In 2017, we saw Bitcoin grow by over 1300%. Ever since the start of the new year, however, things have been pretty ugly, with a year to date performance of -50%. So what in the world is happening? Is bitcoin still the darling new asset class that so many people believe in, or is something more frightening on the horizon? Well, on today's show, we are going to have a little discussion that covers both sides of the argument. In one corner we have Tuur Demeester. Tuur has been an investor in Bitcoin since the early days when one coin was only $5. Since his initial position, Bitcoin has grown by 132,000%. Tuur has a huge following with over 159,000 twitter followers because of his in-depth ideas and comments about crypto currencies. On the other side of the argument we have the talented Erik Townsend. Erik is the host of a very popular investing podcast called Macro Voices. Erik got his start as a computer programmer and by the age of 17, he was already an independent software development and design consultant. Erik is an entrepreneur that has built successful tech companies and he's also the founder of his own global macro hedge fund.

• To view the full show notes, click here.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why the Bitcoin community is so focused on the distributed ledger
• Why the bitcoin blockchain consumes so much energy and why it’s important for security of the blockchain
• How Cryptocurrencies in the future likely have different layers of centralization
• If governments eventually will take over with their own cryptocurrencies 

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.