Bitcoin Has No Leaders with Dan Held

 
 
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“Bitcoin grows more antifragile with these sorts of events... they’re going to lose influence pretty fast, and pretty soon, the market doesn’t care what they have to say.”
— Dan Held

SHOW DESCRIPTION

Location: Chicago
Date: Wednesday 26th May
Project: Kraken
Role: Growth Lead

When Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla had "suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin" due to their concerns "about the rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions", the market went into freefall, dropping from around $58k to just below $30k in just a few days.

Since then, the market has reacted whenever Musk tweets. On Monday, he stated that he had "Spoke with North American Bitcoin miners" in a meeting set up by Michael Saylor and that "they committed to publish current & planned renewable usage & to ask miners WW to do so. Potentially promising." 

While this may seem like positive news, behind-closed-door meetings are not something that bitcoiners are fans of. The meeting was somewhat reminiscent of the New York Agreement. 

The future of Bitcoin should be decided by the consensus of the entire network, not a small, wealthy and hugely influential committee. Some feel that appeasing one billionaire is a dangerous precedent to set.

Are we heading down a slippery slope? And what will this mean for Bitcoin?

In this interview, I talk to Dan Held, the Growth Lead at Kraken. We discuss the concept of leaders in Bitcoin, antifragility, and dispel some FUD.

TIMESTAMPS

00:05:43: Introduction
00:06:36: The Mining Council
00:09:18: Bitcoin is controlled by the community
00:11:15: Potential risks from miners
00:14:41: Mining OFAC compliant blocks
00:18:58: Bitcoin should have no leaders
00:26:49: The privacy debate
00:34:18: The energy debate
00:39:53: Fighting the FUD
00:44:27: The various narratives
00:50:46: When the influencers turn against Bitcoin
00:53:16: Elon Musk
00:59:32: Peter goes on a rant!
01:06:47: Being a public figure on social media
01:19:59: Final comments


 

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SHOW NOTES

PodcastPeter McCormack