhaps have cryptocurrency holdings." Both James and Paul believe that crypto can help business owners expand their customer base. [Listen from:1:11]   Business Models  Although luxury brands have the consumer power to make the switch to cryptocurrency payments, the average business owner may not be able to do so because of their clientele. Both James and Paul, however, recommend smaller-scaled solutions that may be incorporated into a typical company model. Paul demonstrates why NFTs and digital assets should be at the heart of membership business models. Creator coins and social tokens can also be used as rewards in community-based frameworks. They both agree that in the actual world, most companies are behind the curve because most of their knowledge comes from conventional media. Nonetheless, James feels that accepting cryptocurrency payments is a start in the right direction. Paul believes that the current gap can be closed through the implementation of crypto payment platforms such as Coinbase, Moonpay and Bitpay, which convert virtual cash to fiat currency. In the middle of the crypto revolution, every business needs a well-balanced mix of digital and real-world mechanisms to flourish. [Listen from 4:46]   Innovative Applications  Through inventive applications, Web3 has the ability to tackle real-world issues. For anyone interested in working in and through the Web3 domain, James sees consultancy as a lucrative path. He feels that the increased interest in cryptocurrency  by luxury brands exposes a void for experienced players to fill. Paul on the other hand feels that identifying Web3 solutions for current challenges might be a critical first step toward innovations in the crypto space. “I see crypto or blockchain as solving the world's biggest problems if the right people get hold of it and develop a solution or platform to solve those problems,” he says. He believes that company owners in the physical and digital worlds should come up with new ways to employ the existing Web3 tools to solve problems in both arenas. He recommends NFTs as a platform for learning and investment, as well as the use of blockchain technology to revolutionise the construction industry. “Biometric machines on site that could talk to the Blockchain that would prove that person was there. It would be on the digital ledger so that payments are quicker,” Paul says.  Innovation would be expensive, but he believes funding could be sourced through DOAs, communities, and other Web3 platforms. [Listen from: 7:09]   Key Takeaways:  In the midst of the crypto revolution, every business needs a well-balanced mix of digital and real-world mechanisms to flourish. Accepting cryptocurrency payments is a start in the right direction. Identifying Web3 solutions for current challenges might be a critical first step toward innovations within the crypto space.   Resources James Burtt on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Clubhouse Paul Abercrombie on Website | Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram  Coinbase Moonpay Bitpay Balenciaga Article Understanding Crypto is the podcast created to help you work out what is happening in the world of Web 3.0 and the impact this digital revolution could make to your brand, business and life. In this show your hosts Paul Abercrombie and James Burtt will be discussing, distilling and massively simplifying subjects such as how blockchain works, what is metaverse real estate all about, what are you actually buying when you purchase an NFT, how do DOA's work, which direction is Bitcoin heading in, how to use a digital wallet, what steps you need to take to onramp from fiat currency into digital assets and lots, lots more. Plus, via specific episodes of the podcast, Paul and James will actually pull back the iron curtain to share what on-chain projects they are involved with and document - in real time - the processes they grow and go through in order to make Web 3.0 as valuable for real-world realtime businesses and brands as possible.

Discover how to invest in Ripple Labs and other exciting fast-growing private companies before they go public. At the 20:00 minute mark, we discuss Dapper Labs, one of the most interesting tech companies with its own blockchain called "Flow". They created CryptoKitties and have agreements with sports teams for NFTs. We also discuss Ripple Labs and Linqto. WANT TO BUY STOCK PRE-IPO? You may be able to invest in companies like Ripple Labs, Dapper Labs, Linqto, Bitpay and Uphold before they go public and sell their stock on stock exchanges. You're buying in early, and hopefully at a lower price than their IPO price, when they debut on the stock market. It is possible to invest in private companies, but to do so you are required by law to qualify as an Accredited Investor (AI) before being able to invest, because there are liquidity restrictions, so it is considered higher risk than publicly traded securities. (After the company goes public, you can sell your shares). To become an AI, you need to have $1 million of assets, beyond your primary residence, OR $200k of income for 2 years as an individual, OR $300k as a couple, OR you can also qualify by having your banker, broker, lawyer or accountant write a letter verifying your net worth, OR if you are a registered Series 7, 65, 82 financial representative. If you meet any ONE of those ways, you qualify as an AI and can invest! The minimum investment size is $10,000 and international investors are welcome. Assets that qualify you as an AI can be real estate (other than your home), a business, retirement plans, cryptocurrency, a rare collection, other valuable assets or a combination of items. In addition, for the month of May 2022, you can get a $250 investment credit toward your first  investment AND if you invest in Ripple Labs you will receive a bonus of $1,000 in XRP toward your first investment AND $500 in XRP toward a non-Ripple investment, but only if you invest before the end of May. For Accredited Investors, sign up to receive a $250 credit from Linqto, click here. It is an exciting way to invest and be an early bird in tomorrow's mega-growth companies! (If you are on YouTube, you will need to go to my website LindaPJones dot com or get a clickable link by cutting and pasting this link into your URL: https://www.linqto.com/signup?r=e9tdhbl49v This is an affiliate link and I am compensated if you make an investment, but there is no additional cost to you.

Las quemaduras de Fitbit afectan a más modelos / España e India investigan posible fraude fiscal tecnológico / Twitter presenta Círculo / Wikimedia retira donaciones criptomonedas / Los nuevos coches de Formula E / Arm recupera en parte Arm China

Elon Musk, Mark Cuban Discuss Using Dogecoin to Solve Twitter Spam ProblemWikimedia Foundation shutters BitPay account halting crypto donations

This week Marty and Matt discuss: - Official US inflation number hits 8.5%, 40 year high - Sri Lanka declares bankruptcy - Eth Dev sentenced to over 5 years in jail for sanctions violation - Strike to bring lightning to merchants - Robinhood enables withdrawals and adds lightning support - Bitpay adds lightning support - Janet Yellen explains bitcoin - CNBC on bitcoin helping refugees with cross border payments - New bitcoin seed tool - New Zoltan piece Shoutout to our sponsors: Unchained Capital Braiins HodlHodl

The CoinMarketRecap podcast with Connor Sephton is live in Miami all week for Bitcoin 2022. Wednesday marked the start of the conference as Industry Day got underway, with Miami's Mayor Francis Suarez unveiling a statue of a bull to kick things off. While there was palpable excitement at the event, there has been a setback: El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele will no longer be in attendance because of "unforeseen circumstances." On today's show, Bitwage joins us to explain how you can get your salary in Bitcoin, and Lolli gives top tips on earning BTC as a reward when shopping. Checkout.com and Bitpay also talk to us about the latest crypto adoption trends, and Molly Jane Zuckerman is here to give us her take on Industry Day. You can find us on Twitter — @ConnorSephton and @CoinMarketCap.

Aaron Schneider, Business Development and Partnerships at Bitpay, discusses ways that crypto can become more useful in order to maintain its relevance into the future. He shares what Bitpay is doing differently to solve this with e-commerce, along with the challenges they're up against in transitioning to crypto as a mainstream form of payment. In this episode we discuss:  Trends in fintech marketing and how to attract millennials and gain production adoption Launching Lamborghini's first-ever NFT collection The benefits for merchants in switching over to crypto as a payment method How "accepting crypto" is a marketing opportunity for brands and examples of how brands like Newegg took advantage Guest Bio:  Aaron Schneider Business Development and Partnerships at Bitpay -  the largest cryptocurrency payments gateway. Aaron has been in the eCommerce, fintech, and payments industry for over 22 years. BitPay is compatible with 95 crypto wallets and 13 cryptocurrencies and enables merchants to accept crypto payments with no volatility risk. BitPay also helps merchants with crypto disbursements/payouts/crypto rewards programs. Aaron is also co-author of the Better Business Book Volume 2. (available on Amazon).  ------------------------------------------------ About this Show: The Brave Marketer podcast is hosted by Donny Dvorin, VP, Head of Sales at Brave Software - the makers of the privacy-respecting browser with a built-in ads platform that rewards users for their attention with the Basic Attention Token. Brave is at the forefront of a new online privacy frontier and has unique insights into the future of marketing and advertising in a cookieless world.  Music by: Ari Dvorin

Major cryptocurrency payment service provider BitPay has added support for the Lightning Network (LN), Bitcoin's (BTC) Layer-2 scalability solution, granting users access to a faster and cheaper method of transacting their BTC. In an announcement shared with CryptoSlate today, BitPay co-founder Tony Gallippi noted: “BitPay's integration with the Lightning Network offers customers more choice and merchants more ways to be paid leveraging blockchain technology.” Lightning, what is it good for? The Lightning Network is a so-called Layer-2 payment and communication protocol built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. The solution allows transactions to be processed off-chain, taking the load off the mainnet and improving the network's scalability. As a result, payments made via the LN can be processed not only faster but also cheaper thanks to lower fees. Following the integration with BitPay's Payment Processing Platform, merchants can now receive transactions from crypto wallets that support the LN, including CashApp and Strike. In their turn, consumers now have a “low-cost alternative” when they make payments at BitPay-enabled dealers. Notably, BitPay merchants won't need to make any changes to their existing setups to start accepting Lightning payments However, BitPay's wallet app does not currently support the LN—at least “yet.” Another step toward mass adoption Meanwhile, American retail clothing brand Pacific Sunwear of California (PacSun) has become one of the first BitPay partners to accept BTC payments via the Lightning Network, the company's CEO Michael Relich noted, adding: “The Bitcoin Lightning Network provides our customers with instant payments and exceptionally low network fees, and creates more opportunity for all holders of Bitcoin to shop online at [our store].” As CryptoSlate reported, the total value of BTC locked on the Lightning Network exceeded $130 million in late February—and that figure has already grown to just over $162 million since then. However, despite significant growth in 2021, the solution arguably still remains a niche product. But with giants such as BitPay adding support for it, perhaps this is about to change.

Original Air Date — May 18, 2014NEW site: https://www.worldcryptonetwork.com/WCN CLIPS: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClCE...WCN MERCH: shop.worldcryptonetwork.comSubscribe to the WCN Audio Podcast on Itunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/w...Featuring...Davi Barker (http://shinybadges.com) Kristov Atlas (https://twitter.com/kristovatlas) Will Pangman (http://bitcoinmke.org) Midas Marni (http://midasmarni.com)and Thomas Hunt (https://twitter.com/MadBitcoins)THIS WEEK:F.C.C. Backs Opening Net Neutrality Rules for Debatehttp://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/tec...Bitcoin Integration With PayPal Being 'Actively Considered' Says eBay CEOhttp://www.ibtimes.co.uk/bitcoin-inte...Hundreds attend China's first bitcoin summit, defying Beijing's warninghttp://www.scmp.com/news/china/articl...Chinese bitcoin firms plan to go offshore to sidestep crackdownhttp://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/ar...Bitpay raises $30Mhttp://www.coindesk.com/bitpay-closes...Kraken raises $5Mhttp://www.coindesk.com/krakens-jesse...MaidSafe also raised $5M http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/cryptocurren..Questions and Answers from the Audience! and Predictions!World Crypto Networkhttps://www.worldcryptonetwork.com/On This Day in World Crypto Network Historyhttps://www.worldcryptonetwork.com/on...WCN: Hosts & Guestshttps://www.worldcryptonetwork.com/ta...WCN: Topichttps://www.worldcryptonetwork.com/ta...WCN Clips - YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UClCE...World Crypto Network Store | Teespringteespring.com/stores/world-crypto-net...---------------------------Please Subscribe to our Youtube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/user/WorldCry..

So you've finally bought crypto. What do you do with it?Some people will still tell you that you can't do anything with it. That might have been true over a decade ago, but these days you can actually spend your crypto anywhere you want to: thanks to crypto credit and debit cards.There are even cards that are non-custodial and don't require KYC!We dive into the Dash Direct mastercard, and the BitPay mastercard, looking at the pros and cons of each.https://www.dashdirect.org/https://bitpay.com/card/Brought to you by NBTV members: Lee Rennie, Will Sandoval, Sam Ettaro, and Naomi BrockwellTo support NBTV, visit https://www.nbtv.media/support(tax-deductible in the US)Sign up for the free CryptoBeat newsletter here:https://cryptobeat.substack.com/Beware of scammers, I will never give you a phone number or reach out to you with investment advice. I do not give investment advice.Visit the NBTV website:https://nbtv.mediaSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/naomibrockwell)

AMC Theatres customers next month will be able to pay with meme coins dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB) using crypto payments provider BitPay. “BitPay will be live for AMC online payments on our web site by March 19, and live on our mobile apps by April 16, possibly a few days earlier,” tweeted AMC CEO Adam Aron on Monday. In November the company, a unit of AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC) began accepting bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), bitcoin cash (BCH) and litecoin (LTC) for payments, and promised DOGE was coming soon. At that time, AMC also said it would explore using shiba inu. Marathon Digital (MARA), one of the largest publicly traded bitcoin miners in North America, reported fourth-quarter revenue of $60.3 million, an increase of 17% from the previous quarter but slightly below analysts' average estimate of $60.9 million, according to FactSet data. Adjusted earnings came in at $0.36 per share, just ahead of analysts' estimate of $0.35. The miner produced 1,098 self-mined bitcoins in the fourth quarter, down about 12% from 1,252 bitcoins generated in the previous quarter but up about 600% from the year ago quarter, according to the company's earnings press release.

I talk with Roger Ver, who earned the nickname “Bitcoin Jesus” for his early and passionate promoting of Bitcoin. He was an early investor in 1st generation crypto projects like Ripple, Bitpay, Kraken, Cash, Blockchain.com, and Bitcoin.com to name a few. Roger Ver on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/rogerver Roger Ver on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rogerkver To learn more about Bitcoin Cash: https://whybitcoincash.com Afghanistan food relief project: https://www.gofundme.com/f/food-relief-project-by-dave-lee Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction 01:02 - How are you looking at the current crypto price cycle? 03:25 - Top 3 or 4 blockchains Roger Ver is following the most - Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Monero 04:50 - Key factors that allowed Roger Ver to discover Bitcoin? 11:00 - Prison Life - what did Roger trade for? 16:25 - Access to money in prison 18:10 - Was prison violent? 22:59 - How Roger Ver ended up in prison? 29:15 - Risk to Elon Musk? 31:00 - How prison time helped Roger to understand potential of Bitcoin 39:00 - Government control of money 44:25 - Dominant trend of government control - will technology be individual empowering vs government empowering? 54:00 - Thoughts on Fed and Inflation 1:01:10 - Role of growing up in Silicon Valley in discovering Bitcoin 1:05:00 - Discovering Dark Net Silkroad marketplace, Bitcoin 1:09:20 - Why Roger Ver was so confident early Bitcoin price would rise 1:17:30 - Digital central bank currencies perform role of peer-to-peer digital cash? 1:27:20 - Theory that money is being disrupted with instantly liquid assets 1:32:32 - Thoughts on NFTs 1:34:20 - Thoughts on Web3 1:36:40 - Is separation of Money and State possible? 1:41:30 - How digital peer-to-peer cash was delayed by over half decade. Bitcoin civil war. Government conspiracy theory. 1:52:15 - Most free country in the world 1:53:20 - Conclusion Social

What started as a pie-in-the-sky dream last Thursday to form a DAO to bid on a copy of the Constitution has since become a full-on movement that's attracted nearly $4 million in donations. “ConstitutionDAO” insiders now believe they have a real chance at actually winning the forthcoming auction at Sotheby's. Canadian crypto miner Hive Blockchain reported record revenue of US$52.6 million in its fiscal second quarter, up 305% from the same period last year, according to a statement. The company said the increase in revenue was mainly due to a rise in cryptocurrency prices, the increased production of bitcoin as a result of Hive's purchase of Quebec and Atlantic facilities and the acquisition of miners for those facilities. The gross mining margin was 86% in the fiscal second quarter, compared to 71% in the same period last year. Cryptocurrency platform Voyager Digital is launching a USDC-linked debit card, which will pay up to 9% in annual rewards to its customers, the company said in a statement Tuesday. Voyager says additional features for its debit card will include no annual fees and lock-up of assets to earn rewards, while users can access their assets via ATMs. AMC Theatres will accept shiba inu (SHIB) as payment through BitPay wallets in 60-120 days, AMC CEO Adam Aron said on Tuesday. Aron said in a tweet Tuesday that at his suggestion BitPay will start accepting SHIB and AMC will be the first to use the service.

Bitcoin hits $50,000 with a new resistance coming at $50,000. The SEC Chair Gary Gensler says that there is no plan to ban crypto. This in the wake of China banning crypto in there country. PacSun the popular teen retailer will now be accepting cryptocurrency payments with Bitpay. Robinhood will now be offering a 24/7 crypto phone service. This is a huge relief for investors that have been asking for better customer service from the popular trading app. Axie Infinity which is a NFT maker and game says that they have had $2.3billion in sales.

This episode covers how to earn returns from algorithmic crypto trading in sideways markets. We also review the weekly crypto news, talk about the best and worst performing investments of the last 30 days, and look at the old world of TradFi vs. the new world of DeFi. In This Week's Episode of Coinstack... The Weekly Crypto News Roundup Earning Returns from Algorithmic Trading in Sideways Markets Best & Worst Crypto Investments - Last 30 Days Introducing the Ethereum Transaction Value Model (TVM) Seven Key Crypto Stats We're Following The Old vs. The New (TradFi vs. DeFi) ================= Coinstack Newsletter - coinstack.substack.com Coinstack Telegram Channel - t.me/thecoinstack Crypto mentioned this week: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, 1INCH, Bancor, Curve, Internet Computer Protocol, Titan, Iron Finance, Uniswap, Theta Fuel, Amp, Quant, XinFin Network, Theta, Mdex, Binance Coin, BlockV, Synthetix, DigitByte, Klatyn, Qtum, Ontology, Compound, Avalanche, NEM, Polymath, Nexus Mutual, Enzyme, Celo, Stellar, Filecoin, Arweave, USDC Companies mentioned: Zignaly, Shrimpy, Messari, Glassnode, Binance, FTX, INX, Metamask, Argent, Nexo, BlockFi, Revolut, Zerion, Blockfolio, Dharma, Strike, Bitpay, Nifty Gateway, NBA Top Shots, Dapper Labs, Circle, Delphi Research

On today's Business Beat, Jeff discusses the emergence of cryptocurrency as a common payment method and how business owners should adapt. Now, nearly one-fifth of the U.S. adult population — that's roughly 46 million consumers — say they will likely use cryptocurrencies to make a purchase this year.Tune in to the Business Beat to learn more about why you should start accepting cryptocurrency sooner rather than later.

Bio: Emily Bailey works as the Product Director for Blockchain Technology at Change Healthcare, a leading data analytics company in healthcare, based in Nashville, TN. She directs the company's adoption strategy for decentralized technology and its application to healthcare claims and payments, consumer engagement, and clinical data. Emily has been investing in bitcoin since 2013 and began her career in cryptocurrency at BitPay in Atlanta, as a marketing director. She has developed subject matter expertise in marketing, business development, and product development for blockchain technology across a variety of industries and international markets. She graduated from the University of Alabama in 2012, and currently lives in Nashville, TN with her husband and toddler.In Other News: We have a GIVEAWAY happening right now on our Insta. WIN a $50 gift card to Lululemon today! Let's ConnectInstagram |  Newsletter | WebsiteSpecial Shout Out:Big thanks to Memory Smith for Artwork. View her work here!

The Gentleman of Crypto is a daily live broadcast that explores Bitcoin and cryptocurrency market. We discuss international topics, news updates, and future innovations in blockchain, digital currencies and assets, fintech, and more. The Gentlemen of Crypto EP - 540 https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitpay-restores-service-to-all-bitcoin-wallets-to-drive-mainstream-adoption https://cointelegraph.com/news/hackers-stole-and-encrypted-data-of-5-us-law-firms-demand-2-crypto-ransoms https://cointelegraph.com/news/consensys-cuts-additional-14-of-staff-aims-to-split https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockone-puts-200-000-up-for-grabs-in-puzzle-smart-contract-challenge #bitcoin #cryptocurrency #altcoins #cryptonews Support "The Gentlemen of Crypto" by using our referral link to download the Brave Browser. https://brave.com/krb666 We are Ambassadors for Cryptic Coin and will be giving away free coins to everyone who downloads the wallet!! Post your address and you will receive free coins!! https://crypticcoin.io/ 

The Gentleman of Crypto is a daily live broadcast that explores Bitcoin and cryptocurrency market. We discuss international topics, news updates, and future innovations in blockchain, digital currencies and assets, fintech, and more. The Gentlemen of Crypto EP - 457 https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitpay-blocks-100k-bitcoin-donation-to-amazon-rainforest-fire-charity https://cointelegraph.com/news/libra-members-consider-quitting-project-due-to-govt-pressure-report https://cointelegraph.com/news/4-reasons-why-ethereum-classic-is-soaring-up-40-this-week https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-leaked-images-overlap-with-those-processed-by-third-party https://bitcoinist.com/eos-is-de-facto-centralized-says-wikipedia-co-founder/ #bitcoin #cryptocurrency #altcoins #cryptonews Support "The Gentlemen of Crypto" by using our referral link to download the Brave Browser. https://brave.com/krb666 We are Ambassadors for Cryptic Coin and will be giving away free coins to everyone who downloads the wallet!! Post your address and you will receive free coins!! https://crypticcoin.io/ Learn how to become a Crypto expert here: https://krbecrypto.com/join/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/krbecrypto Follow us on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/krbecrypto ********************************** Connect with us online at the following places: KRBE Digital Assets Group • Website: https://krbecrypto.com/ • Newsletter: https://krbecrypto.com/join/ • Services: https://krbecrypto.com/services/ • KRBE Steemit: https://steemit.com/@krbecrypto • TGoC Podcast: http://pca.st/hdVR SOCIAL • KRBE Twitter: https://twitter.com/krbecrypto • KRBE Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/krbecrypto/ • KRBE Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/krbecrypto/ • King Twitter: https://twitter.com/KingBlessDotCom • Bitcoin Zay Twitter: https://twitter.com/bitcoinzay Business Inquiries: krbe@krbecrypto.com Support the stream: https://1upcoin.com/donate/youtube/krbecrypto (Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Bcash) Donations welcome, but not necessary! Thanks for watching and remember to subscribe for daily videos where we give away free Bitcoin! ***Not a whole Bitcoin, a few dollars USD worth*** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ **This is not financial advice. The expressed opinions in the video are of the speakers. You can lose all your money in the cryptocurrency market, so be sure to do your own research before investing.**

Speculative Asset Bitcoin is a digital risk asset, not a currency. If you own bitcoin you have an asset, but it is not a safe haven. A safe haven is an asset that is not likely to go down in comparison to another speculative investment.  Bitcoin has been extremely volatile; it happens to be going up, but the price is based on speculation.  Does anybody believe that bitcoin has less downside risk than the stock market? Not a Currency Bitcoin is not used as currency.  They trade in bitcoins for dollars or euros or yen to buy things, but very few legal goods and services are priced in bitcoin.  Because the price is highly volatile and backed by nothing, it can not be used as a currency. It is being used as an asset.  The number of top retailers who accept Bitpay is diminishing, not increasing. Merchants will try to make it easy to trade bitcoin for currency which would then buy goods and services.  Most people who own bitcoin are not spending them; they are hoarding them because they think they are going to keep going up. Just Noise At the end of the day, the realized gains from speculation in bitcoin are going to be overshadowed by the speculative losses. All the rest of it is just noise.  The realized profits will be concentrated on a small group of people, whereas the realized losses will be dispersed among a larger population. Reversing the Consequences Bitcoin will end up achieving the opposite of its original goal, which was to challenge the power of central government, to disrupt money, that is would rein in government and have real commodity money in the same way FedEx upended the Post Office or Uber upended taxis. This is going to give more power to government, because when digital currencies collapse, the central bankers will say, "We told you so! This is what happens when you allow the free market to do what government should do.  When the free market creates money it leads to disaster.  You have to stick with currencies backed by government. " No Joke The original currencies that were created by the private sector, and not by government were issued by banks and backed by gold. Today, the private sector could issue digital currency backed by gold just like paper currency backed by gold. What gave the paper currency value was the gold backing. If any bank tried to issue paper currency backed by nothing, it would have been laughed out of existence. It would have been a joke, except now it's not a joke. People actually want digital currency backed by absolutely nothing.