I’m M.K. Lords, Community Manager at Airbitz, Managing Editor of Bitcoin Not Bombs, and fire dancer, Ask Me Anything!

[mkswords]

Hello everyone! You may be familiar with my work as a writer and panelist with Bitcoin Not Bombs, Bitcoin Magazine, The Bitcoin Group, World Crypto Network, and other Bitcoin media groups. I also organized two conferences last year: Bitcoin in the Beltway and Coins in the Kingdom. Been obsessed about Bitcoin since 2013. My background before was working at Roberts & Roberts Brokerage which was one of the earliest precious metals brokerages to accept bitcoin. I believe this technology has the power to transform the way we think about money, contracts, charity, and several other paradigms. Recently, I moved across the country to join the Airbitz team as their community manager.

My focus in the space has been on showing how Bitcoin can accomplish this shift in thinking through op-eds, extensive interviews, and talks at conferences. I tend to emphasize the social benefits Bitcoin can bring since I don’t come from a technical background.

Interviews:

Pamela Morgan, Cody Wilson, Patrick Byrne, Andreas Antonopoulos, Jeffrey Tucker, Julia Tourianski, Michael Goldstein, Brian Sovryn, Stephanie Murphy, MAD Bitcoins!

Talks and panel discussions at conferences:

Bridging the Empathy Gap Through Decentralization

Challenges and Opportunities for Bitcoin Businesses & Users

For a New Empowerment: Protecting Yourself from Abusive Partners & Subcultures (non-bitcoin related).


In my spare time I like to travel, write poetry, appear as a host on Libertarian Atheist Podcast, do voiceover work for other podcasts, and hula hoop dance. I'll be here most of the day

[weems]

Do you think in 2016 we will have Bitcoin respected as VISA and other more appreciated members of the financial sector? Seems to me that Bitcoin will be a 'real' currency when the average person can use it as their medium of exchange, and will in some way be less than until that time. Thanks!

[mkswords]

Do you think in 2016 we will have Bitcoin respected as VISA and other more appreciated members of the financial sector? Seems to me that Bitcoin will be a 'real' currency when the average person can use it as their medium of exchange, and will in some way be less than until that time. Thanks!

I think Bitcoin will take a little longer to reach the trust level average people have for VISA. No doubt there are obvious advantages Bitcoin has over VISA but I don't think public sentiment is quite there yet. I can say that with how quickly solutions are coming out that make Bitcoin easier to use that we can expect a lot more people coming on board sooner from perhaps niche communities. Bitcoin will be popular in certain areas where its most needed before it gets mainstream level adoption.

[LibertyPenguin]

Several questions if I may:

1) How did you become a fire dancer? (i.e. what was your inspiration, and how do you find someone to teach you?)

2) What are your thoughts on the current status of crypto-currencies as part of the liberty community/liberty movement?

3) What are your thoughts on the future of the liberty community/liberty movement?

4) Do you have a favorite Presidential candidate in the 2016 election (specifically from the candidates not in the two major parties)?

[mkswords]

Several questions if I may:

1) How did you become a fire dancer? (i.e. what was your inspiration, and how do you find someone to teach you?)

2) What are your thoughts on the current status of crypto-currencies as part of the liberty community/liberty movement?

3) What are your thoughts on the future of the liberty community/liberty movement?

4) Do you have a favorite Presidential candidate in the 2016 election (specifically from the candidates not in the two major parties)?

great questions!
1. I became a fire dancer after I got into hula hoop dancing seven years ago. I had a background in dance and theater and came across a girl dancing with a hoop at a festival. Soon became obsessed and began making my own hoops, performing, and doing lessons. Adding fire was the logical next step

2. It's great to see cryptocurrencies more embraced by the liberty communities and it makes sense; they tend to understand the destructiveness of the current financial system and the currency issues that come with that. I was big into alternative currencies before bitcoin and those who have a better grasp of economics understand the importance of competing currencies. They will continue to thrive in these communities/movements.

3. It's hard to say. Similar to in the Bitcoin world there seems to be a lot of prominent scammers that keep getting away with breaking contracts, etc. I'd like to see more internal consistency and the upholding of these principles libertarians espouse because I don't see how a movement expects to affect change without cleaning their own house. But! I also believe that the more we can focus on ourselves at the individual level and increase our own liberty through taking care of our bodies and minds that the better off we'll be.

4. No. I do not believe politics can fix the situation we're in. It's why I work in tech; the most forward moving social progress has been through the ideas of inventors, artists, and iconoclasts. From an entertainment standpoint I am thoroughly enjoying the debauchery of the debates.

[TechBull]

Hi, thanks for your insights. Noticed on Facebook post that Airbitz is doing something with BTC Ghana. Could you explain the relationship or what is happening in Ghana? Thanks

[mkswords]

Hi, thanks for your insights. Noticed on Facebook post that Airbitz is doing something with BTC Ghana. Could you explain the relationship or what is happening in Ghana? Thanks

We have a few fans of our app in Ghana! I know BitUnit Ghana is throwing a cool event to raise awareness of Bitcoin there and we'd love to see this technology reach those who could benefit from it the most.

[Windowly]

Thank you so much for coming here!

Do you own any bitcoins? About how much part percentage of your assets is bitcoins?

How often per month or week do you use bitcoins for purchases?

What are your thoughts about the whole bitcoin scaling debate, particularly in relation to the social aspect?

What attracted you particularly to bitcoin in the beginning when you started becoming 'obsessed' with it?

What was the reason (or attraction) for starting to work with Airbitz?

I have a stealth address with Dark Wallet. When will people be able to send bitcoins to it from Airbitz?

[stacywhite]

Why do you think that Bitcoin startups should have a community manger at this stage of their development?

Are diversity hires a good use of investor funds prior to a company achieving positive cash flow from paying customers?

[mkswords]

Thank you so much for coming here!

Do you own any bitcoins? About how much part percentage of your assets is bitcoins?

How often per month or week do you use bitcoins for purchases?

What are your thoughts about the whole bitcoin scaling debate, particularly in relation to the social aspect?

What attracted you particularly to bitcoin in the beginning when you started becoming 'obsessed' with it?

What was the reason (or attraction) for starting to work with Airbitz?

I have a stealth address with Dark Wallet. When will people be able to send bitcoins to it from Airbitz?

Yes I do! I get paid in bitcoin so I try to hold as much as I can except for the few bills I can't pay directly with bitcoin. I try to support bitcoin accepting merchants and services that take bitcoin so the ecosystem will continue to grow. I use bitcoin a few times a week for purchases. With Gyft, FoldApp, and Purse.io it makes it really easy.

So the bitcoin scaling debate is interesting. Socially speaking, I think some changes will eventually have to be made for more people to efficiently use bitcoin but I would hope for the utmost caution to be taken regarding any changes. I wasn't to happy to see speech censored around this topic because it is important to debate the merits of the ideas proposed.

What attracted me to Bitcoin was the real world way I saw it help people in the activism world, specifically Wikileaks and Antiwar.com, and how it helped people in need. It continues to assist those who have been targeted by the government such as in the escort service industry and even small business owners who want to avoid higher credit card fees (and the lack of protection that goes with that).The potential for Bitcoin to disrupt traditional remittances markets is fascinating to me. There are so many markets Bitcoin can shake up that I think we are just seeing the beginning.

The Airbitz team has been acutely focused on making this technology usable to the most amount of people while also remaining true to what I think are core philosophies laid out in Satoshi's White Paper. It helps that people I trust spoke so highly of the team even before I was employed there and I got to meet Paul last year and was super impressed by how much they had already done to encourage bitcoin use in the San Diego area. I had heard so many good things and when I started interviewing with team members I knew we were on the same page from a practical and ideological standpoint.

So currently our app doesn't support sending to stealth addresses but we already use Libbitcoin which has native stealth address support. And we're open source so people are able to add support if they would like.

[mkswords]

Why do you think that Bitcoin startups should have a community manger at this stage of their development?

Are diversity hires a good use of investor funds prior to a company achieving positive cash flow from paying customers?

I think the decision made by this Bitcoin startup was well informed and at an appropriate stage of development considering the growth we're experiencing. Community managers help communicate the fine details behind the awesome tech being developed and enhancing clarity is useful at any stage in the development of an organization.

So 'diversity hire' is a foreign term to me; any job I've been hired for has been because I demonstrated proficiency at the skills needed not because an organization needed more diversity. How investor funds are managed isn't something I am able to make executive decisions about but we run a lean start up and I know that the team has taken great care with how investor funds are spent. We are currently working on some very exciting projects to monetize our platform which you'll be hearing about in the coming weeks!

[Windowly]

Thank you for your answers! Wow that's very cool you guys use libitcoin.

Hopefully someone codes stealth address support (or maybe I should learn coding and do it!)

[ronnieb]

@M.K. Lords, thanks for all you do in the space. Enjoy your show and loved watching you a few times on Thomas' channel (sp)... World Crypto Network.

What can we do to make Bitcoin "much" sexy to woman, driving more women into the Bitcoin Ethos... getting more women on-board? Here's the deal, if women get on board, every guy on the planet will jump through fire to get Bitcoin. That's just how it is. Look at how many guys started reading 50 Shades or those Vampire trilogy books (I'm grasping at straws here on the second one because I can't remember which series is which) because the woman were all over it.

I think of how Edward Bernays, Freud's cousin, got woman to start smoking cigarettes (in masses) at a time when that was unheard of and thought of as completely inappropriate... he was responsible for a great many things.

What can we do to really drive women into Bitcoin?

Century of Self Edward Bernays https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

[mkswords]

@M.K. Lords, thanks for all you do in the space. Enjoy your show and loved watching you a few times on Thomas' channel (sp)... World Crypto Network.

What can we do to make Bitcoin "much" sexy to woman, driving more women into the Bitcoin Ethos... getting more women on-board? Here's the deal, if women get on board, every guy on the planet will jump through fire to get Bitcoin. That's just how it is. Look at how many guys started reading 50 Shades or those Vampire trilogy books (I'm grasping at straws here on the second one because I can't remember which series is which) because the woman were all over it.

I think of how Edward Bernays, Freud's cousin, got woman to start smoking cigarettes (in masses) at a time when that was unheard of and thought of as completely inappropriate... he was responsible for a great many things.

What can we do to really drive women into Bitcoin?

Century of Self Edward Bernays https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

Thanks Ronnie! I'd love to see wider adoption among women. The thing is, Bitcoin is not sexy, and that's okay. The way you appeal to women is similar to how you appeal to everyone else: you have to meet them where they are at and address their immediate needs. Those needs differ from individual to individual but one way is showing how Bitcoin helps them save from transaction fees and middle men if they are entrepreneurial. Another could be showing them the discounts they can get buy using certain services like Purse.io and showing how easy it is to buy a small amount of bitcoin through an app like Airbitz to experiment with. I'm very familiar with Bernays' tactics and hopefully Bitcoin isn't as destructive as cigarettes were! Driving women to adopt bitcoin requires that we view them as individuals with specific needs and address their concerns directly. This means we have to actively listen to valid concerns and view them in context--maybe there aren't enough incentives for people in developed countries to jump on board just yet. It's okay that adoption of this technology grows slowly and steadily. We've seen so many improvements in ease of use in the span of just a year, so practice patience and I am optimistic that the incentives for using bitcoin will expand.

[ronnieb]

Thanks Ronnie! I'd love to see wider adoption among women.

You and me both sister!

I'm very familiar with Bernays' tactics and hopefully Bitcoin isn't as destructive as cigarettes were!

LOL... I was worried about using Bernays as an example... wasn't sure who might call me out on some of his "tactics".

It's okay that adoption of this technology grows slowly and steadily. We've seen so many improvements in ease of use in the span of just a year, so practice patience and I am optimistic that the incentives for using bitcoin will expand.

Agreed. I believe the hardest thing about Bitcoin is... waiting. LOL.

Thanks a bunch for the AMA!! and all you do in the space.

[FrankWood]

Do you think in 2018 we will have Bitcoin respected as VISA and other more appreciated members of the financial sector? Seems to me that Bitcoin will be a 'real' currency when the average person can use it as their medium of exchange, and will in some way be less than until that time. Thanks!