Charlie Shrem: The Untold Story of a Bitcoin Pioneer and Renegade

Charlie Shrem became fascinated with Bitcoin in 2011 but grew frustrated with the hassle of buying it from the leading exchange at the time, Mt. Gox. To make the process faster and more convenient, Charlie created BitInstant in 2012. BitInstant quickly grew and by 2013 became responsible for processing a third of all Bitcoin transactions. This was with the help of Roger Ver and the Winklevoss twins, who were his seed investors, and Erik Voorhees, who led their marketing efforts.

The success of BitInstant was short-lived. In a time where Bitcoin’s primary applications were price speculation and buying things on the Silk Road, Charlie spent time in prison after a lack of customer due-diligence attracted the attention of the law enforcement. Our conversation with Charlie recounts the Bitcoin industry at its beginning, his time in prison, and what he is doing now that he’s able to continue his work as a Bitcoin advocate.

Topics covered in this episode:

  • Learning of Bitcoin on IRC in 2011
  • The Bitcoin community in the early days
  • Collaborating with competitors to grow the ecosystem
  • Frustration with Bitcoin infrastructure in 2011
  • Why Charlie decided to create BitInstant
  • Meeting Roger Ver, Erik Voorhees, and the Winklevoss Twins
  • Charlie’s time in prison and its effect on his personal life
  • Podcasting and daily life after prison

Episode links:

Sponsors:

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/321

Looking for ways to Swap within Wallet ERC20 token for ETH(gas) without sending ETH into Wallet (MetaMask,Trust,,dApp)

Any dApps available to swap ERC-20 token(BAT specifically) for ETH(gas)…. seems like uniswap, or any other dApp etc. requires ETHER(GAS) for transaction… which is main reason I’m trying to do this on the first place…. any dApps, smart contracts, that I’m not aware about someone could point me in the right direction would be great. Seems silly you have to have ETH to send transactions with these wallets..

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Anthony Sassano & Eric Conner: EthHub – Ethereum Education and the Quest for Ether Dominance

We’re joined by Eric Conner and Anthony Sassano, founders of EthHub. Started in January of 2019, EthHub’s goal is to provide a trusted, objective source of information for the Ethereum ecosystem. The platform is made up of an open-source documentation website, a weekly newsletter, and a podcast, “Into the Ether” hosted by Eric and Anthony. Both active and vocal members of the Ethereum community, they are known to embody what some consider to be Ethereum Maximalism.

Topics covered in this episode:

  • What is EthHub and why they decided to start the organization
  • Eric and Anthony’s view on the current state of the Ethereum community
  • The different cliques, factions, and sub-groups in Ethereum
  • The role of the Foundation and Vitalik Buterin as they see it
  • A close look into project funding in Ethereum and the emergence of DAOs for funding
  • Reflections on Anthony’s “Why Ether is Valuable” piece
  • The state of Ethereum 2.0 research and the different parties involved
  • Their views on where the crypto space is heading in the next 5 years

Episode links:

Sponsors:

  • Vaultoro: Trade gold to Bitcoin instantly and securely starting at just 1mg – http://vaultoro.com
  • Trail of Bits: Trust the team at the forefront of blockchain security research – https://trailofbits.com

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/302

A Multidisciplinary Approach In Building Decentralized Solutions

Everything is about innovation in the 21st century. Throughout daily life, with an increasing call for innovation, people are susceptible to bringing in new technologies. From the use of a controller to controlling devices to using voice records to send orders; advanced technology has made room in everyone's regular lives. Technologies such as A.I and IoT have gained momentum over the past decade and there is now a new addition to the category, Blockchain Technology.

Blockchain, with its very first modern Bitcoin application, is a disruptive technology that has strongly influenced different industries, enabling them to leverage the power within their ecosystem to do things faster and reduce costs and complexity considerably. Several multi-domain companies look for new and innovative ways to utilize this technology to make it more efficient, secure and accurate. For this new decentralized technology to flourish and accelerate its development, therefore, it becomes absolutely necessary for developers to collaborate and learn through a multidisciplinary approach.

While blockchain infrastructure and use-cases are maturing, and the start-up ecosystem is growing rapidly, the deployment of production-ready networks is still relatively sparse. There are several technical challenges with blockchain like startups to have a collaborative approach and interoperability that can be an integral part of it, and the ability to overcome these may determine the extent of its deployment over the coming years. Perhaps enhancing that learning curve, that's when real-world solutions can introduce checks building on these disruptive trends, by potentially making them more collaborative and interoperable.

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