As strange as it sounds, Charlie Lee pays for parking.

In the sunny streets of San Mateo, California, the man affectionately known as "Satoshi lite" feeds the meter before walking in front of the famous early-start incubator Boost VC . Locked glass doors do not seem to care about reflecting the face of the $ 12 billion Litecoin, the cryptocurrency that is now one of the oldest, largest and most famous in the world.

Once inside, however, Lee's reception is very different.

Over there, venture capitalist, comic book addict and Adam Draper, an occasional podcast enthusiast, quickly begins to choose Lee's brain over everything from the potential of virtual reality to the success of viral application. Ethereum CryptoKitties.

"It's one of the most impressive products I have seen," Draper says.

Leaning in one of the many chairs dotting the complex, Lee is slower to respond, finally referring to a tweet in which he praised "crypto collectibles" as a worthy use case of blockchain.

This is the beginning of a model with Lee, whose every comment of real life seems to have a digital analogue. During two interviews during the day (one with CoinDesk, the other with Draper), he will continue to refer often to social media, where his nearly 500,000 followers made him the most One of the most beloved figures of crypto.

But his digital fandom was all the more remarkable as he grew up at a time when the pantheon of the early adopters of technology was largely demolished, tarred, and feathered, or if nothing happened. other, came out of the year these public tactics themselves.

Even at the height of the debate about scaling 2017, with Bitcoin proponents with open arms in a daily message on the technology roadmap, Lee seemed to rise to the above the scrum.

That does not mean that he has disassembled or watered down his opinions – far from it.

Ripple was not a cryptocurrency, lagging behind bitcoin's bitcoin rival bitcoin or expressing against speculation in the litecoin market (he was going to sell all his positions), Lee seemed to be walking on a tightrope invisible of taste.

But if there is a magic combination, a blockchain code of ethics into which he entered, Lee is not very clear with his secret. When asked how he comes out with such a straightforward personality, he always seems to have the right answer.

"I also get a lot of abuse," he says.

History of Origin

Spend time with Lee, however, and it is clear what made him so fond – his clarity of expression, his modesty and his belief in the virtue of work.

Walking past Draper's superhero-favorite slogan walls, it's perhaps easy to think of these attributes as Lee's superpowers. And if that's the case, Lee's original story begins in late 2016, when he finally found a goal for the litecoin, a project that he seems to have begun distractedly in 2011 and later, almost abandoned.

Created while he was working as a software engineer at Google, Lee did litecoin by simply copying the bitcoin code (with some slight modifications designed for merchants).

But if litecoin was gaining momentum in those early days, it was not for its technology. Widely touted as "Bitcoin Gold Money", it was largely marketing that cemented both Litecoin and Lee, as the slogan was probably more successful than anything targeted at crypto promotion. -currency (defining both the project and its relationship with Bitcoin).

Thus, while bitcoin reached $ 1,000 at the peak of its inaugural mega-bubble in 2013, Litecoin followed suit, closely following the movement with its own rise to nearly $ 50 per barrel. pop.

From there, however, Lee's magical touch has been largely attributed to other projects. Shortly after, he would join Coinbase, a San Francisco-based bitcoin start-up, a company that would become so consistent that it would be recognized as the "blue chip" of the world's most volatile market.

In mid-2015, the future of Litecoin was not clear and its market, almost inactive.

"I certainly was not paying much attention to [litecoin] while I was in Coinbase," he recalls, believing that the decision was due to the nascent state of the market at the time. ;time.

In hindsight, however, he says that the litecoin "was not ready" to grow, and that the most crucial thing that he could do for the crypto ecosystem was d & # 39; 39, help to succeed bitcoin.

"I thought the most important thing was to let people own bitcoins and keep bitcoin," he says.

The Sworn Enemy

But like all heroes, Lee was put into action by an enemy, and in the world of bitcoin, there might have been no more sinister than the fight of technology on his sheet technical road.

In early 2017, the fight that had divided the developer community since 2015 had gone from bad to dark. Almost every day, conspiracy theories appeared to emerge in which prominent figures in the industry were accused of weakening cryptocurrency for personal gain.

The new financing was non-existent and the development languished, with the main solution of the market, an update of the code called Segregated Witness (SegWit), stuck in a political stalemate and unable to obtain a consensus.

A somewhat complex and misunderstood concept, SegWit asked bitcoin users, businesses and miners to update their software to increase transaction capacity. And despite attempts to approve (because of the codification of the proposal, it required a certain percentage of minors to pave the way for software change), early 2017, any consensus on the subject began to seem unlikely.

"I saw that Bitcoin had this debate of scale and there was all FUD against SegWit, and I thought it was unfair and I could do something about it, "recalls Lee.

The first step in this pursuit was to leave Coinbase. What had to happen next was more difficult – convincing the litecoin community that SegWit was "the way forward" that could spur its market and trigger a rebirth. And there is reason to believe that the community has been persuaded.

On the news that the litecoin would push through the scaling proposal, the markets responded, out of the $ 5 potpourri the cryptocurrency had been locked in since 2014 and back to $ 50.

"People bought this and traders bought it," says Lee.

But despite the membership of the community, Lee was not able to convince the Litecoin miners (many of whom were also big Bitcoin miners) to embrace SegWit quite easily. Specifically, the final agreement required an eight-hour Skype call with Litecoin developers and miners.

But in the end, the tactic worked, and in a month, the litecoin code was updated to SegWit.

With great power …

But that's what happened next which seems to have had the biggest and most lasting effect on Lee.

With Litecoin's efforts as an example, key players quickly sought to change the Bitcoin code through a similar effort, with the Digital Currency Group investor bringing together industry luminaries in New York to conclude an agreement. What emerged from the meeting of about fifty startups and miners was the controversial "New York Agreement", an attempt to find a compromise that would pass SegWit and improve the protocol to allow 2 blocks MB . ]

What may have been underestimated about the event, however, is how well it was modeled by Lee himself, which is not lost on Lee, the results being far from similar.

While the Litecoin meeting helped galvanize a small and growing community, the New York Accord divided and angered the base of bitcoin users. Technology developers not only boycotted the proceedings, but soon began to denounce its brand image as a kind of coercion.

Like many other developers, Lee retrospectively describes the attempt as deaf to the fundamental philosophies of the bitcoin movement, even though it was well-intentioned.

"They had a meeting with most of the miners and companies, but this is part of the community, a lot of users follow the developers, since the developers are doing the job of securing the network and everything. it failed because of that, "said Lee.

And as he did on Twitter, in an interview, Lee advocates that the meeting expose bitcoin to a new type of attack vector, which could be corrupted as the industry develops (and attracts even more powerful enemies).

"If governments can tell all miners to change bitcoin into something different and it works, Bitcoin is too fragile," he says.

A great responsibility

As a side effect, it seems that Lee is now fully aware of the impact of his work and his words. Indeed, during the interview, he regularly refers to previous statements, rarely walking on new bases.

Sharpening his chopsticks at a nearby noodle shop, Lee admits he made a mistake in his public statements in the past. He thought a lot about a particular tweet. Made just before the news China's regulators had decided to take offline national exchanges, he quickly drew a remark attesting that it was true.

However, before the Chinese government made this information public, Lee's statement sparked unrest, which some say lowered the price of bitcoin.

"I was telling the truth, but the truth got the market right: people first discovered the truth and sold themselves," he says. "A lot of people have been hurt."

As the conversation continues, we settle in a dark rhythm.

Question. A pause An answer. A glass of tea, the sound of a cup resting on the other. Between the two, Lee is also careful with his noodles (hovering carefully on his spoon before each bite) as he does with the conversation.

But when Lee finally claims, the topic of choice is compelling – a recent Reddit post in which an unknown user was telling the story of a man who allegedly committed suicide after selling 10,000 bitcoins too soon .

"It's rather sad," says Lee, and, although he does not know if that's true, he seems to find a greater truth in what the story seeks to transmit.

Unlike the subjects of the past, he seems to dwell on this point.

"I can quite see that," he says. "You had, what, 10,000 bitcoin, and you just sell them for some reason, now it's 100 million dollars."

At first, I do not think much about the remark, although later, it seems to me that Lee is finally lowering his guard, at least providing the answer to a question that has long tormented him. interview – namely, why he does not want to break his constructed narrative.

The answer, revealed then, is that for Lee, cryptocurrency is a serious matter, a matter of life, freedom and death.

"It always irritates you, the fact that you had $ 100 million and you made the wrong choice," he continues.

Higher Call

In no time, however, Lee is back again, this time in a back room Boost VC that seems to double as a partial storage closet, recording studio of part.

Like much of Draper's establishment, the room does not resemble any basement of a friend you had at the university, kegerator in the corner and the floor strewn with games of Nintendo cartridges.

Now answering questions for a podcast of Boost VC, Lee is back on the script, with the conversation still retreading – Lee is concerned ICO incentives; Believes that Bitcoin is the most important cryptocurrency; and is overall optimistic about the state of the industry.

That said, the conversation is not without its new moments. Note the nuance of nostalgia now that the price of bitcoin exceeds $ 10,000. Well, Draper does most of the talking on the subject.

"Five years ago, it would not be a conversation, it was:" My friends might be interested in buying some. "This conversation is welcome now, and it was made by every crypto person and wealthy person, as well as by the presidents and prime ministers," says Draper.

"It's fascinating," he continues, as Lee misses an opportunity for an answer.

In one way or another, even a conversation about the superpowers does not elicit much interest. Lee's answer? The opportunity to go back in time to buy more bitcoin.

With the podcast wrapped, the conversation overflows into the hallway. Lee lingers with Draper, me and our cameraman for a few moments, just long enough to look polite.

We are on the steps when he turns around and says, "I have to go now. With the back wrapped in the sun and raised in the staircase, there is a certain gravity to the statement.

Quite simply, when Lee turns to leave, you believe that he needs it elsewhere.

Want more? Charlie Lee talks about his philosophy of cryptocurrency.

Original work of Luis Buenaventura II, creator of the site CryptoPop. Click here to see more by the artist, and to check the most influential CoinDesk official t-shirt.

Video of Ali Powell at 40 Thieves Films

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