And Bitcoin is just this absolutely incredible, novel system that the world's never seen before.
And it works.
It's been working for 17 years.
No middleman, no government, no bank in the middle.
And you can send and you can receive.
And it's got real value because those properties are real and they can't be stopped.
Hello, and welcome back to the Orange Pool Order podcast, where we dive deep into the world of Bitcoin and the mind shaping its future.
I'm Thomas.
I'm Kalen.
And I'm Finn. Today, we are thrilled to have TC, the creator of Time Chain Calendar and a true Bitcoin trailblazer.
TC, we've been checking out your app and website. It's a game changer for visualizing Bitcoin beyond just the price charts.
We're very excited to hear your story. Thanks for joining us.
Well, thank you very much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
I've heard some buzz about you young lads starting a podcast here, and I'm excited to see how this goes.
Yeah, we are too. Very excited.
It's an honor.
It is definitely an honor.
So let's start at the beginning, TC.
Can you walk us through your journey into Bitcoin?
And how did you get first involved?
And what pulled you down that rabbit hole?
Wow.
I think, honestly, the beginnings were somewhat sort of destined, but also very random.
I'll explain.
Basically, I feel like for a long time prior to actually discovering Bitcoin, I was already starting to notice things in the world that kind of gave me a sense that things aren't quite what they seem.
a lot of the systems that we depend on and trust are not so dependable or trustworthy.
And, you know, basically just kind of the history that I lived through,
I think I started kind of paying attention to these things around, you know, the year 2000.
There was a big stock market crash.
They called it the dot-com crash, where basically all of this excitement about the internet
and the hopefulness about, you know, the internet changing the world sort of produced this giant bubble in the markets
and then things collapsed and kind of everything that happened after that gave me the impression that, you know,
we're living through a pretty interesting time.
Not too much long after that, we had the whole 2008 crisis.
And I was paying attention to that much more even just from the sense that, you know, it was I remember it was pretty outrageous.
A lot of my friends and I were very struck by this idea that banks had been irresponsible and issued loans to people that shouldn't have gotten those loans.
And then that produced a sort of collapse in the economy.
And then the banks just turn around and put their hand out to the government and get bailed out.
and that was really profound as far as getting my attention about the banking system and the
monetary system uh it's interesting looking back now too because that's exactly the time frame
where bitcoin was created the genesis block of bitcoin has that uh sort of saying inscribed into
it that basically says chancellor on the brink of second bailout for banks is literally referencing
that exact crisis. And so I think that was something that also reinforced the idea for me
that there's really something wrong with the monetary system, the banking system. But still,
I didn't really discover Bitcoin until almost a decade later. It was actually in my line of work.
I'm a web developer. I've worked for a lot of different companies building websites and
doing software development and I just so happened to move jobs from one company to another where
the the new job was suddenly exposing me to basically the that whole sort of world of crypto
and bitcoin the company that I was working for actually did an ICO and had a token and so I was
surrounded by co-workers that were just fanatical about this stuff.
So like a lot of people, I discovered Bitcoin in that sort of misleading context of crypto.
And then, you know, I had to kind of take years to find my way to a better understanding about it.
I think it was the 2019, there was a real issue with the repo market that caught my attention
as far as the economy and macro things that were happening.
And then all of a sudden, it feels like the whole world got hit
with that whole COVID pandemic phenomenon.
And by that point, I had my attention squarely where it needed to be
as far as being sort of a skeptic and trying to figure out
how I'm going to survive this insane world.
And I feel like that's when I really kind of fully went down the rabbit hole
and started to appreciate really what was special about Bitcoin.
It's a journey. It takes time.
I think a lot of people can relate to that.
It's very easy to get drawn to crypto
and actually find yourself on the wrong path.
I think it's critical to realize that Bitcoin is the innovation.
It's not blockchains. It's not crypto.
It's Bitcoin itself, that actual protocol
that really is the innovation that's going to help people.
And that's why I started doing the Time Chain Calendar project.
Yeah, I think we've seen a similar trend across all our guests
in how they've identified a broken system
and seen Bitcoin as the whole solution.
Yeah, and I also, like, I see that a lot.
I think a lot of people can see that that is an issue,
but I think a lot of people actually don't find Bitcoin
and that's where the issue lies
because I've met a lot of people
that know there is an issue with the currencies
with the whole world basically
and they just don't really know a solution to it.
I think another problem is, well me personally,
how the media portrays it.
Definitely.
In the sense that they group it in within the cryptocurrencies.
They don't tell you about all of the great things,
the great space, the opportunity.
So it sort of just gets sort of bundled
into this one big mess and no one really knows how to navigate it in a sense yeah and it also
i mean obviously these media channels they need to get their views they need to get their money so
oftentimes people will read that you know apparently bitcoin's gonna craft and that's
happened for the 30th time now and it's like wow how many times can you say that before people start
to realize that it's not actually true yeah you know a funny pattern uh you'll notice is whenever
bitcoin is in a positive light in a news story it's mentioned as crypto and then whenever crypto
is in a negative light in the news stories they always put a big bitcoin coin on the visuals so
that there's just such a sort of two-faced way that the media mistreats and misframes Bitcoin.
But again, you know, there's a common theme.
I think it's an important one for young people especially is there's a world of noise
and it takes some work and some effort and some critical thinking to identify the signal.
And you have to actually switch your brain on.
You can't just take everything at face value.
you kind of have to develop a little bit of skepticism and a little bit of determination
that you're going to apply your thinking to what you're seeing and try to identify the signal
amongst the noise. It's really important these days. Yeah. I mean, I want to circle it back to
your obvious anonymity. I mean, you're known as TC at Meditation Man on X. And I think we're all
curious especially our gen z audience why are you personally choosing to stay anonymous within this
space i think that identity and anonymity uh is a really important dynamic and it's something that
most of us don't really appreciate until it's a problem um in our world today there's so many
forces trying to do the exact opposite where they're convincing people to you know share their
their face everywhere and post as many pictures as you can of yourself and your family members
and you know there there's like a whole economy socially uh that people try to tap into
and it encourages people to just share more and share more.
And we've learned that a lot of these platforms are harvesting all this information and selling it
and you're paying with your privacy to the point where most of us have none.
and for me it's just that I reached a certain point where I decided I needed to start taking
a stand to attempt to protect a little bit more and it's a personal choice you know I I love to
be here talking with you guys today and uh I I just feel like you know because of my life and
various aspects of it. I want to try to hold on to just a shred more of my privacy if I can.
And it is just a thin veil. It's a really interesting thing to just start paying attention
to. How frequently in the course of your normal activity, you're asked to hand over your phone
number your email address your name your your home address um you know people are just look at
our culture and i'm sure with you guys you know the younger generation everyone is so excited to
get a phone that has a camera in it and taking selfies and now with all the ai it's kind of like
gamified that whole thing and there's so many fun ways to leverage your image but you have to
consider this stuff remains on the internet forever. It just doesn't go away. And you never
know where you're going to be in life later, where some of these things become a bit of a
vulnerability. So it's just an interesting topic to kind of keep a focus on. And I think that you
give yourself a few more options if you do operate with just a little bit more care. There's nothing
wrong with using a pseudonym or an alternate name that's not your legal name. You can achieve
most of what you do online in that way. And then that just gives you the option to reveal your
legal identity at a later point if you need to. I think it's just one of those things that
I only really started paying attention to in the last few years. And at this point, I feel like I'm
clinging to what little bit I can actually still, you know, keep my own.
Yeah, I mean, I don't really think people and especially Gen Z sort of can quantify how big
the internet will inevitably become. And all of that data, all of these pictures, they're all
held by, hell, sorry, independent corporations. And sort of the leverage they have over your
sovereignty and identity is really uncomprehendable at this given time yeah um and obviously we can
appreciate why many people especially like you choose that anonymity i think it's just important
for us that maybe we aren't anonymous because obviously yeah we want to be the voice of the
youth but also the face of the youth for bitcoin because i think it will resonate a lot easier
with these younger generations if they can see who they're talking to and learning from definitely
especially with a lot of gurus online spitting out false information behind a random tiktok
account it's like who do you trust but then when you have a face to information almost it's sort of
much easier for them to learn in my opinion at least yeah yeah there's another aspect too which
is that all of these platforms, the social media and so many other things,
they're all sitting on top of centralized databases.
So you don't think about it that your information gets collected
and is sitting basically waiting for a data breach or a hack to expose that stuff.
When you get further along the way, I mean, for me,
I've been using the Internet for decades now.
And it's terrifying when I realize how many data breaches all my information has been a part of.
And there's nothing I can do to undo that.
So I basically only have the choice to proceed in a different way going forward.
And I'm choosing to do that now.
And I don't know.
I hope it's achieving something for me.
Yeah.
Okay, well, I think we're going to kind of go back onto the time chain calendar.
So just for our viewers, what is it exactly and why did you create it?
Well, as I said before, I'm a web developer.
I've been in the business of building websites for people and learning how to do UI and graphic
design and things like that professionally.
And then, of course, I discovered Bitcoin when I did and I started really
getting passionately interested in it and wanting to learn as much as I can.
You know, at a certain point, it really came to the forefront as something that I should
actually implement.
I was inspired by several other really great websites.
You know, there's Clark Moody's Dashboard, one of the OGs, one of the first guys to really
put together a comprehensive set of data as a dashboard.
You know, there's the legendary Mempool Space guys. They've really created an incredible resource. I'm forever grateful for them because I actually use their API on my website. So the data that you see there is actually the same data that you see on Mempool Space. It's just with the time chain calendar interface on top of it.
And then there's another project that I have to mention, which is the block clock.
You guys might be familiar with a piece of hardware made by the company CoinKite, which is a beautiful hardware device that sits on your counter or on your shelf.
And it shows you the latest block height and various other data.
So for me, I was inspired by that, particularly because I own a block clock.
And I was really enjoying sort of noticing, oh, there's a new block. Oh, there's something interesting in the data that happened. And it was a really cool feedback loop to experience awareness of that information and to have that in my space while I'm working.
of course because i'm a web developer i looked at that hardware and i kind of thought hey if i
re-engineer this to make it more of a live website it'll be even more up-to-date real-time
information and then of course i had my own ideas about what i wanted to display so the first version
of time chain calendar i really think of as sort of a web block clock and then it's got these
circles that introduce visualizations of various aspects of Bitcoin's protocol.
And that really is sort of the spirit of the project is I'm trying to bring awareness of
Bitcoin just by virtue of having that protocol information right in your experience.
Like I've got it up on my screen right now. And every time a block hits, I don't miss it. I put this sort of animating, rippling kind of effect every time a block hits. And it's kind of hard to miss, even if you're not looking right at it, if you just catch it in the corner of your eye.
And there's a, in my opinion, there's a really cool kind of awareness thing that you start to develop as you're sitting there with it in your presence and these blocks are happening.
And I realize like your consciousness is starting to become aware of Bitcoin and Bitcoin's behavior starts to infiltrate your mind in a new way because you're paying attention to that.
think about how many people look at Bitcoin,
but maybe they care about it,
but all they're looking at is a price chart.
What is the signal that they're getting on a daily basis?
Most of us, you can't not look at the price.
You check it each day.
Some of us check it many times every day.
And that's one particular signal.
But the price is also very much outside of Bitcoin.
The Bitcoin protocol doesn't know what the price is.
We just had a block hit. I couldn't avoid it. It was in my line of view. And it just, you know, it just right right there. I just put a pin in my brain. You know, we're living our lives every day. Right now we're in a podcast together. We're having this conversation. But that block hitting, it's like a little pin was dropped in my consciousness right there.
And if I allow that to happen throughout the course of an entire day and then throughout the course of weeks and months and years, I'm sort of like developing consciousness and awareness of Bitcoin in a way where it's a part of my daily experience on a deeper level.
And then on top of that, staying aware of these other aspects of the protocol, the rings on the interface represent important cycles in Bitcoin's protocol.
So you know for instance the orange circle in the interface is the blocks to the halving that 210 blocks to get all the way around that circle Takes about four years
I only launched the website three and a half years ago.
So I haven't even seen that orange circle go all the way around in the time since I made it.
But I'm paying attention to it.
I'm watching it.
We're almost halfway through this halving right now.
We just hit another block.
and and it's you know it's just paying attention to that stuff i think is a great way to build that
awareness and also start paying attention to these aspects of the protocol which are such greater
signal than just the price you know you can you can pay attention to the pace of blocks as they're
coming in you learn about the having and what significance it has to bitcoin you learn about
the difficulty adjustment the red circle and so many other things i'll take a pause right there
what do you guys think i mean i think it's so awesome to hear that it's almost like you've
intertwined your consciousness with bitcoin itself and um i think yeah it's uh what you
were saying about the price it's uh yeah price is just kind of the smallest part i think that's kind
of tip of the iceberg but when you really start getting to know bitcoin like obviously it's a
it's a part of it you want to check it but bitcoin is a completely separate thing a completely
different thing that we've never seen i don't think anyone else has ever seen in their lifetimes
if think about this oh sorry go ahead i was gonna just say you know let's think about why
the price is outside of bitcoin because basically what the price is uh it's just a reflection of
the most recent trade on a particular order book you know actually the price feed on time chain
calendar is a price feed that I developed myself. I have on my server, I'm connecting to about 13
different exchanges around the world. And I'm getting all these different prices in at all
these different times. And I basically look within, say, the last six or seven seconds,
and I look which prices I've gotten from different feeds. And then I aggregate them together and I
average them together. I use the volume on those exchanges to kind of weight the averages a little
bit. But basically, I rolled my own price feed there. But even still, what is it? It's just
the most recent trade on those exchanges. And if you know how order books work, it just means,
okay, a buyer and a seller matched up there. And then you think about who those people are.
Who are the people that are trading every day? You know, there's a lot of people who consider themselves just professional traders. There's a lot of DGENs. There's a lot of gamblers. There's people who are FOMOing in or FOMOing out. There's a lot of sort of reactions to daily news or, you know, just emotions of those participants.
I look at that group of people as not the most educated about Bitcoin.
You know, most people who are really into Bitcoin, and especially people who've been in it for a while, they're not trading all the time.
They're not on exchanges buying and selling all the time.
So I like to think about it from the point of view of, you know, where that activity is that produces that data and who are the people and participants that are producing that activity.
I don't think the traders are the people that I want to be looking at the signal from on a day-by-day basis.
You know, you look at the protocol and you look at the pace of blocks, for instance.
It's one of my favorite metrics is the average block time.
You know, that's showing you what is the pace of blocks in this particular difficulty epoch.
We just had a difficulty adjustment about a day ago.
So it's actually a very small sample size right now.
It's just the last day of blocks.
Right now it shows 9 minutes 43 seconds average block time.
But to me, I look at that and I'm immediately thinking about those participants instead of the DGEN traders who are executing trades on an exchange.
I'm thinking about the miners that are looking at this raging hash rate and this difficulty that's very close to all time high.
And I think about the people that have to actually invest capital and acquire hardware and build out infrastructure and secure energy contracts.
I mean, those participants have Signal baked in.
Those are people who are really investing in Bitcoin.
And they have long-term goals to try to mine as much Bitcoin as they can.
I think that group of participants is a lot more interesting and meaningful to pay attention to.
And you watch the difficulty change.
We had a couple of difficulty adjustments that were wild.
We had double digit difficulty drop and then a double digit difficulty increase.
You know, you're looking at wild swings in the pace of block production.
and then you're seeing what the people that are mining do in response and to me this is where the
this is that's that's real signal that's sort of more worth your time to pay attention to
yeah i mean i just want to quickly circle it back to the time chain calendar
I mean, again, your viewpoint is spectacular, but I think more importantly, our Gen Z audience, I mean, the question is, how does it help someone new to Bitcoin, if at all?
Well, I think that's a great question. I think the first thing you might ask if you look at it is, what is that big number? Right now it says 939634. What is that?
and I think that's where new people are gonna benefit greatly from this it's it's the right
question to be asking what is that number that's the block height that's basically how many blocks
have been added to the chain since the whole thing started you know you can grab that little slider
that's just below the circles.
It's got a little blinking handle,
and you can slide that all the way to the left,
and it goes all the way back to Genesis block, block zero.
And what you're looking at here
is the sort of live bleeding edge of this chain of blocks.
I hope if somebody looks at this and asks themselves this question,
well, what is that number?
and they hear that it's a chain of blocks,
they maybe would ask, what's a block?
And what is a block?
Well, it's telling you on Time Chain Calendar
this pool called Ocean mined that block.
There were 2,076 transactions in that block.
The average fee was around one sat per V-byte.
You start getting a little more information about,
well, what is that block?
That block is a group of new transactions.
We just hit another block.
And this new block was mined by a pool called Antpool.
And there's 2,611 transactions in that one.
So Time Chain Calendar is trying to show you what's actually happening.
And maybe a new person can pretty quickly pick up that each of these blocks is a new group of transactions
that's getting added to this chain.
Now, imagine one of those transactions was yours
and say you were sending Bitcoin to someone
and it was for something really important.
You can use your imagination what that reason is,
but what you're seeing
and maybe what a new person should be thinking about
is this system without any central control,
There's no bank. There's no government. There's no laws that are dictating that your transaction needs to be made. There's a system here that incentivizes all these people who are mining Bitcoin to compete furiously against one another to win the right to scoop up a bunch of unconfirmed transactions, including yours, and put it in a block and add it to the chain.
And in doing so, as soon as your transaction is in a block, it's considered a final transaction.
And at that point, it can't be undone.
It can't be canceled.
So you're looking at some of the greatest properties of Bitcoin.
Censorship resistance.
Sovereignty.
you know you were able to make that transaction by virtue of sending a message to the network
and all the nodes in the network circulate that message around and when the time is right when a
miner hits a block they like the fee that you're offering them they scoop your transaction up along
with a couple thousand others and boom it's just been added to the chain and that makes that
transaction final. That goes for you sending. It also goes for you receiving. If someone's sending
you Bitcoin, you are able to see that transaction before it's even confirmed. You'll see an
unconfirmed transaction in the mempool. And then you'll see once it's actually confirmed in a block,
and that's when you know you've actually received the Bitcoin and that the transaction that gives
you that Bitcoin is final. So very fundamentally, this is that system, that permissionless peer-to-peer
system that allows the transfer of value without any authority or middleman in the middle. And
that's what people need to understand is happening here. Most people, if they just watch the news,
They think Bitcoin's a Ponzi scheme and it's just another crypto project.
And they don't start understanding what is actually meaningfully significant here.
What's significant here is, you know, Chancellor on the brink of second bailout for banks, this banking system.
And you'll see it everywhere.
There was just a news story today about BlackRock stopping people from withdrawing money from their accounts.
And you see this over and over again.
if you go to a bank and you try to take out a large amount of cash, you're going to get an interrogation.
What are you doing with that money?
And they can just as easily say, no, you can't withdraw your own money.
Or, I mean, I think a lot of people are running into this more and more.
And Bitcoin is just this absolutely incredible, novel system that the world's never seen before.
And it works.
It's been working for 17 years. No middleman, no government, no bank in the middle. And you can send and you can receive. And it's got real value because those properties are real and they can't be stopped.
so it's it's to me there's like this connection between what you understand and how much value
you see there so all the people that are outside of bitcoin that don't see it as valuable they
don't understand what the big deal is they don't understand fundamentally what's happening
maybe time chain calendar is just another tool to help you see what's happening so that you can
start wrapping your head around it and then maybe you will start developing an interest and some
conviction in it yeah i think you i mean you touched on freedom i think that's such a key
fundamental of bitcoin because even our gen z listeners they won't probably have experienced
the transaction being cancelled and things like that and with like the emphasis on how bitcoin
gives you freedom is just so important yeah i mean going back to our conversation about privacy
and things what's the very first thing that any of these apps ask you for you know you sign up for
some new i don't know a venmo type app or something like that and it's okay give us your identity tell
us where you live, you know, you have to kind of pay in a way with all that information.
And then that gets sort of used against you.
You know, it's something maybe younger people don't think of as much, but certainly as you
get older, you're going to see it more and more.
There are boundaries set by your culture and your society around you.
You cross the wrong line and somebody's going to want to punish you. Somebody's going to want to limit you. I think that's really an important aspect of what is so important about Bitcoin.
You know, I think people who are in it for long enough, they maybe even start to take it for granted.
But I think it's just it's like magical.
You know, Bitcoin was kind of called there's a meme of it as magic Internet money.
And there is something just magical about permissionless transfer.
I actually know people all over the globe now.
I know you guys now.
We're on different continents.
And if I wanted to send you some Bitcoin or you wanted to send me some, we don't have to ask permission from anyone.
That's a big deal.
And that same system works for pennies.
It works for billions of dollars or pounds of value.
It's unreal.
The way that the system works, it breaks so many of the paradigms that the traditional financial system imposes upon us.
You know, if you try to move enough money to buy a car, that's going to cause problems in most financial institutions, especially if you don't do that all the time.
You know, it's like red flags go up and you're instantly suspected of doing something wrong and you have to answer for it.
I think that this is one of the things that really differentiates sort of the people that are oblivious to Bitcoin from those that really are paying attention to it.
It's like whether you've experienced any of the friction in the world or problems that are causing people to need Bitcoin.
and i think if you see the right perspective you you'll realize quickly wow the world is
actually moving in a direction where this is going to be needed more and more you know
definitely i think well i think it's been needed for quite a while to be honest um
it's uh yeah it's a necessary part of life to be honest having your own privacy and not having
that middleman either blocking transactions or asking questions about the transactions or even
taking some of that transaction because they can i think it's just yeah not not really how money or
currency should work i think even certain people like especially people that you know might be
non-docs very private people like i know people that wouldn't want to allow the banks to see their
transactions if there was an option anyway yeah like it's so open when in my opinion and i think
it's a it's a shared opinion amongst the youth that that shouldn't be the case and obviously
bitcoin is the only answer yeah and i think that's what we again want to get out to the youth
that Bitcoin is the only answer to all of these privacy issues,
but also in general, the currency issues,
which run across the entire world.
And Bitcoin is the solution to all of it.
I mean, circling back to the youth,
we really want them to understand the importance of your app.
So I will ask, why the emphasis on time chain over blockchain?
the the terminology to call it time chain instead of blockchain yes well you know there's a there's a
couple of things i think that are are fascinating there is that um satoshi didn't use the word
blockchain in the original white paper um the the preferred term was time chain and he his focus and
I think it's clear if you read his writings that the connection with time is really the important thing.
Blockchains were not Satoshi's creation.
That was a data structure that was created by others prior to Bitcoin.
And he chose that data structure.
and then he added so many other features that kind of made it work in the way that bitcoin works
and the synergy with time is it's uncanny um the the sort of importance of that so for me when i
was going through my bitcoin journey and i encountered the word time chain it really
jumped out at me maybe also because of the time in history that i was really discovering bitcoin
there were a lot of people who were also sort of affinity scamming with the term blockchain.
You saw sort of the early kind of mainstream adopters,
a lot of corporate type people who in the sort of 2017, 2018 era,
they were really excited about blockchains.
And that's a lot of where that crypto scamming came from
because the idea was, oh, you just add a blockchain to X, Y, or Z, and you're getting all of this
benefit of decentralization. And that's a scam. I mean, you know, basically a blockchain by itself
doesn't assure anything. And it certainly doesn't give you decentralization. And it doesn't even
give you immutability. You know, if you really start diving in and learning how Bitcoin works,
It only immutable because that blockchain is combined with proof of work And there this sort of synergy of these different architectural elements and the way that the game theory works
That's how you end up getting
a decentralized system that works.
So it's really not about a blockchain.
So for a lot of those reasons,
I actually really favor the term time chain as well.
And I feel like it kind of also,
helps identify Bitcoin from other uses of blockchains,
which there are many at this point.
It's a very interesting take, and I agree with you completely.
It's a beautiful outlook on it,
as to not confuse it with the other cryptocurrencies in a sense.
But beyond the tool, what is your broader story?
I mean, more importantly,
how has Bitcoin changed your personal views on the world?
well uh i feel like the answer is that there's a rabbit hole of rabbit holes
and i feel like bitcoin is the the primary rabbit hole to fall down it's almost like it's the first
thread that you pull and once you start understanding bitcoin more and you start
seeing this sort of disillusionment in the world
and how there's so much deception in the world,
there's a seemingly endless stream of additional threads to pull
and rabbit holes to fall down.
So for me, I've noticed that I've just continued to be skeptical
and keep my mind open and try to apply critical thinking
to a whole variety of additional aspects of my life.
I would say one of the biggest and most impactful has been health.
There's so much just bad food and bad nutrition advice
and people who are just not doing a baseline of activity
to keep their bodies healthy.
And that's one I really took to heart.
You know, I'm at the age where I've, you know,
formed a family and kids and you get older
and, you know, you stop taking life for granted
in the sense that you assume you're going to,
you know, you have forever to keep living
and that your health will always be there for you.
I think when you're young, and you guys tell me if I'm right about this, when you're young, there's a kind of invincible feeling to everything.
And you kind of feel like you've got room to make mistakes.
You got room to party.
You got time to just goof off and you'll take it seriously later.
So I think the health is one of the biggest things to kind of get control of sooner than later.
The sooner that you kind of take it seriously, the better your outcomes are. And it's pretty wild, actually, especially in America. We have pretty horrible food here because the laws allow a lot of things that are actually banned in other countries.
I get a kick out of those posts I've seen online where they'll show a certain product in America and they show the ingredients and they show the same product in the UK or Europe.
And it's literally a fraction, the number of ingredients, because they put so much chemical garbage in the food in America.
Anyways, it's tough.
I try to control how much junk food my kid gets.
But for me personally, I took an extreme opportunity to change things drastically.
I started doing carnivore diet about two and a half years ago.
And it totally changed my health.
I lost a bunch of weight.
I've gotten stronger, healthier.
I did all these blood tests just to verify that internally it was doing as much good as it did on the outside.
And it's a game changer.
I just I feel like in a way, just like with Bitcoin, you can kind of feel like an outsider.
If you understand Bitcoin and you embrace it and you realize how many people don't understand you and they look at you kind of like a weirdo or an alien.
try doing carnivore diet
and like you know
hang out with the normies
that are still eating all the normal food
and you come across as an extremist
with food too
so it's one of those things
I think that's a good example
and there's many more areas of life like that
where you can find the same
deception and sort of like
lies that have been accepted as truth
and then you try to
sort of course correct and you suddenly find yourself
as a
a bit of a extremist compared to most. I think we have a pretty similar story. I mean,
when I got first introduced to Bitcoin, obviously that was one thing. And then we did an episode
with Dr. Jack Cruz and then he started outlining all the things about health. And then it made me
think if I've been lied to so much about these key fundamentals in my life, why not question
everything? I mean, it changed my outlook on everything. Yeah. And I think especially we,
as much like we try to as hard as we possibly can avoid as many sea doors as we can obviously
and get as much red light natural red light and grounding i think that's uh that's as far as we've
got so far but yeah i'd definitely love to get onto the carnival diet yeah i mean i know the
u.s food is bad when i was there in new york there was so much like terrible ingredients you could
read like red 40s i was like wow i've never even seen this before but obviously that's not to say
we've got it good yeah like we don't have it we don't have that level yet obviously one day but
it begs the question would they let that yeah be introduced or yeah is there a wider narrative
that they're trying to push in terms of health standards do you guys think that young people
uh have a disadvantage because maybe you're you're put in a situation where you're asked
to trust your parents' generation's choices.
You know, you're looking at all the food that's out there
and that's what's already been sort of approved
and sanctioned by the older generations.
What do you think?
Yeah, I think it kind of depends on the person
because I think, I mean, obviously,
I think there is a large majority of people our age
who are at a disadvantage because of that.
But I think, you know, I know that Finn and Kalen's parents, I mean, they weren't part of this Bitcoin world and part of the whole decentralized everything.
But they've explained to their own parents, you know, the health side of things and they've done it themselves.
So they're kind of, that's, you know, you can help convince your parents.
Yeah, I mean, once we get more involved in this space, I think my parents especially will take it more seriously.
i've finally convinced them that it is a real thing so that's a step in the right direction but
you know tying back to what you said regarding cedars literally last night i was cooking a steak
i was like mum this butter has cedar she turns me she was like it's the most expensive one it's
good for you i was like okay so we've got a little bit of building on that element but i mean it's
progress it's progress i can't blame them for having skepticism as i'm sure we did initially
and a lot of our gen z audience but again as tc was saying once you sort of thread that first
needle and conduct your own research you sort of come to your own conclusions so to speak i think
it comes down to the proof of work factor i mean anyone can research this stuff anyone if you just
have that drive to research you you'll find the answers yeah definitely and i also think that i
mean i've personally seen a lot of actually a lot more than i would think of people my age rather
than older generations even consuming healthy products such as like raw milk and stuff like
that yeah which obviously is found a lot in older generations but it is surprising to me to see that
even people that don't know about bitcoin are still learning and knowing about decentralized health
yeah i mean what's wild to me is that i think there's a connection between just the poor quality
of food that's everywhere and also people like losing a knowledge of how to cook and you know i
this is what what is really exciting when you actually go down this rabbit hole and you start
doing this. You know, I cook all my own meals. You know, I don't buy packaged food that's
processed and made in a factory, you know. I'm buying whole natural ingredients and I'm
cooking them all myself. And to me, it's really weird that that's considered extreme in any way.
Like, that's what I think our grandparents' generation did without even thinking twice
about it. And somehow in just a couple generations, everyone's expecting everything to be fast food,
convenient, should be delivered to your doorstep. You shouldn't have to set foot in the kitchen and
do anything. It's insane. And there's a lot of wisdom in sort of the old ways. The other thing
that trips me out is that most of the food I'm eating now is the food that's villainized by all
the mainstream nutrition and doctors don't have too much red meat, don't have too much
butter, don't have too many eggs.
And I'm going, hey, that's all I eat.
Like, that's all the good stuff.
You know, and it's pretty wild if you actually do these things and then you discover, wow,
I have actually improved my health by just eating these things they're telling me not
to eat and eliminating everything else.
So I think there's a real exciting kind of way to improve your life
if you are willing to explore that.
Question for you guys.
Do you know of Max DeMarco?
He has a YouTube channel.
He used to do some of these videos.
He's worth checking out.
I actually did a carnivore diet after watching his episode on carnivore diet.
So if you find his YouTube channel, look up the carnivore episode.
him and like four other people set out to do 30 days of strict carnivore diet and watching how
that went for them and watching the outcomes um that inspired me to try it myself when i started
this i didn't plan to do it for two years i was just okay let me see if i can do this 30 days
and here i am two and a half years later still you know not totally strict but my whole diet
has changed from it.
So worth checking out.
Yeah, our viewers should definitely check that out.
I mean, that's what we encourage really.
Like don't take our word for granted,
do your own research and let you discover the answer.
Anyway, keeping on this idea of your broader worldview,
I mean, AI, it's present in all of our lives,
especially in our generation.
In your opinion, is it a threat at all
or is there a balance?
Yes, it's all of those things.
I use AI every single day in my work.
I think it's a powerful, powerful tool.
Especially if you do anything with software or anything with digital arts of any kind, it can be a transformative tool.
It's incredibly powerful.
It can also enable people to do things that otherwise they would have been discouraged from doing or they would have had to go on long educational paths in years past.
now it's almost like you can combine your educational path with actually you know building
and doing what you're trying to do so it's like you learn on the job kind of thing so for that
it's incredibly powerful I think we're already seeing the landscape change because of this
technology. I think the job market for so many occupations is already impacted by this.
I went through my own experience of it actually a couple years ago already. I feel like I was
seeing these changes because I live in California. I'm close to this sort of Silicon Valley scene.
And, you know, it's funny to look at a place like that and realize for so long people moved from all over the world to that geographic area because that's where this technology was really thriving and there were all these opportunities.
and then it's like because um you know during covid actually during lockdowns and covid
everybody learned you don't need a central location everyone can do this work remote
look at us having a podcast right now on other sides of the planet it's like we don't have to
be co-located to be able to collaborate and then here comes the ai technology and suddenly now
everyone who uses it becomes 5x or 10x more productive. So I actually experienced my whole
job scene get turned on its head just in the last couple years because, you know, you don't need to
be living in a specific area. And now because I live close to that area that I live in, I'm actually
at a disadvantage because my cost of living is higher. So I would need a higher salary. And it's
just too easy to go almost anywhere else in the world and find someone who could do what I do,
but take a lower pay. And then AI comes along and says, well, you don't need as big of a team.
You just need fewer workers that are all max skills with AI. This is a game changer. So
I think there's really amazing productivity capable there, and there's huge potential for
people who adopt AI. And at the same time, the existing industries that have made the world go
for the last 20, 30 years are all going through very drastic transformation right now. As this
technology comes in, it offers all these benefits, and at the same time, it destroys a lot of jobs.
So I think it's an incredible time.
It's a fascinating time.
But we're going to watch some ups and downs emerge from the same forces.
So the same thing that makes a bunch of seeming progress occur can also be destructive at the same time.
Do you think there's a boundary where the younger generations become too dependent on AI?
Yeah, I mean, it's something I'm concerned about as far as that sort of instinct to just reach for AI to find the answers.
You know, it's funny because I remember the internet from the last couple decades and the impact that search engines had where, you know, you could just type a couple words in or ask a question and suddenly you're looking at a list of all these relevant websites and you can, you know, find your information.
And it's almost like that whole process has now been streamlined into this chat API, you know, the AI technology where you just ask it any question and you're given what looks like a right answer.
And tons of people are leaning on that already.
I mean, I'm using it every day in my work.
And I think there's absolutely a shift happening culturally where if you fast forward five or 10 years, certainly 20 years, like what are people going to be able to do with their own brain?
What are they going to be able to do with their own skills without this?
So I think it does emerge as a bit of a crutch. And I think for the average person, they're having maybe some of their critical thinking dulled in the process of using this every day.
yeah definitely i mean as much as it is scary i think i'm personally very excited to see the future
of ai and what it's going to be able to do in the future so well going back on to the time chain
calendar now the hash rate is insane now it's over one zeta hashes per second can you put that
into perspective for our viewers and the gen z audience
uh that's a great question i i wish i i had at my fingertips that a number of numbers or the number
of zeros that that is i would have to ask my ai um the uh no it's it's it's really amazing i i call
bitcoin mining the most furious competition on planet earth and it really is um what what is
crazy to think about even as a total beginner to Bitcoin is just imagine that right now and
Time Chain Calendar will show you this you know we're looking at block 939635 and it's been over
30 minutes since the previous block that means for the last 30 minutes every single Bitcoin miner
on planet earth every single mining machine has been just as fast as it can throwing trillions of
hashes per second at this challenge and it's literally one single hash is going to win the
next block um you know here's a here's a metaphor that i like not everybody likes it but imagine
you're standing in front of a dartboard they like darts in the uk right you guys uh yeah a lot of
people like to play darts at the pub right so uh so say you're standing in front of a dartboard
and you're throwing darts at the dartboard.
I'm going to blindfold you for this too.
So you just kind of are facing the right direction,
but you can't exactly see the dartboard.
And now the dartboard magically is like moving on the wall.
So there you are blindfolded
and you're throwing darts as fast as you can.
Let's just pretend you got magical hands
and there's just always a dart ready to go next.
You don't have to actually reach and pick something up.
So you're just, there you are like a machine gun,
just throwing darts from your hand.
in the general direction of the wall.
And it's only when you hit the bullseye on the,
on the dartboard that you've hit a block.
Um,
well now I'm going to,
um,
I going to look how frequently you hit that bullseye And after 2016 times that you hit the bullseye we going to measure how much time on average it took for each one
So 2016 blocks is supposed to be roughly two weeks,
but it took you three weeks to do that.
Well, we're going to have to make it easier.
It's taking too long.
So we'll make the bullseye on the target bigger, right?
or say instead of two weeks, it only took you one week to hit 2016 bullseye.
Okay, we got to make the bullseye smaller.
That's the difficulty adjustment.
Now imagine it's not just you with the machine gun darts throwing at the wall.
It's you and a million other people all doing it.
And, you know, this is basically kind of we're building a mental model
for what's happening with Bitcoin mining,
is that each dart thrower is one of these specialized machines.
We call them ASICs.
That's an acronym.
It stands for Application Specific Integrated Circuit.
And all that means is that the chips on those computers,
all they do is this specific application.
They just run SHA-256 and they hash
and they're trying to find the nonce that's below the target.
And essentially they're doing that as fast as they can.
and because of their computers, they can do this trillions of times a second.
And then you've got just absolutely millions of those machines.
And so you're talking about, you know, a number that's so huge that that Zeta hash is just, I mean, so many zeros.
It's so huge, the number of hashes per second.
And that's basically how many darts in our little metaphor that I tried to create for you there.
How many darts per second?
and then you know it's only when you hit the bullseye when somebody somewhere in the world
hits that bullseye then we have a new block and that's happening here's another thing about time
chain calendar look at the interface and look at that little circle that's on the inside of the
red circle and it's got all those little tiny squares and they're sort of spread out along
the circle that they're on.
That's representing the last 24 hours of blocks.
And is it every 10 minutes we hit a block?
No, it's totally random.
Look at all the big gaps and clumps of blocks.
You have this process that's truly random.
That's why I like the dart throwing metaphor,
because literally the very first dart that you throw
could hit the bullseye.
And also you could stand there
with your million dart throwing buddies
and not hit a bullseye for two hours.
That can happen too.
And so it's this totally random process
that right now all these machines around the globe
are competing furiously to try to like hit that bullseye
and win the next block.
And that is at the heartbeat of Bitcoin.
And it's only as we average it out over a two-week cycle
that you get something resembling
close to a 10-minute average block time.
And I think it's one of the best things for people to pay attention to, even as a new person, is just pay attention to how that average block time fluctuates over the course of these difficulty cycles.
The red circle is roughly two weeks.
And so at the beginning of that cycle, it's pretty volatile.
And then as we approach the end of that cycle, that average block time is directly going to translate into the next difficulty adjustment.
And if you just pay attention to this, you're talking about understanding Bitcoin better than 99% of Bitcoiners, because a lot of people don't really bother to sort of look and understand what's really happening here.
I mean, simply knowing that 10 minute blocks is a meme and it's not 10 minute blocks, it's completely random.
That's an advanced concept that you could learn right away just by looking at this and seeing all those little squares on that circle are not evenly spread out.
They're totally randomly placed.
You know, you're going to see stuff like that all throughout Bitcoin's design where there's randomness.
We call it entropy.
there's there's just a total randomness that's within a predictable process so i just i love
those kind of things i i find it uh fascinating and it's also something that's really cool to
look at because if you're a visual learner like me and you see it it actually helps you
think about it a little bit more yeah i mean visually speaking on the topic for those who
didn't know a hoe one zeta hash is one followed by unironically 21 zeros so yeah i should know that
but for those who weren't aware and that's sort of the and the coincidence as well
coincidence but yeah it's just it's awesome that's a huge number but i have to ask you
and i can never pronounce this properly but what are your views on hyper bitcoinization
um well it's changed it's changed over the years you know a cycle ago you know four years ago five
years ago that was a very popular word and a lot of people talked about hyper bitcoinization the
idea is that bitcoin is going to change human behavior it's going to change the world the whole
world will eventually sort of be forced to adopt Bitcoin as this sound money system just outperforms
the fiat money system on every level. So I got really excited about that idea. And, you know,
I do believe something like that occurs. I just I think now I've modified my time frame around it
such that I'm not waiting for hyper-Bitcoinization to happen tomorrow or next year.
And I'm perfectly at peace with the idea that something like that
maybe doesn't even happen during my lifetime.
That maybe things are so out of whack and there's so much deception and lies around
that maybe it takes, you know, generations for these things to shift.
you know i'm looking at your guys generation and you guys have to recognize wait what is this with
the poison in the food what is this with the the money that steals from us you know like there has
to be like this coming back to common sense and a lot of times in history that takes generations
to occur so i think my opinion on hyper bitcoinization is it's possible it's just something
that really does take much, much longer.
And I feel like in the meantime,
people are going to be kind of surprised
by some of the twists and turns.
Look at this latest cycle.
We've had all these Wall Street organizations
and sort of the sharks and the vampires of the world
come around to Bitcoin.
And there's a lot of people that have felt
really kind of disappointed by that.
They're like, wait, this is not the point of Bitcoin.
We're supposed to be getting away from banks and now the banks are all getting into custodying Bitcoin. So there's stuff like that that challenges your ideology if you really are looking at Bitcoin as a revolution or you're looking at Bitcoin as an antidote to this system out there.
I think there's just going to be a period of time where people have to have a more mature point of view.
You have to recognize all sorts of folks that you don't like are going to use Bitcoin too.
The vampires and the clowns, they're going to use Bitcoin too.
And so you, Mr. Bitcoiner individual, you have to find what Bitcoin does for you.
you have to learn how to use it to benefit your life just like you can't make everyone else go on
carnivore diet you have to determine whether that is going to do something positive for you and if
whether you think that's worthwhile pursuing so bitcoin is a really powerful tool you have to
figure out how you want to use it and you can't get too bothered by how other people use it or
by how other people choose to ignore it.
It's a paradox in a way.
You know, you guys want to orange pill more.
You got this orange pill order podcast.
You want to orange pill.
Well, I want to talk to you guys in four or five years
and see how you feel about orange pilling
because I think it's a very common thing
to come to the point where you kind of ease up
on the orange pilling
because you realize a lot of people
aren't receptive and they're not actually taking the wonderful advice that you're giving. So
it's challenging. I think all of that touches on the hyper-Bitcoinization idea. It's like
everyone's not going to see the light at the same time. So maybe adjust your timeframes and your
expectations and realize people are flawed and very distracted. And for the most part, they're
kind of afraid these days and that makes it tricky for this revolution to occur overnight
it's going to take some time i mean that's our main mission really we just want to orange pill
as many people as possible until that day comes but i mean as per our prep we ask all our guests
are you able to reveal a little known or completely unknown fact about yourself
or time chain calendar, something that listeners won't easily find.
Wow.
Take your time.
It's an exclusive.
No pressure.
Well, I mean, there's a whole gallery of art on time chain calendar.
I actually have plans to work on kind of doing more justice
to the art that's on there.
Right now, it's a little bit secret.
It's a little bit hidden.
If you don't click that gallery button, you might not see very much art.
I know you guys are fans of Bitcoin art.
To me, it all comes back to this idea of memes as such powerful ways to communicate otherwise complicated ideas.
And a lot of things in Bitcoin we learn as memes.
I was talking before about 10-minute blocks.
That's a meme.
21 million supply of Bitcoin. There's another meme. Like these are simple ideas that are powerful. And then as you learn more about Bitcoin, you have to kind of update those concepts a little bit and they start to sometimes change. And sometimes you have to like actually throw the meme out completely, you know, because you have to like totally update the concept.
So I love Bitcoin art because to me, it's sort of the higher version of playing with that way of utilizing ideas and concepts and bringing them to people's consciousness.
so I actually started putting pieces of art on different blocks in the interface using that
little slider at the bottom you can change the block you can also type in a block height and
hit enter and and you jump right to that block well I've got something like 400 plus pieces of art
on various blocks throughout the entire interface.
So if you want to have fun,
try hunting for some of those things.
I'll give you an easy one to find,
which is the last halving.
If we go to 840-000,
you will find there's beautiful art
by Bitko Janowski.
and he's got the Bitcoin B and it's getting slashed in half.
So I would say that's kind of a really fun thing to explore and fall down.
And then, of course, if you just want to easily find those things,
you just click on the gallery button and you'd open it up
and you'd be able to see that stuff.
So I think that that's really an interesting thing for somebody to explore further
if they're not super familiar with the website
and you'll actually come to learn Time Chain Calendar even better
through the placement of those art pieces.
Check it out.
Yeah, definitely.
It's like, yeah, just some Easter eggs on the app.
And I think it's very, I think Bitcoin art is very important
because it has that visual representation
that makes it easier for maybe people that are new
or even people that are already part of the Bitcoin space
and know about it.
it's easy to represent and understand and obviously very pleasing to the eye and
maybe you should you could get some of this art up on there
oh oh sorry i was muted i was saying you know the artist maybe you can hook me up
yeah house of ralphus house of ralphus epic
yeah um we were speaking to an artist the other day actually as no one yeah we're speaking at
bitcoin island if you weren't aware so we're actually talking to him about potentially getting
some of his amazing art pieces potentially a brand new one yeah as sort of a print for our
merchandise yeah excellent yeah no actually i i know asano very well and i actually have
a little bit of his art in the mobile app if you notice the little splat the splash screen
when the mobile app first launches has a circle uh it's a the flower of life circle pattern that
asanoa did and that's like in the background when the uh when the app first loads i love his stuff
um i've got him featured in the gallery too and um it's just you know there there's i think i think
bitcoin art is also another reminder that there's so many ways to interact with bitcoin and there you
You don't, you know, I think there's some people that get the impression you need to be some kind of software engineer or coder person to really get into it.
You can come from any walk of life and you can find really valuable insights and ideals that apply to almost any type of life, any type of career, any type of work.
Proof of work is universal.
You know, the verifiable truth is universal.
A lot of these concepts really do apply everywhere.
And I think that's the beautiful thing.
I think anyone, no matter what walk of life you come from, if you start understanding Bitcoin, you're going to find value there that you can then apply to your life and improve yourself and those around you.
and certainly it'll help you store your value and sort of like impact your life in a in a way
where you hopefully have more options in the future in a world that's pretty messed up and
crazy right now yeah no i agree the world is in sort of a difficult position but finally
on topic actually do you have any advice at all for our audience gen z entering this space
yeah i i would say tackle the knowledge curve the learning curve as fast as possible i think
there's a lot of new concepts and understanding and knowledge and a lot of people avoid those
things and you know really the best outcome is going to come when you tackle things like
self-custody and running a node and do those things sooner than later. Don't avoid them.
Think of driving a car. The first time you do it or when you're first learning to drive,
it's pretty intimidating. But most of us, I think, you have a lot of incentive to just
conquer that learning curve and get to the point where you're proficient and you can just
jump in the car and get around. That's how you want to look at Bitcoin. You want to jump in,
figure out how do these private keys work? How do I create a real Bitcoin wallet on chain?
How do I do a transaction? How do I understand the UTXO model, how Bitcoin moves around?
Go through the process of setting up a node. It's so easy and people make such a big deal out of it
and people kind of try to hype it up as too complicated,
hogwash.
It's easy.
It's totally accessible.
And I think people should just be encouraged
to just dive right in, run a node,
air gap your keys, stack sats.
I mean, yeah, that was one of our main ideas of starting this.
We saw there was a gap in the market
for the younger generation
and we really believe sovereignty starts with education.
So that's why this whole thing has come together, really.
Yeah.
TC, this has been really enlightening.
Where can listeners find you and the Time Chain Calendar?
Well, I encourage you all to check out timechaincalendar.com.
The website will always be free.
It's also a progressive web app, so you can install the website on your phone.
However, back in September, I launched the mobile app on iOS and Android,
and that is free to download.
There are some premium features if you subscribe, but the main dashboard is free.
And I encourage people to download the app, use the website.
And then, of course, if you want to follow the project, I have an ex-Twitter account at TimeChainCal.
That's TimeChainCal.
And then I'm also on Noster.
You can find it there with the Nipo5TC at TimeChainCalendar.com.
and those are probably the two best platforms for just keeping tabs in the project otherwise
use the time chain calendar develop your bitcoin awareness learn and use bitcoin directly that's
that's it that's the whole thing well you hear that everyone go and download the time chain
calendar i mean it's free why wouldn't you definitely one of the best tools for
just looking at Bitcoin and understanding it.
Of course, it will be linked in the description.
We appreciate the insight.
Listeners, if you can take anything away from this today,
please try and orange peel someone.
As always, subscribe, like.
Until next time, stay sovereign and keep hodling.