HackerTube.dev

Bitcoin 2012 London: Mike Hearn

Independent POV · 79.4K views · 2012-09-27 · 28:19

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

Mike Hearn's talk at the 2012 London Bitcoin Conference on the future of Bitcoin, new applications and rebuilding the banking system. He covers lesser-known protocol features such as contracts, escrow and scripting.

On Hacker News

Recommended as a great overview of what Bitcoin's protocol can do beyond simple payments, particularly contracts and smart property.

Recommended by 6 HN people across 5 months · HN mentions 2013–2014

Topics

CryptographyTech pioneers & interviews
Search by tags
mike hearnbitcoinsmart contractsscripting2012

What people said

tlrobinson · 2013-11 · Strong recommendation

Yes, this is the most exciting part of Bitcoin, IMHO. It's quite amazing what sort of problems you can solve. I highly recommend watching this talk by Mike Hearn, as well as reading the links in NhanH's comment: [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗
tjaerv · 2013-04 · Strong recommendation

Indeed. Mike Hearn's talk at Bitcoin 2012 is a great overview of all that: [VIDEO] All these goodies just waiting in there to come out and play.

Read the original HN comment ↗
bachback · 2014-12 · Recommendation

Mike's great 2012 talk [1]. Unfortunately 2 years later, we're not much further in those developments. Bitcoin has severe limitations, also because it has now a legacy to support. New projects can start with a fresh design. So far we've only seen very few new approaches. While many Bitcoiners realize the imperfections of the system, very few actually think there could be something better. [1] [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Independent POV, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources