Last week (9/7/16) I attended a Bitcoin Meet-up in Los Angeles with 100-200 other crypto-enthusiasts, and we heard a talk (followed by Q&A) by Andreas Antonopoulos. Andreas is one of the most well-known and well-respected figures in Bitcoin. He was in town to tape a podcast with the Joe Rogan Experience. It was a great meeting, and the topic he chose is of great interest to users, publishers and investors on the Steemit platform. I’m posting the link here under the Creative Commons Attribution license (which allows for reuse). You can check out his other videos on his YouTube channel.
Summary: Centralized payments are a powerful force for centralization of the web, creating platforms for content and services that are centralized around a payment processor/aggregator. What happens when payments themselves become decentralized? The nexus of centralization dissolves and the content platforms can become decentralized too. In this talk presented at the Los Angeles Bitcoin Meetup, Andreas examines the impact of payments and the re-decentralization of the web.
At the meetup, Andreas also brought the first copies of his new book The Internet of Money. He had just received the first copies the same day, and he only had ten copies, which he signed for the first ten people who could get in line after the talk. Andreas is also the author of Mastering Bitcoin, published by O’Reilly Media and considered by many to be the best technical guide to Bitcoin.
Cheers!