Few people in the public Bitcoin space have made more impact than Peter McCormack, a veteran of the crypto markets and host of the popular ‘What Bitcoin Did’ podcast. The Bitcoin allure—as is with most early crypto users—began back when McCormack discovered the asset could be used in the exchange for goods and services on the dark web, and there was no looking back since.
But McCormack, who worked in sectors like advertising and sports marketing before jumping down the Bitcoin rabbithole, didn’t exactly have it served-all-on-a-platter.
In a podcast today with Alex Fazel of crypto edutainment channel Cryptonites, McCormack reminisced the many snippets of his life that help shape the person he is today—such as going from near-broke to meeting the President of Bitcoin-friendly El Salvador in a Metallica T-shirt.
There are also equal doses of laughter and technical points centered around Bitcoin, plus predictions of where McCormack sees the broader ecosystem going in the next few years.
It’s an episode you wouldn’t wanna miss, but here are some impactful quotes from the two-part show!
On what makes Bitcoin beautiful
“It’s so simple, is basically a ledger that keeps a record of who’s got what that’s basically order. That’s the beauty of it is like everything else has so many rules about who can do the bank. You can only use it this time. A day. Or if you send a payment, you get it at this time.”
“Like, there are so many different rules. No, you can’t do this, like, we live in a world where we’ve got the government just create more and more f*****g rules, they get bigger and bigger, more rules. And then suddenly there is this thing that they can’t do f**k all about, you know if I want to send you some Bitcoin, you get it.”
“And if I want to send it to a guy in Iran, I can do it. And if I want to send it someone, if someone in Iran wants to send something, somebody in us, and they send that to North Korea, nobody can stop that.
“And that is, that is beautiful because that opens up so many possibilities.”
On the asset’s simplicity
“Its [Bitcoin’s] beauties is just its simplicity. Everything else is also so complicated, like a theorem to me so complicated. Bitcoin [is] so simple, it is just a ledger. And it has to do a couple of things really well. One is it has to be as maximally decentralized as possible, which he does a pretty good job of. And it has to do that to be to maintain censorship resistance. And secondly, it has to enforce the 21 million hard cap, or everything else is bogus.”
“It’s just beautifully simple. But what do you get off the back of that? You get people able to send money to people they need, you get a country able to defend itself against the US dollar in El Salvador, you get companies able to protect themselves against currency debasement as well as individuals, you get people to be able to save. And then on top of this, Bitcoin does change your mindset.”
“So people listening to you are watching your show. They might not be into Bitcoin. But I’m telling you, everyone I know has gone into it. they’ve shifted their life, they’ve shifted their attitude to family, food, exercise, consumption. And it’s just a beautiful thing. And all it is is just the ledger. It’s incredible. And it’s a ledger that can genuinely or blockchain can do is genuinely changing the world again, I know it sounds hyperbolic, but it just is.”
On Bitcoin critics like Peter Schiff
All these f**kers are on Twitter always deriding Bitcoin. I think you can criticize the volatility, and I know we’ve got an excuse for everything. But, you know, we can excuse volatility, but we have to accept that makes it a difficult savings technology or a medium exchange for certain people. I accept that you can criticize that.”
“But when you say Bitcoin has failed, or you say Bitcoin has no use case, you’re either lying or intellectually dishonest. I even tweeted out: I said, “Okay, if Bitcoin has no use case, can you tell me how you can send a remittance from any country in the world to any other country in the world? Instant and near-free? Just tell me how you can do that. Please tell me, honestly, if you can tell me, I’m with you. And if I want to get money to a protester in Nigeria, how can I do that? When they’re switched off in the banking system? Just tell me I can do that. And you can. And no one says you can. I mean, you already you can say I could do it with a theory because it’s another crypto right?”
“Strictly speaking, if you just say if you use Bitcoin as the kingpin for crypto, there’s nothing we can do it better, cheaper, faster. And there’s liquidity in every country in the world. So those people, what they’re actually fighting against is human freedom. Because these use cases are remittance puts more money in the hands of the people in need and remittances. Usually, people sending money to friends or family or the poor. That’s what remittances for us. People in El Salvador and us send it to their families in El Salvador because they need money for food or living.”
(Interested in a short glimpse into McCormack’s life before crypto? Want to know what he feels about the rest of the crypto market? Catch the rest of the Cryptonites podcast right below!)
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