Welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show, brought to you by BitBox Stampseed,
the Bitcoin Advisor and ShopInBit.
Go to BitcoinInfinity.com for books, merch and more.
Enjoy the conversation.
Lando, welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you for inviting me.
I've been a big fan of you both for a while, even when it was still
called Freedom Footprint Show, which I think is the better name,
but we can get into that later.
I mean, we get that a lot, that, uh, uh, Freedom Footprint is a better
name, and I would just like to publicly announce that you can call this show
Freedom Footprint Show if you want.
Like, there is nothing stopping you.
We are freedom lovers.
Call it whatever you want.
Like, you can call it the Luke and Knut show, or the, you know, Tim and Erik
show, just, just to confuse people.
Call it what you want.
Anyway, welcome to the freedom forever, infinity footprint show, whatever show.
I think that would also work.
Freedom Infinity Show.
So, um, from here on out until the end of time.
We'll try to live in freedom.
So that's like, uh, let's have a new moral bar, right?
So let's start with that.
Absolutely, infinite footprint show sounds a bit Too much like Dinosaur Show, like I
just imagined a giant ginormous footprint.
Anyway, we are longtime fans of yours, because you are not
just a talker, but a doer.
You've been walking the walk when it comes to enabling freedom technologies
and providing freedom tools to people.
via your fantastic website, ShopInBit.
So, can you give us a TLDR on Lando Rothbardian, where you got that
lovely surname from, and all of that.
And also a short introduction to ShopInBit and how ShopInBit came to be.
And, uh, yeah, we'll deep dive into sub caverns of this specific
rabbit hole later in the show.
Sure.
So I think I'll start with my name because, um, I think it's important that
you, like, choose a name for yourself when you reach a certain age, I would
guess, like, like, like in the, in the former times you had like these right
of passages, et cetera, but your, and your parents gave you your real name.
So my real name is Lawrence, right?
But I chose Lander of Bardian because I wanted to convey two things about me.
So people who are in the know, right, who know a bit about Austrian economics
already know what I'm about, right?
So of course, Lando Calrissian is this fictitious Star Wars
character and he is the only entrepreneur in the original saga.
So, um, that is my first focus, like being a businessman.
And my second focus is anarcho capitalism, where my last name comes in, Rothbardian,
so because I'm a fan of Mary Rothbard, I thought combining Lando Calrissian with
Mary Rothbard equals Lando Rothbardian.
And it sounds cool.
So that's a bonus.
Sounds super cool, and like, the opposite would be Darth Marx or something,
Exactly, exactly.
Darth Marx with his co conspirator, Darth Engels, right?
The rule of two is still in full effect, right?
Um, yeah.
And so since I'm a very business focused person, or rather I chose This role for me
in 2018, because I've been in the Bitcoin game since 2011 actually, and I have done
nothing like in the uh, years leading up to the creation of Shop and Bid.
I was just.
Stacking some coins, spending them on way too expensive thinners and hindsight,
of course, but, um, yeah, so in 2018, after experiencing 110 degrees Celsius
on my lovely AMD graphics card, I thought I should just go on the internet and
buy a graphics card with my hard earned peer to peer electronic cash money.
And that shouldn't be so problematic to do it directly, but it turned out that
it was actually quite difficult because the only option I had at the time was
either using vouchers and I thought vouchers were a bit too expensive.
Cheaty, I would say, um, because I think it's called peer to
peer currency for a reason.
So it should work peer to peer, right?
And then I found this one little store in Germany that actually offered to,
um, ship graphics cards for Bitcoin.
But then it's turned out that they were giving the bit pay fee of 1 percent
directly to me as a little bonus.
So I was supposed to pay.
1 percent extra.
And this sounds like it's super nitpicky, but in Germany it's not allowed that you
pass on the payment processing fees to the customers as an extra price point, right?
So you know that every retailer and e commerce store on the internet in
Germany calculates all the prices with the fees already included.
End.
When you know that paypal takes starting from 3 percent and more, then it doesn't
make sense that the seller would charge 1 percent extra only for Bitcoin payments
and not for other types of payments.
And that got me so furious.
Like, I think for two to three months I was not able to sleep
because I was like, it's, it's 2018.
It's been seven years FURIOUS Since you've gone down this rabbit hole, and
you're literally not one step forward.
I actually made two steps back, right?
And then I had this magnificent idea like in April of 2018.
Okay, you know what?
Why don't you just do it yourself?
It can't be that hard to sell products on the internet with a profit, right?
How hard can it be?
Spoiler alert, super hard because retail is like a super difficult
business, especially if you want to go into electronics.
So I've been working since then until the end of 2018 to start my
little online shop and I started with WordPress and WooCommerce.
Yeah, it looks cool with my type of skills.
Um, just have to explain that my programming skills were
on the level of Khan Academy JavaScript course for children.
So that was it.
That was my level of sophistication in the, uh, Um, programming sphere and from
then on, yeah, I started selling all kinds of products and now almost one
halving and a quarter of it later, right?
We are here.
Shopinbit.
com is Europe's biggest Bitcoin store.
We have a million plus products available directly for purchase with
Bitcoin and Lightning, of course.
You get 3 percent discount if you use it instead of the classic fiat rails
and we ship within the European Union.
And, um, we also do extra services that we like to call the premium services, right?
Um, so apart from just having regular day to day items in the store, we
offer a little bit on extra of service and these are the concierge service.
So if you need anything else that is not on our website and legal, of course, we
can organize that and ship it worldwide.
Because it's all manually done, we support you Uh, if you have questions
about products or if you want to import products like from Japan, we have some
customers who like to have these super expensive Leica lenses for the cameras
and they're mostly found in Japan.
So we import them to the EU or somewhere else and help people get going with that.
And I think the one service that you guys already used a bit.
Uh, which I think is the, or should be the interesting, more interesting
part for most of your listeners is of course our travel agency.
So if you want to travel to any Bitcoin conference or just do a vacation, or if
you're like a Bitcoin company and need company travels for your staff or your
CEO, we also do that because we're a fully licensed travel agency as well.
So, um, Yeah, that's the TLDR, I think, but it got a little bit
longer, so it's medium sized TLDR.
Yeah, speaking of medium size, I have only one question about the ShopInBit
website that is slightly Slightly, uh, different from other online shops.
And that is the categories here.
It starts with adults only.
And the very first product, I don't even know if I am allowed to
say this here, but the very first product on the site is an anal dildo.
So, is it giant and green?
I mean,
how did that come to be?
I think the adult section we added, like, relatively late, I guess.
I think we added it in 2020, I would say.
Um, because We were already like, um, getting worse SEO ranking because of the
whole, we are accepting Bitcoin thing and, um, and then it didn't actually
make any difference anymore if you also put in adult toys and people just, uh,
Love to have some kinky stuff going on, the whole sensuality thing, so, um, I
thought that we should just add it there.
And I guess it's just an alphabet thing, right?
It's just an alphabet thing, but we are currently in like a restructuring
phase because, um, There is actually you can have too many products and
that's like our current main problem.
And that's what we are currently working on.
And um, we want to get a bit away of too many products and focus more on providing
more high quality products and maybe up at a more focused scope instead of my
former shotgun approach to watch products to add all of them, all of them, right?
So, but you can, I can actually tease that, so, because we are opening a
second online store just for Switzerland.
Which will be shopinbit.
ch and it will launch on the 25th of October.
And there we already implemented our new style, I would say.
So it's not the biggest online store, but we are the privacy
focused department store.
Because that's the, I think that's the other thing that
people will like about our store.
Is that we literally have zero marketing.
analytics, tracking cookies, etc.
So you can check it with your uBlock if you're a little bit technically
versed and you will see that there, we, we, we don't even have Google
fonts, like the fonts for the website.
So they look a little bit more flashy and stuff.
We don't even have them.
So we are very serious about the whole privacy stuff.
So I think that should be our two USPs, like paying directly with Bitcoin and our.
Eman's focus on privacy, like we go to length and it's really hard to do
e commerce without privacy invading, invading tools because everyone wants you
to like, Hey, don't you need more data?
We can do some more analytics.
Yeah, that's what we realized when we started our shop here, like, holy shit,
the amount of data you get on people, or, which you just have to collect if
you, if you run an online store, right?
Yeah, yeah.
it is hard, uh, but yeah, I really appreciate that, now there's no
cookies and stuff, and, and the, uh, The, um, uh, collaboration you had
with WasabiWallet, uh, super cool, uh, maybe I wasn't supposed to say
that, maybe we should edit that out.
that's okay.
It's still running because.
Yeah.
Maybe we can edit out the previous question as well, I don't know, this
conversation is taking other directions.
But, uh,
No, no, no, no worries.
Like no, it's, it was, it's a cool collaboration and it's still ongoing
because the teams have changed of course, uh, because of the recent developments
with, uh, developments with Wasabi, but you can use our premium services
as well through the Wasabi wallet.
And also in the near future, also with the other, uh, forks, like Ginger, so
that's coming, it's in the works, um, but since we've been opening up the new
Swiss, uh, company, we had to get the legal stuff in the background going,
so that's why it's not as high promoted as it used to be, but It will be back.
All right, so, um, but, but there is, for the Bitcoiners who do not know,
there is, way, there are ways of buying practically anything you want for
Bitcoin and in total privacy in the EU right now, like, and it's super cool.
Um, very anti authoritarian, and, uh, I mean, very Rothmardian,
for lack of a better word.
Uh, and selling stuff should not be a crime, anywhere.
That's the gist of it, right?
Exactly.
And I think that's the biggest problem within the EU currently.
Like you always feel like you're a criminal even though
you're 100 percent legal.
Like we literally, we have, we're going the extra mile to stay legal, right?
Because sometimes people ask us, we're like, Accessories for their sporting
weapons, like bows, crossbows, etc.
But we have the eternal rule, no weapons of any kind.
Like, it's not that it's illegal, like, we're, we're, um, our jurisdiction is
Poland, and Everyone knows Poland is a little bit more easy going when it comes
to guns, but I personally don't want to be involved in that kind of business.
So, we're not even doing that, you know, same as with prescription
medicine, um, live animals and stuff like everything, that's off the table.
Um, so if you want to have, as the, as the dark market guys would say,
oh, that's only the boring stuff.
Yeah, but that's what we focus on with the family friendly Bitcoiner store, right?
Yeah, except for the giant green dildos, then.
No, no, I think that's called, um, marriage helping devices or something.
I saw this.
The spin on it a few days ago and thought, hilarious.
Oh, that's great.
Um, and, uh, tell us a bit more about this consigliere service.
Like, how does, how does that work?
Yeah, it's, it's actually quite simple.
So, as you might have experienced, a concierge in a hotel is the
always ready available guy who's like in the background.
And then you're like, you're coming to a new city and you're in your
hotel and think, yeah, I, I don't know where to go with my wife.
Like I have no clue where to go.
You go to the concierge and he, just like magic has prepared for you three options
and can reserve a table in two hours.
And then you can have the best time of life with your wife, right?
That's like the idea behind it.
And so in our version, the concierge just helps you get anything you want.
So you literally just have to describe to our concierge in our form on the
website or you can send an email and in the near future you can also
do a live chat with our concierge, but we're still working on it.
So it works privately.
And you just describe like, okay.
Um, you know, example, Luke, for example, says, you know what, I want
to go fancy, yeah, I need, um, this Diamond Beholden baby toy, um, that
makes the sound of Super Mario coins getting collected when you rattle it.
And you can only import it from Japan.
So you write that to the concierge and then the concierge
starts searching for it.
We calculate all the import fees, uh, transportation costs, et cetera.
And then we send Luke like a message, Hey Luke, this is the total price, everything
going, do you want to take it or not?
And that's the point where you decide if you want to pay for it or not.
Before that, all the consultation is free.
It's included in our service.
And then Luke says, yes, let's go, sends the Bitcoin, and then we start
working on, he gets frequent updates with tracking codes, where's the product, etc.
So we first ship it to our warehouse in Warsaw, so all the import stuff is already
done, and then from Warsaw, we ship it to you, wherever you are in the world.
Luke, I don't know if you want to be doxxed, so I would just
say somewhere in the world.
Ha ha ha.
Yes.
And also to Madera Nu, so no worries.
That's a good metadoxing here, uh, since, since I don't live on Madeira.
No, I, I just actually assumed it because you're so involved with
the, uh, free Madera project,
Yeah, I know.
A lot of people assume I live in Madeira and I like it.
okay.
Yeah.
Then let's just, let's just stay with it.
Yeah.
So, so, so that's like the um, TLDR of the concierge service.
So you ask for it, you get it.
Fantastic.
And how does that differ from the travel consigliere service?
Yeah.
So, because I think travel is a bit more complex sometimes, um, and.
I think most people don't like, they have a vague idea about what they
want to experience in their travel and you can have like mediocre or lame
experiences if you're just like going by, okay, yeah, I saw this on the
internet and maybe I should go there.
That's the big difference by using our travel concierge is that you can ask
what you think you would like to do.
And our travel concierge that's Draven Keefe.
He's been to almost 40 countries, everywhere, and like, even Svalbard.
I don't know why you would go there, like, without a gun to your head, because it's
so fucking cold, but he was there, right?
And um, you can just ask him, like, for example, if you would say,
yeah, I want to go to Japan, right?
And you say, okay, Luke and Knut go together to Japan, do an off road trip.
A podcasting tour with all the Japanese Bitcoiners, right?
And then, um, Trayvon would ask you like, okay, like, do you have a budget?
Do you have Others specific amenities that you need, or do
you want to do the samurai tour?
So of course you have to visit the old Nobunaga castle and, you know,
and maybe even have a session with an old samurai master, how to cut
the bamboo and the right way, right?
These, like the question that Trayvon would ask you, so he knows where he should
send you because it's very different.
If you want to be like, okay, like for example, if Luke was
like the super anime nerds.
And needs to see everything in Shibuya and go to the One Piece museum.
That's very different if Knut wants to visit old samurai masters and talk
about Miyamoto Musashi's story and visit the cave where he supposedly
lived the end of his life, right?
So that's like two very different types of travel.
And Draven is like the guy to find the right type of travel
that you're looking for.
I love that you could think of two things that sounded so different.
In terms of what they were, but still sounds so extremely
Japanese, both of them, like,
Yeah, because I'm both of these types of
yeah,
you're fighting, uh, what's it called, a battle royale with
a Tamagotchi or something,
Exactly.
That, that's my type of style.
sounds wonderful.
No, I've, I've been using the service myself for a while now, and Traven is
amazing, and in terms of, knowledge about the aircraft and everything and what you
need and what the difference is between one ticket and the other, uh, and, uh,
all the, all the surrounding things, all the airports are very knowledgeable and,
uh, uh, a really cool service, I think.
So if you like, if you just want to have the best experience and not the
hassle of finding out about all the destinations where you could go, which
aircraft to take, which airports to take.
Etc.
You can just offload the annoying, boring stuff, as I like to call it,
to us and just get the ticket from us.
And then your journey starts when you leave the house, go to the airport.
Your ticket works everywhere.
You have one ticket, even if you're doing a voucher and not 15 different
tickets, because every airline don't want to work together because we
are a real licensed travel agency.
That's why we can give you one ticket.
For all the airports and not 15 different ones, right?
So we can all combine them and then your journey just starts and you
just, you know, you experience it.
You have the best time of your life.
That's like my minimum requirement for experiences with ShopInBit.
It needs to be the best time of your life.
If it's less, Bitcoin standard for me.
I'm a little bit, let's call it perfectionist in this regard.
Oh, it's fantastic.
What a, what a service.
Uh, um,
If I'm correct, the first time we met, uh, was at the Free Cities conference,
like three years ago or something?
Was that the first time?
I think so, yes, it must have been the 2022 edition of
the Liberty in Our Lifetime
Yeah, we knew about each other, uh, before that, but I think that
was the first time in real life.
And, and your, uh, the The namer of Bardian sort of gives it away, but you're
a big believer in, in libertarian ideals, and so, so, can you tell us a little
about that, and how, like, how that ties into building this store to make
things available without KYC, I mean, and to make things easier for people?
Yeah, um, it kind of necessitates being very ultra libertarian or ANCAP
if you want to shorten it up, um, because Like, there's lots of talking
about free markets do this, free markets do that, but the gist of Mises
writings is actually that there is no free market and there is no state.
It's just people who do stuff, right?
That's the, um, that's your book about praxeology summed up in one sentence.
Sorry,
yes, that means it's condensed into my book, and then condensed
into one sentence, yes.
Perfect.
so, so that's like, um, and please, people, you should read the book.
It's very good from Knut, so thumbs up here.
Um, no, but, um, as soon as you realize that people do stuff, you
need to decide for yourself, What you want to do with your life, right?
I could have, of course, just laid back, huddled, stacked some more, and then wait
until someday magically someone would appear and have the same understanding or
the same vision for the future as I have.
And my vision is just that we can use Bitcoin on a day to day
basis, just live our life and actually see the free markets.
Like, evolving out of this, um, cypher, cyberpunkian dystopia
that we live in right now.
Because you see like, there's, there are so many companies right
now alive and doing well, which totally don't make any sense.
Like if you, like, I think the most basic example is the whole streaming sector.
It's a, it's an industry that's built on losing money.
There is no way mathematically that you can generate enough money with
the subscription to fund all these media programs that they are funding.
Like it's, it's an infinity game.
And the others?
Wessens.
And there's this thing going on and it's getting, it's quite convenient,
yes, but they are not literally working.
Like, they are so highly in depth, like,
No, no, and there's another aspect to this also, which ties into intellectual
property, and as Rothbardians, we, we both know that intellectual property is
bullshit, and it doesn't exist, so what the streaming services, especially for,
uh, I mean, movie and TV content are doing is that they're not in competition because
their content is exclusive to them.
So it's basically everything behind a paywall.
You can't watch HBO stuff on Disney plus and vice versa or on Netflix.
So they're not really competing.
It's not a, it's not a free market thing.
It's fake, uh, artificial monopolies.
Uh, created around a subset of intellectual, quote unquote property.
So, so property.
So it's, uh, so it's, it's sort of pointing out to us, and this
is, I think the internet in general that pointed out to us.
Since everything is copyable, I mean, information was always copyable.
It's just, it's so much more efficient to copy stuff on the internet than,
uh, or on computers in general.
Then, then in physical space because you have to literally
write the data down again.
Uh, so it sort of points out that this whole intellectual property
thing is complete bullshit from, from beginning to end.
Because why, uh, and I remember those, uh, ads for not pirating.
Uh, video material back in like the late 90s, where would you
steal a car, would you steal a phone, uh, therefore you shouldn't
pirate, uh, copyrighted material.
And it's such bullshit, because the person Who gets pirated, didn't lose anything.
Like, if someone copies my book, I didn't lose the book.
It's like, I want people to copy it, because that means they read it.
Like, they had to read it to copy it.
Like, that's the whole point of a book.
For the material to be copied.
For it to go into someone else's brain.
Otherwise the book is pointless.
And this is for all intellectual property and it's, it's just, uh, pointing
out to us, so it's blatantly obvious that all copyright laws are bullshit.
And in
and there's a Rothbardian way to circumvent, um, all this copyright
protection, paywalls, etc.
Because you just have to make the service sexy enough that people
just really want to pay for it.
Because if you're looking at, like, in the beginning of Netflix, If we
go back to, I don't know, what's it like 2015, 2016 or something when I,
uh, discovered Netflix for myself, it was, it was a revelation because
all the shows from all the different channels, they were all in one platform.
I could switch from personal of interest going over to, I don't know,
psych and then watching CSI Miami.
I don't know.
I'm just making this stuff right now.
Right.
And there was no, no friction with it.
Because, um, before that, you had to have the different channels, know at
which time of the day it was running, or buy all the DVDs, all the Blu
Rays, and all Um, it was total mess.
And, um, if you didn't want to pay for it, if you wanted to go the rrpio
route, you would have to go to different sites and have a very high probability
of getting malware and viruses.
on your PC.
Now we are back again at square one where there are 15 different streaming services
that make it super hard to watch anything because you never know when it's going
to disappear from the digital library.
You can either buy them again, but then you have to watch the stupid ad about,
hey, please don't pirate this blu ray that you just bought and you can't skip it.
So again, it's more convenient to just go one of these insane.
Pirate sites where you can stream movies in HD quality for free, no ads whatsoever.
If you have ad blocks on, it's ridiculous.
Like this is super stupid and the rough body way to do to solve all that
will be just to make a service that is just 10 percent better, like can have
it on a Netflix way, you pay a little bit more, there are premium shows, but
then you get AMAs with the cast or get posters shipped to your home because
you're such a super fan of your show.
Or whatever.
Like you just need to think a little bit outside of the box,
like what connects people with the special property you have or like.
It's not so difficult, but if you're just a lazy VC funded company
that's in the fiat game, right?
That's the fiat game.
Like, lately I've come to realize that I've been too much player hating
and forgetting that it's actually a fiat game that I hate, right?
It's not about Netflix specifically, but it's the whole fiat game in the
background that gives these Incentives to do really stupid shit and that's why I'm
so invested in Bitcoin and doing business and trying to tell people that they need
to start their own Bitcoin businesses because you cannot compete with companies
that provide jobs and money to people.
Like there's been, we've been to quite a lot of conferences in the last years,
like, and I think you've seen it.
If you're as long as me in the game, you've seen all the talks and this
constant yapping about stacking more coins is like one part of the problem.
But um, if you compare it to the crypto shenanigans, right, they do, there
are lots of people there to do the scamming and, um, make the casino stuff.
But the important thing that is generally left out of the conversation
is That they actually provide jobs.
Binance employs a couple hundred thousand of people.
I don't know how many they employ.
And also all these other shitcoin casinos, they employ people.
And like, if you like have a family or have any types of obligations
or maybe like a grandmother that you need to take care of, right.
It's cool and all, if you can lift the Bitcoin lifestyle, but if you're
still broke, then like this, this really doesn't help your cause at all.
Right.
Because you can.
If you're still stuck in the fiat game because your job provides you
only the fiat game to play, then what is it worth to try to live a
Bitcoin lifestyle that cannot sustain your current obligations, right?
So I think it's really important that we should talk a little bit more openly
in the Bitcoin community about building actual profitable, Bitcoin businesses
because open source, it's great, you know, I love you open source guys out there.
Like we've been using BTC pay server for years.
We've been supporting the guys, um, through various means and still
open source and you need to wait for donations and stuff and that's cool
and all, but maybe sometimes when you start a Bitcoin company asking for
a price for a profit, actually like that gives you the signal, right?
The signal from the free market.
Is it a profitable business or is it losing money?
It's like there is no in between.
You can, of course, meddle around and try to put your own funds in there,
but then it's just a hobby and you cannot expect people to change their
whole life because of a hobby, right?
You need to provide some kind of incentive apart from the ideology.
Like, you know me, I'm a crazy guy.
I go all in on, um, living a better life.
Man must have a code.
That's my ish since I saw it in the wire like 10 years ago, but also need
to make some money and it will be better if you like make hard money and Bitcoin
instead of otherwise, but we need to like have this reality check sometimes.
You know what I mean?
Sorry.
I'm sorry.
I start ranting.
mean, it's about bridging that gap and, uh But this is the tragedy of the commons
in a way, because people do work for shitcoin casinos, people do work for
these zombie companies, and they do work for these overvalued HBOs and Netflixes
of the world, uh, not to mention Disney, uh, and they make fiat money there, and
they think they're happy, and they go home and cry themselves to sleep every
night, uh, while we are rebellious, uh, really cool, the cool kids in the bus, uh,
but I think this is why we always mantra like the, the important thing is not
necessarily to push people to spend their bitcoin, but for people to start accepting
bitcoin for the goods and services.
That's where the revolution starts, like start accepting bitcoin
for your goods and services.
Because there are so many, so many perks to that, uh, not to mention,
like, the privacy aspect of it.
Like, for sure, the guy paying you might know your address, but no one else does.
Like, if you don't, if you don't need to give it away, there are so many
ways, and, uh, I mean, There are so many tools to use and so many avenues into
this, and when you start living in the friction free world of actual Bitcoin
transactions, you see that everything else is just bullshit, and there's
no, there's no moral high ground in defending the old system when there's
an obviously superior system around.
I think it's, uh, that's, that's so bad, and we need people to be heroic and fight
against it, because it's going to be obvious one day that This way is better.
Uh, I mean, to me and many other Bitcoiners it already is.
It is obvious and this is the hill to die on.
Like, what other hill are you going to die on?
It's the most important fight of our lives, right?
Also, with the fiat bullshit and the KYC that we talked about a
little earlier here, uh, The whole point of money is to not need KYC.
If you know the person, you don't really need money because you trust the
person to pay you back at some point.
So you can give them goods or services and, you know,
get paid back at some point.
KYC defeats the entire purpose of money.
That money was Invented or discovered in order for people to not have to trust one
another when transacting with one another.
That's the whole point of money.
So, there is so much here between the old world and the new.
And,
choose your battles wisely.
And I think the funniest part about it is that accepting Bitcoin is actually
the easiest type of battle that you can do because like you could, of course,
to work with legislation to get it as legal tender and all that shit, which
I personally, I'm not the biggest fan of because like The Rothbardian speaks
again, competition everywhere, right?
But, like, you accept the coin, you don't need to pick up a pitchfork,
or torches, or anything other to go demonstrating and shit.
You literally just accept coins, and you show everyone around you
that it makes sense to accept it.
Yourself, like that's, that's my little in the background work as well.
So we talk to our suppliers and we tell them, Hey, have you heard about Bitcoin?
See, we only have 1 percent return rate with your Amazon and
other types of fiat customers.
They give you 20 percent return rate.
Don't you want to go in on that action, right?
So that's like a, it's like a better, um, argument than of course saying,
yeah, so fiat money is total shit, man.
You need to drop immediately that you accept fiat.
You only need to take Bitcoin.
Like that, that ends any conversation with a little click and it's over.
But you get the point.
Like if you can live by example and show people, okay, it
makes sense to accept Bitcoin.
These customers are insane and.
And you really need to check it out, have a better life, because like, I
think everyone who has tried accepting money over the internet might have
come by the PayPal taking your money problem or holding it hostage.
I think they like to call it secure funds for future dispute resolution.
And yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's a really stupid thing.
Like I have this, I have this perfect example from 20.
When we as ShopinBit raised the Bitcoin node amount in the world
by 1 percent in one week, because we were able to, um, source all
the parts for a RecipeBlitz node.
Um, for the cheapest price in Europe, and we sold about 200 of them in a week.
And yeah, yeah, that's the cool part.
It now comes the trick with PayPal because we haven't had that
many PayPal payments until then.
And then we just had a spike of like, 200 transactions, almost
200 transactions in one week.
And they were like, no way you made this money legit.
We are freezing all of it.
And I'm like, Oh my God, I have to call our supplier.
So I'm calling the first supplier for the electronics part.
And I'm telling him, yeah.
So you remember how I'm usually paying everything up front?
And he say, yeah, sure.
What's the problem?
Like Yeah, so we made this little advertisement for this, uh, for
the parts that I told you about.
Very thankful that you're reserving the parts for us, but PayPal
blocked our money and he started laughing for two minutes straight
and said, Oh, it's your first time.
Yeah.
Should have taken it in Bitcoin, right?
And he was very nice about it.
And he says, sure.
No problem.
We'll reserve the products for you because we know you pay always.
Right.
Okay.
So then I start my journey talking to PayPal.
So, it took me five business days and I talked to, I would say,
until the seventh level support.
Because everyone was just, no, I can't decide that, send in this data.
Okay, I sent in this data.
Talk to the next person.
Yeah, I don't know.
Sounds scammy.
Send next person, next person, next person.
And when I finally was at the seventh level, like, I literally taught him
like, what the fuck do you want from me?
Like, I bought all the evidence.
You literally can see that we can provide all the products because you
have the invoices from our suppliers.
And the orators like, what is your problem?
And he was like, yeah, the problem is you made too much money and such a short time.
Our algorithm just kicked you.
Sorry about that, bro.
And then I got the money back.
It was like, what?
Why?
Why can you
too much value to other people in too short of a time frame.
If you're too successful, PayPal will literally kill your business.
If you're too successful because of
so
KYC,
Yeah, it's super vile.
And it's like the banks asking you what you want to do, what you
are going to do with your money if you try to withdraw cash nowadays.
Same thing.
It's bullshit, like, what the fuck are you doing with my money?
You're, you're the ones that supposedly hold them, like, I know
you don't, but anyway, why are you entitled to ask me that question
and not the other way around?
It's so weird.
and then that is the point when you realize the power of Bitcoin, because your
paint instant, almost instantly, right?
And you can use your money almost instantly.
There is no waiting time.
No one can stop it.
And your whole business can rely on getting paid in Bitcoin.
And you never have to lose sleep about, will the money arrive?
Will the money not arrive?
It's literally, worst case scenario is a 10 minute wait.
And if it takes longer, you literally just write the customer.
Sorry, there are no confirmations on the blockchain, can you just,
you know, bounce the fee up a bit?
Being a bit stingy here with one set per VBYTE, it's not 2018
anymore, so please turn it up a bit.
That would be great, right?
That's the conversation that you have, but it's not like calling seventh level
support for a week, like I could have done 200 other things in that time, right?
So
So a thought just struck me here, so hear me out here and see what, uh,
I'd love to pick your brain on this.
So if, if you got fiat liquidity in your company, so you have enough fiat,
you could, you could theoretically Put any discount you want on the
Bitcoin price of any product.
So, like, if I put a 20 percent discount for those people who pay in Bitcoin, all
that means is I have to wait, on average, 20 percent longer before numbers go up.
Right?
So, if you take it the number can and will go up forever, then you could
basically just charge Bitcoin, as long as the prices make some sort of sense.
And then just wait.
that is something that we tried.
And, um, that is super difficult to do because, um, you usually have
like 14 to 30 days of a payment window and that is way too short
to do these kinds of gambles.
So you, you need to pay your supplier within those months.
Yes, exactly.
There is like, usually you have 14 days or 30 days to pay them.
Some suppliers have longer payment windows where you can of course
try that, but I would recommend against it in the beginning.
Because nothing is worse for your business relationships than paying invoices late.
So, um, because like, again, since there are not as many Bitcoin
companies as there are fiat companies,
yet.
to lead by example.
So, um, the best thing I would recommend to do is just pay so early.
That's they are confused about why you are paying so early because
that is a super conversation, like, like the story that I told you about
the supplier for the electronics.
That was exactly why he was so laid back because everything
else was paid on the same day.
We place an order, we pay it directly.
They never heard of it because everyone else is like, yeah,
so I'm starting a new business.
And can I have a three month payment window?
Like, no, sure.
Pay up front.
No problem.
Of course, uh, follow up question.
That supplier, is he now orange pilled?
he is not, but that is because of, uh, German regulations.
Okay, but at some point, like, every supplier will be orange pilled too,
like, we just have to work on it, and this is the thing, if you build business
relationships, and you have a relation with this and that company, I mean, why
not start the Bitcoin conversation at one point, and just try to orange pill
them, and tell them about the advantages.
Exactly, that's why I'm super pumped about our new Swiss store, because we
have new Swiss suppliers there, and maybe I can just announce it here, so
it's way cooler, so we will do a wine tasting in Lugano at the speaker's dinner.
And it's not any wine tasting.
It's a, it's a journey through Europe, through European wines.
So I know, uh, you both like wine since you're also having your own type of brand.
And, uh, we got one of the biggest wine suppliers and distributors in
Switzerland to say yes to a corporation.
And that will be their test balloon to see what bitcoiners
are like as a customer base.
So while you are tasting the exquisite wines of Europe, you
can also help with adoption by considering buying a case of wine.
So it's a, it's a win win for everyone.
So you get great wine, you can taste it beforehand, and you can have it
home delivered within Switzerland.
So that's our little cool event coming there at the speaker's dinner,
which will be on the 25th of October.
So in Lugano, so please people if you, if you haven't Lugano, you have one reason
more, get the Cypherpunk ticket for it.
And, um, yeah.
And when you use our travel service to go there, you can actually Get, win a
golden ticket to this specific event.
So first come first serve, happy hunting, let the Hunger Games begin, who can get
the golden ticket to our white tasting.
is there a picture of Lando Wonka on this golden ticket of yours?
And we are still working on the design, it's cool to be you.
It's cool.
I'm
I think Lando Wonka is a great idea.
That could work.
Yeah.
I've got a golden ticket.
Yes.
Yeah.
I won't be singing because I promised my wife that I should not sing in public
because like, I am not the best singer.
Yes, I promised my wife that I would go as far as to Lugano before I start singing.
So that's, that's good.
Yeah.
That's a fair point.
So then we can sing together appropriately.
Fantastic.
Yeah.
Lugano is going to be great.
Um,
All good.
And Lando, yeah, it's awesome.
Like, uh, I mean.
It's great to, to learn more about kind of what's going on under the hood and
I mean uh, just, just I'll comment on my experience a little bit just in,
in general with paying with Bitcoin.
I mean, it's awesome to pay for stuff with Bitcoin because
it's just, it's just so easy.
You get all of the fiat bullshit completely out of the way and I mean, it's
just a complete shift in mindset, right?
Like, uh, there, there is no one backstopping.
Uh, uh, if you send, if you send Bitcoin to someone, you're
relying on the other party to, to deliver what they're delivering.
And so it's just a complete, a complete flip.
There, there's a, a bigger emphasis on, on trust, on, on making sure that
whoever is going to, to, uh, if someone says they're going to do something, that
they actually are going to do something.
It's, it's a total mindset shift, but it's so easy.
That's the, That's the best part.
And I mean, the other thing that I hear people kind of get hung up on as
well is that, well, they don't want to spend their Bitcoin on anything.
They'd rather spend their fiat.
And it's like, well, okay, yeah, yeah, that's, that's fine.
Uh, it's, it's fine to hodl and everything, but on the other
hand, just spend and replace.
I mean, that's, that's the easiest solution to this.
It's like, If you're going to spend some money on Bitcoin, well, then go, go
stack by whatever method you want, right?
And then you're whole, maybe even put a little bit extra into it and
just make that the way you do it.
But, I mean, I mean, we, we, uh, livers of the internet, like, like
we, we live on the internet, uh, now, are connected with so many people
through Twitter, Nostr, all of this.
Like, being able to just freely transact with anyone and not have to worry
about, can I accept your currency?
Can you accept my currency?
You know what I mean?
Like, it's seriously just so simple and Bitcoiners really should try it.
That's my Personal message on this.
If there's any, if there's any like, uh, if there's any, um, hangups on,
on actually spending with Bitcoin.
I think the one thing is, is availability, right?
So this is, this is just coming back into it.
Why it's so awesome to have Shop and Bid and, and, and any other merchant that
accepts Bitcoin, but Shop and Bid, like you guys are out here, like flying the
flag and, Oh, Spend your bitcoin on stuff.
It's easy.
We make it easy for you.
And so it's, it's a, it's a great service.
Uh, actually, I'm going to, I'm going to come to a, uh, so that was all
commentary, but like practical question on this, like it's, it's European
based, but, but it works worldwide.
Is that true?
Yes.
So, um, the products that we have on the website are directly available within
the EU and Uh, some countries outside of the EU, but I would recommend for people
who are coming from outside of the EU to just Uh, ask our concierge service first
if we can ship the product there because there are some restrictions on products.
Um, for our Swiss customers, they don't have to use the shopinbit.
com website in the near future anymore.
So 25th of October is our release date.
So shopinbit.
ch, um, will be the website for our Swiss customers.
Yeah, regarding spend and replace, I think also that that's the best strategy.
And I think as a general rule of thumb for any Bitcoiners out there
who are listening right now and still on the fence about spending Bitcoin
at all, the question is, why do you still have so much fiat lying around?
If you're so committed, right?
So, um, I think the, um, being hesitant about spending your Bitcoin and not
replacing it or just outright refusing to try out spend and replace is
more due to not having a big enough stack that you actually feel secure.
So it's the same as if you like have no savings at all.
It doesn't matter if it's Bitcoin or not, right?
So having no savings at all is like a dangerous way to live, even if you like
to live dangerously, but You know, like, having savings is a good idea regardless
of the currency, but of course I would recommend to have more savings in a
currency that cannot be easily inflated or actually programmable, not inflated.
So, you know, just a train of thought, maybe you just need some more Bitcoin.
Because there is one point, at one point, You have enough Bitcoin, and
where you literally have no other benefit of having more Bitcoin.
Like Michael Saylor, like, he's my favorite fiat bro.
Because he's been talking about getting gains on Bitcoin.
What the fuck are you talking about, right?
This is not where Bitcoin comes from.
We're not here for making gains.
We're about having hard money and living free markets and living
the freedom infinity, right?
It's why would you need to have extra gains?
He literally already has over a thousand bitcoins.
I know, five.
Six.
I don't know what the current numbers.
I really don't care.
But
micro strategies.
Oh my fucking god,
over, over 1% of the supply
much do you need anymore?
Like there's literally no point.
There is no point that if we achieve, when we achieve the hyperbitcoinized
world, there is no way any company could spend that type of cash.
Never, you can literally never go bankrupt because there's, that's
Rockefeller in comparison back in his time, he would be like looking like a
street bum to you if you had 1 percent of the total supply of money available.
Like, and then you still need more Bitcoin?
Like what type of life do you live?
Are you like Smaug or something?
You need to like, you want to sit on a mountain and eat the money or what?
That's some ridiculous thought.
So to me, like,
There are so many, so many things to unpack here because that's
a, it's a fun conversation.
The whole yield on Bitcoin thing, because the thing is.
What I think, unfortunately, even MicroStrategy will have
to learn the lesson of not your keys, not your coins, one day.
Like, and so will El Salvador and every other big institution
that allegedly holds Bitcoin.
Because at the end of the day, it's just someone, it's in someone's brain,
someone's keeping a secret from someone.
That's what's keeping the Bitcoin safe.
Even if you have a multisig, people can collude with one another and They're
like, it's, this stuff is tough, like it's tough to secure a Bitcoin.
So there comes a point where the stack is so big.
So it's just not worth it anymore because the risk is too high.
Like, so, so what you're saying is entirely correct.
It comes a point where your Bitcoin are worth so much that it's
costlier for you to keep them safe.
than to just spend some of it and keep that leveled out forever, so to speak.
So on that note, I'd recommend for everyone in the world who cannot
spend and replace to not spend until their stack is big enough.
Like, spend after 10 years.
HODL and spend later.
Like, if you can't spend and replace, if you can't spend and
replace, then spend and replace.
I mean, just be yourself.
Except if you can be Batman, then be Batman.
That's the saying, right?
Yeah,
it better be
it's exactly this.
This is exactly what it's about.
So, if you're not able to be Batman yet, Just be yourself, hodl, shut the fuck
up, sit down, stay humble, stack sats, sell your shares, or all this stuff, and
then be Batman, ten years down the line.
and even if you don't want to sell your chairs, there, there is a way
to life, uh, in very different forms.
Like, like you could also ask the same question to Michael Saylor.
Why is he not Batman?
Because If you indirectly have access to 1 percent of the total supply of
How do you know who he isn't?
He is Bitman after all, right?
Uh, so.
Heh heh.
again, the question, why would you need 5 percent gains on that?
Like, there is no psychological upside to having more Bitcoin at that point.
Even if you like, but that's like, you know, for like, um, there, there
unless you're trying to big the build the biggest company in the history
of mankind and trying to be the world's Bitcoin bank, at some point,
do like, did you come to Bitcoin to build a bank?
Like, I'm sorry, but like,
yeah, it's not gonna work.
But, but it could be ex it could explain the ambition.
I'm just saying I'm not, I'm not advocating for it.
I'm just saying this could be an explainer for the incentive, or you just
want to be altruistic as fuck because you want to die with the entire stack
and take it with you to your grave.
And thereby, uh, thereby.
Making everyone, uh, you know, indirectly richer in Bitcoin
because scarcity goes up.
okay, maybe that's just not the strategy for me.
Exactly.
But, you know, as, as you know, since you're a Rothbardian, we all
have different motives, you know?
Yeah.
That's.
That's, uh, I, I have to, I have to think about what his motives
could be, but I was, I was just very appalled of this 5 percent gain thing
Me too.
Like, because,
me like, bro,
no, but, but the thing is, that works as long as fiat works.
But the more, the more, the funny thing is about all of these, fiat midterm
strategies, is that all roads lead to bitcoin in the end, because bitcoin
is the only way to protect yourself from exactly these types of games.
So they might work for another 50 years, but in the end, they won't work anymore
because people won't fall for it.
And it's not risk free.
Like, if, if you, like, take out loans and stuff and do stuff with your
Bitcoin that is other stuff than just hodling them, then you are more at risk.
Like, it's a, uh, If you just hodl them, the risk is practically zero.
Like all the risk is with the, the, uh, like the entire network, like the
risk, the personal risk is almost zero.
If you just take control of your keys and don't do anything with them.
But as soon as you start trying to make your bitcoins work
for you and all of this stuff.
Then there is some, then you introduce more risk nevertheless.
So, so I think that these things will inevitably, like extrapolating as far
into the future as you need, uh, the, it's inevitable at some point that all the, the
bitcoins that are at risk will disperse and go to safer havens within the network.
Exactly.
So I guess the best point of, uh, or a course of action that you could take.
It's to just accept Bitcoin and be a part of it.
Like it can be anything like hairdressers, restaurants, ghost writers.
I don't know.
If you are a hairdresser, don't sell your chairs.
Yeah.
would suck to stand up and get your hair cut.
And if you need new chairs, you can go to ShopInBit and buy them.
Yes.
You did.
and shipped to any hair salon in the world.
Yeah.
Uh, that, that is also the case.
So, um, I think that will be like my, my wish for all your listeners
is like, if you have the chance to accept Bitcoin, please do it.
Be the brand awareness campaign that literally makes you more money.
That's, that's what it means to accept Bitcoin directly.
Because it's literally just brand awareness.
If people see that they can spend their Bitcoin at every corner
on the internet or in real life.
Then this is the perfect signal to send out.
And also, um, you can just live a better, freer life by accepting Bitcoin because
all your income is not tied to fiat money.
Railways, which can be blocked at any time for giving the wrong comments
on the wrong forum or just being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Just need to accept Bitcoin.
This is a very little task and please don't come at me with talks
about it's complicated to do it.
I was able to do it and my programming skills are javascript children course.
Khan Academy, the guys from BTC pay server, they made it.
It's so easy to accept Bitcoin directly.
You cannot tell me that you can't do it.
And if you really have problems setting it up, and if you have a company,
then just go to your IT admin and tell him, and he will tell you that
he can install it in two minutes.
It's ready to roll.
It's so simple.
Like seriously, this is, um, this is the easiest thing you can do.
It costs little time.
And you make Bitcoin with it.
There shouldn't be a discussion, but somehow, it still is.
And I'll echo this as well.
That's what our site runs on, bitcoininfinity.
com or bitcoininfinitystore.
com.
We're not on the same level as you with Shop and Bid in terms of
selection, but all of our books from Lemniscape Media plus all these other
things, we accept Bitcoin for it.
That's the entire point.
I'm setting up that website.
We could have just, we could have just set up the publishing company through Amazon,
put the books on Amazon, people can get books there, but, but we made the website
100 percent only because we could accept Bitcoin with it and we use BTC pay server.
There's, there is no second best when it comes to, to that at this point.
I'll second that.
So please buy, uh, buy books and our merge from bitcoin infinity store.com.
If you need giant green things, you go to ShopInBit instead.
And sometimes, it's better to light a giant green candle
than curse the darkness.
That's the saying of the day, I think.
Perfect.
I love it.
I will steal that and put it as your recommendation on our website flight.
All right, Lando, it's been a lovely conversation and we're looking forward
to all the fun things we'll do in the future, conferencing wise and business
wise and just hanging out wise and wine tasting wise and wise old man wise.
So, except for ShopInBit, is there anywhere else you want to direct
our listeners to on the internet?
Um, so shop in.com/bitcoin.
Infinity is, uh, our, uh, landing page for Luke and Knu.
So if you want to have the chance to win the golden ticket.
And also get the first hour free consultation for your
travel needs by trading.
You go through this link, shopinbit.
com slash Bitcoin infinity, book it there, have some fun, have nice
traveling to Lugano, and hopefully we'll see you at the wine tasting.
Um, otherwise we are on Twitter, Instagram, but not yet on Nostr.
Me myself, I'm on Nostr, but I post so sparingly because I literally, I just
spend time with my family and work.
There's no in between, like, I'm a madman.
you're, you're busy selling shares, aren't you?
troubles.
So, please check out shopabit.
com and
For all your lubing needs.
Yes.
And if you're from Switzerland, you can check out shopinbit.
ch.
It will be going online on the 25th, but right now you can
sign up for our newsletter.
And we are very happy if you use your simple login email addresses and
not your clear name email addresses.
Please don't do that.
Use some kind of obfuscation for emails or at least make a secondary
email address that is not directly connected to your real name.
For more privacy, of course.
And, uh, yeah, I think that's it.
Yeah.
Fantastic tips.
So, uh, once again, Lando, thank you.
And, um, uh, see you in Lugano.
I love that you picked the 25th of October.
That's one of my favorite dates as well.
I'll tell you later why.
Yeah.
Thank you for the invitation.
And, uh, I wish you all the success with the Freedom Infinity Show.
I would just call it like that for now.
It's the Freedom Infinity Show with Luke and Knut.
So please, uh, subscribe, like, share, whatever.
I don't know how this works, but please do that if you're
Yes.
Brush your teeth.
That's the only thing you left out.
Oh yeah.
Ha!
Absolutely awesome, Lando.
This has been a blast.
Thanks again.
I'll echo that from Knut.
Looking forward to seeing you.
And this has been the Bitcoin Infinity Show.
I guess I think I have to stay on brand.
Thanks for listening.