Ethereum - Acquired  ## Metadata - Author: **Acquired** - Full Title: Ethereum - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/5745457c-f218-48b7-8985-f82d67f04d1d ## Highlights - Fitalic: A High School Kid in Crypto Land Key takeaways: • Fitalic is a pseudonym for a high school student in Toronto. • Russia was in a lot of trouble during Fitalic's childhood. • Fitalic's parents got divorced shortly after he was born, and Russia was in a lot of trouble at the time. • Fitalic's parents were both computer science students, and he was born in Russia during the early days of the internet. Transcript: Speaker 2 Real name, no gimmicks. Fitalic betered. So who is this character? And why when everybody, literally almost everybody else in bic land, in cripto land at the time, is using a pseudonym, wise he willn't use his real name? Well, he's willint use his real name cause he's just a high school kid. He's got nothing to hide. He's got nothing to lose. He's 17 years old. He joins because he is looking for a way to earn some bick coin. Pretty ossom like sidegig, is a high schooler. Speaker 1 And where is he at this point? Speaker 2 He is in toronto at this point. So, ok. F italic, 17. He was born in russia, in post soviet russia, to two undergrad computer science students at colomna, which is right outside moscow. It's kind of hard to imagine, like this, stikoveli being born. He was born in january 19 94. Speaker 1 I've never been to russia, but i hear january is pretty i have been to russia in february, and ican you it has freezed your face off. Holda whole new level probably makes canada look like a toronto look like bommy. And southern canada may as well be the beach. Yes? Speaker 2 So its 19 94. He's born to these two, like, very young, very unprepared parents. Not long after he was born, they would get divorced. Russia at the time is in like total shambles. ([Time 0:09:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bf7266f6-10bf-40e1-b805-3b326426b176)) - Ripple's Influence on En's Career Key takeaways: (* Cypher funk is the emal list serve of sorts for renegade cryptographers and computer scientists,., * Ripple was a perhot idea to bring block chain and crypto transactions into the existing banking systems.) Transcript: Speaker 1 For folks who don't know, cypher funk is the emal list serve of sort of renegade cryptographer, computer scientist that actually, tha wasn't bit coined, sort of hatched and proposed on the cypher funke mal list, yes, was certainly in that community. Speaker 2 It's all intertwined. Tend a. En is a but he's with neil stevenson. So i think, like, a lot of en's work kind of influenced lonon. Neel stevenson, cyphi. Pretty cool. So youve italic a. He's busy, wy. Speaker 1 So he has sort of the like, side hustle thing that is earning him a name in this community with bit coin magazine. But then he also has the like approved society path of being at university, where he is also connected to that community through his professor, ye. Speaker 2 So by the time the spring rolls around of italics, first year at waterloo, he's ready to do an intern ship and start going. He's lik, he mon like, i want to go get some actual programming, real world experience at a company, but i'm really interested in all this crypto stuff. And right around this point is when ripple was getting started. We said, actually, we should take back what we said earlier, that there weren no other crypto project. There was ripple. And at the time, e knew ripple still exists and has had lots controversy since, but it was a perhot idea to bring block chain and crypto transactions into the existing banking systems. They raised a ton of money. ([Time 0:23:43](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2ed4ba2e-83c8-4fbf-b3c7-d46a9644c2bb)) - Vitalik Buterin's Journey from Bitcoin Enthusiast to Ethereum Founder Key takeaways: (* Vitalik Buterin met Amir Chetrit at a conference in Amsterdam and was introduced to colored coins., * Colored coins was a project that was building on top of the bicg coin network., * Vitalik Buterin invited Vitalik Buterin to meet up with him and his team at televieve., * There were other projects happening at televieve at the time that they were collectively calling bit coin to do.) Transcript: Speaker 2 And also, like, it just hits me over the head how much the parallels between vitalic and mark zeckerberg, again, ten years earlier, that were going to keep getting into it, go along here. But same deal. I don't think. I think when mark took that summer to move out to paloalto and work on facebook, i think he was intending to go back to harvard. Maybe he did the same like i man, to take a year off and see yeobviously, neither of these guys end up going back to college. So this starts this kind of incredible journey that directly leads to etherium. So what vitalic decides he's going to do? There're all these bit coin meet ups and conferences that are happening all over the world. He decides he has enough money that he's making from doing his writing, especially as bit coin, the currency starts to t he decides he's just going to travel around and go to all of them and meet the community and hear about all these projects that are happening, and write about them. Speaker 1 What year is this? Speaker 2 This is summer 20 13. Ok, so we're very close to the start of a theory um. Here he goes to one conference in amsterdam, where he meets a guy named amir chetrit, who was working on a project in israel called colored coins. This is where it's all going to start to come together. So colored coins was building on top of the bicg coin network, and they wanted to bring in real world assets, like real estate or fiot currencies, real world, you know, financial assets, securitize them and bring them on to the big coin block chain, ok? You know, thew was an idea a lot of people were thinking about. So he invites a mere its metalic to come to televieve and meet up with him, see the team. And there are a few other projects that are happening in televieve at the time that they're sort of collectively calling this group bit coin to dotto. ([Time 0:28:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1804d4fb-ddde-47b0-99c4-3e769d3fede1)) - Bit Coin, Smart Contracts, and the Future of Currency Key takeaways: • Bit coin is bit coin on bid coin, bit coin being the currency and the bit coin network being the block chain. • Master coin was going to make this happen, of allowing these other currencies to exist on the bicorn network, by using smart contracts. • This concept, this computer science concept called smart contracts, was invented by Nick Sabo way back in the day. Transcript: Speaker 1 It's confused. Speaker 2 Bit coin is basically bid coin is two things. We talked about this a little bit in the episode. Bit coin is bit coin on bid coin, bit coin being the currency and the bit coin network being the block chain. So ye, the way that master coin was going to make this happen, of allowing these other currencies to exist on the bicorn network was through this concept, this computer science concept Called smart contracts, which people might have heard of in people talk about the theory om being the smart contract language. So smart contracts were actually, the concept was invented by nick sabo way back in the day, who was the dude who proposed bit gold, if you remember from the tos also on the cypher funk Hewas also sort of a cypher funk. He was actually a lawyer too. I believe he wasn't technical, so he never implemented bit gold. It was just a proposal, but it's one of the couple proposals that were sort of closest to what bit coined. Definitely inspired, definitely. Speaker 1 And soever satoshi is definitely worked from that sort of foundation. Those were the shoulders that satosi stood upon. Speaker 2 So sabo, he defined smart contracts as uoin a set of promises, remember, he's coming from a legal background, a set of promises specified in digital form, including protocols within Which the parties perform on these promises. So what does that mean? Basically, smart contracts, this is what i realized in new in the research, it's just code. It's code that can be arbitrary. But it executes if and only if certain conditions are met. ([Time 0:32:12](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ece1674f-df44-4e2a-8e0b-523289548ca9)) - The power of user accounts in Ethereum Key takeaways: • Ethereum is a platform that allows for the creation of contracts and smart contracts, which are essentially computer programs that can be executed on the platform. • User accounts on the platform are the same as contract and smart contract accounts, which means that anyone can create an account on the platform and use it to execute contracts or smart contracts. Transcript: Speaker 2 So, funny, that would come a little later. More drama before then. So basically lyu kno, we've talked about, you know, y theorium being the computer versus biccoin, o the calculatoror tat, or, like a computer without an operating system. They're two kind ofli big consequences of this. So one, you've got a turn complete, generally programmable computer with a ive currency in it. You now have code with money. So you do with bick coin, you have money, not really code. With normal non crypto world, you've got code, lots of code, but completely separate, conletely separate from money here. So the wave italic architects ethereum. Thereare two types of accounts in the ethereum work, accounts that can hold and spend and do things with ether and can execute coad. There are user accounts, you know, which humans y wallet, like a wallet. Yes, their user accounts. But then there also are contracts and smart contract accounts. They are exactly the same as user accounts. Speaker 1 Soye, this is kind of like the cleverness of abstraction, he thing that we were talking about earlier. It's like, how low level and and customisable can i make stuff? And it's, you just see it show up in the fact that both user accounts ([Time 0:43:47](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9f39d601-31f8-4aa5-8d51-a4de9aeff358)) - The Bull Case for Ethereum Key takeaways: • Zoom was open on Man's computer the whole time, and David is in person. • Zoom is a podcast that is near and dear to Man's heart, and is also near and dear to the heart of the podcast that is near and dear to Man's heart, Lake. • The bull case for Ethereum is that it will beat all the challengers. • The main challenge for Ethereum is that it is still relatively unknown. Transcript: Speaker 1 Man, i am so honored to be here for the last episode of the season. I was wondering why zoom was open on my computer this whole time, and david's here in person. He just doesn't even make any sense. I hope he joins at some point. Well, i'm here now. This is going to be so fine. A topic that is near and dear to my heart, and o podcast that is near and dear to my heartso this is, well, like the supervile half time show of podcast lake. Speaker 2 You know, you thought it was just ben and david, but lake, boom, there's biance. Speaker 1 Well, packy. The first sort of analysis section to do here is te the bull case and the barecase for etherium. And because you're mister e unicorns an rainbows and bubbles and sunshine and the optimist. I would love for you to lay out, like, what is the bull case for etherium from here? Like, why? Why is it going to beat all the challengers? And we haven't een really talked about some of the challengers yet. You know, how is eth too going to go? Well, what the is eth too? So i don't know where you want to start, but i think you painting the bull case would be just perfect, fantastic. So when i wrote a piece called oninnat onitherium, i think eth is around 24 hundred. So i'm about 400 dollars more bullish now than i was then. But i think the bull case ends up being pretty simple. And something, and i think thisis maybe a metatheme for a kind of all of crypto. ([Time 1:55:43](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b28a9e14-4ea1-4b0d-8140-4c65976efe23)) - The Potential Power of Etherium Key takeaways: • Etherium is a powerful tool that can be used to create secure networks and businesses. • The network effects of these businesses are strong, and they benefit the holders of the tokens involved. Transcript: Speaker 1 Does it all keep coming back to that actually. It's the market cap of ether. Yes. It's the total combine and value of all the ether in the world. Speaker 2 So, yo, what in got? I'm tempted to say, like etherium has every single one of these powers. Well, david's got lazer eyes over there. Speaker 1 I no, to me, i think network offacts are for any block chain, the number one thing that any of them haven't and this one actually works in a couple of ways. One, there's kind of the concept that we talked about, that everything gets more secure the more people who are using it, in the higher price the eth is. And then i think, even on top of that, all the things that are being built on top of he theory, i think, really benefit from it, where the holders of a token of a certain project are more likely To stick around. So it, i think that's the potential power of businesss built on top of etherium, is that they're incentivizing users to get more of their friends to use the thing that they're using, Because their token cs, thatit gets more valuable as they do it. And so those things have their own really strong network effects. I think that then, i think benefit back down to etheria, it's dalti laird, it's malti laird, you're right. ([Time 2:21:59](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9411f671-7cc0-49a6-b0df-38b0ef447c98))