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Matt O'Dell. How are you, sir?

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How's it going? Pleasure to be here. Thanks

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for thanks for joining. I appreciate it. I'm loving the Citadel Dispatch

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logo in the background.

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Yeah. So as we were talking, you know, for those who don't know you, of course, I'll have information in the show notes. I'm gonna get you to do a bit of an introduction so they understand sort of the breadth and depth of what you're working on.

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But I have thus far talked to

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some fantastic Bitcoiners,

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builders,

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economists,

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futurists, global

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executive consultants,

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you know, kind of an OGOG,

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guy named RU Sirius who was advocating

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for

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the beauty and the power of cyberspace in the eighties and nineties and got his take on what has transpired versus what he thought would. And so the conversation I'd love to have with you today,

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because you do span,

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an array of,

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not for profit, open source initiatives,

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venture capital, you've built,

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you know, products of your own, you've talked and worked with a ton of builders, is to sort of give us a sense of

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how we should orient our expectations with regard to freedom technology

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broadly,

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Bitcoin specifically,

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and ultimately what it does for us in the world where all of us, you know, we're

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we're recording this on June 16 and there are missiles flying between Iran and Israel.

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Who knows, you know, what the truth is these days, but depending on the source of media.

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And so the point being there, what do you trust? Who do you trust? To what degree do you trust any of it? So

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let's let's start here.

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Give us a sense for those who don't know you outside of Bitcoin or circles, because inside they certainly will,

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of what are your key areas of focus? So

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before I got into Bitcoin

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was

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more or less you could categorize myself as a disenfranchised youth. I

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didn't think the prospects were high for,

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the society and the future that we've found ourselves in.

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And then I discovered

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Bitcoin.

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And that was in, you know, the Snowden era environment. So

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2008

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hit first, 2008 hit. I was like, can't trust the finance guys. They're building up a house of cards over there, and they just lie to you and pretend that they know exactly what's happening when they don't.

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But I was like, we could trust big tech. And then 2013 rolled around and

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snowed and revealed that we couldn't trust big tech and that they were in bed with

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corrupt federal government. And that that was definitely a low point. And at the same time, I was assessing Bitcoin.

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And Bitcoin became this avenue of hope for me. It became

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a direction that we could actually

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affect actionable change and have control over our lives and have true agency.

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And further than that, it was just the greater open source movement. So Bitcoin as an open source project was kind of what brought me into open source in general and how it empowers individuals.

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So from that point forward, I just dove deep down the rabbit hole of Bitcoin and open source,

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and I tried to pick it to pieces and see where it would fail.

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And I came to a relatively simple conclusion.

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The power of these projects and the scale of these projects rely on the fact that they're software and they're tech based,

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but the success of them relies on individuals. It's a movement of of people.

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And so when you look at it from that perspective,

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you really come to the conclusion that

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the two things we need are better education and better tools.

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And so everything

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that I've focused on since then have revolved around that simple thesis, better education and better tools. And so that's really broad. I,

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volunteered with the Human Rights Foundation training activist for seven plus years.

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I cofounded Bitcoin Park in Nashville and now in Austin,

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which is a in person

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community space focused on building and and education.

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I cofounded OpenSats, which is a five zero one c three focused on,

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supporting open source projects.

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I'm one of, the original partners of ten thirty one,

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which we we fund for profit businesses that operate in the space. A lot of them have an open source focus. We're very proud of the fact that we invest in full stack open source businesses

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where other investors wouldn't. And then last but not least, I found myself,

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semi involved in politics and policy,

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as one of the founding three board members of Bitcoin Policy Institute.

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And that came as a realization that you couldn't just ignore politics and that the early cyberpunk movement had a two pronged strategy

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on one side on the tools and the education and the other side on fighting legal battles.

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And that really came to head last year when

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privacy focused open source devs started getting thrown in the gulags.

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And I was starting a family and realized that if I wanted to be

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a productive American and not have to look over my shoulder all the time, we needed more effective policy. And to say nothing of, I think, the education

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I mean, you know, you you

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I

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I will say in in no small part or the reason I'm doing what I'm doing,

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based on

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your your early podcast work.

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And so

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maybe with that, I think tell me if I'm wrong, Matt, but your,

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rabbit hole recap, TFTC

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TFTC First, I presume, these are projects that you started very early in you you know, you weren't, quote, working in Bitcoin perhaps, but you were you were educating on Bitcoin. So when did when did those kick off? How how far back do those go? So it's a little bit

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confusing, and it's an it's often misconceived.

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So TFTC

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is Marty's project.

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Rabbit hole recap is something the two of us started together seven years ago.

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A weekly show that we haven't skipped a single week.

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I've had a child. Marty had two children. Marty's father died. We evacuated for COVID. Bitcoin fell 80%.

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Never skipped a week. Always there's always a rabbit hole recap. We like to joke that Bitcoin could go to zero and there'd still be a rabbit hole recap. Right. And then I launched my own podcast, it'll dispatch maybe four years ago.

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And that's more focused on

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direct education while rabbit hole recap is more focused on news and keeping up to date on the different developments around Bitcoin.

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Now if

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you put that in perspective of my greater journey,

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I started being heavily focused on Bitcoin

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a little over a decade now.

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And the that first three or four years,

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I was operating under the assumption

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that

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Bitcoin was gonna be made explicitly illegal in America.

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And so I took OPSEC and privacy very seriously.

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I didn't publicly associate with Bitcoin at all.

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And then the 2017,

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the twenty seventeen fork wars happened between Bcash, Bitcoin Cash, and Bitcoin, and I became a little bit more active, but still under NIM.

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And then,

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when it looked like Hillary was gonna lose to Trump the first time, I basically came to the conclusion

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that and this whole time I was, you know, my my my main

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my main money, like, I was working not in Bitcoin. I was just Bitcoin was a hobby.

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And then in

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when it when it started to become obvious that Hillary was gonna lose, that twenty twenty election and that we were gonna have Trump, I didn't think necessarily that Trump was gonna be, you know, directly positive for Bitcoin, but there was enough chaos and confusion going on that I came to the simple conclusion that

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Bitcoin wasn't gonna be made explicitly illegal for at least four years as long as Trump was president. There was too many other priorities that were going on in legal battles that were being fought outside of Bitcoin, and we could fly under the radar.

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And at that point, I made the calculated

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the calculated risks to become more public with Bitcoin. And then within a year or two, I went full time Bitcoin. Shout out to Marty. I, said I am amazed that I didn't know, you know, that I made that mistake that that that wasn't his project, but I know you you guys have tag teamed a lot. And so but I think what's interesting all, about all of that synthesized

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is if we do go back to 2015,

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so the ten years that you've been

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very, very active. There's the aspect of, okay, depending upon who's in power, this thing, Bitcoin specifically, could be attacked, could be made quote illegal.

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Talk to us a bit more

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about

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what sort of footing

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FreedomTech was on ten years ago. Like, what

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what was the vibe and and the outlook and and maybe what did good look like? What was a what was a good outcome for someone to be able to reclaim

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privacy, control of their money? Because then, of course, I wanna talk about sort of the current state of the state of affairs, state of the union.

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I mean, so 2033,

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it's weird. Like, part of it was,

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you know, Snowden had just happened.

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And Snowden was hiding first in China and then in Russia. Basically, the only two countries that you could hide from the US government, the long arm of the US government.

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And those revelations, I mean, especially as a young adult, were just brutal. It was just we have you bagged and tagged. They were brutal. Yeah. Yeah. We have you bagged and tagged, and you have no agency over your lives.

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But Bitcoin was still very much in it was very much in the shadows. It was very quiet.

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There were no suits involved yet.

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You could go on every server no services at KYC AML.

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And it was very much personal responsibility. It was like the wild west. It was completely wild west. I mean, I remember the first Bitcoin cold storage wallet I created.

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I printed out a paper wallet, and then I destroyed the printer because the printer might have memory, but there was no hardware wallet. So

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seed words didn't exist yet. Like the things that people take for granted didn't exist. People were getting rugged left and right.

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Mt. Gox hadn't happened yet. I don't remember exactly when Mount Gox happened. Maybe that was late twenty fourteen, but the writing was starting to get on the wall.

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But people were losing their money on random custodial services all the time. There was absolutely no real law enforcement involvement.

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Silk Road hadn't been taken out yet. It was about to be taken out.

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Yeah. So,

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like, Coinbase didn't even exist. I think Coinbase came a little bit later. So it was a completely different environment. And I I enjoyed the fact that there was just no rules, and you kinda could just make your own destiny.

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As much as you remember,

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did it Yeah. Yeah. Feel well, did it feel like that could continue? Or,

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you know, I'm asking you to rewind history, but did do you think that

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did did did you guys know it was it was a a flash a flash, point in history? No. I I think so at that point, my conclusion, my thesis was, like, Bitcoin would be, like, black market money. And even if it was just used as,

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a method to deposit and withdraw from online gambling sites, which were illegal back then, now they're legal,

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that it would have significant value. But I it was hard to comprehend the true big picture. I mean, I remember thinking,

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like, $10,000

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was moon math. Like, it was ridiculous math. Like, there was no shot. Like, if

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that that was like your you would do the dream calculation. You take the stack, you multiply it by 10,000.

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And, you know, the idea of BlackRock ETFs and and Larry Fink being on CNBC talking about Bitcoin was, like, completely out there.

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Governments stacking

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strategic Bitcoin reserves is completely out there. And I think also

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there was an assumption

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that

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a completely wrong assumption, that this

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that we could

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continue in the shadows as, like, a niche project for longer.

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Maybe not forever, but for longer. Now in, like, 2016

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or so was when you started to see

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the ID requirements, the KYC AML start getting implemented on different exchanges. And at first, it was really pushed back on by the community. They said never use it.

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And it was very much, you know,

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a massive success

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on the government enforcement side in that within two years,

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pretty much every service had it. And if they didn't, they were getting whack a mole one by one. Mhmm. Mhmm. To the point where now when someone new comes in, they just assume that's the status quo. And I would say

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that if you look if you wanna look at it from the positive angle,

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basically,

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in a regulatory environment scenario,

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Bitcoin has been slowly captured

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and trending in the wrong direction

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for

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about ten years, probably like 2015 to 2025,

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early twenty twenty five. And this is the first year that that trend has tangibly reversed.

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Now

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people shouldn't get complacent

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and there's still a lot of

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a lot of fights to be had.

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But in terms of regulatory environment, it was literally a decade of just

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worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse.

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And then this year happened, Trump got sworn into office,

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and a lot of his support came from Bitcoin and the adjacent crypto community, and you started to see that get pushed back to a degree. Was that inevitable? And and, specifically, do you feel like

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different technological or protocol design decisions could have been made

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to avoid that, or was that just the way it was gonna go in terms

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of of the ability now largely for government to not stop Bitcoin, but to control

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many of the the aspects of its flow and usage?

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I mean, I think in hindsight, it was inevitable. I think

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three years ago, even the writing was pretty much on the wall.

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I mean, and you can go back one of the cool things about rabbit hole recap is it's like a time machine. Every week, you could just

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my unfiltered thoughts on the subject and, the haters will say I got plenty of things wrong and I did. And the truth of the matter is I got plenty of things right, but no matter what If you didn't, you'd be a spook.

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Exactly. The no matter what, it's my unedited, unfiltered thoughts every week for the last seven years. Absolutely.

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And,

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the strategy became relatively obvious and and

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has been successfully executed. And I think in hindsight, it was pretty much inevitable. I mean, there's basically there was two paths we could go down.

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There was a path where,

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you saw widespread attempted bans on Bitcoin

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throughout world governments. And in that situation,

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Bitcoin operates in a much smaller scale,

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but in the shadows.

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Or you see embrace and capture,

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and that's the trajectory we saw. And there's definitely pros and cons

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on both sides.

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But I I think all said and done, if you look at it from

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the angle of

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someone who wants to see Bitcoin and these technologies being used as tools for freedom,

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we are probably in the best timeline. It is hard to complain about where we stand today,

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given all the potential trajectories that we could have went down.

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Absolutely.

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Continuing to look back a bit, and you mentioned Snowden, certainly speaking of flashpoints, that was a hell of a flashpoint.

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What else would you put alongside or close to Bitcoin in terms of

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impact,

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within the FreedomTech sphere broadly

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over these past ten years? Does anything sort of clock in at an equivalent or or close,

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level of importance?

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I mean, I it's a little bit controversial, but I I think,

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the single biggest success has been widespread usage of signal,

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the encrypted messenger. I had a feeling you might go there. Absolutely agree. And what's fascinating about that is not just the actual tech,

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which isn't perfect. It makes certain trade offs but gives you a reasonably secure environment

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that is easy to use convenient and has all the features people expect from a modern messenger. So you're usually with with any of these kind of tools you're looking at a trade off balance that

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reduces convenience in the sake of freedom.

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And and signal

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strikes a a very solid balance that has has

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resulted

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in significant usage of it.

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Now

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one of the more fascinating parts is not necessarily the tech side. It's how the actual

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project was structured as a relatively

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sustainable independent nonprofit,

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which does there's not really many other examples of that. Definitely not at the scale of signal.

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To the point where they actually are on the front lines of doing policy work and,

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Meredith Whitaker, their new CEO, came out of big tech,

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is one of the best people to ever speak in mainstream media about the importance as a privacy

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Very impressive. As an open source software.

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So, I mean, I would

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I would put that project

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on a, a massive pedestal in terms of success and and pushing the freedom tech movement forward.

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And then definitely a

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a a solid mention for Tor.

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Ironically, both of them got a lot of their funding early on from the US government,

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because they had their own

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yeah. They had their own needs,

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in terms of private and secure communication.

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But Tor has been a massively successful project.

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Both in both cases,

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they operate in a slightly different threat model than Bitcoin.

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Bitcoin is designed to be robust against a hostile

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US hegemony.

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So if if the largest, most powerful government in the world, the US government, wanted to stop the Bitcoin network,

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they'd it'd be very difficult for them to

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if not impossible, but Mhmm. I don't like speaking in absolutes. And usually, if you speak in absolutes, you're wrong.

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But with Signal and

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Tor, they operate in this middle ground threat model where

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they're relying on certain constitutional protections by The US. They fight them in in courts.

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And if the US government ever wanted to really take them out,

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they probably could relatively easily.

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It just kinda comes down to whether or not a judge would let them do it or not. Mhmm. I mean, Tor is Tor is not

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has not solved

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in a in a decentralized way this a civil resistance problem. You could relatively easily flood that network.

255
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And signal, I mean, you could it's as easy as just pulling that thing from app stores and then

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95%

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of users wouldn't be using it. And that does seem to be one of the most interesting dichotomies as you were talking about that I thought to myself, signal is, I think, without exception,

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probably the most,

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you know, so called normie friendly FreedomTech

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project that I can think of.

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It's been pretty straightforward for me to get friends and family to use it. I would not be able to say undoubtedly the same thing about Tor. You know, a, would they understand and appreciate the need for it? B, would they would they be able to use it? You know, Bitcoin, you know,

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incredibly easy using something like Strike. If you're going to ask somebody to spin up their own Electrum server, different discussion, and it seems like

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signal sort of sits there,

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in the middle and that it's tremendous utility, as you say, a reasonable set of trade offs and

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has have they just they've really nailed the user experience.

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So if we then jump,

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Matt, to sort of, you know, twenty twenty five State of the Union,

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whether it's those projects and or others, would love to get your take,

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again, from the standpoint of someone who is,

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supporting grants, who's investing via ten thirty one, who's,

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in constant conversation with the builders and the funders and the rest.

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What stands out? Like, what is going really well,

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in 2025

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in terms of of freedom technology broadly? Look. I mean, I think it's easier to use Bitcoin than ever before, period. Full stop.

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The negative is

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that the overwhelming majority of people coming into the space are coming in through

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regulated

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financial

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institutions that are keeping track of users and their transaction history.

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But with that caveat,

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self custody, Bitcoin has never been used easier spending Bitcoin or receiving Bitcoin has never been easier. The mobile app ecosystem is better than it's ever been before. The hardware wallet ecosystem is better than it's ever been before.

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It's easier than ever to to run a Bitcoin node and and use the network in trust minimized way without trusting third parties.

283
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So there's been overwhelming

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successes, and it's easy to get disenfranchised

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if you're in the weeds because,

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a lot of times these things feel like they're moving really slowly. But, I mean, if you look back

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even four or five years ago, we've made so much progress.

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You'd have to be blind

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blind not to see it.

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Do you think we could say the same thing about

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education and awareness and what I'm thinking of specifically

292
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are

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the ability to use Bitcoin,

294
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but before that, the perspective or perception

295
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that Bitcoin is for criminals, Bitcoin's not for me, that if it's not KYC, it must be dodgy. You know, do you have a sort of a perspective on

296
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where we are on,

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you know, has there been sufficient pain

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in many ways

299
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for

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the typical individual to look at this and think, yeah, I do deserve to transact freely. I I don't,

301
00:22:39,525 --> 00:22:48,105
want, you know, the government and other parties to know everything about everything I do. What's what's your take there? I mean, I think it depends who you're talking to.

302
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So, like, I've traveled around the world a lot and worked with people,

303
00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:54,580
based in different places.

304
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And if it outside of the West, outside of America specifically,

305
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it's easier for people to realize

306
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the need for an independent money,

307
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and the failures of government systems

308
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than it is for Americans.

309
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And

310
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in America, what we're seeing

311
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is

312
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very much a frog boiling

313
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kind of

314
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situation

315
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with that is heavily trusted,

316
00:23:26,610 --> 00:23:33,750
that is heavily surveilled, that's heavily controlled, and that those practices are normalized. And that's way bigger than Bitcoin itself.

317
00:23:34,264 --> 00:23:38,445
Absolutely. I mean, if you walk down any neighborhood street in America,

318
00:23:40,264 --> 00:23:44,044
a significant majority of the houses will have a Amazon connected

319
00:23:44,825 --> 00:23:49,530
always recording surveillance camera outside. And so what Orwell got wrong in 1984

320
00:23:49,530 --> 00:23:56,990
is that the government wasn't gonna force us to install cameras. It was people were gonna go out and buy the cameras themselves and pay for the privilege to be spied on.

321
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Victims and their volunteers.

322
00:23:59,450 --> 00:24:11,265
Yeah. I mean, we're seeing KYC enter every aspect of our lives. Once again, not just Bitcoin. It's super normalized for people to expect their phone number that's tied to their identity to be used for a service, for instance.

323
00:24:11,645 --> 00:24:14,785
Mhmm. They don't they don't think twice about that.

324
00:24:15,645 --> 00:24:16,145
So

325
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there's

326
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but at the same time, the tools exist. The tools exist for people to take agency. And I I I strongly believe that you can't

327
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:35,754
it's you it's it's very difficult to convince someone that they need the tools if they don't actually realize themselves.

328
00:24:36,054 --> 00:24:41,195
And I think if you're thinking about the scarcity of time and the scarcity of energy,

329
00:24:41,735 --> 00:24:42,955
it's better spent

330
00:24:43,575 --> 00:24:47,274
focusing on improving the lives of people that

331
00:24:47,940 --> 00:24:49,240
seek improvement than

332
00:24:49,779 --> 00:24:50,840
trying to convince

333
00:24:53,460 --> 00:24:54,200
a a large,

334
00:24:55,299 --> 00:24:56,440
you know, relatively

335
00:24:57,940 --> 00:24:58,440
yeah.

336
00:24:59,299 --> 00:25:03,685
Masses to to try and adopt something. Yes. And, I mean, I think,

337
00:25:05,345 --> 00:25:08,485
you know, I I've I have often said and I contend that

338
00:25:09,745 --> 00:25:12,325
Bitcoin is competing with Apple Pay in the West.

339
00:25:12,625 --> 00:25:14,805
Right? That user experience is

340
00:25:15,265 --> 00:25:15,765
incredible.

341
00:25:16,450 --> 00:25:22,630
Now we as you mentioned, we know what's going on behind the scenes. Right? It's it's collected all, analyzed it all,

342
00:25:24,210 --> 00:25:28,070
and everything that flows downstream from that, but it is incredibly difficult,

343
00:25:28,635 --> 00:25:32,575
as you say, to get individuals to step away from that level of comfort. I mean,

344
00:25:32,955 --> 00:25:35,135
I'm, you know, side note, I'm going through

345
00:25:35,755 --> 00:25:36,975
trying to move to graphene,

346
00:25:37,675 --> 00:25:43,135
OS on a Pixel phone away from my beloved iPhone after moving off Mac last fall, and,

347
00:25:43,549 --> 00:25:45,230
you know, it's painful. There's some trade offs.

348
00:25:45,710 --> 00:25:47,169
But, ultimately, I think

349
00:25:47,950 --> 00:25:50,210
it is empowering. It's tremendous. I don't expect,

350
00:25:50,669 --> 00:25:57,409
any significant percentage of the population to pursue that until until they're in a situation where perhaps they must. But,

351
00:25:58,345 --> 00:26:06,764
well, continuing on that note, I mean, are there other projects like Signal that you think get that trade off between tremendous utility, privacy,

352
00:26:08,184 --> 00:26:10,445
trust minimized, and great UX?

353
00:26:10,870 --> 00:26:15,210
Who who who else is getting that right if you see some? I mean, you mentioned Graphene,

354
00:26:15,590 --> 00:26:19,049
and I wouldn't put it on the signal level of trade off balance.

355
00:26:19,510 --> 00:26:21,690
But they've made great strides,

356
00:26:22,309 --> 00:26:23,690
in making it more convenient

357
00:26:24,230 --> 00:26:25,049
to access,

358
00:26:26,225 --> 00:26:31,365
that hardened OS than it was before. I remember, like, I was one of the first people to flash graphene,

359
00:26:31,985 --> 00:26:33,445
and now they made it

360
00:26:34,465 --> 00:26:34,965
relatively

361
00:26:35,505 --> 00:26:36,005
straightforward

362
00:26:36,545 --> 00:26:37,265
to take,

363
00:26:38,500 --> 00:26:43,240
a a Google phone and de Google it and and use Graphene. Now, once you're in that ecosystem,

364
00:26:45,059 --> 00:26:53,799
there's significant trade offs in terms of quality of life and convenience that I just don't think exist with signal. Like, signal, I convinced my 90 year old grandmother

365
00:26:54,394 --> 00:27:00,735
to install signal because it's the only way she gets baby pictures. She has never installed a graph feed. Incentives are aligned.

366
00:27:01,195 --> 00:27:08,014
Yeah. I would say loosely, and I also wouldn't put it on the level of signal because it's not open source. You're completely trusting it.

367
00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:09,320
And,

368
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:13,180
it doesn't offer the same security guarantees.

369
00:27:14,360 --> 00:27:16,860
Where Apple has moved more recently,

370
00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:23,320
at least narrative wise has been a breath of fresh air. I mean, I think you could

371
00:27:23,895 --> 00:27:25,355
you know, one of the largest

372
00:27:25,815 --> 00:27:29,435
encrypted messengers in the world or at least in America is iMessage.

373
00:27:29,975 --> 00:27:30,475
Yes.

374
00:27:30,935 --> 00:27:45,670
Now once again, we're trusting it because it's not open source and the security guarantees aren't as strong, but at least The advanced advanced protection feature, I assume, you're referring to it. I'm gonna call it. Yeah. Exactly. Where you, allegedly can end to end encrypt your cloud storage as well. Okay. You know, I think

375
00:27:46,390 --> 00:27:58,335
yeah. At least, like, narrative wise, they're showing the case that one of the largest, most valuable companies in the world believe that privacy is a strong selling point and that customers actually care about it,

376
00:27:59,514 --> 00:28:03,534
which I I think is an important piece of the larger picture.

377
00:28:05,514 --> 00:28:07,215
I'm hesitant to give

378
00:28:07,810 --> 00:28:14,710
Zuck any credit because I feel like it's a bit of a psyop, but the fact that WhatsApp has end to end encrypted messages, which once again,

379
00:28:15,890 --> 00:28:24,465
security guarantees aren't as good as signal, but the number of users is way higher. Like, it's, like, 3,000,000,000 users or something. Out outside of the West,

380
00:28:24,945 --> 00:28:39,220
it is de facto. Absolutely. Yeah. Faye Facebook the only thing that limits Facebook user growth is the amount of kids that are born every year because they've already fully saturated the global population. So the fact that they even have shitty end to end encryption in WhatsApp,

381
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:43,540
is is a massive win. But I think just to pull this all back,

382
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:47,940
the question that I think people that are focused on this stuff

383
00:28:48,625 --> 00:28:55,284
and and don't wanna be disenfranchised don't wanna get disenfranchised and frustrated about it is we have to be realistic about what a

384
00:28:55,585 --> 00:29:00,965
success situation looks like. What does winning look like? And I really think, like, winning

385
00:29:01,700 --> 00:29:02,900
is, like, 5%

386
00:29:02,900 --> 00:29:04,600
or higher of the global population

387
00:29:04,900 --> 00:29:05,960
using the tools,

388
00:29:06,500 --> 00:29:13,000
in a freedom focused way. And I think I think the actionable goal here should be trying to get that number higher.

389
00:29:13,380 --> 00:29:17,400
But we have to we have to operate from a realistic point of view

390
00:29:17,995 --> 00:29:19,855
that there's almost zero shot

391
00:29:20,155 --> 00:29:27,215
that we'll ever see over 90% of people using Bitcoin as Freedom money, or we'll see them using secure encrypted messaging.

392
00:29:28,635 --> 00:29:32,015
These types of things, they it it tends to be

393
00:29:32,490 --> 00:29:36,910
some kind of curve where the very small minority is using them,

394
00:29:37,370 --> 00:29:37,870
but

395
00:29:38,250 --> 00:29:47,870
that anyone can access them at will and take agency over their lives is the key piece there. So as pain happens, as people start to realize that they need these tools,

396
00:29:48,304 --> 00:29:53,285
having them available to them and accessible to them is the win in my book and not necessarily

397
00:29:54,625 --> 00:29:58,164
broad widespread usage. Well, and I think to your point, I mean,

398
00:29:59,184 --> 00:29:59,684
if

399
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:04,100
if we have better money and we have better communications,

400
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:13,139
any other categories? I mean, so, basically, what would be a third pillar, if anything? You know, if if we fix the money through Bitcoin, we fix communications through signal and noster,

401
00:30:15,335 --> 00:30:26,875
what's left do you think? What where where are there other areas of I mean, I think just they're both communication, but you can't group you can't group nostril in with signal because they're trying to do two different things. Absolutely. Absolutely.

402
00:30:27,690 --> 00:30:31,470
I think signal has shown us massive success. I also think the technical

403
00:30:32,970 --> 00:30:33,470
implementation

404
00:30:34,010 --> 00:30:35,789
of doing person to person

405
00:30:36,649 --> 00:30:37,149
private

406
00:30:37,610 --> 00:30:38,750
encrypted communication

407
00:30:39,450 --> 00:30:43,389
is much more straightforward than trying to solve the quote, unquote social media

408
00:30:45,185 --> 00:30:50,805
you know, our world is increasingly digital. We're we're moving more and more towards digital IDs.

409
00:30:51,185 --> 00:30:59,850
Everything is surveilled. Everything is controlled. People live, you know, 60% of their lives scrolling their phones on centralized big tech platforms.

410
00:31:01,510 --> 00:31:03,929
And I so I think the last big one,

411
00:31:04,230 --> 00:31:07,770
the last the the last big pillar, we got the money on Bitcoin.

412
00:31:08,924 --> 00:31:13,345
People have the ability to use Bitcoin as freedom money. Not everyone does. Most people don't.

413
00:31:14,044 --> 00:31:20,145
We have the direct private communications with signal, or you can go more hardcore with something like SimpleX,

414
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:24,100
which still works quite well, strikes a different trade off balance,

415
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:26,100
is less centralized,

416
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:30,180
more secure in a lot of ways, but harder to use.

417
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:35,220
So we have, like, the direct message side kind of

418
00:31:35,965 --> 00:31:39,024
at least technically sound, and the options are there.

419
00:31:39,404 --> 00:31:44,144
The last piece is identity, which Nasr aims to solve and

420
00:31:44,445 --> 00:31:45,745
one to many communications,

421
00:31:46,684 --> 00:31:55,630
AKA social media and social media as type of situations where you're broadcasting out to the world. And in that situation, you want to be able to do without permission,

422
00:31:56,250 --> 00:31:57,470
without centralized

423
00:31:57,770 --> 00:31:59,070
single points of failure.

424
00:31:59,370 --> 00:32:04,405
But also the last piece, which is gonna be incredibly important as we continue forward

425
00:32:05,665 --> 00:32:07,525
is is trust minimized

426
00:32:08,705 --> 00:32:10,245
verifiability and authentic

427
00:32:10,865 --> 00:32:15,925
authenticity and integrity because we're gonna see more and more fake news. We're gonna see more and more deep fakes.

428
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:21,500
And right now, the current status quo, for instance, is if you're reading something on Facebook,

429
00:32:22,039 --> 00:32:33,275
you are trusting that Zuck is Zuck is telling you that it's coming from the person that said it and that it hasn't been changed or altered. And that's just a ridiculous premise.

430
00:32:34,535 --> 00:32:44,395
We need to be able to solve that. Now is laughable. Right? I mean, that was the way of doing things is, you know, some some deep fake AI has got a watermark and that's meaningless now. Never. Yeah.

431
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:46,580
Yeah. Yeah. Great point.

432
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:50,260
So, you know, money one to one comms,

433
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:51,300
identity

434
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:53,060
one to many comms,

435
00:32:56,000 --> 00:33:00,500
makes a ton of sense. If we shift then sort of staying in kind of current state of affairs,

436
00:33:00,945 --> 00:33:03,845
if we shift to the builders and the businesses,

437
00:33:04,544 --> 00:33:06,164
talk to us a bit about OpenSats,

438
00:33:07,024 --> 00:33:08,005
why it exists,

439
00:33:08,544 --> 00:33:09,524
what you guys,

440
00:33:10,065 --> 00:33:11,445
Shijin and team

441
00:33:11,904 --> 00:33:14,005
are doing, and ultimately,

442
00:33:14,385 --> 00:33:15,205
why it's important.

443
00:33:16,530 --> 00:33:17,190
Yeah. So,

444
00:33:17,650 --> 00:33:18,950
I mean, with OpenSats

445
00:33:19,330 --> 00:33:22,710
a few years ago, we diagnosed this problem, which is,

446
00:33:23,730 --> 00:33:31,990
to my earlier point is it's easy to think of these things as tech projects, but but there it's a movement of individuals. It relies on people to actually build them out.

447
00:33:33,195 --> 00:33:34,255
And those people

448
00:33:34,555 --> 00:33:36,255
were just not very supported

449
00:33:37,195 --> 00:33:37,695
and

450
00:33:38,555 --> 00:33:39,695
there was great

451
00:33:40,315 --> 00:33:40,815
inequality

452
00:33:41,115 --> 00:33:43,855
in terms of how funds were getting deployed.

453
00:33:45,059 --> 00:33:51,080
They were saying Did you think, Matt, real quick, do you think that's endemic to open source? I mean, when you guys spun up OpenSats, was this

454
00:33:51,940 --> 00:33:53,640
my words not yours, was this

455
00:33:54,100 --> 00:33:58,200
open source funding is broken, let's go fix it, or was this more of a,

456
00:33:58,955 --> 00:33:59,775
a microcosm

457
00:34:00,475 --> 00:34:02,335
of that broader open source problem?

458
00:34:03,035 --> 00:34:15,440
It's a combination. Right? So first of all, the reason both ten thirty one and OpenStax exists is because in the greater crypto ecosystem, even though Bitcoin is is by far the most used, most valuable, most robust network,

459
00:34:16,140 --> 00:34:22,320
in terms of funds deployed both on the for profit and nonprofit side, it was like 99 to one

460
00:34:22,700 --> 00:34:25,120
shit coins versus Bitcoin funding.

461
00:34:25,635 --> 00:34:28,455
And so that's why both ten thirty one and open SaaS exist.

462
00:34:29,395 --> 00:34:31,335
It was to try and correct

463
00:34:32,035 --> 00:34:32,535
that

464
00:34:32,835 --> 00:34:34,135
that that imbalance,

465
00:34:35,315 --> 00:34:50,760
but also on the ten thirty one side, it was our opportunity. It was that's our alpha. That's the reason we're able to get good valuations on some of the companies that will be the most profitable companies in the world is because the funds were being deployed elsewhere. Now on the OpenSats side, it also came with the extra caveat

466
00:34:51,140 --> 00:34:52,760
that one of the biggest issues

467
00:34:53,635 --> 00:34:58,775
with foundational open source projects is that they're very hard if not impossible to monetize,

468
00:34:59,555 --> 00:35:01,495
and they're freely available to the world,

469
00:35:02,835 --> 00:35:04,535
to be modified at will,

470
00:35:05,235 --> 00:35:07,655
and distributed at will. And

471
00:35:08,109 --> 00:35:11,650
as a result, they're very difficult to monetize and

472
00:35:12,030 --> 00:35:20,109
the the way that a lot of that funding was happening was coming from large corporations. And you see that in the early days of the Internet, you see that,

473
00:35:20,510 --> 00:35:23,329
with with Linux distros and Linux development.

474
00:35:24,425 --> 00:35:27,885
Corporate capture is a very real concern and a real threat.

475
00:35:28,985 --> 00:35:29,485
So

476
00:35:29,945 --> 00:35:34,525
how do you alleviate corporate capture? You don't alleviate corporate capture by going on

477
00:35:35,305 --> 00:35:35,805
defund

478
00:35:36,105 --> 00:35:41,060
the captured developers campaigns. Those that's just not effective. What you do is you provide

479
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:43,140
more avenues of funding

480
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:44,580
that are more transparent

481
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:45,860
and more efficient,

482
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:53,540
more aligned, and don't are are harder to corrupt. And that's how OpenSats was born. OpenSats was born with this idea that most charities,

483
00:35:54,365 --> 00:35:58,865
most most debt funding was coming from corporations and that's inherently biased

484
00:35:59,325 --> 00:36:02,065
and becomes an issue because of broken incentives.

485
00:36:02,605 --> 00:36:09,105
And then those that weren't being funded that way were being funded oftentimes by charities that were not transparent,

486
00:36:09,900 --> 00:36:11,920
that had very centralized structures,

487
00:36:12,859 --> 00:36:16,960
and that were that were inefficient with capital, that they were using a lot of capital

488
00:36:17,500 --> 00:36:24,640
for administration while OpenSats is is a 100% passed. So we don't take a cut of any donations. We operate on a pure Bitcoin standard.

489
00:36:25,644 --> 00:36:33,585
But just to wrap up this thought, the key piece that I think a lot of people miss on OpenSats is we do fund mostly Bitcoin focused projects.

490
00:36:34,045 --> 00:36:35,664
But even from the name,

491
00:36:35,964 --> 00:36:40,710
the whole idea is to use Sats, the smallest unit of Bitcoin, to use Bitcoin

492
00:36:41,490 --> 00:36:42,150
to fund

493
00:36:42,530 --> 00:36:48,150
all sorts of open source projects. How do we throw fuel on the fire to make the open source movement more effective

494
00:36:48,610 --> 00:36:51,270
and accelerate the process? We do that by

495
00:36:52,045 --> 00:37:04,305
having a thousand flowers bloom and and and really getting funding out there to open source projects. So the only caveat the only two requirements to be funded by OpenSats are, one, you have to be an open source project, obviously.

496
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:11,500
And two, you have to be willing to accept Bitcoin. But you don't necessarily have to be a Bitcoin project. We funded Tor, for instance,

497
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:21,155
but they had to accept Bitcoin. Otherwise, they couldn't get funded by us. And if we flip then to the fully commercial side, be it ten thirty one, obviously, where you're a partner or elsewhere, What's

498
00:37:22,255 --> 00:37:22,755
working

499
00:37:23,695 --> 00:37:26,195
commercially? You know, what are the business models,

500
00:37:27,255 --> 00:37:28,515
and perhaps the protocols

501
00:37:29,855 --> 00:37:32,675
and technologies that sit at the lower layer

502
00:37:33,055 --> 00:37:37,250
that you're seeing success with? Like, in in other words, if you're speaking to a a success with? Like, in in other words, if you're speaking to

503
00:37:38,030 --> 00:37:39,330
a a founder, a builder,

504
00:37:40,030 --> 00:37:41,090
perhaps a current,

505
00:37:41,630 --> 00:37:49,330
business owner who, you know, has an inkling that they want to build in a different way on FreedomTech on open protocols,

506
00:37:50,705 --> 00:37:52,085
what's working well today

507
00:37:52,545 --> 00:37:53,045
commercially?

508
00:37:54,065 --> 00:37:54,565
So

509
00:37:55,345 --> 00:37:56,165
with OpenSats,

510
00:37:56,625 --> 00:37:57,365
the measurement

511
00:37:57,665 --> 00:38:01,685
is basically freedom go up. It's, you know, will this make

512
00:38:02,470 --> 00:38:04,490
freedom focus systems more robust?

513
00:38:05,830 --> 00:38:09,130
And is there proof of work there? On the ten thirty one side,

514
00:38:09,830 --> 00:38:14,410
you know, we have a dual mandate. Our our first and primary mandate is to

515
00:38:14,724 --> 00:38:17,865
make money for our investors and and return capital

516
00:38:18,165 --> 00:38:18,665
significant,

517
00:38:19,365 --> 00:38:19,865
appreciation.

518
00:38:20,805 --> 00:38:27,464
And then our second mandate is also pretty much shared with OpenSats, which is how do we make these systems more robust?

519
00:38:28,640 --> 00:38:33,380
Because a lot of our investors are ourselves included have very large Bitcoin positions,

520
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:36,820
and there is a nice circular feedback loop of more robust

521
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:38,580
censorship resistant,

522
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:40,900
Bitcoin protocol,

523
00:38:41,724 --> 00:38:48,065
is is strictly better for us and and our Bitcoin holdings and our our future freedoms.

524
00:38:48,525 --> 00:38:49,025
Now,

525
00:38:50,125 --> 00:38:54,065
because of that, it's a very it's it's much more difficult

526
00:38:54,640 --> 00:39:00,260
to effectively deploy capital. And we basically have to find kind of a balancing act. And what I've seen is,

527
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:02,420
first of all, is people love hype,

528
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:05,140
and this industry really loves hype.

529
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:07,700
And our edge is

530
00:39:08,115 --> 00:39:12,135
that we mostly ignore the hype and focus on more fundamental,

531
00:39:14,675 --> 00:39:16,455
business evaluation, which is,

532
00:39:17,315 --> 00:39:19,175
can this be a profitable business?

533
00:39:20,435 --> 00:39:23,815
Is there line of sight on an actual business model that's realistic?

534
00:39:25,290 --> 00:39:26,030
And then

535
00:39:26,410 --> 00:39:27,550
that's where we deploy

536
00:39:27,850 --> 00:39:29,310
the majority of our money.

537
00:39:29,610 --> 00:39:33,550
And then we reserve the right and have acted on it on taking

538
00:39:34,330 --> 00:39:42,095
smaller checks and investing it in companies that are really pushing the limit, but maybe the business model isn't so obvious or

539
00:39:42,795 --> 00:39:47,615
is harder to execute or will take more time to execute. And so I will give you a few examples.

540
00:39:48,555 --> 00:39:51,480
The business models that work really well right now are just not sexy.

541
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:54,220
It's buy, sell Bitcoin is the number one

542
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:55,180
product in the world.

543
00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:56,619
People want Bitcoin,

544
00:39:57,320 --> 00:40:00,700
and they will pay you 1% to to buy it in a

545
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:01,900
reliable,

546
00:40:02,359 --> 00:40:02,859
trustworthy

547
00:40:03,240 --> 00:40:06,619
fashion. You know? They don't wanna get FTX. They don't wanna get BlockFi.

548
00:40:07,884 --> 00:40:09,825
They don't wanna get Celsius or.

549
00:40:11,484 --> 00:40:12,605
They they want a

550
00:40:13,404 --> 00:40:18,065
yeah. They want they want a trusted company that and it is a trusted relationship

551
00:40:18,444 --> 00:40:23,060
Certainly. That they can rely on to to buy and sell Bitcoin, and they'll happily pay a

552
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:29,620
fee. And that's by far the single biggest product. The second piece also kinda goes hand in hand on that, and we're seeing

553
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:35,060
a lot of demand for it right now, which is this idea of Bitcoin collateralized loans.

554
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:36,660
But in both cases,

555
00:40:37,494 --> 00:40:41,895
what you're seeing is the strongest business model is companies that are able to,

556
00:40:43,815 --> 00:40:44,875
sit in between

557
00:40:45,335 --> 00:40:47,994
the traditional financial system, your banks,

558
00:40:48,455 --> 00:40:51,275
and Bitcoin, and act almost as a centralized

559
00:40:51,575 --> 00:40:52,075
regulated

560
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:54,619
translation layer between the two worlds.

561
00:40:55,240 --> 00:40:59,820
And Strike is our key example there. We're the largest investor in Strike.

562
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:11,975
And so the way I think about that is it's it's where we are on the adoption curve of Bitcoin. We very much still live in a fiat world. And so that translation layer has a lot of demand and a lot of value.

563
00:41:12,435 --> 00:41:12,935
And

564
00:41:13,395 --> 00:41:16,455
a company that can execute well in that legal environment,

565
00:41:17,075 --> 00:41:18,695
be available in a lot of jurisdictions,

566
00:41:18,995 --> 00:41:20,375
be regulatory compliant,

567
00:41:21,030 --> 00:41:28,090
be fast, effective, and convenient to use, and reliable to use will make a a significant amount of money.

568
00:41:28,870 --> 00:41:32,970
And strike has been proof of that. Now when you start to go

569
00:41:34,150 --> 00:41:36,090
further off on the,

570
00:41:37,005 --> 00:41:38,944
in, like, the levels of adoption,

571
00:41:39,645 --> 00:41:41,345
you start to see stuff like

572
00:41:42,045 --> 00:41:54,080
StartNine, which we're the largest investor of StartNine, which is the this idea of self hosting everything that you host in the cloud, let's host at home. And it started with Bitcoin notes, but they it offers a lot more than that.

573
00:41:54,940 --> 00:41:57,520
And so, for example, that's a business that,

574
00:41:59,580 --> 00:42:00,640
is very promising

575
00:42:01,020 --> 00:42:06,245
and the the business model but the business model is a little bit more difficult. They sell prebuilt

576
00:42:06,785 --> 00:42:11,845
servers, but because it's open source, you can also just flash it yourself and not pay them a dime,

577
00:42:12,785 --> 00:42:13,845
on your own computer,

578
00:42:14,145 --> 00:42:16,670
which which is incredibly important from a freedom perspective.

579
00:42:17,050 --> 00:42:23,630
And then they wanna sell premium services. But the question is is, like, how big is that demographic? And that demographic a TAM. Yeah.

580
00:42:23,930 --> 00:42:31,785
It's not that large right now, but it could be quite large in five years or ten years. And so And if that were to happen, I mean, I think that's that's worth interjecting.

581
00:42:32,245 --> 00:42:37,225
Yeah. Because I think about that often. I mean, I'm I'm using Emerald Love Start nine, but, it's just what I have.

582
00:42:38,245 --> 00:42:47,220
And for all of them, I want them to do brilliantly, but that total addressable market is so small. What do you think, and again, this is a bit of an aside, what do you think needs to happen?

583
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:53,059
If you're willing to share it, like, what's the thesis? What's the what's the dependency in order for

584
00:42:53,359 --> 00:42:57,059
you guys to look at that and think, yeah, we're gonna get a 10 x on that?

585
00:42:57,455 --> 00:43:02,675
I think the number one thing is time and you just can't force it. And that's why I think it's important to be realistic

586
00:43:02,975 --> 00:43:12,270
particularly if you're responsible for investor capital on how you assess that that basically liquidity premium, liquidity risk.

587
00:43:12,750 --> 00:43:18,370
Because you're just you're you're locking up funds on something that's gonna take longer to build out. Valuation Yeah. Should be,

588
00:43:19,150 --> 00:43:22,050
properly discounted as a result of that.

589
00:43:22,590 --> 00:43:27,865
But it's something that we can't really force. It's a time thing. I think what we're seeing is

590
00:43:28,484 --> 00:43:30,825
more and more of our lives are moving to the cloud,

591
00:43:31,285 --> 00:43:37,865
which is just someone else's computer. There's a significant dependency there on not only on individuals, but also businesses.

592
00:43:38,690 --> 00:43:47,030
And what's gonna happen is you're gonna start to really the pain points of that and the trade offs that are being made giving up that agency will become more and more obvious.

593
00:43:47,490 --> 00:43:58,415
And at that point, more and more people and businesses will look to self host. And I so I I it's it's something that we just you can't really rush, and all you can do is just build the best product possible

594
00:43:59,195 --> 00:44:06,255
and and build your business in a lean way so that you know, first of all, that you don't have to rely on future investments.

595
00:44:07,310 --> 00:44:09,890
So try and get to profitability and sustainability

596
00:44:10,270 --> 00:44:11,330
as quick as possible.

597
00:44:12,109 --> 00:44:24,405
And second of all, that it's a long grind and that it's not like, you know, the sexy words of the day is vibe coding. Like, it's you can't vibe code a generational business. Like, you have to be willing to be in the trenches for ten, twenty years.

598
00:44:25,025 --> 00:44:34,085
And you need to have investors that are aligned with you on that. And so we came at it from that perspective very early on. Our funds are all called low time preference funds.

599
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:38,619
The idea is that we're gonna be in the trenches with you for a while, and this is not,

600
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:41,579
your traditional VC

601
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:50,475
enter, expect push for an exit in two years, three years types of thing. And you just have to balance it off. Like, another example would be,

602
00:44:52,375 --> 00:44:55,995
another example would be something like peach, which is no KYC

603
00:44:56,295 --> 00:44:58,315
p to p to p buy sell

604
00:44:58,830 --> 00:44:59,330
Bitcoin.

605
00:44:59,710 --> 00:45:01,490
And we've seen growth there.

606
00:45:02,030 --> 00:45:03,090
The growth is

607
00:45:03,470 --> 00:45:12,050
on a way lower scale and a way lower total absolute numbers than something like strike, which connects directly to your own bank account and is centralized and regulated.

608
00:45:13,405 --> 00:45:17,025
But as we start to move into a world where Bitcoin becomes

609
00:45:17,645 --> 00:45:27,265
more and more of this dominant reserve asset and people start really keeping their savings in Bitcoin, we expect to see more usage in something like that. And you manage the risk

610
00:45:29,420 --> 00:45:32,079
basically by position sizing and valuations.

611
00:45:33,819 --> 00:45:43,119
What about outside your portfolio? Is there any, you know, whether it's deals you looked at and think, wow, we should've wish we hadn't passed, wish we hadn't missed that one, or just things that have, you

612
00:45:43,715 --> 00:45:51,335
know, taken off in the last twelve months or so? Like, what what else has got your attention at present? I mean, look, the best business in the world probably

613
00:45:51,635 --> 00:45:53,735
right now, not just in the space is Tether.

614
00:45:55,555 --> 00:45:57,570
And we are not investors in Tether.

615
00:45:58,130 --> 00:46:00,070
That is a very closely held business.

616
00:46:00,370 --> 00:46:03,170
Mhmm. But I mean, they're on track to make $24,000,000,000

617
00:46:03,170 --> 00:46:05,430
in profit this year with, like, 70 employees.

618
00:46:06,290 --> 00:46:08,230
So it's just on a whole another level.

619
00:46:08,690 --> 00:46:11,110
Now I think even they realize

620
00:46:11,925 --> 00:46:14,185
exactly what I just said, which is

621
00:46:14,645 --> 00:46:20,745
these businesses tend to they you you have to balance them into where we are in the adoption curve

622
00:46:21,445 --> 00:46:22,825
of Bitcoin specifically

623
00:46:23,125 --> 00:46:25,145
if if they're Bitcoin adjacent businesses.

624
00:46:26,590 --> 00:46:27,810
And so with Tether,

625
00:46:28,349 --> 00:46:31,890
they're basically doing this arbitrage opportunity where right now,

626
00:46:32,270 --> 00:46:37,890
there is massive demand for dollars outside of the traditional financial system globally. I mean, I was in Argentina,

627
00:46:38,395 --> 00:46:44,095
but the whole country runs on Tether. It's like and and and the individuals chose it, not the governments. Absolutely.

628
00:46:44,635 --> 00:46:45,375
The individuals

629
00:46:45,675 --> 00:46:47,775
chose that they wanted dollars. And

630
00:46:48,075 --> 00:46:50,575
because the governments didn't want them to have dollars,

631
00:46:51,170 --> 00:46:53,590
the only option was to use something like Tether.

632
00:46:54,130 --> 00:46:54,630
But

633
00:46:55,250 --> 00:46:57,110
as Bitcoin adoption increases

634
00:46:57,970 --> 00:46:59,830
and Bitcoin becomes more successful,

635
00:47:01,090 --> 00:47:06,390
the the demand for Tether should subside and should reduce because why would you want something

636
00:47:07,025 --> 00:47:11,365
that gives you dollar exposure when dollars are just strictly worse money than Bitcoin?

637
00:47:11,665 --> 00:47:19,500
And how do I know that Tether agrees with that thesis? I know they agree with that thesis because they're using their profits to and they have over a 100,000 Bitcoin stacked.

638
00:47:19,980 --> 00:47:22,160
And so they're positioning themselves

639
00:47:22,540 --> 00:47:25,920
to make as much money as possible during this adoption phase

640
00:47:26,220 --> 00:47:28,320
and then have a war chest of Bitcoin

641
00:47:28,780 --> 00:47:33,760
to either evolve and offer different types of products, which we have seen them try and do,

642
00:47:34,140 --> 00:47:34,640
or

643
00:47:35,275 --> 00:47:40,015
just kind of rest on their laurels of, you know, one of the largest Bitcoin treasuries in the world.

644
00:47:40,635 --> 00:47:42,155
Tax that, stay humble. Yeah.

645
00:47:43,515 --> 00:47:45,695
Well and and maybe for those who aren't familiar,

646
00:47:46,155 --> 00:47:47,535
talk to us a bit about,

647
00:47:47,990 --> 00:47:53,609
you know, well, what is Tether? And and as you mentioned, it largely exists to address the

648
00:47:53,910 --> 00:47:58,569
close the gap of access to dollars where dollars cannot be had. You know, like,

649
00:47:59,030 --> 00:48:03,450
what are the trade offs? Talk to us about Tether and what those trade offs are as compared to Bitcoin.

650
00:48:04,224 --> 00:48:06,724
And there's a centralized US dollar token,

651
00:48:08,065 --> 00:48:10,484
and it's backed by US treasuries.

652
00:48:11,265 --> 00:48:13,445
And They are the one fifth or sixth largest

653
00:48:14,224 --> 00:48:22,420
treasury US treasury holders? I think they're lower than that, but they're still quite high. Yeah. And the US treasuries pay them an interest rate,

654
00:48:23,119 --> 00:48:24,420
and people actually,

655
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:30,099
it kinda already got normalized that banks don't pass you down the majority of interest they make.

656
00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:40,635
Because even if you're using Citibank or whatever, they're paying you, like, a half a percent, which is absolutely negligible compared to what they're getting. But Tether just pays no interest to the users,

657
00:48:41,255 --> 00:48:44,795
and they collect that interest. So interest rates are up right now.

658
00:48:45,575 --> 00:48:54,110
And as a result, they're just minting money. They're making a ton of money off of those treasuries that they're holding while being able to offer these US dollar tokens,

659
00:48:55,210 --> 00:48:57,710
in a very cheap convenient package.

660
00:48:58,170 --> 00:49:02,795
Now what is the trade off? The trade off is twofold. First of all, you have to trust the Tether

661
00:49:03,335 --> 00:49:06,795
organization. They have frozen funds before in partnership with law enforcement.

662
00:49:08,055 --> 00:49:11,115
You also have to trust them to maintain the reserve. There's no cryptographic

663
00:49:11,415 --> 00:49:14,555
way to prove real world ownership of assets.

664
00:49:16,220 --> 00:49:18,240
So it's strictly a trusted relationship.

665
00:49:18,700 --> 00:49:25,920
If we've heard for years that their tether is is not operating in a full reserve basis, I think at this point now,

666
00:49:26,779 --> 00:49:30,105
it's pretty obvious that they are, but you still have to trust them,

667
00:49:31,065 --> 00:49:32,285
that that is the case.

668
00:49:32,905 --> 00:49:35,645
The gov the they could get shut down.

669
00:49:36,105 --> 00:49:36,505
Mhmm.

670
00:49:37,305 --> 00:49:37,805
They

671
00:49:38,105 --> 00:49:40,845
they can exit scam. They can just just because

672
00:49:41,225 --> 00:49:43,005
a company has, you know,

673
00:49:43,310 --> 00:49:48,369
ten years of proof of work, eleven years of proof of work and reputation doesn't mean that tomorrow that doesn't change.

674
00:49:48,990 --> 00:49:58,130
So Bitcoin fixes these things. Big and then the last piece, by the way, is that it's tied to the dollar, which is incredibly corrupted and controlled,

675
00:49:59,645 --> 00:50:03,345
and is at the whims of people that have continuously

676
00:50:03,645 --> 00:50:07,825
devalued it. And over time, if you try and hold your wealth in dollars,

677
00:50:08,365 --> 00:50:12,705
you will lose purchasing power over time. This is just a fact. As as

678
00:50:13,380 --> 00:50:24,039
The US debt burden gets higher and higher, that printing will continue and that devaluation will continue and it's backed by that. So you're trusting effectively two entities. You're trusting the tether entity and you're trusting,

679
00:50:25,539 --> 00:50:31,595
the US government and and central bank. Bitcoin fixes these things. It's money without trust.

680
00:50:32,535 --> 00:50:35,995
It's money that you can spend and save without permission that,

681
00:50:36,695 --> 00:50:39,815
is very difficult if not impossible to block,

682
00:50:41,210 --> 00:50:46,170
which is very difficult to seize. You have to actually physically coerce someone 99%

683
00:50:46,170 --> 00:50:47,950
of the time if they're holding self custody

684
00:50:48,410 --> 00:50:49,710
Bitcoin to seize Bitcoin.

685
00:50:51,289 --> 00:50:53,630
If they're holding it in cold storage, you have to

686
00:50:54,155 --> 00:50:56,015
do you have to do a physical

687
00:50:56,315 --> 00:51:04,655
extraction of that Bitcoin. You have to come in, put a gun to their head, and be like, give me your Bitcoin. Mhmm. You can't even hack it through the Internet. Right? Now if you have a hot wallet, that's different.

688
00:51:05,355 --> 00:51:07,295
So Bitcoin solves these problems.

689
00:51:07,950 --> 00:51:09,410
And then last but not least,

690
00:51:09,710 --> 00:51:13,970
because Bitcoin is scarce and because it's incredibly hard to change by default,

691
00:51:15,550 --> 00:51:16,690
it is reasonably

692
00:51:16,990 --> 00:51:17,890
safe to assume

693
00:51:18,510 --> 00:51:21,490
that the supply of Bitcoin will never increase.

694
00:51:22,005 --> 00:51:31,625
And as a result, as adoption happens of this scarce asset, purchasing power has shown that it increases and you should expect purchasing power to basically increase forever.

695
00:51:32,805 --> 00:51:37,280
Now there will it's a free market. There'll be hills and valleys and there'll be downturns.

696
00:51:37,820 --> 00:51:48,400
But long term, if you hold Bitcoin as your savings vehicle, you should have more purchasing power in the future. You should be able to buy more meat. You should be able to afford better schools and better houses.

697
00:51:49,525 --> 00:51:51,625
So Bitcoin solves all of these things,

698
00:51:52,645 --> 00:51:58,745
that are inherently wrong with human controlled systems and human controlled money, but it's gonna take a while,

699
00:51:59,445 --> 00:52:04,585
I think, for people to to truly grasp that. And right now, basically, we're in this

700
00:52:05,500 --> 00:52:09,760
transition phase where certain business models are more effective than others.

701
00:52:10,060 --> 00:52:16,880
But at some point, we leave that transition phase. And what I like to categorize it as, when more people are earning Bitcoin

702
00:52:17,505 --> 00:52:28,005
than buying Bitcoin and more people are spending Bitcoin than selling Bitcoin is when that phase has fully transitioned over to a Bitcoin standard phase. At that point, different business models

703
00:52:28,464 --> 00:52:30,325
will be effective than today.

704
00:52:30,625 --> 00:52:31,924
And all the little

705
00:52:32,550 --> 00:52:42,890
micro changes in between there are when different business models unlock and you have to kind of measure where you are on that cycle. Otherwise, you just get lost in hype and end up burning a bunch of investor money.

706
00:52:43,510 --> 00:52:46,970
Yeah. And perfect seg. I mean, my next question is, okay, if we look ahead,

707
00:52:47,755 --> 00:52:50,015
what are the greatest opportunities and challenges

708
00:52:50,635 --> 00:52:51,135
to

709
00:52:51,755 --> 00:52:52,255
building

710
00:52:53,595 --> 00:52:54,095
profitable

711
00:52:54,395 --> 00:52:55,535
successful businesses

712
00:52:55,915 --> 00:53:04,400
on Bitcoin and and open protocols? Let's put it that way. Look. I think the number one, like, Bitcoin is the opportunity cost. Right? So

713
00:53:05,100 --> 00:53:08,720
if you're a founder and you're investing 1 Bitcoin into your business

714
00:53:09,980 --> 00:53:15,680
and 1 Bitcoin right now, who knows where it'll be in two weeks when you release this episode, but is that a $108,000?

715
00:53:16,775 --> 00:53:19,915
The math in your head shouldn't be like, I need to make back

716
00:53:20,215 --> 00:53:21,495
a $108,000

717
00:53:21,495 --> 00:53:24,715
and then I'm in profit. The math should be, I need to make back a Bitcoin.

718
00:53:25,815 --> 00:53:28,715
So Bitcoin is the opportunity cost and Bitcoin

719
00:53:29,230 --> 00:53:34,930
is the scarcest asset humanity has ever seen and has the highest compound annual growth rate of pretty much anything,

720
00:53:35,550 --> 00:53:36,770
that we've ever seen.

721
00:53:37,390 --> 00:53:41,090
So it's it's quite the opportunity cost and quite the burden. So

722
00:53:41,655 --> 00:53:42,395
first and

723
00:53:42,855 --> 00:53:45,835
foremost, you know, you need to be realistic on those expectations.

724
00:53:46,135 --> 00:53:54,795
Second of all, you need to be incredibly lean. You have to keep expenses very low, and this is very different than traditional tech structures. When you build a traditional tech business,

725
00:53:55,750 --> 00:53:59,130
you have cost balloon. You're willing to lose a lot of money

726
00:53:59,430 --> 00:54:00,170
very quickly

727
00:54:00,630 --> 00:54:01,450
for a while.

728
00:54:02,070 --> 00:54:05,210
And then eventually in ten years or something, you turn on monetization.

729
00:54:05,910 --> 00:54:11,845
In a Bitcoin world, you need to be profitable fast. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't still prioritize

730
00:54:12,145 --> 00:54:15,765
growth. It just shouldn't be growth at all costs. It's reasonable growth

731
00:54:16,065 --> 00:54:17,685
while trying to reach profitability

732
00:54:17,985 --> 00:54:24,165
early, and that's profitability in Bitcoin terms. So you wanna keep expenses low. You wanna be profitable.

733
00:54:25,560 --> 00:54:35,580
And then it kinda goes hand in hand, but you need to be willing to adapt and and be nimble. And so all of these things tend to benefit smaller teams with strong founders.

734
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:39,180
And a lot of what we do is basically assess the founding team

735
00:54:39,555 --> 00:54:40,855
and see if they have,

736
00:54:41,795 --> 00:54:43,255
the conviction and

737
00:54:43,875 --> 00:54:44,375
and,

738
00:54:45,875 --> 00:54:46,615
the willingness

739
00:54:46,994 --> 00:54:48,295
to adapt on the fly.

740
00:54:49,714 --> 00:54:50,535
And so

741
00:54:50,835 --> 00:54:56,700
we could see successful businesses that are doing one their main business model is something today, but it's completely different

742
00:54:57,480 --> 00:55:00,460
in ten years. And they could be successful through the entire transition.

743
00:55:00,760 --> 00:55:03,980
Mhmm. We might see other ones that are just very successful today,

744
00:55:05,355 --> 00:55:05,855
and

745
00:55:06,875 --> 00:55:10,255
have built up a Bitcoin treasury. So when they become obsoleted,

746
00:55:11,195 --> 00:55:13,295
there's still significant value there.

747
00:55:13,595 --> 00:55:15,935
Or we can see the third piece, which is

748
00:55:16,610 --> 00:55:19,670
a founder that is kind of in it for ideological reasons

749
00:55:20,130 --> 00:55:31,430
and just runs in pure survival mode, and their business model doesn't really find any kind of successes until ten years from now. But the business has survived because it's a very small team and doesn't have money expenses,

750
00:55:32,585 --> 00:55:36,605
and just runs, you know, very very lean. And those are basically

751
00:55:37,065 --> 00:55:43,565
the three types of successful businesses you might see. And obviously, the first one is the most desirable. One that can

752
00:55:44,105 --> 00:55:54,020
monetize heavily today while growing and then adapt on the fly and add new products and change their business model as we go through the transition and continue to

753
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:56,660
to be incredibly profitable in Bitcoin terms.

754
00:55:57,360 --> 00:56:00,020
I think that's what is, you know, as an individual

755
00:56:00,560 --> 00:56:04,395
using Bitcoin certainly as a business, the thing that's hardest to wrap

756
00:56:04,934 --> 00:56:12,875
wrap our heads around is, what will we do if the money wasn't broken? Right? I think that's the question. Whether you're an individual, a business owner, a builder, an entrepreneur,

757
00:56:13,414 --> 00:56:13,914
is

758
00:56:14,855 --> 00:56:15,994
unlearning and relearning

759
00:56:16,900 --> 00:56:23,720
how would I build a business if the money wasn't broken because the money is broken. You know, Fiat is broken. And so if you're going to put,

760
00:56:24,740 --> 00:56:30,660
this this incredibly hard money to work, as you say, the the opportunity cost is tremendous. What about any thoughts, Matt, on

761
00:56:31,925 --> 00:56:38,505
maybe it's an aspiration of mine. It is an aspiration of mine, but I'd like to I'd like to think

762
00:56:39,285 --> 00:56:40,905
that we'll be able to reach

763
00:56:41,365 --> 00:56:45,089
you know, I'm thinking about the CTOs, the product owners, the

764
00:56:45,950 --> 00:56:47,890
the CXOs, the founders who

765
00:56:48,190 --> 00:56:50,770
have a running business, have a have a going concern,

766
00:56:51,310 --> 00:56:57,170
and they're looking around and thinking, I don't wanna collect all the data. I don't want that toxic asset. I don't want that liability.

767
00:56:59,075 --> 00:56:59,894
I want

768
00:57:00,275 --> 00:57:09,494
to adapt my business to where I want things to go, where I believe things are going. So, you know, certainly, there's the Bitcoin treasury approach for an existing

769
00:57:10,194 --> 00:57:12,135
established legacy business

770
00:57:13,370 --> 00:57:17,550
to adapt and adopt. Anything else that stands out? Like, what what do

771
00:57:18,090 --> 00:57:19,230
going concerns,

772
00:57:21,210 --> 00:57:22,350
have at their disposal

773
00:57:22,730 --> 00:57:28,545
to, you know, to shift this and and and and basically allow their customers, their users to regain agency and trust?

774
00:57:29,505 --> 00:57:33,204
You know, I think, first of all, on the Bitcoin treasury piece, obviously,

775
00:57:34,785 --> 00:57:39,045
that's the topic de jour right now, and people are very excited about it.

776
00:57:39,665 --> 00:57:43,845
And the reason is quite simple. You can make a lot of money very quickly. Absolutely.

777
00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:46,460
And it's a very high time preference.

778
00:57:46,920 --> 00:57:52,540
I you could argue that maybe there's a low time preference aspect to it that you know Bitcoin is scarce and

779
00:57:53,160 --> 00:57:56,620
you you want as much Bitcoin as possible before other people realize.

780
00:57:57,045 --> 00:58:00,984
But but I I and when you're talking about adoption cycle transitions,

781
00:58:01,845 --> 00:58:07,785
you know, that is probably a I don't even know if you'd call it a business model, but that is probably a business model

782
00:58:08,325 --> 00:58:08,645
that,

783
00:58:09,570 --> 00:58:15,030
will be relatively short lived. I don't pretend to know how long that it's basically an arbitrage opportunity

784
00:58:15,890 --> 00:58:16,630
on Fiat,

785
00:58:17,730 --> 00:58:19,350
in this transition period.

786
00:58:19,650 --> 00:58:24,550
And so I give you it will become painfully obvious and everyone will do it or or for other reasons?

787
00:58:25,295 --> 00:58:27,955
Well, basically, instead of giving

788
00:58:29,535 --> 00:58:32,515
cheap long term debt to another company

789
00:58:32,975 --> 00:58:35,635
to a company to buy Bitcoin, you will buy Bitcoin.

790
00:58:35,935 --> 00:58:45,010
Right. Right. Because that is actually the logical prudent move to make. Like, I would never personally, as a capital allocator, lend money to MicroStrategy.

791
00:58:45,390 --> 00:58:47,250
I would rather buy the Bitcoin myself.

792
00:58:47,790 --> 00:58:57,295
Now there's trillions of dollars of capital that he might be able to unlock before people come to that conclusion. But at some point, people are gonna come to that conclusion and realize

793
00:58:57,835 --> 00:59:00,335
that they are actually failing the fiduciary responsibility

794
00:59:01,675 --> 00:59:05,615
of of their investors or whoever their stakeholders are

795
00:59:06,020 --> 00:59:07,160
by operating

796
00:59:07,460 --> 00:59:16,440
by facilitating that type of arrangement or buying stock where they are then getting diluted and then buying Bitcoin with it. They're better off just buying the

797
00:59:18,405 --> 00:59:24,665
Bitcoin directly. So what does that look like? Is that a three years thing? Is that a five year thing? I don't know. Maybe the heavyweights like MicroStrategy

798
00:59:24,965 --> 00:59:31,065
can get away with it longer. I mean, it it was quite clever, the new preferred shared offerings that he's put out there,

799
00:59:31,680 --> 00:59:36,020
that is trying to tap into the existing bond market. The infinite money gap?

800
00:59:36,560 --> 00:59:39,540
Yeah. Like but it's that's the thing. It's not infinite

801
00:59:39,920 --> 00:59:50,175
because Bitcoin's scarce. So the question is when does when does that clock stop? It will stop at some point. Now what I think is more actionable for people because I don't really think an actionable

802
00:59:50,955 --> 00:59:52,175
takeaway is,

803
00:59:52,875 --> 01:00:00,270
you know, go create a leverage Bitcoin equity play and try and tap into global financial markets. I think very it's

804
01:00:01,050 --> 01:00:05,870
it's harder for some people to find massive success estimate. A lot of people won't,

805
01:00:06,890 --> 01:00:09,630
and it's there's a time limit on it.

806
01:00:11,450 --> 01:00:15,230
Is try and just have ethical profitable business models. Now

807
01:00:16,465 --> 01:00:18,005
the big problem here

808
01:00:18,545 --> 01:00:19,045
is

809
01:00:20,305 --> 01:00:21,685
it is the harder path.

810
01:00:22,065 --> 01:00:29,365
Yeah. It is by far the harder path. If you want the easy path, the easy path is offering a service for free on the Internet,

811
01:00:31,200 --> 01:00:37,380
and surveilling your users and selling their data to advertisers and slapping advertisers all over. It's it's it's proven.

812
01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:40,580
It's been hyper successful for the big tech companies.

813
01:00:41,360 --> 01:00:47,135
Google has become, you know, one of the most valuable companies in the world off the back of that. Facebook has as well.

814
01:00:47,835 --> 01:00:56,895
Investors up and down Sand Hill Road, which will throw money at you. Yeah. It is like the most obvious easy business model ever. Now for the first time ever,

815
01:00:57,835 --> 01:00:58,975
because of Bitcoin,

816
01:01:00,170 --> 01:01:01,310
there is a path

817
01:01:01,690 --> 01:01:04,030
to charge your customers directly for services.

818
01:01:05,690 --> 01:01:08,510
Give them a product that is compelling and reasonably priced

819
01:01:08,970 --> 01:01:10,670
and make a reasonable living

820
01:01:10,970 --> 01:01:15,495
off of that cash flow or off of that Sats flow off of that Bitcoin cash flow.

821
01:01:16,275 --> 01:01:18,455
But it is the harder path. And particularly

822
01:01:19,955 --> 01:01:20,695
if you

823
01:01:21,875 --> 01:01:25,095
want to go the most ethical approach and the most

824
01:01:25,990 --> 01:01:32,230
freedom focused approach that also usually involves open sourcing your entire stack. And so, like, I will use

825
01:01:33,110 --> 01:01:37,130
I I I think what what we're gonna see is something similar

826
01:01:37,430 --> 01:01:39,130
to Bitcoin adoption in general,

827
01:01:40,135 --> 01:01:43,355
which is you don't see the successful incumbents do the transition.

828
01:01:43,975 --> 01:01:45,115
Some of them might,

829
01:01:46,135 --> 01:01:49,995
you know, say one thing and do something completely altogether and and

830
01:01:50,375 --> 01:01:57,040
completely different, like actions speak louder than words, And they use it as a marketing message. And an example of that would be something like x,

831
01:01:57,500 --> 01:02:04,240
which now you can pay for the product, but he's still surveilling you and selling all your data to advertisers in the primary. Only KYC.

832
01:02:04,940 --> 01:02:07,280
Yeah. And the but not only that, like, the primary

833
01:02:07,845 --> 01:02:12,005
the primary business model remains the ad model. Like, it's just not

834
01:02:13,525 --> 01:02:14,905
and it's a closed ecosystem

835
01:02:15,445 --> 01:02:26,240
and and you need you need to have an account to view stuff and the API is locked down and all this other stuff. But in his defense and in the defense of Facebook and the defense of Google

836
01:02:26,619 --> 01:02:27,440
or Apple

837
01:02:28,299 --> 01:02:28,799
is

838
01:02:29,819 --> 01:02:31,520
they have very little to gain

839
01:02:32,299 --> 01:02:38,205
operating in a more open and ethical way monetarily from a business point of view. They're already the

840
01:02:38,905 --> 01:02:41,485
kings. So what will you see? You will see the challengers

841
01:02:41,945 --> 01:02:49,165
adopt these models first because they need to compete and stand out and try and break those network effects. And we saw that with someone like MicroStrategy.

842
01:02:49,705 --> 01:02:50,205
MicroStrategy

843
01:02:50,585 --> 01:02:51,325
was a,

844
01:02:52,000 --> 01:02:53,520
you know, a a older

845
01:02:54,000 --> 01:03:00,500
All the time. Tech tech company that no one was really talking about. He was a, you know, a small fish billionaire.

846
01:03:01,280 --> 01:03:08,035
He wasn't, you know, one of the richest people in the world, and he had everything to gain and not much to lose by trying to be competitive

847
01:03:08,494 --> 01:03:12,915
and adopt Bitcoin. And so we'll see that across all these different

848
01:03:13,935 --> 01:03:15,155
niches, I think.

849
01:03:15,615 --> 01:03:21,690
And so one example, at least in the social context, would be something like primal. Right? And primal's entire

850
01:03:22,310 --> 01:03:28,570
stack is open source Mhmm. Which a traditional investor would just absolutely freak out about.

851
01:03:28,870 --> 01:03:34,170
Because if primal finds any kind of success, you will see copycats that literally just fork the stack,

852
01:03:35,234 --> 01:03:40,855
and build out. But what is the argument? The argument is that primal will be able to build

853
01:03:41,474 --> 01:03:43,974
a subscription revenue line

854
01:03:44,355 --> 01:04:00,100
and value add service line that users will be happy to pay for and that we'll be able to pay for in Bitcoin so they don't have to give up personal information while they do it and they don't have a middle man in the process and you don't have the additional friction or the cost that comes with the middle man.

855
01:04:01,200 --> 01:04:03,140
And that the brand equity

856
01:04:03,954 --> 01:04:13,575
of offering that type of service will give you some type of moat that even if someone comes around and creates primal or whatever you wanna call your primal fork,

857
01:04:14,595 --> 01:04:15,815
users will overwhelmingly

858
01:04:16,275 --> 01:04:23,100
prefer to use the one that has a strong reputation and has been around for a while and keeps shipping features that they enjoy.

859
01:04:23,960 --> 01:04:25,260
But it's a harder path.

860
01:04:25,880 --> 01:04:31,580
No doubt. And I think it does. I'm thinking about my conversation a couple of weeks ago with, Rishanta Bakawala, who's the,

861
01:04:32,964 --> 01:04:37,704
global exec I mentioned. He's a 30 sir thirty seven year veteran of publicist, you know,

862
01:04:38,405 --> 01:04:40,825
advertising conglomerate around the world. And

863
01:04:41,285 --> 01:04:44,184
his remarks in his newest book, etcetera, etcetera, are,

864
01:04:45,609 --> 01:04:46,270
you know,

865
01:04:46,570 --> 01:04:48,109
the trust is the brand mark,

866
01:04:48,730 --> 01:04:54,890
that all companies need to be thinking about. And I think it goes to your point, which is if I trust PrimalEye, why would I take a knockoff unless I'm

867
01:04:55,770 --> 01:05:07,015
you know, just don't value any sort of, quality of service. And I think, you know, I I think about Kaji. Kaji, however it's pronounced. I mean, that's been my search engine now for two, three years. I'd love to see them accept Bitcoin. I'd love to see them lose,

868
01:05:08,515 --> 01:05:09,175
the overhead

869
01:05:09,635 --> 01:05:20,910
of credit card network fees and and KYC. But any thoughts on, you know, that as a business model? It's just an alternative to the incumbents. You charge money for it. You are not the product. I mean,

870
01:05:21,690 --> 01:05:25,230
do you see much upside for that, or are those going to be few and far between?

871
01:05:25,674 --> 01:05:28,095
No. I I think there's significant upside,

872
01:05:30,154 --> 01:05:37,535
and and we invest based on that belief. I mean, I think I think, you know, so Kagi is more traditional

873
01:05:38,234 --> 01:05:39,055
web search.

874
01:05:39,849 --> 01:05:47,070
Certainly. At least at least for now. But I the, you know, the real hype word right now is AI and LLMs.

875
01:05:48,089 --> 01:05:48,589
And

876
01:05:48,970 --> 01:05:50,589
twofold. First of all,

877
01:05:50,970 --> 01:05:53,070
one good thing we see in that

878
01:05:53,585 --> 01:05:58,144
is that there has been a willingness of people to pay for a reliable

879
01:05:59,025 --> 01:06:01,845
first of all, there's real like Bitcoin, there's real costs involved.

880
01:06:02,384 --> 01:06:10,930
Like, there's significant energy and capital cost involved with building out these systems. But even a completely dystopian company like ChatGPT is charging,

881
01:06:12,110 --> 01:06:15,650
for that product and customers seem heavily willing to do that.

882
01:06:16,030 --> 01:06:17,010
Now I think

883
01:06:17,630 --> 01:06:19,490
it is very reasonable to assume

884
01:06:20,885 --> 01:06:28,025
that there will be as we rely on these products more and more, there'll be significant demand for people to want more private freedom focused,

885
01:06:29,285 --> 01:06:29,785
versions

886
01:06:30,085 --> 01:06:30,585
of

887
01:06:30,965 --> 01:06:33,785
of of these AI LLM tools.

888
01:06:34,400 --> 01:06:38,500
And I think people will pay for them. And so my question becomes, how do you do that

889
01:06:39,120 --> 01:06:42,900
in a way that reduces friction as much as possible?

890
01:06:43,920 --> 01:06:47,380
And I think right now what that means is really probably a combination

891
01:06:48,174 --> 01:06:48,914
of accepting

892
01:06:49,214 --> 01:06:50,194
fiat payments

893
01:06:50,815 --> 01:07:01,795
and Bitcoin payments and giving the user the option. I mean, if you're not accepting Apple Pay, for instance, like, you're gonna have significant slippage in terms of or or significant reduced conversions.

894
01:07:02,150 --> 01:07:04,890
Yes. In terms of actually people paying for your product.

895
01:07:05,510 --> 01:07:08,570
But I think there's I think there's a lot of demand there. I think

896
01:07:09,190 --> 01:07:09,930
the meme

897
01:07:10,550 --> 01:07:21,865
that, you know, every good meme is based in reality, but if you're not paying, you are the product is becoming more and more obvious to people. Now you you can pervert that because you can still pay for chat g p t, and you're the product.

898
01:07:22,724 --> 01:07:31,960
You can still pay for x and you're the product. Have it both ways. Yeah. But at least people are more and more people are recognizing that and happy to pay. And and

899
01:07:32,500 --> 01:07:35,000
in a lot of ways, it's almost a signaling mechanism

900
01:07:35,700 --> 01:07:41,160
that the product is better because you're paying for it. And and the question just becomes what's the pricing?

901
01:07:42,115 --> 01:07:42,615
Right.

902
01:07:43,715 --> 01:07:47,555
Well, as we as we wrap it up, Matt, this is a big one, but you're the guy to answer it.

903
01:07:48,435 --> 01:07:49,175
For those

904
01:07:49,555 --> 01:07:52,775
listening, watching who may be on the fence, maybe they've got a

905
01:07:53,155 --> 01:07:57,500
feeling in their gut that, you know, things are not as they should be. They're

906
01:07:58,280 --> 01:08:00,060
they're curious. They're interested.

907
01:08:01,320 --> 01:08:01,820
A,

908
01:08:02,120 --> 01:08:05,100
what would you recommend they pay attention to

909
01:08:05,800 --> 01:08:07,260
to better perhaps appreciate

910
01:08:07,560 --> 01:08:08,780
why it matters

911
01:08:09,080 --> 01:08:10,060
to move

912
01:08:10,520 --> 01:08:11,020
toward

913
01:08:12,515 --> 01:08:13,015
open

914
01:08:13,715 --> 01:08:15,175
protocols and freedom technologies,

915
01:08:15,475 --> 01:08:26,615
and and what are a couple of things or places you would have them do or or seek out to learn more? So why should they care? What should they look for? And and what are a couple places to get started?

916
01:08:29,280 --> 01:08:31,700
So, I mean, I think first and foremost,

917
01:08:33,840 --> 01:08:34,660
let me see.

918
01:08:36,080 --> 01:08:37,300
You know, I don't think

919
01:08:37,840 --> 01:08:40,020
I think it's impossible to be a perfect organization.

920
01:08:41,235 --> 01:08:42,855
But I think in terms of,

921
01:08:44,195 --> 01:08:45,815
perspective and understanding

922
01:08:46,835 --> 01:08:50,535
where the need is right now and how much need is out there,

923
01:08:51,475 --> 01:08:58,489
it's it's good to track what the Human Rights Foundation is doing. They put out a lot of good materials on that throughout the world.

924
01:08:59,190 --> 01:09:02,409
They specifically have a financial freedom report that they put out,

925
01:09:03,030 --> 01:09:06,570
once a week. I think it's financialfreedomreport.org.

926
01:09:06,630 --> 01:09:11,385
And if I got that wrong, you can find it at hrf. Absolutely. Hrhrf.org

927
01:09:11,385 --> 01:09:17,724
is like the main parent website. But they basically go through different stories around the world of why these tools matter,

928
01:09:18,985 --> 01:09:24,364
and where they're being effective and where they're not being effective. Right? Which is a really nice perspective

929
01:09:24,665 --> 01:09:25,165
piece.

930
01:09:26,170 --> 01:09:31,310
And then the second thing is like, I'd be like, look, you know, I I think you gotta play around with the tools.

931
01:09:33,210 --> 01:09:35,390
And I know myself personally,

932
01:09:37,130 --> 01:09:38,830
my my greatest motivation

933
01:09:40,125 --> 01:09:40,864
is is

934
01:09:41,244 --> 01:09:42,465
trying my best

935
01:09:43,965 --> 01:09:50,945
to realize a future that is better for my children to grow up in. And I think that comes with inherent personal responsibility.

936
01:09:51,324 --> 01:09:51,824
And

937
01:09:52,660 --> 01:09:57,160
if you are a parent, you have to take that personal responsibility on for your family

938
01:09:58,100 --> 01:10:03,160
and and make sure you're as best situated as possible because there will be

939
01:10:03,540 --> 01:10:12,685
this is not magic. This is not like everyone's life gets better. This is people who take agency of their lives will be in a better situation than those that don't.

940
01:10:13,305 --> 01:10:17,005
And the best way to get more acquainted and

941
01:10:17,420 --> 01:10:22,800
more fluent with the tools is to actually use them and play around with them. No one

942
01:10:23,180 --> 01:10:25,920
watches ten thousand hours of driving podcasts

943
01:10:26,700 --> 01:10:33,705
so that they learn how to drive. You get behind the wheel of the car and you drive, and that's how you learn how to drive. And it's the same thing with Bitcoin.

944
01:10:34,005 --> 01:10:40,185
It's the same thing with adjacent freedom technologies. You have to actually use the tools, get comfortable with them, make mistakes,

945
01:10:40,965 --> 01:10:42,105
improve your skills.

946
01:10:43,125 --> 01:10:44,345
And on that front,

947
01:10:45,740 --> 01:10:49,820
I have a webpage that I keep up to date, which is odell.xyz

948
01:10:49,820 --> 01:10:51,920
that not only has all my contact information.

949
01:10:52,540 --> 01:11:02,265
So if you have any questions for me, feel free to reach out on signal. I have that link there, but also a bunch of resources are linked there. A bunch of tools that I recommend are linked there. And I would just say,

950
01:11:02,645 --> 01:11:09,545
play around with the tools and get comfortable with them. Wholeheartedly agree. Thanks so much, Matt. I really appreciate the time. It's been a pleasure.

951
01:11:10,005 --> 01:11:10,505
And,

952
01:11:10,805 --> 01:11:12,745
I will look forward to doing this again soon.

953
01:11:13,358 --> 01:11:16,418
Thanks for having me, sir. Likewise. Take care, buddy. Bye bye.