Peter Thiel argued in his book ‘Zero to One’ that the way to build a great and highly profitable company is to build a monopoly. But with decentralized technologies, there is a real question whether these monopolies can be built or whether the monopolies will end up being publicly owned goods (like Bitcoin) that can’t be monetized directly. William Mougayar, who is an experienced tech executive and angel investor, has been writing extensively about these issues and was one of the investors in OB1, the venture-backed company launched by the founders of the decentralized market place Open Bazaar. He joined us for a discussion of the cryptocurrency space, Ethereum, Open Bazaar and monetizing decentralized technologies. Topics covered in this episode: Bitcoin as the new, thin cloud His long-term predictions about where the space is going What kind of business models are the most promising Why he chose to invest in OB1, the company behind Open Bazaar What the state of Venture Capital in the cryptocurrency space is Episode links: Predictions in Cryptography, Blockchains and Consensus Protocols The Old Cloud is Dead, Welcome the New Cloud The Business Imperative Behind the Ethereum Vision An Operational Framework for DAOs Union Square Ventures: Introducing OB1 Peter Thiel: Competition is for Losers This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/086

One topic that is guaranteed to cause heated discussion among cryptocurrency enthusiasts is the idea that blockchains can be controlled by known validators and function without an underlying cryptocurrency. Some think this is a non-sensical idea fabricated by those spineless enough to want to appease regulators and but clueless enough to miss the whole point of cryptocurrencies. But others believe that Bitcoin is unsuited for a lof of ‘Bitcoin 2.0’ applications and that permissioned ledgers have wide-reaching potential to increase efficiency and transparency. Tim Swanson joined us for an important discussion of permissioned ledgers. He’s among their best-known proponents and has recently published a whitepaper discussing how they work and looking at different startups in the space. Topics covered in this episode: Why the ‘blockchains without bitcoin’ idea is so controversial Why it is strange that KYC is done widely on Bitcoin users but not on the validators Why even semi-decentralized blockchains can provide big efficiency gains Why the 51% attack possibility is an obstacle for the use of the Bitcoin as a settlement network Why financial institutions don’t care about censorship resistance but do care about irreversibility Episode links: Tim Swanson: Permissioned Distributed Ledgers Whitepaper Tim Swanson: Needing a Token to Operate a Distributed Ledger is a Red Herring Robert Sams: No, Bitcoin is not the future of securities settlement JP Koning: Why bitcoin has failed to achieve liftoff as a medium of exchange This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/084