Which predictions are turning out to be right?
Interviewer:
Bitcoin: the need to move money from place to place, the cost of doing so, the overhead – as you put it – makes me think, believe it or not, about Bitcoin. Because some people have said, “Hey Bitcoin is the answer to those problems.” Are you a believer?
Bill Gates 0:10
Well, Bitcoin is exciting because it shows how cheap it can be. Bitcoin is is better than currency in that you don’t have to be physically in the same place. And, of course, for large transactions currency can can get pretty inconvenient. The customers were talking about aren’t trying to be anonymous, you know, they’re willing to be known. So it Bitcoin technology is key. And you could add to it, or you could build a similar technology, where there’s enough attribution, that people feel comfortable. This has nothing to do with terrorism or any type of money laundering.
Interviewer 1:04
So What does Buffett not like right now? That would be Bitcoin: He says that Bitcoin right now looks a little bit tulip like to him.
Warren Buffett 1:12
It’s not a currency. I mean, it does not meet the definition for currency. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not around in 10 or 20 years,
Interviewer 1:22
Why does it not meet the definition of a currency?
Warren Buffett 1:24
Because people say, “Well, I’ll sell you goods in bitcoins.” But they change the price of those every time the price changes in relation to Their pricing off the dollar. They can say, “Well, sell it to you in barrels of oil”. But if they change every time the price of oil changes, they change the number of barrels you have to have, your oil was not the currency.
Julian Assange 1:46
It breaks Orwell’s dictum. It breaks Orwell’s dictum. By providing proof of publishing at a certain time, and that is the intellectual underpinning of that whole system. And can be used for lots lots of other things. And so that’s the big expansion we’re about to see in Bitcoin, all derived from this basic premise that you can prove a particular statement, a particular consensus, a particular contract, happened at a particular time, globally. And it requires this subversion of every single jurisdiction, where people are running Bitcoin, to overturn that.
Interviewer
Am I right in understanding that you’re saying that the Bitcoin architecture has applications far beyond the economic role that Bitcoin can play? And if that architecture is very strengthening, to the life of information in the digital space, making it less vulnerable to the kind of mischief you talked about in Russia or elsewhere? So what you’re saying?
Julian Assange 2:48
Exactly, exactly. That underlying architecture can be used for publishers, for example. So that as an example, we’re starting to use Bitcoin, Wikileaks, stopping our cryptographic keys and stuff that we publish. So, we proved that we are probably stopped at a particular time by stuffing it in Bitcoin in the blockchain. And then if someone were to come and try and modify the material that we have published to take out that particular part that would be detectable.
Interviewer:
Do you think Bitcoin will be disrupted in that one? way we now into speculative comments it will it be something that will be with normal consumers will use and will disrupt the banking industry?
Elon Musk 3:40
Uh, my opinion Bitcoin is that I think Bitcoin is probably a good thing. But it’s, it’s essentially, it’s main I think the thing we’ll be able to probably get quoted in there but it’s, it’s I guess, primarily going to be a means of, of doing illegal transactions. But that’s not necessarily entirely bad. Something should be maybe shouldn’t be illegal. So uh but…
Interviewer 4:12
A the combination of silk road and Bitcoin will save us
Elon Musk
Well, it will be useful for legal and illegal transactions otherwise would have no value as a use of for legal transactions. You have to have a legal to illegal bridge. I don’t own any Bitcoin.
Interviewer 4:30
In fact, one can pay for a tour on Virgin Galactic up to the moon with Bitcoin, I think the Winklevoss twins has said that they would do exactly that. This is a currency a currency that’s really going to work eventually?
Richard Branson 4:46
I think it is working. And there will be other currencies like it that may may be even better. But In the meantime, there’s a big industry around Bitcoin. You know, people have made fortunes out of Bitcoin, something for the lost money out of Bitcoin know.
Interviewer 5:05
It’s volatile. You know, it is quite volatile.
Richard Branson
But You know, when informative volatility people can make money out of volatility,
Interviewer
Why is it important for you to give it sort of that stamp of approval, that endorsement by saying to the Winklevoss twins, yes, you can pay for the ride with Bitcoin?
Richard Branson 5:20
Because I’m not foolish. I mean, if people have got lots of bitcoins and they want to get this space, I much rather than spend that money on our spaceship and whether I keep the bitcoins of another They spend that money on on Virgin Galactic spaceship and normally, you know, Elon will be sending people to space one day on Elon’s spaceship so we’ll grab that money while it’s there!
An article in 
