Albert Buu is the founder of Neutronpay, a startup focused on bringing an improved payment experience to Bitcoin via use of the Lightning Network. Albert & his team helped to facilitate the first ever Lightning Transaction for real world goods in Vietnam and has been together with his firm Neutronpay a steady supporter of our local community.
Q1: Dear Albert – you are one of the speakers at the upcoming 5 Years anniversary event of the local Bitcoin Saigon Community. When did you first time hear about Bitcoin and why did you get interested into it in the first place?
It was presented to me in 2010 by a work colleague but dismissed it after they said they work mining these Bitcoins from there laptops at home. In 2013 I re-visited it and went down the rabbit hole and never looked back.
It got me interested because there was a known problem on the internet for trying to make and use money/currency online but those solutions would always get compromised and just never could take off because of the centralized nature.
This is where Bitcoin peaked my interest, where there was no head or organization and it would printed by machines and calculated by math and visible to verify.
Q2: Looking back over the past 5 years – what surprised you most positively, what most negatively in the past half decade of Bitcoin history?
Positive – Segwit2X & UASF debate was a good historical event that put big organizations and miners in their place, and humbled a lot of wealthy people who thought they had control over the bitcoin protocol.
The one that sticks out the most for me though, is the Silkroad and what it started as a means for free market globally. If it wasn’t for Silkroad, Bitcoin wouldn’t be where it is today, it would still be a few years out. Silkroad definitely helped it expand with development and innovation.
Negative – the forks of Bitcoin. It has and still does cause a lot of confusion and delays of adoption and awareness.
Q3: What can listeners expect to learn from your talk at the 5 Year anniversary event?
Bitcoin has come a long way, but with exceptional development and growth over the last 10 years. I’ll be talking about layer 2 development with Lightning network. And the impact it will have on usage and adoption for the space. I believe it is a huge step for Bitcoin that people may not see or understand.
Q4: Where do you see Bitcoin, the communities and its general impact on society going within the next 5 years?
I do hope Bitcoin still around, its either here or it’s not. I see it becoming a political tool as countries start to embrace the technology and begin to understand it.
It does take time, but in our era of technology driven things, its either you make the decision to innovate and move forward as a country to a technology that has proven itself and integrate with regulatory framework with friendly rules or stay staggnet and get left behind. The internet eventually eats up everything and evolves things we use everyday. Financial sector is next.
Albert will be speaking at the Bitcoin Saigon anniversary event on the 29th of November about the current status and what lies ahead for the Lightning Network – you can grab your tickets here!
