How to Make Bitcoin More User-Friendly - Jonas Schnelli, Bitcoin Core Developer

Transcript

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[Music] www.nasa.gov/twan one of the most trusted people in Bitcoin he is a core maintainer and blockchain expert and one of the few people in the world with commit access to the Bitcoin code base and now to the interview Iona's and many thanks for making time for this conversation hi thanks yonis I read in an article on coin desk that your focus is making Bitcoin core more user-friendly for non geeks so first off with Bitcoin core

what exactly do you mean yes so when I initially started to contribute a couple of years ago I had the idea to make it more user-friendly I still follow that approach although at the beginning I thought it's just like you know increasing the size of the fund and changing some icons but I I had to figure out for a mass adoption or for user friendliness there's a lot of a lot more involved that even goes down to the protocol level like things why do we have addresses things like that so I'm still working on it although it sounds

trivial to work on the user friendliness I had to figure out it's very complex and it goes down to the deepest level of how Bitcoin works hmm but Bitcoin and Bitcoin core is there a difference well when I started in 2013 with my first contribution it was just named Bitcoin there was Bitcoin and then people figured out there is like the protocol level there is a software implementation and at one point we rebranded Bitcoin into Bitcoin core to make it more obvious that there is a protocol which is like independent

from the implementation or the software and Bitcoin core is the reference implementation which usually or before was named Bitcoin so it we kind of made the base for other implementations to make it more easy for them to kind of name them and not be something on top of Bitcoin so more like standing next to Bitcoin core although till now there's still the that the market is still very dominated by big cold core and Bitcoin core is basically like the operating system of the Bitcoin protocol is that correct it's it's maybe seen as one of

the operating systems how to run Bitcoin core how to run on top of the Bitcoin protocol but since Bitcoin it's mainly consensus protocol and consensus is very hard in a technical level there are box in Bitcoin core which are part of the consensus protocol so to kind of rebuild or rebuilds Bitcoin core in a new way you also need to implement box and there it gets pretty messy and I think it's hard to re-implement the consensus logic outside of Bitcoin core because of that reason

you mean box like as in software box or yeah there is some box in the consensus layer or there may be or even box we don't know of mmm if you kind of reimplementation of these box and we maybe don't know this bunk and suddenly you trading an old coin or there's a four gun in the chain because your implementation acts differently than Bitcoin core it's very complex to implement or - to implement consensus in general and Italy we can break out the consensus part out of Bitcoin core as a software specification as a solid running software and this can be used in

other app implementations on github I see there's a little bit over 500 contributors and over 17,000 updates to the to the code as of as of now but there's also a smaller set of core developers and and you're one of them so so how does this ecosystem of core developers and contributors how does that work in general it's an open source project that means everyone is everyone can join it's it's there's no group who can say you are allowed to do changes and you are not so it's fully open it's not a closed group and the process we use key Thomas a lot of current open

source projects do so whenever one or you has an idea to improve Bitcoin on the level of on a protocol level or get top 10 issues for an implementation level you can make a proposal you can actually write code do that proposal publicly which a table is public and then there is discussion about that particular change and nobody can say I don't like you that's why we're not going to merge that because if I would say that I would make myself like I would act badly and people would say okay he just rejected my proposal because of emotions and then I would probably lose my maintainer rights and at the end nobody will know no nobody

will no longer trust my opinions that's kind of the self balance that's there right but still there's the there's the core developer group yeah that's that's a good question of definition I know of people who has contributed a few times on a level of documentation plus a little bit of code and then they're free to say I'm a core core developer I'm a bit concore developer which is yeah maybe right maybe not I don't think really matters to kind of find the term at the ends there is very active core contributors and then there is like

these five hundred this group of 500 who includes the guy who changed and as to lowercase s because of a typo in the comments but I think at the end it's probably 10 to 12 very active contributors mm-hmm since years it's the same people since years usually or Oh more or less hmm and that's about 12 or 15 I believe yeah I would say 10 to 15 I would need to count it but I would say 10 to 15 well what exactly is their job I mean you said a guy sometimes maybe just you know add you know change the spelling of something that doesn't really matter but with the core

developers are they contributing most of those updates or how exactly does that work if you say chop that already I would say misconception because it's open source you can join you can work as long or as much as you like then the question comes down what's your motivates what's your motivation behind doing a contribution and then there's there is no clear definition of what bitcoin is or should be in the future so it's like the more contributors we have in Direction aid the more obvious or likely will it be that removes interaction a that's kind of there's no central planning or things like that

so it's flat and you guys vote on things and just the best idea wins kind of like that yeah although we need to distinct between the levels there is the consensus level where you can see the 21 million bitcoins cap is a consensus thing these things are not discussed on the development part of Bitcoin core Bitcoin core is the reference implementation whenever we touch the consensus logic like sacred or a block size increase that stuff is usually discussed on the mailing list which is called Bitcoin - mailing list or well I'd say it's two or three thousand people who are signed up for that

mailing list that's the protocol level main discussion infrastructure mm-hmm where people may say you know we need to increase the block size that would be discussed there yeah and if one comes up on github on it concurs implementation look we need to increase the block size and maybe actually bring some co-contribution that would do that we refer to note this needs to be first discussed on that mailing list before actually implementation will happen every consensus change will need go to the through the Bitcoin improve process first before implementation will happen hmm you know there's always this

question of who controls an open-source project right and I mean I heard this discussion recently with aetherium where it was you know the person said oh it's the community the community is doing everything but but that you know the interviewer kept drilling down and kept asking yeah but who exactly makes the decision and who is final call and and all that I mean do you guys also debate things like this yeah I think advantage Bitcoin has over other cryptocurrencies there is no clear leadership structure Satoshi disappeared which I'm glad he did because it gives a more neutral base for discussions if he would still be

here people would maybe follow his decision just because it's him not because his arguments and the disappearing of Satoshi we are stuck with we need to discuss stuff based on on arguments rather than leadership but still there are some people who did great contributions in the past they have some forms of leadership influence but not to not to lab over where we could compare it to with leak for a theory amor otto cryptocurrencies and i think that's a really really great thing and yeah how do we discuss things usually that's we have the policy that

everything needs to be public we don't do any closed group discussions there is no close communication channel we we have to the more a chorus group of bitcoin discussing it's all public so everyone everyone is free to join whenever somebody starts to communicate with me in a private channel on IRC or signal or whatsapp I usually tend to tell him let's take this public because it's just the policy that everyone feels about it strongly about it and then on github there's a lot of discussions and it's all public you know it's it's important that it is public and at the

ends things will get merged when there is public consensus and what means public the means who ever starts to contribute on Bitcoin core with a comment which I like this I don't like this because of that reason is part of that process of defining what what change will be merged or not so I think we really are open-source believers all of the contributors and I think we do it pretty in a good way and yeah that's how we work mm-hmm-hmm cool I mean I I understand I also saw I mean obviously right there were issues where there was no agreement

in the past and where it was just not possible to reconcile different ideas and also I read something that you said there you said if we start fighting and disagree on the very his technical lair we heard Bitcoin in its core and will lose trust from the markets so that's that risk does that still exist I'm not sure if I would say that again today although I mean disagreement on the protocol level like we had with the Hart fork with the block size increase will either lead to stagnation so nothing will happen or with a little fork like we have seen

with Bitcoin cash and yeah maybe that's how this agreement will kind of form tending to to the market I think it's it's just the way how consensus these agreements happens and it's probably okay although the question is how much it hurt the market the trust in in general in cryptocurrencies if it would not have been better to stick kind of making an agreement on a disagreement come together form a single piece and have trust from the market with the long term perspective that cryptocurrencies can survive but that's

it's hard to say whether a your piece is better or true but why was it not possible to agree there mmm I think because there is there is no definition of Bitcoin or no master plan of Bitcoin so people have ideas a other people have ID speed they may be contradicted IDs and not past is not possible to to do both so yeah so the one one group said Satoshi really meant to do this and the other group said no he meant to I guess it's hard to say what he meant especially first things he hasn't mentioned really or or more concrete and it probably goes beyond that it's people

build systems that need to scale or need to make progress and to make progress they need something on the protocol level which could hurt other businesses this is a general problem problem in the open source so there is probably the origin of the fight or the disagreement and the heart Fork is very likely about that or the block size increase okay I mean that was highly criticized right I mean how that whole argument happened and some people I spoke to they even said you know Bitcoin has become kind of stale a little bit I mean do you hear that criticism as well

yeah I heard it in the past a lot of criticism were happening in 2017 like in the ivory tower Bitcoin core controls a and B and I think maybe first let's focus on the first thing I just mentioned that Bitcoin core contributors or developers control Bitcoin this is one misconception that was was was floating around and for that it's very easy for me to kind of say like the river big companies claiming that Bitcoin core is kind of or Bitcoin is defined by Bitcoin core but these companies have never made attempt to

contribute to Bitcoin core Bitcoin core is not an organization it's fully open if you comment or bring up proposal with technical with with like reasonable technical approaches there's no nobody you can say oh I don't like company a a or B that's why we reject it that will make us obviously bad so I think a lot of lot of these companies who brought up criticism have never made attempts to contribute to beacon core and that's really not understandable from my perspective how can you criticize something where the doors are open to join and be part of it maybe it's easier maybe it's easier to just criticize and

and then do your own control thing yeah and then BP is I forgot the question what was the question the question was you know that some people I speak with you know they say Bitcoin has become boring let's move on to something else right and but maybe maybe I wanted to follow up first with with that other thing that you said because I think it's very it's very good point that you mentioned I mean there was always this whole debate where you know some some people said oh you know it's it's block streams controlling Bitcoin core yeah I mean to be honest that's a really big misconception I

could never follow these arguments and I I know it looked like obvious on the surface but people did not take time to really kind of take down and see that this argument is not not really an argument because it is an open source project you everybody is free to join you can even yeah you just need to make a proposal and and there's a discussion about it it's a full open transparent process of course people who will criticize your argument or people who are or four years since years and in Bitcoin but still it's an open debate it's an open process and there is nothing no company behind Big Creek or

there's nobody holding rights to the name of Bitcoin core it's it's an open source project and criticizing an open source project for me means you have failed to be part of it and if if you have failed to be part of it then the only thing you can do is be part of it start to contribute start to help start to write documentation or code and Crick I I could understand why bigger companies start to criticize I'm happy to explain that I mean if you if you build a company like in the size of corn base or it pay you have a lot of money new money requirements you need

investors you need to have a good business plan you need growth curves you need to have like magnitudes of users scale per year and what happens if you can provide to these investors that we have now 10 times more users than we had last year you need to point out why you don't have these mass adoption and it's probably very easy to tell them look these guys have not increased the block size so we don't have more users because the space is limited and users need to pay extraordinary fees and that's why we don't have these ten times more users now and this could be one reasons I'm

not sure I want one say this is the true I don't want to say this is the true but it could be part of why people started to criticize on that level mm-hmm so basically it didn't grow fast enough they couldn't scale their business that they built on the promise you know that they may be promised some investors about Bitcoin and then they couldn't follow up so they needed to point fingers is that what you're saying it could be true I am also invested I'm also involved in one of these startups and I know Bitcoin scales and improves very slow we sometimes think Bitcoin moves fast it's true on one hand on the other hand it's

very slow it's not it's now since around since a couple of years and it's a very slow involvement of things and I think that's correct that's good core technical ability on the other hand is hard for startups to to work in in a way where investors are are supposed to or or or investing in things that that kind of rapidly involve so they just went and made their own coin yeah I mean the whole big con cash situation it's hard for me to say why and what's the long-term perspective of it I think it

came out of that disagreement and from from from the current today's perspective to serve I will chance of Bitcoin cash the use case of Bitcoin cash I really don't see where all the benefits or what what what is the benefit of Bitcoin cash / Pickering - core coin or adults I should never say the core coin because that's that's evil at Bitcoin the Bitcoin coin what's the advantage of Bitcoin cash and also what's the advantage over other already existing all coins

well they would say it scales faster it's you know easier it has lower transaction costs there's the promise of mass adoption that's the arguments that they use these arguments have been used a hundred times and other all coins especially if the UM one of the first they grow all coins to was born exactly out of the same reasons and all the arguments you just mentioned I would say it's to free theorem as well that maybe no longer but then you can say it sues you know like coin it's the same properties then why you speak from cash or rely Corey yeah right it is an open debate and I think it's interesting to kind of you know try to understand what's behind it what is your view on

you know maybe a developer who says you know this did the way Bitcoin evolves it's a little bit too slow I'd rather just work on other coins that I feel are a better version of Bitcoin yeah I think that's that's great it's it's nobody's tied to working on corn A or B I also feel it's it's slow it's it's not very fun how fast things are or how slow things involved I would wish it goes it goes much faster but it's just how it is it's it's it's very fragile it's it's hard to do it in a in a way where we can secure it securely scale but that's just

how it will survive decades I think what we see now in aetherium how it somehow implodes is a it's actually results of how it's maybe scale to fair I mean the idea victaulic was he took Bitcoin and worked how can I make it better how can I make it yeah it's just better how can i overhaul everything that's bad in Bitcoin in them but not sure if it succeeds it turns out that it it fails it implodes and that's my take out of that that it's very hard to create a cryptocurrency and especially it's very hard if you have if you have a horizon of decades in your head that it

should survive you mean a horizon of decades I mean that's very little for a currency yeah you can even say if you have a horizon of centuries but decades it's already for people a lot of years they actually think thinking you know in two years I want to be there which in bit when you can maybe say in ten years we want to be there and obviously a lot of people think it will be the currency of the future that will survive centuries but decades sounds more realistic and more acceptable to people let's take a quick break for a message from our sponsors shift crypto security

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said you know it's not a bug or like a drawback of Bitcoin that the development is slow and that you know we need consensus on everything that's why you know decisions aren't made so quickly it's actually a feature that it's very very important for the stability yeah I totally agree I mean Bitcoin was built to resist change that's very very important Bitcoin was built to keep the consensus to consensus it's it's resist resist it was built to resist changes so every change even if you think it's a good change is person it's it's hard to do because it was built to resist changes that's how it how we started to trust the currency because it was acting as as

we wanted it was acting predictable and changing it in its course levels on the consensus layer this is just hard and but it still happens but very slow I mean did you were you ever confronted with a choice you know where you said you know maybe you should also work on other projects that maybe moved differently or was that never an option for you no I think I'm a technical person so my perspective is very very technical now the current economic tool and I'm I think I I spent hours per week

to just understand things and from a technical perspective and kind of a century approach as I just mentioned there was never a reason to walk away from Bitcoin so there was nothing on the horizon even far away that would attracted me and had similar properties in Bitcoin yes so for you it's Bitcoin and the other things aren't necessarily there to stay I think they're they're funny things or interesting things being created and and like on an experimental level for my perspective but like that long-term that

long-term impact I don't see that this could be possible in any other cryptocurrencies right now maybe something will will be born soon but um from today's perspective and the things I know why when you see kind of an impact possibility with Bitcoin mm-hmm cool that's also why maybe you're focused on you know making the the project more user friendly right and I want to get back to that a little bit I mean what what exactly could be done now to attract more people to it and you know just make it more user friendly yeah on a high level it's for me what should be achievable and I know it's it

sounds now very plain but I think we should achieve that I can pay person B I can pay you in an easy way which is it sounds maybe it's possible today on the other hand what I need I need like a very cryptic address from you in order to pay you and then I need to enter that into a very strange application and need to enter some some some strange number and at the end you you get like founded by me so it's very a very complex process right now and my hopes are that that paying people will be as easy as sending an email this is this very high

level and but doesn't exist yet I thought I mean there were projects where you could use an email address to send Bitcoin yeah I mean obviously there is PayPal you can do with it already I forgot to mention we should achieve that in a completely different decentralized way so there's nothing involved you can audit or censor that thing because that's preconception of Bitcoin which we always forget about but if that is not given then we can use PayPal or Western you know everything is lost in the level of Bitcoin then okay so are you working on on a project like this yes I mean working a Bitcoin core is for me working on that I know it

sounds now like why of course there's a lot of things involved until we get there and this is just what I have in my pack head canny not sure if it even can achieve that in a decentralized way that I can pay you what means you what or can also pay a machine things like that it's it's very very much on an experimental research level and on the other hand be making concrete steps towards that ideal or a dream and this is just what I have in my back head I want to to in the end get a payment system where I can pay person B

and nobody can censor me and I can find that person and I can pay it immediately without no costs that that's the ill for hmm why is that not possible yet I mean I could just you know take my address and send it to you on skype or telegram and then you could use it and enter it in your wallet and would send me the bitcoins right I mean that kind of works already I understand it's kind of clunky and a little there's many steps involved but why exactly is it not possible to do it easier at the moment yeah you just mentioned it it's easy it's not easy it works it's when I started to contribute I had the same feeling it works I can

pay you just need to get an address and I put in an amount and you have the funds how can we make it easier I thought okay that's investor months and make it easy that was my initial approach but there's so many things involved to do to make it easy in the decentralized way because tweeting tweeted in decentralized fashion is extremely hard and but yeah that's that's that's the things I'd like to work on and it may take years and you it never will be easy but my dream is that it will be easy but I mean one one thing is I mean sorry that I kind of drill down there a little bit but I'm

just interested in it is it an issue of the user interface or is it a reliance still on you know the wallet structure the way these work today or what exactly is the problem there I think it's multiple layers it's it's a the whole secure channel of submitting an address so if if I if I need to pay an employee an employer with Bitcoin he can send me an address right and I can pay him but then the question comes is the others who he sent me really his address did he sent it to me in a secure check on a secure Channel

who controls that channel could it be possible that the hacker they changed the address so I'm going to pay the hacker and that will have no no possibility to get my money back mm-hmm so easy yes but easy and secure that's the hard part and well while I pay someone right with a standard wire transfer I can call the bank the day later and tell the bank oh look I made a mistake and there's a high chance that will revert the funds while the Bitcoin is is not possible so it's extremely important that easy and secure is given and right now easy may be possible but without secure and and without these

central decentralized you just mentioned I can send you an address over telegram right if everyone would do that which means then telegram is the central player in how addresses will be contributed is shared so they control the funds they can change the address and be an important part in destroying Bitcoin or the whole payment network so so they could to make a software that detects somebody enters an address and then always exchange that with their own address for example theoretically yeah and as soon as there is a central player and how people you have people in try versus and there's a central risk so maybe it's not maybe then the question

then comes again up why do we even have addresses or things like that which then goes pretty much theoretically okay yeah I think the thing I mean I'm just and that's why I ask all these silly questions just so you know it's sometimes I also understand better what the problems are if I you know just kill I think it's it's really important it's not obvious also I can make another example it's not so obvious that that we are not there where we want to be and imagine you want to hold bitcoins you are just now you need to end to just you want to hold maybe ten thousand dollars in bitcoins so the process to really achieve that in a good way it's very

hard because maybe you start with with the phone wallet it's a smartphone wallet which actually means the funds are controlled by your phone manufacturer so if I would start using iOS as my $10,000 wallets and we all know iOS is controlled by that single app store and automatic updates are usually enabled which means Apple controls my phones if I'm really honest they can upload the binary that they can move away my funds so it's technically very obvious that Apple can move my phones if they want which is like losing the idea which bitcoin follows this sensor is resistant decentralized

currency and so then you probably would say okay let's let's use the hardware wallets and then it's very hard to set up the process right it's so complex if you write down the wrong word your funds may be lost forever if you click the wrong button the funds may be sent to the wrong person and that's then immutable which is just the whole set of how you might need to be prepared for it it's different and there's no failsafe process with heart rewards it's it's very complex it's very easy to make a mistake the wrong backup can lead to violence

forever in the millions so we're not there that's what I need to on the line here yeah I mean you mentioned the hardware wallet and you were working on a company that makes hardware wallets right I mean it's it for that reason you know as was that the motivation to bring in you know an additional layer of security yes I mean one main reason why I started to confound this company was was because there is just ledger and trésor which are dominating the market which is again a centralization risk so if if these companies would work together or if an attacker will go after these two

companies it's again hard also I think the market is ready for multiple companies executive without reason and I think key management is one of the central things for cryptocurrencies and it's one of the things that maybe always be very hard and maybe will be the neck breaking thing for cryptocurrencies and I think we need to focus on key management to to a while nasod option and the hardware wallet will enable that maybe I'm not sure it's it's hard to say for now it's probably one of the secure ways how to manage cryptocurrencies maybe will not be the only way but right

now it feels like an additional Hardware layer is is a way to explore maybe the way to go in the future and yeah I think it's it's something we need to research more but right now it seems too hard right assume it's important I'm wondering how in at the very beginning how did you get in touch with with Bitcoin 2011 I think yeah man the friends came to me and he was at web Tuesday or something like that and told me did you heard of that Bitcoin thing and I thought okay yeah tell me a bit about it I've never heard about it and then he started to explain it to me and

I thought this is the next of the Internet's but then actually it hooked somehow on me and I started to read about it and the more I read the more I started to wow this is actually cool stuff and and of course I started to play with Bitcoin at that in this time and and then I in 2013 I I thought okay now it's probably time to work more on that because they need developers I can do things and let's see if it matches together mm-hmm so that's about two years from you thinking it's some hoax on the Internet to actually understanding that it's

useful no I think I do earlier but that was the moment in 2013 was the moment where I thought okay I actively need to support yeah got it what was what was the argument for you that tipped it over you know from this is maybe you know just something on the internet to Otis has legs what was that argument I mean one thing that made me more read into it was obviously the exchange rate who who looked promising like okay people somehow trust dude trust these things why let me read a bit more about why they trust in it and then

I started to read another story to understand the technology better and from a technological perspective it made made really sense how important next to the technology is the idea you know the ideology behind it for you it plays an important role because I spend a lot of I would say months or even years working on it without getting paid mmm-hmm and in order to do that there must be some level of personal kind of attachment and I think I don't know what it is actually but something makes me very convinced that it's it's a good thing on a philosophical level mmm-hmm I mean how much time did you do

you spend with Bitcoin of your day I mean it's it's it's job I'd say I I work like a couple of wearable mine my normal week is not eight to five and not Monday to Friday but I'd say I work a lot for Bitcoin core until it control the call I'm wondering is there are there any funds available for people who do that I mean up to that level you I mean there's 500 contributors on on github there's these ten to fifteen core developers I mean is there any you know financial support for their work yeah I think there's a lot of money available right now for people who

want to work on the Bitcoin protocol or on Bitcoin core there's not enough talents so talents is probably the bottleneck there's a lot of companies who are making money with bitcoin like the miners the the exchanges and they are very likely considering investing into the infrastructure so it's to Bitcoin core into the Bitcoin protocol even block blockchain dot info recently hired a guy who are working full-time on Bitcoin core and I think that's how the bigger companies should should do and regardless of that situation there's

funds and companies are willing to take you now if you want to contribute to Bitcoin core or Bitcoin protocol is there ever a conflict of interest I mean with an open-source project but then still there's corporate funding behind it yeah it's similar than Linux is IBM and drive had all these companies they they they have paid development for corvino's but it's still an open source project so I think I don't think there's conflict of interest it's just yeah there's always I mean open source means you need to have a kind of what direction do you want to work for me it's like usability thing so the question is do you get to are you able to find funding for that

particular thing you want to achieve or will that bias you thing you want to achieve and how are you I mean have you ever been confronted with a question like this yeah I mean I'm taking funds from a very controversial Bitcoin company and which are completely not following the ideologically or the ideological thing I have with Bitcoin in mind so I'm confronted a lot with that question although I think for me it's it's ideal because I I can take I get sponsored by a company who maybe yeah I'm probably not taking away sponsorship

from more probit cocoliche funds that cannot be attached by other developers or talents interesting so basically you you work there as if that like a project you're working on that has nothing to do with Bitcoin or did I hire you to work on Bitcoin or I mean exactly does that work no my situation is just that I have contributed or I had continued to the Bitcoin core for a couple of years and then the company it's it's bit main they contacted me if if I'm looking for funds to continue my work if they can sponsor me and because I know I can do more if I

get paid for it I accepted it with kind of the thing that I I can do whatever I want to do and that was given and so it's okay I was also in the process of talk closer with the MIT for funding of my Bitcoin core work which then I thought I probably it's probably better I get funded by a controversial player so the slot that MIT confound found is open for for someone else so that was my reason to decide for that mmm okay cool and--but main is the Chinese mining company that's creating most of the mining machines right yeah they're a

very controversial mining player and so far I had a very good relationship with them which is like not on a we don't discuss on the level of what's what's a good or bad change for Bitcoin they all they are as a big driver behind Bitcoin cash which is something I beacon cash something I see as now the good invention so but we we were at their Chinese people they think like in centuries rather than us companies they think more in years they they're very aware of how important work on the core level is and that's why they they know they need to pay for that

in some positions so they just want the whole ecosystem see succeed and that's what they're doing this yeah I think they're pretty aware of they need to stabilize Bitcoin development on any front they can and I think regardless of their attempts to to create other all coins and influence developments in other ways I think they're also where they need to kind of put money in to a level where they make money out of it which is like I make a lot of money with with mining and getting the corn-based coins interesting leaves you to wonder if you can always maintain your independence I mean I have the same

criticism with with my sisters right I mean this podcast is also sponsored by companies but still I mean they don't tell me who I can interview and who I don't so yeah I think immediately quit if I would get any signal that would lead me to you cannot do this or that it's something like that I would immediately quit if I cannot stand up keep my independence I would have to quit and also my work is 1% public everybody can follow what I'm doing and I think that is people would would quickly figure out kind of signals if I will be no longer independent in any form mmm cool do you see cryptocurrencies and you know the idea

of decentralization do this do you see this as a kind of a revolution that you that you're part of yeah I think it's it's a revolution of course there's also question marks if it will stand or stay I am pretty sure it will and I think it especially cryptocurrencies which is kind of in implies the decentralization that's a revolution in my opinion yes what do you see that ecosystem where do you see that going in the coming years I still think it will evolve slow but it will it will grow and grow slowly and at one point it will have an impact on how

we pay daily and what the question is just when okay and what does that mean for the Swiss franc and US dollars it's hard to say as I said I'm not an economist so I art for me to predict any market exchange rates and things like that on a technical level it makes extremely sense to me because when I pay someone in u.s. dollars or I recently had to pay one guy in Indonesia it would have been faster and not very more more expensive than if I had booked a flight and take cash with me and the same fact happens for the u.s. so if I pay someone in the US with dollars it takes more

time than I'm booking a flight and flying over and handing over the money in cash which is like a technical base point that something is not going very well there mm-hmm so you'd like to see an economy where there's just it's all based on Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency and without fiat money I think Fiat is still here to stay for a bit longer and but I think cryptocurrencies as the Internet in how we read and act will take an important part in our daily life you know what what if I mean imagine you know Satoshi had never written that white paper and there was no Bitcoin and no altcoins and no blockchain what do you think would

you be doing maybe the same because I think it was now Satoshi but the ideas were floating around years before Milton Freeman had predicted it in the 90s that something like this will pop up the cypherpunks or we're working on it since years before Satoshi wrote the paper and maybe very likely the same but who knows maybe I would kind of sit in the monastry somewhere I don't know it's like the same cool that was really fantastic insight and - you know how you work and how Bitcoin works and where you see the whole space going I really enjoyed it and thanks a lot yonas for taking time to me thanks so much for joining us

today more info on our guests and our sponsors get in the show notes of this episode and on the podcast website the blockchain and ask.com to help people find this podcast it's important that you download subscribe and give it a top rating and review on iTunes or on the podcast platform of your choice I'm Manuel daggers and I thank you very much for listening [Music]