Nic Cary reckons there is still up to £2m of Bitcoin buried in geocaches across Yorkshire. He hid it himself, more than thirteen years ago.

He first heard about Bitcoin in 2011, on a small fishing boat on the Long Island Sound. A few years later he moved from the United States to York with a backpack and helped build the first block explorer for Bitcoin out of a two-bedroom flat near the racecourse.

That project became Blockchain.com. It now has offices in six countries, an FCA registration, a MiCA licence covering Europe, and a confidential SEC filing ahead of a US listing.

In this episode:

• The fishing trip that started it

• Why the company was built in York rather than London

• The paper wallets hidden across Yorkshire, and what they were worth

• From block explorer to wallet, and the case for holding your own keys

• Polymarket, Snap Markets and tokenised stocks

• How to explain Bitcoin without arguing with people

• Why machines, not people, may make most payments within ten years

• The three things he thinks everyone should read

Timestamps:

00:00 Coming Up

00:40 Intro

01:13 Hearing about Bitcoin on a fishing boat in 2011

06:12 Websites, clams and Pipeline CRM

08:42 Why blockchain.com started in York

12:46 Bitcoin hidden in geocaches across Yorkshire

14:57 What it was worth at the time

15:43 From block explorer to building a wallet

18:03 Self-custody versus handing your money over

20:26 Polymarket, Snap Markets and tokenised stocks

22:20 How Nic's approach to explaining Bitcoin changed

25:06 Store of value, stablecoins and peer-to-peer cash

27:14 Why machines will transact in digital money

29:33 FCA approval, MiCA and the SEC filing

32:12 Three things everyone should read

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💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncary/

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All content provided by The Bitcoin Collective and guests in this episode is for informational and educational purposes only and is not financial, trading, or investment advice.

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EDITED BY JAMES PEARCE

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-pearcesf/

Available now on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. This episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Always do your own research.