SOB: Life on Bitcoin - 2021 Edition
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 25 September 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the early days of Bitcoin, a few idealistic individuals attempted to live entirely on the bitcoin currency. Nine years and an abundance of technological developments later, is an entirely closed-loop bitcoin economy possible, or even useful?
Join hosts Jonathan Mohan, Stephanie Murphy and Andreas M. Antonopoulos as they reflect on bitcoin’s evolution as a currency and commodity. In the early days, an era of retail adoption as merchants began to accept bitcoin from their customers seemed to point to a bright future for daily bitcoin use. The 2013 IRS addendum treating bitcoin as a commodity, rather than as a foreign currency, quickly made transactions a burden with onerous tax reporting requirements, dimming that retail bitcoin future.
In the time since, the crypto community has adopted a HODL mindset. Why spend bitcoin if it’s disinflationary in nature and will bring you more value in the future? Those idealistic individuals' dreams of bitcoin as a daily currency may no longer align with bitcoin's maturation.
Developments in layer 2 technology, like the Lightning Network, have allowed experiments in bitcoin as legal tender to be not only a possibility, but a pragmatic choice for governments like El Salvador’s. With news of Ukraine considering following in El Salvador’s footsteps, will clusters of closed-loop bitcoin life bloom around the world?
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Today's show featured Andreas M. Antonopoulos, Stephanie Murphy and Jonathan Mohan. This episode was edited by Jonas, with music by Jared Rubens and Gurty Beats. Our album art is based off a photo by Ishan_@seefromthesky on Unsplash, modified by Speaking of Bitcoin
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | My good friend, George Mandrick, who sold bacon weaves and baklava and basically baked himself into retirement and sold that for Bitcoin in 2013 and 2014 and just held on to it. |
| 0:15.5 | That's the way to do it. |
| 0:20.5 | Life on Bitcoin, eight years later. |
| 0:23.4 | In the early days of the show, we saw a few wild individuals who attempted to live on Bitcoin. |
| 0:29.4 | The first time I'm aware of was a pseudonymous cyberpunk who went by the name Plato. |
| 0:34.3 | I think that was 2012, even before we started. |
| 0:39.8 | Then there was the Life on Bitcoin documentary where a newly married couple, plus a film crew, tried to pull it off, but mostly spent |
| 0:45.4 | their time trying to explain to gas station attendants why they were trying to pay with something |
| 0:49.7 | other than the money you'd expect. A Forbes writer, and I think a CNBC host, would eventually try the same things in San Francisco and New York, respectively. |
| 0:59.0 | Mostly they were hungry. |
| 1:01.0 | But a lot has changed. |
| 1:03.0 | From crypto credit cards, the universal acceptance by PayPal compatible merchants, |
| 1:07.0 | and seemingly more on the horizon as the Lightning Network becomes a bigger and bigger part of Bitcoin, have we crossed the threshold? |
| 1:15.1 | Can you now really live on Bitcoin without sacrificing so much of the convenience we're used to? |
| 1:20.5 | On today's show, we'll talk about it. |
| 1:23.2 | My name is Andreas Am Antonopoulos, and this is Speaking of Bitcoin. |
| 1:27.7 | I'm joined, as always, by the other hosts of Speaking of Bitcoin. |
| 1:31.8 | Stephanie Murphy. |
| 1:33.2 | Hello, this is Stephanie on Bitcoin. |
| 1:36.1 | Jonathan Mohan. |
| 1:37.9 | Hey, hey. |
| 1:39.1 | Adam is out this week. |
... |
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