Irina K. | @satoshi_club:<\/strong> Hi everyone<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club: <\/strong>Hello to everyone! We are pleased to announce our guest today: @coblee<\/a> (Charlie Lee) Welcome to Satoshi Club!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club: <\/strong>welcome @coblee<\/a>. We’re glad you took the time to join us today<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>Hey guys. Happy to be here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club: <\/strong>Looking forward to a cool AMA 🕶 How are you today? What part of the day is for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>it\u2019s 10am<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club: <\/strong>Sorry we made you wake up so early 😀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> I am curious, have you ever done an AMA on Telegram before? \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>yes, a few times<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club: <\/strong>some people actually wake up at 7-8 AM, not like us 😁<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club: <\/strong>Really? 😁<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club: <\/strong>Usually we ask for an introduction from our guests but I think you don’t need any intro \ud83d\ude00 maybe you would like to say some interestinf news before with the querstions from the community?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>Let\u2019s do it<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q1 from Telegram user @likechips<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I read that you created LTC while being employed at Google. Didn’t this create some conflict of interests? I heard that sometimes they try to steal tech developed by people who are employed by them at the time of it being created.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>I\u2019m not aware of Google trying to steal tech from people. But it is true that if you used your company\u2019s resources to develop something, that thing belongs to the company. I didn\u2019t work on Litecoin on Google campus. Only worked on it on nights and weekends at home. That said, Litecoin is open source software. Even if I did work on it at Google, there\u2019s nothing for Google to steal. They can\u2019t claim it because it\u2019s already open source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club: <\/strong>what was the main purpose behind it? Did you want to make a better Bitcoin or something different<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>Partially for fun and partially to make something that complements Bitcoin. Before Litecoin, there were about a dozen or so other alcoins. Each of them was launched with a premine. I decided that I can create something better than what\u2019s out there but launch it fairly. So Litecoin doesn\u2019t have a premine and I released the source code and binaries a week ahead of launch so people can test the software and mine on testnet before the launch. At launch, people can just change a configuration and immediately start mining Litecoin. I had no unfair advantage and had to compete with everyone else to mine my litecoins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club: <\/strong>At the beginning, did you ever imagine that Litecoin and crypto in general will get at such capitalizations and growing adoption?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee:<\/strong> Lots of coins forked from Litecoin, but I don\u2019t know of a single fork that copied the way I launched Litecoin. I believed Bitcoin would get such capitalization and adoption, but I did not expect much from Litecoin. Litecoin\u2019s success was truly unimaginable. Just for reference, when I launched Litecoin, Bitcoin\u2019s marketcap was around $100m. Today, Litecoin\u2019s marketcap is about 100x that of Bitcoin\u2019s marketcap back then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club: <\/strong>What hardware did you use in the beginning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>When Litecoin launched, it was CPU minable. So I just mined on my laptop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club: <\/strong>Not a lot of people caught the days when it was still reasonable to mine from a laptop 😀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> When I first heard of that I didn’t take it seriously. So, I didn’t mine 😁<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club: <\/strong>No lost hard drives for you then 😀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club: <\/strong>and no pizza with 10k BTC 😁 Btw, I’ve read in some articles that you net worth is 21 billion $. If it’s true, you are among the richest people on Earth. Is it true? \ud83d\ude42 It’s up to you if you want to answer that \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>I\u2019d love to see that article. I will frame it. I\u2019m doing well because I was early into Bitcoin. Since I launched Litecoin fairly, I didn\u2019t have a lot, so selling LTC didn\u2019t really move the needle for me. People don\u2019t understand that. Creators of Ethereum, Ripple, and other premined coins, are billionaires because they printed coins out of thin air to give to themselves. I didn\u2019t do that. So, unfortunately, no I don\u2019t have a billion dollars. If I did, I wouldn\u2019t be here doing an AMA. 😄<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club: <\/strong>Why not? AMA’s are fun 😀 But I guess they are more fun when you do them from your yacht or something 😀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> https:\/\/www.wealthypersons.com\/charlie-lee-net-worth-2020-2021\/<\/a> Charlie Lee: <\/strong>They also made me 3 inches taller. lol<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> they even claim to know your weight, height and so on 😁 oh, so they don’t know 😁 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club:<\/strong> so it’s 18 billion? 😀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club: <\/strong>and some billions richer 😁<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie\nLee: <\/strong>closer\n😄<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Q2 from Telegram user @waterbanner<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club: <\/strong>btw, @iri_kravchuk<\/a> , do you hodl LTC?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee:<\/strong> I still have some LTC that I have bought over the past couple years. I spend LTC and use it for example with the Litecoin Visa card. I\u2019m not invested financially in LTC, but that doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m not invested in Litecoin. I\u2019ve been working on Litecoin with the Litecoin Foundation and I\u2019m invested in the success of Litecoin, but I\u2019m not financially tied to it. The reason I did that is because I don\u2019t want to be motivated by money. I don\u2019t want to make decisions that pump Litecoin price but is not good for Litecoin in the long term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club: <\/strong>Yep<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Is the card available in Europe?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee:<\/strong> Not yet. US only for now, but working on Europe. Maybe soon<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club: <\/strong>I guess some people think that hodling is a form of showing trust. You think this is relevant?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club: <\/strong>I think that yes. I do trading but I have a portion of crypto which I am never touching<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club: <\/strong>Nice to see it :grin:. What about @coblee<\/a>? So what are the untouchables for you @sspurss<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee:<\/strong> Most people are stuck in thinking it like CEOs having shares of their company. Litecoin is a decentralized currency and is totally different. CEOs are given shares for free. (I wasn\u2019t) Their job is to increase shareholder value. (Mine isn\u2019t) So you need to incentivize them to do the right thing by having them hold a lot of the shares, so the interest is aligned. My job is not to increase LTC value, but to increase LTC adoption. Yes, it\u2019s correlated but it\u2019s not exactly the same. Maybe you can be upset if Vitalik doesn\u2019t hodl because he was given his ETH or Brad Garlinghouse for dumping his XRP for billions. But since I bought and mined all my LTC just like everyone else, I can do whatever I want with them. And the only reason why people know that I sold is because I was transparent about it. If I didn\u2019t say anything, no one would know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club: <\/strong>Yeah, that’s interesting actually. Why did you feel you needed to announce\/ talk about it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>Lastly, I\u2019m not paid anything by the Litecoin Foundation. I\u2019m doing what I do because I want Litecoin to succeed. My legacy is tied to the success of Litecoin. That\u2019s more incentives than any LTC can give me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club: <\/strong>The top of the Maslow’s hierarchy. Yes, I remember your Tweet from 2017 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee:<\/strong> I always think transparency is important and I have nothing to hide. But \u201csold at ATH\u201d narrative is definitely very distracting today. And there was no way I knew it was going to be near the ATH back then. I don\u2019t have inside information on the price movement of the whole industry. If people thought it was a bad thing, they could have sold their coins after I announced. The price of LTC actually went up for a few days after that. To me, it\u2019s ridiculous that people are still blaming me. But it is what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q3 from Telegram user @mikolajcek<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Litecoin have almost 10 years. There are not so many projects with such longevity. What are your next objectives at Litecoin Foundation and what are your duties for the foundation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>It\u2019s pretty special that Litecoin has remained in the top10 marketcap for so many years. The best part is that the Litecoin network has worked nonstop and flawlessly for almost 10 years. I\u2019m managing director of the Litecoin Foundation, so I effectively run the foundation. The foundation\u2019s mission is to work on development and adoption of Litecoin. So that includes work on the Litecoin Core software, wallets like Litewallet, partnerships with the likes of Litecoin Card, and just everything that will help increase adoption of Litecoin worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nCurrently, one of the bigger projects is MWEB, which is adding\nMimblewimble as extension blocks to Litecoin. We plan to push that\nout this year<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club: <\/strong>can you tell us on what have you worked in the last 3 months for example? What was the main focus of the foundation. Or your department work on different aspects simultaneously? I’ve read some news about Flare as well. are you helping them or they build independently?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>we work on many things at once with many different parners like Flare, Ternio, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club: <\/strong>Is Litecoin Card an inhouse project? Or is it developed by another company? I think this could be a great adoption tool<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee:<\/strong> It\u2019s a partnership with Ternio. They developed the Blockcard and we are using that technology for the Litecoin Card<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club: <\/strong>Got it. How fast is the LTC community growing? Did it change in 2020? Or it’s a steady grow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>It\u2019s very hard to measure community growth for a decentralized cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club: <\/strong>yep, you can get some sort of idea based on how many wallets or active wallets are there, but some people use only exchanges. So, it’s hard to measure how many people own LTC just on exchanges<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>We saw a lot of growth in Litewallet downloads and daily users. I expect 2021 to be an even better year.Bull markets tend to be very good as expected<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q4 from Telegram user @hadrianus14<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>Litecoin Foundation has 4 board directors, who are all unpaid volunteers. We have a few paid positions: operations director, projects director, marketing director, website manager, and 2 developers. And many volunteers helping out with all sorts of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> what is the early budget of the foundation? yearly<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>Budget is about $100k-$150k<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> is it from donations or you have some sort of income?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>From donations, merchandise sale, and partnership rev share. For example, we\u2019ve made money from selling the Litecoin Block.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club: <\/strong>What is Litecoin Block?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee: <\/strong>ltcblock . com<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the recent rise in crypto prices, we now have a runway of 5+ years. We\u2019re pretty lean. We\u2019re not like other foundations that have millions of dollars from selling premines. So we do what we can to help Litecoin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina K. | @satoshi_club:<\/strong> Oh, that’s creative<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serg | Satoshi Club: <\/strong>thanks, Charlie. I really like your philosophy at the foundation<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Lee:<\/strong> If Litecoin Foundation runs out of money and disappears, Litecoin will still go on without any issue. Some people may not realize this but the Litecoin Foundation only started in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
this is the article 😁<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I write Charlie Lee in google, the first search recommendation is for: Charlie Lee sold Litecoin.
There were a lot of discussions regarding this topic. Can you clarify those speculations. Do you still have LTC or not?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
How big is the Litecoin foundation at the moment? How many people are involved directly in it? I mean on the about us section I saw a lot of names, but the has a few errors, copyright info is not updated, looks a bit forgoten to be honest<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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