1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,520 Hi there! This is 21 and 21, a rapid-fire Q&A show filmed at Presidio Bitcoin. 2 00:00:06,400 --> 00:00:11,760 I'm Haley Burko, and I ask people who stop by Presidio Bitcoin 21 questions in 21 minutes. 3 00:00:12,420 --> 00:00:17,520 Today I'm speaking with Neha Narula, the director of the MIT Digital Currency Initiative, 4 00:00:17,980 --> 00:00:21,240 which supports research in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. 5 00:00:21,960 --> 00:00:24,260 She also serves on Blox Board of Directors. 6 00:00:25,200 --> 00:00:26,820 Neha, welcome to Presidio Bitcoin. 7 00:00:27,180 --> 00:00:28,580 Hi, Haley. It's nice to be here. 8 00:00:28,580 --> 00:00:32,220 I'm really excited that you were able to jump on the pod today. 9 00:00:32,440 --> 00:00:37,260 I've followed you for a bit, but also you're on Blocks for the Directors, and I work at 10 00:00:37,260 --> 00:00:38,940 Spiral, which is part of Blocks. 11 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:40,480 So it's very cool that you could come by. 12 00:00:40,680 --> 00:00:43,640 Yeah, it's really awesome to be here, especially when there's so many Spiral folks around. 13 00:00:43,840 --> 00:00:43,980 Yeah. 14 00:00:44,200 --> 00:00:47,720 Yes, it's a big week today, or this week with the Spiral team off site. 15 00:00:47,860 --> 00:00:49,180 But yeah, thanks for coming in. 16 00:00:50,720 --> 00:00:54,980 So I'm going to ask you 21 questions in 21 minutes and start this clock. 17 00:00:55,620 --> 00:00:56,580 Yeah, let's do it. 18 00:00:56,640 --> 00:00:57,180 Let's do it. 19 00:00:57,180 --> 00:00:58,120 All right, let's go. 20 00:00:58,580 --> 00:01:01,320 Wow, it's counting down. 21 00:01:02,780 --> 00:01:04,580 So what brings you into Presidio Bitcoin? 22 00:01:05,680 --> 00:01:09,860 Steve invited me, and it sounds like a really cool place. 23 00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:13,040 And San Francisco is really beautiful. 24 00:01:13,300 --> 00:01:14,960 Yeah, so I'm excited to be here. 25 00:01:15,720 --> 00:01:16,120 Check it out. 26 00:01:17,440 --> 00:01:20,680 Can you tell me a little bit about what you're working on right now? 27 00:01:20,680 --> 00:01:21,120 Yeah. 28 00:01:22,020 --> 00:01:26,880 So I lead the Digital Currency Initiative, which is based out of the Media Lab at MIT. 29 00:01:26,880 --> 00:01:32,940 and we have a lot of developers and researchers who are working on Bitcoin. 30 00:01:33,620 --> 00:01:37,020 Something that I'm really interested in right now is trying to answer 31 00:01:37,020 --> 00:01:42,340 really hard long-term questions about Bitcoin's viability and how far it can go. 32 00:01:42,880 --> 00:01:46,040 And so the two areas that I've been thinking about the most are, 33 00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:47,400 number one, scalability. 34 00:01:48,080 --> 00:01:51,440 So how far can we actually scale self-custody? 35 00:01:51,580 --> 00:01:55,160 How many people can use Bitcoin in a self-custodial way? 36 00:01:55,160 --> 00:02:14,240 So not with an intermediary that's holding your funds. And the second being security. So proof of work, mining, super important, underlies what makes it hard to double spend in Bitcoin. But the question is, you know, how is it going to work as the block subsidy changes? How is it going to work with different incentives? How do we get a better understanding of that? 37 00:02:16,760 --> 00:02:23,040 How is some of this research important to Bitcoin's future and kind of what are different ways that we're conducting this research? 38 00:02:23,040 --> 00:02:42,320 Yeah. So I think these are like two of the most important questions in Bitcoin. You know, how many people can really use it? Can it serve as a medium of exchange at scale? And how do we think about its security? What does that rely on? I mean, to me, these are like critical underlying questions. So, you know, I think they're pretty, you know, pretty self-evidently important for Bitcoin. 39 00:02:42,320 --> 00:03:02,100 The way we work on them is that we have these developers at the Digital Currency Initiative who work on Bitcoin Core. Most of them are pretty involved in what we call the plumbing or the maintenance, the day-to-day of Bitcoin Core, you know, keeping it going, the build system, testing and fuzzing, different frameworks, different pieces of infrastructure. 40 00:03:02,100 --> 00:03:12,780 But some think a lot about research, too. And we have this amazing student body at MIT. And so we can work with students and try to get them interested in research projects. 41 00:03:14,180 --> 00:03:23,360 That's great. How did the Digital Currency Initiative start and kind of what was this connection to like MIT to begin with? 42 00:03:23,360 --> 00:03:44,820 Yeah. So there was actually a couple of students at MIT who got really into Bitcoin. Like, I want to say 2012, 2013, they started a Bitcoin club. They started having club meetings. They started the MIT Bitcoin Expo, which continues to this day. And so they were getting like all the students at MIT really interested. Then they did this thing called the drop. 43 00:03:44,820 --> 00:04:06,300 So in 2014, they raised money to buy a bunch of Bitcoin and give every undergrad at the time $100 worth of Bitcoin. So they dropped, they did it in different ways. Some of it was like you could submit an address. Some of it was you could get an account on an exchange. There were like all these different ways you could get it. They actually, you know, a professor ended up writing a study about it later. 44 00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:09,980 I was kind of salty because I was a graduate student at the time at MIT. 45 00:04:10,160 --> 00:04:12,560 I did not get $100 worth of Bitcoin in this drop. 46 00:04:12,660 --> 00:04:14,060 I was mad they limited it to undergrads. 47 00:04:14,560 --> 00:04:26,140 But, you know, what they realized, these students, you know, realized was that, okay, all these kids are really interested in Bitcoin, but they don't really have any way of engaging with it beyond the club and beyond, you know, using it. 48 00:04:26,400 --> 00:04:29,660 So they wanted to kind of kickstart this research initiative at MIT. 49 00:04:30,100 --> 00:04:34,940 And so the then director of the Media Lab started the Digital Currency Initiative. 50 00:04:34,940 --> 00:04:43,520 And, you know, we've been through a lot of different iterations and we've been in a lot of different directions, worked on a lot of different things. But yeah, that's how we started at MIT. 51 00:04:44,220 --> 00:04:49,500 That's so cool. I bet a bunch of people are very thankful for that $100 drop so long ago. 52 00:04:49,720 --> 00:04:50,920 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 53 00:04:53,960 --> 00:04:55,840 How did you become a Bitcoiner? 54 00:04:55,840 --> 00:05:12,080 Yeah. So it took me a little while. I had some friends who were very into Bitcoin from very early on. And I don't know, I thought they were kind of crazy. Like, I thought it was interesting, but I didn't really pay a lot of attention to it. 55 00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:21,100 I was in graduate school at MIT in computer science and I finished grad school in 2015 and I was trying to figure out what to do next. 56 00:05:21,320 --> 00:05:29,640 And I was just kind of depressed. Like I was looking at all the jobs out there and I was like, oh, man, you know, I really like working. 57 00:05:30,100 --> 00:05:34,880 I was working in databases and distributed systems. I really like this work. I like these intellectual questions. 58 00:05:34,880 --> 00:05:38,840 But, man, am I just going to, like, go make some ad server faster? 59 00:05:39,080 --> 00:05:56,370 Or am I just going to like figure out how to serve you know news feeds to people you know like cut some milliseconds off of that It just felt really unimportant And then I read in the news if you remember 2015 or I don know I don know if you if you remember this but Bitcoin was in the news a lot 60 00:05:56,370 --> 00:06:02,550 because we were having this big debate about how to scale. And then the block size wars happened. 61 00:06:02,750 --> 00:06:06,890 And so I worked in scalability. And so I was like, oh, Bitcoin's having trouble scaling. 62 00:06:07,150 --> 00:06:10,570 What like why? It's just a payment system. Why would that be hard? It's really easy to scale 63 00:06:10,570 --> 00:06:14,890 payment systems. And so then I started actually learning more about how Bitcoin works. 64 00:06:14,910 --> 00:06:20,730 and I got super into it, I started learning more about our monetary system, about, you know, banking 65 00:06:20,730 --> 00:06:25,910 and central banking. And I was just like, wow, you know, I'd always thought that technology was the 66 00:06:25,910 --> 00:06:30,810 most powerful lever we had to change the world. And then I realized, oh, incentives are also an 67 00:06:30,810 --> 00:06:35,570 incredibly powerful lever. And when you marry the two together, it's even more powerful. So I was 68 00:06:35,570 --> 00:06:42,470 nerd sniped after that. It's definitely a rabbit hole that I feel like most people go down when 69 00:06:42,470 --> 00:06:48,770 learning about Bitcoin. Yeah, right. There's a lot to learn. Yeah. So much. It doesn't stop. No. 70 00:06:50,690 --> 00:06:54,770 What are you currently most excited by in Bitcoin and why? 71 00:06:55,390 --> 00:07:00,890 OK, I think I'm excited by two different things. One is like deeply technical and one is more 72 00:07:00,890 --> 00:07:06,670 use case oriented. So last year I went to an event put on by the Human Rights Foundation 73 00:07:06,670 --> 00:07:29,290 And I got to meet a lot of people who are really focused on the use case for Bitcoin. I met a lot of activists. I met a lot of people who had been debanked in their countries because, you know, it sounds obvious once you say it, but it hadn't really occurred to me that one of the first things dictators do in authoritarian countries is that, you know, they'll they'll turn off people's bank accounts. 74 00:07:29,290 --> 00:07:42,790 They'll stop them from being able to transact. And these people had come very naturally to Bitcoin and stable coins as one of the only ways that they could, you know, make money, get donations, pay their employees, like survive, basically. Right. 75 00:07:42,970 --> 00:07:49,830 So that was super exciting to me. And hearing more about these use cases in the past year has just been really inspiring. 76 00:07:49,830 --> 00:08:05,370 And then the other area that I've been really interested in has been, like, I think there's been a lot of innovation in the types of things you can do in Bitcoin script. So Bitcoin has a very limited scripting language, right? You know, it's part of the value proposition. 77 00:08:05,370 --> 00:08:11,630 and you know we we've always thought there were a lot of things you just can't do and people are 78 00:08:11,630 --> 00:08:19,770 figuring out really crazy exciting ways to do like just nutty things on top of bitcoin some of it you 79 00:08:19,770 --> 00:08:24,110 might not agree with but that's the beauty of a permissionless system right is that people are 80 00:08:24,110 --> 00:08:27,290 going to do what they want to do and if they're willing to pay for block space then they're going 81 00:08:27,290 --> 00:08:30,990 to do it and i think that's really exciting i think people are coming up with really clever ideas 82 00:08:30,990 --> 00:08:37,930 So this idea that like, you know, the constraints of Bitcoin script are creating a lot of creativity. 83 00:08:40,850 --> 00:08:45,550 So let's fast forward to a grim future and Bitcoin has failed. 84 00:08:46,030 --> 00:08:46,290 Okay. 85 00:08:46,530 --> 00:08:47,450 Why do you think it failed? 86 00:08:47,550 --> 00:08:49,470 Oh, my God. There's like so many ways Bitcoin can fail. 87 00:08:49,590 --> 00:08:51,910 I think about this all the time. There's so many ways. 88 00:08:51,910 --> 00:09:06,230 Okay, I think one way it can fail, which actually might be controversial because I think a lot of people would define it as success, is if all the central banks around the world start holding Bitcoin. 89 00:09:07,390 --> 00:09:12,130 I think that that totally destroys the value proposition of Bitcoin. 90 00:09:12,310 --> 00:09:12,850 So let me explain. 91 00:09:14,410 --> 00:09:20,930 We're seeing this rise in the financial institutionalization of Bitcoin, right? 92 00:09:20,930 --> 00:09:41,050 So we have these ETFs, we have this notion of nation state reserves being floated around, and we have like a lot of large companies adding Bitcoin to their treasuries. And so more and more and more people are, you know, it's starting to become narratively accepted that Bitcoin is sort of this alternative to gold, this digital alternative to gold. 93 00:09:41,050 --> 00:09:47,090 and and I I mean I understand why people see it that way and I don't necessarily think there's a 94 00:09:47,090 --> 00:09:52,270 problem with seeing it that way but I think that there's a huge problem if that's all bitcoin is 95 00:09:52,270 --> 00:09:59,630 because the entire value proposition of bitcoin is this idea that it is permissionless money that 96 00:09:59,630 --> 00:10:05,410 nobody can stop that's not controlled by you know a small set of entities and if it becomes the case 97 00:10:05,410 --> 00:10:14,650 that the vast, vast majority of Bitcoin is held by, you know, the same actors that hold gold right now, 98 00:10:14,850 --> 00:10:17,510 maybe, you know, more, even more concentrated. 99 00:10:17,890 --> 00:10:21,610 I think that's going to be a real problem because those people are going to start running nodes. 100 00:10:21,610 --> 00:10:22,590 They're going to start mining. 101 00:10:22,910 --> 00:10:27,810 They're going to have more and more of a say in what the network is and what the network becomes. 102 00:10:28,830 --> 00:10:30,970 So, you know, I think that's a real problem. 103 00:10:31,070 --> 00:10:35,070 I think we need to have like what I call a long tail in Bitcoin of users. 104 00:10:35,410 --> 00:10:39,470 of, you know, just individuals and people who are holding it and using it. 105 00:10:39,550 --> 00:10:40,410 I think that's really important. 106 00:10:41,410 --> 00:10:46,050 Well, I was going to ask you how we can mitigate the risk, but maybe you can expand on this long tail. 107 00:10:46,210 --> 00:10:46,910 Yeah, yeah. 108 00:10:47,090 --> 00:10:51,410 I think the way to mitigate the risk is to get it into as many people's hands as possible. 109 00:10:52,110 --> 00:10:56,390 You know, just thinking about money, thinking about cash, thinking about currency, 110 00:10:56,690 --> 00:11:00,150 thinking about like what people value and how these things work. 111 00:11:00,150 --> 00:11:11,570 Like the thing that's really sticky is is just billions of people around the world seeing this as something that they can hold and that they can use and that is going to have value day to day. 112 00:11:11,570 --> 00:11:14,470 And it doesn't mean that they use it every single day to buy coffee. 113 00:11:14,830 --> 00:11:18,710 But I think the fact that they can hold it if they want to is really important. 114 00:11:19,010 --> 00:11:28,010 And if we limit the number of holders to, you know, like a million financial institutions, like that's nowhere near good enough. 115 00:11:28,010 --> 00:11:31,290 And so I think we I think we have to think about how far we can push that. 116 00:11:32,190 --> 00:11:48,240 Well it also going to ask you how we can get more people to use Bitcoin as a form of payment because right now there definitely a lot of people that are holding Bitcoin which is great It has that value proposition too But I agree with you that it really important to get people to use Bitcoin as a form of currency 117 00:11:48,240 --> 00:11:53,020 Yeah, I wish more people who claim to be in crypto had worked on this problem, right? 118 00:11:53,240 --> 00:12:01,940 Like, payments are so, I don't know, payments can be, it's like people don't find them the interesting thing, but I think that they're the really important thing. 119 00:12:01,940 --> 00:12:23,840 And it's totally a usability issue, I think. You know, it's like we need better wallets. We need better flows. We need better understanding. And instead of working on that, people built casinos or even worse, they built tooling for casinos to make more casinos or to make better casinos or to make like trading all the tokens that like come out of the casinos. 120 00:12:23,840 --> 00:12:30,120 And, you know, imagine if all of that energy had been put into, you know, making really amazing wallets. 121 00:12:30,380 --> 00:12:31,720 Like, what would we have by now? 122 00:12:31,840 --> 00:12:34,220 You know, but you can't control what people work on. 123 00:12:34,800 --> 00:12:44,260 So I think that, you know, I don't personally work on usability and wallets and design, but I know a lot of that has come out of Spiral and that, you know, there is this Bitcoin design community. 124 00:12:44,380 --> 00:12:45,200 I think that's so important. 125 00:12:45,760 --> 00:12:45,840 Yeah. 126 00:12:46,240 --> 00:12:48,180 Yeah, the Bitcoin design community is super important. 127 00:12:49,100 --> 00:12:50,400 They're doing really great work. 128 00:12:50,580 --> 00:12:50,780 Yeah. 129 00:12:50,780 --> 00:13:00,960 Yeah. In regards to like, you know, having a dream to see better wallets being built, is there like a specific type of wallet that you would like to see exist, like your dream, your dream wallet? 130 00:13:00,960 --> 00:13:24,220 Oh, man. Yeah. OK, so I am just like so bad at actually taking care of my stuff. Right. And so I am like the worst. I do self-custody some of my Bitcoin, but not all of it because I don't trust myself. And so I think things that can like really eliminate that fear for people of like, oh, my gosh, if I don't do this right, I'm going to lose everything. Right. 131 00:13:24,220 --> 00:13:39,860 Another area that I think that I'm starting to get more excited about is, you know, well, if you look at where this technology is having the biggest impact, like where's Bitcoin actually getting used, where stable coins getting adopted, it's in the global south. Right. 132 00:13:39,860 --> 00:13:52,900 And I just feel like as people who are sitting here right now in San Francisco, California, we just do not even understand what payment systems in other countries and other cultures are like. 133 00:13:52,900 --> 00:13:58,140 and they are so different and they are so, I mean, they're just like, you know, the challenges are different. 134 00:13:58,300 --> 00:14:02,760 And so, you know, something we're trying to figure out how to do now is how do we forge better relationships 135 00:14:02,760 --> 00:14:08,000 with the engineers and the developers and the students and the builders in these places 136 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:14,640 so that we can work with them to solve the challenges that exist there and not here in the United States. 137 00:14:15,860 --> 00:14:18,080 Yeah, it is. It's really hard if you've never been somewhere, 138 00:14:18,080 --> 00:14:22,880 you don't have like personal relations with somebody to kind of like know their struggles. 139 00:14:22,900 --> 00:14:47,180 I remember when I went to like Africa for like the first time and I had read about M-Pesa, you know, and I'd like, you know, M-Pesa is this thing. It's in Kenya. It's like, you know, it's used everywhere, blah, blah, blah. But it wasn't until I went to Nairobi and I got, you know, I got myself a feature phone and I like signed up for M-Pesa and I bought something that I really understood what it was like and how it worked. Right. You have to go there and you have to experience it. 140 00:14:47,180 --> 00:14:51,820 Totally. So what's your most controversial Bitcoin opinion? 141 00:14:51,820 --> 00:14:59,300 oh wow i don't know um i mean i think maybe you know one thing i already said about like not being 142 00:14:59,300 --> 00:15:03,800 excited about nation state reserves that's that's definitely kind of controversial i guess i would 143 00:15:03,800 --> 00:15:13,660 say um oh okay uh i am super excited about layer two stuff and when i say that i mean in addition 144 00:15:13,660 --> 00:15:19,940 to lightning so like zk roll-ups and all of that like i think that's i think that's exciting i want 145 00:15:19,940 --> 00:15:25,200 to be able to build things on Bitcoin, like really build things that hit a different point 146 00:15:25,200 --> 00:15:33,260 in the tradeoff space of, you know, trust and efficiency and, you know, what you can 147 00:15:33,260 --> 00:15:34,240 do, programmability. 148 00:15:35,680 --> 00:15:36,380 I don't know. 149 00:15:36,440 --> 00:15:37,880 I don't know if that's controversial or not. 150 00:15:38,280 --> 00:15:39,940 But yeah, I'm really excited about that. 151 00:15:41,740 --> 00:15:42,880 Yeah, I don't know. 152 00:15:43,420 --> 00:15:47,280 That's actually, that was similar to Jack's answer, too, about being excited about other 153 00:15:47,280 --> 00:15:48,160 layer two solutions. 154 00:15:48,160 --> 00:15:48,320 Yeah. 155 00:15:48,560 --> 00:15:49,020 Oh, cool. 156 00:15:49,260 --> 00:15:49,820 All right. 157 00:15:49,820 --> 00:15:54,620 good company yeah um okay what's your perfect sunday 158 00:15:54,620 --> 00:16:06,380 okay um well i spend a lot of time in new york now um so i guess a really good sunday might be 159 00:16:06,380 --> 00:16:12,300 like going to a really good bakery because new york has like some really good food um spending 160 00:16:12,300 --> 00:16:18,700 time outside we live near central park i central park is beautiful it's really nice i think it's 161 00:16:18,700 --> 00:16:22,400 so funny when people who live in New York, when you talk to them and they're like, what do you like 162 00:16:22,400 --> 00:16:27,940 about living in New York? And they talk about the parks. And I'm like, you know what, like 97% of the 163 00:16:27,940 --> 00:16:32,720 rest of the United States has is grass and trees. And like you live in New York, but it's true. 164 00:16:32,720 --> 00:16:39,140 Central Park is really is really nice. Maybe like a museum or like a cultural event or an art thing, 165 00:16:39,220 --> 00:16:47,160 hanging out with friends, probably cooking dinner at home and hanging out with my partner. Yeah. 166 00:16:47,160 --> 00:16:54,000 something like that sounds like a lovely day yeah um so what do you think the best way is for 167 00:16:54,000 --> 00:17:01,840 universities to support the bitcoin open source ecosystem well i like to think that we are doing 168 00:17:01,840 --> 00:17:08,060 a pretty good job um we have been a stable long-term home for um some of the most senior 169 00:17:08,060 --> 00:17:14,060 developers who work on bitcoin for 10 years now 10 years so that's that's like that's like a 170 00:17:14,060 --> 00:17:15,320 century in Bitcoin time. 171 00:17:15,920 --> 00:17:23,601 Um, I think, I don't know that universities should necessarily play that huge of a role 172 00:17:23,680 --> 00:17:39,591 in a specific open source project I think what we doing is pretty unique I don know if it should be replicated or not I mean I think if there interest at different universities in replicating it that great and they should But what I would like to see is a shift in the value system 173 00:17:39,591 --> 00:17:45,411 in universities, because what you have to understand is to get your PhD, to get tenure, 174 00:17:45,411 --> 00:17:50,251 you have to publish in a very specific set of conferences or journals. You have to do a very 175 00:17:50,251 --> 00:17:55,011 certain type of work. It's like very highly specialized. It's not the same conference or 176 00:17:55,011 --> 00:17:59,551 journal like across all of computer science, even. It's like, you know, there's like 50 of them. 177 00:18:00,731 --> 00:18:06,511 And you have to speak a certain language. And I think that so far we haven't done a good job 178 00:18:06,511 --> 00:18:12,170 of matching Bitcoin up with that language. There are a lot of papers that are published in Bitcoin 179 00:18:12,170 --> 00:18:17,271 and Lightning, but I don't know that academics really totally understood the constraints and 180 00:18:17,271 --> 00:18:22,351 the value system behind it. And I think it was a lot easier for academics to sort of invent their 181 00:18:22,351 --> 00:18:27,170 own blockchain or invent their own consensus protocol, which is really unfortunate. You know, 182 00:18:27,191 --> 00:18:32,231 I hope as Bitcoin grows and becomes used more, there will be more of a research focus on it just 183 00:18:32,231 --> 00:18:37,511 because of impact. But, you know, I think we'll have to wait and see. Yeah. 184 00:18:39,751 --> 00:18:42,271 What do you think the role of stable coins should be? 185 00:18:43,051 --> 00:18:46,951 I think stable coins are pretty exciting. I know there's an argument to be made 186 00:18:47,271 --> 00:18:52,291 That they are actually, you know, some people might say stable coins aren't the end game. 187 00:18:52,551 --> 00:18:53,511 Bitcoin's the end game. 188 00:18:55,131 --> 00:18:57,811 I mean, you know, 99% of stable coins are the dollar. 189 00:18:58,211 --> 00:19:02,531 I think they reflect a demand for U.S. dollars. 190 00:19:02,531 --> 00:19:06,271 Like there's just like this voracious demand for U.S. dollars in the world. 191 00:19:06,551 --> 00:19:09,291 As an American, like this benefits me. 192 00:19:10,231 --> 00:19:14,251 So, you know, it's hard to sort of, you know, just totally go against that. 193 00:19:14,251 --> 00:19:19,611 But I and I also believe in, you know, if people want something, we should be able to give them what they want. 194 00:19:19,751 --> 00:19:22,231 You know, we shouldn't stop them from having access to what they want. 195 00:19:22,331 --> 00:19:24,430 And right now people want dollars. 196 00:19:25,471 --> 00:19:34,671 I do think just looking forward, like fast forwarding way into the future, there needs to be a more universal payment mechanism. 197 00:19:34,671 --> 00:19:43,831 Like I like I think I think we're both going to move towards more global currencies and like many, many more and fragmented currencies at the same time. 198 00:19:43,831 --> 00:20:12,851 Like, I think we need, you know, we'll probably have something. Something will replace the dollar eventually. I think it'd be great if it wasn't just another nation state's currency. It would be very cool if it were something a little bit more neutral. You know, is Bitcoin a candidate for that? Well, I think it depends on how far it can scale. And then at the same time, I think that people are just going to have way more currency. It's just going to become super easy to launch currencies. It's going to be super easy to exchange them and trade them. So I think we'll see a lot more of them. 199 00:20:13,371 --> 00:20:15,471 So I think stable coins are an important part of this journey. 200 00:20:15,791 --> 00:20:17,871 And if people want them, they should be able to access them. 201 00:20:20,051 --> 00:20:23,351 Who are some of your favorite Bitcoiners working in the space right now? 202 00:20:25,191 --> 00:20:32,991 Oh, man, I just feel like this question is going to get me in trouble because I'm going to feel bad later because I, yeah, I haven't thought about this at all. 203 00:20:33,551 --> 00:20:35,711 If you could give someone a shout out on the show. 204 00:20:36,331 --> 00:20:36,691 OK. 205 00:20:38,471 --> 00:20:40,911 I feel weird, like naming specific people. 206 00:20:40,911 --> 00:20:47,211 there are definitely some people who taught me a lot along the way and have been very patient with 207 00:20:47,211 --> 00:20:52,031 me so maybe I'll I'll name some of them so one is Jeremy Rubin he taught me a lot about Bitcoin 208 00:20:52,031 --> 00:20:59,291 he's a person at MIT who started the club and the expo and he you know he just answered all my 209 00:20:59,291 --> 00:21:05,131 stupid questions I another person who answered a lot of my stupid questions is Tadj Drijja even 210 00:21:05,131 --> 00:21:10,711 though I argued with him incessantly, he put up with it. I really enjoy collaborating with Ethan 211 00:21:10,711 --> 00:21:17,611 Heilman. I think he is like a lovely person to work with, so kind, and such a good Bitcoin academic 212 00:21:17,611 --> 00:21:24,051 person. And then, yeah, I think that there have been a lot of other people in and around the 213 00:21:24,051 --> 00:21:28,631 ecosystem who have been really generous with their time and their energy and have helped me, 214 00:21:28,791 --> 00:21:33,651 and there's too many to name. Yeah. Totally get it. Well, that leads me to my last question. 215 00:21:34,411 --> 00:21:35,151 Almost made it. Yeah. 216 00:21:36,911 --> 00:21:49,091 So speaking of kind of like people answering your questions and on your learning journey, what advice would you give to people who are either just starting to work or learn about Bitcoin or thinking about entering the space? 217 00:21:49,691 --> 00:21:52,571 Yeah, I know there's so much to learn and to understand. 218 00:21:52,571 --> 00:21:53,551 And it's super challenging. 219 00:21:54,091 --> 00:21:55,011 Just keep going. 220 00:21:55,831 --> 00:22:01,231 And there's so many more resources out there now than there were 10 years ago. 221 00:22:01,231 --> 00:22:03,791 and there's so many different ways to get involved too. 222 00:22:04,031 --> 00:22:06,331 Like I love your story and how, you know, 223 00:22:06,831 --> 00:22:08,231 the people here just like, 224 00:22:08,291 --> 00:22:10,391 it seems like they found a niche and they like stepped in. 225 00:22:10,511 --> 00:22:12,431 So things are so different now than they were 10 years ago. 226 00:22:12,531 --> 00:22:15,071 I think it's like, no matter what your skillset is, 227 00:22:15,071 --> 00:22:16,971 there's some way to get into it and get involved. 228 00:22:18,271 --> 00:22:20,871 Stay off of Twitter or X or whatever. 229 00:22:21,211 --> 00:22:22,411 It would definitely say that. 230 00:22:22,471 --> 00:22:23,711 It's just like super distracting. 231 00:22:24,231 --> 00:22:26,731 Try to find like pockets and communities of people 232 00:22:26,731 --> 00:22:29,791 that, you know, that you get along with. 233 00:22:29,851 --> 00:22:31,091 Go to your local bit devs, 234 00:22:31,091 --> 00:22:33,271 go to your local lightning devs, things like that. 235 00:22:34,271 --> 00:22:36,671 Yeah, and just the coins for everyone. 236 00:22:37,051 --> 00:22:37,151 Yeah. 237 00:22:37,791 --> 00:22:38,451 Love it. 238 00:22:39,691 --> 00:22:42,511 Well, where can our listeners like follow you, 239 00:22:42,611 --> 00:22:44,831 learn more about you, connect with you if they want to? 240 00:22:45,231 --> 00:22:45,471 Yeah. 241 00:22:45,951 --> 00:22:51,811 So the website for our org at MIT is dci.mit.edu. 242 00:22:53,351 --> 00:22:55,491 Yeah, I am on Twitter slash X. 243 00:22:55,751 --> 00:22:59,271 It's at Neha, so N-E-H-A, but I don't use it very much. 244 00:22:59,271 --> 00:23:01,391 and then you can always just email me. 245 00:23:02,151 --> 00:23:03,891 I'm kind of a boomer like that. 246 00:23:03,971 --> 00:23:04,651 I still like email. 247 00:23:05,611 --> 00:23:07,271 And so, yeah, you can Google 248 00:23:07,271 --> 00:23:08,451 and find my email pretty easily. 249 00:23:09,031 --> 00:23:09,511 Yeah, perfect. 250 00:23:09,651 --> 00:23:12,211 Well, thank you so much for making the time 251 00:23:12,211 --> 00:23:13,531 to come on the show today 252 00:23:13,531 --> 00:23:15,091 and stopping by Presidio Bitcoin. 253 00:23:15,391 --> 00:23:16,431 Yeah, thanks for having me here. 254 00:23:16,611 --> 00:23:17,331 Yeah, you're welcome. 255 00:23:17,491 --> 00:23:17,831 Anytime. 256 00:23:18,191 --> 00:23:18,371 Okay. 257 00:23:18,731 --> 00:23:19,271 Thank you.