About the episode
Kevin chats with Bram Cohen, creator of BitTorrent, about his new cryptocurrency, Chia. Chia is an energy-efficient “green” cryptocurrency that utilizes additional hard drive space on inexpensive computers. Chia is launching in just a few days. Kevin has already begun mining (“farming”) on their testnet.

Bram Cohen
(@bramcohen) is the inventor of the P2P BitTorrent protocol, co-founder of CodeCon, co-author of Codeville, and Big Kahuna of green cryptocurrency platform Chia.net.
Topics covered
Links from the episode
Bram Cohen | Puzzle Master Inc
What’s Behind the Pandemic Puzzle Craze? | JSTOR Daily
What Is Proof-of-Work? | CoinDesk
What is Proof of Space and Time? | Chia Network
Cryptocurrency “Farming” Could Make Blockchain More Eco-Friendly | Futurism
Timelords | Chia-Network/Chia-Blockchain Wiki, GitHub
The Chia Business Whitepaper | Chia Network
Ethereum 2.0: Still Not Scalable | CoinGeek
A Beginner’s Guide to Blockchain Accounting Standards | SEBA
Colored Coins Paint Sophisticated Future for Bitcoin | CoinDesk
Mainnet In Cryptocurrency: What Is It? How Does It Affect Prices? | 101 Blockchains
Is DeFi a $10 Billion Ponzi Scheme? Its Yields May Be Too Good to Ignore | Forkast
How Do Cryptocurrency Mining Pools Work? | Investopedia
NFTs: Blockchain-Powered Art, Trading Cards, Music, and More with Aftab Hossain | Modern Finance
Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) v1.0 | w3.org
NFT Mania Is Here, and So Are the Scammers | The Verge
IPFS (InterPlanetary File System)
Meet the Plotting Experts | Gene Hoffman, Jr. (Bram’s Favorite Plotting Video)
96TB ROCK Pi Farming Rig! | Bram Cohen, Twitter
Twitter Takes Off with Memes as Elon Musk’s SpaceX SN10 Explodes Minutes After Landing | CNN-News18
Show notes
Want to help review this show? Here’s how.[01:08]
Bram’s original concept for Chia.[02:56]
Understanding the mechanics of how this works in layman’s terms.[06:10]
Bitcoin mining, ASIC chips, and the cost of electricity.[07:25]
What is the plot file, and what’s in it?[09:57]
Bram explains how “Timelords” operate in Chia farming.[10:30]
Where do the winning “bingo” numbers come from?[12:45]
What’s the smallest amount of hard drive space someone needs to start farming Chia?[13:19]
What is the mechanism behind Chia farming? What happens to the data?[14:21]
How is a farmer rewarded for their contribution?[15:52]
How does the network process and handle transactions?[16:39]
How should people think of this coin? What is it used for?[17:59]
There won’t be any transactions at mainnet launch. Here’s why.[19:22]
How many transactions per second will the Chia network eventually be able to support?[20:48]
What is a colored coin?[23:55]
Using Chia for DeFi, here’s how Uniswap on Chia could be done.[24:55]
How does a rate-limited wallet enhance security?[26:34]
Will there be support for pools in Chia?[28:35]
On supply of coin, halvings to fixed rewards, and inflation.[30:26]
Is there any advantage to farming on SSD vs. standard hard drives?[31:09]
Efforts Bram and the Chia team have made in improving plot speeds.[32:06]
The rude awakening that prompted me to fix my hard drive plotting.[33:25]
What does Bram see Chia looking like three to five years from now?[33:53]
Bram’s thoughts on NFTs, and if Chia will support them.[35:01]
Bram’s thoughts on Filecoin.[39:15]
Does Bram know Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto? Is Bram Satoshi Nakamoto?[40:20]
Is Bram bullish on Bitcoin?[41:53]
Does being green mean a lot to Bram?[42:28]
Why farming Chia makes me feel nostalgic.[42:48]
Parting thoughts about the perils of celebrating on launch day.[46:42]
People mentioned
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