Today on "Orange Hatter" with Tali:

Dive deep into a riveting conversation with Ella about integrating Bitcoin into the world of education.

Highlights:

1. The Upcoming University Guide: Set to release by the end of summer, helping students navigate majors.
2. Interactivity at Its Best: Click through majors, discover blurbs, watch short YouTube videos, and get Twitter recommendations.
3. Bitcoin Bootcamp: GenBitcoin Bitcoin Summer Bootcamp
4. Crafting a Bitcoin Major at Cornell: Ella shares her journey of trying to establish a Bitcoin-focused major.
5. Understanding Bitcoin & Energy: Ella deciphers the relationship, debunking myths about Bitcoin's energy consumption.

Stay tuned for more, and don't forget to share your thoughts at Tali@orangehatter.com. Catch you tomorrow for more insights from Ella! 🎙️🧡

Mentioned in this episode:

Free Market Kids Short

Get your HODL UP ("The best bitcoin game ever!") at www.freemarketkids.com.

Hey everybody.

Welcome to Orange Hatter.

Today you'll be listening in to part three of my conversation with Ella.

What is the timeline of that, uh, university guide?

Yes, I would say by the end of summer is our goal.

We're also working on a Bitcoin bootcamp right now, so information

for that's gonna come out soon, and I'll share it with you when it is.

But we wanna do it by the end of summer, so that...

you know, students start school in September, late August, so

that it's, it's there for that.

So is that, is that guide an interactive...

like if they, they just sort of go down a list of majors and, and if they...

like you, the example you gave, they have a philosophy major, they click on

that, and then you have a little blurb and then a link to something else?

Yes.

So how, how we have it right now, is that it's going to be on our website, and just

like you said, it'll kind of have the list of majors and then they can click on it.

Some of the components of it will be some written text about it, and

then also perhaps, if applicable, a book or maybe a short YouTube video.

There's more resources they could go to.

And then also some good follows on Twitter.

And the reason that we want to try and give them as many different

methods to learn is because everyone learns differently.

And so if they just click on it and they see, I don't know,

maybe even two paragraphs.

I mean, you spend your whole day at school reading or writing paragraphs, and so

just wanna make it easy for students.

And if hopping on a Twitter space with someone that we selected is what

they need, or a short YouTube video or an audio book, whatever it is, we're

just trying to share that information.

It's just genbitcoin.org.

So I wanna follow up with all the initiatives that you guys are rolling out.

So, you have that guidebook, but you also mentioned that there's a

Bitcoin major that you're working on.

Is that part of the same organization, or is that a side project of yours?

No, it's, it's not.

It's a side project of mine.

So, I am at Cornell, and one of the things I love about being there

is that in the school, I am in the College of Arts and Sciences, you

can create an independent major.

You write a proposal, you get a faculty advisor to support

it, and then you can do it.

So I really appreciate that about the school and how they recognize

there's so much knowledge on campus and everyone has a different interest and

they wanna support you in doing that.

And so I am trying to put together a major focused on Bitcoin.

And it's not exactly been a very easy process.

I was working for a good chunk of the year with ... On it and unfortunately

he, I guess, maybe he is not doing that anymore or isn't there.

But I just kind of got sent an email that if I had any questions,

I'd need to talk to someone else.

And so I had been working for a while to try an orange pill him and, um, help

him see that, you know, no, I don't wanna just study the gold standard,

which was one of his early suggestions.

But I have, I have new found hope because I just saw a professor at Cornell has

joined the Bitcoin Policy Institute.

So you know, there's people on campus now that I didn't know about, that are also...

see the value in Bitcoin.

And so if a major isn't approved, I'll do a thesis of some sort.

And you know, I...

bitcoin's so important I, I have two more years left to try and, try and, um,

get Bitcoin on people's radar at least.

So I'll, I'm gonna keep on it.

That is fabulous.

Can you tell me a little bit more about how you were planning or pitching

the Bitcoin major in terms of the classes that you, you proposed would

be necessary to complete the major?

Yes, absolutely.

And I also wanna say so many Bitcoiners have been incredibly generous and

kind with their time to just talk to me and hear their thoughts.

And so that has just been incredible and something so

representative of the community.

But it all started, actually, I took a, my first course on game theory in the fall

and I, every class I was sitting there and I was just thinking about Bitcoin.

This is what happens...

I'm in a class and I'm, I love learning, and so I'm there, but

I'm also thinking about Bitcoin.

And then I was talking to my advisor for cognitive science, which is what my

major is officially declared as right now, and this game theory course was

under the information science department.

And so I was talking to him about how I would plan out my courses and what

track of the cognitive science program he thought might most resonate with me.

And he said, "oh, you know, this game theory course sounds really interesting.

All you're doing, um, in information science sounds really cool.

You know, we should see how we can make that a larger part of your major."

And I left and I was like, okay, sounds great.

And then it just occurred to me, why don't I just make an independent major if, you

know they're already willing to be very flexible with what I am taking, you know,

maybe I put together an independent major.

And so the proposal that I proposed, it was called Innovation Under the

Bitcoin Standard, how do we build our future through cognitive science,

information science and economics.

And so it, it sounds a little structured, 'cause the proposal had

to be structured, but it was all about, kind of, the interactions

of people, information and markets.

So how do people think, interact with information, make decisions?

Really, how would Bitcoin be adopted by society?

What does that look like?

And so that is what I proposed.

Now, I mentioned previously that I've fallen a bit down the energy rabbit

hole, and so I'm thinking about perhaps changing the focus a little bit, maybe

trying to tighten it up, so that it's more likely to be approved, but come

at it from the energy perspective.

Because I think also climate change is maybe more well received than

money, um, in big institutions, and people are more focused on the

environment in some cases, I think.

And so if I can come at it from actually how good Bitcoin is for energy and,

you know, climate change and the energy transition, they might be more inclined

to support the proposal and the major.

Let's tie energy and Bitcoin together for the people out there who

don't know what you're talking about.

Can you expand a little bit more?

Just real basic?

Yeah.

So if it's okay, maybe I'll just go to the very beginning of why Bitcoin and energy.

So, and I think also context is always good.

So proof of, let's start with proof of stake.

So actually, let's go back a little bit further even, because it's...

like we mentioned, it's always helpful to have the full context.

So, the blockchain trilemma.

I don't know if you've discussed this on your show yet, but

essentially with every single...

I say Bitcoin, not crypto...

but every single kind of cryptocurrency out there...

When their blockchain is set up, there's certain trade-offs

that have to be made early on.

So picture in your head a triangle, and on each point you have security,

scalability, and decentralization.

And so the trilemma piece comes in because you can only have two out of those three

goals that you can really focus on.

So Bitcoin is super secure and super decentralized, but Bitcoin just at its

very core is really not very scalable.

But you know, that in my view is best trade off to have, because now we have

the Lightning Network, which fixes that.

But the other ones have sacrificed decentralization and security

to enhance their scalability.

And so one of the pieces with that, is kinda the next topic we can touch, is

proof of stake versus proof of work.

So to kind of create...

so, I think a lot of people say proof of work is how you mine the Bitcoin.

Like gold, how you, you know, you take your, your pick ax and you go mine.

You exert energy to then get your gold, have your property.

Something that's important to just recognize.

With Bitcoin is, proof of work is, really how you're securing the

network, how you're making it safe, and then how the transactions are

getting added to the blockchain.

And your reward is the Bitcoin.

So if we just look at, you know, mining gold and mining Bitcoin.

The work of kind of...

sorry, I don't wanna go too technical...

but when you're mining gold and you're, you're swinging the ax,

that is the true act that would be securing Bitcoin, if that makes sense.

And then the reward is the Bitcoin that you receive.

So mining gold, Bitcoin, we have all this physical energy that we're exerting.

Proof of stake, which all of the other cryptocurrencies use.

There's no energy.

There's no mining.

There's no, no physical exertion of effort.

Basically how it is, it's kind of like you're buying, if you think about like

at a raffle, at like a fair, you buy raffle tickets so you can maybe win

the lottery item or whatever it is.

The more raffle tickets you buy, the greater chance you

have of winning the prize.

That's kind of how proof of stake works.

The more coins, the more tokens that you stake up, the more

likely you will get a reward back.

So there's a couple more kind of subtleties in that, but I think that's

a very easy way to explain it overall.

So, many people call out Bitcoin's energy usage as a huge kind of

drawback, and there's a very kind of bad narrative around Bitcoin and energy.

I, and I think all other Bitcoiners are of the mindset

that it's a feature, not a bug.

So to put the energy usage in context, Bitcoin uses 2% of the world's

energy consumption, and 55% of that comes from renewable energy sources.

Bitcoin's energy usage is also less than that of Christmas lights.

And I might get the numbers a little bit wrong here, but I think it's that Visa

processes 26,000 transactions per second.

So the...

no, sorry.

I think that's right.

And total banking system uses 56 times more energy than Bitcoin.

So, maybe I'll say that again.

The total banking system uses 56 times more energy than Bitcoin.

And Bitcoin with lightning can process so...

a million transactions...

so many more.

So, I know that was quite a lot all there, but those numbers are really important

to know when you hear Bitcoin and energy.

'Cause the value you get for the energy input is just so drastically,

incomparably, you know, great.

And it really doesn't use that much energy.

So there's hopefully a good overview and hopefully kind of explained all right.

Thank you for listening.

Did you hear anything in our conversation today that you resonated with?

Were you able to identify with some of the feelings that Ella had?

If so, I would love to hear from you.

Please send your questions or comments to my email Tali@orange hatter.com.

I would love to hear from you.

Come back tomorrow and hear the rest of our conversation.

Thank you.

See you soon.