“Bitcoins are like gold bars with wings. That is why I, and so many others, view bitcoin and its network as gold 2.0.”
“Our basic thesis for bitcoin is that it is better than gold.”
“Facebook is like the Internet: a large company and an application. Bitcoin is a protocol for decentralisation, so you could build a decentralised company on top of it, a stock market. It’s an Internet of ownership, so it’s not quite a direct comparison.”
“We have elected to put our money and faith in a mathematical framework that is free of politics and human error.”
“The idea of money being something physical is almost entirely a fiction. Sure, you can go to your ATM and pull out cash. And you can feel cash in your back pocket and have some tangible comfort there – but in reality, the majority of your money is a number on a screen.”
“We see bitcoin as potentially the greatest social network of all.”
“Auctions create greater price discovery and liquidity, resulting in a very meaningful final auction price. If you were building a securities exchange today, an auction would be a core feature.”
“For me, becoming the best you can be in something that you love, like rowing, is incredibly challenging, and what you learn about yourself, the sense of satisfaction as you get older and move on, you’ll never forget that. It’s huge.”
“I remember when people called Facebook a fad.”
“I think fiat currencies will become digital.”
“If Bitcoin is a better gold or seen as a type of gold-like asset, then it could be in the trillions on a market cap.”
“Bitcoins – it’s freedom. It’s very American.”
“In our early experiences with bitcoin, we found how few people were building bitcoin exchanges the right way. They really weren’t taking the regulation seriously; they were taking it too much like how you would approach something when you’re 18, full of the excitement of youth and throwing caution to the wind.”
“With Bitcoin, no one has a monopoly of information.”
“We may have been born on third base, but we worked like we were starting from home plate. You know: batter up.”
“Gemini is a spot bitcoin exchange. To use it, you sign up with Gemini.com and undergo the initial standard review process, similar to what you’d encounter at a traditional bank. Once you’re through, you can ACH or wire cash to the platform, then begin buying and selling bitcoin.”
“When you have a lot of talent, you don’t necessarily have to be gracious and consider everyone.”
“There’s a difference between being a fundamentalist and being al-Qaeda and being Muslim. It’s absurd to think otherwise.”
“Often, people are afraid to be good at more than one thing.”
“I’m not a man who likes to define his identity too narrowly.”
“One of the things that has plagued bitcoin is not bitcoin itself but the companies built on top of it.”
“You’ll be using digital currency. I think really what will happen is you’ll use a combination of bitcoin, ether, your devices, the ‘Internet of Things.’ We’ve got billions of devices coming online.”
“Calling bitcoin volatile – it’s a non-statement. Unregulated assets with unclear regulatory landscapes are always going to be volatile. That’s what unregulated assets do.”
“The promise of the Internet is being held back by Visa, Master Card, American Express.”
“Gox was a pattern of poor operations, poor customer service, poor PR. You can’t just take bitcoin and hide.”
“Bitcoin and digital currency is just this thing that was always going to happen.”
“We eat, sleep, breathe bitcoin.”
“The narrative behind bitcoin has been dominated by bad behavior. The reality is bitcoin is filled with tons of talented developers building infrastructure.”
“To shut down Bitcoin is to shut down the Internet.”
“We didn’t grow up in a jock household. In fact, my dad is an entrepreneur. He was a computer programmer; he was a professor of actuarial science at Wharton for 13 years, then started his own company that was software-based.”
“I think our path to the Olympics is a good metaphor for how you build a company. Our skill and commitment grew over time, day by day, stroke by stroke. So, sports are tied well with our entrepreneurial pursuits because you train for a few years, but there is no guarantee that you will succeed.”
“The attraction to me was that Harvard was such a big community, with interesting things to do and interesting people, but you realise when you’re there that things are a lot narrower than you thought. It’s a little bit of a let-down.”
“Hate is a strong word. It’s also very destructive, so no – I don’t hate Mark Zuckerberg.”
“We were there at the beginning of the web 2.0.”
“We are pretty firm believers in the fact that you make your own fate, with or without the Facebook ordeal.”
“On one of our very first days when we tried rowing, our coach, James Mangan, showed us a video of the Boat Race. That was part of the impetus for us to start rowing.”
“Everybody has a good idea, but nothing goes as planned.”
“There will always be people who will support us, and there will always be naysayers.”
“I don’t think it hurts to have rowing featured in a movie that’s in the race for the best pictures. If it means someone might try the sport… then I’m really excited and happy about that.”
“Judging a child taking his first steps for not being able to run a marathon is shortsighted.”
“Cash is going to be killed. It will be nostalgia.”
“We dealt with a lot of skepticism early on, when we first spoke about bitcoin.”
“We’ve weathered a few storms before, like when social networking was considered a fad. I think that we have a track record of being on to something big.”
“I’ve been a huge fan of Mike Judge for a long time.”
“I remember there was one summer – I think I was 13 years old – that was literally defined by watching ‘Beavis and Butt-head’ with my friends.”
“I think it’s always interesting when you see a company start moving so quickly – it’s like wow, incredible. When a company like Uber starts breaking away, it’s not a linear thing. It’s exponential. All of a sudden, the guy you know who threw $25,000 at Uber very early on – all the sudden, that $25,000 is $25 million.”
“When you think about how everything else works in the digital age and the way that money does, money really falls short.”
“Every investor around the world wants to invest in U.S. markets because they’re regulated and they’re licensed. They’re trustworthy; they have confidence. If you take that away, the global economy will take a hit like nothing else. We want to create that for Bitcoin.”
“Dad was a pure entrepreneur. The dinner conversations weren’t like, ‘Did the Yankees win today?’”
“Our business isn’t to be famous: that’s not what we do; that’s not what we strive for.”
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