Last Updated on March 22, 2020

John McAfee is one of most famous influencers in cryptocurrency and also a famous person because of his life and things he done during it. In this exclusive interview Kingscrown asks him loads of questions about Bitcoin and blockchain. Have a look.

Question: How did you get into cryptocurrency, if you remember and how did it go?

John McAfee: I was introduced by an employee of mine, named James Sowomski who was mining Bitcoin at that time, in 2010. He came down to Belize and told me he was into mining and showed me the White paper, and that was my introduction to it.

Question: Alright, and when did you get really interested and joined the cryptocurrency movement, and got your first bitcoin, etc.?

John McAfee: Well, in 2014 I decided that the blockchain was probably the most revolutionary software technology that I had seen in my 50 years of doing computer science. So I took the job of CEO of a company called MGT, listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It was the sixth largest Bitcoin miner in the world. I think 6000 S9 computers. A large facility. I took that on so I could learn the business of mining. Because really mining is the foundation of Bitcoin. There wouldn’t be any if there were no miners. I spent a year and a half understanding the dynamics of that whole industry, from Jihan Wu of Bitmain, that manufactured the computers, all the way to the end, now that you’ve created them, what’s the most efficient way of getting rid of them. It is a business, or an investment, you create something and sell it immediately. So a year and a half later I felt that I fully understood the Bitcoin mining and all mining, because it’s all the same. I left and started doing things on my own. And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

Question: OK, and you love freedom and you are into decentralized exchanges. Do you think they are the future and tell us a little bit more about your project in this space.

John McAfee: We have to have distributed exchanges as users of cryptocurrencies created by the people like Bitcoin and Monero-based or otherwise that’s going to die. Because as China proved two years ago, in 24 hours, they shut down every exchange in China. Overnight. It’s a piece of cake. We have an address where the office is, we go in and we turn off the electricity, or arrest everybody, or you know, just whatever. Easy. So without distributed exchanges we’re lost, because without an exchange what are all these disparate currencies if we have no way to trade between.

So we have to have an exchange, and the distributed exchange architecture is the only one that will protect us from intrusion by government control and monitoring. So our DEX for example, we take no information, we don’t know your name, we don’t take any documents, there’s no sign-up process. It’s a portal into the blockchain, it goes through our portal. The main logic of the exchange is smart contracts on the blockchain, which cannot ever be taken down. So I created something that has no government oversight, there’s no KYC, no anti-money laundering, nothing. It’s just a portal to exchange peer to peer with people. It’s a new concept and we have built it. It works now on Ethereum and Tron, no cross-chain transactions yet. It’s in Beta test. And by the end of the year, we’ll have Binance, NEO, and EOS. And then by the second quarter of next year we’ll have cross-chain transactions. And every other chain. We’ll have Bitcoin of course, we’ll have Monero, everybody’s. So then it will become a real exchange, that works when we release our production version. And I did this, because we’re not making money. We don’t charge a penny. If you want to list on Binance, that’s 75,000 to a quarter of a million dollars. So listing on our exchange is nothing, zero. You press the button on the top of our homepage, it says ‘Add Token’, put in the technical specs and you’re added. So this is for the people. We charge no maker fees, and only a quarter of 1% of taking fees, and even that’s not going to support our development. But it’s a gift to the people. And take it or leave it.

Question: So you don’t want to make money of it directly, rather make something for the people and have the ecosystem of cryptocurrency?

John McAfee: I’m 74 years old and I’ve had more money than God. Money is not what I need. So no, this is not a money making project. I do have other money making projects, this is not one of them.

Question: Alright. And what do you think about decentralized block-platforms and social media like Steemit or other competitors. Do you also think this is something important in the crypto-space of censorship?

John McAfee: Absolutely! I mean if you look at things like censorship on Facebook, or what have you, or YouTube, centralized control of your content, that doesn’t sit well with me. Although it’s all we have now, in mass form at least. So any project that takes away the censorship function… The Veto power is the most powerful of all veto, it’s what the president has. Congress can spend an entire year on a legislation that was voted unanimously and then the president can say: “Well, no, no.” That’s what censorship is. We can not live with that.

Question: And you are famous because of your predictions of the Bitcoin price. While skipping the funny parts, many people say that it was pure manipulation of USDT (Tether), and that the next big run won’t happen. What is your stance on this, what do you think about the upcoming price?

John McAfee: Well, manipulation, it’s impossible for anybody to manipulate the price of Bitcoin. Why?

The daily volumes are just too big. Other than people who own tens of thousands of Bitcoin can manipulate that market. So that’s nonsense. As to the price of Bitcoin, use your own common sense people. There’s a limited supply, 7 million Bitcoin are already lost forever, we’re losing more Bitcoin every day than our minds, so a supply that’s dwindling rapidly and the demand is rising so I’d say: use your own sense.

Question: What do you think about tokenization of businesses or people, is it possible that in some years every person will have his own token, and every business will have its own token that pays dividend or some shares. And maybe all of us will be tokenized and I will pay you in your tokens for the interview and you will pay my tokens for talking to me, or whatever. Is it possible?

John McAfee: Absolutely. And it has already happened. I mean, a year ago in a grade school, a young boy in Kansas in America created the Billy token, around school, and started using it. Exchanging Billy tokens for chewing gum and God knows what. That’s perfect. What’s wrong with that folks?

And at the same time, we will have internationally accepted tokens or coins, call them what you will that we will all use. Privacy coins like Monero for example. Stable coins like DAI. Listen, we’ll have a wonderful upcoming world if we keep this in the realm of ownership for the people rather than buying into things like Libra. It isn’t on the blockchain for Christ sake. And what China is doing with their cryptocurrency. These aren’t currencies that free us, these are currencies that enslave us. God people, let’s do the right thing.

Question: And who do you think will win the race regarding nationwide cryptocurrency? China, or the USA or maybe someone else?

John McAfee: I couldn’t care less, because the race that they’re winning is not a race I’m even interested in.

I don’t intend to use the Chinese cryptocurrency, and when the US builds theirs the crypto Dollar, which is in process, then I don’t intend to use that. You have a right people, use what you want. I’m going to use Monero, I don’t care what governments are doing. Let them do what they want, I’m just not using it. So why would I care what they’re doing or who wins the race to enslave us? Because the creation of the crypto Dollar will enslave all who use it. I promise you that. It will go from the government knowing who your friends are and who your social media friends are and your emails, to every penny that you make and spend. Listen, that’s the final bar in your cage of slavery. I’m not interested in that. So who wins that war? None of us should be remotely concerned!

Because I’m not using any of it and neither should you.

Question: And you mentioned Monero a lot. What do you think are the most interesting cryptocurrencies right now, and what do you think of the listings of anonymous currencies on some exchanges, especially in Korea?

John McAfee: I think there are two things that will survive no matter what is coming in the cryptoworld. Those are privacy coins, true privacy coins where no one can know anything about a transaction. And stable coins, like DAI, that do not vary in value. From a stable item, or an unstable item like the US dollar. DAI has never varied more than one penny from the US dollar. Why is that important? Because in the rest of the crypto-world, the fluctuations and the change and the change in price and volume and so on, is astonishing. And if you want something stable to keep your cryptocurrency in while you decide what to do next, buy a boat or whatever, use DAI. By the way, it’s not called SAI, they changed it last week. So stable coins and privacy coins are always going to be with us.

Question: Don’t you think that the financial and crypto world is lacking humor? You are saying a lot of funny things, also Coblee speaks of funny things. My blog hosted since 2013 is called fuk.io, which is also funny for people. And don’t you think that people lack humor in the crypto-space and that we need to change it?

John McAfee: Well, if I think… Sorry. This is a funny question. But you’re right. No one’s ever asked me that before. I guess, let’s consider. First personalities like Roger Ver, I’ve never seen him smile, let alone crack a joke. I mean, I like him. He’s a very bright, charismatic guy. Jihan Wu, I’ve never seen him smile. So you’re right. Maybe we are a bunch of humorless pricks, I’m not sure. But you’re right. There’s far less humor in crypto than in anything that I’ve ever looked at before. And not only that. There’s far more sensitivity. If you dis somebody’s favorite token. Good Lord! Thing will come unraveled. Why? They probably invested heavily in it.

So there’s a lot of hostility. ‘I hate this coin.’ Why? They probably sold it and it sky-rocketed. Of course you hate it! You don’t want to hear anything good about it. Or you invested everything in this token, and then suddenly it’s not doing so well and people are poking at it. Well, you’re going to fight wildly! So you’re absolutely correct my friend. I hadn’t noticed the humor part. I’ve certainly noticed the sensitivity, but maybe that’s the reason for the lack of humor.