Brian Zisk:I do startup relations for PayPal - we do forward-looking meetups, including currencies, social impact + bluetooth LE
Brian Zisk runs the future of money conference - the best palce to meet and talk about this
Eric Martindale:a bunch of the Bitcoin foundation met at the Future of Money conference - even some of the now-disgraced ones
You don't want to hear me talk, so introduce yourself to your neighbour
Sean Percival:At Bitpay we ant every company to be abel to accept bitcoin. We released the open source bitcore library for bitcoin
Skye Elijah:I'm a venture partner at 500 startups and I do marketing for blockchain.info - we are doing a bitcoin focused incubator
I was in a failing startups, so after layoffs I had leftover computers, which I set to mining bitcoin
there is a lot of room in the space to grow the ecosystem, and indeed to fund it - we do $100k seed investments
BTC Jams:@coinbeyond is a bitcoin-based debit card you can use at retail
snapCard:btcjam is a bitocin based way to invest in other people's loans in the developing world
CrowdCurity:buying things on the internet with bitcoin takes too long. we have a bookmarklet that translates for you using bitpay
Coincove:we do crowd-sourced web security. We are focused on bitcoin exchanges and lending platforms. We set bounty in bitcoin
Skye Elijah:coincove is the way to buy and sell bitcoins in mexico eventually to accept remittances. We trade bitcoins for pesos
Sean Percival:we have a point of sale payment card so you can spend bitcoins in the real world - CoinBeyond
CrowdCurity:disclosure: we incubated BTC Jams, and I'd like to invest in some of these companies
what does it take to start a bitcoin startup?
BTC Jams:we started in argentina and got things going in a couple fo week
snapCard:we never touch any fiat currency, so we are not regulated, we can go from country to country.
Skye Elijah:as well as the regulatory issues, trust is the hardest thing, Bitcoin doesn't have it now, so you need it in your co
Coincove:work out what part of bitcoin you're obsessed with. We're obsessed with usability for normal people
the regulatory side is a dark and scary place but we have strategies to work with this
Sean Percival:if you can start in a jurisdiction outside the US you'll find it easier than here
Coincove:how do you explain this to ordinary people?
BTC Jams:Hannah, my co-founder is a psychology major so we work on explainign things in human terms
latin american currencies are inflationary and not strong so bitcoin is more attractive if you can make it easy to use
Sean Percival:there are existing geeks who already have bitcoin; the second is people in countries like mexico or brazil who need loans
the borrower can chose what to denominate loans in - whether dollars or bitcoins. BTC income, BTC loans
CrowdCurity:lets talk about security -I'm already seeing spearfishing attacks trying to get my bitcoin
Sean Percival:we hear all the time about bitcoin exchanges getting hacked, so we do outside testing and probing
CrowdCurity:at blockchain we open source everything - we see this as the best path to security
Sean Percival:we'd rather use libraries that are open source as there are more eyes on the code
snapCard:I bought a telescope at overstock because I could. What are people buying?
Coincove:I wish I wasn't seeing so many Fleshlights, but there it is
we server the tech community, so mostly graphics cards and tech gear. 1st product was gummi bears through amazon
Skye Elijah:in 5 years, bitcoin will allow latin america send money to their families without losing 10%. 1 in 5 households in mx
snapCard:Bitcoin is going to spur a massive social revolution in 5 years - our industries will change to adapt
companies that depend on money transfer margins will need to strategise
I think bitcoin is going to save capitalism
BTC Jams:digital currency is going to happen, but it may not be bitcoin that is the answer in 5 years
the contracts and voting system that is created through the blockchain is going to be interesting in 5 years
CrowdCurity:I'm still debating on what use cases matter. I don't make bitcoin purchases because credit cards work well
I see bitcoin as a store of value in the developing world to insulate your savings from governments
its a long way to go before the average joe will prefer to use bitcoin over a credit card. Dollars work well
Coincove:dollars don't work for people in Argentina. This is going to change the world by taking power form banks, govts
It's not going to be about money but about distributed trust - not just for money but contracts, bonds, etc
it's very sad when we saw MtGox vanish. I'd rather see the people with money in the bank lose than everyone else
Sean Percival:we tried to set up here, but ti was too complex, so we set up in mexico, as they said it wasn't a currency
form the mexican govt point of view, the 10% fees not staying in the US and coming to mx is a better outcome
the big concern is that we are not laundering money for the cartels, so we don't do that
snapCard:MtGox went to all the leaders of bitcoin and asked them to bail them out, and they didn't - they went to regulators
CoinBeyond:we are registered as a money services business
Sean Percival:we have started a dialog with regulators in Washington State, who recognise bitcoin as a currency
there are ongoing hearings in New york on bitcoin regulation. Landscape is uncharted. Attempt compliance early.
Coincove:blockchain doesn't have a bank account do yours?
Sean Percival:our mexican bank knows we are moving in and out of bitcoin
Coincove:question is would it make sense to open a bitcoin business in british virgin islands, caymans etc?
Sean Percival:mexico has very nice weather too, it's like the virgin islands with better reputation
Coincove:there aren't a lot of examples of practical bonds or contracts
you used touse the postal system to prove a date -the blockchain can work to attest dates too
Skye Elijah:there are projects that tag bitcoins as bearer bonds, so they cna indicate who owns what
Brian Zisk:we are interested in protocol overlays on bitcoin. We want to build a trust list on bitcoin protected by blockchain
we want to build contingencies on each transaction to enable more control, and make this usable
Sean Percival:as far as virtual currencies go, will bitcoin win? will another one take over?
Brian Zisk:I'm asked about dogecoin a lot. Remember that bitcoin can add features to respond
Coincove:the way that we mine bitcoins is by cracking hashes. Could a coin sequence DNA instead?
could we get it to do something productive?
Sean Percival:bitcoin is not consuming more electricity than banks right now. But being more efficient would be interesting
CrowdCurity:has anyone on the panel mined a coin?
Sean Percival:I got a fraction of a coin, but my mac got too hot
BTC Jams:I had to get electricians to help stop my bitcoin mining rig from overheating
Skye Elijah:the worst use case I've seen is viruses that encrypt your machine and you have to send bitcoin to unlock it
Coincove:we pivoted a lot to get to point of sale - it wasn't our first love
every month things change completely in bitcoin
Skye Elijah:our trickiest problem with getting people to hold bitcoinss was for people buying them, so we made that easier
the most promising market for bitcoin now is the developing world, so $25 firefox phones really help
Sean Percival:bitcoin s a seriously risky investment. I would't advise putting money into bitcoin
when american companies go to other countries they often fail - look to local companies to succeed