Bitcoin Forum

Link to the timestamp (added &t=2h):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVHond-XHK4&t=2h

listening to Charlies explanation attempts I am shocked to realized how many falsehoods or at least half-truths one has to use to avoid overcomplicating things and confusing the hell out of your listener.

EDIT: well, saying the block reward is 50 BTC is uneccesary, though.

Like?

Like.. was this recorded before the block reward drop or something?

At approx 2:10

Im pretty sure that Ive explained we passed the halving, maybe I was going over the information.

What else?

Charlie,  You 've been practicing!

You started off so well. 

But you said Bitcoin was NOT a currency in the beginning the  2 minutes later you say it is a currency.

You're on the phone.  Write this shit down!

love

BCB

LOL!

Thats not what I said!

I said "To understand it, dont put labels like currency on it yet" I was trying to help people understand it without putting a label on it

Charlie

Dude,

You are killing me!

Gavin was Satoshi's successor (NOT predecessor!)

Also,

Bitcoin was created by a cryptographer or a group of cryptographers who took on the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamato. 

Don't just say Satoshi  disappeared.  It sounds like someone killed him!  How could they kill him when he never really existed.

After launching the bitcoin project Satoshi passed the torch on to his successor Gavin Andressen who is currently the lead developer of the bitcoin open source project.

Have you butty vorhees write this stuff down for you.  Seriously.

People listen to this shit!

I used the wrong word, but corrected myself later.


Thats solely your opinion, some people believe it was 1 person, some people believe it was many.


Thats what I said!

"I give up!"

++1

lol, in the end you are correct. Im put in a position where people listen, so I need to make sure 15000% everything I say is accurate.

see my youtube comment:

I think you did a great job. It is very difficult to explain bitcoin in layman's terms. Thank god they didn't interview Amir Taaki.

Amir tends to slip towards talking about free software and freedom in general. This is also not a bad approach because this is one of the main reasons for bitcoin.

It's definitely hard to talk well about Bitcoin, very good job imo. I'd never heard these guys, they sound a lot like FTL.

The network does not adjust to reduced mining power in 10 minutes, in fact it can take much longer than 2 weeks.

There is no reason to wait for more than 6 confirmations even for an enormous transaction. Your partner is absolutely not going to have ~45% mining power and count on luck to go faster than the network for 6 blocks. He can either rollback 30 as easily as 6 or he can't roll back 6. It's a much smaller 'lie' to say that 6 is solid than it is to say there are no fees.

The no fee claim bothers me but I know from previous conversations that you are fairly set on it.

If you had gotten into discussing mining like they wanted to you might have been in a sticky spot when they asked about mining incentive after the reward drops to zero, which it does btw, you seemed to imply that you thought it would get ever smaller without going to zero though I think you only said that it would not reach 21M, which is true (caused by reward going to zero, not getting infinitely smaller).

You pretty much hit all my complaints, although even if he was right about it getting infinitely smaller (which would be possible if we kept extending the number of decimals) it still not reach 21M.  The sum of 1/2^n with n from 1 to infinity converges to 1.  The bitcoin creation can be thought of as 21,000,000/2^n coins each four year period, so it will still never exceed 21M if we extend the divisibility infinitely.

My recollection of high school maths tells me that it might be described as 'asymptotically' approaching 21 M.
Is the word asymptote really too geeky for general use?

Right, if it halved forever it would fail to reach it because of asymptotes blah blah. But in reality it fails to reach it because of adding.

Guys don't be so hard on Charlie. Charlie did a really really great job and should not stress about details. I'm sure he has best intentions to find a good balance between relaxed talking and accurate information.

You are seriously discussing now if we will assymptotically reach 21,000,000Ƀ or if we will stop at 20,999,999.9999999Ƀ.
Saying "No Fees" vs. "Very small fees" also is a political decision that some favor the one over the other for their agenda. It's not like he wouldn't know these details. If you feel like he doesn't know the difference between successor and predecessor (seriously?) mention it, else please relax a bit about a great interview.

That's funny! +1 to both of you.

Look Guys.

I like Charlie.  He started a terrific and one of the more successful bitcoin business that is obviously helpful to lots of users (if he could only work out all the little bugs!).   We all make mistakes.  I am certain I would do a lot worse in a similar interview.   Charlie is also one of bitcoins most vocal advocates/evangelists and I certainly appreciate that.   And as such he and any other bitcoin advocate does need to prepare talking points so he gets his facts straight.  There is already enough skepticism and confusion in the general media (christ even in the bitcoin world) about what exactly bitcoin is and can be use for.  And there has been enough negative press and unfortunate press interviews that I think it only appropriated to call Charlie to task when he is essentially representing us all.

Keep up the good work Charlie!

+1

on the other hand I'm sure Charlie doesn't mind us helping him to get his facts straight as long as we're friendly and appreciate his efforts.

Agreed! I love it.