Making Markets · Colossus | Investing & Business Podcasts

Charlie Shrem: The Journey of Bitcoin - [Making Markets, EP.51]

·49 min·3 clips

Charlie says early Bitcoin growth happened by one person bringing thousands and another tens of thousands.

Eric Golden opens by framing Making Markets as a show about the psychology and structure of markets. Charlie Shrem joins to tell the story of how he found Bitcoin. He starts with Brooklyn, Orthodox Judaism, and an immigrant mindset that trusted America. From there, he explains how Bitcoin first looked to him like another e-commerce business. The conversation moves into the early network of people around Bitcoin and the way that network overlapped with libertarian politics. Shrem describes how Roger Ver and the libertarian crowd helped shape the movement. He connects that period to Occupy Wall Street and the mood around Zuccotti Park. The discussion then turns to early attempts to push Bitcoin into public institutions. Shrem recalls Gavin going to the CIA and Amir pushing the idea of getting WikiLeaks to accept Bitcoin. He says that association with political movements created real fear inside the group. That fear helped drive some of them to leave for Panama for a time. The episode treats that move as part ideology and part self-protection. Shrem also explains why the financial crisis left him angry. He points to bank rescues, his family losing houses and jobs, and his own disappointment with a finance degree that did not translate into a bank job. Golden keeps steering the discussion toward how those conditions made Bitcoin attractive. The result is less a victory lap than a map of the incentives that pulled early users in. Shrem talks about how he was viewed inside the group as the statist. He says that was less about loving government than about coming from a conservative Jewish immigrant mindset that trusted America. He describes reading libertarian books later, after prison, and how those ideas reframed what he had already lived through. The conversation does not romanticize the ecosystem. Shrem is explicit that Bitcoin and crypto have always been full of scams and fraud. He argues that bad actors have to be pushed out while better products continue to be built. He also sounds more interested in practical progress than in political purity. The episode closes with his excitement about the next four years and his desire to see Bitcoin activity come back to America. That return is framed as both civic and selfish: he wants the industry to grow here, and he wants to make money doing it here. Golden ends by tying the story back to the show’s central interest in how markets actually work.

As heard by us

A Bitcoin story that ties identity, politics, and money together.

The episode uses Charlie Shrem's story to connect Bitcoin with identity, politics, entrepreneurship, and distrust of the existing system. Eric Golden keeps the discussion focused on how markets work, which helps it move past biography.

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Hear Charlie Shrem trace Bitcoin's early days through money, politics, and a personal origin story.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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