One of the key aspects of most plans to reopen the economy is digital contact tracing. This would be an apparatus whereby mobile phones kept track of the other mobile phones they had been physically proximate to, so that if someone were diagnosed with COVID-19, the at-risk people they had been in contact with could be notified. Apple and Google have proposed one plan while a European consortium is working on another.
At the center of the issue is whether contact tracing can be done in a way that doesn’t violate privacy and doesn’t open a Pandora’s box of new issues around the data governments have on their citizens.
Today’s episode of The Breakdown explores the crypto community’s response to contact tracing and why we don’t need big brother to beat the virus.
In this episode Anita speaks with Alakanani Itireleng, who founded the Satoshicentre in Botswana in 2014 and single-handedly built a growing Bitcoin community. She is the heart and center of Bitcoin education there, even the government is relying on her consultancy. This interview was recorded as Anita traveled through southern Africa in February of 2020, just days before the Covid-19 lockdowns went into effect. Her greatest ambition, the organization of a Bitcoin conference in Southern Africa will not come true soon. If you’d like to support her work and the Satoshicentre – please do so, her Twitter handle is @bitcoinlady.
“Bitcoin is for everyone, Bitcoin is the currency of love.” – Alakanani Itireleng
“Bitcoin is allowing me to use and receive money from anyone and to send it to anyone around the world without discriminating. That’s the most excellent thing about Bitcoin. It’s money for everyone, regardless of where you are coming from, your race or creed or whatever. So it’s the best.” – Alakanani Itireleng
They talk about:
How her sons illness and death lead to the first meetup
The internet as “white people’s problem”
The high unemployment rate in Botswana
The cost of internet connections
Ponzi schemes and how they are disturbing bitcoin adoption
Bitcoin usecases and regulation in Botswana
Exchanging the local currency Pula to Bitcoin
African countries on the forefront of adoption
Her opinion about Libra and Lightning
Mobile Money in Botswana
The Future of Bitcoin in Botswana
A message from Anita:
If you have a question, feel free to visit the episode page https://bitcoinundco.com/en/africa6 press the appropriate button and record your question.
This podcast special and my trip to Africa would not have been possible without my sponsors and supporters.
I want to thank my sponsors first: Thank you:LocalBitcoins.com a person-to-person bitcoin trading site, Peter McCormack and thewhatbitcoindid podcast,Coinfinity and theCard Wallet,SHIFT Cryptosecurity, manufacturer of the hardware walletBitBox02 and many thanks to several unknown private donors, who sent me Satoshis over the Lightning Network.
This special is edited by CoinDesk’s Podcasts Editor Adam B. Levine and published first on theCoinDesk Podcast Network. Thank you very much for supporting the Bitcoin in Africa series with your work.
Thanks goes also out tostakwork.com – stakwork is a great project that brings bitcoin into the world through earning. One can do microjobs on stakwork, earning Satoshis and cash them out without even having an understanding about the lightning network or bitcoin. I think we need more projects like that to spread the usage of bitcoin around the world.
Thank you also toGoTenna, for donating several GoTenna devices to set up a mesh network in Zimbabwe and toTeam Satoshi, the decentralized sports team for supporting my work.
QE infinity. Corporate bailouts. Nudgin UBI. The incredible economic phenomena going on now didn’t happen out of the blue. They are the byproducts of a key events spread across the 70 year history of the US dollar led global monetary system.
Luke Gromen is the founder of Forest From The Trees, a macro/thematic research firm. In this episode, Luke provides a TL;DR on those key events that got us to where we are today, including:
Bretton Woods and why the world went on a USD-based system rather than Keynes idea for a non-sovereign ‘bancor’ world reserve currency
The move to the Petrodollar in the 1970s
The financialization of commodities that started in the 1980s
The monetary policy vacuum after the Cold War ended
How a shift in executive compensation rules led to many of today’s problems with Wall Street
Joe McCann currently works in cloud and AI at Microsoft and has spent decades in tech, crypto, and open source communities. He recently wrote a piece called “A New, New World Order” all about the second and third order effects of Covid-19.
In this conversation, Joe and NLW discuss:
Localism and the beginning of the end of globalization
The return of domestic manufacturing
The ‘Roaring 20s’ of Inflation
The inevitability of Universal Basic Income in response to inflation
QE infinity and the US’s nationalization by proxy
National healthcare as national security and why microbes are this decade’s terrorists
Proof of health, and why it’s likely to be implemented on a blockchain
It’s hard to look at recent news from both crypto and traditional markets and not feel like we’re getting pretty mixed signals. Stocks have been recovering, but oil is hitting historic lows. DeFi suffers a major hack over the weekend, but Coinbase sees a major spike in $1200 transactions right as $1200 stimulus checks hit. Cash hoarding is giving pretense for eliminating privacy-preserving money, but one of the world’s most successful hedge funds has authorized investment in bitcoin futures.
On today’s episode of The Breakdown, NLW separates bullish from bearish signals for the strange in between times.
On today’s episode CoinDesk reporter Leigh Cuen sits down with Bram Cohen, author of the BitTorrent protocol and CEO of Chia. In this wide ranging interview they talk Bram’s early interest in “hard problems”, his unexpected ascent from sketchy to celebrity and much more.
Leigh and Bram discuss:
The real promise and strengths of cryptocurrency
Really interesting problems in cryptocurrency
Getting started in crypto 20 years ago with MojoNation and glorious failure.
The origin of BitTorrent
Speculative investment, the dot com boom and where real wealth comes from
The Bitcoin Wizards IRC channel and Bram’s arrival in crypto
How the Bitcoin Wizards stance on ASIC resistance led to Bram’s creation of ‘Proofs of Time’ and ‘Proofs of Space’
Getting rich as a side effect of making the world a better place
Scaling, sharding and unsophisticated engineering
Why ‘Proof of Stake’ is a step backwards from ‘Proof of Work’
A system that doesn’t suck: how engineers try and fail to improve the finance industry
Unregulated banking crisis, shadow banking and hiring the smartest minds to obfuscate leverage
Why trusted third parties are the problem
Satoshi’s wonderful, horrible idea and the obviousness of proof of work.
What Satoshi did surprisingly well
Why improving proof of work wouldn’t really improve bitcoin.
Coherent goals: more decentralized and less wasteful
Both Proof of Work and Proof of Stake have a scary degree of centralization
Ethereum’s terrifying improvements to the on-chain programming environment
New functionality within Chia that helps cryptocurrency feel less like “carrying around hundred dollar bills”
Limiting opportunities for theft with user controlled rate and recipient limiting
Thinking about ecosystems and adoption
What is your favorite use case for cars? Is it Tires?
Open source software, politics and adoption
What is the role of advocacy in making something useful?
Why bitcoin gets a bad reputation for things it doesn’t have strong associations with.
Why “governance” is such a touchy topic
Why Chia is funded by Venture Capital rather than token offerings
How Bitcoin is different from what’s come after it
“Our technological capacity exceeds our political will to negotiate the terms of that capacity”
Why Bram hates the “Fake it til’ you make it” ethos
Engineering sticker shock
The “everyone uses cryptocurrency for everything” narrative vs. the “How do we get anyone using Cryptocurrency for anything good?” reality
Better metrics for success than “Getting rich”
Great leaders and bullshit artists
Bitcoin’s trajectory and the meritocratic history of technology
Colored coins, distributed identity, timestamps and censorship resistant value
Minimal functionality, subtle cleanups and simplified transaction formats in the Chia programming environment
For more information about the bitcoin halving, download the free CoinDesk Research explainer report which features over 30 different charts and additional commentary from mining industry experts.
“If price performance following the November 2012 and July 2016 halvings are any indicator, bitcoin’s price should increase significantly over the 10 to 12 month period following the [third] halving.”
That’s Ciara Sun, head of global business and markets at cryptocurrency exchange Huobi. Speaking on the third podcast episode of “Bitcoin Halving 2020: Miner Perspectives,” Ciara was joined by Chief Financial Officer at Bitfarm, John Rim. The two shared their insights on the expected market impacts of bitcoin’s third halving event.
Sun noted that many crypto investors are expecting a substantial bitcoin price increase in the months following the 50 percent reduction in bitcoin block subsidy rewards. However, Sun also caveated her statement saying the market dynamics leading up to May’s halving event are “more complicated” this time around due to global events such as the COVID-19 outbreak.
No matter the impact on bitcoin’s market price, Rim affirmed that miner revenue per terahash would likely readjust and normalize to pre-halving levels as a result of mining difficulty adjustments. “The whole network relies on mining for the validation of transactions and for a self-incentivized system like bitcoin, you need miners to be profitable,” Rim said.
Bitcoiners are particularly sensitive to Fed intervention in markets, but the degree to which the Fed is willing to print to backstop basically all risk is drawing the attention of even normal market participants.
On this episode of The Breakdown, NLW is joined by Jared Dillian, market analyst, contrarian, and editor of The Daily Dirt Nap. They discuss:
What ‘safe haven’ means in today’s climate
How Jared became a bitcoin believer after being a skeptic
Why in an MMT world, taxation policy will be driven by ideology not practicality
This week saw the latest salvos in the battle for the future of money.
Libra announced that it would be moving away from a single currency that was backed by a basket of national currency to a model of numerous individual fiat-pegged currencies. While the original model was akin to a disruptive implementation of John Maynard Keynes original concept for a global basket currency (which he called a “bancor”), this model seems more to position Libra to help existing central banks digitize their currencies.
China meanwhile steamed forward with its digital currency and blockchain plans. Screenshots of an app from the Agricultural Bank of China show how the DCEP (Digital Currency Electronic Payment) is currently being tested, giving us insight into functionality, geographies and players involved.
China also announced the 71 members of its National Blockchain Council, as well as went live with their Blockchain Service Network. The BSN in particular has potential significance on a world scale as China tries to build and control a key piece of global digital infrastructure.
In this episode, we'll join Anita Posch in Zimbabwe as she speaks with Tongayi Choto, a software developer, entrepreneur and a bitcoin maximalist. He founded Afriblocks, a Global Pan-African Freelance platform that connects professionals across the world. They talk about the problems young Zimbabweans are facing and Tongayi's approach to make lives better. Later, Anita answers listener questions about the current use of bitcoin, other methods of payment in Zimbabwe and more.
Topics:
Africa: high potential, but not enough opportunities
Pan-African Freelance network
Payments in cryptocurrencies
The use of smart contracts for releasing funds
Scams like MMM, Onecoin, bitclub
The Volatility of bitcoin being a huge problem for poor people
The impact of the Lightning Network in Africa
Internet bundles
Listener Questions:
What is preventing widespread usage of bitcoin? Tech? Awareness? Laws? Working, cheap alternatives (Ecocash)? Fees?
Are there bitcoin OGs in the community and if so are they still actively supporting the newcomers?
Not sure if M-Pesa is available in Zimbabwe/Botswana. But if so, why would anybody use Bitcoin instead of already available digital payment solutions such as M-Pesa?
Did you hear anything about http://beforward.jp and Bitcoin?
I am interested how well people understand, if their own governments money is good money for them (in terms of purchasing power, inflation etc). What share of people in your impression are asking themselves this question in these countries?
Are Zimbabweans living overseas using bitcoin for remittances? If so, how does this channel work? How do bitcoin remittances compare to alternatives like Western Union?
A note from Anita:
This podcast special and my trip to Africa would not have been possible without my sponsors and supporters. I want to thank my sponsors first: Thank you: LocalBitcoins.com a person-to-person bitcoin trading site, Peter McCormack and the whatbitcoindid podcast, Coinfinity and the Card Wallet, SHIFT Cryptosecurity, manufacturer of the hardware wallet BitBox02 and many thanks to several unknown private donors, who sent me Satoshis over the Lightning Network.
This special is edited by CoinDesk’s Podcasts Editor Adam B. Levine and published first on the CoinDesk Podcast Network. Thank you very much for supporting the Bitcoin in Africa series with your work. Thanks goes also out to stakwork.com - stakwork is a great project that brings bitcoin into the world through earning.
One can do microjobs on stakwork, earning Satoshis and cash them out without even having an understanding about the lightning network or bitcoin. I think we need more projects like that to spread the usage of bitcoin around the world. Thank you also to GoTenna, for donating several GoTenna devices to set up a mesh network in Zimbabwe and to Team Satoshi, the decentralized sports team for supporting my work. This special is also brought to you by the Let's Talk Bitcoin Network.
