Why Silicon Valley Doesn’t Get Bitcoin with Dan Held

 
 
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“Right now the risk reward has never been better - maybe some VCs look at everything with the lens of early stage investing where they expect a 100x pay off, what’s crazy is with Bitcoin you might actually get that.”
— Dan Held

SHOW DESCRIPTION

Location: Remotely
Date: Thursday 28th January
Company: Kraken
Role: Director of Business Development

Jack Dorsey has been one of the leading public supporters of Bitcoin in Silicon Valley, stating his belief is that "Bitcoin has the potential to become the world's sole currency by 2030". In late 2020 Dorsey went a step further when his company Square put $50 million of Bitcoin in their treasury. Following the purchase, he tweeted "More important than Square investing $US50mm in #Bitcoin is sharing how we did it (so others can do the same)."

Jack Dorsey is a hugely influential figure in Silicon Valley, and his actions sent a clear message of his belief in the importance of Bitcoin.

Silicon Valley has mostly ignored Bitcoin, and Dan Held thinks this is a culture issue. While Silicon Valley values moving fast and breaking things, Bitcoin is the opposite. It is conservative, slow and most importantly, hard to change.

In this interview, I talk to Dan Held, the Director of Business Development at Kraken. We discuss Dan's experience in Silicon Valley, what drives VCs to invest, and the changing Bitcoin narratives within Silicon Valley.

TIMESTAMPS

00:04:35: Introductions
00:06:36: Dan's CV from Silicon Valley
00:08:07: The Uber experience
00:11:13: The Uber culture
00:15:41: Casascius coins
00:17:04: Pitching Bitcoin to Silicon Valley VCs
00:23:57: The Blockchain, Not Bitcoin narrative
00:25:54: The Ethereum and ICO narrative
00:29:36: Fear of regulation and lack of control
00:34:44: 2021 - The DeFi narrative
00:40:30: The Bitcoin narrative is starting to work
00:44:50: The big tech leaders influencing Bitcoin
00:49:42: Potential investment from Silicon Valley
00:51:16: Elon Musk and Tesla
00:53:52: The psychology of cycles affecting investment
00:58:44: Bitcoiners holding the capital
01:00:26: Building products in Silicon Valley
01:03:38: Final comments

 

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SHOW NOTES

PodcastPeter McCormack