Interview with Bryce Weiner: Digital Rights Management and Blockchain

This was my first interview as a journalist, and I chose a controversial figure that people either love or hate. In an interview with CCN, Bryce and I talked face to face about his revelatory past and future, including his plans for the future of blockchain.

Bryce Weiner , 41, has been a practitioner in the field of Bitcoin and financial technology for many years. His company, permissionless blockchain , was officially listed in 2013. Before getting involved in the blockchain technology industry, Bryce was a music host during the afternoon peak time of an FM radio station.

He then spent 15 years in successful software engineering and development roles at companies such as Thomson Reuters' Medical and Technology divisions and Lockheed Martin's Missiles and Fire Control Systems division. He also ran several small businesses, including a coffee shop and a technology consulting firm.

Bryce has been a very outspoken member of the Bitcoin industry, particularly speaking about the Bitcoin protocol, blockchain technology, and the ethical implications of smart contracts. His unique perspective has earned him many speaking and interview opportunities, and he has been mentioned in publications such as the International Business Times and Business Insider. He frequently verifies facts for industry publications and provides expert authentication evidence for the prosecution of Bitcoin crimes in the UK.

He has been working on developing software frameworks for Bitcoin and blockchain applications for organizations like Morgan Stanley and the Recording Industry Association of America.

Me: Recently, an Australian has been claiming to be you online. Do you have anything to say about this ?

Bryce Weiner : I'm honored.

There are rumors that you might be Satoshi Nakamoto and that you actually have the power to create Bitcoin. Would you like to comment on this or get a signing key from his wallet?

I enjoy these rumors and sometimes even have fun with them. There used to be a list of the 10 most likely people to be Satoshi Nakamoto. Vitalik , Nick Szabo , myself, and a few others. I will neither confirm nor deny that I am Satoshi Nakamoto. It would be very dangerous if Satoshi Nakamoto revealed his identity in any definitive way. We could all be Satoshi Nakamoto.

Do you want to publicly prove yourself to dispel all rumors about your identity?

No need. I am active in the Bitcoin and blockchain space. I travel from one end of the country to the other and internationally. I meet all kinds of different people, from Bitcoin believers to Wall Street experts. Anyone who wants to verify my identity is just making trouble. I am friends with several crypto developers both in real life and on social media.

So I don't have to expose myself, my friends, and my family to a serious online witch hunt. To be fair, I have done this before. People who are currently asking me about my identity are really missing out. I do sign some messages with a PGP key and post them on MIT.edu .

You have been out of public view for the past few months. What have you been up to?

I have a billion dollar idea right now. I'm trying to work with Blocktech to make it happen, but we disagree on some important technical and philosophical points. This is the only idea I've been working on for the past few years, but I've kept it very secret to protect my market position.

Whether it's getting into altcoins or opening a coffee shop, I've been researching the impact of various cryptocurrency technologies on this product application. In fact, we are about to start raising funds in the next 30 days. I will reveal the nature of the product in a few hours, but I have discussed this product before. Business Insider once thought I was the developer who used blockchain technology to disrupt the music industry. This requires a deep dive into this technology in real life to achieve this.

eVue - A blockchain DRM solution for the music industry

Print media only learned about the eVue launch a few days after it was announced, so why not introduce it to us here?

The project is called eVue. It is a decentralized blockchain DRM system for the music industry. What most people don't know is that I've had several careers. One of them was being a disc jockey on an FM radio station. My partner in this project is Todd Alexander , who is as big a player in the music industry as I am in the Bitcoin industry. To his credit, he has a gold record of his own. You may have heard of him - " Stanky Legg" .

Yes, I have.

We are combining our knowledge, connections and experience to develop solutions that the Recording Industry Association (RIAA) needs that will not only serve existing business interests but also level the playing field for independent artists. I am working with some large companies that cannot be named at this time. We tried to work with Jay-Z's TIDAL earlier this year , but it didn't work out, so we just got back to work.

Wow, that sounds like it would be a major advancement for blockchain technology. So is it possible that you are using blockchain to record the rights to the media created by artists?

Yes. I recently released a certification system that can be used to track all the music you have purchased in your lifetime, a "lifetime" ID. The RIAA has a bad reputation these days due to the bad PR projects they gave to Napster and BitTorrent. The future of the RIAA depends on blockchain technology. They want a "big tent policy" that includes everyone. So we need to add the days of vinyl to digital music.

In today's world, when you want to switch platforms to re-authenticate your music, such as moving from Apple to Android. eVue will use a cross-platform solution to authenticate the user's unique identity. When you buy a record, you don't need to buy it again just because you have a new record player. We will integrate this concept into digital content.

As an early developer, I can see all the potential that designers can create in software. For example, I'm currently considering developing a tracking product that predicts what singles you will buy based on your past purchases.

This is certainly an idea with great potential. However, the system I designed is considered "data mining resistant", that is, only the artists and record companies will have your purchase history.

Really interesting , can I assume it will be a “ Tokenless Chain”? (A blockchain without currency as its main feature)

Yes and no. In a business-to-business solution, it is problematic to use Bitcoin for microtransactions. It is basically impossible. Let me illustrate. A Bitcoin block is 10 minutes. If the average song is three minutes long, that's 4 songs per block. Let's take Pandora as an example. Pandora may have 1 million listeners at any given moment. That means over 4 million transactions per block. With Bitcoin's current state, it is technically impossible and no acceptable solution has emerged.

So we intend to explore other solutions and are actively working on them. The Hyperledger project by IBM and Digital Asset Holdings is a very strong candidate. Remember that is about 7,000 transactions per second. No solution offered by Bitcoin will have this level of throughput. Given that permissions may last a lifetime, an off-chain solution is unacceptable.

This is really exciting news, and its impact on the current Internet landscape will be huge. Maybe you will use this project to revive the music industry.

Please understand that the music industry pushed this project forward. They are trying to save themselves. I am just the person they chose to complete this project.

A few months ago, you sent $1 in Bitcoin to the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). I personally understand why you did this (it wasn’t in support of ISIS), but could you explain your reasons for doing so to our “less idealistic” readers?

This is to illustrate the power of technology and the applications it enables. More specifically, it is to show how some companies in this industry are not taking compliance seriously, which puts their users and investors at risk. To compensate, these services now choose to use data mining and infringe on users’ privacy to obtain personal information for compliance reasons.

In an interview I gave last week I hinted that this is all true, and that the proof will be there in 72 hours. This is 100% a reality, so people who care about their privacy and security should avoid using such services. The social threshold known to the public is the use of pumps and garbage trucks to spread currency. That's where it all started. Bitcoin has been doing this for years, and altcoins have followed suit because it works so well. This is not a normal business model.

Does this mean that no organization can stop Bitcoin?

This is a reasonable fallacy. The DPRC could nationalize Bitcoin mining farms at any time. Since most of the mining power and currency exists in China, it could be stopped or absorbed by the government.

Wow! Your answer is beyond my expectation.

Bryce Weiner:

There are a lot of negative comments being directed at you from Devs/fudsters right now . Do you want to comment on this in any way?

Go your own way and let others talk. My point is, this is an unregulated industry full of bad information. Some not so famous people use this bad information to get money from some not so well-informed people. I personally refuse to accept bad information and will spare no effort to refute it. This technology is full of hope, but this hope is not what we have been led to believe for many years.

This all developed into the adoption of blockchain technology by major financial institutions in 2015, because these institutions came to the same technical conclusions I had drawn. In fact, I consulted with these companies before they officially announced their adoption of non-Bitcoin blockchains. Frankly, people will pay to get the truth from me. Of course, this will make you hateful.

Finally, I hand you the mic and you can speak your mind. What do you want the world to hear?

Bitcoin is not the end. Bitcoin is just the beginning.

*Takes the mic off - a loud bang fills the room, followed by the sound of sharp electronic feedback. As the sharp feedback fades into background noise, his last words keep echoing in my head: "Bitcoin is just the beginning."