21 in 21: Jack Dorsey – YouTube Dictation Transcript & Vocabulary

1.hi there this is 21 and 21 a rapid fire Q&A show filmed at precidio Bitcoin the bay area's first Bitcoin co-working in event space I'm Haley burko and I ask visitors who have stopped by Presidio Bitcoin 21 questions and 21 minutes it's okay if we don't get through the mall we'll do our best today our guest is uh uh whoever whoever this guy isck I've got my clock right here and it's ready to go Jack once I hit the button it's go time are you ready I'm ready okay I don't know what I'm ready for but I'm ready what brings you to precidio bitcoin uh this interview what are you working on right now right now um yeah we're doing we're doing a ton but it's mainly block related are any of the things that you're working on important to bitcoin's Future and why I believe so we're um we have a team working on mining an open source mining rig and and chipset um we have a team working on bit which is a self- custodial wallet um and then we have our Bitcoin exchange business within within cash app and we're just looking at ways to better integrate uh Bitcoin with everything that we do because it helps our business like if we have an open protocol for money transmission that works on the internet anywhere like we can build our business everywhere whereas today that's just not the case because we need a partnership with bank so all these things are are very very good for us and I I think good for Bitcoin as well how did you become a bitcoiner I I followed the alt Cipher punks pretty early I was very interested in the open internet and uset and um cryptographers and Applied Mathematics and like early on um a big follow of like Adam back and what he did with the four lines of pearl exporting PHP you know um it was just a very cool wild world and the the dream for that group was always money and money transmission and uh you know um when we started Square uh at the end of 2008 2009 like the white paper had just come out and I just thought it was like brilliant it was like it was poetic and we were just about to get in the mix with the credit card networks and the banks and whatnot and that this was another path and someone was thinking about that and there was a a movement around it that connected the dots with the alt Cipher punks for me um it just felt it felt amazing but early what are you currently most excited by in the Bitcoin space right now mining like the the our team's mining mining rake I just think it's important I think it's another point of centralization um that we can we can help diminish on in further decentralize and you know we'll have our system but I'm excited to see what other people build with it and how they customize it what do you consider the most Bitcoin project in Bitcoin today the most Bitcoin project within Bitcoin um Bitcoin core I mean like just the the the work that that group does the deliberateness the adversarial thinking they have to do on a regular basis um I think it's the most important and the most complicated and uh I I just have a huge amount of respect for that for that collection of individuals so let's fast forward to the future and Bitcoin has failed how did it fail I think it fails through irr irreverence like it it just it fails to be relevant to people on a daily basis um if it just ends up being store of value and nothing more I don't I don't think it gains relevance at all like I think it has to be payments for it to be relevant uh on the everyday otherwise it's just something you kind of buy and forget and only use in emergency situations or or when you want to uh get liquid again um so I think if it doesn't transition to payments um and find that everyday use case it just gets increasingly irrelevant and that's fair that's fair to me what do you think that we can do to mitigate that risk that led to failure I think um you know building building simple accessible experiences that solve the payment use case making it scale making it fast like giving the speed of the Visa and MasterCard network uh real competition um I think all that changes and there's there's tons of projects to do that and that it continues to increase in privacy and security and and uh and ultimately safety um gives you a a third option uh and I think we always want a third option to the US dollar to the to the Chinese band having a third option for for currency I think is important and it keeps the other currencies in check um and government's in check as well so Bitcoin is quite volatile M how do we get people to use Bitcoin as a currency despite the volatility well it it's volatile it's you know only 16 years old 17 years old and uh I think on that time frame anything just getting started is going to look volatile um until people really understand it better and understand the use cases and um have a different relationship with it we all remember when we were 16 years old it was a little bit of a wild time and I think that's expected and uh I think it's just going to take time it's just continuing to make make it more accessible continue to make it easier continue to make it more private um lean into the things that brought us all here in the first place and and those principles and um you know I think more and more people will turn their attention towards it what's your most controversial Bitcoin opinion I don't know if it's controversial but I I think we can do better than lightning um I I and it's not that like lightning is bad um it's just challenging and like it Bitcoin is an incredible layer one and I don't think we just want to settle with having one layer two like I I think we need to experiment a whole lot more and have different um Alternatives and and play around because we we never know what's going to stick and there might be different use cases that each each of these layers um alternative layer 2 solves for in a better way and having more Choice rather than just like being religious about one I think will be best for Bitcoin and and best to kind of meet people where they are in terms of like how to actually use it for a daily a daily uh a daily use case this might be related to the answer you just gave me but what's your dream project that you would like to see bitcoiners build the intersection of AI and agents I think is um there's a lot there and I don't think we've explored enough it's obvious that agents will be a part of our future it's obvious that they we will give them agency to transact for us um do we want that to again be in this um corporate owned Financial Network or do we want a financial Network that the internet owns and is a layer on top of the internet I I think we want the ladder and I think we can build a lot more interesting applications within AI if if we have that and we don't need it's all about who you're asking permission from right and development goes faster if you have to ask for Less permission and that's the beauty of Bitcoin is I can build anything I want on top of it and I think the what we need to see more of is that same sort of thinking applied towards media um which Noster I think is helping to solve and um intelligence which we don't we don't have a enough energy around yet so I think that intersection is very interesting I think the the media in Bitcoin social media in particular in Bitcoin intersection is interesting and I would love to see more more uh projects there and more experiments what's your perfect Sunday perfect Sunday um a day to like reflect walk I I love walking in nature so long walk uh able to reflect on the week past and the week ahead and uh I love learning as much as I can so I I spent a lot of it reading and researching what's the best way for companies to support the Bitcoin open source ecosystem well I mean spiral open to playbook for creating your own spiral in a box and I think uh I think having more companies do that I think is important having some sort of Grant um granting ability to open source developers is important um that are not that don't exist within your company if you you don't want to handle that yourself there's great organizations like Brink and um open sets and hrf that you can donate to and and they'll do the work and they have a pretty rigorous process to choose who gets grants and how much and if they're recurring if they're long-term there's a bunch but it comes down to like funding and funding open source developers to do what they think is best and they think is right do you think that institutional investment determines whether Bitcoin becomes the planet's preferred currency no it probably harms it a bit um but uh I think it's uh I think it's obvious that we'll see more of it and I hope that more people take on the principles of what made Bitcoin successful in the first place which is open source open protocol and it it's not something that can just be Frozen and in time and said okay we're done we we built this protocol we're not done like there's there's tons of stuff we need to do to to Really um get back to the the white paper which is uh you know system for electronic peer-to-peer digital cash like we have not seen that yet we've not lived up to that potential um and uh I I I think we're still you know pretty far away from it actually what do you think the role of stable coin should be I don't know I um I I do see them as potential good on-ramps to bitcoin um I think they do have use cases I worry about in any of these things one Corporation or a few corporations owning the the full stack of them but I I think they have use and I think they make Bitcoin more accessible um but I just question how some of them are being built and like if we can you know build them in a in a more open protocol unknowns permissionless way then what we what we've currently seen I think the answer is yes but um I don't know remains to be seen what is happening today that gives you the most hope for bitcoin's future prio Bitcoin I know I think this is great because it is a bridge between Silicon Valley and all the energy down there and um and Bitcoin and uh in San Francisco and the and this TCH scene which is not going away it's only going to increase so there is something in the water here and having physical placement for that makes Bitcoin more tangible to that world I think is important and necessary um but it's one thing I I think there are more and more organizations getting into Bitcoin open source funding and development and there's more energy around it and I don't know like everything seems to be in flux right now and those are always it feels somewhat chaotic but those are always times that like massive amounts of creation happen and um I think people are at least questioning everything whether that be negatively questioning or positively like they're questioning and that I think always leads to better outcomes who are some of your favorite bitcoiners working in the space right now stevely um there's there's a bunch of people um the whole spiral team I think has been amazing um but it's the people that were I don't know their identity and I don't know who they are that contribute to bitcoin core around the world and do really really thankless work and get tons of critique all the time but like still put in the code and do the work and um you know Bitcoin is is better for it and uh they don't want credit and they don't want to be known and they don't have identity and I think that's still that's still who th those are my heroes um the the people who who have that sort of approach how many Satoshi t-shirts do you own two now I have a long sleeve one and I have a short sleeve one ah I doubled doubled my Satoshi t-shirt metric how do you think that we can convince ordinary people like the moms and the dads that Bitcoin is in fact safe I think they have to feel it themselves I I don't think any matter of Education or talking or videos or even podcast like this sorry is going to change Minds it's they have to feel it and um we've been trying to do this with uh bit key because it's like this physical Rock and you feel it and it's like solid and um I think we just need more of that I don't think the feeling of safety or the convincing someone that Bitcoin is safe is the problem I think it's what do I use this for like it's it goes back to like is it is it just digital gold and I put this thing and I forget okay done but like that's it's just not um it's not enough not enough for me um so showing use cases and like you you get out of the US you get out of this bubble you get out of Europe you get down to Central America South America Africa I've spent a lot of time in those those continents and uh people are using Bitcoin to buy coffee and they're using it to buy dinner and they're using it to pay vendors and those vendors are going to restaurants that accept that Bitcoin and there's tiny little circular economies happening and that gives me a lot of Hope and they're not talking about the price they're not they're actually using it on a regular basis um what's happening on Noster with apps is the largest at scale implementation of Internet magic money that we've been talking about for decades um that's actually paying for Content uh and it's working at scale it's small scale but it's still at scale so these are things that like we need to study more and learn from and like uh those are the reasons why people get in and those will other reasons people will will stay ultimately um so it's again it's you you have to feel it and like we haven't given enough opportunity to actually feel the magic what advice would you give to people who are new to the Bitcoin space or are thinking about jumping in don't overthink it just play play as much as possible like there's a ton of choices there's a ton of ways to experiment there's a ton of ways to um see the space and contribute to it and uh you know don't follow any One path because you think it's right follow it because like there's a gap and you want to see it in the world and you want to build it and uh you know only only good will come from that um so yeah play as and experiment as much as as much as as possible so this is our last question doing a great job at all 21 questions in 21 minutes if you I can really expand on this one you can really expand you got a whole three and a half minutes if you could leave our listeners with a with a single thought about Bitcoin what would it be uh single thought about Bitcoin um don't listen to anyone's single thought about Bitcoin like what what makes Bitcoin special what makes things like nostr special is they're permissionless you don't need anyone's permission um to build what you want to see and uh and that's just incredible like to to be able to work on a money transmission protocol that's entirely open that has no one leader that has um all this attention that has converted the likes of a black rock uh or these major institutions that were these things that we railed against in the past um and now they have to turn their attention to it and yet you still don't need their permission to build on it um or to change it or to better it where else can you find that like at that scale not nowhere and in only 16 years so imagine the next 16 years and um how you can contribute to it again only asking yourself permission like that it's just an incredible thing to be a part of and it reminds me so much of the of the early internet where you again the default was you didn't need permission to do anything we see more and more of that going away and Bitcoin and Noster and and hopefully something in intelligence will be the the antidote to that and bring us back to like what made the internet special in the first place what made it magic so permissionless um that that's the one the one thought one idea it's a great lasting thought well that's all I have thank you so much for coming on the show today and to stop by Presidio Bitcoin we're really excited to have have you here it's great to be here thank you so much yeah thank you