Airdrop #08: Dennis Rodman OK. Virgil Griffith NOT OK.

Welcome to Arry's Airdrop #08! 
​Hi everyone,

I hear the same theme again and again. And Again. The theme I keep hearing is the need for more educational content. There's a lot of great content out there. There's a lot of great creators out there. What's missing is the glue, the connections, the context, the history, the "why it matters" analysis to help bridge the OG tribal knowledge for the millions of newcomers discovering blockchain, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies every single day. 

You'll see even in the article related to Virgil Griffith, an Ethereum developer, who plead guilty to doing a presentation in North Korea back in 2019. There's so much context and history built into looking into this that most people simply do not have, or do not have the luxury of time to dig into. I just spent a few hours writing it down for you. Same goes for the other article noting Michael Saylor's stance on cryptocurrencies and securities. I did the best I could, as I ran out of hours and have to sleep now.

I'd love your thoughts, ideas, volunteers for content, whatever it is on what we can do better to help you, help others, with this tribal knowledge. How do we share it faster? How do we share it more broadly? How do we make it more accessible? 

Dennis Rodman OK 🤠. Virgil Griffith NOT OK ☠️.
​Today, an idealistic young man and Ethereum developer named Virgil Griffith plead guilty to a now removed military-grade Munitions Act offense of talking about publicly available content on blockchain and cryptography, with North Korea. Here are some interesting data points, pulled out 1-by-1 for your easy consumption that are relevant to this landmark historical case:

• "an idealistic young man": do a little digging and all you can see is a young idealistic man who saw an opportunity to try and build a bridge at the Pyongyang Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Conference in North Korea. Looking at the trail of breadcrumbs from Virgil's path to date, he's a peaceful humanity bridge builder. A good guy. The actual title of Virgil's talk was "Blockchain and Peace", not close at all to what is reported.
• "now removed": I didn't know this, but apparently cryptography was once listed as a major offense in the Munitions Act. The cypherpunks, the Bitcoin, blockchain, and cryptography godfathers of this space were the ones that put in years of civil disobedience and legal battles in the name of Freedom of Speech. Bill Clinton removed cryptography from the Munitions Act in 1996.
• "military-grade Munitions act": In this Munitions Act, sharing of cryptography was once considered a U.S. grade military secret. Cypherpunks printed cryptographic algorithms and sample encryptions everywhere in the name of Freedom of Speech.
• "publicly available content on blockchain and cryptography": First, another reminder that the title of Virgil's talk was 'Blockchain and Peace" (the government's public statement was misleading). It was not a talk about how to use Blockchain and Cryptography to launder money and evade international sanctions. It was a talk that had publicly available information that anyone, including the officers of North Korea could have found on YouTube. 
• "with North Korea": This is maybe seemingly the biggest part of the problem. Virgil was talking to the WRONG audience, North Korea. North Korea is at the top of enemy #1 in the US. ... but then, didn't Dennis Rodman go back and forth, back and forth, meeting with enemy #1's leader, Kim Jong Un multiple times AND even ended up actually teaching the North Korean basketball team some sports tricks? Why was that considered ok if the DPRK could theoretically make money from the Rodman information? 

Why you should care: Plenty of reasons why you should care:

1. Freedom of Speech. It seems what's being questioned here is not the part about going to an enemy country, North Korea and the idealistic notion of wanting to build bridges and relationships. Dennis Rodman did that, many times, and even provided a service of teaching the North Korean basketball team. Virgil, even if it was sharing publicly available information about blockchain on YouTube, talked about something that the U.S. government is still very afraid of - blockchain and crypto. Apparently, even demonstrating the use of crypto to do cross border payments crosses that line. If you've ever done a crypto transaction, it's one of the biggest features of crypto: borderless, frictionless, faster, cheaper payments. What's illegal, is providing "Practically any type of economic activity — including “indirect … exportation of goods, services or technology to North Korea.” Virgil did this. So did Dennis Rodman. 
2. Freedom of Speech: So if it's the blockchain/crypto part of the subject matter that's the issue, that part, the "cryptography" part was removed from the Munitions Act by President Bill Clinton (1996). Open source cryptography is legal and allowed. If you look at the actual complaint, you can see slight changes in the word choice indicating that this was NOT the Pyongyang Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Conference Virgil presented at - it was the DPRK Cryptocurrency Conference inside the official complaint documents. Definitely see the negative color being presented by the U.S. government against Virgil. Also remember, the North Koreans are VERY advanced when it comes to their cyber-attack capabilities. Some of the biggest cyber-attacks in recent history have been done by the North Koreans. 
3. Freedom of Speech?: Then it really must come down to Virgil's decision to use his own money to go to the Pyongyang Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Conference in North Korea, DESPITE the U.S. government (Department of State and many others) strongly advising against it. AND probably the biggest offense was the fact Virgil sent a payment to demo a borderless cryptocurrency transaction between North Korea and South Korea (a definite no-no, even if it was for a simple cryptocurrency demo). 

Lesson? 
The government, especially the U.S. government is powerful. When the government says no, do not go to said country, don't take it lightly. When the government places an enemy country on the OFAC list, be extremely careful as it is going to be nearly impossible to be compliant AND travel to the enemy country. It's very unfortunate that Virgil Griffith, a seemingly nice well-intentioned guy his someone who will now be in Federal Prison, for the next 5-6 years (at least it's with a reduced sentence for pleading guilty). 

Cryptocurrencies are likely securities. 
Bitcoiner and influencer, Michael Saylor was recently interviewed by Raoul Pal. The big meat in the interview was that Michael Saylor says he agrees with Gary Gensler (head of the SEC in the U.S.) that most cryptocurrencies/tokens are securities, at least according to the Howey test. 

Why does this matter? 
Michael Saylor, a very influential Bitcoiner agreeing with Gary Gensler is a bit of an ironic picture. Bitcoin has historically had anarcho-capitalistic roots. Think cypherpunks. Libertarians. Then Gary Gensler, the securities laws. Think especially the Howey Test which was created long ago in 1933-1934 and its old prehistorical way to test in order to determine whether or not something is a security. AND, accredited investor laws haven't changed much either since 1982, are viewed as generally limiting the common person from taking advantage of financial products and services that only the elite investor takes advantage of every day. These laws need revisiting, especially today in the day of digital. Now we have access to investments like NFTs, yet most people cannot invest in a private company (or maybe even cryptocurrencies eventually) unless you are of accredited status. 

Maybe the U.S. should revisit our accreditation laws? Maybe embrace more tests to give access to more folks to investment products? Who are we protecting - the elite or the common person? As you know, savings will not help a person become wealthy anymore - the only way to wealth is investing now.

I've been immersed in the blockchain and crypto space for about 5+ years and I still feel like I'm just a beginner in so many ways. Even the above highlighted news articles that I write about requires a lot of context and knowledge - whether it be on the history or simple definitions. 

Here's a resource I put together over a couple of years, and have been maintaining for another couple of years thanks to crowdsourcing and the community. You may have noticed that there are multiple definitions for almost every term in this space - so consolidating as best as possible one version of the truth was the focus of the "Global Super Blockchain Glossary". I'll hope you'll be able to use it as a resource for yourself, and if you find any definitions or words that are incorrect/missing/needs updates, please help keep it up to date so others can benefit.
​ 

• LINK to the SUPER BLOCKCHAIN GLOSSARY

​AND whether you’re into blockchain for technological innovation or looking to trade crypto, it all starts with the fundamentals. Fundamentals are everything to do with the theory, the context, the history and the "why it matters".  

The waitlist has already been filling up quickly for my next "Blockchains & Cryptos Fundamentals" course. Get on the waitlist and get in-the-know. Standby, I'll be releasing a THREE DAY version of this course for those that need an even more compressed and curated course.

COMING UP:

• A practical Crypto Tax AMA with TaxBit's SME team on October 1, 2021, 12-1pm PST
• AMA with decentralized health insurance Decent's CEO, Nick Soman on October 8th, 12-1pm PST
• AMA with Jesse Proudman of Markara on October 22nd, 12-1pm PST
• AMA with the Neil Bergquist, CEO of Coinme; the head of CA's Blockchain Advocacy Council, the Blockchain Association, and more coming up --- stay tuned! 

In case you didn't know, all AMAs with guests are recorded and posted on our podcast and YouTube show, Windshield Time. Recent AMA's with Jennifer Mace (Crypto Tax), and Hong Fang (CEO of Okcoin) have been posted! 

Join my weekly AMA every Friday, 12-1pm PST
Blockchain is a game changer as a powerful alternative technology to what most businesses use today. Cryptocurrencies and other kinds of digital tokens are fascinating. This meetup is all about focusing our time on global impactful topics, not just crypto-fluffery.

Join us if you want to get into real authentic discussions about what really matters in the blockchain space and have some actual FUN while we're at it, via the Blockchain Underground.

See you next week!
– Arry (@ArryinSeattle)

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