It's no secret that I have been exploring some of the ideas of crypto currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum on this show. North Korea is also a fascinating story to me, I've been thinking about it a lot since the string of interviews conducted by North Korean defector Yeon-mi Park. So when this book about Virgil Griffith, Ethereum, North Korea, and blockchain came across my radar I had to get the author Ethan Lou on the show!


In the book Once A Bitcoin Miner, Ethan goes on an epic quest through the proverbial cryptocurrency Wild West, through riches, absurdity, wonder, and woe. From investing in Bitcoin in university to his time writing for Reuters, and then mining the digital asset ― Lou meets a co-founder of Ethereum and Gerald Cotten of QuadrigaCX (before he was reported dead), and hangs out in North Korea with Virgil Griffith, the man later arrested for allegedly teaching blockchain to the totalitarian state.


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Resources


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https://ethanlou.substack.com/about


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Timestamps


0:00 - Intro


4:00 - Background


5:02 - North Korea's Crypto Conference


8:30 - What are North Korea doing with crypto?


11:55 - Virgil Griffith


14:15 - Can Bitcoin topple dictators?


17:16 - The crypto wild-west


23:55 - Where did his book begin?


27:33 - Flying into China during the pandemic


31:01 - Mass adoption of bitcoin or altcoins/El Salvador


36:00 - Why crypto appeals to Millennials


38:55 - NFTs as a tool against big tech


47:05 - Bitcoin civil war/crypto infighting

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