The Charlie Shrem Show

Brittany Kaiser, Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower and Own Your Data co-founder, joins Charlie Shrem on today’s episode of Untold Stories. Charlie and Brittany discuss our society's apathy toward surveillance and privacy issues, explaining anonymity and privacy to people, the balance of privacy and practicality, Cambridge Analytica's intentions, our data illiteracy as a culture, data and elections...

Catherine Coley, CEO of BinanceUS, joins Charlie on today's episode of Untold Stories. Charlie and Catherine discuss the male-dominated culture of traditional markets, her first reactions to crypto markets, Catherine's experience with Ripple as a springboard into crypto, what she thinks the US needs for the next wave of growth, her 25 year vision for crypto, her thoughts on KYC and how so many peo...

Jed McCaleb, founder of Mt Gox, Ripple, and Stellar, joins Charlie Shrem on today’s episode of Untold Stories. Charlie and Jed discuss what has motivated Jed to found pivotal projects in crypto, his work on the file-sharing network eDonkey in the 1990's, other industries that interest Jed such as AI, the spectrum of decentralization, the scaling debate, privacy and fungibility, and Stellar, its va...

Gabriel Jiménez, creator of the Petro Dollar, joins Charlie on today's episode of Untold Stories. Charlie and Gabriel discuss Venezuelan dictator Maduro's interest in cryptocurrency, how Venezuela's economy has floundered and how the dictatorship works, Gabriel's entry into crypto as an entrepreneur in Venezuela, his plan to make crypto legal, how the Petro project started and how it became usurpe...

Mate Tokay, CEO of Bitcoin.com, joins Charlie Shrem on today’s episode of Untold Stories. Mate and Charlie discuss Mate's entry into crypto and his founding of Bitcoinist, spending Bitcoin versus saving it, Medium of Exchange or Store of Value, corruption in Hungary, government responses to Coronavirus, the aftermath of the New York Agreement and the Big Block debate, Bitcoin.com, and the future...

Steve Ehrlich, CEO Of Voyager, joins Charlie Shrem on this episode of Untold Stories. Steve and Charlie discuss the market crash of October 1987 and the trading environment at the time, Steve's transition to crypto, the parallels between online brokerages in the 1990's and the crypto industry, the importance of price discovery, Voyager's culture and technology, their merger with Ethos and going pu...

Journalist and Author Ken Kurson joins Charlie Shrem on today’s episode of Untold Stories. Ken and Charlie discuss political and financial journalism, Ken's interest in money and finance, the role of institutions in crypto, Ken's links to the President and conversations with people in government about crypto, Ripple and its perception in the crypto community, Ken's history writing about financial...

Brock Pierce joins Charlie on this episode of Untold Stories. Brock and Charlie discuss Brock's life as a child actor, growing up with the internet and an entrepreneurial attitude, the lessons learned being a young entrepreneur during the rise of the internet, how to hire and get market timing right, finding his way from managing a large company to creating, moving to Puerto Rico and making an imp...

Kadan Stadelmann, CTO of Komodo, joins Charlie Shrem on today’s episode of Untold Stories. Kadan and Charlie discuss governments focusing on Coronavirus but neglecting cybersecurity, the pandemic challenging ideals of decentralization and free speech, Kadan's early work in crypto and beginning with Komodo, the Bitcointalk forum and its community, growing up in cyberspace and IRC, life with the Cor...

Emin Gun Sirer, Founder and CEO Ava Labs, joins Charlie Shrem on today’s episode of Untold Stories. The professor and Charlie discuss the cryptocurrency the professor worked on in 2002, years before Satoshi Nakamoto, the 2008 financial crisis as the context in which Satoshi released Bitcoin, the events surrounding the DAO hack, criticisms of the scaling wars, tribalism and trolling, what Satoshi's...

Charles Hoskinson, Founder of Cardano and CEO of IOHK, joins Charlie Shrem on today’s episode of Untold Stories. Charles and Charlie discuss the current loss of faith in institutions, conspiracy theories, Cardano's development philosophy, roadmap, and current progress, why merchant adoption is hard, Cannabis and other underbanked industries, the case for country adoption of a stablecoin, over-liti...

David Chaum, pioneering cryptographer and founder of the XX network, joins Charlie Shrem on today’s episode of Untold Stories. Charlie and David discuss threats to democracy and the importance of metadata shredding, Elixxir and the XX Network, Digicash, the Cypherpunk movement, ballot secrecy and cryptography in voting, whether David met Satoshi Nakamoto, how David got interested in cryptography,...

Author Dan Simon joins Charlie Shrem on today’s episode of Untold Stories. Dan and Charlie discuss crypto pioneers and money hackers as misfits, Dan's unique perspective on financial history, the erosion of the middle class, failing financial oversight, history's view of the current crisis,entrepreneurship and opportunity in the current environment and Dan's new book The Money Hackers. --- BitPay...

Danny Brewster, Founder of Fastbitcoins, joins Charlie Shrem on today’s episode of Untold Stories. Danny and Charlie discuss building a brick and mortar Bitcoin business in 2013 and today, the 2013 Cyprus banking crisis and today's rampant money printing, the collapse of Neo & Bee, Danny's arrest and extradition proceedings, his goal to repay investors, and developing Fastbitcoins. --- BitPanda Bi...

Bram Cohen, BitTorrent Creator and Founder of the Chia Network, joins Charlie Shrem on today’s episode of Untold Stories.  Bram and Charlie discuss Bram's work on the 90's cryptocurrency project MojoNation, the contributions of cryptographers in Satoshi's circle including Hal Finney's pre-Bitcoin presentation, Bram's introduction to Bitcoin and his formative years in programming, his creation of B...

Bitpanda CEOs Paul Klanschek and Eric Demuth join Charlie Shrem on this week’s episode of Untold Stories. They begin by discussing some of Bitpanda's unorthodox marketing techniques as well as their focus on education and user experience. Charlie asks about their sales which reveals a strong increase in retail buying of Bitcoin and gold, and leads to a discussion of gold production and supply issu...

Justin O’Connell of GoldSilverBitcoin joins Charlie Shrem on this week’s episode of Untold Stories. They begin by discussing the Silk Road as an intersection between Bitcoin advocates and free market advocates, how it worked, and Justin's awareness of it at the time. Justin explains how he got into writing in crypto and some of his background in precious metals. They return to the topic of Silk Ro...

Jason Goldberg, Founder of OST and Pepo, joins Charlie Shrem on this week’s episode of Untold Stories. They begin by laying out what needs to happen for crypto mass adoption to take place. Jason goes on to talk about what led him to build in crypto and the potential he saw in it. He continues to explain the roots of Pepo and OST in the idea of building the tech instead of waiting for it, and focus...

Crypto Trader @Crypto_Bitlord joins Charlie Shrem on this week’s episode of Untold Stories. They begin by recounting @Crypto_Bitlord's time in China reporting on COVID-19 via his Twitter account as the crisis was unfolding, even before it was considered an epidemic. @Crypto_Bitlord comments on his hospital visits while he was sick, their procedures, quarantines, and the subsequent lockdown. They d...

Bill Barhydt, Abra Founder & CEO, joins Charlie Shrem on this week’s episode of Untold Stories. They begin by talking about the most pressing issue of the day, the Coronavirus lockdown. Charlie reveals that Bill worked as a cryptographer for the CIA which leads to a discussion of right-sized government and what that would look like in today's world. They move on to talk about how the financial sys...

Jameson Lopp, Casa Cofounder & CTO, joins Charlie Shrem on this week’s episode of Untold Stories. They begin by discussing the importance of nodes, both as a measure of decentralization and for maintaining self-sovereignty in Bitcoin. They continue on to discuss coin tracking, exchanges requiring public keys, and how people are willing to give up privacy and security for the sake of convenience. J...

Mrinal Manohar, CEO and Cofounder of Casper Labs, joins Charlie Shrem on this week’s episode of Untold Stories. They begin by discussing Bitcoin's evolution at the protocol level and whether the tech should change in order to adapt. Mrinal explains Casper Labs' focus on decentralization and the practicalities of building a decentralized project. This leads Charlie and Mrinal to talk about the pros...

Joe Lallouz, CEO of Bison Trails joins Charlie Shrem on this week’s episode of Untold Stories. They begin talking about imposter syndrome, something they both agree is common in crypto, and move on to discuss the New York crypto scene. Joe talks about Bison Trails and its focus on non-Proof of Work blockchain infrastructure, tells the origin story of the name, and talks about his background in eng...

Rob Viglione, Cofounder and CEO of Horizen Labs, joins Charlie Shrem on this week’s episode of Untold Stories. They start by discussing Rob's move to Puerto Rico, Act 22, and Panama's history as a haven for Bitcoin pioneers. Rob and Charlie discuss the launch of ZenCash in 2017 as well as Zendoo, a current sidechain project. Charlie asks about Rob's doctoral thesis, based on Bitcoin, which leads t...

Developer Peter Todd joins Charlie Shrem on this week’s episode of Untold Stories. They begin by talking about Peter's focus on community rather than software as an important aspect of crypto. Charlie asks why the Bitcoin scaling debate was so controversial and it leads to an extensive discussion of the events of the debate, people involved, and some of the toxic environment during that period. Th...