Growing up in Argentina, Wences Casares saw his family lose all their money three times due to actions by the government. The so-called "patient zero" of Bitcoin in Silicon Valley explains why he believes that experience predisposed him to seeing the potential in Bitcoin earlier than most people, why it's so hard to explain Bitcoin to Americans and why the company he founded, Xapo, isn't just a Bitcoin vault and wallet company but his best effort at helping to ensure that Bitcoin succeeds. He talks about why he isn't scared of all the new competitors to his service, including Coinbase Custody, why Xapo hasn't branched out into any other crypto assets, and why he believes there's a more than 50% chance that Bitcoin is worth $1 million in five to ten years. Additionally, he still believes the attempt to accommodate more transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain with the SegWit2x fork, which he backed, was wrong -- even though the fees after its failure skyrocketed to as high as $60. Plus -- he reveals what it would look like if Bitcoin became a global standard of value, and why that vision doesn't threaten governments.

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Episode links:

Wences Casares: https://twitter.com/wences

Xapo: https://xapo.com/

Wences's Facebook Live with Dan Schulman of PayPal: https://www.facebook.com/DanSchulmanPayPal/videos/1419329821528449/

To learn more about Wences, read New York Times reporter Nathaniel Popper's book, Digital Gold: https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062362506/digital-gold/

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