Bitcoin Part 2
Explicit content warning
04/01/22 • 67 min
We’re delving deeper into the story of Bitcoin in this episode, and meeting some more of the other major players from its early days. It’s fair to say that, without these people and the work they did, Bitcoin would not have evolved and may not even have survived.
Although these men are well known within the crypto community, their impact on the world is largely unknown outside of it. These were the few who discovered Bitcoin early on, recognised its potential, and did all they could to make it better and spread the word.
We’ll meet Hal Finney, the cypherpunk who was the first person to respond positively to Satoshi Nakamoto’s unveiling of Bitcoin. Martti Malmi, the student who taught himself how to code in order to work on Bitcoin, and helped Satoshi design its iconic logo. And, of course, the guy who spent 10,000 BTC on pizza...
We’ll also run through a timeline of Bitcoin’s early days and some of the key events that took place while the wider world remained unaware of its existence.
If you want to read more, here are a few of the excellent books on Bitcoin that we used in researching this episode:
The Bitcoin Standard (2018) by Saifedean Ammous
Bitcoin: The Future of Money? (2014) by Dominic Frisby
Digital Gold (2015) by Nathaniel Popper
The Age of Cryptocurrency (2015) by Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey
We hope you enjoy the show.
Producer for iHeart Media: Noel Brown
Editor: Sam Moult
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We’re delving deeper into the story of Bitcoin in this episode, and meeting some more of the other major players from its early days. It’s fair to say that, without these people and the work they did, Bitcoin would not have evolved and may not even have survived.
Although these men are well known within the crypto community, their impact on the world is largely unknown outside of it. These were the few who discovered Bitcoin early on, recognised its potential, and did all they could to make it better and spread the word.
We’ll meet Hal Finney, the cypherpunk who was the first person to respond positively to Satoshi Nakamoto’s unveiling of Bitcoin. Martti Malmi, the student who taught himself how to code in order to work on Bitcoin, and helped Satoshi design its iconic logo. And, of course, the guy who spent 10,000 BTC on pizza...
We’ll also run through a timeline of Bitcoin’s early days and some of the key events that took place while the wider world remained unaware of its existence.
If you want to read more, here are a few of the excellent books on Bitcoin that we used in researching this episode:
The Bitcoin Standard (2018) by Saifedean Ammous
Bitcoin: The Future of Money? (2014) by Dominic Frisby
Digital Gold (2015) by Nathaniel Popper
The Age of Cryptocurrency (2015) by Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey
We hope you enjoy the show.
Producer for iHeart Media: Noel Brown
Editor: Sam Moult
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Previous Episode
Bitcoin Part 1
It’s taken a while, but we’re finally there folks: it’s time to talk about Bitcoin. Now that we’ve covered the origins of money and how we use it, and spent some time exploring blockchain technology, we’re ready to talk about cryptocurrency. Let’s face it, that’s what we’re here for, after all.
In this episode, we’ll talk about the emergence of Bitcoin back in 2009. We’ll explore the shadowy group known as the cypherpunks, whose ideas and obsessions were key influences on Bitcoin and its mysterious creator. We’ll also look at some early attempts to create a form of digital money free from the malign influence of banks and other financial institutions. These forerunners of Bitcoin would themselves play a major role in shaping the first cryptocurrency.
We’ll also start to encounter some of the characters who have contributed, directly or indirectly, to Bitcoin’s development and begin to ask the question: who on earth is Satoshi Nakamoto?
As with previous episodes, there’s tons of material online if you want to dig deeper into what we cover. There are some great books you can read too, several of which were enormously useful in putting this episode together:
The Bitcoin Standard (2018) by Saifedean Ammous
Bitcoin: The Future of Money? (2014) by Dominic Frisby
Digital Gold (2015) by Nathaniel Popper
The Age of Cryptocurrency (2015) by Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey
We hope you enjoy the show.
Producer for iHeart Media: Noel Brown
Editor: Sam Moult
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Next Episode
Bitcoin Part 3
The story of Bitcoin starts to get a lot spicier! After looking last time at some of the unsung heroes who were so pivotal in Bitcoin’s early days, it’s time to gauge the impact of some rather more controversial characters.
To many, Bitcoin is still synonymous with hacking, scandal and crime - perceptions that are hard to shift. Much of this bad press is down to two ill-fated projects that wereinspired by Bitcoin but ultimately ended up staining its reputation.
So, in this episode, we take a look at the sorry tale of the Mt Gox exchange and the even darker story of the Silk Road marketplace. For a long time, Mt Gox was the place to buy bitcoins and Silk Road was the place to spend them. The rise and fall of both are stories that still haunt the crypto space to this day. Understanding the role both played in the story of Bitcoin - and vice versa - helps make sense of a lot of today’s cryptocurrency landscape.
The stories of Mt Gox and Silk Road are rich in detail, so if you want to dig further into what happened in both cases, the following resources may be of use:
Books:
American Kingpin (2017) by Nick Bilton (all about Ross Ulbricht and Silk Road)
Bitcoin: The Future of Money? (2014) by Dominic Frisby
Digital Gold (2015) by Nathaniel Popper
A great documentary about Mt Gox by Vincent Gonon and Xavier Sayanoff can be found on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E-8-oVXV9A
There’s also a short piece from The Guardian on Silk Road here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FknwWMzc96A
We hope you enjoy the show.
Producer for iHeart Media: Noel Brown
Editor: Sam Moult
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Coin Bureau Podcast: Crypto Without the Hype - Bitcoin Part 2
Transcript
The Coin Bureau Podcast is a production of I Heart Radio. I never thought much about making money. It happened accidentally as a by product of Satoshi asking me to keep my node running so others could connect. Welcome everyone, wherever you are and whoever you are, to the Coin Bureau Podcast. My name is Guy and my name is is mad Mike Mooch there he is. Nice to see you again of chat. Yeah, are you well? Very well good? How did you find last week's
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