A Gen Z's Journey with Bitcoin - Part 3

Tali: 00:00:00

Hey everybody.

Tali: 00:00:01

Welcome to Orange Hatter.

Tali: 00:00:02

Today you'll be listening in to part three of my conversation with Ella.

Tali: 00:00:06

What is the timeline of that, uh, university guide?

Ella: 00:00:10

Yes, I would say by the end of summer is our goal.

Ella: 00:00:14

We're also working on a Bitcoin bootcamp right now, so information

Ella: 00:00:18

for that's gonna come out soon, and I'll share it with you when it is.

Ella: 00:00:22

But we wanna do it by the end of summer, so that...

Ella: 00:00:25

you know, students start school in September, late August, so

Ella: 00:00:30

that it's, it's there for that.

Tali: 00:00:32

So is that, is that guide an interactive...

Tali: 00:00:34

like if they, they just sort of go down a list of majors and, and if they...

Tali: 00:00:39

like you, the example you gave, they have a philosophy major, they click on

Tali: 00:00:42

that, and then you have a little blurb and then a link to something else?

Ella: 00:00:47

Yes.

Ella: 00:00:47

So how, how we have it right now, is that it's going to be on our website, and just

Ella: 00:00:52

like you said, it'll kind of have the list of majors and then they can click on it.

Ella: 00:00:57

Some of the components of it will be some written text about it, and

Ella: 00:01:01

then also perhaps, if applicable, a book or maybe a short YouTube video.

Ella: 00:01:07

There's more resources they could go to.

Ella: 00:01:09

And then also some good follows on Twitter.

Ella: 00:01:12

And the reason that we want to try and give them as many different

Ella: 00:01:16

methods to learn is because everyone learns differently.

Ella: 00:01:19

And so if they just click on it and they see, I don't know,

Ella: 00:01:22

maybe even two paragraphs.

Ella: 00:01:24

I mean, you spend your whole day at school reading or writing paragraphs, and so

Ella: 00:01:28

just wanna make it easy for students.

Ella: 00:01:30

And if hopping on a Twitter space with someone that we selected is what

Ella: 00:01:34

they need, or a short YouTube video or an audio book, whatever it is, we're

Ella: 00:01:39

just trying to share that information.

Ella: 00:01:42

It's just genbitcoin.org.

Tali: 00:01:45

So I wanna follow up with all the initiatives that you guys are rolling out.

Tali: 00:01:50

So, you have that guidebook, but you also mentioned that there's a

Tali: 00:01:56

Bitcoin major that you're working on.

Tali: 00:01:58

Is that part of the same organization, or is that a side project of yours?

Ella: 00:02:02

No, it's, it's not.

Ella: 00:02:03

It's a side project of mine.

Ella: 00:02:05

So, I am at Cornell, and one of the things I love about being there

Ella: 00:02:11

is that in the school, I am in the College of Arts and Sciences, you

Ella: 00:02:16

can create an independent major.

Ella: 00:02:18

You write a proposal, you get a faculty advisor to support

Ella: 00:02:20

it, and then you can do it.

Ella: 00:02:23

So I really appreciate that about the school and how they recognize

Ella: 00:02:26

there's so much knowledge on campus and everyone has a different interest and

Ella: 00:02:30

they wanna support you in doing that.

Ella: 00:02:32

And so I am trying to put together a major focused on Bitcoin.

Ella: 00:02:37

And it's not exactly been a very easy process.

Ella: 00:02:41

I was working for a good chunk of the year with ... On it and unfortunately

Ella: 00:02:46

he, I guess, maybe he is not doing that anymore or isn't there.

Ella: 00:02:51

But I just kind of got sent an email that if I had any questions,

Ella: 00:02:53

I'd need to talk to someone else.

Ella: 00:02:55

And so I had been working for a while to try an orange pill him and, um, help

Ella: 00:03:00

him see that, you know, no, I don't wanna just study the gold standard,

Ella: 00:03:04

which was one of his early suggestions.

Ella: 00:03:07

But I have, I have new found hope because I just saw a professor at Cornell has

Ella: 00:03:12

joined the Bitcoin Policy Institute.

Ella: 00:03:14

So you know, there's people on campus now that I didn't know about, that are also...

Ella: 00:03:19

see the value in Bitcoin.

Ella: 00:03:21

And so if a major isn't approved, I'll do a thesis of some sort.

Ella: 00:03:25

And you know, I...

Ella: 00:03:27

bitcoin's so important I, I have two more years left to try and, try and, um,

Ella: 00:03:32

get Bitcoin on people's radar at least.

Ella: 00:03:35

So I'll, I'm gonna keep on it.

Tali: 00:03:37

That is fabulous.

Tali: 00:03:39

Can you tell me a little bit more about how you were planning or pitching

Tali: 00:03:45

the Bitcoin major in terms of the classes that you, you proposed would

Tali: 00:03:48

be necessary to complete the major?

Ella: 00:03:51

Yes, absolutely.

Ella: 00:03:52

And I also wanna say so many Bitcoiners have been incredibly generous and

Ella: 00:03:56

kind with their time to just talk to me and hear their thoughts.

Ella: 00:04:00

And so that has just been incredible and something so

Ella: 00:04:03

representative of the community.

Ella: 00:04:05

But it all started, actually, I took a, my first course on game theory in the fall

Ella: 00:04:12

and I, every class I was sitting there and I was just thinking about Bitcoin.

Ella: 00:04:16

This is what happens...

Ella: 00:04:17

I'm in a class and I'm, I love learning, and so I'm there, but

Ella: 00:04:20

I'm also thinking about Bitcoin.

Ella: 00:04:22

And then I was talking to my advisor for cognitive science, which is what my

Ella: 00:04:27

major is officially declared as right now, and this game theory course was

Ella: 00:04:32

under the information science department.

Ella: 00:04:35

And so I was talking to him about how I would plan out my courses and what

Ella: 00:04:40

track of the cognitive science program he thought might most resonate with me.

Ella: 00:04:45

And he said, "oh, you know, this game theory course sounds really interesting.

Ella: 00:04:50

All you're doing, um, in information science sounds really cool.

Ella: 00:04:53

You know, we should see how we can make that a larger part of your major."

Ella: 00:04:58

And I left and I was like, okay, sounds great.

Ella: 00:05:00

And then it just occurred to me, why don't I just make an independent major if, you

Ella: 00:05:06

know they're already willing to be very flexible with what I am taking, you know,

Ella: 00:05:10

maybe I put together an independent major.

Ella: 00:05:13

And so the proposal that I proposed, it was called Innovation Under the

Ella: 00:05:18

Bitcoin Standard, how do we build our future through cognitive science,

Ella: 00:05:23

information science and economics.

Ella: 00:05:25

And so it, it sounds a little structured, 'cause the proposal had

Ella: 00:05:28

to be structured, but it was all about, kind of, the interactions

Ella: 00:05:33

of people, information and markets.

Ella: 00:05:36

So how do people think, interact with information, make decisions?

Ella: 00:05:40

Really, how would Bitcoin be adopted by society?

Ella: 00:05:44

What does that look like?

Ella: 00:05:46

And so that is what I proposed.

Ella: 00:05:49

Now, I mentioned previously that I've fallen a bit down the energy rabbit

Ella: 00:05:52

hole, and so I'm thinking about perhaps changing the focus a little bit, maybe

Ella: 00:05:58

trying to tighten it up, so that it's more likely to be approved, but come

Ella: 00:06:03

at it from the energy perspective.

Ella: 00:06:05

Because I think also climate change is maybe more well received than

Ella: 00:06:10

money, um, in big institutions, and people are more focused on the

Ella: 00:06:14

environment in some cases, I think.

Ella: 00:06:16

And so if I can come at it from actually how good Bitcoin is for energy and,

Ella: 00:06:23

you know, climate change and the energy transition, they might be more inclined

Ella: 00:06:27

to support the proposal and the major.

Tali: 00:06:30

Let's tie energy and Bitcoin together for the people out there who

Tali: 00:06:34

don't know what you're talking about.

Tali: 00:06:36

Can you expand a little bit more?

Tali: 00:06:37

Just real basic?

Ella: 00:06:39

Yeah.

Ella: 00:06:39

So if it's okay, maybe I'll just go to the very beginning of why Bitcoin and energy.

Ella: 00:06:46

So, and I think also context is always good.

Ella: 00:06:48

So proof of, let's start with proof of stake.

Ella: 00:06:51

So actually, let's go back a little bit further even, because it's...

Ella: 00:06:55

like we mentioned, it's always helpful to have the full context.

Ella: 00:06:58

So, the blockchain trilemma.

Ella: 00:07:00

I don't know if you've discussed this on your show yet, but

Ella: 00:07:03

essentially with every single...

Ella: 00:07:06

I say Bitcoin, not crypto...

Ella: 00:07:08

but every single kind of cryptocurrency out there...

Ella: 00:07:12

When their blockchain is set up, there's certain trade-offs

Ella: 00:07:16

that have to be made early on.

Ella: 00:07:18

So picture in your head a triangle, and on each point you have security,

Ella: 00:07:23

scalability, and decentralization.

Ella: 00:07:26

And so the trilemma piece comes in because you can only have two out of those three

Ella: 00:07:32

goals that you can really focus on.

Ella: 00:07:35

So Bitcoin is super secure and super decentralized, but Bitcoin just at its

Ella: 00:07:42

very core is really not very scalable.

Ella: 00:07:45

But you know, that in my view is best trade off to have, because now we have

Ella: 00:07:50

the Lightning Network, which fixes that.

Ella: 00:07:52

But the other ones have sacrificed decentralization and security

Ella: 00:07:58

to enhance their scalability.

Ella: 00:08:00

And so one of the pieces with that, is kinda the next topic we can touch, is

Ella: 00:08:06

proof of stake versus proof of work.

Ella: 00:08:09

So to kind of create...

Ella: 00:08:12

so, I think a lot of people say proof of work is how you mine the Bitcoin.

Ella: 00:08:17

Like gold, how you, you know, you take your, your pick ax and you go mine.

Ella: 00:08:21

You exert energy to then get your gold, have your property.

Ella: 00:08:25

Something that's important to just recognize.

Ella: 00:08:27

With Bitcoin is, proof of work is, really how you're securing the

Ella: 00:08:31

network, how you're making it safe, and then how the transactions are

Ella: 00:08:36

getting added to the blockchain.

Ella: 00:08:38

And your reward is the Bitcoin.

Ella: 00:08:41

So if we just look at, you know, mining gold and mining Bitcoin.

Ella: 00:08:46

The work of kind of...

Ella: 00:08:47

sorry, I don't wanna go too technical...

Ella: 00:08:49

but when you're mining gold and you're, you're swinging the ax,

Ella: 00:08:53

that is the true act that would be securing Bitcoin, if that makes sense.

Ella: 00:08:57

And then the reward is the Bitcoin that you receive.

Ella: 00:09:00

So mining gold, Bitcoin, we have all this physical energy that we're exerting.

Ella: 00:09:05

Proof of stake, which all of the other cryptocurrencies use.

Ella: 00:09:09

There's no energy.

Ella: 00:09:10

There's no mining.

Ella: 00:09:12

There's no, no physical exertion of effort.

Ella: 00:09:15

Basically how it is, it's kind of like you're buying, if you think about like

Ella: 00:09:19

at a raffle, at like a fair, you buy raffle tickets so you can maybe win

Ella: 00:09:23

the lottery item or whatever it is.

Ella: 00:09:25

The more raffle tickets you buy, the greater chance you

Ella: 00:09:28

have of winning the prize.

Ella: 00:09:30

That's kind of how proof of stake works.

Ella: 00:09:33

The more coins, the more tokens that you stake up, the more

Ella: 00:09:37

likely you will get a reward back.

Ella: 00:09:40

So there's a couple more kind of subtleties in that, but I think that's

Ella: 00:09:43

a very easy way to explain it overall.

Ella: 00:09:46

So, many people call out Bitcoin's energy usage as a huge kind of

Ella: 00:09:52

drawback, and there's a very kind of bad narrative around Bitcoin and energy.

Ella: 00:09:59

I, and I think all other Bitcoiners are of the mindset

Ella: 00:10:02

that it's a feature, not a bug.

Ella: 00:10:04

So to put the energy usage in context, Bitcoin uses 2% of the world's

Ella: 00:10:10

energy consumption, and 55% of that comes from renewable energy sources.

Ella: 00:10:18

Bitcoin's energy usage is also less than that of Christmas lights.

Ella: 00:10:22

And I might get the numbers a little bit wrong here, but I think it's that Visa

Ella: 00:10:28

processes 26,000 transactions per second.

Ella: 00:10:33

So the...

Ella: 00:10:34

no, sorry.

Ella: 00:10:34

I think that's right.

Ella: 00:10:35

And total banking system uses 56 times more energy than Bitcoin.

Ella: 00:10:42

So, maybe I'll say that again.

Ella: 00:10:43

The total banking system uses 56 times more energy than Bitcoin.

Ella: 00:10:49

And Bitcoin with lightning can process so...

Ella: 00:10:52

a million transactions...

Ella: 00:10:53

so many more.

Ella: 00:10:55

So, I know that was quite a lot all there, but those numbers are really important

Ella: 00:11:00

to know when you hear Bitcoin and energy.

Ella: 00:11:03

'Cause the value you get for the energy input is just so drastically,

Ella: 00:11:09

incomparably, you know, great.

Ella: 00:11:11

And it really doesn't use that much energy.

Ella: 00:11:15

So there's hopefully a good overview and hopefully kind of explained all right.

Tali: 00:11:22

Thank you for listening.

Tali: 00:11:23

Did you hear anything in our conversation today that you resonated with?

Tali: 00:11:28

Were you able to identify with some of the feelings that Ella had?

Tali: 00:11:32

If so, I would love to hear from you.

Tali: 00:11:35

Please send your questions or comments to my email Tali@orange hatter.com.

Tali: 00:11:43

I would love to hear from you.

Tali: 00:11:44

Come back tomorrow and hear the rest of our conversation.

Tali: 00:11:48

Thank you.

Tali: 00:11:48

See you soon.