Topic: 2012-12-10 digitaltrends.com - The future of money: It’s not in your hands (Read 2120 times)

Paul Jozefak
Leveraging his experience from leading positions in SAP Ventures Europe and Neuhaus Partners venture capital fund, Paul has founded and is currently running Liquid Labs GmbH, an "innovation laboratory" helping to develop companies in the financial tech and financial services space. Paul hails from both Slovakia and the US, and is now based in Hamburg, Germany.

The firm that german guy (Paul Jozefak) works at, http://www.liquidlabs.de/, is a pretty interesting venture (just read their webpage for a while because they're based in Hamburg where I live and I was interested). Maybe something will come from them at some point.

Imho it doesn't really matter who presents bitcoin and how they present it. If there where any issues with security it would have made headlines and anyone with sense hearing you can use it for gambling, drugs, liquor and loose women knows its already accepted in all the best places so the rest will catch up soon enough.

Imho, classic stuff. Jesse Powell meeting with big money to present bitcoin... with a journalist in tow, far south of formal and quite likely buzzing and then coming out with the opening statement:

Not got to the end of it yet but Thompson couldn't have told it much better

We don't just speculate like a think tank. We build. Our investor is a large financial services company with years of success and vision for tomorrow. It gives us access to know-how, marketing channels, capital and a constant feedback loop which is critical for success.

..We are about to be bombarded with a staggering array of new payment choices, none of which need to exist, but that the Money2020 crew – from Google on down – are hell-bent on forcing upon us. There will be a hundred different wallets, a thousand pre-paid cards, a billion loyalty rewards programs, and a whole layer of other services offering condensed versions of everything, which claim to be easier to understand. They aren’t. It’s a mystifying mess, and there’s absolutely nothing new on the horizon, besides Bitcoin.

You know, the one used for drug purchases and child porn.

Not every bitcoiner but certainly those who want to go to expos, conferences, and trade shows.  The sad thing is on top of being a horribly bad comment (almost black flag bad), it is completely untrue.  

Hi my name is X and I am advocating "Y".  Let me start by ensuring my target audience tunes out by throwing out a completely irresponsible and false statement.  My target audience won't know it is false and since I am the expert are likely to believe me.  Anyone potentially interested is now not interested and this is how I advocate for "Y".

The only good news is Bitcoin is so powerful that when thrown under the bus by it's own "supporters" the potential still shines through the horrible presentation.


Actually it was BTC in their eyes.   Nice article though.   Good to see more "mainstream" articles about bitcoin.   

I loved the article but seriously, every bitcoiner needs to take a public speaking class or something.

I loved the article but seriously, every bitcoiner needs to take a public speaking class or something.

That’s his pitch?! Drugs and kiddie porn? I can’t believe it – this acid-soaked fool has blown his big chance in one sentence. Who would invest in a thing like that? I look up to see the whole table recoil, their faces blank, not knowing how to react. Suddenly, Paul laughs. “Tell us more!” he says, and the rest of the crew nods in giddy agreement.

Unshaken, Powell goes on to exalt the benefits of Bitcoin while admitting the pitfalls of a small, volatile market that is regularly targeted by hackers. The money men around the table appear entirely undeterred by the risks. I can see dollar signs in their eyes.

Each one of these companies – around 65 in total – have their own “innovative” product to sell. Digital wallets, payment dongles, piles of pre-paid debits cards, ‘social banking,’ payment solutions, credit cards packed with gifting and “reward” schemes – a whole jumbled mess of jargon that some witless bastard dubbed “Banking 2.0.”

Banking has been around for 4,000 years, and we’re just now getting to version two.

I loved the article but seriously, every bitcoiner needs to take a public speaking class or something.

Now is Powell’s big chance, I think. These guys have the power to throw money at the thing he cares about most. I hold my breath, curious how he’ll spin it.
“Well,” says Powell, “it’s an entirely digital currency. Right now, people only use it to buy drugs on this site called Silk Road – that and child pornography. I think it has a lot of potential.”

...I re-caffeinate and meander back toward the front of the room. Just then, I spot something interesting: A small Bitcoin booth, somehow hidden in the center of the room, surrounded by a crew of three guys who are clearly decades younger than anyone else at Money2020.

A hacker friend of mine clued me into Bitcoin a few years back. And I’d seen the random blog post about it since then. But I still don’t fully grasp the concept. A black-haired guy, about my height, dressed in a slightly wrinkled, blue button-down shirt and khaki pants turns my way as I approach the Bitcoin kiosk. The badge around his neck tells me his name is Roger Ver

Bitcoin, Ver explains, is the only truly new idea in the financial industry, and “the most important invention since the Internet!” Whereas credit cards and digital wallets are simply advanced ways to spend cash, Bitcoin is an entirely separate, digital currency, controlled by no nation. All purchases are entirely anonymous, and heavily encrypted.

“It’s more stable than the U.S. dollar. And because each new Bitcoin is produced by a complex algorithm, it’s impossible to just make new Bitcoins anytime you want, like the Fed does with dollars,” Ver concludes. “That’s probably why no country will ever adopt it.”

Now this is something I could get excited about: A rogue currency that flies in the face of the entire world financial system. Anonymous. Digital. Unadulterated by politics. Mathematically pure. Bitcoin isn’t just unique; it’s punk rock – the antithesis of all the other mothballed nonsense I’d seen at Money2020....

...We are about to be bombarded with a staggering array of new payment choices, none of which need to exist, but that the Money2020 crew – from Google on down – are hell-bent on forcing upon us. There will be a hundred different wallets, a thousand pre-paid cards, a billion loyalty rewards programs, and a whole layer of other services offering condensed versions of everything, which claim to be easier to understand. They aren’t. It’s a mystifying mess, and there’s absolutely nothing new on the horizon, besides Bitcoin.

You know, the one used for drug purchases and child porn.