Ben Gilbert: commitment

Transcript context

…I feel like probably half the China tech episodes are so and so. I was hanging out on IRC with all the other future giants. Amazing. The Bitcoin talk forums were the central hub of this early Bitcoin community. They were actually created by Satoshi himself in 2009. This is where the pizza transaction happened. This is where the famous HODL post was in the Bitcoin talk forums that generated that meme. Super cool. This new user who joins the forums is very unlike Satoshi in pretty much every dimension. The most obvious dimension is that unlike Satoshi, he uses his real name. There is no username. The name, like everybody else, smokes too much. There was a user, smokes too much that had posted into the forum. This new user is just simply, Vitalik Buterin. Right there. Right on the line and saying, forever, you will know me by my name. I'll be a public person. I'll be a figure that will identify with all of my comments. Whether for good and for bad, for being vulnerable, but also for galvanizing a movement, this real name tied to my real identity is how I will do that. Real name, no gimmicks, Vitalik Buterin. Who is this character? When literally almost everybody else in Bitcoin land and crypto land at the time is using a pseudonym, why is he willing to use his real name? He's willing to use his real name because he's just a high school kid. He's got nothing to hide. He's got nothing to lose. He's 17 years old. He joins because he is looking for a way to earn some Bitcoin. It's pretty awesome, like a side gig as a high schooler.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.