Bitcoin Forum

I've been contacted by the host of a popular radio talk show... to be a guest on his show.   He specifically contacted me, as the creator of the BitcoinMe.com site.  He wants to interview me about Bitcoin.  

I hope I am able to do a good job in presenting Bitcoin to his audience -- people who've never heard of it before.  I'll do my best.  :)

Of course, I'll start by explaining my role in it.  That I didn't invent Bitcoin.... that, if fact, I only recently discovered it myself, etc.   But that I hope to help spread the word about it, and educate people about what it is... (and what it is not...)

I hope you'll listen in -- if not live, you will be able to download it and listen any time, at your convenience.

From his email:

"I host a popular live talk show each morning 9 –11 AM Central on One Radio Network  http:// www.oneradionetwork.com It will be a pleasure to interview you...."

I believe it is scheduled for one week from today.  Thursday Dec 2

You're fantastic! We can fully trust you.

Oh I don't know, I feel kinda nervous for pushing bitcoin onto people.

That's amazing, Bruce!

I imagine the show will be more about the economics than the technical details? Do you know if the host will be coming from a "we need gov inflation" angle or a "gold is the only money" angle or something else?

I know what you mean, but there is a difference between explaining something new and "pushing it onto people".

I don't tell many people. I imagine all my acquaintances who I don't tell will be pretty pissed at me in 2013, lol.

Agree, we should not push it down the throat.

At the same time, bitcoins need more adopters and if done appropriately and in a balanced way, this interview can move a lot.

Based on what I experienced from bruce, I do not think there is a risk for "pushingtoomuch"

It's not "pushing", it's just "first exposure".

Also, 99.9% of the listeners won't look into bitcoin until they've heard about it a dozen or more times.

"I didn't invent bitcoin. A mysterious guy from Japan invented it. "  ;D

+1

100% agree

Maybe you should PM satoshi about this.

I am scheduled to do a radio interview -- on the topic of Bitcoin -- with popular talk radio host, Patrick Timpone, tomorrow morning (Thursday) at 10am Eastern Time.   If you get a chance, listen in.  http://oneradionetwork.com (http://oneradionetwork.com)  If not, I'll email you the MP3 later.  :)
_____

Oh...  I just now re-found this thread... and read your comments here.  I'm not sure how I misplaced it.  :)

Yes, it will be more about the basic concepts....  nothing too deep from either perspective -- technical or economic -- just the basic ideas....  as the "man or woman on the street" would understand it.

Very similar to the BitcoinMe.com site...  What is a Bitcoin?  Why would I use it?   Can I get real cash money for it?  How do I get some?   etc., etc...

From both the technical perspective, and the economic perspective, I will do my best to explain things in simple terms.... and yet be as accurate as I can.   (I'm sure you'll all hold me accountable if I screw up and say something that's inaccurate, so I'm going to be very careful! :)  )

The host, Patrick Timpone, is very fair and balanced.  I listen to him all the time.   By the way, as a side note, I love the shows he does with Andy Gause, monetary historian.  We listen to each episode at least 2-3 times.   I'd be interested to hear you all's feedback on the Andy Gause shows at http://oneradionetwork.com (http://oneradionetwork.com)

Good luck with this one.  I'm sure that there are going to be a whole bunch of questions which will be raised from some very skeptical listeners.  I know when I first heard about Bitcoins (via Slashdot originally) I thought my leg was being pulled hard and that there was no way it could possibly work.  Skeptics with an open mind ought to be your target audience here for explanations.

Mention how one of the first significant "real world" transactions was buying a pizza.  That is something many people could relate to, not to mention showing how the value of a bitcoin has gone up considerably since then.

Mention my story:

I was donated 0.5 bitcoins then turned it to 100 bitcoins playing poker :)

Really?

Just finished the interview...  Did anyone listen in Live...?

Once they upload the MP3 of it, I'll post a direct link to download it.

I caught the end only. It seemed really good. I want to hear it all.

I unfortunately missed that because of important meeting :(. Looking forward mp3!

Here is the page for the show:   http://goo.gl/FOecU (http://goo.gl/FOecU)

As soon as they get the MP3 uploaded from this morning's show, it will show a PLAYER and DOWNLOAD links... for the MP3 file.

It went very well, I thought.   Anxious to hear what you all thought.

Immediately afterward, I got lots of phone calls and emails...  Including one lady in Toledo who wanted to buy $200 worth of Bitcoin immediately with her credit card.  I spent about 30 minutes on the phone with her... talking her through MyBitcoin.com and BitcoinGateway.com etc...  She had NEVER used Copy & Paste before.  :)

Another example:  I got an email from a man in São Paulo, Brazil.   He wants to volunteer to translate BitoinMe.com into Portuguese.

Awesome!

So MANY super exciting things are beginning to happen with Bitcoin... and I can tell you for certain....  THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING... of a Bitcoin Explosion that's about to happen!

Hold on tight!

Buy more Bitcoin!    Lots of Bitcoin!     ( before the media explosion results in masses of people buying... and driving the price up, up, up... )

:)

The site itself seem to be a weird... info-commercial for all the weird medicine stuff.

Should try to get t them to add a bitcoin donation address to their own support page.

Think that they might get around to it today?

This is why we need an automated bitcoin service for new people :p Where they can download their online wallets and shut down their accounts if they wish.

Correction....  (they changed the url once they uploaded the mp3)

The Show Page:   http://goo.gl/mCks0 (http://goo.gl/mCks0)

My Dropbox copy of the MP3  (right-click, then Save Link As):   http://goo.gl/eB6Sd (http://goo.gl/eB6Sd)  

Yes, as you'll hear during the actual show, Patrick asked me to set up a Bitcoin address for him to add to his site for Donation/Tip Jar.  I will do that now.  There.  I just did it.  And I just emailed him and told him to add this to his web site:


I also sent him the login credentials to his MyBitcoin account and told him to change the password now.  :)

I'll add his show to the http://bitcoinaddress.com (http://bitcoinaddress.com) directory now.  

Be sure to click the DIGG link to Digg it too.  The more publicity, the better.

Please tell me what you think of the show as soon as you're done listening to it.....    :)

Also, might I suggest that you send Patrick Timpone at least one Bitcoin right now.  Ed and I are going to send him 800 Bitcoin...   We want to get him excited about it....  We know he will start talking about it more and more and more...   :)

Wow, you have the hardest job in the world...

To explain bitcoin.

Dont send the 800 at once break it up to smaller but more frequent donations.

Bitcoin is one of those concepts that you just 'get' but it takes a bit of a intellectual jump to get there.  I find it hard to explain to my friends also.

@Bruce,  I just listened to your interview about bitcoin, you did a really good job! I’ll send a few BTC over to www.oneradionetwork.com once they have it all setup.

How many bitcoins do you have? Or are you just generous?

I think the website looks very unreliable, btw. Checking out the interview, now...

If I were a Wikipedian with something against Bitcoin, I would point that out in any discussion about notability. If you can get Assange to say in some interview that he is going to accept Bitcoin, I think you have hit the jackpot, though, with regard to notability.

Then again, Wikipedia might make it into "terrorist gets paid using terrorist virtual money". Oh, wait, that's Fox News.  

Edit: ok, I just heard it. I think you communicate well. I have no idea how a normal person would understand what you said (because I am not the audience), but I think your analogies were pretty good (the one with the markers comes to mind). I had the prejudice that the radioguy would be a total nut job, but he had non-commercial radio voice and did a good effort to follow you and you could sort of hear his experience with radio making.

The next time you do this, I would not mention the "sharing of ideas and God"-part. It's irrelevant and it makes you look like a hippie. If I may suggest an analogy: Stopping sharing of information is like making making water not wet.

My reflection: I didn't learn anything new about Bitcoin (nor did I expect to), but it was fascinating to hear someone talk on the radio about currency in this abstract way saying federal reserve notes instead of assuming there is only one currency in the world (the US dollar). I don't think I have ever heard someone in my country doing that. This notion of talking about the US dollar in this way already devalues it, I think.  

So, other than these minor points, I would say you did a very good job.  :)

Thanks.  Yes, I think we will do both.  800 as one transaction... then smaller donations on a regular basis.  I know he'll get excited when he sees these coming in.   Also, I know he'll start mentioning Bitcoin regularly.   I bet anything that he'll be discussing Bitcoin with Andy Gause on his show Saturday (Dec 4)...  I highly recommend listening in to that show too!

By the way, Patrick Timpone's OneRadioNetwork.com site is pretty ugly...  He knows that.   He's not technical.  However, his site is being completely redesigned.   It's almost ready.   So, hopefully, the new site will be much more professional-looking.  :)

But the main point is his show.  He has a very large following of loyal listeners.   Including Ed and I.

A LOT was said during this interview....  so listen to the whole thing...  then let me know what you think.

NOTE:   Listen to the WHOLE hour.   There's a point, 30 minutes in, where he does some commercials, and it sounds almost like he's moved on to the next guest...  But that's just a commercial...  Keep listening to the whole hour!   :)

Is it just me, or does he call mtgox "MOUNT COCKS" at 30:27?  :o

Trust you to notice that  ;D  Madhatter you got a pretty good rap in the interview!

I actually *just* got to 1:00 and heard the email about "The Madhatter". Haha!

Great... now I have cops at my door... again... :P j/k

thank you Bruce
for doing a great job promoting bitcoin.

i'd still like to see some proof for the tokyo-story though,
i thought Satoshi is a superhero (alien maybe?) living in his supersecret-offshore-cryptocave.  :D

"cryptocave" is a funny word once you consider the ethymologic meaning of "crypt".

Yes, he definitely calls it Mt Cox at one point ...  then he proceeds to spell it right... "M T G O X dot com"   Funny.   My friends were calling me and laughing out loud.  :)

As for "the Tokyo story"...   Since that was my first understanding...  I thought that sounded a lot better than, "It was created by a super secret mystery man named after a super hero."  :)

That would give the average listener a lot of confidence about putting money into Bitcoin...  :)

Madhatter was plugged. MtGox was plugged.  MyBitcoin was plugged a
(as the recommended way for total newbies to "get a Bitcoin address in 6 seconds".   And BitcoinGateway was plugged (as the way to buy Bitcoin using MasterCard or Visa.   I even plugged the Forum and you all.  :)

Did I say anything inaccurate, or misleading, or confusing?

I tried not to "make their heads explode"...  LOL

I just listened to this intereview.  BTW, you did a really good job, especially once you got going.  If you ever get a chance to talk about this again, you might want to come up with an "elevator story", aka explain the key parts of whatever it is that you want to "sell" in less than 30 seconds.

One HUGE mistake you've made here is to suggest that there is no cost for transactions.  That really isn't true even if at the moment it may be the case.  The interesting thing about Bitcoins is that the transaction cost is VOLUNTARY!  You can attempt to make a transaction where you don't include transaction fees, but you can make a "donation" to the "network" with the benefit that the transaction will be "confirmed" faster.  Transaction fees do take a bit to get your head wrapped around them, but once you realize that it is a sort of tip jar for processing transactions, it makes much more sense.  It is also important to note that the latest version of the official client (0.3.17) just introduced a way to add the transaction fee (aka the "tip") into the transaction.  It is the "miner" that collects the fees.

Another thing that perhaps would be more useful to explain is the concept of a "miner".  Most of what the casual user is doing can be more compared to perhaps some of the early California gold miners in 1849 that were panning for gold where running your computer is more like dipping your prospecting pan into the river and getting perhaps a couple of dollars from finding a little bit of gold dust.  There are some people (mentioned on these forums) who are much more serious about the issue and have set up server farms and come up with specialized software like the GPU mining software which creates the "hashes" for creating new blocks.  These would be analogous to the big mining companies that later came to California to do some serious digging up of the ground.  You can run the Bitcoin client, but it really isn't going to get you all that much money and you have to be lucky.

It also didn't get across very well another concept, and that is that blocks creating new bitcoin blocks are only generated about once every 10 minutes.  To me personally, this is by far and away more important than even the 21 million BTC limit and at the moment the only real thing that is maintaining the current value of Bitcoins.  There may be mild "inflation" right now in the overall Bitcoin economy, but it is at a very controlled rate and that when a hundred thousand people come onto the network, it will become much more difficult to "generate" or "mine" new bitcoins because there will be more people trying to compete for this limited supply of new coins being generated.  At any given time, there is a current overall limit to the number of coins available by anybody.  I've argued that the 21 million BTC limit isn't necessarily important at all, but that is my own political philosophy going at the moment and it is irrelevant other than to note there are different opinions on that topic too.

It also would have been nice to mention the notion that the overall size of the Bitcoin "economy" has a net worth of more than $1 million USD.  That number comes from the total number of Bitcoins currently available multiplied by the current exchange rate.... sort of a market cap type calculation.

Anyway, those are all trivially things to nitpick about, but on the whole you at least got the idea across that there is something real going on, and that real people are "investing" real money into the concept of Bitcoins.

Although I thought it was very well done overall, I do have a few complaints.

First, you said and then repeated that the 21 million stops "by 2033", but the estimated date is about 2129, by my understanding.  But that's not even the most important part, you alluded to the decreasing block reward, but even if the system were to adopt more decimal devision than the currently available 8 places (permitting the system to continue the block reward indefinately) there can still not be more than 21 million as the reward decreases exponentially toward that limit.  It doesn't just hit that number and stop.

Second, you implied that the relationship between cpu contributions and rewards is a linear relationship, which I know you know it isn't.  I can understand that this might have made heads explode.

Third, you stated that there are no transaction costs "ever" which is false.  This shouldn't be claimed.  The transaction costs are intended to be a market controlled price, which happens to presently be zero.

And finally, it would have been better to mention that the currency is still inflating at a pretty high rate, which has a lot to do with it's low price before October, but that the system is highly predictable, and the inflation rate will be below 6% by 2013 and below ( I think) 3% two years later.  By 2020, the inflation rate will be below the target inflation rates of every central bank on Earth, and cannot rise back up again even if the system is modified to be able to continue to issue new money into an indefinite future.  Again, this might have made heads explode.  Perhaps there should be a 'geek's faq' on Bitcoinme.com.

Overall, very well done, Sir; well done indeed.

EDIT:  I forgot to mention that a good analogy is to compare the blockchain to a ledger managed by a universally respected notary public.  The p2p network is the notary.  He expects to make a living, but doesn't force anyone to pay for his services; but only does charity work when his paid work is done.

Also, the SSL 128 versus Bitcoin crypto security comparison is flawed, as the purpose of each is different, but also comparing the proof-of-work crypto system to SSL 128 is about like comparing the mass of the Sun to a baseball.

You said that the project is supported by "world-renowned cryptographers", but I doubt anyone here is actually a cryptographer (or "world-renowned" in anything). Even Satoshi has not made any new crypto -- he just used existing tools in innovative ways.

Also, Satoshi has probably never been to Japan, and he is not known for anything except Bitcoin as far as anyone can tell.

It was an OK overview, though. The interviewer was really good -- he added a lot. It's probably as good as could have been hoped for the first-ever interview about Bitcoin.

Www.bitcoinme.com has crashed, perhaps the influx of the interested was too much for it?

Well done Bruce,

you were quite intimidated at the beginning, but once the dialogue was instaured, it was actually a very pleasant conversation to hear.

Great promotion for the network,

PS.  It's too bad bitcoin.org was not more mentionned, though.

where is the bitcoin link?  i just see the audio interview with the doctor

He didn't seem intimidated to me, perhaps nervous.

Bruce, kudos for getting on the air to explain Bitcoin. Unfortunately, I found your introduction a bit excruciating and had to turn it off. You didn't have to go into Linux, Sourceforge, or bittorrent because the host didn't ask. A simple question, "what is Bitcoin", doesn't require any background unless your listener specifically asks for it. You surprised me because BitcoinMe.com, which I presume belongs to you, explains the currency relatively concisely.

I don't want to make you feel bad. Rather, I hope that we can all learn a lesson from your experience. When you tell people what Bitcoin is, tell them that it's simply a new, digital currency with advantages over other types of payment. Your listeners' will obviously have questions, but that allows for a nice, interesting conversation. If you just talk, then it turns into either a sales pitch or a lecture and most listeners, or at least the ones that matter, will just drop out.

Wow.  Very impressed.  A lot of great stuff.  I sent a donation.  I hope you turned on e-mail notifications for his mybitcoin accout.  ;D

Here is the un-shortened URL for the MP3 file. 

Right-Click Save As....     

http://www.oneradionetwork2.com/mp3/money/economy/12.02.10_wagner_bruce_bitcoin.mp3

brucewager, u r my hero.  great job!

I'm part of the way the way through the interview and wow, you've done a fantastic job. The intro about Linux was necessary IMO and well done. good job.

I agree with the factual errors that some pointed out, btw. E.g. the suggestion that any well-respected cryptographer (i.e. one that has published articles in the past two years in well-known journals) has looked at Bitcoin seriously is a complete lie.

As for the scientific progress concerned, Bitcoin is still at the experimentation phase, I'd say. I don't really see why the main author doesn't submit a journal article somewhere, as writing such an article is pretty easy, if you know what you are talking about. Figuring out what to write usually takes a lot of time, but writing down your research should be easy. 

Just stick to shorter answers next time like You do the people. then we would ask how. then you explain keep it more step by step.

I doubt bitcoin can be considered as "scientific" and personnaly I think that edition as you seem to understand it is not much needed nowadays.

I think Satoshi's white paper was quite good, and it is already publicly available.   I appreciate his pragmatic attitude consisting in actually doing stuff instead of claiming and waiting for other people's help or recognition.

In terms of well-respected cryptographers involved with the "technology" of Bitcoins, there certainly is quite a bit of research that is happening with the SHA-256 algorithm including trying to find out weaknesses and hopefully make up a better algorithm that would accomplish the same job if not do a better job.  The NSA is active in that investigation including some candidate algorithms that are being examined that might work better than this algorithm for cryptographic hashing.

As for really examining the Bitcoins algorithm itself, that hasn't really been heavily reviewed but that is something happening right now mainly within the community.  That is certainly something Bruce got square on in terms of talking about the "open source software" as many eyes do make bugs quite shallow.  There have been some significant updates which have fixed some problems in the past, and I expect to see some in the future because of community involvement to point out weaknesses in the network design.  Legitimate weaknesses will be addressed if they are raised..

Thanks for all of your feedback, Gang.   I appreciate it all.   :)

By the way, Patrick Timpone called me on Sunday night and asked me to be a guest on his show again soon...   Which I plan to do.

Then, this morning, Ed decided to call in to his show, and...  as you will hear... I ended up on the air, talking about Bitcoin again...  :)

Right-click Save As:   http://dl.dropbox.com/u/993053/Created/Business/BitcoinMe/OneRadioNetwork%20Interview%2010.12.07/12.07.10_open_phones_patrick_timpone_two.mp3 (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/993053/Created/Business/BitcoinMe/OneRadioNetwork%20Interview%2010.12.07/12.07.10_open_phones_patrick_timpone_two.mp3)

• Ed starts talking (about pine pollin) at:  31:00 - 36:52
• Bruce starts talking (about Bitcoin)  at:  36:52 - 44:00

More and more people are going to be hearing about Bitcoin....   This is only the beginning.

listening to the show at the moment, nice job  8)
I'm now listening to your answer to the first question, I think the average joe's head is spinning around, linux? sourceforge? bittorent? etc. to much information, just keep it to bitcoin and keep it simple. :P

But I don't know the targeted audience and I would do this a lot worser, your a good speaker  :)

edit:
- if I get to geeky...
* yes you are

loool  ;D
Damned, when I hear you, I realised, it is so hard to explain Bitcoins in "normal human beings" language

Ok, his (the host) advice is definitely close to nut job advice (the bad memory advice for example) ;)

Otherwise, it was entertaining to listen to.

I got similar vibes. Feel "snake oil". (However, I am not a health expert so I wouldn't know) But promotions are good, I guess.

So, Bruce Wagner, do you actually listen to this national radio?

Yes.   We especially listen to the Saturday episodes with monetary expert, Andrew Gause.   You should listen to a few of the episodes with Andrew Gause.   I think you guys would love him!   :)

On Youtube there are some videos with Andrew. He seems to be a sane individual. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIMB2nXWiIQ
.. but there was a comment regarding a guy who said that it was the treasury who in the end controlled the process. In any case, his middleman argument makes sense.

It just depends a bit on what you think of as control. The government could freeze all assets of the federal reserve with their army (the only kind of real control), but even that control might disappear when the first corporation develops their first nuclear bomb (or similarly destructive device).