In this episode of UpOnly, Cobie and Ledger talk to the one and only Charlie Lee about Litecoin, crypto as money, smart contracts, decentralization, and more.
Audio Version
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Show Notes
- Dogecoin makes up more rewards than Litecoin now – Doge technically now protects Litecoin
- Not much new ASIC development for Litecoin due to price action but older hardware remains profitable
- Why did Charlie sell all his coins? Price became a distraction, when he was promoting LTC it became an issue on if he believed in it or wanted money, conflict of interest. Got trolled non stop for 4 years lol – would have been trolled for selling too early also.
- Money was never an incentive for Charlie, he was an early BTC buyer, selling LTC barley moved the needle to him.
- Charlie’s job is to see LTC succeed, to get it on exchanges and to secure the network. His job isn’t the price and it is only a distraction.
- Not worried about the security of the chain, current levels should be even higher than required.
- Has issues with Ethereum, the premine wasn’t fair for what is meant to be a decentralised chain. No fair launch. Second issue is the DAO hardfork – bug in the code and the money was stolen and ETH was forked to stop the hack. Unsure if the ETC the hackers got was ever sold (could maybe verify this)
- Response to DAO hack set a bad precedence of the ETH team control over the network.
- Ledger – theory of “code not people” but in this case people followed Vitalik instead. Highlights the importance that Satoshi has stepped away.
- Cobie – do you still see LTC as the testnet for BTC or has its role changed in the ecosystem? Charlie – it can still perform that role like with the segwit changes. Allows scaled testing that wouldn’t be feasible on actual BTC testnet.
- Charlie hasn’t been following EVM side chain development. Hasn’t been following BCH. Cobie is not really a fan, developers he asked about it had a bad opinion on it too.
- Bitcoin user experience via Lightning is subpar to e.g MetaMask on ETH. Would go a long way for adoption if improved
- Velvet – can move LTC onto the Cardano network to make use of their smart contracts. Cobie got trolled by chat into bringing it up
- Charlie believes a centralised solution makes more sense for smart contracts.
- Charlie isn’t a believer of art NFTs – it’s a fad, the value is in the certificate of authenticity of the artwork not the NFT. Thought the burning of the Banksy work was stupid. Can see in-game related NFTs for eg items as valuable.
- Ledger – any speculation on how you’ve managed to retain your reputation over the years Charlie – key is that he isn’t attacking BTC, he agrees it’s still king
- Cobie – what are the things over the last decade that have played out differently to how you thought? & what came true?Charlie – Bitcoin came true, knew right away it would be huge as a better form of money, gold, fiat. His 10 year target was $5K and they thought he was crazy (it had dropped to $2). Totally didn’t expect LTC to be as crazy as it is, created it for fun and because it could be better than the existing altcoins that launched after – wanted something without the premine and a fair launch – claims the fair launch is the reason for its success.
- When Charlie launched LTC, many of the first few comments were about why another coin was needed when there was already a dozen coins – big change compared to now
- Chat wants to know if he sold the top of Coinbase too – he hasn’t, because the top isn’t here yet and he hasn’t sold
- Cobie – The crypto industry has more middlemen than anything else considering its original job was to cut out the middlemen. Charlie doesn’t think BTC was created for that reason, thinks middlemen are necessary e.g. storing on exchange is better for someone non-technical that might lose it, they can use it until comfortable dealing with it themselves – the important part is the ability to opt out. Cobie agrees, thinks the ability to opt out is a better way to phrase it.
- Charlie is disheartened by the FUD e.g. on climate. You can’t fight it or change their minds but it’s damaging.
End of show alpha from Charlie: Sell your shitcoins and buy BTC and LTC
Music by GiovanniPickle