the proud parent of for Randi students
who are sitting there in the audience
I’m I’m proud to be here and I’m
grateful to have the opportunity to talk
about blockchain with you so the topic
of my discussion is Bitcoin and
blockchain let’s have a little show of
hands who here in the audience has heard
of Bitcoin a lot of people who’s
actually used it I know you Mike Abood I
know you’ve used it anyone else two
three four people okay that’s very good
this is gonna be a non-technical
discussion where I’m gonna put
blockchain into a historical context for
you now I’m a lawyer
I studied mathematical math
macroeconomics I’m a Bitcoin miner I’m
not here to talk about the technical
aspects of either of those things I want
to talk about the past present and
future of Bitcoin so let’s start with a
little bit of history who’s this guy
anyone know this is actually one of the
most important historical figures in the
financial world that nobody has ever
heard of this guy is father Luca Pacioli
he was born in 1447 he died in 1517 and
he was a friar a Renaissance man
he was Leonardo da Vinci’s math teacher
and a pretty smart guy but that’s not
really what made him important what made
him important was that he was the father
of modern accounting so what does an
accountant from the Renaissance period
have to do with blockchain in 1494
Pacioli systematized the concept of a
ledger double-entry bookkeeping dry
subject not many people care about it
well it’s really important to us because
Pacioli Ledger’s are everywhere in
modern society and let’s give you a
little example of this meet Marty
Marnie wants to send a hundred dollar
check to his friend Jennifer for
Jennifer’s birthday that’s just a piece
of paper Jennifer takes that piece of
paper and deposits it in her bank
account and through a series of entries
in a Pacioli ledger a hundred dollars is
transferred from Marty to Jennifer in
fact our entire financial system in the
modern world is based upon and is in
fact only a system of Ledger’s most
people don’t know this money is not
something tangible money is in fact an
entry on a ledger economists use the
phrase m1 to describe the money supply
well m1 includes checking account
deposits they’re just entries and your
money is an unsecured obligation its
debt on a banks balance sheet it’s an
entry on a ledger and that raises a very
important question in the post-financial
do you trust Lehman’s ledger
how about Washington Mutual they failed
in 2008 do you trust their ledger
Wachovia did you trust their ledger they
banks fail they’ve historically failed
they fail regularly do you really trust
their Ledger’s in October of 2008 right
in the midst of the financial crisis
immediately post Lehman a person came on
the scene by the name of Satoshi
Nakamoto Satoshi was the founder of
Bitcoin and who is this person well the
funny thing is nobody knows who Satoshi
Motz Satoshi Nakamoto is it’s a
pseudonym but putting aside that we
don’t know who Satoshi is what Satoshi
did is an economic revolution and I’ll
tell you about that economic revolution
bitcoin is a Pacioli ledger but it’s one
that’s not based on trust
it is a trustless ledger bitcoin for
everything you’ve heard in the papers
for everything you’ve read is just a
ledger
but unlike Pacioli Ledger’s it requires
no trust of any kind the ledger is
called a blockchain and a blockchain
what it does is it replaces trust with
mathematics you don’t have to trust
Lehman you don’t have to trust Wachovia
you don’t have to trust the Federal
Reserve all you have to trust is a
mathematical proof Satoshi was the first
person to make that mathematical proof
work using this trustless ledger Marti
can send Bitcoin which has value to
Jennifer without trusting anyone and
their transaction once he sends it is
locked on this blockchain ledger forever
cryptographically and it’s done by a
decentralized network of computers
called miners so what does this
decentralized trustless ledger mean for
us I like to call it the blockchain
revolution close your eyes for a minute
and imagine a world where you control
your own money not banks where
governments cannot eliminate or erode
your wealth by printing money backed by
debt a world with no inflation a world
where tin-pot dictator x’ in foreign
countries don’t control the financial
lives of their citizens a world where
you can store all of your wealth every
dollar you own on a phone on a thumb
drive on a piece of paper and send it to
anyone in the world at any time for
almost no cost and almost instantly well
guess what you live in that world
that’s what Bitcoin does
so we’ve talked a little bit about the
past we’ve talked a little bit about the
present let’s talk a little bit about
the future blockchain is not limited to
finance it’s not eliminated limited to
banking future use cases of blockchain
are about as broad as your imagination
voting systems patents chain of titles
wills and trusts big day that cloud
storage anything that requires a
database or a ledger can be put on the
blockchain but the difference is on the
blockchain you don’t have to trust the
Facebook’s of the world you don’t have
to trust the Amazon’s of the world you
don’t have to trust Internet service
providers it’s done on a trustless basis
and the most important for present
purposes is computing let me tell you a
little bit about fearing aetherium is a
decentralized trustless global computer
it’s a lot of words but what it does is
it puts programs on the blockchain
called smart contracts and those
programs run autonomously they run
without anybody controlling people are
calling this web 3.0 now think about
that
what can aetherium do what can this web
3.0 do what can this global
decentralized computer that resides
everywhere and nowhere do well it’s
pretty much as broad as your imagination
the possibilities are endless this is
the future where we go from here is
really up to all of our imaginations thank you very much for the opportunity