Disrupting the Monetary System

Innovation in the center not at the edge

A while ago I listened to episode #16 of “The Kevin Rose Show”. Kevin Rose is a serial entrepreneuer, the founder of digg and serves currently also at the board of directors at True Ventures.

#16 — Bitcoin’s true potential, with Andreas M. Antonopoulos

If you are up to dive into crypto currencies like me this is a must hear!

Andreas M. Antonopoulos is the author of Mastering Bitcoin (O’Reilly) and the Internet of Money.

The podcast covers the separation of state and money, how bitcoin is the worlds first trust protocol, how mining works, bitcoin from a global perspective, quantum computing and more.

Key take away:

1. Bitcoin is the most popular crypto currency (cryptos).
2. Crypto currencies are protocols (code), just like http and using internet technology. Code evolves always, gets better, shorter, smarter, more secure (hashed) and underlies exponential growth.
3. Cryptos are functioning as money, at this early stage. You can send money to a friend, pay a service, go shopping buy a drink with it. Soon they also will function as a secure value for exchange of goods, services, storage, energy, … , for unknown vendors at markets which are not existing yet.
4. True value ads the block chain technology which is used to secure peer to peer communication without a judiciary (bank). It’s a closed transaction which is worked by miners. Buzzword: Smart Transactions.
5. Second value: Decentralized Storage. That means it literally can’t go offline everywhere at once.
6. Money is going to be just code which is available everywhere 24/7 without a trust like the monetary fund.

I could go on with this list, but then you might not listen to the podcast. So just dive in!

Another great resource for cryptos is James Altucher.

Summary

We have to think about crypto currencies as of the internet. The internet has been changing all our lives. Think about the internet of things (IOT) for a second — it adds another layer of information everywhere, every time.

Crypto currencies will have even more impact, because it is innovation in the center (monetary system) and not at the edges.