Part 3: Using Bitcoin in Zimbabwe – Bitcoin in Africa: The Ubuntu Way

In the third part of the six-part series about Bitcoin in Africa you will hear from two early bitcoin adopters based in Harare. We speak about the different use-cases for bitcoin, how it can be exchanged to US Dollar and RTGS (local currency), what the obstacles and pros are, about regulation and what the two online entrepreneurs want to tell people outside of Africa.
After the two interviews I will answer a listener’s question about the possibilities for rural communities to use bitcoin.

Part 2 Zimbabwe: Living in a Multi-Currency World – Bitcoin in Africa: The Ubuntu Way

In the first episode you learned about the current living situation of Zimbabweans and the countrys political history, which paints a picture about why things are how they are as well as the state of human rights and free speech. In this episode you will get to know the multi-currency world, the different forms and usages of money as well as the price fluctuations that Zimbabweans are dealing with day by day. We also take a look at the current regulations of cryptocurrencies, the usage of mobile payments and internet connections and the prospects of Bitcoin.

Part 1 Zimbabwe: Ideal Conditions for Bitcoin? – Bitcoin in Africa: The Ubuntu Way

In this 1st part of the “Bitcoin in Africa” podcast documentary you get an insight about the current living situation of Zimbabweans and the countrys political history, which paints a picture about why things are how they are, as well as the state of human rights and free speech.

In February 2020 right before the quarantine and travel restrictions due to the Corona Virus pandemic started, I travelled Zimbabwe and Botswana to get a picture from the ground about the usage of Bitcoin in these countries. Zimbabwe and Venezuela are very ofted named as countries where Bitcoin could be making a difference, in supporting people’s economic situation. I wanted to see by myself, if this is true and in how far Bitcoin is known and used there.

Andreas M. Antonopoulos Busting Arguments Against Bitcoin and Revealing Real Risks

In this podcast episode common misconceptions and FUD about Bitcoin like high volatility, energy consumption, inequalities in the distribution of wealth and the risk of possible failure are addressed by Andreas M. Antonopoulos. Andreas is one of the most influential and well-respected voices in the Bitcoin and Blockchain space. With four books, over 300 videos on YouTube and almost half a million followers on Twitter he is educating millions about this groundbreaking technology. I was lucky to get him for a second interview after this about privacy, human rights and the future of Bitcoin in 2018.

Lisa Neigut: Bitcoin Is Mind-Boggling Cool and How She Became a C-Lightning Developer

Lisa Neigut is an engineer and developer at Blockstream working on c-lightning. We met at the Lightning Conference in Berlin in October 2019 and talked about a variety of topics ranging from quantum experiments, Bitcoin in general, stocks as currency, to the future of the Lightning Network. Before that she was working at Squarecash and at Etsy as an Android developer. People who want to start a career in programming and technology should listen to her story of how she got hired as a lightning developer without fitting the profile.

Jan Čapek and Pavel Moravec: Bitcoiners by Heart Lead Us Behind the Scenes of Pool Mining

We will take a non-technical look into bitcoin mining in this episode. My guests are Jan Čapek and Pavel Moravec, the CEOs and Founders of Braiins, the company that is operating Slush pool, which is the world’s first bitcoin mining pool with more than 1 000 000 BTC mined since 2010. Jan and Pavels company is located in the Czech Republic in Prague. They are bitcoiners by heart and explain how pool mining works, what the challenges for miners are to be profitable, share their thoughts about the electricity consumption of proof-of-work and what they believe bitcoin will be in the future.

Austin E. Alexander: Bitcoin Is a Complete, Total Game Changer. It’s an Opt-Out.

Austin E. Alexander is working for the office of the CEO at Kraken. He joined Kraken at the end of 2013. Back then, Kraken had only 20 to 30 employees. Today it is one of the biggest and most respected crypto exchanges in the world. I met Austin at several bitcoin conferences and at the Baltic Honeybadger in Riga in October, we finally sat down to chat about his career and the developments in the bitcoin space since 2011. In 2013 he was co-founding the Bitcoin Center New York with Nick Spanos. He talks about how enthusiastically they have built the center and about the problems they ran into in the dawn of the Bit License. We also discuss his learnings in 2019 while visiting Uganda, Somalia, South Africa and Zimbabwe and much more.

Jameson Lopp: Bitcoin Will Never Die, It’s a Pure Form of Economic Interaction

Jameson Lopp is very well known in the Bitcoin space for his wide expertise on security, technology and privacy. He is maintaining and curating a Bitcoin resources page with links to valuable information on Bitcoin and since his house was swatted by police in 2017 after an unknown attacker reported a false hostage situation, he is a cypherpunk at heart. Jameson is the CTO at Casa, a company devoted to providing products for personal sovereignty.

Smuggler: A Cryptoanarchists View on Bitcoin, Democracy, Dark Nets and Privacy

Sometimes my guests are rather critical about bitcoin, which I think, is a good thing. Bitcoiners tend to be full of hopium and forget to look for possible downsides. But only with critical thinking, things can be improved. Todays guest is Smuggler, a cryptoanarchist I met at the Hackers Congress in Prague. We had a wide ranging conversation about cryptoanarchy, privacy, technology and democracy and he shares some - at least in the Bitcoin space - unpopular opinions about Bitcoin. He also shares some methods to escape mass surveillance on your phone and computer. I think it is a great conversation, which is why it is longer than usual.

Dan Held: Silicon Valley Fundamentally Doesn’t Understand Bitcoin

Dan Held is the Director of Business Development for all products of Kraken. Kraken is one of the worlds biggest and well known cryptocurrency exchanges. Before that he co-founded and developed products like ZeroBlock and Interchange, that were aquired later on. In between he served in the rider growth team at Uber. He lives and works in Silicon Valley. We met at the Baltic Honeybadger Conference in Riga and discussed topics like the bitcoin distribution, what he finds surprising about Satoshi Nakamotos ideas, a possible bitcoin supercycle that’s in the making and much more.

Pamela Morgan on Inheritance Planning for Crypto-Assets

In this episode I am talking with Pamela Morgan. She is the author of “Crypto-Asset Inheritance Planning: A Simple Guide for Owners” a book about strategies to store your private keys for bitcoin and other digital assets safely for your heirs. Pamela is an educator, attorney and entrepreneur. She has studied Business and Computer Programming before pursuing a Juris Doctors degree. In early 2015 Pamela has founded Thirdkey solutions (with Andreas M. Antonopoulos as CTO), a key consulting firm that works with individuals and organizations to improve the security of their crypto-holdings and ensure these assets are accessible in the event of crisis, death, or disaster.

Matt Corallo on the Social Good of Bitcoin and the Mindset of a Bitcoin Developer

Early Bitcoin Core developer Matt Corallo started working on Bitcoin in 2011. At that time he still attended high school and lived in Germany near Frankfurt am Main. He was a cofounder of Blockstream before he started working on open source projects for Bitcoin at Chaincode Labs in New York. We discuss many different topics, ranging from his interest in Bitcoin at the beginning, to current issues like miner centralization, projects he is working on – Fibre, BetterHash and Rust lightning to the music he likes.

Jimmy Song: Bitcoin Makes Human Civilization Grow Again

“Regret is thinking you’re late. Gratitude is thinking you’re early. It’s still early to get Bitcoin.”, says Jimmy Song. He is a bitcoin educator, developer, entrepreneur, a lover of cowboy hats and boots and, as you can see on Twitter, a philosopher. He is the author of “Programming Bitcoin” and a co-author of “The Little Bitcoin Book“. I sat down to have a chat with him at the Baltic Honeybadger conference in Riga.