Unearthing Found Footage From One of the First Bitcoin Conferences (vice.com) 14
em1ly writes: Motherboard found old footage from one of the first major Bitcoin conferences: Bitcoin 2013 in San Jose. They filmed at the conference -- where Bitcoin cost $118 at the time -- and in the basement of the organizer and founder of BitInstant, Charlie Shrem [who would later get arrested and go to jail because his company was found to be laundering money for users on the Silk Road drug market]. The footage is a part of a documentary series Motherboard is airing on YouTube called CRYPTOLAND, about the "environmental, political, and cultural implications of the crypto gold rush." "[W]e shot this footage and then it never turned into a documentary," writes Motherboard's Jason Koebler. "People who worked on it left the company or moved on to other projects, we got busy, the footage went onto a server somewhere. Years passed. The legend of the lost Bitcoin tapes began."
Woulda coulda shoulda (Score:1)
I had a feeling BTC was going to go up in value. I even half-jokingly suggested back in 2014 [slashdot.org] that it might reach the value of whatever Tesla car it was that you could buy back then.
What I didn't have (and still don't) was a bunch of disposable income to gamble on magic internet money that could've just as easily became the virtual money equivalent of having a MySpace page, when Litecoin or some other alt-coin stole BTC's thunder. As they say, hindsight is 20/20 and I'd have to go a lot further back befor
Fun convention (Score:2)
Fanime Con 2013 was happening next door while we were there. Lots of colorful costumes and some interesting people to talk to walking back and forth from the hotels. There was a very tall, very hourglass girl that was in a different cosplay outfit every time I saw her, which was usually a couple of times a day.
A bunch of us walked to an event at a bar in a commercial district some distance away. That commercial district had almost a small town feel to it, it was very nice - slant parking on the street, u
In the fast-paced world of scams (Score:2)
Motherboard found old footage from one of the first major Bitcoin conferences: Bitcoin 2013 in San Jose.
2013 is old.
That's only 9 years - not even a full bubble-bust cycle.
I remember Bitcoin when it was "worth" cents (not that it was ever worth anything in terms of real worth). It was play money back then, and I, like others, played with it, then forgot about it.
Show me old footage of people who got together and genuinely believed in it back then and I'll be properly impressed. But in 2013 when it was worth >$100, the scam was definitely on and many people hard heard of it and wanted in on the action. Just
Re: (Score:2)
I don't have footage, but I had some college buddies in the early days that believed in it enough to run a drip server for the school. One of them gave me several hundred bitcoins, but since I didn't want to try and buy drugs with them I had literally no use for them, so I found an online poker site that used them and played around until it went offline. And since I figured the total value of whatever I had on that site was at most a couple hundred dollars I didn't really worry about it.
Whoever ran that sit
Forgot the private key? (Score:2)
The footage was sitting on a hard drive they had the whole time, they just forgot the private key for it until just now.
Beware of Jason Koebler (Score:2)
Just a heads up, Jason Koebler was one of the people involved in screwing over Naomi Wu. She did an interview for Vice, and their journalists (including Jason Koebler) published details that they had agreed via email would be kept off the record. Some of it was very personal stuff that put her in danger, and ultimately resulted in her being briefly detained by Chinese authorities.
If any Vice/Motherboard staff or Jason Koebler ever ask you for a comment or interview, decline. You can't trust them.
Re: (Score:2)
Well shit if we're going to go that deep, why don't we post something similar in every article from Ars since they coddled Dr. Pizza for so long?
Found Footage (Score:2)