I'm Andreas M. Antonopoulos, author of "Mastering Bitcoin", public speaker, podcaster and pundit. Ask Me Almost Anything

[aantonop]

Hi Andreas,

Thanks for sparing the time to answer questions, and for everything you've done!

I wonder if I could ask what you think bitcoin's prospects are for third world countries? Do you support Marc's idea that bitcoin can change the third world, or is that too idealistic?

Yes, the third world will be changed by bitcoin, as will the rest of the world. It may take decades, but decentralized currencies happened already and there's no going back. The world economy changed on January 3rd 2009, even though most people failed to notice at first.

You can't stop billions of people with a strong desire to financially secure the future of their families, once a suitable solution is available. They will discover it, they will use it and they will not be stopped.

[aantonop]

Can Bitcoin TPS be increased by reducing the time taken to create blocks eg to 1minute instead of 10 mins, instead of trying to increase the block size?

No. There's a delicate balance between the number of times the blockchain forks each day and the propagation frequency of blocks. Faster blocks will mean more forks. Also, such a change would be a lot more complex than simply increasing the block size. Many other parameters in bitcoin (difficulty retargetting, reward halving, total supply) depend on a 10-minute block and would need to be revised to account for any change in timing.

[Jkara]

Hi Andreas,

Thanks for being such a fearless champion, unmatched professional and positive force in the industry!
My first question is what do you see as bitcoin/cryptocurrency's biggest hurdles to greater consumer & merchant adoption; (irrespective of the banking regime's efforts to discredit a non-politicized currency concept)? Will it remain an alternative, more relatable to the world's population of under banked communities? or do you see evidence that it will achieve a more ubiquitous use case as a unified, border less global currency that most people will prefer?

In addition, I'm curious if you see any potential technical/security flaws with the current or emerging state of the protocol and/or ecosystem?

Best,
John Karantonis

[aantonop]

Hey Andreas,

I really respect and honor the great things you have done to get the word out about bitcoin and the blockchain and I have personally learned a lot from you over the last few years...

My question is this, Bitcoin no doubt is the grand daddy of blockchain based digital currency and currently seems to have the most secure network provided by miners all over the world running full nodes and recently has increased in value spiking as high as $500... There is no doubt in my mind that Bitcoin has what it takes to achieve the goals originally intended but it seems like the centralized banks and corporations want to steal the blockchain technology for themselves leaving Bitcoin out of the equation... Is this possible? Can they succeed in what they are trying to accomplish with permission based or industry specific blockchains and eventually try to outlaw Bitcoin? And is it a good idea for the digital currency community to start to diversify and support other various types of digital currencies therefore creating variety, healthy competition, would it take some pressure off of Bitcoin as the target of choice by the centralized bankers and corporatocracy?

I don't worry about competition from banks. They haven't faced competition for decades and they actually fear it. They used the regulations to build a wall against competition and now they find themselves jailed by their own creation.

Private blockchains are like Compuserve, AOL and MSN in the age of the Internet. They are intranets: slow, insecure, stale content, boring apps, no innovation.

Bitcoin will not be banned. In the countries where the rule of law matters it is difficult if not impossible to ban private commerce or the use of a commodity like bitcoin - it is protected speech. Citizens United unintended consequences - how ironic. In the countries where the rule of law doesn't matter, bitcoin might be banned, but then the rule of law doesn't matter. Expect to see police, judges and politicians bribed in bitcoin to turn a blind eye - even more ironic.

[aantonop]

Hi Andreas,

Thanks for being such a fearless champion, unmatched professional and positive force in the industry!
My first question is what do you see as bitcoin/cryptocurrency's biggest hurdles to greater consumer & merchant adoption; (irrespective of the banking regime's efforts to discredit a non-politicized currency concept)? Will it remain an alternative, more relatable to the world's population of under banked communities? or do you see evidence that it will achieve a more ubiquitous use case as a unified, border less global currency that most people will prefer?

In addition, I'm curious if you see any potential technical/security flaws with the current or emerging state of the protocol and/or ecosystem?

Best,
John Karantonis

There are probably many bugs and security flaws in bitcoin. Being developed as an open-source, in-the-wild system on the Internet, we will keep finding and fixing these bugs. I don't expect any will be as serious as to cause more than temporary minor disruption.

I don't know if bitcoin will be the winner in the long term, though it appears to be way ahead and growing too fast for anything to catch up.

However, I believe without any hesitation, that the world will be dominated by decentralized currencies over the next century. The future of money is stateless, private and global. Not one currency to rule them all, but hundreds to freely choose from.

[aantonop]

Thank you for your great questions! I answered as many as possible in 2 hours.

AMA's AMA is now closed

[manfred_karrer]

Hi Andreas,

I find it a pity and not healthy that there is not more discussion with people who criticize Bitcoin in an informed and thoughtful way.
For me it seems we as Bitcoin enthusiasts are in a kind of echo chamber, self amplifying repeated views instead of looking for interlectual challanges with others.

There are at least a few people who I respect a lot and who have expressed their concerns about Bitcoin, but I never have heard or read about an interesting discussion between an Bitcoin proponent and them (or maybe I just missed it).

One example is Yannis Varoufakis [1]. I know you have had once an interview with him (though I missed the challenge there) and he wrote quite a few blog posts about his critics and ideas.
Another interesting figure is Bernard Lietaer [2] who is a famous proponent of complementary money systems. He was also a Belgian central banker and one of the architects of the Euro - though he is very critical with our current monetary system.
Michel Bauwens from the P2P foundation [3] would be another candidate.

I would love to get more interconnection between those people who follow very similar goals but are outside of the classical liberalist path.
You would be a perfect interview partner for those. Do you have contact with them (beside Yannis Varoufakis)?

Br,
Manfred Karrer

[1] http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/?s=bitcoin&submit=Search
[2] http://www.lietaer.com/2015/02/bernard- ... nria-2014/
[3] https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/a-politi ... 2014/09/09

[vivekomon]

Hey!!!

Not sure if I'm late. But anyway I really wanted to know what's the one thing that comes to your mind when explaining Bitcoin to people?

P.S. Don't tell me Binaries. Wouldn't take that for an answer

~ To the Moon ~

[Chris]

Γεια σου Ανδρέα Welcome

[risho]

I feel fairly confident that this problem surrounding the block size will figure itself out in a way that will be a net positive for everyone, though my biggest concern that eventually over time the cryptography in bitcoin will become weaker and that it will be very difficult for bitcoin core to come to consensus over what the new hashing algorithm should be. That is a much more difficult thing to come to consensus over than the whole blockchain problem and I could see us coming to a big standstill that could be a serious problem. People will have opinions about what is secure and what isn't and they will not be willing to stand down. Do you have any concerns about this?

[ronnieb]

What do you feel is the best way to explain "man in the middle attack" and Bitcoins immunity (more specifically during broadcasting a transaction)? I find describing asymmetric key cryptography and signing transactions can be quite complex especially for non-code writers... What say you?

[ronnieb]

I feel like these companies that are combining legacy and new technology will be the first to go when mass adoption occurs. e.g. Bitbay (or coinbase) facilitating POS while business don't want to HODL will work, but as soon as businesses begin to fully incorporate Bitcoin whey would you need any such intermediary. Would like to hear your thoughts.

[MiguelCuneta]

You 20 minute "Disrupt" talk in 2013 hit the nail on the head for me and got me into co-founding what's now the biggest bitcoin startup in the Philippines today, SCI.ph. Thank you!

Would you consider visiting the Philippines and perhaps doing a talk here sometime in the near future? We would love to host you and the growing community here would go nuts thanks again for your involvement in BTC and insipiration to the rest of us!

[dnaleor]

How to solve fungibility issues with Bitcoin?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/commen ... _seems_to/

[LiteCoinGuy]

AMA is now closed

[Smartie]

Hey, Andreas

First off, thanks for being the Master of all Bitcoin speakers in my opinion. I cannot attend all your events, but I follow most of them posted online.

My questions today :

1. If Bitcoin fails for some reason, what would be the alternative? Plan B?

2. What Alt Coin in your opinion has the most potential to take Bitcoin's place at the top?

3. Can Bitcoin scale to be a reserve currency, with the current setup?

Continue the good work.

Edit : Shit, only now saw it was closed. Whoever care to comment, please.

[The_Void]

Hi Andreas, Just wanted to thank you for everything you do for us.

[rene-winkler]

Hi, I am new to the bitcoin/blockchain universe, non IT but financial industry guy. I have seen your lecture on bitcoin on youtube and wonder how `Hello!`leads to a8d19153 as all online toolsI used for SHA256 deliver 334d016F. Did I get something wrong or is there a different output on Mac OS algo on SHA256? I just want to understand also the basics clearly thus my dumb question... thanks in advance

[Vesa]

Hi Andreas,

I enjoyed both of your Joe Rogan podcasts and thought to let you know I made a new Cryptocurrency art innovation.

The site went online yesterday.

https://www.artforcrypto.com/

Would love to get your feedback on it.

Best,

Vesa

Ps. The work I attached is about the combination of both the coming Bitcoin fork as well as the flippening.

[patrick.miller]

Nice Work!

Hi Andreas,

I enjoyed both of your Joe Rogan podcasts and thought to let you know I made a new Cryptocurrency art innovation.

The site went online yesterday.

https://www.artforcrypto.com/

Would love to get your feedback on it.

Best,

Vesa

Ps. The work I attached is about the combination of both the coming Bitcoin fork as well as the flippening.

[Neoclassical]

Andreas, great videos. One question - what are your expectations for total crypto market cap in 5, 10 years?

Will it ever reach $1 trillion?

[gogandmog]

I am thinking about buying the book "Mastering Bitcoin" from amazon to support this. For an advanced bitcoin user/programmer, would this book this come to use?

[Neoclassical]

Andreas, where do you think cryptos are right now in the Gartner Hype Cycle?

[don.swenson]

Hi I would like to know how bitcoin would be 'valued' if the official $ or any of the other official currencies are abolished. If the international currency system is RESET, then how would a bitcoin be 'valued' (objectively). I can not envision that bitcoin (being virtual) could stand alone as an objective currency? D

[GreyWyvern]

Hi I would like to know how bitcoin would be 'valued' if the official $ or any of the other official currencies are abolished. If the international currency system is RESET, then how would a bitcoin be 'valued' (objectively). I can not envision that bitcoin (being virtual) could stand alone as an objective currency? D

Everything considered a "currency" has value because of trust.

If a vendor trusts that they can use the currency you're giving them to purchase something else, the currency will have value. If the vendor doesn't trust that someone else will be willing to accept the currency you're giving them, then they don't value it.

Typically, after any major economic shakeup like a currency collapse or reset, valuations of all other currencies and commodities will fluctuate, but eventually the trust will return to the market. Bitcoin would be valued at whatever price point people would be willing to accept it, simply because they trust everyone else would be willing to accept it as well.

The "value" of Bitcoin is in the immutability of the blockchain which is a guarantee of trust. Nothing "backs" it; it doesn't have "intrinsic value" and those who insist it should or else it's worthless, don't actually understand that money is firstly an idea. It's an idea that we can store up the proceeds of our labour to use it at a later date. Representing it physically with paper or precious metals was a good idea, but essentially we were just playing with toys.

Bitcoin takes the idea of money and burns away everything we don't need. It is a purer form of transactable value than we've ever had before.

[CryptoToTrade]

Do you convince many people to buy BTC

[CryptoCoinTrade]

You are my idol man