FTL is not possible, but Dr. Jones proceeded to offer great insight with the words, ʻWe can't really solve it.ʼ The following is the complete transcript of the interview. Fungibility? Fungibility is a commonly used term in economics. It basically means that all goods are fungible. In economics, fungibility is important because if one good is not fungible with another good, then the price of the good will be different from other goods. A good that is fungible will have price fluctuations that are similar to other goods. It is often used in the context of monetary goods, but other goods are also fungible. To use a fungible good, it must be interchangeable with another good. It can be substituted for that other good without changing the goods price. A monetary example of this is when consumers pay for something with a credit card instead of cash. What is an example of a non-fungible good? An example of a non-fungible good could be a pair of shoes. One pair of shoes could cost $100, but it might be very difficult to find a substitute. It is very difficult to find another pair of the same shoes that will have the same functions and features. What is Bitcoin? Bitcoin is a type of cryptocurrency. It is the world’s first decentralized digital currency. Cryptocurrency has a long history of being used to describe non-fungible goods. There have been a few successful cryptocurrency’s already in existence, such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, ZCash, and so on. There are also new cryptocurrency tokens being developed on a daily basis. The definition of Bitcoin includes the term cryptography. Cryptography is important because it uses mathematical functions and numbers to create secure transfer of data between a sender and a receiver. So the way that Bitcoin works involves the use of cryptography. Bitcoin is a relatively new type of currency. In the past, the use of cryptography for currency was mostly used for business. An example of this would be encrypted credit card numbers. Bitcoin has become incredibly popular. The total number of Bitcoin transactions as of March 2013 is about 250,000 per day. This is only a rough estimate of how much is actually going on in the Bitcoin ecosystem. There are other types of transactions that are currently not tracked in the blockchain. What is the blockchain? The blockchain is the backbone for bitcoin. Every bitcoin transaction goes through the blockchain. It is essentially a public database of every transaction and balance in the bitcoin blockchain. The database is basically a list of balances, time stamps, information about the transfers and wallets that the money is stored in. This ledger is spread out across many different types of servers throughout the world. The database must be updated by each and every person that uses bitcoin. Why do you call it the blockchain? Blockchain is a buzzword that gets used often in modern finance. Some people call Bitcoin the internet of money and it is a perfect description. It is a new invention that solves a huge problem of trust. In a modern monetary system, there is no transparency to each transaction. There is no record of who purchased which stocks, or how much stocks cost. This information is not transparent to the public. There is no transparency to government spending. Bitcoin aims to improve that situation by using a decentralized database that holds all the information on each transaction that occurs. What is the mining of Bitcoins? Bitcoin mining refers to the process of transactions being added to the blockchain. There are certain conditions that must be met before a transaction can be added. There must be some proof that the transaction was spent by the sender. In order to prove that the transaction was sent, and that the transfer was authorized by the account, the receiver must sign a message that is associated with that transaction. This message is called a “signature.” The next step is proof of work. A proof of work requires a certain amount of computation. For example, this proof of work can consist of complex mathematical calculations. Miners basically solve these complex calculations to sign off on the transactions. The reason that miners solve these calculations is because they get paid a reward. The amount of rewards that a miner receives for solving these calculations is determined by the blockchain. Miners receive Bitcoin as a reward for solving the calculations. There are also some transactions that are just not possible to mine. An example of a transaction that is not currently possible to mine would be an individual transfer from one account to another. There are currently no rewards associated with that kind of transaction. This is called a “reward-free block.” What is an example of proof-of-work? A simple example of proof of work is trying to find a number that is below 100. If a miner tries to find a number that is under 100, they will receive a reward. There are some numbers that are far too hard to find than others. As a result, Bitcoin has a very large mining network. There are many computers all over the world working to find the correct solution to the problem. These transactions are called proof of work. The people who own the computers or other tools needed to solve these mathematical equations are called miners. There are many people that are looking to invest in mining equipment to cash in on the current profits of mining. Miners are trying to find the right solution because they get rewarded for these solutions. The use of multiple miners to verify transactions is a basic security issue. No one entity has the power to make transactions occur. Miners verify the transactions and decide whether they are valid. This process increases the chances of a transaction being successful and verified. As a result of this proof of work process, there is a large amount of competition to find the solutions that can be used for validation of the blockchain. That competition keeps the system secure because of the high amount of processing power required to hack the solution. Why is the reward needed? There are two major ways to make a transaction happen on the blockchain. The process that can be done by anybody includes a relatively low amount of mining rewards. If a sender makes a transaction without any additional proof of work, then it would be very easy for an account to be hacked or stolen. This kind of transaction would be the most basic way to make a transaction. The second form of validation is through proof of work. Miners solve a certain set of problems to validate a transaction. To explain the benefits of this proof of work, let's say I want to send some money to my friend. I can do this transaction without the proof of work process because there are no miners involved. A miner will eventually be needed to solve the problem of validating the transaction. I will receive my transaction from the miner who solves the problem, and it will get added to the blockchain. Then my friend will get his transaction from me and his solution to validate it. He will receive his transaction from a miner. When he receives the transaction, there is the proof of work. At that point, he needs to wait a little bit for me to get to a certain point of block number and his transaction is included in the new block. The miners and the people using their computers to process the transaction are the only people involved in the transaction at that point. They are trying to secure the system by putting in a lot of resources to solving these complex calculations. A miner must put in a lot of resources because they are working to solve math problems. These transactions are being done with proof of work so that the system can be more secure. How is the proof-of-work process secure? The proof-of-work process is completely secure if the system is not tampered with. Anyone who wanted to attack the system would have to work against the interests of the miners. The system works together with the bitcoin protocol. The people who put the protocol together make sure that they stay within the maximum limitations of the system. Anybody who works against this system for illegal or unsanitary purposes would fail. The proof of work process protects against this attack. At first, proof-of-work is performed at a rate of approximately one transaction every 10 minutes. Eventually, this rate will decrease. The proof of work will become increasingly difficult as the amount of blocks increases on the blockchain. The miners have an incentive to spend time creating a secure system. It takes a lot of computing power to work around the system. If miners try to attack the system for personal benefit, they will see that their results will not pay off. The bitcoin system is an open source system. This means that anyone can view the code that runs the blockchain. What are the benefits of bitcoin? There are several benefits of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is being used in Africa to transfer money around the continent. Because it is decentralized and does not involve banks, the entire process takes less than 24 hours to complete. This is very good because an average bank transfer can take a very long time to complete. Bitcoin is a useful method of monetary exchange. The value of bitcoin is very unstable, but it is very practical for transferring money to friends, family, and other people you trust. There are also many people that do not trust banks. Bitcoin is very popular in Argentina and Venezuela where people have lost their savings from failing government systems. In these cases, bitcoin can help people who don’t want to put their savings into the hands of corrupt