2021: A year of innovation and litigation

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It was the year in which, despite everything, CoinGeek managed to bring BSVers together in Zurich and New York for two magnificent three-day conferences. Both online and in person, they showcased the vibrancy of entrepreneurship around BSV, featuring a host of new projects like Peersend, Haste and Project Babbage, while also digging into its history with blockchain pioneers Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta and cryptography guru Ian Grigg.

Then, of course, there was that trial: the seemingly endless drama in a Miami courtroom in which Dr. Craig Wright successfully defended himself against accusations of fraud from the brother of his late friend and colleague Dave Kleiman.

And it was the year in which the world learnt, to its bafflement, about blockchain technology through the extraordinary prices being paid for NFTs.

So how to sum it all up, from the perspective of the 48 editions of CoinGeek Conversations that were aired in 2021? 

In the final show of the year Charles Miller was joined by the two founders of the Women of BSV group, Diddy Wheldon and Ruth Heasman and his reporter colleague, Claire Celdran. Their choice of highlights led to discussion that included Teranode, Ira Kleiman’s emailing habits, Craig Wright’s audiobooks and those ubiquitous NFTs.

On that subject, Ruth Heasman was happy to trumpet the advantages of BSV: “Comparing the differences between BSV and other blockchains, there’s really no one else doing it the way that BSV is doing it at the moment,” she said. “The fees mean, on Ethereum, that generally artists, unless they sell an awful lot or at a very high price, then they’re not making any money from their artwork. But on BSV of course, transaction fees are often less than a cent, or certainly less than a few dollars anyway.”

Claire Celdran picked a clip that told us something about Craig Wright which had nothing to do with Bitcoin. He was talking about his huge consumption of audio books, sometimes through the night. For Claire, it was a welcome insight into his personality: “He has a certain charm about him because he’s smart. And from what I’ve learnt in the many interviews that I’ve seen of Craig is that he loves to learn. He’s had this never-ending journey, picking on all these courses from different universities. So that’s something I admire about him.”

It was the potential of Teranode that Diddy Wheldon wanted to highlight, choosing a clip from the Zurich conference in which BSV Infrastructure team Technical Director Steve Shadders performed a live demo of scaling on the BSV blockchain, which Diddy believed, “proves the point of the scaling debate.” Indeed, Steve’s demo showed 50,000 transactions per second, with the promise of at least double that being possible.

Finally, Charles Miller picked a moment from Kurt Wuckert Jr’s daily livestream reports during the Kleiman-Wright trial in Miami. Charles praised Kurt’s shows for providing “a wonderful mix of factual reporting and some character-building descriptions.” His fellow guests agreed that Kurt and Patrick Thompson’s Miami shows had been essential viewing during the trial—often keeping U.K. viewers up past their bedtimes!

As for the prospects for 2022, Ruth Heasman confessed she was up for more of the same: “More intrigue. I love it, it’s like being part of a soap opera almost, following Bitcoin. But it’s fascinating. It’s ever changing. It’s exciting. And I just couldn’t imagine not being in the middle of it. I really couldn’t. I love it.”

Happy 2022 from CoinGeek Conversations!

Hear the whole of Diddy Wheldon, Ruth Heasman and Claire Celdran’s chat in this week’s CoinGeek Conversations podcast or catch up with other recent episodes:

You can also watch the podcast video on YouTube.

Please subscribe to CoinGeek Conversations – this is part of the podcast’s fourth season. If you’re new to it, there are plenty of previous episodes to catch up with.

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– Search for “CoinGeek Conversations” wherever you get your podcasts

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