Crypto Confidence podcast

I just had a chat with a friend, one from the list of Crypto Conversations, that we all have to have with people who don’t understand it.

No, not the “but it isn’t backed by anything” one, or even the “surely it’s for drug dealers and terrorists” one. It was the one I think of affectionately as “number 3”, the one about energy use.

It comes in the top 3 because, depending on which tabloid headline you read, cryptocurrency mining is of course single-handedly responsible for global warming, the melting of the polar ice caps, impeding the search for alien life forms, and even slowing down time itself (well, atomic clocks) through its greedy demands for power.

I came across an article (admittedly from last year) from Alex Hern in the Guardian, which stated the statistic that Bitcoin mining consumes more electricity per year than does the country of Ireland. And I felt that this was a spectacularly meaningless and unhelpful comparison for various reasons (and a statement which has been contested in any case).  It reminded me of those questions on the back of hula hoop packs, asking you to work out how many would reach to the moon or the top of the Eiffel tower…

But I think it came about as a reflection of the general failure to grasp what Bitcoin actually is, and how to compare like-with-like for things which are fundamentally intangible in the first place. And this is not just a problem for journalists.

For example, another report in my newsfeed more recently from Nature has made a different stab at comparing apples to oranges, by stating that “Independent researchers Max Krause and Thabet Tolaymat calculated that it takes about 17 megajoules of computer power to generate US$1 in Bitcoin... By comparison, it takes 5 megajoules to mine US$1 in gold and 7 megajoules to mine an equivalent value of platinum”.

So what do the headlines scream, once this is reported by secondary sources? “Bitcoin costs twice as much energy to mine as platinum or gold!”  Shock, horror, and further proof that Bitcoin is an environmental nightmare.

Crypto Alphabet:

E is for Ethereum

Well for B we defined Bitcoin, so it seems only fair to look at Ethereum for the letter E. Especially as last time we learned about decentralisation

Ethereum runs on its own currency called Ether, abbreviated to ETH, and the currency is often erroneously called Ethereum.  Ether has become the second largest cryptocurrency by marketcap, though it’s value has dropped a lot over the course of 2018 from all-time-highs in December and January.

If you like what you hear, we’ll be sharing new episodes every fortnight. So please subscribe via your podcast app of choice.

Keep in touch with us on Facebook at Crypto Confidence,  and the official BlockSparks page too.  Tweet us with your questions, or email [email protected]

We also have a new Telegram group, for all things crypto - come and chat! https://t.me/CryptoConfidencePodcast (if you’re new to Telegram don’t worry, it’s just another messaging app, and very easy to get started with)

Want to get started buying your first cryptocurrencies? We recommend Local Coin Swap https://localcoinswap.com/#/register/?referral=3846b08d-d382-4ae0-88c8-c48b411cd913 , and Coinbase https://www.coinbase.com/join/59e9e75fa4c3a001f015ee52 - these links help support the show.

And remember: nothing in this podcast or our related social media, nor anything else published by BlockSparks OU at any location, is intended as financial, investment or trading advice. Everything we share represents our personal opinions, for your information, education, and entertainment only. You should not make any decisions based on anything we share with you, not without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with appropriate professional advisors.  CryptoConfidence is all about being smart and informed and making the right choices for YOU

Today we are hugely privileged to welcome Matthew Aaron from Crypto101 podcast to our own podcast.

We talk to Matthew about the heartbreaking personal losses he suffered in his family, which he later realised could have been averted, had cryptocurrencies and blockchain been available solutions. Solutions which literally have the power to save lives.

Matthew’s search for better answers led to the creation of one of the podcasts which inspired us to launch Crypto Confidence. He wanted to create a place to find the basic answers to the questions we all have, that are well researched, helpful and well-informed and so the Crypto101 podcast was born. Matthew isn’t afraid to ask those 101 questions and find the answers for them.

If you'd like to listen to the Crypto101 Podcast you can find them here and also on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Crypto Alphabet:

D is for decentralised.

In the crypto space decentralised means that no single entity can make arbitrary changes to the way something works because the decisions have to be made collectively. Decentralised currencies on a distributed ledger are very hard to damage, resistant to attack and no government can switch it off.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/decentralization.html

If you like what you hear, we’ll be sharing new episodes every fortnight. So please subscribe via your podcast app of choice.

Keep in touch with us on Facebook at Crypto Confidence,  and the official BlockSparks page too.  Tweet us with your questions, or email [email protected]

We also have a new Telegram group, for all things crypto - come and chat! https://t.me/CryptoConfidencePodcast (if you’re new to Telegram don’t worry, it’s just another messaging app, and very easy to get started with)

Want to get started buying your first cryptocurrencies? We recommend Local Coin Swap https://localcoinswap.com/#/register/?referral=3846b08d-d382-4ae0-88c8-c48b411cd913 , and Coinbase https://www.coinbase.com/join/59e9e75fa4c3a001f015ee52 - these links help support the show.

And remember: nothing in this podcast or our related social media, nor anything else published by BlockSparks OU at any location, is intended as financial, investment or trading advice. Everything we share represents our personal opinions, for your information, education, and entertainment only. You should not make any decisions based on anything we share with you, not without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with appropriate professional advisors.  CryptoConfidence is all about being smart and informed and making the right choices for YOU.

Today we talk about jobs in tech and Blockchain with the wonderful Natalie Furness co-founder of WiTechRev, a regular meet up for women to get into sexy Industry 4.0 technologies; Blockchain, Crypto, AI/ML, Big Data, VR, AR, Automation, Cyber Security, IoT.

We discover what Natalie’s background is, how she became interested in technology, primarily for healthcare in the beginning, and how those technologies can help make information clearer for all concerned. This then morphed into an interest in Blockchain and how it can improve processes across all industries.

You can get in touch with Natalie via her website https://www.witechrev.com/ on her own Twitter https://twitter.com/Natalie_Furn on the WiTechRev Twitter https://twitter.com/WiTechRev and on the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/WITechRev/

Crypto Alphabet:

C is for Consensus.

So many possibilities for the letter C but Consensus won. Consensus is generally an agreement about something : an idea or opinion that is shared by all the people in a group. A consensus mechanism is a fault-tolerant mechanism that is used in computer and blockchain systems to achieve the necessary agreement on a single data value or a single state of the network among distributed processes or multi-agent systems. It is useful in record-keeping, among other things.

Listen to the podcast for more about this and next time we’ll delve into the letter D.

If you like what you hear, we’ll be sharing new episodes every fortnight. So please subscribe via your podcast app of choice.

Keep in touch with us at The Crypto Confidence Podcast and BlockSparks on Facebook at Crypto Confidence,  and the official BlockSparks page.  Tweet us with your questions, or email [email protected]

We also have a new Telegram group, for all things crypto - come and chat! https://t.me/CryptoConfidencePodcast (if you’re new to Telegram don’t worry, it’s just another messaging app, and very easy to get started with)

Want to get started buying your first cryptocurrencies? We recommend Local Coin Swap https://localcoinswap.com/#/register/?referral=3846b08d-d382-4ae0-88c8-c48b411cd913 , and Coinbase https://www.coinbase.com/join/59e9e75fa4c3a001f015ee52 - these links help support the show.

And remember: nothing in this podcast or our related social media, nor anything else published by BlockSparks OU at any location, is intended as financial, investment or trading advice. Everything we share represents our personal opinions, for your information, education, and entertainment only. You should not make any decisions based on anything we share with you, not without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with appropriate professional advisors.  CryptoConfidence is all about being smart and informed and making the right choices for YOU

Today we explore learning about the Blockchain, because this is a forever ongoing process!

I am joined by my colleague Diana Berryman, who runs social media at BlockSparks, for ourselves and for our clients. I recruited her to the team based on her expertise in this particular craft, so she had to get up to speed fast on the brave new world of blockchain and crypto.  

So I wanted to talk to Diana about what helped her to do this, which resources she found most useful at the start. Our discussion ranges from Youtube influencers, to staying on top of rolling news via the Twitter lists she is curating daily anyway - the perfect way to scan the important conversations.  And we also touch on the University of Nicosia’s MOOC, ‘Introduction to Digital Currencies’, which she and some of our colleagues are currently undertaking, joining a global cohort of thousands. A comprehensive and well-structured overview of the key areas in crypto and blockchain, and it’s FREE - what more can you ask?

Find out more about the course here: 

https://digitalcurrency.unic.ac.cy/free-introductory-mooc/

We also recommend the Jameson Lopp list of Bitcoin Resources https://lopp.net/bitcoin.html

And check out our social media feeds that Diana manages, sharing the best in crypto news and info:

https://twitter.com/BlockSparks

https://www.facebook.com/blocksparks.io/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/blocksparks/

Crypto Alphabet:

B is, of course, for Bitcoin.

The original cryptocurrency, minted in January 2009 - it remains the highest priced and highest market cap by a wide mile, and for many it’s the only crypto in existence.  Learn about where it all began!

If you like what you hear, we’ll be sharing new episodes every fortnight. So please subscribe via your podcast app of choice.

Keep in touch with us on Facebook at Crypto Confidence,  and the official BlockSparks page too.  Tweet us with your questions, or email [email protected]

We also have a new Telegram group, for all things crypto - come and chat! https://t.me/CryptoConfidencePodcast (if you’re new to Telegram don’t worry, it’s just another messaging app, and very easy to get started with)

Want to get started buying your first cryptocurrencies? We recommend Local Coin Swap https://localcoinswap.com/#/register/?referral=3846b08d-d382-4ae0-88c8-c48b411cd913 , and Coinbase https://www.coinbase.com/join/59e9e75fa4c3a001f015ee52 - these links help support the show.

And remember: nothing in this podcast or our related social media, nor anything else published by BlockSparks OU at any location, is intended as financial, investment or trading advice. Everything we share represents our personal opinions, for your information, education, and entertainment only. You should not make any decisions based on anything we share with you, not without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with appropriate professional advisors.  CryptoConfidence is all about being smart and informed and making the right choices for YOU

The Blockchain Doesn’t Care About You

What is this blockchain, on which we store our cryptocurrency?

It's not your bank: it has no customer service department, no helpdesk, no pens on the end of bits of string. It won't lend a sympathetic ear if you fall on hard times.  But it can't control or reverse your transactions either, or decide who you can and can't pay.

It's challenging, and liberating, at the same time - because it's certainly not what we're used to. No wonder it takes a little while to acquire the necessary Crypto Confidence - but we're here to help.

Also, our Crypto Alphabet starts today:

A is for Altcoin - Bitcoin was the original, but now over 2000 alternative crypto coins and tokens exist. They all have different properties, and fulfill different needs and roles.  Find out more in today's show!

If you like what you hear, we’ll be sharing new episodes every fortnight. So please subscribe via your podcast app of choice.
Keep in touch with us on Facebook at Crypto Confidence,  and the official BlockSparks page too.  Tweet us with your questions, or email [email protected]

We also have a new Telegram group, for all things crypto - come and chat! https://t.me/CryptoConfidencePodcast (if you’re new to Telegram don’t worry, it’s just another messaging app, and very easy to get started with)

Want to get started buying your first cryptocurrencies? We recommend Local Coin Swap https://localcoinswap.com/#/register/?referral=3846b08d-d382-4ae0-88c8-c48b411cd913 , and Coinbase https://www.coinbase.com/join/59e9e75fa4c3a001f015ee52 - these links help support the show.

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And remember: nothing in this podcast or our related social media, nor anything else published by BlockSparks OU at any location, is intended as financial, investment or trading advice. Everything we share represents our personal opinions, for your information, education, and entertainment only. You should not make any decisions based on anything we share with you, not without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with appropriate

Keeping up with all aspects of all technological advances is impossible in 2018. We just need to know enough to put things to work for us, safely and effectively.

Today we dive in - a little way - to the blockchain technology which underpins cryptocurrencies, and the way they can be used to transfer value seamlessly from one person to another, without a trusted third party.

We take a small but necessary peek at encryption too.

If you like what you hear, we’ll be sharing new episodes every fortnight. So please subscribe via your podcast app of choice.

Keep in touch with us on Facebook at Crypto Confidence,  and the official BlockSparks page too.  Tweet us with your questions, or email [email protected]

And remember: nothing in this podcast or our related social media, nor anything else published by BlockSparks OU at any location, is intended as financial, investment or trading advice. Everything we share represents our personal opinions, for your information, education, and entertainment only. You should not make any decisions based on anything we share with you, not without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with appropriate professional advisors.  CryptoConfidence is all about being smart and informed and making the right choices for YOU

Welcome to the introductory episode of the Crypto Confidence show - where we want to help you take your first steps in the new crypto-economy, the safe and smart way.

If you like what you hear, we’ll be sharing new episodes every fortnight. So please subscribe via your podcast app of choice.

Keep in touch with us on Facebook at Crypto Confidence,  and the official BlockSparks page too.  Tweet us with your questions, or email [email protected]

And remember: nothing in this podcast or our related social media, nor anything else published by BlockSparks OU at any location, is intended as financial, investment or trading advice. Everything we share represents our personal opinions, for your information, education, and entertainment only. You should not make any decisions based on anything we share with you, not without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with appropriate professional advisors.  CryptoConfidence is all about being smart and informed and making the right choices for YOU