The Bitcoin Game

Hello, welcome to episode 33 of  The Bitcoin Game.  I'm Rob Mitchell. J. Maurice is everything you'd expect in a  crypto-anarchist  hacker. When I had lunch with him before our interview, Maurice kept his phone powered off and explained he wouldn't use a credit card, except maybe to pay for already-tracked air travel. After our meal, he used his  Trezor  to sign a Bitcoin payment on his laptop, vi...

Hello, welcome to episode 32 of The Bitcoin Game. I'm Rob Mitchell. Today's interview is with Brock Pierce, chairman of the board of The Bitcoin Foundation, and a highly-accomplished VC in digital currency. Brock got involved in digital token entrepreneurship at a very young age, with a focus on gaming, an activity he excelled at. As he reached his mid-twenties, Brock's companies were doing $100,0...

Hello, welcome to episode 31 of The Bitcoin Game. I'm Rob Mitchell. I used to run into Valerian Bennett frequently at Los Angeles Bitcoin Meetups in 2014. I thought he'd disappeared from the Bitcoin scene, only to realize how wrong I was. Valerian has taken his experience in mainstream television production, and combined it with his passion for Bitcoin, to create several online Bitcoin video servi...

Hello, welcome to episode 30 of The Bitcoin Game. I'm Rob Mitchell. What's the oldest blockchain company you can think of? What if I told you a Blockchain company in Estonia called Guardtime was founded before the Bitcoin white paper was released? And what if I told you they are now a highly profitable company, doing large amounts of business with government, the world's largest defense contractor...

Hello, welcome to episode 29 of The Bitcoin Game. I'm Rob Mitchell. I first became acquainted with Bitcoin journalist Brian Cohen in mid-2014, as we were both active on the then-new Let's Talk Bitcoin platform. I saw he was doing some fairly serious Bitcoin journalism. Soon after I launched this podcast, I reached out to Brian for an interview. It took a year for us to finally connect, but I final...

Hello, welcome to episode 28 of The Bitcoin Game. I'm Rob Mitchell. When I scheduled an interview with CoinCube CEO Robert Allen, I felt pretty skeptical. My gut told me a cloud-based Bitcoin-trading-bot would be something like a cloud-mining Ponzi-scheme on steroids. I wondered, would this interview be my first exposé? Would my "gotcha" questions be too difficult for Robert to field? Listen to fi...

Hello, welcome to episode 27 of The Bitcoin Game , I'm Rob Mitchell. I've been a podcast listener for many years now, so when I got interested in Bitcoin, listening to Bitcoin podcasts was a natural. I think Adam B. Levine launched The Daily Bitcoin the same day I first searched for Bitcoin podcasts. And I've been hooked on Bitcoin podcasts ever since. Bitcoins and Gravy has always been a hugely i...

Hello, welcome to episode 26 of The Bitcoin Game , I'm Rob Mitchell. Back some months ago, Los Angeles had its first Bitcoin conference called The State Of Digital Money . Jeff Garzik (Bitcoin Core Developer for BitPay and CEO of Dunvegan Space Systems) was the featured speaker, and he gave a presentation called The Future of Bitcoin . I originally believed the presentation needed the accompanying...

Hello, welcome to episode 25 of The Bitcoin Game , I'm Rob Mitchell. If I were to meet Marco Streng on the street, I'd never guess he hands-on controls perhaps the largest amount of hashing power in the world. Marco is the CEO and cofounder of Genesis mining, a company that mines for profit, and also offers cloud mining. I met Marco back at the State Of Digital Money conference in Los Angeles earl...

  Hello, welcome to episode 24 of The Bitcoin Game , I'm Rob Mitchell. Earlier this month I got to speak with Andrew Lee from Purse, a company that allows people to use Bitcoin to buy stuff on Amazon, and at pretty large discounts. My own first thought about Purse was that it was some strange company trying to shoehorn its way between Bitcoiners and Amazon. But after talking to Andrew, I now see P...

Hello, welcome to episode 23 of The Bitcoin Game , I'm Rob Mitchell. I decided to experiment with buying Bitcoin a new way; I bought shares of the Bitcoin Investment Trust. The trust is the first, and I believe the only current way a U.S. citizen can add an investment in Bitcoin to a recognized retirement account. You can buy shares of the Bitcoin Investment Trust with symbol GBTC using a standard...

Hello, welcome to episode 22 of The Bitcoin Game , I'm Rob Mitchell. In today's podcast you'll hear the Blockchain Tech panel from the State Of Digital Money conference, which took place earlier this year in Los Angeles. I thought it was a very fun panel that was filled with many insights. You might say the panel was stacked a bit on the side of blockchain tech over Bitcoin, and Bitcoin maximalist...

Hello, welcome to episode 21 of The Bitcoin Game , I'm Rob Mitchell. This podcast is my opportunity to learn from all types of people involved in cryptocurrency. For today's episode I spoke to Marco Cuesta of Alt-Options. This company is aiming to bring a high-end option trading platform to Bitcoin. Alt-Options earned 2nd place at the startup pitch competition at Inside Bitcoins in Chicago shortly...

Hello, welcome to episode 20 of The Bitcoin Game , I'm Rob Mitchell. On April 18th, 2015, Los Angeles Bitcoiners were treated to our city's first Bitcoin conference, called The State Of Digital Money 2015 (or SODM15). I recorded a lot of great content at this conference, and in today's episode, I bring you the first of these recordings. Presentation: The Transformation of Global Commerce by Steve...

Welcome to The Bitcoin Game  #19 , the Mega Interview Episode! I'm Rob Mitchell, and in today's episode you'll hear 17, yes 17, never-before heard interviews from the Texas Bitcoin conference. In order of appearance: Nick Spanos – New York Bitcoin Center Elisabeth Grothe-Møller – CommonCollection Troy Fearnow – CryptoArt Kimberly Morgan – Texas Coinitiative Robert P. Murphy, Ph. D. – Economic Cons...

Hello, welcome to episode 18 of The Bitcoin Game , I'm Rob Mitchell. In today's show we start with a presentation by Jeremy Gardner, who co-founded the College Cryptocurrency Network and is Director of Operations at Augur. In his talk, Creating a Sustainable Blockchain Ecosystem , Jeremy gives his views on blockchains now and into the future. Then we turn to experienced market trader and economist...

Hello, welcome to episode 17 of The Bitcoin Game , I'm Rob Mitchell. In this episode I speak with Yoshi Goto of BitMain (maker of the AntMiner), outspoken cryptographer Nicolas Courtois, and Storj creator Shawn Wilkinson. These interviews took place at the 2015 Texas Bitcoin conference. Nicholas Courtois and Shawn Wilkinson were both speakers at this conference, while Yoshi Goto has presented at o...

P.S.A. Red Cross and Changetip help Nepal Earthquake Relief

Welcome to episode 16 of The Bitcoin Game , I'm Rob Mitchell. I was excited to talk to Bruce Fenton at the recent Texas Bitcoin Conference. It was a fun conversation, and I think it gives a good sense of Bruce as a person. He answered my questions about the exclusive Satoshi Roundtable Bitcoin retreat he organized, and filled me in about his impressive background in financial management. Our inter...

Welcome to episode 15 of The Bitcoin Game , I'm Rob Mitchell. While I usually try to be extremely professional on my podcast, this episode from the Friday night Kickoff Party for the Texas Bitcoin Conference may expose a slightly different side of me. I went straight from Austin–Bergstrom International Airport to Maria's Taco Express, where the party was held. I arrived to the sound of live music...

Welcome to episode 14 of The Bitcoin Game, I'm Rob Mitchell. I recently attended the Texas Bitcoin Conference, and had an amazing time. I got to meet fellow LTB podcasters John Barrett and John Bush, people I listened to well before I started this podcast. I also got to meet some Bitcoin heroes of mine, as well as listeners to this show. To kick off my content from the conference, I bring you this...

Welcome to episode 13 of The Bitcoin Game, I'm Rob Mitchell. For today's episode I spoke with Steven Sprague, an expert in an under-utilized technology called the Trusted Execution Environment that exists in chips inside many of our devices. Steven leveraged his extensive knowledge in this field to launch Rivetz, a company dedicated to bringing personal security to Bitcoin transactions, and more....

Welcome to episode 12 of The Bitcoin Game , I'm Rob Mitchell. My interview today is with Jaime Cochran, who's been very involved the hacking community, having been a hacker since her youth. Currently, Jaime works at Bitcoin company Gem as a security engineer. We talk about her background, and get her take on personal information security. Magic Word Listen for the magic word, and submit it to your...

Welcome to episode 11 of The Bitcoin Game , I'm Rob Mitchell. It's great to live in a big city such as Los Angeles because of the opportunity to network with people doing amazing things in the Bitcoin space. While Paul Puey founded Airbitz from San Diego, he still has managed to attend enough Los Angeles Bitcoin meetups that he seems like a local. In January of this year, Airbitz was selected by P...

Welcome to episode 10 of The Bitcoin Game, I'm Rob Mitchell. I wanted to really have fun and celebrate this 10th episode. I never knew if I'd be able to get ten episodes out, so this is quite an achievement for me. With that in mind, I decided to focus on something the entire cryptocurrency community loves to talk about… Taxes! While cryptocurrency taxes may not be a favorite topic, I actually had...