{ "episodeId": "SLP140", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "gigi": { "name": "Gigi", "role": "guest", "tag": "GIGI" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:08", "start": 8.03, "text": "Hi and welcome to the Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics. So today we've got an episode with Gigi and we're talking about some of his articles and also his new book that's out recently, Twenty One Lessons, which I'm sure many of you know about. But first, a word on behalf of the sponsors of the show. So firstly, Kraken, consistently rated one of the best and most secure Bitcoin exchanges in the world. You've got to check them out. They are one of the longest standing Bitcoin exchanges, and there's a reason for that. 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Check out givebitcoin dot io, the easiest and safest way to get your friends and family into Bitcoin. Take it from me, I've given Bitcoin to people before and they lost it. They didn't know what they were receiving, and that's why there's huge value in Give Bitcoin, so you can buy Bitcoin for your friends and family just using their email address. And here's the twist, that gift is time delayed with a regulated US custodian for one year, and during that year Monthly lessons to that recipient to speed them through to that point of becoming a hodler. There's input from many well-known bitcoiners such as Safteen, Matt O'Dell, Brady from Citizen Bitcoin, and Jan Pritzker is the CTO. I'm also an advisor with a small equity stake and I'm assisting with the curriculum too. So keep an eye out for some exciting announcements coming. GiveBitcoin.io is the website. The aim is to really have a positive impact on bitcoin adoption and understanding. Next is CipherSafe at CipherSafe.io. They're producing the CipherWheel product So you've invested in a Bitcoin hardware wallet, are you keeping your bip thirty nine seed backed up in a way that's fireproof, waterproof, rustproof, petproof, and tamper evident? Look into CipherWheel, a new product. It's compact, it comes in a wheel shape, it masks the words of your seed unless you open the padlock tamper evident seal, so you know if it's been opened. CipherSafe are switching the stainless steel alloy used as well, so the product is providing a bit more corrosion resistance, and otherwise the product scored an A versus heat and crushing on Jameson physical seed testing. So make sure that you or your loved ones have access to your bitcoins if an accident occurs. Orders should be going out in early February, go and order yours at cyphersafe dot io. So for those of you who don't know, Gigi is an author in the Bitcoin scene. He has written a website, Twenty One Lessons, which is now a book, and he's also responsible for some other websites such as bitcoin dash resources dot com, and in this episode, we talk a little bit about some of the articles he's written and obviously Twenty One Lessons. Here is the interview Gigi, welcome to the show." }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "04:02", "start": 241.7, "text": "Hey, Stephan, thanks for having me." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:04", "start": 243.64, "text": "Look, man, I know you've got a lot of awesome stuff going. You've got, twenty-one lessons, you've got Bitcoin resources, you've got a bunch of articles. You've come in and, y'-- I've seen you've, you've done some great writing and some fantastic curating as well, and I know you've done a bunch of, podcast appearances as well, but, tell us a little bit of your journey. How did you," }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "04:25", "start": 264.86, "text": "how did you I was primed to fall down the rabbit hole, but for, for one reason or another, I just didn't, you know? a couple of my friends around me, they, yeah, they got messed up by Mt. Gox and they got, got in quite early, and so I, I heard about Bitcoin quite early, I would say, but I always thought, no, it wouldn't ever work, I never looked into it, and it's just funny internet money and it's just a bunch of gamblers and drug addicts playing around with internet money. And so I think it, it took me maybe like four touches with Bitcoin or something like that to, have a, have a second look. And, the thing was just, you know, I mean, you, you've had, you've heard the story many times, but it just, it wouldn't die, it wouldn't go away. And so one day I just sat down and, and dove in, and yeah, there, there was no going back for me." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:22", "start": 322.08, "text": "And so what was it that ticked you over to actually paying attention? Like, was there anything special about it, or was it just repeated exposure in your case?" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "05:31", "start": 330.87, "text": "Yeah, well, it, it didn't take much ac-actually, once I realized that it's insanely hard to kill, like once I, I actually realized how it works on the technical level, I, I was kind of won over and, yeah, ever, ever since I'm playing catch up with all of you guys, you know, like years of experience in austin Economics, and I'm, I'm still catching up on that. So, a big piece of the puzzle that was missing for me was, just, economic side of it, and, that, that is, it is actually new money, and I didn't, I didn't know a thing about money, so for me it was just, technology at first, and, I was very sympathetic to the ETH heads, so I was, I, I was very interested in unstoppable world computers and, programmable ma- Money, so to speak, and I, I didn't get the bigger picture at first. So that's, I think, that was the biggest block for me for like one or two years, something like that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:33", "start": 392.94, "text": "That's cool. So yeah, let's-- we're definitely gonna jump into the economics aspect of it as well. But I'm particularly curious to know what it was that made you think Bitcoin just couldn't be killed, or is unlikely, very unlikely to be killed?" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "06:46", "start": 406.01, "text": "Yeah, well, that's a good question. I think it was a couple of aha moments in a way. it's just a very ingenious system, and, I, I really like the analogy of, comparing it to a living thing in a way, and it, it is very similar to that because, i-i-in essence, it can bootstrap, bootstrap itself again, or like revive itself from just one cell in a way. And, so just realizing how insanely resilient Bitcoin is, did it for me. I, I, I can't pinpoint exactly to like one single thing. It was just, one day it, it finally clicked, and I was like, okay, there's really, like, almost no way to kill it. Y-you would have to kill pretty much everyone who operates a node and, and destroy all the hard drives and destroy, just, just destroy everything, destroy the whole world, then it's gone maybe." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:44", "start": 464.09, "text": "Right, and that reminds me as well, so one of your articles is \"Proof of Life,\" and in that article, you spell out how Ralph Merkle, the inventor of cryptographic hashing, and namesake of the Merkle tree, as you point out, he made this argument that Bitcoin is the first example of a new form of life. Now, that might seem a little crazy to an outsider. What, what, what are you getting at there?" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "08:07", "start": 487.21, "text": "Yeah, it, it is very crazy to an outsider, and it, it is, but it, I think it's an interesting thought, and There are two ways to look at Bitcoin. It's, to, you can look at Bitcoin as a tool and all, all the people use Bitcoin to, satisfy their needs, or to, to arrive at an end. And, the other way is just to flip it on its head and, and look at Bitcoin as, as its, as its own, as its own thing, as its own entity, and, in a way, Bitcoin uses us to fulfill its needs. And, Ralph Merkel was the first one, as far as I know, who, who did that. And I, huge shout out to Brandon Quidham, who, wrote the, the mushroom analogies, and how to view Bitcoin as a, a mycelial network, a, a fungal network. And I, I think he was, instrumental in popularizing this idea further in a way. And I think it's, in a, in a way, it's profoundly true, and it's simply true because just the incentives are set up in a way You can view Bitcoin as its own thing, so it, it incentivizes people to use it because it pays people to use it, and it, it pays miners, for example, and it incentivizes, all of us to be good Bitcoin citizens and, you know, be a self-sovereign Bitcoin citizen, and it, it incentivizes developers to develop it further. And so i-it's just a way of, flipping everything on its head and viewing Bitcoin as the main driving force in a way." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "09:43", "start": 583.11, "text": "And that sort of reminds me of this concept I've heard of. Again, I'm not big into that whole community, like the rationality community or whatever, but they call this concept Roko's Basilisk, right? So I'm not sure if you've heard of that, but it's like this idea where- Kind of like there's this creature or monster in the future, and apparently if you don't do everything you can to help this monster get created, then it will punish you when it is created, sort of thing. But this is like kind of a different analogy, but in some ways, Bitcoin is almost like a self incentivizing system, right? Because the holders, they wanna see it go up, the-- you know, and typically then they will take action to Make the system more resilient. So what are some examples that you can think of there?" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "10:31", "start": 630.82, "text": "yeah, I think it's, it's not necessarily a, a new viewpoint. So, this super organism viewpoint, other people have compared, large, companies, for example, to, to the same thing. Like a company is also its own thing, or, or a state, for that matter, is also its own thing, and it, it acts in its own interest in a way, and, so it's- It's just a different level of analysis. And I, I think, one, one example in Bitcoin, or, or there are actually quite a few examples, but you can also think about, the open source nature of Bitcoin in the same way as biological gene transfer. Like if, if something, you have horizontal and you have, vertical gene transfer. So if other projects do something that's insanely smart or insanely useful, Bitcoin will just absorb that feature and, like, The, the, again, the incentives are aligned in a way that developers will work towards that goal to include useful features into Bitcoin. And also, if you just look at the history of the technology, it's obvious that Bitcoin inherits, for example, cryptographic hashes and public key cryptography and stuff like that. And so it, yeah, it, I think the, the analogy to, to biology is quite an apt one, and it's very useful to think about it in that way." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:52", "start": 712.38, "text": "Right, I see. And There might be some counter examples potentially, right? So there might be some technologies that may not be suitable for Bitcoin or they may never get into Bitcoin. So a quick example might be, say, MimbleWimble, which is, I think most people, kind of agreed that it's unlikely that we would ever get MimbleWimble into Bitcoin. it might happen on some shitcoin or maybe on a side chain or whatever. but even then, for me personally, the way I think about that is it's more just like, Bitcoin still has the monetary network effect, It's just so difficult to displace that. But how would you, how, how do you conceive of that kind of idea? Like basically, if there are certain technical things that for a technical reason can't be implemented into Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "12:36", "start": 756.14, "text": "Yeah, that's a good point. I think there are quite a few things that, that will never pe- will never be implemented, since everything is about trade-offs. you, I mean, we have the big debate now going on, in terms of privacy on the, on the base chain, for example, and It's, that's a very obvious trade-off you have to make. You, you can't have full auditability and easy auditability if you have complete privacy. And, there, there are similar things, for example, also, how powerful your scripting language wants to be, and you will never have, something that is Turing complete because you will run into other problems as we saw in Ethereum and other chains. you will have to introduce something that will get rid of the halting problem, and you will have- To introduce, finite resource that is consumed during executions, stuff like that. And so, y-y-you will always have to make trade-offs. And I think, as we all know, Bitcoin is very conservative in its, in its approach, and I think the, the main, the main trait of Bitcoin is reintroducing sound money to the world and having, having it introduced in a way so it can't be stopped. And just the simple sentence like \"can't be stopped\" it encompasses many things, like it's, it's per- Definition uncensorable and it's, it's also outside of the law in a way, because if you could stop it by passing a law, then Bitcoin would have failed in a way. So it's, the, the, the, the pure fact that this thing was built so it can't be stopped, it, it already encapsulates a lot of things, in my opinion. And thus it also makes a lot of trade-offs in a way. So, you, you, you trade off, for example, I mean, Bitcoin optimizes for radical decentralization, and that's, that's the whole point. And once something is decentralized, it's really, really hard to change. It's really slow moving, because it's just the, the nature of the beast, because you, you would have- To convince the whole organism or the whole network, one by one, like one cell by one cell to change, and that, yeah, e-except for very rare circumstances, this just doesn't, doesn't happen." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:54", "start": 894.2, "text": "And what about the power of ideas and the relation to value, right? Like, where is the value in the system coming from?" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "15:03", "start": 902.59, "text": "Yeah, that's-- You, you're probably way better at answering the, the question than I am. Again, I'm, I'm, I'm still catching up on my economics. But, it's, it's quite a-- Value in itself is quite a paradoxical things, thing I would say. It's, it's very subjective and, people value different things very differently. But I also think what, what I learned- And it's, it's also part of the twenty-one lessons I wrote, is that, value is, i-it is subjective, but it's not really arbitrary. Like if something is very abundant, like leaves or, seawater when you're at the sea, i-it's, it's not valued at all. Like if, if the cost of replication is near zero, for example, and we see that i-in the internet all the time, the, the, the tragedy of the commons in a way, and the, the problem that you can take information and- And copied at near zero cost, it's very hard to monetize digital information, I would say, and it, it comes from that fact that it simply isn't scarce. And, so, yeah, where the value of Bitcoin comes from, I think Bitcoin is able to do something that wasn't, wasn't possible be-before, and that inherently gave it value, and some people realized that very, very early, and, ever since the first transactions that actually had a monetary value And of course, we have Lazlo's pizza transaction there, but it, it was actually, Bitcoin was actually traded before that for a monetary value and ever since, like I think the, the most important step in Bitcoin was the step from, from zero to something, and everything else just snowballed from there, because once the feedback loops, feedback loops of the system kick in, as Matt Adell likes to say, you know, Bitcoin is designed to pump forever, and I, I kind of agree, it's, it's, a vicious feedback loop that will-- I'm not sure about forever, but it will probably go on for a while." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "17:01", "start": 1021.4, "text": "Right, and as you say, it's, it's this relationship between ideas and then the people who are putting that into practice, and then there's the code. in one of your articles actually, Bitcoin's Gravity, you mentioned a little bit about the relationship between these. What, what is that?" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "17:18", "start": 1037.9, "text": "Oh, yeah, that, that was a fun article to write. I, I thought about that a lot and, I, I wrote it," }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "17:27", "start": 1046.98, "text": "shortly after the \"We Are All Huddled Out\" phenomenon. so- So, I was mostly thinking about the, the tribal nature of the space and how, in a way, certain ideas take possession of people. And Bitcoin, back to flipping the whole viewpoint on its head, it's, it seems to me that Bitcoin takes possession of you in a way, in, in, to a certain extent, and, it's, it's really, it's really interesting how, that is. I, I said that before, and I think it's, it's just hil-hilarious thing, because if you look at it technically, you can't really own Bitcoin, Bitcoin, like you can't possess Bitcoin because it's just information, but Bitcoin, I think, can definitely possess you. So that's, I, I just think that's, that's hilarious in a way. And, I came up with the idea of this big idea-value feedback loop. So as far as I can see, those decentralized systems, and I'm, I, I hate to speak in generalities here because, It, for me, Bitcoin is all that matters, and I think everything else pales in comparison. But of course, there are some clones and there are some other systems that we see similar positive effects in those other systems, in Ethereum, for example, and, oh, for God's sake, we even see it in XRP, you know, we have a, a, a bot troll army that is religious about that, and, it, it seems to me that you have a feedback loop where people are one piece of the puzzle, and you, you generate a network which generates value, and nodes and people are part of this network, and once the, the, the, the network grows, the value grows as well, and then the people get even more, yeah, more feverish about it. Like they, first of all, they think they are right and their ideas are right, and if the value grows Goes up, this, this vicious cycle, this loop of, yeah, of conviction in a way, starts. That's the way I, I see it, and I, I definitely speak from experience because I, it happened to me for Bitcoin as well." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "19:43", "start": 1183.11, "text": "Right, as-- because there are many more casual users of Bitcoin, but potentially, as you're saying, they're, they're on this journey where over time, as they get exposed to more ideas, they build their conviction. What does that look like, that feedback loop?" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "20:01", "start": 1200.77, "text": "yeah, I- I don't have it at the top of my head, so it's probably best to, look into the article. But, it's, the general idea is that everything starts from, from an idea, like Bitcoin. Satoshi had the idea to do it, and he was convinced that he was able to do it, and he, he wrote the code, and so the, the network was started with one, one node. Like, yeah, okay, the network was started with two nodes actually. But," }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "20:30", "start": 1229.89, "text": "the idea is that you, you put the Notes and the notes connect to a network and, the network generates value and the value reinforces the idea. So, that's, that's the whole loop in a way. And, Again, this is a, a, a vicious cycle which we can see very clearly in, in Bitcoin. Like Bitcoin is very cyclical in nature and it has a lot of those feedback loops in it and its, its whole, or at least parts, parts of its security model are in this loopy nature. And, Yeah, I think it's, it's true for other projects as well, but, as I also wrote in, in Bitcoin, in Bitcoin's Gravity, where this idea comes from, all of those ideas they kind of compete with each other, because in the end, you need to have a monetary token for the system to work, and in the end, all monies, fight for, salability and fight for liquidity, and, it's, it's just a vicious battle, and, the way I see it, It, it truly is a, a winner takes all phenomenon in a way, like the, the, the tail end is so long and so thin that it doesn't even matter. Like, I think the, all the altcoins, in the long run will starve to death, and it's simply because of this gravitational effect that the more people, learn about it, they also realize that they want to use the network with the most network effects and with the most value thus. And I think the- The, I think Bitcoin is good enough for it to win it all. So, not only that, I think it also can improve where it needs improvement. So for me, it's, it's very clearly, winner takes all phenomenon in a way." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:25", "start": 1345.48, "text": "Yeah. And a, another idea that came to me as I was reading your article is this concept of Differing understandings of what Bitcoin is, and how do we resolve that in a way where, as you say, three people, if you ask three different people, they might have three different definitions of Bitcoin, or they might have slightly differing ideas of what's most important to them about Bitcoin. So how do you think about that? Oh, yeah," }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "22:53", "start": 1372.84, "text": "I think about it all the time because Bitcoin truly is different things to different people, and, it, it, it depends, I think, on your background and also on your level of understanding. And I don't claim to understand Bitcoin completely. I, I think it's, it's not possible in a way. I think it's just too complex of a phenomenon to understand it completely, and it's too interconnected to many other complicated disciplines. And, Yeah, I, I would love to write about that more in a way, because there are many different viewpoints that you can take that kind of makes sense, and I think all of them are valid, and it depends on how you look at it and, and what you do. I mean, you can look at Bitcoin as simply, computer network, and if you have a computer network background or a distributed computing background, then this makes perfect sense, and you, yeah, you work on one small piece of Bitcoin in a way, but you can, you can also look at it, as a database, for example. And this, this makes sense as well. It's like an append-only database, which is very inefficient in database terms, but it does one thing, very beautifully. You can also look at it simply as an asset that is traded. And if you're a trader, that makes perfect sense. You just look at charts all day and you try not to get wrecked. And you can, you can, you can also look at it, as a, New form of money, and, if you have a monetary history background, that also makes perfect sense. It's, it's like, Satoshi wrote about that beautifully as well, you have to imagine it as some form of new metal that you can teleport via a communication channel, and then Bitcoin becomes something very different. And I, I think, a lot of people, I've, I've heard a lot of people talk about it just viewing it as this gravitational monetary object that sucks up value, and I think that makes sense as well. It's- The way I see it, the internet, everything, the internet touched everything that could be transformed to information, was transformed to information, and the internet just ate it up. And I think the same will be true for Bitcoin. Everything that can be transformed into value, it will be transformed into Bitcoin at one point in time, and Bitcoin will just suck it up. And, yeah, again, the bio-- the biology analogy, I, I like very much as well. You can view it as a living system, and it has such a huge- Social layer that, a lot of things start to make sense as well. All the quote-unquote toxicity, for example, and, many other immune response, yeah, things, kind of make sense if you, if you view all the toxic maximalists as the white blood cells of Bitcoin, then it makes sense that sometimes the system has an autoimmune reaction and maybe overdoses it a little bit, you know? And Bitcoin definitely is allergic to, to some things. So, hahaha. That's the way I see it." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:47", "start": 1547.39, "text": "Right, and, right, as you mentioned the so-called toxicity and the argumentation that, that has happened within Bitcoin over Bitcoin's history. But one other way to conceive of that or related is sometimes that's how people actually learn, right? So we've learned over time. So I think until Andreas really popularized the saying, \"Not your keys, not your coins,\" people might have just thought, \"Oh, hey, I've got my coins on Coinbase or whatever, and I still hold Bitcoin.\" Oh yeah. so these are ways we learn as well. Yeah," }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "26:19", "start": 1579.23, "text": "definitely, definitely. And I'm-- Don't get me wrong, I'm all for toxicity. It's just, I think it's, it's very, it's very misunderstood. I wouldn't have it that any other way. I even think it's, it's kind of tame in the Bitcoin world. I, I have a very strong gaming background and, you know, like, there, there are a, a lot of fourteen-year-olds that are way, way, way meaner" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "26:47", "start": 1606.81, "text": "I, I think it's, it's very important to, be just vigilant, and I also think that, this is still all of it, is, is in a way, it's not very important yet, I think. all the bickering and the infighting, it's, it's just, I, I see it as a warm-up to, to the end boss in a way, because, as I think you would agree, it's about separating money and state, and I- I think we haven't seen the big attacks on Bitcoin yet. I, I, I still, I'm, I'm convinced we're still living in peacetime. I think the only real war, quote unquote, we had was a civil war and which resulted in the first contentious hard fork. But, other than that, I think it was relatively, yeah. I, I'm, I'm surprised that, Bitcoin, I, I wouldn't call it smooth sailing actually, but it's, it's, yeah. There weren't real, government level attacks or attempts at shutdown as far as I know yet, and, many people say it's already too late for that. I, I think again, it's insanely hard to kill Bitcoin, so you would have to do-- I think you would have to kill it in a roundabout way. You can't really kill it in a direct attack, I think. And, so again, to loop it back to the toxicity, I think it's, it's very, very healthy to have a- Strong immune system and just to, call, yeah, call bullshit out when you see it and just be very, very vigilant about, how this protocol progresses." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:28", "start": 1708.35, "text": "Right, and you also mentioned in the article, this concept around attraction and repulsion. So this idea that some people are more amenable to the idea of Bitcoin. So obviously, anarcho-capitalist libertarians, cypherpunks, privacy advocates, they can more easily jive with the idea of Bitcoin. whereas a more socialist, some, most socialists and like most kind of status types, they might not see as much of a role for Bitcoin. And so those people who are more repulsed by Bitcoin, let's say, just because of their priors, their existing beliefs and ideology and so on. Is it that they won't see what's coming before it's too late to stop it?" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "29:14", "start": 1753.85, "text": "Yeah, well, that's a good question. I, I, I, I don't know how it will play out. I, I'm a huge believer in," }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "29:24", "start": 1764.16, "text": "I'm a huge believer in making Bitcoin so easy to use that it is indistinguishable from the current internet we have, and nobody really knows how the internet works in a way. Everyone uses it, and, you don't necessarily have to be philosophically aligned with the, the main building blocks of the internet like net neutrality for it, for, for you to be able to use it. And I think with Bitcoin it's very similar. We are still in the early Adopters face, and I think those people that, resonated with the main ideas of Bitcoin, they were very receptive to it, and, it's, it's interesting again because you have a bunch of different people that, woke up to it early in a way, as you said, you have, libertarians and, also, yeah, you, you definitely have, A lot of, sci-fi punk early adapters and, and stuff like, stuff like that, and technologists. But, it's, it's interesting that, yeah, it, it's a mixed crowd of early adapters, I would say. And as Bitcoin progresses and grows, I think it will get easier and easier to use, and in the end, I think it's just like the internet, you will have no choice but to use it. Today, you can't really function in the modern world if you don't have access to the internet and if you don't- Have a smartphone, you won't get a job, you won't get a job interview, you just, you don't function in the, in the real world. And I think in like, I don't know the timeframe, but maybe like ten, fifteen, twenty years, something like that. I don't think it will take much longer, you will have to use Bitcoin in some way, shape or form." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:06", "start": 1865.87, "text": "Yeah. It's so difficult for us to explain now to people who, they don't necessarily see, it, it would be like telling someone, oh, you need to run" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:19", "start": 1878.96, "text": "But most people, they're like, \"Well, I just, I just use Gmail or whatever. Why do I need to do that? \" And, it, it just to them, it's like an unnecessary inconvenience. Oh, yeah. whereas in the Bitcoin world, it's more like, \"No, you need to be vigilant. You have to watch what's going on. You gotta spend time. You need to get-- you need to build your technical competence. \" That can be, you know, on the surface level, right? Obviously, I'm, I'm one of" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "31:49", "start": 1908.96, "text": "It's still, it's still kinda complicated, and it's also, I think, I think the, the biggest problem is that just all the concepts are so novel in a way, it's really hard to wrap your head around. For example, just the private key, it's, it's, it's really hard to wrap your head around it if, if you're not from the space and if you, if you don't come, with a technological background, because we, we never had anything like that before. Like, there's a piece of paper or a piece of hardware or And I can take a picture of it, your, it, it, all your money is completely gone, you know? It's, it's, it's very different. And I think, we, we are just now coming up with solutions to these kind of problems to revert back to the kind of physical nature of things so that we can actually lock it away, away in a safe and have multi-sig setups where it's not the end of the world if one key gets stolen and stuff like that. And, Shamir's secret sharing, for example, where you have redundant, all, all of that for it to, to be useful for people, otherwise it's just too complicated, not even from the technical side, but, but from the conceptual side as well, because people are just horrible with security, and I think that's one of the big adoption hurdles as well, like operational security of people and just general security hygiene of people is so insanely bad that it's just, for most people, it's a really bad idea to hold their own keys. They have no idea what they're doing and they won't- Will either lose access to their keys or get their keys stolen. And, yeah, there, there is still a lot of work to do, but then again, it, it, it, it wasn't very different like fifteen, twenty years ago with just computers in general and, and the web in general. And like in the web, everything was unencrypted, for example, everything was plaintext, and, you, you, you could go to whatever place, like if, if there was a place with Wi-Fi, you could just sniff all the traffic and read everyone's email and And so on. And I think it will just evolve over time and, and get better and all those practices get better. I think it's moving way, way faster. I think that, Bitcoin is an exponential technology, obviously, but I also, I even think it's, it's better than that. Like it's, it's an exponential technology built up on exponential technologies, and it feeds upon the network effects that are below it. Like smartphones are still evolving, the internet is still evolving in a way, like not everyone is online, for example, and we will get like a billion people online In the next couple of years, and all of this innovation and all of this, yeah, progress will feed back into Bitcoin and into development of wallets and into security development, and I think we won't have to think about the same things in like five years' time. I think, you know, for example, like running your own node, using your own node, setting up your own multisig setup, taking care of, you know, like stamping your own private keys into metal, I think there will just be better and smarter solutions." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:50", "start": 2089.88, "text": "That's, yeah, I, I think so as well. I think a lot of the work will be done to make it, to put it into the background so they don't have to, people don't have to think about it as consciously. one cool site I like about that you've made is bitcoin dash resources dot com. I wanted to talk through it just a little bit on, you know, how you came up with the list, and you've got a, a list of essentials here, and, you know, the TLDR is read the Bitcoin standard and the bullish case for Bitcoin, Nicely curated resources, and I think the essentials are really good that you've got here. You've got, The Bitcoin Standard, The Ethics of Money Production by Gideon Holzman, and Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. So, It's interesting as well that these are all more economic based. So you're sort of saying, okay, look, if there's three things you read about Bitcoin, you should read the economic things. Oh yeah," }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "35:40", "start": 2140.48, "text": "I, I, I think that's very important. Because again, I think it's not critical to understand how the technology in the background works. It's, it's just like the internet in a way, you know? It's, it's, how TCP/IP works or how BGP routing works or whatever, it's, it's not, it's not really helpful to understand what the And how it will change the world, you know, understanding TCP/IP doesn't really help you in, in just getting it in a way. And I think that, most people have no idea what money is and don't have a, a background in, like, I think most people still think that most, of the money of the world is backed by gold. I think most people still think that a dollar is backed by gold, for example. And so learning about, yeah, the monetary economics and, as the title of the book says, the ethics Action, I think, is, is insanely important to understand the big picture of Bitcoin, and I, I think it's way, way more important to understand the big, the big picture and where we might be in like ten or fifteen or twenty years, than to understand the technical nuances of, SHA-256 or, yeah, crypto, any cryptographic hash function or public key cryptography." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "36:57", "start": 2217.07, "text": "Yeah. And you've listed here a bunch of Bitcoin non-technical books, right? All right, so you've got the little Bitcoin book, you've got Bitcoin Money, you've got obviously the Bitcoin Standard, Knut Svanholm's book, Bitcoin, Sovereignty through Mathematics, and now recently your new book, Twenty One Lessons. So, tell us a little bit about those books, why are they chosen? And we'll, we'll get to Twenty One Lessons as well, obviously, that's your book, so. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "37:22", "start": 2241.59, "text": "so, Bitcoin Resources was started as, a private project of, of myself, and I just, Bitcoin, and I, I read everything I could get my hands on. And for me, just, it started with curating articles actually, and, there were a bunch of articles that were just really, really excellent. you mentioned the bullish case for Bitcoin, and I still think it's one of the best articles to read, if you, if you're just getting into it and you, you didn't have your aha moment yet, I think it's, it's just one of the best articles you can read. but there are a bunch of other ones" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "38:01", "start": 2281.33, "text": "Reread a couple of them, multiple times, and it just really helped me to, drive home certain points of Bitcoin. So that's, that's how it started. It was just the," }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "38:15", "start": 2294.57, "text": "the criteria for creation was that I have read it, and I must have really liked it, and then it was on, on, on my list. And, one day I just decided to make it publish, and it, to make it public, and then it evolved from there. And I, I added, the books that I found very helpful. And when I started the project, there weren't too many Bitcoin books around. so, basically, those are pretty much all the Bitcoin books I've read so far, and I hope Hope to add, I hope to add, yeah, multiple other ones that just came out recently, i-- Bitcoin Clarity is supposed to be very good, for example, and I still have to read them and, the last, I don't know, like six months or so, or so, I realized that it's just way too much work to keep it up on my own, so I open-sourced the project and I'm, I'm still looking for contributors. There, there are some, and there are some that helped me a little bit with the but the project is also on GitHub, and if someone wants to fork it or, create his own like Bitcoin resources site or help me out with creating the Bitcoin resources, yeah, I'm always happy to take pull requests." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "39:28", "start": 2368.36, "text": "And one thing that strikes out to me is that you've got some of them organized into topics as well. You've got stuff like money, proof of work, why is proof of work important? Because some people often think that's wasteful, and Bitcoin's identity. Some of that is coming to more, you know, the philosophy of Bitcoin. What is the What is the identity of Bitcoin and how it's like, it's like a social revolution, and, I like the way it's set out there. but let's now turn to Twenty One Lessons. So Twenty One Lessons, for most of us, has been a website up until very recently, and, you know, it spells out, a range of different, lessons themed into different topics, right? I think one of the themes is economics, one of the themes was, philosophy, and another one is around the technology. And, tell us a little bit about where did this project come from, Twenty One Lessons?" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "40:18", "start": 2417.6, "text": "Oh, yeah. yeah, it, it actually came from a tweet, like one single tweet, I think it was Arjun Balaji who asked, \"What have you learned from Bitcoin?\" And, many, many people responded, and he had his own lessons that he learned. And I, I was, just drafting a tweet, and, yeah, I, I, I think I, I wrote a tweet storm of like, I don't know, ten tweets or something, and I was like, \"Yeah, no, that's, it, it doesn't feel right. I probably sh-should write an article about what I've learned from Bitcoin, actually.\"" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "40:55", "start": 2455.27, "text": "Very, ruthless teacher in a way. You can learn a lot from Bitcoin, but it's also a, a very humbling experience. So, anytime, but because that's also the reason why I'm very hesitant to say, I understand Bitcoin or anyone really understands Bitcoin, because every time you, you start to think that, Bitcoin will humble you and, you will realize that you haven't understand, haven't understood it really. And, so the subtitle of the book is \"What I've Learned from Bitcoin.\" And I forced myself, like halfway through, pretty much, I forced myself to come up with twenty-one lessons, obviously. And, yeah, for me, the most interesting ones were the philosophical insights in a way, and that, that was the, that's the first part of the book, and it was the first article I published." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:46", "start": 2506.03, "text": "Right. And, that can be one of the most difficult parts as well for people to understand, because some concepts will just be spelled out, right? Like, \"This is what a SHA-two fifty-six hash is.\" Or This is what, this is what the most saleable, you know, commodity or the most saleable good is, right? So that's kind of very explicitly spelled out. But there are some other ideas that are maybe a little less easy to grasp for a pre-coiner or a beginner into Bitcoin. one example is the Immaculate Conception. What, what's, what, what are we getting at there?" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "42:16", "start": 2536.37, "text": "Oh, yeah. that's a good one. So shout out to Marty Bent, for that one, for sure, because, I He, he talked about that a bunch and, I, I didn't really get it at first in a way, like it, it took me a long time to understand how important, it was for Bitcoin to be born that way, like it, it was almost like a, a, a gift from the gods, you know? It, it, it, it's, yeah, even though it has human origins, it's, it's still insanely important that Satoshi left, and I think, I think I'm, I'm not sure, maybe it was Jameson Lapp, or maybe it was Jimmy Song, one of those two said that one of the most important things that Satoshi ever did was to disappear. And I have to agree with that, because as we see with other projects, if the founders stick around, they have an, a tremendous amount of influence, and that's a centralizing force. And so I, I think Satoshi had, an insane amount of foresight to leave the project behind and, when it was just a small little A sapling in a way and big enough to grow up on its own, he stepped back and let others take over. And, yeah, it's, it's just, I think an insanely fascinating origin story and, most of the people that are new to Bitcoin underestimate the power and the importance of this origin story." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:43", "start": 2623.04, "text": "And another one you talk about is immutability. So what is the value of that? Why is that important to Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "43:49", "start": 2629.01, "text": "Oh yeah, I think that's lesson one, right? Immutability and change. I, I, it's I think it's, it's the most important one, and it's also the one I kinda learned the hardest in a way. It's, I, I realized, after, after a couple of years studying Bitcoin, I, I realized that Bitcoin changed me way more than I will ever change Bitcoin, and that was kind of a sobering experience and a sobering insight, because, I, I, I also think that it's what drove some people mad in a way, like there are some people that really want to change Bitcoin Bitcoin, and it just, it, it just will not give in, you know? And I think Bitcoin definitely has the potential to drive you insane, and I think we saw that a couple of times, and I think that's part of it. It's just the way the system is set up that it's, it's so insanely hard to change, as I said. It's, it's not that it's completely unchangeable, that's not it, but, it, it has this kind of swarm intelligence, and if the swarm intelligence is against you, then, you just And also the, the values that Bitcoin embodies in a way, they, they have the power to change your worldview, I think. And, once you, yeah, once you learn more about the ideas inherent in Bitcoin, I think your worldviews will be challenged. It almost doesn't matter, what your background is. And, yeah, that's the, the interplay of immutability and change. I put change in there as well because Bitcoin is changing all All the time. It's like, you know, the, like the cells in your body, they change all the time and you're not the same person that you, that you were like a, a year ago, like literally. And with Bitcoin, it's very similar. Like every single line of code changes over time and, all of the components change, all the nodes change, and the underlying infrastructure changes, like the, you know, the cable and the cables and the hard disks and everything else. And so it's, it's very, it's very interesting, I think," }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "45:54", "start": 2754.39, "text": "Really hard to change, it's, like almost immutable in a way, and you have the, the, the body of Bitcoin and, yeah, all the, the machinery that makes it work that is changing all the time, and of course, we have a truly immutable outcome. As, as immutable, I think as it, as it gets with the ledger entries, and it's, it's, it's in a way, yeah, the, the thing that is produced by, by the living Bitcoin organism." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:22", "start": 2781.95, "text": "Yeah, and I'll tell you what, that can be one of hardest parts to explain to, pre-coiner or a new coiner as well, because they need to have some understanding of open-source software and like software, how software contribution works. But then not just that, but also the fact that, you know, it doesn't matter just what the developers write as code, it also matters what everyone runs, and that is a very difficult point to skillfully and succinctly articulate. What's your view on that, and every time you've- Tried to explain that." }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "46:57", "start": 2816.89, "text": "Yeah. again, that's a good question. I'm not sure if there is a, like, an elevator pitch for Bitcoin. I think there, there are like twenty or thirty different elevator pitches, and you can give them to different people depending on the background. But I don't think there is an easy way to explain, the power balance of Bitcoin, for example. like you would have to talk about incentive systems, you would have to talk about the roles of miners and nodes, and also how the ecosystem evolved over time and, how, yeah, how, how everything is always subject to change in a way because, mind you, a couple of years ago we didn't have mining pools and we didn't have, GPU or ASIC mining and, so the, the whole system changed in a way, but it still has this very beautiful balance and this balance of power and, I think you, yeah, I, again, I don't think there is, there isn't easy succinct- way of explaining it to someone that is, that is rather new. the only way I can think of what I always try to do is to come up with analogies and analogies of the past. It's, it, it, it, it isn't necessarily related now to, to the power bal-power balance, but a lot of people I talk to, the, one of the first comebacks is always, \"Yeah, the government will just outlaw it,\" you know? And I think one, one of the examples you can bring up there is, you know, We had so many things that were outlawed all the time, for example, during the prohibition, you're not allowed to, to, create or consume alcohol, and people are brewing beer and, schnapps and everything else in their cellars. So how, how, how do you want to enforce that? And, again, I really like the, I really like the biology analogies, and you can also, for example, think of a law that says, \"We outlaw all ants now,\" like in the whole country, all the ants. They are outlawed now, but what, what do you want to do about it? That's how I view Bitcoin, you know, it's, it's like, it's very hard to get rid of it." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "49:02", "start": 2941.64, "text": "Yeah, and I'll, I'll tell you why I was thinking that as well. Just, for me, even earlier today, I was trying to explain to some people, and, and, you know, and that was one of the points where it was difficult to articulate to them. And at the same time, so again, like, you don't wanna be over" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "49:24", "start": 2964.27, "text": "That can be a turn off, the complexity can be a turn off basically, but I think part of it is, at least as far as I have seen it, is H- having that person become curious enough that they want to then go and read further?" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "49:40", "start": 2979.75, "text": "Yeah, yeah, definitely. I, I, I think, Bitcoiners in general are, are getting better with it in a way, and I, I think we, what, what I really, like is also chill lightly, you know? Because, I think a lot of Bitcoiners had to learn that the hard way as well, if you, if you come on too strong and talk to everyone about Bitcoin all the time, people will lose interest very quickly because it's just too Too much to take in. So I think, yeah, to, to onboard complete newbies, it's probably best just to, to give them some Bitcoin, just, get, get them some mobile wallet and just, just, transfer them like, a couple hundred Satoshi or something, and, just explain to them, hey, I just, I just sent you cash, and it, it behaves like cash and it is cash. Or just try to use words that are familiar to them. but I, I think as is, as you said Like a journey, and, people will discover Bitcoin, I think, when they are ready. And I, I, I think I wrote this also in the book at the very end. I think that you will get Bitcoin, like the big picture, once you're ready. And I also think that you will get Bitcoin, like with a small b, you, you will get your first satoshis once you're ready as well. And, yeah, I think there, there coming like more and more resources are, are coming out every day. For example, the Bitcoin That has a nice checklist where you can, tag along, during it, like you, you can have a, a, a standard Bitcoin journey, like you start with a, with a wallet and then you take care of your private keys and so on and so forth. But again, I think it, it will get easier over time and I think also the onboarding will get easier over time." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "51:26", "start": 3086.5, "text": "Yeah, it reminds me of that saying, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, right? So it's, it's just like that idea that sometimes they have to be Well, and you can't rush that. You just have to basically be available and, be, be there to help them when they, when they do ask, when they do come to you. Yeah," }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "51:44", "start": 3104.19, "text": "exactly." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "51:45", "start": 3104.83, "text": "So let's hit some of the, economic lessons then. So, w-what, what, what were some of the lessons that you had to learn from an economic perspective?" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "51:55", "start": 3114.58, "text": "Yeah. Again, I, I also wrote it in the book, like, I had zero economic background before I, I got into Bitcoin. Like, I had no idea what- Money was how I, I had no idea how money evolved. I had no idea about the gold standard, for example. I, I just, I just had all, had to learn all of that, on my own and, your podcast definitely was very helpful in that as well, pointing me to, to the right people and pointing me to the right resources. So thank you for that. You're welcome. And, yeah, so the, the first thing I, I had to ask myself over Over and over again is actually like, what the hell is money and why do we need money? And why, why did money actually came to be? Like, w-why was it invented or organically? And, just understanding that there are some things that are better used as money and that there are others that are really bad money, helped tremendously in understanding Bitcoin. And you, you, you, you basically go through the, history of, of monies and the, the history of monetary goods and, once you start to understand, why gold and silver were in a way the, the shelling point of, of monies, o-over, over the last couple thousand years, it, it, it starts to make sense that, it, it also starts to make sense that the current monetary system is just completely broken. Once, once you realize that, I think there's, there's no going back. There, it's very hard to unsee that in a way." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "53:34", "start": 3214.45, "text": "It brings up that whole, there's a lot of libertarians who aren't into Bitcoin, and that is always very puzzling to me, because to me, they should be some of the first people into this, right? but I guess not a- not all of them are, I guess, sold on the technology components or they have not dived into it because of the, again, the complexity, it's just too much at the start. so- What about this concept of don't trust, verify? So that's another lesson in, in your book, in the technology chapter." }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "54:10", "start": 3249.54, "text": "Yeah. I, I think that's actually related why, why more people that should be into Bitcoin because of their ideological alignment aren't into Bitcoin. I think In general, the modern computational technology that we have is still very new. People don't trust it very much, if you just compare it to gold, for example. Gold is very trustworthy because it has like a five thousand year track record or something like that, and it's, it's also, it's not very complicated, you know? I mean, you have a, a gold nugget or a gold coin, and there's, there's not much that can go wrong with it, and it's, it's almost indestr- like it's pretty much indestructible. And with technology, it" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "54:51", "start": 3291.13, "text": "And, I mean, computer systems get hacked all the time. It's just, it's, it's what you read in the news, and it's also what, what, what is true in a way, like, computer systems are horribly insecure. And so putting all your trust and all your money into a computer system is kind of a weird thing, and I think you need to have, truly deep technical understanding, understanding why you can't do that. And I think, shifting your perspective from it is, Like a computer system to it is a thermodynamically secured physical system really helps because that's in essence what Bitcoin is. but, but again, I think I think it's, it's also correct to be cautious, and it depends on your risk appetite. not everyone is all into Bitcoin, and not everyone should be. I think it's, it's still very new, even though I think it's insanely robust. But, we don't even know, for example, if the cryptographic primitives we hold are secure, and that's what I wrote about in, in the lesson on trust, it's called, \"Reflections on Don't- Trust verify, because it's really, really hard to trust computer systems, and Kent Thompson showed that in his very famous, hack where he put a backdoor in a compiler, like he put a Trojan horse in a compiler that, generates computer programs, and it's, it, he, he used this Trojan horse to generate a new compiler which has this hidden Trojan horse in it. So it, it's, it kind of sounds complicated, but once you understand it, it's, it's basically computer program that will infect all your computer programs just automatically, and there's nothing you can do about it, and you can't even detect it. And, so once you realize that, all the computer systems that we use, they, they're prone to, to those kind of attacks, I think it's, it's, yeah, it's understandable that people are skeptical and, we, as I said in the beginning, we should be, yeah, we should have eternal vigilance and, never let our guard down. Because, yeah, computer systems, can be hacked, they will be hacked, and I think every attack vector that exists in Bitcoin will be used at some point in time." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "57:12", "start": 3432.03, "text": "Yeah, that's a really sobering point and definitely a good reminder for many listeners. And one thing that strikes me there is Over time, Bitcoin products have had to evolve as well from a privacy and a security perspective, right? So we had hardware wallets trying to take the keys away and take, you know, make the keys cold instead of making the keys hot. And then, then there's this focus now on, okay, well, we need it to be open source and we need a secure element, but the challenges around having an open source secure element and, and then the challenges around having multi-signature and having that as, you know, an accessible technology, and that's still something that The Bitcoin, ecosystem is working through that challenge now of how to make that easy. So there's definitely some really important lessons for all of us there on continually, upping our game in terms of security and also privacy. Now, privacy is also an important one as well, because I think that is an angle where you don't have to be a libertarian to appreciate that. Like anyone can appreciate the value of privacy, and that's actually one of your lessons. So, what, what are you getting at in your lesson here, number nineteen? Privacy is not dead." }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "58:28", "start": 3507.99, "text": "Yeah, it was, it was a rather optimistic take, on, on the whole privacy issue. I'm a huge privacy advocate, and it's also one of the reasons why I don't use my real name, just, in a way because I can, and it's, it's in line with the Bitcoin ethos. And I think it's, it's very important to, just point out to people that, privacy online is pretty much all Almost dead. So you, you should, you should do everything that you can to take back your privacy and fight for it and, just use the best tools you have available and just don't hand out your data just because you can use a free service or, or something. And I think the, the way, Bitcoin was invented, by Satoshi is, a very nice lesson in privacy because still nobody knows who he was and, a lot of people really wanna know. So his His, his opsec was really good, and I think it, it is just a, a hopeful, yeah, a hopeful lesson that privacy isn't that if you, if you know what you're doing, and we saw that also with the Snowden revelations, for example. he was, he was able to stay private online and he was able to, yeah, get the information out and do his leaks, and he's, he's still alive, and I think if he wouldn't have come out publicly, publicly there, there is a possibility that he would still be somewhat anonymous. I mean, that's, that's debatable, but, he show-- he showed us that these privacy-preserving technologies are insanely powerful and as far as we know, they can't be broken, and we should all celebrate that and use them accordingly." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:00:06", "start": 3606.29, "text": "Excellent. Well, look, let's, leave it there, but, let's make sure the listeners know where to find you online and where can they find your new book, Twenty One Lessons?" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "01:00:17", "start": 3617.84, "text": "So Twenty One Lessons is available on, all the Amazon shops. So I self-published using Amazon, so your local Amazon shop should have it if you just search for twenty-one Lessons Bitcoin, you should find it. I'm there, Gigi, on pretty much, yeah, everywhere. I also have there, Gigi dot com where, you can see my, my writing and some other things. And, I'm, yeah, I'm most easily reachable on Twitter, I would say, so I'm there, Gigi on Twitter as well." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:00:45", "start": 3645.5, "text": "Fantastic. Well, thank you very much for joining me, Gigi. I really enjoyed" }, { "speaker": "gigi", "time": "01:00:49", "start": 3649.62, "text": "it" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:00:52", "start": 3652.06, "text": "Quick announcement, I have just been announced as a speaker at Bitcoin twenty twenty, so make sure you check that out. Last year at Bitcoin twenty nineteen was incredible, they had a Bitcoin beer garden, they had amazing speakers, they've got a lightning arcade, they're gonna have basically all that and more this year. They've got some awesome speakers as well, Nick Szabo and Tony Hawk to name a few. So the website for that is bitcoin twenty twenty conference dot com. As usual, for my stuff, you can find all that, show notes, transcript, subscribe, all that, stephanelivera" } ] }