#844 - Andreas Antonopoulos

Joe Rogan (0:05)

Oh, you creeps that are controlling money all throughout the world, your time is slowly closing in. Am I right?

Andreas Antonopoulos (0:14)

Yep.

Joe Rogan (0:18)

Andreas Antonopoulos, author, published author of The Internet of Money.

You've been on the show many times before, but you've never been on the show two days after a book fresh off the presses. Tell the story about how this book got delivered to you today, because it's kind of hilarious.

Andreas Antonopoulos (0:35)

Yeah, so nobody knew about this. This is my announcement. This is my second book. First book was Mastering Bitcoin, it was for techies.

The Internet of Money is for everybody else, and it's a collection of my talks. And I was having the first copy delivered to my hotel this morning in order to bring it to the show and give it to you. And it was a day late. It was supposed to be delivered yesterday. And I'm waiting and I'm refreshing the tracking number site. And then you said, you know, we can push it back by half hour because you're running a bit late. And in that half hour, the book got delivered. It literally was printed September 5th. This is the first copy I've touched.

And it's yours.

Joe Rogan (1:15)

Oh boy. I've got it, folks.

Issue 1 Now, why do they do that? Why not just one? Why don't they just make it one? Why does everybody have to do a one?

Andreas Antonopoulos (1:28)

Well, I'm not printing 10,000 issues, so.

Joe Rogan (1:34)

Well, they never go, it's never like 000, 1 Do they ever do that?

Jamie (1:39)

Mm-hmm. There was a whole pair of shoes once recently with that. It was like one out of 12

Joe Rogan (1:42)

Why are you in one of my ears only?

What the hell's going on there? I can't have you in my left ear. It's like you're like the voice of good or the voice of bad.

Jamie (1:52)

Oh yeah?

Andreas Antonopoulos (1:53)

Yeah, I got it too, so it's on your end.

Joe Rogan (1:55)

Yeah, that's too weird. We can't have that. Try it again.

Nope, you fucking weirdo. You're coming in my left ear only.

Probably to the rest of America too, right? Yeah, they can't have that. People are at the gym going, what the fuck, Jamie's in my left ear. So this is a collection of all your talks. What has changed in the world of Bitcoin since the last time we spoke? We've spoken, we hung out in Vegas, which was great, I had a great time with you. But what has changed in the world of Bitcoin since the last time?

Andreas Antonopoulos (2:28)

Well, it's been about a year and a half, almost. And so much, so much happening in the meantime. We had a pretty slow 2015, 2016 picked up again.

2015 still coming off a slow and gradual drop in the price. People were very reluctant and skeptical. The media was constantly bashing Bitcoin. And then at the same time, we saw this really interesting phenomenon where the banks started getting interested in this thing.

But not Bitcoin itself. No, the Blockchain, the technology behind Bitcoin, which is rather amusing. I look at that a bit as if, you know, the Horse Buggy Association of America is going, oh, we like this automobile thing you've designed, but we have a very big investment in hay and horses and stables and veterinarians. So we're gonna use the technology behind the automobile, the pneumatic tire, and we're gonna revolutionize horse buggies.

Joe Rogan (3:28)

But in all fairness, I think what you're saying is hilarious. But in all fairness, it is a weird thing to invest in, like to go all in on Bitcoin. I mean, I know you do it, but you also make all of your money this way, and this is, you know, you're a proselytizing person when it comes to Bitcoin, right? Mm-hmm.

For good reason.

But for the average person, say, who's saved up actual cash money their whole life and is involved in this established system of money to throw all their money into Bitcoin, that would be insane. You watch the money fluctuate, it goes up and it goes down. I'm glad you said that, that it would be insane.

Andreas Antonopoulos (4:06)

No, that would be a terrible idea.

Joe Rogan (4:08)

Right, but don't you think that that's probably why the media bashes it and why banks are just looking at it going, hmm, like people see that there's a growing number of people that are using it for transactions. There's Bitcoin ATMs now, and people are using it to purchase things. There's several companies that accept Bitcoin for products, for actual real physical products.