S4E18: An Introduction to Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency With Chris Castiglione

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Chris Castiglione is the co-founder and CEO of One Month, a professor at Columbia University Business School, and a bitcoin and cryptocurrency enthusiast.

The classes Chris teaches focus on coding, digital literacy, and cryptocurrency. He also hosts a podcast and has written for several online publications, and is passionate about using education to inspire positive change in the world.

During his twenties, before founding One Month, Chris traveled the world working as a digital nomad, building websites and doing consulting. This is one of the things you’ll hear him talk about in the episode!

When bitcoin and cryptocurrency caught his attention, he got excited about its potential. Now, he’s teaching a course on it. Listen to the episode to hear Chris explain what crypto is, how he sees its future, what his course covers, and how to get involved.

This episode was transcribed with the help of an AI transcription tool. Please forgive any typos.

Laurence Bradford 0:06
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Laurence Bradford 1:17
In today's episode, I talk with Chris Castiglione, the co-founder and CEO of One Month. We talk about what cryptocurrency is, what opportunities it's creating in terms of jobs, and what the future of crypto is likely to hold. Chris Castiglionie is the co-founder and CEO of One Month and a professor at Columbia University Business School. He teaches online and in person classes on coding, digital literacy and cryptocurrency and he's passionate about using education to inspire positive change in the world. Chris also hosts a podcast and has written for several online publications.

Laurence Bradford 1:58
Hey Chris, thank you so much. much for coming on the show.

Chris Castiglione 2:01
Hey, Laurence. How's it going? Thanks for having me.

Laurence Bradford 2:03
It's going well, thanks again for coming on. Yeah. So you have so much interesting experience to talk about. And I know we could talk about 1000 things today in this interview, but what I really want to dive into later is cryptocurrency in particular. To be honest, I never thought I wouldn't be talking about crypto and Bitcoin on this show. But it is such a hot and like booming topic right now. I feel like it really can't be ignored. And of course, you have a class on it over at one month. So definitely excited to get into that later in the interview. But first, I really want to dive into your background. How did you first get interested in technology

Chris Castiglione 2:40
In technology? I never really was that interested in technology until I was interested in music. I was a music major and I just I really wanted I had this problem I wanted to solve it was I guess I was like sophomore year of college and I just really wanted people to hear my music more So I started I, you know, it was, so I'm dating myself a little here. But this is around the time of Napster. And I was just blown away by just this idea that you could reach so many people instantly around the world. by just putting something on the internet, it was just this crazy idea to me, and I'm still like humbled and amazed, like, I think by that because, you know, around 2002, I was in college and stuff. So I just really had this problem I wanted to solve where I was like, how do I make this happen for my music, and I just started asking questions and reading books and digging into it and taught myself how to code and I built. I built a website that did or you know, just, it's right now it's a basic website. It's kind of like SoundCloud, but I built kind of like a SoundCloud player, so that I could stream music online, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. So it started.

Laurence Bradford 3:53
Ah, that's really interesting. And you're one of many guests that I've had on that have a background in music. I think it's really Yeah, I think it's really common for people to start off in music in one way or another and then move into technology. So I'm curious what instrument like did you play? Or was it multiple instruments or what were you doing with music?

Chris Castiglione 4:11
Yeah, I played I play a lot of instruments but I guess my main one that I was good at was guitar. I played classical guitar and piano Yeah, and I was I was an audio recording major. I had a job in New York City during the summers doing doing like audio engineering, or some bands and stuff and and I just thought that was the coolest thing ever. Yeah, but then a bridge to tech. I don't know everything became technology at some point.

Laurence Bradford 4:42
Yeah, yeah. So that's okay. So you start off in music and then you built this like player online that was you you basically built SoundCloud.

Chris Castiglione 4:53
Junkiest version ever. 2002 version.

Laurence Bradford 4:57
So you go like a music player online and then one thing led to another and. Okay, well, okay, there has to be some things though between starting One Month, right?

Laurence Bradford 5:08
So like 5 years.

Laurence Bradford 5:10
So, so like, how involved? Are you in technology then after that point, and like what kind of things were you doing? Like what kind of? Yeah, what kind of projects? Are you working on? time?

Chris Castiglione 5:20
Um, so yeah, so the music path does lend similarities to being a web developer, because I found that like, the qualities of, I wanted to, like, tour the world, like, make money, and I don't know, just like, have my own schedule and creativity as a musician. And I found that wow, you know, I had this magical power where I could make websites and I didn't even realize it was that it wasn't cool. Like back then. It wasn't like cool, but people definitely needed this job. So, so out of college, I just, you know, I learned and was able to get some good consulting gigs where I could work on restaurant websites was like, The first niche that I did, I'd make restaurant websites. And I don't know like people, I put together a little portfolio online and, and I was getting work and it was like the coolest thing because I don't know I got to travel around a lot. And I didn't have to get a nine to five job, which to me was like what I really didn't want to do so. So yeah, I was assaulted. I just like self learning and just got deep into the IRS got really excited about creating things with code. So that was that was pretty much my path for about six or seven years as I was just working on websites, making websites, web apps, all that kind of stuff.

Laurence Bradford 6:34
Wow. So you were like a digital nomad before that maybe became like a term people use?

Chris Castiglione 6:39
I never thought of it that way. But yeah, I guess so. I lived in Japan and Asia and Amsterdam. And yeah, it was it was a great opportunity. Yeah.

Laurence Bradford 6:48
So did you travel for the entire six years? Are you kind of like going back and forth from like the United States to different countries?

Chris Castiglione 6:55
I traveled most most of it. Yeah. Like most of my 20s I was I was traveling back and forth, definitely. But like, it felt like most of it. Yeah.

Laurence Bradford 7:05
So I had no idea that you had done this. And I had no idea. We're gonna talk about this. But I also know it's something that so many listeners and people who follow learn to code me want to do they want to learn how to build websites, so they can work remotely and maybe travel or do other things. So so you're doing that for like most of your 20s, which is a, which is a considerably long time. What made you decide to kind of, like, give that lifestyle up for kind of maybe, or maybe you still travel a lot? I don't know.

Chris Castiglione 7:36
Yeah. Well, I, I do. But But yeah, I think I think the thing was, I mean, there was definitely parts in there where I would work at an agency for a year, which I thought was like a really, in retrospect was a really good way to level like, learn from different people and get some, just like advice or people listening like it was helpful to work on a project for Like a long period of time, and then lots of short ones only because some of the bigger names really helped boost the freelance aspect of it, you know, so it's like if you get to work with a big game client, anyway, like, that was like my biggest learning that I didn't even know I was trying to do. But I was so I was doing that for a while and at some point, and I swear, like, I hope this doesn't sound pretentious. But at some point, I just felt like things could be better than than the my managers or like, then like, people were managing money or I just felt like there was like more.

Chris Castiglione 8:32
Because here's the thing, here's the thing, we were making products sometimes that would go out into the world, and they would either never be used or break, right, and like and just suffer. And it was just really painful to me because I was I had I switched to working with a lot of nonprofits in DC. And the thing was like they're raising money, and like this everybody's dream or a lot of people's dream. It was my dream to like I now I'm going to help nonprofits, donation buttons, raise money, build email lists, like it seemed like There was a lot of positivity there. But I also saw a lot of just money being wasted. And this is around 2007 2008. So, I went I took off to do my Masters during that while I was also working. And it was like during that time that I found UX, I guess is what you'd say of like, Oh, we can test things before we launched them and build them for nine months. And then when I started to learn about that, I just got really exciting about the learning process, because I felt like, I feel like a lot of money and problems could be solved without code. And so that's kind of the path I started going down the education route. From there.

Laurence Bradford 9:37
Okay. Okay, that that's me. Yeah, I'm seeing the whole picture coming coming together here. So you began to learn more about UX, you began to become more interested in education. So what led you then to creating one month, you know, an online course platform?

Chris Castiglione 9:51
Yeah, yeah. So, so we created One Month, me and my co founder Matan, because both of us were self starters, we had both taught ourselves how to code. And we both seen, like the impact that even just putting like a month on, you know, a few hours every week on the calendar, you can do some amazing things. At the same time, a lot of the educational materials, this is around 2012, when we were starting, they just weren't really great. There wasn't, there wasn't that much out there, we thought it was like it spoke over people's heads. So our whole idea was, let's create really high quality content that feels like you're hanging out with somebody at the bar was like kind of what we'd always say, like somebody maybe having a drink like a friend and just like showing you how to get, you know, like the 8020 rule, just like how to get like 80% of the good stuff first not having to wait, you know, and go through all the boring stuff. So we created our first class about Ruby on Rails called one month rails. And yeah, and it was it was just like a huge, huge success at the time. And from there, we just kept making more classes.

Laurence Bradford 10:56
Yeah, so I actually took that class one month yes back in I think 2013 when I first started learning and I remember I think at the time you guys only had that course maybe one other or was just that one at the time so it's definitely been interesting to see you guys grow and evolve and of course you have multiple courses now on you know on One Month but yeah I definitely I do remember you guys are some you guys were I had early exposure I think to to you guys.

Chris Castiglione 11:27
Yeah.

Laurence Bradford 11:27
Yeah. So you still work at one month or you're still running one month today I should say. And I want to talk about I also want to talk about some other courses you have and I also want to talk about cryptocurrency right? So you have these range of courses on One Month you have cryptocurrency, of course learn Bitcoin and aetherium. So you know, obviously it's about cryptocurrency. Yeah. What sort of, I guess Okay, so I have two questions. So like, I know, you know, let's just stick to cryptocurrency. I'm going to do what led to you to get interested in cryptocurrency?

Chris Castiglione 11:59
Well I think unlike you in the way, when I, when I started, I don't know how to start saying this. At first I didn't. When I first heard about Bitcoin, I didn't really think all that much of it. This is around 2013. And we had just started doing Y Combinator. And when I went out to live in Silicon Valley, and I don't know, like, it seemed cool, but it didn't, I didn't quite get it. And I think it took me a good six months of hanging around with people that really saw the vision of it to get me excited. And at some point, it just clicked. Like, the more that I learned about the power that it had, I think for me, you know, specifically about putting power in the hands of people not having to deal with middlemen like banks, you know, cutting down fees, and also the ability that it had to really impact other countries. You know, the US dollars strong, you know, so we don't, it doesn't necessarily apply. Some people ask like, you know, why do we need it? Well, in some ways, we Maybe don't need it all the time right now. But when you look like you look at a lot of countries like Japan as well, or as a bob way, look at these countries, just there's so much that's just one example of like a million of the impact of having a digital currency and giving people you know, there's billions of people who don't have access to online banking or banking at all. I just saw the vision for how revolutionary that idea was and I got addicted immediately.

Laurence Bradford 13:28
So I feel like I had no idea what this was in 2013 I to be completely honest, I didn't even realize it was around for that long so let's like backtrack two seconds for me and I'm sure some other listeners out there could you explain like we're five what crypto currencies and I know today there's a ton of different currencies and I know all these are buzzwords but like just like a basic explanation of what cryptocurrency is.

Chris Castiglione 13:52
Definitely. So you guys have never talked about this before on the podcast.

Laurence Bradford 13:56
No, we've never talked about it. To be honest. I feel like it's this is one of those Things that again, I hear lots of buzzwords, I could probably write off you know, Ico aetherium a different I hear like different apps you'd always have at Coinbase. And I know all these like words like floating around, but like for me, it's like I don't understand the connection between them all. But, but like a really basic level, just like what cryptocurrency is.

Chris Castiglione 14:19
Alright, here's a basic primer that I think everyone should understand. So the first digital decentralized currency this cryptocurrency was called Bitcoin people know that now, right? They know this idea of Bitcoin. And it was a 2009 that this came out. So it's been almost 10 years now that this came out, right after the bank crisis. This is actually in response to the 2008 Bank crisis of this idea that what if we could send money like, like, if I could send money to you, right? without involving a middleman without involving a bank that takes a fee or, you know, if I said if I use a credit card now, it's just Point 9% fee and every time you send it. So a bunch of people have been working on this problem for decades, actually. But it wasn't until 2009, when somebody or this group, nobody really knows called Satoshi Nakamoto, published this white paper that gave this technological solution or a possibility for sending money between two people without a middleman. So that's the first one that came out and it took a few years before even the community or you know, different people kind of caught on people slowly read this, they didn't take it too seriously at first. And I think it's important to understand the promise of because there's a lot of different ways that we can attack this but the promise, the promise of it is that it's a it's a possible global currency, which allows individuals to own their money, right? Because right now, like Lauren's like if the money that you have in your bank right now You don't actually, like own anything. I know that might sound silly. But like, let's say you have even just like $1,000 in your in your bank account. You can't go down there and just say, hey, I want $1,000. And they might give you the dollars. But if everybody did that, there's not actually enough money, physical dollars in existence for everyone to go to the bank and get it. So does that make sense?

Laurence Bradford 16:23
Yeah, yes, I'm following.

Chris Castiglione 16:25
Yeah. So so so the idea is like, we already have this, this kind of digital currency on Ledger's like the ledger is basically you sign in to Bank of America. And you can see your money there, right. And the idea of the idea that the way it is now is that we Trust Bank of America to manage our ledger of money. We trust the stock market, we trust, we trust some people we put our money in, but because it's centralized, there's a problem with the current system. The problem is things get hacked a lot, which you see all the time. Everybody's been hacked Equifax because he has all time. So things get hacked a lot and also Take fees out of everything. Every time you buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks, there's three different banks. And it takes about five days in between us swiping the card of Starbucks, and that money actually getting deducted from your account. It's called clearing, we probably use that term, maybe colloquially, like, yeah, did the check clear or this kind of thing. So that's what's happening in between, you know, the world we live in right now.

Chris Castiglione 17:21
And, and what I found teaching, you know, especially at Columbia, teaching the courses that a lot of people right now don't understand the way the world works right now, which is understandable, because it's confusing. There's a lot you know, a lot to understand with how credit cards banks, the internet works, right. You know, I don't even understand how electricity gets to my house. Right? I just plug in the thing in the wall, right. But, uh, but because of that, I think, I think the problem is, it's becomes really hard to understand blockchain, Bitcoin, a lot of these new terms because these are offering solutions to Limitations of our current system. So there's these problems I'm mentioning with the banks. There's also problems of centralization with the way the internet's working right now, you see, you know, you see things like net neutrality going away, you see things like big conglomerates, like Facebook owns all of the eyeballs and your data. So the whole thing stemming from Bitcoin to all of these terms in the blockchain that are maybe confusing is this idea of decentralization is the main takeaway. And what if two people you and me can own our own data, own our own money without having to rely so heavily on third parties who take a cut and get hacked all the time. And so that's kind of like my pitch for why I'm so impressed by by this technology.

Laurence Bradford 18:45
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Laurence Bradford 18:53
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Laurence Bradford 20:43
Okay, and I think that was like a phenomenal explanation that you gave and you have this course on one month that relates to it right. Is this also something you teach at Columbia or what courses do you teach at Columbia?

Chris Castiglione 20:56
Yeah, I have a course called Digital Literacy for decision makers. It's in the business school. And the The purpose of this course is it's it's business school students who I mean, they're taking their, you know, they're taking finance classes and strategy classes, all these business classes, and they want to be able to speak, like talk the talk of tech, you know, they don't want to become developers, they're not going to become the CTO or any of this kind of thing. But they just want to have like a an understanding, so they can hire, manage, make decisions based on technology. So we look at this broad in the digital literacy we take a broad sweeping understanding, starting with what is the internet and going all the way to what is cryptocurrency blockchain because it's by looking at the Internet. Like I was saying, and, and Tim berners Lee, the guy that you know, invented HTTP and giving it to us and then, you know, looking through all the things with the browser and hiring people and startups like the whole history of things. And then then that scope of it you can understand the future and make better decisions. So that's the thesis or that's what we that's what we work. Towards the course.

Laurence Bradford 22:01
All right, that's really cool. And that sounds like a really interesting course title as well, like the digital literacy for business makers. I think you said that sounds like a really, it sounds really cool. So okay, so I guess you do talk about some of this in the class at Columbia Business School as well. So, yeah, so I think again, I think the way you explained it was really, really interesting. Now, could you talk a bit about what you go over in the course you have then on one month so it's called again, learn Bitcoin and aetherium? You just gave us really high level look at what cryptocurrency is, what are some of the topics you get into in this course?

Chris Castiglione 22:40
Yeah, good question. So in the course, so the course is on one month, and I like I like it because within an hour, you're doing stuff with Bitcoin. It's not just theoretical. And that's the way all of our courses are. You're either making a project or in our startup course you're like, the first few days are like getting an LLC, so We always try to find things for you to do, because I believe that experiential learning is how we actually understand and like, even retain knowledge. So it's not just about like, what is Bitcoin? I mean, that's part of it. But what I have the students do is buy just $5 worth of Bitcoin because I feel that and what I've seen is that when students go through that they start to learn on their own they start to learn that one of the number one questions I get is Oh, but I thought you had to buy a whole Bitcoin, right? So right right, then you're learning Oh, you can buy just $5 worth of Bitcoin and you got to understand what it means to then ask questions about well we're where's the Bitcoin actually, how do you store it and then there's a few options for that. How do I send it what sites can I buy things on? So the the course and just the first hour is this journey of like, okay, yeah, $5 a Bitcoin. We know what else you need to know regulations, taxes, like we just kind of touch on everything based around this idea that you bought $5 a Bitcoin.

Laurence Bradford 23:59
Ah, that's That's really cool. And that sounds really useful because all those things you're just mentioning, I honestly have no idea how to do that, like, I'm sure I could Google How do I buy, you know, Bitcoin and did it and I've read different articles about different aspects of it. But yeah, that's definitely really cool that you take us through these questions after they buy this initial $5 of Bitcoin. So another thing that I want to talk about this is what I think probably interests me the most, relating to cryptocurrency is all of these new job, these new careers, these new industries, these new companies, there's all these crypto startups that are emerging. I mean, heck, there's even the term like crypto entrepreneur, like I don't think that term existed until--

Chris Castiglione 24:41
November. Yeah, I think it was the day like months ago.

Laurence Bradford 24:45
Yeah, literally like yeah, like exactly crypto entrepreneur. So could you talk a bit about like, the different kind of opportunities that we can sort of see in our day to day and how it's just like changing and what's happening because of it.

Chris Castiglione 24:57
I mean, I will first say that just in case anyone's not Located in New York are a major hub, the the meetup and educate there's so much activity. I've never seen such a frenzy of really, but really passionate people who are excited to learn and contribute to this space, as has been going on in New York City, specifically the past few months. I mean, I've just been going to like at least one meetup every week, and they're sold out they are, you know, it's just people coming together really smart people, really, a lot of people know what they're talking about. And a lot of people are coming for the first time trying to learn so you're totally right, there is a lot of attention and a lot of growth in the space. So it's a great time. I mean, if you're getting into this space, you know, talking to your audience of people who maybe want a job in crypto or want to first time entry level job or you know, whatever it is, like, if you put in some time to learn about this, I mean, I don't want to say you can become an expert within a few months, but we're all trying to learn this, you know right now and so there's a lot of room to to kind of find a niche and and get a job, so I'm gonna I'm gonna answer your question specifically. So like, I guess your question was like, What? How do you start getting into this world? Is that kind of the question or

Laurence Bradford 26:11
Well, I was wanting to, I guess first hear about like how it's like what its impact is and I'm trying to find now online this stat and I can't pull it up easily. But it was something insane like the number of like crypto startup jobs that have emerged in like the last year like five. I don't want to make up the stats on my head, but like some insanely large percentage percentage increase. So yeah, I guess like if you just talk more about the different kinds of jobs and opportunities that people can get with this new industry would be cool.

Chris Castiglione 26:43
Yeah, that makes sense. So there's a lot of different ways to kind of look at this because it's a growing bar like it's all people are trying to figure it out. Right. There's so it's not like want just one thing, and whatever it is today, it could be different in a year from now. With that said, I think what helps The way to look at this world is sometimes people compare these cryptocurrencies to stocks. And I think that there's, I think there's like a comfortable metaphor there because you are putting in money and you're watching them rise and, and, and that's fine. But I think, especially when talking about jobs, a maybe a more accurate way to approach you know, or to frame this world is in a way, these are all little startups, because behind every kind, every currency here, or token or all these different projects, is a group of people. Every single one of them, you know, some of them are distributed, like the Bitcoin team is distributed different parts around the world. Some of them are more centralized here in New York City. There's a big aetherium community and team around the company consensus, which is in Brooklyn here. So I think if you're interested in getting started and kind of trying to make sense of it, one way is to get just like tough Understand a sweeping broad overview of some of the different innovations and things and if you find something that's exciting, really it I think that if you just go to the webpage or Reddit room or a lot of these people have slack or telegram rooms, where you can go and you can chat, you'll start to find that there's people behind this that you can connect with, and potentially find work just like you would at a startup because there's people behind it and they are also looking to hire people.

Laurence Bradford 28:28
Yeah, yeah, really good. Really good advice there. And yeah, it's just the amount of information from in the press. I think you mentioned like meetups job opportunities, everything is just totally it's just totally booming. So it's definitely an exciting time for the cryptocurrency is that the correct way to refer to it like just like cryptocurrency or some crypto market is that is that?

Chris Castiglione 28:52
Good question. So So as this evolves, Kurt, if you say cryptocurrency, everybody knows you're talking About so it's totally fine. It's not wrong. As things are evolving, there's becoming a bit of a distinction between crypto currencies on one hand, and then tokens or crypto assets on the other hand, and I think you're fine saying anything at this point in time, but over as we kind of mature, I think what you might find is the cryptocurrencies speaks clearly to the the types of coins that are competing with currency. So that would be Bitcoin is competing with people say gold or money. There's privacy coins, like Manero and z cash, these ones that are kind of like, kind of like currency or money, but they're private, you can't you can't see who sent it or received it or how much it's worth. So there's certain types of the category of coins that are literally competing against currency. And then there's a whole other range of coins and they each have their own function. And generally people refer to those as tokens or credit. Assets more generally, etc, etc. But there's not really at this point in time or right or wrong way. That's just kind of how I hear people referring to them. So it's good to be aware of.

Laurence Bradford 30:11
Yeah, so I know this is such a changing topic and the terms and things are still being defined and figured out but and we really on my show, I never really get too much into like, oh, the future of tech, like I stay really like present maybe a little bit into the future and you know, really things that can apply to people's lives like pretty much today. But do you see that this these decentralized crypto markets or current assets and all these things, like do you think like, there's going to be even more jobs that we don't even think of yet that we don't even have a job title yet kind of like a crypto entrepreneur but maybe other more specific roles that are going to spring up in the in the coming years?

Chris Castiglione 30:53
Yeah, here's some things that I really believe strongly and that I think most people in the community would would agree on. Their weather. So people look at the price of bitcoin and the price of all these these coins, it's going to go up, it's going to go down, it really doesn't, it really doesn't matter. And when we talk about jobs, because even if they all went away tomorrow, and I don't know, maybe they will probably not, but maybe, you know, what is important is the underlying technology that they're most of them are based on and that's the blockchain technology, you've probably heard that phrase before. So that's, that's the that's the underlying technology, the idea, the main idea that people are using that idea is so powerful, and, you know, it's people compare it to as powerful as the internet. Who owns the internet, right? Nobody, I mean, you can make an argument probably both ways, but really, nobody owns the internet.

Chris Castiglione 31:45
You know, if the government wanted to shut down the internet, they they more or less couldn't, you know. And so it's the same thing. There's this this innovation with money and decentralization of communication that is so powerful that it is definitely going To create is creating will create new job titles and new jobs who is going to be the coins? The companies I have no idea I mean that I can't predict. And at the same time, we're going to still need job these these job titles that we have right now. Like project manager like, you know, developer a back end front end isn't necessarily like these are going away either. So yeah, to your point, I think there are going to be more jobs created. I don't know which coin it's gonna be. But um, but yeah, there's a lot of room for growth. So it's exciting. It's an exciting time.

Laurence Bradford 32:32
Yeah, yeah, I was just peering over on angellist put together a really good study. I don't know what means in January December but about some of the really looking at like startups and the crypto and cryptocurrency and crypto startups and like reasons to join one trends in the in the community. So we'll definitely include a link to that in the show notes because I remember reading through it was really interesting and yeah, a lot of the jobs so that they have listed at crypto start are still the same job titles like maybe the one I'm looking at right now. It's like senior software engineer in parentheses like AI blockchain. But then there's still things like Product Manager, software engineer, content writer, right. And these are all, you know, job titles that exist across the tech space.

Chris Castiglione 33:16
Exactly.

Laurence Bradford 33:17
Yeah. Well, Chris, thank you so much for coming out. It's really exciting to talk to you and learn more about this and your background. Where can people find you online?

Chris Castiglione 33:25
Yeah, sure. I'm on a lot of different things. I have some free videos on YouTube. But I mean, I think the main thing is, if you want to take one of the courses, one month, comm is a place to go. I give out my email. So Chris, at One Month, if anyone has any questions for me about finding the right fit for what you want to do in your career, with code, I mean, specifically, like we're like learning to code in 30 days. So One Month and also I have a podcast so people I talk about books that are life changing. So on Books Podcast, you could find that on The Podcast App and on Spotify. So check that out.

Laurence Bradford 34:02
Great. Thank you again for coming on.

Chris Castiglione 34:04
Yeah, thanks for having me. This is really fun.

Laurence Bradford 34:12
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Chris. If you want to start learning about cryptocurrency, you might want to take advantage of his special offer for Learn to Code With Me listeners. Chris's course is called Learn Bitcoin in Aetherium. It's hosted on one month and you can get a 20% discount by going through my link at learntocodewith.md/Bitcoin. In this course, you'll learn how to talk about cryptocurrency, you'll buy your first fraction of Bitcoin, set up a cold storage Wallet for it, send and receive cryptocurrency, and more. If you are more interested in learning how to code, you can check out Chris's other courses on One Month and get 20% off by using the link learntocodewith.me/onemonth. One month is all one word and then number one is written out in full as o-n-e. One Month. I highly recommend his courses and hope you find them useful too.

Key takeaways:

  • The premise of bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general is that it functions as a global currency that allows individuals to truly own and control their money without the third party of a bank.
  • There’s a lot of growth and excitement in the cryptocurrency world right now–now is a great time to get into it, because there’s a lot of room to find a niche and get a job.
  • If you want to get involved, start by getting educated and finding a community. The meetup and education space is massive, with many passionate people wanting to contribute and even more wanting to learn.
  • Although right now it’s all referred to as “cryptocurrency,” there’s a distinction between cryptocurrency and crypto assets, tokens, etc. Cryptocurrency are the types of currencies that are competing with actual currency. Then there are a whole range of coins that have other functions, and these are tokens or crypto assets.
  • It’s still a new and volatile space. However, even if all the jobs in this sector go away tomorrow, the important thing is the underlying technology: blockchain. This idea is so powerful.

Links and mentions from the episode:

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