A Bitcoin Reality Check with Sergej Kotliar

 
 

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“Do we want everybody in the world to be orange-pilled, and to share in all of the shared values of the Bitcoin community? And do we think that’s a realistic goal? Or do we want as many people as possible to use Bitcoin as a thing, even though they might not share in the values and just don’t give a fuck?”
— Sergej Kotliar

SHOW DESCRIPTION

Sergej Kotliar is the founder and CEO of Bitrefill. In this interview, we discuss enabling Bitcoin circular economies, the mission of Bitrefill to be a financial empowerment company, the risks and rewards of using zero-confs for processing transactions, and the many different cultures and communities Bitcoin has spawned.

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Bitrefill is the largest crypto e-commerce platform in the world. It aims to facilitate the development of crypto circular economies. Whilst Bitcoin makes up a significant portion of their business, they are not a Bitcoin-only company. The mission is aimed at empowering people to undertake transactions on the internet that would otherwise not be possible for them. To that end, they pragmatically enable the use of Bitcoin, stablecoins, and a limited number of altcoins.

The argument in favour of their strategy is compelling. Not everyone will respond to ideological arguments in favour of Bitcoin. Whilst there are many who will get drawn in by Bitcoin’s compelling theoretical roots, there are many others who are more concerned with prosaic day-to-day concerns. To maximise efforts to increase adoption we, therefore, need to appeal to a range of visions for Bitcoin. One important vision is focused on Bitcoin’s dry technical utilities.

In our discussion, Sergej refers to the increase in the use of the internet and other technologies such as VPN. The widespread growth in the use of such technologies occurs as a result of a practical benefit being provided to users, not because adopters are seeking to mitigate a certain political or ethical concern. That’s not to say that selling Bitcoin as freedom money isn’t critical. Rather, we need to augment it with other strategies.

TIMESTAMPS

00:02:11: Introductions
00:03:14: Progressives in Bitcoin
00:06:12: Bitrefill, circular economies, and stablecoins
00:14:31: Zero-confs and Replace-by-Fee (RBF)
00:32:05: A range of ideologies about Bitcoin
00:40:06: The contrasting visions for Bitcoin
00:48:35: A business lens on the Bitcoin community
00:53:29: The users vs the community
00:59:04: The Real Bedford mission
01:02:37: Democratic governments, Putin, and whataboutism
01:10:34: The cultural spread of Bitcoin adoption
01:14:24: The VPN analogy to growing Bitcoin use
01:22:18: Final comments

 

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SHOW NOTES

Connect with Sergej:

Mentioned in the interview:

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