ACAPULCO, Mexico - Feb. 18, 2018
By JOSH FRIEDMAN, The Nomadic Journalist
Day 1:
Blogging Anarchapulco #aca2018
Anarchapulco Day 1 #aca2018
Day 2:
Anarchapulco Day 2 #aca2018
Day 3:
Anarchapulco Day 3 #aca2018
9:40 a.m. - Buenos dias from the Princess Mundo Imperial
9:45 a.m. - T-minus 15 minutes until the kickoff of the 4th and final day of Anarchapulco 2018, which happens to double as CRYPTOPULCO
10:02 a.m. - In Anarchapulco style, there is a shuffling of speakers at Cryptopulco. No word of any detentions or political prisoners, though.
10:03 a.m. - Simon Dixon, of Bank to the Future, is up first and currently on stage.
Dixon on fractional reserve banking:
“There is no fraction. There is no reserve. They simply create as much money as people are willing to borrow within their business model.”
10:06 a.m. - Bold prediction #1 of the day: Every person in the world will understand and use crypto in the next 5 to 10 years, according to Dixon.
“You put your money in a bank. The bank owns that money. With bitcoin you own that money,” Dixon, who previously fled the finance sector, said.
Bitcoin encourages savings:
“People want to spend shit money that is inflated away,” Dixon said. “People want to save money that is going to be worth more in the future.”
10:15 a.m. - Let's jump right into the Bitcoin scaling debate!
10:20 a.m. - “Bitcoin has to stick to that thing of being digital gold. Everything else can compete around it to fill different use cases,” Dixon said.
10:25 a.m. - Dixon is predicting fiat money holders will be forced into storing their money in central bank accounts. Central banks can then shut off individuals' money supply when they are accused of owing taxes of political dissidence.
Drawing his line in the Bitcoin scaling debate sand...
“It’s a hedge against a shit system,” Dixon said. “That’s why I choose to hold it.”
11:05 a.m. - Jason King says his Sean’s Outpost charity has served 167,000 crypto-funded meals to the homeless.
12:30 p.m. - Anthem Blanchard, of the famous gold bug Blanchard family and a now-promoter of gold-backed crypto, reveals five traits he looks for in a cryptocurrency:
- purpose
- utility
- scarcity
- increasing utility as price rises
- potential to touch every human
12:40 p.m. - T-minus 20 minutes until the biggest crypto celebrity in the house - Roger Ver - takes the stage... if Cryptopulco is following any kind of schedule
12:41 p.m. - The cryptocurrency Dash is currently front and center with developer Chuck Williams on stage
Williams explains Dash is the first "DAO" - decentralized autonomous organization
“Governance, not government,” Williams said. “It’s just decision making, people.”
Dash is not an anarchist organization, Williams said. Rather, it crowdsources decisions to "staked" voters.
1:00 p.m. - Roger Ver takes the stage
1:03 p.m. “Oh my god, this is the best tool we have ever had to bring more economic freedom to the entire world,” Roger Ver apparently said upon discovering Bitcoin.
1:08 p.m. - Roger Ver is tearing up (genuinely?), saying he received a telegram message from someone in Afghanistan who said he now believes there will be less war in the world because he just discovered cryptocurrency.
1:15 p.m. - Ver transitions from crypto is going to save the world to Bitcoin Cash vs. Bitcoin.
1:18 p.m. - He ends his presentation abruptly and jumps right into questions from Bitcoin "Core supporters" who are "lined up" in the room.
Q&A highlights:
On his haters/Bitcoin Cash haters:
“Name-calling is not an argument.”
Roger Ver proposes betting $10,000 on Moore's Law (which he says is alive and well). No one in the packed crowd of 1,000 or so people takes him up on the offer, though one man grabbed the mic, indicating he might.
On Lighting Network:
Not opposed to it, but it's too little too late and will work better on Bitcoin Cash
It is like the government, breaking your leg, giving you a crutch and saying you can't walk without the government
On BTC:
“slow, expensive and unreliable by the intentional design of Bitcoin Core developers”
On Bitcoin Cash:
“fast, cheap and reliable”
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out which of those will be more useful to the world in the long-run,” Ver said.
1:45 p.m. - Lunchtime
4:20 p.m. - "All central banking is nothing but a pyramid/Ponzi scheme," said financial educator and gold and silver guru, Mike Maloney. "It is engineered to transfer the wealth from the many to the few."
The gold and silver guru said he knew about Bitcoin back when it was about $5, and he was a skeptic, and he chose not to invest. However, Maloney reached a point in which he realized:
4:25 p.m. - "Bitcoin is a tangible asset," Maloney said.
Maloney explains: you cannot separate a Bictoin from the Bitcoin network
4:40 p.m. - The financial educator reveals he dropped out of school in the 10th grade. Yet...
“Education is my absolute passion and it is the reward for my existence,” Maloney said.
“Nothing will affect your life more than economics,” Maloney said. “The sad thing is no one wants to know about it.”
4:45 p.m. - “Gold and silver have always been known as honest money.”
Honest money is not someone else's liability, i.e. stock or dollar, nor does it require the performance of a counterparty, Maloney said.
“In 2014, I added cryptocurrencies to the short list of honest money,” said the precious metals guru.
7:35 p.m. - Speeches have wrapped up... ICO pitches are on.
8:35 p.m. - The main event is winding down... It's about time for a taco pool party... Anarchapulco workshops will pick up tomorrow.
Thank you for following along! If you enjoyed these live Anarchapulco updates, resteem and leave an up vote. Gracias amigos! And adios from Acapulco.
