Live Blog - Erik Vorhess "Bitcoin As Money" Bitcoin 2013

[Cubic Earth]

To understand bitcoin you have to understand money from a fundamental point of view.  You can forget about the tech aspects for this talk.  Bitcoin is not about tech, it is about money.  Money is very important but most people only have a superficial understanding of it.

We spend our lives seeking money.  We do it so we can buy things.

Talking about money - cavemen and the barter system.  Is limited.  Money as common medium as exchange.  Shells then gold, now bills.  People are taught that shells and gold are silly, but that paper notes are real.  Paper bills are perceived as physical.  People see bitcoin as silly in this context.

[Cubic Earth]

Why did gold become money?  Gold - money of world until 1971.  Why was grass not chosen, or something more common?  Is money an arbitrary token?

Gold had good properties: scarce, fungible and uniform, transportable, highly durable.  Supply is predictable.

Money based system is no different than a barter system.  We barter for money.

[Cubic Earth]

Something with better properties than gold may replace it as money.  Talking about dollars as being very good, except for inflation.  That they are created out of thin air.  Who is on the short end of this printing scam?  We use dollars because we are forced to, legal force.

Bitcoin attributes: easy to divide and recombine.  Cannot be counterfeited.  Durable.  Can be sent with near zero cost.

side note - 200 people in the room.  Erik is speaking clearly and with conviction

[Matthew N. Wright]

You're spamming the thread with literal lines of text as Erik speaks them?

[Cubic Earth]

Dollar is poorly engineered money.  Need coercion to succeed.  Bitcoin was designed to be the best money possible, that is why is had value.

No he is on to bitcoin competition, e-gold as a way to combine gold store of value with transportability.  Talking about government attack on competitive payment networks.  Decentralization.  No one can turn off the bitcoin network.

We are all making history.  The only thing that can stop this movement if their is a superior invention.  The genie is out of the bottle.

[Cubic Earth]

Speech over.  Lots of applause.

Questions:  Are you sympathetic to the view that bitcoin will kill the state, and the impending fight?

E.V.:  The concept of exchange itself is decentralized.

Question: Are we entering a new form of time?  Along with a new form of money?

E.V.: No.  Question guy - getting religious, talking about Jesus Chirst and telios.

Q: Generation limit is bitcoin, 21 Million, how will the hard limit impact it compared to other currencies.

E.V. - Hard limit is key.  Decimal places can be moved pretty far.

Q: Why not silver?

E.V. - Gold and silver, not transportable like bitcoin

Q: About growth and printing money

E.V.:  GDP a bad way to measure an economy

Q:  Assuming Erik is a libertarian.

E.V.:  I am a democrat.

Q: Open source is communism.

E.V. - its the opposite.

THE END

[Multifarious]

Q: Open source is communism.

E.V. - its the opposite.

Victory.

[evoorhees]

Q:  Assuming Erik is a libertarian.

E.V.:  I am a democrat.

Hopefully people knew I was joking...

[evoorhees]

The full speech is posted now at http://evoorhees.blogspot.com/2013/05/bitcoin-2013-role-of-bitcoin-as-money.html

[mindtomatter]

Great talk Erik,

Q:  Assuming Erik is a libertarian.

E.V.:  I am a democrat.

Hopefully people knew I was joking...

Thanks for crushing my hopes and dreams