Beginner’s Guide #5: The History of Bitcoin with Marty Bent

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“The fork wars also proved that no one person or entity of people or businesses has control over the development of the protocol.”
— Marty Bent

SHOW DESCRIPTION

Location: Skype
Date: Wednesday, 15th January
Project: Tales from the Crypt & Rabbit Hole Recap
Role: Host

Welcome to the Beginner's Guide to Bitcoin.

Bitcoin can be intimidating for beginners. The protocol is complicated, the community can be aggressive and unforgiving, silly mistakes can lose you money, and it is easy to succumb to altcoin marketing. 

Bitcoin does though, offer you the opportunity to hold a new type of monetary asset, one which can't be seized by the government and is censorship resistance and It has the potential to change the way the world. 

The goal of What Bitcoin Did has always been about making things simple; there are no stupid questions, and the show is here to help beginners navigate this new world. To kick off 2020, we are launching a special series to help beginners understand Bitcoin. We will be looking at the basics from breaking down the protocol to explaining the economics and discussing the potential societal shift. 

Beginners Guide Part 5 - The History of Bitcoin with Marty Bent

On October 31st 2008 Satoshi published the Bitcoin Whitepaper on a little known cryptography mailing list. There had previously been many attempts at digital cash, so when the whitepaper was released, it was met with a healthy amount of scepticism. 

A few months later on January 3rd 2009 Satoshi Nakamoto mined the genesis block and included the message “Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”. The message was important and indicated Satoshi’s plan for a new financial system.

In the 11 years that have passed Bitcoin has gone from a niche experiment to a network worth over $160 billion, but the history has been rollercoaster.

Anyone new coming into Bitcoin is likely to hear about critical points in history, and these events helped define Bitcoin and at times teach valuable lessons.

In Part 5 of The Beginner’s Guide to Bitcoin, I talk to Marty Bent the host of Tales from the Crypt & Rabbit Hole Recap. We discuss the key events in Bitcoin’s history from the launch of the protocol to the Silk Road and the Scaling Wars.

TIMESTAMPS

00:04:48: Introductions
00:06:01: Creation of Bitcoin
00:11:50: Hal Finney’s involvement with Bitcoin
00:12:59: Bitcoin Market, the first Bitcoin exchange
00:14:28: 10,000 Bitcoin pizza purchase
00:16:02: Slush Pool
00:18:04: The Silk Road
00:26:52: Why Satoshi left Bitcoin in 2011
00:28:44: WikiLeaks
00:32:19: Satoshi Dice launch in 2012
00:34:06: Launch of Coinbase in 2012
00:36:51: Charlie Shrem and BitInstant
00:41:08: Mt Gox and the impact the hack has had
00:47:12: Ghash mining 51% of the BTC hash rate in 2014
00:50:11: Bitlicense
00:51:42: Background of the scaling war in 2017
00:56:11: The flawed arguments of the big blockers
00:58:48: Big blockers not following the protocal change process
01:00:24: Outcomes of the scaling war
01:04:41: Forking of Bitcoin Cash
01:07:16: Craig Wright
01:11:58: Crypto boom in 2017
01:16:47: Why the Lightning network is so important for Bitcoin
01:19:02: Final comments

 

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PodcastPeter McCormack