Here it is on
youtube Great documentary overall and thanks for recommending it! When I was watching it I jotted down a couple notes during some moments I found interesting (sorry if some of my notes seem kinda scramble-brained; it's late here):
~11:00: Seemed like I have had similar conversation with my family members about Bitcoin. When people of older generations get in conversations with you about Bitcoin, they seem very curious at first, but at the very first hint of trying to understand something that they can't wrap their minds around at first, they seem to disregard it right from the get go.
~12:00: Describes people as anonymous when they aren't. Wallets are tied to banks which makes them tied to their identify. Seems to be a common misconception in this documentary
~16:30: There is a common theme of anger to people who are being told of Bitcoin. What people don't understand angers them. This reminds me of other similar conversations I've had with friends and family, they only trust what they already know.
~21:00: Talks about bringing Bitcoin to undeveloped nations, how could that be when they have no electricity, computers, etc.? Can't have nodes on phones and be able to mine. ... This really got my attention. I feel that it is a corner stone of one of the key issues of Bitcoin with trying to get further away from centralization. The importance of people in undeveloped nations being able to access the main network of Bitcoin is paramount in "helping them" and for Bitcoin to "save the world". If we don't try to solve the issues of pruning and finding ways for people to operate nodes on something as mobile as a phone or tablet, I don't think we will be "helping" these people at all. We (meaning the people in developed/rich nations) will essentially become the banks; essentially forcing these people to trust third parties (us) to operate nodes through and mine transactions for them... not to mention how hard it will be for these people to have phones in the first place in the
really rural areas. This is already troubling now and you can see how peoples privacy are being left by the way side to connect to remote nodes and trusting third party wallet clients even now in our developed nation state.
~22:00 - High fees compared to western union ... The more and more we let the block issues continue, the more and more we see people wanting to transact Bitcoin, the more and more we will see fees go up and will cross out the Pro check mark of "cheap international payment system" off our Pro and Con list compared to Western Union.
~32:00 - Talks about Tor and it's importance to Bitcoin ... Is the new "Tor" i2p/Kovri?
~46:00 - Really
really liked this comment basically describing the hypocrisy of banks, saying that Bitcoin is only used for drugs when someone can easily go to an ATM and withdraw cash to buy drugs. I feel that this is largely misunderstood by the masses.
~48:00 - Didn't like how it seemed that the
only way to be "legitimized" was to go through regulations. In order for the Bitcoin ecosystem to thrive, there has got to be more emphasis on decentralized exchanges, markets, etc. (e.g. bitsquare)
~55:00 - Good thought about how people failed to learn about not throwing money at "trusted" third parties like in 2008 with banks... People, for some reason, feel more secure by having a company, bank, or whatever take their money to hold it for them; and the pain was felt by all who did that.
~1:11:00 - TIL Ben Lawsky was doing consulting now... idk how I missed that piece of news. What a scumbag.
This is probably my favorite Bitcoin documentary so far. I never have seen footage before of the hearing that would inevitably lead to what became the "Bitliscence". Definitely would recommend anyone to watch it.
