#201 - Ethan Lou On North Korea, Virgil Griffith, and The Ethereum Foundation

Chatter

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. HELP ME CROWDFUND MY GAMESTOP BOOK. Go to https://wen-moon.com to join the crowdfunding campaign and pre-order To The Moon: The GameStop Saga! If you haven’t already and you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to this podcast and our mailing list, and don’t forget, my book, Brexit: The Establishment Civil War, is now out, you’ll find the links in the description below. How I Died Season 1, Episode 1 - https://audiohmmedia.com/how-i-died-s... Dash - https://www.dash.org Watch Us On Odysee.com - https://odysee.com/$/invite/@TheJist:4 Sign up and watch videos to earn crypto-currency! Buy Brexit: The Establishment Civil War - https://amzn.to/39XXVjq Mailing List - https://www.getrevue.co/profile/thejist Twitter - https://twitter.com/Give_Me_TheJist Website - https://thejist.co.uk/ Music from Just Jim – https://soundcloud.com/justjim Resources Order Once A Bitcoin Miner Here - https://uk.bookshop.org/a/6492/978177... https://ethanlou.substack.com/about https://twitter.com/Ethan_Lou https://ethanlou.com 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