Despite the recent crash, blockchain and bitcoin are still an immensely popular topic right now, so its no surprise there have been many great Ted Talks that have emerged on the subject. Here are some of the best that I’ve found.
- Intro to Bitcoin — Vinny Lingham
Vinny Lingham is a smart guy. He’s a successful South African entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Gyft, an online site to buy, sell, and redeem gift cards. More recently he’s founded a company called Civic, which specializes in identity protection and management using the blockchain.
He talks a bit about the history of money and some of the problems with fiat currency particularly in relation to the 2008 financial crisis. He then goes on to talk about the problems bitcoin solves and how that can also impact other industries.
- How the blockchain is changing money and business- Don Tapscott
Don Tapscott is a Canadian businessman with a keen interest in blockchain. He also has a new book out that he wrote with his son titled “Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World”
Similarly to Vinny Lingham, Don Tapscott talks about some of the issues with the traditional way of using intermediaries to move money around. He explains blockchain in a way that’s both interesting and easy to understand.
- How bitcoin is changing the world — Andreas Antonopoulos:
Andreas Antonopoulos is a serial entrepreneur, coder, author, and public speaker.
He’s gotten a lot of attention since bitcoin has become more popular because he’s been so involved in the evolution of the space all the way back to 2012. He is widely known and well regarded as one of the experts on the subjects. He’s been on Joe Rogan, London Real, and given many other speeches on blockchain and bitcoin
He talks about bitcoin is a way that, because of his unwavering conviction, can make someone really believe a financial revolution is coming. He predicts “the people born today will not know a world in which banks and paper money exist.” He makes some pretty bold statements about digital currencies,however, he was right about the internet, so I wouldn’t count him out now.
- How the blockchain will radically transform the economy — Bettina Warburg
Bettina Warburg is an entrepreneur and Co-founder of Animal Ventures, a company the “Connects forward-looking companies to the most transformative technologies” in areas like blockchain, Artificial intelligence, IOT, and Augmented reality.
In the Ted Talk, she explores how the blockchain is a continuation of our attempt to lower uncertainties when exchanging with one another. She makes the case that the blockchain allows us to lower uncertainty without political or economic institutions serving as a middleman. She talks about what the blockchain is and how it can accomplish this. It’s a really interesting Ted Talk and a highly recommend it.
- The future will be decentralized — Charles Hoskinson
Charles is extremely intelligent mathematician and entrepreneur who is working on a project called Cardano, which could be huge for the future of blockchain and the decentralized economy. He was also one of creators of Ethereum and was the CEO for a time.
I really liked his Ted Talk because Charles uses a great real-world example to illustrate the problems with sending money, specifically in certain countries. He then gets more into the blockchain and smart contracts. You can also find plenty more videos of him on YouTube explaining what Cardano is and the problems they’re trying to tackle.
These are just a few of the many great Ted Talks out their on bitcoin and blockchain. No matter what field your in, its never a bad idea to have at least a basic understanding of emerging technology, particularly when it carries the promise of being revolutionary like blockchain.