Podcast: Blockchain – It’s Bigger Than Bitcoin

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So who are we and what are we doing here? My name is Tyler Jenks. We both work at Very. Very is a software consultancy based out of Chattanooga, Tennessee. We specialize in application development, design, product development, and we are starting to get pretty deep into blockchain development as well.

Blockchain is a really interesting topic. There are quite a few different podcasts that are out there. There are so many different people talking about it now.

People regard it as this thing that is supposed to fix everything — that you can build any sort of app on the blockchain.

We would like to cover some of the things that are going on. But first, a little bit about us. So again, my name is Tyler Jenks. The reason I care about this stuff and I started Very a number of years back, it kind of goes back to my college years. It is number one in the world for entrepreneurship. What does that mean. They teach people to be entrepreneurs, they teach entrepreneurship. So two of the other partners here at Very were classmates of mine at Babson.

And actually, Jesse, I met even before then because he was on the track team there. But anyway, while I was at Babson, trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I knew I wanted to get into entrepreneurship. And Facebook had just really started happening on campus when I was a freshman. So it was about a year old and had kind of blown up. Youtube was already quite big, and there were all these really interesting phenomena happening online.

But I was just Googling around my sophomore year, I remember it clear as day, I was sitting at my desk in my dorm and stumbled across a blog called Robotic Nation. The people that are working there, they put on these headphones and the software tells them what to do. Basically step-by-step throughout the day, just sort of micromanages them and tells them: And so you know, just step-by-step guides everybody through it, and it becomes more and more sophisticated over time and in the story, the fast food chain becomes this gigantic enterprise.

Long story short, it creates all this great value, and then this sort of dystopia in the world comes about as a result of it. And it really kind of struck me. The way it was presented is you know, this very logical progression of what happens as certain technologies take hold and the kinds of problems they solve, the kinds of problems they create and how it kind of snowballs into this really remarkably different world.

A lot of people referenced Ray Kurzweil and this concept of singularity, which is what he started writing about in It was a very similar thought process, a very similar progression as these various technologies take more and more hold, and they become more and more ubiquitous around the world — and not just in rich countries but everywhere. And his conclusion is also that we reached this point of total utopia essentially, after all these things finally break down these fundamental problems.

So this kind of stuff got me interested in the tech side of things. I did have some programming language background. I loved Microsoft Excel, I took a class in C at the time, and a few things like that. But I knew that I wanted to launch businesses that were in the technology space. And so fast-forwarding after my first business, which we raised a bunch of money around and it ended up not working out, I decided to go back and finish my degree.

The whole concept around it was: Like the really big, hairy, nasty problems. Human trafficking, access to clean water in underdeveloped parts of the world, climate change, hyperinflation, global deforestation, cost of healthcare, identity.

All these sorts of things that a lot of people just sort of regard them as: So the whole class for the entire semester is about challenging that really quick conclusion that people tend to draw about these things and start to break down these really big problems into maybe smaller and smaller parts and try to really find those root causes if you can. And then maybe try addressing the root problem. And so — this is a long-winded intro to the whole thing — but it turns out blockchain and a lot of other things like artificial intelligence, internet of things, the internet in generalbut blockchain specifically is one of those technologies that when you really think about it for a little bit, and what it does and what it means, you can envision a lot of these really big problems in the world starting to become not so big because some of the root problems are actually solvable with a blockchain solution that achieves critical mass.

And so that, for me, is why I am so interested in Very becoming very deep in blockchain development and getting involved and meeting with really interesting people who are trying to use blockchain to solve all kinds of problems around the world. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. There is always something different that needs to be fixed or solved or thought about in a unique and different way. And then I see with blockchain that that pace of change is so much faster than technology in general.

So it seems like an area where there's so going to be so much change so quickly, and I think it could be really exciting for us to be along for the ride. Another example is Bitcoin in general. The price of Bitcoin sincewhen the first one was mined, the genesis block was mined, they traded back in at about a tenth of a cent per Bitcoin. In 18 months, after you start working on something, something completely different may have made it irrelevant.

So, a little more about this podcast. Focus on problems that are in the world today. Maybe talking about some of the history of those problems, some of the people that are involved with it. What nations are involved, whatever it happens to be, and go into real detail about why these problems exist and what the core of the problems is and how it affects people.

I hope to go into some real detail about it and maybe spend five or 10 minutes just going into the history of these problems and painting a picture of just how big and how grave they are and how much pain they cause, only for the purpose of illustrating why blockchain matters as it relates to that problem. And then bringing in some guests that are really smart people who are in the process of building their own blockchain solutions, probably on top of Ethereum, but there are all kinds of other ways they can do it.

They can do it on Hyperledger, they can do private blockchains, there are public blockchains that are all over the place. And then maybe getting a little bit into the technical side of things. But this podcast is not going to be focused on the tech. Those are very interesting topics. But it will still be a very fuzzy understanding of what blockchain is. So this will be a good starter example. It typically only happens in times of war. Civil war or otherwise.

It can be that exaggerated. This sounds like a really foreign concept in the United States — like, man, things have to be really messed up somewhere, this must be a pretty rare thing. In general, the United States enjoys an extremely strong currency. Almost all the international trade happens in the U. So we have this really unusually powerful currency, and it means basically nothing to anyone here.

But anyway, hyperinflation nonetheless is something that is a real, real problem. The price of oil has dropped really, really markedly over the past handful of years.

That can fuel the unrest very easily because hyperinflation causes all kinds of problems. The value of that is going to zero. Think about your parents for example, working really hard to put together some money to put you through school someday.

And then, you know, this sort of situation happens and then the value of that money just —. Well and even so much beyond that — what if your parents or your grandparents and everyone that you know, all the things they worked toward their whole lives is just gone. Every generation of wealth that maybe, if somebody passed some wealth along, that becomes worth nothing. All of your friends are going through the same thing. Usually what happens in these periods of hyperinflation is also a lot of people lose their jobs because of a lot of businesses go under.

The money that a business has accumulated or uses to pay its bills goes to zero. So a lot of people lose their jobs. A lot of people start going hungry.

So this is a problem —. It happens a lot more frequently than people realize. But you know, just previously to this, Zimbabwe was going through an extremely aggressive period of hyperinflation. In NovemberZimbabwe reached a peak inflation rate of The value of all the money just goes to zero basically. In no time flat. And that had to do with war. There was a war with the Congo. It turns out that there are 22 examples of countries going through periods of hyperinflation, just in the last 25 years.

But at the end of the day, this is a real problem that happens all over the world and it has to do with fiat currency. It has to do with the fact that money, paper money, has no implicit value. It says backed by the full faith in government — whatever it states on the U.

People are putting faith in the government to protect the value of the currency, and they fail to do that. They are the ones that make all of the decisions, and they have this huge responsibility to be good actors in the interest of their citizens. Some external factor comes into play, and then suddenly that central authority becomes unstable, they become unreliable, and they start breaking all the rules.

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Planet Money's bitcoin story Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. From Gimlet, this is Reply All. I do a great job solving them. And, um, I actually have kind of a doozy this week. What have you got?

Um, so this Super Tech Support comes to us from one of my favorite writers. First thing is first, can you just tell me who you are? And you emailed us. Can you tell me why you emailed us? I emailed you guys because I bought bitcoin in what I thought was but I think was January, What did you settle on for what you wanted to buy? I think I bought weed and Molly. And [clears throat] how were the drugs?

I think they were fine. I actually think the weed was not that good, and I think the molly was molly so it was great. Jia says that she bought about 80 bucks worth of bitcoin for this drug purchase, and she knows that there was bitcoin left over.

But, in the 6 years since the original purchase, she has totally forgotten what happened to the bitcoin. Uh, what was the date you gave? I could have so much money! That must be really agonizing. Uh, it was though. This really hurts to look at. But it could easily be six figures of money. Because not only did she buy this bitcoin six years ago, buying bitcoin is stupidly complicated.

So, can you explain to me, to the best of your memory, like exactly the process of buying the bitcoin and then buying the drugs? Uh, there are gonna be big holes here. Wait a minute, you deposited money— JIA: Cash, American, US dollars. Via pneumatic tube— JIA: Yeah, yeah I did. At a normal bank— JIA: I think that was actually just her putting money in her bank account. Either way, she goes home, gets on the internet, just like, the regular internet, not the dark web, and she goes to this thing called a bitcoin exchange, think of it as a bank [MUSIC] PJ: She purchases bitcoin using that money.

So now her money is at this… online bitcoin exchange a. And she has one of two options: She can let the bitcoin exchange keep track of her bitcoin, or she can keep track of it using a program on her laptop called a bitcoin wallet. Which is what she thinks she did.

And then I remember using some sort of internet tutorial to learn PGP. Or to get a PGP key. I had to like encrypt something about my wallet. Yeah, I hate these words, right? Where do they live? It is totally anonymous, and when you buy bitcoin, all they do is put you on the list. I am going to need that computer. Should I- Should I like- send it off to get the hard drive done?

Um, I have a- I have a history of tech support. I will bring you my laptop. Alright here it is. Oh my god it feels so big. It was not water damage. I opened up the computer and it turns out that the battery had exploded inside the computer. But, I managed to get the hard drive out, I connected it to my computer, and I went down into the studio with Producer Damiano Marchetti. Okay, it is, uh, Tuesday, January 2nd, Welcome to the new year, Damiano. Are you ready for this odyssey of discovery?

I had it in backwards. The hard drive is spinning. The hard drive is spinning, which means that… oh. Wait a second — this looks like a wallet address. It has no transactions, it has not received any bitcoin, it has not sent any bitcoin.

So do you remember when I said Jia bought her bitcoin from a bitcoin exchange, which is— PJ: Basically, instead of her managing her own bitcoin keys and worrying about potentially losing them and never getting her bitcoin back, she could leave it on this site.

And the good news is Jia remembers where she bought her bitcoin. She bought it at a website called Mt. So, in the early days of bitcoin, Mt. Gox was like the Bank of America of bitcoin. And what happened was, one day in early , Mt. And then, a document leaked from Mt. Gox that said over the course of several years hackers had stolen about , bitcoin from Mt. One of the biggest bitcoin exchanges houses called Mt. Gox has gone offline. It seems to have vanished. Transactions have been halted, and the CEO is unaccounted for after resigning from the bitcoin foundation.

People were freaking out about this. There was talk that this could be the end of bitcoin entirely, because there was half a billion dollars worth of bitcoin that was just gone. Which, today, would be worth ten billion dollars. People start filing lawsuits left and right. The only bright point in this dark tale, I mean, at least for us, is that Mt. Gox puts a portal on their website that lets you check to see if you had bitcoin there when the site shut down.

Like if your name was Jia Tolentino. So I call Jia…. I walk her through the site. It will take you to the Mt. Gox bankruptcy filing system. Uh, she tries to login. Like, what password was I using in She has like my level of memory. The temporary authentication code will be sent to the contact email address that you entered on the bankruptcy claim form. I could have made us rich. I will never give up. As long as you have hundreds- potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars locked on the internet somewhere— JIA: Gox to speak to.

Like the right bank teller. Hello, thank you for calling. How can I help you today? Uh, I would like to check on the, um, account balance of an account on Mt. And basically I learn that this operator has a ton of polite ways of saying no.

But I could, I could give you the information, and maybe they would get back to me?