What is Bitcoin? Roger Ver Interview
Today my guest is none other than Roger Ver, aka “Bitcoin-Jesus”. Roger Ver is one of the most well-known members of the Bitcoin community and an avid educator of Bitcoin. Please join me as I interview one of Bitcoin’s most prominent advocates to learn, what is bitcoin? And more.
To save you some time, let’s quickly summarize Roger’s take on, what is bitcoin?
According to Roger Ver, bitcoin is a digital currency that is used on a decentralized ledger (blockchain) that allows the user to have complete control over their money outside of a banking system.
However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. For a deeper understanding of Bitcoin, please watch the video below. You can use the menu in the video player to skip through sections of the video or read the full video transcript of the interview which is below as well.
Roger’s links to check out:
Roger Ver Website
Bitcoin.com
Bitcoin Bounty Hunter
Bitcoin Hivemind
Purse.io
Video Transcript
Introduction and the Islamic View of Money
Andre Rishi: Today, I would like to welcome a very special guest to the Islam and Bitcoin Podcast series. A man who I would say needs no introduction but who many people call Bitcoin Jesus.
A man who is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist in his own right, investing in a– not just investing, a serial investor, investing in numerous Bitcoin start-ups far more than I can name.
A man who I would also say sticks to his principles, sticks to his guns so much so that he has actually let go of his citizenship in United States and now resides between a beautiful Saint Kitts and Japan. I would like to extend a warm welcome As-salamu alaykum, peace to you and welcome to the show, Roger Ver.
Roger Ver: Thanks so much for having me on.
Andre Rishi: It’s so nice to have you here today, man. So, you’re coming to us today from where?
Roger Ver: I’m in Tokyo today.
Andre Rishi: Tokyo today? All right, cool. Again, just wanted to thank you for coming on to the show. The reason I invited you on to the show is because I feel like right now within the Bitcoin community there’s probably like three people who I would say are really good at being able to speak on Bitcoin in a very articulate manner where a lot of people can understand, and I actually would put you with the number 1 spot.
I would say you would fall as my number 1, Andreas Antonopoulos and also, I hope I don’t butcher his last name so please forgive me Erik Voorhees I think is his last name.
Roger Ver: Yup.
Andre Rishi: So, yeah man, so again second, third time I’m going to say thank you for coming to the show, being on the show. I just wanted to have a conversation with you about Bitcoin, the technology behind it.
The reason being is because the Muslim community has now really been looking into this type of currency. And the main reason why is because a lot of the principles and teachings in Islam teaches that when it comes to money, money should be something that is, what it should be something as beneficial to humanity. It should be something that doesn’t oppress.
It shouldn’t be based on fractional reserve, right, you can’t give what you don’t have. It shouldn’t be tied to debt. It shouldn’t be tied to usury and it shouldn’t be where you can just sort of print it out of thin air and just add, whatever you punch of couple of keys in the keyboard with bunch of zeros behind it and you got a trillion dollars right there.
So, with that being said though we do have some Muslims who they are– again, they are looking at this and they’re checking out, they have a lot of questions. At the same time, you have a lot of Muslims who are oblivious to this.
So, before I even get into, just sort of covering the basics of what Bitcoin is, I guess the first question I would love to ask you, just for our audience to get a little bit of background on you is when did you dis- I can’t say discover Bitcoin, when did you learn about Bitcoin?
How Roger Learned About Bitcoin
Roger Ver: So, I learned about Bitcoin by listening to another Podcast called Free Talk Live and they mentioned Bitcoin, actually in reference to the Silk Road…
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: …and I’ve never used or bought, or sold any drugs myself, I very, very rarely drink alcohol, never tried smoking a cigarette. But when I heard that there is a money that was enabling people to trade freely with other people around the world, and there wasn’t anything anybody could do to stop it, I thought that must be a really, really interesting type of money.
And then I Googled Bitcoin and started learning about it from there and when I understood the characteristics, I realized this is going to change the way that every single human being on the planet gets to act, interact with every single other human being on the planet. And…
Andre Rishi: Yeah.
Roger Ver: …what an exciting, wonderful thing to be involved in something like that. And the characteristics that you just mentioned a moment ago about what Islam says money should be, wow you guys should be really, really excited about Bitcoin because it’s all of those things…
Andre Rishi: Yeah
Roger Ver: it states, so…
Andre Rishi: Yeah. You know you’re right, you’re right. And again, I think the Muslim community is sort of just lagging behind in it for some reason, I don’t know why. But people like you, I think you are probably one of the biggest educators out there in the Bitcoin space so I really want to thank you for that. Now, let me ask you this. When you first heard about Bitcoin, did you get it right away, did you get it?
Roger Ver: So, the very first time I heard about it was in late 2010 and I Googled it, and the price of bitcoin was like around 5 cents per bitcoin at that point.
Andre Rishi: Whoa, Ok.
Roger Ver: And I, at that time I probably only spent maybe 5 or 10 minutes looking at it. I thought, oh this is kind of interesting but if nobody is using it, it’s not worth anything. And the reason it was 5 cents at that time was because nobody was using it. And I didn’t spend enough time looking into all of it. And then I Googled, I heard about it again on the same radio program a couple months later.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: And I Googled it again at that time and bitcoin was around 50 cents at that time. And then I spent a little bit more time reading about it. And that’s when I put all the pieces together that you can send and receive any amount of money with anyone, anywhere in the world instantly almost for free and there is nothing that anybody can do to stop it, nobody can freeze your account and nobody can block you from sending the funds.
And if you’re very careful about how you use it, you can do it privately as well, that’s going to change everything. And if the supply is limited, it’s not like Dollars or Euros or Yen where these politicians can print as many as they want at any time for any reason.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: And then use the money that they print up to buy guns and bombs and tanks…
Andre Rishi: Yes.
Roger Ver: …and kill around the world. And none of that can happen where if the world starts using bitcoins. So, I knew I wanted to get involved with Bitcoin full-time and I knew it was going to catch on and here we are in almost six years later, and bitcoin’s 600 and something dollars a bitcoin, and Microsoft, and Dell, and Newegg, and Expedia and all these companies are accepting bitcoin around the world.
Andre Rishi: Yeah.
Roger Ver: I used it to pay for my dinner last night like…
Andre Rishi: Wow.
Roger Ver: …there’s a bunch of places in Tokyo that accept bitcoin. There are so many places online like it’s really spreading quickly because once people hear about Bitcoin, and they understand the characteristics of Bitcoin, it becomes so blatantly obvious how it’s so much better than Dollars or Euros or Yen.
And I think we’re about to see a separation of money and state like up till now everybody’s from the time they’re born and they start going to government schools, they learned that governments have to issue money and if governments…
Andre Rishi: Yeah.
Roger Ver: …didn’t issue money, they think the whole world would fall apart. But we’re seeing right before our eyes right now that we don’t need governments to issue money and in fact, the money that’s been created by the free market in the form of Bitcoin is a much more trustworthy form of money.
I mean, I think anybody that stops and thinks for a moment, which do you trust more, your local politician or your federal politician versus the laws of mathematics?
Andre Rishi: Right.
Bitcoin is Based on the Law of Mathematics
Roger Ver: And Bitcoin is based on the laws of mathematics whereas government issued money is you know at the whim of some politician. And I think it’s pretty clear to everybody we can trust the laws of mathematics more than we can trust the whim of some politician that we probably never met and doesn’t care about us anyhow.
Andre Rishi: Agree.
Roger Ver: So, for me I think the whole world is going to be able to recognize that you know mathematics is more trustworthy than politics and we should put our trust in a money that is based on the laws of mathematics rather than some politicians in some far-off land.
Andre Rishi: I completely agree. I know just speaking for myself I came about Bitcoin, I would say I came rather late to Bitcoin, 2012 you know I consider that late.
Roger Ver: 2016 is still really, really early to be honest. [Laughter] like you look around your friends that you didn’t meet through Bitcoin.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm
Roger Ver: How many of them are really aware you’re using Bitcoin yet? And it’s almost none of them because…
Andre Rishi: Yes.
Roger Ver: …most people they’ve heard the word maybe at this point but they have no idea how it’s different from PayPal or Venmo or anything, these other things. And it’s our job to go out and explain to these people how it’s fundamentally different than all of these other payment networks and currencies that existed before. Thanks for making this Podcast to help do that.
Andre Rishi: Oh man, thank you for being on and helping out. And again, you know doing what you do best, educating others on Bitcoin and articulating this extremely well if I may say so myself. I know for myself like I said I didn’t get it, you know I looked at it in 2012– actually my brother was the one who introduced me to it.
I was working with my brothers, one of them is an engineer, the other one is a software programmer and we got together working on developing some apps. And I was really into trying to find a way to see if we can use and develop an app that will allow us to buy goods and services using gold but without us having to supply the gold
I’ve seen certain companies try this, like, was it E-gold? Was is it not? Probably not E-gold but there is certain…
Roger Ver: It was E-gold.
Andre Rishi: It was?
Roger Ver: It started to get popular and then the government came in and…
Andre Rishi: Yes.
Roger Ver: …stole all the gold. I was a customer, I had some gold…
Andre Rishi: Oh really?
Roger Ver: And I was using it to accept the payments for a computer memory. And as soon as it started to get popular enough literally, the government came and then literally stole the gold from all the customers because a few of the customers were using the service to do something that the politicians didn’t apparently like.
And so, all of the customers had their fund seized and like that’s a big problem and that’s one of the biggest strengths of Bitcoin. But I think a lot of people when they first hear about Bitcoin they think, oh that’s too good to be true and…
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: …governments will shut it down if they don’t like it. But they have to understand; the only way to shut down Bitcoin would be to turn off the entire internet in the entire world.
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: And keep the internet turned off. And the instant that the internet turns back on again, Bitcoin starts right back up where it left off. So, that’s a pretty exciting technology. You can’t say the same about PayPal or Venmo or Bank of America or anything else whereas with Bitcoin, the only way to stop it is to turn off the entire world’s internet and keep it turned off. And obviously that’s not going to happen.
Andre Rishi: Right, right. God willing, God willing not. So, ok so you mentioned that you talked about people putting their trust in a mathematical formula which is what Bitcoin is based off of. So, if you can, for our audience who they, who knows nothing about Bitcoin, can you just tell us what is Bitcoin?
What is Bitcoin?
Roger Ver: So, with a normal bank or credit card or PayPal or whatever, they have a ledger that keeps track of how many dollars or how many, whatever currency, are in each person’s account. And if I transfer money from me to you, they update their ledger and that ledger stored on their servers in their data center in Silicon Valley or wherever the company happens to be based.
And let’s say, I were to send some money to you and for whatever reasons some government doesn’t like that I’m sending it to you or some business entity doesn’t like that for some reason, all they have to do is they go right to that ledger and then they just can reverse the transaction or block it from happening. Or they can control however they want because that ledger is in one place on their servers in their data center. Bitcoin has a worldwide ledger…
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: …that keeps track of who has, which bitcoins. That ledger is called the Blockchain. But instead of that ledger being on one computer in one data center, it’s on everybody’s computer that’s running the Bitcoin software including the laptop that I’m talking to you on right now.
Andre Rishi: Ok.
Roger Ver: I have a copy of that entire ledger that keeps track of exactly who owns what bitcoins, and all these computers around the world that are running the Bitcoin software that have a copy of this ledger, they all stay in-sync with each other.
And they are all talking and communicating with each other to make sure that all the ledgers match everybody else’s ledger on all these computers. So, in order to stop Bitcoin, they would have to turn off all these computers around the world that have a copy of this Bitcoin ledger called the Blockchain.
Andre Rishi: Ok.
Roger Ver: And there’s, tens of thousands of these around the world. So, you can’t, and anybody can turn one on and get one set up and in a couple of hours as well and have the entire thing downloaded in-sync. And that’s what’s so different about it. So, like let’s say I have a friend in Iran.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: Right, and like Iranians are people too.
Andre Rishi: Right, right.
Roger Ver: Right. Let’s say I want to pay him to do some web developing work for me, I can’t do that with Visa, I can’t do that with Bank of America, I can’t do that with PayPal.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: Because some politicians in Washington DC that I have never met have decided that I’m not allowed to send money to that guy. To me that’s crazy. I’ve never met them, they’ve never met me, why should they have any say whatsoever as to who I can and can’t do business with around the world?
And with Bitcoin nobody can stop me from doing business anywhere around the world. And I think that’s a wonderful thing for all humankind because suddenly now, everybody on the entire planet regardless of where they were born…
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: …regardless of what color their skin is, regardless of what religion they happen to believe in, they can now send and receive money with anyone else, anywhere in the world and they don’t have to get permission from anybody.
And for me that just, it seems so incredibly clearly beneficial for the entire humankind, like it’s a great step forward for all humankind.
Andre Rishi: Yeah.
Roger Ver: One thing that somebody was kind of joking about but kind of half-way true that I think is a really interesting point, when I was first reading about Bitcoin maybe back in 2011 or 2012…
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: …on the most popular Bitcoin forums. Somebody made a post that was a half joke but half serious and I thought it was really, really funny and interesting point. He said, “Finally, thanks to Bitcoin, when we make contact with extraterrestrials, we won’t have to be embarrassed about the type of money we’re using anymore.”
[Laughter]
And if you think about it, humans have been using little round pieces of metal and pieces of paper to do business with each other around the world. That is so incredibly primitive compared to Bitcoin and this worldwide ledger.
So, he said, “Now, we don’t have to be embarrassed about the type of money we’re using and when you, meet extraterrestrial someday.” So, I thought that was pretty funny but also kind of true.
What is a Bitcoin Wallet?
Andre Rishi: Yeah definitely, definitely. Now, Ok, so you know we’re able to spend this bitcoin, how do people store it? Like what, there’s a thing called a wallet, right? So, how does this work in relation to Bitcoin? Because a lot of people say, well first, is this something that, obviously it’s not something that people can hold, it’s all digital, right? And again, like I said there’s a thing called wallet, what exactly is a wallet?
Roger Ver: So, a nice way to think about email or Bitcoin is kind of like email. There’s no official email company, you have Gmail and Yahoo and Hotmail and a whole bunch of other email clients and softwares, because email’s a protocol.
SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, and anybody can write software that interacts with the email protocol. Bitcoin is the same way. Anybody can write software that interacts with the Bitcoin protocol so anybody can write Bitcoin wallet software.
Anybody can write the software that interacts with Bitcoin. So, there’s dozens and dozens of different choices when it comes to Bitcoin wallets.
Andre Rishi: Ok.
Roger Ver: And we have a whole bunch only listed on bitcoin.com, and you can choose one, there’s ones for iPhone, Android, for your desktop, Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, whatever you want. And basically, the way Bitcoin works is there’s kind of two different numbers associated with Bitcoin. There’s the public Bitcoin address…
Andre Rishi: Ok.
Roger Ver: …which is just a long number.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: And you can tell that public number to anybody, anywhere in the world and all they can do is send you money.
Andre Rishi: All right.
Roger Ver: And every single public number has a corresponding private number.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: And that private number is what’s required in order to be able to spend the bitcoins that are sitting at the public number.
Andre Rishi: Got it.
Roger Ver: So, you keep the private number secret, and you can tell your public number to everybody. And these, what these wallet softwares do is they keep track of the private and public numbers for you and they let you tell people the public number and they allow you to spend the bitcoins using the private numbers.
But what interesting clever people have done is they’ve taken physical coins like this. I don’t know how well it can show up there.
Andre Rishi: Oh yeah, I can see that.
Roger Ver: Right.
Andre Rishi: Yeah.
Roger Ver: And so, on this coin right here there’s a hologram on this side and it says .001 bitcoin which is around 65 US cents at the moment?
Andre Rishi: Get out of here.
Roger Ver: If you were to peel off this hologram, underneath the hologram is the private, like the secret number that’s required in order to spend the bitcoin from the public address…
Andre Rishi: The private number.
Roger Ver: …right.
Andre Rishi: Ok.
Roger Ver: So, you could pick a wallet software, peel off this hologram, import the secret number that’s under the hologram and then the bitcoins are back in digital form in your wallet software. So, people have managed to make physical representations of bitcoin as well.
And actual information is required to spend the money is actually right in here under this hologram, and I try and carry these around with me.
Andre Rishi: Wow.
Roger Ver: This is a whole roll of them.
Andre Rishi: That’s a stack. Man don’t… [Laughter]
Roger Ver: If somebody meets me in person and ask me for one and I, usually I have them with me and I’ll be more than glad to give you one for free.
Andre Rishi: Wow.
Roger Ver: So, if you don’t have already and if you’re new to Bitcoin.
Andre Rishi: Wow. So, I’m pretty sure there are a lot of people trying to like stalk you for some bitcoin. [Laughter]
Roger Ver: Maybe. So, but most people keep their bitcoins on their phone and– or on their computer or some at both and that makes it the easiest way, so there’s a whole bunch of different apps here.
And I’ll show you, I don’t know how well it will come up on the screen there. But I have a whole folder. All of these are different Bitcoin apps in these folders. I have bunch of different ones in there.
Andre Rishi: Oh yeah, yeah, I use Airbitz. I see you have Airbitz on there. I see…Yeah.
Roger Ver: I have Airbitz, I have Breadwallet, I have Blockchain, I have Copay, I have a whole bunch of different wallets, and I could actually swipe back and forth, I probably have close to a dozen different wallets on my phone. But to be honest most people just need one wallet. Find what you like…
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: …or ask your friend what they like and use the one that they’re liking. I have a bunch of them because I do Bitcoin stuff all day everyday…
Andre Rishi: All day.
Roger Ver: …and it’s kind of my job to test them and be aware of what features they have in them.
Andre Rishi: Cool. Now you just held up you know that physical coin, representation coin and it has the like you said the hologram.
Roger Ver: Mm-hmm.
Andre Rishi: Now, people are going to see this and start asking, “Ok so where do I get bitcoin?”
Where to Get Bitcoin
Roger Ver: The easiest way is to head on over to bitcoin.com, and you can choose your country and it will show you a list of places in your country that you can buy bitcoin.
Andre Rishi: All right, and bitcoin.com that is a website; it’s your website, correct?
Roger Ver: Right. Yeah.
Andre Rishi: Awesome. Tell us a little bit about this, your website, what can they learn on this website? What’s it all about? Obviously, Bitcoin but… [Laughter]
Roger Ver: Right. It’s all about Bitcoin. We’re adding more and more stuff all the time. I’m sitting here in my office with some other guys that are helping me work on bitcoin.com all the time. We have a full set of news like every day.
We have all the latest news about Bitcoins at news.bitcoin.com. We have a forum at forum.bitcoin.com where people that are new to Bitcoin can start talking with new people and ask questions.
Andre Rishi: Ok.
Roger Ver: Or if you’re a Bitcoin expert, you can talk with other Bitcoin experts and discuss the latest things. We have a really neat thing, if you don’t have any bitcoins yet, you can tweet a message and get paid in bitcoin for tweeting a message and that’s over [Laughter] on bitcoin.com. Before Bitcoin that sort of thing wasn’t possible before.
We have all sorts of t-shirts and stickers and things like that for sale, we have all sorts of stuff over there. We have a whole guide to all the different Bitcoin wallets, so you can read about the different wallets and figure out which wallet is right for you. There’s just more and more stuff all the time.
So, the easiest way is just to go over there and take a look at bitcoin.com whether you’re an expert and know all about Bitcoin already or if you’re brand new to Bitcoin and just looking to get started. We have all the information for you.
Andre Rishi: All right, I definitely will put that for our audience members in the show notes, so they have a way to go to your site and check that out. And it sounds like you’re saying whether you’re a newbie or an expert, seems like there’s a whole lot of information they can gather just by visiting your site, bitcoin.com
Roger Ver: If you want a Bitcoin t-shirt like this one, they’re for sale over there [Laughter] on the website so…
Andre Rishi: That is awesome, man. That is awe- I have to get one of those actually. So, I may be just venturing over to get one of those. Now, one of the things I wanted to segue into, you mentioned earlier in regards to how Bitcoin seems to be very much in harmony with the principles, with Islamic principles of what money should be. I would love it if you can sort of speak on, you touched in it a little bit but the difference is what you see with the modern-day banking system compared to Bitcoin.
Modern Day Banking System vs Bitcoin
Roger Ver: Right. With the current banking and monetary system, everybody knows that counterfeiting is bad. If you or I were to counterfeit a bunch of dollars in my office or your office there, we would go to jail for counterfeiting because it’s stealing value from all the other people that are using the same type of money.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: And everybody seems to know that and accept that and realizes that counterfeiting is a bad thing. Yet, when governments print the whole bunch of money, they call it fancy names like quantitative easing…
Andre Rishi: Yes.
Roger Ver: …or economic stimulus, but it’s the exact same thing as counterfeiting, and it’s detrimental to the economy for the exact same reasons. It’s one group of people printing a bunch of dollars out of thin air, and then using it to buy goods and services out of the economy that would have otherwise been gone to other people that have dollars.
And so, every– there’s more dollars competing for the same amount of physical goods. So, it’s stealing and it harms the economy the exact same way. And just because they call it fancy names like quantitative easing or economic stimulus doesn’t change the underlying fact of the matter is that it’s stealing from everybody else.
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: And with Bitcoin, the supply of bitcoin is mathematically limited to 21 million bitcoins. There’s no Central Bank of Bitcoin that can just make extra bitcoins out of thin air.
Andre Rishi: So, you just can’t inflate the marketplace with bitcoin?
Roger Ver: That’s right. It’s just like gold in that sense, right? There’s a limited amount of gold in the earth’s crust that humans can dig out of the earth.
Andre Rishi: Ok.
Roger Ver: With bitcoin there’s a limited amount of bitcoins that have been determined by the mathematical algorithm…
Andre Rishi: Ok.
Roger Ver: …at the time Bitcoin was created and nobody can change that. And that’s a really, really wonderful thing for the entire world’s economy because now suddenly there is no central group of people that can just make fake money out of thin air, stealing wealth from everybody else in the process.
And that’s a great thing for the entire world’s economy and everybody. And one of the biggest things that for me that has it– that makes Bitcoins so exciting is that Bitcoin doesn’t care where you were born, it doesn’t…
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: …care what kind of passport you have. It doesn’t care what color your skin is. It doesn’t care how old you are. Anybody, anywhere in the world can use Bitcoin and you don’t have to get permission from anybody like that just make so much more sense than the system we have today.
Whereas, if I want to send money from me to you, with Bitcoin I can do it. We don’t have to ask anybody. With some other payment system, we’d have to ask that company, we’d have to ask the banks that are involved; we’d have to ask the governments in the various countries.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: There you have to get permission from all sorts of strangers who have never met all of us, who we’ve never met them, they know nothing about our lives yet we have to get permission from them to send value?
Andre Rishi: Yeah.
Roger Ver: That’s like, that’s crazy. We’re all this, we’re all human beings, we’re all in the same level, why should one group of human beings have to get permission from another group of human beings to send money to and from each other?
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: That’s crazy. Bitcoin puts an end to that.
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: So, for me, that’s just so incredibly exciting.
Andre Rishi: Right. And it’s so funny what you’re saying that in regards to us needing to get permission, it just came to mind, I actually think if you were to try to cross the border of United States, I think it’s, if it’s over $10,000, I think you have to report it or something like that.
So, what you’re saying is Bitcoin is borderless, you can cross with a million dollars worth of Bitcoin into any country anytime with ease?
Roger Ver: You can do that if these people that we’ve never met, they claim the right to decide what we can or can’t do in our lives, if they catch you doing that, they might do bad things to you.
Andre Rishi: Mmm…
Roger Ver: But at the end of the day, Bitcoin is just mathematics.
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: And no amount of men with guns can solve a math problem, right? It takes…
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: …either you have the secret number that’s required to spend the bitcoin…
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: …or you don’t. It doesn’t matter how many guns are pointed at mathematics; mathematics doesn’t care. So, all of these politicians and men with guns that want to control other people in what they do in their financial lives, Bitcoin doesn’t care.
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: So, that’s why there’s an expression that Bitcoin is the honey badger of money. [Laughter] Bitcoin doesn’t care.
Putting an End to War with Bitcoin
Andre Rishi: Now, you talked about like men with guns, and how do you see Bitcoin playing itself out when it comes to whether it be enabling wars or de-escalating or stopping wars since it isn’t fiat currency?
Roger Ver: Right. If you look around the world pretty much the US is the biggest wager of wars around the world. They love dropping bombs on people all over the planet. And to me, I find that absolutely disgusting. And, let’s give an example of like just how brainwashed almost everybody is, right?
Andre Rishi: Mmm.
Roger Ver: If once, a stranger, if somebody you have never met told you to go and kill somebody else you’ve never met, you would say, “Hell, no!” [Laughter]
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: “Are you nuts? Why would I kill somebody I’ve never met?” But that’s exactly what’s happening in the US military, right? People higher up in the military tell people lower down in the military who they’ve never met directly, “Go and kill these people in some far-off land who you’ve never met.” That is absolute insanity.
Andre Rishi: Yeah.
Roger Ver: You should never ever, ever kill somebody you’ve never met because somebody else you’ve never met has told you.
Andre Rishi: Yeah.
Roger Ver: All of this killing though is being funded by taxes and inflation. It’s a combination of two.
Andre Rishi: Yeah.
Roger Ver: And in my point of view, like if Starbucks came and started telling people you have to buy our Starbucks coffee or we’re going to send you to jail if you don’t buy it.
Andre Rishi: Mmm.
Roger Ver: Everybody would think Starbucks is nuts.
Andre Rishi: Crazy, yeah.
Roger Ver: Right? And everybody thinks Starbucks is horrible and crazy yet the US government goes around and tells everybody, “Hey, you have to give us your money and we’re going to use it to do all sorts of things including killing people in far-off lands…”
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: “…and if you don’t give us your money, we’re going to send you to jail.”
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: If Starbucks did the exact same thing, we would all know instantly that Starbucks is nuts and we should be opposed to Starbucks for doing that.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: When governments do the exact same thing, it’s every bit as wrong as if Starbucks were to do it, we should oppose them for it too. And one of the great ways in which governments were able to do all this sort of thing is by controlling the money supply.
Andre Rishi: Yes.
Roger Ver: Both by controlling all the banks and printing money and issuing the money, and being able to block and control where the money flows, and being able to print extra money out of thin air at any time for any reason.
Bitcoin takes both of those powers away from them. Governments will no longer be able to print money out of thin air, and governments will no longer be able to control who does business with what. It’ll make direct taxation or seizure of people’s accounts very, very difficult like Bitcoin.
Andre Rishi: Mmm.
Roger Ver: Really, really, people always ask like, “Well, how is government going to regulate Bitcoin?” Right? “What are you going to do if government regulates Bitcoin?” They have it exactly backwards. Governments aren’t going to regulate Bitcoin. Bitcoin is going to regulate governments.
Andre Rishi: Mmm.
Roger Ver: Bitcoin is draining the power and control that governments have with people. And that’s a wonderful, wonderful thing for all of humanity and it has me, you know, excited in getting up early every day and staying up late every night to work on Bitcoin because I want to bring about these positive changes for the world as quickly as possible.
World Governments’ Reaction to Bitcoin
Andre Rishi: And I think that’s rather cool, man. I really, I think it’s rather cool. And again, you just, wonderful segue into governance. Talking about how Bitcoin would be the, what’s the word, the impetus that would change governments.
From your travels all over the world, what have you seen has been the reaction to governments in regards to Bitcoin? In Saint Kitts for one and let’s start in with Saint Kitts and Japan where those two places that you call home.
Roger Ver: I think government isn’t one specific entity. All governments were made up of you know thousands or millions sometimes of individual people so different people within government have different views and different takes on Bitcoin.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: I hope and think Saint Kitts is starting to come around but it was a little bit of a slow start there.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: Japan, you know there are lots of politicians here. One overall theme I’ve seen in Japan is that the name of the person that created Bitcoin and the name that person was using was Satoshi Nakamoto.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: Which is a Japanese name, almost for sure he wasn’t actually a Japanese person, maybe he was but it seems unlikely.
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: But a lot of these Japanese politicians seem to have this nationalistic pride that Bitcoin was created by Satoshi Nakamoto. So, we want the entire world to know what a wonderful thing was created by this Japanese person and so they seem to like Bitcoin for that reason which is you know I’ll take allies where I can find them, and if they want to like Bitcoin…
Andre Rishi: Yeah, man.
Roger Ver: …for that reason [Laughter] that’s fine with me too.
Bitcoin Blockchain Benefiting Humanity
Andre Rishi: I completely agree. I agree. Now, let me actually sort of talk about the technology behind Bitcoin, the Blockchain. Now you’ve talked about– we talked about how, you know, Bitcoin is not something that you can just inflate at whim just like you can the fiat-based currency.
We talked about how Bitcoin can potentially change governance. How do you see the technology behind Bitcoin benefitting humanity? And that’s a pretty broad, that’s a pretty big question.
Roger Ver: One of the biggest hindrance is the humanity’s progression is government intervention in the economy via both inflation and war. Like there is a limited amount of human energy that humans have each day, and that human energy should be spent producing computers and shoes and cars and housing and food for people to eat, not if people are busy building bombs and tanks and guns.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: All that energy and time and effort and resources that are being used to produce those guns and tanks and bombs…
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: …is energy that wasn’t able to be used producing clothes and food and housing and clean water. And not only that, but then when those bombs and guns and tanks are used, usually they’re used to blow up people’s food…
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: …and clothing and housing and clean waters. So, it’s just…
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: …it’s huge drain on the economy. And Bitcoin strips away government’s ability to fund wars around the world.
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: Or what’s going to happen, maybe the next time somebody wants to fund the war and the people get together and say, “Hey, we don’t want a war.” And maybe they pool their resources together in the form of a bitcoin bounty and say anybody that starts a war, there’s a bounty for X million dollars’ worth of bitcoin on that person’s head who tries to start the war.
Like that’s an interesting way for the people to fight back against war. And maybe we will see something like that in the future.
Andre Rishi: It is.
Roger Ver: So, that’s, no, no average Joe on the street wants to be involved in a war anyway. He just wants to live his life with his friends and family and be safe and have enough food to eat. And its only governments and politicians that want to start dropping bombs on people around the world.
Bitcoin Bounty Hunter
Andre Rishi: I completely agree. You mentioned you know putting a bounty on bitcoin, you have a website I believe called Bitcoin Bounty Hunter, is that right?
Roger Ver: Right. So…
Andre Rishi: What is that about?
Roger Ver: So, just like with anything in life, it can be used for both good and bad purposes.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: Unfortunately, some bad people tried to use bitcoin to do bad things with or have stolen bitcoins or have done things but… So, I set up a website called Bitcoin Bounty Hunter where if somebody has done something bad, you can list a number of bitcoins that you’re willing to offer as a bounty for traditional law enforcement to go and find the person and make an arrest. And hope…
Andre Rishi: Has anyone cashed in on it?
Roger Ver: There’s one that’s in the process…
Andre Rishi: Ok. Ok.
Roger Ver: …at this point. We’re waiting for the final, like, conviction and that sort of thing to happen.
Andre Rishi: Wow.
Roger Ver: But that will be interesting as well, but there is about, I’d have to look at the current value but maybe 45,000, $50,000 worth of bitcoin as the current value. And it looks like somebody is going to be able to collect that.
Andre Rishi: Ok.
Roger Ver: At some point which will be exciting when we get to announce all of that publicly. But it looked like it was a direct result. We offered the bounty to catch this hacker that was extorting people and doing bad things.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: And it looks like one of his friends, who’s friends to him but thought, “You know, I like him but I like $50,000 worth of bitcoin more.”
Andre Rishi: Even, yeah.
Roger Ver: So, he called the police and gave all the information up to the police and that’s kind of a good thing.
Andre Rishi: Wow.
Roger Ver: So, we kind of turn the tables on the hackers, and the bad people are doing bad things with bitcoin.
The Use of Blockchain Technology
Andre Rishi: That definitely sounds good, man. That definitely sounds good. And again, just going back to the Blockchain and you mentioned how you really do see it benefitting humanity. And the two things you really mentioned was war and finance.
I’m curious, because you have been an investor in so many Bitcoin start-ups, and because you’re so well entrenched within the Bitcoin community, are you seeing where people are actually using blockchain technology for things such as health care systems, patents maybe, open-source patents with Blockchain technology, anything like this at all? Are you beginning to see any technology like this?
Roger Ver: So, lots of people are starting to work on that sort of thing for like lands title registries for example…
Andre Rishi: Ok
Roger Ver: …or the Bitcoin Blockchain or most Blockchains depending on how much processing power there is to secure it…
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: …are the most secure indestructible ledger that humans have ever figured out how to create. So, anytime we want to have a public record of something Blockchains are absolutely a wonderful place store that. So, but all of that comes secondary in my view from the power of money. Money really…
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: …really has an effect on every single person’s life on the entire planet, whether you’re you know Warren Buffett worth billions of dollars or if you are living in some third world country on a dollar a day, money is an important part of your life. And Bitcoin improves the lives of all those people whether it’s you know the super-rich or the super-poor, Bitcoin helps all of them.
Andre Rishi: I agree. I agree. Now speaking of again money and affecting those who are rich and those who are poor, what about countries such as, you look at the continent of Africa where you know with Bitcoin you need an internet connection and you may have like a lot of dark spots on continents like Africa. So, what do you see in regards to Bitcoin spreading to those places?
And, if I can throw in another question as well, do you see a problem happening if let’s say maybe a lot of the early adopters of Bitcoin, who maybe were just buying a lot of bitcoin and sort of hoarding and holding on to it, the early comers; do you think that will negatively affect those who step into Bitcoin later on when internet in their region becomes available? That’s two different questions there.
Roger Ver: Yeah, you have two very different questions there, so…
Andre Rishi: I have two very different questions. Let’s start with the Africa first, the continent, places where there’s no internet connection, what’s up with that?
Roger Ver: So, I think lots of early Bitcoin adopters and lots of wealthy people want to see everybody in the entire world have access to the internet, and we see, Elon Musk is wanting to put a bunch of satellites around the world to give every single person on the planet access the internet, and it’s getting cheaper and cheaper now. You can use a bitcoin, you need about a $20 cell phone, can use a bitcoin wallet now.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: And in some parts of the world, $20 is still a lot of money but that’s only going to get cheaper. Today, it’s $20, next year it’s going to be $10.
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: And then $5 a year after that, and pretty soon it will be close to free.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: So, it just takes a little bit of more time and effort and resources but that’s coming, internet’s coming to everybody in the entire world and a lot of these people want that to happen.
And in regards to early adopters, like myself, who has bought you know a lot of bitcoin and are holding on to it, and people wonder like, “Well, aren’t we going to be able to have this big influence on the market in the future?”
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: Maybe. But that’s nothing compared to the influence that central banks have today and forever if we’re using government-issued money. Central banks can print as much money as they want to, any time for any reason until the end of time as long as people are using their money. With Bitcoin early adopters that have hoarded a bunch of Bitcoin from early on…
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: …maybe they can spend it and do a lot of stuff, but once they’ve spent it, it’s gone. They can’t just make more out of thin air like the central banks do today. So…
Andre Rishi: Right
Roger Ver: …with Bitcoin, if you think it’s a problem that early on people are hoarding a bunch of bitcoin, if you think that’s a problem, it’s only a problem once until they’ve spent their bitcoin. But central banks, it’s a problem forever until the central banks stop existing.
Andre Rishi: Right. Well one thing I would say, when I look at Bitcoin and again I look at the like Islamic principles, you know Islam has this, it has a function and it’s called zakat, don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this, it’s called zakat.
Roger Ver: Please tell me.
Andre Rishi: So, what this does is sometimes it’s called the charity tax or the poor tax. So, it’s really the only tax that’s mandatory in Islam that says once you hold X amount of wealth and you have to have held that wealth at least to rock bottom minimum a year, then you can be taxed 2.5% on that wealth.
And that wealth is supposed to be put back in to the marketplace to help those in need so those who are poor or maybe there’s someone who may have a really great idea but they don’t have a lot of money, you’re supposed to, you can use that money to help them invest to upstart their business. So, it’s, you can say it’s a way to not only help those who are poor but to stimulate the marketplace where it keeps money like keeps…
Roger Ver: And the person paying the zakat gets to choose where to direct it? Or…
Andre Rishi: They have to give it to someone who is Muslim, and they have to give it to someone in need so…
Roger Ver: But beyond those requirements, they can choose which Muslim…
Andre Rishi: Yes.
Roger Ver: …and which person in need?
Andre Rishi: Yeah.
Roger Ver: Oh, that sounds very neat.
The Drawback or Negatives of Bitcoin
Andre Rishi: Yeah. So, when I hear you talking about this, it definitely seems like this is something that’s very much in harmony with the Islamic principles and something that I think a lot of Muslims would actually like.
I also know though that some Muslims are very skeptical about Bitcoin. So, we’ve mentioned like a lot of things that are really positive about it, what are any negatives? If you think there are any.
Roger Ver: The biggest negative or the biggest drawback is that it makes online extortion easier because now we have this anonymous money that can be anonymous. It’s not automatically anonymous but they can use it to try to extort people at a distance. So, somebody in you know in a far-off country could try to extort somebody in another far-off country…
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: …and demand that they paid them in bitcoins. So, the most common example of that is a software program called CryptoLocker which people get tricked into opening an attachment that came in an email.
Andre Rishi: Mmm… Yes.
Roger Ver: And it encrypts the entire hard drive and the creator of the software says, “Hey if you want me to give you the password to decrypt your hard drive and get all your files back, pay me you know $100 worth of bitcoin to this address.
And people have to pay the bitcoin and then they can decrypt their hard drive. If they don’t pay they lose access to all the files in the hard drive. So, that’s probably one of the biggest drawbacks that Bitcoin has.
But all the benefits compared to having to deal with being careful what attachments you open when someone sends you an email like… [Laughter]
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: People, governments aren’t going to be able to continue dropping bombs on people around the world.
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: Like I think that’s worth having to be extra careful about what attachments you open in your email account compared to governments being able to no longer be able to afford to drop bombs on people around the world. It’s like not even a close to trade off there for me.
Andre Rishi: Right. And God forbid, if we did have an extortionist then again you know we will go right back to Bitcoin Bounty Hunter.
Roger Ver: Bitcoin Bounty Hunter
Bitcoin Hivemind
Andre Rishi: Exactly. And catch them that way. I also wanted to talk about a website you have called Bitcoin Hivemind, what is that exactly?
Roger Ver: So, Bitcoin Hivemind is not my website but it’s…
Andre Rishi: Ok.
Roger Ver: … a company I’ve been invest-, I’ve been– put up the seed money and have been you know, I’m an investor. I’m the only investor in that. I’ve been funding that for a while now. And basically, it’s really, really neat.
So, like I have a mind in my head here, you have a mind in your head, everybody that’s listening to this Podcast has a mind in their head. I know certain things in my mind that you don’t, you know certain things in your mind that I don’t, and each of the people listening to our Podcast know different things that you and I don’t know.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: So, what Bitcoin Hivemind is going to allow to do, thanks to Bitcoin and the Blockchain, is you can aggregate the wisdom of all these minds around the world to figure out what actions we should take today in order…
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: …to achieve our desired goals tomorrow. So, like I’m an expert in certain areas, you’re an expert in different areas, other people are experts in different areas, and individually you know we can get by Ok. But you can harness the power of a thousand or a million minds together which are a lot more powerful than…
Andre Rishi: Yeah.
Roger Ver: …any of our one minds individually. And the way that works is it’s what called the prediction market, where you can have the likelihood of the future event happening based on whatever actions today.
And things that I’m confident in because I think I have the right knowledge required to that. I’ll be willing to risk money on that. If I’m not confident about something, hopefully I know that I’m not confident about it, so I’m not going to be able to risk money on that.
And the things that you’re confident in, you’ll risk money on, the things that you don’t know about, you won’t risk money on. So, for example like football, who’s going to win the Super Bowl? I have no idea. I don’t follow any of that.
I’m not going to risk a single penny on that. But on other things I do feel confident about, I would be willing to risk my money about. And so, everybody has these different areas of expertise and with Bitcoin Hivemind and using Bitcoin…
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: …we can harness these different areas of expertise today to figure out what course of actions humans should take today in order to achieve whatever desired ends tomorrow. So, like for example, like there is a huge debate about whether Obamacare is likely to help or hurt people or make people live longer or shorter or be good for the economy or bad for the economy like everybody has an opinion.
Using something like bitcoinhivemind.com, only people that are confident enough in their opinion that are willing to put real money on the line or going to participate. So, we can find out with a very high level of certainty like if Obamacare were to pass or not pass, are human– is human lifespan in the US going to be longer or shorter? Or tag is the economy going to do better or worse? So, I thought that just kind of everybody’s individual opinion, maybe there are some experts, maybe there’s not.
But with Bitcoin Hivemind we can aggregate all the knowledge of all these people and find out with much more certainty what’s likely to happen. So, it becomes this incredibly powerful tool where everybody wants people to have enough food to eat and live a long time and you know nice places to live in and clothes to wear and be warm and all that.
With Bitcoin Hivemind, we can harness the wisdom of crowds to figure out what actions we should take today to achieve the desired ends tomorrow and that is a really, really powerful tool for all of humankind to be able to move humankind in the right direction. And I’m really excited about once that’s already and once that gets launched. And previously there have been some sorts of things like that.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: But they were centralized, and as soon as they started to get popular where people were actually able to have an effect, the government shut them down. The most famous one was it a website called Intrade and as soon as it started to get popular, the government shut them down because prediction markets can be used not only to predict the future, they can also be used to influence the future.
Andre Rishi: Yes.
Roger Ver: And when politicians are worried that the outcome of their next election might be influenced by other people, they really don’t like that.
Andre Rishi: Well, I was just going to say just from you know how you’re describing Hivemind, I just instantly, I was thinking to myself, well that can actually affect the stock market then. That’s– that actually can have people either really happy or really worried. So, yeah, and I think…
Roger Ver: Incredibly powerful tool that I don’t think people understand.
Andre Rishi: Yeah.
Roger Ver: How powerful it is yet.
Andre Rishi: Yeah, and I think so long as it’s really used for the benefit of humanity, it can actually be a really good thing. It sounds like you can again, Bitcoin, one, the currency, but just even looking at the technology of the Blockchain, I can imagine there are so many different ways that you can implement that into systems that would really affect, effect humanity in a positive way.
And it sounds like the minds behind Bitcoin Hivemind, you, I’m sure you must have people within that group who are already thinking of that.
Roger Ver: Yeah, that’s right. They’re excited in working on it.
Mining Farms Controlling Bitcoin
Andre Rishi: Yeah, awesome. Now what if, some people may say do you ever see Bitcoin being controlled by one particular group? I know there is such a thing in Bitcoin called mining.
And when I learned about Bitcoin back in 2012, at that time you can say it was already too late for the individual to mine Bitcoin themselves, you really needed crazy super power to mine Bitcoin, and now you have these mining farms. What effects do you think these mining farms will have on the decentralization or centralization of Bitcoin?
Roger Ver: I don’t think it’s had much effect at all. And I think people are a little bit too worried about that sort of thing. Mining is already very centralized but it hasn’t caused any problems at all. And if it were to start becoming a problem, very quickly people could shift what’s called the proof of work algorithm…
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: …to something else. And I don’t really see it as a big of a problem as some people do.
Andre Rishi: Ok.
Roger Ver: As far as Bitcoin being able to be usurped or taken over or controlled by somebody, I think that’s really, really, really, really unlikely. In fact, I think, if I thought it were likely I wouldn’t have got involved in Bitcoin at all. So, I don’t really don’t lose much sleep over that at night.
Where Can You Spend Bitcoin?
Andre Rishi: Ok. Now, how can people spend bitcoin? I do know that as you mentioned your Microsoft, Dell, there are a lot of places now that are accepting bitcoin that were not back in 2011, 2009, 2012, how– it’s still though doesn’t really seem that easy. So, how do you see that happening? How can you spend bitcoin, what’s an easy way to spend bitcoin?
Roger Ver: So, one of my very favorite websites to spend bitcoin on is the website called Purse.io P-U-R-S-E like a woman’s purse dot io.
Andre Rishi: Ok.
Roger Ver: And that allows anybody here that you know 15%, 20% even 25% discount on every single purchase from Amazon. And to the way it works, you go over to amazon.com you put whatever you want in your Wish List at Amazon and then you paste the Wish List in over at purse.io and then somebody else who buy the good for you, and Amazon ships it directly to your house just like normal.
The other person gets the bitcoins. Everybody’s better off and happy. And the reason that discount is possible is because Amazon is using Amazon store credit to pay a bunch of people in other countries where governments have gotten a way of traditional payment systems and…
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: …they can’t use normal payment systems to pay them so all these people have a bunch of Amazon store credit but they would rather have bitcoins. They sell their Amazon store credit at a discount and they would, once they have the bitcoin, they’re free to do whatever they want with it.
So, if you know and you have something you want from Amazon, go paste it in at the purse.io and someone will buy it for you, they get the bitcoins, you get the item from Amazon and you saved you know 15%, 20% even 25%. And it’s actually fantastic way to save money and some people even turned it into a business where they’re buying…
Andre Rishi: I was just going to say, it sounds like you can actually buy things at a discount, turn right back around and probably sell it.
Roger Ver: Yeah. And a lot of people are doing that. Some people are even buying like gold and silver coins at a discount on Amazon and then they would resell the gold and silver coins or other people are buying you know iPads and iPhones and things like that and then resell them on their local Craigslist like there’s a huge, great, fantastic business opportunity there with purse.io
Future Dream for Bitcoin
Andre Rishi: Cool. Cool. Well, you’ve definitely given me, given us a lot of great information. All the websites you mentioned Bitcoin Bounty Hunter, Bitcoin Hivemind, bitcoin.com, purse.io, I’m definitely going to put those in the show notes.
I’m going to wrap things up in a little bit. You’ve been awesome, man. I just wanted to know, so if you were to give any predictions or if I can say, what would be your biggest dream that you would like to see come to fruition with Bitcoin?
Roger Ver: So, a couple hundred years ago, it would have seen like crazy talk to talk about the separation of church and state.
Andre Rishi: Mm-hmm.
Roger Ver: And today kind of seems like crazy talk to talk about the separation of money and state.
Andre Rishi: Right.
Roger Ver: I want to see a separation of money and state. I don’t think that there’s any reason the governments need to print, to coin, or control money in any way. And I think Bitcoin is the doorstep to making that a reality, and that’s what I’m working harder to do every day.
Conclusion and Where to Find Roger Ver
Andre Rishi: That’s really awesome, man. I really just want to take the time to thank you so much for appearing on the Podcast, you’ve given us a wealth of information. Where can we find you if somebody wanted to connect with you?
Roger Ver: The best place is probably is bitcoin.com, I’m trying to stay pretty active on the forums over there. And if you want to read a little bit more about me and my experiences in life at rogerver.com. And if I can recommend one book that I’m really big fan of it…
Andre Rishi: Sure.
Roger Ver: I think sums up things really well is there’s a book called, The Most Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose.
Andre Rishi: Ok.
Roger Ver: And it’s a really fantastic book, and I think it will really change the way you look at the world. And I just read it recently, and it changed the way I look at the world again as well so it’s called, The Most Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose and I really like that book.
Andre Rishi: Awesome, man. Awesome. Well again, I wanted to thank you for appearing on our show, you’ve been a, as we say a scholar and a gentleman. I’m wishing you continued success with all your business ventures, continued success in your personal and private life and we would like to see you continuing to do good, good things in the Bitcoin space, man.
Roger Ver: My pleasure. Thank you very, very much for having me on.
Andre Rishi: Thank you so much and I leave you the same way that I greeted you, As-salamu alaykum which means may peace be upon you.
Roger Ver: Thank you.
Andre Rishi: Thanks, Roger.
