Sunny Ray interviews Ethan Lau, journalist at the Financial Post and author of Once a Bitcoin Miner, about his journey from discovering bitcoin on the dark web during the Silk Road era to traveling to North Korea in 2017 for a crypto conference. Lau, who was born in China, grew up in Germany, and now lives in Canada, recounts his early bitcoin purchase in 2013, his brush with QuadrigaCX founder Gerald Cotten, and the loss of 13 ether when Cotten was reported dead. The conversation turns to the North Korea trip, where Lau traveled alongside Ethereum Foundation figure Virgil Griffith to a small crypto conference attended by roughly 60 North Korean officials. Lau describes the surreal, tightly controlled experience, from confiscated laptops to arcade games with no objectives, and later details Griffith's arrest for allegedly helping North Korea evade sanctions through his conference talk. The episode closes with Lau's reflections on naivety, selective law enforcement, and what Griffith's case reveals about crypto's collision with geopolitics.
A journalist who chased bitcoin from the Silk Road to North Korea recounts QuadrigaCX losses and Virgil Griffith's arrest.
Where does your story begin, where are you from originally?
I was born in China but grew up in Germany, and I'm in Canada now. I'm a journalist, I write a column in the Financial Post and used to write for Reuters. I was also an early bitcoin investor, I got in around 2013, and I recently wrote a book about all of it.
How did you first hear about bitcoin?
My friends and I were just poking about on the dark web for no good reason, and that was when Silk Road was still running, those were the Ross Ulbricht days. That's how I first encountered bitcoin, because that was the medium of exchange on the dark web.
What was your first experience buying bitcoin like?
I met Gerald Cotten at one of those meetups, he seemed like a decent chap at the time. I bought bitcoin on the last day of 2013 and it immediately fell fifty percent, from a thousand to five hundred bucks. I had 13 ether sitting on Quadriga when Cotten was reported dead, and those ether are gone now.
Who is Virgil Griffith and how did the North Korea trip come about?
He was head of special projects at the Ethereum Foundation, a big deal in crypto at the time. North Korea was organizing a crypto conference open to the public, so myself and six others went in 2017. I didn't know him before that, I first met him in Beijing right before our flight.
What was the conference in North Korea actually like?
It was basically crypto 101, maybe 60 North Koreans in the room and eight of us foreigners. On day one they told us we weren't there to hear from them, they were there to hear from us. Many speakers made up their talks a day or two beforehand, and we were never allowed one-on-one interaction with the North Koreans.
What happened to Virgil after you returned?
About six or seven months later, over Thanksgiving, he got arrested. He'd voluntarily talked to the FBI and let them search his phone, thinking they weren't really after him. He was charged with intending to help North Korea evade sanctions through his talk and an attempt to set up an Ethereum node between North and South Korea, and eventually pleaded guilty to a six and a half year deal.
What's your overall takeaway from what happened to Virgil?
I think he saw the world a bit like a video game, curious and open rather than malicious. Prosecutors have huge discretion in which laws they focus on, and in this case national security around North Korea was clearly the priority. I don't think it was really about Virgil personally, it was about making an example of someone.
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