Who Needs Bitcoin? With Junseth - WBD541

Junseth is an OG Bitcoiner and the former co-host of Bitcoin
Uncensored. In this interview, we discuss how the early days of
Bitcoin mirror the issues we’re seeing in the ecosystem today:
over leverage, unsustainable returns, greed and excessive
confidence that the party won’t end.


- - - -


The contagion in the DeFi market over the past few months has
seemed unprecedented. Major companies wiped out. Investors rekt.
Confidence turned to panic. Commentators have been declaring that
the recent events are an existential crisis: this time Bitcoin is
really dead.


As one of the OG Bitcoiners, Junseth was part of the initial wave
who eulogized and expanded on what the innovation could possibly
mean for the world before the world had heard of Bitcoin. Then,
between 2015-2017, he hosted the uncompromising podcast Bitcoin
Uncensored, with Chris DeRose. They exposed false promises and
scams prevalent in the space.


Past is, as they say, prologue. And the past events that
triggered the development of Bitcoin, and its early days, rhyme
with the present.


Junseth connects the over-leverage within traditional finance,
which was the predicate for Satoshi’s message in the genesis
block, with the excessive confidence and greed that has been the
root of the cascading collapse of DeFi companies. In turn, the
untenable yields prevalent within the altcoin markets were a
practice employed by scammers working with Bitcoin nearly a
decade ago.


What are the important lessons to learn? Humans are creatures of
habit: scams and greed will always follow the money. But, is the
more important lesson that the unnecessary complexity of the
grift that develops diverts from the principle simplicity of
Bitcoin? Is the innovation of digital value the singular utility?
Will those motivated by greed, therefore, miss the real purpose
of Bitcoin? Should we instead follow the actions of those
motivated by need?