The founder of the Bitcoin Foundation: miss the early bitcoins, optimistic about the integration of China and the US market

Source: Cointelegraph Chinese, original title "Peter Vessenes is optimistic about the integration of China and the US market, the complementarity of the two is an excellent combination"

On March 25th, the third phase of the Cointelegraph Chinese online talk show series Focus successfully ended. The moderator of this sharing is Cointelegraph Chinese CEO & Co-Founder Vadim Krekotin, and the guest is Peter Vessenes.

Peter Vessenes has deep roots in digital currency, tokenization and blockchain technology. He founded CoinLab, the first bitcoin company to receive venture capital support, and the first large-scale company to provide 65nm process bitcoin mining chips. He is also one of the co-founders of the Bitcoin Foundation, who served as the foundation's first executive director and chairman, and holds the basic patent for anonymizing Bitcoin transactions.

Vessenes provides digital currency consulting services to private and public software companies, as well as security and legal-related entities, including the U.S. Treasury, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI. He is the lead cryptographer at Deluge Network, a system that allows investors to use Bitcoin directly to participate in 1CO over Ethernet, and the Metronome project. The goal of the Metronome project is to create a "political digital currency" that spans multiple blockchains.

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The theme of this event is "Demystifying US Regulatory Development and Exploring New Opportunities for China-US Market Integration." The entire sharing consisted of two parts, the first part was an online interview session, and the second part was a free communication session.

Excerpts from the exciting interviews are as follows:

1.Institutes such as Coinbase, Kraken, and Pantera cooperated with the regulatory authorities in the early stage to obtain a relatively relaxed regulatory environment and occupied an overwhelming lead;

2. The United States has a hybrid internal regulatory incentive mechanism, and more innovations will occur under the loosest supervision possible;

3.In the early days, if the bitcoin brand developed more in the direction of open permissions and tolerance, it would have greater potential;

4. Regarding the Mt.Gox incident, like other creditors, I hope to see the trustee work out a repayment plan that can be reviewed;

5. Peter disclosed the six major areas of China-US blockchain fund Capital 6 Eagle's foreign investment;

6. Peter Vessenes is launching a new project-the Bitcoin paper currency project, hoping that ordinary people have the opportunity to own, hold and trade cryptocurrencies;

7. STO has faced multiple difficulties in recent years, but I still believe that regulated tokenized products will be born;

8, optimistic about the integration of China and the US market, the complementarity of the two is an excellent combination;

9. Now that the industry infrastructure is under construction, I am more willing to work in the laboratory and innovate.

Cointelegraph Chinese (referred to as CTC) Focus is an online interview column initiated by Cointelegraph Chinese, focusing on the hottest topics in the world, continuing to invite global blockchain trendsetters to participate in in-depth dialogues, and continuously tracking and discussing industry hot topics.

The following is a wonderful record of the sharing process:

1. Vadim: Very honored to host this event! Thank you for your attention!

The topic we are discussing today is: "Demystifying US regulatory development and exploring new opportunities for China-US market integration."

Hi, Peter! You are the first person to talk to Bitcoin with the US Treasury. Is there any story behind this? Why did they choose you to discuss this? What did they discuss with you for the first time?

Peter: Earlier, governments were working hard to understand Bitcoin, because everything was very decentralized, so they didn't even know who to talk to. During the critical period of the industry's development, the Bitcoin Foundation temporarily assumed this role.

We were originally invited to meet with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the anti-money laundering enforcement department of the Treasury, which was then led by Jennifer Shasky Calvery.

What they are most worried about and interested in is the law enforcement aspect of Bitcoin-they want to know what is happening, who is doing what, and other issues like that. Calvery said something that will immortalize me forever: "We think things are overwhelmed."

She went on to explain that what she meant was roughly that they acknowledged that they couldn't stop the Bitcoin epidemic and that they would try to work with already regulated institutions to find out how the “undulating” regulatory path should proceed.

It turns out that this is a very good strategy. It gave some early bitcoin businesses and funds an overwhelming lead: Coinbase, Kraken, and Pantera all have regulatory space to develop their own business models without significant pressure.

I would like to say that in the face of a series of recent innovations, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has done very poorly in supervising U.S. companies, and the supervision is very strong. Nothing can be done in the United States.

Vadim: Do you think they will change their attitude towards the industry in the future?

Hmm … I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly-but the SEC and FinCEN are two very different organizations-FinCEN is mainly run by law enforcement and the Ministry of Finance, which is a former financial industry executive and A hybrid of lifelong government employees. They are very different groups, each with different methods of regulation.

2. Vadim: You have been an adviser to the Department of Homeland Security and Deloitte. What are their biggest concerns? What do you think of the US government's attitude towards Bitcoin?

Now many traditional companies are doing more and more cryptocurrency related work, Facebook has launched Libra, and JP Morgan has also done a lot on the JPM Coin project. Last month, some people said that JP Morgan is promoting its internal blockchain unit Quorum Merger with ConsenSys, an Ethereum-based software developer.

Other companies involved in cryptocurrencies include Bakkt, CME, Fidelity, etc. With the increasing participation of these traditional companies, people in the blockchain industry feel that more opportunities are emerging. On the other hand, we see that the SEC continues to impede Libra's stablecoin and does not specifically support applications for cryptocurrency ETFs. More than a dozen ETF proposals have been rejected.

Based on your extensive experience in government and corporate consulting, what specific issues do you think your company needs to address? What exactly is the SEC or government seeking? How will Bitcoin / cryptocurrency develop in the future?

Peter: Most of the government agencies I have worked with are concerned about serious law enforcement issues-those really offensive activities, I mean there are things that I hope I have never heard of, and definitely do n’t happen again. I am relieved. It was unclear in 2012 whether there would be "somewhat" coercive measures in the United States. In the United States, there are not many such cases in the United States other than the SEC, although the records of the IRS's summoning of Coinbase are similar.

In general, most of the institutions I have worked with are good people doing good deeds, and almost all of them (this is a big secret!) Have their own cryptocurrency.

As far as businesses are concerned, solving problems, achieving inclusive finance, opening permissions, and disrupting rent-seeking behavior of long-term participants in the financial industry are all very good goals. Let me give you a hint that JPMorgan Chase will not undermine rent-seeking behavior, no matter how innovative their cryptocurrency department is.

The SEC has to take into account many aspects. Keep in mind that the United States has multiple regulators to regulate complex financial products-the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is one of them. So (in the United States) there is a mixed set of internal regulatory incentives, including expanding one's terms of reference relative to other institutions, US imperialism, etc., and then there are some motives I call "good", such as protecting citizens from Fraud, Ponzi scheme prevention, etc.

In my opinion, we will continue to see that, as far as the regulation is as loose as possible, real innovation appears intermittently-after all, financial innovation in the United States requires a lot of money and time, and risks. Unfortunately for Americans, the wealth of innovation (because of regulatory issues) is largely isolated.

It cannot be overemphasized that the benefits of a more relaxed and innovative regulatory system. Because it's important.

3. Vadim: The Bitcoin Foundation was one of the most outstanding organizations in the ecosystem. You are the co-founder of the Bitcoin Foundation. We know that you resigned from the position of the Bitcoin Foundation, not only because of housework (you Adopted a South African child) and because you think it ’s going in the wrong direction.

So, how do you see the failure of foundations in governance, transparency, and finance? Do you think this reveals the trajectory of human development? How should one balance the growing demand for decentralization with the ever-present material pursuit?

Peter: Leaving the Bitcoin Foundation is a bittersweet thing-at the beginning, I wanted to make it a place to build a good brand reputation for Bitcoin globally and provide a collaborative collaboration for the industry and individuals. place.

I'm glad my idea is clearly correct-people do need to organize and collaborate. The pain is that I failed to bring the best leadership to the top of the organization-two directors were jailed, and another director was charged with a crime but not sentenced. I worked hard, trying to remove influencers that I thought should not exist in the Bitcoin Fund, but ultimately couldn't maintain the leadership to my satisfaction, so I decided to leave.

At the time, Bitcoin was a complex of liberals, cyberpunk / cryptocurrency anarchists, and money laundering. I think that if the bitcoin brand develops more in the direction of open permissions and tolerance, there will be greater potential. In essence, this way it can stand out. For example, when I used my real name on bitcointalk, it caused a lot of controversy because only a few people used the real name at the time.

But I think we need to be more involved than hide our identities.

In any case, there will no longer be something like the Bitcoin Foundation in the industry, but I'm still glad I founded this foundation with Gavin Andresen, and may do it again, but I will change to choose the board leader Layer approach to make it more international from the start.

4. Vadim: Would you mind talking more about Mt.Gox? It was previously reported that the Mt.Gox website was hacked in 2011, and subsequently filed for bankruptcy in early 2014, losing about 850,000 BTC (at the time worth about $ 460 million), and about 24,000 creditors were affected.

It is said that you own the shares of Mt.Gox, and so far you have filed a $ 16 billion claim in a legal process "Civil Rebirth" of Mt.Gox, but your claim has been considered by other parties as a creditor An obstacle. You have never talked about this formally. Would you mind sharing more information on this issue here?

Unfortunately, 7 years have passed and we are "still" in a lawsuit, but I cannot say more. What I want to say is that we have been working hard and actively promoting a real trial so that we can get a fair verdict; it is very likely that we will start the trial in Tokyo this year, and now that the epidemic has been postponed, it is all right.

Now, all of us, including us, are waiting for the trustee to come up with an auditable repayment plan. Believe me, we, like other creditors, want to see this plan.

We have received considerable benefits from investors and other creditors who are trying to use this lawsuit to deal with the risks they face in bankruptcy and hope to obtain satisfactory returns under ideal circumstances. Therefore, we may consider providing litigation channels to the wider investor community in the future, but all this remains to be determined.

Vadim: We understand your situation very well. We also understand that due to legal factors, the information you can share with us is very limited. Anyway, thank you for your discussion and advancement of the case.

5. Vadim: As a cryptocurrency expert, how do you view the technological development of blockchain in this decade? In order to meet the needs of different communities, different consensus mechanisms have emerged after PoW, such as PoS, DPoS, PBFT, DBFT, Pool verificfica-Pool, etc. What do you think of these different consensus mechanisms? What project technology excites you? Can you explain it in detail?

Peter: The last project that really excited me was Ethereum. Not that we haven't seen interesting innovations since then, but Ethereum is a huge leap forward for Bitcoin.

But I can also talk a little more about "modern" blockchain technology. We have just completed the investment of the blockchain fund Capital 6 Eagle with my Chinese partner. I can tell you what I am investing in:

1. Infrastructure that can make decentralized ledger technology faster and cheaper-we need technology that is two to three orders of magnitude faster, and when this infrastructure appears, it will change a lot of things;

2. Stablecoin project and asset tokenization technology;

3. Identity authentication project;

4. Safety data on the chain;

5. Wallet / other access infrastructure;

6. Decentralized transaction technology.

There was a crazy paper last year, the MAST paper, that really got me thinking about Blockstream. That paper provided a way to perform provable calculations using only software. This method is very, very slow, but the concept is deep and very interesting for verifiability.

I'm not going to elaborate on this paper here, but MAST stands for Merkle-ized Abstract Syntax Tree.

6. Vadim: Congratulations on the establishment of the new blockchain fund! I think many people here are willing to cooperate with the foundation. You started paying attention to smart contracts in 2014 and set up New Alchemy in 2016. What is your main plan for this year?

Peter: I have three things to do this year: first is to work on c6e.vc. We find that our Chinese limited partners really value the opportunity to contact and connect with western technology projects. At the same time, the US limited partners also want to work with China. Investor and technology cooperation. So the new fund is highly attractive and interesting, and I have great expectations for it.

Secondly, I want to start a new project, which is still a secret so far, but I can also announce it-this is a Bitcoin banknote project. Unlike some other hardware wallet projects, we are working to embed the chip directly into the banknote. We will issue a series of statements, but we are still working with a large global currency producer and have found one of the best currency designers in the world to reach an agreement with them to make these banknotes.

More information should be released in the next few months, but I am excited about this project because trading cryptocurrencies is very difficult and I hope to give ordinary people the opportunity to own, hold and trade cryptocurrencies.

Finally, we are working on launching a Shenzhen incubator, which may be launched in the third quarter of this year, so this is also very exciting. I like the dynamism and pace of Chinese business, and I want to provide guidance, funding and advice for a new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs, which is really exciting.

7. Vadim: Have you invested in a blockchain company? If so, what are the criteria for your investment?

Peter: Yes, we are actively investing in companies through Capital 6 Eagle. If we feel we can provide key technical support, we will also occasionally invest through New Alchemy.

Peter: I want to say that we are the strongest seed in the A / A + round series. New Alchemy also makes strategic / technical investments, which can be very broad.

8. Vadim: You are also interested in STO, and once said in 2018 that the STO's circulation will be very large in the future, but we have not seen much progress in this area at present. What do you think now?

Peter: Regarding STO, I chose the wrong time, which is almost the same as admitting that I was wrong. The difficulties in the past few years have been a mix of technology, regulatory tempo and market collapse. Coupled with the earlier STOs issued in the United States are very bad-the price is very low, and it must be worse for buyers than similar publicly traded or encrypted products, or worse than both.

However, I still insist on my previous prediction: Over the years, I have increasingly believed in the concept of undocumented innovation. STO must build a bridge between a regulated and unregulated world, and it is precisely because of the interaction between the two worlds that this work is very difficult.

However, I still believe that there will be the emergence of tokenized products for regulatory oversight. New Alchemy has been working in Europe for several years and the region now has real market demand and interest. I just think that in the near future, no high-quality products will appear in the United States for the time being.

9. Vadim: artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and the blockchain. From a scientific perspective, how do you see the combination of these three? How can these new technologies work better?

Peter: This question is too big! All I can say is that Bitcoin has provided computer financial institutions with funding to give them the ability to act on their own behalf. This is far-reaching, but so far such innovations have only affected less than 1% of the world.

10. Vadim: What do you think are the main differences between Chinese and Western markets? What do you think of the market integration between China and the United States?

Peter: I think the Chinese and American markets are best integrated. Overall, Chinese business rhythm and optimism are very helpful for American companies. However, the United States seems to be really good at global business, and we have a deep pool of technology and investment talent. This combination is great, so I am really happy to launch our China-US Cooperation Fund.

Liu Mingkang and other pioneers in China's financial system are skeptical of neoliberal economic policies, and they are right to do so because they are clearly more conducive to large, wealthy financial institutions.

This lasting wisdom and insight that led the Chinese economy in the 1980s and 1990s has had a profound and beneficial impact on China. I think this is a subtle but real difference. China still has this regulatory body. They have created huge growth and wealth, and they are still alive. And US regulators are more concerned about the growing bureaucracy and dealing directly with the financial sector. This is a profound difference between the Chinese and American systems. There are a lot of great things in the United States, but I think China's focus on growth and its willingness to pursue the right policy will produce results in the next 10 years.

11. Vadim: Once you mentioned that you "remembered" the early bitcoins. At that time, bitcoin was completely decentralized and was mined only on personal computers. Do you support that the modern ecosystem with large mines and data centers is the right direction for the development of the industry, or are there problems in those places that have led to the development of the industry?

Peter: If I had a magic wand, I would definitely abolish industrial mining. It is a difficult problem to solve.

However, I think the current mining situation is not stable. The business model will have more innovation. For example, during the war between BCH and BTC, I think it's very interesting that companies like Coinbase will use their user platforms to promote what they want-so why don't they invest in mining? This way they can really manipulate the voting results.

By the way, the answer to this question is at least to a certain extent related to regulation. This is true for Coinbase and its investors, but the problem is also related to the entire social environment. It depends on people's different views on mining.

From past experience, miners generally do not use their influence to make money, or at least usually use very gentle ways to make money, which may not be what Satoshi Nakamoto wants.

When I talk to people who design modern cryptocurrency systems, I think they sometimes forget the incredible power that decentralized mining bases provide-for a progressive innovator, real censorship resistance is invaluable.

I can continue, but I think the industry still has a lot of work to do in mining.

12. Vadim: At the beginning of 2018, you said that industry innovation should be measured with this question: "What is the proportion of innovations that are being implemented compared to the innovations that have already been achieved?" Your answer is less than 5%. Do you think the industry is still at the same stage? What should we do to make a qualitative leap in the development of the industry? Peter: I do think there is still a lot of innovation to be done. In fact, I don't think there has been any "super material" in the past two years. We can see that the infrastructure is under construction, which is a good thing. But we need another combination like V God and Gav, or we need one of them to pull Linus Torvalds and run Git on Linux.

I do have some ideas related to innovation, but I have nothing to share. One of the weird things about our industry is that we need some star power to launch products, but I'm not very willing to do these things, I'm more willing to work in the laboratory and innovate-it requires a different group of people.

One more tip-I want to point out that when anyone or a computer can make a stable value transaction anywhere in the world, we will go further on the road to innovation. This will be a good moment when we have crossed the starting line and now it is time to consider what we want to do.

13. Vadim: You mentioned earlier that you have experienced eight Bitcoin crashes. The price dropped from $ 8 to 50 cents and from $ 16 to $ 2, which was very tragic. Do you think the market has become more stable recently and we will not see a 10 to 15 times drop or increase?

Peter: We see real fluctuations these days, and I expect there will be more fluctuations, haha.

14. Vadim: If you saw Satoshi Nakamoto, what would you say to him?

Peter: Why do you think I have nothing to say to him? I want to say thank you to Satoshi Nakamoto. We have the leaders we need. Fortunately, he is better than the leaders we deserve.

Wonderful review of interactive Q & A session:

Q1: Zhang Songtao:

What kind of role do you think China currently plays in the blockchain world? What do you expect from China's participation in this industry?

Peter: Obviously, mining has a deep foundation in China, whether it is industrial mining or commercial mining.

We have also seen a variety of projects born, some very new and some not so new.

I have been looking for interesting ideas in Chinese projects, and I appreciate the huge scale that some Chinese companies can bring, which are great.

Globally, I think that it is a wise decision for China to directly participate in the bitcoin industry. Chinese developers have begun to invest time in developing core customers and gradually narrowing some gaps. Of course this is a big topic, so let's focus on Bitcoin for the time being.

Q2: Kevin Shao (Shao Jianliang):

In addition to China and the United States, what other countries and regions may become a dark horse in the future blockchain, or can occupy an important position?

Peter: I think we should focus on countries with open regulatory positions that can tolerate decentralized exchanges and financial markets.

There are now several candidate countries, Singapore, Switzerland, and stateless areas. I think blockchain is an area where no country has done its best, so there is still room for development in each country.

Q3: Jay Liang

Democrats in Congress propose to distribute the New Crown Virus Economic Aid to the poor in the U.S. through digital currency. Does the Treasury have any response and action plan?

Peter: This proposal from Congress is very interesting! But the Senate version of the bill excludes digital currencies.

In the United States, the poorest people do not have bank accounts, which is a sad fact, and digital dollars would be a good solution for many of them.

However, I think it seems too ambitious to include it in the relief bill. But no matter what he came up with, he was right. I also don't know how the government intends to provide financial assistance directly to those who do not have bank accounts.

Q4: Stanty @ IBG:

I would like to ask Peter, what do you think is the most important thing in the blockchain crypto world, and what does Bitcoin mean to you?

Well, for me, it's all about choice, personal choice. And a group of nerds studying math and computers could make the US government change management policies by releasing open source code, which is far-reaching. Here is a quote from an important person-this is a blow to freedom.

I also think that the unintended consequence of open source code is that computers and artificial intelligence will be able to handle money matters. The consequences are huge and the world is changing. We will witness this change in our lives, a huge change.

Q5: BNcaptial Wayne:

In the tide of time, liberals and conservatives are always fighting.

Human history has gone through many stages when the world was ruled by philosophers, religions, machines, and the Internet.

Now AI and other technologies are joining in.Blockchain technology is processing data in order to better capture the circulation and appearance of potentially different values ​​that have not been realized for a long time.

And tech giants like Google have turned to philosophers. It's interesting. Can these philosophers and technical experts work together to gain the power to rule the world? This is a very open question. How do you see the development of this situation, it is also a dangerous but must be asked question.

Peter: I do think it's fun to hire philosophers at large tech companies. Their doubling of their tech power to the user base has changed the world.

I like the book Who owns the future? It is written by Jaron Lanier, a philosopher working for Microsoft. This book is a bit outdated now, but it discusses a question: Is the way we make software fair to society (and the author's answer is no).

In addition, philosophers have few opportunities to get rich. I think we can see that when they are tempted by greed, their moral values ​​may have different applications. On the other hand, things like cryptocurrency give me a lot of hope-true cryptocurrency believers are usually really helping the world, and I love our community and industry.

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