anytime anywhere. they say. hello and welcome to crossfire for all things are considered i'm peter lavelle coins revolutionizing banking and finance or a nice political protest movement take your pick however there is no doubt this virtual currency is being given a careful look on the back of the global financial crisis and the stranglehold big finance has over the economy having an alternative currency appears to fit what is called the new economy. to cross-talk bitcoins i'm joined by mere talkee in london he is

a bit coin developer and owner of the british bit coin exchange interest sango in atlanta we have daniel castro he is a senior analyst with the information technology and innovation foundation and in dallas we cross to edward house he is the founder of chop wood finance dot com and an internationally recognized expert in wealth management or a gentleman crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want i mean if i can go to you first what is the value of bitcoins in a few sentences. it's a type of currency which can be sent anywhere in the world like instantaneously and you can't have any kind of government or central power mandate that you how you use your money so you can center who have you want whenever you want wherever you want and there's a big problem right now in the financial industry where we have a global financial system where a lot of people are not allowed to participate so it's not it's if you want to do business in the world you need to go and register a corporation need to open

a bank account and this option is not open to a lot of people it's the financial system is used as a tool of censorship so political organizations like wiki leaks had their payment option shut down by the department of justice after they put pressure on their buying these are a master card and paper to write a story that is used to censor speech and yet at the same time no nazi websites and the k.k.k. is still allowed to be was still being served by these companies who have a monopoly on the market and the same thing with. load was a site which allowed anyone to upload far to the internet is something the hollywood and media executives don't like their business models are failing you know they also want to be by all dark just like the banks and so that and so the regulators the u.s. depart of justice came after them to ok i think we've got to do what i do we got your point or gave sounds like financial freedom of speech go ahead ed. i mean i don't understand how you can say people aren't allowed to participate i mean look

this was this was all born out of a paper that was written in two thousand and eight and in the paper great paper but to implement something like that it was not going to have i'm quite right i think the whole thing is kind of silly but it's worth it and it's worth a lot of people ok not just hang on to me or let me take my camera and you can't participate but it does tell me what you mean by that because that's a lie and you know that's a lie but there are there companies like monopoly coming like these are pay pal and they are they are censoring the internet and they are present they're preventing people from from being out of business over the internet what about sanctions sanctions countries like iran north korea how likely are the orion european money if you think to fight more and he's not participate in the cottage because because all these companies in iraq to say that he then i mean are please reply ok go ahead . ok in order to have a good conversation you got to let me speak ok go ahead and the point of this is that you said that a lot of the countries are not allowing there's

a lot of people can't participate i mean during the time we're financial crisis you are spot on there's a financial crisis there's a lot of people who are questioning the validity of anything these days to implement something over the computer something some new currency and you think that all this that this is going to take off that's a pipe dream that is just not going to happen even though some of these things you're saying bob might be true there might be elements of it that are not true ok hold on just. gentlemen we have a no again not a marine b.s. get my we have live thirty gas today plan to jump ahead daniel go ahead daniel yeah i just want to jump in because you know i think you know i guess i'm just curious both of the other guests for one it's very very likely that we will have digital currencies in the future this is a trend that we've seen over the past twenty years the first digital currencies were implemented in the ninety's they were regulated out of existence but they're going to continue to evolve and get better over time so it's a big stake to dismiss big point whether or not because it is successful long term

you know nobody knows but we will have virtual currencies and we will have decentralized currencies and we also need to be aware what the implications of this is right now governments regulate every bank they regulate currencies very strongly so that they can control money laundering so that they can prevent abuses by controlling the financial sector and whether or not you agree with something you know it may or may not be an abuse but that's how governments control things through the financial sector with the centralized currencies governments that lose that ability they lose the ability to come in and say that something is that legal and we're going to stop it because they don't have control over doing or they also lose access to monetary policy so these are big implications that we need be aware of i don't think we can dismiss it as a pipe dream ok amir would you like to reply to that i completely grew to doing that down the road is going to know that a lot of the money down the road he was going to live. people just mean together but just last week i went to the meet up group that is now over sixty people and this is not this is not this is not like activists or like your every day are you

sure kind of system and it's not normal people like programmers and people working in a city and they found a new new thing new really interesting technology called bitcoin and they've seen how the banks are responding they've seen that they're moving and get making moves the governments have been trying to shut it down and they were there they were there brainstorming so like these people are saying how do we take on these big organizations because it is a really powerful sort it's just opened up the doors to a whole new group of people that this movement didn't have before you know it's there's a there's a blacklist. of amir it's just absolute it is certainly in the financial companies are not allowed to be in all of the bitcoin exchanges are ok i mean there's let me jump in let me see let me jump in and read go ahead. amir i mean look conceptually is doing your search down the road this might work you're in a financial crisis right now over and over and around every place in the world japan in europe and so on and right now people are looking at bringing on

a new currency or a new way of transacting you know trade well now are looking to make sure that there is security so that god please you because you don't have the complete is that the help is waned but isn't this the whole point of the currency of this new currency security. well you know but but then again i mean you tell me anything that secure you talk about you know earlier me or talk about wikipedia i mean there are hackers there are things you know we had a situation i guess about a year or two ago about you know someone hack even though you this was just not secure. it's a good concept but it's just not going to happen right now ok dan you let it stay and now it's working well even if you are you know you well know about danielle go ahead they saw danielle she's going to hit people you know you know i mean if you don't agree with me ok even if you don't agree with bitcoin as a currency it's certainly a successful commodity lots of people have invested money in it and that some people have been successful some people lost money but it holds value anything that can hold value is a useful commodity it can be traded right now and so even if you don't accept it as

something that's a long term currency it's definitely something that's being used right now the store value when people right now don't you know alternately when you look at currencies it's about whether or not you are washed up to it right now you have a large number of users accepting it ok ed. what do you know what is the value let's just talk about because i'm an investor what's the value of bitcoin if the computers were shut off what's the underlying value of that what was the current see at this point was actually information about computers that the audience is that's why it's value as long as others are willing to accept it and put it on short it's a value you give you know current in exchange for something else it has a value it's like a baseball card it has a value because people say it has value amir go ahead jump in people at you that is right and now we've sacked when it's a proper underground economy it's like i'm going this is what this is going to take losing it will take over here what. ed go ahead what percentage of the world is using bitcoin right now a mere

a mere what percentage of the world and trade is using bitcoin right now amir go ahead you know when the you know in the states came in cyprus just recently to take it to take a it had calmed people spank accounts of the percent to buy out the banks every account of one hundred thousand euro a second right had taken a thirty percent and that's that is not i understand there's no that's not what i usually hear that's you i mean that's not i as you said ten twenty cent is going to be going to be of value. go ahead of me or in order for there to be a value to this in order for there to be a value there has to be people using it so my question again which you didn't answer i mean the doesn't it kind of the world if you're getting coins are you only for joking but you can go right now and buy and sell because the market is is pretty fic and is pretty liquid and is far more liquid actually than the fear of currencies because i can i have they shut down my bank account was lost why do you feel they don't answer my question on the banks why don't you have them are you going to answer my call i should've been using bitcoin to travel the world on for

south america free europe i have not any problem not to use an a.t.m. i haven't had to use an exchange i've not to use a bank so don't tell me there's no value in bitcoin because it's people are trading in london alone is over seventy different traders there are all different loads of businesses where you can go and buy sell because you can offer services on the internet you know my sister a year ago she was offering up paintings on life she was making hundreds of dollars just by selling digital paintings it's not it's not it's there and it's working it's not some fear ethical concept it's it's a market we've got we've got charts we call graphs market places and it's business is flourishing the whole doing great booming in fact faster than any other technology and. if you can do that to the early days of the evening work you can see the goals of your writing and i go ahead we're going to head into that i want to go to daniel go ahead ed. so the question again to me are other charts and graphs but that doesn't create value the question i have for you that i still

haven't gotten the answer what person in order for there to be an increase in value that has to be usage of bitcoin what percentage of the world is using bitcoin your sister uses which is great maybe one day i'll use it but in terms of it being widely accepted during a very uncomfortable time in the world economy is probably not today ok daniel go ahead daniel and i think again you know let's go to daniel here let's go to dan you don't have any old age well. if you gentlemen are gentlemen please i need to go to daniel ok grow over time yeah i mean daniel why is it important to have so big. you know the size isn't as important right now the point is that right now with a technology you look at it as a network and the networks are growing increasingly you have more and more users the last two to six i saw showed the big point was larger than twenty or forty of the world's smallest currencies so it does have a large population use and it grows every day we see what what used to be something that was really. nice market where you had

a small number of users and arcas libertarian kind of crypto libertarians who are obsessed with this now it's moved mainstream as a mayor said you have lots of businesses who are putting billions of dollars into new startups gentlemen i have to jump in here we have to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on bitcoin stayed with our kids. leave the room.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture . some of these traditional chili lines they've been bred and developed and passed down from generation to. this is a total structure and the culture of new mexico i tell them i mean this this is not going to impact asylum in mexico whatever happens here it's about the whole world we're not tarbox in the in the open the case in all or you know so are. genetically engineered crops why do you think this country is full of obese and sick people because we have a crappy food system. let

me let me i want to know wouldn't let me ask you a question. here on this network because we're having the debate we have our knives out of. the group is this trial just a bad thing never again we're in a situation where being i don't agree to talk about the surveillant me. just engines. don't come out on my. prime.

please. welcome back to crosstalk where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing big corns. ok daniel i'd like to go back to you in atlanta what's the tipping point for this thing to really catch on because we have the global financial crisis

a lot of people simply don't trust the financial system anymore. you know i think what the tipping point will be is when we reach a critical mass and you know what that number is i don't think we can know but once there are a number of users with the currency we're going to see a number of retailers who will start accepting it already we see this for online services so you can host a website and pay for this using big point we have a.t.m.'s where you can deposit cash and receive digital coins to spend elsewhere you can buy coffee in some places so it's just a matter of time before we get there what we see though is that there's lots of innovation right now around different types of payment systems digital payment systems so you know it used to be that you just had cash then we had credit cards and a.t.m. cards now there's lots of things like pay pal or square or other types of services real you can pay electronically and even governments are in favor of this because cash transactions are much more efficient it's good for the economy is good for consumers so we're moving in this direction and as i said the beginning whether or

not big point is the future virtual currencies are the future because they simply so much better than everything else ok that's that was simply said ed what do you say maybe it's not bitcoin but it will be something like it that could be. you know that's right and i don't disagree with that i mean i pay ides rare that i use it as we go into it's rare that i use cash i mean we pay for things electronically but my whole point of this is that you said earlier daniel that twenty four of the smaller currencies you know it's larger than twenty four the smaller currencies if you look at the world economy the world economy is the united states we're you know if you take the size of japan germany and china atom up in terms although china is growing quite a bit it matches the united states once you start getting much bigger countries and a lot more usage then it'll be taken seriously right now it's just not taken very seriously most people don't use it in during the time that we're in right now a financial crisis worldwide some new technology is probably not going to be

accepted you know in a moment but don't you think this is exactly the right timing hold it don't you think this is exactly the right time for this kind of innovation it would be nice to well started but when when the rubber meets the road people are not going to do that people are very scared about where their money is if it's secure they're worried about the computer well they have had your money on the side so it's not going to if you had your money in cyprus a mere jump in yeah the dollar drops over ninety percent as sort of big point in the last month and the big point security policy is far better than anything exists it's not really powerful when i hold because of my computer and i sent to someone directly over the internet using software that i wrote completely myself ok and i have a buy in from here and let me ask you about when champions but not everyone writes their own software explained that. that's right. that's not who you're doing it or not it's you know me or go ahead i can't write software or the software is open source so just like someone can read french or spanish or english you can download

the software for bit coin and you can read through the source code and see it does exactly what it says it does it's a system based of mathematics and cryptography not of laws and legislation are subject to the full abilities and failings of human is a proper system that works according to principles mathematical princes that can't be cheated or bent according to the wills and customs of whatever politicians you know. a ten year old kid can download the bitcoin software get set up within five minutes and start accepting payments from someone in north korea are or iran and iran can make a gambling website of whatever idea that they have are having to have governments or states coming in saying ok i don't like that kind of daniel what you're doing i'm going to don't states want to have a piece of this action here in taxation is an issue. daniel you know taxation is an issue you know i want to start with the issue of trust because at the heart i think i was right that the issue is trust of people trust pick point values if people

trust other currencies they'll use those currencies as well what you have with big coin is that over time every day that goes by we're bitcoin is a stable currency where it's accepted by more users that's increasing the trust and every day that goes by where governments do bad things with their currencies that means people lose trust in those currencies. but you're right at the end of the day a lot of governments care about bitcoin because they want to one transactions they want to have insight into what's going on in their economies and to at the end of the day they're not going to treat big coins as something that can be ignored if it reaches a critical mass because the want to tax these transactions once they recognize that they're going to give me a legitimacy so you have this tradeoff here one that one hand some governments might not want to give legitimacy to an alternative currency but on the other hand if there's a lot of transactions happening there there are one a piece of that pie in terms of taxes so they're going to have to recognize its legitimacy you want to reply to that. i mean i'll just add that you know from

a marketing standpoint simply what a mirror said a second ago he can write his own code he can then do transactions with north korea and iran just that comment alone would scare people away from this going to what daniel said it is a trust and you have seven billion people in the world many of them don't have computers many of them don't understand big calling most of them don't want to hear that they want trust and during a time like we have right now where the world economy is just you know barely hanging on the you know even though it might make sense conceptually somebody to start something like this something you know if you can get people using it you're going let's say well that you know let me go to let me know because it's a very interesting to point i mean. least sixty countries in the world ok those are little to political decisions to all individuals have to follow about a meter go ahead. yeah. alone blocks access from of sixty different countries you know some because of higher for some for political reasons some for other reasons countries like kenya and what that means is those people on the allowed to

participate in the general economy and when we took my improving the economy the way to improve is not to say we need additional restrictions we need additional regulations or whatever shutting people we need to remove the barriers to entry we need to increase we need to globalize trade we need to allow everybody everybody in the world equal access not just western countries it's really got a cheek to say all that scares people north korea and iran what about the african countries can you what you're saying they don't have a right to participate in the global economy really no idea what you're saying is you the miracle of the snake and what we're not sure what not you are in general and i want to show you're going to jump in here again you know go ahead and just be a genuine please yeah i mean you know if you look at the internet in north korea as a part of that china is a part of that you have a lot of countries that maybe we don't agree with but they're part of this global network is the same thing with digital currencies you can't really exclude someone

but what you do is you regulate the intermediaries and that's what's going to be happening right now that's who we're seeing for example the united states where the financial regulatory agencies are going after the intermediary since they can't go after bitcoin it's a decentralized system they can't there's no company in charge of it there's no person that they can go after so what they say is some point most people want to convert that coin into another currency for example u.s. dollars they can go if you're going to. do business with these converters they can go after any other company the providing services is basically united states to coin users and that's how you get this kind of regulation so you're still going to be excluding in the end of the day north korea or other countries that you disagree with because you know the united states and other countries want to exclude them from the international systems and they want to punish them and i think they have reason to do that ok amir because you're the odd man out on the program going to get something on your side ok all right ed go ahead go ahead ed. let me just

respond amir i in no way shape or form i seem to exclude anybody i'm a very much a free market person worldwide i'm simply saying in order for this to catch on there has to be worldwide acceptance more so than there is right now i love startups i love new but there's i'd love new ideas i'm very much a supporter of the free market as i said i'm just simply saying in order for this to really catch on during a time where everyone is scared of everything excuses and i were going is there no there's something in his body and it's something new a miracle i mean i thought this is a political thing this is a political thing as well it's a protest as well isn't it. like the big question is goes beyond just digital money it's far grander than if you actually look at the original white paper for a bit coin it says because it is a distributing distributed system for time stamps contracts and i just happens that the most common form of contract we use is transferring value from one person to

another but there's so much more they can emerge out of the big points system a lot of a lot of these fing a lot of this potential that's in the big point system simply isn't used yet because it's still it's not seen in stages where it's forming it's like the internet the early internet did not have web browsers it was very hard and very technical for people to use but people came along they built the tools they built the system some people to interact with that with bitcoin you can do really incredible things things like you know things like health care or hospitals or schools or people like that where we have to find ways to keep funding that stuff and because it allows you to do distributed funding of public infrastructures i think it's really interesting fascinating stuff you can do stuff like. you know when you're running from the city and there's all these white five hotspots you could create a special kinds of contracts in the big point system where you can pay for the wife i have a wife or as you would cry out the city and people can open up their hotspots and.

some of the funds bought from me to help fund the internet that they're using and not helps incentivise the creation ok ok i got your point there and it's going to get a lot of people are afraid interesting stuff a lot of people are afraid that the state is going to be pushed out of the economy with this new technology how do you feel about that i mean the states could very well get pushed out in a lot could be pushed out especially if you bypass them and you know what i that's so far down the road i think some states will will you know be against this some countries will be against this you know what i again are free market person i'd like to see it happen i just think that as peter said earlier daniel said earlier that is the trust factor and you don't hear people talking about this it seems like kind of a hokey thing and it surely is actually a lot of people don't. they just don't trust banks anymore do they this is why this is happening they they do that's not true they might not trust that that's just not true people trust banks and i mean the money for people all over the world they trust banks that might not trust banks in cyprus and that might not happen where

they don't trust the banks in cyprus but they certainly don't trust their information on the internet people seeing it and then also having their currency on something in his remaining old people's idea of calling this quote i'm just now right here i'm sorry absolutely fascinating discussion many thanks again my guests in london atlanta and in dallas and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember prostate schools. presumably will. well. science technology innovation all the latest developments from

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well i'm joe marvin in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. are funny fathers wanted a free and open press but how do you balance liberty and security for that with i mean award winning journalist david schuster just a moment also although more oklahoma of the site of monday's deadly storm is right in the middle of summer nato alley only ten percent of its omes had storm shelters the states have to force their citizens to be safe we'll talk about that and more. liberal rumble and if the koch brothers get their way public broadcast.