The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin Page #4

the code is

publicly available.

Anyone can look at it

and see how it runs.

And they can also contribute

their own changes.

Programmers like Gavin were able

to join satoshi to work on bitcoin

simply because

they were interested.

Over time, I think

satoshi learned to trust me.

He could see that I didn't make

very many stupid mistakes.

I never had any personal

connection with satoshi.

It was always

purely business.

And I think that's because

he was so worried about

people finding out

his identity.

I don't know why.

My last email to him

was telling him that I had

agreed to go visit

the folks at the c.I.A.,

so... ( LAUGHS )

Whether that had something

to do with him

deciding to cut off

communication with me entirely...

he had been

pulling away before then,

but the c.I.A. Invited me

to come talk at the c.I.A.

And I agreed to do that.

DANIEL:

Knowing it would surely spark

conspiracy theories,

Gavin posted an announcement

on the bitcoin talk

discussion forum

to head off any rumors.

Having taken on

the lead developer position

since satoshi's

disappearance,

Gavin found himself facing an

increasing number of responsibilities

and public scrutiny.

Do your neighbors know that

you're kind of at the center

of one of the most

disruptive technologies?

I think... I think they know that

I do this wacky bitcoin project.

I don't think they know

quite how big it is yet.

Right now,

bitcoin's

a billion-dollar project.

When I started it was

this tiny little experiment.

And as it gets bigger,

the pressure

to not screw up

just gets

bigger and bigger.

DANIEL:

Two weeks later

the price soared past 150.

And some bitcoiners woke up

to find out they were

bitcoin millionaires.

23-year-old Charlie shrem

is the c.E.O. Of a company

called bitinstant.

Bitinstant was one of the first

startups in the bitcoin space.

In bitcoin's infancy,

people had to jump

through several hoops

to buy them.

One of the only ways

was through

the mt. Gox exchange,

but this process required

transferring money

through several

intermediaries

and could take weeks.

Charlie launched bitinstant

to streamline this process.

And to help people buy

bitcoins quickly.

- MAN:
Yeah, that's good. That's great.

- ( CAMERA BEEPING )

- That's pretty nice.

- You go like that.

Yeah, sure.

DANIEL:

Today Charlie is being photographed

for an article

in "businessweek."

MAN:

One of the ideas they had

was that you're going...

throwing stuff up in the air

and they were gonna add

bitcoins in later on.

- Going like that?

- Yeah.

SHREM:
This bitcoin thing can

actually change the world.

But for this thing

to succeed,

we have to figure out

a way to get more money

in and out

of the ecosystem.

Look out the window a bit.

Totally... yeah.

Then you can look...

yeah, that's good.

And not show that I'm super

stressed out right now

and we have thousands of orders

that are being processed

and I'm bugging out,

trying to get the new site launched.

- No, don't look like that.

- It's crazy.

I'm trying not to,

but it's really hard.

SHREM:

Things have been insane.

( MOUSE CLICKING )

I haven't slept in days.

The price is just rising,

so a lot of people

are putting

money into it.

DANIEL:
Normally,

Charlie can get bitcoins

to his customers

in about an hour.

But with the recent flood

of people

trying

to purchase bitcoins,

bitinstant can't fill

their orders fast enough.

When I pulled up our

customer service interface,

we have close

to 2,000 open tickets.

And that's just

from Saturday to this morning.

Nobody was ready

for this kind

of volume,

so we're trying

to catch up

with the volume

and keep everybody happy.

MAN ON PHONE:

Can you just sort of describe quickly

what the last week or so

has been like for you guys?

The last week or so saw

our support staff

go from two people

to five people.

When someone

offers you

a seat

on the rocket,

you don't ask

where the seat is.

You just

get on the rocket.

Further, our volume has

basically tripled

in the past two weeks,

going from a few hundred

transactions a day

to now two, three thousand

transactions a day.

- NICK:
You just came onboard here, right?

- Yeah, I did.

Actually, today is

kinda my first day.

- Oh really?

- Yeah.

How does it feel to be

a part of all this madness?

Um, well, madness, yeah.

It's overwhelming.

And what do you do

for bitinstant?

I'm the c.F.O.

( CHUCKLES )

MAN ON PHONE:

Can you give me a daily estimate

of how much money you're

moving through your system?

Um, it's in the...

in the six figures

every day.

All right.

Well, thanks, Charlie.

- I really appreciate it.

- Thank you.

I don't know how the government

will react to bitcoin,

but I spend thousands

of dollars on lawyers every day

just to make sure that

I'm not gonna go to jail.

It's super terrifying.

I mean, I don't wanna go to jail.

( STAMMERS )

I don't wanna become

a martyr either.

( PEOPLE CHATTERING )

DANIEL:

Bitcoin was the talk of the town.

Charlie was

in the limelight

and could barely keep up

with media requests.

Within hours,

the price passed $200.

SHREM:

First day of spring,

first day

bitcoin is over 200.

The start of a new era.

NICK:

Hi. Nice to meet you.

I'm the nice

warm loving mom

that makes him

live at home.

'Cause we can't...

we can't part from him yet.

( LAUGHTER )

MOTHER:

We love him too much.

This is where

it all started

and this is where

it still goes down.

I've been collecting money

from all over the world.

And it's just something

I did way before bitcoin.

I've been doing it

since I was a kid.

So it's funny that

I'm collecting all this...

Fiat that's

not worth anything

and then all of a sudden

I get into this bitcoin thing.

I realized

during high school that

I could never work

for anyone.

I made up a term...

psychologically unemployable.

I started bitinstant

while I was still

in my senior year of college.

Bitcoin currently is the largest

social-economic experiment

ever conducted

in the history of the world.

2013, possibly 2014,

will be the two years that

really make or break bitcoin.

Bitcoin is the first product

that's digital,

but it's also scarce.

I got some good news

last night that

part of our licensing deals

that we've been trying to do

for the past

few months are finally,

hopefully,

coming through.

We got approved

to be licensed

in 30 of the 48 states

in money transmission.

I've been working very hard

on trying to be compliant

in the legal realm

and with fincen's

announcement,

setting up a way for bitcoin

companies to legally exist,

that really changes

the whole game of bitcoin.

And for us,

it helped us get that last push

that we needed

from all the banks

and the regulators

to finally, hopefully,

get that licensing

that we need.

DANIEL:
Today,

Charlie's meeting with a realtor

to talk about

new office space.

Hi, Charlie,

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