Julian Assange: I Told Google's Eric Schmidt to Embrace Bitcoin
Julian Assange, the embattled leader of non-profit activist media agency WikiLeaks, noted during a recent reddit Ask Me Anything discussion that while bitcoin is just coming to the attention of many of the tech industry's elite, he was personally responsible for raising awareness about the digital currency to tech giant Google, in 2011. Had he listened, Assange claimed, Google would "own the planet by now". While this may sound like a bold statement from the controversial figure, Assange in fact had an early conversation with Google executive chairman and then-CEO Eric Schmidt. The....
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Here's a little subtle humor for your Friday morning/afternoon. Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange did a Reddit AMA (ask me anything - basically a Q&A of the internet) session on Thursday and cracked (why I interpret to be) a joke on bitcoin. Asked by user 'coindog08': "What are your thoughts on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin?" The response: Here is a conversation from 2011 where I tell Google's chairman, Eric Schmidt about Bitcoin. Fortunately he didn't listen, or else he'd own the planet by now. Assange provides a [link] to a transcript of a so-called "secret meeting" with Schmidt,....
What did WikiLeaks' Julian Assange tell Google's previous CEO Eric Schmidt about bitcoins? Assange, the whistle-blowing media organization's publisher, met with then-CEO Schmidt and Jared Cohen, advisor to former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in June 2011. The meeting was arranged at the request of Schmidt and Cohen, who were working on "The New Digital World," a book set for publication this month. WikiLeaks has now published a transcript of the secret meeting on its website. The conversation turns to bitcoin after Schmidt and Assange had been discussing the distributed hash....
Here’s an interesting little anecdote that’s come from a USA Today report via Reddit. Reporter Michael Wolff says that he was recently told a story at a White House dinner that involves President Obama and Bitcoins. In an apparent meeting with then Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the President asked if Bitcoin was something that ought to be on his radar: “The president, whose most important job is surely to protect the integrity of the monetary system, smugly asked Schmidt if Bitcoin, one of many growing challenges to currency hegemony, was anything he had to worry about,” writes Wolff. It’s....
While Julian Assange was living under house arrest at Ellingham Hall in Norfolk, England back in June of 2011 awaiting word on his possible extradition to Sweden on rape charges, he received an unexpected guest, Eric Scmidt, the Chairman and co-founder of Google. Accompanying Schmidt was an entourage consisting of Jared Cohen, the former Secretary of State advisor to Hillary Clinton, Scott Malcomson, Director of Speechwriting for Ambassador Susan Rice at the US State Department and current Communications Director of the International Crisis Group, and Lisa Shields, the Vice President of....
Julian Assange has described how bitcoin founder 'Satoshi Nakamoto' asked him not to use the fledgling digital currency for WikiLeaks fundraising, and how going along with that request helped protect bitcoin from government scrutiny during its early days. The revelations came in a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session set up by the WikiLeaks founder to promote his new book, When Google Met WikiLeaks. Most of the Q&A revolved around WikiLeaks and politics, but the subject of bitcoin was raised on more than one occasion. Assange said: "There's lots on bitcoin in my book - on my thoughts on....