Rise Vilnius invites you to a special simultaneous screening of Banking on Bitcoin, the documentary, in association with Bitcoin Chaser, 4King Media and film director Christopher Cannucciari. The event will take place on March 1st, 2017, simultaneously across 6 of the 7 Think Rise centers around the world: London, New York, Tel Aviv, Cape Town, Mumbai and Vilnius. This will be a great opportunity to engage in a unique activity, bringing almost all of our innovation centers together, as well as some of the most influential figures in the world of bitcoin and blockchain product marketing.

Marc Kenigsberg, CEO at Jamworx and founder of BitcoinChaser.com, a company behind this film, had a quick word with Startuplithuania.com about this film and the BitCoin industry in and beyond Lithuania.

What is the main message you want to spread with the movie?

Marc: The main message that we want to convey with the screening of this movie is that the world is full of people who have radically different ways to solve a problem. This kind of diversity is as fascinating as it is important. In the case of bitcoin, blockchain technology and the financial industry, it is precisely this kind of diversity that will allow us to build a system that works better for everyone, and hopefully one that is less susceptible to the shocks we saw during the 2008-09 economic downturn. This is part of the moral imperative of bitcoin, to build a better financial system for future generations.

Why do you think it is important to show this movie worldwide?

Marc: It is extremely important for people to understand that diversity within the financial system is necessary. Bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrencies, along with the vibrant communities of people behind them, are trying to give people an alternative. One of the most glaring examples is the opportunity that bitcoin has created for those who do not have access to banking services. Bitcoin allows you to be your own bank. Think about the implications that has on the more than 2 billion people around the world who under the pre-2009 financial system, didn’t have access to any kind of banking service!

What impact bitcoin could bring to the smaller economies such as Lithuania?

Marc: It could have a positive impact on many levels, but Lithuanians, just as everyone else in every country around the world must understand that bitcoin is about empowering the individual. This is achieved by decentralizing the system and introducing a P2P – peer to peer – mechanism. This means that Lithuanians will be able to have more control over their money when they use bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, therefore they must be more aware and responsible with it.

Let us give you a concrete example: On January 1st, 2015 when Lithuania replaced the Litas with the Euro, it effectively gave up a large measure of monetary control over its economy. Some Lithuanians might disagree with this change, and they might fear that under a new system inflation rates in Lithuania might be affected for example. Before the bitcoin era, in the pre-2009 financial system, these citizens wouldn’t have had as many options to protect their assets from depreciation, but with bitcoin they could have chosen to put aside a part of their personal wealth to buy bitcoin and have a safety net from any shocks that Lithuania might suffer from the introduction of the Euro.

Now let’s go back to January 1st, 2015 and take a look at the exchange rates then and now so you can better understand why bitcoin is important. Keep in mind that 2 years ago, the ECB and the Fed in the US were applying quantitative easing and were keeping the interest rates at historic lows to incentivize expenditure. This put a lot of downward pressure on the value of the Euro and the US Dollar. On January 5th, 2015 according to Yahoo finance, 1 Euro would buy 1.17 US Dollars. Today, 1 Euro buys just 1.06 US Dollars. This is due to the monetary policies of the ECB over which Lithuania had little control. If you look at bitcoin on January 5th, 2015, you could buy one bitcoin for about 236 Euros. Now that same bitcoin is worth about 1,125 Euros.

Lithuanians could have bought bitcoin back then with a small part of their savings in order to protect themselves from the risk of quantitative easing and they would have been able to protect the value of their savings from the downward pressure that the policies of the ECB brought. This is extremely valuable, since no other currency would be able to achieve the same. Not even the US Dollar which is now more valuable relative to the Euro than it was back in January 2015. But then again, this would require Lithuanians to be more aware and responsible with their money, they would have had to understand the implications of joining the Euro and how they could hedge that risk with bitcoin in a responsible manner. With greater freedom comes more responsibility, but that kind of freedom really gives you an advantage.

What future perspectives would you shape for new technologies such as Bitcoin or Blockchain?

Marc: Anything new has the potential to be scary. Think about self driving cars for example. What would happen if a hacker hijacks your car while you are driving down the highway at 120 Km/h? Isn’t that scary? For many people bitcoin feels just like that because understanding how the car company is going to keep hackers out of the system of your self driving car is as complex as understanding the cryptographic building blocks of bitcoin and how those keep your coins from being counterfeited for example.

The advantage is that much like riding on that self driving car doesn’t require you to understand its systems at that level, buying, selling, using and holding bitcoin don’t require you to understand every single detail behind the building blocks of the technology. You must understand the basic things, like how to keep your coins safe, which is just like understanding that you have to wear a seatbelt when you ride any car, even the self-driving ones!

As for other kinds of fears and insecurities that people might have about bitcoin or blockchain technology, it might be due to the lack of clarity about the regulatory process of these technologies, or even due to the fact that some criminals used bitcoin to make their illegal transactions. Once people read more about what is happening with bitcoin regulation and realize that criminals have been using US Dollars, Euros and Litas (when the currency was still in circulation) to commit their crimes long before bitcoin existed, their thoughts about bitcoin will change.

We invite you to go to our site http://bitcoinchaser.com/ and find out more about how bitcoin works, how it is being regulated around the world and how they can benefit from using it. Hopefully this will help us put their fears to rest, and maybe we can even have some of them join this incredibly diverse community of people around the world who are looking to solve problems that human kind has been facing for a long time, in a different way.

Thanks for your time Marc!