"(Whirring)" "Don't be filming my passwords." "Iusedto have ashirtin highschool thatsaid "technologymustbe used toliberatetheindividual."" "AndI didn'treallyknow whatitmeantfor years, 'causeI didn't reallythinkaboutit." "ButtodayIlookback  andI 'mlike,"ohman , hellyeah,Ilikethat shirt."" "I'mgladIworethat shirt, 'causeit'showIreally feeltoday." "My name is Daniel mross." "Today is may 3rd, 2012." "Igothroughcollege andwatchtheInternetcome  andallthese differentthings." "Andnow,like,bitcoin, it'sjustasingle technologybuilton top oftheInternet, butit'sso fascinating becausethere'sso many freakingthings youcando withit." "It'salsojust abigexperiment." "There'snoguarantees withit." "Wemightjustall be wastingourtime..." "Exploringconcepts andideas." "It'satthiscrossroads oftechnology andphilosophy andpoliticsandeverything." "Justbeapartofit ." "It'sfun." "It'scrazythough, butit'sfun." "Nick mross:" "Um,firstquestionis whatisbitcoin?" " ( Chuckles ) - ( Dramatic music playing )" "Daniel:" "Ican'ttellyou  whatbitcoinis  injustafew sentences." "Ittakestime tounderstandit , thesamewayittook  peopletimeto understand whattheInternetwas  backin1994." "That little mark with the "a" and then the ring around it." " "At"?" " See, that's what I said." " Mm-hmm." " Katie said she thought it was "about."" " Katie:" "Yeah." " Elizabeth vargas:" "Oh,Internetis ..." " That massive computernetwork..." " Katie:" "Right." "...theonethat'sbecoming reallybignow." "Allison, can you explain what Internet is?" "Daniel:" "WhentheInternet wastakingoff," "Iwasin college atVirginiatech studyingcomputerscience." "Lookingback, it'samazingto thinkabout howmuchtheworld waschanging." "Hey,Dan, readyforthegame?" "I'm just finishing up here with my new kayaking friends." "Kayaking friends on your computer?" "Yeah, I just got America online." "Daniel:" "Thatsametypeofinnovation ishappeningagain withbitcoin." "It's the smartest people in the room that are the most excited about this." "So what are they seeing?" "Daniel:" "TheInternetchanged thewaytheworldcommunicates bitcoinchanges thewaymoneyworks." "You can basically put a bank in your pocket." "Psst!" "Wanna buy some secret stuff?" "There is now a new note that people are starting to talk about-- the bitcoin." "The money of the future." "Daniel:" "Bitcoinwascreatedtoprovide analternative tothebankingsystem." "George w." "Bush:" "We'reinthemidst ofa seriousfinancialcrisis and the federal government is responding with decisive action." "Daniel:" "Unlikemostcurrencies, bitcoinsareissuedaccording toa setof fixedrules." "Theideawastocreate moneywhosevalue couldn'tbemanipulated bya centralauthority." "The government, no matter how many guns they draw, cannot change a mathematical problem." "Theycanpointtheirguns  at" twoplustwo,"" "butit'salways gonnaequalfour." "Daniel:" "It'sfascinatingto imagine whatitmeanstohave  globaldecentralizedmoney." "Andthat'swhat'shappening." "(Instrumentalmusicplaying)" "( Babbles )" "My five-year-old's birthday." "First round of burgers is ready." "Second round is going on in a second." "First round of burgers is ready!" "( People chattering )" "First round." "Eliza mross:" "Danhasalwaysbeen anideaguy." "Bitcoinistheperfect combination of how can I change the world and make it better, but how can I also be a nerd?" "SomostlyI'vejustbeen  supportinghim inthiscraziness." "Daniel:" "ElizaandImet incollege, andwe'vebeenmarried forsevenyears." "Welivein Pittsburgh, whereI 'mfrom, andwehavethreeboys ," "I'vespentmostofmycareer asa databaseadministrator." "Butforthepast twoyears,I'vebeen consumedwithbitcoin." "Bitcoinscome intoexistencethrough aprocesscalledmining." "Ibuildcomputers tomineforbitcoins." "I'm glad that it's finally getting a little bit cooler out." "My wife won't be as angry that the basement is so hot." "I've still got a bunch of mining rigs running right now." "Actually they're right down here, if you wanna go take a look." "Here they are." "Sowhatis bitcoin?" "Bitcoinis arevolutionarytechnology thatenables anewwaytosend payments overtheInternet." " ( Beeps )" " You can think of it as anopenaccountingsystem wherethousandsof computers allovertheworld worktogetherto track ownershipofdigitaltokens calledbitcoins." "Whenyousend someonebitcoins, thetransactionis broadcast totheentirenetwork." "Afterit'sverified, it'srecorded ina publicledger calledtheblockchain." "Theblockchain containsa record ofeverybitcoin transactionthathasoccurred sincethesystembegan, andit'sshared andmaintainedon thenetwork, soeveryonekeepsthe books, sotospeak." "Mostcurrenciesareissued bya centralauthority thatcontrols themoneysupply." "Bitcoinis apeer-to-peersystem, sothereis  nocentralauthority." "Insteadbitcoinsare issuedtousers whohelpprocesstransactions inthenetwork." "Thisisknown asbitcoinmining." "Bitcoinminersare specializedcomputers thatdothework requiredtoverify andrecordtransactions intheblockchain." "Asa rewardfortheirwork , theminersearnbitcoins, andthisis hownew bitcoins arereleasedintocirculation." "Thesystemis programmed sothatonly 21millionbitcoins willeverexist." "Andastimegoesby, theminingrewarddecreases." "Theresultis  apredictablesupply that'sgoverned byscarcity, makingbitcoins somewhatlikeadigitalgold ." "It'sthefirstcurrency oftheInternet." "Andeveryone isfreeto useit." "Withbitcoin,youcan send anyamountof money toanyoneanywhere intheworld aseasily assendingan email." "MybrotherNick isa filmmaker." "Afterhearingme  talkaboutbitcoin incessantlyformonths, wedecidedto start documentingthings." "Nick:" "Hey,I don'tthink we'llneedthesmallcamera." " It can't hurt." " Nick:" "No, I'd rather justleaveit behind." "I have so much equipment." "Do you mind?" "Damn, you really cramped it up, huh?" "Not that bad." "What do you mean?" " Jeez." " Dude, they're right there." "Right in the back." "Right there." "Daniel:" "Iwasconvincedthatbitcoin wasgoingto be huge, andI knewtherewerealot  ofotherslikemeoutthere ." "Zipped my keys in my pocket, so I don't forget 'em later." "Bitcoin was created by what's believed to be a pseudonym, a guy named satoshi nakamoto." "Invented in '09 by a fictitious person named satoshi nakamoto..." "Daniel:" "OnHalloween2008, someoneusingthename satoshinakamoto." "Postedonacryptography mailinglist..." "Thepostcontained alinkto awhitepaper inwhichsatoshiproposed anewtypeofpaymentsystem fortheInternet." "Itdescribedaprotocolthat  usedpeer-to-peernetworking, proofofwork andpublickeycryptography." "Foryears,computerscientists hadbeenexperimenting withthesetechnologies tocreatedigitalmoney." "Butsatoshidiscovered awayto combinethem thathadnever beendonebefore." "Indoingso , heinventedbitcoin." "Thereareno records ofnakamoto'sexistence priortothecreation ofbitcoin." "Onhisprofilepage, heclaimedto be  a34-year-oldman livinginJapan." "Althoughsatoshinakamoto isa Japanesename, hewrotein perfectEnglish whencommunicatingonline andwentthroughgreatlengths tokeephisidentityunknown." "Nonetheless, programmersandcryptographers allacrosstheworld recognizedthebrilliance ofsatoshi'sdesign." "Andbegancollaborating withhimto further developbitcoin." "InOctoberof 2009, thefirstexchangerate waspublished." "Listingthevalue of1,309bitcoinsat$ 1." "Bitcoinswerecheap, and through the following year, theycontinuedto trade forfractionsof acent." "Inthespringof2010 , aFloridamannamedlaszlo decidedtotry usinghisbitcoins topurchasesomething." "Heoffered10,000bitcoins toanyonewhowould buyhimpizza." "Amanin Londonaccepted andplaced along-distancephonecall, orderinghimtwopizzas frompapaJohn's." "Thisisgenerallyacknowledged asthefirst bitcointransaction fora tangiblegood." "Bitcoinwas gainingmomentum, butinorder foritto thrive thecoinsneededtobe morewidelyaccessible." "ATokyo-basedexchange namedmt." "Goxwas  thefirston thescene to take hold of the marketplace andtradingvolume startedtopickup." "ByNovember2010, already4 millionbitcoins hadbeenmined." "Andtheexchangeprice briefly spiked to 50¢ per coin." "Themarketawokeand bitcoin wasstartingto looklike itmighthaverealpotential asa currency." "His name is Julian Assange." "Assangeandhiscolleagues collectconfidential informationandthen makeitpublic." "The release of 250,000 state department documents no doubt presents a serious dilemma for this country." "Daniel:" "Followinga massiverelease ofsecret U.S.diplomaticcables, donationstowikileaks wereblocked bybankof America, visa,mastercard," "PayPalandWesternunion." "Anarticlein "pcworld" suggestedthatbitcoin couldbeused asa workaround tosenddonations towikileaks." "Oneofsatoshi's lastknownposts wasinresponse tothearticleand stated..." "Shortlyafterthat satoshidisappeared fromtheforums andwasnever heardfromagain." "Twomonthslater thesilkroadanonymous marketplacewaslaunched." "Itfunctioned asanonlineblackmarket fordrugs andotherillicitgoods andusedbitcoin exclusively, becauseitmade themoneytrail nearlyimpossible totrace." "Thesilkroad caughttheattention ofNewYorksenator Charlesschumer whowasoutraged andpubliclycalled fora crackdown onthesite." "Heroin, opium, cannabis, ecstasy," " psychedelics, stimulants." " ( Camera clicks )" "It's unbelievable." "Daniel:" "Throughoutallthis, theexchangeprice continuedtoclimb." "ByFebruaryof 2011, bitcoinreachedparity withtheU.S.dollar." "Sparkinganinflux ofnewusersand speculators." "ByJunethepricehadsoared toa peakof $31 beforeitcame crashingdown." "Asthemarkettanked, themt." "Goxexchange washacked, furthershaking theconfidenceof investors andhammeringtheprice allthewaydown tothe$2 range byOctober." "Whilebitcoinenthusiasts kepthope, skepticswerequick tosharetheirhindsights andrantson blogs andinnewsarticles." "Manythoughtthat thepartywasover andthatbitcoinwas  onitswayout ." "I went online and I bought one bitcoin last night." "Really?" "It's the future." "I don't know." "It didn't feel real." "No." "Real's gonna change." "Just watch." "Today I sent a total of... 2700 bitcoins to butterfly labs." "Ipurchased,basically, acustom-designed bitcoin-mining supercomputer." "If bitcoin fails..." "Everything I have is worthless." "( Stammers ) The bitcoins I have, the computers, the mining system was all a waste of money." "But if it succeeds, then..." "It will have been worth it, I think." " ( Beeps )" " The bitcoin economy was awildwestincyberspace thatwasveryattractive tohackersandscammers." "Overtheyears, tensofthousandsofcoins hadbeenstolen and2012provednodifferent." "Usershadto be careful." "If somebody steals your bitcoins, there are no consumer protections." "Sorry, they're gone." "You lost your bitcoins?" "They're gone and you're not going to get them back." "Butaftermonthsofstagnation ontheexchanges, thebitcoinpricewas  ontheriseagain." "The price of bitcoin today is around $7 u.S.D., which just had a nice little bump this week." "Bytheendoftheyear,  thebloggingsitewordpress announceditwouldstart acceptingbitcoinpayments." "Andinearly2013, thediscussionforumreddit alsoannounced bitcoinsupport." "They were the first major sites toincorporatebitcoin, andthesemilestones signaledthebeginning ofmainstreamacceptance." "Bitcoin is the most subversive technology on the planet." "This is a system that is growing around the entire world." "So if it works, if this experiment continues to grow, it doesn't just help a few of us in this state or in the country, but it actually helps everyone around the world." "( People chattering )" "Daniel:" "Asthebitcoinprice hoveredaround it'sprevious all-timehighof $31," "Ivisited alibertarianconference inNewHampshire." "It lost 20% and then it gained 20% in 20 minutes." "It is-- they're silly." "Daniel:" "Libertariansareamong theearliestadopters ofbitcoin." "Itsnatureas acurrency thatisn'tcontrolled bycentralbanks makesitattractive tothiscommunity." "Once I was able to kind of grok the basic concept, it was like, "this is the perfect money. "" "Daniel:" "Thisiswhat abitcoinaddresslookslike ." "Thinkofthislongstring ofcharacters asanaccountnumberwhere yourbitcoinsarestored." "Whenyousend orreceivebitcoins, theyaresent totheseaddresses." "Theaddressesare longandhardtoremember sousingaphone toscanaq.R.Code  isa fastandeasyway toreadthem." "Anothergoodthingtoknow  isthatbitcoins canbebrokendown toeightdecimalplaces." "Thismeansthatyou can send fractionsofabitcoin." "Soanyamountofmoney canberepresented." "Withbitcoin, everytransactionis public." "Everyonecanseethe amount thatisbeingsent withoutnecessarilyknowing theidentityof thesender." "Theseguysevenhaveone ofthefirstbitcoina.T.M.S." "You just scan your q.R. Code on your phone, putinthedollarbills andpressthebutton." "Bam." "Done." "Perfect." "Younowtraded yourworthlesspiece ofpaper forrealcurrency." "It's like, "end the fed?" It's like, seriously, you think you're gonna end the fed?" "You're not gonna end the fed." "You're not gonna change anything about the fed." " Transcend the fed." " Bypass the fed." " Right, yeah. ( Chuckles )" " That's what you should do." "My concern is how the governments will react." "They can't kill or stop bitcoin, but they could impede it and they could get in the way of its development." "Daniel:" "Afewweekslater acrosstheocean, afinancialcrisiswas  reachinga breakingpoint ontheislandofCyprus." "Cyprus is on the brink of going bust." "The rest of Europe has agreed to a bailout, but only if Cyprus raids people's bank accounts for quick hard cash." "Woman:" "Peopletriedto getmoney outofthecashmachines butelectronictransfers havebeenstopped." " Never did I think that they would..." " ( People chanting ) ...in a completely unprecedented manner resort to stealing money from people's bank accounts." "Daniel:" "TheCypriotshad placedtheirtrust inthebankingsystem andithadfailedthem ." "Asnewsof thecrisis spreadaroundtheworld, bitcoinbelievers werequickto pointitout asanexample ofwhyacurrency freefromgovernmentcontrol wasneeded." "There's actually bitcoin atms apparently being set up in Cyprus." "Man:" "Allofasudden, bitcoinlooks likeanattractiveprospect." "Daniel:" "Whilethiswas happeninginCyprus, regulators attheU.S.treasury weighedinon bitcoin." "Thefinancialcrimes enforcementnetwork, knownasfincen, issueditsfirst regulatoryguidance onvirtualcurrencies." "Theguidanceimplied thatbitcoin, inandof itself, wasnotillegal." "Itwastheperfectstorm." "Thesituation inCyprussuggested thatbitcoincouldfunction asa financialsafehaven." "Andtheapprovingnod  ofU.S.regulators wasa greenlight forinvestors." "Themarketagreed andtheexchange pricecontinuedto climb." "( Beeps )" "It's moving from the super super-early-adopter phase to possibly the early-adopter phase." "Daniel:" "Bitcoinwasgetting internationalexposure andpeoplewerestarting topayattention." "Thisisactuallyalive , updatedmapof theglobe andthelinesrepresent bitcoinclients." "Basicallywherethebitcoin softwareisrunning." "And the length of the line determines how long it's been online or how active it's been." "And every time I look at this," "I swear it gets more and more saturated." "You can almost see an outline of the U.S. now." "South America-- you're starting to get it." "But the big news, in my opinion, isthis" "China." "Youusedto seeone , two,three,maybe." "Andthisis allwithin thelastthreeweeksorso ." "That'sthemost I'veeverseeninChina." "Look down here." "Indonesia, Singapore," "Australia, New Zealand." "Thefollowingweek itsnowedin pittsburg." "Iwaseagerly awaitingthedelivery oftwoavalonasics, stateoftheart computers withchips specificallydesigned forminingbitcoins." "Yifuguois  attheforefront ofthenewgeneration ofhardware, andisthefirst tobringthemtomarket." "Everybody, including myself, had severely underestimated the mining market and how big it is." "Daniel:" "Whenbitcoinbegan, astandardlaptop waspowerfulenough tominehundredsofbitcoins ina matterof days." "Thetechnologyevolvedrapidly overthepastcoupleofyears ." "A lot of people are getting into it or still trying to catch up." "Daniel:" "Iwason vacation withmyfamily whenthenewminerswere  scheduledtoarrive." "Thepriceof bitcoin hadrocketedto $77 soI askedsomefriends towaitat my house togetthemrunning assoonas possible." "Mancini:" "Allright!" "(Laughs)" " I hope this is good." "I hope it's worthwhile." " Oh, definitely." "These are new computer parts here..." " Excellent, excellent." " ..." "Fresh in from China." " ( Laughs )" " All right, it's not official until you sign." "There we go." "Nick:" "Yeah,we'llsee." "Maybedowntheroad youguyswillstart acceptingbitcoin oneday,Ibet ." " That's cool." " Just a matter of time." "Driver:" "Goodluckto youguys." "Allright." "Mancini:" "InotifiedDan andhehas alittleresponsehere." "Welcome to the financial renaissance." "192.168.1.140." "255.255.255.0." "192.168.1.1." "That's the default gateway." "My first pull is gonna be stratum.Ozc.In, port 3333." "Port 80, but I can do 3333." "Andwheneverything'sall  saidanddone,for atleast alittlewhile, it should be pulling in 10 to 12 coins a day." "That's gonna change though, after another week." "It's gonna get dropped down to, like, eight," " just because the difficulty's just going through the roof." " Yeah." "Everybody's firing these things up, so it's always a race to stay ahead andtryto be thefirstguy withthehardware,you know?" "Oh, I'm getting pings." "Whoo!" "Mancini:" "Yup,we'rekicking." "We are accepting shares." "It is live." "We'vegottheMerlot!" "( Both laugh )" "( Mumbles )" "Hey,thatlooks likejohan." "Say, "I'm going to college 'cause my dad mines bitcoins."" "Dad going bitcoins." "( Laughs )" "Nick:" "So,bigdaytoday,huh?" "Big day." "Look at that. 104." "Current bitcoin price." "Broke 100 today." "It is April fool's day." "The price rising so insanely high is kind of a little bit unprecedented, so" " I mean, it's bound to pop a little bit." "Maybe." "I don't know." "Maybe it'll be at 225 in a week and a half, so who knows?" "Bitcoin styles-- could go up, could go down." "Daniel:" "Asthepricepassed100,  wetookatriptovisit  Gavinandresen." "Heisknowntohave  workedcloselywithsatoshi duringbitcoin'searlydays." "Here's the train tracks, and he did say there would be train tracks maybe passing through." "Here we go." "This is Gavin's house." "Gavinisone ofthelastpeople tocommunicatewithsatoshi beforehedisappeared." "Morning." "This is my brother Nick" " and his wife Ashley." " Nice to meet you." " Ashley:" "Hi,niceto meetyou ." " Nice to meet you." " Daniel:" "Found the place okay, so-- - good." "We're very excited to be here." "Come in." "This is my humble house." " ( Door closes )" " That's where I work." "This is where I live." " Beautiful home." " Well, thanks." "Nick:" "Alittlehigher,please." "Rightthere." "Great." " Got it." " ( Daniel chuckles )" "Howdidyoufirst getintobitcoin?" "Tellusalittlebit ofthestoryofhow yougotinvolved." "I had been working at umass as a staff programmer in the computer science department research group." "Mywife's aProfessorat umass." "Iactuallyquit thatjobbeforegoing ona six-monthsabbatical inAustralia." "I just happened to read a little blurb onlineinsomebody'sblog that mentioned this bitcoin project, which is an open-source attempt to do money." "And it caught my interest." "Ibasically justspentafew days readeverything Icouldaboutit lookedatthesourcecode , downloadedthesourcecode, thought about it and I really couldn't convince myself that it would not work." "Itseemedlikesatoshi hadthoughtof everything." "Since then..." "I've just been sucked down the rabbit hole." "Daniel:" "Bitcoinis open-sourcesoftware." "Withopen-sourcesoftware, thecodeis  publiclyavailable." "Anyonecanlookatit andseehowitruns ." "Andtheycanalsocontribute theirownchanges." "ProgrammerslikeGavin wereableto joinsatoshi toworkon bitcoin simplybecause theywereinterested." "Over time, I think satoshi learned to trust me." "Hecouldsee thatI didn'tmake verymanystupidmistakes." "I never had any personal connection with satoshi." "It was always purely business." "And I think that's because he was so worried about people finding out his identity." "I don't know why." "My last email to him was telling him that I had agreed to go visit the folks at the c.I.A., so... ( Laughs )" "Whether that had something to do with him deciding to cut off communication with me entirely-- hehadbeen pullingawaybeforethen, but the c.I.A. Invited me to come talk at the c.I.A." "And I agreed to do that." "Daniel:" "Knowingitwouldsurelyspark conspiracytheories, Gavinpostedan announcement onthebitcointalk discussionforum toheadoffany rumors." "Havingtakenon  theleaddeveloperposition sincesatoshi's disappearance," "Gavinfoundhimself facinganincreasingnumber ofresponsibilities andpublicscrutiny." "Do your neighbors know that you're kind of at the center of one of the most disruptive technologies?" "I think" " I think they know that I do this wacky bitcoin project." "I don't think they know quite how big it is yet." "Right now, bitcoin's a billion-dollar project." "WhenI startedit was thistinylittleexperiment." "And as it gets bigger, the pressure to not screw up just gets bigger and bigger." "Daniel:" "Twoweekslater thepricesoaredpast150." "Andsomebitcoinerswokeup tofindouttheywere  bitcoinmillionaires." "23-year-oldCharlieshrem isthec.E.O.Ofa company calledbitinstant." "Bitinstantwasone ofthefirststartups inthebitcoinspace." "Inbitcoin'sinfancy, peoplehadto jump throughseveralhoops tobuythem." "Oneoftheonlyways  wasthrough themt." "Goxexchange, butthisprocessrequired transferringmoney throughseveral intermediaries andcouldtakeweeks." "Charlielaunchedbitinstant tostreamlinethisprocess." "Andtohelppeoplebuy bitcoinsquickly." " Man:" "Yeah, that'sgood." "That'sgreat." " ( Camera beeping )" " That's pretty nice." " You go like that." "Yeah,sure." "Daniel:" "TodayCharlieis  beingphotographed foranarticle in" businessweek."" "Man:" "Oneoftheideasthey had wasthatyou'regoing-- throwingstuffup in theair  andtheyweregonnaadd bitcoinsinlateron." " Going like that?" " Yeah." "Shrem:" "Thisbitcointhing canactuallychangethe world." "Butforthisthing tosucceed, we have to figure out a way to get more money in and out of the ecosystem." "Look out the window a bit." "Totally-- yeah." "Then you can look-- yeah, that's good." "And not show that I'm super stressed out right now and we have thousands of orders that are being processed and I'm bugging out, trying to get the new site launched." " No, don't look like that." " It's crazy." "I'm trying not to, but it's really hard." "Shrem:" "Thingshavebeeninsane." "(Mouseclicking)" "Ihaven'tsleptindays ." "Thepriceis justrising, soa lotof people areputting moneyintoit ." "Daniel:" "Normally,Charliecan getbitcoins tohiscustomers inaboutan hour." "Butwiththerecentflood ofpeople trying topurchasebitcoins, bitinstantcan'tfill theirordersfastenough." "When I pulled up our customer service interface, wehaveclose to2,000opentickets." "And that's just from Saturday to this morning." "Nobody was ready for this kind of volume, so we're trying to catch up with the volume and keep everybody happy." "Man on phone:" "Canyoujustsortof describequickly whatthelastweekorso  hasbeenlikefor you guys?" "The last week or so saw our support staff go from two people to five people." "When someone offers you a seat on the rocket, you don't ask where the seat is." "You just get on the rocket." "Further, our volume has basically tripled in the past two weeks, goingfromafew hundred transactionsa day to now two, three thousand transactions a day." " Nick:" "You just came onboardhere,right?" " Yeah, I did." "Actually, today is kinda my first day." " Oh really?" " Yeah." "Howdoesit feeltobe apartof allthismadness?" "Um, well, madness, yeah." "It'soverwhelming." "Andwhatdo youdo forbitinstant?" "I'm the c.F.O. ( Chuckles )" "Man on phone:" "Canyougiveme adailyestimate ofhowmuch moneyyou'removing throughyoursystem?" "Um, it's in the-- in the six figures every day." "Allright." "Well,thanks,Charlie." " I really appreciate it." " Thank you." "Idon'tknowhow  thegovernmentwill reacttobitcoin, butI spendthousands of dollars on lawyers every day justtomakesurethat  I'mnotgonnagotojail." "It's super terrifying." "I mean, I don't wanna go to jail." "( Stammers )" "I don't wanna become a martyr either." "( People chattering )" "Daniel:" "Bitcoinwasthetalk ofthetown." "Charliewas inthelimelight andcouldbarelykeepup withmediarequests." "Withinhours, thepricepassed$200." "Shrem:" "Firstdayof spring, firstday bitcoinisover200 ." "Thestartof anew era ." "Nick:" "Hi." "Niceto meetyou ." "I'm the nice warm loving mom that makes him live at home." "'Cause we can't-- we can't part from him yet." "( Laughter )" "Mother:" "Welovehimtoo much." "This is where it all started and this is where it still goes down." "I've been collecting money from all over the world." "And it's just something I did way before bitcoin." "I've been doing it since I was a kid." "So it's funny that I'm collecting all this..." "Fiat that's not worth anything and then all of a sudden I get into this bitcoin thing." "Irealized duringhighschoolthat" "Icouldneverwork foranyone." "Imadeup aterm-- psychologically unemployable." "Istartedbitinstant whileI wasstill inmysenioryearofcollege." "Bitcoincurrentlyis  thelargestsocial- economicexperiment everconducted inthehistoryoftheworld ." "2013,possibly2014, willbethetwo years thatreallymake orbreakbitcoin." "Bitcoinisthefirstproduct that'sdigital, butit'salsoscarce." "Igotsomegoodnews  lastnightthat partofourlicensingdeals thatwe'vebeentryingtodo  forthepast fewmonthsarefinally, hopefully, comingthrough." "We got approved to be licensed in 30 of the 48 states in money transmission." "I've been working very hard on trying to be compliant in the legal realm and with fincen's announcement, setting up a way for bitcoin companies to legally exist, that really changes the whole game of bitcoin." "And for us, it helped us get that last push that we needed from all the banks and the regulators to finally, hopefully, get that licensing that we need." "Daniel:" "Today,Charlie'smeeting witha realtor totalkabout newofficespace." "Hi, Charlie, nice to meet you." " Hi, I'm Mitch waldman." "How are you?" " A pleasure." " Got a minute?" " I have 10 minutes for you." "We're-- we're a company with no boss, essentially." "Everyone has their responsibilities." "It's just one big executive board." " It's just one big executive board." " Okay." "If I don't do my job, these guys are all gonna yell at me." " So that's how we do it, butwegetthingsdone ." " Waldman:" "All right." "We're outgrowing this space, as you can see here." " That's a good problem to have." " Shrem:" "Yes. ( Sighs )" "Now Rachel said there was a great concern" " about security in this space." " Shrem:" "Yeah." "We'reregulated, sowecan'tshareanoffice" " with another company if they have access to us." " I get that." "Ourassetis oursoftware." "Our software is processing hundreds of thousands of dollars a day instantly." "Really quickly." "And that's on-site here?" "Or is it in the cloud?" "No, this is in the cloud." "It's all in the cloud, but we monitor-- we have to monitor everything from here..." " Right." " ..." "And debug, fix, take down, upload more-  put up more workers." " We deal with high-volume data-oriented stuff every day." "Very very sensitive customer data." "Waldman:" "Iftherewerenot  adoorman, at the very least the space would be designed in such a manner that there'd be a locked reception area." "If we want to pursue a guard at some point, we could have them in that area." " ( Waldman speaks )" " I absolutely think" " it will be at some point." "It's just a matter of time." " Really?" "Thepotential fortheftis huge." "It's like operating a bank, essentially." "Shrem:" "That'sprettymuchit." " Gotcha." " It's basic stuff." "Yup yup." "All right." "Any other words for me?" " Okay." " Are you willing to handle the task?" " Sign me up, captain." " ( Laughs )" "Daniel:" "Thatnight,theprice gotashighas$ 266." "Everymajornewsoutlet hadtakennotice." "Bitcoinfeverwas atanall-timehigh." "It is getting a lot of attention." "People are fascinated by anything that makes new highs every day for weeks on end, which bitcoin has done." "In terms of the total number of the people using the currency, I'm not sure, but you can say that there's a huge amount of fluctuation in the volume of trading." "Daniel:" "Andthenthepricecrashed." "Bitcoinlostmore thanhalfof itsvalue insixhours." "From craze to crash." "It's the talk of many people in the blogosphere, and it's certainly suffering some growing pains." "The value of the virtual currency bitcoin has plunged." "It's been a crazy day today." "I haven't slept in like 40 hours." "Yourorderprocessed." "Idon'tunderstand whywe'restillhaving thisconversation." "Werefundedyourorder." "Wesentyouextrabitcoins." "Man on phone:" "Idon'tcare,man ." "Whenitcomestomymoney , Idon'tfuckaround." "Shrem:" "Iknow,man." "Youneedyourstuff." "Ihearya ,Ihearya." "Itprocessed." "Yourbitcoins arethere,man." "Nick:" "So,Charlie,what'sbeen goingontoday?" " Crazy day, huh?" " Yeah, mt." "Gox-- their whole system pretty much failed and their whole trading engine is broken." "Pretty much caused-- almost-- us to shut down for the day." "Further,thebitcoinprice hasjustbeen wildlyswingingup anddown it was down $100 today." "It's gaining back up, but mostly because people can't buy and sell and they can't withdraw and they can't deposit." "'Cause the whole thing is just-- it's just a Fritz." "So what we're trying to do is figure out a way tomitigateorders somewhereelsefornow ." "Daniel:" "Withmt." "Goxstuck ina nosedive, therippleeffect iscreatingchaos inthebitcoinmarkets." "(Manmutters)" "Shrem:" "I'mtryingto figureout  whyourorders aren'tgoingthrough." "Rachel, am I allowed to take another advil if I took one an hour ago?" "They've been having problems ordering anything off of gox." "Yeah, I'm getting a lot of customers emailing, saying "it says 'executed,' but it's not showing in the blockchain."" "Shrem:" "Dude,goxsuspendedtrading." " Really?" " Yeah." ""Orders placed suspended until 2100."" "What time-- what's 2100?" "What?" "That's 9:00 P.M. oh my God." "( Sighs )" "(Peoplechattering)" "If you bought at 150..." "And then you're at 260, and then you watch it dip down back to 150, do you panic some?" "Yeah, absolutely." "I don't know what a bitcoin is." "I just bought it." "( Exasperated sigh )" "Fuck." "You see buy orders, people buying and selling at such a wide range." "It doesn't make any sense." "Shrem:" "Thea.P.I.Is just constantlyfailing?" "Isthatwhat'sgoingon?" "Orarewe 'renotgetting anyorders." "(Birdchirping)" "Daniel:" "Don'tcareaboutthe price." "Speculators can play musical chairs all day long for all I care." "I'm-I'm" " I'm long." "Iwasfocusedonexpanding myminingoperation." "Theonlypeoplethat aregonnabe shakenout  bythisdrop arepeoplethat arenewto bitcoin." "Here's the avalons, spinning away, mining away." "And if everything goes as planned, we'll have 18 more of these guys ina coupleof weeks." "Bitcoinis acomplicatedthing." "You have to spend some time looking into it and understanding it before you really care." "Now there's droves of people that-- you know, are giving it more than just that glance, because the price has gone so high." "And they have dollar signs in their eyes like Uncle scrooge." "It'ssomuchmorethan that , andI thinkthat'swhy  thepeoplewhoare mining andthepeople whobelievein it  arejust kindofholdingstrong." "Whentradingresumed atmt." "Gox, thepricefell evenfurther,to around$70 ." "71 on b.T.C.-E." "Yeah, bitcoin-- it's volatile." "It's gonna be a long time until we have stability." "That's the nature of the beast." "Price discovery can be violent and volatile." "There's gonna be a lot of people that come and go, and people that scream wolf." "Butattheend oftheday, theonlything thatreallykindof stinksrightnow isthateverybodyis tradingononeplatform that isn't doing the greatest job, so..." "Over time, hopefully we'll see some more exchanges pop up and get some more options in." "People wanna keep using bitcoin," "I'm sure the infrastructure will come." "(Birdchirping)" "It's just gotten ridiculously busy." "I get an email every two seconds now" " and pretty much more email than I-- - ( Lock buzzes )" "Than I can keep up with." "Daniel:" "Jeredkennais  thec.E.O.Of tradehill." "ThefirstU.S.-based bitcoinexchange tocompetewithmt." "Gox ." "He'salsoon thelist ofbitcoinmillionaires." " ( Barks )" " This is finnegan right here." "Guard dog." "Hey, finnegan." "( Mimics growl )" "Daniel:" "Jeredrunstradehill outofa41-bedroom residentialhotel called20mission thathealsoowns." "( Whirring )" "We mostly rent out rooms to tech people, startup people." "There's a lot of bitcoiners." "Iactuallyacceptrent inbitcoin, which is great, because we have a lot of international people." "(Acousticguitarplaying)" " ¶ Bitcoin!" "¶ - ( Laughs )" "¶ Came to us from the cryptogram ¶" "¶ it came out of thin air ¶" "¶ it saved us from those nasty dollars ¶" "¶ and won and yen ¶" "¶ bitcoin. ¶" " that's all I got." "I'm done." " ( Mutters )" "( Laughter )" "Digital currency is gonna happen." "I mean, it's-- it already is happening, and it will be the future, whether that's now," "10 years from now, a hundred years from now." "We're going to be using digital currencies that don't depend on fiat government." "Daniel:" "Jeredoriginallylaunched tradehillabouttwoyearsago,  butranintoproblems witha paymentprocessor andwasforced toshutdown." "Recently hemetRyansinger andtogethertheyare  relaunchingtheexchange." "The business we're in is helping people speculate, right?" "Markets are price discovery mechanisms." "That's what they're for." "People-- they buy, they sell, there's the bid, there's the ask and the price moves." "And when it levels out, then that's what the market price is." "I can't even count the amount of people that have said," ""bitcoin's not backed by anything." "At least dollars are backed by gold."" "I'verealizedthatalot ofpeoplebelievethat." "Mygrandfather, hegotme intoinvesting whenI wasakid ." "Iwasfiveyearsold." "Icouldexplainap/ e ratio, andwhatabid  andanaskwas , and the difference between a limit order and a market order and all that stuff, so for me," "I saw this as a way that the average person could actually take control of their finances." "Ijustgrewup prettynerdy." "I don't know." "Then like at 15 years old," "I decided I didn't want to be a nerd anymore, which was a mistake..." "'Cause..." "'Cause now I realize it's pretty awesome." "In1999 Ijoinedthemarines." "Iwasoriginally withanengineeringunit." "2005,I wentover toAfghanistan." "Iwasmostlyworking withtheAfghannationalarmy ." "Itchangedme alot  asa person." "I've always been interested in economics and finance and technology and cryptography." "Iwas ina cryptographyforum andsomebodyI'dnevermet- - whowasanonymously inthisforum thatI waschattingwith-- sentme10,000bitcoins justasaway totest  thesystemout and see how it worked, and I got 'em." "I'm like, "that's cool, but what can I do with them?"" "And he said, "well, nothing yet, but..." "If people believe it has value, it will."" "Atthetime,therewasreally onlyonebitcoinexchange itwasmt ." "Gox." "Isaid,"weneed analternative." "Who cares if the technology is decentralized and the method of transfer is decentralized and the people are decentralized if all the trades are in the same location?"" "Ithoughtthatbuilding anotherexchange togivemorepeople accesstobitcoin wouldbeakey part ofbitcoin'sgrowth." "The day we launched, we got a quarter-million dollars in from user deposits." "And we said, "oh shit, this is-- this is real." "Yeah." "Hey." "We're all fans of "the big lebowski,"" "so we're gonna have a "big lebowski" party." "Nice!" "It's a..." "Very exciting day." "30gallonsof whiteRussian andhallwaybowling." " ( Man shouts )" " Yeah!" "Kenna:" "Weworkhard, butwepartyhardtoo." "Okay." "Okay, I'm good." " Woman:" "All right." " I'm good." "I'm not dead." "( Rockmusicplaying) -( Peoplechattering)" "Yeah, I'm the first one in the house..." "That opened a tradehill account." "Woman:" "Whathappened?" "In the same day they went down to 90" "$65 or something, or $90 a bitcoin." "I stopped smiling." "( Laughs )" "Kenna:" "Tradehill,roundtwo, weoptimizedforsuccess." "Welaunchedexpecting tohaveto do  hundreds of thousands of transactions a second." "Rightnowwe 'vegot about15people inadditionto that, we'vegotabouteight attorneysexternally." "A lot of people are depositing dollars." "A lot of people are depositing bitcoin." "We're getting more trading." "We're pushing that from a business perspective." "Also,we'retalkingtopeople whowantto do moreautomated tradingonourplatform." "Get robots trading against each other." "We've stress tested this and we can handle about 500 times as much volume asmt." "Goxwas seeing." "So we'll see what happens here." "The interest in us is pretty crazy." "Justthenews withbitcoin hasreallykind ofvalidatedeverything." "Now people are like, "oh, you're not this crazy person talking about some digital made-up currency."" "It's like, "oh, I've read about it in 'the wall street journal' and 'the New York times.' It's real."" "Kenna:" "Wehadan investorcomein andhesaid, "hey,I reallyappreciate yourscrappynature andhowyou'rehustling, but I think it's time for you guys to spend 30 grand a month on rent." "When you have a billionaire client and they want to come check out your office before they send you a multi-million dollar wire, asking them to walk past pawn shops" " is not always the right feel." " ( Laughter )" "So we're leaving the mission." "We're driving into soma right now." "We're gonna go take a look at what may be our new office space pretty prestigious address-- one market." "Rightnowwe 'retrying toforgethispath, andwe'retryingtocomply withexistinglaws andanticipate futurelaws, whichisextremelyexpensive andextremelydifficult." " Is there parking here?" " Man:" "Yes." "Okay, is that included with" "( chuckles ) Of course." " Right, what does that-- how much does-- - ( Laughs )" "How much does that cost?" "That's not terrible." "Whoa." "That's pretty sexy." "Twitter was here for over a year." " Yeah." " Amazon comes and go every single year." " Oh, fantastic." " I have Macy's, I have j.C. Penney." "All the big ones, they come over." "They are part of the club." "Kenna:" "Sounds good." "We'll be here tomorrow." " Picking it up." " Thank you for the business." " Thank you." " I appreciate it." "Thanks so much." " We move in tomorrow." " Nick:" "Just like-  just like that, huh?" " Just like that." " That's how we roll." " Nick:" "It's pretty surprising thatthatdeal justhappenedso quickly." "Whatwasit ?" "Youjustlikedthe space anddecided,"hey, there'snopointinwaiting"?" "We like the space, we like the address." "We just don't have the time to spend either." "We've got all kinds of important stuff we're working on and if we spend a week trying to find an office, and he and I put 20 hours into it or 50 hours into it, it's a huge waste of time." "I thought they'd be in multiple bags rather than one big one, but hey..." "Ibelievethatbitcoin will do to the banking industry what email did to the postal service." "Itdidn'tmakeitirrelevant, whatit'sforced thepostofficetodo isconcentrate ontheirstrengths and less so on their weaknesses." "Daniel:" "MikeCaldwellis thecreator ofphysicalbitcoins, knownascasasciuscoins." "They'reoftenfeatured inmainstreammedia coverageofbitcoin." "They'rea noveltyitem, collectables thatbasicallyact asphysicalcarriers forbitcoins." "Buttheydo something veryimportant." "Theygivebitcoinaface ." "Come on in." "Sorry, the kids are sleeping, so I'm just being quiet so we don't-- you know." "Daniel:" "Eachcoinhas itsownbitcoinaddress." "Andtheprivatekey  requiredtospendit ishidden underneaththehologram." "This is where you make the physical bitcoin." "Yeah." "It's a random smattering of things, but I'm pretty careful about the way I manage-- you know, the-- basically, this is the credentials." "This is the hologram and the private keys." "I'm pretty careful about those and don't keep them here." "I normally do them on this mirror 'cause that helps me get the fronts and backs right." "There'ssomanythings thatcryptography candoforus,  that if the world just knew, somanysocialproblems couldbesolved." "Cryptography can bring fairness to elections." "It'stoodifficult forpeopleto understand andsomeoneneeds tobridgethegap ." "Daniel:" "Rightnowwe 'reusing bitcointosendmoney." "Butmanybelieveitwill  revolutionizemuchmore." "Thetechnology behindbitcoin canbeusedtobuild decentralizedsystems withrules thatcan'tbe cheated." "Now see, this is my wife and my space." " This is, you know-- - awesome." "It is what it is." "Themoretimegoesby, themorelegitimate bitcoingets andthemoreproudIam tobeassociatedwithit." "Now what does your wife do?" "She does crafts." "She's a lot like me." "We just sit around and make things all day." "It'sjustourobsession." "No, I'm not a drug dealer." "No, I'm not a criminal." "No, I'm not a terrorist." "Ibelieve intheruleoflaw." "I believe in structure that builds society." "I believe in families." "Ibelieve incorporations." "Ibelievein all theessentialelements that a civilized society with law and order need to be able to function." "Focal length matters." "( Whirring )" "Cryptography is the basis for us being able to implement the values we say we believe in." "Caldwell:" "Thisideawillneverdie,  thetechnologythatbitcoin broughttotheforefront." "The genie is out of the bottle." "Daniel:" "Sincethecrash, thebitcoinprice hasbeenhovering around$ 100." "Bitcoinsseemto have weatheredthestorm, butthere'sstill muchcontroversy surroundingthecurrency." "Thesamecryptographythat insuresa user'sprivacy alsoallowsit  tobeusedanonymously." "Steve:" "Myfatherdecidedtoretire andhehadanold failingprintshop." "Ibasicallytookitover  andI convertedit  intoanInternetplace." "We're the only place in L.A." "That supports bitcoin right now." "This is my linux system here." "It's a system that also mines for bitcoins." "Makesaboutadollaraday ." "Ijustdo it forfun ." "I was really really into the Internet, literally in 1990, 1991, 1992, and I had the hardest time describing what the Internet was to people." "Iwouldtellpeople, "well,it'slikethis networkofcomputers." "And the network of computers can talk with other networks of computers and then you could exchange information."" "And people would have no idea what it was." " ( Beeps )" " When people ask me whatbitcoinis" "Ihavethehardesttime  describingwhatit is ." "AndI 'dsurmiseit as , "it'sbasicallymoney." "It'sbasically ananonymousPayPal." "It'soneof thosethings thatyouhavetouse beforeyouunderstand." "Politically,I 'mnot averybigfan  ofeitherthebanks orfederalreserve, and bitcoin allows me to get around that." "One of the programs we support is a protocol called "Tor."" "And basically what Tor does is it allows you to communicate to a website anonymously." "Torisaprogram thatallowsyoutogeton thesilkroad." "And this is silk road." "Basically,anydrug youwantis available." "There's a lot of weed." "There's a lot of cocaine." "There'sa lotof ecstasy." "Butthere'salso unusualdrugs, like if you want some sort of anabolic steroid, you can type "steroid."" "You'll get all the different types ofsteroids thatareavailable." "Silk road itself is not selling the drugs." "Thisisbasically amatchmaker betweenbuyerandseller." "Both the buyer and seller don't know each other." "Both the buyer and seller are anonymous." "Itgoes onthisweboftrust." "If you want to, let's say, buy this testosterone, you'dclickon this." "He has 99.3 positive feedback from more than 300 transactions." "So even though the contracts aren't enforceable by law, the reputation system makes it so that the system works pretty well." "Oh, there's a fireworks section now." "I didn't know that." "FloridaI.D., 1.88bitcoins, which is around $150, something like that." "Aforged autoinsurancecard, forgedpassport." "There is over 9,000 entries for drugs." "That's a lot." "I would say there's around maybe five customers that know about it and use it." "It's a very small percentage of the people that come in." "But the people who do know about it, specifically come here to use it." "(Rockmusicplaying)" "Whatthecustomersdo withthecomputers isprettymuch theirbusiness." "Another day in the office." "You gonna do drug dealing of any sort, silk road is the place to go." "How many people are selling cannabis right now?" "Itlookslike2,011people aresellingcannabis." "They call me Mr. bitcoin." "Iprobablybeen dealingdrugs since I was like 17." "RightnowI'm26." "Ithinkof it  asa globalthing whenI 'monthecomputer." "I'mdoingbusiness withtheworld." "Let's see, they have blue dream, sour diesel, pineapple thai, purple kush, girl scout cookies." "Purple pays." "When I first heard about it," "I was laughing about it." "It took me a week to just even think about this for real." ""I can really make money off the Internet?" "Selling this type of stuff on the Internet?" "You sure about that?"" "This something I probably may buy right here." "Theyhavelookslike somegoodkush." "Andsomeof thesethings onlytakeaday togethere withnoharassment fromnobody instead of just being on the streets." "Onceyougetthe hangofit , it'sactuallykindafun  justlookingthrough differentthings." ""Mr. bitcoin." I'm running with it." "I like the name." "You know what I mean?" "I'm not gonna lie." "I get Booty off this." "I kinda like talking about this stuff with girls." "Girls like that shit hot." "( Laughs )" ""Oh, you're street, and you got a little nerd knowledge?" "This is great."" "Ihavealot ofbitcoins savedupalready." "Mybusinessis doinggood." "It's a fun way of doing hustling these days." "The future brung a different way to hustle and I like it." "Daniel:" "Withsomanypeople usingbitcoin insomanydifferentways , it'sbecomingapparent thatitcan'tbeignored." " Let me see your driver's license." " Oh sure." "This stays at the desk until you leave the building." "Daniel:" "TodayI 'mvisitingfincen, abureau oftheU.S.department ofthetreasury." "Despitehaving releasedguidance onvirtualcurrencies, there'sstill alotof uncertainty surroundingtheiroutlook onthefuture ofbitcoinregulation." "Straight ahead and in the big fishbowl-looking-- okay,great." "(Beeping)" "I'm not gonna say we're gonna have every answer for you today, but I mean..." " ( Snapping fingers )" " Ashley:" "Oh yeah." "( Laughs )" "Daniel:" "Jennifershaskycalvery cameonboard asfincen's directorlastyear." "Duringhercareer, shespent15 years atthedepartment ofjustice whereshespecialized infightingmoneylaundering andorganizedcrime." "Virtual currencies have been on my radar for a while, even prior to coming to this position, because of, unfortunately, the abuse of some of them." "Bitcoin, on the other hand, is one that really didn't come on my radar probably until I arrived at fincen." "Dependingon whoyouspeakto,  theissuance ofourguidancewas  either the best thing that ever happened to bitcoin or the worst thing that ever happened to bitcoin." "Someaccusingus  oftryingto killbitcoin andotherssayingthat itsomehowlegitimizedit." "Of course, neither of those things I think is probably true." "And certainly neither of those things was our intent." "Oneoftheclearlinesis thatifyou'reaconsumer who'susingbitcoins tobuygoodsand services, theguidance doesn'tpertainto you." "We're focused more on the places where we think we have risks to the U.S. financial system from money laundering and terrorist financing." "And I think that might be kind of-- a lot of the bitcoin community has a little bit of a fear that bitcoin may be characterized in a way so as to tie it to some bad actor ruining it for everyone," "whena lotof peoplethat areinterestedin bitcoin, including myself, see it as just this technology that we don't-- really don't wanna see it falling into the wrong categorization with all the potential that's there." "Sure." "So that innovation around bitcoin and the virtual economy is really one of the more interesting aspects," "I think, of this story-- the idea that itcanbe used topotentiallyserve theunbankedoutthere, justtoprovide somereallynewservices thatareconvenient forconsumers." "The flip side of it though is that to be a part of the financial system-- the U.S. financial system, the global financial system-- also comes with some responsibilities." "And those responsibilities include notallowing yourinstitutionto be used by criminals and by terrorists." "Daniel:" "There'salways beena concern thatthegovernmentmighttry tostampoutbitcoin." "Butperhapstheysee the risk ofbeingleftbehind." "Inmay2013, thebiggestgatheringto-date ofbitcoinenthusiasts andentrepreneurs happenedinSanJose, California." "Lindsay Holland:" "We'reatbitcoin2013." "It's the inaugural conference of the bitcoin foundation." "Roger ver:" "Bitcoinisworldwide and the vast majority of people haven't even heard of bitcoin yet." "It's more powerful than every computer on the top-500 list combined." "It's an awfully big world, an awful lot of things could happen." "Really,we'vebeen ona roller-coasterride andI expect,at least forthenextfew years, we'regonnaremain ona roller-coasterride." "I happen to enjoy roller coasters." " I think they're fun." " ( Applause )" "Daniel:" "Justa fewweeksearlier" "CameronandTylerwinklevoss, knownfortheirinvolvement inFacebook, announcethat theyowna1 % stake ofallbitcoins inexistence." "Wortharound$11million." " How's it going?" "How are you?" " Nice to meet you." "Daniel:" "Theyalsomade a$ 1.5millioninvestment inCharlie'scompany, bitinstant." "We started looking seriously at it at the end of last summer and started purchasing around that time." "I think a light bulb just went off and we said, "wow." "The implication of this could be enormous." "Tyler:" "Ifeveryonein theworld couldhaveabitcoinaddress, everyone in the world could be banked fairly quickly." "Andwhenyouconsiderthat , it's a very powerful idea." "And bitcoin can make that happen." "We're going all over the world." "We're going to the u.K." "We're going to Australia." "We're going to-- we're already in Russia." "We'regoing toSouthAmerica." "We're already in Brazil now." "You can buy bitcoin at any of our locations." "Daniel:" "It'sfunto thinkthat satoshimightbe heretoo ." "I always wonder if somebody is-- if someone here somewhere is..." " Yes." "I was planning-- - ..." "Standing in the corner going" "( both laugh )" "What would he do?" "What talks would he be attending, you know?" "Trace Mayer:" "We'reseeingthebitcoin playersinthemarket meetingwith theventurecapitalists andthey'reall beginningtoposture and that's very exciting, because it means that there's gonna be a lot more infrastructure built out," "and lot more money flowing into the space, and it's really gonna be a big bull market for bitcoin." "Daniel:" "Oneofthecompanies bestknownformaking bitcoin accessible for commerce isAtlanta-basedbitpay." "Theyarepioneers inbitcoin andprovideaservice thatenablesmerchants toaccept bitcoinpayments withoutdealing withitscomplexities." "We've grown about a factor of 10 since the beginning of the year." "We were doing about half a million dollars a month..." " Yeah." " ..." "Around the turn of the year, and now we're doing about $5 million a month." "Thisispeopleusingbitcoins to buy real goods and services." "They'renotdaytrading." "They'renotexchanging." "They're actually buying things." "I'm confident that bitcoin is the most important invention in the entire history of the world since the Internet." "Daniel:" "Rogerveris an investor inseveral earlybitcoincompanies, includingbitpay." "Hispassionandenthusiasm hasearnedhim thenickname"bitcoinJesus."" "Ver:" "Itisgoing tochangeeverything." "And all of you here in this room you're at the very very forefront of that." "( Cheers, applause )" "Daniel:" "Rogerlivesin Tokyo buttravelstheearth, spreadingthegoodword ofbitcoin." "Ver:" "Thelastcoupleofdays  we'vebeensettingup abusinessperday  toacceptbitcoinhere inthebayarea." "Today'sbusiness isgoingto be  thissuperkyo-po Koreansupermarket." "So for you-- you accept credit cards right now?" " Right." " The credit card companies are charging you 2% or 3%?" " Right." " For bitcoin, you can do the same thing, but they'll only charge you 1% and you'll still get dollars in your bank account." "If you want, you can choose to split some of the payments that you receive into bitcoins and then some into dollars in whatever ratio you want, so you can keep 99% in dollars and 1% in bitcoin or 99% in bitcoin and 1% in dollars." " Okay." " However you want." "You can decide that." "Daniel:" "Rogerisdescribing theservice providedbybitpay." "Theytakethevolatility ofbitcoin'sprice outoftheequation formerchants byimmediatelyconverting bitcoinstodollars atthetimeofsale ." "So right now we have it set to 100% dollars, so anybody that pays here with bitcoin, they'll deposit the money into your bank account the very next day with only a 1% fee." "And I guarantee you over the next couple of weeks you'll have lots of computer nerds that love bitcoins will be coming in here specifically to shop at your supermarket, so that they can pay with bitcoin." "The credit card companies, just for processing the payment, they take anywhere from... 1.5% to over 3% and then on certain cards there's even a per-transaction fee, like 20¢ per transaction plus the percentage of the transaction." "...$11,000, $12,000 a month on the average that they just take right out of our account." "I honestly think that there's a really good chance that bitcoins will be more than $1,000 by the end of the year, because everybody who hears about" ""wait, I can send money to and from anyone I want?"" "It's impossible for anyone to freeze your account, it's impossible for anyone to block you from sending or receiving these bitcoins." "...Euros, soyoucansee  all these different currency exchanges around the world that exchange to and from bitcoins." "You can see there's maybe between 50 and 100 exchanges now." "When I first heard about bitcoin and started telling everybody about it, if you looked at that same page, there were less than 10." "And there's no central office that they could raid or anything like that?" "There's no central-- it's amazing." "There's no central office, there'snocentralplace theycouldgo to  and say, "take Steve's bitcoins,"" "or, "give Steve's bitcoins to Kevin." Do this or do that." "So who's the owner of bitcoins?" " Everybody that owns bitcoins?" " Yeah yeah." "Just like who's the owner of gold?" "It's whoever owns some gold." "Short of shutting down the entire Internet in the entire world, there's no way to stop bitcoin." "And hit "request payment."" "And that's the q.R. Code for your bitcoin address." "So I'm gonna scan that..." "So now I have your bitcoin address on my phone." "I think this is $2, so I'm going to send you $2 worth of bitcoins." "There it is." "You just received that many bitcoins from me, directly with no fee and if you hit the little green square it'll show you the equivalent amount in U.S. dollars." "Soyoujustreceived $2worthof bitcoins directlyfrommy phone toyourphone." "And you can send money just like that anywhere in the world." "You could've told me your bitcoin address by email or posted on Facebook or Twitter or anywhere." "So I could print this and have it at the register." "Yeah." "Yup, and you can check right on your phone any time that you received the payment." " ( Laughs )" " Okay." "Thank you, Steve." " Steve:" "All right." "Thanks." " Thank you for the tea." "( Chatting )" "Daniel:" "Oneoftheneweststandouts inthebitcoinspace isa SanFranciscocompany namedcoinbase." "Theyoperate adigitalwalletservice thatmakesit simpletobuy,  useandacceptbitcoin." "Brian Armstrong:" "I would not be surprised at all if Google, square, PayPal-- everybody-- is looking at adding bitcoin in one or two years." "Bythenwe needtohave  50millionwallets." "Ifwecanmakethis  easytouse, it'sgonnabe huge." "Fred ehrsam:" "Myinvolvementin bitcoin isnotpoliticallymotivated." " Yeah, dude." " Ehrsam:" "People are realizing largecapitalgains." "When professional investors enter the realm, the stakes definitely change." "Weraised$5 million fromunionsquareventures." "FredWilsonled theroundthere." "I think bitcoin is still actually a little bit under the radar." "Ithinkit 'smoved pastthestagewhere peopledismissit , butI don'tthink thatit'stotally gonemainstreameither." "I think we're in that middle stage right now." "Daniel:" "Attheendoftheconference, jeredfromtradehill threwa party tocelebrate howfarthingshad come." " You guys are hot right now." " ( Chattering )" " Yup." " Congratulations on the raise." " Thank you." " It's good money, man." " Swell do." " Yeah." " I mean-- - hopefully it's an advancement for the community." "I am completely pro-compliance." "I think if you don't want to attach your identity to this," " just can't work with you." " Yeah, so I thought I just need to" "I mean the libertarian side of me is like, "ehh." "Yeah, whatever,"" "but like, from a business perspective, if people don't play by the rules," " you're not gonna last." " Yeah, I completely agree." " You're gonna just shut down or you're gonna go to jail." " Yeah." "Daniel:" "Noticeablyabsent fromtheconference wererepresentatives ofbitcoin's biggestexchange,mt ." "Gox." "Justdaysearlier thedepartmentof homeland security seizedmorethan$5million fromtheirU.S.accounts." "Theseizurewarrantstated thatmt." "Goxhad failed toregister asa moneytransmitter, puttingthemin violation ofthenewfincenguidelines." "( People chattering )" "I'mtravelingto Tokyo tomeetmarkkarpeles, mt." "Gox'sreclusivec.E.O." "No bitcoins on here." "Not yet." "Thatwillmakethis completelyunnecessary." "Butfornowitseems kindofprimitive that we're exchanging paper for paper." "( Clicking) -( Coinsclinking)" " Nick:" "And losing." " And losing value." "Someone's taking a cut." "Someone's taking a little percent." "Markandhis businesspartnergonzague areFrenchbuttheyoperate mt." "GoxfromofficesinJapan ." "Originallymt." "Goxwas  anexchangefortradingcards usedinagamecalled "magic:" "Thegathering."" "M.T.G.O.X.Stoodfor" ""magic:" "Thegathering onlineexchange."" "In2011 mark'scompanytibanne boughtmt." "Gox, andhisfocushas been bitcoineversince." "Oneoftheconditions ofmyvisit istorefrain fromanydiscussion aboutthed.H.S.Seizure, duetotheongoing investigation." "We'vearrivedat mt ." "Gox." "This is mt." "Gox right here." "There's no big sign or anything, no-- no-- it doesn't look like a crazy commercial establishment." "Despite theirlegalproblems mt." "Goxstill handlesmorevolume thananyotherexchange andisprocessingaround" "$6millionworth ofbitcointradeseveryday." "We had, last year, an average of 10,000 new customers a month." "January, it was 20,000." "Then 30,000, 60,000, 150,000." "With what's going on, we go down, but we are reaching 100,000 new customers" " for may." " That's amazing." " In a month?" " In a month." " Wow." " So it was like this..." "Zip, bup!" "But still, after what happened" "I thought that a lot of people will go away or don't create a new account." "But still, 100,000 new customers it's... wow." "And here we've got the office." "(Laughs)" "Daniel:" "Mt." "Goxemploys18people notonlyis markthe c.E.O., he'salsothec.F.O., theleaddeveloper andperforms alltechnicaloperations tokeeptheexchangerunning." "(Danielspeaks)" " C++." " C++." "Isthatyourmain-- isthatyourmain" " programming language?" " No." "I've got a lot of main programming languages." "Yeah?" "What'syourfavorite programminglanguage?" "Really depend on what I need to do." "I create a good something really quick and I don't care about performance," "I use p.H.P." "If I care a little bit about performance," "I will use c++ with q.T. Available." "And if I care a lot about performance, I will use axum." "When we go in, cameras down first," " until we get to your servers and then back up." " Exactly." "Okay." "Getting ready to go into the mt." "Gox data center location." "Okay, cameras down." "Wewereallowed tosnapafew photographs" "(karpelesspeaking)" "( Speaking Japanese )" "(Manspeaking Japanese)" "Daniel:" "If mt." "Gox's new trading engine canreallysupport 100millionordersper second, itshouldbe able toscalewiththe demands ofprofessionaltraders." "Butwithcomplex legalproblemsand increasingcompetition, mark'sattentionis pulled inmanydirections." "Do you work seven days a week, typically?" " Karpeles:" "Yup." " It seems that you do the majority of all the heavy lifting." " ( Laughs ) Literally." " Karpeles:" "Yeah." "You need to remove your shoes in the entrance." "Daniel:" "Markisatalentedman inoneof theworld's biggestcities..." "Butmaybehe shouldstick tocomputerkeyboards." "( Classical music playing )" "( Scoffs ) Okay, I messed it up." " ( Chuckles ) Awesome." " ( Nick claps ) Yay." "Yeah." "Erik voorhees." "Wearehereinnorthern NewHampshire for the porcupine freedom festival." "And this is an event put on each year bythefreestateproject." "Basicallyit'sjustabunch ofcrazyanarcho-capitalists, libertariantypes inthewoods, withfreedom andfamilies." "Prettymuch allofthevendors acceptbitcoin." " ( People chattering )" " Ahh!" "It tastes much better when bought with bitcoin." "Thanks, guys." "Soups, salads and smoothies." "( Chuckles )" "I would say one-third of our sales have been in bitcoin." "It's 20 bucks." "So you're gonna pay in bitcoin?" " Uh, yeah." " All right." "Lastyearwas ourfirstyearacceptingit we did maybe 18 transactions, 20 transactions at the most." "And now we're up to close to 120." " ( Sizzling ) - ( Folk music playing )" "Daniel:" "Thiscommunityis really oneofthelargestgroups ofpeople intheU.S.,Ithink, thatistrulyadoptingbitcoin andusingit as acurrency, becauseofwhatitstandsfor and because of what it enables." "(Peoplechatter)" "The world is seriously changing now and it is changing in a very interesting, veryradical, decentralized, and, in my opinion, positive direction." "Shoot." "Here it is." ""Price breaks the all-time high."" "Daniel:" "Vitalikisonly19yearsold, buthehasaprofound understanding ofthecomplexities ofbitcoin anda gift forexplainingthem." "Asleadwriter for" bitcoinmagazine,"" "he'sbeentraveling theworld,coveringbitcoin forthepastyear." "I'm a big fan of the decentralization concept, in principle." "You know, have lots-- lots of different societies operating according to whatever people's own beliefs are." "Bitcoin has unique properties that no other system in the world has had before." "It really seems like the only practical way forward." "As you move away from cash into your debit cards and your credit cards, you essentially are giving up a certain degree of your privacy without even really knowing it." "It'simportantto understand thatbitcoinis not automatically, perfectly anonymous." "But what it does is it enables you to be anonymous if you wish to." "Daniel:" "Erikvoorheesis  thefounderandpartowner ofa hugelypopular bitcoingamblingsite calledsatoshidice." "Satoshidiceis  thefirstof anew breed ofprovablyfair bettinggames thatusebitcoin." "Sinceallbetsare public, anyonecanverify theoddsandpayouts." "Atitspeak, satoshidicewasresponsible formorebitcointransactions thanallotheruses ofbitcoincombined." "Itplayedan importantrole inbitcoin'sdevelopment asone ofthefirstapplications toreallytest whatthebitcoinnetwork couldhandle." "RecentlyErikmoved hisentireoperations outoftheU.S." "AndintoPanama." "Hestartedacompany calledcoinapult thatletsyousendbitcoin vias.M.S.Andemail." "Voorhees:" "I think most people, at least in America, believe that when they put $1,000 into their bank, the bank is holding $1,000 in its vault for them." "And they don't realize that 99% of all the dollars are digital." "The fact that we have these tokens called paper cash is the exception to the rule." "Peopleseethecash andtheythinkthat that'swhatthemoneyis, but it's all digital and it's been that way for decades." "You guys moved your business to Panama." "Whatwastheprimarydriver inthat?" "Voorhees:" "Ifyou'reaU.S.company, you have to follow the arcane U.S. regulations for all of your customers around the world." "So if you do business with some rural farmer in Africa, you're gonna need to get his social security number, you're gonna need to get all this information that Washington tells you is important." "Wedidnotwant tohaveto apply theU.S.financial regulatoryscheme tocustomers insub-saharanAfrica." "Idon'tthink thedevelopedworld's gonna be where bitcoin really takes off, long-term, because our banking system's worked decently well." "Manypeoplearoundthe world don'thaveany bankaccountswhatsoever." "Ultimately, those are the types of people who will find the most value out of bitcoin." "Daniel:" "Onemonthlater Erikannounced hehadsoldsatoshidice  toananonymousinvestor." "Theprice?" "126,315bitcoins, wortharound $11.5million." "Most of the new offices in this city are in this condition, all still what's called "gray."" "Not ready, no Internet, no electricity-- nothing." "But we actually got one that was finished, sowemovedinandweare  superexcitedaboutit." "You can see all the skyscrapers of new banks and everything getting built up here." "This is the financial center for central America." "So it was fitting that we establish ourselves here as well." "Still setting up the office." "We've been here for two weeks." "We're getting walls put in." "We've got furniture." "Voorhees:" "Thisisthebrains oftheoperation." " This is Mr. ira." " Howdy." "He can program anything, and you can see all these books he's reading." "What have we got here?" "We've got "cryptanalysis."" "We've got "everyday cryptography,"" ""introduction to mathematical cryptography."" "I read all of these, of course, when I was much younger, but ira's trying to catch up with me." "Thebitcoinphenomenon istrying totakecontrol ofmoneyaway fromthestateand returnit toindividuals." "It's trying to separate money and state in the same way and for the same reasons thatitwasimportant toseparatechurchand state." "There'sa wonderfulquote fromoneof therothschilds" ""givemecontrol ofa nation'smoney andI carenot whomakesitslaws."" "SoI 'mtryingto play mypartin thatnarrative." "Daniel:" "OutsideoftheUnitedStates, billionsofpeople don'thaveaccess tobasicbankingservices." "Bitcoincanlevel theplayingfield andhelpbring developingnations intotheglobaleconomy." "( Chattering )" "Cheers, cheers." "Voorhees:" "Eventuallypeopleare goingtouseacurrency thatisas free astheInternet becausepeople willseekoutfreedom wherevertheycan." "Andjustas  thegovernmentcan't stoptheInternet andthefreedomofspeech, itcan'tstopbitcoinand thefreedomof money." "Sowe'rejustgonna havetoseehow hard theytryto do it ." "It's scary but it's exciting, because at the other end freedom typically wins." "Wejusthavesee how long ittakesto getthere." "( Shouts )" "Daniel:" "Assummerrolledon,  thebitcoinindustry continuedtoflourish." "It's hard to remember the days where I was running this thing out of my basement and with one or two people." "Bitinstant was just a domain name." "Daniel:" "Charlieandbitinstant movedinto theirnewoffices" "I always wonder if satoshi knew that he was gonna build something that would foster companies like this, wherewe'reactuallylike acompanywithjobs based on something that someone we don't know wrote a paper on." "It's kind of creepy if you think about it." "I wonder if he's watching us right now or something." "Daniel:" "InSanFrancisco, jeredandtradehillhad moved intotheirnewspaceaswell." "It sounds funny." "It's not a $100-million market anymore." "It's grown beyond that." "Moreprofessionalpeople areinthespace and they're expecting to deal with other professionals." "Daniel:" "Butjustas things wererampingup , regulatorsstartedtaking acloserlookatbitcoin." "Some bad news for bitcoin, or is it?" "Its days of glory could be ending." "At least two dozen companies have been subpoenaed by New York's department of financial services." "Can't be a good thing." "Daniel:" "Bitinstant,bitpay,coinbase andwinklevosscapital wereallissuedsubpoenas." "We want to make sure that as this enterprise grows and if it does become a place where a lot of people are engaging in financial transactions that we have sufficient protections in place." "Daniel:" "Withincreasedpressure inbankingcomplianceissues, bitinstantwasforced tosuspendservices." "Jeredfaced similarbattles." "Duetoalack ofregulation, manybanksdecidedtocutties withbitcoincompanies." "Withouta U.S.bankaccount tradehillcan'toperate, andjeredwasforced topulltheplug." "Regulation typically evolves much more slowly than innovation." "And regulations cannot keep pace with the pace of innovation." "Singer:" "Explainingbitcointo abank to Barnes  noble." "Daniel:" "Untillawmakerscatchup,  startupsliketradehill andbitinstant areleftoutona limb ." "Banks do not want to bank bitcoin companies." "When you have regulation, you can comply with it." "When you don't have any regulation, they're not exactly sure." "And if the banks aren't sure, they just default to "no."" "New regulation takes at least one year to develop propose and adopt." "And in many cases, it can take much longer than that." "Shrem:" "Iwon'tletthisgo." "Iwillfighttilltheend forbitcoin." "Whether I have to work on the street or sell lemonade, bitcoin's gonna succeed one way or another and I'm gonna be a part of it." "Daniel:" "Overthepastseveralmonths thebitcoinmininglandscape haschangedsignificantly" "(machineshumming)" "( Whirs )" "Daniel:" "WhenI started, bitcoinminingwas ahobbyforgeeks." "Nowit'sbigbusiness." "Inorderto continuemining and continue playing in the game and be competitive and be profitable," "Iwouldhavetospend hundredsofthousands ofdollarson gear." "The18miners Iorderedfromavalon neverarrived." "Andtheunits frombutterflylabs tookoverayeartoship." "BythetimeIgotthem,  bitcoinminingwas socompetitive, thatI wouldnever beableto mineback allthecoins Iusedto buythem." "See that computer?" "That computer makes bitcoins." "And this is all the other computers that are making bitcoins too, anditgoesstraightup ina lineup in theair ." "And that's 'cause there's a lot people that are making bitcoins with computers like that." "Asmynewunits arearriving," "I'msellingthem forbitcoins totryto recoup whatI can." "If you don't mind grabbing those other cables," " I'm not coming back up." " Nick:" "Okay." "Daniel:" "I'mtakingaprettybighit..." "Butoverall theminingexperience hasstillbeenworthit." "Myminingdays maybeover, butI 'mstillveryinvolved withbitcoin." "With bitcoin, it's a money system where it's backed by math." "It's back by the laws of mathematics and by the rules of the protocol." "I keep thinking that there's gotta be an easier way to just set up a secondary protocol to trade private keys." "Every time I log on, I see another dot on China and I'm like, this is why right now the price has gone up." "Daniel:" "Thepriceis  nearing150again." "Manyattributeit  totheexplosion ofbitcoin'spopularity inChina." "What's happened recently is Chinese people have really come and adopted bitcoin." "Asa culture, asa nation" "Chinesepeoplearekeen tolearnabout thingsthatare ontheInternet, thingsthatinvolve mathandscience." "WethinkthatChinacanreally contributeinthisspace and help bring bitcoin to the mainstream." "Daniel:" "Germany'sanotherpart oftheworld wherebitcoin hasfoundahome." "Woman:" "It'sstartingto getnormal ifonepersonaday comesinandbuys acoffeewithbitcoins." "People are looking for a new way of paying-- not through banks, not with Euros, not with dollars." "Something new." "Daniel:" "TheGermanministryoffinance evenbecamethefirst governingbody toofficiallyclassifybitcoin as" privatemoney."" "I believe if we want to get some justice back into our society, weshouldreduce theimportanceof thebanks." "Bitcoinisbanking withoutbanks, so here we go." "The FBI today shut down what it's calling the most sophisticated Internet site inthebusiness ofsellingharddrugs, includingheroin, cocaineandLSD." "Daniel:" "IntheSci-Fisection ofa SanFrancisco publiclibrary, undercoveragents surpriseda youngman quietlyworking onhislaptop." "Theyarresteda29-year-old softwareengineer namedRossAlbrecht andaccusedhim ofbeingthemastermind behindthesilkroad." "People have always tied the silk road to it." "Media has always tied the silk road to it, as if silk road is bitcoin, but it's not." "Thismaybe asign thatbitcoinis growingup." "It's funny." "My friend just I.M.'D me and said," ""silk road got raided and the government seized $3.6 million in bitcoin." "Is there a way to invalidate bitcoins?" ( Chuckles )" "I replied, "no."" "( Danielspeaking) -( Keyboardclicking)" "People are starting to finally realize that bitcoin has nothing to do with how people use it." "It's just money." "It's like gold." "Ofcourse, noteveryonethinks bitcoinistheway  ofthefuture." "James angel:" "Bitcoinwillnotbeable  tosurviveor thrive without becoming legitimate." "I don't see it having a serious place in our financial system." "Thereare reallygoodreasons whywehavecentralbanks thathavethepower toputoutfinancialfires byprintingmoney." "I'm worried about the technology." "Asdarthvaderoncesaid ," ""don'tputallyourfaith intechnology."" "Ithink 10yearsfromnow , we'lllookbackonthis  andjustkindofchuckle atthebitcoinfad ." ""Oh yeah, I remember bitcoin." "Oh yeah, I remember that."" "Man:" "It's financial freedom." "Come on, bro." "This is the new world, bro." "Daniel:" "Othersaremoreoptimistic." "I think within 10 years, you're gonna have a lot of people using bitcoin, but they're not gonna realize that they're using it, because it's gonna be a protocol that's imbedded underneath whatever financial service they're using today." "Andbybitcoin beingopen-source it'swhatcanallow allthesedifferent mobilewallets andallthese financialtechnologies toalltalktoeach other, especially around the world." "Voorhees:" "Whoeverthehellsatoshiwas,  heshouldgo downinhistory asoneof thegreatestpeople orgroupsof people thateverexisted." "This is a technology that mankind has needed for thousands of years." "People have been dealing with monetary shenanigans since the Roman empire clipping gold coins." "And finally people can escape it." "I'm cautious to try to predict the future." "Wedon'treallyknow." "Itendto be  atechnologicaloptimist." "I see the democratization of technology as being a really positive thing." "AndI thinkthat's areallypowerfulforce thatisreally onlyjustbeginning." "Not bad." "Oh!" "( Grunts, breathing hard )" "( Laughs )" "( Sighs )" "Recently, as the price has been floating around 200 again," "I have a lot of friends that have asked me," ""are you gonna cash out some of your bitcoins now?" "The price is really high." "You should get some dollars out of it."" "I kind of tell 'em, "no, don't you see it?"" "I'vemetso many interestingpeople and there seems to be one thing that kind of binds a lot of them together, and that is that they're willing to face opposition and follow through on the ideas thattheybelievein." "Thepeoplewhotry  thecrazyideas oftenfailandtheneverybody likestopointtheirfingers andlaughandsay , "thatwassuchastupididea. "" "Butoncein awhile itworksout." "Ithinkbitcoin isprovingto be  oneofthosethings." "The decision to bring virtual currency within the scope of our regulatory framework should be viewed as a positive development for this sector." "I'm here to testify, because I believe that digital currency represents one of the most important technical and economic innovations of our time." "We are enthusiastic about the potential of virtual currencies and the digital economy for social good." "This latest generation of technology which we're talking about today takes things to a whole new level." "There's a bit of a shared responsibility here in trying to figure out how to make this work." "It is a little strange that bitcoin-- we don't know who the creator is and so that often conjures up the idea that there's some risk here that we have not-- you don't think it was Al Gore, do you?" "( Laughter )" "If you think a little broadly, this could, again, have huge huge implications." "(Chimes)" "Daniel:" "2013wastheyearbitcoin firstenteredthemainstream and2014gotoff  toa dramaticstart." "Justaswe werewrapping thingsupon ourfilm," "Charlieshremwasarrested afterreturning froma bitcoinconference inAmsterdam." "Hecouldbe facing upto30 yearsinprison onchargesrelated tohisactivities atbitinstant." "In j.F.K., you walk right off the plane, and you go straight to customs." "About three agents in front of me and then four agents behind me said," ""Mr. shrem, please come with us."" "Theytookme  toaninterrogatingroom, toldmethat I'mbeingarrested onfederalcrimes ofmoneylaundering, runninganunlicensed moneytransmissionbusiness andfailingto file suspicious-activityreports." "Daniel:" "Theindictmentallegedthat Charliehadsoldbitcoins toa resellerthatoperated onthesilkroad." "What sucks is the house arrest." "I have to pretty much be here all the time, every day." "I can't even go outside unless I'm going to my lawyer's office, which is once or twice a week." "Iprettymuchlost myfreedom, losteverything thatI 'vebuilt overthepastyear." "Daniel:" "Charlie'sarrestwasn't theonlybadnews thatrockedthecommunity inthenewyear." "Formonthstherehad  beenrumorsthatmt." "Gox  hadbecomeinsolvent." "AndinFebruary thesitewentoffline." " ( Man speaks ) - ( Karpeles speaks )" "Do you still have everyone's bitcoins?" "I'm not touching you." "I haven't touched you." "Do you still have everyone's bitcoins?" "( Karpeles speaks )" "( Cameras clicking )" "Daniel:" "Therumorsturnedout  tobetrue." "( Speaking Japanese )" "Daniel:" "Mt." "Goxhadreportedly beenhacked andnearlyhalf abilliondollarsworth ofbitcoinweremissing." "Markwasforced tostepdownasc.E.O." "Andmt." "Goxwent intobankruptcy." "A national magazine claims to have identified the mysterious founder of the worldwide digital currency called bitcoin." "Tonightheis  speakingout, buthesayshehas nothingwhatsoeverto do  withbitcoin." "Man:" "Whydidyoucreate bitcoin,sir?" "Okay." "( Laughs )" "Man #2:" "Sir,canwe askyou  aboutbitcoin?" " No no no no no." " Why were you involved inbitcoin?" "Okay, I'm not involved in bitcoin, okay?" " Who's involved in it?" " Wait a minute." "I want a free lunch first." "I'm gonna go with this guy." "I want a big one." "( Laughs ) Yeah." "Oh, okay." "Yeah, this will be good." " Oh jeez." " We have some water." "Hey, where's yours?" "Daniel:" ""Newsweek"claimed thecreatorof bitcoin hadnotusedapseudonym." "Theyconnectedthedots toa 64-year-old Japaneseman livinginLosAngeles..." "NamedDorianprentice satoshinakamoto." "Nakamotoimmediatelydenied theallegations andsaidhe 'dtellhis story tothefirstreporter whoagreed tobuyhimlunch." "The main reason I'm here is to clear my name, that I have nothing" " to do with bitcoin..." " Yup." "...nothing to do with developing." "I was just an engineer doing something else." "Daniel:" "Asthemedia frenzyescalated," ""newsweek's"claims startedtounravel." "Holesinthestory ledmanyto believe itwasnothingmore thansensationaljournalism." "Therewas noconclusiveevidence tyingDorianto bitcoin." "Amidsttheuncertainty, onthatsameday ..." "Acommentsuddenlyappeared onsatoshi'slong-dormant profilepagewhichread..." "Maybewe'llneverknow whocreatedbitcoin..." "Butthetruthis itdoesn'treallymatter." "Bitcoinbelongs toeveryone." "Andthefuture isoursto build." "(Electronicamusicplaying)" "Put $100,000 on market orders right now." " Why?" " Let's do it." "Let's do it." "Come on." " Come on." " Why?" "What's gonna happen?" "Buy 100k worth of bitcoins right now." " Why?" " Do it." " I don't wanna do it." " Do it." "You owe me $100,000." "Do it." "I'll send you $100,000 in bitcoins." "No, you buy it." "But 100k right now." "Dude, I can't." "I need the floating gox for volume." "Closing bell for satoshi square!" "All right, does this look right?" "1-n-p-w?" "Yup." "Yup, okay." "And I owe you 0.2?" " Uh... 0.18." " 0.18." "This is for bitcoin t-shirt." "I got 'em." "A pleasure, sir." "Great doing business with you." " Gonna wear your shirt proudly." " Do it." "That's one thing that's interesting about bitcoin." "It's like, how do you declare losses?" "You point to two transactions that happened on the Internet and you tell the I.R.S. That you owned that?" ""Oh, I used to own that and I lost the private key."" "And then if you really do lose it, how do you write it off for taxes?" "Oh, that's gonna be interesting." "( Thunder crashes )" "We love bitcoin." "Okay, guys, we're gonna play a special version of hopscotch called "bitcoin blockchain hopscotch."" "Oh, you lost all your bitcoins!" "( Sighs )" "Daniel:" "Whoissatoshinakamoto?" "( Chuckles )" "I'd... rather not tell you," " but yeah." " Oh, do you know?" "Uh, maybe not, maybe." "Oh." "(Chuckles)" "You know, I have a bitcoin and a half myself now." "Which I think probably in 10 years" "Voorhees:" "Whenyouthink aboutithardenough ona globalscale, thisisanet gain forhumanity."