23 - Marcelo Fleischer on Bitcoin: The Birth and Resurrection of Monetary Insurrection

A decade ago, almost to the month, a man arrived at my apartment here in Buenos Aires with a bottle of Malbec under one arm and a crazed, almost fanatical look in his eye... He had come to tell me about a nascent payment system he had uncovered, one that he thought had the potential to “revolutionize money, markets, man’s relationship to the state... everything!” By the look of him - disheveled, coffee-wired, more intense even than usual - I assumed he’d been up for days on end, doing the proverbial “deep dive” into the whole project. I was right. (But not as right as he was!) Over the course of the next few hours - and a few glasses of the aforementioned vino - my friend explained to me the ins and outs of an ingenious technological breakthrough... one that had been, literally, thousands of years in the making... As you’ve probably guessed by now, that payment system was (and in some ways still is) Bitcoin. And at the time, back in early 2011, you could buy one (becoming what is now known in the hallowed halls of Bitcoinlandia as a “whole coiner”) for less than a cup of coffee - or about $1.50. Time stamps - A rough guide... 00:50 - Start - Introducing Marcelo and the Bitcoin Story 01:50 - From gold, to Bitcoin and beyond… 02:30 - Why Bitcoin in the first place? A civilizational shift in technology... 03:40 - The Global Financial Crisis, the genesis block and the birth of Bitcoin 04:20 - The important reason Bitcoin is a “peer-to-peer cash system” [Banner] 05:40 - How fiat money is the most efficient way to rob you 08:40 - The need for a money that reflects scarcity in the real world 11:40 - E-gold and the failure of market-based money alternatives before Bitcoin 13:00 - What Bill said?: BPR Ep. #22 - https://soundcloud.com/user-463542693/22-bill-bonner-on-the-press-the-so-called-white-supremacy-and-the-illusion-of-free-money#t=38:30 26:35 - The good news: You can “fork the system” 29:00 - When Bitcoin adoption growth became “too good to be true” 30:00 - How Blockstream hijacked Satoshi’s vision 31:30 - Who financed the undermining of Bitcoin? Following the money... 35:20 - The controversial “block size” debate and the BTC/BCH fork 38:00 - Bitcoin fees as a blind auction 49:00 - August, 2017: the birth of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and a return to the original mission 52:35 - The advantage of free market competition in money 53:50 - Bitcoin Cash as the most widely used cryptocurrency in the world