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I have a personal anecdote about your statement here.

I was at a launch event for 'Create Your Own Economy' in Washington DC. It was a small event, at least small enough I had a chance to talk with Mr. Cowen uninterrupted for five or ten minutes while I bought a copy of his book.

Having read Satoshi's whitepaper a month or so prior, and being pretty excited about it, I attempted to describe the idea of a currency without a central authority to Mr. Cowen. I don't remember his exact words, but his basic sentiment was 'That's not possible, and even if it is, nobody would value it'.

The conversation made enough of an impression on him he signed my book 'To Tim - To the Idea of Fantasy'.

So I 100% agree, there's no way he would have funded Satoshi.

https://imgur.com/a/fsSMiB1




It's possible (though perhaps not likely) that episodes like yours have made him more likely to take further-out ideas more seriously now than he did then. I mean, to me it seems like he should have stuck with his original reaction, but he seems pretty bullish on that stuff now, so maybe the feeling that he was wrong has chastened him.


> so maybe the feeling that he was wrong has chastened him

Or maybe he's just jumping on bandwagons. I'm not sure that's the case, but it's another possibility.


> maybe the feeling that he was wrong has chastened him.

Actually, it looks like he was in fact correct.


Yeah I alluded (maybe too subtly) to my agreement on that point. But I read guys email blog and he doesn't seem to think cryptocurrencies are worthless.


So there's only one out-- Cowen has designed his funding criteria such that even he cannot undermine its efficacy.

Anyone know if this the case?




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