Bitcoin Privacy with Matt Odell

“I’ve already come to the conclusion that with or without me, with or without you, with or without anyone in this room, Bitcoin will be the money of the world. So it’s up to us to make sure that it’s actually freedom money and not cuck money.”— Matt OdellMatt Odell is host of the Citadel Dispatch and venture partner at Ten31. In this interview, we discuss why each additional positive act of privacy protection improves Bitcoin's resilience and value. Perfecting privacy is not the goal; making a start is, as we don’t know what the future holds. - - - - Our privacy is continuously being eroded. Current best estimates are that 2.5 million terabytes of data are produced every day. A material amount of that information has extremely lax privacy protection: 98% of Internet of Things data is unencrypted; 83% of companies encrypt less than half the data they store on the cloud; 25% of websites are visited without encryption. Vast amounts of the data we freely shed are stored, analysed and triangulated for commercial reasons. These tactics are so sophisticated that it’s not uncommon for people to think companies are listening to their conversations.We are being squeezed for our data in almost all aspects of our lives while cash, traditionally the only semi-private way of transacting, is being removed from society, and CBDCs inch closer to reality. Imagine if companies or governments could access and track your income, store of wealth and all those with whom you transacted. What is currently unnerving behaviour by those who track our data could rapidly become something much more maligned and coercive. Bitcoin is freedom money. But using bitcoin privately isn’t an easy task. The vast majority of Bitcoin is bought using exchanges that have stringent KYC/AML requirements. When you pair these onramps with surveillance firms like Chainalysis, using bitcoin goes from being pseudonymous to almost entirely transparent. But there are things you can do to gain good privacy with bitcoin. Tools like coinjoin and non-KYC exchanges like Bisq are getting better all of the time, and more and more people are using the Lightning Network for cash like transactions, which offers improved privacy.Perfect privacy, whether with bitcoin or not, is a pipedream. The goal is to continually improve in protecting a fundamental human right, privacy. This episode’s sponsors:Gemini - Buy Bitcoin instantlyBlockFi - The future of Bitcoin financial servicesBitcasino - The Future of Gaming is hereCasa - The leading provider of Bitcoin multisig key security.Ledger - State of the art Bitcoin hardware walletCompass Mining - Bitcoin mining & hostingCake Wallet - Open-source privacy focused Bitcoin walletBCB Group - Global digital financial Services-----WBD518 - Show Notes-----If you enjoy The What Bitcoin Did Podcast you can help support the show by doing the following:Become a Patron and get access to shows early or help contributeMake a tip:Bitcoin: 3FiC6w7eb3dkcaNHMAnj39ANTAkv8Ufi2SQR Codes: BitcoinIf you do send a tip then please email me so that I can say thank youSubscribe on iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | Deezer | TuneIn | RSS FeedLeave a review on iTunesShare the show and episodes with your friends and familySubscribe to the newsletter on my websiteFollow me on Twitter Personal | Twitter Podcast | Instagram | Medium | YouTubeIf you are interested in sponsoring the show, you can read more about that here or please feel free to drop me an email to discuss options.