1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,205
Welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show, brought to you by  BitBox Stampseed,

2
00:00:04,225 --> 00:00:06,605
the Bitcoin Advisor and ShopInBit.

3
00:00:06,762 --> 00:00:10,649
Go to  BitcoinInfinity.com for books, merch and more.

4
00:00:10,814 --> 00:00:11,804
Enjoy the conversation.

5
00:00:12,909 --> 00:00:15,179
Ben, welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show.

6
00:00:15,189 --> 00:00:16,089
Thank you for joining us.

7
00:00:16,229 --> 00:00:17,339
Thanks for having me, guys.

8
00:00:17,499 --> 00:00:18,179
Appreciate it.

9
00:00:18,583 --> 00:00:22,204
Yeah, this is where we first met, in Riga, five years ago.

10
00:00:22,414 --> 00:00:23,794
Yeah, that's wild.

11
00:00:23,804 --> 00:00:24,484
Time flies.

12
00:00:24,564 --> 00:00:28,474
Yeah, and our lives, both our lives took a turn.

13
00:00:28,764 --> 00:00:29,454
Yeah.

14
00:00:29,654 --> 00:00:35,684
I mean, it's, it's, uh, it's amazing what can happen in a

15
00:00:35,714 --> 00:00:37,984
seemingly short period of time.

16
00:00:39,679 --> 00:00:44,349
Everything is markedly different, I think, on both ends.

17
00:00:44,564 --> 00:00:50,264
Yeah, but I mean, I, I can't believe how you do what you do, like, you do like the

18
00:00:50,274 --> 00:00:52,994
double amount of conferences that I do.

19
00:00:53,319 --> 00:00:54,709
Maybe a little too many.

20
00:00:55,209 --> 00:00:57,589
I think I need to slow myself down a bit.

21
00:00:59,044 --> 00:01:01,904
but you've been, you've been traveling around a lot, like,

22
00:01:02,234 --> 00:01:03,774
with the family as well.

23
00:01:03,989 --> 00:01:07,119
Yeah, yeah, we, we try to strike a balance.

24
00:01:07,129 --> 00:01:09,819
Sometimes I go solo, sometimes it's the full family.

25
00:01:09,839 --> 00:01:12,049
Sometimes it's, uh, me and the missus.

26
00:01:12,279 --> 00:01:15,839
It really depends, but, um, a little bit of both all through the year.

27
00:01:16,984 --> 00:01:21,964
how's it been, like, what's your, well, it's a pretty big question, but,

28
00:01:22,449 --> 00:01:23,159
Yeah.

29
00:01:23,259 --> 00:01:27,069
I mean, the, I mean, the, the travel aspect of it is, is fantastic.

30
00:01:27,069 --> 00:01:30,249
I love seeing all these places and it's kind of cool.

31
00:01:30,259 --> 00:01:30,279
Yeah.

32
00:01:30,794 --> 00:01:36,674
To be honest, seeing all the Bitcoiners just in different parts

33
00:01:36,674 --> 00:01:40,224
of the globe all through the year, it's like every, every time it's,

34
00:01:40,404 --> 00:01:42,654
it's a quasi family reunion, right?

35
00:01:42,974 --> 00:01:44,174
In cool locations.

36
00:01:44,734 --> 00:01:47,174
Who was that that called us a traveling circus?

37
00:01:47,174 --> 00:01:51,284
Joe, yeah, it's Joe Hall.

38
00:01:51,434 --> 00:01:51,754
Yeah.

39
00:01:51,834 --> 00:01:51,984
Yeah.

40
00:01:52,324 --> 00:01:53,734
That's, I mean, accurate.

41
00:01:54,364 --> 00:01:58,804
I think it's based, I was just, uh, we're just saying outside that we should

42
00:01:58,804 --> 00:02:05,444
just collectively, you know, the con, like just, just buy a jet, put all the

43
00:02:05,444 --> 00:02:11,524
necessary stuff in it and just hop around the globe and, and host a bunch of events

44
00:02:11,604 --> 00:02:17,171
and then just, you know, get, get it all done in a couple of months and then

45
00:02:17,489 --> 00:02:18,569
It's not a bad strategy.

46
00:02:19,149 --> 00:02:21,599
no, it's a, it's a low time preference

47
00:02:21,999 --> 00:02:24,339
Are we, are we going to start a geyser fund for the jet,

48
00:02:24,539 --> 00:02:27,179
Yeah, yeah, what private jet wanted, like,

49
00:02:29,269 --> 00:02:31,789
If anything, it would be a good meme anyway, right?

50
00:02:31,849 --> 00:02:32,609
A nice, a nice

51
00:02:33,049 --> 00:02:33,709
Yeah.

52
00:02:34,229 --> 00:02:36,439
I feel like I'm going to put that up now.

53
00:02:36,719 --> 00:02:39,209
How many bitcoin do you think we need for a jet?

54
00:02:39,783 --> 00:02:41,469
Sats.

55
00:02:41,939 --> 00:02:45,759
Yeah, well, it'll take a while to, to, to gather the funds

56
00:02:45,759 --> 00:02:47,339
and we'll call that a jet lag.

57
00:02:47,339 --> 00:02:49,159
Okay.

58
00:02:49,219 --> 00:02:50,729
nice, nice.

59
00:02:51,169 --> 00:02:55,129
I, I all enjoy seeing the exorbitant amount of Bitcoin required.

60
00:02:55,129 --> 00:02:59,289
And then like, you know, 5, 000 sats raised so far.

61
00:02:59,964 --> 00:03:03,104
Yeah, and then five years later, 5, 000 sats is enough for a jet.

62
00:03:03,969 --> 00:03:04,499
there we go.

63
00:03:04,499 --> 00:03:04,899
Yeah.

64
00:03:05,149 --> 00:03:06,119
Yeah, that's true.

65
00:03:06,639 --> 00:03:07,079
Yeah.

66
00:03:07,094 --> 00:03:08,074
Oh, absolutely.

67
00:03:08,204 --> 00:03:11,484
So can, can you, can you give us a little bit of, uh, your

68
00:03:11,484 --> 00:03:13,484
story, how this all started?

69
00:03:13,524 --> 00:03:16,494
How did you, how did you get into Bitcoin and how did you become a,

70
00:03:16,554 --> 00:03:17,884
cause you're, you're not actually Mr.

71
00:03:17,884 --> 00:03:20,644
Sessions, but you are, you get confused for that all the

72
00:03:20,709 --> 00:03:21,189
Yeah.

73
00:03:21,659 --> 00:03:28,609
Um, Yeah, so, prior to Bitcoin, I actually, uh, I taught kids

74
00:03:28,609 --> 00:03:31,039
how to breakdance for years.

75
00:03:31,244 --> 00:03:32,154
Australian ladies,

76
00:03:32,289 --> 00:03:37,509
Yeah, non Australian ladies, no, no, I, uh, I taught, I was basically

77
00:03:37,759 --> 00:03:39,469
doing in school residencies.

78
00:03:39,479 --> 00:03:44,869
So, like, in, in phys ed, instead of the phys ed teacher, you know,

79
00:03:44,959 --> 00:03:48,854
helming the, the dance unit, I would come in as a novelty and, you know,

80
00:03:49,174 --> 00:03:52,184
You know, teach the kids a routine over the course of a week and then

81
00:03:52,184 --> 00:03:53,514
they'd perform at the end of the week.

82
00:03:53,514 --> 00:04:00,314
And, um, so it was, it was a fun job, but it didn't particularly, uh, pay the bills.

83
00:04:00,324 --> 00:04:01,704
So I needed a side hustle.

84
00:04:01,704 --> 00:04:06,379
And that side hustle for a while was, Um, I went on a bunch of tech blogs and

85
00:04:06,379 --> 00:04:11,269
I just kind of learned how to tear, tear apart a MacBook and like swap out the hard

86
00:04:11,279 --> 00:04:12,949
drive and the RAM and things like that.

87
00:04:12,989 --> 00:04:16,569
And then, so I, I would flip MacBooks because everybody wanted a

88
00:04:16,569 --> 00:04:19,119
MacBook, but you could get it used.

89
00:04:19,119 --> 00:04:24,019
And so I, I would upgrade it and then sell it and earn a few

90
00:04:24,019 --> 00:04:25,659
hundred bucks in an afternoon.

91
00:04:26,179 --> 00:04:28,439
And that felt pretty decent.

92
00:04:28,439 --> 00:04:31,629
But because I was like, the side note here is because I was on those tech

93
00:04:31,639 --> 00:04:35,869
blogs, the Bitcoin articles would be in front of me from time to time.

94
00:04:35,919 --> 00:04:41,059
And so it took about a year of saying, ah, crap, I missed the boat over and

95
00:04:41,059 --> 00:04:47,919
over and over again, uh, to finally say, maybe I should actually read

96
00:04:47,919 --> 00:04:49,679
into this and figure out what it was.

97
00:04:49,719 --> 00:04:54,939
And, um, I spent the better part of two years trying to learn how to use it.

98
00:04:55,694 --> 00:04:59,654
And searching desperately for video tutorials because

99
00:04:59,654 --> 00:05:00,999
I'm a very visual learner.

100
00:05:01,549 --> 00:05:03,839
And not finding a single thing.

101
00:05:03,949 --> 00:05:09,259
It was always like, Oh, go to this blog and, or, or go to this forum and

102
00:05:09,279 --> 00:05:13,399
halfway down in the comments, some dude described in point form how to do this.

103
00:05:13,459 --> 00:05:16,739
And I was like, I, I can't learn like this, but I had to.

104
00:05:16,999 --> 00:05:21,789
And so the, the, the channel was more like a response to the itch

105
00:05:21,829 --> 00:05:23,629
I couldn't scratch for myself.

106
00:05:24,154 --> 00:05:29,474
And I figured if, if I wanted that, somebody might find Bitcoin tutorials

107
00:05:29,474 --> 00:05:33,464
useful, and, uh, that was eight years ago.

108
00:05:33,854 --> 00:05:38,534
And so now, yeah, eight, eight years worth of, uh, doing tutorials.

109
00:05:38,674 --> 00:05:42,204
So, do you have any other, like, educational background?

110
00:05:42,214 --> 00:05:45,124
Like, um, university studies or anything like

111
00:05:45,454 --> 00:05:52,424
this, this was just like, it was a, a com, so the, this, I think the skills that kind

112
00:05:52,424 --> 00:06:01,004
of came together were, even though I was teaching dance, like, teaching a concept

113
00:06:01,014 --> 00:06:04,004
that can be complex to like a school kid.

114
00:06:04,674 --> 00:06:10,294
As long as you can break it down in a simple manner, like I had to get used

115
00:06:10,294 --> 00:06:14,484
to sometimes five year olds trying to learn and memorize a routine.

116
00:06:14,799 --> 00:06:17,119
With very foreign movements to them.

117
00:06:17,549 --> 00:06:22,599
Um, and so, regardless of subject matter, it translates

118
00:06:22,649 --> 00:06:24,369
if you can break something down.

119
00:06:24,689 --> 00:06:28,129
And so, and then the tech aspect of it, like I was not

120
00:06:28,209 --> 00:06:31,039
technical whatsoever before Git.

121
00:06:31,059 --> 00:06:36,769
Other than like, I mean, yeah I said I tore up Macbooks, but like, if you can,

122
00:06:37,314 --> 00:06:39,504
You know, put in a Nintendo cartridge.

123
00:06:39,504 --> 00:06:42,634
That's like the skillset that you needed to do that.

124
00:06:42,944 --> 00:06:48,064
Um, and then, and, and so that was just like trial and error, uh,

125
00:06:48,104 --> 00:06:51,604
and, and, you know, tearing your hair out, doing it again, trying

126
00:06:51,604 --> 00:06:53,404
again, learning what not to do.

127
00:06:53,694 --> 00:06:57,144
Um, and then just the being comfortable, like in front of

128
00:06:57,144 --> 00:06:58,584
a camera, I guess, over time.

129
00:06:58,944 --> 00:07:01,434
So, the stripe from tearing your hair out?

130
00:07:01,764 --> 00:07:06,274
Yeah, yeah, it's, it, it grew back eventually, but turned color.

131
00:07:06,314 --> 00:07:06,794
Yes.

132
00:07:06,854 --> 00:07:07,314
Yeah.

133
00:07:07,504 --> 00:07:10,354
did you realize that you're never allowed to change your hairstyle ever again?

134
00:07:10,369 --> 00:07:15,419
I, yeah, yeah, it's, it's, uh, I, I, I think.

135
00:07:16,174 --> 00:07:21,994
The first time going to a conference and, uh, somebody coming up and saying like,

136
00:07:22,044 --> 00:07:25,024
Oh, I saw you from across the parking lot.

137
00:07:25,394 --> 00:07:29,014
And I was like, Oh crap, I'm stuck with this forever.

138
00:07:30,324 --> 00:07:34,364
Yeah, now it's like, I literally, but this is going to be the OPSEC thing.

139
00:07:34,374 --> 00:07:37,644
Cause when it's time to disappear, I just have to die this back.

140
00:07:37,644 --> 00:07:38,804
And I, I'm a ghost.

141
00:07:39,319 --> 00:07:40,179
Yeah, yeah,

142
00:07:40,414 --> 00:07:41,794
Nobody will know who I am.

143
00:07:41,794 --> 00:07:43,124
I'll be unrecognizable.

144
00:07:43,139 --> 00:07:44,379
It's like if Knut shaves his

145
00:07:44,779 --> 00:07:45,099
Yeah,

146
00:07:45,119 --> 00:07:45,819
yeah, yeah, yeah.

147
00:07:45,849 --> 00:07:46,409
Yeah.

148
00:07:46,409 --> 00:07:48,889
Although actually the beard hasn't even been going that long, but

149
00:07:49,049 --> 00:07:50,949
now you're, now you're used to it.

150
00:07:51,429 --> 00:07:52,219
Yeah, yeah.

151
00:07:53,449 --> 00:07:56,699
So, so what's, what's changed over, over this eight years?

152
00:07:56,709 --> 00:08:01,669
Because I mean, I imagine early days that you're, you're teaching vastly different

153
00:08:01,669 --> 00:08:03,309
things from, from now in the space.

154
00:08:03,919 --> 00:08:05,119
Yes and no.

155
00:08:05,239 --> 00:08:09,369
Um, there's a lot more to teach now than there ever was.

156
00:08:09,809 --> 00:08:17,889
Um, like the early days, I was more or less confined to Um, you know, whatever

157
00:08:17,889 --> 00:08:23,079
phone app happened to be out as a wallet, there was very limited option

158
00:08:23,079 --> 00:08:28,229
for hardware, like it just kind of started to pop up as I was early days.

159
00:08:28,679 --> 00:08:34,009
Um, and then like Bitcoin ATMs or online exchanges, that was kind

160
00:08:34,009 --> 00:08:36,509
of the crop of what I could do.

161
00:08:37,224 --> 00:08:42,474
And now, the list of things I would like to cover is growing

162
00:08:42,474 --> 00:08:44,184
faster than I can cover it.

163
00:08:44,324 --> 00:08:48,984
It's an impossible task to, to teach everything.

164
00:08:49,084 --> 00:08:56,139
And so, um, that's I think, and that's a great thing, because there's so

165
00:08:56,139 --> 00:08:58,479
much optionality out there for people.

166
00:08:58,479 --> 00:09:03,039
It's just really hard to, and, and, I think because of that now,

167
00:09:03,249 --> 00:09:07,299
we're seeing a lot more people do tutorial videos, which is fantastic.

168
00:09:07,639 --> 00:09:12,199
I'm, every time I see a new person throw their hat in the ring and

169
00:09:12,209 --> 00:09:16,769
start making video tutorials, I'm like a, it's like a mini victory.

170
00:09:16,799 --> 00:09:21,519
Like it, it's, it's the, I've, I've treated the opposite of.

171
00:09:21,919 --> 00:09:26,299
Competition because you can never have too much education, just, just as

172
00:09:26,299 --> 00:09:28,099
everybody should have a Bitcoin podcast.

173
00:09:29,554 --> 00:09:36,134
Yeah, so speaking of podcasts and video tutorials, like, how do you

174
00:09:36,644 --> 00:09:39,684
stay neutral in terms of the products?

175
00:09:39,714 --> 00:09:42,454
I mean, you must be getting offers from everyone here and there,

176
00:09:42,454 --> 00:09:44,724
like, can you promote this for me?

177
00:09:44,974 --> 00:09:46,004
Can you do that for me?

178
00:09:46,059 --> 00:09:46,569
yeah.

179
00:09:46,629 --> 00:09:46,929
Yeah.

180
00:09:46,929 --> 00:09:51,419
So, so there's, there's two aspects to it.

181
00:09:51,509 --> 00:09:56,709
Um, I mean, number one, obviously the, the only way that I can do this full-time

182
00:09:56,739 --> 00:09:59,679
is to like, have sponsors on the show.

183
00:10:00,129 --> 00:10:06,779
But the, the sponsors that I usually have, it's typically not them coming to me.

184
00:10:07,589 --> 00:10:11,689
Not to say there isn't people coming to me, but the ones that come to

185
00:10:11,689 --> 00:10:15,999
me typically are like shitcoin casinos and stuff like that.

186
00:10:15,999 --> 00:10:17,049
And saying it's a default.

187
00:10:17,059 --> 00:10:17,439
No.

188
00:10:17,889 --> 00:10:23,239
Um, but the sponsors that I tend to have typically it's me saying,

189
00:10:23,439 --> 00:10:25,369
Oh, I use this and it's great.

190
00:10:25,429 --> 00:10:29,919
And then I reach out to that entity and say, would you like to sponsor the show?

191
00:10:30,339 --> 00:10:39,004
But that comes with a caveat of no matter what, The whole point of the channel is

192
00:10:39,014 --> 00:10:44,584
to educate people how to use things, so I will be covering your competitors and

193
00:10:44,584 --> 00:10:46,104
teaching people how to use them as well.

194
00:10:46,464 --> 00:10:53,624
So, it's just, you gotta, and you gotta just be forthcoming with, like, the pros

195
00:10:53,624 --> 00:10:57,634
and cons of everything, and be realistic about how things work, and, yeah.

196
00:10:57,704 --> 00:10:58,214
yeah, yeah.

197
00:10:58,394 --> 00:10:59,484
Oh, can I have that water?

198
00:11:00,064 --> 00:11:00,414
Sorry.

199
00:11:00,724 --> 00:11:07,234
Uh, yeah, the, uh, this is a tricky thing, like, uh, especially for consumers,

200
00:11:07,234 --> 00:11:12,634
like, how can you trust the content you're consuming, like, uh, but I think,

201
00:11:12,654 --> 00:11:19,484
like, the, uh, the, um, the essence of that is that, uh, authenticity is the

202
00:11:19,484 --> 00:11:23,684
currency of the future, whoever said that, but, uh, but it's, it's such a great.

203
00:11:24,354 --> 00:11:26,274
Like your reputation is everything.

204
00:11:26,274 --> 00:11:31,884
If, if you, if you're discovered to be a sellout or if people discover you're a

205
00:11:31,884 --> 00:11:36,784
sellout, you're, you, you lose, or your sponsors too, at, at certain point, right.

206
00:11:36,784 --> 00:11:36,994
So,

207
00:11:37,304 --> 00:11:45,924
It's, it's, um, in, in, in, especially in Bitcoin, I, I feel like, um,

208
00:11:46,314 --> 00:11:50,484
Bitcoiners hold each other to a higher standard than, than fiat world does.

209
00:11:50,964 --> 00:11:57,594
Um, and, uh, Bitcoiners is, it's not so easy to forget, uh, somebody.

210
00:11:58,189 --> 00:12:02,399
Um, not, not that there, you can't, uh, redeem yourself when you make

211
00:12:02,399 --> 00:12:04,239
a mistake as long as you own it.

212
00:12:04,969 --> 00:12:08,589
Um, I think the worst thing that you can do is just double down

213
00:12:08,729 --> 00:12:11,889
instead of being like, uh, you know, fucked up kind of thing.

214
00:12:11,889 --> 00:12:12,759
So, yeah.

215
00:12:13,389 --> 00:12:16,419
No, exactly, and I mean, I was actually curious about this.

216
00:12:16,579 --> 00:12:20,019
Did you ever go to, like, when you're getting into Bitcoin,

217
00:12:20,059 --> 00:12:24,089
were you ever curious about some of the, well, checkcoins and

218
00:12:24,324 --> 00:12:30,924
Oh yeah, like, especially early on, because, um, there, there was no

219
00:12:32,004 --> 00:12:37,654
good resources, uh, that succinctly described the difference between

220
00:12:37,674 --> 00:12:39,144
Bitcoin and everything else.

221
00:12:39,194 --> 00:12:46,139
And so, It wasn't until, and I, I never really, like, when I had Bitcoin

222
00:12:46,149 --> 00:12:52,779
and I had other things, um, I spent most of my time learning about Bitcoin

223
00:12:52,779 --> 00:12:59,649
specifically, and then, you know, I heard little things about other shitcoins and,

224
00:12:59,929 --> 00:13:09,219
you know, but I, I never, Spent enough time, really, really, well, I won't say

225
00:13:09,219 --> 00:13:13,449
I never spent enough time, but like, I just, I never gained any conviction with

226
00:13:13,509 --> 00:13:18,729
any of the other ones, and to me it was always just like, was always considered

227
00:13:18,739 --> 00:13:20,979
gambling, if I had anything like that.

228
00:13:21,534 --> 00:13:30,154
And so it took working at an OTC desk in 2017, like a physical walk

229
00:13:30,154 --> 00:13:36,604
in with cash and buy Bitcoin or shitcoins to open my eyes to just

230
00:13:37,304 --> 00:13:40,334
how degenerate all of that stuff was.

231
00:13:40,624 --> 00:13:45,844
So like my experience at the peak of the 2017 bull run.

232
00:13:46,269 --> 00:13:50,649
Was being in a room probably about double the size, double

233
00:13:50,649 --> 00:13:52,039
or triple the size of this.

234
00:13:53,059 --> 00:14:02,989
Um, uh, we had three, three desks, uh, with money counters on them, and

235
00:14:03,169 --> 00:14:09,009
it was shoulder to shoulder people in, in this room, all standing with

236
00:14:09,019 --> 00:14:15,764
stacks of cash, Ready to buy whatever coin had gone up the most that day.

237
00:14:16,854 --> 00:14:21,204
And, and it was, it was like, yeah, Ripple hit 3.

238
00:14:21,204 --> 00:14:21,224
50.

239
00:14:21,224 --> 00:14:24,184
I'd love 10, 000 worth of Ripple, please.

240
00:14:24,554 --> 00:14:28,254
Uh, and, and it was, it was just that day after day after day.

241
00:14:28,654 --> 00:14:32,684
And people convinced that like, oh, this is the future.

242
00:14:32,694 --> 00:14:34,284
This is how it's gonna be.

243
00:14:34,829 --> 00:14:39,749
And after going through all that and seeing the ICO craze and everything,

244
00:14:39,789 --> 00:14:45,529
it, it, it just put such a bad taste in my mouth witnessing that and, and in

245
00:14:45,529 --> 00:14:50,149
a way being party to it, like working and, and being on the other side of the

246
00:14:50,149 --> 00:14:57,629
desk from that, that, uh, that and, and, um, discussions with and working with

247
00:14:57,629 --> 00:15:00,079
Francis Pouliot, uh, with BullBitcoin.

248
00:15:01,949 --> 00:15:06,069
He actually poached me from that company that I was at and, and it

249
00:15:06,069 --> 00:15:10,079
was a breath of fresh air to, to get somewhere and focus on Bitcoin.

250
00:15:10,099 --> 00:15:13,979
And so that, that was the, the, the formation of where I'm at now.

251
00:15:14,324 --> 00:15:17,834
In 2019, you were here with the bull Bitcoin

252
00:15:17,949 --> 00:15:18,309
was.

253
00:15:18,659 --> 00:15:19,189
Mm hmm.

254
00:15:19,274 --> 00:15:20,804
how, how many of you were here?

255
00:15:20,834 --> 00:15:22,124
Like, I, I can't remember.

256
00:15:22,124 --> 00:15:22,184
I

257
00:15:22,199 --> 00:15:23,179
was a lot of us.

258
00:15:23,219 --> 00:15:23,309
I

259
00:15:23,354 --> 00:15:24,254
15 or

260
00:15:24,589 --> 00:15:26,059
Yeah, there was, there was a lot.

261
00:15:26,329 --> 00:15:26,779
Yeah.

262
00:15:26,839 --> 00:15:27,199
Yeah.

263
00:15:27,199 --> 00:15:30,229
It was, it was like they brought all the, you know, a bunch of the

264
00:15:30,229 --> 00:15:34,489
Debs and uh, like Madex was here.

265
00:15:34,609 --> 00:15:34,669
Yeah.

266
00:15:34,669 --> 00:15:37,429
'cause he did the, he did the, the shirts and everything.

267
00:15:37,429 --> 00:15:37,430
Yeah.

268
00:15:37,435 --> 00:15:40,999
Francis, uh, yeah, Francis Dave, like, yeah.

269
00:15:40,999 --> 00:15:43,789
We were all out here and it was, it was a good time.

270
00:15:44,099 --> 00:15:48,429
Bull Bitcoin is definitely the most based exchange in the world, I think.

271
00:15:48,459 --> 00:15:52,479
Like, I mean, there's other great ones, but Bull Bitcoin is like

272
00:15:52,789 --> 00:15:55,839
think there are exchanges nowadays that are on par with them, but if you take the

273
00:15:55,839 --> 00:15:58,139
historical perspective, there is no second

274
00:15:58,359 --> 00:16:05,159
Yeah, well it was, it was such a departure for Francis to come out and be like, his

275
00:16:05,159 --> 00:16:11,529
announcement of what BullBitcoin was going to be and to, to say, we are actively

276
00:16:11,539 --> 00:16:18,979
Bitcoin only and, and the announcement, there, I remember people in the room as

277
00:16:18,979 --> 00:16:24,339
he announced it being like, Seriously, you guys are only doing Bitcoin.

278
00:16:24,339 --> 00:16:28,039
You're actively choosing not to do anything else.

279
00:16:28,789 --> 00:16:34,299
And, and, and then it w it seemed like a crazy move to a number of people that

280
00:16:34,299 --> 00:16:38,089
watched that announcement and it was the best thing that they could have done.

281
00:16:38,309 --> 00:16:38,909
Of course.

282
00:16:39,269 --> 00:16:43,589
I mean, I love that before and after picture of Francis, you know, when he's

283
00:16:43,589 --> 00:16:45,519
in his corporate suit and everything.

284
00:16:45,619 --> 00:16:50,349
The before picture and the second picture, it looks like something out of Commando or

285
00:16:50,439 --> 00:16:50,489
Yeah.

286
00:16:50,849 --> 00:16:52,079
Rolled out of the jungle.

287
00:16:52,919 --> 00:16:53,229
Yeah.

288
00:16:53,419 --> 00:16:54,099
No, it's great.

289
00:16:54,499 --> 00:16:57,049
Yeah, no, that was a formative time for sure.

290
00:17:57,399 --> 00:18:02,099
Yeah, and I mean, those were my first touch points with crypto, the 2017 run,

291
00:18:02,099 --> 00:18:07,109
and I mean, in the offices in Calgary, because I'm just starting my career, just

292
00:18:07,109 --> 00:18:12,649
out of school, and I'm working at an oil and gas company, and it's like, everyone's

293
00:18:12,649 --> 00:18:14,179
talking about Ethereum or Ripple,

294
00:18:14,304 --> 00:18:15,224
Yeah, yeah,

295
00:18:15,317 --> 00:18:19,317
and so that was the only thing that I got off my ass and went and bought a

296
00:18:19,317 --> 00:18:23,667
little bit for a little while with some Ethereum, and as soon as everything

297
00:18:23,667 --> 00:18:27,437
crashed in 2017, it's just like, I'm like, Yeah, I forgot about it for four

298
00:18:27,437 --> 00:18:29,017
years until things started to climb again.

299
00:18:29,017 --> 00:18:32,957
And so no, no regrets, like, uh, what ifs or anything like that.

300
00:18:32,957 --> 00:18:35,437
But, but yeah, that, that was, that was the culture at the time

301
00:18:35,437 --> 00:18:36,807
though, is, is, is what I'm saying.

302
00:18:36,807 --> 00:18:40,407
And, uh, and, and, and this, this was all like, I had no idea this

303
00:18:40,407 --> 00:18:44,737
was all going on around me, the, the Bitcoin community, uh, in, in Calgary.

304
00:18:44,747 --> 00:18:45,027
Right.

305
00:18:45,057 --> 00:18:47,017
And, and so this is, this is now where.

306
00:18:47,247 --> 00:18:51,517
You're active in building the community in, in Calgary, right?

307
00:18:52,172 --> 00:19:01,142
yeah, so, um, we're now kind of, you know, I've reached a point where, um, you

308
00:19:01,142 --> 00:19:07,292
know, it's, it's great using Bitcoin as a savings mechanism and all that, but, um,

309
00:19:08,282 --> 00:19:11,672
I think it was, it was late last year.

310
00:19:12,502 --> 00:19:18,082
Um, uh, there was, there was some announcement in and around like exchanges,

311
00:19:18,112 --> 00:19:21,702
basically sending out the warnings to everybody, like, Hey, if you, if you

312
00:19:21,722 --> 00:19:27,202
coin join and then send to the exchange, we'll have to like shut your account.

313
00:19:27,212 --> 00:19:31,162
Like you've got to at least add a hop and every, and, and people were.

314
00:19:31,432 --> 00:19:34,572
We're getting angry and almost like shooting the messenger, like, Oh,

315
00:19:34,572 --> 00:19:36,312
like, why don't you just not comply?

316
00:19:36,312 --> 00:19:38,492
And it's like, well, then the business doesn't exist.

317
00:19:38,492 --> 00:19:39,782
So I, like, I kind of get it.

318
00:19:40,132 --> 00:19:46,562
But at the end of the day, I got annoyed because people were, again,

319
00:19:46,562 --> 00:19:51,792
shooting the messenger rather than like just trying to do something about it.

320
00:19:52,332 --> 00:19:55,722
And, and so that kind of, uh, spurred me into.

321
00:19:56,762 --> 00:20:01,722
You know, recognizing that the only way around that is to actively

322
00:20:01,722 --> 00:20:04,862
use Bitcoin peer to peer, right?

323
00:20:04,862 --> 00:20:06,762
Like, not just save it.

324
00:20:06,762 --> 00:20:11,912
Cause like, if you're, um, if you're saving your Bitcoin and you're putting

325
00:20:11,912 --> 00:20:15,642
it away and everything, and then all of a sudden, every on and off

326
00:20:15,642 --> 00:20:20,447
ramp, it just Disappears overnight because of regulatory overreach.

327
00:20:21,007 --> 00:20:22,137
What the hell do you do?

328
00:20:22,187 --> 00:20:26,227
Like, yeah, you can find your, your, your peer to peer exchanges and stuff

329
00:20:26,227 --> 00:20:31,857
like that, but like, isn't it so much better if you can just know the place

330
00:20:31,857 --> 00:20:36,687
where you can get beef or, you know, your barber, if you, if you can just

331
00:20:36,987 --> 00:20:42,097
use your money for everything that you need and then also just save it.

332
00:20:42,882 --> 00:20:46,532
Like, isn't that a far better world than having to rely on somebody

333
00:20:46,542 --> 00:20:48,572
somewhere to exchange for a worse money?

334
00:20:49,282 --> 00:20:51,632
Are you familiar with Vexl?

335
00:20:51,652 --> 00:20:51,672
It

336
00:20:51,852 --> 00:20:52,442
Yes.

337
00:20:52,502 --> 00:20:53,142
Yes.

338
00:20:53,272 --> 00:20:54,812
looks really promising, I think.

339
00:20:55,332 --> 00:20:57,772
Yeah, uh, yeah, we had Grafton on.

340
00:20:58,602 --> 00:20:59,262
Weeks ago.

341
00:20:59,262 --> 00:21:01,722
And, uh, it, it's, it's great.

342
00:21:01,752 --> 00:21:06,312
I mean it's, most of the users are in Prague at the moment, but still, if we can

343
00:21:06,312 --> 00:21:12,432
get that going, it's like, I view it as VL being is to local Bitcoins what B2C pay

344
00:21:12,432 --> 00:21:16,242
server is to BitPay sort of, you, you're taking these centralized models and.

345
00:21:17,452 --> 00:21:21,042
You're making them peer to peer and more decentralized.

346
00:21:21,082 --> 00:21:26,162
It, it, yeah, it's needed, whatever the, I, I really like the idea of what Vexel's

347
00:21:26,172 --> 00:21:31,812
doing, again, like, it's, it's thin in my area for people listing stuff on there,

348
00:21:32,272 --> 00:21:38,282
um, but, again, at, at the end of the day, I think in, however we can do it

349
00:21:38,472 --> 00:21:44,462
to, to kind of build out, starting from the Bitcoiners themselves, ways to get,

350
00:21:44,512 --> 00:21:50,982
meet our daily needs, just using Bitcoin, like, I've, I've been, I've been basically

351
00:21:50,982 --> 00:21:53,192
living on a Bitcoin standard since 2020.

352
00:21:53,772 --> 00:21:58,332
Now, uh, 90 something percent of my income is all Bitcoin.

353
00:21:58,792 --> 00:22:06,622
Um, and I use it, like I, by default, don't have dollars beyond, like,

354
00:22:06,702 --> 00:22:10,582
exactly what needs to come out of a bank account each month for some specific

355
00:22:10,582 --> 00:22:12,752
payments that I can't do externally.

356
00:22:13,612 --> 00:22:18,752
So what is your reaction when people say that Bitcoin isn't money?

357
00:22:18,752 --> 00:22:25,682
Yeah.

358
00:22:25,682 --> 00:22:26,002
now.

359
00:22:26,002 --> 00:22:28,252
So you can say it, but you're fucking wrong.

360
00:22:29,592 --> 00:22:33,002
That's, that's, I mean, yeah, I don't know.

361
00:22:33,022 --> 00:22:39,802
I just, I, it's puzzling when somebody says that to me because my entire life

362
00:22:39,812 --> 00:22:42,372
is a refutation of that statement.

363
00:22:42,372 --> 00:22:44,742
Like,

364
00:22:44,832 --> 00:22:45,792
that's a clip right

365
00:22:46,027 --> 00:22:46,377
Yeah.

366
00:22:46,976 --> 00:22:48,482
Hahaha.

367
00:22:48,677 --> 00:22:48,807
it.

368
00:22:48,807 --> 00:22:49,937
That's, that's fantastic.

369
00:22:49,937 --> 00:22:54,087
And I mean, from, from my perspective, I had no idea any of this stuff existed.

370
00:22:54,087 --> 00:22:58,147
I literally got into Bitcoin as I was leaving Canada and I haven't, I haven't

371
00:22:58,147 --> 00:23:00,287
been back to Calgary in three years now.

372
00:23:00,287 --> 00:23:03,277
And so I I'm super looking forward to next, next summer.

373
00:23:03,712 --> 00:23:07,382
I'll make it to your sats market and the Bitcoin rodeo and everything.

374
00:23:07,452 --> 00:23:09,242
So can you tell us a little bit about the sats market

375
00:23:09,302 --> 00:23:13,892
Yeah, so, so, I guess I, I kinda went off the rails when I was about to dive

376
00:23:13,892 --> 00:23:20,412
into that, but that, that, that knee jerk of me getting angry that people weren't

377
00:23:20,412 --> 00:23:24,702
doing anything about it, that spurred me into doing the first sat market, and so,

378
00:23:25,312 --> 00:23:29,932
So I was like, guys, the only way around this is to just start using Bitcoin.

379
00:23:30,182 --> 00:23:35,162
And so I, I, I put out the word online and said like, let's, let's do this

380
00:23:35,182 --> 00:23:37,692
in three weeks, let's do a market.

381
00:23:38,152 --> 00:23:42,132
And we got 35 merchants together in that period of time, put on a

382
00:23:42,132 --> 00:23:44,072
big, a, a, like a Christmas market.

383
00:23:44,422 --> 00:23:45,992
And it was great.

384
00:23:46,002 --> 00:23:51,452
It was this, I was surprised how many people got together and made that happen.

385
00:23:51,492 --> 00:23:53,052
And so now we've done three of them.

386
00:23:53,567 --> 00:23:58,087
Um, we did a spring one as kind of like a dry run, uh, to prep for the

387
00:23:58,097 --> 00:24:00,087
Bitcoin rodeo one that we did in July.

388
00:24:00,567 --> 00:24:05,287
Um, but now I think we're going to do two per year and, and then, so

389
00:24:05,287 --> 00:24:06,967
that it's kind of more of an event.

390
00:24:07,377 --> 00:24:14,347
Uh, but then we want to actually form relationships with each other so that,

391
00:24:14,387 --> 00:24:17,617
you know, you don't need the market to get the things that you want.

392
00:24:17,617 --> 00:24:20,827
So like, you know, my kid shoved something in the toilet,

393
00:24:20,857 --> 00:24:22,247
I called the Bitcoin plumber.

394
00:24:22,527 --> 00:24:27,027
And he came and I paid him in sats for sorting out my shit coin problem.

395
00:24:27,637 --> 00:24:35,927
So, but like, and, and I think a big part of the market was, yes, it's great

396
00:24:35,927 --> 00:24:39,677
having, you know, like Bitcoin related merch and goodies and stuff like that.

397
00:24:39,677 --> 00:24:42,387
But like, It shouldn't be all that.

398
00:24:42,887 --> 00:24:45,957
It needs to be stuff that people actually need.

399
00:24:45,957 --> 00:24:51,137
So we have local farmers come in, um, and you know, they've got beef

400
00:24:51,137 --> 00:24:52,787
and eggs and chickens and all that.

401
00:24:52,937 --> 00:24:57,257
We have a lot of tradesmen, like roofers, people doing flooring, people

402
00:24:57,257 --> 00:24:58,637
doing all kinds of different stuff.

403
00:24:59,107 --> 00:25:03,817
Um, you know, we even have like, uh, backcountry camping tour guides.

404
00:25:03,817 --> 00:25:08,147
We've got a guy who, uh, one of the services he's offering is

405
00:25:08,147 --> 00:25:09,967
teaching people how to homestead.

406
00:25:10,657 --> 00:25:14,697
Um, so like there's, there's a wide variety, there's a children's author,

407
00:25:14,697 --> 00:25:16,617
there's a whole bunch of different stuff.

408
00:25:16,987 --> 00:25:20,897
Um, and it's a very eclectic mix of a lot of different things.

409
00:25:21,367 --> 00:25:27,527
Uh, but also like the useful, like, oh, I need food, you know, I need my haircut.

410
00:25:27,722 --> 00:25:33,332
so, uh, do you expect, I mean, if you look up government overreach during the

411
00:25:33,332 --> 00:25:37,852
early 2020s in the dictionary, you'll get a picture of a Castro's bastard doing,

412
00:25:38,982 --> 00:25:44,432
so, so do you expect, do you expect some kind of clamp down or like problems with

413
00:25:44,432 --> 00:25:46,812
this from a government side in Canada?

414
00:25:47,307 --> 00:25:54,617
Well, the, the nice thing about it is that it's the hardest thing to prevent

415
00:25:54,757 --> 00:25:57,607
when I know the guy I get my eggs from.

416
00:25:58,177 --> 00:25:59,707
When, you know, what are you going to say?

417
00:25:59,717 --> 00:26:01,977
You, you guys can't be friends anymore.

418
00:26:02,362 --> 00:26:03,232
Go fuck yourself.

419
00:26:03,322 --> 00:26:09,042
Like it's that's yeah, like if I happen to go visit my buddy at his house And

420
00:26:09,042 --> 00:26:12,782
he happens to give me some eggs, and I happen to slip and scan a QR code

421
00:26:13,012 --> 00:26:15,992
then then like I was to stop that

422
00:26:18,152 --> 00:26:22,062
Yeah Yeah Yeah,

423
00:26:22,232 --> 00:26:24,242
would go, because, yeah.

424
00:26:24,292 --> 00:26:26,742
Well, I mean, some calibration on this as well.

425
00:26:26,772 --> 00:26:30,602
I think for people who aren't familiar with how Canada is basically,

426
00:26:30,602 --> 00:26:35,992
Alberta and Calgary is like the heart of freedom country in Canada.

427
00:26:36,182 --> 00:26:40,642
Quebec is also a little bit, it's got its own flavor of that essentially, but

428
00:26:40,972 --> 00:26:44,782
Alberta has been going through some really interesting times in the last decade.

429
00:26:45,852 --> 00:26:53,042
we um so as It's very different from the US in that the individual states have so

430
00:26:53,042 --> 00:26:57,682
much more, you know, free reign to kind of set things how they like, and then you

431
00:26:57,682 --> 00:27:00,432
can freely move around between states.

432
00:27:00,432 --> 00:27:05,782
But in Canada, the federal government has a lot more power over each

433
00:27:05,782 --> 00:27:10,702
individual province than I would like.

434
00:27:10,712 --> 00:27:15,572
But Alberta, as of late, has been really pushing back against federal

435
00:27:15,582 --> 00:27:22,122
overreach, in particular, and around Uh, uh, energy, in and around, um,

436
00:27:22,282 --> 00:27:25,562
health, in and around, uh, uh, education.

437
00:27:26,102 --> 00:27:31,202
And so there's been all of these things that have kind of culminated in, uh,

438
00:27:31,212 --> 00:27:37,697
we created the Alberta Sovereignty Act, uh, which Gives us a conduit

439
00:27:37,707 --> 00:27:43,097
to any time the federal government tries to do something where they're

440
00:27:43,097 --> 00:27:47,897
stepping out of their wheelhouse, we basically can now refer to that and

441
00:27:47,897 --> 00:27:49,917
flip them the bird and say, tough.

442
00:27:50,507 --> 00:27:56,797
We saw that province next to us, Saskatchewan, when they tried to

443
00:27:56,797 --> 00:28:00,177
impose a carbon tax, the entire province, the government just

444
00:28:00,177 --> 00:28:01,347
said, we're not collecting it.

445
00:28:03,417 --> 00:28:08,832
And so like, you're starting to see, and it's very interesting because um, The

446
00:28:08,832 --> 00:28:16,192
sovereign individual, the book, when they were discussing, uh, the idea of, of local

447
00:28:16,202 --> 00:28:21,082
governance and like the breakdown of, of larger nation states, when they were

448
00:28:21,082 --> 00:28:29,292
talking about Canada, it was written in the 90s when Quebec was voting whether

449
00:28:29,292 --> 00:28:31,152
it wanted to remain part of Canada.

450
00:28:31,432 --> 00:28:35,342
And so one would have assumed at the time they, they would have said Quebec will

451
00:28:35,342 --> 00:28:37,742
be the first to, to separate from Canada.

452
00:28:38,292 --> 00:28:44,422
But they said no, it's more likely to be Alberta because it's so energy heavy.

453
00:28:44,837 --> 00:28:50,297
And, and we get kind of screwed by the rest of Canada, so we, there's a, uh,

454
00:28:50,307 --> 00:28:57,967
what's known as equalization payments, and so, you know, if we produce and, and have

455
00:28:57,967 --> 00:29:05,047
a lot of industry, rather than using that as a mechanism to incentivize people to

456
00:29:05,617 --> 00:29:11,287
to move away from areas where industry may not justify so many people living towards

457
00:29:11,287 --> 00:29:14,027
where the good jobs and the resources are.

458
00:29:14,607 --> 00:29:17,707
Instead, they just say, Oh, you guys are doing pretty well.

459
00:29:17,707 --> 00:29:20,827
We're going to take, uh, however many billions of dollars of that, and

460
00:29:20,827 --> 00:29:22,147
we're going to pepper it over here.

461
00:29:22,657 --> 00:29:22,957
Yeah.

462
00:29:22,997 --> 00:29:28,877
when you look at say Quebec versus Alberta, Alberta, um,

463
00:29:28,917 --> 00:29:30,452
I can't remember what this is.

464
00:29:30,842 --> 00:29:35,962
Very recently, in the past few years, um, there was a year where I think Alberta

465
00:29:35,962 --> 00:29:42,992
paid 10 billion dollars in equalization payments, and, uh, Quebec received 11.

466
00:29:42,992 --> 00:29:50,272
And, and, and so basically we just gave Quebec all the money, and

467
00:29:50,272 --> 00:29:52,132
that's like 40 percent of their GDP.

468
00:29:52,297 --> 00:29:53,827
yeah, it's socialism.

469
00:29:53,887 --> 00:29:55,327
That's how socialism works.

470
00:29:55,327 --> 00:30:00,447
And it, it's, it, what, what was the Margaret Margaret Thatcher quote?

471
00:30:00,567 --> 00:30:03,297
The problem with socialism is that eventually you'll run

472
00:30:03,297 --> 00:30:04,527
out of other people's money.

473
00:30:04,567 --> 00:30:04,837
Yeah.

474
00:30:05,427 --> 00:30:05,647
Yeah.

475
00:30:05,987 --> 00:30:06,437
Yeah.

476
00:30:06,497 --> 00:30:11,137
And, and so, but I mean, what would have happened if that wasn't in place

477
00:30:11,167 --> 00:30:18,647
is there wouldn't be as many jobs in, in Quebec and a number of people might have

478
00:30:18,647 --> 00:30:20,337
said, Oh, there's more jobs over here.

479
00:30:20,337 --> 00:30:22,987
We're going to move to where the industry is.

480
00:30:23,157 --> 00:30:23,397
Yeah.

481
00:30:24,537 --> 00:30:25,167
Free market.

482
00:30:25,197 --> 00:30:26,037
It's natural.

483
00:30:26,037 --> 00:30:29,997
It's what happens when you leave things be and let people co, uh, cooperate

484
00:30:30,057 --> 00:30:32,037
and collaborate the way they want.

485
00:30:32,042 --> 00:30:32,102
Yeah.

486
00:30:32,102 --> 00:30:32,342
Yeah.

487
00:30:32,542 --> 00:30:36,972
but instead we're incentivizing people to stay put where it's not

488
00:30:36,972 --> 00:30:38,792
as efficient for them to be there.

489
00:30:39,492 --> 00:30:43,342
Well, and I mean, the other thing, not just the equalization, right, is, is

490
00:30:43,342 --> 00:30:49,052
that the energy is literally locked, landlocked in Alberta, and to get the,

491
00:30:49,112 --> 00:30:54,132
to get the oil to market, it's, you have to take it to a coast, that's,

492
00:30:54,142 --> 00:30:58,022
that's, that's how this stuff gets, gets sold, and there's just been fights

493
00:30:58,232 --> 00:31:03,932
over building pipelines within Canada or into the United States, the, um, Barack

494
00:31:03,932 --> 00:31:08,332
Obama cancelled the Keystone pipeline, the Keystone XL pipeline the first time,

495
00:31:08,657 --> 00:31:12,897
Then Trump re approved it, and then Biden finally cancelled it, and I think

496
00:31:12,897 --> 00:31:14,187
they're actually giving up on it now.

497
00:31:14,187 --> 00:31:18,057
But even within Canada, that's the problem, is that, is that Quebec,

498
00:31:18,347 --> 00:31:22,097
who gets all of this money from Alberta, says they will not let a

499
00:31:22,097 --> 00:31:23,587
pipeline through their province.

500
00:31:24,772 --> 00:31:27,202
yeah, it's, uh, there's a section about this in the book.

501
00:31:27,925 --> 00:31:33,289
yeah.

502
00:31:33,289 --> 00:31:38,652
Yeah,

503
00:31:38,757 --> 00:31:40,017
yeah,

504
00:31:40,097 --> 00:31:43,247
your feeling on just the political situation in general

505
00:31:43,277 --> 00:31:46,137
in Alberta and Canada as a whole?

506
00:31:46,892 --> 00:31:49,232
We're in this messed up situation.

507
00:31:49,812 --> 00:31:58,182
it's, it's interesting because I don't put Too much or really any trust in

508
00:31:58,192 --> 00:32:05,832
politicians, but you know, you see the political pendulum making it's it's you

509
00:32:05,832 --> 00:32:09,902
know I feel like it already peaked to one side and it's about to swing back

510
00:32:09,912 --> 00:32:15,222
and they'll be that that degree of What seems like normalcy for a while and then

511
00:32:15,222 --> 00:32:20,002
it'll swing too far the other direction again and so like it's it's odd because

512
00:32:20,002 --> 00:32:27,207
in the 90s growing up I felt as if These damn conservatives are gonna censor

513
00:32:27,207 --> 00:32:32,177
everything and, you know, it was always like, Oh, we need to take this off TV and

514
00:32:32,177 --> 00:32:37,737
off the radio and we don't want anybody to see this and and my In my head, I was

515
00:32:37,737 --> 00:32:39,387
always like, well, just don't watch it.

516
00:32:39,387 --> 00:32:40,157
Don't listen to it.

517
00:32:40,157 --> 00:32:43,072
If you don't like Like, why are you telling others what

518
00:32:43,082 --> 00:32:45,412
they can or can't do or watch?

519
00:32:45,872 --> 00:32:50,652
And so I always grew up thinking that's where the pressure's gonna come from.

520
00:32:50,952 --> 00:32:56,382
But as that, that political pendulum swung to the left, it doesn't

521
00:32:56,382 --> 00:33:00,862
matter who's in power, it's just what are they censoring, right?

522
00:33:00,892 --> 00:33:09,247
And so I, I, you know, I I think I leaned left, politically speaking, early in my

523
00:33:09,247 --> 00:33:11,417
life because it was just like a knee jerk.

524
00:33:12,102 --> 00:33:17,402
Against whatever, whoever was telling me not to do things, and so I felt

525
00:33:17,412 --> 00:33:23,842
like I swung left, and then it got to a point where I was just insufferable,

526
00:33:24,482 --> 00:33:31,822
like, active, like, actively, uh, just, just trumpeting whatever the

527
00:33:31,892 --> 00:33:39,142
leftist politicians would say, um, and it wasn't until I Uh, a friend

528
00:33:39,142 --> 00:33:43,192
of mine actually said to me, I asked him about the election when, when

529
00:33:43,192 --> 00:33:50,442
Trudeau got elected for the first time, which I voted for, um, yeah, and,

530
00:33:51,782 --> 00:33:52,402
Sorry.

531
00:33:52,522 --> 00:33:54,452
yeah, and, yeah.

532
00:33:54,902 --> 00:34:03,332
The thing that opened my eyes to how insane I had gotten was, um, uh, a friend

533
00:34:03,332 --> 00:34:09,572
of mine that I would have assumed for like the, who he was and kind of his lifestyle

534
00:34:09,572 --> 00:34:15,162
and everything like that would have, uh, definitely been voting for Trudeau.

535
00:34:15,602 --> 00:34:17,812
So I asked him what he thought of the election.

536
00:34:17,962 --> 00:34:23,382
And he, he said, you made me vote conservative.

537
00:34:24,842 --> 00:34:30,997
And I was like, I had to, I, I stepped away from that conversation and took a

538
00:34:30,997 --> 00:34:36,947
long hard look in the mirror and realized like the, the person that I thought I

539
00:34:36,947 --> 00:34:42,497
was helping by voting this way voted the opposite because I was such a loud mouth.

540
00:34:43,527 --> 00:34:48,747
And, and, and, and what I ended up doing is I started searching for the exact

541
00:34:48,757 --> 00:34:51,897
opposite of what I would have searched for on like YouTube and all that.

542
00:34:52,407 --> 00:34:59,987
And it was my first peek into how bad the algorithms get you.

543
00:35:00,487 --> 00:35:04,437
And because all of a sudden I was getting served inside of a couple

544
00:35:04,437 --> 00:35:09,737
of weeks, I was getting served the polar opposite end of the spectrum and

545
00:35:09,737 --> 00:35:12,267
nothing but that, and like rage bait.

546
00:35:13,042 --> 00:35:16,857
Like here, here's why the, the leftists are like it.

547
00:35:16,862 --> 00:35:20,122
It was start and it, and so it made me realize like.

548
00:35:20,972 --> 00:35:24,632
There's, there's no winner in that scenario.

549
00:35:24,917 --> 00:35:29,677
it's so funny that they use the word pendulum because that's one of the

550
00:35:29,687 --> 00:35:31,257
chapter names from the new book.

551
00:35:31,587 --> 00:35:36,727
And we describe exactly that process of left and right, but also how this dynamic

552
00:35:36,727 --> 00:35:39,397
happens in smaller communities as well.

553
00:35:39,417 --> 00:35:46,577
And the danger we see in the Bitcoin community here is that, uh, I've noticed

554
00:35:46,577 --> 00:35:51,237
this effect that when, when Whenever people discover Bitcoin and realize

555
00:35:51,267 --> 00:35:52,967
that the government is lying to them.

556
00:35:53,397 --> 00:35:57,217
The lazy thing to do is just to buy the opposite narrative and buy into

557
00:35:57,217 --> 00:36:01,377
all the conspiracy theories, and all of a sudden Alex Jones is not a liar,

558
00:36:01,377 --> 00:36:07,117
but the, the, you know, so, so, uh, um, so, so, have you noticed that too,

559
00:36:07,117 --> 00:36:10,327
and like, do you see, are you worried about the Bitcoin community, that we're

560
00:36:10,327 --> 00:36:14,037
getting sloppy, buying into stuff?

561
00:36:14,332 --> 00:36:23,492
Yeah, I think it's inevitable that people have that reaction in that we're at that

562
00:36:23,492 --> 00:36:30,232
point in time where people are deeply distrustful of every single institution.

563
00:36:30,302 --> 00:36:32,992
And I think it's exactly what you're saying, is that the knee

564
00:36:32,992 --> 00:36:37,432
jerk reaction is, so everything's a conspiracy, or everything's a scam.

565
00:36:37,432 --> 00:36:37,567
Mm hmm.

566
00:36:39,427 --> 00:36:42,587
And, you know, kudos to the people that are a little bit

567
00:36:42,587 --> 00:36:44,437
more nuanced with the thinking.

568
00:36:44,447 --> 00:36:46,117
I can fall into that trap too.

569
00:36:46,167 --> 00:36:51,147
And, and it's, I think it's also, um, to, I guess to go back to one

570
00:36:51,147 --> 00:36:57,377
of the other formative moments in, in Bitcoin for me was, uh, as

571
00:36:57,377 --> 00:36:59,767
I first started getting involved.

572
00:37:00,337 --> 00:37:01,537
Seeing the coverage of Mt.

573
00:37:01,537 --> 00:37:08,057
Gox, um, on the news because I had, I, I still knew very, very

574
00:37:08,057 --> 00:37:09,637
little about Bitcoin at that point.

575
00:37:09,637 --> 00:37:13,487
I had just started learning, but even with, you know, a month or

576
00:37:13,487 --> 00:37:18,877
two of reading, I knew that all of the reporting was completely wrong.

577
00:37:19,342 --> 00:37:21,432
where they were saying Bitcoin got hacked.

578
00:37:21,762 --> 00:37:24,782
And I knew, I knew it was just a bad company, lost people's money.

579
00:37:25,072 --> 00:37:31,072
And, but to see every news outlet report it the same and all be wrong,

580
00:37:31,342 --> 00:37:38,452
and know that I've done effectively the minimal viable, minimal viable research,

581
00:37:38,482 --> 00:37:40,312
and I know that you're incorrect.

582
00:37:40,532 --> 00:37:45,062
It made me step back and say, well, God, like, what if, what if other

583
00:37:45,062 --> 00:37:48,272
things that I know even less about are being reported incorrectly?

584
00:37:48,332 --> 00:37:52,682
I know exactly what, what I reacted to the most, like, uh, is, and that still

585
00:37:52,682 --> 00:37:58,532
goes on today, that they describe Bitcoin ma mining as solving this super complex

586
00:37:58,772 --> 00:37:59,452
Yes.

587
00:37:59,582 --> 00:37:59,672
Yes.

588
00:37:59,672 --> 00:38:01,892
When it's really just guessing a number over and over again.

589
00:38:02,102 --> 00:38:07,322
So, so it's, it's so it's portrayed as something that's absolutely isn't

590
00:38:07,352 --> 00:38:07,612
Yeah.

591
00:38:07,612 --> 00:38:11,532
It's, it's, it's blindly throwing a dart at a dart board somewhere.

592
00:38:11,757 --> 00:38:16,057
and I had experiences with this earlier on where, you know, being

593
00:38:16,067 --> 00:38:22,437
interviewed for smaller things and just reading the interview afterwards

594
00:38:22,437 --> 00:38:23,917
and seeing how much they got wrong.

595
00:38:23,967 --> 00:38:27,007
And this is so often everything.

596
00:38:27,027 --> 00:38:27,297
Yeah.

597
00:38:28,067 --> 00:38:28,237
Yeah.

598
00:38:28,877 --> 00:38:29,157
Yeah.

599
00:38:29,157 --> 00:38:33,527
Cause I mean, there's, there's, there's people in society that are tasked with

600
00:38:33,527 --> 00:38:38,457
trying to distill information and present it in a friendly public facing manner.

601
00:38:38,897 --> 00:38:45,462
And, uh, uh, when, when you're trying to do that, It's, it's difficult to

602
00:38:45,472 --> 00:38:53,482
do that accurately and also in an entertaining way that, that drives clicks

603
00:38:53,512 --> 00:38:55,142
and views and all that kind of stuff.

604
00:38:55,172 --> 00:39:00,972
And, and so I think a lot of people by default just use some of those

605
00:39:00,992 --> 00:39:05,832
bad habits and, you know, go for the, go for the clicks, I suppose.

606
00:39:56,656 --> 00:40:01,206
Well, and how do you feel about an antidote to this in Nostr,

607
00:40:01,246 --> 00:40:02,596
decentralizing communication?

608
00:40:03,516 --> 00:40:06,366
Yeah, I mean, I, I think.

609
00:40:07,658 --> 00:40:14,058
With this, it, it, it definitely puts us in the right direction in that,

610
00:40:14,428 --> 00:40:21,258
you know, previously, the way, uh, we've seen dissenting opinions dealt

611
00:40:21,258 --> 00:40:22,828
with is just shutting them down.

612
00:40:23,378 --> 00:40:28,958
Um, you know, now, I, I still very much think that the entire world is,

613
00:40:28,998 --> 00:40:32,628
is, has not yet grappled with the fact that you can instantly communicate with

614
00:40:32,648 --> 00:40:36,828
anybody, anywhere, and get a megaphone to tell the world whatever you think.

615
00:40:37,313 --> 00:40:41,973
Um, and people are, have not been great at learning how to distill

616
00:40:41,973 --> 00:40:48,293
information and decide if it's, if the information is right and true.

617
00:40:48,803 --> 00:40:54,743
Um, we're, we're still as a species not great at that, and I, but I think

618
00:40:55,363 --> 00:41:04,023
having Absolute censorship resistance puts us towards that because then the

619
00:41:04,033 --> 00:41:09,013
only tool you have to fight against bad information is better information.

620
00:41:09,478 --> 00:41:14,978
And so people need to stop being babysat and actually be forced into a

621
00:41:14,978 --> 00:41:18,968
space where they, they have to distill information and think critically.

622
00:41:19,538 --> 00:41:26,518
Um, and that's a muscle that most people haven't exercised and even

623
00:41:26,518 --> 00:41:31,418
myself, uh, at times just, you know, it's, it's easy to go the lazy way.

624
00:41:31,878 --> 00:41:32,498
Um.

625
00:41:32,893 --> 00:41:36,733
But I think, I think, yeah, with something like Nostr where, you know,

626
00:41:36,733 --> 00:41:39,273
you can, you can say whatever you want.

627
00:41:39,803 --> 00:41:42,413
Nobody, you can't remove it afterwards.

628
00:41:42,413 --> 00:41:44,343
Nobody can remove it afterwards.

629
00:41:44,973 --> 00:41:50,683
Um, it forces, it forces hard conversations to be had rather

630
00:41:50,683 --> 00:41:52,143
than trying to silence them.

631
00:41:52,143 --> 00:41:58,923
So I think it's, it's a slow process and it's not gonna happen anytime soon.

632
00:41:59,263 --> 00:42:03,943
But it gets us stepping in the right direction.

633
00:42:04,328 --> 00:42:09,748
I mean, I think communication is the thing that elevates us from

634
00:42:09,878 --> 00:42:12,368
barbarism to civilization, really.

635
00:42:12,618 --> 00:42:16,718
Because if you go down to first principles and what this is all about,

636
00:42:16,728 --> 00:42:20,078
it's like humans have two ways of resolving conflict, and the one is

637
00:42:20,078 --> 00:42:22,703
violence, And the other is communication.

638
00:42:22,943 --> 00:42:27,643
You agree and you argue and you come up with a solution.

639
00:42:28,113 --> 00:42:32,023
And the latter is obviously preferable to the former,

640
00:42:32,373 --> 00:42:33,883
because we don't want violence.

641
00:42:34,453 --> 00:42:40,853
So, uh, and seeing things that way makes everything so much clearer, um, uh, you

642
00:42:40,853 --> 00:42:45,673
realize that like, I, I believe that even without the internet communication

643
00:42:45,673 --> 00:42:49,923
would have won out in the long run, because it's more efficient than violence.

644
00:42:49,923 --> 00:42:51,083
Violence is costly.

645
00:42:51,553 --> 00:42:57,183
Uh, so, uh, and it did sort of like there were fewer wars, uh, like

646
00:42:57,183 --> 00:43:02,043
in, uh, Early 90s when the internet wasn't a thing than ever before.

647
00:43:02,093 --> 00:43:04,203
So like, fewer people were killed in wars.

648
00:43:04,513 --> 00:43:07,273
So the internet has just sped up the process.

649
00:43:07,593 --> 00:43:13,643
And right now you can communicate with anyone in the entire world at an instant.

650
00:43:13,673 --> 00:43:17,503
And it's not only text, it's video, like without a lag.

651
00:43:18,093 --> 00:43:23,243
And on top of that you have bitcoin, which is, no it's not on top of that, it's part

652
00:43:23,243 --> 00:43:25,193
of that, because it is communication.

653
00:43:25,213 --> 00:43:28,373
What bitcoin pointed out was that money doesn't have to be

654
00:43:28,383 --> 00:43:29,913
anything but communication.

655
00:43:30,453 --> 00:43:36,023
So you get all this, that's why I'm so, That's why I'm bullish, why I'm so

656
00:43:36,083 --> 00:43:42,373
extremely optimistic about it, because it is the cure all, in that sense, because

657
00:43:42,373 --> 00:43:49,013
it's so damn powerful, so, so what was, so Ben Sessions, why are you bullish?

658
00:43:51,983 --> 00:43:52,683
Why are you bullish?

659
00:43:53,788 --> 00:43:54,768
am I bullish?

660
00:43:54,828 --> 00:43:55,828
Um,

661
00:43:58,218 --> 00:44:04,568
in this moment, I, I, I think I'm most bullish because people haven't

662
00:44:04,568 --> 00:44:09,618
stopped building and they're, and they're doing so at such a breakneck

663
00:44:09,678 --> 00:44:15,418
pace that I guess alluding to earlier in the conversation, how that list of

664
00:44:15,428 --> 00:44:19,248
things for me to teach people about is growing faster than I can teach it.

665
00:44:19,968 --> 00:44:28,798
And, and that's a great place to be in, given that when I started, the most common

666
00:44:28,798 --> 00:44:33,518
question I got from people hearing, Oh, you're doing a Bitcoin tutorial channel.

667
00:44:33,848 --> 00:44:36,008
I mean, you're going to run out of stuff to do, aren't you?

668
00:44:36,528 --> 00:44:38,248
And it's the exact opposite.

669
00:44:38,588 --> 00:44:45,638
Um, and so I, when there's that much of a brain drain and, and

670
00:44:45,648 --> 00:44:51,018
there's so many people Interested in somehow being involved and

671
00:44:51,018 --> 00:44:58,018
contributing and, and, and seeing this as the seismic shift that it is.

672
00:44:58,428 --> 00:45:00,818
Um, how can you not be bullish about that?

673
00:45:00,818 --> 00:45:05,888
I mean, even like, so I, I, um, we, we started a company a few

674
00:45:05,888 --> 00:45:07,428
months ago called Bitcoin Mentor.

675
00:45:07,768 --> 00:45:12,058
Um, again, like, Educators, one on ones and all that.

676
00:45:12,448 --> 00:45:15,928
But we put out the word that we were looking for people that

677
00:45:15,928 --> 00:45:17,388
wanted to be Bitcoin educators.

678
00:45:17,388 --> 00:45:19,758
We had 350 applicants.

679
00:45:20,298 --> 00:45:21,548
Isn't that insane?

680
00:45:21,703 --> 00:45:22,193
It's amazing.

681
00:45:22,253 --> 00:45:22,733
Yeah,

682
00:45:22,758 --> 00:45:23,828
crazy.

683
00:45:23,948 --> 00:45:29,928
Obviously we couldn't take all 350, but you know, we built a solid team from

684
00:45:29,928 --> 00:45:33,168
the people that were there and there was some really talented people there.

685
00:45:33,188 --> 00:45:33,508
So.

686
00:45:33,613 --> 00:45:35,353
So can you talk us through what this is?

687
00:45:35,353 --> 00:45:36,483
What, what is the, the Bitcoin?

688
00:45:36,713 --> 00:45:38,623
It's the Bitcoin Mentors.

689
00:45:38,623 --> 00:45:38,723
Is

690
00:45:38,753 --> 00:45:40,093
Yeah, uh, Bitcoin Mentor.

691
00:45:40,233 --> 00:45:40,543
Yeah.

692
00:45:40,743 --> 00:45:41,083
Yeah.

693
00:45:41,533 --> 00:45:41,953
Yeah.

694
00:45:42,333 --> 00:45:49,508
Um, so I, I, uh, have previously for a number of years done, Private one

695
00:45:49,508 --> 00:45:54,138
on ones with people, typically, you know, Zoom or whatever, video call.

696
00:45:54,598 --> 00:46:01,118
Um, and so those were usually people that had gone to the free

697
00:46:01,118 --> 00:46:06,778
tutorials on YouTube, but they need a little bit of extra hand holding.

698
00:46:06,788 --> 00:46:12,188
Maybe, like, it's either just their confidence in doing it themselves,

699
00:46:12,188 --> 00:46:14,548
and they just want somebody to kind of walk them through it the first

700
00:46:14,548 --> 00:46:20,923
time, or Maybe they hit a snag and like the, I didn't cover it as in

701
00:46:20,923 --> 00:46:25,153
depth as I should have or, or it's just there's a lot of moving parts.

702
00:46:26,473 --> 00:46:33,363
And so, I got to the point where I was so busy with these sessions, these

703
00:46:33,363 --> 00:46:38,093
one on ones, that I wasn't having time to make the tutorials anymore.

704
00:46:38,633 --> 00:46:43,053
And, you know, I can't not have that.

705
00:46:43,103 --> 00:46:47,943
You know, that's like, it's such an important thing to have the

706
00:46:47,943 --> 00:46:49,633
free resource out there as well.

707
00:46:50,053 --> 00:46:57,483
So, um, I, I met, uh, my co founder now, Mike, um, and, uh, we just kind

708
00:46:57,483 --> 00:47:02,713
of formulated an idea of, of building a team and, and, um, yeah, so it's

709
00:47:02,713 --> 00:47:07,973
basically for anybody that's either like brand new and is just trying to

710
00:47:07,983 --> 00:47:12,973
wrap their head around, you know, key management or hardware or whatever, or

711
00:47:13,143 --> 00:47:18,343
for the, you know, What I would refer to as the Bitcoin luddites, the ones

712
00:47:18,343 --> 00:47:22,903
that have, and this isn't at all a dig because this happens to everybody, but.

713
00:47:23,768 --> 00:47:27,548
Where you come in, you learn the few things you're comfortable with, and

714
00:47:27,548 --> 00:47:31,508
then you stand still for a long time and you begin, begin wondering like,

715
00:47:31,598 --> 00:47:36,278
is my setup still as good as I thought it was when I originally did it?

716
00:47:36,518 --> 00:47:38,318
Should I add to it?

717
00:47:38,318 --> 00:47:39,698
Should I learn something new?

718
00:47:39,698 --> 00:47:42,278
Or I just wanna level up and learn some new things?

719
00:47:42,278 --> 00:47:44,468
'cause I feel like I haven't done that in a while.

720
00:47:44,768 --> 00:47:47,378
We get a lot of people coming in like that, being like.

721
00:47:48,183 --> 00:47:52,973
Yo, I, I don't know, I got a ledger like five years ago and I set it up

722
00:47:52,973 --> 00:47:54,483
and I haven't done anything since.

723
00:47:54,483 --> 00:47:58,473
And now I think I want to try a cold card or whatever else, or now

724
00:47:58,473 --> 00:48:02,273
I want to run a node or now I want to, you know, I want to learn again.

725
00:48:02,653 --> 00:48:05,193
And so we get a lot of those people coming in the door saying,

726
00:48:05,263 --> 00:48:06,453
help walk me through this.

727
00:48:06,453 --> 00:48:10,843
And once they've done it once, then, okay, that's a skill they've

728
00:48:10,843 --> 00:48:14,203
attained and they can do it themselves without any assistance after that.

729
00:48:14,223 --> 00:48:14,853
So, yeah.

730
00:48:15,363 --> 00:48:16,623
Oh, awesome initiative.

731
00:48:16,623 --> 00:48:19,913
And I mean, yeah, like obviously there's a, there's a need there for, for

732
00:48:19,913 --> 00:48:21,223
people to get involved in this stuff.

733
00:48:21,223 --> 00:48:24,943
And I mean, the user experience in Bitcoin is still very much, you

734
00:48:24,943 --> 00:48:28,653
have to do the things or else it's not quite going to, going to work.

735
00:48:28,653 --> 00:48:31,013
And I mean, do you think it's ever going to be?

736
00:48:31,943 --> 00:48:36,893
So simple that anyone can just quickly get on to Bitcoin in a self sovereign way.

737
00:48:36,893 --> 00:48:39,283
I don't, I don't think that there's ever going to

738
00:48:39,303 --> 00:48:40,073
always a trade

739
00:48:40,223 --> 00:48:40,453
there's

740
00:48:40,458 --> 00:48:41,188
always a trade off.

741
00:48:41,248 --> 00:48:41,618
Yeah,

742
00:48:41,684 --> 00:48:42,543
do you think about that?

743
00:48:42,708 --> 00:48:44,018
there's always a trade off.

744
00:48:44,088 --> 00:48:44,948
I think,

745
00:48:47,308 --> 00:48:52,178
and it also depends on what our interactions with Bitcoin look like in

746
00:48:52,178 --> 00:48:58,598
the future, like in terms of what is the average person's experience using Bitcoin.

747
00:48:58,978 --> 00:49:03,088
Bitcoin, I would venture to say that their initial interaction with

748
00:49:03,088 --> 00:49:10,003
Bitcoin inside of Five years or less is not going to be on chain.

749
00:49:11,113 --> 00:49:13,953
Like people aren't going to be onboarded directly to on chain.

750
00:49:13,953 --> 00:49:17,843
They're going to, I think the way that we teach needs to be completely

751
00:49:17,843 --> 00:49:23,443
inverted because the, the way I, I used to teach was, okay, let's attack a

752
00:49:23,443 --> 00:49:25,823
regular on chain Bitcoin wallet first.

753
00:49:26,403 --> 00:49:27,853
Here's, here's how you set it up.

754
00:49:27,883 --> 00:49:31,183
Here's your seed phrase on chain transactions work like this,

755
00:49:31,183 --> 00:49:33,883
you know, every 10 minutes, all like, here's how the fees work.

756
00:49:34,588 --> 00:49:38,698
That was typically the first thing you wrapped your head around and

757
00:49:38,698 --> 00:49:42,428
then you would say, Oh, and now there's this thing called lightning.

758
00:49:42,558 --> 00:49:45,448
And this allows you, you know, for more day to day, smaller trends.

759
00:49:45,638 --> 00:49:48,768
And so you'd, you'd start at the base and you'd build the

760
00:49:48,768 --> 00:49:50,938
knowledge to the upper layers.

761
00:49:51,318 --> 00:49:54,028
But that's not going to be how people interact with Bitcoin

762
00:49:54,038 --> 00:49:57,218
because, economically speaking, that's not going to make sense.

763
00:49:57,548 --> 00:50:02,538
They're going to come in from a top layer first with their first few sats.

764
00:50:02,718 --> 00:50:03,818
custodial lightning.

765
00:50:03,918 --> 00:50:04,388
Yeah,

766
00:50:04,388 --> 00:50:05,088
exactly.

767
00:50:05,138 --> 00:50:10,558
But what will be the goal is working your way down through the self sovereignty

768
00:50:10,558 --> 00:50:14,198
stack to hopefully get as close to the base as you can for that person.

769
00:50:14,778 --> 00:50:18,508
And so it's gonna be like, oh, I came in through a Fediment, or I came in

770
00:50:18,508 --> 00:50:22,268
through a Cashument, or I came in through a Custodial Lightning Wallet.

771
00:50:22,498 --> 00:50:23,758
You'd be like, okay, great.

772
00:50:24,168 --> 00:50:27,388
Transactionally, you now know what you're doing, but let's see

773
00:50:27,388 --> 00:50:29,578
if we can give you more control.

774
00:50:29,868 --> 00:50:31,718
And move that direction.

775
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:32,862
Yeah,

776
00:50:32,978 --> 00:50:36,428
had a thought about the 350 applicants, because they all

777
00:50:36,438 --> 00:50:38,648
want to be Bitcoin mentors.

778
00:50:39,228 --> 00:50:42,038
I think they probably all are, just on a smaller scale.

779
00:50:42,048 --> 00:50:44,718
Like, all of those people are teaching their friends

780
00:50:44,718 --> 00:50:46,308
and family how to use things.

781
00:50:46,958 --> 00:50:48,188
And that's just,

782
00:50:48,378 --> 00:50:48,668
yeah.

783
00:50:48,718 --> 00:50:50,168
It's already amazing.

784
00:50:50,178 --> 00:50:54,708
Because yeah, you're right, all of those applicants Yeah, sure, they were vying to

785
00:50:54,718 --> 00:51:00,438
be part of a specific group but nothing precludes them from continuing to be the

786
00:51:00,438 --> 00:51:06,138
bitcoin person in their group of friends that people come to for advice and help.

787
00:51:06,658 --> 00:51:06,998
Yeah,

788
00:51:07,238 --> 00:51:07,748
beautiful.

789
00:52:12,936 --> 00:52:16,797
And so you, you mentioned a couple of things like, um, Fedimint and Cashew

790
00:52:16,797 --> 00:52:20,390
as, as one example, like just new stuff that's, that's been coming up.

791
00:52:20,390 --> 00:52:24,196
What are you most excited about that's, uh, like projects that like

792
00:52:24,196 --> 00:52:25,896
look really exciting to you right now?

793
00:52:25,906 --> 00:52:28,696
I'm, I'm very interested in the Fediment stuff.

794
00:52:29,016 --> 00:52:30,966
Um, I think it's really cool.

795
00:52:30,996 --> 00:52:34,636
Now, again, you gotta recognize that it's, it's a trade off.

796
00:52:35,146 --> 00:52:41,536
But, I, I tend to look at things from the perspective of What

797
00:52:41,536 --> 00:52:44,296
is available to us right now?

798
00:52:45,056 --> 00:52:52,936
No, I recognize that things can change and maybe you have the ability to have shared,

799
00:52:53,316 --> 00:52:59,536
you know, UTXO custody in a way, like, We don't know what we don't know that doesn't

800
00:52:59,536 --> 00:53:02,276
exist and is just an idea right now.

801
00:53:02,476 --> 00:53:07,546
But with how Bitcoin works right now and the tools that are available to

802
00:53:07,546 --> 00:53:17,396
us, I think FedAmends are pretty damn good trade off, um, to enable a number

803
00:53:17,396 --> 00:53:18,756
of things that are very attractive.

804
00:53:18,756 --> 00:53:26,266
So like, instant, uh, peer to peer free and perfectly private

805
00:53:26,276 --> 00:53:27,786
transactions within a mint.

806
00:53:29,021 --> 00:53:32,761
Gaining the privacy of the crowd if you spend to another mint.

807
00:53:33,161 --> 00:53:37,451
Um, and what I mean by that is, maybe you have a mint that has a thousand

808
00:53:37,451 --> 00:53:40,131
people in it, and another mint that has a thousand people in it.

809
00:53:40,461 --> 00:53:45,071
When you go to send money to somebody in the other mint, uh, it's a

810
00:53:45,071 --> 00:53:47,091
lightning transaction between the two.

811
00:53:47,641 --> 00:53:54,221
Uh, federations, but nobody knows which person in this mint initiated

812
00:53:54,221 --> 00:53:57,801
the transaction and nobody knows which person in that mint received it.

813
00:53:58,301 --> 00:53:59,001
So it's just

814
00:53:59,121 --> 00:54:00,251
Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful.

815
00:54:01,141 --> 00:54:02,231
Um, so I love that.

816
00:54:02,231 --> 00:54:05,111
And there's, there's things like you can do offline payments.

817
00:54:05,111 --> 00:54:07,591
There's, there's a lot of really cool things.

818
00:54:07,592 --> 00:54:13,691
And, and Feddy app is doing is something that I think it would be super.

819
00:54:14,051 --> 00:54:18,481
Useful in the context of what we're doing with the sat market in Calgary is

820
00:54:18,521 --> 00:54:24,801
if we had, uh, you know, within, if we had everybody sound like a, a, a mint.

821
00:54:25,551 --> 00:54:30,801
And within the Feddy app, we could have a community that in that same

822
00:54:30,841 --> 00:54:35,411
app with their wallet management, they also see all of the resources

823
00:54:35,411 --> 00:54:38,391
needed to use said Bitcoin locally.

824
00:54:38,391 --> 00:54:42,611
So maybe it, it, by default, we have built in there, the btcmap.

825
00:54:43,551 --> 00:54:47,321
org that will center in on Calgary when you tap on it within the

826
00:54:47,321 --> 00:54:51,391
app, maybe it has bit refill or whatever to get your gift cards.

827
00:54:51,391 --> 00:54:56,631
Maybe it has whatever other, because it's like, it, It's like a whole ecosystem

828
00:54:56,631 --> 00:55:01,581
in a singular app that you can tailor for your specific community, which

829
00:55:01,581 --> 00:55:08,151
is, it's so useful, um, and I didn't know exactly what it was going to be

830
00:55:08,151 --> 00:55:10,031
until I actually physically saw it.

831
00:55:10,251 --> 00:55:10,701
Yeah, yeah.

832
00:55:10,721 --> 00:55:11,941
Yeah, so I love it.

833
00:55:12,111 --> 00:55:15,881
Now, yeah, we still have some questions about it, but we'll

834
00:55:15,881 --> 00:55:18,961
talk to Obi one of these, like, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

835
00:55:18,961 --> 00:55:22,671
So we're looking forward to interrogate him about the

836
00:55:23,301 --> 00:55:24,791
nooks and crannies about Fede.

837
00:55:24,791 --> 00:55:28,141
But, yeah, it's very, very promising.

838
00:55:28,301 --> 00:55:28,611
Yeah.

839
00:55:28,751 --> 00:55:34,231
yeah, it's, it's, I, I think that, that particular ecosystem is gonna make

840
00:55:34,251 --> 00:55:37,261
leaps and bounds in the coming years and it'll be very interesting to see

841
00:55:37,261 --> 00:55:43,981
how it's used and how resilient it is, um, in the way that they're trying to

842
00:55:43,981 --> 00:55:48,091
flesh out that ecosystem because at this point anybody can make a mint.

843
00:55:49,476 --> 00:55:54,786
And so, and, and that's a double edged sword, because anybody will

844
00:55:54,966 --> 00:55:59,016
make a mint, and some will be, they won't all be created equally.

845
00:55:59,106 --> 00:56:06,211
Some will rug, for sure, some will rug pull, um, but others will, you know, It'll

846
00:56:06,221 --> 00:56:10,991
likely be done well and stand the test of time and, and kind of, it'll be more of

847
00:56:10,991 --> 00:56:15,441
a reputation based thing rather than, um,

848
00:56:15,911 --> 00:56:19,891
yeah that's reputation based is, is, is based.

849
00:56:20,231 --> 00:56:25,921
I mean it's, uh, that's what we're excited about, about Nostr, a lot of

850
00:56:25,921 --> 00:56:31,411
the You know, web of trust things so that you get all the, the reputation

851
00:56:31,411 --> 00:56:37,151
score is basically your, you own your social graph and your friends and your

852
00:56:37,151 --> 00:56:39,211
connections and your posts and everything.

853
00:56:39,431 --> 00:56:42,301
And that's where you get your recommendation is from.

854
00:56:42,331 --> 00:56:46,886
So I think that ends up, uh, you know, killing woke disney one day

855
00:56:46,886 --> 00:56:50,586
because there won't be a discrepancy between user scores and critics

856
00:56:50,741 --> 00:56:51,551
yes,

857
00:56:51,836 --> 00:56:52,666
like so

858
00:56:53,906 --> 00:56:56,261
yeah,

859
00:56:56,426 --> 00:56:57,166
much going on

860
00:56:57,321 --> 00:56:59,061
yeah, that's fantastic.

861
00:56:59,621 --> 00:57:03,751
It's fantastic to get your perspective on this because I mean, you, you're

862
00:57:03,761 --> 00:57:05,911
probably one of the most, the people who really actually gets

863
00:57:05,921 --> 00:57:07,891
in there and tries the most things

864
00:57:08,511 --> 00:57:09,101
Amplifying, right?

865
00:57:09,271 --> 00:57:09,581
Something

866
00:57:09,581 --> 00:57:10,641
like that must be close.

867
00:57:10,931 --> 00:57:16,451
I, yeah, maybe I, I tend to tinker around with pretty much everything

868
00:57:16,451 --> 00:57:17,801
that I can get my hands on.

869
00:57:17,871 --> 00:57:24,951
Um, but there's, there's more people that are starting to, to be that as well.

870
00:57:24,961 --> 00:57:29,806
So, but yeah, it's, it's, uh, I've, I've, if you were to look at my

871
00:57:30,386 --> 00:57:36,206
apps on my phone, it's just like a disgusting amount of, of different

872
00:57:36,216 --> 00:57:37,866
Bitcoin wallets and everything.

873
00:57:37,866 --> 00:57:40,236
And the, and those are just the ones that I have put in a folder.

874
00:57:40,236 --> 00:57:44,116
If you just like go through the, the app, the entire app drawer,

875
00:57:44,116 --> 00:57:48,556
it's just, I don't remember when I downloaded this and like, yeah, yeah.

876
00:57:49,391 --> 00:57:53,571
No, it's funny, but, but you're clearly, you're clearly bullish on, on Bitcoin.

877
00:57:53,861 --> 00:57:56,001
And what about, what about Canada?

878
00:57:56,041 --> 00:57:58,541
What's your feelings on Canada, Alberta as well?

879
00:57:59,521 --> 00:58:01,341
I hope Alberta secedes.

880
00:58:02,471 --> 00:58:07,791
So that's that would be, I'm, I'm, I'm very pro, uh, smaller

881
00:58:07,791 --> 00:58:09,521
and more local governance.

882
00:58:09,931 --> 00:58:16,741
Uh, I, you know, I, I think that you become disconnected from, uh,

883
00:58:16,771 --> 00:58:21,241
your constituents when you try to govern too many of them all at once,

884
00:58:21,431 --> 00:58:23,871
it's very difficult when you have.

885
00:58:24,521 --> 00:58:29,351
A such a large la large landmass with such a large group of people

886
00:58:29,351 --> 00:58:33,041
in very, very different conditions and trying to say, you guys are all

887
00:58:33,041 --> 00:58:34,901
gonna live by the exact same rules.

888
00:58:35,291 --> 00:58:38,801
Um, so I think more local governance is great.

889
00:58:39,651 --> 00:58:43,251
I feel like Trudeau will be gone next year.

890
00:58:43,731 --> 00:58:47,542
Uh, everybody's sick of him, including his own party, so like.

891
00:58:48,421 --> 00:58:56,131
Great, uh, uh, but at the same time, I've probably, if I had to guess,

892
00:58:56,241 --> 00:59:02,241
um, I would say that, uh, he'll be stubborn enough to run again.

893
00:59:03,001 --> 00:59:09,491
And that Polyev will probably win and he's like, he's a bitcoiner like he, um, but

894
00:59:09,861 --> 00:59:16,421
at the same time, like, I don't think that he'll, he'll do anything, um, in terms of

895
00:59:16,421 --> 00:59:19,921
regulatory that would be super favorable.

896
00:59:19,921 --> 00:59:21,731
I think it'll just kind of be status quo.

897
00:59:21,732 --> 00:59:27,161
Um, and that's, that's, yeah, I think I, I, if anything,

898
00:59:27,161 --> 00:59:29,011
it'll at least buy some time.

899
00:59:29,481 --> 00:59:36,931
To build out things that make Bitcoin more resilient in the face of the next tyrant.

900
00:59:36,932 --> 00:59:40,446
Yeah,

901
00:59:40,571 --> 00:59:45,101
I've still got all my family in Canada, tons of friends in Canada, I hope for

902
00:59:45,101 --> 00:59:50,961
the best in Canada, I'm the coward, sort of, and left, but no, no, it was more of

903
00:59:50,961 --> 00:59:54,661
a pull than a push, I mean, as much as things were difficult a few years ago in

904
00:59:55,011 --> 01:00:00,421
Alberta, I mean, like, yeah, it was other reasons, but still, of course, close to my

905
01:00:00,566 --> 01:00:01,706
voted with your feet.

906
01:00:02,056 --> 01:00:02,376
It's good.

907
01:00:02,416 --> 01:00:04,326
You you made a freedom footprint.

908
01:00:04,326 --> 01:00:04,796
That's what you

909
01:00:04,891 --> 01:00:10,101
Well, yeah, but, but, but, uh, no, uh, awesome to have you and other

910
01:00:10,101 --> 01:00:14,181
great people in, uh, in Calgary and, and Canada, you know, still

911
01:00:14,181 --> 01:00:15,351
bearing the torch and everything.

912
01:00:15,351 --> 01:00:15,681
So,

913
01:00:15,776 --> 01:00:19,106
Yeah, there's a good, there's a solid group there, and uh, yeah,

914
01:00:19,106 --> 01:00:23,496
the Calgary, the Alberta, generally, like all the Alberta Bitcoiners,

915
01:00:23,496 --> 01:00:30,066
there's, there's something there, and uh, I can't wait to see that blossom

916
01:00:30,066 --> 01:00:32,496
into what it seems to be becoming.

917
01:00:32,821 --> 01:00:38,291
well, sign us up for the sats market, uh, in, in June, July, uh, next year.

918
01:00:38,301 --> 01:00:40,021
Cause, uh, yeah, well, a hundred percent

919
01:00:40,406 --> 01:00:43,746
We need Knut to come stampeding is what you need to

920
01:00:43,836 --> 01:00:44,986
I can do the stampeding.

921
01:00:45,056 --> 01:00:47,646
Yeah, Luke tells me I'll be in Canada around there.

922
01:00:47,706 --> 01:00:51,866
I don't know where he gets that from, but yeah, yeah, apparently it's not optional.

923
01:00:52,436 --> 01:00:55,576
Anyway, anyway, where do you want to send our listeners?

924
01:00:55,626 --> 01:00:57,886
Like with btc sessions.

925
01:00:58,106 --> 01:00:58,436
com?

926
01:00:58,506 --> 01:00:59,896
Is that a thing now?

927
01:00:59,897 --> 01:01:01,571
Dot ca,

928
01:01:01,891 --> 01:01:02,601
flair on there.

929
01:01:03,161 --> 01:01:07,031
Um, yeah, I don't know, like if somebody's listening or watching

930
01:01:07,031 --> 01:01:10,721
this that is unfamiliar, uh, and you need to learn anything, just

931
01:01:10,721 --> 01:01:12,581
search BTC Sessions on YouTube.

932
01:01:12,691 --> 01:01:13,951
Uh, you'll find it there.

933
01:01:14,321 --> 01:01:19,521
Um, I'm on, obviously Nostr, I'm on X still.

934
01:01:19,966 --> 01:01:22,846
Uh, you gotta, you gotta be where the normies are at when you're

935
01:01:22,846 --> 01:01:26,796
trying to or, uh, uh, orange pill and educate, I, I suppose, too.

936
01:01:27,196 --> 01:01:31,826
Um, and then, uh, the Bitcoin Mentor stuff, you can check out at bitcoinmentor.

937
01:01:32,456 --> 01:01:34,886
io if you need some more hand holding on anything.

938
01:01:34,886 --> 01:01:37,286
There's a, a solid group of educators there.

939
01:01:37,972 --> 01:01:38,235
fantastic.

940
01:01:38,235 --> 01:01:42,721
And I'm going to look at this camera now to my friends from Calgary, who I've been

941
01:01:42,721 --> 01:01:44,831
telling you to go attend the sats market.

942
01:01:45,141 --> 01:01:49,691
Get to it, talk to this guy, you won't regret it, and you know who you are.

943
01:01:50,521 --> 01:01:53,281
And to everyone else, uh, yeah, check out all the things.

944
01:01:53,281 --> 01:01:55,641
We'll put everything in the description, the links.

945
01:01:56,201 --> 01:01:58,531
Thanks for everything you do, and thanks for being on the show.

946
01:01:58,536 --> 01:01:59,646
thanks for having me, guys.

947
01:01:59,666 --> 01:02:00,336
Appreciate it.

948
01:02:03,526 --> 01:02:04,366
Definitely do that.

949
01:02:06,561 --> 01:02:07,681
Ben, thanks again.

950
01:02:08,971 --> 01:02:10,801
This has been the Bitcoin Infinity Show.

951
01:02:11,171 --> 01:02:11,951
Thanks for listening.
