Bitcoin Meetup

Robert Schwentker:

I do startup relations for PayPal - we do forward-looking meetups, including currencies, social impact + bluetooth LE

Brian Zisk runs the future of money conference - the best palce to meet and talk about this

Brian Zisk:

a bunch of the Bitcoin foundation met at the Future of Money conference - even some of the now-disgraced ones

You don't want to hear me talk, so introduce yourself to your neighbour

Eric Martindale:

At Bitpay we ant every company to be abel to accept bitcoin. We released the open source bitcore library for bitcoin

Sean Percival:

I'm a venture partner at 500 startups and I do marketing for blockchain.info - we are doing a bitcoin focused incubator

I was in a failing startups, so after layoffs I had leftover computers, which I set to mining bitcoin

there is a lot of room in the space to grow the ecosystem, and indeed to fund it - we do $100k seed investments

Skye Elijah:

@coinbeyond is a bitcoin-based debit card you can use at retail

BTC Jams:

btcjam is a bitocin based way to invest in other people's loans in the developing world

snapCard:

buying things on the internet with bitcoin takes too long. we have a bookmarklet that translates for you using bitpay

CrowdCurity:

we do crowd-sourced web security. We are focused on bitcoin exchanges and lending platforms. We set bounty in bitcoin

Coincove:

coincove is the way to buy and sell bitcoins in mexico eventually to accept remittances. We trade bitcoins for pesos

Skye Elijah:

we have a point of sale payment card so you can spend bitcoins in the real world - CoinBeyond

Sean Percival:

disclosure: we incubated BTC Jams, and I'd like to invest in some of these companies

what does it take to start a bitcoin startup?

CrowdCurity:

we started in argentina and got things going in a couple fo week

BTC Jams:

we never touch any fiat currency, so we are not regulated, we can go from country to country.

snapCard:

as well as the regulatory issues, trust is the hardest thing, Bitcoin doesn't have it now, so you need it in your co

Skye Elijah:

work out what part of bitcoin you're obsessed with. We're obsessed with usability for normal people

the regulatory side is a dark and scary place but we have strategies to work with this

Coincove:

if you can start in a jurisdiction outside the US you'll find it easier than here

Sean Percival:

how do you explain this to ordinary people?

Coincove:

Hannah, my co-founder is a psychology major so we work on explainign things in human terms

latin american currencies are inflationary and not strong so bitcoin is more attractive if you can make it easy to use

BTC Jams:

there are existing geeks who already have bitcoin; the second is people in countries like mexico or brazil who need loans

the borrower can chose what to denominate loans in - whether dollars or bitcoins. BTC income, BTC loans

Sean Percival:

lets talk about security -I'm already seeing spearfishing attacks trying to get my bitcoin

CrowdCurity:

we hear all the time about bitcoin exchanges getting hacked, so we do outside testing and probing

Sean Percival:

at blockchain we open source everything - we see this as the best path to security

CrowdCurity:

we'd rather use libraries that are open source as there are more eyes on the code

Sean Percival:

I bought a telescope at overstock because I could. What are people buying?

snapCard:

I wish I wasn't seeing so many Fleshlights, but there it is

we server the tech community, so mostly graphics cards and tech gear. 1st product was gummi bears through amazon

Coincove:

in 5 years, bitcoin will allow latin america send money to their families without losing 10%. 1 in 5 households in mx

Skye Elijah:

Bitcoin is going to spur a massive social revolution in 5 years - our industries will change to adapt

companies that depend on money transfer margins will need to strategise

I think bitcoin is going to save capitalism

snapCard:

digital currency is going to happen, but it may not be bitcoin that is the answer in 5 years

the contracts and voting system that is created through the blockchain is going to be interesting in 5 years

BTC Jams:

I'm still debating on what use cases matter. I don't make bitcoin purchases because credit cards work well

I see bitcoin as a store of value in the developing world to insulate your savings from governments

its a long way to go before the average joe will prefer to use bitcoin over a credit card. Dollars work well

CrowdCurity:

dollars don't work for people in Argentina. This is going to change the world by taking power form banks, govts

It's not going to be about money but about distributed trust - not just for money but contracts, bonds, etc

it's very sad when we saw MtGox vanish. I'd rather see the people with money in the bank lose than everyone else

Coincove:

we tried to set up here, but ti was too complex, so we set up in mexico, as they said it wasn't a currency

form the mexican govt point of view, the 10% fees not staying in the US and coming to mx is a better outcome

the big concern is that we are not laundering money for the cartels, so we don't do that

Sean Percival:

MtGox went to all the leaders of bitcoin and asked them to bail them out, and they didn't - they went to regulators

snapCard:

we are registered as a money services business

CoinBeyond:

we have started a dialog with regulators in Washington State, who recognise bitcoin as a currency

there are ongoing hearings in New york on bitcoin regulation. Landscape is uncharted. Attempt compliance early.

Sean Percival:

blockchain doesn't have a bank account do yours?

Coincove:

our mexican bank knows we are moving in and out of bitcoin

Sean Percival:

question is would it make sense to open a bitcoin business in british virgin islands, caymans etc?

Coincove:

mexico has very nice weather too, it's like the virgin islands with better reputation

Sean Percival:

there aren't a lot of examples of practical bonds or contracts

you used touse the postal system to prove a date -the blockchain can work to attest dates too

Coincove:

there are projects that tag bitcoins as bearer bonds, so they cna indicate who owns what

Skye Elijah:

we are interested in protocol overlays on bitcoin. We want to build a trust list on bitcoin protected by blockchain

we want to build contingencies on each transaction to enable more control, and make this usable

Brian Zisk:

as far as virtual currencies go, will bitcoin win? will another one take over?

Sean Percival:

I'm asked about dogecoin a lot. Remember that bitcoin can add features to respond

Brian Zisk:

the way that we mine bitcoins is by cracking hashes. Could a coin sequence DNA instead?

could we get it to do something productive?

Coincove:

bitcoin is not consuming more electricity than banks right now. But being more efficient would be interesting

Sean Percival:

has anyone on the panel mined a coin?

CrowdCurity:

I got a fraction of a coin, but my mac got too hot

Sean Percival:

I had to get electricians to help stop my bitcoin mining rig from overheating

BTC Jams:

the worst use case I've seen is viruses that encrypt your machine and you have to send bitcoin to unlock it

Skye Elijah:

we pivoted a lot to get to point of sale - it wasn't our first love

every month things change completely in bitcoin

Coincove:

our trickiest problem with getting people to hold bitcoinss was for people buying them, so we made that easier

the most promising market for bitcoin now is the developing world, so $25 firefox phones really help

Skye Elijah:

bitcoin s a seriously risky investment. I would't advise putting money into bitcoin

Sean Percival:

when american companies go to other countries they often fail - look to local companies to succeed