Larry Salibra is the founder of New Internet Labs, a company building a browser for the new Internet of apps that can’t be evil. Previously, he was an early product engineer at Blockstack PBC building the Blockstack browser and developer tools. He is a co-founder of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong. Prior to crypto he ran a software consultancy in South China.
Q1: Dear Larry – 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?
I first heard about Bitcoin in 2011 when I was visiting a friend in Singapore. I dismissed it without much research because I thought it sounded silly. I became interested in it in 2013 when I realized that Bitcoin is the best tool we have so solve many of power distribution problems we have in society.
Q2: Looking back over the past 5 years – what surprised you most positively, what most negatively in the past half decade of Bitcoin history?
I’m surprised that Bitcoin worked at all has survived this long. It is very much still an experiment with a high chance of failure. I’ve also been surprised by how many amazing people I’ve met through bitcoin.
Q3: What can listeners expect to learn from your talk at the 5 Year anniversary event?
You can expect to learn about some steps we can take to build an ecosystem of apps that moves power from the app developers back to the app users.
Q4: Where do you see Bitcoin, the communities and its general impact on society going within the next 5 years?
It’s really impossible to predict what will happen over the next 5 years. As more people become involved in Bitcoin there were be less sense of community. I hope that Bitcoin serves as a ceiling – a pressure release value of sorts – on governments’ ability to censor our financial transactions and confiscate wealth.
Larry will be speaking at the Bitcoin Saigon anniversary event on the 29th of November about “Apps that can’t be evil!” – you can grab your tickets here!
